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. πŸ™‚

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. πŸ˜€

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. πŸ™‚

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 numberΒ 
  • 21:00 – In GE-8JV System I’ve found a Level 1 HZO Refinery, Amarr Empire, COSMOS Mission Agent Galhar Lahara flying an Impel πŸ˜€
  • 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 πŸ˜€
  • 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 πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚
  • 22:03 – Break over, Fleet undocksΒ 
  • 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 πŸ˜€ 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 πŸ™‚Β 

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. πŸ˜›

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. πŸ™‚