Friday, September 16, 2016

Zappity’s Adventures: All good buybacks come to an end

Alas, all good buyback programs come to an end. It was just too much work on top of some RL changes. The announcement on the industrial thread on the Pandemic Horde forum was met with much weeping and gnashing of teeth but was also met with several cautious requests for information on the inner workings of the program. I provided my scripts to all and sundry (whoever he is) and, before long, a rash of new programs popped up. Admittedly, none of them were quite as magnificent as the original but they each excelled in their own specific area. And so I was left with no obligations for the first time in many months. I took advantage of this by not logging in for a while.

Eventually, the lure of EVE told and I began to pay attention again. Pandemic Horde management had decided that a bunch of moons in lowsec rightfully belonged to them. This meant lots of dreadnought activity, specifically the type where a short notice ping went out to the cap channel followed by a cyno being lit on the tower grid. We would then pour the very expensive ammunition into the tower’s shields for one (or perhaps two) siege cycles and then buggered off before anyone bigger and nastier could drop on us. Like the people who owned the tower and were no doubt not particularly impressed about the development.

These sorts of fleets are quite exciting, mostly because of the risk involved in fielding such assets. It is a very different experience to the main fleet. I, like everybody, dislike structure bashes when in subcaps. So the subcap fleet is generally pleased to see the arrival of dreads which immensely shorten the time it takes to break the shield down. One bad thing about this activity is that it doesn’t generate a killmail for me to look at. But you can’t have everything, can you?