The Defias Blog

¶ flashfresh wrote that hunting in New Eden is a case of Feast or Famine. “Some weeks,” he said, “there is a bonanza of loot and ransom and then there are weeks and weeks of nothingness.” Operating primarily in Omist for the benefit of my corporation, the only action I see tends to be defense against the random gangs roaming through in nano-fitted heavy assault or recon cruisers. Every once in a while, it’ll be something else… like the three command ships that came in last week.
¶ Anyway, operating primarily in deep space, I don’t get many opportunities to look for fun in Empire, and I never get any decent opportunities for profit. I had accepted long ago that, for the moment, mine would be a life of Famine.
¶ Until last night.

¶ Warning: This entry is quite long, but then, it was an eventful night!

To Put It Into Perspective

¶ Two days ago, I recorded an entry about my ill-fated exploits with DeathsEmbrace, Chief Executive Officer of .Bat Empire corporation. We had roamed low-security space for a while and made a brief foray into Great Wildlands, only to run headlong into a Firmux Ixion nano-gang. I managed to make it back to Molden Heath, but my wingmate hadn’t been so lucky.
¶ Over the last two days, secure in the knowledge that [DFIAS]’s station isn’t going to go offline any time soon, and with heavily-laden shoulders, I’ve been sort of lolly gagging around in Empire space, both high- and low-security, just trying to find the sense of fun and freedom that attracted me to the capsuleer’s path in the first place. It isn’t exactly fun fueling stations that are 50 jumps into deep 0.0, but logistical nightmares never are.
¶ Molden Heath has been a great place to live, but frankly, it’s just not very exciting anymore. There are large corporations and alliances crowding the low-security pockets of the region making it very difficult to do anything on your own, in the types of small ship that I favor. Frigates can’t engage targets at stargates or stations, not even Wolves. The local miners are all fairly savvy, with only the occasional fool actually leaving himself open for a can flip so there aren’t many laughs to be had there, either.
¶ Yet, the common room of every bar seems positively a-buzz with hunters and pirates recounting their tales of recent victory in small engagements or even flying solo in small craft. Enough so that I began to wonder if, perhaps, it wasn’t my skills or my strategy that was lacking… maybe it was just my location. So I decided to move. I went back the same way that DeathsEmbrace and I had gone, only this time I went farther. I remembered learning to fly in Derelik, as part of jR Mafia corporation, led by former mentor Myxil pix. We flew in Chidah. He had chosen Chidah for us because it was a high-security system surrounded by low-security space, the station had decent refining, and because of its location, it wasn’t likely to be a crowded place. Thus, low risk of can flipping and low risk of piracy in general. I wanted to go visit my old home.
¶ It was quite a few jumps, however, and of course I went nosing around for trouble all along the way… but true to form, I found nothing. Famine as always. When I got to Chidah, I did indeed find a miner with a jettisoned can of ore. He was in a Hulk and had a pile of wrecked ships scattered about him that looked as though they’d once belonged to Sansha. I told Aura to make a note of his container’s position and signaled the crew to battlestations as I warped out to the nearest planet, immediately turning the Wolf around.

Why Would You NOT Fight?

¶ The Hulk pilot, Maraw, didn’t act terribly surprised to see my assault frigate drop out of warp two kilometers from him. He simply recalled his drones as I inched closer to the container, preparing one of my own. When the transfer was finalized, I had 17k m³ of pyroxeres and scordite. The Hulk warped out of the belt, and I warped off to the planet, not sure of what he was going to do. A quick background check by Aura revealed that his employment history was quite a bit longer than my own. It didn’t take long until I saw “Maraw’s Myrmidon” on my long-range scanners. Aura complained about the probabilities, but I jumped back into warp and landed on top of my ore at almost the same moment the Myrmidon arrived. We locked each other immediately, and three Tech 2 Ogre drones emerged from the Gallente battlecruiser’s hull.
¶ Sounds exhilarating, right? Wrong. My Famine wasn’t over yet… I orbited the Myrmidon for a full 3 minutes, waiting, praying for him to attack. In the end, he recalled his drones and warped back to the station. In a fit of anger, I destroyed my ore and left. When it gets like this, I start to not care that CONCORD will destroy my vessel - I just want to shoot something that will shoot back without having to deal with blobs of battleships and such like I’d have to deal with in low-sec. I could fly a larger ship, sure, but what can I say… I like frigates.
¶ I just couldn’t understand why a battlecruiser would opt out of a fight with a lone assault frigate. Getting myself under control, I plotted a course through the low-security systems between Chidah and Bar. Once we were back in high-sec proper, I ordered a stand-down and docked for the night. I needed a shower and some quiet time to think.

Finally, My Feast

¶ I pounded on my crewmens’ doors on my way down the corridor to the lift, letting them all know they had 20 minutes to get to their stations. A cursory glance at the station’s technicians satisfied me that they were correctly going about pre-launch diagnostics so I went ahead and boarded the ship, heading immediately for the secure comm on the bridge. As soon as my line went active, I got a number of messages but I was looking for two names in particular: DeathsEmbrace and Mizztress Death. Both of them had mentioned before that their corporations focused their Empire activities in Amarr space, and I wanted to see if maybe one of them would like to go hunting. I contacted D.E. first to learn that he was 19 jumps away, but still in Amarr space so I had Aura plot the course. Mizz said she was in the process of moving some goods in a freighter and wouldn’t be available for quite some time. The last time D.E. and I went out roaming it ended badly; tonight would be different, come Hell or volatile gas cloud.
¶ On my way to Bhizheba where I was to rendezvous with D.E., I kept an eye on the long-range scanner looking for anything that might bite. I found one Punisher pilot who had apparently barely passed the final exams to become a capsuleer. He was sitting in a belt, surrounded by five cargo containers - looks like bait for a 1-on-1, right? I microwarp the 23 kliks to bump him off the cans, and proceed to open one, expecting to find something like a single frequency crystal or one unit of tritanium - just enough to make a loot-able can. Instead, I found 5 cans, each containing 200 units of scordite.
¶ What the fuck…?
¶ Oh well, I thought, whatever. I jettisoned my own container and took the 1,000 units of scordite as my Wolf’s targeting subsystems resolved a lock on the Amarr frigate. I’ve read and heard that of all the Tech 1 frigates, the Rifter and the Punisher are best suited to tangle with their T2 counterparts - in the hands of skilled pilots, that is - and I was curious to see how true it might be.
¶ He warped out. Apparently he wasn’t waiting for challengers. Or maybe he was… he warped back, locked and fired. As soon as I saw the friendly red flashing, I returned fire.
¶ I couldn’t believe how quickly the Punisher fell apart. One beam laser, one pulse laser, one mining laser, and… nothing else. No plate, no repairer, no shield extender, no anything. It reminded me of the Omen I’d killed two days before - was it written somewhere that every kill I get should be against pilots who were the bottom of their class at the various academies of the Empires? How do I keep finding these idiots?
¶ Still, a kill is a kill and so to the corporate records go the logs.
¶ I had no more action the rest of the flight to Bhizheba where I met up with D.E. The last time we flew together, I’d picked our route and we’d both flown Wolf-class assault frigates. This time, D.E. was in a Thorax-class cruiser with ECM drones and since he knew this neck of Empire a lot better than I did, he’d be picking our route. I’ll spare you the details, but we wound up making over 50 jumps, hunting through low-security systems in Domain, Devoid, Kador, Genesis and Aridia.
¶ Many systems were empty, which of course is Famine. Yet more systems were fairly crowded, but were spangled with stations and most of the ships appearing on long-range scans were mission-running battlecruisers and battleships and neither of us knew of a nearby covert ops pilot who could join us on our roam. After an undefinable number of jumps, we came to one system with nearly 25 asteroid belts and only two stations with one neutral (i.e.: hostile) pilot in local.
¶ “I’ll go to Sechmaren VIII - Moon 10,” I offered, “you check the other station.”
¶ “Roger that, mate, warping to Sechmaren IX - Pend Insurance Investment Bank now.”
¶ My wolf was towed into the docking bay and Aura pulled up the Guest List without needing to be asked - sure enough, the pilot was here. Just as I reported to D.E. that I’d found the guy and he was docked up, he undocked. I undocked right behind him expecting to see a fighting ship - what I saw instead was a Hulk-class exhumer.
¶ “It’s a Hulk. I wonder if I could handle the station guns long enough to pop it,” I mused aloud.
¶ “Not a chance, mate. Maybe in a Jaguar, but not in that Wolf.”
¶ True enough. Standoff, then - I’d wait and see what he did. In the meantime, D.E. was undocking from the station at planet IX and aligning to the Omam gate, fully expecting the miner to dock or warp to a stargate, whose guns we also couldn’t tank with our assault frigate and his gank-fitted Thorax. To our infinite jubilation, I watched the Hulk’s heading as he warped and there were only two places he could’ve gone - both of those places being asteroid belts. I warped to one and sent D.E. to the other.
¶ As luck would have it, I picked the right belt. It didn’t take long to strip his shields. In fact, he was into structure before D.E. arrived at the belt.

?[ 2008.03.20 04:31:55 ] EVE System > Channel changed to Sechmaren Local Channel
?[ 2008.03.20 04:37:23 ] Havohej > 50M and you go free.
?[ 2008.03.20 04:37:27 ] Havohej > Make my wallet flash.
?[ 2008.03.20 04:37:48 ] Oliver Tyrant > ok
?[ 2008.03.20 04:37:54 ] Oliver Tyrant > hold on
?[ 2008.03.20 04:37:54 ] Havohej > Now.
?[ 2008.03.20 04:38:11 ] Oliver Tyrant > how do I do it
?[ 2008.03.20 04:38:19 ] Havohej > right click my name and hit give money

¶ By this time, his drones had stopped firing. Suddenly, they opened up again.

?[ 2008.03.20 04:38:25 ] Havohej > you set a drone on me, price is now 75M
?[ 2008.03.20 04:38:57 ] Havohej > 30 seconds, 75M, make it happen
?[ 2008.03.20 04:39:03 ] Havohej > 25
?[ 2008.03.20 04:39:08 ] Havohej > 20
?[ 2008.03.20 04:39:12 ] Havohej > 15
?[ 2008.03.20 04:39:15 ] Oliver Tyrant > take i
?[ 2008.03.20 04:39:18 ] Oliver Tyrant > I dont care
?[ 2008.03.20 04:39:26 ] Havohej > Hulk costs way more than 75m
?[ 2008.03.20 04:39:33 ] Oliver Tyrant > I dont care
?[ 2008.03.20 04:39:34 ] Havohej > your mistake
?[ 2008.03.20 04:39:37 ] Oliver Tyrant > youre no geing any money

¶ D.E. and I opened fire, reducing the proud mining barge to smoldering slag. For his ignorance, I decided to take his pod as well. Perhaps his next clone would have sense enough to pay quickly for peaceful resolution when it’s offered.
¶ DeathsEmbrace picked up what was left of the Hulk and worth saving and we went about our business. A Hulk is an expensive target and certainly noteable, especially to find one in low-security space all by itself like that, but it wasn’t what I was looking for. I wasn’t satisfied in the least.

And Satisfaction This Way Comes

¶ It seemed like hours that D.E. and I flew around after the destruction of the exhumer, and each system the same story - either it was empty, or everyone was docked, or they were all at a privately-owned station or deep inside a deadspace pocket doing missions for some faction or another. Until we got to Fihrneh with its 21 belts and 7 stations.
¶ In Fihrneh, there were 10 capsuleers registered on Local besides ourselves. We each set out for a different planet and began making safespots that we might warp to in case of emergency, meanwhile Aura was running background checks - turns out they’re all part of Southern Cross Alliance, though they’re part of different corporations. Now I don’t know about D.E., but I absolutely hate Southern Cross Alliance. Why? One word: Krenu. This idiot spams the recruitment channel incessantly (I mean moreso than your average recruiter), is ignorant, is more arrogant than the power of his half-assed alliance justifies and given an opportunity, I would go to great lengths to get his frozen corpse. But that’s all beside the point. My hatred of SCA made me determined to kill SOMETHING in this system which they obviously ‘claimed’.
¶ There are a total of 12 systems in the Aridia region which make up the constellation Ombil. Fihrneh is the chokepoint - to access Ombil and its three ice belts (in Hoseen, Feshur and Pemsah) you have to go through Fihrneh. D.E. and I surmised that the entire constellation might be overrun with SCA pukes their friendlies, so given that fact and the 10 hostiles in-system, we knew that if we were going to kill anything it would have to be quick. Our long-range scanners showed a Cormorant-class destroyer, a Coveter-class mining barge and a Myrmidon-class battlecruiser. D.E. said the Myrm was out of the question - we wouldn’t break his tank before they brought a blob of ships to defend. So we tried to nail down the barge or the destroyer.
¶ Apparently seeing us on his own scanners, the Coveter vanished, leaving the destroyer and the Myrmidon. D.E. and I continued to systematically search the belts; him starting at one end of a cluster with me starting at the other, through each cluster that was in range. Finally, at the second-to-last belt, my short range tactical sensors registered a contact - the Myrmidon. I put the crew on Red Alert, ordering all hands to battlestations and for my autocannons to be primed.
¶ “I’ve got the Myrmidon in belt 6-4,” I reported, already knowing what the reply would be. My Wolf’s sensors got positive tone on the Myrm’ in barely over a second.
¶ “We can’t take ‘im mate, his friends will be all over us before we break his tank.” I knew he’d say that.
¶ “Fuck that, I’m tackling him, I need you and your ECM drones in here ASAP!” There was laughter in my voice as I knew he could hear my four 200mm autocannons screaming in the background. And there was a chuckle in his reply as well.
¶ “Shit mate… alright, on my way.”
¶ About a month ago, a -A- Wolf tackled my ratting Hurricane in a belt in Omist - I had seen him and his ship type reported on the Intel channel, so when he arrived on Local, I didn’t bother warping to our POS - and I had been unable to hit him with my 425mm’s. I just couldn’t track him. The only thing that ran him off we my drones, which he couldn’t hit with his 200mm guns. If I’d had a point fitted, I might have killed the bugger, but it was a ratting setup, so I didn’t. What he could hit, though, was me. He made short work of my shields and was making quite a surprising dent in my armor - if not for the drones, he would’ve taken my ‘cane down. Because of this encounter, ever since I got my Wolf I’ve been waiting to fight a battlecruiser.
¶ Maybe having a wingman in a Thorax with ECM drones wasn’t a faithful replica of that encounter, but life isn’t fair either, is it?
¶ Much like my encounter with the -A- Wolf pilot, the Myrmidon’s blasters couldn’t touch me, but his drones were making a difference. Afterward, my combat log showed entries like:

[ 2008.03.20 06:46:49 ] (combat) Keezor <SCA>[ANZA](Myrmidon) barely misses you.
[ 2008.03.20 06:46:49 ] (combat) Keezor <SCA>[ANZA](Myrmidon) misses you completely.
[ 2008.03.20 06:46:50 ] (combat) Keezor <SCA>[ANZA](Myrmidon) barely scratches you, causing 14.1 damage.
[ 2008.03.20 06:47:05 ] (combat) Acolyte I belonging to Keezor barely scratches you, causing 3.1 damage.
[ 2008.03.20 06:47:05 ] (combat) Acolyte I belonging to Keezor barely scratches you, causing 3.2 damage.
[ 2008.03.20 06:47:05 ] (combat) Acolyte I belonging to Keezor places an excellent hit on you, inflicting 7.2 damage.
[ 2008.03.20 06:47:05 ] (combat) Acolyte I belonging to Keezor hits you, doing 4.1 damage.
[ 2008.03.20 06:47:05 ] (combat) Acolyte I belonging to Keezor lightly hits you, doing 3.3 damage.

¶ And my personal favorite:

[ 2008.03.20 06:46:48 ] (combat) Your 200mm AutoCannon II perfectly strikes Keezor <SCA>[ANZA](Myrmidon), wrecking for 172.6 damage.

¶ Much like my Hurricane, the Myrmidon’s shields fell away like cellophane wrapping and I shut off two of my guns to switch from Republic Fleet EMP to Barrage, wishing I’d had the forethought to bring Hail with me as well. Ten seconds later, I repeated the process with my other two guns but at that point, my capacitor was running dangerously low and the Centii C-type Small Armor Repairer I’d picked up two days before was starting to have trouble keeping up with the the enemy drones.
¶ By this time, however, D.E.’s ECM drones had registered a number of successful cycles and I was no longer warp scrambled, so after confirming that my mate had a point on the myrm, I warped out to break his drones’ lock, turning about immediately to return to the fight only to find my capacitor charge insufficient to make the return trip all in one go. I was afraid I’d miss the kill, but knew that with the drones D.E. was using, he’d be in no danger. Just to be sure, though…
¶ “Status mate? The repper killed my cap, so the return warp came up 8 AU short but I’m 4 seconds out.”
¶ “Holding steady - armor’s pretty dented but the jamming is holding up,” DeathsEmbrace replied. I could hear the nervousness in his voice. “His friends will be here any minute.”
¶ I arrived back in the belt and relocked our target, finding his armor nearly gone. My Barrage ammo combined with D.E.’s Antimatter charges to finish off the Myrm’s protective plating and ripped the underlying hull apart. This time, there was no thought of ransom. He was SCA. No quarter asked and no quarter given.
¶ D.E. and I warped back to one of the safespots he had made and looked to our long-range scanners. We saw a Cormorant, a Myrmidon wreck and an Ishtar - only one pilot had responded to Keezor’s reports, and he was in a ship neither of us thought we could handle.

Tactical Error

¶ With the Ishtar hunting us, we could do one of two things - go deeper into the SCA constellation in search of more targets, possibly even try to kill the Ishtar, or we could just leave. We chose to move deeper into Ombil constellation which was the first of two tactical mistakes.
¶ On arriving at the Hakatiz gate, we saw the Ishtar arriving at the same gate. All three of us jumped through, the Ishtar immediately moving back toward the stargate. After a brief discussion, we decided that I would warp my Wolf first and if he couldn’t lock then the Thorax would immediately follow. Both of us aligned to the same planet, and I gave the order for warp. I got away just fine. My wingman’s Thorax, on the other hand, was nearly insta-locked.
¶ The Ishtar was nano-fitted, reaching phenomenal speeds and D.E. couldn’t keep him webbed. The ECM drones had trouble catching a positive cycle against the heavy assault cruiser’s sensors, and the Ishtar’s Tech 2 drones were putting a hurting on D.E.’s Thorax. It was at this point that I noticed the planet we’d chosen to warp to was 22 AU from the gate. I listened helplessly as the Ishtar’s drones ate the Thorax, one bulkhead at a time.
¶ Without the force-multiplying effect of DeathsEmbrace’s ECM drones, I decided that the most prudent course of action would be to leave Ombil constellation and Aridia region altogether, heading back toward Genesis. D.E. and I were surprised that no help came for the Myrmidon, which took us at least two full minutes to kill, and we were even more surprised that there was no SCA gate camp to evade on our way out of their ‘territory.’
¶ One might say that losing a Thorax to an Ishtar is a given, so it wasn’t really a tactical error, but I disagree. The most common fit for the Ishtar these days is the nano-fit. And that means ‘no tank worth mentioning’. If we would have charged the Ishtar, he would’ve engaged, the sentry guns would’ve opened up and between the Thorax webbing him, the ECM drones and our combined damage output in conjunction with the sentry guns, we certainly would have had a chance at victory. But we instead allowed the intimidation factor of the HAC to influence our judgment - a mistake I will not make again.
¶ All in all, D.E. lost a cruiser worth a total of 24 million ISK. We had destroyed a Tier 3 Exhumer worth 160 million ISK and a Tier 2 Battlecruiser worth 100 million ISK. I’ll make that trade any day of the week.

¶ Morale is an important factor to anything any pilot does in New Eden. I’ve been so worried about my pilots’ morale lately that I haven’t had time to tend to my own - until last night.

That was a blast, Havo - let me know the next time you’re in Amarr space! - DeathsEmbrace

-Havo out.

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