Not according to plan

The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, / Gang aft a-gley

-Robert Burns

One of the biggest differences between w-space and k-space is the difficulty of executing any kind of extended plan. While other players in Eve are often trying to interfere with the plans of an honest pirate like myself, in w-space the very environment can defeat your intentions, or at least complicate things. You simply cannot know too far in advance where you are likely to be, or what you will find there.

My goal was to hit high sec on Friday to buy some mods and rigs for a Confessor fit that I've been playing with (expect a post on that at some point), as well as some crystals for a meta Oracle fit that I want to use until Large Energy Turrets V gets trained. I would then fly said Oracle and Confessor over the weekend, getting fights and generally testing the fits.

Sadly, w-space did not cooperate, and we had no decent high sec connection on Friday evening. So instead of doing shopping, I was forced to break out my Purifier and help take out a Nidhoggur and some support ships. Not the plan, but I certainly can't complain!

I did manage to get to high sec on Saturday, although I used a neutral alt to haul assets to the wormhole, as the Tuskers are currently under war-dec by Complaints Department. I then went roaming in my Confessor, but did not encounter anything that particularly wanted to fight. I ended up doing some pve tests to better get an idea of the maneuverability of my 10mn fit in the various modes.

Being out and about, though, I had noticed the locals probing down our wormhole. So I spotted their little battlecruiser gang when they decided to scout us, and a few of us were able to form up and take them on when they tried to roll our wormhole.

This was actually a pretty interesting fight for a couple of reasons. First, we were massively outgunned - only a couple of us were online - but a Tusker in an interceptor was able to chase away the three battlecruisers simply by charging at them headlong. Convinced we were trying to lock them down before jumping in a much larger gang, the battlecruisers fled, sans one Falcon, leaving us alone with their battleship.

Then the battleship tried to hide by jumping through the wormhole and cloaking up. This might have worked, convincing us that he had warped away, but I was cloaked up and waiting for him in my Purifier. Knowing that he had cloaked, I had our interceptor orbit the hole at high speed, and we were able to de-cloak the battleship in short order and finish him.

So my Purifier was getting a workout, but my Confessor and Oracle had seen no action. Continuing to form up for gangs, though, I did manage to give the Oracle a bit of a test when we took down a Tempest.

Sunday then saw a succession of 'low content' wormholes. I roamed in the Confessor, and went out in gangs with the Oracle, but ultimately came up with nothing for either ship. At least one of the groups we were trying to fight refused to commit because of our AT win, and said as much in local. A reputation is a bit of a mixed blessing, there.

Finally, on Sunday evening, we went for a corp roam in a Confessor fleet to tangle with Brave Newbies. Unfortunately, we seriously underestimated their strength on the first Sunday after alpha clones were released, and came away with a bloody nose. Weight of numbers and aggressive FC'ing on the part of Brave Newbies proved to much to overcome in destroyers.

You have to love an enemy that fights so damn enthusiastically.

So I came out of the weekend without really testing my solo Confessor fit, and not getting much of a test for my Oracle, despite spending hours in each hull.

Perhaps next weekend I should plan a little less.