Holy Referrals Batman!

Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.
-- Douglas Adams

Having added myself to Eve Bloggers I was hoping to see some increase in page views.  At the time of this writing, I went from 6 (which were all bots and webcrawlers) to 427.  In one day.  Thanks for those of you who posted about this blog on your own.  I also enjoy the comments, and will try to respond to those that want a response.

With the added site traffic, I guess I should figure out some way to pace the blog posts.  I'm actually a little embarrassed by the way Eve Bloggers' stream basically was taken over by my posts, since they all came in such a short time.  Going forward, I'm thinking about a twice weekly scheduled post.  Thursdays and Mondays are sounding good to me right now since, well, tomorrow is Thursday and I always like having new blogs to read on Monday when I'm bored at work.  So now, without further ado, more tales of people dying horribly...not all of them me!



Having read some advice for Rifters (And not yet really grokking the concept that the Punisher. Is. Not. The. Rifter) I had been flying around with Republic Fleet EMP and Barrage.  I had started roaming farther and farther from home, hoping to come across some Miners feeling safe in some barren corner of Lowsec.  What I found instead was an Armor fit Rifter ready for a fight.  He came in close and I found out just how poorly Autocannons track with Barrage loaded when you aren't getting a tracking bonus.  After a little while spent not hitting my opponent at all, I switched to Fleet EMP...and began hitting him for absolutely meaningless damage.  I've since changed to using Fusion for most fights.  I keep some EMP around for shield tankers, and Barrage around for Kiters, but go through the most Fusion.

So roaming far away hadn't gone too well, but I was seeing space that was a whole lot less blobby than home. Since I was roaming solo at the time, I decided this was a good sign, and went right back in the same direction after fitting a new ship and getting some different bullets.  I was always more willing to die in a 1v1 than I was in a 6v1.  Getting a bit farther out this time, I landed in a system with only one other pilot in local.  I also saw that there were no stations he could be docked in.  Before long, I was hot on the heels of a three month old Caracal pilot that seemed to be ratting in belts.  Twice I thought I had him only lose him on scan just as I was landing, finding only wrecks instead.  Hoping that the third time was to be the charm, I tried again.  Just as I landed to find nothing but wrecks, another Punisher appeared on my overview.  "Oh," I said to myself, "local now has two other people in it."

The homicidal voice in my head shouted "Quick, get him!" and I quickly started trying to warp scramble him.  Target is invulnerable...target is invulnerable...target is invulnerable...gotcha!  His Dual Light Lasers did a pretty good job of stripping away my shields, but I had come to think of those as the little red bar above my armor and my armor was fairing a lot better.  My explosive ammo versus his EM lasers really decided this fight before it started, and when it seemed he was only one volley away from space dust, I cycled off my scram to try for the pod.  And then I was staring at a warp scrambled capsule.

Wow.  I was suddenly making this look easy.  Hands shaking slightly at my first opportunity to ransom someone by myself, I went to invite him to our ransom channel, only to be greeted by a convo invite from my new friend*.

[ 2010.11.20 18:51:05 ] kronos > soooo this is piracy? :P 
[ 2010.11.20 18:51:15 ] Me > Generally, yes.
[ 2010.11.20 18:51:22 ] kronos > just checkin :P
[ 2010.11.20 18:51:27 ] Me > Just business, nothing personal.
[ 2010.11.20 18:51:39 ] kronos > i came out looking for something mining tbh lol

Finally taking the time to look up his character bio, I saw he was about as old as I was.  Meant he probably didn't have much in the way of isk, or implants for that matter.  I offered to let him go for 2 million isk, but he opted for the express trip back to his clone bay instead.  After the fight, when I had the chance to review the killmail, I found some...odd things.  The lows had overdrive injectors, inertial stabs, with a MWD and Warp Disruptor in the mids.  I shot him a convo invite of my own, and asked if he'd mind some fitting advice from yours truly.  We chatted out my GCC discussing playing to a ships strengths instead of trying to overcome it's weaknesses.  See?  Pirates aren't all evil.

It wasn't much of a fight, but I did learn a couple of valuable lessons.  Remember when I said you should target the fish and not the sharks?  This is a good example.  Just as you wouldn't want to run missions in a PvP fit ship, PvE fittings don't fair too well in PvP. It was also important to me as my first solo kill, solo pod kill and solo ransom all in one.  It left me with a lovely drop in my security status, a sense of accomplishment and also worry.  If it was really possible to grab pods that easily, had I only been lucky thus far?  Was it only a matter of time until I too was waking up in a clone bay with a headache?  Only time would tell.

*Names have been changed to blah blah blah...I don't ever plan on posting someone's actual in game name here, because humiliating other people isn't really my point in all this.  If you really care, I'm sure you can put together who I am and who the people I'm talking about are from KB info...if you do, I'm sorry that your life is so dull.