ShadowImage
Amarr
GoonFleet
GoonSwarm
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Posted - 2007.01.11 03:14:00 -
[1]
COMBAT REPORT - DAY ONE
Things were beginning to look tight. We'd dropped a lot more POS than the first day had suggested we would, and neither GoonSwarm nor our Allies had been able to mass the sheer amounts we'd seen on Day Zero. Sanguine Legion and friends on the other hand, were solid in their ability to keep large amounts of ships in Jita. Five hours of constant hostiles in system, and the third hour of a 24hr multi-bubble camp on the station had made life very difficult, especially for those who inevitably got podded into there (due to lag, they'll tell you).
Let's take a pragaraph to talk about the lag. Wikipedia gives us a few pointers, and pretty much all of what's in that article has been present in some of the larger engagements, apart from maybe the physical convulsions. There's always been a loud outcry agasint lag on these forums and probably on every internet game in existance. Locking times of 2 minutes, module activation of 7 minutes, and similar, are no fun for everybody, but it's been good to see that neither side has *****ed in local about it, attributed losses to it, or gone on the forums and written a 12 page diatribe. We all know it's gonna happen, and we man up and live with it.
Nonetheless, both sides had clear objectives. Sanguine Legion needed to take the 8th POS down and replace it with their own, thus giving them over half the structures in system and allowing the to take sovreignty and with it the outpost. They succeeded, and many GoonSwarm hearts fell, until rallying speeches from FCs Dongor Loghoth and Condiment explained that while they may take our outpost, they couldn't break the alliane. We had already exceeded everyone's expectations in light of a much bigger force, problems with spies and thieves, as well as the aforementioned lag. Our objective was no different on day one: make Sanguine Legion bleed every single AU of the way.
At the point where Sanguine Legion were going to assault the 8th tower, we had everything ready. NOS and NEUT battleships, and so many carriers that Baby Jesus was heard to shed a tear. BOS had come in force, and local count was over 460. We'd seen Sanguine Legion not use rookies when we had a decent force behind the POS bubble, and were expecting another 'Battleship Tiptoe' But 4 minutes after the POS came out of reinforced, rookies warped from their 500k spot down to engage the tower, guns blazing. We had various covops pilots around them and we got the call: "warp to xxx at 100km! do it now!" all fighter-bombers, all battleships, capacitor and damage alike, warped, and landed within metres of Ibis pilot Mi Lai. The plan had been to go for a Velator due to them having the best anti-ship defence, but Mi Lai was around 40km from the main group, and was seen as a target of opportunity. We arrived, locked, assigned fighters, then the whole of the system may as well gave gome to make scrambled egges (or Omelette, if you're Sanguine Legion); the system almost died once fighters were assigned. We had 3 people who managed to maintain a lock on the Ibis, and were giving constant updates on its shields. Nobody had any idea if they were under fire, if he was taking damage, how the POS was doing, nothing.
TWELVE minutes later, after a constant fluctuation of his shields, we got the call of 'Sucker's into armour'. You all know Caldari ships. Shields go, armour melts, and then it's time to pray you remembered to fit a damage control. Which he hadn't.
Ibis down.
Then large amounts of people crashed, reports came in that the POS had nonetheless fallen, and somebody had ninjad the loot and run off with it. How they managed that, I have no idea; it's been over 12 hours and I'm still travelling away from the site at speed, unable to turn.
For those that like such things, here is the link to the uber-truncated killmail.
It's day two now, and all I can hope for is Gandalf
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