After a couple of uneventful solo roams over the weekend I tried my luck for the last time of the weekend on Saturday night. The working week is Sunday to Thursday here so I cannot be online too late, but I want to kill something! The last three outings in Eve over the weekend have left me with balls like a Smurf! So I undocked a throw-away Thrasher and headed out.
After a few systems which are either empty or the war targets are safed up, I enter the system of Pynekastoh and immediately see some smack scrolling in local. There appears to be fighting going on! I look at the list of pilots in system and see no blues, a couple of neutrals, a handful of squids (Caldari militia) as well as a well known pirate, Quake590.
Now those of you who have read this blog for a while will know the name Quake590. I've tussled with him several times before and have never killed him. He's killed me though, far too many times!
There are several plex open and I have a selection of destroyers and frigates on a wide D-scan. I narrow it down and get a couple of destroyers at one plex a few AU off me. It would be risky to warp to the gate at zero. I'm in an artillery fit Thrasher so landing on multiple war target destroyers at zero would not be a good move. I warp to the plex at 70km just in case they are camping the acceleration gate.
I land and there on the gate is a war target Cormorant and Quake590 in a Thrasher. The warp scramble notifications flashing up give me a subtle hint they are fighting. At this point I don't know what I'm going to do exactly but I align to them, activate the mirco warp drive, unload the scan resolution script from my sebo and load mid ranged ammo. When that's all done I'm closing in to the two brawling destroyers fast, I have a targeting range of 47km and an optimum range with my titanium sabot shells of 50km. I'm at 55km from them and closing.
Now to choose one of them to shoot. The squid! I don't know why but I instantly want to kill the war target. I hit lock and barely get the first wave of the locking sound-effects as he explodes. Quake590 has killed another one. Now what? Just Quake590 and me left on the field.....
I'm 45km off him.
He's in ideal optimum range.
He's probably taken heavy damage from the fight with the Cormorant.
My sebo is running unscripted so he's both in targeting range and I'd get a lock pretty fast.
Suddenly I hear two small "puffs" and look to both shoulders. They are here.....
Time flows to a near stop. The manic ginger kitten, who has just leaped off the spare bed to attack a felt mouse on the floor, hovers in the air. The paper that was flapping in the AC's breeze slows to a gentle wave. The silence is suddenly broken.
"Hey Drack baby. Listen to me." is whispered in my right ear.
"STOP!" is shouted in my left ear.
"Don't listen to her Drackarn. This is not the way you want this to happen is it? Kicking a man when he's down. This would not be a good fight like the ones you've had previously with him. It would be an execution, a gank. Is this what you really want? A squid's sloppy-seconds? I cannot believe you want your first Quake590 kill to be from a single volley on a heavily damaged ship that stands no chance. No that's not how you want your first Quake590 kill to be at all, just warp away, there will be other targets tonight and at some point in the future, you'll beat this guy fair and square in a proper good fight."
They both make excellent points and are both right. However, for me personally, a hot brunette in stockings usually gets what she wants when asking me.
But not this time.
I warp off to the out gate and leave Quake590 to his loot.
As I land he posts in local:-
[ 2012.10.06 17:38:03 ] Quake590 > Drackarn, you're going to hate this
[ 2012.10.06 17:38:11 ] Quake590 > but when you left, I was in half hull :P
[ 2012.10.06 17:38:21 ] Quake590 > if you'd engaged you would've fried me
However there is a war target Hawk and a neutral Caracal Navy Issue on the stargate. Neutral is the wrong word really when you are a pirate, there is no such thing as neutral. They agress and I jump through hoping there isn't a gate camp which there isn't.
I get safe and send an Eve-mail to Quake590 to respond to his post in local and why I didn't attack him. Basically what the chick in white said!
I continue on my planned route down to around Nennamalia area and there is nothing going on. I head back to northern Black Rise and when passing back through Pynekastoh I notice that the squids are back. I warp at range to the same plex gate. Plenty of wrecks there from Quake590's earlier fun, so I sit and wait. Spamming a short range scan shows a Thrasher incoming. He is a neutral and too warped to the gate at range, however he came from the same stargate as me and he lands only 20km off me. My first volley wipes out his shields in one shot, the second volley puts him into half structure and third volley puts him into his pod. His return fire has hardly put me down to 60% shield. I loot his wreck and see why, he was sniper fit. He got unlucky with his chosen warp distance and probably had an 80km optimal with his set-up and ammo. Its likely he came in at 70km hoping to snipe a target on the gate and wasn't expecting me at 50km from the gate. Tremor is not an ideal ammunition choice in a 15-20km brawl.
A minute later a Atron pops up on short-range scan. He lands 25km off and this one is a war target. My first volley puts him into half armour, EMP rounds are not ideal against armour tankers but do I want to spend 10 seconds changing to fusion? He gets a tracking disruptor on me and gets in a closer orbit. A second volley has put him inot structure but now he's on top of me. These revamped frigates are a pain. I stop my guns and align to a gate. I zoom out and watch him orbit me. When he is directly to the side of me, circling around to my aft, I hit the MWD (he had a long point). As I start to make range, the frigate turns into me in order to keep its set orbit distance, the ships transversal drops as he burns towards me and I hit F1. Even with tracking disruptor's, you're going to get hit if you've got no transversal mate. Pop!
So two kills and a cargo hold full of loot. I wait out my GCC from the neutral Thrasher (really, can we make GCC 5 minutes please CCP!) and return home thinking "Should I have popped Quake590 or did I do the right thing?".
P.S. Quake590 got away alive as I have a lot of respect for the guy (in Eve Online/e-respect sense, in real life he might be as bad as the Baby Eating Bishop of Bath and Wells). If it had been any other non-blue I'd have happily ganked them and laughed in a Dr Evil styleeeeee. So don't let this blog post fool you, I'm still a pirate and I'll happily blow up defenceless cyno frigates, industrials and noob ships given half an opportunity! But if you regularly honour 1v1's, give a gf and enjoy a good post fight chat in local then I might let you go in that situation....... maybe......
Now those of you who have read this blog for a while will know the name Quake590. I've tussled with him several times before and have never killed him. He's killed me though, far too many times!
There are several plex open and I have a selection of destroyers and frigates on a wide D-scan. I narrow it down and get a couple of destroyers at one plex a few AU off me. It would be risky to warp to the gate at zero. I'm in an artillery fit Thrasher so landing on multiple war target destroyers at zero would not be a good move. I warp to the plex at 70km just in case they are camping the acceleration gate.
I land and there on the gate is a war target Cormorant and Quake590 in a Thrasher. The warp scramble notifications flashing up give me a subtle hint they are fighting. At this point I don't know what I'm going to do exactly but I align to them, activate the mirco warp drive, unload the scan resolution script from my sebo and load mid ranged ammo. When that's all done I'm closing in to the two brawling destroyers fast, I have a targeting range of 47km and an optimum range with my titanium sabot shells of 50km. I'm at 55km from them and closing.
Now to choose one of them to shoot. The squid! I don't know why but I instantly want to kill the war target. I hit lock and barely get the first wave of the locking sound-effects as he explodes. Quake590 has killed another one. Now what? Just Quake590 and me left on the field.....
I'm 45km off him.
He's in ideal optimum range.
He's probably taken heavy damage from the fight with the Cormorant.
My sebo is running unscripted so he's both in targeting range and I'd get a lock pretty fast.
Suddenly I hear two small "puffs" and look to both shoulders. They are here.....
"Hey Drack baby. Listen to me." is whispered in my right ear.
"This guy has killed you several times. You've never paid him back for those loses. You're not going to get another opportunity like this. He's hurt. If he's got any armour left, its probably not a lot. In fact I'm betting you could target him, go weapons hot and a single volley would kill him. Finally, you'll have a Quake590 kill on your board. Go on, just a simple control-and-click and F1 and you'll have him. In fact go for the pod as well, teach this guy a lesson. You know you want to. He's hurt, finish him!"
"Don't listen to her Drackarn. This is not the way you want this to happen is it? Kicking a man when he's down. This would not be a good fight like the ones you've had previously with him. It would be an execution, a gank. Is this what you really want? A squid's sloppy-seconds? I cannot believe you want your first Quake590 kill to be from a single volley on a heavily damaged ship that stands no chance. No that's not how you want your first Quake590 kill to be at all, just warp away, there will be other targets tonight and at some point in the future, you'll beat this guy fair and square in a proper good fight."
But not this time.
I warp off to the out gate and leave Quake590 to his loot.
As I land he posts in local:-
[ 2012.10.06 17:38:03 ] Quake590 > Drackarn, you're going to hate this
[ 2012.10.06 17:38:11 ] Quake590 > but when you left, I was in half hull :P
[ 2012.10.06 17:38:21 ] Quake590 > if you'd engaged you would've fried me
However there is a war target Hawk and a neutral Caracal Navy Issue on the stargate. Neutral is the wrong word really when you are a pirate, there is no such thing as neutral. They agress and I jump through hoping there isn't a gate camp which there isn't.
I get safe and send an Eve-mail to Quake590 to respond to his post in local and why I didn't attack him. Basically what the chick in white said!
I continue on my planned route down to around Nennamalia area and there is nothing going on. I head back to northern Black Rise and when passing back through Pynekastoh I notice that the squids are back. I warp at range to the same plex gate. Plenty of wrecks there from Quake590's earlier fun, so I sit and wait. Spamming a short range scan shows a Thrasher incoming. He is a neutral and too warped to the gate at range, however he came from the same stargate as me and he lands only 20km off me. My first volley wipes out his shields in one shot, the second volley puts him into half structure and third volley puts him into his pod. His return fire has hardly put me down to 60% shield. I loot his wreck and see why, he was sniper fit. He got unlucky with his chosen warp distance and probably had an 80km optimal with his set-up and ammo. Its likely he came in at 70km hoping to snipe a target on the gate and wasn't expecting me at 50km from the gate. Tremor is not an ideal ammunition choice in a 15-20km brawl.
A minute later a Atron pops up on short-range scan. He lands 25km off and this one is a war target. My first volley puts him into half armour, EMP rounds are not ideal against armour tankers but do I want to spend 10 seconds changing to fusion? He gets a tracking disruptor on me and gets in a closer orbit. A second volley has put him inot structure but now he's on top of me. These revamped frigates are a pain. I stop my guns and align to a gate. I zoom out and watch him orbit me. When he is directly to the side of me, circling around to my aft, I hit the MWD (he had a long point). As I start to make range, the frigate turns into me in order to keep its set orbit distance, the ships transversal drops as he burns towards me and I hit F1. Even with tracking disruptor's, you're going to get hit if you've got no transversal mate. Pop!
So two kills and a cargo hold full of loot. I wait out my GCC from the neutral Thrasher (really, can we make GCC 5 minutes please CCP!) and return home thinking "Should I have popped Quake590 or did I do the right thing?".
The equivalent of GCC in crime watch 2 will only apply to pod kill I think.
ReplyDeleteYup, no GCC here after CW2. I'd have got a suspect flag for agressing the neutral but that doesn't result in gate gun agro if no gate guns see it. All it would mean would be that everyone can shoot me for 15 minutes as a Suspect. However, as I'm -10 they can shoot me anyway :)
DeleteStill prefer to see Criminal flags in low sec reduced to 5 minutes.