I got ganked

In addition to the usual main and alt accounts, I also resubbed my trading characters. Trading has been my on-and-off income generator. It pays well, but I will be damned if it's not a soul-crushing activity. It still beats Ishtar ratting in null by a mile. I only had to do a few Guristas Haven sites to understand that Ishtar ratting is something I never want to do again. Ever. Yes, you can do it semi-afk, but you still need to pay attention to local or occasional drone aggro. It doesn't pay that well, takes a long time, and is boring as fuck. Not to mention, if you get ganked, you can write off several hours of ratting for nothing. Slow and steady ISK generation is not for me. Fast activities with quick bursts of ISK work best. If I ever decide to do null anomalies, it will be in a pimped battleship or a Marauder. That's why I really enjoyed high-class wormhole PVE. You clean out a few systems in a couple of hours and have ISK to play with.

Anyway, the main topic I wanted to talk about is ganking. I have been doing some cleanup and consolidation of my assets, where I picked up my wormhole DST and transported the stuff to Jita at roughly 50 jumps. The fit is non-tank, as it was mostly used in wormholes, but I did use MWD+Cloak if I saw anyone on a gate. During the first run, I managed to transport the stuff, roughly 4 billion of it, successfully without hiccups. Didn't really think much of it. I had to do another errand and ship my BLOPS to a staging area, another 30 jumps or so. I have tried contracting, but after several hours, no one picked up the contract, even with a generous reward. Probably had something to do with the end destination being a player-owned station, although with public access. Owned by a well-known shipping corp.

Anyhow, I jump to the 0.6 Sivala system and use MWD+Cloak, but suddenly, I am decloaked and then scrammed. Oh shit. I align and spam the warp but to no avail. My Occator goes down. Ganked by a few bombers and t1 cruisers. Thankfully, the pod warps away.

Reflection

I have played this game long enough to know what to expect. Honestly, nothing gets me more nervous than transporting something valuable in high-sec. The high population of HS makes it difficult to identify immediate threats. In any other space, you see neutral, see the ship, and know exactly what to expect. In HS, people travel all the time, and suicide gankers avoid security status downgrades by buying security tags. Therefore, the gankers can often be mistaken for any other neutral. When I jumped, I did not notice anything suspicious. My focus was primarily on the MWD cycle, but the overview wasn't busy, and no usual threatening ships like Tornados were present. Not that it would have changed anything in my behavior.

I "own" the fitting mistake of lacking tank. I thought MWD+Cloak would negate that, but obviously, that's not the case. Align still takes over 10 seconds, and that is plenty for a competent pilot to decloak and tackle. The EM hole that the attackers exposed did not do me any favors. However, the fit wasn't "naked" either. It had large shield extenders for the buffer, damage control, and one membrane. I thought it would require a bit more "punch" to kill DST, but I was wrong.

While the ISK lost was nothing crazy, the time spent shopping, buying fit, and transporting was probably the most annoying part. It also clearly showed me that MWD+Cloak should not be relied on too much. I needed to adapt, so I went back to Pyfa's drawing board to see what I could come up with to avoid this again. While congratulations to the gankers, and I hope they enjoy their dropped Sin, I do feel the investment required was below the threshold I would expect for a DST gank. People always say you should not ship anything expensive, but unless you are shipping high-volume, low-cost items, it's very easy to have a couple of billion worth of cargo at least. Honestly, I do not know who these brave souls are who do space trucking and transport high-volume, high-value cargo. Looking at a killboard, freighters with bulkheads fitted carrying less than 1 billion cargo killed are not an uncommon sight. Clearly, profit does not always play a role in the equation, and people gank just for the sake of ganking. I would say it is fair when a gank requires 50 people to coordinate, but the freighter kill I linked, "Moonpire" is in half of the pilots' names that are on the killmail, which leads me to believe it's a few dudes multiboxing the whole fleet. I'm sure they have a "legal" set up where they cycle through accounts with hotkeys and can achieve such ganks without any broadcasting, but I dislike it. I think it crosses a line regarding what multiboxing should be able to achieve. While I tried apps like Eve-O Preview, I will continue with old-fashioned alt-tabbing.

Back to my DST gank. After I got back to Jita and got another DST, I spent more time in Pyfa tinkering with fits than I spent on logistics. There was an option to just contract my new Sin to PushX, but it was a matter of principle. I will transport the damn ship myself if it's the last thing I do. I came up with the below fit. 

Close to 150k EHP overheated was as much as I could squeeze in. It feels like a brick and aligns like a brick, but it remains to be seen if it tanks like a brick. The biggest issue I have is that I can no longer MWD+Cloak, which is a huge downside if I keep the plate in. I can still overheat the MWD to enter warp instantly, but that is not something I would like to do every system jump. Nevertheless, this felt like the tank I needed, and that's what I used. I am happy to inform you that my second attempt was successful, and Sin arrived at its destination. This might work well in high-sec, but I am not too excited to take it anywhere else. It's too slow. I am not sure if there is a good middle ground somewhere.

Cherry on top

And by cherry, I mean a big dump on an already shitty day. While I was fully focused on getting my pod out during the gank and reevaluating the situation, eventually, I alt-tabbed back to my scanner alt in null-sec. I completely forgot that I was traveling when the whole gank ordeal happened. I come back to the strategic cruiser wreck and a pod just idling on top, while Guristas Executor happily orbits the gate.

God damn it. So, eventually, I got ganked twice. I was surprised I did not get shield, armor, and hull warnings to get my attention. I guess I need to re-assess my inactive client muting settings. Anyway, it's one of those days. Funnily enough, the pod had an expensive virtue set and just sat there for a long time in a pipeline. Wreck unlooted, too. One more argument for blue null-sec safety over high-sec.

A short revisit to Ninja Salvaging

I've popped into high-sec. For someone living in wormholes for an extensive amount of time, getting out of the dark space to the empire is like leaving a cave. All this light burns my eyes! I thought to myself it's been awhile since I meddled in high-sec business. Time to time I scan for Mobile Tractor Unit kills in the surrounding systems. Some people like to shoot MTUs with shiny ships. I often think of setting up a trap, but it takes a lot of dedication. With watch-list removed, there is no quick way of telling if pilot is logged. It's not a bad thing, I was just not feeling camping for extended period of time. I checked some people I have marked and when I couldn't find them, pondered what I should do next.

Ninja Salvaging is one of the things I like to do during my time in high-sec. I went to my ninja operations system - Agrallarier. My old setup was still there. Some ships requirements has changed. One most important - no more system wide boosts, rendering my Orca command skills useless. It's another good change, even if it had a negative impact on this play-style. After doing a few adjustments, I took my Enyo for a spin. My main downside is that I am too lazy to theory craft and instead play with fittings that are very old. Until circumstances force me to change, I tend to use what has been proven, even if it's not the most optimal and I know it isn't. My weapon of choice: Enyo, backed by 2 Augorors and an Orca on standby. Idea is to get an aggro with Enyo, warp in a single logi ship, get a secondary aggro, bring in a 3rd logi with an Orca. If Enyo + logi dps is not enough by the time Orca enters the grid, I use it to reship to something with more power.

I pop into the first site and immediately get a reaction.

Two Dominixes with their drones can be a pain to handle, but looking more closely, pilots are relatively new and drones are only t1. Besides, these kind of guys are most likely to shoot. Unfortunately nothing more materializes besides a carebear stare. I can only guess his mission running buddy gave a wise advise to let me be.

Soon I run into a carebear who doesn't appreciate me barging in his mission and shooting his MTU while salvaging his wrecks. And he isn't afraid to show what he thinks of unwelcome guests.

Game on. It's my first bait in more than a year. I can feel my skills are rusty, trying to shoot his drones while bringing in the logi. Domi defenses have been dropping slowly, but steadily.

Fight is taking a bit longer than I would like to. Orca is super slow to align and it takes time to go through 3 acceleration gates. The Dominix pilot aggros my logi, so now I have a secondary tackle and can switch the ships. Disadvantage of taking too long to fight, gives time for backup to arrive. I can see a Vexor Navy Issue and a Rattlesnake on short range scan. Dominix is deep in structure so I overheat my guns to finish him off. For a second I think if I should let his backup come and try to save him, because I can swap to a battlecruiser and should be able to take them on, but decide against it, since my Orca is struggling to reach us in this deep mission pocket. Pop goes the Domi.

While loot was nothing spectacular, something much more of value dropped.

I love receiving fan mails. It really shows your efforts to bring entertainment to high-sec are appreciated. Godspeed sunsin depark. May your future mission runs be as joyful as this one.

Meeting a fellow ninja

After being done with ninja salvaging, I decided to revisit w-space and fool around with high-sec connections.

I set Jita as my destination. I travel on set route and scan wormholes in each system, visiting them, trying to judge if it's a good place to stalk or should I move on. Idea is to settle somewhere closer to the hub. Whenever there is a connecting close to Jita, it becomes a hot topic in wh corp and chat gets lively with logistics discussions. This especially is valid for high class wormholes. It would be very lucky to find one. Later, after scanning 30+ signatures and without finding any direct connection to a wormhole above c3 level, I adjusted those chances to: super mega very lucky.

So I continue my travel when I spot a suspect flashing in local. I do a quick research of the guy and find out he likes to kill mtus and bait mission runners. Well I'll be damned, it's a ninja. A ninja that is not sitting in Ninja Dojo channel, which means he is not a part of ninja community and thus is a target.

His ship of choice is Ishkur. I quickly resolve his signature and get a visual.

I land quite far, but still cloaked. I slowboat and watch him desperately try to bait that Drake and Nighthawk into shooting him. 50km is a lot to cover when going 200m/s. Half way through, missioners decide to warp out. Of course, with nothing to bait, Ishkur leaves as well. I assume to his next target, so I start scanning again.

This time I find him at the safe spot. Without wasting any time I decloak and get a tackle and warp my Domi fleet.

There's only one way he can get out of this and that's having his suspect timer end before my fleet arrives. Proteus has only two medium blasters for dps. I probably would have to let him go. Fortunately, this was not the case and under pressure of 15 warriors Ishkur explodes. I scoop the deadspace armor repairer and the storyline neutralizer. A cool 60 mil. I almost feel tempted to keep an eye and maybe repeat the gank, but wormholes await me.

Ninja Salvaging Series 3 - Ninja statistics

Welcome to the last post of Ninja Salvaging Series, Season 3. Once again, it's been a fun journey. It depends on a person, but I see ninja salvaging as a temporary activity. It's a great way to break off your routine, but not something I would like to engage "full-time".

As this is a closing post, I have prepared something special. Shortly after I started season 3, I have began collecting data, something that has never been done before. I have kept records of every engagement in order to make some sort of statistics. A lot of mission runners have been visited.

The goal was to visit 100 unique ships and pilots and I'm happy to say, the goal was reached. I understand that this number is still too small to make any serious analysis, but hopefully it will give us somewhat an idea. There were temptations to close it before as activity in my system was not at such good level. Dodixie hub was out of the question and next door systems would also be tricky as I did not have my tools (ships) there, so everything was done in Agrallarier. Let's look at ninja salvaging backed by hard data.

The ship of choice to do missions is, of course, a battleship, which consisted a total of 61% of all ships encountered. Due to the data sample, I have combined faction and non faction hulls. Cruiser and Battlecruiser hulls were almost equally popular.

The majority of mission runners are between 1 and 2 years old, which accounts for 48% of total pilots visited. Please note that the count starts with first year, meaning if pilot is less than 12 months old, he will appear under 1 year bracket. Pilot with 12-24 months will appear in 2 year bracket and so on.

I believe this data backs up my general feeling, that new players either mine or run missions in high-sec, until they "grow out of it" and move out to another areas (see sudden drop after age of 2 years). Then there are hardcore old mission runners (3 years +) that stay in high-sec for various reasons. Can be just taking a break, alts, or generally not interested in life outside high-sec.

I have mapped reaction from mission runners. I've divided it in two groups: early and late reaction. Early means the reaction I get upon entering mission and staying for some minutes, usually not more than 3. Late is reaction I get when I stick around, usually up to 10 minutes.

From the above graph, we see that roughly half of mission runners will ignore you - 52%. When you stick long enough, only 44% of total mission runners ignores you for the entire time. Second most often reaction is a warp out. They leave their mission in hopes you will move on, get killed by npc and won't come again (hint: you should).

The purpose of ninja salvaging is to get aggro. Trend is that only 10-15% percent will shoot you. One fifth out of those who shoot you, may have pvp fits. Out of 16 Aggro, I had 3 encounters of people with pvp fits.

Of course it highly depends on what kind of ship they are flying and how old they are. If you visit only new players and cheap ships, chances to get shot at are much greater. In above graph I compare chance to get aggro per ship type. Of course data sample is rather small, but highest chance to get shot at is from cruisers (36%), battlecruisers (18%), battleships (13%). While sample is small, I can tell from experience, that it more or less reflects the reality.

Due to spread out age, it's hard to make any reliable analysis of age and aggro, however there is one trend that my experience backs up: high probability to get attacked if player is less than 1 year old. In contrast, the more old the pilot is, the higher the chance he will not care about you salvaging and looting his wrecks.

And there you have it. Mini analysis of ninja salvaging. Here is the table of all the data collected.

Ship	Ship type detail	Age (years)	Early reaction	Late reaction	Group (2+)
Hyperion	Battleship	1	Aggro	Aggro	no
Dominix	Battleship	1	Aggro	Aggro	no
Rupture	Cruiser	1	Aggro	Aggro	no
Vexor Navy	Faction Cruiser	1	Aggro	Aggro	no
Drake	Battlecruiser	1	Aggro	Aggro	no
Vexor Navy	Faction Cruiser	1	Aggro	Aggro	no
Brutix	Battlecruiser	1	Aggro	Aggro	no
Thorax	Cruiser	1	Aggro	Aggro	no
Vexor Navy	Faction Cruiser	2	Aggro	Aggro	no
Raven Navy	Faction battleship	3	Aggro	Aggro	no
Raven Navy	Faction battleship	4	Aggro PVP fit	Aggro PVP fit	yes
Armageddon	Battleship	5	Aggro PVP fit	Aggro PVP fit	no
Hyperion	Battleship	10	Aggro	Aggro	yes
Myrmidon	Battlecruiser	11	Aggro PVP fit	Aggro PVP fit	no
Kronos	Battleship	4	blues wrecks	ignores	no
Drake Navy	Faction battlecruiser	4	blues wrecks	blues wrecks	no
Nighthawk	Battlecruiser	6	blues wrecks	blues wrecks	yes
Ishtar	HAC	1	goes afk	shoots wrecks	no
Golem	Marauder	7	goes afk	warps out	no
Golem	Marauder	9	goes afk	goes afk	no
Thorax	Cruiser	1	ignores	ignores	no
Dominix	Battleship	1	ignores	goes afk	no
Dominix	Battleship	1	ignores	ignores	no
Arbitrator	Cruiser	1	ignores	ignores	no
Brutix	Battlecruiser	1	ignores	warps out	no
Drake	Battlecruiser	1	ignores	warps out	no
Hyperion	Battleship	1	ignores	ignores	no
Brutix Navy	Faction battlecruiser	1	ignores	ignores	no
Machariel	Faction battleship	1	ignores	ignores	no
Caracal	Cruiser	1	ignores	ignores	no
Vexor	Cruiser	1	ignores	ignores	no
Vexor	Cruiser	1	ignores	goes afk	no
Dominix	Battleship	2	ignores	ignores	no
Nestor	Faction battleship	2	ignores	ignores	no
Dominix Navy	Faction battleship	2	ignores	ignores	no
Gnosis	Battlecruiser	2	ignores	ignores	no
Machariel	Faction battleship	2	ignores	warps out	no
Armageddon	Battleship	2	ignores	warps out	no
Myrmidon	Battlecruiser	2	ignores	ignores	no
Rattlesnake	Faction battleship	2	ignores	ignores	no
Megathron Navy	Faction battleship	2	ignores	warps out	no
Dominix	Battleship	2	ignores	ignores	no
Hyperion	Battleship	2	ignores	ignores	no
Myrmidon	Battlecruiser	2	ignores	ignores	no
Typhoon	Battleship	2	ignores	ignores	no
Dominix	Battleship	3	ignores	ignores	no
Kronos	Battleship	4	ignores	ignores	no
Raven Navy	Faction battleship	4	ignores	goes afk	no
Gila	Faction Cruiser	4	ignores	ignores	yes
Raven	Battleship	5	ignores	ignores	no
Armageddon	Battleship	5	ignores	Aggro	no
Dominix Navy	Faction battleship	6	ignores	ignores	no
Kronos	Battleship	6	ignores	ignores	yes
Kronos	Battleship	6	ignores	ignores	no
Dominix	Battleship	6	ignores	ignores	no
Omen	Cruiser	7	ignores	ignores	no
Dominix	Battleship	7	ignores	ignores	no
Dominix Navy	Faction battleship	8	ignores	ignores	no
Megathron	Battleship	8	ignores	ignores	yes
Nightmare	Faction battleship	8	ignores	ignores	no
Dominix	Battleship	8	ignores	warps out	no
Drake	Battlecruiser	9	ignores	ignores	no
Dominix	Battleship	9	ignores	ignores	no
Dominix	Battleship	10	ignores	ignores	no
Kronos	Battleship	10	ignores	ignores	no
Golem	Marauder	10	ignores	ignores	yes
Ishtar	HAC	10	ignores	ignores	no
Kronos	Battleship	11	ignores	ignores	no
Kronos	Battleship	11	ignores	ignores	no
Megathron Navy	Faction battleship	11	ignores	ignores	yes
Vargur	Marauder	12	ignores	ignores	no
Golem	Marauder	12	ignores	goes afk	no
Dominix	Battleship	3	shoots wrecks	goes afk	no
Hyperion	Battleship	1	warps out	warps out	no
Brutix	Battlecruiser	1	warps out	warps out	no
Myrmidon	Battlecruiser	1	warps out	warps out	no
Myrmidon	Battlecruiser	1	warps out	warps out	no
Hyperion	Battleship	1	warps out	warps out	no
Myrmidon	Battlecruiser	1	warps out	warps out	no
Raven	Battleship	1	warps out	warps out	no
Vexor Navy	Faction Cruiser	1	warps out	warps out	no
Brutix Navy	Faction battlecruiser	1	warps out	warps out	no
Rattlesnake	Faction battleship	2	warps out	warps out	no
Machariel	Faction battleship	3	warps out	warps out	no
Hyperion	Battleship	4	warps out	warps out	no
Machariel	Faction battleship	4	warps out	warps out	no
Megathron	Battleship	5	warps out	warps out	no
Hyperion	Battleship	5	warps out	warps out	no
Stratios	Faction Cruiser	7	warps out	warps out	no
Dominix	Battleship	8	warps out	warps out	no
Kronos	Battleship	12	warps out	ignores	no
Dominix	Battleship	12	warps out	warps out	no
Dominix	Battleship	1	yellow box	ignores	no
Megathron Navy	Faction battleship	1	yellow box	warps out	no
Golem	Marauder	2	yellow box	warps out	no
Dominix	Battleship	5	yellow box	warps out	no
Rattlesnake	Faction battleship	8	yellow box	warps out	yes
Dominix	Battleship	10	yellow box	Aggro	no
Dominix	Battleship	11	yellow box	yellow box	no
Dominix	Battleship	12	yellow box	warps out	no

Ninja Salvaging Series 3 - Imaginary features

Perhaps now is safe to shoot?

No no, just back up a little bit.

What about now, Boss? Not quite yet, back up some more.

The reality of ninja salvaging. Sometimes I think there's no safe distance for mission runners. You just can't be too careful. Though I do like the carebear stares. It shows that they care. Get it?

I start to enjoy visiting battlecruisers. While there is a medium micro jump drive, it's a whole different story than battleships. Battlecruisers don't have that big lock range and their guns can't reach as far away, thus people are usually fitting good old fashioned mwds. And it often happens that they won't resist not to poke you.

But not all medium sized hull pilots will be aggressive. Some won't shoot you no matter what, thus it leaves up to ninja to create his own content.

I visit a Myrmidon. I fly around, salvage and loot, but get no reaction. My scanner reports no new signatures, so I either dock up and go afk or try to tease some more. I decide to convo the pilot and say whatever comes to my mind.

I start screaming at the guy to leave my stuff. It's half-arsed attempt to make him try and drive me away, but more as an entertainment.

I get a very underwhelming response. Despite me stealing the loot and being flashy, I was not noticed. I continue to try to take over the mission and ask him to leave. Domix Gatrau checked my profile and saw over 850 mil bounty on my head. He decided it was best not to "mess" with me. It's clear he was not going to shoot me. I was interested on how much I can push psychological warfare without firing any antimatter.

I couldn't believe he bought that. Me coming and hijacking his mission and making him abandon it? That's something I haven't even thought about when started this conversation. But I've got to admit it. A feature where you could hijack someone's mission sounds really awesome. Maybe high-sec missions community would be lively again.

Ninja Salvaging Series 3 - A trap

While looting other peoples' wrecks, you are subject to the life of a suspect, which means a free game to anyone. It's one of the reasons I avoid major hubs to do ninja salvaging. It's very easy to screw you up. It's also why I fly Enyo and nothing more shiny. Everyime I visit someone in a mission I am fully prepared to face the consequences and lose my ship. Same reason my logi of choice is Augoror and not Guardian or Oneiros. I keep my losses to a minimum. This way I am not very attractive target for organized fleets. Few people want to waste time trying to kill Enyo and some t1 logi. However, there are still some people doing missions and fully ready for an opportunity kill.

I visit Armageddon. It's piloted by MK Professor, that I liberated just the other day. I start shooting his mtu and before I could check his notes, he opens fire. Perhaps he wanted to return the favor and liberate me this time.

Now I do not think I have killed anyone for second time. Not in that short period anyways. I normally would not waste time and warp to the next target right away. But this time reaction was almost instantaneous, so I was interested to see where this is going. Even though, deep down, I knew something was fishy.

My logi were on gate and as soon as I got tackle on Armageddon I ordered them to enter. Meanwhile, I was taking damage. A lot of damage. It took me a second to realize I am pointed, scrammed, webbed and neuted. Now there was also Rapier on grid and two sets of drones on me. My logi was getting bumped by an acceleration gate and took their time to enter warp.

It was getting hot. My ship's armor was gone. I managed to run few cycles of my ancillary repair module before I ran out of cap. Alerts were going through the roof. Logi was exiting warp, but I was already entering the structure. I spam that lock and pre-activate all my reps. I keep looking out for notification of doom, which usually comes just before your ship explodes. I don't know if I will make it. This might be it.

Remote armor repairs land.

I still receive a lot of dps. That repaired armor goes down as fast as it goes up. Soon my secondary logi lands and I have 6 medium armor reps on me. I make sure scram is still on Armageddon, setup spider tank with Augorors and get back to focus on my Enyo. You've had your chance, now it's my turn.

Rapier seeing me back at full armor warps out. I continue and finish off  the battleship.

An exactly same fit as the last time. Well, except for medium neutralizer. That explains why I was not sucked dry the very first second. To be fair, those few cycles I managed to run, made all the difference. I convo Rapier pilot to ask if I am being hunted or if this was just an opportunity trap.

It was a revenge plot. And by all means it was a close one. I put both pilots on my red list and made appropriate notes to avoid getting surprised in the future. Good fight.

Ninja Salvaging Series 3 - Saving everyone

Saving militants

If we don't consider common patterns when ninja salvaging, every encounter can be different. And I'm not necessarily talking about pvp action. Scanning out missions and looting their wrecks is a great way to meet new people. This time I visit Drake and Gila.

Just two buddies spending quality time by doing missions. I hope there's room for a third. It should be. The more the merrier, but I spot some concerns in local, so I convo to see if everything is ok.

Nometh was surprised to see a stranger around. No wonder, considering all the high-sec changes that drove most ninjas away. So many people don't get to experience emergent gameplay. One can only interact with so many.

Nometh was cool with me looting and salvaging his wrecks. Well, except one in particular. I have to admit, when someone says something like: "don't take the transport wreck pls", I hear: "pls take the transport wreck". And so I did.

Nometh tried to ask me to hand over the militants, whom he needed to rescue and protect. I refused. After all, how can I trust someone who can't even protect his own wrecks and loot? I'm happy to report that those militants arrived safely at the station in Agrallarier. Meanwhile, Gila and Drake left empty handed.

Liberating capsuleer

On my patrol I've encountered Armageddon. At first, I thought it was your average carebear doing mission, but on closer look I've noticed someone was in desperate need of help.

 He was 70km off when I arrived, but as I was approaching I've noticed something strange. Armageddon, from the looks of it, was webbed and disrupted. With no drones out, I could only assume they were killed by an aggro switch from npc and now he was stuck. What would be his reaction when he saw a fellow capsuleer? Would he ask for help? No, he would shoot first and ask questions later.

While others take aggression as a threat, I took it as a cry for help. "Help me and send me home via pod express" sort of help, to which I happily oblige. I took my time to burn 30 km, but distance was not an issue as battleship was kept in place by npc. Once I came to range, liberation started.

For once npc seemed to be on my side as the battleship broke to our combined forces. I always have been telling that if someone is shooting you and someone else comes and shoots him, he probably is your friend. Enemy of my enemy and all that.

MK Professor was rescued and taken out from the doomed ship and sent back home via pod express. Another great example of how EVE community will come to assist a pilot in need.

P.S. Looking for wh stalking partner.

Ninja Salvaging Series 3 - Ninja dinner

I start my day with an appetizer. I visit Rupture as my first choice. Pilot is less than a month old and as expected, he opens fire.

I do it quick and dirty. Ship goes down and Tor Torson is on his way back home via pod express. I got a good hit on him with my combat probes, so it doesn't really like it's my fault. Feels more like a destiny.

After Rupture kill I was ready for the main course. I get a hit on Armageddon and Raven Navy Issue.

It's always exciting to visit a group of mission runners. I think duo is the best. More confidence than running solo, but not too many to fuck me up. And speaking of destiny, these two were not just any duo. I've met them before and it ended up me warping out in structure. An encounter that made me to adapt my baiting strategy. This time I had two logi on standby and my Enyo was only one acceleration gate away. I was getting excited. My gut told me to expect trouble.

And boy, when my gut is right, it's right. I immediately get locked, disrupted, webbed and neuted. But I expected that much. I am mentally prepared as I can be. It's show time!

I takle the Navy Raven, warp in my logi and setup the spider tank. I was excited and calm at the same time. I had it under control. My logi got aggro, but their tank was holding.

Focus was on the faction battleship. I did not care much about Armageddon. Even though both logi ships got engagement rights, I was keeping my range. Enyo was not doing much by himself, thus Orca was on the way. Only when it was entering warp through acceleration gate, I put a secondary tackle on Navy Raven and a scram on Armageddon. Nobody was going anywhere.

Orca lands and I meet it with my arms open. With shaky hand I open fleet hanger and board a Myrmidon. Denied. "You cannot have any non-charge related items in the cargohold". Fuck. I eject all the crap from the cargohold and board Myrmidon again. This time swap goes without an issue. Let's see how well they will tank my full neut fitted combat battlecruiser.

Oh yeah baby. I was eager to test my Myrm against something tanky and cap reliant. After having to let go of Tengu the other day, I've swapped Brutix for a full neut Myrmidon. And it was doing a great job. Actually too great. Something was not right. Besides Navy Raven dropping shields, Armageddon was reaching his structure. I did not have any damage on him. Was it npc damage? No. While there were a lot of npc ships around, armor started to drop just too fast. So what gives? In a few seconds both ships explode and I look around for clues.

Ohhhhh. In a heat of the battle, I did not notice them going full criminal. My both logi were suspect, so the only way they could Concord themselves is by shooting at my Orca. It's a sight that I've seen quite few times. While before a carebear could make a mistake and get concorded without much warning, now you have safeties on. There's no way this could be accidental. Not for both ships. They intentionally tried to suicide gank my Orca. In a 0.9 system. Talk about clouded judgement.

Isn't a beauty? Almost two billion isk in damages done and 600 mil in dropped loot. What a feast. I feel quite full. Don't think I can take another bite. Well, maybe there's still some room for desert.

I decide to poke one more carebear before calling it a day. I don't wanna try my luck too much, but sometimes you just can't help it. Ninja salvaging can be quite addictive. I visit a lonely Navy Vexor.

He was just about done with his mission. You might think what have I done to provoke such aggression. Did I shoot his mtu? Did I loot his mission objective? No, I was trying to salvage his small wreck.

There's no medicine to greed. We had a dispute and I came out ahead. And you know what? I didn't really want that wreck anyway.

Ninja Salvaging Series 3 - Overvalued ship

Sometimes ninja salvaging can be quite calm. When no one is shooty mood, I will convo a random stranger and ask how things are.  Just two pilots in the same mission pocket. It would feel rude not to at least say hi. So I convo a Dominix Navy Issue pilot.

Garret Fedow was living the dream - playing EVE online with three chicks by his side. I hope they can handle all the excitement from those lvl4 missions.

I should do this more often. I usually convo a guy to taunt and make him shoot me, but didn't have any success. However, conversation by itself can be quite interesting as well. Unfortunately, Garret wasn't chatty, so we had to part ways.

Next is a Vexor Navy Issue. I open fire on his mtu and he opens fire on me. I get under his guns and start working on his drones.

Once they are out of the picture I convo the guy to ask for a ransom. I don't know why, but I just throw a 200 mil number on the table. It's a sum I normally ask a battleship pilot. Vexor Navy Isue doesn't even cost a 100 mil. 

Zosius > 200mil

Zosius > or ship dies

Ulad Cepesh > jr

Ulad Cepesh > ок

Zosius > time is running out

Ulad Cepesh thought the price was right. Who am I to argue? I was waiting for my wallet to flash, but when it did, I saw this:

Zosius > 2mil? :D

Zosius > gf

Ah, an old trick to confuse the pirate and stall for time. I knew it was too good to be true. Who would pay 200 mil for a Navy Vexor anyways? I let my guns cycle and kill the ship.

Then something strange happens. I see my wallet flash again.

Well I'll be damned. I actually got a 200 mil isk payment just before the ship exploded. Ulad Cepesh left conversation without trying to claim the isk or saying anything at all for that matter. Which is too bad, as he would have qualified for reimbursement "10 mil a kill" program.