Looking for Fights in Low and Null

I spent almost a week in Liparer trying to get some kills and failed. Every time I logged on, local pirates were either smacktalking each other while playing station games or camping a gate with too many ships for me to deal with.

On one occasion, I crossed blasters-and-lasers with one of locals in an empty neighboring system but had to retreat after my Talos took too much damage from his Oracle before we even were in point range.

Finally, last Saturday, I decided to just bait them and try to kill a tackler or two. Making myself seen to their gatecamp, I warped off to a belt and aligned to another celestial. After a while, a stealth bomber warped in and cloaked, indicating they had established my location.

No quick tackle warped in though as I kept moving away from the belt.

Then, a Pilgrim recon - who had obviously warped in to the bomber at range- decloaked some 7.5 kilometres away from me. Instinctively, I activated the MWD to burn further away before he could use a scram but he managed to put one on me anyway. Fortunately, I was at about full speed by that time and inertia carried me out of scram range.

More ships started landing next to the Pilgrim as I was burning away and, because I had held my mouse over the overview targeting them one by one, I missed an approaching Taranis. He was about 40 km away when I noticed him, too close for me to lock and shoot without ending up warp scrambled.

I warped off to my align target, closely followed by the Taranis, then to a safe to catch my breath, and then to another belt where the interceptor soon spotted me again.

This time I was position better and locked him from far away, opening fire as he was about 40 km away. The first round stripped his shield and half armour... but then my guns stopped applying any damage. He switched to manual piloting and started spiraling towards me rather than burning in a straight line. I hate when people do that to me.

The good thing was, this had slowed him down and I was able to warp off again, to a celestial where his fleetmates were still waiting for me.

Fortunately, I landed at range, got out and eventually docked.

The engagement, although anticlimactic, had my heart pumping and reminded me why I love Eve.

I still wanted blood, however, and decided to try nullsec. After positioning my cloaky Loki booster in KBP7-G and observing its three stargates for a while, I saw a lonely Coercer on the Dital gate and quickly bought and fitted a standard dualprop Taranis.

I jumped in and burned towards the destroyer who immediately aggressed me. By the end of my MWD cycle I was already in deep structure. Let's deploy drones, NO, I DON'T WANT TO SHOW INFO, I WANT THEM OUT AND FIGHTING!!! Expecting to die to the next volley, I turned on my overheated afterburner, mitigating most - but not all - of the incoming damage.

The Coercer was clawing back shield, although not quickly enough to keep up with my damage. Then his reps stopped and armour melted quickly. But I was already in 40 percent hull. Thirty, twenty, BOOM. The Coercer exploded and I warped out to a random belt, exchanging "gf's" with the pilot.

Turned out he had a medium ASB and an oversized afterburner, quite a deadly combo on a high-DPS boat such as the Coercer. I'm pretty sure I would have lost without the Loki boosts which allowed me to catch up with him quicker and them get under his tracking. Of course, I could have also tried just warping out since he had no scram but I suspect he would have fried my ship as it tried to align.

I left that Taranis in a highsec station close to KBP and came back to Kurniainen in a Talos, a decision I almost regretted last night when I probed out a Zealot in a deadspace pocket in Kurn. I was browsing my ship hangar looking for something small and fast and all I saw were cruisers and larger ships. Eventually, though,  I found a Comet which I had never used before but which was fitted and stocked with ammo.

As I came out of warp inside the deadspace pocket, I saw the Zealot about 50 km away and decided to burn straight for him, hoping to get tackle before he sniped me. I got hit by two volleys but then it was just a matter of orbiting the HAC and chewing through his defenses. I'm pretty sure the pilot had been aware of my plans and decided to gamble and see if he could snipe me.

Nice to see (non-FW) mission runners in lowsec again, such as the Zealot and the deadspace-AB Cane I killed earlier.

Farming PWNAGE

Grab your glocks when you see 2pac
Call the cops when you see 2pac

In late January, we moved from Placid to Bleak Lands to try taking on some locals.
We set up shop in Kurniainen, a nice pipe system and home to our ally bozoKaido and his mates.
Kurn is just eight jumps away from my old home of Amamake and is part of the Amarr-Minmatar war zone. It is also connected with Gallente lowsec so there's always somewhere to go when one is looking for fights.

Very often though all you need to get a kill is undock and check your overview: FW mission runners never stop visiting and we have already killed eight stealth bombers here.

Then there are regular mission runners and ratters who of course are forced to pay for polluting our system with wrecks. Sometimes they reply with juicy tears and hatemail.

And, finally, there are naughty neighbours who are seeking fights themselves.

Zen, who has only recently joined Pyrotechnics, scored a nice kill a couple of weeks ago when his Thrasher faced an Incursus and a Dramiel. It was funny because just before that I was telling him how only an incompetent Dramiel pilot would die to his Thrasher. Here's how Zen himself described the engagement:

I encountered these 2 at a gate, they immediatly warped to a nearby planet. So i followed, i immediatly landed on top of the incurses which fell in 4-5 volleys. but the dramiel liked to orbit at about 13km just outside my range. Even though he was faster i ran from him. at about 20km he started catching up so i swung around and bumped him at full speed. turning on my scrambler which shut off his speed and he began to melt. idk how he did it but he managed to launch himself back out to 9km but it didnt matter he suddenly popped :)

ended the fight with 70% structure.

they aggressed me, no kill rights, no sec status loss as bonus :)

Sormani > was damn fun
good guy the dramiel pilot was.

but what they did wrong... neither one of them deployed their drones. :)

A few days later, we were chilling in Kurn when our scout reported that a Rapier was in the system, piloted by an experienced pirate. One of our mates was out "ratting" in a Myrmidon while I switched to a Rupture to provide another soft target for the recon ship.

Before long, our Myrm pilot reported being tackled by the Rapier. Bozo and me warped to him and quickly dispatched the Tech 2 cruiser. His mate warped in twice in a Thorax only to warp out immediately. I needed to abandon my ship after that and thus paid little attention to the killmail.

It was hours later when I had a good look at the report and realised the Rapier had sported very expensive faction modules. Then I remembered the Thorax warping in twice and realised he was trying to salvage the loot. Frantically, I started asking my partners if they had been able to get to the wreck first. A flash of my wallet was the reply.

Then it was Zen's turn again to introduce us to the neighbours by killing an Amarrian Retribution Firetail and, together with our partner St3r1on, a Drake piloted by a member of SOAPY alliance (mostly notable for their frequent camping of the Ala-Gratesier stargate).

Later on the same day, I was (battle-?) cruising in my nano Drake when I noticed a Broadsword in a belt, an obvious bait most likely set up by another neighbour, the Dragoon Federation alliance. Having just been heard about how terrible they are, I decided to spring the trap by tackling the heavy dictor and orbitin it at 20 kilometres.

Sure enough, a Harbinger soon warped in. I quickly sent my ship flying upwards, a direction where enemy reinforcement were unlikely to come from, and switched point and fire to the Harb. It gave chase, despite being considerably slower than me and I had to slow down to keep him in the disruptor range. Soon, a Pilgrim also showed up but both the recon and the Broadsword appeared to be slower than the Harbinger. I don't know why but the Harb pilot never stopped chasing me even as he went into structure. By the time he exploded, both of his mates had abandoned him.

Fast forward a few days, and we spot a Sleipnir running a mission in Kurn. Now this requires a serious approach. A lot of mission runner ganks fail at the probing stage, especially since probes have been added to overview filters. In order to minimise the chances of this happening, our prober moved out of d-scan range before deploying a set of combats. He scooped them up and redeployed them immediately after getting the initial hit. This technique requires the target to refresh his scanner less than every 10 seconds (or get lucky with its scanning cycle) to spot the probes - something that I think would drive most people out of their minds.

With the target located, the goal was get it tackled. This is another part of the gank that often fails due to people being aligned or just moving out of point range. Come Arazu, a ship that can disrupt the target's warp drives from over 57 kilometres with just a Tech 2 point. Together with an armor Tempest, the recon warped towards the Sleipnir's last known location.

The choice of tackler proved to be right since the mighty (and expensive) command ship was about 40 kilometres away. Both pirate ships engaged their microwarp drives and the Tempest soon had the Sleipnir (which was slower due to using an afterburner) pointed and webbed, allowing the fragile Arazu to leave the battlefield.

The Sleip was not going down without a fight and got our battleship into structure before its tank failed under heavy fire and neuting. A well-planned and perfectly executed gank - such a rare occasion in the life of Pyrotechnics!

Finally, last night me and Bozo were checking out the 'hood in our Cynabals when I spotted a fresh FW mission beacon in Kurn and immediately warped to it, alerting Bozo. My directional scanner registered three stealth bombers: a Hound, a Nemesis and a Purifier. However, just after I passed an acceleration gate, a Rapier uncloaked next to me and quickly put a point and two webs on my Cynabal.

Stealth bombers, which initially cloaked, started decloaking and pounding me with torpedoes. They were each between 30 and 50 kilometres away from me but what is 50 kilometres to a Cynabal? Click-click-boom! Click-click-boom! Click-click-boom! Six rounds, three dead bombers.

By this time I was down to about 25 percent shields but the Rapier started disengaging once I turned my guns to it. Fortunately, Bozo had already arrived and together we finished off the recon which, I think, was sitting there to gank incoming pirates or pilots of the opposing faction. Gank report is here (warning: a lot of PWNAGE).

New Yarrrrrrrrrrr

Happy New Year and Merry Xmas everyone!
There's nothing like taking someone new to piracy on a killing roam, is there?
LoC11 took his missioning Rattlesnake loss quite well last week and soon after the fight asked me if he could join our pirate operations, to which I agreed.
So, on Sunday night, EVE's prime time, we began scouting our corner of Placid in search for targets.
There was a small mining operation going on in Grispire but the barges warped off before we arrived and I only got to kill their hauler.
At the same time, though, another pilot in a Dominix decided to run a Serpentis plex and quicly got probed out by our accomplices. He left the plex some time after seeing the probes but quickly returned and died to my Hurricane even before LoC had arrived.
Fortunately, he finally got on the next kill, a ratting Arbitrator in Pelille, by cleverly warping to a belt where the cruiser was expected next.
After that, LoC went afk for a bit in Dastryns while my scout moved on to Uphallant where a battleship fleet had been spotted by fellow pirates from Muppet Ninjas, probably intent on taking down a POS. Except it turned out they were not bashing a POS, they were running a mission!
My scout probed down the fleet while ninja warlord Gaiden rallied his troops. Me and LoC joined their fleet and soon landed on top of the mission runners. We killed everything but two Domies which managed to warp off. Sometimes I just coudn't switch fire to the primary fast enough before it died. Needless to say, LoC appeared very excited.
I haven't spoken to him since that evening but I really hope this experience sends him on the path of piracy.


P.S. Everybody subscribe to the awesome Pirate Pack!

P.P.S. What's wrong with all those people in shiny battleships who refuse to pay ransom?

Get Rich Or Die Trying'

Wormholes, wormholes, wormholes...
The places with no blobs, no local chat, juicy targets and unpredictable exits. I've been visiting them quite often in the last few months when lowsec became too blobby or empty.
After scoring kills like this, this and this in unknown space I've decided to share some tips on wormhole piracy with my readers.
So, what do you need to kill stuff in those weird places? First, of course, you have to find those wormholes. If you are new to probing, check out this great guide by pirate-turned-merc Hallan Turrek.
Is it possible to use the same ship for probing and killing? I'd say yes if it's a force recon, I've used a Rapier to both scan down holes and then kill smallish stuff inside. But probing becomes longer and the Rapier's firepower and tank are insufficient to kill a battlecruiser or a battleship under Sleeper fire so my favourite approach is to fly with a wingmate in a covops.
Now that you found a nice-looking wormhole, read its info (00sage00 has some nice resources here), bookmark it adding a date (you don't want to end up with dozens of identical bookmarks) and get in. If you are a scout for someone else, it might be convenient to have them warp to the 'hole and bookmark it as well to make a potential incursion easier.
Once inside, look around for bubbles (this is 0.0 after all) and check your directional scanner for targets. If it returns any targets, try warping cloaked to a planet outside of scan range and lay your probes there. Don't forget to bookmark the wormhole again before leaving it: you don't want to waste your time reprobing it.
Your targets could be miners, plex runners or other explorers like yourself. Killing miners is fairly easy (you might want to equip several scrams/disrputors), but you need to be well tanked to take on w-space plex runners. Apparently, as soon as you scram, web and neut/nos them, Sleepers will see you as a major threat and will switch fire onto you.
Another important thing is to bookmark the inner side of the hole with your killer ship to avoid getting stuck in case something happens to your prober. Also, if the prober is switching into a combat ship, make sure the hole is not going to collapse shortly ot you have at least one other wormhole probed out.
Unfortunately, more often than not you will find empty systems, occasionally with people sitting at a POS. Don't hesitate to go deeper by scanning 8AUs around every planet. Also, return to empty wormholes later to see if their inhabitants come out of their caves. The Orca kill linked above followed several hours of spying on a mining group during which I bookmarked their belt but made them aware of my presence. When I returned later, though, I was able to make a surprise landing on top of them.
To sum it up, patience and proper preparation is your best friend when dealing with 'holes. And those patient and prepared will be rewarded.

Staring At The World Through My Overview

Aaaaaand, I'm back!
I haven't posted for a while due to playing too much and missed the first anniversary of me going rogue, a nice opportunity to look at what I have achieved. Yes, just over a year ago, inspired by Ka Jolo and Wensley's blogs, I bought a few Rifters and some mixed T1 and T2 modules, established a base in the Sujarento solar system and started my pirate career.
On August 31, I spotted a Kestrel in a belt and engaged it. I'll never forget the adrenaline rush of that first fight: my hands were shaking as I typed "gf" into local chat after getting beaten by the Caldari frigate. The loss did not frighten me and less than an hour later I scored my first kill, a Tristan class frigate. Ever since, I knew what my career in Eve would be.
Since that day, according to statistics, I have destroyed 740 ships worth 17.3 billion isk and lost 234 ships worth 4.1 billion isk.
A lot of things have changed within that year. I improved my skills and learned to fly assault ships, cruisers, battlecruisers and heavy assaults. I have moved to Amamake. I have joined and left Starbridge, a corporation where I had learnt a lot about various aspects of Eve. I then joined Pyrotechnics, a once active young pirate corporation which has since become much smaller. I have met and parted with a number of other pirates, joining forces for great kills and fun roams. I have acquired a wingmate skilled at the art of probing out ships in space. My security status has dropped to -10.0.
But some things remain the same. I still enjoy a good fight above anything. I still feel a wave of excitement as my ships comes out of warp next to a target. And I still think piracy is my job in Eve.

Fuck The Police!

Coming straight from my mailbox:

2009.07.07 17:56
Dear Sir/Madan,

Electus Matari has placed your corporation on its valid targets list (please see http://www.electusmatari.com/standings.cgi for the full list), due to your crimes in Republic space (namely, piracy).

The -5 standing means that our combat pilots are authorized to fire on ships of your organization without warning. It does not usually mean they will hunt you down.

If you need more information, or feel there has been a mistake, please feel free to contact me at any time.

Elsebeth Rhiannon
Electus Matari
Alliance diplomat

Don't Mess With Ashnazg

The past weekend has been good. I've killed a few cruisers on my own, then me and my friend caught a couple of Brutix class battlecruisers one by one when they were doing their missions. The pilots paid us a total of 45 million isk in ransom for their pods.
And, on top of it, yesterday I probed out a Dominix battleship at a mission site. I immediately alerted the guys in the Pyrotechnics channel and Ashnazg (who runs his own corporation) said he would be in Egghelende soon. In the meantime, I warped my Jaguar to the spot and put the tackle on the huge ship.
His drones did not bother me at first so I concentrated on the Dominix itself, but all my attempts to breach his defences were futile. Moreover, light drones started denting my passive tank and I switched my attention to them while inviting Ashnazg to join the party.
The Dominix pilot was spamming the local chat, calling me a twat and telling me to leave him alone since I wouldn't be able to destroy his ship. "My capacitor is stable," he boasted.
Things changed when Ash showed up in his Vexor. He quickly picked off the light drones that were bothering me and started working on the battleship. But even our combined assault wasn't enough. That is, until Ash turned on his neutralisers. "Cap stable?" he taunted the pilot in local.
With its cap drained, the Dominix could no longer tank us and soon exploded. The pilot was smart enough to warp out his pod quickly, but we were still happy as the loot drop appeared to be quite generous.
I'm really impressed by how efficiently Ash dealt with that ship and really happy we're on the same side. I must try to do the same with my Rupture but I'm afraid the Vexor is just stronger. And so is Ash.

UPD: Ash has provided a detailed account of the Dominix kill from his perspective here.

Mission Busting Tips

I thought I should share some of the lessons I've learnt while hunting down mission runners in Egghelende so there you go:
DO make sure your prober is cloaked at all times. His own probes can decloak him and when he warps to a mission deadspace he usually hits the acceleration gate which decloaks him as well.
DO NOT jump into mission sites with your prober unless his ship is also fit for tackling. Clouds present at many sites will decloak him.
DO scan mission sites before jumping there. Other pirates might have discovered them before you.
DO NOT jump into mission sites with all your gang at the same time. The fastest ship should go in and tackle the target as one ship has more chances to stay unnoticed.
DO remember that microwarp drives do not work inside mission deadspaces. So a traditional interceptor will not be a tackler of choice there.
DO NOT give up if your target warps out. Return to the mission gate and wait. Many pilots return to those sites within a few minutes.
DO a background check on your target before engaging. His mates might be nearby and aa skilled pilot might be able to dispatch you on his own.
DO NOT be greedy. Call for support when you see a tough target.
DO form a fleet with your prober before undocking so that you don't waste time or risk losing your ship.
DO NOT linger at safespots with your killer ship while probing. It's quite annoying to get probed out while probing out someone else.

Should I move to egghelende.blogspot.com?

Somehow I spend most of my time in Egghelende these days, although I do visit Amamake quite often to resupply or kill a ratter. Egg' seems to have fewer blobs and more carebears, although it's still a tough place for a solo pirate, a fact I've learnt the hard way.
So, for the the last month I've mostly flown in gangs that usually consisted of pilots from Pyrotechnics Inc, Mayhem Brothers (mostly Jyren's Rage) and Corpse Collection Point (namely Ashnazg). This has been a great experience and we've had lots of good fights. But now I'm back home with my family which means less playing time, very limited voice comms usage and going afk quite often.
In the last few days I've done some solo piracy, probing out and killing mission runners in Egg', like these guys in a Thorax and a Celestis. My Rupture seems to be the best ship for such kills as my favourite assault frigates are often not allowed through mission gates.
The problem is that any ship bigger than a cruiser usually draws attention of other pirates, especially the guys from Eternal Perseverance who often use battleships, HACs and other expensive ships. Yesterday, for example, I probed out a Rokh only to find it already warp scrambled by an EP Sleipnir.
I'm wondering if some day we could get together a fleet strong enough to take on those guys.

A Long Overdue Update

It's been a long time. My apologies, dear readers, for not writing: I have a habit of blogging at work and I've spent the last three weeks at a different office doing a bit more work.
But this also means I had more time to spend in New Eden on evenings and weekends, which I devoted to roaming with Pyrotechnics guys, Jyren's Rage and his Mayhem Brothers corpmates and a group of Russian players including Nart Apsua, Andrik R, Wolfed and others. Between these groups who in some occasions joined up in one fleet we had some really good kills including a Dominix, a number of battlecruisers and lots of smaller ships.
I have also scored a number solo kills, mainly mission-runners that I had probed out.
But I must say I really enjoy our small (and sometimes not so small) fleet operations. The only problem is we're all too reckless sometimes and I often lose rather expensive ships such as Wolves and Jaguars.
Another problem is comms: first, we don't have a voice facility that our mixed fleet can use; second, it's often made up of players who don't speak either English or Russian. I think I need my own vent server as it's easier to repeat voice commands in two languages than to type twice while also fighting.
That's it for now, I hope to be able to return to at least weekly updates from now on.

UPDATE: Got myself a Vent server now.

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!