Plus Ultra #9

 Dear Wai,

Your text, earlier was a bilious turd on top of a bung cake of ratshit that's been my life, recently.

Just catching my breath after a weekend of mostly bung whawhai in fleets, though since I was running Logi cruiser, I managed to get out in one piece (eventually). It was a munted effort, compounded by fact that the eggs we wanted to fight were joined by bigger lots of bung eggs we didn't want to fight (Deepwater and Snuffed).

Friday, we ended up roving to follow up on offensive armor timers for several structures, made a munted show of being unprepared to fight in Nullsec, ended up outnumbered 3:1, fought hard, but lost some dear faxes and dreads. I survived in my logi cruiser, and tried to keep the mates alive, but there were some competence issues all-around that made it a bloody mare. Half the logi squad took a nap on the Titan and forgot to jump with the rest of the fleet, so at the first structure, I was the only logi with reps on the field, and was getting pummeled with bugger all for help. I was able to warp off while in half armor, rep up at a nearby Intaki station, then rejoin the fleet. A long slog of gating through bubbles followed that, until the fleet ended up beached as, and made a pitiful stand against both our local adversaries AND a fleet of Deepwater bastards.

After what seemed an eternity of hostile bubbles, broadcasts for armor, explosions, and more bubbles, we ended up treed in a very-bubbled Intaki station, many mates in their pods, and so I just found a quiet corner and went to sleep. Woke up the next morning, everyone else gone, and me still behind enemy lines with a Guardian and a dear pod of implants. I made it halfway home before running into camped gates barring my way, and just slipped out of a bubbled gate by burning back to it and through after the two eggs, in a Brutix and Sabre, had aggressed me. Thanks for running up with a Shuttle to scout for me later, kid!

Saturday, even MORE bung eggs showed up at our defensive Athanor timer, to the point we didn't even bother to undock to defend the structure in question. Sometimes, you just have to let 5B ISK burn and not throw another 50B ISK into the fire with it.

Sunday, we joined up with the Shade boys and other local antagonists for a contested structure fight against INIT, and we knew we were going to get spanked, but we went with subcaps and a desire for Valhalla. My Guardian still survived, and kept a few folks alive a little longer had I not been there, but we didn't win the field there either. There is a solar system named 'Pain', and appropriately so..

And last night, setting up to defend an Athanor, not only had the local eggs assembled Cyclones and Kikis to fight, but some bastard invited Deepwater again, with a 90+ Legion fleet. We stood down, but found a touch of solace that they carked a few of our local adversaries while taking out our structure as well. More defensive timers this week, I'm not holding out hope they'll go any better.

The fighting in Null has really thrown a hard light on our need to learn the native combat style better. Our opposition has been spot-on slowing us down with stop and drag bubbles on our landing gates, and bubbling up our gate on the other side, wasting time burning out of bubbles. We should have pings to angle approaches to gates, but I imagine that it's probably same time to realign a fleet from a tactical angled safe and warp to gate, as it might be to just burn ABs from the stop or drag bubble going straight gate to gate. Definitely not the thing to do with a solo ship, but with a good fleet, maybe it works.

But, that's the thing about challenges; some are ones we need education and determination to overcome, and others are so far out of our control, we just need to accept them. Wisdom will illuminate the difference, and a cold beer will make it all better.

Yours,

 Dad