Crime & Punishment

So, I was planning on scanning down some mission runners using MTU's to go ,err, 'play' with them a bit.

Figured it shouldn't be that hard so I made a probing filter that only has the MTU box ticked. But every time I run a scan the results get polluted with tons of other mobile structures, mostly POS modules. It wouldn't be much of a problem if there were only a few but in your average hi sec system there are hundreds.

I take it this is by design and not some sort of bug. My question now is: how to scan down MTU's quickly?

I would just pick a high density carebear missioning system (i.e. Apanake) and probe down battlecruisers and battleships. Drop by and start stealing their loots, blapping a loot piniata MTU if one is present. But don't get fixated on the MTU or probing down MTU's, just get in there and steal/salvage. (See 'Mission flipping' in this).

I believe the filters only work once you've got the item that you're scanning up to 25%, which is when it tells you what type of structure it is, filtering other structures out before this would lead to misuse of the filers as there are filters for certain types of ships, meaning you wouldn't have to narrow your scans down with D-scan first if you were looking for one person's ship in particular.

If you don't want to get false positives avoid placing your probes around planets, stations or moons and use D-scan to find the approximate location of what you're probing and place your probes there. Oh, if you want to make sure that MTU you're probing isn't sitting abandoned in space, switch your filters to ships at the 4AU point, if the MTU belongs to a ship larger than a cruiser, you'll probably be able to get that ship to 100% before the MTU.

If you are in a 0.7 system or below, you are best off scanning all the planets real quick with a .5 au scan, this will pick up all the POSs in the system, and will clear all that crap out of your results. After that, I always just scan for structures. The issue with just scanning with a filter for just MTUs is that as soon as you scan something to the point where its discernible what type of structure it is, it will disappear from you the scan results, which means you cant click it to ignore it. If I scan something down, and its not what Im looking for, I just ignore it and increase my probe scan and try again. With this method I have been able to get all the MTUs in Osmon fairly quickly. Hope this helps, now go "play" with some mission bears!

If you intend to scan down then blap MTUs in the aim of making bears shoot you (or just for the killmails on the MTUs), I recommend you pick a 0.9 mission system like Dodixie (which has several >0.7 systems around it that missions send you to, Vylade, Meves, Arg-something, Eglennaert, etc).

Every time you scan one down, warp to it, shoot it up, then post the killmail in local with a comment like "I accidentally the tractor, is that bad?" Someone will shoot you eventually.

I recommend using an Arazu if you are skilled into it. It attacks mission bears in ways they really aren't capable of dealing with.

Really? I'm curious how you envision an Arazu killing an MTU in a timely fashion before the missioner slowboats on over and picks it up. Especially if the Arazu is fitting RSDs and set for kiting. Cuz if you are going blaster/gank then you might as well go with a different ship since the only real advantage you have is the CovOps cloak. And the cloak frankly isn't that valuable in hi-sec since you still need people to shoot you before you can shoot them. Sure the Arazu will work fantastic if they just shoot you instead of scooping. But in my experience the first instinct of the missioner is to scoop, and only agress once enraged by MTU loss. Perhaps I am just unlucky and regularly encounter a more cautious brand of missioner?

EDIT - LOL Jinxed by Sniper Wolf!

Oh I'm talking about for missioners that actually shoot you (particularly repeat customers). An Arazu can point them and RSD them to no lock range forever, then you shoot their drones, and then have a long, polite discussion about ransom payment options.

Who cares if they can tank you forever? You can just assemble a gank fleet, and they only have 15 min to get help before their allies can't shoot you. Kite them, and use the time to set all of your market orders for the region.

There are counters to this (having an Orca alt bring a warp core stabilizer, or trying to get a Mobile Depot down for the same refit, or having a friend/alt suicide jam/suicide Celestis damp you) but most mission bears do not think of them.


If you don't expect the bear to bite then yeah, something with more teeth is better.

Getting aggro from a twitchy carebear is a challenge to say the least, so 9 out of 10 mission-flipping professionals surveyed choose assault frigates as the perfect sweet spot for not being 'scary', and still able to take down a battleship while also tanking rats.

The bear is cunning, but he has one major weakness -- he tends to fit weapon systems that are offset by an AB fit assault frigate and its small signature radius.

in fact, there is some evidence that pirates in empire are able to get under a bears gauss, rails and heavy blasters completely and take no damage at all while leisurely orbiting at 500m (once drones are primed and taken off field). Even torpedoes with their large explosion radius's are shrugged off.

There have even been reports of said assault frigs getting under the guns of well-equipped pwnboats.

I cannot confirm this. I...was never here.

F

I've seen Ishkurs shrug off bombs, too - Lost the drones, but got way with structure intact.

Indeed, bear bomb use in hisec can lead to hilarious results.