Ninja Salvaging Series 3 - Rusty skills, Part 1

It's that time again. I've was on my pilgrimage for extended period of time. From what has started of me taking a break from corp and stalking people until I got a shiny kill or died, became a way of live, where I lived and hunted in a stealthy fashion. But now it's time to try something else. I've set autopilot to my favorite high-sec system.

Welcome to Ninja Salvaging Series - Season 3!

As always, I start full of excitement. I board my usual setup and start scanning. I rush too fast into things what later will prove is a big mistake, but I can't help myself. It's been long time I've been doing ninja salvaging with breaks. One thing I noticed was, that whenever I come to the system after long absence, I often get a lot of aggro on my first baiting day. It might be a coincidence, but today was no exception. I visit a Tengu and Hyperion at the site. After me salvaging and looting few wrecks I get locked and shot at. Since there is 40km between two gates, I had my logi pre-warped as soon as I saw a yellow box. I was not sure how well I can tank both ships, but seeing t1 hobgoblins I felt quite good. The fight has started. I got Tengu tackled and was quickly dispatching drones.

All was going according the plan. I brought in my Augoror and he instantly got aggro, then I brought another one and now I had spider tank working and double tackle on the Tengu.

I docked up my links pilot and got into Orca. Time for a ship swap. Enyo doesn't even make a dent to Tengu's defenses. I could try killing Hyperion, but they burn away from each other and there is a risk my Enyo will be outside locking range soon, which means I can lose aggro rights to Tengu in 5 minutes if I'm not being careful. I chose to ignore Hyperion and sent my drones on him since they were not doing anything to the Tengu. Orca was on the way and I was waiting to swap for my Brutix.

Fight was dragging on. Orca is very slow in warping, aligning and moving. With each second distance from the beacon was getting further. When Orca arrived we were over a 100km. I stopped my aggro with Enyo and burned back to Orca to swap for Brutix and here where lack of preparation started to bite me in the ass.

My Brutix was afterburner fit, so I could fit 3 neutralizers and 4 blasters. I don't normally need speed as all my targets usually carry MJD or MWD and they are disabled when I have secondary scram with my logi pilot. This time was different. Tengu was afterburner fit and was burning out of range. Since he had no webifier on him anymore, he was burning over 550m/s while my Brutix couldn't reach 500. Neither my Orca who burns only 360 m/s. Oh dear. I did not see any other option but to swap back to Enyo and get back to tackling Tengu. With webifier on him, my Orca is 100m/s faster. Only play I saw here was to let Orca catch up, burn ahead of Tengu, wait out 1 minute aggro timer, swap for Brutix and proceed with web, neut and murder.

While fight was dragging on, I see a new ship on grid. A Vexor. Looks like his corp is mobilizing support for him. I also see Tengu changing his direction and burning back to where Hyperion and Vexor is as also my Orca. Once whole group is reunited, I swap for my Brutix and start off with Hyperion.

I was not sure if I should use the opportunity and try to kill Tengu, but I had no secondary tackle on Hyperion, so I decided to kill it first. Tengu is not going anywhere as my logi has a scram on him and if I'm lucky, he will stay within range. Hyperion goes down.

A nice kill. Too bad in a heat of battle I neglected to check what Hyperion kill contained. I got a shiny drop, which was not scooped by me. My mind was now on the Tengu. Time to finish the job. But he was now 60km off and I had burned my webifier.

What a shitty start, I thought. Despite killing Hyperion, Tengu was still far away of reach. And now with burned webifier, how I am going to hold him down?

To be continued...