An Idiot In Space

I am 35. I run my own successful business. I have both a 1st class honours and a post graduate degree; I consider myself well read, well-travelled and to be a well-rounded individual. However, when I log into Eve something odd happens; I turn into an easily confused idiot. Everything that could possibly go wrong usually does and more often than not when in the heat of battle. If anyone is to be found flying to the wrong gate, aligning the wrong way or targeting the wrong ship it will be me; I have successfully bombed my own fleet, my own station and myself – forums, Jabber, Teamspeak and Mumble continue to confound me on a daily basis.

Eve is the perfect escapism for someone from the Star Wars generation. Since I first sat gaping open mouthed at AT-AT’s and Tie Fighters, and in later years open mouthed and gaping at Princess Leia in Jabba’s Palace, Eve was made for me and I for it. In my mind I am Han-Solo, but the reality is that I am one of those poor unfortunates who crashed into the Death Star very early on. Actually, I probably would have had my R-2 unit put in upside-down, run out of fuel and crashed into the wrong Death Star having first blown up Luke. I’m pretty sure that the 6 year old me could have flown an X wing no sweat and my plastic replica light-sabre would have taken out Darth with one fell swoop. So why does it all go so wrong?

Well, they might have been pitted against the dark forces of the Emperor but I’m sorry Han, you and your chums had it easy. Admiral Akkbar did not have a blog, a twitter account or Facebook nor did he have access to killmails; he could not berate you in jabber or post your humiliating loss to thousands of unknown friends (and foes) across the globe seconds after it happened – and he certainly couldn’t kick you out of the alliance: “I’m sorry Han but your Wookie has posted something inappropriate in intel so you’re going to have to leave” was never going to happen. Han-Solo had a job for life, even after his not always welcome advances to the scantily clad Princess Leia which today would have singled him out as a sex-pest at best, and put on some sort of register at worst. But best of all he was never ever going to get an email from an anonymous Tie-Fighter pilot entitled “Umadbro? U wuz Pwned”.

In Eve all of this can happen, Big Brother is always watching. Is the fear of failure and its inevitable consequences making things go so wrong and am I even enjoying it?

After a relatively innocuous engagement in BWF last night the 6 year old me who wore out his Betamax copy of Star Wars finally found out what it is like to be a spaceship pilot and yes, I am enjoying it. There were no titan kills and no hot drops. It wasn’t an organised fleet battle spanning several systems with some vital objective to be taken. It certainly wasn’t the defence of Deklein nor the invasion of Tribute, all of which I have taken part in. There was no Mr Vee or DBRB. In short it was missing every element that I thought made for a good fight in Eve. There were no expectations, no pre op build-up, no jabber announcements and nothing to lose. The engagement built up organically, almost accidentally, and for possibly the first time I was fully immersed, this was real.

It started off as most things seem to do for me with a blunder. Forming up in the POS in BWF to bridge over to somewhere to shoot at something, something that doesn’t shoot back. Perfect. Recently I have tended to go on many more strat ops than fleet ops; there is seemingly less that can go wrong on a strat op. There is no one in an Ibis waiting to get the final blow on my battleship on a strat op. I may not have the biggest kill-board in the alliance but I have spent days of my life grinding down structures. And that is vital – a bit like the catering corps, but with less medals. True to form when the time came I managed to completely miss the Titan bridge. Everyone else jumped apart from me and a corp mate and he only missed it because he turned up 5 minutes late. I had no excuse and sat in the POS on my own staring at the titan and listening to the op on Mumble. It was the first time out in my Maelstrom and I missed the opportunity to do anything with it. Slightly down-cast I docked up and logged off.

Later that evening I came back, there must be something I can do, something I can shoot at? A gate camp in BWF fitted the bill, not an encounter that would change or shape the course of the alliance but a chance to maybe get a few kills. Relativity safe kills too – at distance in Drake behind a mass of big bubbles. What could go wrong? Except there were no big bubbles, there was very little traffic and very few kills. Neuts and reds regularly slipped through the two small bubbles with ease and anything unlucky enough to get caught was dealt with by instacanes. Still I sat there, for hours, waiting for an opportunity, my corp chat filling with tales of ops and links to kills. It was more ‘camp-fire’ than ‘gate-camp’ the FC calling, not targets, but for people to start telling stories. Could this get any worse and why was I even doing this?

I headed back to station and refitted with a sensor booster – I was determined to get on what little kills there were even if it was for 0 damage. Then at least I could log off and go to bed with something to show for sitting motionless in space for several hours listening to people I had never met boast about things that in all likelihood had never happened to them or anyone they had ever met.

Large bubbles were put all over the gate, reminiscent of the cages that held the Pandemic legion Titans at bay in Deklein – there was no way in or out for anyone unlucky enough to get caught. Still we sat but no increase in traffic, every eye focused on the gate for the tell-tale flash or a red in overview tangled up in the bubbles. Nothing came, and we waited, and still nothing came. Even with nothing going on I could feel my excitement levels raise, something might happen. Then the decision was made to pull back to the POS to see if that would encourage any visitors. My excitement drained – sat in a POS without even a gate flash to induce any excitement; time to log, another evening of no kills no action, but at least I hadn’t lost a ship. Admiral Akkbar would have nothing to blog about from me.

Then everything changed.

Midway to the POS the excited FC called us all back to the gate – a Red Vs Blue frigate fleet had warped from the gate which was on the opposite end of the system and was trapped in the bubbles! Without time to think, I turned my Drake around and headed back in caring little for the outcome. And that is when my Eve life changed and I finally got it.

I landed in the middle of an 80+ frigate fleet buzzing around me like angry flies, my overview full of targets. But rather than the normal panic I actually felt cool and calm, even though my heart was beating like a sledgehammer and the noise from my speakers deafening. Was it from my speakers or actually from outside my ship? No one was calling targets and if they were they were lost to me, as I was lost in the moment – time to think for myself. In the blink of an eye I sorted my overview by distance, I didn’t need an FC calling targets, with a glance I instinctively knew which of these frigates caused the most threat in terms of damage and distance, and picked them off one by one. With the battle raging all around me and people screaming on comms I was strangely focussed, I knew how to do this. Eventually I was primaried and overwhelmed but not before I had doubled my last 6 months KM’s in one encounter.

All I had left in the hanger was a hero Rifter. I un-docked and found the battle ragging outside the station, the undock littered with corpses and wrecks. The frigate fleet, now a shadow of its former self, had valiantly charged headlong into TEST and put up a good fight but was now retreating to the gate leaving a trail of wreckage and destruction in its wake. I burned to the gate in pursuit just as Brick Squad jumped through. The FC started calling targets to me by transversal, it may have been on the warp in, or at the gate, or I may have imagined it. I still have no idea what that means and did not have time to find out. What I did know instinctively was what my little Rifter could do and who to burn for. Anything that I could get under the guns of was pointed and the sound of my EMP hitting home from point blank range was music to my ears. Target after target dropped until the field was clear. I have no idea how long the engagement lasted for, whether it was 30 seconds or 30 minutes, it was a blur but at the same time sharply in focus. It was amazing, I was exhausted, I was buzzing.

After the engagement I sat in the station, trying to get across to my corp mates what an amazing time I had just had, but it was hard to describe and I simply could not articulate what had just happened. Perhaps everyone feels that way at some time, maybe when you get your first kill, see a titan go down or even simply when you poke your nose into null-sec as a Noob, but for me this feeling had always been missing.

For half an hour last night I was Han-Solo and as it happens my wife is fitter than princess Leia. My killboard will show that I lost both my ships, but in a very small and very personal way I had won at Eve, although I am still not sure what transversal means.