Three battleships versus a tower
24th December 2009 – 5.27 pmI am shooting a Caldari tower in an Amarr battlecruiser with lasers, this is surely the nadir of my life as a capsuleer. The tower is apparently abandoned in our new class 4 w-space home, with no active defences and shields down. Never the less, we don't want to be surprised one day to find it reclaimed and functional, so we need to dispose of it. The only way we know how to do this is to destroy it.
W-space doesn't really lend itself to tower destruction, lacking the paths through which to pilot large battleship fleets, but that is part of the attraction of w-space systems for corporations like ours. As long as we have our tower set-up and fuelled we have a fairly safe and secure base of operations. Destroying the abandoned tower could pose problems because of the lack of firepower that can be brought to bear through a wormhole, as well as lacking numbers ourselves.
The few engineers who are around and able fly battleships to the abandoned tower, armed with lasers to avoid needing vast quantities of ammunition, and start firing. Then they go to sleep. As dangerous as not paying attention in w-space can be, the hours it will take to make a dent in the tower's shields will not be particularly entertaining. The ships are checked occasionally, but the system remains quiet as the tower's shields are slowly depleted.
I volunteer my help when I get some time to participate, although I may need to fly my Drake to add to the damage in any meaningful way, and that involves missile ammunition. But to everyone's surprise, including my own, I am able to jump in to a Harbinger armed with lasers and use all of the systems. My skills for the Harbinger come from the training for the Damnation command ship, and actually make the Harbinger bonuses quite decent. The skills in knowing which end to point a laser cannon were trained before joining the corporation, when I decided that to keep myself interested in being a capsuleer I would diversify my combat skills and learn about gunnery. I never did learn much about guns, instead moving in to Tech II production and then getting in to w-space with my new corporation, but the basics stuck with me.
Flying out to the abandoned tower in the Harbinger, I lock on my lasers and start firing. I don't think I'll learn much more about gunnery when firing at the proverbial barn door, but at least I am contributing. We fight against the tower's regenerating shields for a few more hours, keeping ourselves busy with banter, technical journals, and food, before wondering if the armour damage resistance bonuses apply when the tower is off-line. If they do, our small fleet will spend another day shooting the tower. Luckily, the abandoned tower's armour takes full damage from our guns, so although we will still be shooting for a couple more hours we will be finished tonight.
It feels that we are a little lucky not to be disturbed over the many hours of AFK shooting, where all of us could have been podded quite easily. But I suppose it is difficult to tell when a capsuleer isn't paying attention without provoking him to open fire, and you probably don't want to take the risk of several battleships and battlecruisers turning on you. And so we are left alone. It takes a long time, but the tower's structure is eventually breached and disintegrates.
The operation is a success. Our reward is the salvaged defence modules brought back to base, as well as a w-space system to ourselves.
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