22 January: Pred's Dread

[jo_bethany]

Sit back kids and Jo will tell a story, and then maybe we can figure out what sort of lessons we can learn from it.

I got home just in time for Rina to ping for a fleet (didn't even get my shoes off). We did some stuff, I whored on some things and then when we stood down I had barely enough time to walk to the corner store and get beer before we went out again (I got the ping on my phone while walking back, I'm loving that Discord has a proper app for both Android and Apple phones). This time I flew logi, whored some more, and we left Predator Elite and his boys and girls in Kamela both a little bruised (we batphoned first, never let Pred batphone first) and butthurt/blue-balled (we didn't engage them with the remnants of our fleet when they re-shipped into faction battlecruisers and T2 logi w/ links, only low sec faggots would be surprised at that). But this is not about either of those fleets.

This time I had time to take my shoes off and shoot the shit for a bit before DnG pinged for a plexing fleet - nothing special, just the usual cheap meta days (brick punishers, T2 frig logi and maybe a dessie or two). Hereric is FC, Celmi is here, and I'm along for the ride making this one of the bitterest fleets you'd ever see pound-for-pound. Plexing fleets can be pretty awful sometimes unless you're masochistic enough to actually think plexing is fun, but if you find a fight they're great because you can control the field and disengage easier than you can in nullsec, and who cares if you lose a few plexing frigates worth less than 10M - you probably make that much back in the first hour of plexing anyway. Barring fights, the conversation might be good and the beer is always good so I usually tag along for at least an hour or two.

We got into some sort of fight in a small plex in Kourmonen, we dogpiled in after one gang (INFAMOUS dragoons) and tore them into bite-sized pieces and then another gang (slave scrubs in thrashers) dogpiled in and died in a bag of dicks while giving up less fight than an Iraqi having a bad day. Hereric says something along the lines of "Huh that's funny there's four Naglfars on d-scan" and that turns into "HOLY SHIT THERE ARE FOUR SIEGED DREADS OFF A POS"

Ots came on and pulled the batphone out of his pocket while we all scrambled to get into HICs and WhoreCats and whatever. Two of the enemy dreads escape in this time because Blackbirds provided jams and they apparently were at jump cap. An enemy Bifrost pilot on the field turned out to be less useful than Tom Brady in a high-five competition, running away with his labia tucked between his legs every time some nerd in a frigate started shooting at him; if he had jumped the single HIC that was one the field off the dreads they all would have escaped.

I made my first mistake in just saying something like "Oh geez guys I think there's some dreads to shoot" in alliance channel in Discord instead of actually pinging. I managed to rethink that in minute, while looking for a proper whore-boat, because while the chances of catching a cap with it's pants down are a lot slimmer in low than null, you always want to give your alliance bros a chance of getting on the action. Pings go out, telling nerds to get in DnG comms and come whore or whatever.

Anyway I get there, get my whore fingers all over everything on grid (while actually applying some meaningful tackle and damage to the ECM and Bifrost, because I'm not always completely terrible). The dreadnaughts turn out to be Predator Elite and his entourage, which is icing on the cake in light of events earlier, and I nervously held the field while DnG's batphoned Dead Terrorists and Shadow Cartel butt-boys show up in a fuck-you comp of Machariels and triage and finish the dreads off. My biggest regret here is that, unlike Nathan, I actually listened to the FC who was telling us not to shoot the batphone fleet; Nathan got to whore on two Archons because he's effectively deaf when he's on Teamspeak. Good for you, Nathan.

And now your moment of zen: https://zkillboard.com/related/30003068/201601230500/

Everyone else toss in your thoughts or what to do better next time below. Hey kids, the moral of the story is go on plexing fleets.

[nathan_myakis]

I don't have DNG comms, so I wasn't on there.