Monday, November 3, 2014

Unexpected kill

Recently I have set out on one of my usual hunting trips. Me with my trusty proteus, accompanied by my trusty dominixes, surrounded by an empty wormhole space with no local. That is all I need. My bags are packed with drones, cap boosters, probes, mobile depots and few extra modules - anything I need to be self sustainable.

Nothingness


It seemed I found a nice wormhole to settle in. 15+ member corp. Few sigs and anomalies in most cases indicate activity. Further background check showed that corp was with East Europe timezone, which suited me well.

After stalking for a couple of days and keeping eye on the corp I found zero activity. Either I was very unlucky and missed them, or corp is just few guys with their alts and not a single member logged in. That is quite depressing. I know it is always hit or miss, but you still hope for some sort of activity. Since CCP does not provide API kills anymore, I can't see if any activity happened when I was logged off. In these situations I follow my gut. And my gut said, - "go out and explore." And thus I did.

Adventure finds you


Things started looking up. I was happy to see 2 more connection available in addition to null static. More wormholes - more opportunities. I quickly scanned them out and started checking out the chain. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just bunch of empty wormholes with bunch of empty posses. Man, how I wish CCP introduced hacking skill to unanchor poses that are without forcefields. A man can dream...

Finally I get to a c3 with a lowsec static. I usually love c3s. Those are wormholes that people like to solo in some shiny t3s like tengu and they usually have good connections to other c3s and lowsec. I love lowsec. It normally has more c2-c3 connections, some doable plexes and no bubbles. I decide to check it out.  I jump in and see I am alone in local so I start scanning. Couple of seconds later I get +1. Not that I mind, probably just a traveler anyway. Dscan shows cerberus.

Afters canning for a couple of minutes I still see the guy in local and cerberus is still on scan. There are also no stations. Now it starts to pick my interest. I quickly check his position. Is he in the anomaly? No. Is he in the belt? No. Is he at the tower? No. A rough guess shows he is in empty space.

Just minding my own business


Now, normally I would try to pinpoint his position in more detail, warp to the nearest celestial, align to his position and combat scan him in a few tries. That is what I do in wormholes anyway. Since I was not trying to be particularly stealthy, I said screw it, and replaced my core probes with combats. I was not trying too hard. Scanned him out in about 3 tries, casually reorganizing probes on his signature each time, fully expecting him to be on his way.

I get a hit and start warping in. Having so many targets warp off asap I throw probes out, or see them go while waiting for re-calibration to end, I was still taking this opportunity with a grain of salt. I order my dominixes to warp to lowsec wormhole just in case. I land 26km off cerberus. Ok, this is interesting. Guy is just shooting red crosses in what looks like a mission and doesn't give a shit. I decide to slowboat to scram range, but unfortunately I am decloaked. I overheat my mods and go at full speed. Point landed. Suddenly guy realizes what is happening and starts to pickup speed. Unfortunately for him, he is in my web range now and soon after - in scram range.

Domies jump and are on the way. Meanwhile I open convo with the pilot. I ask for a ransom, but all I get are question marks. Probably another guy who doesn't speak english so I close convo and continue bringing slow painful death. Finally his ship explodes. Almost 300m kill. Not bad! I also take a gamble and shoot the pod, which turns out to be empty. Damn.



Weirdly, I receive a follow up mail from the guy:


So he could speak english after all. Sigh... A whopping 12B in his wallet. That must be a lot of missions. Too bad he doesn't value his time and pay off ransom to avoid trip to the market and buying new ship. Not that he would though.

I pack my bags and move on. Eventually I come across a c4. 1 anomaly, few sigs and some average corp. I decide to settle in. Will I have better luck this time? Time will show.

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