Monday, December 2, 2013

Blog Banter 51: some get out, some don't

Welcome to the continuing monthly EVE Blog Banters and our 51st edition! For more details about what the blog banters are visit the Blog Banter page.

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EVE Online can be a game of heart-pounding, palm-sweating, adrenaline-fuelled ecstasy or agony. Sometimes over the years those reactions dim and what was once a panic inducing situation becomes commonplace routine. For some, the shakes never go away.

From Druur Monakh (Twitter: @DruurMonakh) we get the topic of this banter: what was your most nail-biting experience in EVE Online so far? It could be PvP in a 1v1 or 1000v1000, your first fight or your latest one, a scam so close to being uncovered too soon, a trap almost sprung on an unsuspecting victim or the roles reversed and you desperately try to escape.

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This is a nice question and it plays into one of the core strengths of Eve Online: the ability to make you shake and sweat in your chair! I remember reading someones' tale about how he got stranded in a wormhole and managed to get out with some friendly help - and how exciting it all was. That experience convinced him to subscribe to the game, right there and then!

Most Eve pilots have had those moments. For me, there's a couple that stick out.


Just a few percent structure left..
I have written about this one before. While in LEGIO ASTARTES ARCANUM alliance (a -A- ally, back then) we had neutrals and hostiles coming through our space every day or so. Usually we'd have a nice fight at a gate or at a station and that was that. This time however, I was very lucky to get my Hurricane out in one piece!
We encountered the hostiles (two Cynabals and a Stiletto) at an out gate and for a while, the fight went back and forth. I get primaried and pointed, and the incoming damage threatens to overwhelm my shields. It's obvious I can't tank this for long, so I set a course away from the hostiles (aligning to a safe) to try to get out of their warp scramble range.. but it isn't going fast enough! Shields down.. armor down.. taking hull damage and still I am pointed! At that moment I resign myself to my fate: the Hurricane is going to die. Oh well. Not a biggie.. shame though. Somewhat detached now I await the moment of explosion, while these thoughts go through my head. And while I am thinking that, I completely miss the fact that I am in fact no longer pointed! Suddenly the fact hits me.. I'm free to warp! With mere seconds to get out, I hit warp and I wonder whether the Hurricane will explode before warping off.. But my ship enters warp, with a just few percent structure left:


Says one of the hostiles, in local: "That Hurricane pilot is one lucky bastard". I wholeheartedly agreed!

Here's another one. It's not an 'escape' kind of story, but it was exciting and - for us at least - hugely funny.

Station games
A few months ago, our alliance Mildly Intoxicated did a lot of hotdrops in the Providence and Catch area. I didn't quite like the concept of hotdrops but my corp mates convinced me to join a fleet to try it out, and to my surprise I found it a lot of fun! You wait and wait, and then suddenly.. cyno up, GOGOGO! You land somewhere in the midst of a mining fleet, on a ratting battleship, on an unsuspecting freighter somewhere.. and immediately the fight is on. Sometimes you get the kill and you move out safely, other times the intended victim has friends nearby and you lose your stealth bomber. It's all part of the game and I loved it. Quick, unexpected, exciting.
One time our hunter (the hotdrop pilot looking for prey) decided to take a look at a station in Providence, in X-4WZD, home to Apocalypse Now. alliance. There was a carrier on the undock, a Nidhoggur, and of couse our intrepid hunter yellowboxed him to see whether he would bite. We didn't expect the carrier to aggress - after all, by the time this is happening we have quite a reputation for hotdrops in this area. After a few seconds the Nidhoggur yellowboxed our hunter too.. and then the carrier aggressed the hunter! He did it! As soon as the yellowbox turned into a red box, the cyno was lit and we poured in. With half of our fleet still in our staging system the cyno died, but the pilots that made it began hammering the Nidhoggur with all we got, the FC tersely and repeatedly admonishing us to overheat.. overheat.. overheat! Another cyno was lit, the rest of the fleet jumped in and it was a race against the clock to see whether we could kill this Nidhoggur before his aggro timer expired and he would be able to dock up. I have no idea how close it was, but under our withering fire the Nidhoggur melted and exploded. I jumped up from my chair, pumped my fist and yelled out loud, startling a few innocent family members :-) It was my first capital kill and I loved it! I still wonder how many seconds of aggro the Nidhoggur pilot had left, before we killed him.. it must have been very close. No lucky escape for him!

The nice part: can view this incident for yourself. It starts at 1.39 in the video below!