The mysterious Blood Raider Sotiyo has once again been conquered by Goonswarm Federation. Being first in line to the BR Sotiyo is nothing new to the Imperium of course, having been the first coalition to destroy one upon their release into New Eden. This time around was the first BR Sotiyo to go down after CCP had tweaked the mechanics a bit. We caught up with INN’s PlexedLive to get a better grasp on how the whole thing went down.
To Kill A Sotiyo
Taking on a Blood Raider Sotiyo is no laughing matter, of course. Knowing that CCP’s changes to the Sotiyo mechanics would likely make a significant difference in taking it down, PlexedLive, Wolfpack10, and Sothrasil led a squad of Goons to the Singularity test server to get a better grasp of what they were getting into. After spending about a month toying with different fits, fleet comps, and strategies, they were ready for the real thing.
Finding the BR Sotiyo this time around was mostly similar to the first one, according to PlexedLive. Scouts were scattered across Blood Raider space in Delve, Querious, and Period Basis. Once they had located a set of Blood Raider miner rats, they knew they were barking up the right tree. The target was finally located in HM-XR2, a system well within the borders of Delve. Having found a target within a few jumps of their staging system, this was likely the best opportunity to get a clean kill on the Sotiyo without any interference.
The Blood Raider Sotiyo mechanics differ from the players’ Citadel mechanics in a few ways. Most notably though, there is no 5 day timer to wait through. Once the Sotiyo is reinforced the first time, the fleet must wait 24 hours before the second and final stage of the attack. This makes it that much more difficult for hostile parties to spoil the fun, of course. With planning and preparation complete, it was time to get down to the nitty gritty!
If you shoot it, they will come
Fortunately for the motley crew of assorted Goons, they were uninhibited by outside interference. PlexedLive speculated that it could’ve been simply a matter of the mechanics changes making intereference less enticing. For one reason or another there were no hostile entities there to cause problems other than the NPCs. That was good, because the NPCs came to play hardball.
CCP’s mechanics changes had effectively nullified the option of using a massive fleet of frigates to destroy the Sotiyo with minimal resistance. Upon being attacked, the Sotiyo spawns extremely quick Cruors, effective at both webbing and neuting attackers. Additionally, the Sotiyo itself webs and neuts targets out to 250km, making kiting this structure a thing of the past. The stalwart attackers instead opted to face tank the massive DPS being output by the Cruors and Sotiyo.
PlexedLive described the fleet of being comprised of mainly passive fit high resist tanked Mallers. Sothrasil, of course, flew his trademark Machariel. They were supported by a wing of passive fit T2 cap-chaining Guardians. He also mentions that they had some tricky little techniques for mitigating the DPS coming from the Sotiyo and Cruors. We dared not ask about the trade secrets, or else “I’d have to kill you and sacrifice you to the BR capital gods” were the words of PlexedLive.
Sothrasil’s Machariel under heavy fire from over a hundred fifty Blood Raider subcapitals.
A Job Well Done
In the end, Goons reigned victorious over the Blood Raiders. With the new looting mechanics in place, there were no issues with getting the loot to its rightful owners: The Imperium. PlexedLive wanted to congratulate the logi pilots in particular on their fantastic efforts. The attack went off without a hitch, and even with hundreds of enemy ships on grid, the logi team managed to save every pilot that managed to broadcast for reps.
Congratulations to all those involved in another milestone victory for The Imperium! On to the next one!
