Ninja Salvaging Series - A carebear in a shiny ship

Building relationships

Rei Stareine > please leave

What a conversation starter! If I didn't know any better, I would say it's a great potential to build a relationship. Rei Stareine was flying a Machariel. A top tier pirate faction Battleship. Usually these kind of ships are flown by people who have seen EVE. They know a thing or two. Right? Rei Stareine was 2012 pilot with 2.6 years experience in EVE so he must know stuff. You would think. A further background look into his killboard suggests he hasn't seen much of EVE outside high sec. Who would remind him that he is playing a massive multiplayer game if it weren't for players like me? Conversation is half the fun when Ninja Salvaging so sometimes I try to play out various scenarios.

Zosius > im doing a mission
Rei Stareine > you stealing my salvage
Zosius > its free for everyone
Zosius > if it was yours
Zosius > concord would kill me

This time I go with "pretend I'm clueless" scenario. It doesn't always work, but sometimes carebears like to "teach" me a lesson about EVE mechanics. Usually it ends up with lesson, but not the one they would expect.

Rei Stareine > if you werent old here
Rei Stareine > I would let you
Zosius > well, too bad nothing you can do about it
Rei Stareine > jizz go do some lvl 4 missions or something, you'll earn more
Zosius > so i will just keep on my business
Zosius > i dont have skills to run lvl4 myself. and salvage/looting pays better
Rei Stareine > lvl 3 pays better
Zosius > i beg to differ
Rei Stareine > go read some articles

As expected, I already get great tips about how I should run lvl 4 mission to increase my income. Even lvl 3 mission is clearly much better investment in my time. I know nothing and I should go read some EVE mission guides. That would certainly open my eyes. Well, to be fair, I indeed do not know much about missions. I got my "eyes opened" and stopped doing them when I reached lvl2s. All my knowledge about missions is from salvaging and looting from others.

Zosius > I am reading books while i salvage your mission
Zosius > seems productive time to me
Zosius > lets go next room!
Rei Stareine > now give me back my tractor unit
Rei Stareine > or things get serious

Rei Stareine demanded I would give his tractor unit back or things would get serious.

I quickly adjusted my sitting posture from relaxed to intense. What should I do now? His mobile tractor unit was nothing but a space dust. If he finds out, I won't have a place to hide. To avoid his wrath, I decide to pretend that his mtu is still intact and he has nothing to worry about. It will be sold at the market for a fair price. Perhaps I can move this under the rug and change the topic.

Zosius > nope. I will sell it on Dodixie
Zosius > you can buy another if you really want
Zosius > lets go man. i still got space in my cargohold
Zosius > there is one more room waiting
Rei Stareine > douche
Rei Stareine > go get a life
Rei Stareine > bb

Things took "unexpected" turn. Machariel warped out before finishing his mission. Was he annoyed by my presence? Doesn't he care about his standings? What a crazy guy. I wonder if I will see him again.

A quick escalation

After Machariel pilot warped out I continued with my operations. I salvaged here and there, shot an mtu here and there. After passing time around I notice Rei Stareine is back in the system. That's a surprise. I go back to pay him a visit. We departed on such bad terms I wanted to make things right. As expected, Machariel is back to same mission and already finished 2nd room in which we met. I find him at the 3rd room, which, based on only few wrecks present, I guess he just started.

Before I could loot and start salvaging his freshly made wrecks I get yellow boxed and shot at. I don't know what Rei Stareine was doing when he was away, but this time he seemed much more confident and determined to keep me out. Without giving any warning he kept his word and things got serious. Well, serious for him.

His Machariel was not tanking too well aggro from the npc and my Enyo. I do a quick convo to see if I can get a ransom.

Zosius > so
Zosius > ransom and we call it a day?
Rei Stareine > stop this
Zosius > 400mil and i stop
Zosius > yes no?
Rei Stareine > ok
Zosius > you got 10 seconds
Zosius > time is up

He was running out of structure and I am not a patient man when it comes to isk transfers.

Rei Stareine > there
Zosius > you ran out of time.
Zosius > it takes only 5 seconds to transfer isk
Rei Stareine > common
Zosius > look at the bright side, you can buy a newly fitted machariel
Zosius > and plus an MTU!
Zosius > gf

Unfortunately his time was up. 10 seconds have long passed and I had no choice but to relieve him of his ship.

No t2 hardeners.. sigh. Another one going for the end ship without the means to fully equip it. I hope down a Machariel and -400mil ISK he will start living within his means. God knows, he might have even enjoyed using guns for other purpose than npc shooting and will try different things besides high-sec missions. One can only hope.