Consecration

Final preparations

Reallife has been a bit busy lately, so I was eager to finally set up my base and blow something up. My trusted readers made me aware of several problems the pirate-to-be should think of, so I double checked my strategy:

Money
Piracy is a money sink. Experts might actually earn money by looting wrecks or ransoming customers, but a solo noob like me is likely to loose more isk than he earns. How do I fund my adventures?

-Fly cheap ships: Frigates, T1 cruisers, and battlecruisers are relatively cheap. I'll stick with those when flying solo until I am audacious enough to use their more expensive T2 counterparts.

-Wormholes: Some friends set up a pos in a wormhole system and they are killing sleepers regularly. Whenever an entrance to the system is within reach of my new home I can join them for easy cash.

-Missions: In case I really have to use him I have a mission runner alt ready to go.

Logistics
-To keep the supply of ships and modules up and running I have a freighter alt in training at the moment. In two weeks he'll be able to hop into a Providence. I will try and set up my base in range of one of the major trade hubs to keep flight times low.

"Seriously dude, that's way too complicated! Go and join a true pirate corp!"
-Nope. It will be tricky and there is a risk I'll totally mess it up but I'll go and try to be solo for some time. I am still in my corp so there is the corp chat for those lonely nights, but I will be far away from most of them for some weeks at least. I want to learn how much of a challenge it is to make allies and foes, deal with logistics, and fight on my own.
Me likes challenges! :)


Conquest of the promised land

With my hauler alt still in training, it took me some hours to move all equipment to my new base. Buying modules for half a dozen different ships is a pain. I always list all mods from EFT in a textfile, copy it to the ingame notepad, and start shopping but it's an annoying task. Why isn't there an option to buy all mods you need for a predefined ship setup at lowest price automatically?

Two battlecruisers, one heavy assault ship, four assault frigates, and a huge load of t2 drones, ammo, and cap boosters later I was ready to go. Undocking from "my" station in a 0.5 system in Metropolis I set course for the lowsec gate and began my quest for glory and plunder.



Lacking customers I jumped into the Heimatar region. The systems around Eifer used to be busy and full of targets last time I crossed them but tonight, fortune didn't smile on me. Some systems were empty, some full of macro haulers I couldn't take on with my Jaguar, and some were busy with large gangs. I zipped around, dodged a gate camp or two, scanned belt after belt but without success.
A few jumps later I entered Molden Heath. Teonusude and Oddelulf are highsec mission hubs and a lot of mission runners enter the bordering lowsec systems to do a mission or kill a few rats. Unfortunately not tonight. A battleship gang roamed the area and scared away most pilots. When I noticed the first flight of combat scanner probes aproaching my savespot, I decided to dock and call it a night.


First blood

The next morning I couldn't resist and logged in an hour before I had to go to work. Only a few pilotes were in local and none of them belonged to the same corp. Quickly I noticed a Thrasher on scan but when I tried to pin him down I realized he was way off any celestial object, probably in a mission. (Note to self: Go and buy a covops ship with a probe launcher next time you're in Rens!)
Cursing my bad luck I read some intel channels for a while, randomly scanning for targets when suddenly the Thrasher disappeared from scan. "Done with the mission, are we?" I muttered, but for some reason the pilot didn't leave the system. Rather bored I set my Jaguar in motion and entered the coordinates for another scanning spot.
Even before the warp bubble collapsed I had the Minmatar destroyer on scan again, this time in the direction of some asteroid belts. Usually I warp to a planet first to confirm the exact position of a victim but this time I had a feeling I should hurry. I quickly warped to the last belt in the system and only seconds later the Thrasher landed directly on top of me.

Granted, a young pilot in a destroyer isn't a particularly tough opponent but a kill is a kill. This poor guy has been the consecration of my new career. May there be many who follow him!