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

You Can Always Bet On Stupid

I've just submitted an anecdote of mine as a True Story for the competition that CCP are currently running. It goes back to August 2011, when I was still a kitten in the galaxy I've come to cherish.

Prior to becoming a Tusker but after my stint in RvB I was sort of at a loss of what to do. I knew I wanted to get into PvP in a big way but was still dipping my toes into the various aspects of Eve Online.

I would retell the tale here, and in fact I might do at some point as the True Stories format isn't really the way that I would go about setting the scene but I'll let you guys have a read about the storm I whipped up in a carebear corp before I settled down in lowsec for good.

You Can Always Bet On Stupid - A True Story by Cable Udan

Fly reckless o7

- Cable

What a Return - The October Review

Greets,

Since coming back from my work trip I've had an excellent time yarring. To start with, there has only been one bad event: I foolishly lost a Rifter by warping to a gate with GCC. No more 100% efficiency this month but that is my only loss!

I think the most exciting bit of news that's come from this month is my first solo ransom to the tune of 100mil! I'll set the scene:

I was undocking from Hev V in my trusty Jaguar when a couple of guys called out in comms that a Retriever had appeared on d-scan. As luck would have it the foolish mining vessel was undocking from the Tuskers home station at the very same time as I was. Not daft enough to engage it on station I patiently watched to where the pilot would direct his ship...

...To the closest asteroid belt.

I couldn't believe my luck! Spamming warp to the belt I arrived just after the mining hull and promptly locked and scrammed it. Seconds later the miner vented atmosphere and I pointed the pod.

Inviting my hapless victim to the Tuskers ransom channel I set about getting some Isk off him. At first the pilot was unsure about parting with his money in case I popped his capsule anyway. Tawa and I convinced him that we always honoured ransoms by directing him to our untarnished ransom board. As the guy was a 2006 player I started at 100mil, thinking he probably wouldn't take it. However when my wallet flashed and I saw all the zeros I was elated and promptly let my satisfied customer go.

I had a flurry of kills last night while roaming in Adirain. I quite like Adi as I've had some good kills there and there's usually a good mix of carebears missioning or mining as it's next to Arnon and pirates preying on the aforementioned.

Last night I was looking for a fight when I noticed Taurean on the sun in one of his Maledictions fighting a Merlin. Asking on comms if he needed a helping hand (I was in my Jag again - love this ship), he said he was still a couple of hundred km's from the Caldari frig and if I wanted to have a go I was more than welcome.

Warping to the sun I found myself 170km away from both Taurean and the Merlin. I warped to a planet that was in line with my potential next victim and bounced back, 100km off the sun. I was still too far away though!

As I was burning towards the pair (who were now engaging each other), a Rifter landed just out of overheated scram range and then warped to his friend - the Merlin. The fight was on as Taurean announced he couldn't take on both of the frigates in his lightly-tanked inty. I bid him to join fleet and the moment he turned purple I initiated warp, landing within point range of both aggressors.

Suffice to say a half-damaged Merlin and a Rifter were no match at all for my assault ship and they crumbled. I got point on the Rifters pod and offered the princely sum of 5mil for his life. He was only a 10day old pilot and I thought he'd have no more than that. It turns out that the pilot is up to his eyeballs in PLEX's and could have afforded a hell of a lot more. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say!

A few minutes later, as Taurean was salvaging the wrecks that were littered about the sun (a couple of T2 hulls had caught his eye), and Yarr Beard was back in another Merlin. Taurean announced his ship was in no state to fight and when he called point I warped back in and relinquished another Merlin hull from Yarr.

Splitting the ransom and buying out his share of the loot, Taurean and I went our seperate ways after a successful few minutes blitzing. There was gfgf all around!

In summary this month has been pretty damn good. I may have only scored a total of 23 kills but I lost only the one ship, and a Rifter hull at that. My ISK efficiency has shot up to 98.12% which I'm happy with.

I've definitely made a profit this month with 102,500,000 in ransoms and the modules from the majority of my kills. Hopefully I'll manage even better in November!

Fly reckless o7

That Sweet Kill. Also teamwork!

Looking back on my past few posts I came off with the feeling that people reading this might be getting bored of me going on about an above class kill. Well, I can cheerily say that I've gone and done it though it wasn't as good as I'd hoped.

I was fitting a Rifter in Adirain and after undocking saw a Scythe on d-scan. Arriving at a safe I began the task of scanning him down to the belt, planet or other celestial he was (hopefully) sat at. It was at this time that an Incursus came onto scan as well. Seconds later I found the Scythe sitting on a belt but unfortunately the Incursus was there too and it wasn't too long before pod replaced cruiser.

Being used to arriving at a fight late I warped to another cluster-safe and spent the next few minutes trying to pin down an Imicus that had appeared, but to no avail. It was then that the pilot who had just had his Scythe asploded was back, and at the same belt! Without hesitating I keyed in the co-ordinates and warped in, making sure my scram was pre-overloaded. Landing right on top of the cruiser I engaged him gleefully.

It was only when it reached half armour that I realised the pilot wasn't firing back. The reason for this is that he was bloody mining. I sighed long and hard and popped the miners pod for good measure. I was/am still reluctant to use this as one of my Tusker-required above class kills because there was no competition at all. It still is an above class kill so I guess it counts. Its just I don't know when I'm going to find another cruiser to take on solo again so I may well end up using it. At least now you don't have to read about me whining about not having one!

The rest of the evening was spent roaming around and stuff(tm). I didn't find any action until Taurean Eltanin (whose blog you can find on the right -->) mentioned he needed help in baiting a Cyclone who had evaded his clutches. I was given a bookmark to a mission site and sat there waiting for the spooked Cyclone to return, while Taurean left the system to give the illusion he had given up on hunting him. It really wasn't long (read: five minutes, if that) before the mission runner popped up on my overview. I was on him straight away like a tramp on chips. Announcing merrily into comms that the battlecruiser was pointed I began the task of taking his drones out. Seconds later and Taurean was back in system and had landed on us started to smash through the Cyclones tank. Suffice to say it wasn't long before it exploded in a really pretty shade of blue. We tried to get his pod to try and get a random but it eluded us.

More stuff happened afterwards but my night was ultimately ended by my internet being really bloody annoyingly stupid and not working well at £$%^*()(&^%!


Fast forward to tonight and it was more of the same roaming and failing to find any action. I ran a few gatecamps, tried to engage flashy reds on gates who were too chicken to stay and play but didn't get any kills.  Tawa then mentioned that he had seen a Raven Navy Issue on d-scan who was presumably mission running. As he began scanning the carebear down I made my way back to Adirain. It wasn't long before Tawa warped on me and dropped a bookmark to the R.N.I.'s location. We had the help of one of the Sinners in a Hurricane and our merry trio warped in.

Landing on top of the Raven we made short work of melting his tank and upon reaching structure, Tawa called out for a cease fire and invited the pilot to the ransom channel that he made, but I share ^_^. The following is an excerpt from the channel:


[ 2011.09.03 20:36:54 ] Tawa Suyo > 500mil to keep the ship
[ 2011.09.03 20:37:04 ] Cable Udan > Hello Romulis :)
[ 2011.09.03 20:37:11 ] Romulis Blakk > Hello.
[ 2011.09.03 20:37:20 ] Romulis Blakk > I don't have it. Please...spare me.
[ 2011.09.03 20:37:29 ] Cable Udan > How much do you have?
[ 2011.09.03 20:38:17 ] Romulis Blakk > 19,785,341.27
[ 2011.09.03 20:38:24 ] Tawa Suyo > lol;
[ 2011.09.03 20:38:28 ] Romulis Blakk > in other words...I am broke.
[ 2011.09.03 20:38:28 ] Tawa Suyo > sorry
[ 2011.09.03 20:38:32 ] Cable Udan > Don't fly what you can't afford.
[ 2011.09.03 20:38:33 ] Tawa Suyo > 300mil minimum
[ 2011.09.03 20:38:35 ] Romulis Blakk > please don't do this..
[ 2011.09.03 20:38:44 ] Tawa Suyo > cya
[ 2011.09.03 20:39:10 ] Romulis Blakk > wowl..
[ 2011.09.03 20:39:15 ] Romulis Blakk > thanks..
[ 2011.09.03 20:39:27 ] Tawa Suyo > sure you only got 19mil?
[ 2011.09.03 20:39:32 ] Romulis Blakk > I just wanted to run missions
[ 2011.09.03 20:39:51 ] Romulis Blakk > That's all. Just missions.
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:00 ] Tawa Suyo > 19mil to keep the implants then
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:05 ] Tawa Suyo > since you have that
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:11 ] Romulis Blakk > have no implants.
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:24 ] Romulis Blakk > you take all the fun out of this game.
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:39 ] Romulis Blakk > You really suck.
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:49 ] Tawa Suyo > 2nd tutorial
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:50 ] Cable Udan > I'll say again, don't fly what you can't afford to lose.
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:52 ] Tawa Suyo > don't fly what you can't afford
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:57 ] Tawa Suyo > especially in lowsec
[ 2011.09.03 20:40:57 ] Tawa Suyo > also
[ 2011.09.03 20:41:00 ] Romulis Blakk > This game isn't fun at all with guys like you in it.
[ 2011.09.03 20:41:01 ] Tawa Suyo > YARRRRRR
[ 2011.09.03 20:41:04 ] Cable Udan > :D

It was then that his ship and shortly after his pod went BOOM! I was kinda hoping for more raging tears than what we got. I suppose he genuinely felt hard done by. If he wanted to lower his chance of getting popped he should have:

a) Not been missioning in lowsec

b) Have read one of the many mission-runners guides to surviving in lowsec

c) Not gone flying in a Raven Navy Issue if he couldn't afford the ransom. Who seriously flies around in a half a bill ship and claims to only have 19mil?

So all in all it's been a good few days. I'm flying around in my second Jag, having lost the first one to taking on a Hookbill whilst absolutely gazebo'd. I have a total of three ready to go and will experiment with some fits I think. 

That's all for now as I'm tired and need to go and photoshop this posts image and get some sleep. Fly reckless, people!

Edited for spelling and clarity.

Busy Times

Things have been pretty hectic these past couple of days and I've destroyed and lost a fair amount of ships. After I put up the last post I logged on again and scored three more kills. I tempted to post again I thought better of it and waited until now as I didn't just want to spam posts whenever I killed something.

I'm also not going to write up in depth battle reports for the following two ship and pod kills as they were nothing spectacular really. I outclassed my opponents easily and from the outset it was clear who the winner would be so I'll just glaze over them.

Tawa was flying solo and announced he was in system with a pilot he'd killed earlier and had a Merlin on scan too. As Tawa and I both roam around Essence and often have a chat window open it didn't take me long to get to Adirain where he was currently scouring for targets. I asked for some intel about this pilot he had killed earlier.. I knew his name as he'd failed to rename his ship so pulled his info up from local. He wasn't that old - a month or two younger than me. Tawa then mentioned he had used T1 guns so I immediately loaded up Barrage to take advantage of the lack of range my opponent would have. 

I found the lone Rifter pilot right on top of the sun. Within a few heartbeats I was the victor. I took barely any damage due to Barrage allowing me to stay out of range of  most of his punishment. When I saw his ship pop I planned on snagging his pod and sending him back to the clone bay but something else caught my eye.

A Merlin had jumped in and unbeknownst to me was a friend of the guy I just killed. Undeterred by this new arrival I hastily reprogrammed my targeting seqeunces and engaged this new threat. His tank wasn't as strong as my autocannons however and he popped pretty easily. 

He didn't seem to have a sense of urgency about his pod however and I got a point on it. Moving in close I checked the pilots info and found he was a 2008 player. I then offered up the princely sum of 100m (which in hindsight might have been a bit too much. I figured being an oldish player he'd have some juicy implants). He promptly told me in no uncertain terms what I could go and do with myself and so lost his pod. Tawa had joined in at this point as he wanted to get in on the kill. I scooped up the corpse and then prepared to move back to a safe to wait out my GCC when another ship appeared in overview!

The pilot whose Rifter I'd popped only minutes ago had reshipped into another hull and had rejoined the fray. I think he was hoping to find me and the Merlin still locked in combat and could aid his friend. Of course landing right on top of me secured his fate and he lost another ship to my autocannons.

I called it a night there as it was pretty early in the morning. I was quite content with my three back to back fights but more happy that I was now officially an outlaw and flashy red in the eyes of everyone else. Yaarr!

Fast forward to yesterday afternoon and I was cruising the belts looking for a target. A Moa appeared on scan and excited about the prospect of an above class kill I began pinning him down on d-scan. I soon had him down to a single belt and warped in, slightly nervous at going against a cruiser in a Rifter. I landed 20km away from his ship and to my surprise he was ratting. In lowsec. In a Moa. 

I burnt towards him furiously hoping that he wasn't spooked by my flashy red appearance. Seconds later and I had him scrammed, webbed  and having already preloaded my guns with RF EMP started destroying his shield tank. One thing that struck me as odd was how he didn't set his drones on me and for the entire fight they still stuck to the Serpentis rats. Nonetheless this chap wasn't going anywhere and he died pretty quickly. In the killmail it shows that 43% of the damage done was by the rats but when I engaged him he had around 80% shields and full armour. Not that it matters really - he was getting popped regardless of how much or how little prior damage he had on him.

There's not a lot I can say for an after-action review as all my targets were doomed from the start. My module management, especially when it comes to overheating is coming along nicely and I've got a strong grasp on using the correct ammo for the right tank as well as aiming for resist holes. 

Pretty damn happy I got an above class kill.