First we have my monolog:
Spoiler
I reactivated my accounts (at the time 2) Joined the ranks of Eve University back when there were 5 campuses and the AMC (Amarr Mining Campus) was in the Shemah system. I was getting settled in and receiving a 'welcoming' gank of my orca from some very well known Jita campers. my first year back I was effectively a fly on the wall, sticking to mining and missioning to get back what was lost. Unbeknownst to me the Triglavians were a thing and Niarja system fell and was claimed by the Trigs. The AMC campus moved to Averon and rebranded as the Averon Mining Campus due to the trade route between Amarr and Jita was now cut off.
This is where the spark that started the flame began. At this time I now had 3 toons 2 of which were in the glorified Miner fitted Orca with the third toon being set up as being a mindless orca miner. I was mining away (Not AFK at all) with my orca pair on opposite sides of the same asteroid belt occasionally pulling in my mining drones to swat the rats that would occasionally warp in. Well little did I understand at the time that 5 rats or more warping into the belt was going to be more than I bargained for. originally I did what most others would do and throw my hobbies at them, BUT they were eaten as soon as I managed to target these diamond kestrels that were now chewing through my alt's orca at an uncomfortable pace. my main's orca managed to get away, swapped hulls into my previously overpowered missioning Drake and warped in to the belt to attempt to save my slowly dying Orca. I managed to get the swarm to aggress my Drake, tank their abuse, and get my alt's orca, now in hull, out!... but now I had a new problem, my drake was stuck, drones were eaten but I was still passively tanking them, just stuck.
While calling for help through Corp chats and what not, I attempted my research on these diamond rats and then I was made aware on how to look out for them. Initially I feared every system I found them in, even as far as stopping missioning in those respective systems because I heard that they harassed players throughout the system they were in. I resorted to searching our beloved wiki for answers but didn't find a whole lot on the subject until I was browsing the many forum topics and stumbled across a post about a proposed efficient way to combat the Forward Operating Base. I jumped at the first opportunity to join the guy who was testing his proposed doctrine of originally an Eos and Kikimoras for the fleet composition. I joined in a Tristan as I was trying to skill into his fits and see what was all going on as he was testing his fleet against multiple FOBs for results.
Unfortunately, life forces people's hands and the owner of the Eos and kiki doctrine left the game. I decided to attempt to skill into his doctrine and after a handful of ship losses, on Nov 26 0200ish I managed to FC my first successful FOB Bash. At the start isk was quite hard to gain and so every lost ship was very much felt, but with each successful bash, the spoils spoke volumes and we managed to keep a fairly small consistent group to combat the FOBs. I felt empowered now that I could consistently keep these Diamond rats from harassing my fellow miners and would try to run a fleet the moment, I found one near Averon, but I found out quickly that I wasn't the only group going after them as Structure Bashing can be quite profitable compared to most hi sec content.
I was in a small group fighting a half-beaten FOB when we were surprised of a pair of Leshak Battleships warped into the FOB and caused a response that would clearly wipe the kikimoras off the grid. By the time the fleet regrouped at the perch bookmark we found them with the FOB destroyed and our loot taken. over the next several FOB we had planned that day the pair would warp in, taunt us locally and once more take our content.
Instead of getting angry and stopping outright of combating these FOBs knowing that this pair of individuals would more than likely harass us more, I decided to attempt to match their strength, by working up the ship tree until I also was in one of those Leshaks (also made another toon to strive into a Leshak as well) applying the original Kikimora fit to be on the Vedmak, then the Drekovak and then finally the Leshak. I also turned my previously mindless orca miner into a second Eos pilot for safer DPS and coverage at this same point. Eventually (due to CCP intervention) the pair left E-Uni alone as the FOB fleet wasn't their only target to grieve.
For the best part of the following year I kept the doctrine the same aside from my Leshaks aiming to deter any other fleet from contesting my fleets, we eventually learned a rather hard lesson that Bigger isn't always better and while the current doctrine was working, it was slow to set up and I as the FC didn't want to rely on others to assist with the site prep of bookmarks and rounding up of the miners (I'll call it pride of independence). At this point E-Uni undergone a huge change and the new HQ was Stacmon and removed the idea of campuses.
The Average time for a FOB bash at this time was roughly an hour as we've learned that the Leshaks (or any battleship) cause rather large responses and take time to take down to allow the smaller ships to join in. Our next big blindside was a group of roughly 12 ships consisting of an Eos, Vedmaks and Ikitursas warped to a perch they made and then proceeded to warp directly to the structure as I warped to the usual battle bookmark at 300km, by the time my Leshaks tore through not only our response but their's as well, they has the structure destroyed, and that same group contested all other nearby FOBs surrounding Stacmon area.
Which now brings us to today's current doctrine of Vedmaks and Vexors (T2 variants if one was willing to spend their isk for an improved version) Smaller responses, less waiting at the perch to be called in and overall, 30-minute FOB bashings on average.
This is where the spark that started the flame began. At this time I now had 3 toons 2 of which were in the glorified Miner fitted Orca with the third toon being set up as being a mindless orca miner. I was mining away (Not AFK at all) with my orca pair on opposite sides of the same asteroid belt occasionally pulling in my mining drones to swat the rats that would occasionally warp in. Well little did I understand at the time that 5 rats or more warping into the belt was going to be more than I bargained for. originally I did what most others would do and throw my hobbies at them, BUT they were eaten as soon as I managed to target these diamond kestrels that were now chewing through my alt's orca at an uncomfortable pace. my main's orca managed to get away, swapped hulls into my previously overpowered missioning Drake and warped in to the belt to attempt to save my slowly dying Orca. I managed to get the swarm to aggress my Drake, tank their abuse, and get my alt's orca, now in hull, out!... but now I had a new problem, my drake was stuck, drones were eaten but I was still passively tanking them, just stuck.
While calling for help through Corp chats and what not, I attempted my research on these diamond rats and then I was made aware on how to look out for them. Initially I feared every system I found them in, even as far as stopping missioning in those respective systems because I heard that they harassed players throughout the system they were in. I resorted to searching our beloved wiki for answers but didn't find a whole lot on the subject until I was browsing the many forum topics and stumbled across a post about a proposed efficient way to combat the Forward Operating Base. I jumped at the first opportunity to join the guy who was testing his proposed doctrine of originally an Eos and Kikimoras for the fleet composition. I joined in a Tristan as I was trying to skill into his fits and see what was all going on as he was testing his fleet against multiple FOBs for results.
Unfortunately, life forces people's hands and the owner of the Eos and kiki doctrine left the game. I decided to attempt to skill into his doctrine and after a handful of ship losses, on Nov 26 0200ish I managed to FC my first successful FOB Bash. At the start isk was quite hard to gain and so every lost ship was very much felt, but with each successful bash, the spoils spoke volumes and we managed to keep a fairly small consistent group to combat the FOBs. I felt empowered now that I could consistently keep these Diamond rats from harassing my fellow miners and would try to run a fleet the moment, I found one near Averon, but I found out quickly that I wasn't the only group going after them as Structure Bashing can be quite profitable compared to most hi sec content.
I was in a small group fighting a half-beaten FOB when we were surprised of a pair of Leshak Battleships warped into the FOB and caused a response that would clearly wipe the kikimoras off the grid. By the time the fleet regrouped at the perch bookmark we found them with the FOB destroyed and our loot taken. over the next several FOB we had planned that day the pair would warp in, taunt us locally and once more take our content.
Instead of getting angry and stopping outright of combating these FOBs knowing that this pair of individuals would more than likely harass us more, I decided to attempt to match their strength, by working up the ship tree until I also was in one of those Leshaks (also made another toon to strive into a Leshak as well) applying the original Kikimora fit to be on the Vedmak, then the Drekovak and then finally the Leshak. I also turned my previously mindless orca miner into a second Eos pilot for safer DPS and coverage at this same point. Eventually (due to CCP intervention) the pair left E-Uni alone as the FOB fleet wasn't their only target to grieve.
For the best part of the following year I kept the doctrine the same aside from my Leshaks aiming to deter any other fleet from contesting my fleets, we eventually learned a rather hard lesson that Bigger isn't always better and while the current doctrine was working, it was slow to set up and I as the FC didn't want to rely on others to assist with the site prep of bookmarks and rounding up of the miners (I'll call it pride of independence). At this point E-Uni undergone a huge change and the new HQ was Stacmon and removed the idea of campuses.
The Average time for a FOB bash at this time was roughly an hour as we've learned that the Leshaks (or any battleship) cause rather large responses and take time to take down to allow the smaller ships to join in. Our next big blindside was a group of roughly 12 ships consisting of an Eos, Vedmaks and Ikitursas warped to a perch they made and then proceeded to warp directly to the structure as I warped to the usual battle bookmark at 300km, by the time my Leshaks tore through not only our response but their's as well, they has the structure destroyed, and that same group contested all other nearby FOBs surrounding Stacmon area.
Which now brings us to today's current doctrine of Vedmaks and Vexors (T2 variants if one was willing to spend their isk for an improved version) Smaller responses, less waiting at the perch to be called in and overall, 30-minute FOB bashings on average.
Secondly: I would like to Form a fleet to Celebrate 2 years as the FC leading the charge on the Structure Bashes Forming the Fleet.
Form-up Location: Stacmon the Quad
Time: 1300 evetime on November 26th - 0400 November 27th
Roles to fill:
DPS ships, Vedmaks and Vexors are the Doctrine (Undoctrined ships must be approved by the FC or you will not be allowed to use them)
Combat Scanner ship x2: Scan down all groups of Diamond Miners until the targets [ex. Guristas Production Venture] are found, squad warp Bunny pilot towards group at 100km off the target. Ideally being able to warp cloaked will speed up process to verify the target to avoid warping to the wrong group and needing to warp back. You will be needing to scan down the targets twice, first to warp the bunny at them, second to warp to them after they land on their safe and act as a warping point for the fleet to warp in and eliminate them. (Moderate scanning skills required)
Bunny ships x2: The Job is get warped to a group of Diamond miners [ex. Guristas Production Venture] by a Scanner pilot and spook the miners simply by being there on grid, Orbit an asteroid by at least 750km and turn your microwarpdrive on and keep the response that shows up on grid with you. A small ship able to go 2500m/s or faster works fine, the goal is to get out of the fleets range of aggression as they will burn toward you and not attempt you warp away and then on top of you to potentially webify and warp disrupt you.
Scouts: Not ship specific but they comb though constellations looking for more Strongholds for us to remove but also keep an eye on any possible gank activity.
Freighter: Since we are expecting a fair amount of loot potential, a freighter would be amazing to have in fleet to scoop up the loot and move on a cargo capacity of 480,000m3 is encourage to account for the armor cashed BPCs that can drop without us needing to drop all loot just to open the cashe and recollect everything.
Goal: attempt to run an all-day Structure bash party stopping only when the fleet is tired (mostly the FC) or until we knocked over 10 Structures. Everyone is welcome to come and go as they please in the fleet, but the size cap of the fleet will be 25 members as anymore will pull away from everyone's bounty payout. If there are slots available, I do not mind if anyone wants their alts to sponge the payments BUT they must be willing to kick their alts out the moment someone else wishes to join and be an active member of the fleet (DPS, Scouting, Bunnying, locating Strongholds, and Scanning/Bookmarking) if we are a full fleet of active members, then it will be first come first in
** Upon the destruction of a Stronghold a killmail will be awarded to the person that did the last bit of damage, please check your notifications for that if you are participating with DPS. everyone will be getting a bonus payout at the end of the fleet for each killmail they are on. Help the FC keep track of them as trying to payout 25 members 10 times will get mind numbing**
