Solo impressions

Daily business

For some time past I have been operating from my base in Metropolis. First I flew around in my Jaguar to make myself feel comfortable in the area. I made several bookmarks, both for scanning and retreating, and I tried to get as much information as possible about the local population. Three major parties are mainly to be found: New players who roam the borders of lowsec to kill rats at belts, mission runners both solo or in groups, and other pirates or pirate hunters. Pirates and pirate hunters (or anti pirates as they often call themselves) are hardly to be distinguished between however. Both tend to move in blobs, camping gates and killing everything that comes in range.

Those gate camps are a plague for the aspiring solo pirate! Often created at a highsec to lowsec gate they block off any potential new customer. I am sure most ratters or mission runners would prefer a personal treatment I could provide instead of the anonymous mass processing a gatecamp offers. Luckily some pilotes are smart enough to sneak around those blockades and enjoy their PVE activities while the lazy guys remain sitting at their gates.

While the Jaguar is great for scouting and shooting at inexperienced pilotes, this ship has some drawbacks. First of all it's lack of tank limits the amount of potential targets. I cannot attack at gates nor stations, else the senties would rip me a new one quickly. The dps is rather low also. Enough to kill other frigates and T1 cruisers, but hardly enough to engage bigger ships.


Size does matter!

So I went back to my base and hopped into a Hurricane battlecruiser. Fitted with a passive shield tank it is quite agile and with a good fitting, it is a very versatile ship.


Here is a list of some guys I met last week:

Ceetee Emess and Avil Ligotum were ratting in a Rupture and Caracal respectively. Avil called me names in local a few days before when I couldn't disrupt his warp drive fast enough with my Jaguar. This time however he couldn't escape.

Hoki Moonwolf was doing a mission. Unfortunately there isn't a probe launcher equipped on my Hurricane. Fortunately I had reinforcements close by!
Some quick scanning led me to his mission site, through two mission gates, and several dozen km from my warp-in point to his ship. Maybe doing missions is so exciting he wasn't able to look at the overview or it's so boring he was browsing a forum or reading a book. His Thrasher had some shiny modules but unfortunately most of the loot blew up with the ship.

Cattirbrie was also ratting in a Caracal. Obviously he was planning to stay in lowsec for a long time since he had several skillbooks in his cargo hold.

Gemba used an interesting fit on his Thrasher destroyer with mixed guns, a mixed tank and cargo and ship scanners. I wonder if he scanned the rats for loot before he killed them?

Tangodude had two Warp Core Stabilizers equipped on his Blackbird so he would have been able to escape in case of an attack. However, he never used them although it took me some time to maneuver my 'Cane around all those asteroids to get in range.

Skarr is also a pirate. He was part of a small gang that often roam Wiskeber and the surrounding systems. This time I met him solo in a Rifter though. I expected a trap but went in to have a look anyway, and a flight of Warrior II drones made short work of him. His mates arrived minutes later with a blob of 10+ ships but fortunately didn't bring a probe launcher.

Omd was idling a few km off a gate in an Iteron MK III. He had one unit of frozen food and one unit of Kernite in his cargo. Looking at his recent losses I wonder if he is a hauler bot with a broken script? I sold the Kernite and microwaved the food while looking for new customers.

CleverCougar was also idle 40km off a gate in an Imicus. Turned out he is a textile vendor of some kind, carrying several hundred units of polytextiles in his bay. Sitting 40km off a gate in lowsec isn't as clever as his name suggests though.


No impressive kills unfortunately. For some reason it looks like all solo pilots I meet are new players in T1 ships while all the older guys are only roaming lowsec in gangs. I'd like to fight something bigger like a battlecruiser or maybe even a battleship without a support fleet next door. But then again it's been a bit more than a week only.
So far it's a lot of fun!