…when running incursions with EVE Rookies! Last night we had – for the first time – enough people to run two fleets at the same time! We’re definitely going to remember that one even if for a sadder reason… but let me start at the beginning.

So, during dockup, around 18:00 EVE we found that we had way too many people for a single fleet, and as Lord of Reclamation has been running fleets in different timezones (mostly US and late AU) for a week or two now, we decided to split the pilots into two fleets. Kshal took the shield fleet, Lord got the armor fleet (I joined them), we settled in neighbouring systems, and we ran for a little more than one and a half hours.

When our fleet was beginning to thin out because of people leaving we decided to head back to the dockup system where Kshal was still running and we had the crazy idea to contest them! (A contest is what happens when two fleets jump into the same site because the payout only happens to the fleet that did the most damage.)

We quickly located them, jumped into their site and to our great dismay Kshal decided to stand down because her fleet was also already weakened by pilots leaving way too early. They fleet-warped away but because there were still scrambling rats in the site, one Basilisk couldn’t actually get into warp and before we could lock it up and rep it, it died.

That put quite the dampener on the evening which until that point had been lots of fun. However, only a ship was lost, no big damage was done and we now know that even when contested you should never try to warp away as long as there are still TOADS (Tama, Outuni, Auga, Deltole, Schmael) on site.

Tonight Lord also wanted to run for a bit but around dockup time there were so many holdups (mostly by new players who weren’t sure whether their fits were appropriate or whether they could fly ours) that in the planned 90 minutes of running we only finished two sites because we started so late. It also didn’t help that my ISP acted up and disconnected me twice…

In order to streamline getting new players into the fleets, Lord has now worked up a number of fits that new people will have to be able to fly in order to fly with us. Check the EVE Rookies Website regularly for updates on that!

Later I jumped back to where my Stabber was which I have recently dusted off and picked up where I last left it. I put a better fit on it (decent guns, add shield hardeners) and marveled at how much better it performed than I remembered it. I even managed to finish “The Blockade” in Level 3 with lots of time left for the bonus, and I only had to warp away and refit with better guns (artillery this time, baby! Finally!) once – a new personal best, that’s for sure. So, even if the evening of incursion running didn’t turn out the way I expected it still was a great evening!