The little ship that could

This was a great story from Nerbert so I had to include it.

A few days ago, I’d jumped my prober and bomber through an end of life hole to watch it close behind me. I’d mentally prepared for that possibility and figured I’d just wander the universe until some other wormhole spit me out close to home. With the nearby trade hub effectively shut down by the war, this was the perfect time for a little adventure.

Eventually, I settled into a cozy little hole with several active POSs and plenty of signatures. The system had an exit to high sec, low sec and a dead end class 4 which was completely untouched. With no targets in either of the two J-systems, I popped into low sec to have a look around. There were roughly 20 people in local with several potential targets on D-scan. I scanned down a covetor sitting at a “safe” and poked some holes in his security.

After spending a few minutes scouting out the low sec system, I returned to the wormhole to find a list of fresh wrecks, a nighthawk, a cruiser and a cormorant on scan. Landing on their grid, I found that they had completed the site and the looter had just started his work. To my surprise, the combat ships warped off to the next site and left their defenseless looter alone in a site to gather the fruits of their labor. Why site runners continue to do this, I’ll never know. I conducted a quick instructional session and had the wreck looted just as the Nighthawk showed up on grid. They returned to the wormhole a while later with a looter drake and an entourage of looter protection vessels. They attempted to lure me out of hiding with taunting messages, but I told them I was satisfied knowing that I had significantly reduced their intake of isk/hour. In no hurry to get back to hi sec, I logged off in the system.

I logged on the next afternoon intending to get a quick refresh on the system signatures to save time for my evening session. I noticed a Badger II on scan and located him at one of the towers. He had offlined most of the guns and was starting to un-anchor… oooh, snap. Not wanting to drop any probes for fear of spooking the badger pilot, I did a check of my previous known wormholes to find them all end of life or closed. Over the next hour and a half I was in and out, keeping track of his progress as he moved his stuff from the large tower to a medium tower in the same system. At some point, an alt jumped into a wreath to help him haul and I had also watched him move a Drake and an Orca.

At several points during the offlining/unanchoring process I had the opportunity to pop him, but I had a deeper motivation. The Machine and I had a recent encounter, detailed elsewhere in this blog, where we had accidentally blown a wreck containing a tower. This time I was going to do everything in my power to ensure a nice payout. Unfortunately, when it came to stealing a POS, I was in system with a Manticore and a Cheetah with a combined cargo space of about 400 cubic meters. Additionally, my only hole to hi sec had been end of life for at least 2 hours and could close any second. This presented a problem, but I was unwilling to give up the vantage points from which I was watching his operation to go retrieve a hauler from the end of life hole. I decided the best course of action was to keep both ships in system and see how it unfolded.
The countdown to game time had finally reached zero and the tower was unanchored. He was about 30 seconds late for his pickup which would have provided me an opportunity to scoop the POS if I had gone the hauler route, alas I had not. As he landed, I dropped the bomb and waited for his pod to show up. Expecting him to be in some state of shock or confusion at his rapid demise, I assumed I’d get the lock, but this pilot was apparently ready. He escaped, which reduced my chances of successful payout significantly. He ran back to his new POS and returned in a Drake. In local [chat log on another computer], I bluffed the presence of a fleet waiting anxiously for his Orca to undock… hehe. I also mentioned that his alt should not show up in the wreath. He didn’t listen, and I killed his second hauler, while he waited impatiently for his drake to lock me up. I conjured up an image of him bouncing off the walls in his parent’s basement, while his Drake – now sitting between two heaping piles of twisted metal that used to comprise half of his wormhole fleet - locked me in slow motion. He did manage to get one salvo into my shields, but I was aligned to a planet and outside point range. At this point he was fighting some inner demons, and unwilling to speak in local. He warped back to his POS and climbed aboard the Orca. I assumed my chances of recovering the POS were about to reach nil. I had done the math, and assuming he showed up without any drones or resistance mods, I didn’t have enough firepower onboard to kill the Orca. But… he continued to sit in his POS stewing over the recent events. After a few minutes, he logged… Wait, WHAT? HE LOGGED!!!

My risk/reward calculus had now changed. I made a bee-line with both characters to the EOL hi sec hole and docked in the first station with a hoarder for sale. I fit it with a couple expanded cargohold II’s, donated so graciously by the wreath pilot, and screamed back through the hole. If you’ve never sat and waited for a hauler to align inside a wormhole, you’ve never lived. To my surprise, I didn’t attract any would be assailants and got my new POS out of the hole safely.
Wow… did I just do that solo with a bomber and a prober? Sure, I needed the hauler to get the loot out, but that was a matter of logistics after the battle had been won. Anyone who says a stealth bomber is a poor solo ship just isn’t using them correctly, or applying the right amount of creativity. I for one absolutely love flying my little ship that could.

I love that the guy returns in a Drake, Carebears in general think the drake is the answer to anything.

The Horrors of War

( 18:30:23 ) Kiritsubo > what are you going to do after the war Devy?

( 18:31:03 ) HevyDevy II > dunno, i don't have any real world skills

( 18:31:07 ) HevyDevy II > find another war, i guess

( 18:32:18 ) HevyDevy II > you?

( 18:32:41 ) Kiritsubo > got a girl back home waiting for me, i'm gonna marry her

Hank killed Hitler

Although I played EVE for a long time before turning to WH PVP, I essentially grew up in WHs at least it feels like it. I’ve done the 0.0 thing and even tried low sec camping, but no where have I felt more comfortable than WHs, in fact I don’t even get the shakes any more when I decloak and engage. I used to literally get so cold when I engaged people I had to wear giant hoody sweatshirts and my hand still felt like ice. My body was going into minor shock from the fight or flight instinct. Shock… from an internet spaceship game! That’s why I loved it and I still do even though I don’t get the rush any more. I used to scream into the mic at my wingmen, hurriedly passing information, but now I calmly (sort of) pass clear concise orders (sometimes). I used to be in mortal fear of losing my bomber, but now I have stock piles of pvp ships, of just about every build, including two fitted bombers and 7 extra Domination Launchers I found at a good price. Every time I log on I have a small fleet of RL friends ready to jump into any wormhole I point too. Nerbert has even become essentially my equal and I often follow him into holes.
Despite all of this, what I do is virtually the same thing over and over and because of that the stories are drying up. For the time being I plan on putting up a few posts, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Confessions is drawing to a close. Until that day, lets take another look into what makes me tick.

A few nights ago Nerbert and I were out doing the usual roam, when I caught a Viator on scan. First we thought it was doing PI in the unk system we were in, but I quickly devised that it was actually deconstructing the tower in the system next door. The best part, the tower had 18 minutes to unanchor. We settled in, got some beers, and waited for the fireworks. About thirty seconds after the timer expired he uncloaked on top of the tower and we made short work of him, including his pod. Now the unfortunate thing was that in the flurry of clicking I went to close on the wreck to loot it, but instead targeted it. That normally wouldn’t be a problem except my missiles were activated from trying to shoot his pod. You all know how that ends, the wreck along with the large tower in its hold was space dust. After our little debacle he convo’d Nerbert and proceeded to mock us because we could have ransomed his pod for 350M. I’m sorry I can’t hear you, all that static from hi sec must be interfering. Don’t get me wrong, I love isk, and I try to get as much of it as I can, but what would I do with it; I’d buy a totally pimped out bomber and go gank people in wormholes with it, that’s what I’d do. Well I have two and I got 7 KMs that night, life is good.

The other notable story from the night was this drake. Quite honestly the KM is enough of a story, but some explanation should save this guy from future humiliation. He was using this drake as a Swiss army knife for his loki in the hole. Believe it or not those stupid ECMs were working like a charm. I did however manage to kill the drake with the loki buzzing around me like a big angry gnat. I really had no choice cause I was warp disrupted. The loki was a different story, we engaged a few times at the hole, but I could not manage to break his tank in my ‘phoon.

We killed this looter while six or seven guys watched, it was awesome, just like all the other looters I’ve killed under peoples noses, like this one a few days later. Yes thats three t2 rigs.

Tonight we stumbled upon two miners at work in a hole. Club Williams our up and coming bomber pilot was out for his second night. After we popped them and one of the pods they convo’d us in local. Typically I’d give a little advise or commentary, but its all in the convo already, I laid it on pretty thick.

Renturu > Wow! for new guys with positive standings... you really know how to pop a mining barge
Renturu > Try a couple of command ships and T3s
Genocide Forge > lol.... you should check killboards and bios before speaking
Renturu > Check out Bryan Havoc then
Renturu > Asshat
Genocide Forge > im sorry i thought you were accusing me of being a newb, not the other way around
Genocide Forge > i never identified you as a newb
Renturu > I know your not
Genocide Forge > or your friend or whatever
Renturu > np
Genocide Forge > cool
Renturu > club is though
Genocide Forge > yeah we all start somewhere
Renturu > hehe
Genocide Forge > hes not doing too bad either
Renturu > what is yoru corps goal?
Genocide Forge > this
Renturu > ahhh
Genocide Forge > if you had been in the loki we would have gotten that... porbably
Renturu > you know. this is noty a heavyaction site
Renturu > For this time of day anyway
Genocide Forge > it was a minute ago
Renturu > until the russians come on
Genocide Forge > yeah well we would typically head on, bt then you got in a t3 and cloaked up
Renturu > docked atm
Renturu > ty
Genocide Forge > so you know what that means... bigger ships and more people
Renturu > they own this site btw
Genocide Forge > who the russians?
Renturu > and many others
Genocide Forge > i love target rich environments
Genocide Forge > to obad hte ruskies wont be getting up very soon
Genocide Forge > we'll be pushing on now
Club Williams > fly safe!

At least he didn’t criticize my spelling. Bryan Havoc does have an impressive KB, he seems especially good at blobbing people in Hi Sec.

A new dawn for men

I have finished my RL transition and am back in EVE, thank you for bearing with me through some guest posters. They did a wonderful job and thank you, but its time to get back into the shit. to recap the time before i went AWOL for a month or two. I killed a Tengu, Cyclone and a Myrm... it was sweet, the stories were typical holies being to confident in their isolation.

More importantly I am back playing, and many thanks should go to HevyDevy II for making my return very eventful. I had just logged in when HDII reported a tower with its shields off and numerous ships floating in space. After a frantic flight out we managed to steal a faction fit Zealot (~200M total) and a T2 fit Ishkur before we pop'd about 10 T1's we were too lazy to steal and sell.

I am so happy to see my boys have been hard at work honing their skills making these opportunities a possibility. So if you woke up and all your shit was gone from your tower... dude refuel it.

We’ve always been at war with Holies

[Kiritsubo; reporting from the Minitrue offices in Dodixie]

Ritual Suicide is excited to announce we have joined Tear Extraction and Reclamation Service [TEARS]. Best known for their core organization Suddenly Ninjas we look forward to teaming with them in expanding our Happiness stealing opportunities.

Look for us in your mission, your asteroid belt and your wormhole, remember:

GENOCIDE MACHINE IS WATCHING YOU!