Incursions: MOM says she's ready . .

     Ok, so it's not actually the rats' "mom", maybe just their angry aunt or something.  The fights are fairly ferocious, and sometimes pretty fast though.  I've heard stories that guys have popped the Kundalini Manifest (the main rat mother/command ship) in just over 5 minutes.  That's some fairly major DPS if it's true.

     So, as posted prior, getting into the bigger, tougher Incursion sites, like the assaults, exposes you to more players that are also more likely involved with the MOM site fleets.  My first exposure to such a fleet was soon after flying with the SF assault fleet.  It was a contested site and we arrived after the fight had already started.  I guess the shield fleet had a hard time getting people to drag themselves away from the VG fleets.  So, the call went out, we quick dropped fleet after our FC arranged for our transfer to the MOM fleet, we all got picked up, given the system to warp to, jumped to the gate, and in we went.  Pretty chaotic.  Drones and wrecks everywhere, so I quickly tuned brackets off and then I was fine.  The FC was frantically trying to call out and tag targets, but with 170 chips in the site instead of a normal 85, rats weren't lasting long.  Shit was popping before I could even get lock at least half the time.  Needless to say, the armor boys won the day and scooped the loot.

     For all the players that do incursions, unofficially, they have organized into shield and armor "sides", and each have their own "official" channels, as far as the players are concerned.  At least in high sec, anyway.  If there are an even number of Incursions, the senior Incursion players pick one for shielf, and the other goes to armor.  If it's an odd number of incursions, the odd numbered Incursion MOM site is contested.  After players have farmed the Incursions enough, the incursion description changes, and players race to fleet up and kill the MOM site.  On contested sites, the faster the fleet gets formed up the better chance that fleet has of getting the ~64 million payout, per player, for about 20 minutes of work.  When the Kundalini Manifest supercarrier is killed, it drops a container with rare loot.  It's a race to loot the wreck and anyone can grab it.  The loot items are presented in chat, and interested fleet members bid on them.  Who ever manages to get the loot, gets 20% of the final bid prices and the rest of the money goes into an Incursion ship replacement fund.  Auction prices are crazy high, but no one seems to care, and it means there is ample cash to help replace ships lost in Incursions.  People are fairly savvy running sites now, so few ships get lost, and there is lots of cash in the funds.

     The next MOM fleet had ample warning and it wasn't contested - it was "owned" by armor.  We fleeted up and formed up, and got ready to roll out.  Lots of high powered boats, and while I was initially overwhelmed at the number of different ships when I started Eve, it's cool how you can fairly easily name ships now just based on their silhouettes.  At any rate, we all warped to the RV system, and got the briefing from a fairly experienced MOM FC.  Simple instructions, clear orders, everyone was clear, especially important for the logis, and in we went.  Considering there were over 80 boats in the fleet, things got organized fairly quickly in less than 10 or 15 minutes.  People's jobs were pretty simple, so we went about the task of clearing the site.  The only major worries in the whole site are the fighter bombers that the Kundalini supercarrier spits out.  They have insane alpha and need to be targeted and eliminated immediately, by everyone.  The drones are set on the supercarrier, and left there for the duration of the fight though, and everyone slowly trucks on over while we orbit the anchor.  This was a fairly uneventful fight, and after about 25 minutes, we popped the carrier, people dived for the loot, and we got paid.  Don't remember what the loot was, but it was all fairly uninteresting gear from my poor perspective.

     The next mom site was contested, and the armor boys got there a little late, so while we were furiously trying to out shoot those shield bastards, in the end we failed.  The picture to the right is just the fire power from a single fleet.  The rain of fire and lasers from a contested sight was truly prodigious . . . and potentially computer-stopping :)  The upside, was that we managed to scoop the loot before they did.  Yay!  I had just bought another incursion boat so I didn't have any excess cash kicking around to bid on any of the drops and I figured that if the bidding went anything like last time, I wouldn't be able to bid high enough, or want to bid high enough.  The one item was a Phantasm BP, and it went for about 400 million - 40 million in contracts.  The next was some kind of faction shield mod that also went for a ludicrous price.  The final was a single smart bomb that sold for well over 200 million.  ??  If I paid 200 million for something, I wouldn't be shooting it out into space afterwards!  Well, except if it's a ship . . .  Maybe it's a prestige thing?  Either way, stuff can be bought in auction or on contracts for much cheaper.



Kundalini Manifest + major face melting = MOM loot drop

      The 4th and latest MOM site was a casual affair.  Another good FC briefing, only about 10 or 15 minutes to form up and get organized.  Again, a couple twits people figured, "What??  What's the problem?  So what if I'm at war?!?"  What's with those people?  Lack of understanding of the aggression mechanic?  Anyway, in we go, pretty good firepower, judging by the rate that the rats are popping.  2 or 3 waves of bombers.  Steady drone and ship DPS on the Kundalini.  Re-targetting after the EMP bursts.  Popping the neuting and disrupting rats.  It all went good, and exactly 22 minutes later, I was 64 million iskies richer.  Cool.  Well, ~60 million richer after that money grubbing, bastarding, hoarding corp took it's tax cut . . . ;)  We'd all saddled up right nicely to the supercarrier to see if we were going to be the lucky fool that could scoop the cargo and get the 20% cash bonus from the auction.  No such luck for moi.  There was a faction fighter/bomber BP that went for something crazy like 1.6 billion.  I forget what the other two items were, but they both went for crazy amounts too.  The dude who managed to scoop the loot?  His 20% cut was something like 600 million!  I SOOO have to get in there for the loot! OMG!!

The Point?  MOM sites are another cool Incursion experience, and while they are routine with a good fleet and FC, I have yet to be targeted by the nasty stuff . . .