Kite Co. is currently on a vacation to our ancestral home in Syndicate. We had reinforced a few POCOs (Player Owned Customs Offices - structures orbiting a planet that are used to mine or manufacture specialised resources on that planet). The way this works is you reduce the health of a structure to a certain point, after which it becomes invulnerable for a length of time - typically just over a day or so - and you come back and finish it off.
So, Myself and Aigis were warping cloaky alts around the POCOs in 9GY as they came out of the reinforce timer today. We knew we probably wouldn't be blowing them up as we didn't really have the numbers, so we were just keeping an eye on things to see what the locals would do.
We saw a Stabber Fleet Issue and a couple of Interdictors sniffing around the planet 1 POCO, but opted not to engage. After half an hour or so, the locals appeared to have docked up and we were joined by Mattisen and reshipped to brawling Vexors to go and poke the POCO on planet 5.
For a few minutes nothing much happened. Supercool, one of the locals in an alliance called Syndicated, warped a caracal in and attempted the kitey bullshit that is the current most popular form of internet spaceship combat. We chased him for a bit before it became apparent that weren't going to keep with his shield cruiser in our heavily armoured ships, so we returned to poking the POCO. At this point Seamus joined us in a jackdaw, while Matt went and got a stabber for something a bit faster, while Aigis was in his own Caracal.
Of Flukes, Drones and CAS
By pure fluke, Aigis managed to fly close enough to a cloaked enemy ship to decloak it - a nice juicy Stratios, an expensive faction cruiser, was what they'd had watching us and Aigis wasted no time in warp disrupting it so it couldn't get away. While this was happening, an Oracle had warped in to snipe at us from extreme range. Mattisen burned for it, managing to land tackle while Aigis was getting shot up pretty badly by the Stratios' drones.
By this point I'd managed to get my Vexor into warp scrambling range of the Stratios and landed the scram a few moments before Aigis' ship exploded under fire from its drones. My capacitor began to disappear as the Stratios landed a pair of medium energy neutralisers on my ship and all I could do was keep him tackled while my drones and Seamus' Jackdaw poured on the damage. My armour was evaporating, but the Stratios was going down faster and the pretty little ship soon became a pretty little explosion:
https://zkillboard.com/kill/47589500
While this was happening, Matt was wearing down the Oracle when a hostile fleet from CAS entered system and warped to us. They primaried the Oracle, giving Mattisen time to warp away, after which we thanked them in local chat. We repaired our ships and waited for the CAS roam to leave.
https://zkillboard.com/kill/47589510
After a while the system was quiet enough for us to resume our business shooting the customs office and seeing what would turn up. We didn't have to wait long before Syndicated turned up with a Rupture, two Caracals, a Scythe and a Gnosis battlecruiser. It was a tough fight, but we managed to take down the Scythe https://zkillboard.com/kill/47589899 as well as the rupture https://zkillboard.com/kill/47589917 before our own ships went down - three vexors lost.
We regrouped in the station and noticed that our opposition was hanging around the POCO to loot our wrecks, at which point we quickly grabbed fresh ships and warped in. We pointed and killed one of the Caracals https://zkillboard.com/kill/47590002 while the other ships managed to warp out. At this point we called it a day and docked up, but there was one more twist in store.
Black Omega and VEGA makes a party
We'd had a cloaked frigate watching the POCO to see what would happen, and were surprised to see two Dominix battleships warp in and just sit there, doing nothing.
Not having the firepower to dispatch these ships in a timely fashion, we opted not to engage. After a few minutes and even a request in local for more fights we noticed that there was a new neutral pilot in system and sure enough I saw a covert cynosural field pop up on the overview of my stealth bomber pilot.
Black ops battleships and assorted other covert vessels poured through the bridge and both Domis were turned into a fine mist in seconds: https://zkillboard.com/kill/47590597, https://zkillboard.com/kill/47590593
Myself and Matt warped in to try and get on the killmails, but saw the Gnosis had warped back to extreme range. We burned for it, and I managed to bubble it in my Sabre while Matt had tackle at range. We had hoped that the black ops gang from Black Omega would dispatch the battlecruiser, but for some reason they just jumped back out of system. It quickly became apparent that another hostile fleet of Cerberus heavy assault cruisers backed up with Basilisk logistics ships from VEGA had entered system while were were occupied and had landed on the customs office. Mattisen managed to escape, but my Sabre was not so lucky: https://zkillboard.com/kill/47590643
Turns out, Syndicate is still pretty fun.
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