I know this is a bit late, but I haven’t had the chance to get to writing yet. We had an excellent first alliance roam down in Providence. From a role playing perspective, CVA are rotten Amarr slavers, and they were on the edge of a precipice ready to fall and leave providence behind. Due to this, and since we are primarily Gallente and Minmatar corporations and members and ideals, and since some members expressed liking Ushra’Kahn we decided to go down for some fun and see if we couldn’t aid in the U’K efforts. On Thursday we decided to do this, and on Friday and Saturday we prepared to make this happen. Personally I gathered around all the ships I had bought over the last several months, and carried about 100 T1 ships plus appropriate T1 fittings to Esa system. I fitted about 30 of them on arrival for handing out on Saturday and waited for the op to come.
We had invited Hellcats and Tuskers to attend as well, since they are friends of ours and it always makes for maintaining good relationships to invite friends to operations, and although no one declined, no one showed up either, but that’s ok. The invitation was made and won’t be forgotten and that was the point besides actually flying side by side with Hellcats and Tuskers would be so much fun anyway. We were also attended by one of my most trusted former corp mates, who I won’t mention his name here so as not to disrupt his corp’s peaceful lifestyle. Needless to say he is one of the very few people I would entrust my entire account, Alliance and all if it came down to it without fear of any dishonesty or greed taking charge. There aren’t many who I can say that about, and he is one I can.
In the end 6 of us showed up, which isn’t as many as I had hoped for, yet the group was large enough for some fun. Getting Eve voice working for all of us proved difficult. I struggled getting my eve voice to work until I remembered in the back of my mind that Eve Voice doesn’t work when using WINE (software to run Windows software on Unix systems). I should have realized since I am one of the Eve Online maintainers for Wine, but I guess since I never attempted to use voice before it slipped my mind. Oh well, I didn’t have a Ventrilo server, so we had to make due. So we hopped into our ships and out into space, and made quick plans about how to get in and where to go. We set CVA as red so we knew who are main targets we, and we ran over to the Kari gate into Providence.
Because I had no Eve Voice, we made Death Surge the Fleet Commander. Although I had the best leadership skills for boosting, he had Voice and had experience being FC once before. I ended up scouting, mostly because I am not afraid and I jumped in ahead in my Rifter while everyone was still discussing who the scout was going to be. I just took the role, well…because I wanted to.
So I jumped into Providence, saw lots of people a couple reds, but mostly buetrals. We decided to contact U’K to get permission to roam Providence without getting chased out by the people we decided we on our side for this little trip. I was forwarded on to the head diplomat who happened to be in Providence fighting as well. We were granted permission, but were warned away from 9uy system due to severe activities there. We were not however given blue standings, so we were still at risk though we had official permission. We wandered around the east rim of Providence, following the one way pipes. I had the chance to fire upon an CVA obelisk while I was still ahead of the gang and scouting, but he was inbound to the gate and once he was close enough he jumped. The rest of the gang saw him coming through, but we lost him. That’s ok. We continued on, then turned around after not seeing much activity after following the dead end to its conclusion.
As a group we decided we would try to bust through to 9uy and add to the chaos. I scouted ahead as usual warping to 100km from the gate, my corp mate followed a little too soon and warped right to the gate before I could warn off any one from warping in. He was destroyed by Karn, who turned quickly and brought his stabber to within firing range of me within just a few moments. I wasn’t expecting that, and Karn also destroyed me. I spam warped out of there back to Esa where we parked our spare ships. I had a short discussion with Karn about the mistaken friendly fire, but I don’t blame him. 9uy was being actively contested at the moment, and without checking the name first, and neutral is a neutral. As it turns out, Karn is one of the top officials of U’K, at least as far as I can tell, so we made some good relations with U’K if we chose to pursue that route.
We all decide to take a breather since we were flying for about an hour and half by this time, but when we returned to the Kari gate, and I scouted ahead there was a giant camp waiting on the other side for us. I am familiar with the first thing you do is speedboat back to the gate even if it’s clear so when I got fired upon I only had minor damage to my shields. We tried to talk our way through the camp, but it was useless. There were too many people on the other side and even if most of them agreed not to fire there was always someone who shot at us. We considering entering Providence from other directions, but the closest other gate was 17 jumps away, and we elected to end the mission as a success, at least in so far that as a first roaming mission we had fun, and learned a lot from the experience.
Death Surge did a great job as Fleet Commander, and we all did well and had a great time. Even those of us who lost a ship (like me).
Lessons Learned
Scouts should fit Covert Ops Cloaks, it gives you some freedom to look rather than speedboating back to hug the gate for all to see. Maybe a Covert Ops Ship would be ideal for this, as well can be used for probing out target ships you know are in system, but not sure where in-system.
Don’t jump into a situation unless you know you are ready, or are ready to get utterly defeated and ok with that. We _were_ ok with it before we even jumped into Null Sec, but it’s still worth mentioning here.
If possible, everyone really needs voice. Communications are rather discontinuous when some people are typing in reply to voice convos.
It may be a good idea for all ships that have an extra non-turret high slot to fit cloaks if able. Maybe even sacrifice a turret slot for a cloak since we are operating in a team. If things go bad, those that aren’t targeted yet can cloak up and be safe. This is just a thought, and not sure since I have little combat PvP experience in null sec.
Alliance Roam in Providence
I know this is a bit late, but I haven’t had the chance to get to writing yet. We had an excellent first alliance roam down in Providence. From a role playing perspective, CVA are rotten Amarr slavers, and they were on the edge of a precipice ready to fall and leave providence behind. Due to this, and since we are primarily Gallente and Minmatar corporations and members and ideals, and since some members expressed liking Ushra’Kahn we decided to go down for some fun and see if we couldn’t aid in the U’K efforts. On Thursday we decided to do this, and on Friday and Saturday we prepared to make this happen. Personally I gathered around all the ships I had bought over the last several months, and carried about 100 T1 ships plus appropriate T1 fittings to Esa system. I fitted about 30 of them on arrival for handing out on Saturday and waited for the op to come.
We had invited Hellcats and Tuskers to attend as well, since they are friends of ours and it always makes for maintaining good relationships to invite friends to operations, and although no one declined, no one showed up either, but that’s ok. The invitation was made and won’t be forgotten and that was the point besides actually flying side by side with Hellcats and Tuskers would be so much fun anyway. We were also attended by one of my most trusted former corp mates, who I won’t mention his name here so as not to disrupt his corp’s peaceful lifestyle. Needless to say he is one of the very few people I would entrust my entire account, Alliance and all if it came down to it without fear of any dishonesty or greed taking charge. There aren’t many who I can say that about, and he is one I can.
In the end 6 of us showed up, which isn’t as many as I had hoped for, yet the group was large enough for some fun. Getting Eve voice working for all of us proved difficult. I struggled getting my eve voice to work until I remembered in the back of my mind that Eve Voice doesn’t work when using WINE (software to run Windows software on Unix systems). I should have realized since I am one of the Eve Online maintainers for Wine, but I guess since I never attempted to use voice before it slipped my mind. Oh well, I didn’t have a Ventrilo server, so we had to make due. So we hopped into our ships and out into space, and made quick plans about how to get in and where to go. We set CVA as red so we knew who are main targets we, and we ran over to the Kari gate into Providence.
Because I had no Eve Voice, we made Death Surge the Fleet Commander. Although I had the best leadership skills for boosting, he had Voice and had experience being FC once before. I ended up scouting, mostly because I am not afraid and I jumped in ahead in my Rifter while everyone was still discussing who the scout was going to be. I just took the role, well…because I wanted to.
So I jumped into Providence, saw lots of people a couple reds, but mostly buetrals. We decided to contact U’K to get permission to roam Providence without getting chased out by the people we decided we on our side for this little trip. I was forwarded on to the head diplomat who happened to be in Providence fighting as well. We were granted permission, but were warned away from 9uy system due to severe activities there. We were not however given blue standings, so we were still at risk though we had official permission. We wandered around the east rim of Providence, following the one way pipes. I had the chance to fire upon an CVA obelisk while I was still ahead of the gang and scouting, but he was inbound to the gate and once he was close enough he jumped. The rest of the gang saw him coming through, but we lost him. That’s ok. We continued on, then turned around after not seeing much activity after following the dead end to its conclusion.
As a group we decided we would try to bust through to 9uy and add to the chaos. I scouted ahead as usual warping to 100km from the gate, my corp mate followed a little too soon and warped right to the gate before I could warn off any one from warping in. He was destroyed by Karn, who turned quickly and brought his stabber to within firing range of me within just a few moments. I wasn’t expecting that, and Karn also destroyed me. I spam warped out of there back to Esa where we parked our spare ships. I had a short discussion with Karn about the mistaken friendly fire, but I don’t blame him. 9uy was being actively contested at the moment, and without checking the name first, and neutral is a neutral. As it turns out, Karn is one of the top officials of U’K, at least as far as I can tell, so we made some good relations with U’K if we chose to pursue that route.
We all decide to take a breather since we were flying for about an hour and half by this time, but when we returned to the Kari gate, and I scouted ahead there was a giant camp waiting on the other side for us. I am familiar with the first thing you do is speedboat back to the gate even if it’s clear so when I got fired upon I only had minor damage to my shields. We tried to talk our way through the camp, but it was useless. There were too many people on the other side and even if most of them agreed not to fire there was always someone who shot at us. We considering entering Providence from other directions, but the closest other gate was 17 jumps away, and we elected to end the mission as a success, at least in so far that as a first roaming mission we had fun, and learned a lot from the experience.
Death Surge did a great job as Fleet Commander, and we all did well and had a great time. Even those of us who lost a ship (like me).
Lessons Learned
Scouts should fit Covert Ops Cloaks, it gives you some freedom to look rather than speedboating back to hug the gate for all to see. Maybe a Covert Ops Ship would be ideal for this, as well can be used for probing out target ships you know are in system, but not sure where in-system.
Don’t jump into a situation unless you know you are ready, or are ready to get utterly defeated and ok with that. We _were_ ok with it before we even jumped into Null Sec, but it’s still worth mentioning here.
If possible, everyone really needs voice. Communications are rather discontinuous when some people are typing in reply to voice convos.
It may be a good idea for all ships that have an extra non-turret high slot to fit cloaks if able. Maybe even sacrifice a turret slot for a cloak since we are operating in a team. If things go bad, those that aren’t targeted yet can cloak up and be safe. This is just a thought, and not sure since I have little combat PvP experience in null sec.