In contrast to the blaze of stupidity that was the first Moracha loss, the first Chremoas left a trail of burning wrecks in its invisible wake. In roughly two months of flying the Chremoas, Tropic9 and his alt destroyed over 200 ships in 2 months to the tune of 3 Billion isk.
The rampage is notable, but old news; more interesting than that is what this incident reveals about the mentality of a specific type of EVE player.
The Chremoas
Alliance Tournament ships are among the rarest ships in EVE, rewarded in limited numbers to the teams most able and willing to win the Alliance tournament. In addition to their rarity, the Alliance Tournament ships are leaps and bounds more powerful than their Assault Frigate and HAC peers. As such, the most common use of these ships is in the Alliance Tournament and New Eden Open, where their extra power for the same point cost justifies their exorbitant price. Top Alliance Tournament teams (read, Hydra Reloaded, Pandemic Legion, and Verge of Collapse) use these ships in decisive matches to secure victory. The community has voiced concerns that circle of using AT ships to win more AT ships reduces the ability of upstart teams to compete. However, the unique aspects of the Chremoas and the Moracha are not particularly suited to a tournament setting, as cloaking is not allowed in the AT, and these ships lack the raw power of Cambions, Etanas, and Malices.
However, the covert ops cloaks make these ships superbly difficult to catch on the open world of TQ, and thus they can be viably flown on Tranquility. This has inflated their value far beyond the standard 30/50 billion isk price for AT Frigs/Cruisers respectively. Tropic9 sourced his Chremoas for an astounding 100 billion isk, and the price is even higher now, with Hydra demanding 120 billion isk per Chremoas hull. Even with these prices, over half the ships have been sold.
Taking $3600 for a joyride
Eve Players are notoriously risk averse, especially when it comes to multibillion isk assets such as supercarriers and titans. These ships spend 99% of their existence sitting inside starbase shields or logged off. Even with less costly assets, players have been known to protect their “solo” ship with Falcon and Tornado alts. It’s the rare breed of pilot that would put that much isk on the line without a fleet ready to bail them out. Notably, Garmon of Genos Occidere lost an Adrestia in February 2012 to Brick Squad. As this incident shows, Tropic9 took precautions to keep his Chremoas alive, but was fully prepared to lose it.
The Encounter
Despite more than 8000 systems and hundreds of thousands of players, EVE can be a small galaxy. Tropic9 and Mav’lite were former alliance mates in Drunk ’n’ Disorderly.
Upon noticing each other in system, they greeted each other, and Mav’lite, knowing that Tropic9 had a Chremoas, offered a fight for old time sake
Mav’Lite > let me pad ur killboard with my loss mail
Tropic9 agreed to the fight, and opened up a small FW plex for their duel. The pilots can explain best what happened next.
[Edited from convo logs to a more condense format, but otherwise untouched]Tropic9 > So I opened up a small FW plex, and went inside to see what he would bring
Mav’Lite > after that, I got in my Dram, undocked, saw a small open and thought “trop may be cloaked in there”.  So I went to the small and went inside
Mav’Lite > there were 2 NPC’s that started shooting me so I killed one and went to kill the other hoping tropic would choose that moment to uncloak, and he did.
Mav’Lite > trop nearly blapped me within 5 seconds :-/. But i managed to get my reps in time luckily
Mav’Lite > want to carry on trop?
Tropic9 > Yeah
Tropic9 > So the start went pretty much like most of my fights. Decloak, tackle + shoot and before you know it they are in deep armor. But this time he started repping it back to nearly full, established tackle and started to orbit me
Tropic9 > At that point I got worried, but for a while it was touch and go I think. I got Mav into deep armor, and he would rep it back up. All the time he was slowly chipping away at my shields though
Tropic9 > Then when I started dropping below 1/3 and went into armor, my worry turned to panic 🙂
Mav’Lite > I didn’t think i would actually win, so initially i was relaxed and accepted i had probably suicide’d my Dram. But as trop said when I started to get a stable tank going and I saw his shields dropping it slowly dawned on me i had a chance. After all, EFT implies 450dps+ from his fit, more with overheat
Tropic9 > So when I was at about 50% armor, I Kind of incoherently suggesting a ransom
Mav’Lite > yes we had a nice chat 🙂
Tropic9 > He didn’t take it (and neither would I have)
Tropic9 > So at 50% armor I recalled the hobs and launcher the ec-300 [this explains why the hobgoblins were in bay], as a last ditch resort.
Mav’Lite > basically as trop said ransom was discussed, I knew I could probably get 30-40b ransom, but tbh……it was a once in a lifetime chance to get a kill like that 🙂
Tropic9 > Aye. Like I said, I wouldn’t have taken if I were on the other side
Tropic9 > So the ec-300’s did nothing, and I popped
Playing to strengths
Stats wise, a Chremoas can be justifiably called a cloaking Dramiel on steroids, so how did Mav’Lite defeat a ship nominally superior to his own in every way?
This is Tropic9’s Chremoas fit
Kitted out with appropriate officer and deadspace mods, the Chremoas is a scary beast to behold. Its 400+ overheated DPS can melt an average frigate in 10-15 seconds; slightly longer for beefy assault frigates. This serves well for Tropic9’s modus operandi, which is to scout FW plexes with his booster Tengu or wait inside a plex in crowded systems. Knowing he will be a popular target for dog-piling, Tropic9 chose to dual prop his Chremoas for easier extraction; he informs TMC that had it not been for the afterburner, his Chremoas would have died weeks ago. Even when just under AB, with help from a snake set and boosting Tengu, the Chremoas can outrun MWD assault frigs, and certain AB frigates even when webbed.
This is Mav’lite’s Dramiel fit
While unconventional, this dual rep, cap-injected, armor Dramiel is a force to be reckoned with. While most Dramiel fits use a MWD to make it one of the fastest ships in EVE, the base speed also means an AB Dramiel can dictate range extremely well and chip away its buffer while range and speed tanking enough for the reps to keep the Dramiel alive against one target. The needs of the dual rep and cap injector means the ship’s DPS is anemic, and it cannot outrun fast frigates it has not scrammed (although, with boosts and snakes, the Dramiel can hit 3.1k when overheating afterburners). It’s a ship designed for 1v1, and Mav’lite’s kill history shows a number of losses where his Dramiel was swarmed by numerous ships.
Aftermath
Losing a 100 Billion isk ship can be a “unique” experience, to say the least; something only experienced by titan/revenant pilots and people who fly AT ships. While Tropic9 admitted to making an “embarrassing ransom attempt”, he had no expectations of it succeeding. After all, when you undock a ship, consider it lost until re-docked.
Tropic9 > I must say I have gotten a lot of positive reactions, both to flying it and even when losing it, and I really appreciate that
Tropic9 > And yes I would totally do it again, It was an amazing and unique experience
Mav’Lite > so would i :). I’m free whenever u are trop !
Tropic9 > Yeah we’ll see
Mav’Lite > <3
Who flies a 100 billion isk ship anyways?
The Chremoas was first brought to TMC’s attention by another Hydra pilot. TMC got in contact with Tropic when the Ship was still on its killing spree, and a series of mail exchanges followed. These mails should quite adequately explain the mindset of someone who would fly a hundred billion isk ship with no backup.
Angry Mustache
Hello Tropic 9
[REDACTED] Â informed me that you’ve been taking your Chremoas on joyrides through Lowsec, leaving an impressive trail of wrecks.Now I think that takes serious stones, and people would like to hear what it’s like flying a titan priced frigate outside of a controlled AT arena.
Are you up for an interview regarding this subject? I understand that publicity might be bad for finding future targets, as well as the health of your Chremoas. So if you decline, this story will not be pursued further.
Tropic9
Hi Angry,
Well I figure that sooner or later you and I will be sitting down for an (ALOD) interview anyway, right?
I’m not really opposed to talking about what I’ve been doing the last few weeks but on the other hand I also don’t want to go into too much details (things like fitting, and how I approach the fights) for the reasons you outlined yourself. If it’s more about the experience of flying the ship and the encounters I’ve had so far then sure.
So I guess it’s up to you and/or the TMC staff to decide if you think that there’s enough content for an interesting article within those constraints. If not then I’ll happily sit down for a full interview when I inevitably lose it.
All this only 3 days before the loss of the ship
Tropic9
I’ll keep going a little longer and we’ll see what happens. Should I reach some really bizarre number of kills with it and still not have lost the ship then we can revisit the original idea. Would that work for you?
Angry Mustache
sounds awesome, I’ll keep my fingers crossed that you run into a rapier gang.
Thanks to Tropic9 and Mav’lite for the information that made this article possible.
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by Angry Mustache.
