Friday 29 July 2011

Exploring the more dubious side of wearing an eyepatch....

Yesterday I lost a Rifter to a Merlin piloted by a 2003 player. I D-scanned him down to a belt, warped in and had a quick look at his pilot info. Seeing that he was a 2003 player should really have put me off but I figured it'd be rude not to spin my guns up. I was itching for a fight anyway having roamed for an hour or so and found nothing. His shield tank was pretty uber and I didn't chew very far into it before I got a nice notification from CONCORD to say my ship insurance was winging its way to the bank. 'gf's' were exchanged and I left the system to reship.

Having highlighted that engaging in mortal combat with vastly older players in corp chat one of my corpies casually mentioned that if I wanted a quick and easy kill to feel better about myself I should go suicide ganking miners. Now I like to consider myself pretty honourable and popping defenseless miners as they go about their business has never really appealed to me. I much prefer the satisfaction of  winning a fight where the other guy was shooting back. However I thought that being an aspiring pirate I should probably explore every  aspect of Eve that my eyepatch and wooden leg points to.

So I made my way to Arnon whilst simultaneously firing up EFT to make a quick fit to see what my dps and alpha would be like. Seeing decent stats I fitted up a Catalyst with my chosen fit (8x blasters, 3x magnetic field stabs and a scram) I undocked and headed to the first belt.

What luck, a lone Retriever appeared non-threateningly in my overview. Slowboating my way towards him (our dashing author here didn't see right to fit a prop mod) I loaded my guns up with faction ammo and prepared to casually commit high-sec murder. My destroyer stopped a nice 800m away from my target whom was either unfazed by my proximity and negative sec status or just didn't really care.

Without hesitation I fired up my guns, flicked the overload switch and let rip. A couple of salvos later and my Catalyst was bathed in the pleasant blue glow as the Retriever vented atmosphere. Mere seconds later and I found myself sitting happy in my pod as CONCORD unleashed their (albeit rather too late) retribution. Warping to station to dock up as I waited for my GCC to expire I was met by my corpmate who had watched the unfolding attack in a hauler. He traded the loot from the Retriever and the modules that my destroyer had had dropped and I sold the loot, splitting it 50/50 for his help.

Overall I was content with the outcome. I popped a carebear and made enough ISK from his loot to cover the cost of the Catalyst and fits. I didn't feel any success in the kill though. Though satisfying to explode it wasn't a hard-won kill. It didn't test my skills at all. I can't see myself make a career out of suicide ganking in the near future. I'd much rather roam the belts of lowsec and fight people that can shoot back.

Saying that I'll probably do it again at some point for the lulz.

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