Runnin' **** As If I Was A Mayor

Last weekend, a month after joining Pyrotechnics Inc., I became its CEO.
Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with my outstanding charisma and leadership skills.
The real reason for my promotion was that most Pyro pilots have either left or quit or become inactive.
BiggerGuns started Pyrotechnics as a pirate corporation for newer pilots, the place where someone could get those kills required by corporations like the Tuskers, he told me. So he recruited a lot of new pilots and a few experienced pirates including Romeo Blakstorm. Things were going pretty well in the beginning as 'Guns and Romeo taught them the ropes of piracy.
But then the newer players started going inactive or leaving, probably tired of piracy.
And then Romeo left and 'Guns first stepped down as CEO and eventually quit the game for good.
Kaoticar, who succeeded BiggerGuns, soon also decided to pursue a different career and passed the CEO title to one of the players who at least showed up online from time to time.
I could not take over at the time due to the lack of skills but started training them. Unfortunately, our interim CEO quickly tranferred the title to another player before I asked him to wait for me. This weekend my predecessor finally logged on and, after seeing my message and talking to Ashnazg, passed the reins to me.
So what have I inherited? A corporation with 14 members but only one active pilot besides myself - Arquebie. Now he is a great pirate and I'm glad he's still with Pyro.
What's the plan? I have asked everyone else to state if they are committed to piracy or be kicked in a month. I will not recruit very actively and will seek mature, self-sufficient pilots who'll be able to fly solo or with other people when no one else is around - just like me and Arquebie do.
I also need to do some organisational stuff like setting up a new forum (already set up a new killboard here).
Now, if anyone would be interested in joining us, please visit our public channel "pyrotechnics" or contact me ingame. I still want the corporation to grow, just not at the cost of quality.

Life Aint Nothing But Spaceships and Money

Apparently, the pilot of the Megathron I killed the other day has added 60 million isk to my bounty.
Needless to say, in the nearest future I'm going to jump into a clone with no implants and have myself podded by an alt or a mate.
Thank you, dear sir, for helping a poor pirate earn his living!

Megagank

After spending the previous week away from New Eden, I have returned to piracy, undocking for about an hour a day to get a quick kill. The first two were a missioning Myrmidon and a Stabber that engaged Mashashige's Rupture in a belt.
But yesterday brought a juicier target.
As usual, I was scanning different areas in Egghelende when I saw a Megathron on scan. A quick directional scanner check showed it was not at any celestial object so my prober mate got to work.
It did not take him long to pinpoint the Gallente battleship and confirm it was running a mission.
Excited, I grabbed my Rupture (forgetting to switch the MWD for an AB and ECM drones for combat ones) and warped to the site. As the gate catapulted me into the deadspace pocket, my heart sank: the Megathron was about 50 kilometres away which meant it would have plenty of time to spot me and warp out. Still, I ordered my Rupture to close distance, which it started to do, painfully slowly of course.
At the same time I checked the Mega pilot's background: a member of University of Caille for 22 days. What? A three-week old pilot in a battleship? In lowsec? Not moving? Not scooping his Tech 1 Wasp-class heavy drones? Even as I'm 37... 34... 32 (start targeting)... 28 (activate overheated disruptor) kilometres away?
He did wake up as I was trying to get closer to my guns' optimal range. The Megathron's railguns quickly destroyed my shields, but as they started to bit into structure I settled into a tight orbit around the target where his tracking was insufficient to hit me.
The Mega pilot then sent his drones, previously scooped, after me. They took out half of my armor by the time I webbed and sho them down one by one, but after that the battleship was completely unable to scratch me.
My guns, on the other hand, were doing quite a good job as the Megathron's defences melted quickly. Finally, its hull integrity was breahed completely and an explosion lit Egghelende's dark sky for a few moments.
I tried catching the escape capsule of the hapless pilot but it, umm, well, escaped, which did not spoil the satisfaction brought by my first solo battleship kill (yes, I know, it was a very poorly set up battleship).

Log2Blog

Corpse Collection Point public comms channel:
[ 2009.06.09 12:15:59 ] Nursultan's assistant > damn, there's a guy ratting in geddon here
[ 2009.06.09 12:16:03 ] Ashnazg's assistant > woot?
[ 2009.06.09 12:16:05 ] Ashnazg's assistant > eggh?
[ 2009.06.09 12:16:09 ] Nursultan's assistant > yeah
[ 2009.06.09 12:16:18 ] Nursultan's assistant > Jifftoolabahh
[ 2009.06.09 12:16:25 ] Ashnazg's assistant > oh
[ 2009.06.09 12:16:35 ] Ashnazg's assistant > ash is loggin in :D
[ 2009.06.09 12:17:01 ] Nursultan's assistant > we tried killing him with jyren's once but his friends came and killed us
[ 2009.06.09 12:17:45 ] Ashnazg > well, we'll have to kill his friends as well then
[ 2009.06.09 12:17:53 ] Ashnazg > underrun the lasers range.
[ 2009.06.09 12:17:56 ] Ashnazg > primary drones
[ 2009.06.09 12:18:09 ] Nursultan's alt > V-2
[ 2009.06.09 12:18:47 ] Ashnazg > warping
[ 2009.06.09 12:19:09 ] Ashnazg > one friend in local
[ 2009.06.09 12:19:16 ] Nursultan > who?
[ 2009.06.09 12:19:24 ] Ashnazg > delarth
[ 2009.06.09 12:19:33 ] Nursultan > k
[ 2009.06.09 12:20:06 ] Ashnazg > topbekt
[ 2009.06.09 12:20:08 ] Ashnazg > *l
[ 2009.06.09 12:20:10 ] Ashnazg > I 1
[ 2009.06.09 12:20:13 ] Nursultan > 3-1
[ 2009.06.09 12:20:27 ] Ashnazg > ^yeah
[ 2009.06.09 12:20:28 ] Ashnazg > ^^
[ 2009.06.09 12:20:57 ] Ashnazg > primary is the rifter if its shooting you
[ 2009.06.09 12:22:07 ] Ashnazg > get him
[ 2009.06.09 12:22:27 ] Nursultan > losing point
[ 2009.06.09 12:22:29 ] Nursultan > neuts
[ 2009.06.09 12:22:46 ] Ashnazg > have him pointed as well
[ 2009.06.09 12:24:13 ] Ashnazg > now go down already ^^
[ 2009.06.09 12:25:02 ] Ashnazg > NICE :D
[ 2009.06.09 12:26:22 ] Nursultan > woot
Solar system-wide comms channel, immediately after:
[ 2009.06.09 12:23:47 ] Jifftoolabahh > lol
[ 2009.06.09 12:25:27 ] Ashnazg > gf.
[ 2009.06.09 12:25:32 ] Nursultan > gf
[ 2009.06.09 12:25:34 ] Jifftoolabahh > lol not really
[ 2009.06.09 12:25:35 ] Jifftoolabahh > :)
[ 2009.06.09 12:25:39 ] Jifftoolabahh > was fun though
[ 2009.06.09 12:26:54 ] Dekarth Manic > lol
[ 2009.06.09 12:27:03 ] Dekarth Manic > next time .. we'll get u lol
[ 2009.06.09 12:27:22 ] Ashnazg > ofc
Concord report.

...Coming Straight From the Underground

Going purely after mission runners makes your brains soft. I've realised that after failing to kill a Taranis in a belt last week due to my afterburner burning out.
Sure, finding and destroying carebears is fun, especially when you have strong competitors like the Eternal Perseverance. Together with Ashnazg, Nalshee, Jyren's Rage and his corpmates we've had some juicy kills within the last week including a Dominix, an Ishtar, an Apocalypse (I wish we did that without a Falcon) and a number of battlecruisers and smaller ships.
But sometimes, I've decided, I must jump into a Rifter, forget about my probing mate and do things the "old school" way, relying only on my directional scanner.
That was what I did this morning, leaving Egghelende with a short roam on my mind. I didn't need to go further than Siseide, it turned out.
Upon entering this POS-infested system I noticed Mashashige in local chat. I had seen him in a Rifter in Egg a minute earlier and immediately requested a conversation, offering a duel. Mashashige suggested instead that we gang up on a Worm, an expensive Guristas faction frigate which I had just noticed on scan.
In a few seconds I had it narrowed down to a belt and sent my ship in its direction, informing Mashashige. I landed about 30 kilometres away from the Worm and was sure it would warp out. But as I approached the Worm, midslots overheated for maximum speed and tackling range, I was informed that one of the Angel pirates he was shooting started warp scrambling him. I guess that was why I managed to tackle the Guristas ship and quickly destroy it without taking any damage.
Mashashige, who arrived at the belt after me, didn't make it to the Worm in time. Instead, he targeted me, as did the Angel Cartel pirates. I did not return the lock, waiting to see if this was just a misclick or we were going to fight. And then, there it was, a red box and a message informing me of his aggression.
I quickly targeted him back, activated the tackling gear and guns and ordered my ship to settle into a 7.5 kilometre orbit. We entered armour at about the same time and I overloaded my guns to maximise their damage. The fight was close and slow as we stayed in falloff range and used our armour repairers to full effect. Mashashige entered structure a bit earlier than I did and it became clear he would lose. A few rounds later his Rifter gave up and Mashashige quickly evacuated his pod.
With 62 percent structure left, I quickly scooped up the loot from both ships and moved to a safespot, exchanging gf's with Mashashige.
I then asked him why he had attacked. He said that since I hadn't taken any damage from the Worm he considered it fair to accept my earlier duel invitation. I think that was fair play (we weren't even in a fleet) although I personally would have given my opponent a warning.
We chatted a bit more and agreed to blow up stuff together some day.