Something Rotten

I’ve not played much recently due to stuff happening in that place called Real Life.

It’s been one hell of a fortnight and probably isn’t over yet.

Two weeks ago today: Three of the local yobs try to kick down my door in an attempt to acquire something I’ve been working on for months and was really looking forward to smoking. They fail. I destroy the item a couple of weeks early and still enjoy it.

Last Sunday: Out playing Airsoft, urban this time rather than woodland. I jump into a building through a very low window ledge but, due to a miscalculation end up on the concrete floor inside. One dislocated and fractured shoulder. Am left almost completely unable to use right arm for a short period. Using the mouse with the left hand sucks.

Three days ago: A second attempt is made by local yobs to acquire previously destroyed item. At least five of them are present. This time the front door gives due to recent damage, but the sofa up against the living room door holds. They fail. They were going to fail from the moment they came to the door.

Ten days until my front door is scheduled to be fixed. It’s boarded up, the door frame is completely screwed. Several lengths of wood are placed strategically just inside the door. Hopefully stalling any future intruders while living room is barricaded.

/me looks at the large ground floor living room window, easily big enough for access.

Today: Am able to use right arm to an extent so can play Eve… Kind of. Still waiting for attempt number three by the locals.

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.

We are currently in the middle of a lawsuit with PETA, for our unethical treatment of Pandas.

In our defence, what other action should we take when a corp full of relatively young pilots choose to set up home in the only high sec system in the middle of a dead end low sec pipe? We wonder if they moved out here to avoid war decs, can flippers and general harassment. That would be a mistake.

Props to them though, they sure can get a gang together and seem to be well up for battles here and there when there’s enough of them.

They’ve killed some of us, we’ve killed some of them. And so it goes on.

I actually got my first opportunity to really test the overheating capabilities on my new Rifter: “Crinkley” against one of their youngsters. I screwed up, failing to turn it off in time to save my afterburner, almost destroying my point and web too. Still, one Cormorant down. I didn’t really expect to lose the battle given the pilot was rather new.

Trading. No. Just… No.

So I was bringing my alt up from Jita to deliver some more Rifters, a Thrasher and some mods. Sat in Jita I thought to myself that now would be a good time to check price differences between there and Rens, the Minmatar trading hub.
I decided that items used primarily by the Minmatar would be the best plan, although I would absolutely not be the first to think this and take advantage of it.
Anyway, I settled on an item that would, in theory, net me a quick 25mil profit with the limited capital I could put into it and made my way to Rens happily.

As I type, approximately 12 hours later, half of them have sold and I have been forced to lower my prices about 20 times due to being undercut by 1 isk over and over again. Once sold my profit will still be about 20mil, but being sat in a station checking my order details every 10 minutes or so is not my idea of fun. At all.

Though it is slightly amusing to watch all the big time traders scramble to beat the prices of a one-off trading test.

I think I’m just too impatient. I don’t want isk in a couple of days. I don’t want to sit there watching my wallet go up by a mil or two every hour.

I WANT TO BLOW STUFF UP.

Hunting AKA: Don’t go AFK in low sec. In a covert ops. Uncloaked.

As expected, I got extremely bored of missions and working on my sec status, so I have returned to low sec to yarr it up a little.
I know I need a lot more practise in my Rifter. With this in mind I jumped in “One Track Mind” and chose a random direction to fly in. I’ve not had much luck finding solo battles recently so I wasn’t expecting much at all. Anything would be nice.

Bogelek. Not far from home. I jump in and there’s an Anathema 92km off the gate and moving away. Interesting. I hold my cloak and watch it moving steadily out of gate gun range. After a bit my ship rematerialized and I decide now is the time to go after it.
As I align I suddenly found myself being smacked by missiles from a Cerberus on the gate. It immediately took aggro from the gate guns and, in what I’ve now decided was the wrong move, I burned away from it towards the Anathema which was just about out of gate gun range. The Cerberus jumped back through the gate as I flew off.
In hindsight I think I should have attacked it. With the guns on my side I may have actually stood a chance against its heavy missiles. The sentries would have broken its tank for me.
But no, instead I flew as fast as I could to the covert ops frigate and proceeded to rip it apart. That’s what you get for going AFK. No challenge for me but in my state of boredom from high sec, a kill is a kill.

While I waited out my global the Cerb returned to the system and immediately proceeded to hunt me down. I was in a pretty good safespot but thought I’d have some fun warping to planets, letting him catch up and warping away before he could lock me. It was my intention to continue this until my countdown ended then bait him back to the gate and this time use his aggressive nature against him. Unfortunately he left 30 seconds before my global expired, so no attempted Cerberus kill for me.

At this point some of my corp mates were beginning to appear in comms, so we made arrangements for a small fleet roam. I returned to Hrondedir and fit my brand new Rook (Thanks Web).

We Are 5-20.

With two Ishkurs, a Zealot and a Rook we set out to shoot some people in the face, with fire. On my way back from my solo roam I had spotted Thorax and Rupture class cruisers either ratting or missioning in Ennur, so we decided to head in that direction.
We didn’t get quite that far as our neutral scout found a Celestis running a mission in Weskeber. After a failed fleet warp where one of the Ishkurs got left behind, the Celestis was made short work of.
Moving on, we probed out a Drake in a World’s Collide mission. Unfortunately he was already past the first room and saw us coming. Sad day.

The Four Horsemen Cometh.

With the addition of another Corp member to our fleet, it was time to return home and begin the Four Horsemen roam.
Four of us were now each flying a different race’s Combat Recon Ship. Huginn, Curse, Lachesis and Rook: “Pestilence,” “Famine,” “Death” and “The Other One.” I might be a little off on the names. Also with us was an Ares: “Harbinger of the Horsemen.”

And so, prepared, we set off with more fire.

“Retriever autopiloting to you” came the call from the scout. At this point we were in Mateber sat on a gate. Aggress a retriever on a gate in our small ships that would get eaten alive by the guns? Hell YES!!

More waiting on Global Criminal Countdowns… so annoying.

Todifrauan. Our scout probes out a hurricane in a mission. No contest. We attempt to ransom the pod but he wasn’t having any of it. “Screw you!” in local was quickly followed by that extremely pleasurable SPLAT of a pod pilot taking the quick route home.

Oh Noes! There’s a T1 Cruiser! Oh wait, there’s 15!

While waiting out our GCC’s… again… a Corp mate who was on his way to join us spotted a roaming gang headed in the direction of the large t1 cruiser fleet put together by the rest of the alliance, so we decided to join and catch them between us.
On a gate in Eiffer, their Ishtar, Armageddon and Hurricane melted under our guns and the rest got away.
We get safed up but before our timers are down, another gang appears in system. Time to go to work. Maulus, Blackbird, Drake and Omen down.

With a nice amount of carnage created we headed back home to resupply and meet up with yet more alliance members. I decide to leave the Rook at home and jumped back in my Rifter “One Track Mind.”
After what seemed like an age we were once again on our way out.

In Evati a Hurricane uncloaks by the gate. It’s the same Hurricane pilot The Horsemen popped earlier. It just wasn’t his day.

A Moment of Stupidity (or Underestimating Gate Guns)

Akkio was our next stop. Then into EOA- where a Drake and Hurricane were using somebody else’s bubble to camp the gate.
As local spikes a whole lot they decided to jump back through to Akkio and engage us there. We happily obliged. The Hurricane was already dead by the time I loaded the system but the Drake was a ways off.
I thought to myself… with all these people shooting with GCC surely the gate guns won’t notice my meek little Rifter. So I burned toward the Drake who, for some reason, was moving away from the gate while it spewed heavy missiles. Not at me fortunately.
I overheat my afterburner to cover the 40km distance before he could get away. Once in range I locked him down with my overheated scram and web, ignoring the warning about consequences. There’s too many of them for the guns to notice me, I think to myself.

WRONG. Strangely I take all gate gun aggro and One Track Mind pops in seconds. We don’t post mails without other players on, so I can’t link it. Sorry. At least the Drake died.

Only mildly annoyed, its only a Rifter after all, I fly my pod back home and dock up while searching my assets for another. I do have one, in 0.5 space. Fortunately I didn’t completely screw my sec status and can still get in.

So, overall a good night. A few kills and I only lost a Rifter. The poor thing. I haven’t decided if that’s it for high sec for me or whether I’m going to rat it back up a little to continue with a few more missions. Only time will tell.