The Drone Lands War: Etherium Reach Part 2

This is Etherium Reach as of 2 June 2015

   TL:DR of part one PFR and 2-3 other groups tried to take SOV, failed and moved on.   The more notable PFR moved to the uncontested area "at the time" Scalding Pass.  We all took a deep breath at that point think the worst was over.  We could start working on growing as an alliance and be the anchor for the Drone Lands.

 

Then the toughest challenge we've faced set up in Uemon.  Triumverant (will be called Tri from here on) moved in due to their alleged failures at taking on the Imperium (Goons).  Early February Tri began their push taking WPV-JN  by killing our defensive SBU's KM KM KM then we formed to fight them finally and get our first fleet fight. - Battle Report - and L4X-1V where we did not try contesting them for it.  Which were out first test against them.  Tri went after LXQ2-T. A few times but have been repelled each time.  The defense we had was in support of Xdeath - Battle Report - Lost isk war but won the objective.  Though we already saw that out coalition was too spread out nor had the SP/Ship compositions to fight them properly.  The mighty Maller had fallen, and pushed into flying the Augoror Navy Issue from here on known as the ANI .

 

Great ship and great tank with ok DPS, and 2 utility High slots to play with make it a great defensive fleet doctrine in my opinion, and something lower skill level players can get into. 

 

So system after system fell PX-IHN, ZZ5X-M, SAH-AD, and so on, they begain to creep closer to our home systems.  We made the decision to pull all major and not immediately needed items out of ER.  We also made sure to SBU everyone of our systems, and leave all our tower up.  We were not going to make this as easy as the were already making it out to be.  When Tri didnt want to fight they dropped Supers knowing Xdeath nor us could oppose them.  This seemed counter to their wanting content and seemed more out of laziness than anything.

 

Then they set eyes on NWX-LI my home, and our Alliances first station the alliance had built and deployed.  When they did I had planned no real defense past inviting everyone in eve to attend and maybe force them to stand down due to odds and us sacrifice our fleet to those that came.  Something happen people contacted me out of the blue from the Coalition saying they wanted to be there to do something. 

 

I wrote it off as maybe 2-5 people from each corp and us having one last look as Tri to our last bastion.  I was lazy on forming at first then more and more kept asking were I wanted them... Had I known the turn out maybe we could have won the day?  Maybe but if nothing else we forced them to bring in more than they thought they would need!  We formed next door off the normal pipe expecting Tri to camp the pipe.  I couldnt believe we had 100 in fleet it was amazing to see.  We sadly had no capitals to use because to be honest we did think we'd get the numbers we'd have.  Tri was late and we went immediately to killing their SBU if we killed that and if they were ill prepared we could set the stage for a better fight.  Phoenix Company sadly did not get on our comms and went shiels instead of armor and were quickly taken out before the real fighting began. 

Tri brought Rattlesnakes with a triage carrier Chimera and support ships. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This combo is powerful, after using them in a fleet I can see how great this fleet is, but its a hurts a killboard for sure if you start to lose them!

 

 

 

 

We fielded ANI's with Guardian's, T1 hulls of the same flavor, and whatever was left in peoples hangers.

We killed the SBU forcing them to bring and online another.  Our logi could hold the ANIs but anything less or not tanked properly died.  We pushed to station to fight with bombers from bombers bar, HASH, and us trying to kill RattleSnakes.  I had everyone switch to their triage carrier and he was breaking.  As he neared 30% shields a cyno was lit and Tri brought in more Triage Chimeras.  With that we disengaged, with no one able to come assist we could not hope to win.  With a heavy heart I stood everyone down and thanked them.  As a final gesture Tri Reinforced the safe POS we were in.  As they left one their Huginn's was bouncing off the shield after they warped.  I burned out and grabbed tackle to get us a token kill.  NWX Battle Report

 

 

Call it tears or what have you that was our home, and made more of it than Tri would or ever will.  Maybe one day it will be again, and I hope I can lead us back to retake it from whomever owns it.  Because nowhere else is home for me at least other than NWX.  We fought hard and for a newly found coalition, some former renters/renters facing as harden PvP alliance.  I think we did as best we could.  For all the smack talk Tri was the better PvP alliance, but again they take pride in fighting new to pvp groups and renters.  So for all the bravado they are nothing more than that bravado. 

 

 

So you may ask where are we now?  Well I moved Alliance to support SERIN, and our new companions Advent of Fate ( AoF from here on).  To start again, as after losing your first home in null and something you worked so hard for.... people took it differently.  Some moved with us wanting to grow again.  Others went back to highsec, some sought out other corps/alliances to test other waters.  As with Eve we all have ups and downs, and this was both of ours in rapid fire.  We now fight Intrepid Crossing IRC from here on, who flipped sides to garner favor of Tri.  Which is sad for me as we fought together, and even made a couple friends in game.  Which now has strained and most likely will break those in short order. 

 

That is the shortest I could break this down to.  I am sure I missed things or failed to mention something, but oh well this is my view of events.  I'd like to thank the people, corps, alliances that have helped us along the way:

 

Alternate Allegiance

 

Phoenix Company Alliance

 

of course The Serenity Initiative

 

Signal Cartel You cannot stop the signal!

 

A Band Apart Yarr!!

 

And many other individuals, corps, and alliances that I have forgotten and my apologies for not listing you as well.

 

These are events according to my view, and memory which can be wrong lol. 

 

Things are tough, but as always, I will do what I can to make it better thanks for reading!

 

Orion

 

 

 

 

 

The Drone Lands War: Etherium Reach Part 1

Jump Range Nerfs

This would be the spark that would set my former home ablaze like we had never thought it would.  The restrictions on jump ranges were/are huge in mitigating responses from the larger blocs in Eve.  I am for limited force projection though while reading this you may think I am not right in the head in being for it.

This is my memories (right or wrong to whomever reads I do not care) of our time in Etherium Reach from Renters to building a Coalition of Industrialists to defend their homes.  We thought ER was a place no one wanted, but us....Others thought it the perfect place to start because they thought the same.....

Its starts literally day one of the patch an upstart group called PFR with a noble goal of freeporting station in Nullsec for all to dock.  To each his own I guess, but thoughts are if it was meant for everyone to dock it would be Low/High Sec.  Neither here nor there so on to the post.....


It all started for us on November 4th 2014 with us finding out PFR had made a move to claim WPV-JN.  They had taken down the Sovereignty structures required to online their own TCU.  We were asked to kill it as we had really just started to grow and get ourselves ready to do PvP due to the new patch we took on the challenge.   We were not alone at the time a local lowsec group was helping us F0RCED ENTRY. a good group of pilots who you will hear more about later.  They had anchored the TCU so to deny them their claim we killed it and its defenders Battle Report.

I at least thought that would be the end of it our Land Lords don't have to come do anything job done we look better, and back to growing our alliance.  Oh how wrong I was!  They were tenacious to the point of absurdity/ignorance. 

We had got intel from a source on them moving a freighter with another attempt at placing another Sov. structure down.  We nearly had stopped them, but sadly we were to slow.... I burned my alt in a interceptor as fast as I could to get tackle and a warp in with help of ROC..  A snall fight with their small defense force was enough time for the freighter to offload, and secure its objective.  Battle report from that event.

At this time there were more groups either at the time scouting out the area Mostly Hammered, and even ROC. had ideals at this time to even try to take space.  With all these factions starting to bleed into ER we were asked to deploy and sport defending the front pocket of ER. So we deployed to C-4D0W. 

This would be our deployment area to defend ER from those coming in as best we could.  Now mind you we did have landlords who did come and help but rarely and only for the final timers normally so keep that in mind.  Though through our early successes we did something no one thought possible we grew a USTZ Renter coalition, and one had it been given more time could have done a lot of good things for the area.

Now to continue...

We fought with a T1 Doctrine of what we called the Mighty Maller, and the Moa.  Since most of us were new to PvP to easy the cost, and skill points needed we went these as our main line ships.  We wanted tank over DPS which helped us early, but proved to really make grinding anything painfully slow! With T1 and eventually T2 logistics we could hold the field far longer than we really should have been able to.  These were what I cut my teeth on as I learned to FC and take fleets out.

As things go people change sides and who you worked with are against you the next.  Seeing weakness in our landlords ROC. and F0RCED ENTRY. both went to either support PFR or do their own thing.  * I will not try to dig to deep on the politics here as my memory is terrible and I don't want to bog this post any more*

We lost WPV and surprisingly we had no idea that CT8K-0's station after the last invasion was never repaired so when PFR struck it was quick, and we woke up to PFR owning their first Freeport on 11 November 2014.  Now with them having a foot hold we were asked to be the force to make their work miserable, and to hit them everywhere.  We continued to pressure them with fights here, here with help from the best solo pvper I know Joffy!, Small things but it was building to one of the most defining fights for me personally as the largest battle I had FC'd. 

Though this isn't all we were battling a group called Anti-Social Club was trying to take space as we were called.  Oh at this point we were no longer renters per our land lords a major milestone for us and renewed our members, and helped us grow our new coalition.  This is one of my first FC battles, and with a ship I had little knowledge and use of the Ishtar.  The Battle Report and Video below.

 



 

 

We win the fight, and kill their attempt of hanging on to Sov in ER.  Then a few hours later we have to scramble to stop the take over of CL-IRS by a group all thought dead, and would eventually be dead again Ethereal Dawn TCU kill.



Now the first fight for CT8K-0 was not to happen.  PFR called for help, and had a NPSI group come and support them so we stood down knowing that we had one timer to win, and it was the one that mattered.  If you would like to know more about that please refer to PFR's Reddit.   The armor timer for the station was where we would make our stand, and one that would change the course of Eve for me, and my want to go full into FCing, and doing what I can to make my Alliance great.

Please see below video, and Battle report here for the down and dirty.  For me it was the largest fight I FC'd, and I was wide eye'd, but determined to fight and lose it all to try to win this fight.  At the time we formed 50 pilots from our Coalition, and were told Legion of Xdeath and/or Shadow of Xdeath were not going to be able to make the timer at all or if so late.  PFR called upon those who believed in their cause, and those looking to get into a fight which I think was their undoing in the end.  Notably TEST / Brave came through a new frigate Worm Hole with a maulus fleet which made our logistics group only able to lock out to 5k at best forcing us to ball up.  This with their other supporters and randoms brought the total if 300 pilots at its peak vs our 50.  PFR switched from their normal Caracal doctrine to Vexor Navy Issues which in my opinion a better choice, but I feel they just didn't have enough time in them to be very effective, and that I focused on their logi to help us drop their DPS quicker, and that caused them to leave the field early the first time.

So due to the Maulus's ships that failed to anchor up died or had to leave field and return later.  In the video any time you here me stop mid-sentence is our logi FC letting me know these issues.  They dual log on comms to avoid cross talk and allow me to call targets without them having to wait till I was done to relay information to the rest of the fleet. 

Yes I know a blue killed another blue I had no idea during the fight, and he like most of us was new.  Anyone that came to the fight and supported us I couldn't say anything bad about especially with the odds we were against so meh.  The Battle Report from Eve Kill as the Zkill doesn't show the total number of pilots.


We won little did we know that this would be the last good battle we would have as a coaltion, as a real enemy was lurking, and slowly approaching....