kills
Turkey Shoot
After the successful failure of my last Rook, I bought and fitted a new one. Determined to test it at its intended purpose of ganking ratting ships, I set off again for the Drone Regions.
I had a long, and rather boring, trip ahead of me. Jump after jump took me to empty space; if this weren’t drone space it would be paradise for ninja ratters. I did come upon a small mining operation, two Hulks and three Skiffs, but in a system with forty belts I was not able to find them before they warped back to a safe pos. I found their cans and logged out for ten minutes, but when I logged back in they were still at the POS. Making note of the belt and system, I continued on my way, intending to visit them again on my way home.
A few systems later, though, I had some good luck. In GTQ-C9, I saw a whole slew of wrecks on the directional scanner, as well as a Raven and a Prorator-class blockade runner. The Raven appeared to be at a POS, but the Prorator looked to be in a belt. I narrowed it down to one of two belts near planet IV, and with my fingers metaphorically crossed I hit “Warp To 0″. Narrowing the directional scanner down to five degrees, as I approached the belt I saw that the Prorator was in it all right. No doubt it was gathering drone loot, an unfortunate necessity in the bounty-free Drone Regions. The only question now was whether the pilot would wake up and flee the belt before I could get there and get a lock.
When I landed in the belt, I thought for sure I would miss the kill. The Prorator was almost 40 km from the belt warpin point, and I only have room on my Rook fit for an afterburner. Still, I had to try, and I approached the Prorator at maximum speed. As I did so, I noticed that it was already under fire from the rats in the belt. The pilot did not seem to be reacting. Hope began to dawn – perhaps the Prorator pilot has had to go AFK, which is one of the most suicidally fatal things to do in a belt in 0.0. I locked the blockade runner up and began firing, using Thunderbolt Furies as I hypothesized that the Prorator pilot chose a shield tank to free up his low slots for expanded cargoholds. My drones zoomed ahead of me and swarmed the unresponsive ship.
Finally, I entered warp disruptor range. I crowed when I got a point on the ship, though it seemed more and more that the pilot was not paying attention. Now there was the question of whether he had warp core stabilizers in his lows, but as my damage began to slowly eat at his armor it became clear that the Prorator was indeed armor tanked. It was just a matter of time, now, as the combined DPS of my Rook and the drone rats wore him down. I was in the unsual position of being very close to my foe and not needing to react that quickly, so I took the time to snap a pretty picture of the engagement.
When the Prorator propped, the pod sat still. Either the pilot wanted to get podcloned home or he was AFK; either way I sent him back to his favorite clone bay.
I zoomed up to the wreck and checked out his loot; a few T2 armor mods that I could use, and some expanded cargo holds. To my suprise, this blockade runner did not fit a covert ops cloak! The drone alloys were too bulky for my Rook to carry, so I sent my drones to pop the wreck before continuing on my way, happy to have finally gotten a belt gank but still deeply unsatisfied that it was a glorified hauler and not a worthier fighting ship. Next time for sure, I thought.
But of course I thought wrong.
Griefing TRI pets
After a two week absence due to vacation, I resumed my sojourns across New Eden to find fun, profit and ~~good fights~~ in far distant lands.
This time, rather than take my trusty Harbinger, I decided to go commerce raiding. With the new changes, stealth bombers are a wonderful cloaky gate camp ship. I staked out a spot on the H-PA gate in 9-2 and cloaked up, carefully staying on the far side of the gate from any celestials to avoid being decloaked, while also being in that tiny 500m range between where you can jump and where you get decloaked by the gate.
I settled in for a nice camp, and watched a few TRI vagas and ishtars go about their mysterious business. I idly thought that Vagas do look like fun and contemplated (shudder) crosstraining Minmatar HACs, now that I’ve got my Amarr skills close to solid. I did not have to wait for long, though, as an Iteron V soon popped up on the directional scanner, heading my way. (9-2 is sort of nice for this, it’s so big and empty that there is not a lot of ‘noise’ on the scanner).
The Itty, which belonged to a pilot from Sentience. named Rhionni, jumped right through the gate and I decloaked and jumped after him. I was easily able to get a point on the other side, and two torpedo volleys finished off the Iteron wreck. Mildly excited to see what goodies might have been dropped,
Rhionni > why did you do that, you’re blue
Kesper North > I am? Sorry, you’re neut to me. Contact my alliance’s diplomats, if this proves to be a real blue on blue situation I’ll be happy to compensate you.
Rhionni > ok, thanks. do you mind if i come get my stuff? i can’t finish this mission without it
Ahhhhh, so it’s mission cargo. Gotcha.
Kesper North > Go right ahead, I’m just here to bug TRI. I don’t really want to give random innocent people a hard time.
Rhionni > thanks!
While I’ve been talking to him, I have been pulling up the killboard records for his corporation, and oh look Sentience. pilots have been on ME kills with TRI. Given that they both live in H-PA, they’re probably blue to one another. And I really doubt an 11 man corp is really supposed to have standings with ME, especially given that hostile history.
So I take up a position 10 km from Rhionni’s hauler wreck, wait for the new hauler to show up, and pop it again. Wailing and gnashing of teeth and promises to contact diplos ensue. I post about the incident on the leadership forum for the benefit of our diplos, who respond that they don’t know Sentience. from Adam and they certainly don’t have blue status. I pop both the guy’s wrecks and go back to camping, job done.
Unfortunately for me, the other hauler running back and forth is stabbed. I chase him to 6NJ and back, but I can never get more than one volley on him, and it’s just not quite enough to pop him. Still, I say to myself, I’ve gotten a couple of hauler kills, and it’s getting late. Time to go home. I’m just about to head for home when a Vaga and a Legion show up, decloak and instapop me. Scratch one stealth bomber. Fooey.
My poor pod begins the long flight across 9-2, resolute in my decision to return to Venal the next day and give TRI some what-for.
More Fun with TRI in Venal
After the previous night’s adventure with naamira and friends, I decided to log back in and play the cat and mouse game a bit more, perhaps scoring an easy kill or two in the process. TRI came to play not long after, and soon we were feinting with one another throughout the system of P-F. Finally only one Ishtar pilot was left in system, and getting bored I challenged him to a 1v1 at a planet. I knew he was at planet 3, so I warped to planet 2 and aligned immediately for p3. It proved very good that I had done so…
He warped in at 100km. I did not approve of this as my harbie is a pulse harbie, so I warped out… then warped back in again at 100km, right on top of the Ishtar. He was so suprised that I got a free volley on him, a point blank alpha strike that put him in armor with one volley. Pointed and webbed, he hit the MWD and crawled out of conflag range, deploying drones and neuting me. I switched over to Scorch, and found that even though he was repping quite a bit it wasn’t enough to tank my DPS. He was going down, slowly, and I activated my own MWD to keep him in range for the kill.
That’s when he violated the 1v1. Two more TRI entered system and warped in on us when it became clear that he was losing the engagement, a Stiletto and a Phantasm. Despite the additional DPS I held out long enough to pop the Ishtar before succumbing to the Phantasm’s withering laser fire mere seconds later.
All in all, I call it a win. A very ~~good fight~~ and the loss of a 50mill Harbinger to kill a rigged Ishtar worth almost four times as much.