As I stated before, Noir. has been trying to flip Hallanen from Caldari to Gallente control. We originally hoped to flip it while it was still a Rearguard system. This was important to us for two reasons:
- Hallenen is a midpoint system that Gallente can use to access the region with capital ships
- If accomplished, we'd have made history by flipping the first Rearguard system ever.
Because of the Christmas break, we failed to accomplish the second goal. I, along with many others, have been flying a lot less in the last week. Personally I traveled out of state for a week. I did have a laptop that was capable of playing EVE, but I forgot to bring a mouse and I didn't like the idea of trying to PvP on a trackpad. Not to mention my family was demanding so much of my attention!
So while Noir.'s playtime was much reduced, the Snuffed Out character who was using the system to manufacture a few Moros Navy Issues began to push back. He chatted amiably with a few of the corp members while he tried to deplex the system and drop Propaganda Structures of his own to reduce our advantage. He let us know he lived in western China and was happy to play 12-16 hours at a time with his 6 to 10 alts to ensure we weren't able to flip it before his ships were done manufacturing because he didn't want to pay the extra taxes after putting so much LP into the IHUB.
And he certainly did.
For half a day or more, every day, this guy and his alts would stick together and plex away. He ended up reducing our relative advantage to something like 20% by dropping Caldari Propaganda Structures of his own constantly, too. He must have spent upwards of 10B ISK on Propaganda Structures alone.Of course, even with so many alts, he refused to fight just warping out of any complex we tried to aggress him in. His game plan wasn't to stand toe to toe, just to delay. And with our reduced numbers of four or five at most, he could do that as long as he wanted.
We did end up getting a fight out of him once.
But in the end it didn't matter. It became clear over the weekend that Hikkonen would flip relatively easily if we gave it a nudge. Noir. pilot Zia Marsa Hiba rallied a few fleets and we managed to wrest Hikkonen from Caldari control on Boxing Day. That caused Hallanen to turn into a Frontline all on its own since Hikkonen is next door.
The Snuffed Out character managed to finish his build and placed a Fortizar called "Long Live China" so he could more easily move his dreadnoughts out. It would have been nice to flip it before his manufacturing completed just to foil all the effort he had put in, but since it wasn't really the goal, I'm ok with it! The guy was pretty nice.
So now the mission continues, to flip Hallanen. We're nearly there, and if we can continue to reduce the Caldari advantage that the Snuffed pilot had built up, I won't be surprised if we do it the day after I post this.
After we accomplish our goal, I don't know what we'll do. In the immediate term, stay in Faction Warfare since it's still the holidays, but I wouldn't be surprised if we ship out sometime in January. Regardless, I've been having a lot of fun and will definitely be doing some more of this on another character. With the Amarr Navy, of course.
