The Defias Blog

¶ “ENGINEERING! WHY AREN’T WE AT WARP YET!?”
¶ I couldn’t understand it. The Rupture-class cruiser that I’d taken into C9N was brand-new and shouldn’t be having any problems reaching ¾ velocity at all. I also couldn’t understand why Engineering hadn’t responded.
¶ “ENGINEERING - STATUS!”
¶ “Sir, you’re at the Republic Fleet Cloning Facility in Gulfonodi,” came the reply - the speaker was definitely not a part of my 0.0 engineering crew.
¶ I reached up and wiped the artificial amniotic fluid from my eyes and sure enough, I was sitting up in a clone vat. Everything had happened so fast…. The fleet commander had called for the support vessels and we’d leapt into warp… there had been a gunner at the station we were attacking, and then a large fleet of enemy battleships and heavy assault cruisers warped in. I locked the battleship that was designated primary just as Aura warned me that the station’s guns were resolving on us. I gave the order to warp out….
¶ Oh. Now I get it. *sigh*

Making the Best of It
¶ I stood up out of the vat and let the technician help me with disconnecting from the umbilical and neurological connections, and before long I was showered and walking down the corridors to my personal quarters. A quick run through the comm channels showed three of my pilots were online, however all of them were in Omist. But DeathsEmbrace, .BAT Empire’s CEO, was logged in on the Alliance channel.
¶ Deaths and I had been talking for a while about organizing small wolfpack-type ops. We’d discussed loadouts for interceptors, assault frigates, electronic attack frigates, even covert ops ships and stealth bombers. We’d talked a bit about tactics and decided that it would be fun and educational to run around in small gangs, looking to see how much trouble we could get into before we died. Unfortunately, we hadn’t been able to do anything at all, as we seemed to always be 50 jumps away from each other or simply busy with other things. I shot him a message.
¶ “Hey mate - where are you?”
¶ “Amarr, mate - why, whaddaya need?”
¶ “I just found myself in Empire space unexpectedly and figured if you were around, maybe we could go kill someone.”
¶ He chuckled at that. “Well, I’ve got two fully loaded Wolves at Teonusude, about 20 jumps from here…”
¶ That was good - I didn’t have a Wolf in Molden Heath anymore, having lost my last one to a Sabre-class interdictor in a Creo-corp mining complex. That had been a fun fight and to be fair, the Angel Cartel played as much a part in my loss as the ‘dictor pilot, but I would’ve lost anyway - I wasn’t carrying the right ammo to eat through such a thick shield. I learned afterward that he had two Medium Shield Extenders fitted, and the only ammunitions I was carrying were Barrage and Hail - not the best against shields. But now I carry Republic Fleet EMP in my Wolf, just in case. But I digress…
¶ “I lost my Wolf the other day - how much you want for one of yours?”
¶ “For you? 20 million.”
¶ “Done - make the contract and I’ll dick around here until you arrive.”

The Strangest Things
¶ I’ve seen some pretty silly loadouts in my time, and I think that sometimes it’s just a matter of my own inexperience making the loadout incomprehensible. But not all the time… for example, the Republic Fleet Firetail I killed - Gisti Shield Booster AND a Small Armor Repairer, with a Warp Core Stabilizer. The Firetail is built for speed, emphasizing the Minmatar’s major engineering advantage over the other three empires. He not only mixed tanks, but completely ignored the fact that the Firetail can be just as fast as a Stiletto- or Claw-class interceptor, if not faster and since it’s got a split weapons system, the speed is very important. In fact, had he been just a little faster, he could’ve escaped me.
¶ I mention this because of the Omen-class cruiser I found with four Tech 2 medium-sized blasters fitted, and an empty high-power hardpoint. He had all the capacitor help in the world, but no tank and he was using hybrid turrets, which eat capacitor energy even though the ship’s design compensates for and decreases the capacitor energy used by energy turrets. I found him hunting Angel Cartel pilots in Teonusude. He got upset when I nosed around in the wrecks and lifted a couple of items - of course, I hoped he would and I wasn’t interested in the small hull repairer I’d taken, but that’s beside the point.
¶ He resolved a lock on me and I sped into a tight orbit, then shut off the microwarp drive to reduce my signature radius while my Republic Fleet EMP shells stripped his shield. Once the shield had been penetrated, I ordered the load to be switched one-by-one to Barrage so as to maintain a steady stream of fire while bringing a more effective ammo type to bear.
¶ After it was all said and done and I had the remains of his wreck boxed up and stored in my personal hangar, I looked up his employment history and found that he’d been around a lot longer than I had - I couldn’t understand what his loadout was about, but then again, the estimated value of what he left behind was 14 million ISK so I really didn’t care why he’d set his Omen up the way he did. Darwin, right?

Time to Go
¶ By this time, DeathsEmbrace was arriving in the Constellation and it was time to go hunting. Knowing that we wouldn’t be able to engage near a station or stargate, we decided to carry afterburners with us in case we found a target in a deadspace complex - I was going to be heading for Metropolis or Derelik, where such places abound - but were primarily focusing on scanning through the belts to find other hunters like ourselves or anybody hapless enough to be in the way of two Wolves flying ANTX colors.
¶ Unfortunately for us, our exploits left us empty handed. From Teonusude, we went through Bosena, Heild, Aedald, Audesder, into Derelik through the Kenobanala gate, from there to Astabih and finally into Khabi - an entry point into the Great Wildlands region which is held by Thukker Tribe. In Khabi, we tried for a while to locate the few people whom we were sure were in the belts, including a Maller-class cruiser and a Thorax-class cruiser, but Khabi has 25 belts and we just couldn’t find them before they vanished from the directional scanners. Having had no luck in this regard, we decided to go and see what was happening in Great Wildlands which is largely occupied by Foundation and Firmus Ixion - former BoB pets.

Bad Timing
¶ We entered Great Wildlands through 7Q-8Z2, which we found to be empty aside from a Helios-class covert ops frigate. No point in us chasing that bird, so we did the only thing we could do - ignored it. Given our choices, SUR-F7 or 8YC-AN, we chose to go for 8YC, as one jump beyond that was a system with a station where we might find a bit of activity. Right about that time, though, a FIX nano gang made up of a Taranis-class interceptor, an Ishtar-class heavy assault cruiser, a Rapier-class recon cruiser and two other ships that I didn’t get eyes on, jumped into the system.
¶ “I’m already in warp for the E02 gate, mate - can ya get away from ‘im?” DeathsEmbrace asked.
¶ “Nah, but it’s alright - I can burn to the gate here before his drones eat my hull.”
¶ Turns out that was only barely true. By the time my Wolf’s 1700m/sec microwarpdrive got me back to the gate to jump into SUR-F7, the damage reports put me at or about 10% armor integrity but the nanobots were deployed and working on plugging some of the larger holes.
¶ On jumping into SUR-F7, I found myself fortunate in that I’d arrived in system just a hair outside of the warp disruption bubble they’d hastily deployed. With a wave, I warped to the 7Q-8Z2 gate and back into Derelik through Khabi.
¶ “Damage Control - report.”
¶ “All systems operational,” came the reply.
¶ “Stand down.” I turned back to the fleet comm. “Deaths, you alright?”
¶ “Aye, mate, all’s well. I’m gettin’ a bit tired anyhow, think I’m gonna shut down here at this safespot for the night.”
¶ “Roger that - thanks for coming along.”

Deadspace, Miners and Battleships
¶ Flying solo now, the rules had changed. I couldn’t take some of the risks DeathsEmbrace and I would’ve taken together, because I didn’t have 4 more guns and another launcher to count on anymore - just my own, so I’d have to be slightly more cautious in the fights I looked for. I ran around the pocket of low-security space around Khabi and found things pretty dry. Knowing that there were DED-listed complexes in the region, though, I asked Aura for a listing of the complexes, their owners, and their locations.
¶ “There are Sansha outposts in Rashy and Kiereend - DED Threat Assessment Level One in both cases.”
¶ Rashy and Kiereend are adjacent to one another on the starmap, and were only five jumps away from my current location, so I had Aura set course for Rashy hoping to find someone who didn’t need their frigate. Unlike the complexes in Molden Heath, these systems didn’t seem very active. I decided I’d wait it out for a while and might as well rampage through Sansha’s little operation in the meantime. This went on in Kiereend as well, and while I was never rewarded with a ripe target, I did find a Centii C-Type Small Armor Repairer, which is worth 15-20 million ISK according to the contract listings.
¶ Still, it wasn’t what I was here for - I was here to test the limitations of my Wolf. I went back into Rashy, hoping that by this time someone might’ve found their way to the Sansha installation. Instead, I found a Retriever and a cargo container on the scanner. It didn’t take long to narrow him down as Rashy has only six belts. I had Aura make a bookmark of his can’s coordinates, went to the next belt so that if he’d noticed me, it would appear that I was simply hunting Sansha pilots, and immediately warped back to his location to transfer the ore he’d mined into a can of my own.

?[ 2008.03.18 05:52:34 ] EVE System > Channel changed to Rashy Local Channel
?[ 2008.03.18 05:59:38 ] GhostCyberwolf > ????
?[ 2008.03.18 05:59:43 ] Havohej > ????
?[ 2008.03.18 05:59:52 ] GhostCyberwolf > WTF are you doing ?
?[ 2008.03.18 06:00:03 ] Havohej > I was just about to ask you the same thing…?

¶ At this point, he warped his Retriever-class mining barge out of the belt.

?[ 2008.03.18 06:01:45 ] Havohej > Whatcha goin’ to bring back?
?[ 2008.03.18 06:02:00 ] GhostCyberwolf > your mom
?[ 2008.03.18 06:02:09 ] Havohej > You can’t fly motherships in highsec.
?[ 2008.03.18 06:04:50 ] Havohej > So whatcha getting?
?[ 2008.03.18 06:04:52 ] Havohej > AF?
?[ 2008.03.18 06:04:53 ] Havohej > Cruiser?
?[ 2008.03.18 06:04:55 ] Havohej > BC?
?[ 2008.03.18 06:05:11 ] GhostCyberwolf > bro this is my miner
?[ 2008.03.18 06:05:30 ] GhostCyberwolf > i mine with this character while i do missions on my other computer with another
?[ 2008.03.18 06:05:39 ] Havohej > :(
?[ 2008.03.18 06:05:48 ] Havohej > I do similar, but on the same comp…
?[ 2008.03.18 06:05:53 ] Havohej > patch screwed that up some.
?[ 2008.03.18 06:06:03 ] GhostCyberwolf > yeah did that to me too : (
?[ 2008.03.18 06:06:04 ] Havohej > So now I have to flip cans to feed my kids… and my mom.
?[ 2008.03.18 06:06:20 ] GhostCyberwolf > lol
?[ 2008.03.18 06:06:25 ] Havohej > Why’d you dock if you weren’t going for a fighting ship?
?[ 2008.03.18 06:06:38 ] Havohej > You oughta know by now I can’t shoot you til you sick the drones on me…
?[ 2008.03.18 06:07:11 ] Havohej > And this is a 20m frigate… I damn sure ain’t gonna suicide it :P
?[ 2008.03.18 06:07:22 ] GhostCyberwolf > lol
?[ 2008.03.18 06:07:25 ] GhostCyberwolf > i know
?[ 2008.03.18 06:07:41 ] GhostCyberwolf > i was just docking so i could finish my mission on my other computer
?[ 2008.03.18 06:07:48 ] Havohej > ah I see
?[ 2008.03.18 06:08:18 ] Havohej > Well, fly safe.
?[ 2008.03.18 06:08:37 ] GhostCyberwolf > you too

¶ Seeing that he wasn’t going to come back in a fighting ship and fight for the ore, I blew it up to clear the litter from the belt and went back to Kiereend to check on my other Sansha base. Here I found a Hulk-class exhumer, a Maelstrom-class battleship and two time-stamped cargo containers that I hadn’t noticed before… and both cans were at least 30 minutes old. With a Hulk, I knew at least one of them must be full. But the Maelstrom gave me pause… then I remembered reading about people using Rokhs, Maelstroms, Dominixes and other battleships as mining ships, so I decided to warp in and have a look, steeling my resolve that if I saw mining lasers coming from that Maelstrom, I was going to take both cans.
¶ Sure enough… there were 3 strip miners blazing from the Hulk and 8 mining lasers blazing from the Maelstrom. I also took note of the swarm of mining drones and - what’s this…? Harvester Mining Drones! Each of those drones was worth 35 million ISK on the open market - more than I’d paid for the Wolf I was flying.
¶ I flipped the can closest to the Maelstrom and went into a tight orbit, locking both him and his friend in the Hulk as the Hulk pilot recalled his drones. I wasn’t sure how large his drone bay was, but I expected the king of the mining barges to have room for some fighting drones. At this point, I figured I’d have light drones from the Hulk and medium or heavy drones from the battleship… all the while, I’d also have to hold one of them down - the Maelstrom, as I wanted to see if I could break his shield and armor with just my armaments - while trying not to get killed by the swarm of automated killers.
¶ What actually happened, however, was neither of them locked me back, neither of them released combat drones… they both simply docked. Both cans were filled to the brim with high-yield veldspar and pyroxeres. I blew up the pyroxeres and made them an offer for the veldspar, just knowing that the Maelstrom was refitting for a fight and that I likely didn’t have much time before he’d return.

?[ 2008.03.18 06:16:49 ] EVE System > Channel changed to Kiereend Local Channel
?[ 2008.03.18 06:27:15 ] Havohej > 10m and I don’t blow up this ore… first can is gone, but al 0550 is safe and sound… so far.

¶ At this point, I noticed that not all of the drones had been pulled in before the two ships warped out. There were three normal mining drones and one Harvester left behind - so even though they weren’t responding to my offer to leave the remaining can of veldspar for them I still profited 30+ million ISK for my time.

?[ 2008.03.18 06:27:52 ] Havohej > nvm
?[ 2008.03.18 06:31:47 ] Havohej > Thanks for the Harvester Mining Drone

¶ I blew up the veldspar, scooped the drone and docked - only the three of us showed on Local, and both of them were in-station as well. After a few minutes of laughing it up with an alliance mate and a friend who would be joining DFIAS shortly, I noticed the Maelstrom pilot, Deldror, undock. According to Aura, there was just under a minute left on the aggression timer. I undocked to see what he’d done with his battleship fit, knowing I could get to range and escape at any time if I really needed to.
¶ Looking closely at his battleship, there didn’t seem to be any new guns… he still had the mining lasers fitted. But this time, he did lock me. I waited… and waited… and nothing happened. The timer ran out, and I turned back toward the docking approach. Suddenly, this announcement was broadcast by the station:

[ 2008.03.18 06:42:45 ] (notify) Deldror: You have foolishly engaged in criminal activity within sight of sentry guns and must suffer the consequences.
[ 2008.03.18 06:42:49 ] (combat) <color=0xffbb6600>Wrath Cruise Missile belonging to Deldror hits you, doing 33.4 damage.

¶ I couldn’t believe it. This idiot had waited so long that CONCORD no longer considered me a valid target for his corporation, but fired on me anyway… and my ship’s signature radius was too small for his cruise missile (which he undoubtedly thought would tear my Assault Frigate apart in short order) to do any damage at all. I would’ve shot back for a killmail, but I was too busy laughing and didn’t even think about it. I picked up a couple of Tech 2 shield hardeners, a Tech 2 10MN afterburner, a Tech 2 Co-Processor and a couple of other odds and ends just as they both disconnected from the Local channel.

¶ All in all, it had been a fun, exciting and at times truly dangerous night. With all the issues involved in running a 0.0 corporation, it had been quite some time since I was able to really just enjoy myself and I’d needed it badly. It didn’t hurt one bit that it had been a profitable night, either!

-Havo out.

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