First week in HRDKX, part 1

Since closing down my last wormhole, I've been looking for a larger w-space corp to fly with. I've mostly been with very small, inactive corps over the last few years, and I wanted something with more content available. I spent a few weeks in highsec (I know), absentmindedly carebearing in between public fleets like Spectre, RvB Ganked, and the Tuskers.

My acceptance into Hard Knocks Inc. (HRDKX) happened to coincide perfectly with a 4-day weekend, so I finally had some time to actually play EVE instead of just logging in to skill between work marathons. And play I did. The content train that is HRDKX was chugging at full speed all weekend, and I logged on as much as I could to take advantage of the action.

NOTE: The dates may be borked, as I am nocturnal and therefore look at days and nights a bit differently than normal people.

June 20, 2014

I helped asplode a measly procurer. As good a start as any, I suppose.

June 21

The first proper roam I accompanied headed into null with a bevy of shield ships. We almost immediately blitzed a Moon Warriors gang, with a Huginn and Jaguar among the more notable kills. Afterwards we found ourselves in EVE Uni space in Syndicate and started playing station games with them. I was particularly interested in fighting them, as they had blueballed a Tusker gang I ran with recently. They had a numerically superior force, and so we tried to pick off stragglers around their station in EZA-FM. While I did lose my mal, we were able to bring down a dozen or so of their cheap ships, including a talos and oracle.

After the Uni I took a break for a few hours, and when I came back discovered several of our pilots out hunting ratters. Fishing for null ratters is something I'd only done on an amateur basis, but the HK guys are pro at it. Out in Oasa late at night we tagged a Pangu ishtar, which isn't particularly awesome, but a mere ten minutes later we found two carriers in the same corp ratting two systems away, which is awesome. Either the ishtar pilot hadn't informed his bros that shooty assholes were in the area, or the carriers weren't interested in the intel that could have saved their ships. We pinned down the partially fitted archon and expensive thanatos until dps pilots could come out to help. Ironically, the ishtar pilot from earlier brought an exeq in to rep his captured friends and was instablapped.

We then carried on with the ratter hunting, and before long caught another ishtar and then I got my very first HK tackle, a beautiful rattlesnake. That one was a double, because another HK scout had simultaneously tackled another ishtar in the same system, and I patiently pointed the snake until the dps could finish him off. We kept moving through Syndicate and surprise buttsecksing all kinds of nice people, like yet another ishtar, a random Adhoc SFI that was hanging around a gate solo, a fleet stabber, a vaga, and a bunch more. I lost a few inties along the way but would simply reship and rejoin the hunt. We stopped briefly in BMNV-P to take down a tough sleipnir and his boosting alt.

Didn't want that interceptor anyways

The last leg of the night took us through Branch, where we caught yet more ishtars and this poor chap in a hauler who seemed to have been moving a decent amount of ratting loot and salvage. A while later, through another exit in Querious, we played tug of war on a gate with a tengu for the better part of 20 minutes just before downtime. Without webs he just kept moving back and forth through the gate, and would regen his shields and cap in between each jump. Finally, in an act of inimitable bravery, exhaustion, and retardation, I got within scramble range and he shot me. This netted him a weapons timer, preventing him from getting through the gate quickly and finally allowing us to kill his blingy t3. Well, he would have died even if he hadn't timered himself on me, but it was totally worth losing a mal for.

June 22

The next day I set out with a cruiser gang into Catch to harass HERO and CVA. On our way through low we cut through a little Iron Oxide gang and got a cerberus and a few others. Once in the Catch area we didn't get any big brawls but we did manage to catch a handful of decent kills, like a prophecy, hulk, and ishtar. Those neuts on the ishtars really suck for inties trying to tackle them, by the way.

That night is when things really started to get interesting. Another decent-sized WH corp, Rolled Out, was in the chain, as was Dropbears Anonymous. Ironically I had briefly considered joining both before deciding on HK, as HK's activity level in my TZ is very high. RO didn't have the numbers to give us a fight, but they did help us smash the Baers' t3/guardian gang.

A few hours later, after ragerolling for some time, we found SSC's home system. While not their primetime, they dutifully formed up and gave us a fight. I'll let you read more details at the EVE News 24 article, but suffice to say that it was a great fight, and much respect to SSC for fighting even when outnumbered. Also, we didn't lose just one Naglfar. We lost one Naglfar and one brave Sabre. Your sacrifice will never be forgotten.

To top off the night, later a few of us managed to nab an orca after playing around on a wormhole.

To be continued...