The Meatwagon

Here's another good ol' days post.  No particular inspiration, just felt like sharing.

In the early days of our corp (mid-2003), we hung out a few jumps into Lonetrek.  In those days the corp was still pretty centrally located (later on we would be scattered all over high, low, and null).  Once a month or so, we'd have a fun/silly event.

The favorite of these was Ibis Fight Night.  It was probably better termed rookieship fights, but most of us were Caldari and the name stuck.  We'd pick a random moon, and Mrs. Durden would jettison two cans for markers about 40km apart.  We'd split roughly in half and then fight 1v1 in rookieships.  Eventually order would break down and there'd be a big brawl.  Or somebody would race back to station and return in a Blackbird (back when you could fit torps on a BB) and hammer away at 3 or 4 of us at a time.

At the start of each session though, it was serious business, with folks fussing over their fits and trying to get intel on what other guys were bringing this month.  This was in the days before tech2, so we were scrounging through hangers looking for named loot.

The best part of the fight was the start - we'd lunge at each other like jousters on horseback, racing for optimal and wondering if the other guy had fit blasters or rails.  The km would tick down and then the fur would fly.

My favorite Ibis was called Meatwagon, and it went undefeated.  I eventually retired it, the undisputed champ.  Guys got tired losing to it, so I brought more "fair" fits and died a lot more.  The guys asked, but I never gave up the secret sauce in that fit -- a little named autocannon shooting EMP ammo.

Just now I flew across the cluster to grab a screenie of the fit, hoping we'd all get a good chuckle at how horrible it was.  However, I found that while I still have the ship, apparently I gutted the fit at some point. Apparently I needed the autocannon for ... who knows what?  (I did find a Crow with cruise missiles still fitted, and a Blackbird with 3x10mn burners on but that's a story for another time...).