Fighting the ISK war...

There are many different ways to decide the outcome of an engagement in Eve, whether it's by forcing your enemies to retreat, utterly annihilating them, undermining their morale, or countless other iterations in this sandbox.

One of the major objectives of any sort of group PVP in Eve, is the "ISK war."  It's what, to the average pilot, determines who has won or lost a fleet battle, even the outcome of a war.   Kill mails perpetuate this, due to the listing of prices of modules and ships on the various kill boards, and so it has become the standard measurement for whether or not you're "winning" at PVP.

Sometimes, you can "win" the fight, even if you have lost more ships then your opponent, by choosing your targets wisely.  One such occasion happened about two months ago.

It started out with a report coming in from a scout in our system, of a Loki sitting on a wormhole, uncloaked, with scan probes deployed.  So I of course, warp to the wormhole at range to investigate.  I landed about 30km off the wormhole, and as soon as I was out of warp, the Loki cloaks up.

Well that's good news, means that he is probably going to engage me.  So I start slow boating over to the wormhole with my Hurricane, while a fleet gathers at the POS.  I am trying to get him to uncloak and engage me off the wormhole, so he cannot jump back out, and escape.  

I made it to about 20km off the wormhole, and he appears right on top of me, points and webs me, and we start chewing away at each other.  He is shield fit, and I am hitting half armor as he reaches peak recharge on his shields, when I hear the wormhole activate three times in rapid succession.   I call for our fleet to warp in, at 0 on the wormhole, and call the Loki primary.  By the time my fleet lands on grid, I am starting to bleed into structure, and shortly after, my hurricane pops.

http://clann.eve-kill.net/?a=pilot_detail&plt_id=528540

I tell the fleet to stay on the Loki, as he had less then 20% shields remaining.  I warp my pod out, and reship into a Myrmidon at my POS, and land just in time to see him explode.

http://clann.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=10222603

At this point his buddies have uncloaked on the wormhole, and engaged our fleet.  The hostile force consisted of a Tengu, a second Loki, a Myrmidon, and a Hurricane.   Our fleet was two Hurricanes, a Prophecy, my Myrmidon, and a Falcon.  I called for the Falcon to jam the Tengu and second Loki, and called the hostile Myrmidon as the primary target, since he was farthest from the wormhole.  We then lost two more hurricanes in rapid succession to their withering DPS.

http://clann.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=10222640

http://clann.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=10222605

At least they managed to get their pods out.  They head back to their POS and reship, and rejoin the fight.

Our Falcon pilot calls that he has both the hostile T3's jammed and we are starting to chew through the Myrmidons armor.  He seems to have a lot of armor, but finally, he explodes.

http://clann.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=10222600

Followed shortly by his pod.

http://clann.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=10223538


At this point the remaining hostile fleet jumps out the wormhole, and disappears.  We loot the field, and post eyes on the wormhole, while we assess our losses.  We are feeling a little dejected about losing three ships to take down two, until we see the battle report for the enagement.

http://clann.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=10222603

Heck, I will make that trade any day.

Later on that night, the Loki pilot tried to sneak back into our system with a scanner, which one of our scouts promptly popped,

http://clann.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=10225784

and podded.

http://clann.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=10225785

I don't think we will be seeing them around anytime soon.



This is just one of many cases, where even though we lost more ships then our enemies, we still came out on top in the "ISK war".  We considered it a win, not only because we destroyed more isk then we lost, but also because we kept control of the wormhole, and forced the hostile fleet from the battlefield.

I would love to hear some of your stories where you fought and lost, but still came out ahead on the kill boards.  Please post them in the comments section below.