In praise of activity

Roaming solo. Again.

Yes, Dear Reader, my corp has gone dormant.

There is stuff to kill and fun to be had, but there is a limit to what you can do as a solo pilot.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not overly needy and I'm not averse to flying solo.  A casual look at my main's killboard shows forty or so kills for April.  Not a big number I grant you, but also not atrocious for a player of my minuscule skill and limited playing time.

The vast majority of those kills have been solo - the ones that were not, were either pods (zkill doesn't reward shooting pods as a solo kill), or kills showing damage from a prior engagement my opponent had entered into.

Flying solo makes it a lot tougher to find content.  I had to push hard and enter into more risky engagements than I normally would.

There were a couple of 1v2 scenario's as well as numerous engagements in my Comet vs destroyers (Can be done, but in the past I was very hesitant to do so).

Al this yielded surprisingly positive results (Blind luck!... but content win or lose)

What is that you say?  "Shameless self aggrandisement Absence...? Surely that is beneath even your low standards!?..."


Ah, Dear Reader...  It is a lamentation more than anything else... you see, there were no traps, no schemes, no upshipping, no dropping or getting counter dropped, no hasty fleet compositions...

No call to undock.  No cries of "Point"!  or "Secondary!"...

Had my corp been active my modest kill count would easily be four times what it now is.  And those would have been better kills (solo I tend to only kill small stuff in plexes).

Worse than all of that... there was no corp chat,   -banter, -laughter or -merriment. 

The truth is, I guess I just miss my friends....

I know what you're thinking.  And you're right.  Time to move on.  In due course I no doubt will.

But moving on begs the question: to where.... which in turn leads me to reflect on what exactly drew me to the crew I flew with for the last 18 or so months.







In a previous post I wrote about the big wheels and people who do the work in the background to make the corp run.  I still stand by those words.


I have however come to realise, that equally important is the "essence" of the corp.

The essence of Schneckt I regard as constant activity, fun, fast paced, small ship content generated during the time of day that I played.

Some of us log in and nothing much happens, and others log in and content explodes.

In this there were a few individuals that stood really tall.

Normally loathe to name and shame, in this instance, I will do so, because these guys deserve it (see names below).

You think I'm joking..?

Whilst navel gazing, I recall there were those in corp that told me I am getting too risk averse.  I now have to admit they were right.  A casual look at my killboard suggests that I did get extremely averse to losing ships.

As a consequence I (and my corp mates) missed out on many fights and kills (or losses :-) ).  For this I apologise.

Recently, flying solo, in order to engage more ships I had to tinker with fits and bring different- and in some instances more expensive ships and fittings.

I recall there were those in corp that pleaded with me to import a wider variety of ships into the warzone and fly different styles (I'm a one trick pony - scram kite..).  I never did.  I now have to admit they too were right.

For this too I apologise.  I should have supported you guys more.

Looking back it is clear that I was a venerable leach on content generated by others.

Don't get me wrong - just having another warm body around that can push F1 makes engagements possible that would otherwise not be, but in truth I could have done much more than I had.

"Oh my word... Would that have saved your corp Absence?"    No, no I don't think so.  What it would have done is improve the gaming experience of both myself and other corp members during the time the corp was running.

That is important.  And that is the lesson I think I should carry forward wherever I go.




Names of the "shamed" - thanks for what you guys did during the course of my Schneckt experience!  If I left you out, I'm sorry.  Alternatively it might be that you also just suck like I do... ;-)



 6eCeH0K Kaai

"... you better have eated all your vegetables,

it's gonna be a rough one" --Kaai

This guy joined Schneckt shortly before I did.  In the time I had collected 1500 kills Kaai collected 7000.  Yes 5 times the number of kills.

Kaai was prodigiously active.  He was always on.  Forming fleets, making plans, handing out ships.  Going for tackle...  Killing stuff... losing stuff - of course winning a fight is better, but if there ever was a guy that understood that losing was part of the game, this is him.

As an added bonus Kaai is a French Canadian - to his credit his English improved a lot during the last 18 months...

He came up with the most fantastic and funny  "Frenglish" expressions - what's more he was always the greatest of sports about it when we could not help but burst out laughing!!!






Zaloorb

We need tackle...

Zaloorb was an old hand even when I started.  In my admittedly limited experience and worthless opinion, Zal is one best PVP pilots I had ever encountered.

Few and far in between are the guys that know the meta better.  Know what to bring and how to fight an enemy, with a killer instinct and hunger for kills that I have not seen anywhere else.

Zaloorb takes the tough (often solo) fights against formidable opponents and often comes out on top.


We especially love him for two things -

1) being the guy in the dramiel that could not wait to go kill that hated kiting garmur in local (with amazing success!!)

and

2) imparting a lot of his knowledge to us.  I shamelessly admit to stealing all his fits....






Rahgg Graageor

So what are we doing?

Rahgg joined Schneckt about the time I did.

Very active, and if ever there was a team player Rahgg is it.  Always ready with a ship, always willing to go, often forming and leading fleets.

Did some heavy lifting to import ad hoc items from Rens for hapless corpies that did not have ships ready to go...

Seldom a complaint and the most delightful "of-the-wall-type" sense of humour that you will ever encounter.



Takes everything in stride and is without a doubt the best smack talker in local that I have ever encountered - it is smack, but never to the point where it is nasty or distasteful...

How not to move a carrier: A tale of two noobs

If you think hiring a pro is expensive, try hiring an amateur.

Recently a corp member, lets call him *Bill asked in corp slack if anybody could fly an Apostle.  He was friendly with a wormhole corp and wanted to move the Apostle into their wormhole.

Bill could fly other capitals, but he could not fly Amarr.  Not yet.

Now a long long time ago and in a universe far far away - lets call it *null sec your author did fly a carrier.

This was during the age of the slow cat.

For you kids that do not know, slow cat's was a doctrine of masses of remote repping carriers that were nigh unkillable.

Not that your author was that sophisticated - oh no, ever the slacker and under achiever he had a mere suitcase carrier - a carrier fit for travel, designed to move his sub caps from one staging point to the next.

The carrier favoured by your author's null sec corp at the time was the Archon - also an Amarr capital.

Thus, thinking himself imminently qualified (if slightly rusted), and ever the helpful type, your author volunteered the services of his alt, lets call her *delihla to help move said Apostle.

I mean,  get carrier, perform one jump, enter wormhole, dock at citadel... what could possibly go wrong?

Well plenty as it turns out...

At this point dear reader I will spare you (most) of the detail of the trials, tribulations and mishaps of getting *delihla into the home hole.

Suffice to say it somehow miraculously happened without anybody dying.

Not that we didn't try, oh no, there was a sabre and a bubble involved, my running back to the "gate" (*Bill had a smug wormholer chuckle at my use of the term "gate"... fu *Bill, if you had actually been scouting in lieu of just leaving bookmarks to follow none of this would have happenend....).

To the credit of self same *Bill, this was the point where he did show his wormholer experience.

Told me to wait on the higsec side of the "gate" (wormhole) whilst he did something actually involving scouting and I'm guessing, showing some kind of scary ship on D-Scan to make the big bad sabre go away...

Why wait you ask?  Because of a thing called polarisation (don't worry, I didn't know either).... An arcane wormhole mechanic that would render me unable to run back to the "gate" a second time to jump back out - likely a "bad thing" for my little helios if a sabre still was around...

Reaching the home hole without further indecent, *delihla was provided with a cloaky hauler inclusive of Oxygen Isotopes.  Well done to the ever overachieving *Bill.

Out to the null sec exit she went and was spit out somewhere in NPC Fountain.  System empty.  One unscouted gate jump and she is docked in the (also empty) station system where the Archon is located.

Board ship, move fuel to fuel bay, move hauler into hangar.  So far so flatteringly good.

As I undock *Bill lights a cyno on the wormhole entrance...  I right click on jump to and.... nothing....

*delihla: "Wtf?  Did you light the cyno?"
*Bill: "Yes, why?"
*delihla: "no jump to destination...?"
*Bill: "Right click and... then go jump to..."
*delihla: "duh... duuuudeee, I'm telling you, no destination.  Did you actually light the cyno?"
*Bill: "yes I'm sitting here in space, with cyno up" (sounds kinda panicky).  "Maybe you tried to jump too early, dock and try again."

At this point *Bill is already regretting my help.  I dutifully dock and undock.  To my delight this time *Bill is available as a destination to jump to.

At this point dear reader you'd think that enough has happened and the story would promptly end, but nooooo....

I right click jump to *Bill and.... Nothing.  Just a message saying something about needing isotopes followed by a "traffic control" message.

At this point your author's nerves are fried.  All that he can think is that he somehow put the isotopes in the incorrect bay.

*Bill: "You have to put the isotopes in the fuel bay dummy..."
*delihla: "grrr... I did... I don't understand... OH F*CK!!!"
*Bill: "What!!!?"
*delihla: "I'm getting shot at - taking damage!!!"
*Bill: "I thought you said the system was empty....!?  DOCK!!  DOCK!!" (sounds very panicky)
*delihla: "It was... IT IS!!!"  (docking, again.)

 In our defence, this was in the hey days of the "chat system bugs" where pilots in system would often not show up in local chat.... but they would show up on overview surely?

A quick check of the log.... and... aaaaahhhhhggggggg.... I was shot at by rats (my pvp overview does not show rats).... F*ck me what amateurs.... ok, lets go again.

Undock, right click jump to... and... No jump fuel message again.  At this point both *Bill and myself have moved beyond panic to mere despondency.

Somehow becoming resigned to the idea of impending doom drives mindless clicking and chatter from our heads.  I actually read the message.  To jump the ship requires Helium Isotopes.

Something clicks.  I recheck the fuel bay.  And there it is: Oxygen Isotopes.

*delihla: "AAAWWWWWHHHH F*CK ME".
*Bill: (alarmed) "What??"
*delihla: "we need different isotopes"
*Bill":"Huh" (my turn to be smug and lecture his degenerate Gallente ass about isotopes)

Luckily there are some Helium Isotopes to be had on the market (at a nice markup for the seller, but at this point we were really beyond haggling over a mere 1000% markup).

I buy the fuel, move to fuel bay and undock.

*Bill:"Only one minute left on the cyno"

Yes dear reader.  During all this time that I had been trying to find the "jump to destination", undocking, redocking, undocking..., panicked about rats and finding fuel, *Bill had been sitting stationary, on that wormhole entrance, in the middle of null sec, cyno lit for all to see....

Astoundingly nothing had happened.  Yet.

I undock, right click jump to.... and I JUMPED!!!

Enter the wormhole and dock.

*delihla: "F.U. *Bill, you can keep the helios" (trades helios to *Bill and death clones back to Jita)

No dear reader, I don't know what happened to *Bill after that, so don't ask.

Thus ends the tale, with proof that no good deed goes unpunished, as well as vindication that Bob looks after the hopeless and the hapless.

In truth we deserved to lose something through all that....



For advice on how to really move a capital ship  I leave you in the capable hands of the (late) and great **Azual Skoll over at the EVE Altruist site (unfortunately dead. Edit: the site, not the author).  Much of this site is now out dated, but some things have endured...




*Names published without changes in order to implicate the guilty.
**F.U. Azual - you never said anything about isotopes!!!

The curious case of the PL spy

"Spies are ubiquitous" ~ Absence of Substance 2018. 

Comment made in relation to null blocks spying and backroom deals.  Specifically in relation to the Goons/GOTG peace deal.


"What?  A PL spy?  Who are you kidding?  We ain't got nothing worth spying on...?"  ~ Absence of Substance 2018

Comment made scarcely a week after the one above when a credible source revealed that Schneckt had a PL spy in our midst.




Yes dear reader as unlikely as it seems Sckneckt has been spied upon.  The information comes from a very credible source and I have no reason to doubt the veracity of it.  What none of us understand is the why...

As explained before, at Schneckt we don't take ourselves too seriously.

We have no CTA's.  We don't have any titans or supers.  We are such a small corp that we don't threaten anybody or anything of any size.

When we ping for fleets for important stuff such as defending a citadel we can maybe get 15 Schneckt guys in fleet.

Generally, when we are outnumbered or outmatched and clearly can't defend a citadel, we just shoot at it ourselves to get on the kill mail - yes, we do that - count the number of Schneckts on that kill mail.  It is after all just a 3 bil Astra right?

Further more our player base has such a diverse range of SP that a lot of the time our "newer" players (a fair percentage of those in corp) cannot even field a battleship or a HAC.

In truth what we do best is running sh#t fits in solo/micro gangs in and around FW space.  Some would argue we don't even do that well - we lose 2 ships for every 3 we kill.

In light of that it would maybe, at a stretch have made sense to find an Amarr militia spy in our corp.  We have however quit FW so even that motivation, scant as it was is now null and void..

What does not however in any way shape or form make sense is for an entity like PL to even know of our existence much less spy on us?

Maybe it is just my naivete and there is something I don't see.  Maybe it was a mistake from PL.  Maybe it is something else entirely.  Whatever the case, I am really curious to know...

If you are in PL and happen to read this, would you please help my perplexed self out?

Effort shock and the Big Wheel(s).

Effort shock as far as I know is a lesser known (unfortunately) term that was coined by David Wong the editor of cracked. 

Beware that the site has its share of weird s...tuff and is not for every one.  I can however recommend the editorial on Effort shock. 

For those who only have time for the answers the term relates to the fact that doing anything worthwhile takes effort.  So far so ho hum, BUT David Wong then goes and does a stellar job in pointing out that not merely does it take effort, but normally it takes SO MUCH MORE effort to accomplish something, than we had ever dreamed it would.

Ok Absence... so you read slightly unhinged material and being rather obtuse, strive to palm of what many readers regard to be everyday and mundane, as profundity... How does this relate to EVE?

In every way of course...

EVE is a fabulous game with a very infamous learning curve.  To get better takes time, effort and deliberate practice.

At every junction one has to actively make an effort to step up to the next level. 

In the early days time was the only way in which to progress in terms of SP. 

Even though SP can now be bought, in practical terms players have to somehow earn it - be it in game ISK for injectors, plex or real life effort to acquire money to exchange or plex/injectors - nothing is free.


The learning curve does not only relate to SP - the real learning curve is in player skill.  And knowledge.

Want to get into frigate pvp?  Learning curve.  Step up to destroyers?  Learning curve.  Cruisers...?  Yes learning curve.  Low sec? Null sec?  Small gang?  Nano?

The learning curve is not limited to PVP of course - PVE has it too.  PI and reactions?  Manufacturing?  Research?  Even mining has its own can of worms.

As per David Wong the surprise is not that effort is involved but how much more effort is involved in stepping up to the next endeavour. 

Now this is not a lament - on the contrary - this level of effort is in actual fact that makes this game worth playing - to the extent that I sometimes wonder whether long term EVE players are not victims of the sunk cost fallacy

TL;DR;  The sunk cost fallacy is the notion that (in the EVE context) players continue playing the game merely because of hours and dollars already committed, when most of the enjoyment in the game itself has passed.

Ok, Absence so you really have to make an effort to achieve the bare basics in the game... but surely everything is not about you...?

Ah dear reader, indeed it is not.  Today's missive in actual fact is about the Big wheels.  The enablers and the content creators.

In your authors' corp there are a few individuals that do an enormous amount of work that often goes unnoticed and is mostly under appreciated. 

We have for instance a website, slack channel and team speak that is all organised and hosted by an individual. At his own cost and in his own time.

In game we have a free jump freighting service that would move our ships from Jita/Hek/Rens to the warzone manned by 3 or 4 people. 

For those that do not know, this takes a 10Bil ISK ship and every single trip involves risk to that ship. 

Also often forgotten is the 40mil ISK or so for jump fuel for every trip.  The time involved, the need for an extra account (or accounts) with cyno characters.

We have corp doctrines and in some instances ships belonging to the corp (bought and paid for by selfless members - we have a 0% tax rate). 

Ships and fits that were researched and fit for purpose.  Shipped and staged (or moved via carrier jumps to the new staging point). 

In a recent citadel defence in excess of 20 battleships with associated command booster/webbing/tackle ships belonging to the corp were issued - no cost to the line members and losses accrue to the corp. 

We are speaking many, many billions of ISK here in addition to the effort to organise this little get together.


The common thread in all these endeavours seem to be that they invariably involve mostly the same people.  People that I expect are hovering on the edge of burnout at the moment given the levels of citadel defence fleets we had to field in the last little bit.

Bear in mind that these are busy people with real life jobs, hopes and dreams - in addition to their EVE lives.... 

From the perspective of someone like myself that can barely get himself into a not too sh#t fit frigate to run a novice plex, this type of thing leaves me in awe - I am under no illusions - there is no way I would be able to do this.

A corp like ours with a number of new players, alpha players and witless older players like myself simply cannot exist without enablers and content creators like these. 

Our corp is also not unique in this - the theme repeats in most other corps and even alliances - reliance on a couple of key individuals is such that whole corps/alliances have closed down or fail-cascaded  when one or more of these big wheels left.

Sometimes someone else steps up and life continues, sometimes the line members just move on.  Few players function without the prime movers (you get exceptions like truly solo players).

Absence is your corp in trouble...?

A dear reader no, not that I am aware of...

What I am however aware of, is that creating content is hard - much much harder than most of us realise.

FW: A venerable tsunami of farmers.

Long standing veterans of faction warfare are used to the ebb and flow in the warzone.  One faction will be on top and after a while things will change and the opposing faction will be on top...  

And so it goes.

"damn they plex so much they can't even keep up with the bashing"
~ Meo Fafard

The Minmatar militia went from majority control of the warzone in December 2017 to "only" 28 systems (out of 71) in Minmatar control currently.  

What's more, at the time of writing no fewer than 7 systems are vulnerable and likely to be flipped soon (see table below).

7 Systems happens to be 10% of the total war zone and a quarter of what Minmil currently control.

Even the most casual of observers would find that a spectacular decline - or rise - if your vantage point is from an Amarr militia perspective.

Indeed dear reader, looking at the table below one might be forgiven for wondering what in the world happened to Minmil?  Another civil war?  (No).  They went into hibernation?  (No).  Their morale was crushed because the likes of me joined their cause?  (No.  Ermmm... well maybe, but I don't think so). 

Well what about the other side of the equation?  Did the Amarr do anything special?  (No).  FCON joined Caldari milita? (Maybe, but not directly).  Suitonia's project is paying off?  (Don't know, according to zkill the guy spends most of his time in 0.0, and credit where credit is due, the momentum started swinging towards the Amarr long before this group showed up).

Now any and all of the above obviously contribute in some way shape or form, but the real reason for the very rapid swing in fortunes is farmers.  Farmers?  Yes.  Farmers.

Farmers are the nicest people

As a relative newcomer to faction warfare I have to admit I never realised the extend to which the farmers influenced the war zone.  

Whilst Minmil controlled the war zone I also did not notice many farmers as I don't warp in on blues in plexes.  

Since the swing in fortunes, boy have we been inundated by streams and streams of warp stabbed farmers.

Your author killed two of them and was rewarded with the nice comments in the image to the left (by no means an uncommon occurrence - both the killing of stabbed farmers and the insults) .

A cursory look at zkill tells the sad sad story of Demone DED, Demone1 DED and Demone2 DED:

This particular person has three farmer accounts and by the looks of it farmers are universally despised as zkill shows they are killed by Minmatar militia, Amarr militia, as well as the local pirates in the area.

Suffice to say Demone* is not the only stabbed farmer in the war zone.

To this end the news from fanfest about stabs being disallowed in plexes in the future is most welcome.  Certainly a step in the right direction but due to the sheer  number of farmers I am of the opinion it will not matter much - for any one of these kills the toon in question probably ran 10 or more plexes before he got caught.  

Such is the nature of the LP payouts that a player will "earn" enough LP completing even a single novice plex to pay for 10 or more of these ships at 600k ISK each.

It is also worth noting that these farmer alts can be very low SP alts - and this is the reason why so many systems are vulnerable and not flipped.  By-enlarge farmer alts don't have the SP to be worth anything in an I-hub bash.  Nor does an I-hub bash directly provide any ISK.

What exactly the answer to this farmer problem is, I do not know.  Indeed one would surmise that had there been easy answers CCP would simply enact them. 

There are a couple of suggestions from the self same suitonia on his CSM election forum.  There are other people on other forums that also have opinions.  For the time being your author has neither the time nor the energy (or the wherewithal) to come up with solutions himself and will simply play the ball as it lies.

In his corporation, Schneckt corp members are warned to not be overly concerned with the state of the war zone and systems - no doubt by seasoned veterans that has seen this before.  Schneckt is but a small corp and it simply does not serve to burn oneself out for this purpose. 

Against these numbers of farmers there is not much that we as a corp can do.  We also had a citadel to defend (more on this in the future) and some other adventures in the offing (also possibly more of this in the future)...

In the mean time we concentrate in plexing Lamaa (where we live) down.  We are under no illusions that we would hold it under any sort of sustained pressure - no, purely as a driver of conflict and for the time being, a small source of pride...

As always we try to have fun.  See you in the war zone!

ISK

During my latest job search one of the recurring requirements in order to be a good corp member was "an independent, reliable source of ISK".

Sadly, by this (and many other) measure(s), your author is not a good corp member.  He has no "independent, reliable" source of income.  For him generating ISK tends to be ad hoc - i.e. when he's broke.  Because he is prone to PvE burnout he also tends to only farm ISK until he is barely not broke any more.

A casual query in corp revealed various "good", some even "great" corpies with lucrative income sources.

One has an alt corp in a wormhole.  Another manufactures rigs.  We have a builder of capitals.  Yet another has an army of alts doing PI.  All of these endeavours take a bit of time, skill and toil -  virtues distinctly lacking in your authors' persona.

To be honest the most tempting source of ISK  was suggested by a corp mate who claims to find 500 or so plex "lying on the floor of his hangar" every now and then - i.e. put there by his credit card.

Tempting, but as explained before I have an unfortunate moral aversion to this.

Of course with great amounts laziness and small amounts of creativity the commensurate adjustment to expectations and quality of life soon follows.

Whereas the aforementioned "good" corpies can fly "decent" ships and maintain losses of 3 to 5 Billion ISK a month, your author cannot.

He makes do with somewhat less "decent" ships and have to contain his losses.

Still even at his level he has to raise 500 million to 1 Billion ISK per month.

ISK generation follows the course of least resistance, which in the faction warfare context this means "selling" loyalty points from FW missions.

There is a nice guide on FW missions published by the Crossing Zebra's website.  In it that author - Gorski Car outlines how he runs batches of 10 FW missions in around 90 minutes.

Of course I am no Gorski Car and the same loop of 10 faction warfare missions takes me closer to three hours.

In addition Gorski seemingly has the luxury of running missions only when Minmatar is at Tier 4 or 5. Sadly waiting for an advantageous tier is not an option when you are broke.

Running missions and obtaining loyalty points is only part of the story.  LP has to be converted into items which in turn has to be sold on the market - (read: more time and effort).

One gets roughly 50k LP per mission and normally get a conversion rate of around 1000 ISK per LP - so I have to run between 10 and 20 missions in a month to sustain this level of activity.  Five to 10 hours a month of missions/hauling/market transacting.


This happens to be the absolute minimum amount of ISK to maintain this level of involvement (T1 frigates in novice plexes).  This is ok, and it happens to still be fun for a noob like me, but I cannot help but think longer term this will need to stagnation and falling into just another rut.

The consequence is that ISK generation has to be upped in some way shape or form.

One has to appreciate the irony in the fact that in order to experience PvP to the full one has to embrace a system that mandates more PvE to generate ISK, and at the same time then encourages risk aversion to contain losses.

I cannot help but think this is why some people stoop to botting.  Tempting but not for me.

Just one more of life's great contradictions.

If you, dear reader happen to have a nice idea for easy ISK please let me know!

The disconnect

Most Eve players have experienced the dreaded disconnect from time to time.  Even though we like to pretend in our little worlds that all our losses are due to this ill, the truth of the matter is that very few are.

In almost 10 years of playing EVE on and off your author has only ever lost one ship due to a disconnect.  A Tormentor that I warped to fight at a novice plex at 40km.  Right at that moment the disconnect happened. 

Of course I'm dead, but I restart the client and log in - only to have my pod that went into emergency warp land in the fray again...

As luck would have it all the scrams on grid were "busy" and the (empty) pod was reduced to half armor by a single glancing blow before I could warp it off again.

As far as disconnects go that was fairly ho-hum - spare a thought for someone disconnecting when flying his 2Billion ISK Blops.  Or his carrier, super carrier or titan (yes, they tell me it has happened).  Poor sods.

The most inopportune (and hilarious) disconnect that I have personally been privy to happened shortly after I had first joined Schneckt.  Our FC: Hilo (the name we call him by, unchanged to implicate the guilty empathise with the unfortunate).  Our ships: a bunch of cheap arty ruptures to test a doctrine.

We warp to a large plex at range (because sniping - duh) and sure enough there are a couple of ships on grid with an interceptor burning at us from 100km out.  The optimal on these arty ruptures is somewhere around 60km and the inty is fast approaching.

Hilo: "Align to citadel and lock inty.  LOCK ONLY!"... We do as he says

HILO JADAVEON V

Hilo: "Wait"... 90km

Hilo: "Wait"... 80km

Hilo: "Wait for it".... 70km

...   60km

...   50km

...   40km

Dafuq Hilo !!??? 

Staccato TS3 voice: "User in your channel timed out"... Hilo 

Of course by this time the inty is within scram range and our guns cannot track.  What's more the rest of the inty's fleet is now inbound.

Random fleet member: "We can't fight this in arty ships, warp to citadel and dock"... We sheepishly do so, leaving one of your members to die.

Staccato TS3 voice: "User joined your channel"... Hilo

Hilo: "Did we get him!?"...  Laughter!




C'est la vie.

HILO is in local bois!!!

P.S.  Hilo is a really funny guy and he likes to announce himself with this meme: