EVE Uni’s Curious Expeditions: Swarming Nullsec with F.U.N. Inc. Interceptors

Originally posted on our public AAR forum by Arin Mara, newly adapted for the blog.

Consume the World! Alliances of New Eden, hide your Pods, hide your Ships for the Interceptor swarm has come to devour you all!

Get Your Fleet On! by Razorien EVE

The goal of this report is to showcase the F.U.N. Inc. community, prepare prospective capsuleers and set expectations for their events, lavishly praise, thank and show gratitude towards others’ hard work and analyze the Event and its Fleet Commander in hopes of replicating and improving the same.

If you want to try out the Event for yourself, check their NPSI calendar, where you can also find fleets by various other NPSI groups.

Background

Every month or so I go out into the wild carrying the Torch of the University in an attempt to shake hands with different communities in New Eden. Fellow Unistas Marek Holmberg and Tolerin Escipion told me about the ShrinkWrapped Event, where everyone flies an Interceptor, run by Fleet Commander keacte of F.U.N. Inc.. Marek had nothing but praise for the Event and its Fleet Commander. He described keacte as “one of the best”, “professional and pleasant” and “fearless and relentless”. 

I approached F.U.N. Inc. via Discord about attending the ShrinkWrapped Event and was immediately warmly welcomed.

F.U.N. Inc. is well organized. I had no problem finding all the necessary information about the Event: goal, duration, Ship Fittings, form-up location, how to connect to F.U.N. Inc. Mumble. They had everything from an in-game channel “EBWF public” to a Forum post on our own EVE Uni Forums. 🙂

All the loot belongs to F.U.N. Inc. and is given away during festivities. There is no Ship Replacement Program.

Ship Fittings are designed for full fitting skills Level V skilled capsuleers and the ShrinkWrapped Interceptor costs about 70M ISK. I struggled to board the Ship because I didn’t have enough Powergrid to support all the Modules. I had to buy an Implant and turn off a Module to get the Ship to work.

Form-up

As we were fitting our Ships, the Fleet Commander told us to quickly fill out two forms, lest we wanted to be kicked from the Fleet. One of them had a table titled “EWAR” that lists “… Track, Paint, Logi, Probes” in rows and a scale of 0-3 in columns. I had no idea what that meant. Marek pointed out it was asking “How many EWAR Modules of each type do you have fitted?”.

The Fleet Commander explained to me that the purpose of the forms is to expedite form up and balance EWAR. The hurry was meant for the capsuleers who already had a Ship, not for those who are yet to board one. By filling out the forms, the Fleet Commander was able to better allocate EWAR to capsuleers who still didn’t have a ship.

A very verbose capsuleer in Mumble couldn’t fill out the forms because, to them, they appeared in Czech. We had a good laugh as, according to the Fleet Commander, this was the first time that happened in more than fifty Fleets. 😀

Travel

When we undocked the Fleet Commander set the destination over Mumble as “Nourv on the Tama Gate”, but posted “Oinasiken” as destination in Fleet Chat. Because the Fleet Commander pronounced only the first five letters of an unpronounceable Caldari State System, because I was taking notes for this Report and because it was my first time attending the Fleet, I got lost. Thankfully, another fleet member wrote what was said over Mumble in Fleet Chat and I recovered my bearings. 🙂

As we travelled to the Wormhole leading to Thera in Oinasiken, with the intention of jumping into Null Security Regions, the Fleet Commander instructed us on who to include on the Watchlist, delegated intelligence gathering tasks, forbade the premature destruction of enemy Capsules and reiterated the dangers of not adhering to Standing Orders.

From then on, we consumed every single Ship that failed to run away…

Timeline 

  • 18:30 – Discord ping reminds everyone the Fleet will form in an hour in Jita
  • 19:30 – Fleet forms, Xs go up in “EBWF public” in-game Chat Channel
  • 20:05 – Destination set as Thera Wormhole in Oinasiken
  • 20:10 – Watchlist and Message of the Day set, D-Scan and Local Chat intelligence gatherers assigned
  • 20:20 – Two Wormholes inside Thera collapse after Scouts went inside them, but before the Fleet could enter; Scouts recalled
  • 20:23 – First kill was a Bustard inside Thera; due to the Gala Event, it dropped 90% of the loot
  • 20:30 – Took the third Wormhole from Thera into Null Security Region of Catch, loot has been stashed away successfully
  • 20:46 – Contact made with a hostile Battleship, but it aligned, used the Micro Jump Drive and warped away
  • 20:48 – Fleet Commander authorized the use of a Micro Jump Field Generator to prevent a Battleship from escaping, but the target jumped through the Stargate; Fleet movement orders around the pair of Stargates were confusing; we did destroy the Apocalypse in the end
  • 20:50 – Fleet Commander immediately acted and divided the Fleet into three equal Damage Dealing Wings, assigned Wing Commanders and ask the Fleet to remember their Wing number 
  • 21:00 – In GE-8JV System I’ve found a Level 1 HZO Refinery, Amarr Empire, COSMOS Mission Agent Galhar Lahara flying an Impel 😀
  • 21:05 – Fleet of fifty three members failed to overwhelm a Saber’s spatial distortion field
  • 21:15 – pulverized an Orthrus and their expensive Capsule before it could jump through the Stargate
  • 21:20 – Criminal Gnosis, Sabre and Oracle escape through the Stargate; Fleet Commander relentlessly pursued the Oracle; I thought our engines would give up 😀
  • 21:27 – Smashed a Cerberus, but their Hugins and Sabre companions escaped
  • 21:28 – Moved from the Catch to the Providence Region
  • 21:30 – Dismantled a Jaguar who dared approach us
  • 21:32 – Atomized a Drake and their expensive Capsule for fun
  • 21:44 – Set a Cerberus ablaze, but not before they retaliated against Otto Deitrich, killing them instantly
  • 21:48 – Fleet Commander asks how we are liking the Event; I state that the only thing that could make it better is a break; Fleet Commander responds to me directly and grants me my wish, yaaaaay 🙂 🙂
  • 22:03 – Break over, Fleet undocks 
  • 22:16 – Vanquished a Malediction that was slightly too brave
  • 22:20 – Took apart two Exploration Asteros because they gave us the evil eye
  • 22:30 – Hostile capsuleer ejected from their Jaguar and escaped in a Capsule possibly because they had expensive Implants
  • 22:41 – Landed on a large Fleet and scared to death two Exequrors and a Manticore as at least six other ships escaped because we failed to scramble their Warp Engines
  • 22:50 – Sunk two smartbombing Typhoons without a single casualty; Fleet Commander thought the Fleet was splitting damage, but the Typhoons were smartbombing each other 😀 Fleet Commander apologized for criticizing the Fleet
  • 22:53 – Cruor send into the oblivion from whence it came
  • 22:56 – Fleet Commander offered Fleet Members to leave the Fleet through the Stargate to an adjacent High Security System; I left, but not before thanking the Fleet Commander, the Logisticians, Scouts and the Fleet for a great night 🙂 

And as soon as I left a multi-billion ISK Marauder appeared in the System. For Yto and Marek’s Nullbear Hunt regulars, this occurrence will be par for the course. 😛

Assessing the FC and Fleet experience

keacte of F.U.N. Inc. came highly recommended. They swore twice and no more than ten bad words were uttered during three hours of intense combat; the Fleet Commander assures me that they are seldom PG18. They insisted, twice, that there are no dumb questions and encouraged Fleet Members to speak their mind. 

D-Scan and Local Chat intelligence gathering, Scouting and making a novice Logistician speech to Fleet Members were all delegated. Align, Jump, Warp and Kill command were repeated thrice.

They withheld the ultimate Null Security destination until we jumped into the Catch Region from Thera.

Letters were spelled out in English, rather than phonetically.

The fleet used many tactical bookmarks the FC had prepared around Null Security Stargates to catch idling ships.

They were relentlessly bloodthirsty and wanted to kill everything from exploration Frigates to smartbombing Battleships.

The FC regularly reminded Fleet Members to repair their Modules and reload Charges, generally emphasizing the importance of tight, precise and clear communication and made a habit of praising Combat Probers, Scouts, Logisticians and other Specialists Fleet Members.

F.U.N. Inc’s keacte organized a public 50+ Interceptor Null Security Fleet and made it run like clockwork: form-up took 30 minutes +-5 minutes, commands were given precisely and predictably, issues were calmly dealt with on the fly within minutes. We warped to and shot at every ship. When our guns were empty, we took a ten minute break to buy more ammo. There was no bait too big to swallow, no vessel too small to catch.

Being able to join a fleet with keacte as an FC, with fellow Unistas Marek and Tolerin by my side, was exceptionally enjoyable and their corporation, F.U.N. Inc., is truly worthy of the name. 🙂

EVE University at the A Band Apart Frigate FFA 2021

This year’s historic FFA in Ouelletta was attended by many pilots of EVE University. Three of them share their own stories and impressions of the event as well as screenshots of pretty explosions (all embedded pictures done by the respective pilots, if not otherwise stated).

Fudster’s story

Low Security space in EVE is dangerous: death awaits you in many ways. Pirates and well trained pilots await your entrance into their protected lairs. The flashing yellow skull of a suspected pirate on a pilot’s name is a badge of honour. You live by the pirate code or you die.

Promotional Graphic by Rixx Javix

There is a myth that many living pirates in EVE become worshiped icons. The gods of Amarr are secondary to these monolithic leaders of looters and vagabonds, and none more so than A Band Apart’s central figure of low security piracy, Rixx Javix. The nicknamed “King of low Sec,” Rixx rules with a gentlemanly efficiency of killing any pilot that ventures into unprotected space without protection. You’ve been warned!

Every now and again, King Javix shows mercy on his subjects. He toys with his fortune and feeds us poor mere mortal capsuleers with events in his honour. To mark the year YC 123 of his rule, Rixx Javix announced his annual frigate free for all in Ouelletta and welcomed New Eden in for spoils and kills. Each pilot would be fed copious free ships for use on the battlefield, where everyone was a primary target until none remained. At 16:00 the lawless feast would begin with fireworks, but end in death.

So here I was, a high security pilot with little solo pvp experience, navigating through copious wrecks and discarded drones, targeting anyone that was untethered and in range. We’d only been at it for 2 minutes and already the battlefield was filling up with aspiring pirates. Many had died already and reshipped while Ouelletta had swelled to over 600 pilots in the system, growing as the word had got out over New Eden. The gates into Ouelletta were flashing with bursts of new and veteran players entering, including the prestigious CCP, looking for targets and killmails.

Within those quick minutes, I managed to get my first target in my Punisher. Brawling them, I swung in underneath, manually twisting and diving to keep range, but also trying not to get hit. I broke my victim’s shields and armour very quickly, but then it became apparent, I wasn’t fighting them alone and I was also now being targeted… by many pilots! As soon as my target went down, I too became fodder and was stripped of my victory dance and left naked on the battlefield in my pod. After having to wait out my naughty pirate person timer, I docked up and was promptly handed another free ship. Like a gazelle, I leaped back out into space and… died before I could even get a reasonable hit on an enemy. Confused and bewildered at how quickly I had died was soon explained when I looked at my screen to see a little circle ⭕️ appear. TiDi (Time dilation – a server slow down mechanism to prevent server crashes) had appeared to curb the pilots in the system and my ability to fight back. Docking back up and receiving a new free ship, I promptly found this event was like no other and I was having one helluva time.

Punisher tethered up at the beginning of the event, ready to engage

With Ouelletta swelling to 900+ pilots, it was time for the King to announce his presence in system. Flying out into the middle of Ouelletta in a Naglfar dreadnought class ship, Rixx Javix ushered in his minions of admirers and objectors to shoot their webs and many weapons at him in his honour. We appeased with gusto, however, our meager weapons were only scratching away at his shields. After a few more pilots arrived, including many from Eve University, Rixx succumbed to Bob and lit up the system with a beautiful orange explosive salute. The first big capital ship in Ouelletta in the event had been taken.

An overview look at the carnage of debris lying on the battlefield within the first two hours.
Rixx Javix’s Naglfar begins to explode after defeat

Meanwhile, CCP members were playing their own part of sacrificial duties by enticing the event’s participants to come and play. Many obliged, including our own Unistas. The glorifying kill of a CCP pilot is one thing, but to scoop their dirty unwashed corpse from the clutch of the void for exclusive bragging rights. Eve Uni’s own Hikaru Sakai was eager to the cause and scooped the CCP corpse from the many other pilots burning to get their cargo bays filled with this prize. Hikaru’s excitement was hard to contain on mumble comms, justified and commended by his fellow envious Unistas. Hikaru had joined the illustrious group of owners of a CCP corpse. The trophy cabinet had its coveted prize.

Even though TiDi was still prevalent in the system, many more capital ships were taken to the slaughter. A sacrificial Revelation capital and Kronos marauder fell in the carnage while almost 6000+ frigate ships had been handed to eager capsuleers. The seismic destruction was relentless in the 4 hour event. The death toll of ships sinking in the seas of piracy kept rising, eventually topping 10,000. Wrecks and abandoned drones littered the battlegrounds in front of the Astrahus Toothpaste Fish like offerings to the monolithic leader.

As the event closed and ship supply ran thin, the seas of piracy still ran thick with the explosive sounds of battle. Rixx announcing the end of the event was endorsed with the salutes of over a hundred pilots and victims alike. The beautiful destruction was a complete success and will be discussed at length in many a corporation’s comms channel for weeks. As a pilot with limited experience in low security, I have a reignited confidence and respect for entering low security. Pirates are dangerous and destructive, but united with chivalry and respect to their enemies; the pirate code seems both welcoming and terrifying in paradox. Rixx Javix proved this within his wonderfully crafted event and I can’t wait to be a part of it again next year.

A Test Alliance Revelation receives damage as it is sacrificed in aid of the event.

Hikaru Sakai’s Story

The Frigate FFA on March 6th was my first FFA and the first time I experienced time dilation. It was a struggle to move around – but I actually enjoyed it. It gave me ample time to pick my targets and maneuver, preventing me from tunnel visioning. Throughout the chaos, I was able to get myself on 35 killmails and only lost 14 ships while also having a 0.5 drop in my security status. 

Rixx’s Naglfar from a distance

It was nice to see so many people in one system, as lowsec tends to be a ghost town. Many Unistas attended the event, and were having fun as well – Mumble was always lively. I arrived in Ouelletta 2 hours early, but there already were more than 100 people in local. It was heartwarming to see new players asking questions on the details of the event, and other players answering them to the best of their capabilities. 

When I first undocked in a Tristan, my client lagged. It was trying to load hundreds of frigates, drones, and wrecks – and I could feel my frames going down. My overview felt like a mess because so many neutrals had clogged up the “combat” tab. While tethered to the Astrahus, I took a look around my ship to find who was close by – and found a Merlin to shoot. After destroying the first Merlin, I found another – but was blown up soon after. The next ship I flew was an Atron, and killed two Kestrels in it. 

Local was an important tool during the event, as intel of ship traders and locations of valuable ships were given. Without that intel, I may not have realized there was a Naglfar or a Providence in system. Somehow the Providence made itself more expensive than the Naglfar by having more than 3 million copies of the Amarrian bible.

Hikaru’s Kestrel engaging Rixx Javix Naglfar

The Naglfar was piloted by none other than Rixx Javix, the organizer of the FFA. The first time I attempted to engage, I warped in about 90km away from the dread – with my prop mod on, I burned as fast as I could hoping that I wouldn’t be shot on the way. There were many others who made the same mistake I did, and we all zoomed in a straight line to Rixx. Unfortunately, my frigate was blown up – but with a quick reship into a Tormentor, I returned to the fight and was able to take some sweet screenshots of the dread explosion. 

Boom!
Boom #2!

Once the Naglfar went down, a Revelation became the new primary target. I shot the dread for a little bit in my Rifter, while dealing with a pesky Punisher that made an attempt to take me out. However, I decided to leave the area for a much more valuable target – CCP. After shooting CCP Convict’s Nergal, I was close enough to take out the pod and snatch the corpse. My hands were trembling as I spammed the warp button. I knew my cargo was valuable and was lucky that nobody scrammed me before leaving the grid. I quickly docked up and stored the corpse in an NPC station before yeeting the Rifter into PvP once more.

Hello there, CCP Convict 🙂

I don’t remember much about what happened after that – according to zkill I had reshipped into a Merlin and blasted a Rifter out of space – but the FFA soon came to an end. I learned later that there were an Orca and Moros that I had missed out on shooting at. There was so much going on, my brain needed a break from constant PvP and I relaxed inside a station. 

I’m so glad that I was able to participate in this event and get to say that “I was there”. The community is what brought me back in 2020, and ties me down to the game. Once again, thanks to Rixx and all of Stay Frosty for the production of all of these ships – from hulls to ammunition – and hope to participate again in 2022. 

Hideo Date’s story

What an event!

I was pretty hyped when Rixx Javix of A Band Apart announced the 7th Annual Frigate Free For All to take place in Ouelletta, just two jumps away from the EVE University Highsec Campus. As more details were published in the week leading up to the FFA, I got more and more pumped. I prepared a stash of ships in the freeported Astrahus as I had loads gathering dust anyway.

When the day came I knew I would only be able to jump in for a little bit at the start and maybe some more towards the end. So the plan was to quickly get all my little frigates killed first and maybe undock a few meme ships later. My first choice was the Atron.

The undock of the Astrahus Toothpaste Fish early in the event

I undocked and marveled at the astonishing amount of ships all over the Astrahus and observed the TiDi kicking in – which never was too bad throughout my time at the event.

Then I scanned around for flashy or criminal targets as I wanted to avoid tanking my sec status too much. I shot at a bunch of other frigates but nobody shot back. For a solid five minutes I was able to basically sit at the undock and kill with impunity. Didn’t get much in the way of last hits, but got on a few killmails. Only after going on to ten minutes was I finally killed. Shame, I was really hoping to burn through my ships faster 😉

Punisher Vs Revelation

After dinner and family time I came back and undocked the Punisher. A Revelation was getting tickled to death on the Astrahus and I joined in. As it seemed to hold for now I decided to try my luck at a couple plexes. Surprisingly there wasn’t much going on. I had really expected there to be more fighting throughout the whole system but it seemed heavily concentrated on the Astrahus and 5-5 station.

But in the end I managed to die. As I reshipped I decided to go directly for my cruisers to get back to tickling the Revelation. A Moros had joined in as well and I was able to see both Dreads break apart. Lost my first Rupture just as the Moros spiraled out of control.

Revelation exploding with Moros in the background

Looking around the huge mess I decided it was time to help with the cleanup, so I undocked my shiny salvaging Magnate and looked around for valuable wrecks to vacuum up. I was mostly ignored – again to my surprise – and seemed to also be amazingly safe within the tether even when salvaging. The only thing worthwhile I was able to get was an elite battleship wreck, otherwise a few elite frigates. All in all I managed to salvage about 10M… sadly no one blew me up in the process.

After tidying up the place for a little bit I undocked a Griffin which I used to annoy a Hecate gang and a few others. Again to my surprise, I was ignored for quite a while until some random frigate finally put me out of my misery of flying a despicable ECM ship.

Smartbombing Thanatos

My second Rupture was used on two Thanatos’s, one of Rixx – who cowardly docked back up, running away from the might of the rust – and one of WER4, our good ol’ wardeccers. After I was able to do the obligatory “cool kids don’t look at explosions” shot I was really expecting to be immediately focused on, as I had the slowest and biggest ship on grid at the time. But I had to beg a Flycatcher to take notice of me and show my dusty arty Rupture how to clean up.

Rupture giving the Thanatos the cold shoulder

To round out the evening I took out a Rifter, a Tristan and ultimately a Thrasher. I was again looking for fights around the system.

My Rifter found a few people engaged around a Plex and there was a lot of flinging of ammunition in all directions.

I generally find the Tristan to be overpowered, but in my hands – as someone helpless with droneboats – I found another pilot who showed me how to dispatch this mighty little ship.

My Thrasher was heavily outclassed by kitey ships, so that I couldn’t actually fight back.

At this point, the local and general activity had died down significantly, and looking at local chat there weren’t any more ships available to give out. So I was expecting most pilots to not be able to continue fighting.

It was a shame I didn’t get my neuting Maller into action or my arty Claw…now I have to find some other way to blow them up gloriously.

It was a great change of pace and a wonderful event, I deeply enjoyed taking out so many ships one after another and experiencing so many different engagements. Though I really expected to die a lot quicker than I did. Maybe I overestimated the bloodlust of my fellow capsuleers 😉

Huge thanks to Rixx and the wonderful ABA crew for organising and preparing this FFA! Looking forward to next year! o7

E-UNI Launches “Guest Fleet Commander” Program

For some time now, EVE University has restricted its fleet commanders to alliance members and a select few members with specific standings, but yesterday on July 16th, EVE University CEO Kelduum Revaan announced the formation of a ‘Guest Fleet Commander’ program.

This will allow select Fleet Commanders from different corporations and alliance within EVE to act as fleet commanders for EVE University fleets, allowing the students to gain a wider range of experience from FCs with different skill-sets and styles.

The first Guest FC to join the program is legendary Fleet Commander Ferocious FeAr of The Final Stand, who joined the EVE University Mumble server and spoke to members for quite some time last night.

We spoke to a couple of E-UNI Freshmen, Xelrich who was quite excited:

After merely sitting with her in channel and seeing her amazing knowledge of the game, I simply can’t wait to finally jump into fleet ops, something until now I’ve been too scared to get into seriously.

And fellow Freshman Morgaine L’Faye who was even more thrilled:

I never thought I’d be sad to see a war dec go away, but at least we have the next 24 hours to watch Fear give the war-targets the ass-whooping they need. I just hope I can get in on that fleet!

During wars, the Ally system as well as independent war-declarations will be used to ensure that guests have the same lists of targets as members, and E-UNI members will be restricted to the normal Rules of Engagement at other times (NRDS in LoSec, NBSI in Null).

If you or someone you know are interested in participating in the Guest FC program, please contact Kelduum Revaan for details.