Another mortal enemy

First of all I have to say hello to everybody I have been ignoring in local as I travel about. I keep finding local filled with people who are trying to say hello to me and I am rudely ignoring because I am typing in corp chat or somewhere else. So hello everybody. I am not trying to be rude. It just comes naturally :)

I found myself orbiting a Hurricane Fleet Issue who had me yellow boxed but was apparently very determined not to aggress. To pass the time I started racing him to wrecks by checking his alignment and quickly burning in front of him, emptying the loot just before he got into range.

A few more rats appeared. He began moving towards them so I set a tight orbit, biding my time until Innocent had another prospective target lined up. A Dominix Navy looked enticing on the probe scanner and I was just about to warp out when the warning alert sounded. He had aggressed!

The timing was very suspicious. I suspected that he had made an error by clicking the wrong target. Still, I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth so I began chipping away at his defences. I paused briefly to kill a drone or two as well as a NPC Griffin just in case it jammed me (grr, I hate those things). Before long the galaxy was minus one Hurricane Fleet Issue plus pod:

Hurricane Fleet Issue: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?eid=46967119

Pod: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?eid=46967123

He was a noob so I sent him some isk to cover his loss along with a link to The Lecture. He confirmed that he had mistakenly opened fire, having earlier set his safety yellow. Hehe, that’ll learn him.

Failure with a small PvE gang

Zappity was sitting in her Myrmidon in Vard. She took it out for a spin, escaped two Garmurs with the aid of the MJD and then promptly died to a Stabber Fleet and his Deimos pal. I nearly killed the Stabber to death but, sadly, he chose the way of the dishonour drone.

I'm finding the lowsec meta a bit difficult at the moment. I think it is partially because the meta is shifting away from solo again but mostly because I just don't have the time to find good fights right now. So after losing my Myrm I decided to take a short detour to Lustrevik, that mission running haven. I jumped into Loot Sweet Loot, my double rep Incursus, and sought out some shiny, big ships.

I soon found a small gang running Level 4 missions: Vargur (probably a bit too tough), Rupture using T1 drones (oh yes, a real possibility) and Comet using T2 drones (a bit of a worry). I started shooting their MTU. This is the only possible course of action where an MTU is involved. When it became clear that I was breaking through the remote reps the Vargur aggressed. I tackled him before systematically killing all his drones. Then the Rupture aggressed! This is the one I really wanted so I switched tackle and went into a tight orbit before killing his drones, too.

The Vargur began repping him (most unfair and very frustrating) so when a convo from the Comet pilot opened I told him that the Vargur was very brave to risk such a valuable ship for an MTU. I wanted him to warp off, leaving the Rupture to die. He refused to do so, but the Rupture managed to cruise out of rep range all on his own. Suddenly his shield was down, and then his armour! Half hull!

Unfortunately, he realised what was happening and started making his way back to the stationary Vargas who I began to suspect was in Bastion. At this point I should have tried bumping the Rupture away from the larger ship. But perhaps I'm in the realms of fantasy considering that I had only a humble afterburner Incursus to work with.

With the Rupture again back at full shields, I re-evaluated the field. The Comet was orbiting out of scram range and I had no web for range control anyway. The Vargur was too tough to break. The Rupture was unlikely to make the same mistake again - probably time to move on. I think I need an Enyo for this. The added deeps would really help.

The Comet made the decision easier by finally aggressing, something he should have done much earlier. The combined damage was too great for me and I had to depart, tail between legs.

I gave them a gf and congratulated them on not losing a ship before continuing my conversation with the Comet pilot. They were a new gang and he was trying to teach them the fundamentals. I recommended against getting the Vargur to aggress in future and advised a re-ship strategy.

That was great fun. Lots to micromanage, no ECM, no dogpiling, and a reasonably balanced engagement (i.e. a billion ISK worth of carebear ships vs my little Incursus). Good stuff!

Video: http://youtu.be/3EDYmxr6KpI

After warping away I realised that I had been very remiss in not announcing myself properly to the locals. "Hello, I am Zappity the Mostly Fearless. I am here to inspect your wrecks for juicy loot and to destroy any who dare oppose me! No ship can stand against the mighty Incursus!"

Suddenly, a rose in the form of Rosco Train suddenly grew from the, um, mud heap. He remembered this thread and we chatted for a bit about solo endeavours before he challenged me to a duel. Now, I'm not usually big on duels because the pre-arranged nature removes half the fun. But in this case, how could I refuse?

We met at the sun in T1 frigates - cliched but true. He wisely warped in at 100 km in what I assumed was a kiting Kestrel (not good news for my utterly predictable blasty Incursus - I bet you couldn't have guessed). I quickly warped out and back in at range, landing almost on top of him. Somehow I managed to land a scram with an overheated afterburner and the rest, as they say, is history:

Kestrel: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?eid=46964128

Video: https://youtu.be/b6QjAwQJ6Po

GF, Rosco. Who knew that highsec could contain such gems? 

Killing some noobs with a Myrmidon

I went for a roam around Ishomilken and was disgusted by the number of link ships hugging stations and gates (CCP, please add a weapons timer to links) as well as hordes of stabbed farmers as far as the eye could see. It was just one of those days when everything seemed to annoy me so I did the only rational thing and complained about it loudly on the forums where it could be promptly ignored.

I decided that it was time for a move. I have always preferred the sultry red tones of the Min/Amarr zone. Perhaps it reminds me of my youth, running missions in Lustrevik. Or perhaps that first time I ventured, trembling, into lowsec.

I pondered the map and decided that Huola was as good a place as any. It is reasonably central in the southern part of the map, adjacent to highsec for easy imports and within jump range of Amarr. (Yes, I bought a jump freighter. No, I'm not telling you which character is piloting it. Yes, it is because I don't trust you.)

I started the long journey from Ishomilken in a Myrmidon. This is not because the Myrm makes a good travel ship but because I was looking for fights. There were loads of frigates around but not a single one wanted to fight me until I arrived at my destination.

One jump out of Huola was a friendly low skill frigate gang in a Griffin (grr), Executioner, Rifter and Slasher. Perfect, except for the Griffin which frankly had me a bit worried. But I warped to the large plex anyway.

They were quick off the mark! I barely had time to settle in on the beacon before they landed, swarming over me. I locked the Griffin and was just about to tackle and web him when his first jam landed. And the second, and third, and fourth and then I lost count. Honestly, what frustrating mechanics.

I eventually remembered to launch my drones and set them aggressive. They began killing one of the ships and it wasn't long before the first wreck appeared. I was surprised at that since I thought Ogres needed a web to properly apply damage to frigates.

Then, finally, the Griffin missed a cycle! I locked him, scrammed him and double webbed him good. Foolishly, he had set a close orbit and was still within easy reach. I took enormous satisfaction in killing him. And then, methodically, I killed the rest of them.

I admit that wasn't a particularly fair fight. But bugger 'em, they brought a Griffin!

Video: https://youtu.be/aQ3fijHjHPI

Griffin: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?eid=46488344
Executioner: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?eid=46488357
Slasher: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?eid=46488351
Rifter: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?eid=46488333

More l33t vintage Zappity

A poor Procurer paid the price in Providence:

Procurer: https://zkillboard.com/kill/46146203/

He didn't warp away in time. After I killed him one of the locals called me a "vampire" but I think he was just confused about which game he was playing so I let it pass.

A couple of systems over I caught a ratting Dominix. And killed him. Those battleships are so nice and easy to scan down:

Dominix: https://zkillboard.com/kill/46164232/

Pod: https://zkillboard.com/kill/46164245/

By this stage I was getting a bit uppity about killing these Provi ratters and couldn't resist having a go at a Tempest Fleet Issue who was obviously looking for a fight. Unfortunately, my dual boxing skills are absolutely rubbish and the inevitable soon occurred. This is a bit embarrassing but I did promise to be honest in this thread.

I started my l33t performance by clicking the wrong button and Zappity started heading in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, I didn't notice this because I shifted my attention to the Legion. The Legion was promptly scram-kited to death. While this was happening, Zappity woke up and started heading in the right direction. She got into scram range just as the Legion died, barely a scratch on the TFI.

Legion: https://zkillboard.com/kill/46164307/

Frankly, this was something of a relief because I could concentrate on what I was doing. I got into a tight orbit on the TFI and started chewing away at him. The neuts were pretty bad, though, and the small injector (I had swapped the medium for Ion blasters) just wasn't cutting it.

I struggled with cap, injecting just enough to keep a web and scram active part of the time. The drone dps was still pretty good but my tank against a ship like the TFI relied on getting into orbit. And the bugger kept pulling away.

We both crept down into structure before I capped out again. He pulled away and walloped me at zero transversal. Ouch.

Stratios: https://zkillboard.com/kill/46164325/

That was a great fight after the Legion died. I think I'll stick to the lone Stratios in future. The only ship that my lone Stratios couldn't have killed was that miserable Raven. Who I didn't find again! The mining ships were obviously no challenge. The Cyclone would have died anyway. The Prophecy would not have survived, and even the Domi wasn't injected and would have died eventually with a single neut applied.

More to the point, I don't enjoy the multiboxing-ships-on-grid caper. It is stressful, I am not good at it and I don't like having to lumber two fighting ships around. I like it even less than not being able to kill the occasional ship.

But I got a little distracted there. To get back to the situation at hand, I escaped with both pods and made my sad way to Amarr. They really should have bubbled the gate and killed them, too. I know I would have after that pathetic performance.

Kill on Sight!

A thread invited pilots to go and enjoy the Providence life, although the timing of this was suspiciously close to the arrival of FozzieSov. Out of curiosity, I checked my status on the list which defined which pilots are permitted to enter this land flowing in bounties and loot drops.

Kill on Sight! But I had never even been to Providence! Why did they set me KOS? Discrimination! Meanness! This injustice could not go unanswered. I vowed that I would not rest until I had wreaked my revenge upon this discriminatory brood. Or until I got bored.

I hitched up my gank Stratios, reassigned Innocent Scout from her POS hunting duties, and headed for Providence. What could possibly go wrong? Anyway, I had become bored with POS hunting after breaking through the 50b barrier.

The region of Providence is surprisingly straightforward to get into. There are some nice highsec and lowsec gates, although the entry closest to Amarr was predictably camped when I arrived.

A few jumps in I came across a lonely Cyclone, ratting in a belt. Innocent Scout located him on the probes and warped Zappity in. Aha! My first victim! Of course, I used the wrong drones (Berserkers) which the Minmatar shield was naturally tanked against. But it didn't matter, probably because the ship was piloted by a new character who refused to give me a gf.

Cyclone: https://zkillboard.com/kill/46138226/
Pod: https://zkillboard.com/kill/46138254/

A couple of jumps further and I found a Raven sitting in an anomaly, greedily dispatching rats. This guy was actually awake and warped out before I had a chance to snare him. Hmm. I exited the system and sent Innocent Scout to market to collect a 200mm plate and scram.

When she returned, Zappity waited on the gate while Innocent jumped through and rapidly scanned down the Raven. She landed on top of him and immediately went into a tight orbit around the tackled battleship. Zappity jumped in and warped, landing her own scram just in time for Innocent to scarper, deep in armour.

Unfortunately, that is where the good news ended. The Stratios could not break the Raven's active shield tank. So off I went in a huff, forgetting my drones just to add insult to injury.

I pondered this unfair situation. What I needed, I decided, was some neuting power to switch off that active tank. I fit a few neuts, tailored my resists to Sanshas profile, and headed back. Of course, it was too much to expect that the Raven would still be waiting for me. But he was! Innocent again landed tackle but this time was popped before she could make her escape. Sigh. I forgot about that Sisters' probe launcher.

Zappity began applying the deeps. Things worked better this time and the Raven's shield was nibbled away until only half remained. I figured that the neuts were doing their job. And then he repped all the way back up.

Bugger. Either he was cap injected or the Stratios neuts just weren't up to the job. And now the Stratios was in low armour, getting the attention of both the Raven and the rats. And he was killing my poor drones. So I ran away, humiliated. Oh well. Some you win, some you lose. I gave him a gf and went on my way.

Time for the big guns. Zappity gave her cousin in marketing a call. Despite his typically deskbound profession, Zappity's cousin in marketing flies a mean neuting Legion. It wasn't long before Zappity's Stratios was again sporting maximum firepower, this time backed up by a nice rack of neuts.

Innocent jumped through the gate. Sabre! Well, that's alright. I know how to get away from them (most of the time). However, Zappity forgot to cancel her jump and, like a noob, hopped straight through into the bubble. By this time a Worm, a Svipul and an assortment of destroyers had joined the Sabre. These Provi types are damnably sneaky. I crashed the gate with heated afterburner. Just in time!

While licking my wounds with a mobile depot and armour reppers I valiantly decided to go the other way. Happily, this took me in the direction of a nice little dead end constellation which appeared to have a light dusting of NPC kills. Two systems in I was greeted by "Zappity red" flashing up in local.

Not wanting to be rude, I responded by saying hello while Innocent finished scanning down the Prophecy and initiated warp. The two cruisers landed 20km away from him. For some reason he was burning away from the anomaly but not warping off to safety.

The Legion jumped on him and landed a scram and web before applying the neuts. Unfortunately, Zappity was fit with an afterburner and couldn't get close enough to apply any blaster damage. But the drones did a good enough job from a distance:

Prophecy: https://zkillboard.com/kill/46144917/
Pod: https://zkillboard.com/kill/46144936/

I think he was AFK. I didn't see any armour reps.

While I was busy killing him one of the locals (one of the awake ones) politely enquired as to the reason for my presence. He informed me that my actions would result in my entire alliance being set red. Zappity's diplomatic career was evidently about to commence! I couldn't manage to get too worked up about this, figuring that the alliance not already being red was probably some sort of oversight that really ought to be corrected.

Still, not wishing to pass up the opportunity to learn about my new holiday home, I asked what Provi life was like. I asked about whether defence fleets were often run. I asked whether there was a lot of PvP action or whether it was mostly a PvE region. They declined to comment, telling me I was trolling.

To be honest, the principle behind Provi is quite appealing. Defending against the big bad blue donut seems a worthy goal. Unfortunately, I doubt that Zappity will be welcome for quite some time.

But they started it by setting me KOS!

Screenshots of the loot

Just a quick one in response to a reader's request. Here are some screenshots of the haul.

General loot already in Jita: http://i.imgur.com/DzPszoJ.png

T2 Ship BPCs: http://i.imgur.com/rBtIUqA.png

T1 Ship BPOs: http://i.imgur.com/68PqQaC.png and http://i.imgur.com/fbHusea.png

T1 BPOs: http://i.imgur.com/zuDy8Md.png

Some more random ships I forgot about: http://i.imgur.com/OZHJYmk.png

A typical invention POS haul: http://i.imgur.com/eVrN9Sw.png

T2 BPCs: http://i.imgur.com/xiQtTdJ.png

In addition, I have already liquidated 23b so you can probably get an idea of the total from these screenshots if you can be bothered (I haven't figured it out accurately). There are only a few billion worth of assets not yet consolidated at a hub. Red Frog and Push have been getting a lot of business from me lately.

2b or not 2b, that is the question!

I had a bad cold last week and spent many hours in front of the computer, scanning monotonously. I found 69 offline Starbases and declared war on 64 of their owners (that's right, there are none left for you - sorry about that) at a cost of just over 3.2b. The remaining corps belonged to big nullsec alliances and were too expensive to war dec.

On reflection, I should have kept accurate records but I can still give you the high level results. Around 15-20% of the POS owners woke up and either cleaned up or defended their assets. I warped into two of the Russian corps to find their newly reinstated forcefields filled to the brim with angry looking PvP ships. They were rather defensive. Five or six corps invited allies, three of which were mercenary corps. These were amongst the percentage who defended their POS.

But what about the haul? About a quarter of the starbases which remained offline were virtually empty and either resulted in a loss or barely broke even. As for the remainder, the most lucrative setups were, of course, the capital component blueprint research starbases. I only found two of these but they still netted me 7b between them.

I found an awful lot of other BPOs along with lots of T2 and T3 BCPs and countless T1 BPCs which I didn’t bother taking. I became very incensed with people who had not yet researched their BPOs to 10/20 because these are much easier to sell. It is just laziness, really, and should be remedied before I come to visit in future.

I have not yet taken the trouble of valuing the non-capital blueprints but you can get an idea from perusing the list (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=5637147) in the Sell Orders thread. I netted 32b in readily liquidated, non-blueprint, assets. This mostly took the form of T2 production materials, datacores and ships.

Actually, the Ship Maintenance Arrays were disappointing on the whole, with only three dropping something interesting. And one of them dropped a Skiff which none of my pilots could fly! But I was more than recompensed by a nice POS in Domain which contained an Orca, two Hulks and this ridiculous two billion ISK Tengu:

[Tengu, Ridiculous Tengu]
'Cartel' Power Diagnostic System I
Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System
Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System
Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System

Pith B-Type Shield Boost Amplifier
Pith X-Type Shield Boost Amplifier
Pithum A-Type Medium Shield Booster
Caldari Navy Adaptive Invulnerability Field
Dread Guristas EM Ward Field
Pith X-Type Thermic Dissipation Field

Caldari Navy Heavy Missile Launcher
Caldari Navy Heavy Missile Launcher
Caldari Navy Heavy Missile Launcher
Caldari Navy Heavy Missile Launcher
Caldari Navy Heavy Missile Launcher
Caldari Navy Heavy Missile Launcher

Medium Capacitor Control Circuit II
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

Tengu Electronics - Dissolution Sequencer
Tengu Defensive - Amplification Node
Tengu Engineering - Augmented Capacitor Reservoir
Tengu Offensive - Accelerated Ejection Bay
Tengu Propulsion - Intercalated Nanofibers

The other interesting SMA dropped an Obelisk which was no doubt used to bring in the 550m worth of materials in the Corporate Hangar Array along with a 10/20 Covetor BPO. The CHA drops were highly variable, ranging from virtually nothing to enormous quantities of tritanium.

The biggest disappointment was the Hyasyoda Research Laboratory. These were initially very exciting for me and the first thing I tended to crack open but not a single one dropped anything. However, setups which contained a Hyasyoda lab often had tasty blueprints in the invention or copy labs. I guess they had finished researching but had not yet taken down the array. Fatal error!

I also found a POS dedicated to the production of Light Neutron Blaster IIs. I doubt that many industrialists will mourn the passing of that one! Did you lose a production facility by any chance, CODE?

The response from the absentee owners was rather muted. I guess that many of them have yet to learn of their fate. However, five owners did contact me by mail a few days after the heist. One took it in his stride and was quite reasonable about the whole thing. Another was quite miffed about the whole situation and sent me a demand for 2b (presumably the merc fee) along with prognostications of doom and disaster for my good self if I failed to cough up the dough. I replied to his friendly offer with the words, ‘2b or not 2b, that is the question!. And the answer is, of course, no!’

The remaining owners, however, represented a most astounding coincidence: all three let their POS run out of fuel only because they were in hospital. The subtext here was, “Please give my stuff back.” However, my attitude tended towards disbelief when all three represented themselves as alt corps of large and powerful nullsec entities who would make my life miserable if I did not return the loot.

I have very little sympathy for these corps. If you wish to reap the substantial benefits of an industry POS then you must accept the possibility of losing it should you be careless enough to let it run out of fuel. I hope this risk/reward balance remains with the new structures.