Faction Warfare Update

          Had my first ground fights in the faction war arena the other day. First battle was an attack, system forgotten. Being the lone wolf that I am at the moment I didn’t have a squad to form up with, and that usually isn’t much of a problem. However, seeing as how this wasn’t an instant battle for some NPC planet in high sec but a battle for the sovereignty of a planet, I threw myself into a squad full of randoms (i.e., not an organized squad of corpmates – even among themselves) so as to help earn an orbital bombardment to scour the Minmatar from the battlefield. Of course, for these battles, we have to pray that there’s someone with our militia floating above the planet in EVE to answer the request for the bombardment, either through luck or the coordination of the better prepared. The attack was a wash and the Minmatar won the battle for the specific district that was being contested, meaning that it didn’t get any easier for the boys (and girls) in the air to take the system.

           The second battle was a defense of Anka, and like the attack, I threw myself into another squad for the battle in hopes of helping to attain another orbital bombardment against the Minmatar attackers. I must have chosen the worst group of misfits however, as while just running around in a cheap fit and doing my thing, I attained three times as many war points as the next highest member of my squad. The other two had about four times less than he did, and let me say right now that I was not some unstoppable juggernaut that game. In the end it didn’t matter, however, as we ended up winning the battle and helping to ensure that Anka stayed in Amarrian hands.

           Spaceside, things have been going quite well for the Amarrian militia. 26 systems, 25 more than we had just 6 weeks ago, are now under Imperial control and the momentum doesn’t seem to be stopping just yet, with 5 systems switching to our hands just this past night. The poor Minmatar regulars (those interested more in PvP than constant LP farming) tried to put up some defenses, notably the attempted defense of Turner. Fweddit put up a bomber + small things gang to go bash the ihub and the Minmatar answered with faction battleships and a carrier. This proved to be too irresistible a treat for Pandemic Legion, who have taken residence back up in the warzone, and the Minmatar’s blockade ended with predictable results. Fweddit came right back in after the slaughter and finished flipping the system. Other notable Minmatar losses to the PL plague include a second carrier lost by Bahamut420, and of course the Leviathan lost by Iron Oxide in Arzad. I wasn’t aware they had one until they lost it, and apparently there’s a second in Huola. Let’s go PL, do some more good while you’re here.

Though while still holding just a small portion of the warzone, the Amarrian militia is now in tier 2 (just enough for the farmers to start getting interested, especially with current Amarrian LP/ISK ratios), and the Minmatar are realistically locked out of T4, and are just shy of re-attaining T3.  Things are looking like they did back when I first returned to EVE in March. 

Sexy

            Speaking of farming and faction war missions, I figured I would try my hand at a set of 6 missions to see how viable they’d be and to hopefully stock up on some LP for the coming Navy ship changes and addition (Navy Harbinger?  Sign me up!).  What should have been a quick hourish run (there’s a lot of travel time with FW missions, as all of them are an average of 7j, not to mention all the travel to the different agent stations spread across the warzone) turned into a four hour nightmare.  After a trial run with a Manticore resulted in immediate detonation under the Minmatar NPC’s opening artillery and missile salvo (aided by the 4 target painters I instantly had on me) the night before, this time I figured I would use my tried and true Pilgrim fit to get some.  Initial missions were quite successful, but it would be the “assassinate the commander” missions that would prove to cause me to pull my hair out.   The 482 dmg/s tank that my Pilgrim has still isn’t enough to tank the FW Mission rats without also depending on its reduced signature and keeping distance to cause lots of shots to miss.  My usual range is somewhere between 60-70km, a range that is outside most of the cruiser and all of the frigate rats’ reach.  However, this range also apparently causes those same ships to disengage me and instead engage my drones, my only source of DPS.  There must’ve been a change since the last time I did a FW mission over a year ago.  The problem isn’t that they engage my drones so much as how quickly they shoot them down.  My poor valkyries and warriors are vastly outnumbered and can’t kill the rats, most of which are active-shield tanked and the “t2” more-resistant variants, fast enough to keep themselves from getting shot down, and continually sending and recalling the drones not only doesn’t work very well, but it takes even more time.  Getting closer in hopes of keeping the pressure off of my drones quickly results in me warping out under the withering fire.  The constant drone loss and 10j round trip to the closes valkyries for sale (where I could actually dock and retrieve them) resulted in the longest, most frustrating four-hour endeavor to finish these two missions.  The kicker?  It would have only taken me 45 minutes of plexing to attain the same amount of LP as these two (what should have been 20-minute) missions.  Oh, if only Amarrian missions were as easy as the Minmatar ones.  Tracking disruptors and pulses on all the rats?  No problem!