Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Apparently I had been complaining about not having enough action in the home system a little too loudly…

I logged in today to find Oz and Azx online in the POS, not getting anything done, as usual. But something is different. Azx has a strangely more intimidating aura about him, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. I think it has something to do with the little red box with a skull next to his comm channel portrait. Apparently I had just missed some fun.

Between the giggles and joking I came to find that the pair had happened upon a capsule in the home system earlier today. They gave chase, and found a Rifter on the lo-sec side of our static worm hole. Oz immediately engaged and obliterated the ill-fated ship with little trouble, managing to snag and destroy the pod as well. It was later discovered the frigate actually had nothing to do with the capsule seen previously. The poor pilot was literally less than 24 hours old, but Oz’s bloodlust didn’t seem to mind, as another corpsicle was added to our collection.

The system was however quite again, so we decided to run some anomalies and be productive for a while. At least until a Cheetah shows up on our d-scan. We race back to the tower and hop into our combat appropriate ships. I choose my Devoter anxious to put her bubble to good use. I warp to the static and set the bubble up orbiting the wormhole while Oz scans the system suspecting a new signature to be found. Sure enough another wormhole has appeared in our system, and this one leads to Gallentean hi-sec empire space. The blockade is moved to this new wormhole. A few minutes go by and then the local comm channel springs to life.

Apparently our visitor does not like his chances against the ships buzzing about his exit out of w-space. We had been monitoring d-scan thoroughly and knew he hadn’t put any probes out, and thus was unable to find the lo-sec static so far. His diplomatic intentions were worth a try, but we were in no rush to accommodate him.

 

 

I tried extending an olive branch, but it was refused. Twice to be exact. The blockade continued for another 20 minutes or so. The stealth ship not making an attempt at the wormhole, and us refusing to just let him go. But our patience began to falter and we offered to remove the blockade. Unfortunately for him, he took his sweet time getting to the wormhole. His staling allowed Oz and I to get the idea of parking bombers 30km off the hole, and blasting it as soon as we saw the Cheetah decloak to activate the hole.

Enter blockade stand off number 2. The Cheetah pilot was watching his scanner closely and saw Oz and I hop into our bombers. This new tactic put the brakes on him moving anywhere near the hole. Another 15 minutes goes by and Oz decides to move an alt into the hi-sec system to make sure no enemy fleet is preparing to ambush us.

Not five minutes goes by before Oz yells into the comm that a fleet of 10 Legions is warping into our system. Our forces pulls back to the tower, clearly outgunned for the time being. Trash talking begins on both sides and real life duties are beckoning, so I go afk in the hopes that the rabble is dealt with by the time I get back.

It’s about 3 hours later and the home system appears quite. I scan down our new static and make sure to keep an eye on my watchlist to see if our visitors from before are online. Two are, but I’m confident that I can warp into k-space in my pod without getting caught. I fly to Amarr to grab my new Pilgrim and navigate it safely back to our home system and tower.

As I’m fitting the last module on the ship, a Broadsword and Buzzard appear on my directional scanner. I had been planning on running a few anomalies before calling it a night, but the arrival of more ships has ruined the mood. I’m content in knowing we at least got to fool around with a few hostiles and the encounter was fun even if not particularly violent, and log off for the evening.

Lessons Learned…The Hard Way

It was a sad night to be me.

First off my apologies for the tardiness of this entry. Real life has been hectic to say the least, but I managed to log in for a while a few days back to get some much needed time in a capsule. The corp channels are empty but I see a Thorax on scan along with a few wrecks. I immediately run a scan and start checking the anomalies hoping to get a fix on his position. I spend about 5 minutes warping around and scanning looking for him, before I realize it’s the unpiloted ship parked in my corp’s own tower. Embarrassing to say the least, but at least I have the system to myself.

I scan the system down since I see from the bulletin that no one else has been willing so far today. It turns up a ladar site along with two lo-sec connecting wormholes and a wormhole leading to class 4 space. I check in on my planetary obligations before deciding to harvest, what I would call, a metric-shit-ton of gas. Hours of time spent collecting the precious fluffy goodness. Mind bobblingly boring, but I realize the investment is solid with the amount of isk we can make using it.

My trigger finger, or I suppose my “drone attack button finger,” is getting itchy so I hop into my Pilgrim. I love this ship to death. I admire its fine hull while I warp into one of the neighboring lo-sec systems to find something to kill. Oz shows up a short time later and is more than willing to led a hand in the mayhem.

We decide to setup a small blockade in one of the lo-sec systems nearby and begin to monitor the traffic passing from one gate to the other. A particularly large amount of capsules are zipping through the system. They also happened to be flagged yellow, every one of them. That’s when I noticed we were in a factional warfare system. That would explain the rather large roams of ships passing through from time to time and the large exodus of capsules, likely the result of an engagement with the enemy that didn’t go according to plan.

Oz tries to catch a blockade runner on his gate but isn’t successful. That’s when he decides to call it a night. I decide it’s probably a good idea as well and start making my way back to the system with my exit worm hole in it. As I warp to one of the gates I see a Velator sitting on the gate. Since the proximity of the gate is going to drop my cloak anyway, I decide to warm up the combat systems and give it a go.

The frigate is locked and scrambled before he knew I was there. Combat drones pour from my holding bays and race towards him. He has started accelerating towards the gate, I have only seconds to finish him before he escapes. The protective gate guns have started annihilating my shielding. I don’t pay it much attention since it’s my armor which is the real strength of the ship. I start moving towards the target, worried that he might get away even though he’s webbed and scrambled.

Just then a fleet of ships warps in on us, clearly the enemy’s cavalry. That’s an odd choice for a bait ship, but I guess I should have seen it coming with the amount of pilots in local. I’m panicking at the number of ships locking on to me and barely have time to notice that the frigate has already exploded. Congratulations are in order, unfortunately there is no time. I am spamming the gate activation button, and then start cursing myself, more audibly that my girlfriend in the other room would have liked, for not realizing that you can’t operate a gate after engaging a neutral pilot.

Two Harbringers, a Vagabond, and a Curse are making me pay for my mistake. The ever persistent gate guns are exactly cooperating with me either. I try to align to a celestial body, knowing it’s fruitless since I see at least two scramblers activated on me. I have a surprising amount of time to watch the drama as my tank was even more robust than I could have hoped for. Eventually however her hull succumbs to the thrashing. My pod manages to warp away before getting caught, but it’s little consolation for the loss of my favorite ship. With the criminal tag on for at least another 15 minutes, I decide to just log off and get on with my real life before logging back in later.

It was a crushing defeat. In hindsight, taking the risk over a lowly frigate wasn’t worth it, but the Amarrian bloodlust got the better of me.  The important thing to remember during these points of low morale, is that we capsuleers are immortal. And that has one thing going for it that most people don’t seem to realize. We have the ability to learn from our mistakes in combat. This encounter specifically made me aware of a few things. Namely to recognize exit strategies and have them ready before the enemy arrives. I should have known the gate wasn’t going to work and aligned to something else as soon as came out of warp. This simple mistake is going to put me a few hundred million isk in the red, but it’s worth it knowing that I’ve gained valuable combat experience and hopefully will recognize the threats before they arise in the future.

I checked the killmail the next day and found that the enemy who dealt the most damage was the sentry gun. Something that made the loss somehow a little easier to bear. Those silly Gallentean militia pilots couldn’t possibly have killed me on their own!