PL Titan Kill - The Aftermath and Answers

I don't know if people have heard, but we killed a Pandemic Legion Titan at the weekend (OK! OK! I'll shut up about it.... after this blog post.)

I'm amazed at the response we got. The vast majority of the response has been "Way to go! You lot have got balls!" and that included PL themselves. Now, as reported here there appears to be some grumbling in the militia especially something in the Amarr militia.

I'd like to clear up some things that are being said around the internet as well as how this week just got better for me on the final countdown to Fanfest 2012.

But first, the video of the Titan fight and us going down in a blaze of glory (I'm the 6th Moros from the left I think!).....

Clearing a Few Things Up....

Secondly I'll list the common statements/queries we're seeing and give a quick TL;DR response. If you are really interested, the full responses are below these. By pure coincidence one of the two architects of this plan, First General, just Eve mailed me to ask if I'd post this official rebuttal to some of the crap that's circulating about this op, http://wolfsbrigade.org/?p=722. Very close to what is below....

We got Lucky and We Jumped on A Target of Opportunity - This op was planned the weekend before and a good 6 days planning and preparation went into it.

We Lost the ISK War - The dreads were insured and we ninja looted the titan. That is about 40bn back from our losses without counting the suicide carrier and battleship insurance.

The Quick PL Super Response Shows it was a Trap - PL had their super-cap fleet out on a fishing op at the same time. When we landed they were only a jump away waiting for their scouts to find something to drop. We timed it at the worst moment possible.

The Mastermind of the Plan - "Lets kill a PL Titan" is not a copyrighted plan! Apparently Predator Elite resurrected, and recently suggested, a very old plan. Generally most FC's agreed it wouldn't work. The Wolfsbrigade CEO and a Shadows Director/FC got taking about it and came up together with the plan we executed. The link above (Repeated) details this more!

We've Ruined the Original Plan - What? The one to get 300 enemies from 4 factions and countless corps together, keep PL spies for finding out when 300 people are telling their mates, hope nobody see's it as an opportunity for some smart bombing/destroyer lolz, hope the torps get through the wall of smartbombs AND convince a 0.0 bloc to hotdrop PL in their own home system? Never going to happen!

I'm head of this or that in the X militia, I should have known about this op! - This was not a militia op. It was a SoTF/WBR joint op and in the fleet of 86, less than a dozen people actually knew what was happening even up to the point where the FC called JUMP!

If that is enough for you, scroll down until you see the "Implied Facepalm" picture and the /end slash. If you want a more detailed explanation of the above points, read on my friend!

/start_TL;DR_explanations 

Secrecy.
I am one of the few people who knew it was going to happen in advance and had a very minor role in the whole thing (I'm not saying I'm special! I didn't know that much, just what I needed to know!). The people who had the major roles were 3 or 4 from Shadows of the Federation and a number of Wolfsbrigade plus a couple of trusted friends outside those corps. It's fairly easy to see who was involved in this op, check the kill mail!

We knew PL have one of the best spy networks in game so we kept it strictly on a "Need to Know" basis. We had some real fun convincing our own members to undock from our home system in their pods and fly to a strange destination without telling them why. It was like herding cats.

Yes, all this did mean some people were left out of the loop. Some of the other Militia VIP's, who some people could say are quite understandably upset at being left out, are not happy. I've apparently upset even more people in the militia some how, for which I apologise however I did it (I really should not post anything when "tired and emotional"). However, we have a lot of corp members in SoTF complaining that they logged off an hour before but would have stayed on if they'd known what was happening but weren't told. It's unfortunate, but without this level of secrecy, PL would have found out.

Please remember, this was not a Militia op. This was SoTF/WBR op (with help from a few others, see FG's post for more).

Opportunity.
This was a planned event and not a "target of opportunity". A sub-cap fleet had already been moved into bridging distance earlier in the week. Dreads had been bought and fitted just for this op. Hell we even had an expected time the Titan would show up on Friday night and we planned to be in place an hour before (PL aren't the only people keeping close eyes on Amamake). As it turned out, he arrived 14 minutes earlier than expected, but no matter, we'd been ready for the previous hour and those in the know had been working to get things ready for the previous 3 to 4 hours. The whole thing was arranged 6 days before for that precise time (well, who is going to argue over 14 minutes!)

ISK War
As for the ISK efficiency. We knew it would be close. I don't know if people are aware, but WE HOT-DROPPED PL IN THEIR OWN HOME SYSTEM. We knew what a huge super-cap fleet they have. We knew we'd not have long before the sun was blotted out by Nyx and Avatars. That's why the Dreads were gank fitted and insured. We expected to DIAF if the "gank and get out" didn't work. We went for one reason, to down a PL titan, and the cost be damned! As someone commented on a forum something along the lines of....

In a month from now the only thing that will be remembered is that the faction war guys killed a PL titan.

Each Dread cost around 2.5bn (I know, I bought one in the week for this op, T2 fitted, for 2.3bn) and Platinum insured (1bn ISK back if you deduct the cost of the insurance from the payout). Therefore for each one that got popped we lost 1.3bn to 2bn depending on the fit. Or another way of looking at it is we got 1bn ISK back for every dread popped.

I'm told Erebus prices were as high as 105bn now for the hull due to mineral prices increasing (although I am now told that is dropping following Titan nerf announcement). Eve Kill is a bit out due to prices being unable to sync'ing like market rates do. Maybe they should ask Chribba daily? :)

Finally, we ninja looted 9bn ISK from the Titan wreck and got away with it.

30 dead dreads and the loot = 40bn ISK cashback = Cha-ching = Win!

The Swift PL Response
The plan was drop the Titan, melt it in 30 seconds and GTFO. It didn't go exactly to plan but we are happy. In convo's with PL after the event they said we got really unlucky with the timing as their super-cap fleet was active only one jump away on a "fishing trip". When we dropped all hell broke lose apparently.

If it had been a trap, surely that Titan would have had a tank!

The Mastermind of the Plan
As for the brains behind the plan, it's worse than a smartphone patent dispute out there!

"It was my idea to kill a PL titan!"
"No it wasn't I had that idea 10-years ago!"
"You idea-robbing bar stewards! That was my idea!"

Really? Nobody else in Eve has had that idea? "Lets drop PL and kill a titan". It doesn't matter whoever had the vague idea to drop PL (and there must be hundreds who can claim that), we actually did it! It would appear plans stretched back for many years when PL were first in Amamake before they moved to 0.0. Preditor Elite recently raised the idea again and suggested 300 militia stealth bombers and convo's were held with all four militia's. The general consensus was that the plan clearly wouldn't have worked as involving that many people would have tipped off PL. That's IF you could get 300 enemies together without all hell breaking loose! Oh yes and lets not forget, it was a faction smart-bomb fitted Titan. Torpedo's.... vs that? Firewall on an EPIC scale. Most DPS would be destroyed by the smartbombs.

One of the SoTF directors/primary FC's and the Wolfsbrigade CEO were talking about it, agreed it wouldn't work, and cooked the dread plan up together.....

• A small fleet (sub 100) split over several systems
• An even smaller number of people in the know (Less than a dozen trusted people)
• 40 Glass-cannon Dreads
• Get in, nuke it, get out all within a minute before PL could respond with their supers.

And you know what? The plan worked (ish.... the get out bit sort of failed)!

Ruining the Greater Plan
One of the accusations levelled is that we've spoilt the surprise. Now PL are going to be careful and the original plan of 300 bombers (of course firing torpedo's of which many would have been destroyed by smartbombs) plus batphone that would have wiped out PL and destroyed their super cap fleet and scattered them to the corners of the galaxy, is now no longer viable.

Really?

If one of the big null-sec blocs wanted to drop PL they would have done it by now, and the offer of 300 militia pilots in stealth bombers would have been unlikely to change their minds!

"We are not dropping PL in their home system. It's not worth the hassle"
"You'll get 300 'faction war noobs' in stealth bombers to support you!"
"REALLY? Why didn't you say that in the first place! Light the cyno!"

/end_TL;DR_explanations

Blog Stats and Fanfest

I usually get 200-300 hits on this blog each day. Whilst I wish they were all Eve players, I know many come here looking for Chuck Norris, demotivationals and lol cats (oh and occasionally "Minmatar tits"). Damn you Google!

Anyway on Saturday, when I went to bed (still smiling over the Titan kill even though I'd just lost two ships to TEST and Blue Fed and been podded in the 30 minutes before) I'd had 675 hits in 24 hours. More than I had ever had in a single day before.

The next morning (Sunday) I saw a lot of comments had been made. So I checked the stats from the office on my phone (Sundays are a working day for me) and saw it had spiked! I was expecting over 700, triple my normal traffic. Nope, it wasn't in the 700's.

W.....T.....F......?

Must be some error! Bots? Check traffic sources! They are mostly coming from Facebook? Still WTF? Why Facebook? Better click the link.

Oh..... right..... Engage "childish excitement mode".... "childish excitement mode" engaged.....

OMG OMG OMG OMG The Eve Online Facebook page just linked my blog!

It's a pity it would be inappropriate to do the "Happy Dance" in the office.

500 hits in 48 hours is normal, 600 is a good weekend. This weekend it was....

And best of all, I'm off to Fanfest tomorrow. What more could you ask for (other than Megan Fox, Angelina Jolie, Catherine Zeta Jones in stockings and suspenders plus a family sized tub of banana yogurt?)

See you in Iceland if you're going!

o7

Drackarn


P.S. We're updating our recruitment thread to include the question "Are you a PL spy?", so don't even think about it guys :o)

P.P.S. I'll be at the Celtic Cross on Wednesday night at the #tweetfleet meet. First person to tell me where I crowbared a nod to Clear Skies III in the above post gets a drink!