Back with a bang?

Well it's been over two weeks since my last post, and I have no idea where the time has gone.

Don't worry (if you were), I'm not dead, I just haven't been signing in that often due to RL sucking up my time. I've pretty much only been signing in on my alt to manage my ever increasing market orders, which appears to be making me a fair amount of ISK. I wouldn't call myself "space rich" yet, but I think a few more months and I'll be well on my way.
My current sell orders are around 2.4 billion, and my wallet is at around 600mil, though that will be going back down to around 40 - 50mil soon when I restock stuff running low :P Obviously I don't actually have this money yet because it needs to sell. But it's a nice change to my usual "Oh god, I'm getting poor, spam missions!".

OPERATION SPACEBUX IS GO

But enough about economics. This blog has always been mainly focused on my PvP "efforts", and yesterday I managed to catch our corp (and blues) a fairly big fish. This is definitely my biggest kill to date (both size and ISKwise), and suffice to say it was fairly exciting for me ;)

The pew pew bit...

I had spent the few hours before in "our" LowSec system (of course, flying my favourite Vengeance), which had been seeing a decent number of neutrals bumbling through recently. This seemed like fairly easy PvP to me, e.g. If you can kill it, leave POS and do so, if not, mess around on trade alt and wait for the nasty piwat to leave. After closely missing out on a Jaguar that had been buzzing around, I decided to sign out in our POS shields and go have a social life (lol).

A few hours later, I signed back in as Zendrak to update prices, then switched over to Seraph to see if there were any neutrals ratting in the POS system. Just me and a neutral. Awesome!I pinged D-Scan, then tabbed out to put some music on. I assumed I would have to warp around a bit to find the belt he was in. When I tabbed back in, I saw I had picked up a ship already. I knew that there was only one planet near our POS, so that cut down the search immensely. Then I read the ship type.

"Scorpion Navy Issue"


My jaw hit the floor.

I read it again, then refreshed D-Scan, not quite believing what I was seeing. It was (obviously) still showing the same ship type. I sat in the POS for a few precious seconds, trying to work out what the hell was going on. Already my suspicious side was screaming "BAIT OR TARP, BAIT OR TARP!!!!", but I was going all X-Files on this, I wanted to believe. I quickly span my D-Scan around at 30 degrees to the various belts, worried that the SNI pilot may hit his own D-Scan when he saw me in Local and then scarper.

I soon narrowed him down to Asteroid Belt 4. I hit warp and prayed he would be close to the warp-in. I landed not two kilometres off his hull. o.O

I had CAPs lock on for pretty much the whole fight

Within seconds I had him tackled, and settled into orbit at around 6km. I had the vague idea of keeping my speed high to minimise his missile damage, but it turned out he was firing Fury missiles, which have terrible explosion velocities vs frigate sized targets. Nothing happened for about five or six seconds, and then suddenly I was swarmed by medium drones. I started working through them while screaming for help in every channel that had a corp member or blue in it, fully aware that while I could tank this guy, I was not going to kill him any time this year.

EVE System > Channel MOTD: If it's not us or blue, Shoot it. Much appreciated :)

Seraph Minayin > SNI IN POS SYSTEM
Seraph Minayin > TACKLED HIM
Seraph Minayin > GET HERE NOW
Hayna Sakeno > too far away
Hayna Sakeno > Ordion Solar System
Seraph Minayin > FUUUUUU
Seraph Minayin > WHERE ARE OUR BLUES
Achad Banman > sorry way up by amarr
Seraph Minayin > DUDE GET HERE
drol tack > jita here =(
Seraph Minayin > SNI KILL ?!
Seraph Minayin > GET A BS, GET OVER HERE, HELP ME KILL IT
Seraph Minayin > PLEASE
Seraph Minayin > DEAR GOD
Seraph Minayin > I'M GOING TO RUN OUT OF AMMO
Achad Banman > what are you shooting at
Seraph Minayin > A GODDAM DAMN NAVY ISSUE SCORP
Seraph Minayin > HE'S ON 86% SHIELD AFTER LIKE 400 ROCKETS!
Seraph Minayin > PLEASE GUYS :'(
Achad Banman > i realy want to but im stuck in my archon
Seraph Minayin > :'(


At this point, I realised we were at an impasse. Seemingly nobody was around to help me kill this thing, and since the pilot was in a starter corp, I assumed he had no buddies coming running to help him. He also couldn't kill me, since his drones were all dead and his missiles were doing next to zero damage to me. I was scared he would realise he could self-destruct without me being able to do crap about it any second.

So I did what any self-respecting "pirate" would do, and resorted to some bluster. I pretended I had corpies on the way, and asked for a 300mil ransom. Frankly, if I wasn't going to get a killmail out of this, I atleast wanted it to be profitable. Unfortunately the pilot informed me he only had 50 million in his wallet. Disappointed, I simply replied "meh", and continued to sadly orbit him.

Then our Intel channel flashed.

drol tack > i jumped cloned im 8 out
Seraph Minayin > THANK YOUUU!
Seraph Minayin > 50/50 if theres faction lewt
Seraph Minayin > be fast
drol tack > rgr
drol tack > what are you in?
Seraph Minayin > veng :P
Seraph Minayin > he cant kill me
drol tack > yup ima die =P
Seraph Minayin > ?!
Seraph Minayin > he's pve fit
Seraph Minayin > just run if you get low
drol tack > kk


Drol was on his way in a Cyclone! A new determination filled me, and I prayed that the SNI pilot wouldn't remember his self-destruct button...

Damn it's nice watching shield tanks edge towards doom...

When Drol was only a few jumps out, one of my corpmates, Jerry, signed in. Luckily he was already in the system, and he was in his Curse! I gabbled madly at him until he worked out what the hell I was on about, then warped to me, lauched his drones, and started helping me kick the battleship in the face. A few minutes later, Drol jumped in system, and added his DPS on top. The SNI was falling much faster now, and we were almost guaranteed a kill!



Right up until the Scorpion pilot remembered his self-destruct button.



drol tack > fuck hes trying to self destruct
Seraph Minayin > ....
Seraph Minayin > COME ON
Seraph Minayin > FUCK THIS
Seraph Minayin > overheat
Seraph Minayin > overheat guns right now
Jerrybear > done dont have much for guns
Seraph Minayin > dont burn out mind


Our overheated weapons made much more of an impression on his shields, and soon we were cutting through his armour, then hull.


Then there was a lovely blue flash.



We had killed it!

Yeah, we even salvaged it. Waste not want not and all that :P

Drol got final blow, which I was a little miffed about, but to be honest I was just glad we'd killed it. Can't be too greedy ;) We were also a little sad there wasn't anything shiny, but I was pleased with the killmail after all that drama. I gave a gf in Local, and meant it. That thing had quite a tank which these screenshots don't really do justice. Maybe it was just our bad DPS, but it did take us a while to break through his peak recharge.

So that's my exciting story for this week, and I'll quickly drop some notes about what I'm planning to do next, just incase you care :P

- I've finally got around to training blasters, so I'm planning to take out a couple of blaster Merlins soon. I've heard they're much more deadly now!
- I'm currently burning through that twelve day cap skill (that I can't remember the name of), since I know I'll avoid it even longer if I put it off now. 
- After that, I'm going to train Gallente Frigate V, and try out the Enyo, Ishkur and Taranis, before getting some more rocket/missile/hybrid skills and trying out the Hawk and Harpy. 
- After that, I'll come back in a full circle to the Amarr Assault Frigates by training lasers and having a go at flying the Retribution. 
- However, I'll still have a fair amount of support skills to burn through at this point before I finish my frigate plan, and head on to the next step.


Which of course means cruiser specialisation :P

Fly safe!