Crime & Punishment

The next day saw me in Geminate and a new corp, though not a corp in Geminate if you understand my meaning. That would be awful.

I will start again.

I decided to join Wingspan Delivery Services. This was not a reflection on Stay Frosty who I will probably end up rejoining at some point. I had been spending a lot of time in Thera, hunting through wormholes and random connections to null with the result that I was rarely seeing any corpies. At the same time, I was frustrated with finding targets that I could not kill alone.

As I was saying, I found a fresh Thera exit to Geminate. I warped my Svipul in, narrowly missing a ratting Ishtar. Never mind, dotlan promised more opportunities to come. Two jumps in saw an Exhumer and Ishtar waiting patiently at a safe spot for me.

Innocent sent Zappity on her way to the probe result using what is, according to CCP, a heinous, game-breaking manoeuvre. Zappity landed at the probe results on top of both the Ishtar and Exhumer. She chose the Ishtar and tackled it while the Exhumer warped away to safety. Nice to have a bit of choice.

The Ishtar put up a rubbish performance, immediately launching sentries at my low sig ship. What is it with Ishtars and sentries? Anyone would assume they were all that your average ratting Ishtar carried. These drones, of course, achieved nothing.

Much more concerning was the appearance of a Taranis who immediately pointed me and started to orbit. I had seen him coming but decided not to warp out. First, I figured that the Ishtar was a worthy trade. Second, I thought I might be able to kill the Taranis, too.

The Ishtar popped in a most satisfactory manner. I then turned my attention to the Taranis who was foolishly orbiting me at close range. I tackled him back, switching off his MWD. He didn't last long.

Ishtar: https://zkillboard.com/kill/47399652/

Taranis: https://zkillboard.com/kill/47399661/

I left the system to repair some overheated modules and have dinner, courtesy of a mobile depot and cloak which was no doubt infuriating to the locals. When I returned, well sated, I hopped through a couple of empty systems before finding a Gila at a signature.

Innocent warped Zappity in to the probe result (she's going to get banned, you know) where an acceleration gate was waiting. Dammit, surely the Gila will disappear now!

The Gila waited patiently while I jumped through two successive gates plus the time it took me to burn 60 km out to the waiting ship. Honestly, I didn't have a clue what to think at this point. If he had been waiting for PvP then why wouldn't he have had drones out, hammering at me the instant I landed? If he was PvE, why wouldn't he have warped off? The only thing I can assume is that he was just too busy doing whatever he was doing and ignoring his d-scan.

I tackled him when the overheated afterburner finally brought me into range. Unfortunately, the afterburner was overheated and I merrily continued past the waiting Gila, straight out of scram range. The 10mn afterburner fit isn't particularly agile!

I managed to get back into range to tackle him for a second time. He finally sent out some drones, nasty faction heavies which hurt badly. I had flashbacks to the last Gila I fought with less than stellar results.

I decided that orbiting with the 10m afterburner was decidedly dodgy. I was constantly overshooting and going into odd trajectories so I switched to recurring approaches instead. The Gila was tough but eventually died:

Gila: https://zkillboard.com/kill/47400027/

My modules were badly overheated so I applied the paste while deciding on my next move. What I should have done was turn around and leave the area. I had clearly tormented the locals enough and given them plenty of time to form a response.

Balanced against this sensible position, however, was the fact that there were still locals around to torment. I hopped into the next system.

An Assault Frigate, Stratios and Omen Navy Issue were on d-scan. I initially had thoughts about finding the Stratios but when the Omen landed on the gate I decided that he was good enough.

He burned off the gate, aggressing me as he went. I followed with overheated afterburner, gradually catching up to him. I finally landed a scram and started chipping away at him, unfortunately with the wrong ammunition loaded. Then the Stratios landed on the gate, and the Harpy and I knew that my first instinct had been correct. The Harpy was piloted by the ex-Gila pilot, clearly looking for revenge.

The Stratios drones were really starting to hurt but I decided to see it through instead of running. The Omen was at half armour when I popped. Oh well, gf. The two cruiser pilots responded in kind but not the Gila pilot! He said ".!." which I thought was very rude when I had spent some time thinking about it.

Svipul: https://zkillboard.com/kill/47400208/

What did I learn? Should I have run away? No! I just need a bigger repper, of course!

Have you ever played EVE without sound? I tried it tonight. It did not work. I do not recommend it.

I was listening to something that required concentration so I muted EVE before undocking the shiny new version of Svippy with the B-type repper. Yes, you already know where this is going. Stop laughing.

It was just a few minutes before downtime and I had roamed through a fair chunk of Providence when I came across a Scythe Fleet Issue. Or, more accurately, a Scythe Fleet Issue came across me. Zappity was sitting on a gate and I was diligently paying attention to the scan results on the other screen. Something caught my eye and I looked back to see Zappity already in low shields. How rude!

I quickly activated the repper which, of course, wasn’t overheated. I then belatedly switched to defence mode when I hit armour while trying to tackle the cruiser and getting into orbit. Things then picked up for a while, with my EMP chipping away nicely at his shield and the nice, expensive (and now overheated) repper managing to just keep up with the damage.

I decided to consume my Blue Pill, only to find that I had forgotten to pack it. I’m really not very good with drugs. Worse still, while I was busy examining my cargo hold for the absent booster my cap ran out. Which was really bad news, especially since I didn’t notice for a few seconds because I couldn't hear the audio alert. My cap booster wasn’t overheated due to the general panic that had ensued right at the opening and I couldn’t catch my reps up in time. And so I died.

Svipul: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?eid=47601625

Had I been listening to the client I would have heard the gate flash and prepared all the modules. I would have heard the shield and armour damage alerts. I would have heard the "Your capacitor is empty you silly bugger" notification if things had even become that serious. And I would almost certainly have killed a Scythe Fleet Issue. It was just one of those times when EVERYTHING went wrong and it was entirely my fault.

It was hugely frustrating and I was absolutely furious with myself. I almost rage-quit the client but the knowledge that I had a pile of replacement ships just four jumps away in Thera kept me logged in. After all, it would just be more hassle the next time I logged in to find my pod sitting in the middle of nowhere (no offence, Provi) nursing a useless bookmark to a collapsed wormhole. By the time I had returned to base I had calmed down a little.

Oh well, at least the repper dropped. I like it when people are rewarded for bringing the fight. And he certainly brought the fight.

Nothing a bottle of crianza can't fix. Or ale. But, yes I feel for ya, Zap.

Or waking up in a station, since your agression timer would allow your pod to be scanned down and killed ;)

Hope to see the next narrative of your adventures soon, especially since I've personally taken a hand in the one yesterday.

Edit: I always play without sound.

Poor, defenceless little Svippy died to a merciless gate camp:

Svipul: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?eid=47498665

They clearly knew about the Thera entry and were ready for visitors so full marks for that. Lots of nullsec groups seem to forget that wormholes exist. I decided that something really ought to be done about these gatecamps. I further decided that I would need a battleship for such occasions (what could possibly go wrong?) and so started taking a closer look at the Dominix.

I came up with a horrendously expensive fit which repped about 2,100 EHP/second. (More on that when I inevitably lose it in a hugely embarrassing manner.) Out of curiosity, I decided to see what difference links would make to such a beast. What follows is no doubt old news to most of you (especially anyone familiar with the whole "Slippery Pete" caper) but was a journey of discovery for me.

I fitted a Legion up with one of each armour link and saw that the Dominix’s repair amount increased to almost 3,000 EHP/second: +41% repping power. In what I assume is a common thought progression, I then decided that such a link ship would have to be a) Nullified, b) Covert, and c) difficult to scan down:

[Legion, Links]

Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
'Halcyon' Core Equalizer I
'Halcyon' Core Equalizer I

Command Processor I
Command Processor I
Conjunctive Radar ECCM Scanning Array I
Conjunctive Radar ECCM Scanning Array I
Conjunctive Radar ECCM Scanning Array I

Armored Warfare Link - Damage Control II
Armored Warfare Link - Passive Defense II
Armored Warfare Link - Rapid Repair II
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
[Empty High slot]
[Empty High slot]

Medium Processor Overclocking Unit I
Medium Processor Overclocking Unit I
Medium Low Friction Nozzle Joints I

Legion Defensive - Warfare Processor
Legion Electronics - Dissolution Sequencer
Legion Engineering - Capacitor Regeneration Matrix
Legion Offensive - Covert Reconfiguration
Legion Propulsion - Interdiction Nullifier

In order to determine how difficult this would actually be to probe down I sent Innocent Scout to SiSi with her Cheetah. Innocent Scout's relevant scanning skills are perfect so I merely had to play around with the fit and implants. This was my starting point, Innocent's regular T2 scanning fit:

[Cheetah, T2 fit]

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
[Empty High slot]
Expanded Probe Launcher II, Sisters Combat Scanner Probe

5MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Scan Rangefinding Array II
Scan Rangefinding Array II
Scan Pinpointing Array II

Co-Processor I
Micro Auxiliary Power Core I
Inertial Stabilizers II

Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade II
Small Warp Core Optimizer II

(The Warp Core Optimizer is for Thera and is T2 because I can.)

The Legion hit was only 72%. Adding a third Rangefinding array only increased this to 73% due to stacking penalties. Swapping the T2 probe launcher for the Sisters variant increased it to 74%.

What about implants? Adding the Prospector AR-810 achieved 81% and this was increased to 88% with low-grade Virtues.

The result was 98.3% with mid-grade Virtues. I finally got a warpable hit by adding a Prospector AR-802 although better probe arrangement would probably have given the same result.

Ridiculous. ECCM should obviously be nerfed somehow. And links should obviously be nerfed too. An extra 40% repping power! Such ludicrously high bonuses makes this practically compulsory for a solo pilot in a big ship. That is not a ‘good’ decision from a gameplay perspective. Having said that, I can now sympathise with the view that links do allow small gang and solo feats that would otherwise be impossible (like a 3000 EHP repping Dominix).

So conflicted. Sigh.

I promise I’ll put my soapbox away and post an actual fight next time.

I thought combat links only worked on-grid now?

Except for the Orca, which can apparently still do off-grid combat boosting (if you set it up for that).

No, not yet. They want to put combat links on grid but apparently need to wait until their 'brain in a box' code is working before they can do it.

Nice, I've thought about roaming Fountain as well.

I had logged off in Deklein a week before, right in the middle of a tasty ratting area. I figured that they would wait for me until I returned home from a trip away. Sure enough, they were all still there when I logged back in a week later.

Everybody talks about goon AFK Ishtars but I didn't actually come across any. They were all very much on the ball and in warp by the time I landed. A little down the road I found a Sabre waiting patiently on a gate. Innocent Scout escaped this time (she has had some bad experiences lately) and Zappity hopped through to take the fight.

The Sabre put a bubble up and tackled the Svipul. So I killed it and podded him, escaping moments before the inevitable backup landed.

Sabre: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?eid=47830932
Pod: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?eid=47830934

The local ratters started linking gifs at me in local. I hate gifs in local and never open them. To punish them, I cloaked and went afk while doing the dishes. When I returned they seemed to be getting a little excitable so I left the system and headed toward a distant Thera entry on the other side of Fade.

I made a slight detour to investigate an SMA ratting pocket which was just a few jumps out of the way. I found an Ishtar at a plex, tackled him and went into orbit while juggling my modules.

Now, before you read this next bit I want you to understand what a terrible affliction jet lag is. It is obviously a VERY good excuse for poor flying.

The Ishtar's heavy drones were soon winging their way toward me after abandoning their efforts against the local rats. They started to hit me. It really hurt. I was shocked to see myself suddenly in armour and then my pod! I hardly had time to dent his shield.

I sat there, wondering why my faithful Svippy had so let me down. I then realised that I had forgotten to switch from Propulsion to Defence mode. Oh boy.

Please go back up and read the paragraph on jet lag again. That is my excuse and I am sticking to it.

I self-destructed my pod and was sitting in Amarr when my Ishtar opponent convoed me. He had been AFK in the shower and just returned to find a nice, expensive solo kill added to the tally.

This is so embarrassing. But I did promise to be honest!

Svipul: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?eid=47834002

In fact, that pretty much underscores how op an ishtar is. In the shower while the hvy drones(hvy vs a dessie in prop mode) auto kill whatever happens to be in range.