Introducing .... The Grog

As you know, my corp joined a new alliance about a month ago. I joined for the PvP action in their Low Sec pipe. I have not been disappointed.

I got some early feedback about this blog and several people told me they would love to try blogging, but stated they didn't want to mess with the organizing side.

So to help them out, as well as try a hand at "reporting" instead of only telling about direct involvement (as I have done here), I asked the Alliance Leadership if I could start an Alliance Blog and they said go for it.

So we held a little contest to name the new blog, and the winner was "The Grog".  The word comes from a combination of Gryphon and Blog, as well as being a nice alcohol reference to a weak drink usually reserved for the crew or common man.  Seemed like a nice theme for our Viking mentality and every-man spirit.

So I hope some of you will jump over to The Grog and check it out.

Fly Safe,
Mick

I never knew I needed to be a Plumber

There are so many aspects of EVE that I love, and the need to balance your time between making Isk and spending Isk is one of the most interesting and one of the ones that gets talked about when nobody will come into your pocket to fight.

In EVE, there are a ton of Isk faucets from which to drink.  True faucets like Mining, Killing Red Crosses (bounties, reward, and loot), Exploration, PI extraction, Moon Mining, Gas Harvesting, R&D Agents all introduce things into the game where there was nothing before. Buying PLEX's also qualifies here, but is a different faucet all together.

"Secondary" ways to make Isk like production, BP market, Invention and reactions (moon goo and PI) add value to something and allow profit (sometimes), but does not introduce things into the game. It messes with the  Isk in the basin, but does not create "something out of nothing".

A last category allows individuals to make a profit, and really doesn't create anything new.  Trading, Scamming, PvP looting, etc all can be great ways to make Isk, but they are more a distribution of Isk and certainly does not add anything to the game (and here I mean item wise, definitely not game content wise, as all of these are fascinating aspects of the game)

As for the Isk sinks, they can be easy to understand (like NPC Corp Taxes, Taxes and fees in general, ship loss), or hard to understand (like Null Sov costs, Office Rentals, Slot fees, POS Fuel, PLEX for Account time).  

At the end of the day, Isk in EVE flows from faucets to sinks.  We just try to tap into our share before it disappears down the drain.

Individuals have their own personal faucets and sinks in their wallet.  This carries over to corporations and alliances as well.

This never-ending flow of Isk is one of the most intriguing aspects of the game.  I am always amazed at how people make their Isk, and also how the spend or lose it.   People spend hours aiming their mining lasers at asteroids, make a ton of Isk, and then buy a fail fit Hulk and lose it to gankers.  Others spend hours running missions, ratting in belts and do everything they can to get the Isk together to buy a 17B ship that needs a second account to offline it, just to say they have it.  Others detest all the ways to make Isk so much they just fund their accounts with PLEX.  Nothing wrong with that if you can afford it.

Personally, I spend almost as much time tweaking my "business" as I do thinking of fittings and tactics and other things I do for PvP fun.  My wife has learned not to ask what I am doing when I have my binder out and I am sitting on the couch madly pounding numbers into the calculator.  She just rolls her eyes and mutters something about "that stupid game".  

Oh, if she only really understood.

Fly Safe,

Mick  

I feel like the Godfather

I would think that after almost 3 years of game time that nothing in EVE would shock me anymore.

So I am tooling around in a Low Sec area near our "home" with some of my new corp members.  We are doing a little exploration, d-scan, and stealth training.  The basics of finding your way around a w-space system without them know you are there and what not. So after too many empty and inactive wormholes, we finally decided to call it quits for the night.

As we are warping our merry little gang through the 7-8 jumps home, I see that during the course of the outing someone has been trying to get my attention in my public channel, but has since left.  A quick look shows the guy is still online so I open up a private chat.

"Sorry was on an op, did you need something?" I ask ever so politely (starting with "WTF you want" usually does not lead to productive conversations)

"Yeah, I saw you guys come through my system." He replied

Well, he had my attention as I thought he was going to challenge our right to scan there or something.

"I am looking for friends." he followed up.

"Where did you loss them?" I asked. (Man aren't I witty)

"No I need better blues down here, you guys looked like you had a nice force.  You live in this area?" said Lonely Guy. 

"Not really." I lied

"That's too bad.  The pirate group I was paying to put a POS here decided to blow me up today." 

I had to stifle a laugh.  Who the hell in their right mind trusts a pirate corp.

"Wow that sucks" I manage to reply.

"Yeah I was looking to exchange blue status for my POS password for a safe spot in one of these systems." continued Lonely Guy 

Really. a safe spot?  There are no bubbles in Low, and a ton of stations, who the hell needs a POS for a safe spot?

"Well we really just use stations, we don't use POS's."

"What about me hiring you as protection? I really want to do PI, but not if people keep killing my POS."

OMG, the guy thinks he needs a POS for Low Sec PI.

"Well we really just protect our space we consider home, don't really take on protection jobs farther away" 

"I could move to where you are." 

"We would not want to protect a POS" man does he not get it.

"I could join your alliance"

"We don't take 100% indy corps, do you PvP?" I asked, knowing the answer

"And get blown up all the time, no thanks" replied Lonely Guy "I just want protection."

"Sorry can't help you there"

"Well thanks for you time" finished Lonely Guy and promptly closed the channel.

Wow, people coming to me for protection from bad old pirates.  That's something new.

Fly Safe,

Mick

Tools of the trade

Over the weekend I downloaded the new EveHQ and was playing around with getting it setup.  So far I like some aspects of it better than the tools I have been using and some less.

On the plus side, the asset tracker is awesome.  The ability to quickly see where all your stuff is on all your characters is awesome.  The pricing is way off, and I have not dug in enough to see how to make that more accurate.  Same thing with the ability to quickly see you cash balance for all your characters and corporations.

The POS manager looks good, though I have not had a chance to dig into it in depth.

The ship fittings tool is not the greatest, but it does seem to have a nice cap simulator, as well as a damage analysis that I have not checked out.  I hear the fleet manager is pretty sweet, and I also think there is a way to show what pilots can fly what ships, which would be nice for corp fittings.

Overall, I am sure going to spend a few more afternoons playing around with EveHQ and seeing the depth of what is available.

EveHQ can be found here.

So this got me thinking what other "tools" outside of EVE people use.  It has been said many times EVE is really about "flying spreadsheets" and over time I have used my fair share of tools outside of the game to both be better at the game and save time and effort.

The first tool anyone ever introduced me to was Evemon.  Still one of the most essential tools of the game.  Maximizing training time and focusing skills is essential in EVE and Evemon is essential in doing that.  I remember the days before the skills queue and it was essential to make sure you knew the short and long skills you were training for, when they would end and what time to set the alarm for.  Now with the queue its more about overall planning, attribute resets and seeing if those +4 implants in Null are justified.  If you don't know where to find Evemon, I seriously doubt you play eve enough to be reading this blog.

I used to use Ombey's 2D maps all the time, but I have migrated to Dotlan. I mean who does not want to know the number of jumps, the NPC Kills, the Ship kills and Pod kills in pretty much close to real time.  I mean I can tell you right now as I write this blog that someone is clearing my wormhole of anomolies.  I know I have a K162 into my system, since I did not open the static last night.  I also use Dotlan when planning a roam to see where the botters are ratting, and what systems in the area are hot.  Dotlan also offers navigation tools to see what Jump Cal V will get you in terms of additional systems within range.  It also has many other tools I have yet to explore.  Overall I loved Ombey's maps and still have a paper copy of the area near where I live, but really I use Dotlan for almost all my mapping needs now.

Another "new" tool is Staticmapper.  While not 100% accurate due to allowing user input, it is invaluable to anyone living in W-Space. The amount of time this tool has saved me is probably into the days by now.  To be able to jump into a system with 8-10 signatures and pretty much know the statics is awesome.  Sure I might have missed a few routes through K162's and transient wormholes, but not scanning 8-10 sigs looking for the static is very cool.  

While I hate the static nature of missions and anomolies and wish CCP would do something to randomize the triggers, Eve-Survival is a must have for anyone making a living off PvE.

Need to find a locator agent? Want to find the closest L4 agent for a particular NPC?  A quick trip to EVE-Agents.com will help you there.  I have used it often to find the closest locator agent when a war target has come online.  Worth a glance.

Of course, BattleClinic to see if that Ungolas guy in local talking smack is really THAT good.

And probably the last tool I use on a regular basis is Eve Fitting Tool or EFT.  Invaluable in playing with skills and modules, implants, and boosters, fleet boosts and WH effects to see how they will effect a ships performance.

I used to have a copy of Halada's mining guide, but I have long since lost that.  I recently downloaded Volume 1 of the ISK guide and am wading through those 400 pages of information.  I use Eve-Central to check prices, but have almost no knowledge of the true power of that tool so I will not touch on it.

So those are some of the tools I use (not counting the PI charts and stuff from a number of sites).

I would love to hear the tools others are using on a regular basis.

Fly Safe,

Mick

Prince said "Forever and that's a mighty long time"

But I'm here to tell ya, he wasn't dealing with CHON.

So as you probably know from this I had an unwanted, uninvited and frankly undesirable visitor to my w-space retreat.

It was quite fun after the initial "Rawr, we are leet Pvp alliance, Pack up your flying circus and leave" banter to finally get around to killing their POS's.  But alas, they did not take the first hint, and with 6-8 people doing PI, there was more than enough profit to justify erecting a Large POS in my wormhole every time a hole popped out near a trade hub.

So my guests thought it would be great fun to erect a third POS, and to go with all ECM and Harden the crap out of it.  Well all that meant is their 4-6 hours of anchoring and online'n stuff would have to be met with 4-6 hours of throwing ammo out of our BS fleet.  (and at least two hours of listening to Pleco complain that "every damned ECM is jamming me", "how the hell can they all jam me" and "I swear even the incapp'd ones are still jamming me")

Sure enough in the final stages of the POS bash the scanner for the invaders logs in and warps to the POS.  So we start a nice convo in local that basically goes a little something like this.

Valiant Defender (that's me): "Didn't get the first sign this is our system?"

Leet PVP or PI or Whatever (That's them): "Have fun shooting the POS for 6 hours again"

VD (hmm maybe I should have chosen a better name for myself): "We will."

LPVP/PI: "Good cause I am staying here Forever"

VD's Fleetmate: "Sounds like we all win here"

VD: "We are just waiting for the leet PVP portion of your Alliance to come"

LPVP/PI: "Oh its just me, this is a personal thing."

VD: "Damn, that's too bad, we were looking for more fun"

VD: "BTW, offer still stands to sell you the hole if you like it that much"

LPVP/PI: "Why do you think this is about money? Even if you leave we will follow you where ever you go"

VD: "Well it sure can't be about KB for you, I mean over a Bil in POS losses now for you."

LPVP/PI: "You just don't get it do you, I am not going anywhere"

LPVP/PI: "End of Conversation, have fun killing an empty POS"

VD's Fleetmate: "Next time set up a faction tower please."

So sure enough the POS goes pop, and its time to decide what the heck to do to stop this madness.  There is not anyway to kill the PI that is already on the planet, I hate to invest in more BS's and Cap ships to kill their poorly defended and heavily hardened POS's, and I sure the hell was not leaving.

Now one of the things I never check when evaluating systems is the number of moons.  Never been important, and frankly never cared.  Well I guess I got lucky, cause my wormhole home has less than 20 moons. 

So step one was to prevent them from easily anchoring another POS.  If it was indeed just one person with 5 PI accounts and no more DPS than a couple Drakes, the easiest way to accomplish that would be anchoring a tower at every moon.  And with less than 20 to cover it would cost less then building a Dread in a C1 (and would not be a total loss in the fact that it would never get out).

In addition, I decided to make it as time consuming and as much of a hassel to do the PI from safes and get it out of the system.  I figured a Large Bubble on every WH would do the trick.

So after a few days, I had every planet covered, and was happily bubbling all the holes as I found them.

Being on the other side of the world from them, and the fact that they really only needed to run stuff every 3-4 days at most, it was going to be hard to directly interfere with them.  

Well it seems they solved the large bubble by having all the ships slowboat to the wormhole then jump enough times to mass close it and then use the fresh hole to run stuff out.  Figuring I never was on when they were this worked fine for them.

So on to plan B.  I decided to bubble the crap out of the main Customs Offices they were using.  Let them slowboat 80km (40 in and 40 out) each time they needed to get something from a hanger.  And I had the option of offlining them when I needed to use the Office.  

Finally, about 2 weeks after the last POS bash, I logged in during their peak time to find 5 of his characters active.  So I jumped in the SB and immediately started checking the WH, Custom's offices, and pounding D-scan.  Nothing, no sign of anybody.  I know all his ships have cloaks, so I threw Combat Probes and waited for one to logoff, so I could try to catch it during the 1 minute or so it hangs in system.

Sure enough after about 10 minutes one of the toons goes offline and .... nothing.  Nothing on D-Scan, nothing on probes.  I expand the probes to cover any deep safes, and still nothing.  This repeats for another character 5 minutes later.

So I quickly open Planet 1, lo and behold, the Command Centers from our guests are gone.  Planet 2 same. Could it really be?

I log on my character in k-space and quickly find a locator agent.  Search for first character.  Find another agent 4 jumps away and search for second.  Get a random in local to run a third search.  Just in time as soon the last three character's log off.  Again, nothing on D-Scan or probes.

About 8-10 minutes later my suspicions are confirmed as all three location agents return HS locations for my visitors.

So thus ends the saga and one of the most interesting months in w-space that I have had.

Final tally

3 dead POS for them, as well as a new found lack of respect for their "leetness"

Almost 20 new small towers, and about a Dozen new BS's in the hole for me, as well as a shit ton of ammo.

So I probably spent twice as much defending the hole than they spent attacking it, but I am apparently alone again, despite the assurance from my new friends that I would never be alone again. 

As an alliance mate said "Maybe he meant fortnight, and he would follow your corps Killboard".

Who knows, maybe.  But I am kind of sad, I was looking forward to coming up with new ways to harass them.

Fly Safe,

Mick

A Final Frontier

Last night I crossed into a realm where I have never been before, and no I did not finally leave Mom's basement and go on a date with a girl not somehow distantly related to me.

Before joining the current alliance, I have been a High Sec Miner, High Sec Mission Runner, ran a T2 Manufacturing Corporation, Lived in every class of W-Space, moved to Null, returned to High Sec, Moved back to W-space, moved back to Null and finally returned to High Sec again.

After I joined, I moved to Low Sec.  I was amazed at the relative safety of Low Sec.  The annoying gate guns and GCC timers was new, my near perfect Sec Status took a hit, but all in all it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  That said, I would not want to do it without 20-30 of my closest friends.

Now last night, after getting smack talked by a carrier pilot and his friend (while they were docked inside a station) we decided to disband our merry little gang of misfit toys and move some pilots down to a new area we are exploring in NPC Null.  Now I have never lived in NPC Null, but it has always been something I wanted to do, just never seemed to have the opportunity with the right group.  This seemed like a good time to try it out.  So off I went on a 30+ jump trip to get a clone and a ship to NPC Null.

To say the trip was uneventful would be a vast overstatement, in the 31 jumps through Low and NPC Null, we saw 5 ships, which all promptly ran for cover at the site of our posse, and maybe an additional 10-15 in local.  For all those people who think EVE is too crowded, you need to get the hell out of Jita and Motsu.

It was very funny once we got there to see Low Sec pilots in Null for the first time.  

A rat BS in the belts of Low Sec is like a small crumb of cheese to a bunch of hungry mice, and one in our area is quickly reported and shared by all the Sec Grinding pilots striving to stay just enough on Concord "Nice List" to be able to fly through the .5 systems linking our Low Sec area to larger roaming grounds.  The constant typing the Fleet of "BS in Belt 6-1" "Two BS in Belt 7-3" was great.  Though they were quick to learn there is almost a BS in every belt in the land of milk and honey.

So after shooting a few belt rats and renting a couple offices to save the rest of the corp the trouble of 30+ jumps (cause riding the White Light express to null is so much easier), I called it a night and clone jumped back to k-space.

I look forward to having another place to call "home" and starting to experience the last major area I have never experienced - NPC Null Sec.

Fly Safe,

Mick

We Saw, We Came, They Dropped Carriers on Us

So after a very boring "vacation" back into W-Space (tearing down and setting up POS's is so broken), I finally returned to our Low Sec home.

Nothing much was going on so I jumped into the scanner and set out to try to find a nice wormhole to either find some targets, or find some sites to run to make some isk.  The pipe was very empty, but the third system did have a C3 with a Damnation and Prowler online at their POS.  Watching for a few minutes it was obvious they were afk, probably playing WoT or something.

The fourth system yielded a Radar site and a couple more items I needed during the next Jita run.  I swapped out the scanner for my Cane and with the help of a friend quickly finished off the site.  At this point it looked like a fairly boring night and I was deciding if tweaking my PI setups might be in order.

But alas the wonderful world of PI was going to have to wait.

Someone broke into Comms and announced we had a small group setting up a gate camp in a neighboring Low Sec pipe.  This was quickly followed by additional information that said group had 8-10 reserves in a neighboring system.  Cool it was a bait gate camp.  Time for some fun.

It took the required 15 minutes to get everyone to close WoT and get back into EVE, and to rally.  I was impressed, as we quickly pulled together a 20+ man BC gang.  Usually this takes 30-45 minutes as someone needs a module, a setup posted in Fleet, is 5 jumps from something they need etc etc etc.  My rule of thumb is to allow 2-3 minutes past the desired start time per desired person in the fleet to get the show rolling.  Looking to get a 30 man fleet rolling, better plan to leave an hour past the announced start time.  I assume this is not a linear formula, but maybe it does take a day or two past the start time to launch a 1000 man fleet.

Anyway, the group camping the gate had consolidated their fleet onto one side of the gate and consisted of a scorp, tengu, couple of BS's and BC's.  About 11 total.  So the plan was hatched to engage them at range from the front, while the main force went the long way, waited for them to aggress, and then jumped through and slugged it out. Perfect plan, except their obviously neutral scout saw us coming and they warped off to a station.  Oh well, that still beats the hell out of doing PI.

But the night was far from over.

So we proceeded to play the waiting game and my favorite "chase the bouncing scout" game. (for what it is worth, never choose to be scout if the system you are assigned to scout does not have a station, and you do not have a cloak).  After what seemed like forever, a close call at one of the scout's safes, and endless debate on how to get them to engage I am about ready to call it a night.

"Check, Check, Check has anyone got any torps?"

No wait that's a different story.

"Check, Check, Check the main group is aligning.  Wait.  They are aligning to your gate."

"Burn to optimals, burn to optimals, prepare to engage, Scorp will be primary, BS's Secondary."

Now in a Cane with Autocannons, my optimal is sitting in their copilots seat, so I burned to 10km and hoped to be close to something as it uncloaked.

Gate Flash, followed on Comms "Drake jumped on landing, rest are holding"

"Weapons free, Kill it"  Of course it uncloaks 20km away from me, so I burn towards the Drake and manage to get a few shots in before his hard candy coating cracked to reveal his soft, gooey pod.  Amazed there were no more gate flashes.

"They are holding at zero" came the intel from the other side.  Followed quickly by "They are jumping, everyone is jumping"

"Shoot what uncloaks, but get the Scorp as soon as it decloaks"  "Engage the geddon, get that geddon"  "Scorp has uncloaked, primary is the Scorp"  "Cyno Lit, Cyno Lit" "Carriers on the field" "Burn to the sun, everyone burn to the sun" "Holy Sh*T" "Battle Comms please" "Everyone burn to the sun, warp when your can" "Someone get a safe" "I have a safe" " x up in Fleet Please" "Warp to sun and bounce to safe" ....

So with my heart pounding (far less then stalking a noctis solo in a wormhole, or lining up a T3 kill though) I warped to the sun and proceeded to bounce safes.

Quick analysis showed only one loss.  Well we finished even, BC for a BC, and I experienced my first Hot Drop.  Not a bad night.

But wait there's more ... now how much would you pay.

So we warp back through the group and jump to the other side of the gate to see if they want to play again.  We sit there for 4-5 minutes till we get word that the party is breaking up and the carriers are leaving system.

"Single Drake lingering to scoop drones, just one drake, come on guys get this dude."

So we jump back through, see a single Drake scooping some Ogre II's and proceed to liberate our captured friends from the belly of the beast.  Always bet on Stupid getting you a kill.

So now we decide to call it a night, are all making best speed back home when the stragglers of the group cross jump another unrelated Drake (wow bad timing on his part).  So I quickly turn around just before our rear scout announces he has hero pointed the Drake.  A couple of the stragglers jump back through and force the Drake back to the gate where he jumps right into 4-5 of us landing on the gate.  Easy Kill.

So the night ends with 3 kills (2 due to shear stupidity and one to poor timing), and 3 of our fleet notching their first kills.  So hats off to the three Carebears that can now call themselves a PvP'r.

I only wish every night was this exciting.

Fly Safe,
Mick

Always Bet on Stupid

This is for sure my favorite motto when it comes to PvP.  I don't know how many times after killing someone I sit back and scratch my head and wonder what the heck they were thinking.  Last night was no exception.

I logged in expecting a night of heavy logistics, as I needed to get some stuff moved and I know I have commitments to attend to in the coming nights that will not allow me to get what needs done, done.  So I was a little disappointed listening on Comms that we had found a C5 with several Mag sites and I was not going to be able to participate in the Billion Isk funfest.

But as I am loading up the truck for its 20+ jumps to market, I hear on Comms a small skirmish on the wormhole to the C5.  Disappointed, the nights primary activity is scrubbed and everyone proceeded to go about their "normal" Low Sec lives.  For some this was a jaunt to mining and WoT (seems the two are inseparable now for some), scanning for other WH's, Sec Grinding, and running logistics.

So as I get about 9 jumps out and to my first of several "stops", the normal "chatter" of Comms is broken by a slightly higher than normal pitched voice of one of our regular WH Scouters.

"Check, Check, Guys, Holy F*^K, Guys, Shit I am sweating, Guys there is a group of 3, no 4, shit 5 guys setting up a POS in here.  Holy F*$K its got 9 minutes.  There is a Domi, two navy issue ships, Orca, Bestower, Drake, Cane, Maller, and 5 are manned. Holy Sh*T guys get here now!!".

Now I am pissed.  I mean really pissed, this kind of fun does not come along every night.

Decision time.  I open my Jump Clone list and sure enough the only Clone I have in the area of the soon to be fight is my "PvE/Training" Clone with all 5% implants and  several +5's.  The thought of heading out to a large fight in a Clone worth about a Billion Isk does not excite me, but missing the fight excites me even less.  So I pop out of my ship, stop learning about the intracies of POS Guns, and wake up 9 jumps away, feeling a little smarter and a heck of a lot better at gunnery then I had moments before.

Unfortunately, I was still 2 jumps from my HIC and 5 from the fight.  Off I went.

So final plans are being layed.  The Armageddon Navy Issue is 200km off the POS.  I assume its supposed to be "protection".  The Domi is in closer, and the Bestower and Orca are hanging out right on the POS (Cloaks FTW for the Orca by the way.  Why they had it sitting at the POS during the 30 minutes online time is beyond me.  They were fortunate that we did not find them 10 minutes earlier.)

The decision was made to go after the Domi and See if the Navy Issue would engage.  Not the approach I would have used with multiple HIC's and ECM on the field, but a solid plan.

The party never waits for anyone, and the group jumped in about a minute before I arrived at the wormhole.  As I am screaming through warp towards the fight I hear the Domi is in structure.  At this point the Navy Issue has not even moved.  Our Cyn pilot starts to burn out to him in hopes that he is far from his speakers and the screams of his friends.  As I land on grid, the Domi has just been finished off and the Pod is being popped, Too late to get in on that fun.  As I align to the Navy Issue, our Cyn pilot just gets him locked and pinned as drones appear and the ship starts to move.  I initiate warp and land within range of the Navy Issue.  It did not take long melt under the pressure of the group.  We catch the Pod again and send other w-space explorer back to the comfy confines of the CQ in K-space.

The inevitable local chatter from the shocked owners of the POS ensues of "Where did you come from", "Is this your hole" etc etc.

So the initial scout says in Comms, "Hey everyone, lets leave the grid, everyone warp off to the last planet, and I will warp back in cloaked off the Navy Issue wreck and see if they come out to loot and salvage it."

I laugh in my head and think to myself "no way they are THAT stupid", then I immediately say to myself "always bet on stupid".

So off we go to the last planet, and not 3 minutes pass before a laughing scout comes on Comms, "Warp Warp, the Maller came out to loot the wreck, I have him."  This was quickly followed by a little more worried voice "Cane and Drake in warp, they are on me".

So I land again in the middle of the fight and learn that HIC's with no prop mods are great for gate engagements, but suck in open space.  I will need to adjust my fit.

So the Maller is already half way through Armor, so we finish him off and send another on the white light express back to K-Space.  At this point the Cane and the Drake run in opposite directions.  The drake back towards the POS and the Cane farther out.  The Drake was primary, so we decided to stay on him.

I bounce to the closest planet and back into the scrum.  I manage to get a few shots in before the Drake burns out of range. "Why the hell did I not grab the Rapier I think, but remind myself of the value in my implants and am thankful I am in my HIC.

So finally, with me trailing the fight by 60km, the Drake goes down and the fourth person is given a free, one way trip to the afterlife (about 6 seconds for most capsuleers).

After that we are pretty much convinced that we are done, unless the Orca wanted to try to turn the tide of the battle.  As we prep'd to reship and start hitting the POS, we heard there was a fight back in the Low Sec system we came from, so off we all went back the wormhole.  We sat there on the W-Space side to avoid spiking local, eventually heard we had successfully gotten them to fight on another wormhole in the system. So we all started jumping.  At that point we broke the cardinal rule of W-space of "prober jumps last".  The hole collapsed as we were jumping and one pilot, in a "Drake with no Probes" (parody song anyone) was left behind.

Well turns out the Cane on the second hole was bait, and the pilot tackling him had the good sense to hit D-Scan in time to see the massive incoming fleet from their POS.  We disengaged, and scattered to safety.

The thought of continuing to fight a larger group did not appeal to me.  So I docked up and proceeded to pod back to where I had left off my logistics run.

Turns out the Maller and Drake were their two scanning ships in the wormhole, so while we had stranded one pilot, they were stranded till they could get word out for another scanner to log on and find them another way to get their 4 fallen comrades back into the hole.

The story ended well for the Drake pilot, as he convinced the new "owners" of the system to let him out in exchange for a small fee and not warping to all their combat sites. and killing a single sleeper.

So "Stupid" won the day with an extra Navy Issue kill, because someone had gone afk in a 500m Isk ship, and an additional Maller and Drake kill because someone could not resist trying to "salvage" a little bit from a bad situation.  I will never know what possessed the Maller pilot to try to loot the wreck (of cap boosters)  not 5 minutes after the battle was over, with us having 3 known cloaky ships on the field.  But I thank him for the fun.

So here's to Forrest as he was so right when he said "Stupid is as Stupid Does".

Fly Safe (or smart)
Mick