Field Trip

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.

A pirate's life

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.

Consecration

Final preparations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Conquest of the promised land

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

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



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


First blood

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

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