The Unusual Scent of Victory in Period Basis

I mentioned at the end of my post on Monday that Reaver’s chief Asher Elias had decided to start a podcast.  The plan for the show is for Asher to talk to other FCs about fleets and fittings and what is popular and what needs to be changed and what CCP is up to and all that.

But part of the schtick was a plan at the end of the show to arrange a fight between the guest FC and his pilots and Asher’s team… which is the Reavers.

I am not going to say that we’re really bad, merely that the top of the “to do” list for Reavers is “shoot structures” while “get fights” is a ways down.

So as part of the wrap up of the first episode (available on SoundCloud), Asher and guest Ron Mexxico of Pandemic Legion set up a fight.  Asher came up with a fleet comp for us to meet the rules the two FCs had agreed to and put out the call to join up.

The plan was a Recon vs. Recon fight, limited to about 30 pilots, with some logi support allowed.

Asher posted his plan and said he would sell us the fitted ships for the doctrine he had in mind, unless you wanted to fly logi, in which case you could bring the bog standard Basilisk.

I was available for the appointed time, but noticed that I had never bothered to train the Recon Ships skill.  One for the list.  So I raised my hand for one of the logi slots.

Last night we assembled at about 22:30 EVE Online time in Deklein to get ourselves sorted.  Asher doled out the ships, which included three Curses, two Purifiers, and 19 Rooks.  There was a problem with getting boosters sorted out and a Huggin and a Sabre were added to the mix, along with six Basilisks, which was one more than we were supposed to have, but Asher was content to just roll with it.

Then it was time to undock and get to the arranged spot.  That meant some travel, a wormhole trip through Thera (where the final links for the booster were purchased, along with some drugs), and another gate to bring us from Delve into Period Basis.

We came through into TN25-J and found Ron Mexxico’s fleet, mostly Pilgrims with a single Onerios for logi support, about 250km off. (Though it you look at their Pilgrim fits, they were carrying their own reps and cap boosters, so one logi might have been excessive, and depending on drones for damage.)  It was time to warp in and start the fight.

Hostiles on my overview

I was more diligent than usual and did not pay much attention to anything beyond staying anchored, getting out reps, and watching my own status (was primary once early in the fight) to pay much attention to what was actually going on.  Being the bad logi pilot, I brought a load of Acolyte II combat drones with me, rather than repair bots, which I launched and let do as they please.

My diligence was due in large part to the fact that I expected us to die gloriously/horribly and wanted to keep us going for as long as possible.  And, aside from accidentally mis-clicking and repping Doomchinchilla when he was called as a target, I think I did okay.

But more so, the fleet did okay.  Things went from the usual “we’re going to die” level of frantic repping to calls for reps slowing down considerably.  I heard Asher call in the two Purifers for bombing runs.  Targets were being called.  And then there were just a few hostiles left on the field, in a bubble put up by our Sabre pilot.

At that point I spent more time repping Ron Mexxico as Asher wanted to save his kill for last.

Once he was dispatched, it was time to account.  We had blown up 29 or 30 ships, depending on which kill board you checked, and had lost none.

A surprise result indeed.

A couple of battle summaries:

• EVE Battle Report Tool
• zKillboard

There were congratulations sent around and some looting of the field and then it was time for us to fly back north to Deklein.

However, when our scout landed on the wormhole to Thera, he reported that it had gone critical, meaning that it was close to closing.  Asher warped us all to it and told us to try and get through if we could.  I was fast on the button and managed to get through, but as I did a message came up.

Last one through…

Nobody was coming through after me.  Fortunately I remembered to bookmark the hole we came in from.  You can actually see the pin icon in the screen shot above.  I did have a moment of panic when my Basi dropped out of warp and there was no wormhole to be found.  As it turned out, I just didn’t have the capacitor to make it all the way across the system.  I was able to get to the out hole on with a second jump, but for a moment I was wondering if I was trapped in Thera in a ship without probes.

However, while I was through and in Deklein shortly, most of the fleet was still down in Delve.  They chose not to slog all the way back to Deklein and flew instead to PL’s staging in 1DH-SX to die gloriously/horribly by throwing themselves at capital ships. They got sent home the fast way.  There were no survivors.

So ended the first post-podcast fight.  I am not sure how often Asher plans to put these out, but I’ll be interested to see who we get thrown up against next time… and to hear his round-up of this fight since he could see everything from the FC’s chair.

Addendum: The wrap up between Asher and Ron Mexxico is available at the one hour three minute mark of the next Asher Hour show.

I also have a few screen shots from along the way.  Click on the pictures to view them in a larger gallery display.

Task Force Asher undocks

A Curse on the undock

Rooks stacked up at the wormhole

Landing on the Thera XIII station

Getting out of Thera

Fleet warping to the final desto

A PL Pilgrim

Lachesis leading the PL fleet

Hitting a Pilgrim

Pilgrims cap chaining and neuting