The Mosquito Bandito - Death from Within

Ransoms for everyone?

2010-09-26T01:29:00.000-07:00

It seems that lots of people are willing to pay ransoms these days...

As a case in point, I found a C2 WH this evening where the hi-sec static entrance was getting ready to close for time.

I jumped in to take a peek and saw a Minmatar Control Tower on scan with no force field and nothing anchored.

Usually I just ignore these unless they have Ship Maintenance Arrays or Corp Hangars but I had a feeling about this one. Best case: it was in the process of being unanchored.

So - I quickly scan it down, warp to it and find that it is "online" but not forcefield.

As I'm trying to figure out why the owners wouldn't put up the force field, a bestower and an itty III jump in and warp to straight to the POS.

I kill both of them (one had a few weak POS mods and one had more fuel) and pod one of the pilots.

The other was too fast for me.

But - I convo'd him and offered to let him finish fueling and setting up his POS before the WH collapsed for time if he'd pay me 150 mil. After all, we want more carebears in WH's... not less!

He gives me a sob story about not being able to afford 150m but then finishes with 'But I can pay you 50m'

As I really didn't want to camp the WH anyway - I just took the 50m and ran. Not a bad use of about 10 minutes time and a little luck.

This is definitely worth remembering for the future.

Gimme your orca and I'll leave you alone!

2010-09-25T10:52:00.001-07:00

I've learned better than to promise to keep writing more but I wanted to at least leave a simple post to kind of bring people up to date.

I've been hunting wormholes about 2 - 3 times a month with reasonably profitable results.

In one of the WH's I've been camping I've done over 10 bil worth of kills and personally gotten close to 5 billion in profit from it.

Not shabby!

But today is the day it came to an end. I needed to free my alt up to help with some other projects so I stepped up my extortion efforts and cashed out.

But first a little history.

It all started with my just missing tackling a vargur who was plexing in a WH. He was aligned and even though I bump tackled - I missed him. It got especially painful when I reviewed his contracts and saw that he most likely had several officer mods worth a total of 10 billion (tracking computers and enhancers are expensive) on his vargur.

Needless to say, that caught my attention and I started camping their WH.

That first night I caught a lone tengu plexing. I was able to talk him into ejecting to save his pod from the onlining Mobile Warp Disruptor Bubble. 100% drop rate is always preferable (2 billion profit is nice too!)

The second night they started plexing with 2 vargurs, a scorp navy issue and a tengu. I didn't have the hi-sec bookmarked so I tried to take them solo but they chewed me up. They didn't have points, but there was no way I was going to break them.

The good news is they were cocky! I called for help and was able to bait them into engaging us and got the following Vargur and the Scorp Navy Issue (6 - 7 billion in damage) that night. We split around 2 billion in loot between us.

http://www.freelancerunion.co.uk/eve-killboard/?a=c orp_detail&crp_id=11409

Things were quite for awhile with only a rare kill every now and again (and 100m ransom from a hulk) from this particular wormhole (but some good kills including carriers coming pretty much every weekend from others).

Then a couple of weeks ago I got a tengu tackled in their wormhole. He wouldn't eject, but he did drop everything I'd want him to drop.

Check out the tengu mail on their corp losses! (1 bill + in profit)

http://www.freelancerunion.co.uk/eve-killboard/?a=corp_detail&crp_id=1155

I had been trying to extort these guys for around 1 billion isk to get me to leave them alone for awhile. What I didn't find out until later was that one of the guys who I'd invited along for a few kills (and didn't even have an alt in their wormhole) extorted them for the same 1 billion and they paid him while I was not playing due to work.

Ah well.. such is life.

So today I was watching their wormhole and saw that they had an orca assisting their miners (but also knew that they were watching for me to sign in etc).

I wasn't able to tackle the miner, but I did talk the orca into warping to the grav site and ejecting in exchange for me leaving them alone. I paid him 75m to sweeten the pot since I really wanted to free my alt up to camp another wormhole I'd found.

The chat log of that discussion follows:

(Thanks again to Tol Sirion for backing me up on the fact that I'm an honorable guy)

---------------------------------------------------------------

Channel ID: -14745487
Channel Name: Private Chat (Rockuso)
Listener: gutted
Session started: 2010.09.25 16:26:23
---------------------------------------------------------------

[ 2010.09.25 16:26:34 ] gutted > o/
[ 2010.09.25 16:26:43 ] Rockuso > what was wrong with that other wh u was in?
[ 2010.09.25 16:26:53 ] gutted > What other WH I was in?
[ 2010.09.25 16:26:59 ] Rockuso > yes
[ 2010.09.25 16:27:07 ] gutted > I don't know what you mean
[ 2010.09.25 16:27:15 ] Rockuso > genepool
[ 2010.09.25 16:27:29 ] gutted > what about genepool?
[ 2010.09.25 16:27:34 ] Rockuso > what atl u got in here
[ 2010.09.25 16:27:38 ] gutted > lol
[ 2010.09.25 16:27:45 ] gutted > not me or genepool :p
[ 2010.09.25 16:27:58 ] Rockuso > yeah u gota another 1
[ 2010.09.25 16:28:03 ] gutted > I told your CEO before that if he pays me 1 billion isk I'll take my alts out so you can be in peace
[ 2010.09.25 16:28:32 ] Rockuso > lol did yopur alt lose a ship?
[ 2010.09.25 16:28:35 ] gutted > no
[ 2010.09.25 16:28:42 ] gutted > I've killed a ton of you guys :)
[ 2010.09.25 16:28:51 ] Rockuso > 3
[ 2010.09.25 16:29:11 ] gutted > http://www.freelancerunion.co.uk/eve-killboard/?a=corp_detail&crp_id=1155
[ 2010.09.25 16:29:14 ] gutted > a few more than that
[ 2010.09.25 16:29:19 ] gutted > also ransomed a few
[ 2010.09.25 16:29:27 ] gutted > and that tengu drop was pretty nice :)
[ 2010.09.25 16:29:34 ] gutted > would be cheaper for you to just pay me to leave
[ 2010.09.25 16:30:07 ] Rockuso > chlorinator~?
[ 2010.09.25 16:30:41 ] gutted > killed a few high hats too :)
[ 2010.09.25 16:30:42 ] gutted > http://www.freelancerunion.co.uk/eve-killboard/?a=corp_detail&crp_id=11409
[ 2010.09.25 16:31:02 ] Rockuso > lol your gud
[ 2010.09.25 16:31:17 ] gutted > anyway... pay me 1 billion and I'll take my alt out of oyur WH so you can make isk in peace
[ 2010.09.25 16:31:50 ] Rockuso > lol if only i had that kinda isk
[ 2010.09.25 16:31:57 ] Rockuso > why do u think am trying 2 mine here
[ 2010.09.25 16:32:05 ] gutted > go ahead and mine
[ 2010.09.25 16:32:07 ] gutted > it'll be ok :)
[ 2010.09.25 16:32:29 ] Rockuso > lmao
[ 2010.09.25 16:32:31 ] Rockuso > haha
[ 2010.09.25 16:32:42 ] gutted > tell ya what
[ 2010.09.25 16:32:53 ] gutted > warp your orca to the hi-sec wh and eject and I'll take my alt out your WH
[ 2010.09.25 16:33:10 ] Rockuso > why??
[ 2010.09.25 16:33:13 ] Rockuso > can u fly it
[ 2010.09.25 16:33:30 ] gutted > yes
[ 2010.09.25 16:34:09 ] Rockuso > hmmm
[ 2010.09.25 16:34:25 ] Rockuso > it took me soo long 2 get it and i had 2 borrow 100mil
[ 2010.09.25 16:34:36 ] gutted > your corp will pay you back for it
[ 2010.09.25 16:34:53 ] Rockuso > my corp is almost all atl
[ 2010.09.25 16:35:06 ] gutted > yes.. but they are rich
[ 2010.09.25 16:35:12 ] gutted > at least judging by the kills
[ 2010.09.25 16:35:35 ] Rockuso > am not :(
[ 2010.09.25 16:35:49 ] gutted > yeah.. but they are.. and they can all chip in 100m or so to pay you back
[ 2010.09.25 16:36:13 ] gutted > you will have gotten me off of their backs so they can make isk in peace
[ 2010.09.25 16:36:13 ] Rockuso > why dont u just go
[ 2010.09.25 16:36:18 ] gutted > they'll be grateful
[ 2010.09.25 16:36:21 ] Rockuso > shurly there better things u cud do
[ 2010.09.25 16:36:27 ] gutted > because I keep getting good kills from your corpmates
[ 2010.09.25 16:36:34 ] gutted > It doesn't cost me anything to keep an alt in here
[ 2010.09.25 16:36:46 ] gutted > I can kill people in other WHs while I wait for you guys to give me targets
[ 2010.09.25 16:37:08 ] Rockuso > oh
[ 2010.09.25 16:38:17 ] Rockuso > will ya not just go
[ 2010.09.25 16:38:37 ] Rockuso > like its pointless me playing this game
[ 2010.09.25 16:38:42 ] Rockuso > if your just gona be like that
[ 2010.09.25 16:39:00 ] Rockuso > :(
[ 2010.09.25 16:39:07 ] gutted > just give me the orca and you can mine in peace
[ 2010.09.25 16:39:19 ] gutted > the hulks will make 70m an hour or so
[ 2010.09.25 16:39:20 ] Rockuso > plus am never gona beable 2 afford plex
[ 2010.09.25 16:39:24 ] gutted > pay for the orca quickly!~
[ 2010.09.25 16:40:03 ] Rockuso > i minded last time for 4 dasy filled 2 hanger and i make like 100mil
[ 2010.09.25 16:40:14 ] Rockuso > i give it bk 2 who i lent it off
[ 2010.09.25 16:40:16 ] Rockuso > am skint
[ 2010.09.25 16:41:03 ] Rockuso > ok am just gona watch tv or sumit
[ 2010.09.25 16:41:11 ] gutted > tell ya what
[ 2010.09.25 16:41:23 ] gutted > warp the orca to the WH - eject - and I'll give you 50m so you can have some isk to get some other stuff
[ 2010.09.25 16:41:27 ] gutted > and still leave your corp alone
[ 2010.09.25 16:41:51 ] Rockuso > how can i trust u?
[ 2010.09.25 16:42:03 ] gutted > I've been honorable
[ 2010.09.25 16:42:09 ] gutted > I'll give you the isk
[ 2010.09.25 16:42:18 ] gutted > if you warp to a planet, I'll give you the isk before you eject
[ 2010.09.25 16:42:23 ] Rockuso > hmmm maybe
[ 2010.09.25 16:42:31 ] gutted > that way you'll know you have that
[ 2010.09.25 16:42:46 ] gutted > or - warp back to the grav sit you were in earlier
[ 2010.09.25 16:42:48 ] gutted > where the can is
[ 2010.09.25 16:42:50 ] gutted > that'll work
[ 2010.09.25 16:43:29 ] Rockuso > hmm give me isk then al warp 2 wh and ejct
[ 2010.09.25 16:43:35 ] gutted > nope..
[ 2010.09.25 16:43:39 ] gutted > cause then I can't trust you
[ 2010.09.25 16:43:40 ] Rockuso > we;; wtf
[ 2010.09.25 16:43:58 ] Rockuso > how can i belive anything ya saying
[ 2010.09.25 16:44:09 ] gutted > it's in my best interest to do the right thing
[ 2010.09.25 16:44:15 ] gutted > cause I want people to pay me in the future
[ 2010.09.25 16:44:20 ] gutted > I've ransomed your corp mates before
[ 2010.09.25 16:44:23 ] gutted > and let them go
[ 2010.09.25 16:44:35 ] gutted > got 100m for a hulk a few weeks back
[ 2010.09.25 16:45:15 ] gutted > If you warp to the grav site I'll give you 25m once I see you're in warp
[ 2010.09.25 16:45:19 ] gutted > and 25m once you ejecct
[ 2010.09.25 16:45:28 ] Rockuso > why dont u just play the game like very1 else do plexs and mission
[ 2010.09.25 16:45:33 ] Rockuso > go 2 00 2 kill ppl
[ 2010.09.25 16:45:40 ] gutted > cause this is more fun
[ 2010.09.25 16:45:44 ] gutted > and I used to live in 0.0
[ 2010.09.25 16:46:01 ] Rockuso > hows it more fun
[ 2010.09.25 16:46:16 ] Rockuso > am just sitten here bored
[ 2010.09.25 16:46:21 ] Rockuso > nothing 2 do
[ 2010.09.25 16:46:33 ] gutted > then warp and eject and I'll leave you alone so you can play
[ 2010.09.25 16:46:44 ] Rockuso > might just watch sum porn
[ 2010.09.25 16:46:50 ] gutted > will pay you the isk when I see you're in warp
[ 2010.09.25 16:47:14 ] Rockuso > r u gona go find another wh and stay out this 1 4 good if i do
[ 2010.09.25 16:47:26 ] gutted > yes
[ 2010.09.25 16:47:35 ] Rockuso > what do u work as
[ 2010.09.25 16:47:58 ] gutted > I work for a software company
[ 2010.09.25 16:48:11 ] Rockuso > whats it called?
[ 2010.09.25 16:48:20 ] gutted > it's a small company
[ 2010.09.25 16:48:29 ] Rockuso > cool i wud like 2 do that
[ 2010.09.25 16:48:46 ] gutted > alrigt.. so are you coming?
[ 2010.09.25 16:48:49 ] gutted > then you can get back to mining
[ 2010.09.25 16:50:06 ] Rockuso > how can u trust u
[ 2010.09.25 16:50:30 ] gutted > my corp doesn't support scamming
[ 2010.09.25 16:50:38 ] gutted > I can let you speak toa director who will confirm
[ 2010.09.25 16:51:25 ] Rockuso > ok
[ 2010.09.25 16:52:15 ] Tol Sirion > afternoon chaps
[ 2010.09.25 16:52:15 ] gutted > Tol is a director
[ 2010.09.25 16:52:24 ] gutted > he can confirm for you that the corporation doesn't support scamming
[ 2010.09.25 16:52:28 ] gutted > it's right on our website also
[ 2010.09.25 16:52:40 ] gutted > http://www.freelancerunion.co.uk/
[ 2010.09.25 16:52:50 ] Tol Sirion > actually its one of our things we are pretty harsh on, kicked people out for it
[ 2010.09.25 16:53:21 ] Rockuso > lol so your a corp that ransoms ppl
[ 2010.09.25 16:53:45 ] gutted > ransoming goes in 0.0 (like wormholes) but we don't pirate in low-sec or scam
[ 2010.09.25 16:54:38 ] Tol Sirion > I would say its sometimes beneficial to all involved to pay a ransom.
[ 2010.09.25 16:55:29 ] gutted > cheaper for your corp in this case for sure
[ 2010.09.25 16:55:33 ] gutted > you've lost several billion in loot
[ 2010.09.25 16:55:37 ] Rockuso > no i wud say its sportsman like asin playing eve just 2 play eve like most ppl do asin mission mining plexing trading
[ 2010.09.25 16:55:43 ] Rockuso > 00 pvping
[ 2010.09.25 16:55:51 ] Rockuso > not ransoming ppl
[ 2010.09.25 16:55:53 ] gutted > and you ejecting from your orca is only 300m instead of the 1 billion I asked for
[ 2010.09.25 16:55:54 ] Tol Sirion > a WH is 0.0 though
[ 2010.09.25 16:56:22 ] Rockuso > yeah but its not pvping its stoping a playing for plainiong asin mining
[ 2010.09.25 16:56:48 ] gutted > I won't stop you any longer if you warp to the grav site and eject from your orca
[ 2010.09.25 16:57:02 ] gutted > you can make the isk back quickly
[ 2010.09.25 16:57:16 ] Tol Sirion > have you ever been fishing its the same principle. You take a boat out to where you know the fish like to swim
[ 2010.09.25 16:57:45 ] Rockuso > omg
[ 2010.09.25 16:58:15 ] Rockuso > al just come bk on later maybe
[ 2010.09.25 16:58:19 ] Tol Sirion > I know thats kinda simplictic and possibly patronizing for which I apologise but its the best analergy I can relate it to
[ 2010.09.25 16:59:12 ] gutted > would be much better for you and your corporation to get this over now rather than me just killing you eventually anyway
[ 2010.09.25 16:59:13 ] Tol Sirion > is it you want to do your thing but gutted is in system?
[ 2010.09.25 16:59:25 ] gutted > your corp would pay you back from this - but not if I just catch you and kill you
[ 2010.09.25 16:59:55 ] Rockuso > what happens if u get killed
[ 2010.09.25 17:00:03 ] gutted > me? it happens
[ 2010.09.25 17:00:06 ] gutted > I get a new ship
[ 2010.09.25 17:00:09 ] Tol Sirion > I laugh and tell him to be more careful
[ 2010.09.25 17:00:20 ] gutted > I find enough people to kill that i can pay for new ships
[ 2010.09.25 17:00:29 ] Tol Sirion > true
[ 2010.09.25 17:01:17 ] Rockuso > am considering
[ 2010.09.25 17:02:13 ] Rockuso > i still think u shud just try playing the game instead of playing the player
[ 2010.09.25 17:02:30 ] gutted > EVE was intentionally made this way
[ 2010.09.25 17:02:37 ] gutted > it's for people who are ready to HTFU
[ 2010.09.25 17:02:46 ] gutted > this offer is only for today
[ 2010.09.25 17:02:57 ] gutted > after today it goes back to the 1 billion isk to get me to leave you alone
[ 2010.09.25 17:03:58 ] Tol Sirion > Look at all the big alliances that have been played. They really did design it to be like this otherwise this kinda situation wouldnt arise
[ 2010.09.25 17:04:14 ] Rockuso > lol
[ 2010.09.25 17:04:56 ] Rockuso > think am just gona log
[ 2010.09.25 17:05:04 ] Tol Sirion > ok
[ 2010.09.25 17:05:17 ] Rockuso > lol al just come on wen your at work
[ 2010.09.25 17:05:21 ] Tol Sirion > sure you will see gutted again
[ 2010.09.25 17:05:25 ] gutted > you are just costing yourself and your corp in the long run
[ 2010.09.25 17:05:38 ] Rockuso > lol
[ 2010.09.25 17:05:45 ] Rockuso > you guys r canny
[ 2010.09.25 17:06:10 ] Tol Sirion > scottish?
[ 2010.09.25 17:06:16 ] Rockuso > no
[ 2010.09.25 17:06:33 ] gutted > tell ya what..
[ 2010.09.25 17:06:33 ] Tol Sirion > desended from scots?
[ 2010.09.25 17:06:35 ] gutted > final offer
[ 2010.09.25 17:06:46 ] gutted > 75m to eject from the orca
[ 2010.09.25 17:06:46 ] Rockuso > am from newcastle
[ 2010.09.25 17:06:47 ] Tol Sirion > sorry yes back on track
[ 2010.09.25 17:06:48 ] Rockuso > wbu
[ 2010.09.25 17:06:57 ] gutted > at the grav site
[ 2010.09.25 17:07:14 ] Rockuso > and yal go 4 gud
[ 2010.09.25 17:07:19 ] gutted > yes
[ 2010.09.25 17:08:17 ] Rockuso > swear on ya family lol
[ 2010.09.25 17:08:23 ] gutted > yes - I swear
[ 2010.09.25 17:08:43 ] gutted > tol would kick me out if i broke this
[ 2010.09.25 17:08:46 ] gutted > he's seen my offer
[ 2010.09.25 17:09:00 ] Tol Sirion > honestly and I know its hard to believe he is honourable
[ 2010.09.25 17:09:52 ] Rockuso > invite me 2 flet
[ 2010.09.25 17:10:43 ] gutted > you can warp to gutted
[ 2010.09.25 17:10:49 ] gutted > gutted is in the grav site
[ 2010.09.25 17:11:08 ] Rockuso > nice bonus
[ 2010.09.25 17:11:12 ] Rockuso > lol
[ 2010.09.25 17:11:24 ] Rockuso > 380 odd mil here
[ 2010.09.25 17:11:28 ] Rockuso > has rigs
[ 2010.09.25 17:12:09 ] Rockuso > in warp
[ 2010.09.25 17:12:13 ] Rockuso > u gona be afir
[ 2010.09.25 17:12:41 ] gutted > half the isk is sent
[ 2010.09.25 17:12:44 ] Rockuso > wait a min can i just get that can first
[ 2010.09.25 17:12:47 ] Tol Sirion > afir?
[ 2010.09.25 17:13:09 ] gutted > go ahead and eject
[ 2010.09.25 17:13:19 ] gutted > I sent half the isk
[ 2010.09.25 17:13:29 ] gutted > will send the other half when I'm in the orca and safely out
[ 2010.09.25 17:13:32 ] Rockuso > why not full?
[ 2010.09.25 17:13:43 ] gutted > to make sure you actually eject
[ 2010.09.25 17:14:01 ] gutted > doesn't do me any good to pay you 75m for the privilege of killing you
[ 2010.09.25 17:14:32 ] Rockuso > ok u be fair now
[ 2010.09.25 17:14:41 ] gutted > ok.. omw back with my alt to pilot the orca out
[ 2010.09.25 17:14:46 ] gutted > will send the other half in a minute
[ 2010.09.25 17:15:26 ] Rockuso > u promise 2 leave?
[ 2010.09.25 17:15:29 ] gutted > yes
[ 2010.09.25 17:17:42 ] Rockuso > so u happy with that
[ 2010.09.25 17:17:47 ] Rockuso > will u leave this wh :)
[ 2010.09.25 17:18:01 ] gutted > yes
[ 2010.09.25 17:18:20 ] gutted > ok.. total 75m isk sent
[ 2010.09.25 17:18:59 ] Rockuso > ty
[ 2010.09.25 17:19:39 ] gutted > fly safe
[ 2010.09.25 17:19:40 ] gutted > and gl
[ 2010.09.25 17:19:48 ] Tol Sirion > o7 all the best
[ 2010.09.25 17:20:05 ] Rockuso > lol
[ 2010.09.25 17:20:15 ] Rockuso > okies maybe i can make sum isk???
[ 2010.09.25 17:20:19 ] gutted > I hope so!
[ 2010.09.25 17:20:34 ] gutted > o/

The even better news was that the hi-sec system I ended up in was two jumps from where I'd left the loot from their tengu kill a few weekends back (and some other loot from other kills that weekend). So I loaded the ship my alt had been flying into my shiny new ship maintenance bay, put all the lot in my shiny new corp hangars - and off to Jita I flew.

(I'll try and do better about short posts and updates going forward - but no promises)

Been a little while (and arrogance and greed are still bad)

2010-07-04T08:27:00.000-07:00

When last I posted here, I'd finally managed to join a carebear corporation with my new pilot.

It was a corporation of one member who flew a faction fitted golem.

The reason the posts died off is that that other pilot was suddenly nowhere to be found. For three months he was totally AWOL.

So I went back to doing other things.

I had a few great fights along the way like this one where I found and scouted a fleet in to kill two carriers and a host of RR BSs trying to keep them alive (full battle report on SHC):

http://www.freelancerunion.co.uk/eve-killboard/?a=kill_related&kll_id=25150

Edit: fmercury FC'd this fight and made a video of the 2 x Carriers going down. Watch it here:

http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/VidContainer/wh_carrier.wmv

and this one where I found and killed 2 T3s and their support totally solo (well, dual boxing):

http://www.freelancerunion.co.uk/eve-killboard/?a=kill_related&kll_id=25174

but I really wanted to finish my unfinished business.

So, when the guy in the golem finally showed up again I jumped at the chance.

I fitted a maelstrom with 3 Heavy Neuts, 3 Caldari specific ECM modules, 2 signal distortion amps, and buffer tanked the lows.

He explained that he'd gone missing because his old golem had been suicide ganked on a gate while he was AFK. He had only just come back, but had bought a new golem with a Gist C-Type X-Large Shield Booster and some other faction goodies.

$$$ signs started dancing in my eyes as he fleeted me up and we warped to a mission.

But this is where I made my mistake. This pilot in the Maelstrom is still very new and the DPS is anemic at best. Aggressing the golem as soon as we came out of warp as opposed to waiting for mission aggro to go to him was not the best of ideas.

As it was - I landed a few jams but not enough. Even with 2 x 1600mm plates in the lows it only took him about 7 or 8 volleys to pop my poor maelstrom.

He was at about 40% armor when I exploded and that was with only my pitiful dps so if I'd waited until we'd gotten close enough for the rats to actually aggress then I'd have gotten my kill and potentially my faction goodies.

Oh well - very little time wasted since I wasn't actually playing that character much but a valuable lesson learned.

I'll do better next time and there are still plenty of targets out there!

In the meantime - I've been focusing on my old tactics and protecting sleepers from those who would prey upon them.

Here lately, I've been experimenting with asking pilots to eject rather than going for killmails.

This has lead to some amusing results in that I've now netted myself 3 hulks, 2 drakes, 1 geddon and an ORCA in the last 2 weeks.

More on the Orca in my next post.

Edit: I'm unsure whether I want to focus my time on killing juicy targets in WHs or baiting missioners to their demise. Any comments on which you'd prefer to read about will definitely be taken into account as I'm trying to decide what to do to stay active.

Also, thanks to those who have looked me up in game recently and asked me to start posting again. I appreciate the kind words.

So... joining carebears is harder than it should be

2010-04-08T21:30:00.000-07:00

I have been scanning marauders and faction battleships for quite awhile and trying to join likely looking corporations. I'm amazed by the number of Russian / Asian corporations there are out there.

I'm thinking the standard 'Someone in rookie chat told me to join a corporation to whore corp / faction standings with an agent' won't be as believable if I don't speak the language.

I found one likely corp to join where the CEO flies a faction fitted Golem with gist-x xl booster and faction tank that had a pubby channel but they want me to hang out in the channel and chat with them for forever before they'll let me join.

There is only so much chatting I can handle with guys who cream their pants because there is 40k of Nocxium to be mined in the mission they're doing right now...

To top it off, their sister corporation is apparently big into Faction Warfare and the guy gushed all over me about how important they were in the big scheme of Faction Warfare. They're a 14 man corp but they always turn the tide of the battle etc. Apparently they are important behind the scenes as well and I should be impressed.

When I asked what they did behind the scenes he clammed up and acted like I was a spy trying to blow up his CEOs Marauder or something. It was insulting!

I'm still hoping they'll let me in some time so I was polite but I REALLY wanted to ask him what happens when they win fights in faction warfare? And if his corporation is so good then how come Caldari recently completely wiped the field and took all Gallente systems etc? But I think that was supposedly before my time so I just kept my mouth shut and acted impressed.

Eventually I decided I was just going to have to be less picky... So... instead of scanning on my alt, I took my new pilot to the target system and starting convo'ing likely targets as they undocked to go to their missions.

The third guy I convo'd had just undocked in a Golem and was in a 1 man corporation. This seemed promising. One man corporation pilots traditionally have some of the most expensive fits I've seen when scanning.

This guy seemed amiable enough to having me tag along and showing me the ropes and.... BINGO! he asked me to turn in an application!

I'm currently running my second mission with him while I pump him for information about his fit. Unfortunately, he doesn't use faction hardeners... it seems he's got a dual Pithii B-Type Small Shield Booster tank and faction BCUs. He also uses a CN Shield Boost Amp. All in all, only about a 600 - 700m potential....

His main apparently flies a paladin that is much more expensive but is in another corporation. I am tempted to go ahead and take this guy down and maybe try and ransom him for more than his loot could possibly be worth. He may pay 750m or so to save his ship.

That being said, I'm not sure if I wouldn't rather have the killmail. Either way I'll probably get the same amount of carebear tears so that's a positive.

So... here's what we know... he tells me his Golem will perma-tank 600 dps. He uses torps but has velocity / flight time rigs. I intend to fit dual neuts, ECM drones and a faction specific ECM.

The main question for me will be timing to make sure I have Mission Rat DPS to help with the take down. Hopefully the combination of ECM and the WTF factor will let me get him pretty far down before it's too late.

Regardless, he's a nice enough guy and the standings increases are coming quickly so it's not a bad thing to hang out with him for awhile to support my 'image' when I try and do this to the next corporation. I don't want to appear like I joined a corporation and left it within days too often. :)

Plus... he's talking about selling the Paladin so he might beef up his Golem tank in the interim. :)

So... here are the questions I need help with...

1. Do I go ahead and take him in a BC or wait 2 - 3 days until I can be in a BS and be sure he goes down? (I'll have a REALLY hard time waiting for this training to occur - it's hard not to take him down even as I'm typing this)

1a) Do I bring my main into this with a Guardian / Basilisk to make sure I accomplish my task or do I risk blowing it but going for max glory by getting the solo kill (or ransom)?

2. Do I try and ransom or go straight for the kill and the glory of being ~20 days old and killing a marauder?

3. He mentioned Teamspeak and I have FRAPS ready to go... how important is it that I wait for the opportunity to hear (and record) the tears for the few of you that actually read this stuff?

EVE really DOES start slow!

2010-03-27T05:24:00.000-07:00

Shortly after my last journal entry (but before the helpful comment) I realized that it might be more productive for me to spend my time making connections within my chosen corporation than it would be to keep droning away at meaningless tasks with my level 1 agent.

This proved to be true and within a few short hours I was ready to start doing meaningless tasks for a level 2 agent.

This was a BIG improvement... except that it really felt more like Super Sizing a Value Meal at whatever the current equivalent for McDonald's might be than a real change.

I did enough missions to prove that - with patience - I could run most of the missions I was given in a lowly skilled frigate. But even that challenge didn't hold my attention for long.

I was going to need more than this to keep myself going.

And so, with a sigh of boredom, I sent myself back to school and focused on laying the foundation for my evil endeavors.

Now, with my trial period a little over half way over, I'm almost ready to start trying to find my way into a corporation.

Today will probably be spent finding a likely target.

By next weekend I will hopefully have chat logs and video with which to remember the fun... :)

Before you can beat them... you have to join them...

2010-03-21T04:52:00.000-07:00

I am a new pod pilot. I've invested my life's savings in joining the capsuleer program and outfitting my first ship.

Like most new pilots in Eve, I'm starting out by training learning skills to shorten the time it will take me to train to the truly essential skills. I know this isn't really helping me get to the ships I'll need to kill Marauders and Faction Battleships fit with 3,000,000,000 isk worth of officer mods, but it will help me be more flexible in the future. Flexibility may be key in being able to take down the pride and joy of a 3+ year old pod pilot with one that is less than a month old.

I've also realized that in order to convince other corporations to invite me into their confidence, I'll need to make my story believable. Unfortunately, this means I have to act like them. I'll need to have some kind of standings for the corporation that they primarily run missions for in order to convince them I'm serious about being a contributing member of their little racket.

After two hours of killing disgruntled employees and stopping minor pirate blockades I'm ready to gouge my eyes out. How do these guys do this for hours on end?

Only the promise of joining some mission-runner corp and teaching them a lesson is fueling my desire to continue.

It certainly isn't the 1,300,000 isk I've made in the last hour.

A New Beginning (Again)

2010-03-21T04:10:00.000-07:00

I'm not a thief. Or at least.. that's not my main objective.

My goal is to teach a lesson to corporations who have forgotten that their only protection from the brutal universe that is Eve comes from Concord... and unfortunately for them... Concord only protects them from those outside of their corporation.

My goal is to taste the tears of pilots who think they are perfectly safe in Empire fighting against known targets.

My goal is to destroy the flagships of as many corporations as possible with a pilot who is just beginning to feel his/her full potential.

My ultimate goal is to get richer, quicker than the mindless grind of running missions for agents could ever hope to make me.

This is my story.

Walk a Mile - Pos Ops Take 2

2009-09-26T22:42:00.000-07:00

I was checking out random wormholes while waiting for the wars to start.

What was this? A Large Amarr Control Tower with Mobile Labs and Corp Hangars and no Force Field?

This was worth checking out!

I found the POS with the proteus only to see it had an "Onlining Timer" at 26 minutes. This was going to have to go quick!

I quickly brought in the Maelstrom and started blowing stuff up while putting out the call on Comms.

"Bring a Hauler! This is gonna be great!"

Only one pilot was close enough to make it before the POS finished onlining and Tarkis jumped in a Bestower.

As he was getting closer, I sent gutted back to snag an iteron. The mobile labs had nothing, but there were a TON of jet cans from the Corp Hangar wrecks.

I started categorizing the stuff to grab with Genepool in a separate can to make it quick. Most of the arrays were down but the timer was down to 5 minutes.

gutted gave Tarkis a warp in to the outside of the wormhole with his newly acquired Iteron IV and we went to the POS together.

gutted was able to fit most of the good loot in her hauler (250-350m of T2, best named, and reaction stuff) and Tarkis didn't quite have room for the POS stuff in his.

It was at that point that I noticed the ship hangar array. How could I have missed it?

I started in on it and it popped quickly.

We were down to about 4 minutes on the online timer at this point.

An Orca, Osprey, Hulk, shuttle and a Harbinger popped out of the hangar array.

Since Tarkis' bestower was empty, he quickly swapped to the Harbinger (fully fitted and rigged with a mix of T2 and best named) and we started in on the Orca.

It and the hulk went down fairly fast. We were down to 1 minute on the timer when I aligned Gene and gutted to get them out of there.

Tarkis stuck around and finished off the Osprey and the shuttle.

Dead POS stuff here.

Unfortunately, no mails from the ships. :(

Hi GenePool Chlorinator,

Thank you for contacting customer support.
I'm afraid there is no kill mail for those ships which were stored in a ship maintenance array as no pilots were in those ships. Thanks.

Best regards,
GM Valentine

While all of the above was going on, 2 Ravens had come into the system and started killing my friends the sleepers.

We came back in combat ships after we'd finished the hauling and finished the first Raven.

Unfortunately, the second one got away before we were able to tackle it.

However, we slowed down on killing the first one so that everyone could get on the mail. Funny enough, the second raven came back in right as the first one popped. I guess he thought maybe he could turn the tide since we were taking a bit longer to kill his buddy.

He was wrong.

All in all another good day.

No thank you notes from the Sleeper's yet.

But none are needed to be honest. I sleep better knowing I'm doing my part.

Walk a Mile - POS Ops

2009-09-26T20:54:00.000-07:00

While waiting for the wars to start, I continued scanning wormholes for Sleeper Harassers.

A couple of drakes in a class 3 wormhole were exploiting sleeper targets when I found them. One of the drakes was able to retreat to the safety of his POS next door. One was not.

As I warped in to see what else was going on in that POS, I noticed that some of the modules were offlining. Hmmm... this could be interesting.

Unfortunately for me my pilot picked that moment to come down with a severe case of Angular Follicle Kaliculitis (otherwise known as AFK) and I missed some of what was going on.

There was one less pilot in the POS when I recovered and I decided to check next door again to see if he'd gone there.

Damn! I was moments too late. A large Caldari Control Tower was anchoring in the Class 3 POS next door and had 26 minutes to go. I decided to take up an orbit while cloaked and see what came when the POS finished anchoring.

Within minutes of the timer finishing, a Viator uncloaked and started the online timer. I quickly locked him and shut down his warp drive. Not a profitable kill, but maybe I could prevent this corporation from expanded their base of operations against the poor Sleepers. The viator kill was a start.

Going back to watch the original POS I saw them continuing to unanchor modules as they seemed to be preparing to move them to the newly onlined POS next door.

I let a few cov ops ships fly back and forth unmolested before finally I saw what I'd been waiting for. Their orca was picking up all the newly unanchored mods and started to align towards the wormhole.

By this time, I had had a few more friends ask if they could join in on the fun and, my primary interest being the protection of the Sleepers, I of course said they were welcome to join the party.

As I realized the Orca was on the move, I made sure we had cloaked pilots on either side of the wormhole he was going to and waited for the action. It wasn't long before he was well and truly tackled and going down hard and fast.

We were well on the way to ruining the profitability of this particular venture. It was a good day's work.

It got even better when I decided to check on the tower that had only gotten one small bit of fuel into it one last time before I returned to k-space and docked up for the night.

The force field was down and they'd started the unanchoring process. I watched the timer count down and then ran off the Iteron Mark V they sent in to scoop it (I just decloaked as he came through the wormhole so he'd realize his efforts were futile. I didn't want to have to risk the tower getting destroyed in the inevitable hauler explosion).

The only problem was that the WormHole I'd been using to enter this system had recently collapsed. I launched probes and started scanning while I orbitted the offline and unanchored POS in the proteus.

Fortunately for me, I was able to find an entrance to hi-sec with a hauler only 1 jump from the Wormhole entrance. I'd have to trust that they were too scared of me to scoop the hauler in my absence. God Bless the fact that there is no local communication channel in WormHoles as this was the only thing that would give me a chance.

Session timers and warps never felt so long as when I rushed out to jump in a hauler and return.

\o/ Yay!! The tower was still there. 365,000,000 isk I can now apply to efforts against those who are too callous to walk a mile in the shoes of their victims.

Walk a Mile - Phase 2 (The Navy's Protector)

2009-09-26T20:43:00.000-07:00

Concurrent to the previous activities noted I had been doing the necessary research to implement phase 2 of my plan. As I reviewed the activities of those who perpetrated crimes against the Navies of Eve it quickly became obvious to me who the worst offenders were.

If you're flying a ship made by one of the Navy or Pirate factions of Eve then you are quite obviously a terrible offender. As I observed pilots go about their activities for a certain agent in Dodixie I discovered an even better way to see which capsuleers among the hordes of offenders in this particular system needed to be made an example of.

Enter the ship scanner.

It seems that some pilots have the gall to kill Officers of the various Factions and then use their own heavily modified equipment against their comrades. These pilots obviously needed killing.

After researching three corporations flying ships either made with artifacts from my Beloved Sleepers (and generally fit with modified equipment made by the various Navies) or flying faction ships, I was ready to declare war on the oppressors of Eve.

Shortly after the Eve-Mails declaring war went out I received this response:

2009.09.24 22:21
Just to make you aware, Black Salmon is closely affiliated with Fidelas Constans. Very Closely Affiliated. I'll make this short, if you are determined to continue down this path, you will be fighting FCon, either due to us accepting them into our alliance, or Fcon war deccing you.

Just to let you know what you will be getting into:
http://killboard.fidelas-constans.com/

Lupus Aurelius
FCON CEO

A closer review of these CVA pets killboard shows that they have 59% efficiency for the month. I'm not sure I'd have posted a killboard link if my efficiency were that poor.

Ah well... I can only hope they get involved!

More to follow as the wars develop properly.

Walk a Mile - Young Pilots Learn Lessons

2009-09-26T20:09:00.000-07:00

With a renewed sense of purpose I took a deep breath and suited up for a hard day's work. It was time to carryout God's will for my life.

After flying around a bit I located a WormHole and watched a Typhoon class battleship enter the complex. Being a fan of minmatar ships myself, I was well aware of this ship's capabilities. Something told me the pilot wasn't on a humanitarian mission.

I let him go through and followed about 2 minutes later. On a whim, I warped straight to planet I at zero km. This pilot was there and already had core scanner probes out. He was definitely looking for Sleepers to harass. Lock him up, orbit, and splash a Typhoon. A quick scan of his wreck confirmed that this guy definitely wasn't bringing cake and cookies to the party.

Let this be a lesson for you other capsuleers. Predictability is bad mmmkay!?!

Later that same day I found a Drake and Dominix actively murdering Sleepers. The Sleepers were valiantly trying to defend themselves but were obviously overmatched. Even though we saw a Hurricane, a Falcon and a Brutix on scan, myself and my corp mates decided that something must be done! We couldn't stand to watch those poor sleepers get butchered!

My corp mate Tarkis (in a pilgrim) closed on the dominix and started orbiting him while cloaked. Gutted entered the wormhole in his proteus and warped (uncloaked) to Tarkis' ship at zero kilometers to make sure we didn't miss the drake as well. Quickly applying points to both we brought in the cavalry for the kills.

The hurricane and brutix pilot left us alone for the initial fight, but we found them at a planet later. We decided not to run the risk of allowing these pilots to Re-aggress the Sleepers after we'd left. Better safe than sorry!

We were unable to get warp scramblers on either the brutix (he abandoned his friends way too fast for that) or the falcon (stayed at too far of a range) but the hurricane died the death he deserved.

As we left the wormhole, my comms flashed. It was a mail from the Dominix pilot.

It seems we had actually done some good that day! Pilots DO learn lessons taught at the school of hard knocks. I'm unsure the Sleepers were better off for our activities, but the capsuleers learned a valuable lesson:

2009.09.21 04:02
heh, you guys owned us hard.. I even saw your probes on scan.. dunno why we didnt get out immediately. the greed I guess.. I wanted the salvage. when I saw the T3 ship on scan with the name: Its too late now I was like uh oh.... :P
classic moment

anyway, nice gank guys. were both new to the game and learnt an important lesson today. :P

o/

Walk a Mile - Protector of the Unloved

2009-09-26T19:50:00.000-07:00

As the Alliance Tourney drew to a close and I moved back over to HOW to pursue my first love, I realized something. I enjoyed the hunting and the stalking and the killing and of course the looting, but what I lacked was a sense of direction, a higher cause.

In short, my activities lacked purpose, and other the upward mobility of my pocket book, direction as well.

All men need something to strive for in order to motivate their activities. Increasing my personal wealth at other's expense wasn't going to be enough. As I reminisced over my recent activities I realized the real victims were the poor Faction Navy pilots and Sleepers who were being mercilessly exploited for the gain of my fellow capsuleers. No one considered the plight of these pilots.

I'm not certain, but I'd guess the Faction Navy recruiter failed to mention that 20+ BattleShips piloted by their most senior comrades would fail to be enough to take down even one similar class ship piloted by a capsuleer. These guys definitely needed help...

And the Sleepers? Every pilot gets a beacon alert as they warp into Sleeper controlled territory that indicates that the Sleepers just want to be left alone. Heck, their very name shouts it. These narcoleptic pilots / drones certainly didn't ask for the hordes of pilots that have descended upon their territory to exploit the wealth that they protect.

And so it was done, I had my mission... I had my purpose.

Now to exact my vengeance upon those who would exploit the pilots of Eve without the means to properly protect themselves or the ability to actively mete out revenge upon those would visit pain upon them.

It was time to force those capsuleers that would thoughtlessly murder the Faction Navy and Sleepers of Eve to Walk a Mile in the shoes of their victims.

Alliance Tourney Finals

2009-09-23T19:44:00.000-07:00

Alliance Tourney VII was a really good time but by the end of it I was ready to make it back to HOW and get things started there again.

It might've had something to do with the setups we were using but I found it hard to get excited for the last couple of fights.

We ended up beating Morsus Mihi in the first match of the finals with a mostly Caldari setup plus myself and some other folks in small non-caldari ships.

It was a convincing win against a huge alliance and it kept them from automatically getting a berth next year while guaranteeing us one. Given all the drama about Morsus Mihi's 'relevance' and how they should be guaranteed a spot I thought it was pretty cool to be a part of knocking them out.

Our next match was against Manifest Destiny and I thought we had it in the bag as the match started. We had mostly the same Caldari ranged team against a rook, guardian, 2 tengus, 2 proteus's an ishkur and some other small stuff.

We popped their rook and some other small stuff without losing a ship. Then our target calling went awry and we tried a few targets before realizing the guardian really wasn't a bait guardian.

He died fast once we targeted him, but it was too late. We ended up having our tengu still on the field against their tengu and proteus when time ran out.

It was close... but not close enough.

As I said at the beginning, the Alliance Tourney was a lot of fun, but I'm glad to get back to normal.

The blog needs a new theme, and I think I know where I want to go with it from here.

Stay tuned for a new direction.

I love my corp!

2009-09-19T06:20:00.000-07:00

After a relatively slow night camping a class 3 WormHole while I was taking care of some stuff in real life I finally had a buzzard come in and start probing a bit.

I think he was the world's worst prober as he spent forever with probes out and ended up not really finding anything of note.

While he was probing, he had alliance mates starting to gather in the system outside. Over the course of an hour, their gang (which started with just a NightHawk) built up to the Nighthawk, 2 Drakes, a Hurricane and a Deimos.

I was losing patience with them as it was taking them forever to get marshalled and come in. My only solace was knowing that they were spending so much time gathering and we'd put an abrupt end to it.

That fight was definitely more than I wanted to take with just a Proteus and a Maelstrom, but fortunately for me, my corpmates were active and just as bloodthirsty as I.

Tarkis was in his trusty pilgrim, and Hanius Valm was flying a dominix. A little extra firepower in these situations is ALWAYS welcome.

The nighthawk, deimos, drake, drake and hurricane all warped to an anomaly (which is why I can't figure out why they wasted all that time probing) and started killing sleepers.

This is massive overkill in a class 3, but maybe they just figured they had safety in numbers.

They were wrong.

Once they brought in their catalyst salvager (who was their eyes on the WH) we got stacked up and ready to go.

gutted decloaked and tackled the Nighthawk (as he was the ship most likely to have shinies) and called for backup.

The Deimos decided to try and help his buddy but carebear instincts kicked in for all the rest of them.

We ended up splashing the Nighthawk and the Deimos but being relatively disappointed with the loot.

50m in loot, but nothing sexy. I know.. we're spoiled.

In any case, all those BCs going back and forth had worn the WH down to where it looked like only one of us was going back through before it collapsed. GenePool went first as he had no probe launcher and of course, that collapsed it.

gutted had already found an entrance to low-sec, but we didn't know where it would dump us out.

Of course it ended up being 45 jumps away :(

We decided to go safest route back to empire (13 jumps of low-sec) and then auto-pilot our way back home.

After 4-5 jumps of emptiness, we came into a system with a few in local.

gutted scanned around and found an Abaddon, drake, and Caldari Navy Raven on scan. This wasn't going to be so bad after all!

After dropping probes to get on top of the raven, I warped in and tackled and we brought in the backup.

They weren't hitting hard at all and of course none of them had a point. The raven was dropping quickly but not as fast as I ultimately would've wanted. They had friends in local.

As the Raven entered structure a Chimera showed up in the anomaly with us.

Fortunately, we were able to finish the CNR off before the Chimera could get reps on him.

Had we more pilots, it would've been fun to try and down the carrier, but as it was, it was time to go.

While this wasn't the best loot I'd gotten in a long shot, this was probably the most fun I'd had with HOW since I started the WHorage and Pillaging experience.

I probably would've shied away from both of these fights had it been just me, but with friends, they were definitely a blast!

HOW is recruiting as I'd love to take on larger and larger engagements and have the capabilities to pursue new opportunities to do evil and profit!

The alliance tournament will finish up this weekend and War Decs will be starting back up soon.

Stay posted (and drop GenePool Chlorinator a line in game if you're interested in joining us)!

Random Kills and a War Dec Threat!

2009-09-19T05:49:00.000-07:00

Killed a rook that was flying with 2 drakes in a class 2 WH and isn't really worth mentioning except that his ship was named 'Yarr! I'm a pirate!'

I couldn't resist posting "No no... I'm the Pirate!" in local! They were good sports about it... a little whine, but mostly GF's all around.

This drake kill was also sorta humorous. He was in a class 1 WH (and BSs can't go through Class 1 WH gates from Empire) running a sleeper site.

I tackled him with gutted but quickly realized the proteus couldn't break his passive tank.

I pulled up contracts with Gene, found a Hurricane on contract (fully fitted), flew 2 jumps away to pick it up, flew back, warped Gene to the WH and then killed the drake.

All while tanking the drakes fire as well as the sleepers.

Doog Timez!

The next morning I got a rather uninspiring Retriever kill in a WH with a large POS and about 12 ships on scan. This was right before work and wasn't able to sign back in for several hours.

When I jumped back into that WH with gutted, there was a Raven sitting on the other side of the WH entrance.

I jumped GenePool in to try and bump the Raven off the WH, and as expected, he jumped through the WH almost immediately.

Pretty much what I expected. I jumped GenePool back through the WH and warped him to a station but left gutted on the other side.

I'd not really even dreamed to hope this, but I heard the WH fire immediately after GenePool warped away.

Knowing the raven was now stuck for 5 minutes I tackled and started orbitting with gutted who basically solo killed him.

He convo'd me immediately after to inform me:

Alissa007 > wardec coming

I can only hope!

Shortly after that they warped a destroyer to the WH entrance at 100km from their POS and cloaked it (gutted was still there and cloaked).

I of course immediately warped gutted to their POS planet and back to the WH at 100km

Decloaked the destroyer and ended him as well.

Of a 7 man corp, I killed 3 of their pilots that day. The retriever, the founder of the corp (in the Raven) and the current CEO of the corp (in the Destroyer).

I somehow doubt they'll war dec me, but it sure would be fun if they did!

Just call me Ahab!

2009-09-19T05:24:00.000-07:00

A few days and a few random kills later (thanks to Jack Soul for the cameo appearance.. you need to fly with us more often!) I was finally able to find some more time to police the WormHoles of Eve.

On this particular morning I was bummed because I'd fallen asleep watching the entrance of a class 3 WH and woken back up to find someone onlining a POS in the WH that they'd brought in with their orca.

The first guns were only just finishing their countdown so I'd only just missed them :(

I tried a few tricks (HIC on the WH etc to catch them) but no dice...

Not too long after I found another WH a couple jumps away with not one but two Orcas in it and the modules still going up. This was getting depressing!

Except that it looked like one of the Orcas was aligning to go somewhere.

"What?!?!"

"He's warping to the planet? WTF!"

Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth I warped the proteus on top of him and started the dance of death.

The orca was entering armor when a Hurricane and Drake showed up to help him.

GenePool put a point on the Hurricane but the Orca took too long to die and the Drake was able to get in warp and away.

If you look up the cliche "Too Little Too Late" you're quite likely to find a picture of the Hurricane pilot standing next to a slag heap of melted ducktape looking dejected.

The Orca pilot didn't have the decency to drop anything I felt like I needed to get a hauler to pick up for me so I decided to watch the POS and see if the second orca in the POS would try and go pick up the loot from the first.

Apparently they weren't that stupid... but they also weren't that smart.

Later that night, I'd just gotten a new pilot to put in an App for the corp but because Gene and gutted are out of the corp for the alliance tourney I wasn't able to accept his application right away.

Not one to let that deter us, we brought him along as I started a new hunt.

One of the WHs I'd found previously had an Orca and a Hulk mining (seemingly afk) in it.

What an introduction to flying with HOW!

2 x Orcas in less than 24 hours!

Same Day.. Different Tengu...

2009-09-19T04:51:00.000-07:00

Later that same day I was camping inside a different class 3 WH waiting for targets to come by when I randomly decided to hit the scan button and found a Raven on scan named 'Wacky' something or other.

Raven looked like a pretty good opportunity so I started warping around trying to find him when I noticed an Orca on scan. This was getting better!

Unfortunately, they both disappeared off scan before I got them narrowed down to a point I felt like I wanted to drop probes. The only thing I could imagine was that they must've warped from one WH to another and off of scan. This would bear some investigating.

As I was preparing to drop probes and solve the mystery I hit scan one more time only to see a 'Tengu' on scan also named 'Wack' something or another.

It appears that patience, even unintentional patience, is still a good thing.

It didn't take long to scan him down and warp in on him. I started orbitting at about 2km and then decloaked and scrammed him.

I was hitting him as hard as I could and his shields were only a sliver. He was definitely active tanked and it felt like he was tanked pretty expensively.

Fortunately for me, Tarkis has the ultimate solution for active tanks.

Shortly after he landed and turned on the neuts we were taking huge chunks out of the Tengu's tank.

Shortly after that there was a pretty explosion and I was celebrating my second T3 kill (other than the tourney).

He was definitely fit well... unfortunately the Eve PvP gods claimed the majority of his loot for their own. Still, at least we have the satisfaction of knowing we'd ruined his day.

1.5 billion of loot lost (before the cost of the ship) is something even the most rich pilots don't want to go through every day.

In the end, I asked Tarkis if that was his first T3 kill and what he thought...

"Felt a lot like killing a caracal tbh"

Classic!

Back on the horse...

2009-09-19T04:30:00.000-07:00

They say when you fall off a horse the thing to do is get right back on again...

I think the same is true about doing the podwalk of shame.

It's best to get right back in your ship and throw yourself down the warp tunnel to the chaos that is combat in EVE as quickly as possible.

Fortunately, I have various ships stashed all over EVE because I'm too lazy to ferry my old ones around. It's easier to just buy new.

Sometimes (like when you're camped by war targets) buying new can be the only option.

The bottom line was that I had a spare Maelstrom sitting around and I was able to quickly jump back in it to get things going again.

gutted scanned us out a new class 3 WH with a bunch of wrecks (frigate wrecks that belonged to capsuleers and not sleepers) on scan and a rather large POS. There were also combat probes all over creation. Almost like pilots had been trying to scan down the abaddon I found in a sleeper site only to die horrible deaths.

Could this be a TARP?

The abaddon was just sitting there 230km from the sleeper site (and still being shot of course.. sleepers are imba!) not doing much of anything.

Asking Tarkis what he thought I got something along the lines of "I'm game if you are" and then "Let's do it!"

Never one to want to look back later and regret missed opportunities I followed the abaddon into warp when he warped back into the sleeper site.

Decloak, scram, tight orbit, call for the pilgrim to ruin his day and wait for the recons of doom to show themselves and ruin my day.

Unfortunately for the abaddon, the recons never showed up... just GenePool and Tarkis....

Before long we gave the abaddon the opportunity to perform the pod walk of shame.

WTS: Khanid Large Armor Repper

On the face of it, this was good loot... in practice it's just frustrating because people don't think to search for that particular faction. They just buy Amarr Navy.

In any case, I felt vindicated and ready to continue my WHorage and Pillaging.

One other interesting note... Tarkis was chuckling after that "That Abaddon must think we're Pr0!"

I hadn't given it much thought, but it really must've been pretty unsettling for him to warp back into start killing sleepers and find himself tackled and dying himself less than 20 seconds later.

"Damn those guys are fast!"

Superstition FTW

2009-09-16T06:21:00.000-07:00

Ok... so I was just commenting (ok... boasting.. bragging.. beating my own chest etc etc) about my efficiency in wormholes. It's a pretty empty boast regardless due to the fact that most wormhole players aren't equipped with either the ship fittings or the intellect to protect themselves from well-thought out attacks, but it still feels good to consistently be on the winning side of things.

In any case.. I said then that I was almost certainly jinxing myself, and that absolutely turned out to be true.

I was innocently cloaked inside a wormhole in a populous system while I passed the time chatting with my fellow pilots over comms when a report of some mission runners in low sec came in from my corpmate Tarkis.

Apparently there was a retribution, 2 drakes, and a maelstrom running missions in low sec. It was about 6 jumps away (all low-sec) and I wasn't convinced it was worth the effort to go when they'd probably just scatter and we'd miss the kills anyway.

I started asking Tarkis for a few more details and was greeted by silence.

"Tark.... everything ok????"

It seems he had been busy and the retribution had died an untimely death.

Tarkis also reported that he had barely gotten away from one of the drakes who had the audacity to fit a scram running missions. Given that he was outnumbered 4 v 1 in a not-so-speedy ship, his escape was noteworthy.

When Tarkis reported that they'd gone back in to finish the mission, it made up my mind for me. These guys were ok with a fight and I wanted in on that.

I used the proteus to scout for the maelstrom and started on my way.

I parked the maelstrom on the gate one jump out of their system and let Tarkis know I was ready. He got me a warp in to the acceleration gate entrance to their mission for the proteus and I warped in at what should've been 20km.

Instead, I appeared right on the gate and got decloaked.

Interestingly enough, one of the drakes was also on the gate. I started trying to lock him down but he had already started to align and barrelled through the acceleration gate before my sensors finished the job.

I quickly followed and found the second room empty. However, we landed on the 2nd acceleration gate so I didn't have much time. I immediately locked and scrammed him before he could get into warp. His shields were only slowly going down so I decided I needed to bring the maelstrom in.

Both Tarkis' pilgrim and the maelstrom landed at about the same time and with their help, the first drake died a relatively quick death.

The second drake warped in as the first was entering armor and we split our points to make sure he wasn't going anywhere either. He was at about 50% shields when the maelstrom also appeared in this room. This was like an early christmas that just kept on giving!

The second drake died quickly but the maelstrom was taking awhile. Even with the neuts of the pilgrim and the friendly maelstrom on him he just wasn't going down quickly.

Finally he ran out of cap injectors or the DPS just became too much for him to tank and he also exploded into a bunch of tiny pieces.

During this fight local had been steadily heating up. We had started at 7 and were now nearing 20. I suspect the call had gone out about the T3 in combat. A Typhoon and an Astarte warped into the mission room as we were trying to get to the loot and the call went out to retreat.

All of us got safely into warp even though Tarkis got followed and eventually tackled by a hurricane at a planet.

However, Tarkis (hereafter known as Houdini) put the slip on him once again and got away before help landed to secure their hold on his slippery ship.

All was well and good except for these pesky global criminal timers.

I cloaked the proteus and moved the Maelstrom one system closer to home to dock up and wait it out.

Once the timers were clear, I move the proteus ahead of the maelstrom as a scout and headed back to watch the entrance to my WormHole.

Local ballooned as I undocked the Maelstrom but I figured I could stay ahead of it if I went straight to the next gate.

Extremely poor decision.

I landed on the gate at the same time as about a 12 man fleet of mostly BCs with a few logisitics in support.

I tried to realign and head back to the station, but a few of them pointed me. Unfortunately for me, they were disciplined and only 3 - 4 of them agressed on the near side. The rest (of course) followed when I jumped through.

I decided I'd try and go back through the gate and hopefully have their forces split a little bit where I could deal with just the 3-4 on the other side instead of the much larger force that had followed. After waiting out the session timer I flipped the switch on the MWD and headed back towards the gate.

Unfortunately the maelstrom is a lumbering beast and they had LOTS of webs and 2-point scrams to prevent just such a tactic.

Even so... it was going to be close...

4000m

3500m

3000m

I might make this...

2892m

and..... BUMP...

damn... going the wrong way now.. might as well agress and die fighting...

Unfortunately... I was already mostly past the breaking point of my tank and didn't take any of them down.

As such, my Maelstrom was my first real loss (not counting hi-sec gank or tourney losses) in over a month.

GFs with the Beyond Virginity guys were exchanged in local and I expressed my wish that they enjoy the nice shield booster (why doesn't the faction pop when I'm the one doing the dying?).

These guys obviously know their stuff much better than many of the fleets I come across in 0.0 and they certainly deserve the props.

Of course all of this came right after I'd pounded my chest about how well things were going.

It seems that Pride does in fact goeth before a fall....

Hauler kills?!?!

2009-09-12T17:03:00.000-07:00

Ok.. so normally hauler kills are nothing blog worthy.. (and tbh this one isn't either)

But these kills combined with some comedy chat in Uedama local was just the pick-me-up I needed after losing our match in the alliance tourney.

So.. we'd been watching this class 3 WH entrance in Uedama for a little while and killing time watching college football.

A heron and an imicus came through the WH which is in itself not noteworthy, but the fact that the heron pilot was the CEO of a self described WH corp made me a bit more interested. What combat ships would they bring?? This could be fun.

After watching them for awhile I realized they were scouting moons. This could be even better! :)

Sure enough, a short while later a badger came in and warped to a moon at 0. I warped to the same moon at 10km so I could keep an eye on him while my buddy Tarkis got his hauler ready.

Unfortunately the badger cloaked.

This is easily resolved when they warp to 0 and don't move afterwards. I promptly warped back to the WH at 20km and then back to the moon at 0 to decloak him.

Bingo! He decloaks and is podded. What juicy faction towers await?

http://www.freelancerunion.co.uk/eve-killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=17545

Damn it! POS fuel but no POS!

Fortunately for me... the CEO came warping in his bustard as I was still checking the badger can.

Also fortunately for me... I invested in a 3 point scram!

Poor bustard tried to cloak, but immediately decloaked... and then couldn't warp back out no matter how hard he tried.

http://www.freelancerunion.co.uk/eve-killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=17546

And of course THERE is the tower we knew was coming!

200m in Jita.

Even better though was an unrelated incident in Uedama right outside the wormhole.

I wish I could say I was the cause of these tears...

But they were fun to watch anyway.

It seems this young player 'helped' another player by hauling his ore back to station for them. Then they asked him for help killing the rats in the belt.

He bought himself a new 6m isk frig just for the job.

You can predict the results:

Tony Reason > wtf concord did f*ck all
Tony Reason > f*cking concord
Tony Reason > what is the f*cking point in them
Tony Reason > when you need them they do f*ck all

I'm still laughing.... :)

Alliance Tourney Round II

2009-09-12T15:03:00.000-07:00

We fielded a pretty speedy DPS heavy setup against another DPS heavy setup from Ushra'khan.

No problems there from a strategy perspective. Both sides needed to get enough points to make it to the finals and you only have to kill a few ships to not be on the bubble.

Unfortunately, they had a little bit better tactical plan than we ended up with.

They fielded a guardian with 2 1600mm plates that was heavily bait fit. As a result, we spent a fair couple of minutes trying to pop their guardian while they were systematically destroying our DPS.

In the end, we killed their guardian and a harbinger good for 25 points and a total of 150 on the two fights.

Having totalled it all up, there are currently 23 teams that we're ahead of and will definitely advance before. There are 9 that are ahead of us.

We need a few of tomorrow's fights to either end in stalemates (the early ones) or be total sweeps (the later ones).

I feel pretty good about our chances to get into the finals... but it'll be a near thing, and we'll definitely have to play with our tactics a little bit.

In the mean time.... back to WHorage...

Picked up a nice little Arbalest Heavy Missile fitted drake kill today. Didn't realize those things still sold for so much. 4 launchers dropped and 60m is 60m no matter how you look at it.

It doesn't soothe the loss of today's tourney fight by any means, but it does help me feel a bit better about Eve in general.

On the other hand... once the tourney is over I can get back to War Decs and that should be interesting to say the least.

Efficiency

2009-09-12T10:06:00.000-07:00

Within my alliance... I'm known as something of a nut.

I fly expensive ships into large blobs and either live or die on the edge. I do a lot of dying but I've found a pretty foolproof way to make enough isk to allow me to not care that much and in my opinion the only reason to make isk is to lose it.

With that in mind, I've never really managed to make much isk doing PvP just because I'd almost always rather find a good fight than find one I'm guaranteed to win.

So that's what makes this latest run of kills so amazing for me.

I've got two ships that I'm able to fly with a great deal of success and while I'm probably jinxing myself by posting this, I must admit an even larger degree of fun.

WHorage certainly isn't for everyone as not all have the patience for the time investment associated with scanning down WormHoles and targets inside of them, but the rewards are definitely there.

Game Mechanics are such that I can usually find manageable fights and while many of them are like 'clubbing baby seals'... as I've grown more comfortable with my ships capabilities I've pushed the limits of the targets I've engaged.

I often find myself taking my two ships against 2-3 battleships with jamming recons on the field and coming out ahead.

Part of that is carebear instincts working in my favor. If your first instinct is to run in terror I have no qualms about chaining you down and shooting you in the back.

Part of that is just a good understanding of the Paper, Rock, Scissors that is EVE ship combat and knowing how to turn things to my favor.

In any case, these two ships have accounted for the following kills in WormHoles alone in the last 30 days:

3 Golems
1 Megathron Navy Issue
1 Loki
2 Falcons
1 Nighthawk
11 BS's
1 Sacrilege
4 BCs
1 Moa
4 Mining Barge (including several hulks)
2 Industrial
1 Cov-ops
2 pods

All of the above with zero losses.

I've looted over 2 billion isk

As I said.. I'm sure I just jinxed myself terribly... but I've really enjoyed this WHorage stuff so far and am looking forward to much more to come!

Alliance Tourney

2009-09-12T09:13:00.001-07:00

So... GenePool was needed by the parent alliance to participate in the Alliance Tourney...

This is my first experience with this illustrious event and I was excited! Unafilliated had done well in the previous tournament (which I didn't get to fly in due to real life commitments) and so were guaranteed an entry in this years tournament.

After helping out with the fleet composition plan and then buying a ton of implants for the team we were all set in our station waiting for the GMs to join us and move us to Jove space.

After what seemed like forever, it was time.

We were jumped to Jove space, told to pick a team beacon to warp to, and then warp to the arena at our desired range.

We did and found ourselves facing the two tengus, loki, 2 drakes and some other odds and ends of The Honda Accord.

CCP Claw counted down in local and I began trying to lock the bad guys right after he said go.

"Damn this is taking forever to lock...."

"WTH.. seriously? Crashed right after he said go?"

Spazzing a bit at this point I checked my router to confirm everything was ok and then started trying to spam log in again.

I was able to get in right as their loki pilot ended up in his pod.

Turns out the team didn't really need my DPS... but I still managed to get myself on or near the top of the next few mails to make up for my tardiness.

Clean sweep! Was good fun and I'm really looking forward to the round 2 fight against Ushra'khan today.

They swept their opponents as well so it should be a blast.

The only downside is that due to active wars in HOW, I had to move Genepool to -U- to allow him to participate.

This isn't such a big deal, but it means I've had to put the Empire Wars side of our activities on hold while we fight in the alliance tourney.

Some of our pilots in HOW are getting antsy so I'm anxious to get back in and start the carnage. We're debating war deccing wormhole corporations so we can camp the empire side of their hi-sec entrances..

I'm also thinking we should extend our activities to war deccing corps with lightly defended POSs with lotsa advanced laboratories and no stations in local. BPOs for the win :)

In either case, we'll need more numbers to get the job done. Be sure and let me know if these activities sound like fun to you!

Hole Plunderers!

2009-09-12T09:02:00.000-07:00

For a great in-game channel doing what HOW has been up to these last few weeks... join Hole Plunderers in game.

http://www.scrapheap-chall enge.com/viewtopic.php?t=28190

Organized by a couple guys from ScrapHeap Challenge it's a group of likeminded pira... err.. pilots who are willing to cooperate to take down targets that we can't kill on our own.

The nature of WHs is that you occasionally find targets that are more than what you can quickly get friends there to tackle. When this happens, the Hole Plunderers channel gives you a place to quickly recruit said "friends."

So far they've proven trustworthy as far as I know. I've posted my ship fits there several time with all the accompanying faction and they have had numerous chances to gank me on fights that I've joined in but so far every thing has been kosher.

As an example, the image below is of a corpmate of mine in his very expensively fit Tengu ganking a Rokh and some other ships. His Tengu tackled the Rokh and they brought in overwhelming firepower for the kill.

The thing is... this Tengu has at least 1.5 bil in fittings and many of the folks in the channel knew it.

In any case... join Hole Plunderers for a good introduction to what WHorage is all about...

Even better??? First Strategic Cruiser Death!

2009-09-12T08:49:00.000-07:00

So 2 days after the Golem kill I was working from home and decided to park myself inside a Class 3 WH while I worked. Not too far into the day I hear that beautiful sound of the WH firing.

As my buddy Anjelle says, it's kinda like the StarCraft trooper taking the StimPack..."Ah... that's the stuff"...

Interest picks up... heart rate quickens... what's coming into my web?

Loki!

Tengu!!!

Raven....

Hmmm.. very interesting!

So... I let them warp off the WH cause past mistakes have taught me that tackling ships on a WH is pretty hard to do.

They head in the direction of a planet and I follow to use the ship scanner. 3 cosmic anomalies on scan... it's a simple matter to use the map to figure out which one they're in.

I warp in at 20km and see the Tengu and Raven sitting right on top of each other and the Loki flying around shooting.... missiles?? mmmm... interesting!

Time passes... 10-15 minutes later they are down to just a single sleeper cruiser and it's time to make my move.

I've been trying to slowly close on the Tengu as I figure he's probably the juiciest fit... but he Afterburners out of range right as they get down to just one sleeper right as the Loki comes to me.

Moment of truth...

Decloak, tackle... close... blasters hot!

Genepool completes his warp in right as the oh to predictable carebear instincts kick in for his friends and they both warp...

"Damn! I wanted to tackle the Tengu also"

The Loki is tanking well until the neuts hit at which point he decides he should switch his DPS from my proteus to my Maelstrom...

It's just as well.. the truth is that without his friends he doesn't have a prayer of breaking either tank...

At this point the Raven warps back in and I wonder if they've decided to protect their friend... but what's this? The Raven is at 100km? Wasn't he torp fit?

Yes... he's either forgetful or just an idiot.. (or wanted to be able to say "Don't worry bud.. I'll save you" on Vent without risking his ship)

At this point the loki is hitting structure and I'm closing to scoop loot.

http://www.freelancerunion.co.uk/eve-killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=17239

2009.09.02 14:59

Victim: Palden Lhamo
Corp: The Versatile Business System
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Loki
System: J120124
Security: 0.0
Damage Taken: 17018

Involved parties:

Name: Emergent Defender / Unknown
Damage Done: 7209

Name: gutted
Security: -1.2
Corp: Freelancer Union
Alliance: Unaffiliated
Faction: NONE
Ship: Proteus
Weapon: Proteus
Damage Done: 5057

Name: GenePool Chlorinator (laid the final blow)
Security: -1.6
Corp: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Ship: Maelstrom
Weapon: 800mm Repeating Artillery II
Damage Done: 4752

Destroyed items:

Heavy Missile Launcher II
Heavy Missile Launcher II
Heavy Missile Launcher II
Thunderbolt Fury Heavy Missile, Qty: 41
Republic Fleet EMP M, Qty: 43
425mm AutoCannon II
425mm AutoCannon II
Gallente Navy Stasis Webifier
Gallente Navy Stasis Webifier
Cap Recharger I
Corpus A-Type Armor Kinetic Hardener
Capacitor Power Relay II
True Sansha Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
Amarr Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
Thunderbolt Precision Heavy Missile, Qty: 1000 (Cargo)
Thunderbolt Fury Heavy Missile, Qty: 5677 (Cargo)
Medium Nanobot Accelerator I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump II, Qty: 2
Hammerhead II (Drone Bay)
Warrior II (Drone Bay)
Loki Propulsion - Intercalated Nanofibers
Loki Electronics - Immobility Drivers
Loki Engineering - Augmented Capacitor Reservoir
Loki Defensive - Adaptive Augmenter
Loki Offensive - Hardpoint Efficiency Configuration

Dropped items:

Heavy Missile Launcher II
Republic Fleet EMP M, Qty: 44
Thunderbolt Fury Heavy Missile, Qty: 44
Large Capacitor Battery II
Corpum A-Type Medium Armor Repairer
Corpus A-Type Armor Explosive Hardener
Nanite Repair Paste, Qty: 864 (Cargo)
Republic Fleet EMP M, Qty: 1262 (Cargo)
Hammerhead II, Qty: 2 (Drone Bay)
Warrior II (Drone Bay)

Ah yes... I think I like this hunting in WH's thing!

The only thing that would make it better is more people to help with the scanning and killing!

1.5 billion isk in the last couple weeks is pretty good profit and what better condition to acquire it than still damp with the tears of carebears?

HOW is recruiting! Contact GenePool Chlorinator in game if you're interested!

WHorage at its finest!!!

2009-09-07T10:33:00.000-07:00

As the wars petered out and we switched focus to the upcoming Alliance tournament I went back to my roots to hunt targets in WHs.

I started realizing that the class 2 WHs that are all over the place with POSs in them are probably not the best places to find the best targets.

Class 2 WHs are pretty worthless from a carebear perspective, and because of this, the only real reason to have a POS there is to get to a static class 3 or class 4 with better isk potential.

That being the case, I started taking the time to probe down the static 3 / 4 entrances in each of the class 2 WHs with POSs that I came across.

It was spectacularly successful.

On the first day of doing this I found a class 2 with a large pos and a static entrance to a 3. I checked out the 3 and saw that it had about 14 anomalies, and no POSs. I remember commenting to a corp mate that that 3 would be absolutely perfect for the inhabitants of the class 2 except for the fact that I knew it was there.

Oh how true that turned out to be!

Not long after, I poked a head back into the class 2 WH (from hi-sec) to see a GOLEM and Apocalypse on scan. They disappeared off scan quickly in the general direction of the class 3!

SCORE!

Giving them a little time to get ahead, I jumped into the 3 and started scanning with the ship scanner so as not to spook them. Wrecks on scan and I was able to quickly find and warp in on the targets.

They were sitting perfectly stationary about 5km from each other and just wrecking the sleepers!

I got my proteus into a tight orbit, got the Maelstrom positioned outside the class 3 entrance and then decloaked and began to agress the golem. His tank was holding steady as the maelstrom landed in the fray so I switched the proteus dps to the Apoc who quickly began to drop.

At this point a new sleeper spawn showed up and started agressing my Maelstrom.

The golem's tank was still holding... what the heck was this guy fit with! My maelstrom tank is now being overloaded by the sleepers and I'm tanking armor damage but the golem is finally starting to drop into armor.

Not too long after... I get a pretty explosion and a GF in local.

Phew... GF indeed.

http://www.freelancerunion.co.uk/eve-killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=17151

I can't believe how expensively this guy was fit!!!

I was so glad to get the kill.. and then so crushed to see the Estamel's Boost Amp not drop! But oh well.. I'll take solace in the 709m that the Photon Hardener sold for the next morning.

I think I like this looking deeper into the WHs thing :)

Primal Rage

2009-09-07T05:40:00.001-07:00

I started a third war at the same time the others went active. Might as well maximize our opportunity for carnage...

The next target was a corporation called Primal. and they had 23 pilots at the time the war started.

The sole reason for this war was a golem pilot I'd seen running missions in Dodixie. I figured he probably thought he was safe and so might be well fitted, and besides, it seemed like it'd be good fun.

And it was....

http://how.killmail.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=4024416

Even if wasn't all that well fitted :/

So... I'd accomplished my primary purpose at this point.

I convo'd the CEO to see if he'd like to let me extort him for any more profit. It turns out that Primal. fancied themselves a mercenary corporation and that he was glad for the opportunity to PvP during their 'R&R' and re-structuring.

That being said, the tin-foil hats were on again as apparently my timing was once again impeccable.

Something about a merger and a disgruntled ex-CEO. I didn't understand the whole thing, but he seemed sure that we were after more than just the Golem kill.

He was a nice enough guy, but shortly after my convo with him, I got an eve-mail from Concord.

2009.08.20 23:27
Deprived of Existence by Mercenaries of the Night has declared war on How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
Within 24 hours fighting can legally occur between those involved.

It seems that they felt like they needed help against our little corp.

So.. these guys were cute (and most of them weren't old enough to drink).

Read the above as "They were immature bastards who were REALLY annoying in local."

If you look closely at their name you'll be able to guess their tag (DEMON for those that don't like acronyms) and they like to fly around in 4-5 man RR BS gangs.

At this point I was wishing we were larger as their tactics weren't all that good... but their numbers were enough to overcome the number of active pilots I could get on at any one time.

We ended up killing a triple tri-mark fitted geddon and losing an unrigged scorp in one engagement.

We had a mega we surprised that should've died in time for us to get away but ultimately our brutix DC'd before we got enough DPS on the mega and they got help in to save the mega (damn RRs everywhere) and kill both our brutix and our pilgrim.

I think the only other real action was a kill I got against a bait myrm while hi-sec ganking in my typhoon. I had less than 12 rounds per gun of any one ammo type but their passive tanked myrm just MELTED before their other BS and blackbird could get there to save him.

The mercs did more damage to us than we did to them, but it cost them 150m for their week of fun and we still have the Golem kill to WAY more than make up for total damage done in that little skirmish.

With more pilots we'd definitely have overpowered their mercs... but such is life

(Did I mention that HOW is recruiting?? Contact GenePool Chlorinator in game)

Wars aborted...

2009-09-07T05:16:00.000-07:00

So.. after my first very interesting and highly profitable segue into hi-sec wars and the world of extortion, things got quiet.

I suspect that the VictimCEO from my previous post actually does read things on the interwebz because he got quiet about his need to have me go kill the evil corporation that had "hired me" in my previous post.

I had to reach out to him to see when and if he wanted me to start the war against his oppressors and he VERY politely told me that they had decided not to proceed. It was funny how careful he was to make sure that they didn't piss us off and start the whole process over again.

In any case, that war petered out.

The next one was against a 41 man corporation that I'd seen committing the terrible crime of running missions in Dodixie with 3 - 4 Caldari Navy Raven pilots. Given that my little corp has 3 - 4 active pilots I figured we might get some good fights out of them.

All faction battleship pilots had left the corp within hours of the war dec going active.

2 weeks of war dec fees later, we'd managed to kill an AFK hulk mining in a belt and a completely unfitted Myrmidon. Both of these kills are attributable to ArchVonBaron who either got the tackle (myrmidon) or just the solo kill (hulk).

The only significant movement in this war was the fact that the target corps membership dropped from 41 when we war decced them to 13 by the end of the war 2 weeks later.

Humorous, but far from profitable....

Long time no post...

2009-09-07T04:55:00.000-07:00

Ok... so it's been way too long since I updated this and a ton has happened in the interim.

As I feared, if I slow down on my posting, the task of updating the blog begins to look daunting and then it becomes easier and easier to think "let's just kill things today instead of taking the time to update that silly blog that it doesn't seem like much of anyone is reading anyway..."

But I've gotten a few nice comments in local and see a few of you following here.. and besides, I'm mostly writing for me anyway. I like having a place to look back on the adventures of the universe of Eve.

It's been an eventful place lately. My corporation, HOW has started actively recruiting (contact GenePool Chlorinator in game if you're interested) and we've really been pretty successful in the WHorage activities.

I'll give mini-reports on the most exciting kills, but I've managed to make over 1.5b in loot in the last couple weeks from mostly solo kills.

We've also done a little hi-sec ganking, and while terribly boring (and it leads to ratting which is even MORE boring) can be highly profitable. Unfortunately, I've gotten very few interesting hatemails. It seems the quality of emorage comments in local and eve-mail has drastically declined since the last time I did this sort of thing.

In any case, on to the updates..

How I made 500m in under 30 minutes and started a legit war for 250m more...

2009-08-16T19:11:00.000-07:00

So... I declared war on this guy becuase he flies a Rattlesnake....

They're a 23 man corp... all mission runners from what I can tell... I really didn't expect much of a fight... but was hoping to get to gank this guy's Rattlesnake at least...

Right before the war goes active... he convos me..

---------------------------------------------------------------
Channel ID: -1646837
Channel Name: Private Chat (VictimCEO)
Listener: GenePool Chlorinator
Session started: 2009.08.17 00:40:57
---------------------------------------------------------------
[ 2009.08.17 00:41:10 ] VictimCEO > Evening
[ 2009.08.17 00:41:14 ] GenePool Chlorinator > evening
[ 2009.08.17 00:41:32 ] VictimCEO > Did we don something wrong?
[ 2009.08.17 00:41:37 ] VictimCEO > er do
[ 2009.08.17 00:42:24 ] VictimCEO > Just being elitist tbh
[ 2009.08.17 00:42:38 ] VictimCEO > tbh?
[ 2009.08.17 00:42:41 ] GenePool Chlorinator > to be honest

(Their Corp Description says something about having to have positive sec status to join with them... it's as good a reason as any)

[ 2009.08.17 00:42:55 ] VictimCEO > well we surrender
[ 2009.08.17 00:43:02 ] VictimCEO > you win

(Seriously? I'm kinda feeling bad for the guy at this point)

[ 2009.08.17 00:43:25 ] GenePool Chlorinator > unfortunately... it doesn't work that way
[ 2009.08.17 00:43:35 ] GenePool Chlorinator > not without hefty surrender fees at least
[ 2009.08.17 00:43:41 ] VictimCEO > yea I know I just thought I would try
[ 2009.08.17 00:43:52 ] VictimCEO > how much?
[ 2009.08.17 00:44:30 ] VictimCEO> and to ask, not that I expect an answer, but is this personal or have you been hired?
[ 2009.08.17 00:44:39 ] GenePool Chlorinator > 500m

(I figured that might be a touch high but I thought he'd at least try and counter offer)

[ 2009.08.17 00:45:02 ] GenePool Chlorinator > I can't reveal that information
[ 2009.08.17 00:45:21 ] VictimCEO> Thank-you for your honesty

(Right on... my.... Honesty... uh huh)

[ 2009.08.17 00:45:57 ] VictimCEO > for for 500m you will end the war?
[ 2009.08.17 00:46:02 ] GenePool Chlorinator > yes
[ 2009.08.17 00:46:56 ] VictimCEO > not that you are not a great person but how do I know you will end the war once I send the isk?
[ 2009.08.17 00:47:38 ] GenePool Chlorinator > we sorta have that trust issue I suppose.... I'm not sure how to reconcile that with you I guess
[ 2009.08.17 00:47:54 ] GenePool Chlorinator > Other than to say I'll end the war if you pay
[ 2009.08.17 00:48:02 ] VictimCEO > oh, good point
[ 2009.08.17 00:48:15 ] VictimCEO > how much extra to find out who?
[ 2009.08.17 00:49:48 ] GenePool Chlorinator > sorry.. in a fight atm

( I was ratting to fix my sec status.. which makes this whole thing funnier cause I can't aggress him now if I wanted to... Can't this guy do any research? Anyway... a Shadow Rat had just spawned... and I wanted to make sure I got the loot quick)

[ 2009.08.17 00:49:49 ] GenePool Chlorinator > one sec
[ 2009.08.17 00:50:23 ] VictimCEO > np
[ 2009.08.17 00:53:56 ] GenePool Chlorinator > ok.. docked now...
[ 2009.08.17 00:53:58 ] GenePool Chlorinator > dead targets
[ 2009.08.17 00:54:06 ] VictimCEO > nice

(Shadow Serpentis 100MN Microwarpdrive... not exactly 'nice' but not too shabby)

[ 2009.08.17 00:54:13 ] GenePool Chlorinator > I hate to reveal my sources
[ 2009.08.17 00:54:46 ] GenePool Chlorinator > It'd cost an extra 1000m (billion)

(if I'm going to ruin my "integrity" for him it's gonna cost him)

[ 2009.08.17 00:54:51 ] VictimCEO > well to be honest, I think I know and really don't care any more
[ 2009.08.17 00:55:28 ] GenePool Chlorinator > Understood
[ 2009.08.17 00:55:38 ] GenePool Chlorinator > confirmation is a good thing... but often unnecessary

(laying out the bait... trying to reel him in....)

[ 2009.08.17 00:56:03 ] VictimCEO > we have been dealing with then for months and this is a game, I would like to resolve this for you so you are happy, but we have already talked if we have to stay docked for a month and train that fine to

(I'm glad he wants to keep me happy...)

[ 2009.08.17 00:56:27 ] VictimCEO > er them sorry, tired
[ 2009.08.17 00:56:36 ] GenePool Chlorinator > understood
[ 2009.08.17 00:57:27 ] VictimCEO > since I assume you are in in for the money, then I offer a proposal, 300 now, when I recieve the retracted notice I send the other 200 right then

(Great idea... I wish I'd thought of that!)

[ 2009.08.17 00:57:34 ] GenePool Chlorinator > I assume you'd make much more isk in a month doing missions in your nightmare than staying docked?
[ 2009.08.17 00:57:47 ] VictimCEO > I cna't fly a nightmare
[ 2009.08.17 00:57:55 ] VictimCEO > caldari / gallente
[ 2009.08.17 00:58:51 ] VictimCEO > to be honest, we know of several of your members, I would be no match angainst 1/2 of one of your players and I am one of the better toons

(WTF? HOW is an alt corp... our MEMBERS?)

[ 2009.08.17 00:59:26 ] GenePool Chlorinator > you're right of course.. I had your name next to the wrong ship...
[ 2009.08.17 00:59:27 ] VictimCEO > we are baby toon compared to you
[ 2009.08.17 00:59:29 ] GenePool Chlorinator > Rattlesnake
[ 2009.08.17 00:59:50 ] VictimCEO > yea, well you are right, but I would not even try it
[ 2009.08.17 01:00:09 ] VictimCEO > we don't do pvp
[ 2009.08.17 01:00:26 ] VictimCEO > don't know how, can't even use most of the ewar stuff
[ 2009.08.17 01:00:59 ] GenePool Chlorinator > fair enough
[ 2009.08.17 01:01:05 ] GenePool Chlorinator > well.. we'll both have to trust[ 2009.08.17 01:01:18 ] GenePool Chlorinator > if you send 300m I'll retract the war and trust that you send the other 200m
[ 2009.08.17 01:01:25 ] VictimCEO > I make this easy for you, I have given my proposal, we have each moved to the 4 empires
[ 2009.08.17 01:01:40 ] VictimCEO > we will not fight either way
[ 2009.08.17 01:01:42 ] GenePool Chlorinator > if you don't send the extra 200m I'll re-dec you later.. if you do.. I will commit to not deccing you in the future
[ 2009.08.17 01:01:51 ] VictimCEO > deal
[ 2009.08.17 01:01:56 ] VictimCEO > send to you?
[ 2009.08.17 01:02:04 ] VictimCEO > and you will drop now correct?
[ 2009.08.17 01:02:18 ] GenePool Chlorinator > yes
[ 2009.08.17 01:02:20 ] GenePool Chlorinator > that's correct
[ 2009.08.17 01:04:10 ] VictimCEO > 300 mil paid
[ 2009.08.17 01:04:36 ] GenePool Chlorinator > retracted
[ 2009.08.17 01:04:47 ] GenePool Chlorinator > I'll tell my members not to shoot during the brief period they will be allowed to
[ 2009.08.17 01:05:09 ] GenePool Chlorinator > if one of them shoots, I'll cover all losses (but that better not be a problem)
[ 2009.08.17 01:05:12 ] VictimCEO > now you have other 200

(Blinky wallets are GREAT!)

[ 2009.08.17 01:05:24 ] VictimCEO > understand
[ 2009.08.17 01:05:24 ] GenePool Chlorinator > I mean.. my guys better behave
[ 2009.08.17 01:05:28 ] GenePool Chlorinator > thank you..
[ 2009.08.17 01:05:38 ] VictimCEO > flysafe
[ 2009.08.17 01:05:47 ] GenePool Chlorinator > Do you have any desire for confirmation of your aggressors?

(gotta hope the bait is taken so I can set the hook)

[ 2009.08.17 01:06:16 ] VictimCEO > I do, but not have that much at this time, sorry

(aww damn... should I offer for less? While I'm thinking about it....)

[ 2009.08.17 01:06:22 ] GenePool Chlorinator > Understood
[ 2009.08.17 01:06:33 ] VictimCEO > paying for this out of my own money
[ 2009.08.17 01:06:56 ] VictimCEO > but for 50 mil if I guess can I get a yes or no

(Awesome! He's right on his guess... I can tell you already!)

[ 2009.08.17 01:07:15 ] GenePool Chlorinator > yes
[ 2009.08.17 01:08:05 ] GenePool Chlorinator > your guess?
[ 2009.08.17 01:08:16 ] VictimCEO > there is the 50, my guess is "xyz pilot from abc corp"
[ 2009.08.17 01:09:01 ] GenePool Chlorinator > you got it...
[ 2009.08.17 01:09:11 ] GenePool Chlorinator > would you like to hire us against them?

(sweet... lay the bait again)

[ 2009.08.17 01:09:19 ] VictimCEO > how much?
[ 2009.08.17 01:10:37 ] GenePool Chlorinator > 250m a week plus war dec fees (6m a week currently)

(that's cheap for merc fees right?)

[ 2009.08.17 01:10:55 ] VictimCEO > done
[ 2009.08.17 01:11:27 ] GenePool Chlorinator > I will need to do some scouting
[ 2009.08.17 01:11:42 ] GenePool Chlorinator > the war will start by this time next week.... acceptable?

(Damn... I still have to raise my sec status!)

[ 2009.08.17 01:11:49 ] VictimCEO > yes
[ 2009.08.17 01:12:32 ] GenePool Chlorinator > pay is half up front and half when the war goes into affect (to cover the time spent scouting)

(In case he has second thoughts.... or reads this blog...)

[ 2009.08.17 01:13:16 ] VictimCEO > you are paid
[ 2009.08.17 01:13:25 ] GenePool Chlorinator > thank you
[ 2009.08.17 01:13:30 ] GenePool Chlorinator > I will send you a copy of the war dec mail
[ 2009.08.17 01:13:33 ] GenePool Chlorinator > when we declare it
[ 2009.08.17 01:13:35 ] VictimCEO > and I will pay an extra 25 for her body
[ 2009.08.17 01:13:44 ] VictimCEO > mil I mean

(Bonus!)

[ 2009.08.17 01:13:53 ] GenePool Chlorinator > I'll let my members know
[ 2009.08.17 01:13:54 ] VictimCEO > k
[ 2009.08.17 01:14:10 ] VictimCEO > good hunting
[ 2009.08.17 01:14:17 ] GenePool Chlorinator > any intel you can share on where they hang out normally would be apreciated

(it's a 10 man corp they want me to dec... he sent me 5 of them and how they are specced for skills.... nice!Now I just have to run some locator agents to figure out where they live... but I dunno if i can afford it... agents are expensive!!)

[ 2009.08.17 01:14:21 ] GenePool Chlorinator > will only speed the time to war
[ 2009.08.17 01:14:25 ] VictimCEO > we may dec them as well
[ 2009.08.17 01:14:41 ] VictimCEO > I can get you the member list, ships flown, ect
[ 2009.08.17 01:14:46 ] GenePool Chlorinator > awesome!
[ 2009.08.17 01:14:55 ] GenePool Chlorinator > that'd be very helpful.. and I will look forward to flying with you if you do
[ 2009.08.17 01:15:03 ] VictimCEO > they have a fight with us you will kill them
[ 2009.08.17 01:16:00 ] GenePool Chlorinator > yes... I need to wait at least a week though

(damn sec status!)

[ 2009.08.17 01:16:09 ] GenePool Chlorinator > to clear my list of war targets
[ 2009.08.17 01:16:16 ] GenePool Chlorinator > we won't communicate with them in the interim

(this would never fly if we were real mercs.. but it's pretty damn funny)

[ 2009.08.17 01:16:39 ] VictimCEO > understood, I will eve mail you the info
[ 2009.08.17 01:17:23 ] GenePool Chlorinator > thank you. I look forward to killing the hounds for you
[ 2009.08.17 01:17:30 ] VictimCEO > I will await you eve mail

Smartbombs for hi-sec ganking are bad mmmkay!!!

2009-08-16T19:03:00.000-07:00

So... I decided to try my hand at hi-sec ganking. I've never done it before... and it seems to be a decent way to make isk. The WormHoles had been slow... and I was looking for something new to try...

In looking at the dps potential, it seemed that a Typhoon with a full rack of smartbombs would offer the best DPS with the added bonus of not being affected by Concord's jamming and potentially getting a few extra targets.

You guys probably all know where this is going already... but I somehow forgot about the sec status hit associated with kills.

Long story short.. I found a Mammoth afk hauling a Hulk and some other goodies and decided to go for him.

I got him... along with a helios that dropped a Sister's probe launcher (unexpected goodness), a reaper pilot and a thrasher pilot. (about 200m in loot all told)

Unfortunately for me... I inadvertantly podded two of them. My status went from -1.0 to -5.15 instantly.

As one of my corpies put it, "that's quite the penalty box for a little piracy".

Almost 5 hours of ratting later I'm back to -3.5 or so... but it's a long boring haul back to a status that will let me roam empire.

In other news.. I have 3 wars going active at some point tonight. I guess my ratting to fix my sec status will give the targets time to get complacent before I come after them.

Sleipnir > Elite Gallente Frigates

2009-08-13T20:58:00.000-07:00

Still scanning away for WormHoles and looking for targets but it seems that things are quieter tonight. No massive targets.... almost no targets at all for that matter.

It might be time to move into phase 2 of the operation and do some Concord Sanctioned hits on mission runners. Both them and wormhole carebears appear to have more isk than brains!

Do War Decs still cost 2mil per week for the first, 4mil per week for the second and 6mil per week for the third as long as I just Dec other corps and not Alliances?

I guess we'll find out soon enough. Even if its more than that, I'm confident that an hour or so in wormhole space indulging in carebear style activities will pay the costs (and give the targets time to get complacent again).

Anyway... back to tonight's activities. After scanning down 25 systems we only found about 7 WormHoles. I don't know if that's normal but we may have farmed out our quotient of stupid wormhole targets in this area for the weak. I decide that I'm moving to a new area tomorrow. Can't be any worse than tonight.

The sum total of tonight's experience came down to having found a Class 1 WormHole in the major trade hub of the area. Unable to take the Maelstrom in for fun and carnage, I decided to take in the carebear Sleipnir. Mind you, this thing doesn't even have a point.

The Proteus would have to fulfill tackling duties and so I parked him on the inside of the hole and the Sleipnir ready in the vicinity of the outside. Finally, the Nemesis and..... shuttle? WTF? warp to the WH from the inside and jump out into the trade hub. We'll just have to wait and see what happens. Back to administrative duties while I wait.

Fast forward 30 minutes. The shuttle pilot comes back in an Ishkur and the Nemesis jumps through the hole with him first. Next on scan is an Absolution! Finally... a legit target. This could get decent.

The Ishkur jumps through the wormhole followed quickly by the Absolution and they all warp off in the direction of a planet. I follow with the Proteus only to find that they've gone to a safe instead of the planet and that they aren't there to tackle. I decide that my best bet was to warp back to the WormHole and see what happens next.

Wonder of Wonders the Ishkur decides to warp back to the WormHole at 30km. Strange... but strangely perfect for my plans.

In warps the Sleipnir to jump through the WormHole, decloak and start laying the hits down on the Ishkur. I can't point him in this ship, but maybe he'll die before he warps. It turns out that the 20km he was away from me when I decloaked allowed the Sleipnir to put perfect hits on him. About 10 seconds later he was dead and it was time to start work on the Nemesis and Abso that had warped in as the fight began.

The Nemesis crumpled under a single volley. 2 down.. the only REAL target to go.

Laying bumps on wormholes is fairly hard. Laying bumps on wormholes with ships that have no MWD fit is even harder. I tried anyway.

The Absolution was going into armor (and my tank was holding quite nicely) when the pilot commented in local:

Nealious > might as well stop

Ok.. so they may not know that warping frigates to a sleipnir at range is a bad idea, but I suppose I have to acknowledge that they are smart enough to realize you don't get an agression timer on wormholes.

Oh well... better luck next time!

All three of these guys are part of Space Lobsters. Worthy enough name I suppose.. but it seems that someone needs to teach these guys the finer points of Eve's version of Paper, Rock, Scissors. I so enjoy handing out lessons!

Pro-tip: Frigates really shouldn't warp at range to Sleipnirs.

Regardless, it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside to realize that the Ishkur pilot (who had left in the shuttle less than 30 minutes later) had probably only just bought that ship and then promptly lost it again in the next 5-10 minutes.

Eve Life is harsh sometimes!

http://www.freelancerunion.co.uk/eve-killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=16783

http://www.freelancerunion.co.uk/eve-killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=16782

(editor's note: Thanks for the feedback, both positive and negative. Please keep it coming!

I'll work on the tone of the posts and trying to shorten them by focusing on individual fights instead of walls of text to describe an entire night).

What (if anything) DO sleeper structures drop when you pop em?

2009-08-12T22:35:00.000-07:00

(and would you donate a Navy Mega to find out?)

After a little bit of scanning and not a whole lot of targets, some of my buddies and I decided we'd do a bit of WH carebearing.

About an hour and a half and 300mil later the WH we were in was farmed out (only 5 signatures) and our thirst for blood was kicking in again.

We scanned down 25-30 systems and found about 10 wormholes.

In the course of the evening, we missed a Proteus and Huginn combo. The Proteus dropped a Combat Scanner probe and I assumed they were looking for bait (err... targets) and so I warped my Maelstrom in to provide them with some.

I was totally kicking myself when the Sleeper wrecks started showing up on scan. I tried to warp the Maelstrom on top of them for a tackle before they saw me and got spooked but it wasn't to be. They got away, but the Proteus pilot is now in my address book. Hopefully there is more to follow on that particular tangent.

Next up, we sparred with a corp that has 7 POSs in a class 2 WH. Why the hell would anyone put that many posses up in a WH? Especially a class 2?

I had just commented that they must be a pain in the ass to keep fueled when the Falcon watching the outside of a WH announced over comms that an Itty V was outside the WH.

I warped to the WH (I had been scanning for other targets) to discover that they had a Phobos watching the WH side of the gate. Of COURSE he decloaked me. I started shooting at him in the Proteus for grins knowing he could always jump through when an Astarte shows up and joins the fray.

I'm not sure how this is going to play out at this point but the Falcon pilot then does 2 things.

1. Tells me the Bestower has decided to jump to my side of the WH.

(I've decided anonymity isn't going to last long anyway and I'm probably just being vain to think that too many people will a) read this blog or b) care. Posting killboard links is MUCH easier)

http://www.freelancerunion.co.uk/eve-killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=16753

2. Reminds me he is there and asks if I want help.

We also have a Tengu available along with the Falcon and the Maelstrom so we all jump in and start firing away. The Astarte is called primary for jams and damage and is quickly forced to jump through the WH to safety.

They land a Megathron on the gate who starts shooting at me as well.

I'm amazed, but even with the Mega (who was admittedly very close and probably rail fit), the Phobos and the Astarte pounding on me my tank held amazingly well!

To be fair... the Falcon probably had a fair amount to do with that :).

We start trying to get points and bumps on the other ships but they were all able to either jump through the WH or warp back to their POS to find safety.

Oh well.. it was fun. We just need to bump better!

At this point the Tengu pilot says he needs to go to bed and I jokingly tell him "I'm glad to hear it... it's time for another Marauder or Faction BS kill".

I got the appropriate 'Yeah Right' and off he went.

From there it was a lot of scanning and not much action until I found a Hulk happily mining crokite in a WH belt.

Seriously? Crokite?

In any case, the Falcon pilot was still on with me but decided not to come in because it looked like the Hulk might have back up coming towards the hole and we wanted to be able to respond with foreknowledge of what we were up against.

http://www.freelancerunion.co.uk/eve-killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=16755

And then it happened.

I warped into the same WormHole that the three of us had been carebearing it up in to see a Navy Megathron on scan with 5 hobgoblin I's on scan.

I immediately woke up and started the stalk. A few scans later I had a warp-in, but couldn't decide if I needed to wait for him to clear the spawn or not.

It turned out that the pilot was in an empty anomaly, shooting railguns at a sleeper structure.

He didn't even start shooting back until he was entering armor.

http://www.freelancerunion.co.uk/eve-killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=16756

And for good measure... I convo'd the guy afterwards:

dryden01 > hi
Me > So what drops when you blow up sleeper structures? dryden01 > no idea I was just trying to find out if they drop?
Me > Cool.. I always wondered that also
dryden01 > when I was rudely interrupted Me > Shame none of the faction stuff dropped :(
dryden01 > what off my ship?
dryden01 > you did loose out there dryden01 > I had some good tec 2 kit on that ship gutted > well... the Domination web and the energized adaptive nano membrane would've been nicedryden01 > yep they were nice
dryden01 > all gone now
Me> it's a shame
Me > so.. can you afford to buy a new one?
dryden01 > yes and when what I have on sale sells enough to buy 2 new ships
Me > can I have a loan?
dryden01 > after what you just did !
Me > yeah.. but I did cause I don't have enough to support myself
Me > I have to turn to a life of crime
Me > and all the good stuff blew up
Me > this will barely pay for the ammo :(
dryden01 > good. Crime should not pay!

(I decided to change tactics here and get a little more evil)

Me > those drones of yours almost got me into armor

Me > you did pretty good :)

dryden01 > your lucky I normaly carry tec 2 hammerheads

dryden01 > into your amour they would have been through your amour

Me > yeah... you're right.. I got VERY lucky there

Me > you could've easily killed me with that much damage

All in all... another satisfying night!

My Precioussssss.... (not so much)

2009-08-12T21:43:00.000-07:00

So... round 2 starts off with... well... more scanning.. that's how pretty much every night of WHorage begins tbh.

I vowed to myself that I'd not let opportunities for kills pass me by, I'd remember that they were the carebear and I was the killer; that their instincts were to run and mine were to charge; and I learned the hard way that they also know absolutely nothing about fitting ships.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The first few wormholes I jumped into were pretty dead. But then I spied a Myrmidon in a Ladar site. This is getting to be a trend. Myrmidon's seem to be popular for gas miners. I guess it's not a bad choice, but it definitely makes for some comedy fits!

This guy was taking hits of up to 1500 on his armor the whole fight (ok... that makes it sound like it lasted longer than it did). In any case, he quickly popped and the mail looked something like this:

2009.08.12 00:30:00
Victim: Dominion5218
Corp: Unauthorized Chaos
Alliance: Overtime Alliance
Faction: NONE

Destroyed: Myrmidon
System: J145851
Security: 0.0
Damage Taken: 14938

Involved parties:
Name: Me again....
Security: -1.2
Ship: Proteus
Weapon: Heavy Neutron Blaster II
Damage Done: 10681

Destroyed items:
Gas Cloud Harvester I
Antimatter Charge M, Qty: 62
250mm Carbide Railgun I
Cap Recharger II
Expanded Cargohold II, Qty: 2
10MN Afterburner I
Antimatter Charge M, Qty: 818 (Cargo)

Dropped items:
Acolyte I (Drone Bay)
Hobgoblin I (Drone Bay)
Gas Cloud Harvester I, Qty: 2
Neural Network Analyzer, Qty: 4 (Cargo)
Medium Armor Repairer I
Expanded Probe Launcher I
Co-Processor II
250mm Carbide Railgun I
Iridium Charge M, Qty: 970 (Cargo)
Core Scanner Probe I, Qty: 25
Survey Scanner I
Sleeper Data Library, Qty: 2 (Cargo)
Expanded Cargohold II, Qty: 2
Hammerhead I (Drone Bay)

Nothing eventful there, but it got the blood flowing a little less sluggishly.

Next up was a hurricane that was trying to run anomalies. This one was definitely more entertaining as the friendly victim convo'd me as the kill was going down.

(Did I mention how pretty the Proteus is?)

This guy is actually fit pretty interestingly and he tanked surprisingly well. It's a shame (for his sake, not for mine) he was arty fit so he never really did any damage to me.

So anyway... back to the convo which started after I tackled him but before I'd demonstrated my ability to break his tank.

carigan mathor > can i help yoi?
Me > You already are
Me > is there anything I can do for you?
carigan mathor > i will pay you a ransom if you would prefer
carigan mathor > i would rather not lose this ship
Me > nice shield tank :)
carigan mathor > thanks i guess

(editor's note: things are getting bit dicey for him at this point. the 35% regen point is nearing)

me > passive shield tank with a nice recharge :)
carigan mathor > mm yeah
carigan mathor > not good enough

(ed note: switching from ECM to damage drones pushed him over the top)

me > how much did you want to pay in ransom :)
carigan mathor > name it

(at this point I'm thinking... woohoo... DG Invulns etc)

carigan mathor > 30?

(and just that quickly my hopes were dashed)

carigan mathor > 60?
Me > I was thinking like 300 :p
Me > but I'll pass

(I don't like to ransom anyway... it always leaves me wondering what I could've had)

[Hurricane, carigan mathor's Hurricane]
Beta Reactor Control: Shield Power Relay I
Beta Reactor Control: Shield Power Relay I
Beta Reactor Control: Shield Power Relay I
Beta Reactor Control: Shield Power Relay I
Beta Reactor Control: Shield Power Relay I

Fourier Transform I Tracking Program

Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
V-M15 Braced Multispectral Shield Matrix

650mm Medium Gallium I Cannon,EMP M
650mm Medium Gallium I Cannon,EMP M
650mm Medium Gallium I Cannon,EMP M
650mm Medium Gallium I Cannon,EMP M
Core Probe Launcher I,Core Scanner Probe I
Advanced 'Limos' Heavy Missile Bay I,Scourge Heavy Missile
Advanced 'Limos' Heavy Missile Bay I,Scourge Heavy Missile
Advanced 'Limos' Heavy Missile Bay I,Scourge Heavy Missile

Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Core Defence Field Purger I
Core Defence Field Purger I

In the end only one of the shield relays dropped and the rest of the loot was pretty uneventful. But still.. props to this guy for a good smart fitting!

So after the loot was taken and the mail was posted, we deviated into talking about the wisdom of using the directional scanner on a more regular basis.

carigan mathor > tbh i really didnt expect to find anyone else in WH space

Yeah... they'll learn... :)

In any case... this was entertaining and was definitely an interesting Hurricane fit. EFT says it'll tank up to 400 dps theoretically...

At his age, I doubt carigan has quite that much dps tanked... but I can attest to it taking awhile to wear him down.

Now... this was wear the real fun began!

I jumped into a WH and started my scan to see a Golem class Marauder, a Typhoon, a Dominix, and a Hurricane doing an anomaly.

I'm almost embarassed to admit it, but I have done enough wormholes (carebear style) myself to know which anomaly they were doing based on the pattern of wrecks as they showed up on scan.

The good news was, this saved me from having to launch probes to find them as I didn't have to sort through signatures using the ship scanner. I could just warp straight to targets.

(the bad news is I TOTALLY forgot to take screenshots with the excitement of the kill)

I warped in at 40km off to see the Golem working on the end of the second spawn out of three with the typhoon and domi about 30km off of him.

The Golem was quite obviously going to be primary, so I started slow-boating towards him.

In the mean time, I'm making sure the other pilots are positioned for the kill. I brought a Maelstrom and a Scorpion with me. I was a bit worried about how much DPS would land on my sweet little Proteus, so I decided to tackle with the Maelstrom when the time for that came.

As they finished the last spawn, the hurricane started salvaging so I became less worried about his dps output. The Golem was slowboating away from the rest of the ships, but I was still having to be alert because the Golem seemed to be tractoring in all the wrecks which kept me on my toes making sure I stayed out of range.

Finally I mouthed 'Carpe Scrotum' to myself and went for it.

Maelstrom and Scorpion jumped through the wormhole and warped to the cloaked Proteus at 10km. This put them both about 15km off of the Golem and the Maelstrom immediately put a point and some EMP L into the Golem's shields. They were dropping fairly quickly as the Scorpion started trying to hand out jams.

Fortunately for me (it could have been dicey otherwise) the Typhoon immediately warped out. (good ole carebear instincts)

The Domi launched Heavy Shield Maintenance drones in a valiant attempt to save his friend. In the end, the Golem went down hard right as the Typhoon decided to come help his friend. I was unable to switch points quickly enough to the get the Typhoon also (and the Domi had remained at range the entire time) but I was at least close enough to loot the Golem right away.

Yay!!!!!! PROFIT!!!!

[Golem, Modi Kynjarlson's Golem]
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Power Diagnostic System II
Power Diagnostic System II

X-Large Clarity Ward Booster I (seriously? T1 and not even Meta 4?)
Cap Recharger II
Invulnerability Field II
Invulnerability Field II
Photon Scattering Field II
Shield Boost Amplifier I (are you kidding me?)
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron

Large 'Solace' I Remote Bulwark Reconstruction
Core Probe Launcher I,Sisters Core Scanner Probe
Siege Missile Launcher II,Mjolnir Javelin Torpedo
Siege Missile Launcher II,Mjolnir Javelin Torpedo
Siege Missile Launcher II,Mjolnir Javelin Torpedo
Siege Missile Launcher II,Mjolnir Javelin Torpedo
Small Tractor Beam I

Hydraulic Bay Thrusters I
Rocket Fuel Cache Partition I

Medium Armor Maintenance Bot I x1
Medium Armor Maintenance Bot I x1
Medium Armor Maintenance Bot I x1
Warrior II x1
Warrior II x1

Or not..... Who the heck spends over 900mil on a ship and less than 50m on the fittings?

I would post the mail so you can see what dropped... but it really doesn't matter does it?

I went from having visions of isk dancing in my head to.... well.... pretty stoked I'd nailed a Golem kill!

So at this point I decided to go fit a salvager on the Proteus and hope I'd at least get some decent salvage from the deal. Maybe enough to cover ammo costs at least.

03:39:58 Notify You successfully salvage from the Caldari Elite Battleship Wreck. Unfortunately there was nothing to be salvaged.

Owned again.... :(

Still.. these guys even failed at the comedy whining in chat logs. I couldn't get them to speak up much.

That's ok! The second night of WHorage was definitely more eventful than the first.

Stay tuned... and feel free to comment to tell me what aspects you like, what you don't (more stalking detail or just the kills as an example... or... should I post more of the chat logs etc)

(editor's note: the spacing kept jamming the text together unless I put in two spaces in which case it spread it WAY farther out. I think having too much space is better than too little so I'm going to go with it this way)

New Beginnings.... Again...

2009-08-11T14:52:00.001-07:00

No joy on getting myself killed in a more manly fashion... It was fully insured (which I rarely remember to do... or I'd have left it floating for the next guy)

At least there were no implants....

Time to start round 2... hopefully the stories improve... the first post was a lot of writing for 1 Myrm kill and a Hyperion loss...

Let me know if there are elements you like/dislike and I'll try and work more of that kind of stuff in.

Oh... and for those who are counting.. thats +15 - 20 mil for the myrmidon's loot... and -50 - 75 mil for the loss of the hyperion (after insurance).

I'm going in the wrong direction but I'm having fun doing it!

New Beginnings

2009-08-11T09:43:00.000-07:00

So... I'm not new to Eve... nor am I new to WormHoles... but I AM new to a life solely dedicated to plundering WormHoles for all they are worth. By all they are worth, I mean the ancient technology available from the sleepers (which can be pretty shiny) as well as the much more modern (and generally much shinier) deepspace / faction fittings of the other pilots trying to salvage Sleeper technology.

I've done a fair amount of carebearing in WormHoles and bought myself some very shiny fittings on some very expensive ships. Between my fellow capsuleer friends and I we can pretty easily clear 1.5 billion (hold pinky to corner of mouth while saying... it's cooler that way) in 5-6 hours. Split that two ways and that's still pretty good isk for the time invested.

The above being said, after awhile, even the most lucrative of isk printing methodologies begins to feel like work. And so now I will use the fruits of my labor to make similar labor much more difficult for others who would like to duplicate my efforts.

Specifically, I'm now turning to full time WHorage (WormHole Piracy). I'm using a pilot in a Proteus (yes... carebearing in WormHoles really IS that profitable) that is scanning for targets and then myself (GenePool) in a variety of ships as necessary to make life miserable for others. I also have a couple other pilots that occasionally join in the fun for maximum carnage.

Last night started off slow but got more interesting as the night progressed.

(editor's note: I didn't decide to write this blog until after last night so this initial version will not have much in the way of screenshots and/or video. I'll work on correcting that in the future)

I scanned down a few wormholes with little to no action (a jaguar helped an imicus escape after he lost all his probes... I almost puked at how friendly they were to each other but the foreshadowing is impossible to ignore at this point) but I never had the opportunity to fire rounds in anger.

Finally after my partner in crime decided to dock up for the night I found a wormhole with a target. Sleeper wrecks were on scan, and a catalyst was doing it's best to salvage them. I quickly probed him out and warped in on him. Unfortunately, he was aligned and got into warp before I was able to put a point on him. Fortunately for me though, he warped to the WH I'd just come in after him from.

I chased, but he jumped through before I could tackle. As I was lamenting my total failure as a pirate a new ship showed up on the overview. It was the pride of the Caldari Navy in the form of one of their special edition Raven class battleships. And even better, the CNR decided to start shooting at my Proteus. As the Raven was nearing 50% shields (and my armor was starting to get scratched) I jumped through the portal to attempt to bump the Raven off of the WormHole. I hit him, but apparently not hard enough as he was able to jump at 50% armor.

Again... total failure.

Pro Tip: The Salvaging Destroyer didn't kill those sleepers himself. Patience will likely lead a better target to show himself soon!

At this point, I jumped back through the WormHole in my gank battleship only to have it close behind me. Good thing the proteus has the probing subsystem fit. With a sigh, I started scanning for a new exit.

As I was scanning, another Raven (non Caldari Navy version) showed up on my overview (apparently trying to leave through the now closed wormhole). Right as I was about to decloak to tackle this new target a Hurricane and a Megathron showed up as well. Probably better that I was slow in this case.

Fast Forward an hour or so... I had scanned down over 40 sigs to find that the current WormHole I was in (a class 2) only had 3 other WHs in it. One leads to a class 5, one leads to 0.0 (Tenal) and one lead to another class 2. The whole time I was praying for a high-sec entrance so I could get back in with some backup to kill these 2 BSs and the cane. It was maddening watching the sleeper wrecks pile up on scan but not having the firepower to kill them before they ganged up on me. :/

I ended up jumping through the WH to the new Class 2 to look for a high-sec exit there.

Fast Forward another hour and another 30-35 sigs to find out that this second WH had the same exits as above. The good news is that this 0.0 exit was to Cloud Ring only 2 jumps from Empire and the proteus was cloaky and bubble immune. Even with 2 gate camps involving 2 dictors and a hictor it was easy enough to get back to hi sec.

Proteus > Eris + Sabre + Phobos!

So... poking my head back into the same wormholes again I found a Myrmidon that was gas mining. Easy kill.. T2 fit... no drama and felt good to finally get a kill.

Poor guy was barely one month old... I almost felt bad for him.... almost...

Welcome to Eve little buddy...

2009.08.11 06:19
Victim: Nils Bhaltair
Corp: Federal Navy Academy
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Myrmidon
System: J130616
Security: 0.0
Damage Taken: 14275

Involved parties:
Name: Anonymous Probing Alt to remain unnamed
Ship: Proteus
Weapon: Heavy Neutron Blaster II
Damage Done: 14275

Destroyed items:
Core Probe Launcher I
Gas Cloud Harvester I
Gas Cloud Harvester I
Salvager I
Core Scanner Probe I
Core Scanner Probe I
Core Scanner Probe I
Core Scanner Probe I
Cap Recharger II
N-Type Kinetic Hardener I
Damage Control II
N-Type Explosive Hardener I
Medium Armor Repairer II
Fullerite-C32, Qty: 67 (Cargo)
Reinforced Metal Scraps, Qty: 12 (Cargo)
Modified Fluid Router, Qty: 27 (Cargo)
Neural Network Analyzer, Qty: 8 (Cargo)

Dropped items:
Gas Cloud Harvester I
10MN Afterburner II
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
N-Type Thermic Hardener I
Electromechanical Hull Sheeting, Qty: 18 (Cargo)
Melted Nanoribbons (Cargo)
Sleeper Data Library, Qty: 8 (Cargo)
Heuristic Selfassemblers (Cargo)
Ancient Coordinates Database, Qty: 4 (Cargo)
Powdered C-540 Graphite, Qty: 3 (Cargo)

(about 12-15m in loot.... killing sleepers is much more profitable than "protecting them" so far)

As I was looting that wreck a Loki and a Tengu came in after me. I wasn't so sure about that fight with a single Proteus and another Battleship on my side (especially since it seemed likely that they would have a third pilot in a Falcon in their gang) so I decided to use the first battleship as a bait ship while I took the Proteus pilot to get into another Battleship to be sure I would get the outcome I wanted.

The Loki and Tengu chased my lone battleship around the system but managed to give up right as I was jumping my second battleship into the WormHole. (In hindsight I wish I'd taken the fight with the single battleship as I'm reasonably confident I could've killed at least one of the T3 ships and it would've been a fair trade).

The bad news there was that I sent the first battleship back through the wormhole only to have it collapse behind me leaving the second battleship stranded.

Without probes.... GAH!

Well.. what else is a WHorage Pirate to do?

I renamed my Hyperion Gassie Gas and parked it near the can with 632 C-32 Fullerite from the dead myrm, scooped the corpse from the myrm wreck, popped the myrm wreck.. and pretended to gas mine.

I'm hopeful I'll get some comedy killmails from the deal as opposed to just having to self-destruct to collect the insurance.

Either way it was an eventful first night in a new life of crime where there is no punishment...

Worst case, I'll self-destruct, collect the insurance, pod jump back to k-space (ironically... the ability to suicide is a lifesaver) and start this all over again in a few hours.

Stay tuned for future installments which will include Concord Sanctioned hits on young capsuleers doing work for the man (level 4 mission agents) in ships that cost way too much for their own good... soon with pictures and hopefully video..