Intel Fail

I only know as much about myself as my mind can work out under its current conditions. And its current conditions are not good.
--Douglas Adams

After my last run in with a Stealth Bomber, I got excited spotting a Nemesis at a FW Plex.  Unfortunately for me, this one slipped away.  Fortunately for me, what followed was funny enough that I wanted to share.

Warping into what I thought was going to be an easy kill, I was disappointed to see my target disappear from D-scan before I landed.  Quickly pointing my ship back in the direction of the Scan Safe I had come from to see if I still had him on 360 from there, a Daredevil landed just as I was warping off.  Now, I had absolutely no intention of fighting a Daredevil in an Interceptor.  Something to do with Uber-Webs ruining my day turned me off to the whole idea.

When I wasn't able to locate any ships other than the Daredevil on scan with 9 in local, I docked at the top station to see who was there.  Finding everyone else docked up, I started a little friendly banter in Local.  I was quickly joined by another pilot, who I think was the aforementioned Nemesis pilot, but I could be wrong.

[ 2011.04.28 02:39:33 ] Yours Truly > So this is where the party is.
[ 2011.04.28 02:41:07 ] Bomberman > Party? I love parties
[ 2011.04.28 02:42:00 ] Yours Truly > Yeah....but no one brought any bean dip. :-/
[ 2011.04.28 02:43:01 ] Bomberman > Damn, thats just unaccaptable
[ 2011.04.28 02:43:10 ] Bomberman > did someone bring pie?
[ 2011.04.28 02:43:38 ] Yours Truly > I know right? I was hoping to put on a Godzilla marathon...but without bean dip it's just pointless.
[ 2011.04.28 02:43:52 ] Bomberman > We could watch The Room instead
[ 2011.04.28 02:44:13 ] Yours Truly > Should I just tear my eyes out with a spoon now and get it over with?
[ 2011.04.28 02:44:22 ] Bomberman > Hey The Room is awesome :(
[ 2011.04.28 02:44:40 ] Bomberman > oh hey my pizza is here, brb
[ 2011.04.28 02:45:22 ] Yours Truly > Yeah...think I'm going to take a break too...so anyone wanting to go ratting should feel free to do so in relative safety :-D

At which point I stepped away from my computer for a moment.  When I came back, seeing a few more names appearing in local, I undocked to check them out and was greeted by the Daredevil pilot now sitting on the undock to the station.  I warped off to try scanning the rest of the system to see what was in Space, and the Daredevil pilot tried in vain to get a lock on me.  When he didn't pull it off, he joined in on our discussion in local.

[ 2011.04.28 02:51:04 ] Matt Murdock > why you run
[ 2011.04.28 02:51:13 ] Yours Truly > Why you camp?
[ 2011.04.28 02:51:23 ] Matt Murdock > scared pirate?
[ 2011.04.28 02:51:29 ] Bomberman > Hmm ratting in relative safety you say...
[ 2011.04.28 02:51:32 ] Bomberman > I think it is a trap
[ 2011.04.28 02:51:53 ] Matt Murdock > don't worry blood money are fail pirates
[ 2011.04.28 02:52:16 ] Yours Truly > You've heard of us? I'm blushing.

It seems my star of fame hadn't spread to the farthest reaches of the interwebs though.  Turns out he hadn't heard of us before.  He had just used the internet to gain a little intel on us.  Now, the Meta-Game is one of the things about EVE Online that really interests me.  I may not be into Nullsec politics and all the things that people typically think of when Meta-Gaming is brought up, but I use plenty of information outside of the game to learn all sorts of information about my opponents fits and the tactics they've used in the past.  The thing you've got to be careful of is taking what you find at face value.

[ 2011.04.28 02:57:41 ] Matt Murdock > Yours Truly call in 4 other buddies maye you'll fight
[ 2011.04.28 02:58:39 ] Yours Truly > Nah. I don't like using numbers to win...I need to respect myself in the morning.
[ 2011.04.28 02:59:25 ] Matt Murdock > i guess hiding is an option too v0v
[ 2011.04.28 03:00:11 ] Yours Truly > When the options are fight and lose or not fight...yeah, that's pretty much it.
[ 2011.04.28 03:00:45 ] Bomberman > "Tactics are for cowards" -- Sun Tzu
[ 2011.04.28 03:00:47 ] Bomberman > I think
[ 2011.04.28 03:01:00 ] Yours Truly > Hehe.
[ 2011.04.28 03:01:09 ] Yours Truly > I don't think he said that...
[ 2011.04.28 03:01:26 ] Bomberman > Someone on the Internet told me he did
[ 2011.04.28 03:01:32 ] Matt Murdock > 7 kill is impressive
[ 2011.04.28 03:01:34 ] Matt Murdock > i should back off
[ 2011.04.28 03:01:37 ] Yours Truly > Then it must be true!
[ 2011.04.28 03:01:41 ] Bomberman > exactly!
[ 2011.04.28 03:03:15 ] Yours Truly > Who has 7 kills?
[ 2011.04.28 03:03:19 ] Yours Truly > /emote is confused.
[ 2011.04.28 03:03:29 ] Matt Murdock > you according to eve kill
[ 2011.04.28 03:03:30 ] Bomberman > Me
[ 2011.04.28 03:03:33 ] Bomberman > oh, not me
[ 2011.04.28 03:03:35 ] Bomberman > :(
[ 2011.04.28 03:03:43 ] Yours Truly > I do? That's awesome!
[ 2011.04.28 03:03:47 ] Yours Truly > How many losses?
[ 2011.04.28 03:03:51 ] Matt Murdock > 20 seomthing
[ 2011.04.28 03:04:07 ] Yours Truly > 7:20...that's epic.
[ 2011.04.28 03:04:35 ] Yours Truly > Linky?
[ 2011.04.28 03:04:54 ] Matt Murdock > no kills in over a month that's not cool. seems like a waste of time messing with your alliance

At this point, my interest in what he was talking about was piqued.  Even without a link I began searching to find where this information was coming from.  Sure enough, I turned up my killboard statistics on EVE-Kill and had a look.  The vast majority of my kills were not being reported to killboards there.  In fact, over 85% of my kills had never been reported there.  On the other hand, over 75% of my losses had been reported there.  Including my loss from the previous day, but not my kill from the previous day.  Which had been against the same pilot!

[ 2011.04.28 03:06:11 ] Yours Truly > It's extremely telling that so many people don't post their losses but still post their kills.
[ 2011.04.28 03:06:21 ] Yours Truly > I don't use eve-kill myself.
[ 2011.04.28 03:07:12 ] Matt Murdock > gonna go food shopping. feel free to move your inty around
[ 2011.04.28 03:07:33 ] Yours Truly > But...The Daily Show is on... :-(
[ 2011.04.28 03:08:40 ] Yours Truly > Also, props to those guys who actually posted their losses on eve-kill...all 7 of them.

At that point I really was caught up in The Daily Show and logged off for the night, but not without being left bewildered at the disparity I had seen in those stats.  Eelis Kiy over at where the frack is my SHIP? had a great post recently about her killboard and the story it told.  Others had responded to her post with a similar analysis of their own.  I considered doing so myself, but I've only really flown three different ships and it would have likely been a very boring topic for me.

What I offer instead, is this corollary: Don't believe everything that you read.  I don't bother posting my kills or losses to any of the popular killboards out there.  One of the benefits of this is the misinformation that others draw from it when trying to check up on me.  Like the Daredevil pilot above, if I had come across someone with 7 kills and 20 losses, I would immediately dismiss him as harmless.  Thankfully, my actual kill-to-death ratio isn't nearly that bad.  Had I not gotten distracted by my daily dose of topical political commentary, I might have just reshipped to something less likely to get destroyed by a Daredevil.  Hopefully he has a run-in with one of the fellow members of the Cartel one day in a more evenly matched ship.  Surely since we haven't killed anything in over a month he should have an easy time at it.

Regarrrds,

FNG