Ninja Salvaging Series 3 - The Redemption, Part 2

In a previous post, a high-sec mission running Dominix was held hostage. After tough negotiations, ransom was paid.

Despite being a ninja salvager, I have also active duties as an agent of New Order. Once I received ransom, I checked if paperwork was in order. Unfortunately, a crucial piece was missing.

A mining permit was missing in Steven's bio. A must have document for everyone operating in high-sec. Something as important as this could not be overlooked. Steven took out the big guns. He wrote "please" in all caps mode which should have been a game changer. However, capital letters do not overrule a missing mining permit.

As an exemplary agent, I held the criminal in check. Word "please" poured like an October rain in Sweden. Fortunately, I am well trained to resist such mind trickery. Steven was begging instead of being genuinely interested in how to become compliant with the CODE. Soon he was cleansed as his Dominix went down.

Interesting choice of fit. I do not know the advantage of fitting 3 tractor units, when there's mobile tractor unit, that does the job for you. Despite losing his battleship, the pod enters warp before I can even start locking it. A habit common within pvp pilots. I see the potential.

Loss was devastating. I guess he missed the first rule of Golden Rules introduced to official wiki by CCP itself. Nevertheless, I believe redemption sometimes is only possible through detachment of material things and starting afresh.

The situation was dire. I believe universe brought us together for a reason. Steven was mining months to be able to afford a battleship. This didn't feel right. There couldn't possibly be a future that he enjoys with this type of play.

The shock of a loss was slowly wearing off. Reality, that Dominix was not coming back, started sinking in. It was gone for good. I always like to help out players thus I came up with an offer.

It is a popular misconception to want to stay in high-sec to understand the game. Truth couldn't be more different. High-sec will not help you to understand how the game works. On the contrary, it will most likely kill the enthusiasm if all you do is mission and mine. But there was still hope. Steven said himself, that he would like to pvp, but he just couldn't get a good grip on it. It was a call for help.

A cash-back offer went out. I placed a 10mil bounty on every kill he will make. Make 20 kills and you get your 200mil back in no time. It might look as dauntingly much, but there are no restrictions. Any kill, regardless how small, counts.

I suggest to join a FW corp. While I have been a low-sec guy, I have never tried FW. Mostly due to the lack of interest in frigate pvp and fw not existing during my time, but I've read so much and seen some bloggers write about it that I think it should be a great starting point. If null is out of question, wormhole space entry barrier perhaps too high, low-sec can be a solution. The first step as always is to find a corp.

In no time, conversation was happening in very different setting. What started as begging, now was a high-spirited attitude. Talk about transformation.

I was very proud and happy. To think a player with such attitude would be stuck doing mining and missions. It was just unfortunate. Perhaps some people all they need is a little motivation. A "lose your missioning ship and most of your isk" kind of motivation. Instead of buying another Dominix and carrying on, he now was forced to look for alternatives.

Isn't beautiful? Take a moment and think about how this all started out and ended. Isn't high-sec worth fighting for?

Saving new players from tyranny

Don't fly what you can't afford to lose. Words to live by. New players often make the mistake trying to train skills to get into biggest ship as soon as possible. Inevitably, they lose that ship one way or another which ends up hurting them badly. Somehow I managed to avoid that. I remember to this day I stuck with my BC until quite late. Since I was focusing on exploration and BC was the biggest ship I could get into my most hunted DED 4 plex. It worked to my advantage and I only got into BS with decently polished skills and some knowledge on how to fit it.

I camp a wormhole with interesting neighbors this time.

It's a pvp corp and judging from their killboard must be US timezone based. Corp is over 150 members large, so there are several pilots already logged in EU evening. Vindicator caught my eye, but nothing materialized after watching them for awhile. I put their top players to my watch list and set an orbit on the wormhole that connects to their system. Who knows, maybe I will get a wh rolling Vindicator. Ha!

High-sec connection is end of life. But it doesn't stop this Drake from poking inside.

I narrow his position to an Ore site. Sigh. Out of all anomalies, he chose an Ore site. Of course he needs to clear the sleeper frigates in order to be able to mine it. Did he not see dying wormhole status when he went in? I quickly make a position bookmark, just in time when the last sleeper pops. While he was slowly burning for that blue loot, I initiated warp and tackled him.

Drake went down. I can't help but feel that I did him a favor. Just imagine all that wasted time while trying to mine ore with high-sec exit being eol. After getting back to my safe, I see a mail icon flash.

You have to be kidding me. That must be the first time someone asked me not to kill them via EVE mail. Couldn't think of more inefficient way to negotiate.

I congratulated him on trying wormhole space, but instead, I get a sob story how I just blew up a big portion of his capital. I check employment history and see the guy is almost 2 months old. Out of curiosity, I checked his corp and this is where I got shocked.

He was non other than a CEO of the corp. While trying to be a leader so early in career is cute, it was description that got me. He was inviting everyone, especially newbies, to join, offering "only" 3% tax vs 11% of npc corp. A newbie might think he was getting a good deal, while in reality, he was being used as a slave by CEO's greed. What kind of experience new players can expect from a leader that begs for his life via EVE mail and getting crippled by a Drake loss? Incident was reported to proper authorities.