Role Model

"I get a brand new Rifter and go on a killing spree
You probably wanna grow up to be just like me!"

How does a carebear turn into a pirate? Here's my path step-by-step:
1) I'm running missions and I'm happy, but getting a bit bored.
2) Tried some lowsec piracy and liked it. Still, my security status allows me to run missions in hisec and I'm going to do it to earn isk.
3) My security status is in a dangerous zone now - must rat and run missions more to improve it otherwise 1.0 systems will be closed to me.
4) OK, I can still fly to Rens - it's 0.9.
5) Now I can't. OK, I'll get a hauler alt for now and improve my ss later. At least I can still run missions in lowsec.
6) Run missions in lowsec? Watching the scanner all the time and being afraid of pirates? No way. At least I have an alt training for Raven who can make isk in hisec.
7) To hell with Ravens! Alt, go train for Blackbird and then Falcon!

Gangsta Trippin'

My first Taranis

I was hanging around in Hadozeko with a corpmate when we saw a Taranis on the scanner. I warped to a planet in my Wolf to scan through its belts, but then the Taranis jumped to me itself. I haven't been attacked by anyone for quite a long time now and got used to the role of aggressor so much that I was a bit lost. Still, I told my mate to warp to me, tackled the Taranis and engaged my weapons. My armour was melting quickly, but the overheated repper was doing its best and I killed the Taranis with 13 percent structure left. My mate arrived when the fight was over and helped me scoop the loot and drones which I had ignored. It was only after the fight that I realised I had RF EMP ammo loaded because I had been chasing a Thrasher earlier. That mistake could have cost me the fight, but now I know the time spent on learning Hull Upgrades V was worth it.

Roxxorz Your Vexorz

A day later, me and the same corpmate, Art Kz, were in Siseide looking for targets. I scanned down a Caracal and warped to it, but then its pilot told me we had a positive standing with his corporation so I disengaged. A few minutes later, I saw the same Caracal in another belt joined by a Rupture and a Vexor. With ten drones flying about, it was obvious they were fighting. We decided to help the Caracal pilot and sent our assault ships to the belt. The Vexor which had engaged the Caracal and his friend in a Rupture was already low on hit points, but so was the Rupture. We finished off the gallente cruiser, allowing the Rupture to warp out to safety.
A bit later we were joined by another corpmate, Azgor Khan, who brought a Vengeance class assault ship. We moved to Vard by that time and eventually scanned down a Vexor which could be in one of two nearby belts. I jumped to one belt and Art and Azgor rushed to the second one. Suddenly, just upon arriving to an empty belt, I was disconnected from the server. When I logged back in I saw my mates fighting the Vexor in their belt - one of them had already lost his Harpy. I warped to them, locked the cruiser and activated my autocannons. That's when I got disconnected again. Logging back in, I was expecting to find myself in an escape pod, but it turned out the Vexor had been destroyed. To make things more funny, I had dealt the final blow despite not being able to see it and the pilot of the Vexor was Kachak, the same guy we had ganked earlier in Siseide.
It looked like he got a bit angry with us - while passing through Vard later in another Vexor he asked me why I was helping noobs and advised me to be more careful about who I fly with. To this I say:
- Don't take it personally, I'd be just as happy to be in a gang with you,
- But if I'm already in a gang with someone I will help them and fight together with them until we agree to go our separate ways.

Gate Fights Are for Good Boys

After that Azgor left our gang, but two more guys joined us, adding a Retribution assault ship and a Manticore stealth bomber to the fleet. We travelled all the way to Hadozeko without a single kill, spending a lot of tiime chasing elusive targets. We finally found a target in Resbroko - a lonely Thrasher ratting in belt. I pointed it and told others to owarp to me so we would share the killmail. We also managed to get the pod.
We then headed for Amamake, but stumbled upon a fight on the Ardar side of Hadozeko-Ardar gate. I remember that a Typhoon, A Zealot, a Drake and a Myrmidon were involved. We targeted the Myrmidon since that would not have triggered sentry fire and it went down quickly.
Unfortunately, by that time the Typhoon switched its attention to me and the rest of the gang could not engage him due to my criminal status. Very soon I was tackled, my cap drained and angry drones were swarming around me. My Wolf exploded and I warped out in a pod. A stupid loss that could and should have been avoided. At least I should remember the lesson.

Strategy-Shmategy

Sometimes, usually after relatively long winning streaks, I put my common sense offline and overheat the part of my brain that seeks violence above anything else.
That was the case the other day when, after killing 10 ships without a single loss, I took my Rifter to Gulmogorod where I stumbled upon a Caracal sitting in a belt. Its pilot, Norst, had a nice track record on Battleclinic and it was obvious he was baiting me.
Well, that was not going to stop me from engaging the Caldari cruiser. I laughed manically in my head as I warped to the belt, tackled the target and unleashed the fury of my overloaded guns. Pretty soon I started pulsing my armour repairer to try and stay alive as his missiles were hitting me hard. His shield broke when I entered structure, but a couple rounds later my Rifter blew up.
I warped out and exchanged "gf"s with Norst. And I meant it: that fight was more fun than the ten previous engagements which I had won. I know for sure that I would have killed him in my Wolf, although I doubt he would have sought a fight in that case.
There were also a couple of interesting engagements that ended without killmails. The first was a Hurricane I attacked at a station in my Wolf: after I killed a few of his drones, he stopped attacking me and docked in 30 seconds. The second was a ratting Rupture which managed to escape from me because it had an Afterburner fit instead of a Microwarp Drive. I actually caught up with it while it was aligning, but failed to notice my scrambler was off by that time.
Anyway, I guess I'm back in cautious mode, looking for more kills to improve my stats.

'Grats to 'Guns and Brutus

Kill & loss statement:
- Killed five frigates;
- Lost one frigate;

This has not been an exciting week. Four of five kills were absolute noobs who barely had time to target me back after I caught them ratting or salvaging in asteroid belts.
One kill, Ryan Pathfinder's Punisher, was a Pyrrhic victory, because shortly after I had tackled him, his friend's Stiletto warped in. It wasn't really doing much damage with its autocannons, staying out of scrambler range, and I started diving between the rocks to throw it off the orbit, but then a "socket was closed" message popped up on my screen. Sure enough, I logged back in just in time to have my pod warp back to the belt to follow my Rifter's fate.

Meanwhile, my fellow pirate BiggerGuns joined the mighty Tuskers - a pirate corporation set up by Ka Jolo. Another mate of ours, long-time Amamake area resident Brutus Severus, scored a 200th kill and reached the coveted -10 security status.
Congratulations and YARR's go to both of them!

Blogrolled

News jast came in from CrazyKinux who has added me to his Eve Player Blogroll and said I would also be featured in the next Eve Speedlinking post and the next episode of Micro Warp Cast podcast.
Thank you CrazyKinux! It's an honour for me to be included in your lists.

More Outlaws

A quick summary of kills and losses since my last post:

• Killed a Rupture and a Rifter solo, a Jaguar and an Arbitrator together with a corpmate.
• Lost a Wolf to another Jaguar, another corpmate lost a Probe in the same fight.

Now, to details.

A BAD IDEA
I've made my first kill in a Crow class interceptor after hours of fruitless roaming around Heimatar and Metropolis the other day. I arrived at a gate in Eszur and saw a Rifter hanging around. I decided to provoke its pilot to start attacking me by settling into a 20 kilometre orbit and targeting it. The trick worked: the Rifter started blinking red in my overview and I engaged my warp disruptor and missile turrets. The frigate was unable to scratch me and died quickly. I then found out it was set up to maximise speed at the expense of defence so I guess the pilot thought he had a chance to outrun me.

JAGGED
A day later, I was cruising around Gulmogorod in my Wolf and spotted a Rupture in a belt. Its pilot had made a mistake of not renaming his ship which allowed me to quickly check his background and identify him as a potential target. I warped to the belt and started my usual routine while chatting to my corpmate who was also keen to do a bit of shooting. Everything looked fine until Cactuz III entered the system and quickly scanned us down. His Jaguar started doing some serious damage to my ship and I asked my corpmate for help. Unfortunately, he was in a Probe frigate set up for scanning with just one autocannon and our combined firepower was not enough to break the Jaguar's tank. Cactuz dispatched both of us.
Of course, it was a mistake to bring in the Probe since it really made no difference. An even bigger, and more fundamental, mistake was trying to do something in a fleet without voice comms. Fortunately, I was able to arrange a better small fleet operation the following day.

DYNAMIC DUO
I was just warming up when a corpmate (another one) asked in the corporate channel whether our alliance was running small-ship operations for inexperienced pilots. I invited him to Amamake area and he soon arrived in a brand new Harpy assault ship. Having arranged proper voice comms this time, we sat at a safespot in Auga scanning belts when I spotted a Jaguar and rushed to it. The Jaguar escaped and commented in local that he was not interested in a fight he'd likely lose.
Well, we made him fight by catching his ship in another belt some 10 minutes later and destroying it easily.
Just eight minutes later, we caught an Arbitrator in the same belt cluster. He sent his drones after me and I concentrated on the pesky litle creatures while my mate was tearing down the cruiser's defences. The drones were hitting me pretty hard and the Arbitrator pilot did a smart trick of activating a tracking disruptor on me, so in the end I switched my fire onto the cruiser and we killed it just in time to save my ship from the drone assault.
I then took my mate on a roam around the area, but unfortunately no other targets came our way. We did scare a ratting battleship, though, which served to boost our confidence.
I think I should do more small-ship small-fleet ops.