A Goonswarm Titan fell to Pandemic Legion’s fleet today in the Black Rise system of Rakapas. We spoke briefly with notable Pandemic Legion pilot, Killah Bee, shortly after the Goonswarm Avatar was destroyed.
Jared Ki, a member of the Goonswarm Alliance Kriegsmarinewerft, was in the process of moving the 114 Billion ISK Avatar at the time the incident in question occurred, said Killah Bee. Pandemic Legion pilots stalked the Titan-Class vessel from the Maila Keepstar, until they finally found the Avatar pilot floating attached to the docking tether of a friendly Fortizar citadel in the Rakapas system.
According to unconfirmed reports from Goonswarm-affiliated posters on r/Eve, members of the Goonswarm Capfleet (the group responsible for managing and coordinating Goonswarm’s capital-class ships) had reached out to Jared Ki shortly before the incident to inform him that Pandemic Legion hunter-killers were in the area. Further unconfirmed reports state that representatives of the Capfleet instructed the pilot to cease movement for the time being, shortly before the doomed Titan jumped into Rakapas.
We don’t know if this intel failed to reach the titan pilot in time, or if the pilot of the Avatar simply decided to disregard the warning. What we do know is that the Titan-class vessel was eventually jumped into the Rakapas system, where hunter-killer teams from the Pandemic Legion corporation eventually located the massive spacecraft, tethered to a Goonswarm Fortizar-Class Citadel.
Imperium Fleet Commander, DaBigRedBoat was quoted on Reddit shortly after the incident as having reportedly said:
“jesus christ (3:07:59 PM) directorbot: HEY GUYS! Please stop being bad if you are moving something that cost more then(sic) 10 million isk. This pilot was warned he was being hunted and still did a dumb, please do not do a dumb, then I get to do this (broadcast) https://zkillboard.com/kill/55403284/. HOSTILES ARE HUNTING THE ROUTES, BE 1000X MORE CAREFUL!”
Reported Broadcast from dabigredboat at 2016-08-03 19:08:00.506480 EVE
What happened next is the topic of some debate – Killah Bee reported to EN24 that after locating the tethered Avatar, Pandemic Legion ships were able to repeatedly bump the titan until it drifted out of the citadel’s tether range, at which point they were able to jump in their a fleet of Panthers, Redeemers, and assorted capital ships, which set about the business of totally annihilating Jared Ki’s wayward Avatar.
Unsurprisingly, Goonswarm supporters vigorously dispute this version of events, claiming that the Avatar’s death was a result of Pandemic Legion taking advantage of a game-breaking exploit involving the current citadel tethering mechanics interactions with certain ECM modules. Because of this exploit they claim that the kill is invalid, with several speculating that the downed titan will likely be returned by CCP once a ticket has been filed regarding the incident.
The exploit these pilots claim is at work here is reported to work as follows: If a ship tethered to a citadel is hit by an enemy’s ECM burst, that ship is erroneously granted a weapons timer (even though no aggressive action is taken by the target) which, depending on which comment you read, either instantly disables the citadel tether, prevents safe-logging, or nullifies the ship’s invulnerability. All of which would make you much easier to tackle and kill.
We looked into these claims, and while we were able to confirm that an ECM burst is present on the Ill-Fated Avatar’s Killmail, we weren’t able to determine exactly when the ECM burst was applied during the battle for the titan, or what the exact circumstances were that lead to the ship being venerable to attack.
While we may never be able to say with 100% certainty what factors were at play on that Fortizar undock in Rakapas today, one thing is for sure; Goonswarm’s retreat from the north hasn’t dulled the sparks of animosity that continue to fly between these two groups of capsuleers. This was plainly evident when we asked Killah Bee if he had any parting words for the pilot of the fallen Avatar, to which he replied simply:
“Talk Shit. Get Hit”
Once can almost imagine the sound of a mic dropping somewhere in the distance, as Killah Bee walks away from an exploding Avatar in slow motion.
*EN24 made several attempts to contact Jared Ki (Pilot of the downed Avatar in question) in the course of researching/writing this article. He could not be reached for comment.
