Triglavian Stellar Fleet Destruction with EDI by Arin Mara

Goal: gorge on the Triglavian Wrecks after an assault on the Stellar Fleet Deployment Site in Triglavian Minor Victory Systems

### Background

Senior Fleet Commander Aryan Aryaie of the EDENCOM Defense Initiative invited me to attend the assault on the Triglavian Dazh Liminality Locus Structure. Dozens of EDI members spent a month testing out tactics and Ship Fittings against the Triglavian Fleet defending the Stellar Fleet Deployment Site Cosmic Anomaly in Minor Triglavian Victory Systems. It was time to strike and they wanted me to report on the culmination of their efforts.

Aryan Aryaie published the goal, Ship Fittings and form-up location three days in advance on EDI Discord Channel. All Ship Fittings were eligible for EDI’s Ship Replacement Program. Each capsuleer was assigned a ship before the Event. Inspired by Tolerin Escipions passionate letter about the importance of EWAR, I chose to fly a prototype Electronic Warfare Blackbird Cruiser. 😛

### Form up

We connected to the EDI Discord and wrote Es in the “EDI Public” in-game Chat Channel. After everyone was invited to the Fleet, the Fleet was set to free-move and we moved ourselves to the appropriate Squads.

The Fleet Commander delegated tagging and anchoring to DPS, Logistics and EWAR Commanders. They assigned a Drone Bunny and explained what each capsuleer will be doing after taking the Acceleration Gates into the Stellar Fleet Deployment Site. Upon my request, the Fleet Commander also assigned Mattio Ohaya as my personal handler. Their responsibility was to protect me from danger, to take additional notes and to make sure I am able to dedicate a sizable portion of my time to capturing data.

The setup to take out the Triglavian Stellar Fleet Deployment Site defense Fleet is extensive. It took Aryan Aryaie and their Fleet many attempts to optimize the Fleet composition, Ship Fittings, role assignments, risk mitigation and tactics.

Stellar Fleet Deployment Site is unique because:

  • only up to Cruiser sized vessels can squeeze through the Acceleration Gate
  • it houses the Dazh Liminality Locus Structure that halves the maximum number of locked targets

### Rules, priorities and responsibilities

Tagging:

  • DPS Commander uses 1, 2, 3 to tag Cruisers, then Battlecruisers in range
  • EWAR Commander uses A, B, C to tag the most dangerous Drekavac Battlecruisers

Kill priorities:

  • pulverize any Kikimora deployed weapon systems (I was aghast when I found out I was the first capsuleer to ever describe them on the Wiki :S)
  • destroy the Dazh Koliada Industrial ship
  • atomize weapon system deploying Kikimoras
  • dismantle DPS Commander’s tags 1, 2 and 3 in ascending order

Targets are jammed:

  • A by Sovereign Solette
  • B by Arin Mara 🙂
  • C by Damage Dealing Squad

Squads should enter and perform their duties in the following order:

  • Bait ships – stretch out the Triglavian defense Fleet across 100km
  • DPS and Logisticians – establish Anchor, tag, move the Fleet and fire
  • EWAR – suppress the most powerful Battlecruisers
  • Salvager – scoop up the Wrecks and sell the loot to hungry Jita shoppers

Standing orders:

  • Maintain Combat Communication protocols
  • EWAR capsuleers must maintain distance from Triglavian ships
  • EWAR ship must warp out to a Celestial if in danger
  • Deploy Drones only after weapon system deploying Kikimoras are atomized and the Fleet Commander gives the green light
  • Do not salvage without the Fleet Commander’s permission
  • Do not shoot the Dazh Liminality Locus as it will summon a powerful Response Fleet
  • Do not shoot Suspects or Criminals

### Fleet Maneuver Practice

Fleet Commander streamed over Discord and taught the Fleet how to:

  • setup the Watchlist
  • setup the Overview to see the Kikimora deployed weapon systems
  • find align Broadcasts on the Overview
  • approach, align and warp out to a Celestial
  • use the Tactical Overlay to find north
  • anchor and maintain bearing
  • manually pilot and maneuver in space
  • tag enemy ships
  • jam targets
  • armor repair other Fleet members
  • assign Drones to the Drone Bunny

### Timeline

  • 16:00 – Members begin connecting to the Public EDI Discord voice channel
  • 16:10 – Fleet forms, Es go up in the “EDI Public” in-game Chat Channel
  • 16:20 – Command and Drone Bunny roles and duties are delegated
  • 16:25 – Rules, priorities and responsibilities are established
  • 16:30 – Fleet undocks for Fleet Maneuver Practice
  • 16:50 – Fleet Commander assigns a capsuleer to watch the Directional Scanners
  • 17:00 – Fleet Maneuver Practice ends
  • 17:05 – Fleet warped to the first Stellar Fleet Deployment Site in the Litiura System
  • 17:10 – Triglavian defense fleet warps off, leaving the Dazh Liminality Locus undefended
  • 17:15 – Took a 15 minute break for bio, ship repairs and beverage resupply
  • 17:30 – Undocked and set destination for the Nonni System
  • 17:35 – Acceleration Gates to the first Site in Litiura disappear
  • 17:36 – Salvager begins scooping up Wrecks unmolested by Triglavians
  • 17:40 – Warped to the second Stellar Fleet Deployment Site in the Nonni System
  • 17:55 – Triglavian defense fleet warps off, leaving the Dazh Liminality Locus undefended
  • 17:56 – “For EDENCOM! For High Sec! For the State!” appears en masse in Local Chat 😀
  • 18:00 – Fleet is disbanded

### Fleet Commander

  • Senior Fleet Commander [Aryan Aryaie](https://evewho.com/character/2116877605) of the [EDENCOM Defense Initiative](http://edencom.space/join.php)
  • took suggestions from the Fleet about who should perform which role
  • delegated duties and tasks
  • reminded Fleet Members to start all sentences with their name
  • wrote detailed instructions and Fleet rules in the Message Of The Day
  • streamed the Fleet Maneuver Practice on Discord
  • encouraged Fleet Members to ask questions
  • warped the Fleet
  • did not fear being ambushed by other capsuleer Fleets in the Stellar Fleet Deployment Site
  • spelled out System and Cosmic Anomaly identifiers in English rather then phonetically
  • helped coordinate Logisticians

### Fleet Members

  • Adnan Sohail – Logistician
  • Altreilea Merud – Bait Multiboxer
  • Arin Mara – EWAR! 🙂
  • Aryan Aryaie – Fleet Commander
  • Black Lycan – Logistician
  • bomberrocks – Drone Bunny
  • caroua Blacksteel – Salvager
  • Eupraxia J – Logistician
  • Francis Terona – DPS
  • Kalam Merud – Bait Multiboxer
  • Malac Merud – Bait Multiboxer
  • Mattio Ohaya – DPS and my Handler 😛
  • Markov Martingale – DPS
  • Molodaya kochrgashka – DPS Commander
  • Mwadeeb2 – Logistics Commander and Anchor
  • Press i – DPS
  • Prospektor Schipplock – DPS Anchor
  • Sovereign Solette – EWAR Commander
  • Vital Remains – DPS

### Outcomes

After completing the Stellar Fleet Deployment Site you will receive a message “Unfortunately only the pilots in top 49 contributors are eligible for rewards.” if you don’t shoot a Triglavian ship inside the Cosmic Anomaly. If you were EWAR like me, you may get the worse of both world: no reward and a Standing loss with the Triglavians.  

The Bait ship was only able to pull away three out of more then a dozen ships.  

Both Sites were completed without any losses!

I, Arin Mara, 14th Wiki Curator of EVE University, am not aligned with EDENCOM or EDENCOM Defense Initiative. I would gladly make a report on Events, Fleets or Expeditions organized by capsuleers allied with the Triglavian Collective (or Rogue Drones or Sleepers or Drifters! :P). I have flown and made a report for EDI because Senior Fleet Commander Aryan Aryaie invited me more then a dozen times to attend their Fleet and always bribed me with a cushy role and a custom pre-approved SRPed Ship Fitting. 😛

A Surprising Roundabout Flight by iProphet2k

Some background…

Early in my EVE journey, looking at the map of the EVE universe, I wondered many times if it would be possible to circumnavigate it. But alas, the newbro-fear of the unknown, was way above the stress-levels I could bear at the time. My very first SoE mission happened to be during the Triglavian Invasion. Being new to the EVE story, I didn’t know who these Trigs were, why they were there, nor where they were. Trying to get to the next SoE agent halfway through the mission – what should have been 5 jumps – turned into 200-plus jumps, just to get around all the contested systems. And then I was killed by a gate camper on the last jump. If ever you saw a panicked-newbro, that was me. But the experience taught me how to use the in-game map, as well as the ever useful Dotlan.

Hanging out with the friendly E-UNI and participating in its many events helped me overcome that initial fear and showed me there is more help available than I thought.

Beginning to feel more confident, an event by the Desert Oasis corp caught my eye: a challenge to circumnavigate the cluster. It got me thinking. I decided to map out the route for myself using the rules as they had them set out. Although some jumps could have been shorter or quicker, I stuck to the most outward perimeter route. According to Dotlan this amounted to almost 230 jumps. Starting in Stacmon, going clockwise via Cloud Ring, all the way back to Cloud Ring and my dearest home-sweet-home.


Some estimates…

The competition was limited to 4.5 hours. So, unless you fly something faster than a shuttle, you can expect this route will take about 4 to 5 hours to complete. I did it over 2 days but adding up all the in-game time, it was almost 5 hours. When I started, I thought if something IRL happened I could always dock-up somewhere quickly. However, I saw no “friendly” stations anywhere. The only NPC stations (Blood Raiders) were in Delve. So this was a do-or-die race, with the only option to be prepared to make a quick deep space bookmark if I needed to be afk.


Some challenges…

I decided to use the cheapest shuttle I could buy, Minmatar, because I did not expect to survive the trip and being an Alpha, cloaking wasn’t an option for me. You just never really know who is out hunting and a simple shuttle doesn’t have any meat-on-the-bone worth chasing. I also did the run on a weekday to minimise my exposure to too many other players, any bubbles or gatecamps. As proof of my trip, I took a screenshot every time I came through a gate, while still cloaked and before warping off to the next waypoint. The longest warps I experienced, and there were a few that were quite long, were in Outer Passage, 8-AA98 to HZID-J (3 warps) and Archavoinet to Algasienan (2 warps). Just too far for my poor shuttle. I don’t know if someone following me for 10+ jumps qualifies as an actual chase – but that only happened once (in Fountain somewhere). He tried, but never caught me.

Some observations…

With no statistics to back it up. The ship type I saw most often was an Ishtar. Although I didn’t check every pilot in local, the profiles I did check showed very few players were pre-2019 (the oldest employment history date can tell you a lot about the pilot’s possible skill levels). But then it may have been just “that time of the day”. Most of the veteran pilots I saw though were in the southern and western parts of the universe (I’m not sure why). Sadly, I didn’t hang around long to fully absorb the wonderful views , but the most beautiful parts were in Cobalt Edge, where the purple and blue haze is amazing, and the ring in Cloud Ring seems so close you can almost touch it. Seeing all the beautiful nebula vistas en-route, I wondered if a pilot could circumnavigate one? The closest I got to a nebula was in Fountain and another in Cloud Ring – the routes start to go close then unfortunately go the other away.

Some conclusions…

I could provide you my planned route but strongly suggest you plan your own so you may discover the beauty of this universe for yourself. This was my first trial run to see how this works. So, take this as an invitation to join me for the next race around our circus arena.

One of the many great things in EVE Online is overcoming our inherent fear of failure. Know this, even if you get blown-up halfway through your venture, it is still an amazing experience and you will live to tell the tale. And best of all, fly again!

Fly unbounded!
o7

EVE University Loses A Friend

On September 18th, 2022, the members of EVE University commemorated the passing of a fellow corp member, Ergan Eto.  He had been battling stomach cancer for some time, and passed on September 3rd, 2022 at the age of 70. 

Ergan joined EVE University on January 31, 2019, and quickly became a prominent member who was well-known for his kindness, patience, positive attitude, and commitment to helping others.  He was a fixture of the High-Sec Campus, always willing to give advice and share his knowledge of EVE, all the while chatting about life and sharing his puns and unique sense of humor.  For many, he was a significant part of their first steps in EVE University and New Eden, and left a deep impression on their experiences within the game.  To those who knew him well, he was a mentor and dear friend. 

Ergan was posthumously awarded the EVE University Professor Medal, and was made an Honorary Member of EVE University in perpetuity.  The corporation refinery in Brellystier was also renamed the “Ergan Eto Library” in his honor.

To celebrate his life and commemorate his passing, a fleet set out from the EVE University headquarters in Stacmon on September 18th, at 18:00 EVE Time, and traveled together to the player memorial in the Molea system.  Comms were fairly quiet and somber as the group made the forty-three jumps from system to system.  After arriving in Molea, the fleet set up at range from the memorial and took turns speaking about their friend.  They spoke about the impact he had on them, and told stories about those moments with Ergan they cherished the most.  Many were unable to hold back the tears, and their voices frequently faltered as they tried to express how much he meant to them, and how much he would be missed.  Even those who didn’t know Ergan well were deeply moved by the experience.

The Molea Fallen Capsuleers Memorial was added by CCP in July of 2020.  It was initially a role-play site where players left in-game corpses, but over time it became a place where players left messages attached to cans to commemorate their friends and family members who had passed away.  The monument consists of three large earthen columns which surround a sculpture of two figures leaving a pod in a ray of light shooting toward the heavens.

Also in attendance were Ergan’s two sons, who are not EVE players themselves, but created an account just for this occasion.  They spent the previous day in-game with a member of EVE University learning the basics of fleet travel, so they could join the procession and be with those who wished to honor their father.   His son Drewzy spoke at length about how much the EVE community meant to his father, and how touched he and his brother were by the in-game ceremony and the outpouring of support and emotion.  He also talked about the positive influence his father had on his own life, and shared his own stories that reinforced what everyone already knew; that Ergan Eto was a kind, caring, and deeply compassionate man.  He will be greatly missed by everyone who knew him.

Fireworks filled the sky, and then the fleet moved to a low-sec system to light cynos in remembrance of Ergan, and all our EVE friends who have been lost.  


Eyes forward, capsuleer, the cyno is not yet lit.
Consider your modules, your rigs and ammo before you undock, for the cyno is not yet lit.
Break free of the station and witness the universe before you, for the cyno is not yet lit. 

Set your ship to fly through the vastness while you wait, for the cyno is not yet lit.
Pay attention, capsuleer, for those who have gone before you call for you to join them.
The cyno is now lit.
– Poem by Dranchella

And so it begins…

EVE University is going to war against RvB today!

We do have our fair share of experience with highsec wardeccers, as anything else, we use these always as an opportunity to teach our members about safety protocols, such as using voice coms and standing fleets as well as organising QRFs when targets show up around our campus locations. Of course, these wars are also a great opportunity to organise bigger fleets to take out the enemy’s war HQ as quickly and efficiently as possible.

This war is going to be a different beast altogether though. RvB and EVE University have taken up their old tradition and agreed to a mutual war with some specific rules, with the most important one being: keep it classy! We are looking forward to a week full of fun fights around the clock and constant opportunities to learn for all involved parties.

Of course propaganda and banter is part of any good war in EVE, so our Communications Department (now War Propaganda Department) has created some dashing media you might have seen pop up around various channels already. Most notably this animation by Fudster:

And these amazing posters by Marcel en Distel:

We are also holding an ongoing internal propaganda competition which has already yielded some gems as well:

Throwback to the Battle of Aldrat

We are lucky that Jalxan – a seasoned veteran who led the battle of Aldrat against RvB almost a decade ago – has recently returned to the Uni and found some time to share his thoughts:

Back in 2013, we were facing a war with RvB, with their intention of taking down the Eve University Player Owned Station (POS) in Aldrat. At the time, we were in a transitional phase, where the Ivy League Navy (an ancient predecessor to our now existing FC Team) was leaderless due to real-life commitments from its leadership, and we had no organized defense against them.

I decided at the time that I wanted to defend the POS, and requested permission from Kelduum Revaan (Eve Uni’s then-CEO) to help run the defense of the POS. In the end, I was given the temporary rank of “ILN Commodore”, to oversee the war.

From there, I got the ball rolling; after RvB put the POS into reinforced, I knew I needed to drum up interest to defend it once Reinforced Mode ended (old POS mechanics worked differently than today’s reinforcing of structures). I wrote up a lengthy heroic-style speech via Evemail, and hoped that I would get the numbers. I was blown away; by the time the fleet formation was done, we had enough to fill one fleet of 255 members, and the remainder which added together to about 450. It was – and may still be to this day the biggest fleet Eve University has ever fielded.

Leading such a fleet would not be easy, but thankfully I took the time to prepare. One of the things I organized before the battle was to split up my fleet into wings of 50 (which was based on how Eve Online handled fleets back then as well), with each one having their own individual shot-callers (to spread out the damage and make it harder for enemy logistics to protect their fleetmembers). I had most of my Wings hold at the Aldrat gate – this is where I wanted to hold them for the duration of the battle. I also had one Wing as a “firefighting” unit where they would respond to any escaping RvB members attempting to re-ship in-system (and oh boy did they try!). If I recall correctly, I was able to let logi set themselves up in their own squads, allowing them to do their jobs independently.

Separately, an RvB spy reached out to me, and helpfully provided me the name of the enemy FC; this was pivotal in the early minutes of the engagement, as their FC’s had to keep rotating for quite some time until they switched to out-of-corp ships. Eventually, RvB arrived.

At the time I thought they had numbered 150, but recent days I learned that they had at least 250, based on newly dug-up footage of the battle I found from the RvB side. Equipped with decent ships versus our kitchen-sink fleet of whatever we could pull together (back then we didn’t have doctrines nor SRP), it wasn’t going to be an easy fight.

I mostly-silently oversaw the battle, and allowed my Wing Commanders to make their shot calls, while I listened in carefully, giving boosts to the entire system in my Vulture 350km off-grid but within visual range of the battle (back then boosts worked system-wide). Occasionally I would interject with special orders (ie. “Spread your points” to the tackle, giving orders to my “firefighting” squad, giving priority targets against the enemy FC’s, etc). The battle raged for quite some time.

That being said… don’t be afraid to take risks either; after all, when I led the Battle of Aldrat, I had never FCed any fleet with more than 50 members before, and I was honestly going by the seat of my pants. I may have led the Battle of Aldrat and some other battles to victory, but I’ve also lost some as well. And that’s okay! We’re all here to learn.

If you’ve never done PVP before, this is a great time to learn it. This is also a great opportunity to sign up for the FC Team! It is not often when we get to fight a war with terms, instead of having to defend ourselves in a war with none. Expect lots of good-fights, and expect lots of explosions! Don’t forget the SRP program, which means your losses will be covered if you follow doctrines.

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. 🙂

My experience with EVE University’s 17th anniversary

Originally posted on Hideo Date’s personal blog

Poster by Marcel en Distel

This was the craziest week for me yet in EVE…

EVE University had it’s 17th anniversary on the 15th of March. I really enjoyed taking part and even being able to contribute in some way to the celebration.

Fellow Unistas Auron Delarnu and Psychotic Fickity did a great job getting a week of amazing events off the ground. They involved all our different campuses and those really came through and created a week packed with events and activities.

Sometime during the planning phase, I suggested doing at least one public event for the birthday itself. As I had some memories of Chribba attending the 14th anniversary and wanted to get some celebrity to rouse the crowd, I volunteered to reach out. Chribba obliged gladly to our set time for the event. I was thrilled, but then discovered that many younger players seemed to not even know who he was. So we thought about how we could get some teasers and info out in advance to create a bit of hype. A few weeks before the anniversary, information about a new EVE monument in Amarr dedicated to Chribba leaked and I was even more excited, hoping it would be there for our party. As it turned out, it would go live about a week before.

Celebrating the beauty of New Eden

My first entry to Fudsters competition and one of my favourites todate

For the week of the anniversary, I was planning to attend only a couple events if time allowed. I would be sure to support everything else that was going on with regular Twitter posts and getting people to share pictures of the events, so we had stuff to get out to #tweetfleet via our EVE University account. If nothing else, I was banking on fellow Unista Fudster to take a few of his absolutely bonkers shots…well he came through, but in a very different way than I was expecting: he actually started a screenshot contest revolving around our public eve-in-pictures Discord channel. We were able to hook him up with nice prizes to give out for the winning pictures. He was so inundated, that it was actually hard to decide on how to distribute them. The competition sparked an onslaught of awesome pictures in the Discord channel and will hopefully lead to more competitions and a huge collage by Fudster.

The entry that got me a prize in Fudsters competition

As Razorien (CCP Aperture) is active in our pictures channel as well, Auron got the idea to have him involved in our festivities. So I reached out to him less than a week before the Birthday, thinking he would probably not be able to make time on such short notice. But lo and behold, he agreed to be our Birthday photographer from start to finish on the 15th. That had me even more excited for the celebration!

Plans shattered, plans adjusted

Poster for the final celebration by Marcel en Distel

In the meantime my plans of just being a bystander were crushed as all the wonderful moderators I asked to do the talk with Chribba (and now with Razorien as well) weren’t able to make the time. That left me hatching plans with Auron of how to make the travel fleet and celebrations interesting – I was so worried it would be boring for people and I wouldn’t be able to moderate the talks well. Auron had the original idea of doing the Uni internal fireworks celebration at the Bonfire in Munory. A neat place with a surprisingly dark history, as it was a ritual place for the Blood Raiders. Munory is very close to Amarr, so that was perfect to combine both the more private party and the public event seamlessly.

My anxiety spiked when the official EVE Online twitter account shared the info about the celebration I had put out. At that point, I was thinking this could become much bigger than I originally anticipated. I shared my troubled thoughts with Razorien and Chribba who were both very nice and chill about it. I was really worried to be responsible for enabling the destruction of the Veldnaught. But Chribba just said that that would be an epic event.

So I toned down my expectations on the Sunday before the celebration to not go completely crazy. Which was very good, as we didn’t end up having a huge crowd.

Then I was hit in the guts with our ex-CEO Laura Karpinski announcing her departure from EVE Uni after nine(!) years of dedicated service to our community! That was quite the downer for me the weekend before the party. Nevertheless, I wish her an awesome time in Horde and hope to get to shoot her at some point 😉

The day of the festivities

Finally, the 15th March 2021 rolls around and everything is set. We are starting with a travel fleet from our Highsec Campus to go to Munory. Apart from the travel-ready frigates we would eventually pick up a couple Typhoons as well, which you’ll see making an appearance later on.

When our first guest joined us, as we were forming up, we got to feast our eyes on a rare little ship, enigmatic and kinda unassuming, but more powerful than even the mighty Titans: CCP Aperture appeared out of nowhere in his Dev-ship.

CCP Aperture’s (Razorien) Enigma Shuttle Dev-Ship

We went on our way to Munory, trying out the new formations, talking about the Blood Raiders and getting to see some favourite pics Razorien chose out of our competition entries.

As I do actually play with game sounds *gasp* going through gates while fireworks were going off was often deafening.

Fireworks around a gate while about to jump

Once we reached Munory we were treated with fireworks by some Unistas that had already travelled there beforehand.

Fireworks set off by Unistas while we where landing on The Bonfire

We stayed a while and enjoyed the site and many fireworks, using the dark ritual place for more enjoyable festivities.

Afterwards, we moved on to Amarr, made the fleet public and were greeted by a few people already gathered around Chribba’s Monument. The Veldnaught came in as Chribba joined our public Mumble and CCP Convict also joined our fleet and on my Twitch stream.

Chribbas Veldnaught at his Monument getting blasted with fireworks

Talking to Chribba about his exploits and the (g)old(en) times of EVE Online was thoroughly enjoyable. It is amazing that he has been in the game continuously and such an institution in and of himself for so long – in a way similar to EVE University.

Chribbas Monument under a rain of fireworks

We talked about his obsession with Veldspar – and tried to get some details on the vastness of his wealth, which he understandably was a bit vague about.

Of course we talked about the history of his Veldnaught and I, as a player who hasn’t been around since the dawn of New Eden, was astonished at how back in the day even affording a single Cruiser would have been a huge undertaking. Chribba talked about how he had to work hard for weeks to even just get the few million needed together. The mighty Revelation that was still standing before us was an entirely different beast of course. At the time he had poured pretty much all his accumulated wealth into it and still cherishes it to this day.

He still regularly mines with his Revelation in Amarr and describes it as a subpar mining ship, but a great social miner.

Even before the event started he was around and made a little fashion show, which one of our Unistas was able to capture beautifully:

Chribbas fashion show, by Hikaru Sakai

Most of Chribba’s fame and fortune stems from his brokering of Supercapital trades, and he gladly shared stories from his golden days before the advent of Citadels. I was again astounded at the actual amount of trades he did, as I couldn’t have imagined the volume of Supercapitals being handed around before it was more convenient and safe to do so. He was easily able to do five to ten trades every day, each netting him a commission of 300M ISK. And this was when Titans and Supercarriers were not as much of a commodity as they are today.

We also had loads of great questions from many Unistas coming up and Chribba gladly obliged and happily told his tales of yore.

I was actually planning to do some formation warping around the Monument, but as the talk had me captivated, I only tried a couple of warps at the end. Nevertheless, there were loads of great photo opportunities and a near endless amount of fireworks – though some Unistas ran out halfway through and had to get more from the tradehub. Our two beautiful Typhoons also danced around the Veldnaught in loving embrace and with matching SKINs:

To culminate the celebration, Psychotic Fickity recited her version of “Goodnight Moon”, which I had never heard of, but I guess most people from the US would know.

I was able to snatch a few pictures of her Stratios while she recited.

It was truly heart-warming and a perfect ending of the event for me personally. It was late and my family was waiting, so I had to drop out quite abruptly. Some Unistas still stayed and jokingly attempted to “gank” the Veldnaught with Corvettes to end the celebration on a more explosive note. I won’t have to tell you that they did not manage to kill it:

I’d like to thank every Unista who helped to make the festivities throughout the birthday week a reality and everyone who showed up for the Birthday party as well. Thanks to the wider community for showing your appreciation for what we do and celebrating with us!

A special thanks goes out to our esteemed guests Chribba and Razorien. See you next year again 😉

Razoriens beautiful pictures of EVE University’s birthday can be found on his Flickr:

EVE University 17th birthday

Reflections on CCI

By Gergoran Moussou

On September 11, 2019, I became the ninth person to complete the requirements of the Cross-Campus Initiative after around four months of participation in events around the various campuses.

Like most people who join EVE University, I started at HSC. The most popular activities there, mining and mission running, were what I had been doing solo after finishing the Career Agent missions, so it was a fairly easy transition. The community was quite helpful for getting started. Even though I was unable to pull any L4 missions (and still lack the standings for the agents in Amygnon, since almost all of my solo missions at HSC were with Roden Shipyards). They gave me some good tips on how to do those activities and what ships I should train into for those activities, most notably when I was running L3 missions in a Drake and someone suggested that I train into a Dominix and then a Rattlesnake. Even when I didn’t have a ship which could help clear missions faster, people were glad to let me come along and salvage. However, the general focus of the campus meant that I was mostly on my own for what became my preferred activity: PVP. At this time, E-Uni rarely had PVP fleets scheduled, so most of my PVP was solo roams through nearby Low-Sec space (I had no victories). The first war after this year’s wardec changes was an incentive to do this more: T1 frigates are much more expendable than the Gila which I was using to run missions, so I spent more time outside of High-Sec since P I R A T rarely leaves High-Sec. Eventually, because I was spending most of my time in Low-Sec, for both PVP and exploration (since I found it very lucrative to dive into wormholes in the area), I decided to move to the Low-Sec Campus. My core impression of HSC’s community is that it’s full of people who like to do their own thing while enjoying each other’s company in voice communications, but will generally welcome you to join in if you want to join in on what they are doing.

When I arrived at LSC, I had in mind that it wouldn’t be a long-term stay and that after a while, I would check out a different area of space, either NSC or WHC. However, it quickly became a campus that I was reluctant to move away from. I joined during a golden age for the campus. The incredible work that Urban Oxide, the campus manager put into the campus made it easy to do everything out of there. The community was smaller than HSC, but hugely active and eager to do stuff together. No matter when I logged in (some days, my work schedule made EUTZ more convenient, others, USTZ, and I often did both a couple of weeks into my stay at LSC when I began several weeks of unemployment), there were people eager to do stuff. Usually, that stuff to do involved roaming around in small ships (mainly T1 and navy frigates) to find fights, so I found plenty of fights. One experience which I found at LSC, which I did not experience at all at HSC was interacting with the neighbors. When I was at HSC, I didn’t pay attention to who the neighbors were at all. Because LSC has more interactions with other players (often involving the exchange of ordnance), I kept track of who else roamed CalGal, both to consider what I might be up against and because some of them ended up becoming my friends. Even now that I have moved to a different campus, I keep my medical clone here and generally stage my fleets from here because it is a more convenient location than any other campus for roaming CalGal.

After a few weeks at LSC, I ended up at my current home, the Wormhole Campus. The first thing that I noticed was that there was significantly less room for doing stuff as individuals than the other campuses. I arrived at an unusual moment: after finally applying to WHC after weeks of procrastination, my first visit ended up being to defend some structures which got reinforced in the same weekend that I applied, before I was actually accepted. This mostly involved sitting docked in the Astrahus with a lot of other people waiting in a Retribution in case someone ended up showing up for the timer (fortunately, this didn’t happen, but that was an incredibly boring three hours). After this, I had the opportunity to do a more normal WHC activity, PVE harvesting, because Bacon (WHC’s C3 static) connected to a system with a Low-Sec static to Eugales (LSC’s home system). They formed up a harvester, so I refit one of my Confessors (since it was a Wolf-Rayet system) and joined them for it, making more ISK per hour during that than any other PVE activity that I had done to that point before logging off. I got accepted to the campus that evening, while I was on the way to the staging system for a non-Uni fleet, so as soon as I got back, I moved my scanning Anathema and the aforementioned Wolf-Rayet Confessor into my new home. More than any other campus, things are unpredictable due to the nature of wormholes, so while I have called this my home, there aren’t often any planned events and I therefore didn’t count anything at WHC toward the requirements for CCI. Some days, I’ve been in multiple intense PVP events, I’ve also spend fairly long periods without seeing much PVP in the WHC chain. Some days, we’ve rolled into great systems for PVE (the two main requirements being a small number of connections and a large number of combat anomalies), other times we’ve ended up with systems that either had no PVE content or were too dangerous for it. The main thing that it doesn’t have which LSC has is accessible solo content: as someone who hasn’t trained into any sort of cloaky combat ship yet, I can’t really hunt the chain yet in something which can engage targets that I might find. For this reason, I keep a stock of ships at LSC for use when I feel like solo-roaming. However, the teamwork-focused nature of wormhole living has made the WHC community into an extremely close-knit one.

In addition to the three campuses which I’ve used as my primary home, I’ve done stuff at a few other campuses. The first campus which I checked out was the Null-Sec Campus. I went over for a visit a week or two after moving into HSC and got set up with a ratting ship. Unfortunately, my early visits to NSC ended up being a false start: while I ended up appearing on a killmail for the first time, I got the impression that people there generally flew ships which I couldn’t fly yet (having barely trained into cruisers at the time), so I stayed away from NSC for a while. However, I later ended up returning for some scheduled roams and mining operations. I found the roams to be quite enjoyable as a change of scenery from my usual areas of Placid and Black Rise, while the mining operations gave me some great ISK. My experience of the Amarr Mining Campus has been a pretty good one. I’ve participated in a couple of mining operations on my primary character and many more on my alt which I keep at AMC (sometimes I mine while doing something on my main, sometimes I mine while sitting docked up on my main because of stuff going on in the chain, sometime I mine while not logged into my main, but there’s always something to mine, preferably ice). The community down there is fairly laid-back and relaxed, so when I’m down there, I generally enjoy the social aspect of the campus. I’ve often found amusement in how the mindset of the other miners down there differs from mine with regard to PVP. It was even funnier when the opposite occurred one time and I went on a rather long explanation to some people in WHC’s Mumble channel about which ores are the best to mine and why, despite there being almost no mining of anything other than gas at WHC (although I try to mine some ice whenever we get a shattered system near enough to be worthwhile). The last campus which I really participated in (aside from a couple of visits on my own over the months before I made my way over there) was Project Solitude. Again, like the other campuses in High-Sec space, this is a fairly laid-back community, but the isolated nature has its own appeal which I particularly like. I’m working on setting up some things to do in this location specifically to take advantage of that isolation.

Both times when I changed my primary campus, it took a bit over a week to get fully situated at the new campus. The first time, it was mainly for financial reasons. After moving to LSC and dedicating most of my game-play time to PVP, I ended up both making significantly less ISK and losing a lot more ships, so whenever I saw HSC mission fleets scheduled, I flew over because I hadn’t yet figured out how to make much ISK in Low-Sec. The transition from LSC to WHC was more because I felt overwhelmed by how much more demanding wormhole living is at first and I hadn’t gotten used to the idea that content might be different from day to day yet. Unfortunately, LSC’s golden age concluded soon after I got myself fully situated at WHC (the campus manager stepping down for real-life reasons and the assistant manager leaving E-Uni resulted in a lot of services being suspended and player engagement at LSC dropping significantly).

Finally, I noticed when adding myself to the wiki page for CCI medalists that I had directly interacted with the majority of previous medalists in earning it. Esca Sinak, the last person before me, does not interact with me very often but was in the first fleet that I scheduled and has processed many of my SRP requests. Psychotic Fickity was one of the first people who I remember encountering after joining E-Uni and being introduced to people in Mumble, and ran the first few events that I participated in. Penelore was no longer involved with FCC by the time that I started taking fleets out, but her alt which remained in E-Uni for a few weeks after that was in my first fleet and talking with her in LSC Mumble gave me a lot of informal advice on how to run fleets. She was also one of the people who most strongly encouraged me to head over to WHC. Mike Kingswell is a common fixture at any HSC event that I’ve logged in for during EUTZ hours, particularly when I’ve shown up for the monthly shared can (otherwise known as Mike’s Bounty Mining) and was very helpful when I first posted a fleet on the calendar, suggesting a good route (which I ended up following for the most part). Budda Sereda left E-Uni before I joined, but he still participates in FCC Slack and I’ve gotten some helpful feedback from him.