a good roam

We headed up the pipe again to Old Man Star tonight; the usual suspects plus our latest recruit.  On the way Plas managed to locate a Gila in an anomaly, but the fight didn’t go as well as planned.  The Gila let him come, then released the hounds. The  Warriors made short work of the buffer-fit Wolf, and he waved us off before the rest of us jumped into the room.

We scratched around for a replacement ship, myself finding an active armour Rifter gathering dust in a nearby hangar.  Plas took point again and we continued up the pipe.  Meanwhile we had some gate games with a flashy Hurricane, but as we’d seen his pack a few jumps back we didn’t take his bait.

A Tristan in Heydieles caught our attention and we checked him out.  2003 toon, flashy, in a Tristan?  Killboard check.  Obvious bait is obvious.  We made the decision to engage anyway, and Plas made a textbook tackle while we all jumped in.  It was a long warp from the gate though, and my failfit Rifter popped just as Brep and I landed, out of scram range.  The Tristan made good his escape, GFs in local, and we made our way back home, Plas scouting in his pod.

We continued to scout surrounding systems, but it wasn’t until we got home that we got some action.  Jeffers learned an important lesson about face-checking belts, losing his Catalyst and pod to a cloaky Tengu and his buddy in a Cyclone.  I got made on the gate shortly after, the Cyclone jumping straight through for a double-gate trap while the Tengu locked me on the home side.  I decided to take my chances with the Cyclone rather than an insta-lock Tengu, waiting for the Tengu to aggress before I jumped through to prevent him following.  I’d like to see a Cyclone that can catch a Wolf.

Ten minutes later once the Cyclone had left the gate, I had another crack at getting home, but the Tengu was waiting and locked again; this time leaving me locked, scrammed and taking missiles 15km off the gate.  Another Tengu warped on grid as I reapproached.  This time I broke cloak immediately before the 2nd Tengu could follow and decided to dock up for the night.  I count surviving that as a win :)

Good roam, good lessons in mechanics and fleet discipline all around, especially for the new guys. Shame about the lossmails, but as my ice hockey coach used to say: if you ain’t falling over you ain’t trying hard enough.

this is what we do to poor defenceless miners

Splode them.

Wtf you’d be solo mining in lowsec baffles me.  Not a word in local from him, though he did warp his pod out and then, strangely, back to the wreck.  Macroer?  I had to laugh though when I checked the stats of his alliance.

Few milestones here: Bruce is, for the first time, negative sec (-0.01!).  It was Kim’s first kill, and Brep’s first in a long while.

Fun little roam up through Old Man Star and back through upper Placid.  OMS was disappointing as usual.  Maybe it’s just our timezone.

pwn… pwnt… pwnd… pwnage

Killboard.  At least I had the presence of mind to get my pods out.

Story tomorrow. Busy licking my wounds.

*the next day*

Sometimes it takes a shock to revive old instincts.

In my case, sometimes it takes a 110 million ISK loss of 2 ships to remind me that a single positive-sec pilot in lowsec just might have a nasty surprise in wait for me.

So I scanned down our new 0.2 sec home before downtime last night. 2 mag sites, a ladar, a grav and a class 3 wormhole. I hit one of the mags (disappointing loot) and decided I would hit the second mag straight after DT, then jump both toons into the C3 to find shenanigans.

Servers up, Shaz’s ratting Cane out, into the mag site and salvage ahoy.  Maybe I’ll get another faction BPC one day, like the Dram I found on my first ever mag site.  Bruce sitting on the entry gate to our pocket in his Hound. Routine.

Local blips. Mr joor metafor, a single positive-sec pilot, jumps in. I’ve seen him before though have never seen what he flies. Probably a covops right, scanning for whatever carebears scan for (Fail #0: a simple check of eve-kill.net would have warned me of what was to come). Nothing on d-scan, carry on. I’m in a difficult-to-scan mag site, I’ve got some time.

Of course the mag site might be difficult to scan, but a Cane isn’t. Fail #1 – assumption error. And for some idiotic reason, Shaz doesn’t have probes on her ratting overview. Fail #2 – overview laziness.

A short time later, the hairs go up on my neck. Maybe it’s not such a great idea to be here alone; our +1 is still in system. Screw it, only a few more cans to go. I warp Bruce in cloak to 100 off Shaz in the mag site. Fail #3 – why not closer? Why not dock up the cane?

Then it happens: it turns out joor flies an Arazu. Which points the (arty fit) Cane 40km out and proceeds to damp the shit out of me.

I try to burn out of point/damp range, he’s too fast. This was when I really could have used Bruce in close; a point, TP and three Caldari Navy Bane torps would have made the fight more interesting for the Arazu. Screw him then – he wants to fight, I’ll give him one. I hit Bruce for a 20km orbit to get under his damps (still in cloak, 90km off) approach in AB on Shaz and switch to Tremor, still trying to lock through the haze of EWAR. Drones out ready, pinging D-scan. Nothing, and no more in local.

As I burned the Cane in to pound the Arazu, hoping that he doesn’t have the cap to run all those damps plus prop and point (losing any of which would improve my survival chances) he plays his joker. A cyno. Oh… bollocks. Hello Mr Musori Smorgasbord in a Widow. I still can’t lock the Arazu, so I go for a close orbit on the Widow and pound it with Quake and Hobgoblin II’s. Maybe he doesn’t have a tank. I’m in armour, and so far it’s holding.

And then I start getting Hammerhead II’s from the Arazu, and Caldari Navy Mjolnir’s from the Widow. The tank no longer holding, I need a distraction. (Fail #4 – I didn’t overheat the repper).

Uncloak Bruce who is now 30km off (possibly Fail #5 – a more timid or possibly brighter pilot might have cut his losses), lock both Arazu and Widow and torp… the Widow. Fail #6. Heat of the moment misclick. No point, I want these guys to run as this is a battle I can’t win.

At this point Shaz goes into structure, and shortly later is in her pod. Thinking of her full set of +4’s, worth more than the Hound, I focus on getting her out (successfully) while trying to MWD Bruce out of point range. Of course by then Bruce had 2 flights of Hammerhead II’s on him, and shortly afterwards made the trip back to the station in his own pod with his full set of +4s also intact.

GF in local and we had a good chat about it. He wasn’t a douche, just a guy multiboxing 2 covert ops ships looking for GFs. Same as I do. He promised to take good care of the exotic dancers, and I started buying a replacement Cane and Hound at Jita.

Was that lesson worth 110 million ISK? Worth it or not, that’s what the lesson cost.  As with many things like this, it was not a single error that lost me that money, but a number of them that combined and cascaded.

Fly dangerous o7

moving day

So we’re moving to Placid lowsec.  Exploration and shenanigans await.

Another swing and a (sortof) miss

I popped Bruce out in the covert ops in my home system to see what was up.  D-scan picked up an absolute shedful of large and medium pirate wrecks, off the ecliptic for an easy probe.  A short time later (I love the new Alt- probe reposition mechanic)  I was in a spent Level 4 mission with a Navy Dominix or something on probe, clearly finishing up later rooms, and a cloud of wrecks.  Vandals.

Shaz came in with her Vigil and got to work.  I left looting, just focusing on hoovering the battleship salvage, as I had nothing that could take the battleship if and when it returned and shot at the Vigil.  I nommed away until the wrecks were almost gone, at which point a Noctis jumped in.  Seems our missioner wants my wrecks.  I don’t think so.

We competed for the last couple of wrecks while I radioed for our New Guy to jump in with his Tristan and start looting.  Although this seems a cowardly act, Bruce was by this time in a lazy overwatch over the Noctis in his Hound, waiting for a dumb move and I’d need to focus on him if shit went down.  Some people can PvP 2 accounts at once, but I’m too old for that.  Anyway, I bought him that Tristan :)

Shaz and the Noctis fought over the last wreck, with Shaz salvaging as he tractored. Shaz won :)  I quickly popped out a can with a single Armour Plate in it and motored away, hoping the Noctis pilot would be pissed off enough to grab it or stupid enough to click through the warning in his rush; at which point Bruce would unleash hell.  He sure thought about it.  Sat there next to the can for a whole minute in his untanked salvage boat, weighing up the pros and cons of stealing from a salvage Vigil and a Tristan over 80km away and red to him.

One finger on the cloak button.  Another on the point. Mouse at the ready for clicking the second he went red.

Instead, he jumped into room 2.  Punk.  Bruce settled in above the can just in case he came back, and Shaz and New Guy followed the Noctis; New Guy with orders to hug the Noctis and loot every can that dropped, and Shaz doing her “chase the tractoring cans while salvaging them” trick.

We did this for two more rooms, accruing a hold full of Armour Plates, meta modules and assorted paraphenalia.  Not exactly a bounty for me, but for a two week old pilot, 10 mill is a fortune.  Mr Noctis never peeped a word and left the system shortly afterwards.

Yarr… ?

yoink… ?

I had some time during the day today to scan down the surrounding systems, looking for wormholes in which to conduct shenanigans. After four systems, I’d located four Serpentis sites and one C1 hole. While corpie and wormhole pal from yesteryear Brep ran the combat sites, I took Brucey into the C1 to see what was up in w-space.

Nothing, that’s what. Only a Drake on scan, probably at a POS, and a buttload of signatures. I warped around a bit to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, and decided to check for offline towers. Always bet on stupid. Well my probes didn’t find any towers, but did find that Drake. And from the looks of it, he was just sitting there. I quickly probed him down, warped the Cheetah to 100km and was gobsmacked to see that not only was it just sitting there in space, it was unoccupied.

Yarr.

After a self-satisfied grin and little skip of the heart, I came thudding back down to earth with the realisation that nobody in our corp could fly a Drake, being Matar and Gallente drone whores. Hmm, what to do. I wonder what my Caldari Black Ops alt-in-training is up to? A quick simulation in EveHQ revealed that the Great Drake Yoink was only four hours of training away, with Battlecruisers II. Commence.

In the meantime we went on a 3-man frigate roam into the local lowsec to see what we could see. We ended up hugging gates, surrounded by Maels, Drakes and covops boats. Lowsec ain’t what it used to be. However one of the locals brought out a Cane, which he very kindly offered to 2v1 the remaining Tristan and Rifter in (the Ishkur having had to log). Um, no deal. Would we be interested in a Rupture? By this time we just wanted splosions of any colour, so we agreed.

Being ever wary of a TARP, I warped Brucey’s Cheetah to the designated belt only to see the Rupture sitting well above it, no doubt fit for range, and 40km from me. Nice. A 10km orbit would give the Rifter and Tristan a good warp in under the guns for a pro Rupture kill. He’d never be the wiser if I didn’t break cloak. 30… 20… 15…

He warped off. The git.

We played all innocent in local, talking about how Shaz had been talking our green (1 week old) Tristan pilot through how it would go down, and huzzah, he came back to the belt. 50km away from Bruce’s covops. Repeat. 40… 30… 20…

Again. Warped. Gave us a line about needing to go, and went afk. I made sure to leave a good natured taunt about a Ruppy running from a Rifter and a 1-week old toon in a Tristan, and we left, balls blue. Never mind; the training countdown was almost done and we had a Drake to steal.

We made it to the C1 with 15 minutes to spare before training was done; Bruce still in the Cheetah and the alt in a shuttle. Oh, what I’d pay to hear our intrepid Drake abandoner’s choice of words when he no doubt logged on his Noctis to find his “safespot” Drake significantly downgraded. Given the number of signatures in the C1, and the time instability of the hole, I elected not to jump in right away in case it closed. I’ve scanned an exit many times from a C2 with 30+ sigs, and the exit is always in the last five. It’s a pain in the arse.

So I started drafting this post. Time passed. Then…

SEVEN minutes from the completion of training…

…

The hole popped. End of life. Vanished away, taking J213653 and my Drake with it.

Eve, you blue-balling bitch, that’s twice in one day.

unsatisfying

Every now and then I just have to play up a bit in local.  Mr Studley was flipped while jetcanning veldspar in a Retriever in hisec, and took umbrage.  Honestly, is there no depth to which people will sink to scratch together a living.

StudleyManiac > only target I have in local is a damn can flipper
Vasilissa Dragomere > i have no targets in local
Silent Shaz > o/
StudleyManiac > who should be ashamed
Silent Shaz > oh don’t be like that
Hermann Salza > Hallo Silent
madhatta18 > yeah blimmin flippers
Silent Shaz > I hung around to let you shoot me and all
madhatta18 > darn shame the npc cant get them for it
madhatta18 > lol
StudleyManiac > and what did I do?
StudleyManiac > gtfo
Silent Shaz > clever
Silent Shaz > I’m new at this so I don’t really know how to properly psyche people into shooting me
StudleyManiac > nope smart… you did the clever thing and baited
madhatta18 > dont engage a flipper thats what thay want
Silent Shaz > I’m introducing a mate to the world of eve, and can flipping is part of eve’s rich pageant :D
Vasilissa Dragomere > im new to eve only been playing for 3 weeks but no ones ever shown me how to can flip
Silent Shaz > studley will show you
StudleyManiac > nope
StudleyManiac > you flip a can from me you can keep it
Vasilissa Dragomere > lol my alliance and corp frown apon such things lol
Silent Shaz > nah I felt bad, I left the can there in the belt for you

I really thought he might go back and nick it.  He didn’t. For shame.

StudleyManiac > and why?
StudleyManiac > would your aliance frown upon it?
Silent Shaz > I hear it can be a rich source of tears and entertainment for all
StudleyManiac > entertainment I can see…. but tears hmmmm
StudleyManiac > you get flipped let it go
Silent Shaz > or… seek revenge in manly rifter-retriever combat
StudleyManiac > move on to a different belt but you do get a window to kill the flipper
madhatta18 > true
Silent Shaz > flippers deserve death by boat violence
StudleyManiac > time for more alcohol
madhatta18 > but by the time you get a ship to doit thay prob run
Silent Shaz > maybe, but you can get lucky and get a dumb one that will hang around

Just throwing back the small ones so they grow into big ones for later catching.

StudleyManiac > yes they are like whale s** you can’t get any lower than that
Silent Shaz > awww
Silent Shaz > cluttering up the belts with cans like that, someone could get their ship dented
StudleyManiac > no worries … this is just a game
madhatta18 > and i dont want to scratch my custom paint job
Silent Shaz > aye it is :) well played to you sir

I was prepared to go to bed about now.  Mr Studley had different ideas.

StudleyManiac > you want to make your imaginary penis bigger go ahead and flip me go ahead… My penis is big enough for me
madhatta18 > nah cant got war targets floating around
Silent Shaz > wait, didn’t you just say it’s a game? aren’t flippers just playing a game too?
Silent Shaz > suddenly it’s about penises?
madhatta18 > yes
StudleyManiac > yes…
madhatta18 > its a dangerous living thou
StudleyManiac > yours is too small so you have to compensate
Silent Shaz > lol
madhatta18 > lol
Vasilissa Dragomere > hello again
Silent Shaz > MY HONOUR IS BESMIRCHED. I DEMAND SINGLE COMBAT TO SETTLE THIS INSULT.
Vasilissa Dragomere > okay but u shoot first
madhatta18 > lol
StudleyManiac > you’re a can flipper you have no honour
Vasilissa Dragomere > all i said was hello again lmao
Silent Shaz > ARE YOU A MAN OR A FEMALE IMPERSONATOR, STUDLEY (IF THAT IS INDEED YOUR REAL NAME)
madhatta18 > who uses there real name here ????

Wtf?

StudleyManiac > nope my real name is Maniac…. and I do have a penis
Vasilissa Dragomere > I dont :(

I presume Vasilissa is referring to not using their real name, but it could well be an unconfirmed sighting of a genuine girl.

StudleyManiac > short but it sitll does the job
Silent Shaz > WILL YOU NOT BACK YOUR COWARDLY WORDS WITH DEEDS?
madhatta18 > i fail to see what that has to do with a fame lol
StudleyManiac > silent do know where the cap lock key is?
Vasilissa Dragomere > I didn’t realise I was using cowardly words
madhatta18 > hahahaha
Silent Shaz > I am outraged, that’s my outraged voice
madhatta18 > nice
Vasilissa Dragomere > okay ill stop now its been fun though lol
madhatta18 > this is so funny
StudleyManiac > thanks for my 15 minutes of fame I will die realizing I have achieved perfection
Silent Shaz > YOU HURL INSULTS AND ASPERSIONS, AND HIDE IN YOUR STATION BEHIND CONCORD. THAT IS NOT THE ACT OF A MAN
madhatta18 > cool np
madhatta18 > its been an entertaining local chat lol
Silent Shaz > STUDLEY, YOU AND YOUR CORP WILL HENCEFORTH BE BRANDED COWARDS UNTIL THIS MATTER IS SETTLED

OK I read ninja blogs. Get over it.

StudleyManiac > man/woman… what is difference (besides one in an innie and the other an outie)?
StudleyManiac > silent what issues do you have with me? my alliance would like to know
Kimaeha Jeremin > Lols… Space-Diplomacy 101.
StudleyManiac > hmmmm where are the skillbooks for that
Silent Shaz > NONE BUT YOUR UNJUSTIFIED INSULTS TO MY HONOUR AS A HARDWORKING CLEARER OF UNANCHORED BELT CANS
Kimaeha Jeremin > You don’t need skillbooks for “run like a girl”
Vasilissa Dragomere > I would just like to ask are there any real life females in local?
madhatta18 > is there a skill books for cvan flipping ?
madhatta18 > if so where can i get one
StudleyManiac > yes it is named AssHole 101
Vasilissa Dragomere > I havn’t met any on eve besides me yet and its getting pretty boring talking to the guys about how big there guns are lmao
madhatta18 > and whats it pay a day
Silent Shaz > AND STILL YOU INSULT, AND STILL YOU HIDE, AND STILL YOU REFUSE MY CHALLENGE

Come on…

Vasilissa Dragomere > It’s just lucky i like big guns
Vasilissa Dragomere > and i would say killing ppl but all i do is die lmao
madhatta18 > nah forget it ill rather work for my iskies nothing wose than beeing a can rat
StudleyManiac > silent …. no challenge… I don’t PVP

Boooom headshot. Dammit, he’s gonna punk out.

Vasilissa Dragomere > now now mad no need for such language lmao
Silent Shaz > THEN HOLD YOUR COWARDLY TONGUE SIR
Vasilissa Dragomere > what penis vs penis?????
Kimaeha Jeremin > No, Vasilissa… “Cowardly Tongue…”
StudleyManiac > my bad was just trying to let the community know what you were up to
Vasilissa Dragomere > no i ment pvp?
Kimaeha Jeremin > Oh. Nevermind :)
Vasilissa Dragomere > im blonde i do admit that lol
madhatta18 > this is interesting we actually have amusing convos in local
Vasilissa Dragomere > sorry kind of new at the game lol
Silent Shaz > Thank you for spreading the massage that cluttering belts with cans is a sociopathic activity
StudleyManiac > sorry the sun is up and I have to contiinue drinkiing….
Kimaeha Jeremin > That makes too much sense …
Silent Shaz > FAREWELL
StudleyManiac > adious
Silent Shaz > PEOPLE OF [REDACTED], YOUR CANS ARE SAFE WITH ME

Woulda been better ending with a kill. Either way. Ah well.

In hindsight, I should have challenged him to combat in an industrial. I’m going to fit a Battle Mammoth specially for future opportunities.

back in the saddle

The urge to yarr is strong.

I’m not by any stretch of the imagination an experienced pirate, but I love Eve for its freedom to do so if and when it tickles my fancy. Since returning to Eve a week or so ago, getting set up to indulge in a bit of yoinking and wormhole raiding has been my focus.

It hasn’t been smooth though. First, Brucey woke up from his six month slumber in a 0.0 outpost (BWF-ZZ) which had, during said slumber, changed hands and was now owned by The Russians TM. He had also been good-naturedly kicked for inactivity (with a standing invite to reapply). Invictus are a great bunch of lads and I love flying with them, but RL won’t permit that sort of commitment at the moment. One day I shall return to the fleet Sabre; but it is not this day.

So with about half a billion in ships and fittings sitting in a station that I had no docking rights at, it was time to hit the market and contracts. I sold everything except for three GSCs of assorted paraphenalia and my Firetail, posted three very generous courier contracts to the nearest hisec, waited for an opportune moment and snuck out the back door. An evening of autopiloting and I had most of my remaining gear back down in my hisec hunting grounds.

Shaz, meanwhile, had been busy buying and fitting a Hound for Bruce as well as a number of Canes, Rifters, Vigils and Cyclones for sharesies; as well as upgrading all of her research agents to L3 for some passable passive income. My 3rd main switched training from a Black Ops to an Orca, though he’s still a month off the hull so I have some time to get settled.

Tuesday night I had half an hour spare so I scanned down my home hisec to see if I could find a wormhole to peek my Hound into. No such luck, but I did find a Radar site and, recent costs being what they were, felt compelled to quickly fit a codebreaker and check out cans. 18M in decryptors for my trouble; not bad at all.

Last night I had a similar short Eve opportunity and headed out in a pretty bog standard Ninja Vigil. Shaz (in her Prowler) scanned down a Domi well off the ecliptic, clearly in a mission. There’s nothing I have that can take out a mission-fit Domi, but I thought at least I’ll get some battleship salvage and maybe goad him into getting Concorded, leaving a tasty fat wreck for picking over. No such luck as he ignored me salvaging the battleship wrecks, even as I helpfully target painted his mission rats. Still, Armour Plates eh? Ship them off to my lab for inventing into highly profitable [redacted].

I need to run with some experienced pirates so I can see how it’s done. This feels like amateur hour.

o7