Friday 21 August 2020

Kill of the Week - The Belt Miner


Kavis Vercet is not having a good August. He started the month off losing a Mackinaw in lowsec - only a 270mil loss so not the end of the world. A few days later he was hauling a Tayra full of blueprints near Jita and when that inevitibly exploded he was down approximately 3.1 billion ISK. Some players might have just given up playing Eve for a while at this point but not Kavis Vercet - he forged on. I remember many years ago when I first started playing I read up about RvB and how it was a great PvP primer for new players. I joined Red Fed, spent all the ISK I had on T1 mods and ammo and undocked in a barely-trained Badger ready to get myself to the front line. 

I made it as far as the 4-4 undock.

At this point I didn't realise that ongoing wars between RvB weren't just constrained to those two corps but that third party entities had wardecc'd them too and I was livid that I'd just lost my worldly possessions to some random station campers. I nearly ragequit Eve there and then I was that mad but instead went off for about a month before coming back.

I digress but the message from that anecdote is that Kavis Vercet is clearly made of sterner stuff - the 3bill loss of all those blueprints did not dissuade him from staying in New Eden and merely a few days later he was back plying the space lanes. Unfortunately he took a Providence into lowsec which was promptly blapped on a gate and the hero of this tale was out of pocket by another 1.5bil. Like I said at the beginning, not a good month for Kavis Vercet.

The bad fortune for our budding hauler does not end here. A few days after losing the Providence, Kavis Vercet was out mining in highsec in an Orca - probably to recoup some of the losses he'd incurred earlier in the month. Now I've never taken part in asteroid mining because it seems colossally boring and I assume Kavis Vercet thinks so too because (and I'm making assumptions here) he went AFK in the belt. During this time an NPC Punisher belonging to the Blood Raiders landed on grid and promptly put an end to his Orca. I bet its laser crystals were nearly burnt out after putting out 114k damage.

Now you might be wondering where this is all going - what is all this buildup and backstory about? Well dear reader, lets find out. 

I've recently taken to roaming around my local haunts in my HAM Sandwich Loki. It has a wide engagement envelope and is all-around a fun, versatile ship. Yesterday afternoon I was bouncing around a few systems and ended up in Hulmate, in Essence. I noticed Kavis Vercet in local but couldn't find anything on d-scan so prepared to jump out and find somewhere else to go. I then caught wife aggro so had to go AFK. One of the joys of flying a cloaky ship is that I can drop Eve at a moments notice if needed and still be safe. 

I returned an hour or so later and hit warp to my out gate, idly d-scanning as I zoomed to my destination. An Orca flashed up on scan. I landed on the gate and held cloak. There were no stations or Citadels within 14 AU of this gate and yet there was an Orca somewhere in space. Immediately I dropped down to a 5° angle and started scanning the nearby celestials. 

There! Planet 3, belt 10. Orca.

My initial thought was that surely this was bait of the highest magnitide but I'm a big fan of taking the bait so I warped in anyway. Kavis Vercet and I were the only people in system anyway so I'd have time to bug out if local suddenly exploded.

I landed on the belt and found Kavis Vercet belt mining in his Orca. Clearly the losses of the month had drained our poor hero of a lot of ISK and he felt the need to risk the dangers of lowsec to mine some valuable ore. 

Slowboating within point range I uncloaked and got tackle. Local did not explode. I announced on the SC intel channel that I'd tackled an Orca in a belt in Hulmate. A few alliance mates scrambled to come and assist me. Meanwhile the Orca's shields were slowly being whittled down. A flight of light drones came and went. ECM drones were shot out of space. Kavis Vercet tried neuting me but I was too far out of their optimal range for them to do anything of note. The shields were almost down.

Two of my alliance mates landed on grid to get secondary and tertiary tackle and apply DPS. It didn't take long before the Orca exploded, briefly illuminating the belt.



 I collected my loot (fuck you loot fairy!) and slipped back into the night, content with the aggressive transaction that had just taken place. My two alliance buddies were happy to get on the kill. In hindsight I could probably have solo'd it but I had no idea if Kavis Vercet had any back up or any other hidden surprises so it was the right choice to bring in extra DPS.  

Moments after leaving Hulmate my notification feed lit up.



I can't say I was surprised in all honesty but I'll take it. A fairly good chunk of ISK though, 50mil - the highest one-time bounty I've accrued to date I think so happy with that. So that, dear readers is what I'm claiming as my kill of the week. It might not have been ~elite pvp~ but it was a big kill for me at least so I think it counts. I think there's only one thing left to say -

Kavis Vercet is not having a good August.

Until next time, fly reckless o/

- Cable


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