Ninja salvaging series - busy day

In my previous post I wrote about my first kill as a ninja salvager. As they say: first one is on the house. I got hooked and I was not yet ready to call it a day. I needed to investigate if this was not a fluke and see how easy I can get another aggro.

Leave my MTU alone

After buzzing around the system and shooting some MTUs, I came across Babas3d and his hyperion. As per standard procedure, as soon as I land on grid I unleash my blasters and drones on the deployable.  It causes many different reactions. Some MJD back from 100km to scoop it just in time when it's deep in structure, some are sitting right on top and scoops it before I launch my drones, while others end up 40+km out of range and can't always make it in time to save it. These situations are the best. Bears either watch MTU explode or open fire in order to defend it. 

The battleship. It can kill other NPC battleships, battlecruisers and anything else. Surely a small cruiser won't be a match for it. At least that's what I think Babas3d thought.(1) Until he got tackled in tight orbit and his drones got dispatched that is. From this moment there was nothing much he could do, but wait for his ship to explode. As usual I send convo request to see if he is willing to send me donation for my entertainment services.

Zosius > 100mil
Babas3D > ok
Babas3D > how to
Zosius > right click give money
Zosius > fast
Babas3D > done
Zosius > ok thank you. pleasure doing business with you
Babas3D > letme my ship plz
Zosius > welcome to eve
Babas3D > :)
Zosius > wish you a great day sir
Babas3D > bye

I love it when people are cooperative and duly pay my operating service fees. I call them ransoms for better clarity and to avoid unnecessary questions. I am fairly certain that my isk/hour/effort is quite on par with income of mission runners. Soon his ship is no more and pod warps clear.

Once you kill a carebear, you never know what kind of ship fit you will see. This was no exception. Probe scanner in high utility slot with some sleeper loon in the cargohold indicates this ship has been visiting sleepers in wormhole. A weird choice of ship and fit for PVE, especially for rats that like to orbit far away. Can't imagine this tanking and pulsing MWD to each rat long enough to be efficient with just few cap rechargers, but what do I know?

A pot shot. What could possibly go wrong?

Having 2 kills under my belt, I believe this already counts as a successful day. I remember when it used to take me days to get someone shoot at me, but here we are. So many aggressive carebears in the system, what joy! It still was rather early so after my latest elite pvp engagement I decide to do some more ninja salvaging before calling it a day.

This time I scan down a Machariel and warp right away to poke my nose in. I see some wrecks and an MTU, which gets scooped as soon as I land. Doesn't matter, look at all those wrecks that needs to be looted. Usually, when I bait some shiny ship, I do not expect much to happen. In my experience, the more expensive ship, the more reluctant carebear will be in pulling that trigger. Also these ships tend to be flown by pilots somewhat more experienced than your average mission runner. But as I mentioned earlier, I do not discriminate. What kind of ninja would I be?

Machariel is quite far away. more than 50km away. As I only have scrambler fitted, I would need to do quite a lot of burning to get into range. Unfortunately, all wrecks are far from him and he appears to be aligning to some planet. I continue looting wrecks and stay far away from him, just to look less threatening. Suddenly I see a Machariel pilot yellow box me. A very positive sign. Now I am thinking on what my action should be. If I start burning to him, he might get scared and just warp away. If I keep range and keep looting wrecks I might not catch him in time. While I was over thinking my strategies, Machariel pilot had quite straightforward plan - blow me up. Once he opened fire, there was nothing else for me left to do, but overheat mwd with scram and go to him while trying to keep some transversal.

A pot shot. That went horribly wrong.

Those auto cannons hurt. Seems this carebear knows a thing or two on how to fly a ship as he is aligning to a celestial in the opposite direction where I am. But that doesn't matter much as I am already half armor and still quite far away. I am not sure I can keep this up as it's long warp for the logi pilot, not to mention time it takes to pass those acceleration gates. As soon as I start thinking of aligning out back to station I see Machariel warp out, probably scared as I entered overheated point range. Now this is my chance. I quickly select celestial he warped to and warp to 0 hoping for the best.

You gotta love new warp changes. I land on top of him just as he exits his own warp. Warp/scram on, logi pilot in warp. Even if i keep tight orbit, those cannons still hurt. Granted not as much, but I'm soon to hit 20% armor. Thankfully logi pilot lands and unleashes remote reps as soon I am about to enter structure. Now situation is more under control. xbreaka, that is Machariel pilot, does not get lost and directs his guns on my logi pilot and so tank starts to drop. I quickly dock my scanner pilot and swap for a remote rep domi while warping my logi back to station. Let's see him shooting my "new logi" now... which he does immediately when space potato lands on grid and throws reps on vexor again.

No more issues with tracking, as I see my dominix receiving a lot of punishment, though there's nothing heavy cap neutralizers and a set of Ogres II could not deal with. Soon after, Machariel explodes and pod warps clear.

A nice shiny 1.1bil+ killmail. Beautiful. GF was exchanged in local and we both went our ways. Props to the pilot for sportsmanship, risking his shiny battleship as also giving a quite good fight, having me work for a kill more than usual. I dock up, rep my ships, replenish ammo, brag my trophy kill with to my corpies and call it a day, knowing I will sleep soundly that night.

Next on ninja salvaging series...A game of patience and why you shouldn't be afk during a fight.

(1)  note from hyperion pilot: "I locked you and then I Target Painted you which I thought wouldn't engage the fight"