"You spin me right round baby, right round, when you go down, when you go down, down"
Following on from the tongue-in-cheek fiction post about us returning to Nisuwa, here is what SoTF has been getting up to in the last twelve months....
My Corporation, Shadows of the Federation has been struggling lately. The collapse of the ShadowWolves.NET alliance (I blame the crappy name personally), the quiet summer period, becoming -10 piwats and some people taking an Eve break due to Incarna related bugs, loses due to bugs and related emo-rage has left us low on numbers and low on motivation. We've done a lot over that last twelve months and our several changes of direction has also hurt our numbers. I guess it is true that you can't please all the people, all the time.
However, we WILL bounce back, no doubt about that. Our first few days back in our "new" direction has seen our average online numbers double and we've heard from old friends who are dropping roles in their current corporations and looking to return to the fold!
It's been an amazing year in terms of what we've achieved as a corp. It was nearly 12 months ago when we where part of the Gallente Militia that we started to get itchy feet.....
A LONG TIME AGO*, IN A GALAXY** FAR, FAR AWAY....
IT IS A TIME OF CIVIL WAR....***
* 12 months.
** Well.... Nisuwa solar system to be fair.
*** It's not really civil war, it's Caldari and Gallente killing each other again.
We were bored. And it was mostly our own fault. We were flying around Black Rise in 30 man T3 fleets with Logistics and ECM support. The Caldari went running whenever they saw us. And to be honest you cannot blame them. Only Wolfsbridade and the local pirates such as Snuffbox and Rooks and Kings gave us any challenge. It wasn't fun any more. We had some amazing FC's. On one roam our 30 man HAC gang engaged a pirate BS blob and they dropped 4 carriers on us. We screwed them over and killed 3 of the 4 carriers with minimal losses. Yes we got a bit big-headed. We started to talk about moving on up and taking the corp to the "next level". SoTF had started out as a Faction War corp and that's pretty much all we'd done for two years. We started to see the grass was greener on the other side of the fence.
At that time the alliance IRed were down in Syndicate and having "trouble" with a couple of the other local alliances. I had a real-life mate in IRed at that time and we said we'd give them a hand. It sounded ideal. The "low-sec dwelling Faction War noobs" going to scary 0.0 to take on the l33t alliances that lived there. We'd been to 0.0 plenty before in roams, but never "lived" there and certainly never gone head-to-head with a 0.0 alliance in a war-dec! The forums were buzzing with suggestions and tactics plus reminders to people we shouldn't be complacent and we'd need to "up our game" down there. Unfortunately, we didn't. Another myth busted that faction war corps are PvP noobs and cannot stand against the might of 0.0 alliances. We kicked ass. I was clearing out "surrender emails" every time I logged in from my mailbox. We were having 20 v 20 BC battles resulting in one loss and 20 kills. A couple of us would camp their station undock when it was quiet, and although we were heavily outnumbered in local and they still wouldn't undock. Soon the battles died off and the camping got longer and quieter. We got bored again and IRed no longer had need of our services as their enemies were now a shadow of there formerselves and they also knew we'd be back if IRed asked.
At this time we had an offer to join R.A.G.E. alliance as part of the Northern Coalition. Sounded interesting, our own system, we could build a station! Reports of mass battles verses the Ruskies. It all sounded good. So we tried it. We patrolled NC space and got blue balled. We ran Sanctums (before CCP nerfed them) and gained ISK. We were using jumpbridge networks. We built our own outpost, we helped others build their outposts. Few pics below of our outpost we built. The "egg" is what the station looks like under construction when you build it before DT. after DT it spawns into a proper station....
We were in our capital ships more than ever.... we were doing the 0.0 thang, but the real PvP our corp craved was sadly lacking! We are a PvP corp and at that time were spending more time doing PvE stuff! The PvP we did experience was a lag fest that required the piloting skill of a 3-week old cheese sandwich. The typical "PvP" night went thus...
Form up at station with hundreds of pilots.
Move to PoS.
Titan logs in and we all get in position.
I say "we all", I actually mean 99.9% do but one tard keeps his MWD running and doesn't know about the keep at range button.
Titan gets back inside PoS shields.
We wait.
We wait some more.
Still waiting.
Waiting even more.
*2 hours later*
I spy with my little eye.... something beginning with....... "T"
More waiting....
"JUMP!"
Eh? WTF? Oh right! Wey hey! This is it..... as soon as grid loads it's pew-pew time....... any minute..... any minute now......
Still waiting.....
/sigh. I spy with my little eye.... oh wait, here we go!
Ah ha! That's a lot of red.
OK that's primary.... damn didn't lock him in time.
OK locking the new primary... damn he's dead too.
I pre-locked the secondary so now he's primary I can shoot him.
One volley.... come on guns..... cycle FFS! What's going on with my guns?
Ah back in sync. Who's next?
Oooooooo that's a LOT of flashy yellow boxes.
Even though I'm not getting shot may be I should broadcast for.........
Kersplat! BOOM!
Ooooo so that's what the alpha from 500 BS does to your battleship!
OK time to pod home from good old O2O.
That was it. You didn't need skill or abilities. Sit, wait, jump, fire, DIIAF (Die Instantly In a Fire), pod home. You could take part in these battles using one finger.
We did get big kills, we killed titans, we killed super carriers, we killed dreads and carriers. We even "killed" an outpost (and I personally got the final blow and thus captured the station in the name of SoTF!). CCP were even talking about our battles (mostly due to the war on lag and what great data they were getting from O2O)! But it was not for us, the medium sized gang warfare (sub 50-man)was not there and neither was there sufficient solo PvP. So we left R.A.G.E. on good terms and sold our station at a massive loss..... which we didn't feel so bad about three weeks later as the Russians stomped through NC space and captured it.
So back in faction war for a short time and things were the same. Wolfsbrigade, the Caldari Militia Corp, were also bored so it was suggested we form an alliance and war-dec other alliances. It went well to start with but as we moved to a PvP "hotspot" we kicked ass and the enemy moved out. It was Syndicate all over again. So after a couple of weeks all we were left with was a quiet area of space and minimal PvP as everyone else had moved away from us. So we decided to move close to the infamous PvP system of Amamake. Home of low-sec PvP. It was also at this time we removed the security status cap of -1.99 or higher. From being an anti-pirate faction war corp, we were now independents heading full speed to -10. G'aaaarrrrrrrrrrrrr!
It was over there when things with WBR deteriorated. Whilst we all got on well with each other and generally liked the same things - drinking and killing, the two corps had very different ideas about the direction of the Alliance. So we split.
SoTF "joined" up with our old friends in BANE alliance, ANTI, QCats and SLAPD and had fun in Amamake. We had a good time forming some great fleets. We camped gates and did the pirate thing. Then trouble started brewing in the north, and the Goons opened this on Pandemic Legion...
...and thus PL abandoned the North. And where did they come back to? Amamake. Suddenly local was full of negative standing toons. From a usual 15-20 in local we had triple figures. They quickly went about setting up PoS's and then jumping their supercaps in. Unfortunatly they were also clearly very bored! We had corp members agreeing a 1v1 with members of PL only to have a TITAN warp on top of them half way through the fight. At one point PL were camping a gate with Titans!
Amamake was "ruined" for us. Outnumbered 5:1 by an enemy that had super capitals logged on and parked all around the system, and would happily drop them on frigates! From feeling invincible 12 months ago we are now feeling rather small and vulnerable. And all it took was Pandemic Legion dropping titans on us to show us this. Oh well I suppose that's nothing to be ashamed about!
So in the last 12 months we have -
Lived in low-sec as a faction war corp
Lived in NPC 0.0 as a corp and war dec'd alliances that lived there.
Lived in Sov Holding 0.0 as part of the NC and built an outpost and taken part in huge battles and done the sov holding thing.
Lived in low sec as part of an Alliance and war-dec'd other alliances
Lived in low sec as a pirate corp.
So this brings up right up to the present. And a new and exciting move for Shadows of the Federation! No, we're not doing hi-sec or wormhole's, althought they are about the only things we've not done in the last year! Not enough PvP with them two!
We're back in Nisuwa and back in the Gallente Militia. As soon as this was decided and announced on the forums there was a spike in activity. On the same day we got nearly all of our assets out of Amamake and neighbouring systems via carriers. If the Caldari have something to fight, this could be fun.
So in summary, we've pretty much had a year out of Faction War. We've experienced new things. We've achieved somethings I never thought we would. We've lost people along the way, but gained one or two as well. But we are back home now. Not as strong as when we left, but a lot more experienced..... don't underestimate us......
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