Wild at Heart

War Declared

At 20:38 NES on 2010.02.08, Beyond Divinity Inc declared war on New Bastion, the alliance that houses White Talon Enterprises.  I thought about doing this announcement press release style, but decided against it in the end.  After all, I want my actual thoughts, and not Matthew Geary's "thoughts", to be what is presented here.

Beyond Divinity Inc is a rather well-known and long-lasting pirate corp in EVE.  They've had a variety of haunts over the years, and I've fought against them on numerous times in various corps.  For a while there they got away from their "roots" and attempted to roll large with capitals, but Ugluuk has since reigned them back into his original vision of the corp:  Pirates who roll around looking for ganks and good fights as often as possible.

Over the last week, WTE has fared rather well against BYDI.  And while I'd like to say that it was due to skill and out-maneuvering the enemy, those would mostly be lies.  BYDI is predominantly Euro, while WTE has a very balanced Euro and North American population.  The kills we've been getting have been in the late evening NA-time.  Thus BYDI is outnumbered and out-gunned for those engagements...and we usually have the sentry guns on our side as well.

Which brings us to this wardec.  The vast majority (maybe all?) of BYDI pilots have a sec status hovering somewhere between -7.0 and -9.9.  And while we spend most of our time in lowsec and nullsec for our PvP roams, we do indeed base most of our operations out of a nearby high security system.  Thus at 50 million ISK a week this wardec seems a bit odd, but not overly so.  If I had to get right down to why I think they did it, I'd say that they were tired of tanking us AND the sentry guns at the same time.  And since they can make 50 million ISK in a day or two of pirating rather easily, I believe they felt the expenditure worth it.

And that brings us to the situations that made spending the ISK "worth it" for them.

Kill #1:
Unreal is alone in Maila with three BYDI that are all docked.  To see what they would do, he undocks from the station in a Drake, and is followed out by Ashley Snow in a Hurricane.  Ashley locks Unreal, Unreal locks Ashley, and they both sit there staring at each other.  Ashley begins pulling away slightly, unwilling to aggress first against a Drake and receive sentry gun fire at the same time.  Unreal throws caution to the wind (two more BYDI pilots docked and no WTE pilots anywhere nearby to assist) and tackles the Hurricane down, engaging.  Ashley returns the aggression, and slowly melts to the Drake's superior firepower and tank.

Unreal mentioned that, given her fit, she was likely going to try and kite him a bit, staying out of HAM range (if possible) while maintaining point.  This obviously didn't work out for her.

Kill #2:
In this instance, Unreal was again alone in Maila with five docked BYDI.  This time around, though, we had a fleet of twelve pilots standing by in Purjola, aligned for the Maila gate for a quick warp-and-jump.  Unreal is ordered to undock in his Drake and to see what the hostiles will do.  BYDI again undock a Hurricane, but once aggressed the hostiles begin piling out of the station in a Tempest, Drake, and Scorpion.  While the BYDI hurricane is able to return fire on Unreal because he aggressed first, the other BYDI pilots begin taking sentry fire when they pour the damage onto Unreal.  The fleet arrives on-grid and the Scorpion is primaried, dying quickly, while the other BYDI pilots redock or warp off.

Kill #3:
This is probably my favorite kill of the bunch.  I'd left Cal cloaked up in Akora while I ran some errands, noticing Atreides Horza off the Reisen gate both before and after I got back from AFK.  Warping to the gate cloaked, I began to approach his ship without really know what I was going to do when I got there.  I thought for sure that he'd warp off, but instead he cloaked when my stealth bomber was about 50km away.

Well, that started the mad scramble to get a couple more people together after they'd been told to stand down from the previous roam that day.  Unreal and Gah shipped up, and stood by in neighboring Reisen and Maila.  I knew, though, that something would have to happen to get the sniping Tempest to decloak so that I could effectively find and tackle him.  After all, I was flying blind in the general direction I saw him in before he cloaked up...but I had no idea how close I was actually going to end up.

Zaratustra was recruited to play the part of bait.  He quickly fitted a "Battle Hauler" in Reisen, letting us know when he was undocked and ready to go.  We knew exactly who Atreides' alt was in Reisen local, and knew that he must be salivating at the opportunity for another expensive gank.  True to form, as Unreal warped to the Akora gate, Atreides decloaked his Tempest so as to clear the sensor recalibration time.

And, lucky us, he was a mere 27km away from where I'd ended up.  As Zara jumped through, I quickly burned to the Tempest while calling for Unreal and Gah to get in system, and warp to me.  There were actually two moments that I lost point due to poor cap management when Atreides could have warped out if he was paying attention.  Luckily he wasn't, and luckier still Unreal and Gah finally arrived on-grid to take over point and let Cal bug out.

Kill #4:
This was another particularly fun one.  We were just finishing up a roam, entered Akora, and saw baagpus and another BYDI in local.  Knowing that they like to snipe off the Reisen gate, I warp the fleet there at 70km, hoping to get lucky again.

Baagpus and the other battleship were indeed on the gate as we arrived, and while the further Tempest decided to warp off to safety, Baagpus decided to cloak up where he was, remaining completely stationary while invisible (mistake).  I burned straight towards where he'd disapeared, and was rewarded with a very large bump and decloak on his Tempest, which was quickly pointed down and destroyed.  Bonus:  His Dread Guristas Cloaking Device dropped, netting us a small chunk of change.

Kill #5:
Not much to this one.  We were just starting up a roam and Unreal was again alone in Maila with three BYDI docked in station with him.  Unreal decided to bring out his new toy (Rokh), and Herra B responded by bringing out a Megathron.  The two battleships began battling, and the fleet was ordered to Unreal's position to burn down the Megathron as fast as possible.  The other BYDI pilots remained docked.

Kill #6:
I'm not even sure if I should include this one on here, but it was amusingly none-the-less as I've done the exact same thing in the past (in a cheaper ship).  In my case I was trying to warp my alt to a gate and jump through, but since my alt and my main were both flying the exact same ship in the exact same loadout, I was incorrectly looking at my main as I ordered him through the high sec gate.  /insert lossmail to Faction Police.

The same thing, supposedly, happened with Herra B.  He warped to the Purjola gate (high sec), and jumped right on through.  Normally this isn't a terrible deal, as you can MWD right back to the gate and get back to safety.  I had to do it recently myself when I wasn't paying attention and my autopilot took me through 1.0 space.  I had no idea what was going on, but managed to make it back through at about 73% structure.

I'm guessing Herra was paying even less attention, as he didn't make an attempt to burn back to the gate until already webbed and pointed.  Unreal astutely ninja'd onto the mail, and it ended up on our board as a kill.  /salute Unreal.

Kill #7:
Ok, I lied earlier.  This one is likely my favorite.  It tops #3 in sheer awesome, because it was complete chance that it worked.  Again, WTE was just finishing up a roam, and headed back to Maila/Ikami from the Otosela direction.  Unreal jumped into Akora, and noted that Atreides was in local.  Rolling the dice and hoping for all six's, I jumped through and warped to my bookmarked spot where Atreides had died the first time.

I honestly couldn't believe it when I decloaked his Tempest due to proximity upon landing.  I was almost unable to order the fleet through into Akora and to my position due to laughing at the incredulity of the situation.  There was no way the bookmark should have worked, but it did.  There was no was Atreides would still be using the same spot, but he was.  And while it wasn't the priciest kill against them, chance decreed a kill none-the-less.

All of those but Kill #7 happened prior to the wardec.  And while I'm not under any allusions that those losses were "many" or severely impacted BYDI pilots in any way, they certainly must have been annoying.  Thus the wardec, and allowing them to engage freely without worrying about silly matters like gate or station sentry guns.

We struck first blood, and meanwhile our Logistics Division is still plying away at their activities in our high sec HQ, undisturbed by the war.  They've been cautioned to keep a close eye out on local, and to switch over to combat ships when necessary, but given BYDI's sec statuses impairment of their operations seems unlikely.

Thanks BYDI for all of the fun so far.  Here's looking forward to the rest of the war, this week and onward.  o/