Nancy was missioning in his Abaddon, which was set up with some pretty good pew pew gear so he could rip up the missions reasonably fast. Like most other players, he'd run the rooms and then come back with his noctis to see what goodies the Eve universe had dropped for him. While Nancy was in the final room, playing the part of Miss Muffet, along comes Cpt Boomstick, playing the part of the spider. Cpt Boomstick in his Vigil also brought along his orca alt and proceeded to start flipping the wrecks, possibly looking for ph4t level 4 mission l00tz, or more likely looking to bait my friend. Nancy, having set up his boat for artillery fit, and racing towards the wrecks, with the gas pedal to the firewall at a summer breeze pace of 68m/s, was in no way able to outrace Broomsticks vigil in getting to the wrecks, especially the Overlord's wreck. So, being quasi irritated by Broomstick ninja looting the wrecks before he could get to them, he weighed his options.
Nancy is no stranger to pvp and kill boards, so while finishing off the last of the mission rats, he noted that a number of Broomstick's kills were in a Loki. Not exactly a ship to be trifled with in a pve fit BS. So, my friend figured that if he tried to pop the frigate (which would be a tough process with the BS), that would make him all flashy, and Broomstick would pull out his Loki from the depths of his alt's orca. Broomstick's Loki would be a bad thing likely, because Broomstick has been playing long enough to know exactly what resists and hardeners a mission runner would be using, so using other ammo damage types would rip through Nancy's BS like new underwear on prom night. Nancy decided to say screw it (and as he doesn't have a salvage alt account that I TOLD him to start), he started targeting the wrecks and popping them, hopefully before Broomstick could get them.
"HA! In yer face, Broomstick!!", shouts Nancy, while sneering triumphantly at the computard screen.
Unfortunately, with the heady mix of auto-targeting, inattention, and single-shotting the wrecks, Nancy quickly popped the target-locked wrecks, and advanced all too quickly to the still targeted frigate of Capt Broomstick. He let fly with a very photogenic salvo of blue electrons in the general direction of the vigil, and fortunately for villainous Broomstick, but unfortunately for Nancy, the laser beams sailed wide of the mark, only so stab off into the darkness to take their place in the long, slow death of background radiation in the cold black of the Eve universe.
Now Nancy was all red and flashy to Broomstick, and the pvp dance was really starting to heat up.
In less time than it takes to say, "OMG! Is that a pony with a stick in its face?!?!?" Broomstick was on Nancy like a fat kid on a Smartie and Nancy was webbed and scrammed. Nancy launched his flight of Hob 2s to deal with Broomstick, and started to assess his options. Nancy's speed was now a blistering 32m/s, and he noticed that the orca was approaching him at a slightly more blistering pace and slowly gaining ground on him, all the while, Broomstick's vigil was slowly picking off Nancy's drones, repping the damage, and carving tight orbits around the Abaddon's bulk like an excited blow fly circling a bloated wildebeast carcass in June.
Err . . . Africa is south of the equator, so I guess that means June is likely in their winter, and probably not so hot . . . Ok, so pretend the dead wildebeast is in a zoo in Toronto. Now THAT would be hot! Hooooieeee!
So anyway, Nancy pulls his drones back in because they aren't doing dick, and he is trying to crawl away in the opposite direction to the orca because he is sure that as soon as the orca gets close enough, Broomstick will quick fast dock his frigate, jump in his T3 SHIP NAME, and tear up his Abaddon before he can align and warp out.
Nancy knows he is running out of options. The rest of us online at the time know he is wracking his brain for solutions, because in chat we can see "8f7ty89t4y794h8qabhyu", and SDVFREP4IOU56" (he accidentally hit the caps lock), and "dfjhpur4tdfnjk5" as he repeatedly bashes the keyboard off his forehead in a valiant attempt to generate a clever escape plan. We can also hear him in Vent as he inadvertently keys the microphone with each keyboard strike to his head, and the thin, cheap, plasticy sound of the keyboard hitting an immovable object is eerily mixed with the "stuck key" beeps, and both a very high pitched keening wail and the loud, sharp gutteral sound of someone seemingly swearing profusely in some long lost Sumerian dialect. The big money was on Nancy doing the swearing, but there were also some good odds on it being his wife or daughter too. If someone had been sitting beside me, I would have slowly turned my head and looked at them with a look of awe and stunned disbelief. As no one else was there though, I just laughed so hard I started to cry.
After what seemed like an eternity of awkward silence on both Ventrilo and in corp chat, but was likely no more than 5 or 10 seconds, Nancy piped up and
At this point, action in the corp pretty much slowed to a halt and the tension and drama were almost palpable, or at least thick enough to be able to try cutting it with a knife. The orca was still enough kilometers away that Broomstick apparently thought he might lose the BS in the time it took him to re-ship out of the orca. Those of us listening to and reading the updates were on the edge of our seats. In my mind I kept flashing from the mental image of the Abaddon with it's engines roaring in desperation as an angry little frigate orbited it while its bullets bounced off the hide of the ponderous beast below it, to the unassuming orca that was silently and smoothly sliding through space and closing in on its prey while a determined, smooth red ship was flashing through system, to gate, to system, in an attempt to close the distance to the Abaddon before the orca did. The updates were coming fast and furious. Jumps. Orca distance. Systems. BS. Orca. Jumps. Orca. Jumps. BS. Jumps. Orca. BS. Pizza! No, wait, that was later. And then . . .
Nancy: "Where are you man! Getting close! Too close!!"
KSRA: "1 jump out"
Nancy: "Warp to zero, warp to zero"
KSRA: "Warping to zero"
KSRA was inbound with with a point and some warrior 2s to try to hold and pop the vigil before it could escape. Nancy was thinking that at this point if he launched drones, seeing as how he had no web or point on the BS, the drones might distract Broomstick long enough for the pilgrim to lock up the frigate, get point and set his drones loose before the vigil could outrun the cruiser and burn out of point range.
Nancy: "Launching drones"
KSRA: "2 seconds out . . "
The drones starting biting into the frigate in the time it took Broomstick to lock them up and start trying to take them out again. KSRA didn't just land at zero, he just about went through the windshield of the vigil! KSRA's cloak popped and he goes long and starts to lock up the frigate of the surprised Capt Broomstick. The drones are making great headway into the frigate's armour now as Boomstick assessed the situation and prepares to bug out. KSRA starts banking his pilgrim to try and get into position to drop a neut on the vigil's ass and take out his AB, but the vigil just manages to get clear of the neut. Boomstick is fast to react, even though caught off guard, and he is outrunning the pilgrim. Nancy opens up on him with his mega beam lasers, hoping for a hail Mary shot, as the warrior 2s continue to whittle away the escaping frigate.
Nancy: "Get'im, get'im before he warps out!!!"
KSBA: "I'm trying, I'm trying! He's too fast! I'm just about to lose point!"
As the valiant duo were watching Broomstick's range hit the 18, then 19km mark, Nancy's lasers stabbed the dark one more time with their funky blue light, and target lock was lost on the vigil as it exploded into a starburst of light and a shower of glittering sparks. As Broomstick was making his escape, his path away from the Abaddon took away the tranversal and allowed the beam lasers to land a lucky shot. Say goodnight, Agnace.
So, like, OH MY GOD!!!!!! Unbelievable! They did it! The corp erupted! Nancy bellowed! KSRA let out a Samurai war cry! The corp cheered! Hap fell asleep. The CEO wept . . . openly. I collapsed. The cat meowed (because it was hungry). Eve cheered! It was awesome! In all the furor, Nancy had the presence of mind to recall his heroic Hob 2s and then warped out. The pod blasted out of the debris field and warped off. The still-neutral orca sluggishly changed direction and started to fire up its warp drive. KSRA wheeled around, called his warriors home, initiated warpout too, and then leaned back in his chair and reached for that big fat Cuban cigar he'd been saving for a special occasion. Oh baby . . .
That was TOTALLY the way it went down, I swear! Where is FRAPS when you need it?? So, that was it, right? WRONG! There's more, but that's for another time.
The Point? Good PVE fits do not equal good PVP fits, and a PVE hunter can easily turn into the PVP prey with a little inattention.
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