Scop's Log

Suddenly Giveaway - No. 2

2010-12-29T01:37:00.002+01:00

Just a quick post because I am on vacation. The 2nd Suddenly Ninjas Giveaway is close by. On Wednesday, Dec 29. 18:30 eve-time there will be a free ship again, possibly in Amarr space. Read Aiden's blog for details, and join "suddenlygiveaway" an hour before the event starts for details.

Good luck! And remember: TEARS does not always stand for unfair tricks!

Suddenly Giveaway - No. 1 (updated)

2010-12-20T21:54:00.006+01:00

The first of our series of live events "Suddenly Giveaway" will take place on Dec 21st. at 17:30 EVE time somewhere in Jita. One lucky pilot will receive a free ship! If you are interested you better join the "suddenlygiveaway" ingame channel at least an hour early, and you better start training Caldari battleships, just in case...

UPDATE

The first giveaway is over. ZENO116 is now the lucky owner of a Scorpion battleship, along with everything he needs for a nice christmas party like some spiced wine, tobacco, and a damsel (among other things Aiden had in his hangar). This lady alone is worth 20million (or more) on contracts should he ever decide to sell her. Slightly more than 20 people showed up in our giveaway channel "suddenlygiveaway", but many suspected a trap and didn't dare to join.

The prize

The first participants show up. They have to catch the ship in a pod and try to board it as soon as Aiden ejects.

The winner. Congratulations man!

Suddenly Giveaway

2010-12-17T11:43:00.006+01:00

Wow, it has been some time since my last update. First of all I'd like to give a shout-out to Garheade and Chainer Cygnus from the EVE Commune podcast. They mentioned my latest entry because of the conversation with SEA Elder1 some time ago. Well, the story about this guy is STILL not over yet. Ninjas are persistent. Because a lot of people asked for it I am going to update the whole story once we are done with him.
EVE-Commune is a very interesting podcast about EVE blogs, and Garheade and Chainer are doing a great job on keeping their listeners up-to-date about what's going on in the blogosphere.

What really keeps my fellow directors and me busy is a lot of paperwork behind the scenes. There might be some radical changes for TEARS on the horizon (hint: it might have something to do with Incursions), and major changes to the forums, a new website, and new alliance logo need attention. Hopefully we're done with it some time during January and I can focus more on actually playing the game.

But wait, there are some ingame activities, too. Suddenly Ninjas Live Events! In order to advertise our alliance (we might need new pilots next year), and to stroke our e-peens we are going to give away FREE SHIPS. Our CEO Aiden goes into detail about how it works in his blog, and in the EVE-O forum.

That's it for now. Short entry is short. Expect more about our Live Events soon!

Making friends

2010-10-26T17:17:00.007+02:00

TEARS is really booming lately. From an almost pure salvaging collective we broadened our horizon and are now involved in almost all things criminal in New Eden. And we receive feedback from many more or less happy customers.

Credit for this evemail goes to ninja April Rainier

jerking off
From: SEA Elder1
Sent: 2010.10.25 01:34

hi
was kiled by amember of ur corp
offered bogger off
enjoyed it kiling weak
were smal so
but i offered him til tom twelve a 2000 men alliance
.even this he didnt agree o..

wot i want is 130 mill for the ship i lost
and the stuff he stole- AFTER i said him
all over
please gimme a notice of how u usually deal with those _'issues'
alliance will war deck u 3month
if one of us is offended or even attacked 6 months

last offer to april rainer was tomorrow 12

i wait

Uh, this is serious. Luckily fellow director JordanParey is very good at adapting to other peoples thinking and speech.

Re: FW: jerking off
From: JordanParey
Sent: 2010.10.25 05:28

hi
u offer tomorrow twelve a 2000 men alliance wardeck
to April Rainier for poppin ship
130m rite?
we dont have 130m give to you or stuff stolen
have luck find other corp with isk

find other corp take money and wardeck with alliance
we ar all no isk

i wait your reply

JordanParey
Suddenly Ninjas Director

-----

pain of having idiotic corp members
From: SEA Elder1
Sent: 2010.10.25 11:57

i have a friend running an alliance with 28 corps

ur corpy behaved like an idiot iv already talked to a friend im thinking of paying him 350 mill toa 3months war declaration
wot u goin to loose is surely more money than 350. they wld see it as alliance war training he said.
think u wld loose more than 350 as well if they attack u.
1 positive thing is that u communicated normally. in contary to rainier

so u gave u a chance and me to think abouts it

he stole the things of my wreck even thats the minimum to get those things back to me if u have no isk as u said

So giving back the stolen things and a reasonable offer from ur side to rethink abouts it. as i lost 3 expensive rig
stolen things and half a megathron are ok for me this isk u have as 225 men corp.

the decision making process in this alliance if their gonna war deck u for 350 is going on already
so react quick as possible please each offence or attack to me or one of my corp members will be another 3months war deck i offered rainier and u hereby

stolen things back as gauss guns and mediation repairer and a raw megathron is beond ur argumentation of having no isk cos the war will cost u surely more react quick !

sea 1

-----

Re: pain of having idiotic corp members
From: JordanParey
Sent: 2010.10.26 07:28

pls not wardeck we poor is why we steal an lootsalvage
you pay 350mil for 130mil ship you have more money we not rich no buy ships
we can make rig tho tell me which one?

i donno corpman still has stole things he try buy new freggate ship today.
i not make promis i maybes not able keep. also sorry for type my english not so good i from small town lithuania
isee if i finmise i maybes not able keep

To be continued...

The next one comes from fellow ninja EpicZA. One day he and a friend were bored so they decided to go to a wormhole and yoink some things. Like a POS, fully faction fitted T3 ships, things like that. The former owner, however, is not amused:

Z > so after im done making every single person you know IRL rage quit, im going to come after you
Z > you can make it all stop, give me back everything you took
Z > otherwise, gibbo, cc, caba, tubmels, they are going to suffer for your actions
Z > then im going to come after you
Z > cc is about to loose his toon, you can see the war dec
Z > you think hes going to take that ligightly cause I dont
Z > enjoy your real life when folks in your home town are pissed at you over a video game
Z > :)
> haha dam you really are pissed hey
Z > nope mate, im not pissed at all
> well by taking it out on people who had nothing to do with?
> that sounds over the top
Z > no matty see that is justice, im going to mkae you hurt
Z > then im going to make you quit
> you got screwed over in a game which is revolved around screwing people over and you clearly cant take it
Z> I told you I was a bad person and I am, and the people who would stop me they are mad enough to let me do it
> how do you think the guy felt about losing his pos
Z> no matty im going to screw you over
Z> yea matty, but I trusted you and that's the diffrence
Z> you weret an enemy and now you are
Z> you have 6 billion worht of shit
Z> simple word matty, betrayal
> im not going to measure my e-penis with you Z, shit happens.
> in a game that is all about betrayal????
Z> not epeen matty
Z> you had the first guy today show up at your house, PISSED
Z> you think hes going to be the last
Z > hope it was worth it
> yeah i did
Z> how many folks do I know in your home town
> the fact that you involved a game with my personal life is sad
Z> have fun getting a pizza when the guy next to you in angry about a vedio game
Z> hey matty did ya thing I was going to let you go
Z> cc suffrered
Z> who's next matty
Z> remember matty its just a game
> i know it is
> so havent you taken it a bit far
Z> when all your mates rage quit because of you, because you fucked up, one by one----
Z> when they suffer because of you
Z> enjjoy
Z> then im going to come after you
Z> keep you camped in station
Z> then your mate epic, his tears iwill be the best
Z> already got the first pod of many to come
Z> look at your corp history and then go look at the directors corp history
> and then?
> wet myself?
Z> no < > there are a lot of folks comming after you
Z> after your mates are done quitting first
> i guess you better hit those L4's then
Z> please CC just gave me 2 billion to hunt you down with
Z> I dont need isk,
Z> see matty MAFIA, you know what that means already dont you :)
> yeah :) it got you pretty good?

If you are in a big 0.0 alliance, this is your time to expand. Because, you know, your neighbour alliances are most likely on the move to highsec right now, hunting ninjas...

Corp infiltration and hostile takeover - a report (part III)

2010-09-26T18:48:00.003+02:00

This is part III of my little infiltration report. Part I can be found here and part II here.

Unfortunately all the other directors, albeit not allowed to vote, keep their roles. This means they can edit members' roles, keep an eye on the corp wallet, and try everything to make your heist as complicated as possible. One guy initiated another vote to create 10000 new shares for the corp. Luckily I was the only shareholder so I clicked "no". There was also a corpmail in the mailbox:

Corp Infiltrated, hostile takeover initiated
From: X
Sent: 2010.09.19 10:23
To: XXX-corp

Dear members,

Tonight our corp has been annexed.

They emptied our corp wallet and the corp hangars, and to make things even worse all shares have been claimed by the enemy. A new CEO has been elected, and our CEO lost all his permissions. The operation has been planned by "Suddenly Ninjas" and executed by our traitor-friend (my alt) who now runs for CEO. The corp leadership is working on a solution. The corp tax has been set to 0%. Please be careful. I urge you to keep in touch with us via teamspeak and the forum.

Information regarding the enemy can be found in the intel section of our forum.

Of course they banned my forum account, so I bet on stupid and simply registered a new one. Accounts on their forum need manual processing by an admin, so I had to wait.

A few minutes before the 24 hours run-for-ceo-vote ran out I logged in and waited. The voting finished, and I learned the hard way it takes up to another hour for the result to be processed. At this time it was 3:30am local time. Three hours before the wife would get up. Oh well..
An hour later I finally received the results of the vote. 100% of all shareholders voted for me. Heh, what a surprise! =) I started to remove roles from directors and members but somehow the wife woke up and gave me "the look". 4:30 in the morning in the middle of the week. I did what every criminal mastermind would have done. I went to bed.

The next morning (well, 2 hours later) I was back at my screen and checked what was going on. For some reason I was CEO, but wasn't able to use any roles anymore. No wallet access (it was empty anyway), no roles management, nothing. I figured the other directors might have used a trick to remove access for me so I wrote a petition. One day later some GM told me it takes up to two downtimes to fix all roles after changing a CEO. I know I had full access when I received the result of the vote though so for some reason logging off and back on messed it up. But victory was mine anyway. XXX-corp disbanded:

The corporation leadership has made a decision.

XXX-Corp will not submit to the enemy's attempted extortion. The leadership today officially announced the abandonment of XXX-corp.
All members who were online yesterday were shocked because of the bold takeover. We decided to leave the corporation and join a new one called ZZZ-corp. We'll try to help each other with the move to Sankkasen, our new home in Caldari space.

The corporation leadership is working on new security concepts to prevent hostile takeovers in the future. Furthermore new security policies will be implemented in our security systems to make espionage impossible.

Greetings,
X

New security systems, eh? I checked the forum account I registered at their forum a few hours ago, turned out someone accepted it without checking, and my forum name is not linked to any EVE character at all...

By now most members had left the corp or had become inactive. Some people, however, seemed to ignore ingame mails. Oh, by the way: Do you need a nice source of passive income?

1. Sneak into a corp and run for CEO
2. Wait for the smart guys to ragequit
3. Set taxes to 100%
4. Plunder the corp wallet once a day while those who never read their ingame mail go on with their missions.

I am now logging in once a day to clear the corp wallet. So far I took another 42 million ISK from 5 people running missions who didn't notice the member list had dropped from 39 to 6, and who totally ignored 5 corpmails with warnings and notifications because of the corp theft and tax changes. Don't they even notice they don't get any payment for their work?

It took me three freighter runs to move assets to the next trade hub. There was a lot of t1 junk and a pile of worthless blueprint copies, but so far I have earned 1,8 billion ISK and some sell orders are still up.
Yesterday I removed roles from the remaining members, and I kicked them today and closed the corp. There are a lot of other people out there in need of a capable director.

Corp infiltration and hostile takeover - a report (part II)

2010-09-25T17:00:00.004+02:00

This is part II of my little infiltration report. Part I can be found here.

As soon as they let me in they invited me to their teamspeak server. Before you join voice comms during an infiltration you need to make some preparations. I registered a new email address for my alt, made up a new real life name for me, with a fake address, a fake job, age, hobbies, etc. You need to be able to answer quickly without thinking when they ask you about your name, or where you live. I prepared everything in advance, and I also had a textfile to store as much information as possible. When do these people get up, when do they go to bed? What ships do they fly? What are their plans? At this point I didn't know whether I should try and steal as much as possible, or try to lure them into a war with TEARS so every bit of information might have been useful.
Soon I learned they wanted to set up a POS in Amarr highsec so they mainly farmed missions to gain standings. Some people had negative Amarr standing though, this would take quite a while. Oh dear. Then I checked their corporate configuration and suddenly I knew I had made a good choice:

-Members had access to some hangars with less valuable ships and modules.
-Directors had full access to everything. Hangars, corp wallet, shares, ... Shares? Yes, the CEO hadn't claimed the shares yet although almost every corporation guide tells you in BIG RED LETTERS to do so as soon as you set up your corp if you ever want to hand out wallet access to other people. The one who owns the shares owns the corp. He can do everything.

In order to get director roles I had to suffer a few days of boredom. I ran missions to farm standings with the Imperial Navy, and whenever a corpmate asked for help I helped. Need hauling? I'll come. Need help in a mission? I'll come. Fortunately I managed to dodge their mining ops with good excuses.

Some days passed and I sent their CEO a mail:

Need help?
From: (my alt)
Sent: 2010.09.14 16:43
To: (their CEO)
Hi,

in the meantime I've settled down nicely and teamed up with a lot of members regularly. Like in many online games before I'd love to do more. I like organizing, and I like to help building this corp. I have led a successful guild in another online game before, I am good at settling disputes, and I like helping new players.
I know I am new, but I'd like to offer my help nonetheless. If there is anything you need help with, let me know.

Thank you,
(my alt)

Half an hour later I was in a private chat with the CEO. I told him I had a lot of ingame knowledge, knew how to set up a POS, had lived in 0.0 for some time (note: my alt had been in an NPC corp ever since I created him), ... it took mere minutes to convince him I'd be a good director, so he promoted me. After one week I had full access to everything in the corp.

My new role wasn't for free though. The CEO wanted his directors to be active. The mining directors organized mining ops often, the event manager set up corp mission runnings, and the CEO wanted me to teach new players how to PVP. I had already spent one week with these guys, I had to listen to their terrible chatter on teamspeak every day. No chance I'd be able to wait for them to gain the required standing to set up their POS. During several late night private chats with the CEO I learned about problems between some members. One old member wanted to speed things up to get the POS as soon as possible, some new guys didn't want to spend money on it at all, and many blamed the CEO so I knew he was under high pressure.
Perfect! When he bought an Orca with fittings in Jita and asked for someone to haul it to Domain my time had come. I introduced to him my neutral freighter/logistics alt (who shows up on several killmails in fleets with ninjas on various killboards) and he contracted everything. Without collateral. I told him I'd move it the next morning before downtime and waited until everyone went to bed.As soon as the last guy had logged off I took everything from the corp hangars and the ISK from the corp wallets. Unfortunately the CEO used to take spare money from the corp and stored it on an alt's wallet every other day so there were only a few hundred million in ISK. I checked corporation assets->deliveries and found a few mining ships belonging to other players and took them, too. Then I took all shares from the corp wallet and hit the "Run for CEO" button. At the same time Scopique sent a mail to some directors and the CEO:

Ransom offer
From: Scopique
Sent: 2010.09.19 01:29
To: (their CEO)

Dear members of XXX-corp,

we here at Suddenly Ninjas appreciate your friendly donations. On behalf of my friends I'd like to say thank you for the ISK from your corp wallet, ISK from some of your members who were so kind and lent us money, for an Orca, and for all the junk from your hangars. While it's not that much really, it's enough to cover the expenses, and to have free ships for a month or so.

We're holding all shares of XXX-corp so we are in control of your corp now. Tomorrow one of our employees will take over from (their CEO) as CEO. You could all leave your corporation and create a new one. As an alternative I'll offer you to buy back all the shares for a mere 200million ISK to regain control. We will honour this ransom. If you do not pay within 24 hours (Monday, 01:27am EVE-time), XXX-corp will be closed.

We have an intel report here. According to it there are some tensions among members within your corporation. Only a chosen few of your leaders received our message so far. If we make it public, and if your members notice they lost money due to your failure to keep this corporation save they might decide to leave, your reputation will suffer, and XXX-corp might break apart. However, if you pay the ransom of 200 million ISK within 24 hours (Monday, 01:27am EVE-time) you will regain control of your corporation, we'll leave you alone and no one will notice what happened.

Payment is to be made to my personal account, not to the Suddenly Ninjas corp wallet.

Don't bother talking to (my alt), he won't be able to answer your calls. However, in case there are any questions feel free to drop me a line.

-Scopique

Suddenly Ninjas
TEARS-Alliance

The "Run for CEO" button removes all powers from the CEO so he won't be able to kick you. It creates a shareholder vote for 24 hours, and everyone who owns shares of the corporation is allowed to vote. It also sends a mail to all members of the corporation. When setting up a vote like this, do not forget to actually vote "yes" or "no".
Because I couldn't cause much more harm I logged off for the night.

To be continued...

Corp infiltration and hostile takeover - a report (part I)

2010-09-24T18:20:00.004+02:00

I made up my mind about infiltrating another corporation some time ago. I needed a break from stealing people's stuff in missions so I wanted to try something new. Sneaking into another corp, making friends, searching their forums and corporation configuration for weak spots, and figuring out how to abuse it was a challenge. Also it's very ninja-esque!

After spending a few hours in various ingame recruitment channels and forums I found a target. A small missionrunning/industrial corp with 30-odd members. Team-oriented and laid back atmosphere, looking for mission runners, miners, haulers, traders, producers, and PVP pilots. And a huge wall of text in their corp description about how nice they are, how much they like teaching new players, and how they want their players to be loyal and honest.

I figured being a kleptomaniac ninja makes me fit in perfectly so I sent their CEO a mail:

Your advertisement
From: (my alt)
Sent: 2010.09.07 18:33
To: (their ceo)

Hi,

I noticed your ad. The description sounds very interesting. I mainly did mission so far but I'd like to broaden my horizon. I haven't dealt with industry yet but I am willing to learn. I am very good at scanning.

Some questions:
-What kind of missions do you fly? (EDIT: Need to know if my alt fits in)
-What kind of PVP do you do? (EDIT: Experienced pvp pilots or scared carebears? I also checked different killboards and found almost nothing.)
-Is it possible to contribute with ideas and suggestions? (EDIT: The more they like new ideas, the more likely they'll give me roles soon)
-I like teamwork so I'd like to join other players often. (EDIT: Much teamwork means meeting many players quickly. Easier to gain trust)
-Is there a public chat so we get to know each other? (EDIT: Check their members' age, see what they talk about, how active they are, etc.)

Thanks a lot, hope to see you soon,
(my alt)

A few minutes later I received a private chat invite from their diplomat. A real girl called Anne as it turned out. She answered all my questions, invited me to their public chat, and after I dallied a bit with her she told me to hand in an ingame application. "No, we don't want any API info. You're very likeable, I have a good feeling. You'll have a good time with us!" - "Yes, I think I'll fit in nicely. You'll come to like me!"

Tee-hee! =)

To be continued...

Karma

2010-08-13T22:30:00.003+02:00

I warped into Kel'en's mission but before I was able to loot anything he started shooting his own wrecks and calling me names in local. Then he jumped through the gate into the next room of his mission. I left, thinking I'd wait a few minutes for him to produce some new wrecks first. When I came back five minutes later I saw this:

Bad Karma? I could't resist and left a can for him, then I looted his stuff.

Of ransoms and bad luck

2010-08-13T22:18:00.005+02:00

I haven't been to amarrian space for ages so I decided to pack my stuff and go on a roam through Domain. My very first newbie toon was an Amarr so going there is almost like coming home. Systems like Ashab, Youl, Penirgman, and so on remind me on my early attemts on can-flipping and running starter missions. Clueless as I was in my very first frigate even some level 1 missions were tricky.

Arriving at my first waypoint, Chaven, I started scanning a bit and found a Paladin Marauder in a mission. A quick ship scan revealed this:

Jackpot? I looted a few small wrecks and this guy locked me and opened fire. It is quite hard to get aggro from Marauders. These beasts are so expensive, and they have everything they need to loot and salvage while they go, so the pilots either don't shoot, or there are no wrecks to loot and salvage for the ninja. Anyway, he shot and off I warped to get some bigger ship.

When I got back to the mission gate, the directional scanner indicated the missionrunner left his mission. I was pondering what to do when all of a sudden he came back out of nowhere and bumped into the gate right next to me. I quickly engaged and went into a close orbit.
Just to be safe I also asked a friend in a logistic ship to come and provide repairs, but as it turned out the battleship's guns didn't manage to track me anyway. He launched a flight of medium ECM drones, but luckily they never managed to jam me until my own drones killed all of them.

I was slowly grinding through the Paladin's heavy armor tank when all of a sudden one of his alliance mates showed up. This guy was not allowed to shoot me, but he started to repair his trapped friend's ship. With remote shield repairs.
Had he used remote armor repair modules I would have had a hard time dealing enough damage. When the Marauder entered structure the enemy pilot tried to start a conversation, but with all those faction and deadspace modules right under my nose I didn't want to talk! In a shiny ball of fire his ship exploded, and I quickly set my disruptor on his friend and shot his repair cruiser as well.
Then I looted the wreck and found... almost nothing. Checking the killmail I noticed the guy in the repair ship looted the most valuable loot from the Marauder (worth several hundred million) and everything he took was destroyed when I blew up his repair cruiser.

Talk about bad luck. I am sure had I accepted his chat request earlier I could have negotiated a ransom.

The next day I met another trigger happy missionrunner. He was doing a mission in an Apocalypse battleship and when he blew up the structure with the mission objective I quickly zoomed to the can and looted it. It didn't take long until the battleship locked me and opened fire. Here is the conversation in local:

TheSoulOfTheSith > why did u steal it?
TheSoulOfTheSith > u want isk?
Scopique > it was just some random loot, wasn't it?
TheSoulOfTheSith > ni i needed to complete the mission i was on
TheSoulOfTheSith > no*
TheSoulOfTheSith > so are you gonna give it back?
Scopique > oh, damn, i didn't even know that sorry :)
TheSoulOfTheSith > ah, so could we meet in an astroid belt and you give it back?
Scopique > i ejected it at your mission gate, sorry again
TheSoulOfTheSith > ah ok

Heh, you guessed it right?

TheSoulOfTheSith > douche
TheSoulOfTheSith > wtf
TheSoulOfTheSith > i give u isk
Scopique > 50 mil 30 sec
TheSoulOfTheSith > there
TheSoulOfTheSith > stop plz
Scopique > here you go
dukeinator > scopique give soul the item back for free or ill make u
Scopique > i really ejected the mission item at his gate
Scopique > i keep my word after all

I often forget to ask for a ransom, but it's easy money indeed. Loot from t2 fit battleships isn't that good most of the time and I don't even need to bother with hauling and selling the stuff.

A bit later it worked again, this time even faster:

Scopique > 50 mil and i go
Scopique > 30 sec
Alhor'Ek'Tabar > fine
Scopique > ok, here you go

This guy was so cool when he paid and I turned off my warp disruptor he didn't leave but went on with his mission as if nothing happened. I know many pirates and also ninjas do not honor ransom but kill the ships anyway but I prefer it like this. Maybe I can work on a reputation. If they are willing to pay, then they may leave or go on with what they do.

In corp chat:

Schmetterflug > Do you let them live after they payed u?
Scopique > yes. i am the nice guy :)
Saint Lucifer > wierdo

Nice try

2010-08-13T21:40:00.003+02:00

Recently in a random local:

Drake Saamdur > I am a single father and my daughter has decided to live her life as a man. I am paying for her breast reduction surgery but this has put me short of money. Please send ISK so I can afford a PLEX. Thanks.

Well, at least he tried. Comment of a corpmate when I linked it in our chat:

waagstrom > I was in a guild with a tranny about 2 years ago
waagstrom > he was posting pics of his new tits on the guild forums
waagstrom > shit was gross but sorta hot

What did she do to deserve this?

2010-08-07T00:44:00.006+02:00

Do ships have a soul? Do they like it when you treat them well and do they return the favor by protecting you from the dangers of space?
If so, this poor Raven Navy Issue is probably sobbing it's heart out. What did this ship do to deserve such a fate?

A mining CNR? Seriously?

Go to lowsec! Coward!

2010-08-06T11:20:00.005+02:00

From the EVE-O-forums:

Ok, I've had it with this game! I don't know anything about PVP because I don't WANT to know anything about it. A short time ago I was running a mission in a high security area, minding my own business and salvaging my wrecks when I suddenly noticed a red flashing ship and reflexivly lock target and attack, only to realize its another player who it turned out had purposely scanned me down to my mission area and looted one of my wrecks which turned them "red" to me, which I knew nothing about before as, mentioned already, I know nothing about PVP (or its tactics) and don't want to know.

I fully support other people's choice to enjoy PVP (with others who want the same) but I also expect the same support for my own choice not to engage in it. I had thought that down the road I may get into it , but just not yet. And if any missions took me into LoSec space, I'd be willing but would actually equip my ship to take into account possible gankers where I might at least be able to warp out if needed.

But in a High Security mission area, I had no such equipped ship nor was anything dealing with PVP even on my mind when this coward that is too afraid to go to LoSec space to PVP but instead hunts in HiSec mission areas for unprepared and unsuspecting players who don't understand what the hells going on till its too late and their millions of isk worth of tech II gear and battle cruiser have been trapped and vaporized and looted.

I realize this game is geared towards PVP but people like that punk shouldn't be able to access others mission areas to bring their PVP attempts against others who want nothing to do with it. The very way they went about it shows they were knew the players in the areas they were hunting would not be equipped nor prepared nor willing to PVP with them knowingly.

Instead, they were too chicken-crap to go to areas others would take them on willingly or to places that at least people who entered them were aware of the chance for PVP.

In any case, I've got a load of frigates, cruisers and a strip miner plus millions of isk and other tech II gear thats just going to rot because quite frankly I've had enogh with the way some of the players in this game act and the way the devs leave the game designed so they can get away with it.

I know the lack of my monthly payments won't matter to CCP but I can only assume there have been, and will continue to be, others who feel the same as I do and maybe one day enough will say the hell with it to actually make CCP take notice and actually get some changes made but, until then, in the immortal words of Eric Cartman...."Screw You Guys, I'm Going Home!"

This is something we're reading quite often. "Go to lowsec or 0.0 coward!"
Not only is it more fun and often more profitable, what those highsec bears fail to realize "piracy" means fighting and stealing from people who do not want to fight in the first place. It's not a warcraft battleground where people who want to fight meet and shoot each other. At least for me "piracy" and being a villain means stealing as much valuables with as little risk as possible. Did you ever watch a pirate movie where the pirate captain didn't engage the fat galleon full of gold but sent a letter to the navy instead, asking for a fair fight "tomorrow morning at sunset?"

We are criminals for god's sake, not pvp addicts looking for fair duels.

Thank you Felicity Doomsayer for the find.

Wrath of the Battlevigil

2010-06-17T15:08:00.012+02:00

Some time ago I wrote about the Vigil and how great it is as a cheap fast salvage boat.
This post is also about the Vigil, but one with teeth. Say hello to the Battlevigil.

While browsing the SHC boards I stumbled upon a post by Prometheus Exenthal. Prometheus is known for his awesome frigate videos and if you don't know them yet, you should really go watch them here.
His Vigil fitting inspired me to modify it a bit for high-sec shenanigans. If you are in a Rifter, Tristan, or maybe a Merlin people expect you to be somehow experienced at pvp. But no one but a clueless noob would engage in a Vigil, right? This ship is an aggro magnet.

The setup is like this:

[Vigil, battlevigil]
Damage Control II
Micro Auxiliary Power Core I
Micro Auxiliary Power Core I

1MN Afterburner II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Medium Shield Extender II

Dual Light Pulse Laser II, Scorch S
Dual Light Pulse Laser II, Scorch S
OE-5200 Rocket Launcher, Caldari Navy Gremlin Rocket

Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Small Core Defence Field Extender I
Small Core Defence Field Extender I

Hobgoblin II x1

78 dps at 10km, 1435m/s, 5252 effective hitpoints, and a 21dps passive shield recharge while being cap stable.

While the stats don't look very promising, the Vigil is almost impossible to hit by drones or bigger guns, and thanks to the range of it's weapons it is easy to overheat the afterburner and get out when things go south.

Here are some examples from a long list of fights:
This was the first fight. When I picked up some of this guy's ore he docked his mining ship and came back in a Drake. Oh dear. A long fight but nice training. Orbiting at 7km I was able to almost tank his damage while taking out his drones. His tank was tough although I was surprised I managed to get him below 50% shields at all. I burned out my afterburner so I had to run at some point. When I docked at the station I noticed there wasn't a repair shop. Fortunately they sold new afterburners here so I trashed the old one, bought a few new modules, and undocked again. Turned out the Drake also docked and bought new drones. When I came back to the belt we met again.
This time I managed to mitigate his damage better. While tackling him in a comfortable orbit I logged in my Orca alt on a new client, jumped the Orca several systems to the fight, and swapped ships to finish him off.

Here I was chilling in a belt while eating a pizza. This guy in his Heavy Interdictor warped in, bumped little me, and dropped a can while targeting me. We exchanged some pew pew while the Orca warped in, I hopped into the trusty Hurricane and he went down in flames quickly. Turned out it was the first HIC he ever bought, he just wanted to test it's tank. Oh well...

This was also an interesting encounter. This guy was mining with his Hulk while chatting to his Orca friend. I looted some of the cheap mods from the wrecks nearby and he sent his drones after me. When I tackled the Hulk the Orca started remotely repairing him.

Flashy Hulk and Orca? Time to get the gank-Cane yet again. Fights like this one are the reason I fit two warp disruptors.

Battlevigil vs. Hurricane

Battlevigil vs. Prophecy and Retriever

Battlevigil vs. Hyperion

Turns out the Vigil is a very nice ship to harass people with. Although you need to pick your fights it's very easy to gain aggro and it's equally easy to leave a fight when you have to. The only Vigils I lost were due to my stupidity when swapping ships at my Orca.

Field Trip

2010-03-06T20:45:00.006+01:00

Aiden Mourn, Director of Salvage Operations is notorious for organizing highly amusing ninja shenanigans where a bunch of pilots in cheap frigates armed with beer and salvagers rush through missions for hours, grabbing salvage, loot, mission items, and most of all local tears which often come along. Usually we harass our home system of Dodixie but this time we wanted to spread the love and went on a trip to Fricoure. Fricoure is not a main mission hub like Dodixie and thus people are not used to getting blobbed by salvagers.

We met at a hidden spot deep in space. Dedicated scanners looked for missionrunners, and using advanced scanning techniques generated bookmarks to battlecruisers, commandships, battleships, and marauders by the minute. A small fleet of support ships (including Herr Wilkus in his Vargur marauder) was standing by to move and store large piles of loot.

Of course salvage and loot is nice on its own, but getting in touch with the locals is where the most fun is.

This guy for example was doing a mission. Turned out he had trouble completing it so he asked for help in local. Sure enough we came and helped:

Scop's alt > o/
Ryuujinn Jakka > wut happened ?
Scop's alt > help is on the way
Ryuujinn Jakka > kewl
Ryuujinn Jakka > oh there you are. sweet
Ryuujinn Jakka > mmmm
Ryuujinn Jakka > why are you hostile against me here ?
Aiden Mourn > Good question
Scop's alt > we're here helping you salvage. no worries, we're professionals
Scop's alt > just kill rats, we deal with the loot
Aiden Mourn > yeah dont you worry your pretty little head
Aiden Mourn > first time service is free

Some missionrunners did not approve and decided to shoot back. Cookietag for example shot my Vigil with a Maelstrom, then warped off, and docked. I changed my salvaging boat for something cloaky, went back into his mission, and waited. And waited. And waited a bit longer. Ninjas have patience. Eventually he came back in a Hurricane so I locked and scrambled him. Unfortunately he had a passive shield buffer on his battlecruiser so my drones were not able to break it. To make it even worse three of his corpmates warped in with a Drake, a Brutix, and an Exequror to remote repair him. With remote armor repairs. Nice idea guys, but next time bring repairs that actually match the tank of those you want to repair.

Scopique > hey Cookie, you cannot hit me and i can't kill you with this shitload of rr. 10mil and i'll bugger off?
Stealnutz > its a good deal

In the meantime the other ninjas swapped their ships as well. Aiden managed to get shot at by Cookie, and with the combined firepower of Aiden's Rupture and my Pilgrim the Hurricane melted within seconds.

Kelewan > what's he flying cookie?
Cookietag > Good fight pirates
Cookietag > Force recon
Cookietag > A rupture
Cookietag > ANd a dramiel
Cookietag > Didn't really care about that hurri:)
Scopique > me neither :P
Cookietag > lol
Cookietag > I'd like a rematch someday
Scopique > yeah, tell me when mate
Scopique > I'll be there
Cookietag > Lol I bet

Don Colesterole > scorpiq are u always weaky like that... I invite u to sydicate where we can shoot at will
Don Colesterole > not some babytalk here
Scopique > hey, it's the old "come to lowsec" \o/
Don Colesterole > lowsec is for girls
Don Colesterole > come to 0.0 where we can use bubbles and do real fight
Don Colesterole > and no hidden friends
Don Colesterole > real man fight
Aiden Mourn > i wasnt too hidden
Scopique > haha, your corpmate brought 3 friends vs. me
Velocity Prime > did someone just get pwnt?
Aiden Mourn > i was the guy sitting in front of your mate shooting him in the face
Aiden Mourn > =)
Don Colesterole > we couldnt shoot
Scopique > yeah, that's the trick
Don Colesterole > so u admit u are coward :)
Scopique > here we use brains instead of brute force. you'll get there eventually
Aiden Mourn > well theres some roundabout logic
Don Colesterole > ah going to dock

A bit later fellow ninja Karma Bad was attacked when salvaging with a Dramiel. A Dramiel without weapons unfortunately. The attackers, a Taranis, another Dramiel, and some other ship (a Tristan?) shot once but for some reason didn't dare fighting Karma's unarmed ship. A few of us came to watch but could not help until the Taranis pilot dropped a jetcan. Aiden quickly picked it up, and the Taranis opened fire. I don't recall what happened exactly, but somehow Aiden managed to tackle the interceptor in his cruiser and almost instantly popped it.

On the other hand we also lost two ships, a salvage Stabber, and a Vigil. Kayden Kelso tried to honor tackle a Raven in it until the rest of us could come to repair him but lacking a tank he went down to the battleship's drones.

In conclusion we had a very good time again. We gathered some good loot including several mission items that sell for 10+ million isk each on contracts. More important than the loot is the fun though. Ninja ops are laid-back, and we had a lot of fun both on voice comms, and with the locals.

Ninja Ships - The Vigil

2010-03-01T18:12:00.007+01:00

This is the first installment of postings about ship fittings I intend to write. Some of them are not like the typical pvp fittings but tailored to special needs of pilots teasing other capsuleers in highsec. Since we are ninja salvagers in the first place the first post will be about salvaging ships.

Salvaging is not rocket science. You don't need a special tank, you don't need to worry about range, damage types, and so on. Fit as many salvagers as you want to your ship and you're good to go.
However, there are some things worth mentioning that seperate the professionals from the crowd.

The basic ninja salvaging ship meets three requirements: It's cheap, it's fast, and it has enough mid-slots for some utility modules. This is where the Vigil shines.

The ship without modules costs around 250.000isk. Loot one large gun in a mission and you can almost buy two Vigils. It's the fastest non faction t1 frigate in the game (Minmatar frigate skill bonus: +5% velocity per skill level), has a very well balanced slot layout (3/3/3), and can use one small drone.

So far, so good. This is common knowledge. Let's have a look at the fitting:

[Vigil, Salvager]
Overdrive Injector System I
Nanofiber Internal Structure I
Nanofiber Internal Structure I

1MN Afterburner I
Ship Scanner I
Target Painter I

Salvager I
Salvager I
Small Tractor Beam I

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

Although you can fit three salvagers in the high-slots I prefer two and a tractor beam. You cannot tractor wrecks and cans that do not belong to you. What you can do though is eject some loot and drag the can like a trailer, extending the Vigil's small cargo bay to 27.500m3. This is useful when you have a large number of battleship modules (a large gun is worth around 500.000 isk) and you have a hauler ready to pick up the loot. Looting everything in addition to salvaging will add several million isk to your profit.
Missionrunners tend to hate it when you drag a can with their stuff in it all over the place, and often shoot or try to loot it. This is your ticket to go and grab a combat ship to teach them a lesson.

You probably noticed there is no tank in the mid-slots. You hardly ever need it, speed is your tank. You usually don't need to bother with mission npc since that's the missionrunner's job. He should be usefull for something after all. The afterburner is obvious. More speed to zip from wreck to wreck and to race against the missionrunner when the last npc dropped the mission item 50km away. Always loot mission items! You might need them later.
Next module to take note of is the ship scanner. By scanning a missionrunner's ship you'll get a lot of usefull information:

-First of all what does his tank look like? If you intend to shoot that guy later you want to know everything about his tank. Is there a resist hole? Is it an active or a shield buffer tank?
-What weapons is he using?
-Does he know how to fit a ship well? Some fittings suggest the pilot is likely to fall for funny tricks. Maybe even two times in a row.

Last but not least a target painter. Target painters on salvage ships are awesome. Whenever you hop into a mission use it on a mission npc with a bounty. The bigger the better. You need to activate the painter just once in order to get credit for the kill. You won't get the bounty but most of the time you will get the security increase awarded by CONCORD for killing the npc as long as the missionrunner kills it (and he will, sooner or later). This is a very easy method of gaining security standing in highsec. Read this handy guide for more information on fast highsec status grinding. You can use this standing for lowsec roams every now and then or to suicide gank miners if you feel like it.

The low-slots are more or less standard. Overdrives provide more speed in exchange for cargo space, nanofibers improve agility but lower your hitpoints. I won't fit armor plates or cargo expanders since they lower your speed.

Usually I don't take a drone with me. A single light combat drone hardly does any damage, and a t2 combat drone is more expensive than the entire ship. Some ninjas tell tales about using a single light ecm drone to jam npc ships so they don't shoot the afk missionrunner but his combat drones, leaving him unable to kill the npc but this will take very long, is highly dependent on luck, and usually isn't worth the trouble.

Of course other frigates also work but in my opinion the Vigil is among the best. Make sure you have at least three high- and mid-slots when you intend to use the modules listed above.

Remember to always keep moving when you're in a mission with angry missionrunners and npc. You do not have a tank. If there are small npc left warp out as soon as they target you and come back immediately. Do not fly directly towards bigger ships that shoot you, always try to move in circles or transversely to their weapons. Make sure you do not bump into structures or asteroids. If you're warping into a mission and you're landing in a green cloud immediately select any celestial in the overview and warp to it. This green gas cloud will destroy your ship within seconds. I learned this the hard way. More than once. If you're in a mission and the missionrunner starts shooting a structure called 'pleasure hub', keep your distance from it. It's going to explode with a big shockwave that will most likely smash your ship. Yes, I learned this the hard way as well.

That's about it. Now go and buy a Vigil, and loot a mission or two.
And always remember to have fun. Internet spaceships are not serious business!

More links to salvage ships:
Aiden Mourn's blog
Velocity Prime's blog

Pendulum of LOL

2010-02-15T20:13:00.011+01:00

Pendulum of Doom Declares War Against Tear Extraction And Reclamation Service
From: CONCORD
Sent: 2010.02.07 16:21

Pendulum of Doom has declared war on Tear Extraction And Reclamation Service. Within 24 hours fighting can legally occur between those involved.

People declare war on us quite often. This might be related to some not so happy customers but in this particular case I suppose Pendulum of Doom just wanted to collect some trophies for their killboard. They are a mercenary alliance consisting of one corporation - The Filthy Few.
Being brave ninjas we did what we often do. We shrugged and went on stealing other people's stuff anyway. Unfortunately (from their point of view) many ninjas like a nomadic way of life. We often stay in a region for some time and move on as soon as the missionrunners get used to us. Furthermore we like cloaky ships and use safespots and anchored caches for ammo and loot in space so when those guys finally brought themselves to come over to our headquarter and camped a station for some hours, they didn't see much action.

However, during the following days they roamed New Eden tryinig to find ninjas but as it turned out they hardly ever found one. A corpmate encountered a small group of wartargets at a gate once while hauling loot to Jita but for some reason they didn't manage to catch his t1 hauler nor did they follow him.

Props for the funny campaign name though. ("Tears for Queers", looks like they deleted the campaign from their killboard since no ship has been destroyed during this war)

Alliance mate Sal Pheebu had some nice conversations with one of them when he was checking his contracts before heading off to work in the morning.

Yuller > well Sal where is that big bad pvp alt?
Sal Pheebu > We're ninjas. If I told you, it would defeat the purpose.
Yuller > what ever cupcakes
Sal Pheebu > Of course, you aggressed us, so we should be asking where your big bad PvP fleet of very expensive T2 ships is, and whether we're ever going to see it in Dodi.
Yuller > if all your gonna do is sit here shit stick i guess you'llmiss the fight
Sal Pheebu > I'm not sitting. I'm checking trades. :) I do that standing up. Better for the circulation.
Yuller > planet 1 shit stick
Yuller > me and you
Sal Pheebu > Typical merc. One size fits all. If your name calling didn't get me to undock in my battle-iteron yesterday, what are the odds that approach will work this time?

For me it was business as usual most of the time. Wartargets showed up in different regions every now and then but were offline during my (EU timezone) hours for the most part.

It was a rather uneventful evening in HEK. I was in my salvage Vigil zipping through missions picking up loot when I met Aromoro in his Brutix. Level 4 missions with battleships usually provide better loot but missionrunners in battlecruisers often like to shoot me which is always a welcome change.
So I grab loot from the very first small wreck, and sure enough the Brutix locks my frigate, opens fire, and launches a flight of mixed drones. Taking heavy damage I warp off to a celestial. Once out of warp I immediately turn round and head back into the mission. The Brutix is still here and locks me again. He shoots. I warp off. Out of warp, turn round, warp to him. Lock. Shooting. Warp off but this time I change ships. When I come back he again starts shooting but this time I am in a Sleipnir command ship.

Poof!

Aromoro > WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM?
enterap > wow
Cineva > hm... you can get bamed for that languege, you know that?
Aromoro > FUCKING SCopquie jumped my mission and blew up my SHIP
Scopique > Sad story
Aromoro > IDC IF I GET BANNED YOU FUCK JACKASS
Aromoro > fuck you takes a great player to trounce a newb faggot
Aromoro > if you were any good you would be flying real mishes instead stealing for me
Scopique > A newb? Your char is older than me. Or did you ebay him?
Aromoro > you ass is ours now
enterap > wow
Scopique > yeah sure
enterap > guys no fighing
Aromoro > no I went offline due to the faggot gate camping
enterap > show some love
Aromoro > just restarted a week ago
enterap > we got to love to live people
SpyS1mon > rofl
Fuldi > lol
Cineva > is a E bay guy clearly

Only half an hour later. The loot is salvaged, my Vigil repaired, and I got myself a cool beer from the kitchen. I warp into the next mission with a Hurricane. Another battlecruiser. Is he going to shoot also?
When I arrive there are a lot of wrecks but only one that hasn't been looted yet. Zooooooooooooooom! Overheating my afterburner I arrive just in time to grab 100 light missiles (worth almost nothing) from the small wreck.

Lock
Shooting
Warp off
Warp back
Kaboom!

No tears unfortunately, but all the salvage from his wrecks adds to my pile.

Wartarget Yuller jumped into HEK several times and searched the stations for me. I never had to dock though so after a while he gave up and left. After four days they retracted the war. I hope no one actually paid them for hindering us from salvaging.

Pendulum of Doom Retracts War Against Tear Extraction And Reclamation Service
From: CONCORD
Sent: 2010.02.11 01:21

The war between Pendulum of Doom and Tear Extraction And Reclamation Service is coming to an end. Pendulum of Doom has retracted the war against Tear Extraction And Reclamation Service. The war will be declared as being over after approximately 24 hours.

Suddenly Ninjas

2010-02-09T23:12:00.008+01:00

Since Suddenly Ninjas (SN) is currently recruiting it might be a good idea to write a bit about who we are and what we do.

SN is a highsec based corporation for thieves, racketeers, and ne'er-do-wells. Ore floating in space, unpiloted Orcas in mining OPs, highsec POS structures, mission loot and salvage... if it isn't nailed down, we take it and (quoting a former alliance mate) if we can pry it up, it’s not nailed down!

Although there are all kinds of areas of operation the main activity is to pillage missions. Many ninjas are experts on scanning down several level 4 missions in a few minutes and while it may take a missionrunner an hour or longer to kill all the NPC in a high level mission, it sometimes only takes minutes for a bunch of ninjas to swoop in, grab everything, and rush out again. Bonus points if the missionrunner decides to shoot at us since some ninjas have teeth and may decide to shoot back. Sometimes at a good profit!

Salvaging and looting of other people's mission is easy. It provides a very good income, especially for young pilots. All you need is a cheap ship and some skills everyone is able to acquire within a day or two.

Suddenly Ninjas is also the founder of the Tear Extraction And Reclamation Service [TEARS] alliance. There is even a new industrial wing to support our shenanigans, for more information contact Sal Pheebu ingame. The main base of operations is Dodixie, a popular mission hub in Gallente space, but some members also work in Amarr, Caldari, and Minmatar space, spreading the love all over New Eden.

If you're interested or just want to say "hi", join "The Ninja Alliance" channel ingame.
Recruitment applications go here.

Finally, there are several other Ninja blogs out there:
VelociLogic by our CEO Velocity Prime

Finders and Keepers by Aiden Mourn

Clockwork Scream by Bass Indy

Random Drivel by Rana Marrello

Suddenly News by Max Hatter

My loot, your tears by Paul clavet and Khalia Nestune

Hands Off, My Loot by Cyberin (discontinued)

Bitter online vet

2010-02-02T13:49:00.005+01:00

Reports
From: Scopique
Sent: 2010.01.31 00:12
To: SoulPyre,

hi mate,

I just noticed I looted reports in your mission. I only want loot to sell but this looks like a mission item. I do not want to ruin your mission so I left it in a can. Sorry again.

o/

Obvious trap is obvious. SoulPyre is 8 months old and still in his starter corp. He just finished his mission when I warped in and there was also another guy in a Dramiel salvaging. When I arrived SoulPyre left and the Dramiel locked me. A salvaging alt? I didn't bother with the wrecks but took the mission item instead.

Re: Reports
From: SoulPyre
Sent: 2010.01.31 00:15
To: Scopique,

i left b/c giantjack also warped in and he has a habit of griefing people by holding their ships hostage. thx for leaving the reports

Uuh. Griefing people in missions is mean. Don't do that!

Some minutes later, he returns.

SoulPyre > i came to pick up my mission reports
Scopique > yes
SoulPyre > would you please just let me go?
SoulPyre > iave already had a bad day with people attacking me
Scopique > for 20mil i will
SoulPyre > fine

Scopique > here you go o/
SoulPyre > pleave just leave me alone from now on, i just want to do missions in peace

Scopique > why don't you join a corp? there are so many corps out there for missions. being all alone all the time must be boring?
SoulPyre > ive played a few other mmo's and ive gotten sick of guild/corp drama's
SoulPyre > im just taking a lil break from people i guess? =X

Poor guy. But why is he playing a multiplayer game for 8 months if he can't stand other people in the first place?

Suddenly update!

2010-01-29T21:01:00.008+01:00

"At least this break helps me to finish those skills with 30+ days training times. I'll definitively hop back into the pilot's seat. I just need to make up my mind where to go..."

And back I am! \o/

-Ahem-

Right. I had a long break but as you probably know, you cannot really stop making up your mind about EVE. I had another look at that game but after a while I realized I missed the sandbox style. Go wherever I want, do whatever I want. No "LFG DM, need healer and tank!oneone", no "You cannot do this!". Just "Deal with the consequences".

So what's the plan? I didn't feel comfortable with the solo pirate thingy so I looked for company. I made some friends, lost a good chunk of sec status but I didn't like it that much either. Aside from some new players, macrohaulers, or rare missionrunners I almost only met people in lowsec who were looking for fights. To some degree it reminds me of battlegrounds in other games: People go there to fight. If they don't want to fight they don't go there.

I wanted to be the mean guy. I want to steal from those who want to be save. I want to be able to go wherever I want, regardless of the system's sec status. If you want to kill the innocent and steal from the rich, there is hardly another place to go but

Here is a recruitment video made by our CEO Velocity Prime with some recommendations from happy customers:

More to come...

Lazy me

2009-08-12T12:01:00.002+02:00

Sorry for not posting for such a long time. At first summer and holidays struck me with brute force, keeping me busy with cocktails, sun, and general laziness but now I have trouble getting back to the game.

Flying completely solo for some time was fun, but I guess everyone needs an aim in life. Going the route to -10 flashiness was never an option for me since I find it difficult to get supplies without help. On the other hand the constant need to grind rep up after a few kills is annoying.

At least this break helps me to finish those skills with 30+ days training times. I'll definitively hop back into the pilot's seat. I just need to make up my mind where to go...

A pirate's life

2009-06-08T16:45:00.006+02:00

We pillage, we plunder, we rifle and loot.
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!
We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot.
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!

Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate's life for me.

We extort, we pilfer, we filch and sack.
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!
Maraud and embezzle and even hijack.
Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!

Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate's life for me.
Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirate's life for me.

©1967 X. Atencio & George Bruns

What defines a pirate's life? According to history and many stories either written or told by movies pirates are outlaws who act detached from politics, usually plundering those who are not prepared to fight. Wealthy merchants or passenger ships are the usual prey, as those offer good loot or high ransoms. The number of pirates among all those who are cruising the seas is relatively low. The vast majority are fine seafarers who respect the law.

Is this the same in EVE? Due to the highsec/lowsec separation the playerbase is also separated. Those willing to fight other players roam lowsec while those interested in earning money avoid fights by staying in high security space.
When I moved to lowsec several weeks ago I started marking other pilots I met by adjusting their standing. Other pirates received a negative standing and thus an orange mark while I marked all mission runners and industrials I met blue. I thought this would be a smart idea to spot the few other pirates among the crowd of potential victims.

A crackpot idea!

When roaming the local lowsec systems, especially those close to mission hubs, it is quite common to have 20+ orange marked people around me with only a few neutrals or blues - if at all. Examining their info there are usually two or three alliances involved. Sometimes they fight each other, sometimes they don't. But what about the classic pirate theme? Where are the rich merchants?

The closest to the "rich merchant" type I usually meet are more or less bot-controlled industrial ships. Ever been to Ingunn lately? A lowsec system with 100+ people in local at all times. Most of them are shuttles and industrials. Shooting at those ships is a waste of ammo however, as they usually do not carry anything but junk and their pilots don't even send a hatemail.

With so many other pirates in the area locating a victim before the others do is like playing the lottery, especially if you're flying solo like me. Also the most valuabe ships are combat ships, so mission runners and other pirates are the juiciest prey. But doesn't this lead to pirates fighting other pirates? Are we even pirates -in the traditional romantic way- if we fight each other due to lack of real customers?
Don't get me wrong, I do not mind fighting other combat pilots nor am I afraid of losing my ship. But initially my intention was to play a game of cat and mouse with pilots who are not expecting a fight. Some of the activity in lowsec reminds me more on street fights of rivaling gangs than on classic piracy.

I might even go one step further. Pirates in highsec are often frowned upon by their lowsec brothers. Because of the CONCORD mechanics highsec pirates are limitted to ore theft, ninja salvaging, suicide ganking, can flipping, and war decs as far as criminal activities are concerned. But aren't those pirates closer to the classic pirate, the lone outlaw among a crowd of do-gooders, who needs not only brute force but tricks and bluffs to pillage and plunder? Not because he is a more skilled pilot, but because of his situation in relation to his victims?

Maybe I am wrong. At least I hope so. I am enjoying my life in lowsec. I like the fights and I like the people I meet as friends (more on those two topics in upcoming posts (TM)). However, what I miss are systems that are not already crowded by angry PVP alliances or totally deserted. There must be pirates out there who regularly catch mission runners, bust mining ops and are not busy fighting other pirates but use humor and wits to sneak up on those who are not looking for a fight.

Blog Banter #8: "We're caught in a tractor beam! It's pulling us in!"

2009-05-26T12:51:00.004+02:00

Welcome to another installment of the EVE Blog Banter, a monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter invites enthusiastic EVE bloggers to address a common topic for a period of one week. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Direct questions about the EVE Blog Banter to Crazy Kinux. Links to other EVE Blog Banter articles will be listed at the end of this post as they become available.
This month's topic comes from Ga'len at The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, who asks: "What new game mechanic or mechanics would you like to see created and brought into the EVE Online universe and how would this be incorporated into the current game universe? Be specific and give details, this is not meant to be a 'nerf this, boost my game play' post like we see on the EVE forums."

"We're caught in a tractor beam! It's pulling us in!"
-Han Solo

Remember the scene in Star Wars IV when Leia's Corellian corvette was caught by the Star Destroyer's tractor beam and is being pulled into the hangar?

Tractor beams in EVE only work on objects like wrecks or containers and are mainly used for looting. What about a more dynamic, aggressive approach?
Why not make a tractor beam lockable to a ship? Depending on ship's mass, speed, thrust, size of the beam, and skill of the pilot a large ship could drag a small one closer, or a small one could use a tractor beam to hold on to a bigger one that's moving fast to stay close as if using a towline.

Tractor beams could be used in PVP like a mixture of a warp scrambler and a web. Flying towards each other, two ships would be accelerated using a tractor beam while on the other hand would be slowed down when flying away from eachother. A tractor beam would make it difficult to escape, but not impossible.
A small ship with high thrust could be able to out-maneuver or break free or maybe there are defensive modules to counter a tractor beam. Maybe tractor beams would have tracking speed like turrets do?

A lot of different tactics come to mind. The obvious being the battleship pulling frigates into smartbombing range. A flight of small ships with microwarp drives could drag a clumsy freighter to help him align (or prevent it from doing so). Locking a tractor beam to a ship would be an act of aggression so you won't be able to drag a hauler out of sentry range at a gate without getting shot at, but you would be able to drag him away from the gate in order to prevent him from jumping.

This could make Marauders interesting not only for highsec mission runners, but also for PVP pilots since those massive ships get a bonus to tractor beams.
I neither fly these costly vessels, nor do I like big massive ships in general. However, I think it could bring some interesting tactics and dynamics to space fights.

CrazyKinux's Musing, EVE Blog Banter #8: Care for a little game of SecWars?
Life in Lowsec, Blog Banter #8: The Exasperation Factor
The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, Wow, that new thing is so shiny!!!
I am Keith Nielson, EVE Blog Banter #8 - Return of the Top Gun
A merry life and a short one, EVE Blog Banter #8: In the Year of Our Awesome
Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Planets
Helicity Boson, Bantering the blog
Achernar, Unique adventures
Ecliptic Rift, OOC: EVE Blog Banter 8: Standings and secondary factions
The New Edener, EVE Blog Banter #8
Journey to New Eden, Eve Blog Banter #8: What new mechanic should be added to Eve?
Life, The Universe and Everything, Blog banter 8: mentorship
EVE Guru, EBB 8: Yarr! Prepare to be boarded!
The Ralpha Dogs, Greed Is Good, Greed Works
Rifter Drifter, Blog Banter 8: Strategic Gunnery
A Mule in EVE, Expanding EVE
Letrange's EvE Blog, 8th Blog Banter
Roc's Ramblings, Blog Banter #8
The Nude Nerd, Blog Banter #8
Speed Fairy, EVE Blog Banter #8: Charisma Tanking
Industrialist with Teeth, EVE Blog Banter #8: It’s Like Tetris for OCD People
Diary of a Pod Pilot, EVE blog banter #8: Killing in the name of
Talk Unfraid, Physical Communications
Sceadugenca, EVE Blog Banter #8: Fighter-Class Ships and Sqadrons
Kyle Langdon's Journeys in EVE, 8th Blog Banter
Into the Unknown, Eve Blog Banter #8: Player Bases
EVE's Weekend Warrior, EVE Blog Banter #8
Life in Low Sec, Blog Banter #8: The Exasperation Factor
Symptom of a Greater Cure, EVE Blog Banter: #8 - Tug Me Away
EVE Journey, OOC - EVE Blog Banter #8: Marine Leader : “We have secured the ship, Sir!”
Thoughts from an Accidental Minmatar Revolutionary, All Hands on Deck! We are at War!
Ripe Lacunae, Into the Great Unknown (Eve Blog Banter 8)
Mdhi Lihu's EVE Online Blog, 009 - Blog Banter #8
Break Vol, EVE Blog Banter #8
Inanity and Doom, EVE Blog Banter #8 - If I Ran The Universe
More to come...

Becoming famous!

2009-05-23T23:30:00.004+02:00

When I logged in today I noticed something unfamiliar. I had to check twice but it's true: Someone wants me so badly he put a bounty on my head! \o/

This is my first bounty and I have been wondering when it would finally happen. Maybe I owe it to Mr Scandere?

It was just the day after I wrote about my recent customers and the lack of more expensive ships in my region when I entered yet another system with three or four people in local. Following the usual routine I warped to my scanning spot when suddenly a Myrmidon battlecruiser appeared on scan along with some wrecks in a belt. Without thinking twice I fired up the warp drive, activated defensive mods, and initiated the warp disruptor.

Within seconds the asteroids came into view, along with the Myrmidon and a flight of small drones. I was so excited about my luck! The target quickly resolved and the warp disruptor caught Mr Scandere who was pounding away at an Angel Commander. Activating my microwarp drive I set a close orbit of 2000m and once within range six autocannons began to grind into the enemy battlecruiser's armor while two medium energy neutralizers sucked his capacitor dry.
Suddenly everything went pretty fast. I expected high damage from the Myrmidon's drones so I sent my own warriors after them first. At the same time the local population exploded when ten or so people jumped into the system. A trap? A quick glance at the enemy ship's status indicated he was already deep into armor. My own ship was barely scratched but my capacitor was almost empty.
Usually I do not have any cap isues at all with the fit I use on my Hurricane, but this time I was a bit distracted by scanning for enemy reinforcements so I just deactivated the neutralizers, sent all drones to finish of the Myrmidon, and hoped for just a few more seconds.

Reinforcements never came and the enemy gang left the system as quickly as they had come. When Scandere's ship exploded in a flash of light and the wreck quickly drifted out of range I finally noticed the reason for my empty capacitor: I had left the microwarp drive running!

Mistakes like this make me realize how important it is to stay calm even when something unexpected happens.
However, this fight is a good example of why I love flying solo in lowsec also: With neither a backup fleet nor a scout to provide intel it can be win or lose each time I warp towards a potential victim. I like the unpredictable!

Solo impressions

2009-05-21T17:12:00.013+02:00

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!

Birthday

2009-05-17T13:01:00.002+02:00

It's my birthday today! \o/

33 years old and still interested in internet spaceships. This stuff is what keeps me young at heart.

Fly reckless!

Wormhole shenanigans

2009-05-15T11:41:00.004+02:00

Several weeks ago my corp decided to move into a wormhole system and live there for some time. We had a POS somewhere in Providence we wanted to move out anyway and the alliance we had joined was beginning to break apart. We planned to move several remote repping battleships, some pvp fit ships, haulers, and POS structures in, set up base at a random moon within the wormhole system, and see how things evolved.

After some hours of probing we finally found a suitable class 3 wormhole in Kheram in Domain, hauled all ships and huge loads of equipment in, and set up the POS. The system was relatively small and there weren't any competitors but several sites promised good loot.

Pew pew!

How is w-space PVE compared to missions or 0.0 ratting? First of all the sleepers we found are not as predictable as those NPC you engage in missions. Sleepers change targets often, depending (as far as I can say) on how much of a threat an individual attacker is or whether or not his tank is holding. That said, the sites we tried usually had several waves of some frigates, cruisers, sentries, and one or two battleships and didn't pose a risk to a gang of 5 or so battleships with remote repairing modules. Two or three reps on a ship seem to be enough to keep up with the incoming damage. Some of the targets spawned at a range of 70+ km though so I was happy I picked a long range Typhoon.

Once a site has been cleared some guys hopped into their salvage ships and with the POS close by it took only a few minutes to loot and salvage everything. Half an hour of shooting at sleepers at two sites yielded roughly 60 to 80 mil ISK in total.

The sites inside a wormhole are limited though, and I think they do not respawn on a daily basis. When doing missions or ratting there is an unlimited supply of targets. Once you set up a POS in a wormhole system however, you are bound to stay there for a while. Targets will respawn eventually, but it might take some time.

With no sleepers to shoot at, we soon began to look for other victims. As soon as the entry wormhole collapsed, a new one spawned so we hopped through and had a look.

A cruise around the world

I have been on two cruises IRL so far, on the Nile in Egypt, and through the fjords of Norway. Usually I do not like ships because the space is so limited and you never have a nice quite spot for yourself. The good part is you don’t need to make long trips to see all the exciting places. The ship is docking at a port and if you want to, you can enjoy a few hours of shore leave to take some pictures or to buy a souvenir. Once you are done you board the ship again, hang out at the bar or go to bed. In the next morning the ship has usually moved on and the next port is within sight.

Having a POS in a wormhole system is almost exactly the same. Granted, you neither have a bar nor a pool, but there will be a new wormhole exit to some random part of New Eden every day with ample opportunity to take pictures or pick up souvenirs.
You shoot some stuff, go to bed, and the next morning the wormhole has docked at another port with new local folk to harass.

For some people in my corp this is so tempting they don’t want to leave the wormhole anymore. Miners are happy because there are often juicy belts in the system, the PVE lovers are having a blast killing sleepers, industrialists are starting their T3 production thingy and those looking for PVP always have a lowsec wormhole close by. But there are some major flaws in this idea also, the main reason why I eventually left w-space and set up my own base:

-You never know when a wormhole is going to collapse. You get some vague idea about the remaining time by looking at the hole’s info, but “reaching the end of it’s natural lifespan” could mean anything from a few hours to a second. Are you going to jump through in your shiny recon or expensive battlecruiser when there is a risk you won’t be able to go back? The people still in w-space could probe down a new entry for you, but it might be dozens of jumps away, maybe in a region you cannot access with your sec status.

-Supply is even more of a problem than it is for a normal pirate. You have a hauler alt in Jita? Too bad the new entry is 40 jumps away. And where do you set up your medical clone?

-You’ll always be a stranger. Information about the local systems usually is a big advantage, but when living in w-space you often have no clue about local corps, mission hubs, trade routes, and so on.

I am sure I’ll go and visit my friends in case an entry is close to my hunting grounds, and I like reading their daily reports, but in the meantime I’ll stick to my fixed base of operations.

Consecration

2009-05-11T18:08:00.015+02:00

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!

Status report

2009-05-05T01:10:00.009+02:00

Before I really start with the present, I need to bore you with a short sketch of my past. As I wrote in the previous post, I have been wandering around aimlessly for some time now. My first timid approaches into piracy took place in empire some time ago. I flipped cans, helped industrious miners haul their ore to my hangar (Masta420kush: "oh so its like that u fuckin dumb nub"), I even went so low and baited other thieves into flipping my cans.
Another approach into being a villain was ninja salvaging, and i quickly managed to acquire some happy customers:

Fayde Ayur: "it's so sad that your mother never told you the difference between "yours" and "not yours", but strange people with weird convictions...sigh. Get some skill, some friends, (that could be more difficult) and go and have fun and stop bothering people just for your sake.."

Although these endeavours helped me understand basic mechanics like aggression timers, using the directional scanner or how to probe out mission runners, annoying people in highsec isn't much of a challenge. You can only be attacked if you want to, but those totally predictable fights aren't fun anymore - at least for me. A lot of pirates frown upon those who bait pilots into fighting them in high security space, and to some degree I can see their point.
At this stage I was very close to leaving the security of highsec and join a small pirate corp, but unfortunately my real life prevented me from doing so. Instead, I joined a bunch of nice relaxed people I could fly with and even more so chat to.

A lot of their activities however involved missions, industry or ratting, which just doesn't appeal to me. So after some time of relaxed flying and some approaches into solo piracy in lowsec, I am now dead certain I want to leave the safety behind once and for all.

With this in mind, I am pondering on how to start my new career:

-Stay with my corp and convince them to become full time outlaws. I don't think this is going to happen. They are great people and it is fun to fly with them, but although their willingness to shoot people grew during the last few weeks, we will never be a true pirate corp. On the other hand, being an outlaw in a mixed corp that is doing a bit of everything in highsec, lowsec and 0.0 will limit my options since I might have a hard time accessing regions of space they might call home.

-Join a true pirate corp. This would throw me into business right away and I'd probably learn a lot. I am sure this is an option I am looking forward to in the long run, but for now, I have a feeling I need to try it on my own first, leading to:

-Set up a base at the border of lowsec and be a solo pirate. Several well known pirates started on their own (or still are) and while they had a hard time doing so, they are now famous like rockstars and probably bathing in exotic dancers, wine and gold. Being solo also means I don't need to wait for anyone. In case my corp decides to become a lowsec corp I can still join them, but in case they settle somewhere else, I am free to mind my own business without the need to grind my sec status up again after every fight.

An introduction

2009-05-03T13:41:00.009+02:00

Ahoy stranger! Take a seat, help yourself with a mug of grog and enjoy your stay. Is this yet another Eve-Online pirate blog you ask? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Only time will tell.
Of course I am going to write about the incredible adventures Scopique is going to hurl himself into, hopefully with a lot of pew pew. On the other hand, I am going to use this log as some kind of golden thread for my career in this great game. My life as a pilot has been bumpy at times. A bit of this, a bit of that. I tried a mining alt (for a very short while!), did some missions, have been in pve corps, we joined an alliance and so forth.

Ever since I started playing Eve however, I have been attracted to the life of piracy. Maybe it's the audacious and dangerous atmosphere that's linked to it. Maybe the number of highly entertaining pirate blogs I stumbled upon caught my attention. For various reasons, I have often been distracted from my goals, but this time of struggle is coming to an end now. By writing down my ideas, my plans, my musings and the outcomes, I will hopefully be able to focus on my goals.

Last but not least the world of Eve is a harsh one. Being solo without any rules and responsibilities is tempting, but it can be tricky also and it might be a good idea to have some likeminded friends. I hope to meet such pilots in space, either inside or outside of all the well established pirate corps. Usually pirates don't love each other. Every wreck is a source of income and there is nothing to give away for free. But there also seems to be some camaraderie among pilots even though they are not linked by a corp or alliance. On one day they shoot eachother, another day they are good friends. Writing about my interweb spaceship experiences will hopefully help me establish some contacts.

Edit: Hurray for my first post! \o/
I just noticed I created a blog that is pronounced "scopslog-dot-blogspot-dot.com". What a tongue twister! A good start? Oh well! :)