Could "Instant PVP" work in EVE?

I have read with interest the posts regarding WoT and EVE here.

As well as the link in that post to the idea of a "Virtual Combat Simulator" in station when the door in the CQ ever opens.

I also listen on Comms most night to a core of players in the alliance that play WoT while either "fittings spinning" or mining or some other mindless task in EVE.

I am intrigued by the thought of "Instant PVP" within EVE, but in the end I just think no matter what they do, it will never match real PVP for one reason.  Finality.

Sure, CCP could find a way to introduce some "Station Based PVP Simulator", but there does not seem to be a way to make it a substitute for PVP as it is now, because if it ends up like every other "spawn type" combat game, than it has no finality and will become nothing more than a "video game" to me.

If the Simulator  makes you grind combat to get to new tiers, to use better ships and mods, but at no risk to ever losing anything, then whats the point.  The "thrill" of most EVE PVP to me is stalking the T3 running combat site, finding the Covetor mining and getting to him before he sees you.  Being able to use Probes quickly to not spook the prey.  Sure going on roams looking for a like sized fleet and either taking their bait, or engaging them is great, but not the heart of PVP to me.

But the main thing that real PVP has that makes it so great is the finality.  The ship lost is really lost.  Time to make that isk is gone.  It "hurts" to lose that Zealot, that Covetor, the mined ore in the can, the implants, and everything else.  It causes emo rage, tears, people to flip out and do stupid stuff, classic convos and evemails.  It is why we PVP in the first place.

Its also why certain people just will never PVP.  They just can't handle the thought of losing stuff, even if the corp gives them the ships.

I would love to see CCP spend some effort to come up with a class of "realistic" missions, with skills that don't just involve shooting bigger and bigger red crosses.  Have missions where you have to use D-Scan, probing, cloaks, hunting, warp scrambling.  Have missions that you might actually fail if you don't find where the target is in time.  Make more realistic AI fight back.  Role out Sleeper AI to all L4 missions.  Make random triggers, how hard could it be to have spawns be one of 2-3 with different triggers.

There are so many things CCP could do to improve the game play more than adding a zero loss simulated PVP simulator to the game.

Fly Safe,
Mick

200m between success and failure

After all the "fun" I had last week, I finally got a chance to take my recently reconfigured Cloaky Legion out for a spin in the Low Sec pipe.

The third system turned up two wormholes. The first was a C3 and showed no signs of activity.  Upon warping into the second, I immediately saw a Legion on scan with 10-15 wrecks, and no POS in site.  Could my luck really be this good?  I had hoped for maybe a Covetor, or a Drake or two, but a ratting T3 was too good to hope for.

So I got on Comms and called in the brute squad, while I tried to pin down the site he was running.

"Do you have probes this time?" came a question on Comms, man I am never going to live that one down.

So right about the time I think I have the site he is in, the Legion warps off.  Did I decloak, did he see me?  A quick warp to 100km off the site showed that he had simply finished the site.  I quickly checked all the planets and while there was a POS, there was no sign of the pilot in any ship.  Guess he was visiting this hole.

Sure enough in a few minutes a lowly salvager showed up on scan.  I warped back to the site to watch him salvaging the wreck.  Man I hope he was not calling it a night.

I warped back to the wormhole and jumped through to provide the brute squad a warp in for the operation.  Once they were in place I jumped back into the hole and warped back to the site in time to see him finish the last few wrecks.  Soon enough he warped off and disappeared from D-Scan.  It seemed like forever, but eventually the Legion reappeared on scan.  Time to start the hunt.

The second site I tried was the right one.  I bookmarked a wreck, bounced to a planet and arrived 30km from the Legion that was burning away towards a new spawn.  I quickly bookmarked a second wreck, bounced again, and promptly landed in the middle of 4 Sleeper Frigates.  The closest was a mere 6,000m away and closing.  The Legion was almost 35km away, but closing.  I held my breath and prepared to make the best of it if the Sleepers decloaked me.

I started moving towards the Legion as the distance between me and one of the frigates continued to shrink.  5k, 4k, 3k and I was ready to mash the AB and target the legion.  Hopefully I could get within overheated disruptor range before the Legion saw me and was able to react.

The numbers kept creeping down past 2500, past 2300, to around 2200, then mercifully started to creep up again.

The Legion kept closing distance, and in a minute was at about 14km from my ship.

I commanded the Brute Squad to "Jump Jump Jump" (why is it always necessary to say it three time?)

I decloaked, hit the AB, primed the warp disruptors and guns then started to mash the target button for the agonizing delay time.

The Legion turned to warp off, but was caught.  Soon enough the Brute Squad landed and the Legion melted under the combined fire.

A nice kill.  Lucky too.  While we might have had a chance had the Sleeper decloaked me 30 to 35km off the Legion, it was much easier at 15km to execute the attack.

I scoped the nice nights work of loot and high tailed it back to Low Sec and a station.  This ended the successful maiden voyage of my Cloaky Legion.

Fly Safe,
Mick

Should I Stay or Should I go Now

It was a very interesting week, to say the least.

It started a little over a week ago, when I logged in to find yet another person had setup a POS in my system.  I am truly amazed at the number of people that cannot figure out I have a POS in this C1.  Sure its over 14AU from the Sun, but really who goes through multiple hours of work without checking every planet.  This is like the 4th time this has happened.  Maybe picking an outer planet for my POS was not such a great idea.  Maybe I should have put it in the middle of the system instead.  Oh well, time to deal with another lazy explorer.

So I quickly find the POS, get the corporation running it and fire off a nice "hey there" evemail requesting that they remove the POS from my system.  I headed off to bed thinking like the last 3 times this would be resolved and the corp would realize their error and move on.

Well I guess my luck had run out on reasonable and lazy both being adjectives to describe my guests.  

While watching the POS the next day, I saw 4 characters log into the POS.  I got one into a conversation that went something like this.

Reasonable Current Occupant (played by me) "Hey there, did you not see my POS in this system?"

Person Too Lazy To Check (played by leet Euro PVP'r) "I don't see no POS, except the one offline."

RCO "Did you check Planet 11?"

PTLTC "Nope"

RCO "Might want to"

PTLTC "I might not"

RCO "Why not?"

PTLTC "I don't care if you do or don't have a POS."

RCO "Okay, I will plan accordingly"

PTLTC "Flyz Safe"

So now what? A quick check shows the corp in question is a decent sized PVP alliance from NPC Null Sec. Not really someone I would expect to be interested in a C1.  In addition, a quick check of planets showed at least 6-7 people already had setup PI on planets.  Now the POS was not my main worry, but the fact that there is no way to really "kill" their PI at this point.  So like it or not, they had the ability to make my life in this hole much less desirable.  On the other hand, I had no desire to simply pack up and leave.

So I asked myself "Should I stay, or should I go now."  

Now when I acquired this hole it came with 4 BS's, but I knew that would not be near enough firepower to take down a Large Control Tower. I also knew that using "hole denial" was unlikely to yield much results, since they were only here for the PI and on the opposite side of the world from me.  They would need to only have access to PI maybe once every few days, and we would have to have almost 23/7 coverage for weeks to make an impact.

So I figured I had a few choices:

 Find 40-50 of my closest buddies in Drakes, 

 Build more Battleships that would be trapped in the system

 Leave

Well, I had no desire to simply pack up and leave such a nice C1, that generates so much pretty planet goodies.  On the other hand, I did not really like the idea of investing 1B to 1.5B to make a large enough BS fleet to make an impact, unless I knew for sure I could muster the pilots to fly them.  Fortunately for me, most of my alliance and friends are Killboard junkies, always looking for a fix.

So as I was preparing to take the offensive (read shuttling a crap ton of mins into my wormhole), I got a reply from their CEO that basically said "RAWR, we are old and leet PVP corp.  We see no sign this system is yours RAWR.  Pack your flying circus and leave. RAWR."

Well, I like circuses.  Especially flying ones.  Hope they would find my show to their liking.

Have I mentioned I am a DOTLAN junkie?  If not, well "My name is Mick, and I am addicted to using DOTLAN to monitor my wormhole."

Final plans were made to hit the system over the weekend to insure maximum coverage and play time for our pilots.  So the middle of the week turned into a waiting game.  One day DOTLAN showed a ton of jumps during their play time and I was wishing I had a way to check notifications for POS attacks while out of game.    I was relieved when i finally was able to log on and see no notifications.  But I did have a surprise.  They had setup a second POS on the outer planet with mine. (Hey at least they finally flew out to that area).  So now we had double the fun waiting for us.

So POS 1 was very well put together.  12 ECM, 14 Small Arty, couple Warp Distruptors, Couple Webs, and a few hardeners.  Overall a very nice setup and one that would not be a cake walk to take down.  The second POS was weird.  12 Medium Auto, no ecm, no warp, no web, and a ton of hardeners.  While the hardeners would make the shooting time increase a ton, the POS had no real defenses, as the Medium Autos could easily be sniped. 

So as I went to sleep on Wednesday Night, the additional BS's were built and mostly equipped, and the plan was coming together to move in some additional scanners the next night.

Well the best laid plans of mice and capsuleers never seem to go as planned.  

I logged in on Thursday to find POS 1 was now offline, but POS 2 did not have any new defenses.  This opportunity to take down the POS's while poorly defended could not be passed up, so the assault was launched 24 hours early.  And as with any spur of the moment operation, it was a total cluster.  By final count we had over 25 people trying to get ships or pods to the entrance, while the people inside tried to quickly sort out the BS's, ammo, and everything else we thought we had 24 more hours to prepare.  In the end it took only about 2 hours from announcement of the operation, to starting to snipe the Medium Autocannons.

The next 12 hours saw all the weapons on the active POS incap'd, the anchored POS destroyed, and the Online POS reinforced, but not before the corp logged in and onlined every hardener, taking the resists above 80%.  It was grueling to watch the shield tick down so slowly, but it was just a matter of time, since the guests seemed to have neglected to bring any of their leet PVP'rs into the hole.  

The next night, we turned our attention to some other space junk in the system, and took down another offline POS that had been taking up space for a month or so since it went offline.

Other then a few gawkers from High Sec, we saw no activity for the next 2 days.

The final stoke good luck, was the fleeing guests had not left enough fuel in the tower to get it all the way through the reinforcement timer, and the tower, and its umpteen hardeners, all went offline, mercifully sparing us hours of shooting at a tower with 80% resists.

All told, we killed 3 towers and around 50-60 modules.  The C1 is now clear of all space junk (save some warp bubbles that no one seems to remember where we anchored them), and I have a shiny fleet of BS's in the hole.  Maybe we can see if a fleet of 5 Tempests can crush C1 sleeper sites.

Now I just have to decide if I want to move my tower to the inner planets, or just wait for another lazy, unreasonable house guest to arrive.

Fly Safe,

Mick

Congrats to Phaser Inc.

http://www.phaserinc.com/index1.html

Congrats to one of the best and most intricate scams pulled off in EVE since I have been playing.

I saw the adds, heard the rumors, know people who "invested".

They pulled the proverbial wool over many a players eyes and walked away with a fortune.

Makes those people selling everything for 1 Trit look lamer than ever.

Just hope they don't try to make 2 Trillion quickly by doubling their money in Jita.

Fly Safe,
Mick

The complexity of "Blue"

I am color blind in real life and have trouble distinguishing shades of greens and yellows and blues, but that has nothing to due with the topic of this post.  This post is about the complexity of the political arrangements in EVE.

EVE is a great sandbox that can change on almost a daily basis.  Null Sec is ruled by Alliances, Power Blocs, Vassels, Renters and a endless stream of players into and out of corporations and alliances.

Add to that the fact that some corps and alliances are "for hire" and really only serve whoever is paying this moment.

These relationships and dynamics bleed over into Low and High sec, but not to the same overwhelming level it does in Null, where Sov issues dominate almost every aspect of the game.

Add another level of complexity when most people are really 3-4 (or more) people in the game.

There is then also the idea of anonymity in the game, and the fact that people will do things and say things to others that they probably never would face-to-face.

It gets to the point that more time is spent figuring out who you can shoot and shouldn't shoot, than the time you actually shoot.

Nothing is worse than spending 30 minutes rallying a group for a CTA or Roam, jumping 15 jumps to the designated rally spot, only to jump through and get annilihated because the CTA called by Alliance A that you are Blue to invited Alliance B that you are not Blue to and they just saw a "local spike of neuts".  Add this to the fact that Comms are usually divided, and its a mess.

Worse yet is when you spend 15 minutes chasing neuts, only to have the FC break off the chase because "the CEO has an Alt in a corp that is Blue to these guys and he said don't shoot them".

And like women, the minute you think you understand all the rules, they change.

It is a fact of EVE life that the friend of my friend is not always my friend, and the enemy of my enemy is still probably not my friend either.

Good luck figuring out where you fit in "Sea of Blues", and I hope your CEO does not have too many alts floating around.

Fly Safe,
Mick

What are they teaching kids these days

Last night we were rallying on a low sec gate for a roam, cause why sit in station when you can camp a gate while you wait for the inevitable last 3-4 people to get their crap together 30 minutes after the "start time".

So we setup the camp, put a cloaky scout in High Sec, and wait for Billy Bob and Joe Bob to track down some lost module in the bottom of their CQ's closet they need for the roam.

About 5 minutes into the gate camp, 2 Hurricanes appear on the High Sec side, sit for about 2 minutes, and then warp off.  Disappointment, guess their Spidey Senses were tingling.

A few minutes later a pod and Myrm warp to the gate together, and jump right through.  The pod warps right away, because we don't have any ubber locking pod catcher on the gate.  The Myrm holds cloak, obviously aware that his chances of survival jumping into a 10 man gate camp are near zero.

Finally the Myrm uncloaks and runs for the gate.  Not a chance.  He is popped quickly (too quickly) and warps off in his pod.  A review of his setup reveals that he was headed in to low sec to do some exploring.

Now the chance that these two guys were unrelated, and just happened to show up and jump at the same time is possible, but unlikely.  This begs the question of what the heck corps are teaching people these days.

Why would you jump a massively undertanked battle cruiser into Low Sec, when you have a potential scout with you.  The Myrm would be alive if the pod simply warped in ahead of him, since there is little chance you are going to catch a pod coming off a gate, and relayed the information back to the Myrm pilot.

Even if they were not related, the Myrm pilot could have docked in High Sec, gotten into a shuttle or pod, and warped into Low Sec to check things out.  Sure its not 100% safe, the gate camp can assemble in the 3-4 minutes it would take to reship, but its a heck of a lot safer then a blind jump.

I guess the old PVP adage of "bet on stupid" still applies.  Guess most corps do not do much to teach their players the "ways of EVE" and how best to stay alive.

Fly Safe,
Mick

A Zealot, A Vagabond and 2 Drakes walk into a bar ....

So after overseeing a few minor tweaks to my PI operations, I logged into the Low Sec Pipe to see what was going on.  Turns out the "excitement" for the night was a mining operation at least 10 jumps from where my mothballed Hulk was sitting (unfit of course).  Based on this, I decided to undock the scanner and see what fun might be awaiting in our pocket.

The first system offered nothing of excitement, but the second system offered a Z971 wormhole.  So in I went to find a very vast system.  One of those where none of the 4 planets are visible on D-Scan together.  There was a POS at the planet scannable from the wormhole exit, with a Mammoth and Hurricane on scan.  Quickly locate the POS and saw that the Hurricane was active.  Very nice.  

Next planet offered a small, unoccupied POS. 

Warp to the Planet 3 and bingo, a Covetor, mining drones, and a can.  Warp to Planet 4 and find no moons or activity.  A perfect spot to launch probes and setup to scan without being seen (man I do love no local).

The goal was to minimize the time the probes were visible, so set up a 4 AU pattern of combat probes.  Warped them in to Planet 3, got my results, noted the mining barge location (at 86%), and warped them back out. Reconfigured the probes to 2 AU and warped them back in, 100% hit, warped them out.  Perfect.  Warped to the Covetor at 100km and hoped an asteroid would not uncloak me.  Warp took forever, but I landed, didn't decloak and watched as the Covetor continued to mine.

Bookmarked the can right next to the miner and warped back the wormhole to go get a ship with some firepower.  Also called to anyone else in the area that wanted in on the fun.   Too bad they had no idea the "Fun" that awaited them.

So usually I would grab my dual point, cloaky Legion, but it was 24 jumps away. So my PVP Zealot would have to do.  So I warped back to the entrance and the plan came together.  The Zealot would warp in, fly forever in warp, tackle the Covetor, play around with it and see if the Hurricane would come to its rescue.  So I jumped through and warped the Zealot to the bookmark, and about mid warp to the target someone in Comms piped up "Hey, anyone got probes fitted?", silence, and a few uhh's.  Well no biggie, I would kill the Covetor and see what happened.  Then I got within D-Sacn range and saw the Hurricane was now in the belt with the Covetor.  

So I land on grid, start target locking the Covetor and Hurricane.  "Point the cane, and kill the covetor, is the new plan".  Next thing I hear is "Everyone jump and warp to targets", followed quickly by a "oh crap", and "no way".  Yep, the wormhole had collapsed behind us.

The Covetor melts like butter in a microwave, and the other three ships finally land on grid.  The Hurricane starts to go down quickly under the pressure of 4 ships.  The FC quickly makes a plan to lock both pods and see if we can work out a deal for the location of the High Sec Static.  So the Hurricane goes down, and we get both pods locked.  We were quickly hailed in local by the resident and quickly explained our little "predicament".

By this time the public channel in our comms that we are using (along with the mining op) is erupting with laughter at the 3 wormhole vets and one noob who are stuck in w-space with well over a billion isk in ships and implants because they failed to bring any probes.  We figured the combined W-Space experience for the crew was over 5 years (for the record, it was the w-space noob who asked prior to jumping if anyone had probes).  Also, the Security Status of the guys I was with is not the greatest and two of them have been off Concord's Christmas Card list for awhile now.

Now fortunately, for us, the guy found value in letting us out of his hole and not making us spend days shooting at everything we could find until someone else came along and let us out (which we all knew could be awhile). I kind of equate it to opening the window in your car to let the hornet out while you are driving on the Interstate.  Sure you could try to kill him, but its safer to just let him out.

So the ribbing on comms continued and we saw probes on D-Scan so we hoped he was living up to his side of our arrangement, and not just scanning in all his buddies.  After about 15 long minutes, he finally found the High Sec static and we were able to get our 4 ships to the wormhole.

For the other 3 the fun was just beginning, our first intrepid explorer jumped through, found out he was not welcome and quickly docked his Vagabond.  The news was not great, the hole opened into a .8 system, 26 jumps from home, with several .9 systems in the route.  There would be no easy return to home.

So having been the "mastermind" of this adventure, and the only one still with a positive Sec Status, I offered to get the other 3 ships the 26 jumps home.  So the other two pilots docked and off they went too, flashy red, the 26 jumps back home.

So in the end, we got 2 kills, endured a fair share of deserved ribbing, and had a good laugh (after we were all safe back home).

It goes down as one of the more fun nights I have had in awhile, but despite all the fun, next time I will still bring a probing alt with us.

Fly Safe,

Mick

Revisit to my PVP views

About a year ago, after a lengthy discussion on PVP with a number of players on Vent, I wrote this:

http://eve-lifeinthehole.blogspot.com/2010/06/view-on-pvp.html

Now, after a year of participating and trying to learn more about this side of EVE, I have come to some conclusions about PVP.

#1  Most of PVP in EVE is non-consensual
#2  Like my sex life, it takes way too long to happen and is over too quick
#3  No matter what you do, some people will never, ever voluntarily PVP
#4  Shooting i-HUBS and Stations is not PVP, but can lead to it
#5  Even people who fly the biggest ships still can suck at PVP

Looking at each one a little bit closer.

#1  - So little of EVE PVP is consensual.  Most PVP is the result of small gangs and solo players looking for indy and PVE targets.  The ratter in a belt, the mission runner, the industry player at a Customs Office, the low sec gate camper.  Now this is not to say that there are a lot of combat ships v combat ships fighting, its just that one of the people is not looking for a fight, it finds them due to their stupidity, afk-ness, or other reasons.  While this is not "bad" its just not the glorious vision most people have of PVP.

#2 - Takes too long to find and never lasts.  Sure this might say more about my sex life, but we all have experienced the 2 hour roam to nowhere that ends up in a ball of flames and white light expresses back to our medical clones.  Even worse is when it ends due to the blue of our blue not being blue.

#3 - The Reluctant Carebear - Offer free ships, offer training classes, offer "insert whatever you want here" and the fact of the matter is there are some people, even living in 0.0, that have zero, zip, ziltch, nada desire to ever PVP.  Sure they get blown up in their Tengu's while ratting, or their Rattlesnakes, or even their carriers, but tell them we are going on a frigate roam in corp paid for rifters, and they disappear quicker than a drop of water in the desert.  I can not figure out how they can undock a billion isk ship to go rat, but cant for the life of them undock a free ship to go shoot other players.  Even as incoming roams increase to the point their ability to make isk ratting is in serious jeopardy and they still would never be found in a corp paid for drake shooting at the incoming gang.

#4 - SOV warfare is broke - end of story.  To have to spend days shooting at targets with a bazgillion HP when the owners could care less is ridiculous and only encourages blobs and crappy lag induced PVP.

#5 - A plethora of ISK and no brains - How else can you rationalize a guy undocking a Rattlesnake when the corp provides all BC's for system defense?  How else can you explain a Titan pliot that cynos himself to the fught instead of opening a jump bridge.  How else can you describe all the crap and fail fits we see on a daily basis.  Too much isk and not enough brains.

So overall my views of the glory of PVP have changed, but the reality is still as I once believed. There are the hunters and the hunted, the high sec afk miner and the suicide ganker, the hot headed mission runner and the ninja salvager, the war dec'n high sec corps and the indy players too dumb to know there is a war on.

There is little PVP that meets the trailer reels CCP makes, but man those trailers are cool.  Maybe the next trailer should be cloaky Tengu or Hound slowly creeping in on a mining op and blowing up an Orca and Hulk, or a Sabre dropping a bubble on a group of Drakes running a Sleeper site, and his friends blowing the crap out of them.  Those would be way more realistic.

Fly Safe,
Mick

News from Great White North Exploration

Well its been a long time since I have updated everyone on my exploits, but since they have involved a couple of stretches in boring w-space corps, null sec, and other non-wormhole things, I have not had much exciting to relate to Wormhole Living.

Well that has changed.

So here's some updates.

First I have sold and bought several characters and my crew has significantly changed.  Hundo is still my oldest character and is back as CEO of my W-Space corp, Great White North Exploration.  My other characters now encompass an almost Rorq pilot, an almost Carrier pilot, and too many PI alts to talk about.

Great White North Exploration has also joined the alliance Gryphon League.  In my desire to return to running my "own show", I set out to find an alliance that could help me offer a wide range of stuff to people I recruited.  Gryphon League represented a nice balance of Low Sec operations in a Low Sec pipe they call home and High Sec operations as well.  I hope to add a little W-space flavor to their alliance.

So that brings me to the shameless plug.

Great White North Exploration is recruiting.  Unlike when I founded GWNE, when w-space was a vast unknown, and people like Star Defender were leading us into the unknown and educating us in the ways of the wormhole, w-space is now much more of a known.  Staticmapper, Dotlan, and other tools have taken a lot of the mystery out of W-space.  Wormholes are bought and sold at an alarming rate on the forums. And PI has once again made W-space living a very profitable venture.

So with that in mind, I look to grow GWNE into a more well rounded corporation, with a focus now on being a little of everything to everyone.  As part of the Gryphon League I am able to offer recruits a chance to experience a lot of the aspects of EVE, while still maintaining a foothold in W-Space.  I decided not to be exclusively W-Space, since I am not sure it offers a long term living environment to sustain a healthy corp.  And really I have little desire to babysit a bunch of people in a wormhole anymore (having done that for several corps).

So check out our recruitment thread and our public channel.

http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1561757

Fly Safe,

Mick Flaherty 

I miss my Orca

For those of you who have followed the blog since early on will realize the "fun" I have had with my first Orca "Shamu".  I have twice been on the wrong side of a wormhole collapse with it, have had to pay a small fee twice to keep it from getting blown up (though I am not convinced the falcon pilot would have ever been able to crack its tank), and countless other adventures.  It has lived in C2, C3, C4 and C5 space, closed countless wormholes and been one of the most useful ships I have owned.  By far, I have probably logged the most hours in the ship the last year and half.

Now that I have settled into a nice C1, Shamu is sitting in High Sec, collecting dust, and helping only occasionally for logistics.

By far, the thing I like least about the C1 is the fact I cannot close holes easily (8 orca passes is so easy).  And I can not use my trusty Orca for logistics.

So while there are a lot of things to like about the C1, the fact I have to leave one of my favorite ships in High Sec is sad.

Too bad I can't tear it down and rebuild it in the C1.

Fly Safe,
Mick

They Came, They Saw, They lost their Noctis

Its been a long time since I've posted and a lot has happened.

I've learned null sec statics make for really sucky logistics, been "evicted" from a wormhole for the first time (staging POS for a move), learned the "joy" of Sov Warfare in 0.0 (an IHUB has how many HP?), gained a lot of small fleet roam experience, and invested a lot of time into learning the ins and outs of PI.

The one area I have "grown" the most is in a willingness to get into situations that might not always have a favorable outcome for me (not to be confused with a Death Wish, but more a Death Apathy).

So in my shiny new wormhole, complete with a crap ton of anomalies (since it had not been "worked" in awhile), I logged on to find 2 T3's, and 2 BC's running sites.  Well, in the past I would have let them go and have their fun, done my resetting of PI extraction units and logged off.  As long as people left my POS alone, I never really cared too much.  I even threw a probe and scanned down the K162 to see it was a "dangerous" route in.

But then they had to bring in a Noctis.  That is too juicy of a target to not try to at least take a pot shot at.  So to the POS I flew and swapped out the scanner for a SB.  Now being in my own "home" here helped.  I had several well positioned spots to use d-scan and quickly was able to determine they were leaving the Noctis alone in sites to salvage.  In the first site I found the Noctis, he was almost done and it was too late to setup a bombing run.  But the next site I caught him just starting to salvage as I warped in at 100km.

So I bookmarked a wreck right next to the target, warped to the closest planet and back at 30km.  Got lucky  on the warp in to not get too close to a wreck, and was able to sneak into 25km away.

Uncloak, fire bomb, target Noctis, overheat point, orbit 20km, hit the torps, wait for target lock, bomb explodes, half armor, volley 1, bye bye rest of armor, second volley and bye bye Noctis.

Forget the Pod, lock the wreck, crap here comes the Calvary, warp off.  Pray the melted nanos died a glorious death in the wreckage.

Warp to a safe, warp back to the site at 100km and watch them orbit the wreck farther and farther out with drones.

Check killmail, and yes the melted nanos didn't drop.  Bye bye 150M in loot (probably closer to 200M at the time of the kill) and a nights work for at least 5 people.

While not my first kill, it does represent the first for the corp that once served as a carebear in w-space corp, that used to run and hide in a POS and would never risk pissing off "dangerous" people.  But having now been in a "dangerous" corp or two, lived in null, and seen the other side of eve, I am more then willing to risk a 20M loss to win a Noctis kill.

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=13771475

On the opposite side, I am amazed that a corp experienced in W-space would not 1) Guard the Noctis, or 2) Monitor my POS.  Especially since I had announced my presence with probes, and changed ships at my POS.  They should easily have seen me reship into a Bomber and at the very least sent one of the 4 combat ships to protect the Noctis.  Having the Noctis aligned would have saved it also.  It was sitting still, and easy prey. Overall, they probably had not encountered great resistance in a C1 before, or thought so little of the possible occupants, that they got lazy.  Again the 200M loss probably represents a drop in the bucket to what they make, but its still is 200M.

So if you come to visit my wormhole, please fly lazy.  I like Noctis kills.

Fly Safe everywhere else,
Mick Flaherty