The Mocker's MO

The Mockers AO

          So there's this alliance of pirates in the warzone called "The Mockers AO."  They mostly hang out around Uusanen, and most of their kills are from camping the undock in instalocking ships of various sorts.  They can make anything but travelling through Uusanen a bit of a hassle, but generally if one stays away from their home station, they'll stay away from the Mockers.

          One night after getting home, I took a small gang on corpies out.  It resulted in a few kills here and there, mostly neutrals unfortunately, and a bit of me scouting ahead and dying suddenly.  After a while of little targets and large fleets (a WT geddon warping to a novice plex gate to protect a Rapier and a handful of frigs from our handful of destroyers comes to mind), our little gang eventually shed pilots until it was down to just me and one other corpmate.  We decided the best course of action was to buddy-cop the warzone in a couple of brawling Vexors.  Between us we had 4 webs and both long and short point.  Before we got too far, another corpie joined us in another brawling Vexor.  That made 6 webs between us.  Nothing was going to get anywhere at anything faster than single digit meters per second.

Smilin' Death

          Our little gang of Gallente power flew up through Avenod, hoping to find some pirates up there.  Unable to, we came back down through Kurnianen and down into the Bleak Lands until we came across this fellow.  Pointing him as after he jumped through a gate, we put him down fast.  Sahtogas is an Amarrian stronghold and home to line-holders Amarrian Retribution, so we gladly helped clean the system up for them.  Sticking around for just a moment on the Tannakan gate, we had this guy jump into us.  Most surprisingly, instead of running, he decloaked and popped drones.  We made short work of him.

          A jump into Tannakan alerted us to a small gang of Mockers AO gathering in system; a stabber and a maller on scan with another Mocker in local but unseen.  We thought they were looking for a fight, and so eagerly burned back to gate to await their arrival.  Three of them, three of us.  It looked like it was going to be a good fight.  The stabber and maller landed on gate with us, and did nothing.  I aggressed both, looking for one of them to aggress back and start the fight in earnest.  Neither did.  Another couple of Mockers jumped into system.  5cmmmm, the pilot of the Caracal we ganked was among them.  Looked like they didn't want a fight after all, just revenge.  We jumped through after my timer wore off and approached the gate on the other side.

          Back in Sahtogas, we waited.  We didn't have to wait long.  In jumped the Stabber, Maller, and another Vexor.  Looked like we'd have a fight after all.  I aggressed and they aggressed me back.  The fight was on.  The Stabber immediately burned off 35km, leaving the Vexor and Maller behind.  The Vexor was our primary.  As I easily tanked the rather piss poor dps they were throwing out, the Vexor went down and we switched to the Maller.  The Stabber we ignored entirely; we'd never be able to catch it.  Soon after we switched to the Maller another pilot decloaked on field; it was a Falcon.  Our gang sighed collectively, sure that the battle was now over.  We attempted to put drones on the Falcon but it jammed all of us instantly.  We made it easy for them by all flying ships of the same race.

Many things can't be because of Falcon.

          Before the first jamming cycle ended, however, the Falcon exploded.  The fight was back on, and we reprimaried the Maller.  As it grew closer to structure, another ship appeared on our overview, this one a Brutix.  The Maller exploded and having been being pelted with fire for around two minutes, the Brutix was able to finish me off.  I left the field, leaving my corpies to finish the Brutix.  The stabber wisely fucked off, the only surviving member of it's gang.

          So now that we know what happened, let's do the fun part - the After Action Report.  What happened to lead a gang of 3 cruisers, 1 BC, and 1 Falcon to die to a gang of three Vexors, only claiming one kill?  Well, there was one overwhelming mistake made by whoever was their FC; I was their primary.  There were three people in our gang: Katerina (sec status -10), FallenDream09 (-7.2), and me (-1.7).  Anyone familiar with sec status mechanics in EVE knows that anything -5.0 and below in sec status is free to shoot without consequences.  Anything above that, unless the pilot has commited a crime, is not.

Being aggressed as all sorts of fun consequences.

          Their FC was likely either the Maller or the Stabber - one of the ships that I aggressed on the other side of the gate, if you remember - and my "limited engagement" status earned from that aggression led me to be an acceptable target for both of them.  Thus, I was chosen as primary.  When you look again at the poor Vexor we killed during that fight, you can see that the Sentry Guns got second place in damage.  Their FC doomed him to die much faster than he would have otherwise.

          Next, what should have sealed their victory, the Falcon, made the same fatal mistake.  Unable to just jam out my two corpmates and leave the Stabber and Maller to finish me off, or perhaps afraid of my drones, he jammed me as well, leading to swift death at the hands of the gate guns (because he died solely to gate guns, there's no killmail to link, but you can see him at the bottom of my lossmail with his jammer).

          Lastly, we have the Brutix.  With both the Vexor and Maller dead, the only other ship putting out dps was the stabber, and he was 35km away and may as well have been shooting a pellet gun.  Thus, to get any kills at all, the Brutix had to do it - he had to aggress me - and then was left with 2 other Vexors at full health and angry sentry guns, resulting in the inevitable.

          Choosing the right primary can decide a battle, as it did here.  What would have been a good fight almost turned into a gank, but the wrong primary turned it back into a good fight - for us, that is.  Did 5cmmmm get his revenge?  Possibly, though it cost him and his friends dearly.  They might have gotten one more of us if part of their reinforcements (the first Vexor, who returned with the Brutix) hadn't been caught with his pants down, or possibly left to die by the rest of the Mockers Gang who were unwilling to engage with the Falcon another jump out.  But instead they were left with 1 kill and a lot of broken hulls.  We however, were left with all the loot and a very funny story.

Death From Above

          No, not orbital strikes.  I'm talking about dropships, which occupy a special place in DUST in that they are the only aerial vehicle at the moment.  Dropships in DUST 514 are flying troop transports that can also serve as weapons platforms, with two side mounted turrets for Vietnam-style door gunner action.

Less "Vietnam" and more "exercise bike."

          With the coming of Uprising, dropships now come in three flavors: Standard, Logistics, and Assault.   The standard dropship is just that, a plain troop transport with two guns.  The Assault version ups the ante by giving the pilot his own forward facing cannon and a slight buff to resistances.  The logistics version zaps friendly forces with shield or armor reps.

An Eryx repairs the shields of friendly ground units.

          Dropships have a huge learning curve, however.  You'll always be able to notice a novice dropship pilot by their ability to kill themselves spectacularly.  I've crashed a few of my own as the flyboy in me pushes me to at least be respectable in the application of air power.  I found a good guide to flying them and before I deleted my test character in my failed bid to be a templar in the Templar Manhunt event, I bought a few and tooled around in them as I tried to learn the basics.  My best flight of a steady ten minutes ended with me landing next to a random blueberry to pick him up from the spawn, nestling the nose of my Viper just under an overhang.  Upon liftoff, the nose caught and the Viper instantly flipped over, killing the poor blueberry as I narrowly escaped.  After seeing me fly around, the poor guy might've thought I did it on purpose.

          Now with the accuracy of weapons fired from moving HAVs and LAVs rather questionable (especially missiles), you would think that adding a third dimension of movement would muck up the gunner's aim even more.  However, some pilots have such a command of the flying bricks that they can masterfully glide or hover over a battle in order for their gunners to provide support.  There've been a couple of times where I've been surprised by the accuracy of a gunner (especially missiles!) or the ability of a dropship to stalk me.

Non-gunner passengers can't fire yet, but dropship-borne snipers will be a force once they can.

          Like the LAV (and unlike the HAV), the gunners on a dropship are exposed to fire.  The gun in front of them will block and absorb most incoming direct fire.  However, for one knows where to aim, it's possible to take the threat without the need for AV weapons to shoot the dropship out of the sky.  A fun moment in one game had me removing both gunners from an offending dropship through judicial use of two-inch beehive flechettes from my sniper rifle.

          Of course, after talking about how dropships kill, it's time to talk about how to kill the dropships.  The easiest method involves some sort of rail gun, be it turret, HAV mounted, or forge gun. Swarms can also get the job done, but give away their position for too long a time and a decent pilot can escape.  Another method to deal with a hovering dropship is to call in any vehicle.  The RDV that comes to drop it off can cause a midair collision and make quick work of even not-so-fragile builds.

          Dropships are the only type of air support in DUST at the moment if people don't count orbital strikes, and neither guy in this trailer do.  Despite their telltale engine drone, they can still sneak up on those concentrating on the advancing infantry in front of them.  For those who can fly these as if it was nothing, gliding across the battlefield and providing death from above, I salute you.

And the Pendulum Swings

          The Amarrian Militia (24IC) has been at T4 for over a week now, the Minmatar Militia (TLF)simmering at T1 - a situation almost opposite of the environment in my last major FW piece.  I will fully admit to partaking of the fruits of the 24IC's collective labor (although I've been slacking of late), though I haven't made much money yet because of my short, strict list of acceptable LP/ISK ratios (Navy Armageddons dropped 35 million overnight after I cashed out LP for 8 of them, but before I could put them on the market. -_- )

          I sadly was not present for the battle of Arzad, a system the Minmatar were proud to hold, but by all accounts there wasn't much of a battle at all.  I'll let Poetic Stanziel, an actual participant, describe the operation.

Did we get fights from the Minmatar? Unfortunately, no. You'd think Late Night Alliance could have mustered some support for their Iron Oxide brothers, but such is the selfishness of the Minmatar. We actually saw more resistance from non-militia organizations like Heretic Nation than from Minmatar themselves. Since we had no fights, and since plexing is so god-awful boring, we had people keeping up the community spirit. We had Scort Tofusin live streaming some oil painting. We had Pinky Feldman and others streaming movie and TV nights. A lot of work was done to keep spirits high and boredom down.

Poetic Stanziel even mentions the effects of DUST on the operation to capture Arzad.

Let's not forget the DUST 514 players. Since Uprising, DUST actually can matter in faction warfare. Battles now happen in faction warfare where plexing is happening. Because of the plexing activity, probably 70+% of the faction warfare DUST fights were happening in Arzad. And because Amarr players took to their Playstation 3s, DUST ended up giving the Amarr a huge plexing advantage. It shaved eight or so hours total off plexing the entire system into Amarr control. DUST 514 played a key role in Arzad's capture.

          Fweddit's been a boon to the militia, and while I might not want to venture onto their comms for fear of my sanity, I'll miss their presence in the warzone.  Any corp that is both willing, able, and grasps the concept of "teamwork" is a welcome addition to the usually shady and unreliable militia.

          In fact, the loss of Arzad was so sudden that despite being home to both Iron Oxide (of Titan fame) and Smile 'n' Wave (who may have just left because of T1 and losing Arzad was just the proverbial straw), both alliances were unable to evacuate in time and had to leave the militia in order to regain access to their ships.  The fall of one of the Minmatar strongpoints and departure of one of the larger and more active TLF alliances (though they remain in the area and likely TLF friendly) was a victory for sure, leaving Huola and Auga as the remaining TLF strongholds.

Courtesy of  Vagrian Omaristos

          If momentum keeps up (currently the Minmatar lose a system around every 3 days), even at this tempered-off rate, then taking Huola is certainly possible.  I'm more looking forward to the capture of Kourmonen, however, as a couple of rather expensive ships (I miss my legion) never made it out before the FW lock out mechanic change.  Part of me would like a quick and painless takeover of the warzone just so we can claim totaly victory, no matter for how short a time, and just get it over with.  The otehr part, despite my miner origins, does hope for intense and frequent fights as the Minmtar get cornered.

          Even if we achieve total ownership of the Amarr-Minmatar warzone, it's unlikely to stay that way for long.  If it doesn't happen prior, a couple of corps or alliances who are less concerned with KB padding and more concerned with steady PvP will join the Minmatar and help turn the tide.  Nothing will give you more targets to shoot at than joining the losing side in a conflict.