Delving Deeper

Ah. It’s amazing how much more relaxed I feel, even in planetary life knowing my wallet has been filled with some isk. The exploration has been good to me lately. I decided to take a few more interesting risks than I had been in the past. Most notably, diving into class 3 wormholes on my own to harvest their blue loot. It’s amazing actually how often empty wormholes seem to crop up. I managed to dive 3 in a week, inflating my wallet but about 300 million isk with just a few hours of work. Honestly it was nostalgic to be back in the C3’s. Constantly hitting the directional scanner and cursing the sleepers for their infernal neut and weapon’s ranges.

All in all it’s been a good month, topped off by a rather successful roam lately that landed me on the top damage for a killmail against a Legion. That felt pretty good. The corp I’m currently with is fun to fly with, but they seem to lack a degree of vision. Sure roaming around killing everything we come across is fun, but at the end of the day, I just don’t care that much about my killboard. I’d rather be fighting for something, a cause, territory, anything! So I’ve decided to do something I’ve thought about doing for a very long time.

Go back to Amarr faction warfare. I put an application in for a light roleplaying Amarr FW corp today that seems promising. No telling yet how it will turn out but hopefully I’ll have something new and exciting to look forward to this year!

Stepping On A Hornet’s Nest

I logged on tonight and find a Cheetah on scan immediately! I have enough time to grab my oracle before he launches probes and I’m on my way to our C4 connection before he cloaks. I should have enough time to catch him as he retreats after scanning. Although once I get to the C4 wormhole I see that the connection is ready to collapse at any moment. I see a third un-scanned signature in the system and figure this Cheetah pilot is probably not from the C4, I bet that unknown sig is another wormhole.

I head back to my hangar and get back in my scanning ship. I head out to a safespot and throw my probes out over the system, quickly resolving a new wormhole. I bookmark it and head back to my tower’s warp in point. See, we have a bunch of warp disruption bubbles around our tower with a bunch of anchored cans sprinkled around to hopefully pick off snooping covert ships. And surprise surprise, our Cheetah friend just appeared on my overview. I watch him struggle in the bubble for a few seconds before our tower’s guns free his capsule from his ship.

Oh shit…

I chuckle to myself at the noob-ish fate of the enemy pilot. With his system’s wormhole discovered I grab my sniper ship and setup on station to monitor any activity from the hostile system. After a few minutes I haven’t seen anything and curiosity gets the better of me. Time to suit up the Anathema again, and see what I can see.

What I see is a big sign that says get the FUCK OUT OF HERE! A huge fleet is sitting on the hole, drones out, logis and interceptors at the ready. Holy crap am I in a bad spot. Thank god Bob found me worthy to spawn me a mere 4 km from the hole. I immediately jump back to my HQ system. A few hostile ships are already there. A bubble somehow is up already, I punch my MWD and pick a direction away from as many ships as possible. As soon as my cloak is up I switch directions, just in time as an interceptor zips by within 7 km of my ship. I align and warp away and breathe for the first time in a few minutes.

Dyin’ never looked so good.

I decide I should keep an eye on them for a while and warp back to 100 km. Unfortunately that bubble thing they put up, well it sort of sucked me to within 10 km of their fleet. I’m not so lucky this time. The bubble has me, my ship explodes and it only takes a minute for them to pod me. I have to say, as much as losing 100 million isk in implants hurts, the new death animation….is sick.

Tangible Metaphors About New Jersey

Pretty much…

This past week I have been shipped out to New Jersey for work. Not just office work mind you. Back breaking labor. I honestly don’t know why we don’t subcontract this crap out except that we make money by having one of us out there doing it. For those of you not from ‘MURICA! I’ll try to accurately describe for you this glorious state of the union. New Jersey sits along the eastern seaboard nestled cozily up against New York’s Staten Island. While a good portion of the state is made up of picturesque farmlands, most of the northern half of the state is industrial wasteland. It’s been a great 5 days, let me tell you.

Anyway since we start fieldwork so early I got out at about 2:00 pm yesterday and finally had some Eve time coming my way. With no one from the corp online, and nothing but our static wormhole active, I decided I would pop out and do a little ratting before hunting for a lo-sec kill. Our static wormhole dropped me off in a system called Shach. I had never been in the constellation before, but it was glorious. A whole string of lo-sec systems outside of factional warfare, with no stations to be seen. I couldn’t believe it! At least four systems in a row, no station in any of them, and nothing but cruisers and frigates on d-scan! It was a cloaked hunter’s dream and I made sure to make a special note of the system for the future. This was quickly becoming one of my favorite new hunting grounds.

Hunting grounds

With almost no one around I decided I would take some time and rat a little. The only thing I hate about hunting in lo-sec is the security status penalty. Might as well try to buffer the damage ahead of time. Plus those new security tags are worth some pretty good loot, never hurts to look for a few of those if you have the time. My Oracle jumps from belt to belt, picking apart pirate ships with ease. In under 10 minutes I manage to find one of the new security rats and promptly destroy it. The tag inside was worth 68 million isk. Not bad for 10 minutes of flying! I continue to warp around the area, increasingly impressed with the offerings, until I start to run into some pilots. Now is as good a time as any to switch over to the Pilgrim and see what I can catch. I start making my way back to my wormhole home, only mildly aware that there are core probes in our static system.

Once in the Pilgrim it’s out to hunt! The probes are still in system but I ignore them for now. One pilot in a Buzzard isn’t going to be much of a threat to me getting back home, even if he does find my wormhole. I warp around the lo-sec chain. A Rifter and a Thorax lead me on a good chase for a while. I end up on a gate with the Thorax for a moment, but hesitate to engage him with the gate guns nearby. He ends up jumping back the way I just came, and I can’t be bothered to try to catch him. I move on, continuing to rat in systems that don’t seem to offer any other amusement.

Unwelcoming party

Finally the time comes for me to start heading home. I’m exhausted and need to get some sleep soon. An uneventful trip back home is rudely interrupted by a notification in my inbox. “Your corporation’s base is under attack.” Double-U tee to the F. Who the fuck is attacking our system?! There were no other wormholes in there half an hour ago, I find it hard to believe one just happened to pop up with an aggressive corp on the other side. I race back to my wormhole assuming our attackers are from w-space. I get to the hole without incident but am greeted by an unwelcome sight after jumping through our static connection. A Cynabal, Broadsword, and Scythe are on the hole, drones out, looking for trouble. Luckily I seemed to catch them on break, because I’m able to immediately jump back through the hole and warp to the star. I accidentally warp to 0 though, and curse myself for my foolishness as the Cynabal shows up on my overview. By some divine act of Bob, the Cynabal warped to 100km, the distance I generally warp to when trying to evade someone. If I had not accidentally warped to 0km, there is a very good chance he would have had me.

But Bob is on my side today. He warps back to the hole and I follow at a respectable 70km. I then watch his whole crew jump back Shech from my home system and warp away. I decide now is my chance and burn towards the hole. Once safe at home I scan the system and find no new signatures. The attackers apparently were from my new favorite constellation. Perhaps my new favorite hunting area isn’t as perfect as I had originally thought.

Faithful Are The Wounds of a Friend; But the Kisses of An Enemy Are Deceitful – Aesop

In the spring of 2006, I downloaded a computer game called Eve Online. I watched the introduction trailer from beginning to end with the excitement of a 5-year old waiting to open gifts on Christmas morning. I digested volumes of text from the web about the New Eden universe and its inhabitants. I literally spent weeks thinking of my character and how they would interact with this immerse galaxy. The first thing my character did, was give himself over to God.

I love good role playing (not the bedroom kind of stuff, although that can be fun to). The Amarr race of Eve is intoxicating to me. An ancient powerful empire who is now struggling to keep itself together after wars and rebellions have raged for decades. The fluff to draw on for role playing was so good, I just couldn’t pass it up. I’ve loved every minute of playing as an Amarrian. I’ve spent time in the militia battling the rebellious scum of the MinMatar and the freedom loving anarchists of the Gallente Federation. It’s been an absolute blast, and long ago I vowed to never betray the Amarr empire or lose my faith in its leadership.

But I stand before you today a conflicted man.

I live in wormhole space. Probing and space exploration are how I fund all of my Eve based adventures. But as I browsed through the Amarrian arsenal last night I came to a realization that had been lingering just on the fringe of my conciseness for a long time now. Amarr has no ship worthy of wormhole space operations. It kills me to admit it publicly, and I hope that you the public can prove me wrong, but as I see it we just do not possess a ship that can perform to a sufficient degree in worm space.

Rebellious scrap heap

Well how about some justification for such a statement. Living in w-space requires one thing above all else. The ability to probe cosmic signatures. Sure there are plenty of Amarr ships that can do this, but none that can do so, cloak, and still possess some kind of military strength. The answer for other races is simple. Their respective strategic cruisers can be configured to deal respectable amounts of damage, have a modest tank, cloak, and still probe a system down. The Legion cannot. A covert fit Legion is made of paper thin armor and has no offensive potential to brag about.

Up until now I’ve used my Pilgrim to do the combat in w-space for me. I generally scan our w-space constellation and find a target worth killing. Then I’ll head back to HQ, swap into the Pilgrim and return to the target’s system to engage it. But this all takes a long time and the prey never stays still for long. No one in w-space does. It’s a matter of survival, I don’t sit still for very long either. But what is an Amarrian loyalist to do?

Gallente vomit barge

I’ve started looking at training for another race’s ship. I really really don’t want to but I’m not sure if there is any other way. The Proteus and the Loki are such potent killers and can cloak and probe as well. It’s hard to pass them up for the sake of staying true to my role playing roots. I am still resistant, if for no other reason than it would take a long time to train the skills to sit in either ship, and I don’t feel like doing it. So I am here to beg the citizens of New Eden to bless me with their wisdom. What is an old war horse to do? Train for a Loki? Commit the ultimate sin and fly a Gallente ship (it’s bad enough I use their drones now)? Or does someone know of a ship that can fill this role within the Amarr arsenal?

Worst Timing Ever

I logged onto Eve this morning because I’m done with work for over a week, and I can’t think of a better way to spend my time, other than maybe taking care of that giant pile of laundry in my bedroom. I find the home system quiet. Our grav site is gone, so the mining fun is over for now. I’ll have to remind Oz to put his fancy mining lasers back on the Hulk. I had to downgrade due to my lack of industrial skills.

I head out to our C4 connection because it’s the only thing of any interest at the moment. The system is empty with a fleet of Orcas floating in the only active tower. I decide collapsing the wormhole might be a good idea since no one seems to be home and hole is out of d-scan range of the tower. I run through all my calculations and get to work grabbing the Apocalypse (aka fatty) out of the hangar. The first three passes go off without a hitch but the fourth wasn’t so lucky.

Just as I entered warp one of the known pilots from the system logs on. Hmm, well maybe they’ll fiddle with a ship fit or something before looking for trouble. No, no they don’t do that. As my battleship emerges from the wormhole an Onyx is sitting on the other side waiting. Well fuck. Here we go. I jump back through to the home system side and begin aligning towards safety.

Not surprisingly a large bubble appears around the wormhole and I punch the afterburner to at least give myself a chance at escaping. My turrets can’t hit the orbiting Oynx even with a web on it. I’m generally surprised, I have an afterburner on, am webbing him, he’s only going 97m/s or so. I should be able to out run him. Except for whatever reason the Apocalypse decided not to align towards my tower. That’s cool. Why would I want to be moving?

So now finally my ship starts pulling away and the lasers are finding their mark on the slowed Oynx. In fact it looks like I might actually have a shot at getting out of this mess. Oh wait a Falcon. Ok yeah this isn’t going to happen. Just as I was approaching the edge of the bubble the Falcon adds his warp scrambling insurance to the fray. I’m a dead duck and all I can hope for is to some how zig zag my pod out of the bubble. But that doesn’t seem to happen either. I lose the ship and the pod plus a healthy dose of implants. At least they had a good sense of humor about it.

Oh well, maybe next time the stupid will stay at the tower and I can manage to align my ship properly to get out of a situation like that again. Until then, laundry :c

Fitting Theory – Sleeper Slapping Zealot

The other day I hit the googles to try to find a ship fitting that I could use to run anomalies in a class 3 wormhole by myself. I also wanted something that cost less than a Legion, which although great, is an expensive ship to be tooling around w-space in. After a bit of research I stumbled upon RiotRick’s Zealot fitting.

At first glance I was pretty skeptical about the ship’s ability to withstand the sleeper’s dps. To be honest I’m still a little skeptical although he does provide a little video showing off the fit in action. This fit is really starting to grow on me, and it’s not simply because it costs a quarter of what a Legion does. This fit utilizes a very uncommon form of tanking that I intend to do a lot more research on. The idea is to make a ship with a relatively small signature radius that is fast enough to mitigate a substantial amount of damage from equal sized ships. This fit clocks in with a signature radius of about 125 which is pretty small considering the punch you can pack with it.

5x Focused Medium Pulse Laser II (Conflagration M)

10MN Afterburner II
Large Capacitor Battery II
Dread Guristas Stasis Webifier

2x Khanid Navy Medium Armor Repairer
800mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
2x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Heat Sink II
Capacitor Power Relay II

2x Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

DPS: 410
EHP: 25,800
Tank: 316
(Values from Eve-HQ)

It should be noted this is not a speed tank, not in the traditional sense anyway. Speed tanking is basically getting a ship to go so fast that you are out running the tracking speed of the enemy ship’s turrets. Sig tanking, as I like to call it, is rather getting the ship to go fast enough, that it’s small signature radius makes it very hard to do maximum damage on. Indeed the few times I’ve flown the ship so far have been hair raising since it looks like most of the enemy rounds are hitting my ship. They are in fact registering hits, but the damage is greatly reduced. So much so that a single armor repair unit can hold off the damage nicely.

There are a few short comings with the ship. You have to be very careful flying it around sleeper battleships. One wrong turn or drop in velocity and a BS round can punch an enormous hole in your otherwise weak armor. Remember this fit is actively tanked. It’s all about reducing incoming damage and repairing the rest. If the battleships time a turret round with missile while you make a reverse turn, you are in for a world of hurt. I generally am keeping away from anomalies with multiple battleships for the time being. At least until I upgrade the repair units from the T2 variants to the faction.

All in all it’s a great fit for fun ship when in w-space. It will never match the PVE supremacy of the Drake, but for an Amarr ship coming in under 300 million isk it does a surprisingly good job.

Wanted Dead or Alive; But Mostly Dead

Another milestone has been reached in my Eve career. Today my friends, Vultirnus had the first bounty placed on his head. That’s right, old Vult is now a wanted criminal. All because he blew up a Heron, can you believe it!? The bounty is probably more than the cost of the ship. Seems like I picked on someone who’s a little touchy about getting their frigates blown up.

It was an interesting day to say the least. I logged in and scanned down our home system. Nothing too much new to worry about. We had a null-sec connection that was still critical from my collapsing efforts yesterday. Our static, and a new connection to a class 1 wormhole. That deserves some attention. I warp into the C1 and start poking around. There are a few derelict towers and one active tower, but no ships or pilots to be seen. That’s fine with me as I also find a ladar and grav site as well as four anomalies. I decide to scan the system down since I’m alone and would like as much free intel as I can get.

The C1 has its hi-sec static connection and a connection to a C2. I scope out the C2 just to make sure that no hostile pilots are buzzing around before I start pillaging the C1 for it’s isk. As everything is quiet I grab my new sleeper slapping Zealot and head into the C1 to “relieve” the C1 inhabitants of their anomalies. I pull in about 120 million isk in about 45 minutes. Not a bad operation for a lone pilot in a hostile system.

That’s when things start getting weird. Industrial ships start popping up on my directional scanner. Only for a second or so at a time. I have all the signatures in the system bookmarked. I have no idea where these ships are coming from or where they’re going. Just then Azx logs in. We get into some cloaky ships and head into the C2 to see if we can shed some light on what is going on. The industrial ghosts continue to haunt us for a while, long enough for me to log off to attend to some real life obligations. Azx continues to monitor the situation and determines the ships are now dismantling a tower in the C2.

I get back online as soon as I can. Ok I could have gotten on earlier, but Wolverine was on tv and well, I like Wolverine. Anyway I get on in time to join up with Snow and Azx and try to ambush these industrial ships moving cargo from the POS to a hi-sec wormhole. After much observing we get a good handle on their operation and get ready to take down the next ship we see. Sadly at this point a Bestower, Vexor, and Orca have made it through the wormhole and the hole has gone critical for mass. But a pilot continues to come back in just a pod to move more ships out of the system. Eventually I attempt to grab a Buzzard as it runs to the wormhole but was not able to lock it down fast enough to manage a kill.

So as it stands our ambush was unsuccessful. We didn’t manage to catch any enemy ships and we’ve now given away our intentions. Then some other ships start popping up on the scanner and then disappearing. We have no idea what is going on. Pilots are all over this system, but apparently just alts of the other pilot we saw. Finally I have an idea. All of the ships still in system appear to be frigates which are a pain in the ass to catch. Unless you have two sensor boosters with scan resolution scripts. Something my sniper Oracle just happens to have fitted. As I fly back to our home system to grab the Oracle the Buzzard shows up on the hi-sec wormhole along with a Heron.

I’m flying as fast as I can to get back to the C2. The Buzzard jumps through but the Heron remains on the hole. Snow is parked cloaked by the hole watching and Azx is in a Tengu out of scan range aligned to the hole ready to jump in if I need the help. Finally I arrive at the C2 and warp to 70km off the hole. The Heron is locked in less than a second and vaporizes as eight large tachyon lasers melt through the ship’s structure. The pilot probably didn’t even realize I was on grid before he died. The pod ejects and I’m able to lock that and destroy it as well.

We didn’t manage to make a big isk kill, but at least we got a corpse out of it. Then to my amazement, a notification pops up on my screen. Wouldn’t you know it, the Heron pilot put a 20 million isk bounty on my head! A badge of honor as I see it. The corp enjoys a good laugh over it, and I decide to initiate a new practice in my Eve playing. I open up my mailbox, and type out the following to my latest victim:

Hey every blog needs it’s visits. Seems like a good way to keep things light hearted; and maybe rub it in a little.

A Harsh Introduction

So here’s the situation. I have just gotten home from work and only had a few hours before running all the way back uptown to catch the midnight (actually the 12:05, damn 12:01 was sold out) viewing of The Hobbit (it was awesome by the way, although to be fair I’m heavily bias towards rowdy dwarves). I’m convinced though to make the most of my time in-game and immediately get to work.

It doesn’t look like anyone has scanned since I did so yesterday, so that seems like a good place to start. Four signatures doesn’t take long, and I’m left with two ladar sites and two wormholes. One hole is the same static as yesterday. It must be on its way out pretty soon. The second is an unknown K162 which leads to more w-space. This hole is noisy as heck though, and I thankfully check the info on it before jumping through. The hole is at critical mass. Apparently whoever is on the other side attempted to collapse it but didn’t want to risk the last jump through to finish the job. Sloppy. Oh well, they seem to not want me to poke around and I’m content to leave them be. I have plenty of other things on my plate.

I run some necessary PI around to keep my grunts manufacturing their precious rocket fuel and coolant. Shortly after that I commandeer Oz’s gas suckling ship and zip off to the first ladar site. The harvesting goes well, I manage to finish the entire site with only minor complications from a small fleet of sleeper frigates. On to the second one and its pair of sleeper cruisers. Just as I settle into a cloud with the gas guzzler again, a ship pops up on my directional scanner. A Venture! The new mining frigate is a welcome break from the tedious gas sucking task at hand and I immediately head back to the tower to grab the Oracle. I assume the ship came through the static that’s about to close and head in that direction. Except the static is already closed.

This is a monkey wrench. I have a hidden U210 hole and a new hole that this intruder has come through. I don’t like unknowns but as a set of core probes come up on the overview I determine the Venture has opened a new K162 which led him here and he’s looking to steal some gas. I zip back to the tower and grab my Anathema with sister’s combat probes ready. Directional scanning puts the Venture somewhere below the solar plane, and I start scanning for his ship. Oddly the Venture seems oblivious to all my ship swapping and the fact that a host of combat probes are now flying around the solar system. I begin to wonder if this guy is a total n00b or bait.

Either way I quickly lock down the ship’s location, hoping that he’s in a safespot and unable to escape back through the wormhole he came through. I decide to use the Pilgrim, since, well, I fucking love the Pilgrim. The Oracle would probably be a better choice, able to one shot the ship. But this is my first fight in over a month and the Pilgrim just feels right. I enter warp and check my scanner every second. If the pilot is concerned about my presence, he doesn’t seem to show it. His probes are still out in the system and he hasn’t moved. That “it’s a trap” feeling is starting to set in. In a big way too, but there’s nothing I can do now, I’m in warp and I’m going to land right on the bastard.

The cloak sheds upon arrival as I’m within 1km of the ship and the adjoining wormhole. I lock onto the ship and launch a fleet of light drones. It’s over quickly. The pilot never moved, and in fact his pod didn’t either. That blew up pretty easily as well. Another corpse for the collection! The loot is sparse. Very sparse. Oh good god this guy is like seven days old. I am that asshole in Eve.

Sweet.

It’ll be a good learning experience for him. If nothing else he has learned to fear the wormhole, and that is always a good lesson. The 255k isk loss shouldn’t set even a brand new player back much. Especially one in a corp with an alliance. The wormhole leads to hi-sec, conveniently very close to Amarr. This has turned out to be a handy little ambush I put together. With all quiet in system once again I turn my attention back to gas guzzling for a while longer before running off to my movie. Nothing like a little blood letting to get the evening off on the right foot.

Awaken

Vultirnus realized he was conscience before fully awakening. His eyesight still eluded him, but sounds began drifting in and out of his mind like a swelling tide. At first the sounds were unfamiliar to him. Distant metallic voices and the distinct pinging sound of metal under tension. He opened his eyes but the light from inside his quarters immediately blinded him. 

“How long had it been? Where am I?” 

Memories slowly began slithering their way into focus. An explosion. The terror of feeling his pod eject into the empty void. Then, nothing. He slowly reached to the back of his head. The implants augmenting his brain were still intact. His pod must have escaped whatever carnage befell his ship safely. But how he ended up in his quarters in the Shuria system he could not recall. He picked up the nearby dataslat. Months had passed since he was last awake. How could that be? Vultirnus slowly dressed and made his way to the door of his quarters. 

“Looks like I have some catching up to do. But first I need a drink.”

Good lord I’ve been gone a while. Too long, but that’s how Eve seems to go for me. At times this game can feel like a second job. A second job that doesn’t seem to pay the bills even though I can be rolling in Isk (although that never seems to happen). Sometimes you just need to step away for a while.

Getting back into things it doesn’t seem like I have missed all that much. Our corp is still in w-space. We are still making isk, and I see a long list of kills and deaths in our corporation menu. Well at least someone has been having some fun. It looks like the Europeans aren’t getting on any time soon. I’m home sick (for 3 days now) and decide this is as good a time as any to brush the cobwebs off of my control panel and get back into the swing of things. At least new expansions haven’t come out. Last time I stepped away from the game I practically had to relearn how to play.

This time I manage to get my PI up and running again in a few minutes. I find my scan boat right where I left it and start scoping out what’s around the neighborhood. Doesn’t look like much. Some ladar, a few rocks, and not much else. Still best to go slow. I’m rusty, and space is dangerous. I also need a new Pilgrim. At least there is some focus. I head out our static and begin my journey back into the wonders of Eve!

Emboldened By Fancy Flying

What an interesting evening in the sandbox. I log in to find nothing in system but a Radar, Grav and our static wormhole. I scan to make sure that no new holes have popped up since the last scan check and board the corp Legion to harvest some anomalies that have populated our system. I don’t even manage to get through the first Frontier before being interrupted by a Loki and Hound.

I warp back to the tower and switch to a stealth bomber Oz had lying around. Everyone in the system is cloaked. I’m surprised that the intruders are not trying to harvest up the wrecks I’ve left in the anomaly. Actually now that I think about it, I don’t remember actually finishing all the sleepers in this anomaly, but there are none left to harass me now. I bookmark each wreck and warp between it and the sun or some other bookmark over and over, picking up the loot one by one. It’s slow going, but it’s safe and and I’m making my isk.

Then I see a Thrasher show up on my scanner. This looks like the salvage boat I’ve been waiting for. I jump into my Oracle and warp way out on the anomaly off a distance sniping bookmark I had made for just such an occasion. The Thrasher is there looting and I lock on to him. I blast away from about 200 km and quickly get into the ship’s armor. He is able to warp off and a Hurricane is now joining us in the anomaly. This is going to make things more interesting.

I continue the cat and mouse game for a while, warping out and back again to various bookmarks I have around the anomaly. They can never get closer than 80 km from me and I’ve managed to almost destroy the Thrasher as well as blast a bit of the shields off the Hurricane by now. I decide the only decent thing to do is pop all the wrecks they’re planning on stealing and be done with it. Once that’s done I warp to within 100 km of the wormhole and begin to orbit hoping I can manage to pick off the Thrasher now that there is no reason for it to stay in system. I get a few shots off but he manages to get away.

The Hurricane leaves, but then comes back and he almost out smarts me by warping to a celestial behind me. But I’m all too familiar with that trick and am gone before he has a chance to get back and kill me. Some times goes by and I’m in my Pilgrim now about 100 km from the wormhole. The Hurricane shows up again at what I assume is his bookmark for where he last saw me which is also about 100 km from the hole. We both start slow boating towards the hole. I’m tempted to just let him leave. I’ve been a big thorn in their side, and so far I’m on top of the isk count. But there is something about this Hurricane.

Hurricanes are a bitch. They hit damn hard, and can be a pretty tough nut to crack. I assume that he’s got his Thrasher buddy on the other side of the hole, but even that isn’t really a deterrent. I am far enough from the hole that I can align and get out of trouble before he’s a factor. My faction webber should keep the Hurricane pinned down enough that I get to dictate range and be able to escape should things turn sour. I’ve wanted to test this fit against a Hurricane for a long long time and decide now is as good a chance as any. That and my fancy flying earlier may have had my ego every so slightly inflated.

I decloak and MWD my way towards him while my drones engage him. I’ve made sure to double check my orbit distance after the little blunder I made last time I fought in my Pilgrim. Everything goes off without a hitch. I was able to visually inspect his ship and know he’s running autocannons, which don’t have a prayer of hitting me at 12 km with 2 TD II’s on him. I’ve got him webbed, disrupted and my drones are starting to eat away at him. He has a fleet of ECM drones or something on me but I don’t pay them much mind as the wormhole flares.

Alright this is what I was worried about. A second Hurricane arrives through the hole. I’ve already started to align to a celestial…or at least I think I have. Turns out I hit a wrong button somewhere. I’m 20 km away from Hurricane number 1 but I’m not aligned and I still can’t warp. A little blunder with getting my ship pointed in the right direction may have made the difference here. Still I gain on my pursuers. I manage to put 24 km between me and the closest Hurricane but their disruptors are still hitting me! This is not good. I can’t web both of them at once and Hurricane two is rapidly closing on me.

It’s only a matter of time before their able to get their claws into me and bring the mighty Pilgrim down. My pod manages to warp away safely. We exchange some ‘gfs’ in local and I try to ask them which disruptors they were using, but they’ve become tight lipped. It always kind of annoys me when your killers won’t engage in a conversation with you after a fight. Fighting is the only way to learn and get better, I know I always take the time to talk up a victim if they have questions about how I won. Oh well what can you do. It was a fun fight, a costly loss, but a fun fight anyway. I think I would have been able to secure the kill if it had remained a 1v1, but you can never count on such things. The Pilgrim will return, and my thirst for Hurricane blood has only grown as a result of today’s events!