It is called a 0,0 lagfest for a reason...

Last night we participated in the defence of 46DP in southern Tenerifis as part of the -A- block. The station was coming out of reinforced at about 2300 suiting late Euro/ early American tz. With 2 hours to go various fleets had accumulated round the area, an -A- BS fleet, a carrier triage fleet to rep the station and a sub-capital fleet made up of associated coalition alliances.
With 30 minutes to go local spiked from 600 to 1200 and the fight was on. Red Alliance entered 46DP-0(Tenerifis) from 77S8-E(Detorid), bubbles went up, defense warped to the gate, the overview loaded and for the next 30minutes it was very hard to ascertain what had happened. Brackets are off, overview is limited to enemy logistics targets and still it is hard to make out what is happening. Your modules appear to cycle, from time to time apparently random damage registers, your ship keeps going in whatever direction it was going when you entered grid. I am fortunate to have a second computer with another client running in the home station and kept expecting to see my main appear in the clone bay.
After an hour I logged off to see if it made a difference and on re logging I found my stealth bomber off station, apparently I had warped there sometime in the last hour. The fleet is a mess, wing commander slots are mainly empty, fleet bonuses are apparently not being passed on. I warp back to the engagement by warping to a fleet member that is cosying up to Red Avatar. As local begins to drop from 1300 towards 1100 things begin to move again. Overview appears to be more 'correct' than the visual however you still get plenty of messages saying that so and so is no longer on grid when he is still in overview. Trying to find a target on grid becomes the priority. Unfortunately for the titan pilot, he is the biggest thing reliably rendered on everyones screen, he is called primary, various reports of how far he is in shields/ armour/ structure are called then he is no longer there.
An anxious wait later and he appears on the killboards! First titan on our killboard, though I doubt my railguns did more then scratch his paintwork... then again maybe a hybrid antimatter shot penetrated the backup reactor through an emergency exhaust at the end of a trench...
A bit of chasing ensued as the remnants of White Noise and Red sub capital fleets made for adjacent systems, SBUs dropped last Monday by the invaders popped in quick succession. Yours truly ended up in the wrong system and while admiring the titan killmail (read: trying to find how much damage I had done :-) I get popped by a small gang. It is 2 in the morning, time to call it a night.

Astarte Ratting Ship (Angel Space)

So why am I using an Astarte as a ratting ship? Well, I am Gallente and am fed up ratting in an Ishtar (even Beserkers IIs take forever to break an Angel BS tank). So next class up is battlecruiser and their tech 2 brethren, the command ship. Enter the Astarte.
At the moment it appears to me to be a tech2 Brutix, full rack of medium neutron blasters with improved resistances inherent to a tech2 ship. The first time I took it out, I MWD over to the rat BS, opened up with the blasters and was a bit disappointed. As usual I have over-tanked it. The rats shot away the shields and made no in road into the armour with only 1 rep running.

Astarte: current fit
Highs-----------------------
7 x heavy neutron blaster II
Mediums---------------------
10MN MWD II
Tracking SomethingOrOther
Lows------------------------
MAR II
MAR II
EANM II
Explosive Hardener II
Tracking computer II
Rigs------------------------
CCC
Grid augmentation rig
Drones----------------------
5 x Hammerhead II
Ammo------------------------
Faction antimatter
tracking script

I noticed that tracking the Angel BS are not a problem, so I can probably remove the tracking devices. On top of this I'll give the null a go, even with it's tracking penalty I should be able to hit the big ships. The only problem will be if I miss local spiking and get jumped.

Astarte: modified for ratting
Highs-----------------------
7 x heavy neutron blaster II
Mediums---------------------
10MN MWD II
Tracking Somethingorother
*Web II*
Cap recharger II
Lows------------------------
MAR II
EANM II
Explosive Hardener II
*2 x Magnetic stabiliser II*
Rigs------------------------
CCC
Grid augmentation rig
Drones----------------------
*5 x warrior II*
*5 x EC-300 Hornets*
Ammo------------------------
*Null*

This set up assumes no problem with tracking, or if necessary a web to hold the warp scrambling frigates in place while I blast them. It 'might' even catch an interceptor/ Dramiel. I have changed the medium drones for more smaller ones. That the can catch the small fast rat frigates and any Dramiel that jumps me. I also have the back up of EC-300 drones if I want a chance at getting out of there with my expensive ship :-)

Command Ship (Carraig naTairbhe)

With 11m skillpoints in leadership Carraig has been trained up to support Slay while in system either siting in an Orca or, ideally, a command ship. Seeing has how shields are the flavour of the month out in Tenerefis I should choose the Caldari Vulture which has bonuses to its shield warfare command modules. Carraig already has the command skill but this isn't enough! Command ships have requirements beyond those that of the Command Ship skill - namely racial cruiser V, logistics IV and all the support skills required for this (long range targeting V).
Because I ignored cruisers with Carraig and jumped straight to BCs, I never bothered with any racial cruiser (BC is non-racial). As such I can make the decision to specialise in any racial and Caldari seems like the best bet though Minnie was close behind. Caldari Cruiser V will get me access to both the Vulture (shield command ship) and the Basilisk (shield logistic ship).
So 9 days to long range targeting and then a decision: 27 days to wing command V (allowing fleet command and multiple wings) or skip that and go straight to ship command (perception and willpower) for Caldari Cruiser V and Command Ship V.

Command Ships (Slayfoe's Bull)

I have always liked battlecruisers, enough cpu and powergrid to fit a full rack of guns while not requiring large gun skills. My first was a Myrmidon which saw me through my early carebear days missioning out of Auvergne as an armour tanked, multi-purpose dps/ salvage ship able to do L3 missions with ease. After a while I looked into passive shield tanking, my beautiful Myrmidon was re-modelled and I no longer had to switch out hardeners for the different missions. In fact, it's tank is so hard, there are only a few L4 missions that can't be done without warping out.
In those days 100m isk seemed like a lot of money and tech2 command ships seemed beyond what I could afford so I went down the route of heavy assault cruisers (the Ishtar is THE perfect Gallente passive shield mission boat). Now, thanks to a few iskies made from selling prime arkonor, Slay is the proud owner of an Astarte, the tech2 version of the Brutix. Much to my disappointment, the first Angel BS I came across in the belts of KW didn't melt on the first volley, or the second.
I have always protected my investments (roaming BC are considered throw-away) by overtanking them. Looks like I will have to drop the second armour rep for a magstab, perhaps lose the EANM2 for another and load up on faction antimatter. I might even lose the tracking computer for a third magstab... After all, I am only really after the BS in the belts, the smaller stuff can simply be ignored or, if warp scrambling, taken out with warrior2s.
Drone complement: EC-300 Hornets x5, Warrior II x5.

Alliance Drama

You find a nice group to play with, you have a good work/ play balance, your character isn't broke, excitement comes calling at least once an evening and you like the people on teamspeak.
Then the powers that be announce change. One of the corporations that make up the alliance is leaving. Unfortunately they are taking with them the services they provided: empire logistics and a mineral buy/sell programme, both of which made life in nullsec a lot easier.
Unfortunately I had sold the programme 45m trit the night before along with 340m iskies worth of ark, bistot and miscellaneous stuff. The high end stuff isn't a problem, but replacing the trit in KW is going to be much harder. So not only can I not make ships, I can't import them.
Boo.
The other side is the lose of people. I don't like mentioning individuals usually but Jovial Krill [Ro5] has been exceedingly good company and we will miss him on TS.
Double boo.

Life in Null Sec (part 1)

I joined SI Radio when they decided to have a go at the null sec game and looked for volunteers to join.
Providence
At that time CVA had been chased from Providence and SIRadio had acquired the rights to a few systems there. About a week after I arrived I was scrambling along with the rest to evacuate back to high sec as the latest (I believe it was Kadeshi?) round of conquering capsuleers took over.
Great WildLands
So while alternative arrangements were sought, I reactivated my alt, bought an Orca, polished my exploration skills and began exploration. I was just getting used to entering low-sec when our great leaders arranged space in The Great WildLands, NPC null sec in the east. That was my first experience of being (a small) part of larger fleets. The local alliance we were friendly with were called Old Republic? and had some moderately successful fleet commanders.
Tenerifis
However this stopgap came to an end when Against All Authorities (-A-) reconquered space taken from them by The Initiative in the South. SIRadio formed SI Alliance and became a renter in Tenerifis, the marches of -A- space. For a while we settled in, mined the prime arkonor, ratted and had a go at local exploration.
At that point the anomoly nerf took place and the true sec of a system suddenly mattered again. No longer was it enough to have any old nullsec system and simply upgrade it. To maximise profits alliances wanted -10 truesec systems. This had an enourmous effect on all alliances as the map of what was valuable changed overnight. -A- found Tenerifis more valuable than Catch, renters moved out and -A- alts moved in.
Then as the war that ended NC up north got serious, -A- moved in to retake the rest of Tenerifis. It was pushing an open door, there was no resistance and the Region changed ownership over a fortnight.
Of course, once the steamroller is moving, it is hard to stop and Detorid has even better true sec than Tenerifis...

Life in Null Sec (Part 2)

Detorid
In Spring 2011 Tenerifis and Detorid were largely owned by White Noise. They has gone north to take out the NC and claim their Technetium moons leaving almost no one at home to mind the fort.
-A- organised small/ medium corporations to move into this space. SI Alliance was part of this push along with SOB, Imperial Order and various others. Space was divided out, SOB were going to get the valuable low true sec systems down south and SI Alliance got various ones up north on the border with Red Alliance Space. I helped take our Detorid base system went on holiday and came back to find that the alliance had helped itself to a further 20ish systems.
Unfortunately for us, the NC had failscaded and the PVPers from the grand eastern coalition that were looking for fights came back south to retake Detorid. They brought with them their IWIN buttons, supercapitals.
SuperCapitals
It is hard to explain to someone not used to nullsec just how good these beasts are. They are summoned straight onto the field of battle from several systems out by a cyno boat. They deploy fighters and bombers which are in effect giant drones with the toughness of a cruiser in flights of up to about 20. They are immune to ECM, they have millions of hit points, they have special repair bonuses and are in effect untouchable to an alliance the size of SI. Naturally they roams in packs.
The Goonswarm have managed to counter them in the last month by deploying hundreds of battleships with massive alpha strikes. This allows a fleet of sub-capitals to take down capitals without them getting the chance to repair.
Our Detorid adventure lasted about a month, now it is full of Red Alliance renter corporations and a place for us to roam. SI Alliance is back in KW licking its wounds, making money and readying itself for the apparantly inevitable invasion by Red once the situation between them and the GoonSwarm resolves itself.