prorator
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.
