187 On A M*******cking Cap

It was a usual night in the Amamake area, Amamake itself was too blobby so my prober mate was scanning neighbouring systems in search of wormholes. After checking out a few empty ones, he found a hole in Siseide that led to "dangerous unknown space", meaning a high-class w-space system.
Jump in, hit the directional, WHAT? A Moros, a Thanatos and a Damnation on scan. It's not often that you see capitals in w-space, especially dreadnoughts, ships created with POS siege in mind.
My mate quickly jumped cloaked to a nearby planet and started narrowing down my scan to find the POS where those ships sat. But there were only Thanatos and Damnation there! THE MOROS WAS RUNNING A PLEX!
My prober jumped to a planet out of D-scan range and deployed core probes to pin down the Moros. There it was, killing Sleepers at a magnetometric plex, its enormous tank boosted even further by the Damnation at the POS (Thanatos was empty).
My wingmate bookmarked the plex and jumped back to Siseide while trying to arrange a gang in the Python public channel. He jumped into his rapier while I undocked my Hurricane, the shield tank variety which has more DPS than other fits. I didn't think tanking Moros would be much of a problem as even battleship turrets have problems tracking me.
In the meantime, my old partner in crime Jyren's Rage said he was game for it and started rallying more forces. My mate, sitting cloaked next to Moros, said he was finishing the plex so me and Jyren's jumped in to point the capital ship.
Jyren's was in a Curse and together we started eating away at Moros' cap while pounding it with turrets and drones. Our reinforcements started to trickle in: Armageddon, Megathron, Hyperion, another Curse. I think we had another battleship at some point which the Moros managed to kill with just a couple volleys.
Together, we were slowly breaking the dreadnought's tank, forcing him to go into siege mode to repair. He was releasing and recalling some drones but could not do any significant damage after everyone had assumed safe orbits.
This was taking a while: I had time for a trip to Amamake to get more ammo, other pilots even changed ships. Every time the dread entered siege we thought it was the last one but he then managed to do it again.
No one showed up at the field to help him as his mate apparently couldn't fly the Thanatos or didn't want to risk it.
Finally, the behemoth entered structure and its pilot accepted a convo request, starting ransom negotiations. When his structure integrity indicator dipped past 25 percent, we halted fire, awaiting a payment.
This was when his rescue team arrived: Apocalypse, Raven, Dominix, Scorpion, two Drakes, Harbinger, Hurricane, Phobos and a couple Loki. We reactivated out turrets and made sure the Moros died in a huge explosion.
We tried to fight back then but it was clear the field would be theirs. We nailed down a Loki before our ships either died (including my Cane) or managed to warp out.
Despite the losses, that was one hell of a good gank. Congratulations to myself on the first capital kill.

[OOC] With My Mind On My Money And My Money On My Mind

"Money over power, power over money, beeyatch!"
Warren G

Aspiring pirates are often concerned with the issue of financing their activities: they are afraid of losing more isk than they make and want to have alternative income sources. And experienced pilots have different viewpoints on how to finance their PVP habits. Some try to live by what they earn through ransom and loot, flying cheap insurable hulls, while others say it's more fun to fly expensive ships and add isk to their accounts by other means such as selling time codes, running missions and complexes, trading or research.
I myself have tried many options. In the beginning of my pirate career, I had tried to maintain a high enough security status to run missions in hisec: that was enough to finance my Rifter losses for quite some time.
But then missions started giving much less of a security status boost and I decided to try nullsec ratting instead. It didn't take me long to fail at it and lose a Raven to an Arazu and a Falcon. Screw it, I thought, and decided to train up alts for mission running and hauling while letting Nursultan's sec status drop.
Now, training a new character to fly battleships takes time and I started selling time codes to support my PVP losses in the meantime. As I moved on from Rifters to Wolves and Jaguars, I had to sell more and more GTCs to finance my losses. Fortunately, at about that time I managed to acquire (for free) another character which was very easy to train for a prober. This has greatly increased the range of targets available to me and allowed me to have better intel before engaging in combat.
However, I still needed isk and continued selling time codes. Finally, in late May, once I skilled up to fly Tech 1 cruisers, I decided I'd try to finance myself without real life cash. I started picking fights more carefully, ransomed as much as possible and also began running 2/10 plexes (which themselves often provided opportunities to kill stuff).
Slowly but steadily my wealth started building up. After this kill, my isk balance jumped to about 1.5 billion - up from about 400 million I had at the moment I decided to stop selling GTCs.
With so much money, I once again started engaging in riskier fights using more expensive ships and, after the loss of a couple Vagabonds and my alt's Rapier, my overal wealth dipped below the 1 billion mark.
Once again I restricted myself to flying insurable Tech 1 hulls, cutting losses to a minimum and looking for ways to replenish my balance. I also doubled my wormhole exploration efforts, diving deeper into unknown space in search of targets or exits into other pockets of low- or nullsec.
Yesterday, I scanned down a wormhole in Siseide, which was empty but small making further probing convenient. Soon, I found an exit into a lowsec system, Ohkunen. The system was empty save for a few people who were either docked or inside a 2/10 Guristas plex. I jumped to the neighbouring system, Obe, which had a nullsec entrance gate. With nothing on scan in Obe, I decided to scout P3EN-E and stumbled upon a Dread Guristas cruiser in one of the belts.
I quickly brought Nursultan over in a Jaguar, killed the cruiser and picked up a Low-Grade Crystal Epsilon implant worth 125 million in Jita.
Not bad, I thought, making my way back through Ohkunen, when another Jaguar appeared on scan. I warped to the plex hoping to find it there but activated the gate just as it appeared in front of me. Still, there was a chance the pilot would follow so I sat at the warp-in point waiting. The Jag did jump and was game for a duel. Unfortunately for him, my setup proved to be better suited for the fight (he had an anti-Guristas tank). This is even better, I thought, scooping up the loot which included a Dread Guristas Warp Scrambler.
Hours later, I decided to check the same wormhole system again. A readout from my directional scanner contained just one line: Vargur. OMGWTFBBQ11111111, I thought as my launcher spat out four combat scanner probes. Check the scanner again, it's still here. Nurs, board something that can break his tank! 8AU, 4AU, 2AU, 100%! Let's get it.
I landed 30 kilometres away from the Minmatar marauder, a Tech 2 battleship designed to withstand heavy fire and loot the dead enemies on the spot. Overloading my midslots, I rushed towards the Vargur and pointed it. Activating my guns, I started a private conversation with its pilot and asked for 1 billion in ransom. "I don't have that much," he replied. Bad luck (for him).
But the fight was not an easy one. Although Vargur's large artillery cannons could not track my battlecruiser, bloody Sleepers had decided I was also a threat (haven't killed a single Sleeper in my whole life, honestly). My shield and armour were being destroyed almost at the same rate as Vargur's shield. I overloaded my guns when his shield approached 30 percent and successfully broke through the top regeneration point but my own armour was approaching zero.
Somewhere at about that time, the Vargur pilot said "Please let me go for 400 million". Sorry mate, too late, I thought - can't wait for the payment under Sleeper fire. Plus 400 million is really not enough for a ship whose hull alone costs twice as much.
Finally, as my hull integrity dropped below 10 percent, the Vargur blew up. I let the panic take over me and warped out without scooping the loot. However, as I brought my prober to the wreck it got decloaked and barely managed to escape heavy Sleeper fire. One last time, I told my beaten up Hurricane, sending it back to the site. Just in time - a Helios covert ops frigate was approaching the juicy wreck but left as soon as I started targeting it. I grabbed the loot and warped to the exit.
Only then did I look at my cargohold and the killmail and realised the Vargur had dropped a 500-million isk (don't believe killboards) Pith A-Type X-Large shield booster.
Phew, I think I have some isk to spend now.

We Do Love Them Holes

Egghelende was slow this morning so my prober mate decided to look for wormholes and soon found one leading to w-space. The entrance was clear on both sides so he warped closer to the main cluster of celestials and started scanning. There were a number of mining and industrial ships on scan as well as a few combat ships and several POS towers.
He dropped probes and started looking for ships that were not at towers. Pretty soon he located a couple of hulks and a retriever at a gravimetric site. He warped to them at a safe distance and started approaching while I was making my way to the system. Unfortunately, his covert ops ship got decloaked by an asteroid and the miners quickly left.
They also decided to protect the entrance the intruder had used and sent a Broadsword class heavy interdictor there.
My mate stayed to see if the miners would come back, probing out other signatures in the system in the meantime. The miners did not return, but the Broadsword was replaced by a large bubble and a Navy Issue Raven! Unfortunately, it disappeared before I could figure out how to deal with it -- and potential support -- on my own.
Just about that time Jyren's Rage brought a gang of corpmates to Egghelende and invited me to join. A few minutes later, I saw the CNR pilot's name in the local comms channel and alerted the fleet. He disappeared from he local quickly but only to show up on the other side of the wormhole where my invisible prober mate was still sitting.
I boarded my Jaguar and warped to the wormhole entrance and waited for others. Just when Jyren's and two of his mates landed, the CNR jumped back into Egghelende and fired a round at me before reentering the wormhole. My fleetmates quickly followed him and Jyren's reported a point.
Two cruisers and two assault ships started circling the Raven tearing its shields with drones, blasters and autocannons. I expected him to call for support (saw a Vagabond and a Drake in that system earlier) but there was none. It quickly became clear that the faction battleship was losing this battle and an explosion soon followed.
I was already pretty excited by the juicy kill when Jyren's, who had grabbed the loot, said "He had Caldari Navy Invulnerability Fields. And a Ballistic Control".
ZOMGWTBBQ!!!
While heading back, we calculated that our loot was worth about 900 million, or 225 million for each of us. Gotta make sure it reaches the market safely.