Crime & Punishment

I just wanna say, find a pirate corp, it'll be easier to get taught from the pro rather than trying to mirror it. You can get the facts directly from the person and not attempt to see what it was etc.

I'm in a similar situation, with a little over 1 mil SP I've lost 4 Merlins, 1 Condor and 1 Pod before getting my first solo kill (And it was an industrial ship from some big corp who destroyed my 2nd Condor just after destroying their Badger Mark II). Since then, I've been using a kiting Codor and things are better now (I love this freaking frigate).

Just keep trying and learn something new from every fight.

Keep the stories coming, it's a good read. o7

I'm officially addicted to the lowsec life, firey death and all.


WIth a name like Duke, he must be handsome.

wootest :)

Like you, I'm a former carebear turned low sec pirate. I tried FW for a few weeks, but its more fun just trying to blow everyone up. I'm still looking forward to my first kill. Good luck to you!

Dude.

PM me in-game. Just as new to this as you and i fly with some great blokes. Come join us.

Also Dukes my boss so he can have that word

I'm glad you're all enjoying my adventures, and I'm also glad I've been able to meet several other fine--albeit nefarious--folks who've recently taken up lives of crime.

It's not easy being green. I think Ghandi said that, and it's true. But the rookie has to wear off someday, and that someday might just be today.

Day 23

After losing eight Rifters and two pods, I finally tasted blood that wasn't my own. Well, ectoplasm. And garlic because I had pasta for dinner and it's not sitting too well.

I was near the end of an hour-long crawl through backwater low sec systems. Beverly had shown me nothing but Lokis, Basilisks, and command ships on the way. Honestly, are they just giving T3 ships away in specially-marked boxes of Cheerios now?

I kept on going and eventually found myself back at the edge of high sec, happy I still had my ship, but sad because I hadn't seen even a single target I could hope to engage successfully.

Then, when my hope had all but evaporated, Beverly revealed a Slasher sitting in a belt with no other ships in sight. I warp in and land only 12k away. The moment I see the ship in my overview, my little inner voice of calm, collected reason completely lost his mind.

"Orbit! AB! Lock the target, and…where the heck's my scrambler!?! Did you seriously forget to fit a scrambler on this thing!?! Oh, wait, no there it is! Calm down! No wonder you're terrible at this game!"

I open fire and it's on like a Tijuana rash. I'm sticking just under 1k, his shields are crawling down, and all I see him do is miss. Then in a blink we're nearly 2k apart, my own shields start to turn red, and it's my shots which are missing. I realize I'm being webbed and forgot to throw my own on him. (Have I mentioned I'm terrible at this?) I fix that and we're trading even blows--only I've already got him into armor and haven't even had to touch my repper yet.

Ten seconds later it's over and I'm frantically trying to lock his pod, knowing it's going to warp away long before the scram hits it.

See, I'm old school in my pirate ways. Or, rather, I've read enough forum posts about the glory days of ransoming to know that's the life for me. Sure, supposedly no one ever pays because no one ever honors them anymore.

Well, bollocks to that, I say! I'll show 'em! I'll offer every pod I catch a ransom--maybe even a ship or two if the opportunity presents itself--and I'll honor every one. Why? Because it's romantic. I don't mean the slap and squish kind of romantic. I mean the devoted to something out of pure idealism romantic.

"Wait! Did I actually scram this guy's pod? How'd that happen!?! Oh crap, what do I do now? Right! Open a convo! Come on, you've got this Duke. Man, how long's that poor guy been waiting there, anyway? How do I open a convo again? Dear Shatner, you're useless, Duke. Utterly useless! There, right click, done. Now we wait."

He rejected the conversation request, so I turned my guns loose on, he went pop, and I flew over to check out what goodies he'd left for me in the ruins of his ship.

I felt a little guilty then, not because I killed his pod--they're pixels, not people--but because I'm pretty sure he was sitting there for like a solid minute, wondering what I was going to do, before I realized I'd caught his pod and figured out the whole convo thing.

He probably thinks I was toying with him or something, when really I'm just easily distracted.

Then the Rifter warped in.

I sighed, because I knew it was too good to be true. I got my first kill, even popped a pod, and I was going to lose my ship anyway.

"The heck with it! He's yellow-boxing me? Fine! Time to do the man dance! And I don't mean like the man dancing they do at that club two towns over that plays nothing but bad house music! Not that I'm judging them!"

This time I did everything right. Orbit, AB, scram--as soon as he was in range I fired off the guns and NOS and prepared to meet another grizzly end. I had next to no shields at the start of the fight, so his first volley took me into armor.

I watched his shields begin to drop, and I was still alive. Then I watched his armor trickle away, and I was still alive. My repper was actually keeping up with the damage he was throwing at me. "No way. No way I'm this lucky," my inner voice said.

I was.

His pod warped off, but I looted both wrecks, dropped a "gf" in Local, and flew back home once the timers ran out.

You know, I was already hooked on this low sec pirating thing when all I was managing to do was get blown up several times a day. Now that I've got a couple notches on the old Rifter, I don't think there's any turning back.

If they decline the convo, you could always start talking in local. If they decline the ransom offer, you can always just hold the pod there instead of popping it. Not like you have anywhere else to be. But he might.

One nice effect of this is you will often get another fight. Rather than sitting there for hours or logging off, the tackled pod is likely to call a friend to come help. He might even be trying to drag out a conversation with you, haggling for the pod, just to buy time for the friend to show up. Why go looking for another fight, when you can try to force another one right here and now?

Often it will be more than one friend coming. This is where it helps to have friends of your own around. Side effects may include a series of fights that escalates into dozens of people flying bigger ships on both sides up to and including capitals, people that will hunt you whenever you are on-line in the future and/or friends for life.

Today, I can't even reliably pull a win when I pick the fight. Tomorrow?

You know, it could just be because it's four in the morning where I am and I just woke up, but I've tried writing three different reasons here basically saying "I just don't think that'd work out well for me." And half-way through writing each one I thought: "Wait. Maybe if [insert condition] were true..."

So...maybe.

Still, I'd feel bad about that. Popping someone for not paying the ransom--or even accepting the conversation to get the negotiation going--that's one thing. But being like, "Dude, you are now my personal soccer* ball. Talllyhooooooo!" is quite another.

* For those of you not living in the United States, you call soccer "football." In the US, "football" means "rugby, but played with 15 pounds of safety gear." You probably already knew that, but I wanted to make that rugby joke. It's four. Everything seems funny to me now.

Except that clown staring in through my bedroom window. She's just turning me on.

Yeah, it's a pretty **** move, isn't it?
It's almost like kidnapping a helpless damsel and holding her hostage for ransom.

Thanks again (and again, and again) for the all the kind words being tossed my way both here and in game. I'm learning a lot, making some friends, and continuing to have a blast.

Before dropping in today's diary entry, I want to echo what many people have already said, both here and in other threads. Don't wait to pirate (or PvP in general). Just get out there and do it. There's always one more skill to train, there's always a better ship, and there's always another pilot who can take you out.

If you spend your life waiting, you'll find yourself doing nothing.

Or something.

Day 24

In the real world, I'm my own boss. I work from home and don't wear pants unless I absolutely want to. Yet today I am sad. Why? Because sometimes people insist on my going out. I call it a waste of time; they call it "face time," or "hanging out," or "dating." Whatever floats your goat, I guess.

Anyway, I somehow managed to stain my day with five things I have to do out in the Big Room, which means I had only one hour to spend this morning looking for piratey goodness.

At the start of the hour, I was trolling through a border system and spied a one month-old chap in an NPC corp. I also spied a small FW plex on my overview within scan range of a safe I had. I wake up Beverly and she reports a Merlin sporting the fellow's name.

With no one else in system, I warp in and tell Beverly to watch my back. And by that I mean I drop her range, get her looking three sixty, and hammer the "SCAN" button about twenty times a second. (See? If you could move your hand as fast as I can move mine, would you want to leave the house?)

I hit the acceleration gate and see nothing on my overview, but Beverly's still showing the Merlin. Ah ha! He's inside the plex.

I activate the gate…and see three guys jump into local the second my ship starts to align. I shout something obscene and start slapping control-space, which has never, ever worked for me the way. Never. Not even once. At all.

So I'm entering warp whether I like it or not, and I'm also right-clicking like a crazy person to see who these new people are. Answer? Three guys, all from the same player corp, each with a sec status south of -5.0.

Fantastic.

My flight into the plex is underway--and going painfully slow, I might add--and Beverly is just losing her mind. The Merlin's still there, but now she's also screaming about a Jag and two other frigates. I didn't catch what types they were, on account of being too busy bashing my head on my desk and wondering why everything was terrible.

The situation had trap written all over it. I drop in 6k from the Merlin and immediately try to warp away, hoping to get out before he can tackle me for his inbound friends.

But as I align, the Merlin doesn't even try to lock me. I get out clean, but confused. I mean, if you're going to go fishing, shouldn't you have some tackle with that bait? (See what I did there? Of course you did! Because you're very smart and sexy. Go you!)

As soon as I come out of warp at a safe near the nearest gate, I notice the three new guys had gone all flashy. And a minute later, Beverly reports Merlin Dude's pod at the gate…then he's gone.

I knew then that somehow the universe had spoken to me. It had given me a lesson in peace, and the wisdom of avoiding conflict. It was a lesson I would take with me forever.

And by "forever" I mean right up until I attacked and destroyed an unarmed Probe scanning for exploration sites in the next system over.

As your attorney, I advise you to not park directly on the first planet in a low sec system while scanning for things.

I orbit, scram, pew pew, etc. I thought it was sort of weird he wasn't doing any damage to me, and in retrospect I might have been better served by shutting down my guns and trying to ransom his ship. Oh well, hindsight. Pop goes the Probe and I manage to snag his pod.

Yes! Another chance for a ransom, and I even get the convo request off without a hitch! He accepts and I say "1mil, 30secs." I can't say I'm too happy with that ransom demand. Not the money part. Sure, he was only eight days old, but I think a 1mil minimum for a pod is a fair standard.

No, what I was unhappy with was how savage and impersonal it must have sounded. As soon as I read it back I wanted to be all like Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction: "If I'm curt with you, it's because time is a factor."

Ten seconds go by, twenty. I'm just about to remind him the clock is ticking when I see something flash in my UI. Unfortunately, it wasn't my wallet.

"Oh. He gave me a 1 mil bounty. Okay then…"

Pop goes the pod, I close the convo, and loot the wreck.

I definitely need to work on my hat lines.