Soul Crushing

If you don't particularly  care about my skill progression, you're perfectly welcome to ignore this post ;)

I have finally "bitten the bullet" as it were, and developed a year-long(ish) skillplan on EveMon. I was fully aware that what I had been doing before this was simply training for random ships as they caught my fancy, training those skills to a minimal level, then switching to another new ship. It's made my skills a little haphazard, but it's not a major problem in itself.
It's just annoying me because I want to be able to fly a core group of ships perfectly, or near perfectly, and my current approach will not get me that anytime soon. So I decided on what I wanted to be able to fly and do within a year, then planned around that. My total time for this skillplan (as of writing) is 407 days, 22 hours, and  11 minutes.

It's minorly depressing, I'm not going to lie.

But I'm glad I did it. I made a list of the ships I wanted to fly and I found that most of them were frigates, with a few randoms thrown in. Here's the general idea (all are linked for the new guys who don't have a clue what they are):

- Hurricane
- Malediction

Ganky, Hull-Tanky Taranis :)

- Anathema
- Taranis
- Myrmidon
- Purifier
- Vengeance
- Ishkur
- Hawk
- Crow
- Curse
- Pilgrim
- Wolf
- Jaguar

Obviously these are in no particular order, but it's pretty clear I have a serious thing for frigates, especially the Tech II ones :)

So I decided to train for all of them. Well most of them. All of the Assault Frigates, Interceptors, and Covert Ops boats. However there is also Cruise Missile Specialization IV snuck in at the start of the plan to help my Scorpion Navy get into Incursion fleets, along with skills for Tech II rigs. But then my "real" plan begins, starting with Amarr ships, then Gallente, then Minmatar, before finally finishing on Caldari frigates.

There's more when you scroll down...

And I threw in some training for the Sentinel while I was there. It appeared to be a frigate-sized Curse after my near death experience with one, and I wanted a turn to lay down the ass-kicking, insta-neuting surprise on an overly-ambitious pilot.

Here's a few highlights of my skillplan:

- All racial frigate skills to V
- Interceptor V
- Assault Frigate V
- Covert Ops V
- Electronic Attack Ships V
- T2 Small Autocannon Spec. V
- T2 Small Blaster Spec. V
- Advanced Weapon Upgrades IV <- I'll regret not going for V later...
- Rocket Spec. V
- Most scanning skills to IV, if not V
- A load of new drone skills I realised I would need for the Ishkur (IV/V)

Mini Drone-Boat!

As you can see, it's incredibly specialized into frigate hulls, along with a load of navigation/fitting/gunnery/electronics and engineering support skills that I've been putting off for months which will help all my ships. By the end of this plan, I'll be able to fly any frigate in the game, fully T2 fit, with support skills that will actually make me useful. I'll be able to use all T2 Small Weapons (apart from Small Artillery and Small Beams) to IV at a minimum, though the more common skills (projectiles for example) will be to V.

While seeing a 400+ day skill plan slowly tick down is soul crushing, it's also incredibly exciting. I've used my second "new guy" remap, which has cut off around 40 days of training (sweet) and finally upgraded myself to +4 implants, which cut off a few more weeks (Infact not long after newly fitting my +4's I got podded. Typical). Now it's a waiting game...

This is the thing about EVE. You have to create your own goals; what you want to do, to fly or to have achieved by a certain point. You need something to aspire to. Otherwise, you burn out and the game loses its joy. The freedom to do whatever you want is what makes me love playing this game so much.

Anyway EVE worship over, I can't wait to be flying my shiny new ships in the coming months. Think of all the lovely pew pew!

But in the meantime, I've got some rocket skills to ram into my head :(

Fly educational!


Tl;dr Long skill plans are helpful, if depressing :P

Also, I'm awesome

I'm being sarcastic.

But seriously, I won a lottery on EVE!

19.5 mil is nothing to sniff at in my opinion, it'll pay for my new Taranis :D

The lottery was run by Ispia Jaydreth. If you want to join in, or just check out the blog, then I reccomend you do so, it's always an interesting read :)

Say hi from me!

Messing with the Mission Bears Part 3

Once again I'm back in Penirgman scanning down mission bears. I've found about three or four missioners, but nobody seems to care when I flip their stuff, though the youngest player was from 2010 so I wasn't really expecting anyone to shoot.
Then finally I scan down a Harbinger. I'm already pretty confident I can kill this guy, my neuts on my newly fitted out Hurricane should shut off his guns long before he gets me down to even half armour. I fit it out to defend against EM/Therm damage, then switch back to my Magnate to enter the mission area. I hit an acceleration gate and head through.

When I landed on the grid I opened up the info screen on the pilot, Nekohacks. He was a new player, starting on the 2nd January 2012. I guessed to be in a battlecruiser by now, he must have missed out quite a few support skills (like cap skills), and I seriously doubted he would have T2 drones, tank or guns by this stage. (I was starting to get overconfident here and it almost gets me killed later).

Expecting this relative noob to not think twice about shooting me once I stole from him, I grabbed some tags from a nearby gallente frigate wreck. Within about three seconds he had started locking me, and a few seconds later he started firing. I smirked behind my screen and warped back to station. I had already started laughing with my corp and I fully expected a Harbinger killmail within the next five minutes.

I docked up, grabbed my Hurricane and headed back out. I jumped through the acceleration gate and landed around 20km from the Harbinger. I locked him up, hit my afterburner on and reloaded my guns with RF Fusion ammo (stupidly I still had RF EMP loaded). I got about 15km away before he launched his drones (Hornet I's, like I thought :P) and started locking me in return. I launched my drones, started up my guns and...

My internet disconnected. My jaw dropped. I could not believe this was happening now. I was fully aware of the new logout mechanics, and I was terrified my Hurricane would get melted before I could log back on. Losing my PvP fit battlecruiser to a newbie fit PvE Harby would also be incredibly embarrassing, no matter how it occured. Not very PvP god-like.

I was back on around four minutes later, my fingers crossed as I logged in. To my relief my Hurricane was still alive, all my drones still in my bay. Excellent. I was back in the site, but no sign of the Harbinger. Not so excellent. Maybe I had scared him off :(

Then I realised he would be back to complete the mission eventually. I warped out, realigned and aimed my D-Scan at the site. I had eight minutes left of aggression on him. Six minutes. Five...

Harbinger back on D-Scan. YES!

I warped straight away, then realised we might meet on the gate and tried to cancel it. Too late. And as I landed on gate, he was already warping in. Damn, he must have seen me. I followed as fast as I could, and landed almost on top of him. My connection was steady now, so I was fully confident I could nail him. I switched on my two neuts and started shooting while heading out to my optimal. His shields took some time to drop and I was worried I should have used Phased Plasma instead, but by now I was commited. I fought on.

Then I had a nasty shock. His armour was around 70% by this point, guns still firing and rep still going despite my two neuts. My armour was at 50%, and I was buffer fit. I started getting worried. If his cap didn't die soon, I would probably die unless I warped out, and that would let him escape. I aligned to the station and prayed. At around 18% armour his guns stopped. Jackpot!

Thank god his guns stopped (The second time)

But I had forgotten that I was aligning away from him, and my neuts dropped range. I panicked, at this point my armour would not survive a few more volleys from those lasers, they were doing surprising damage (I think I need more tank).

I turned around and burned back to him as fast as I could. His lasers started to fire as my neuts got back within optimal and I almost fled. But I tried to hold my nerve and stay on the field. He'd barely had any time to get some cap back, and by the looks of his armour, he'd wasted a cycle on his repper. My armour was at 10% before he stopped firing again and I breathed a sigh of relief. I wore him down again, and before long, he exploded.


Then I saw the fit. Full Tech II tank and PvP fit (web and disruptor). No way was this a random noob, this must be an alt of a PvP player. I was just lucky he didn't have Weapon Upgrades IV by this point, a Heat Sink II could have probably given him enough DPS to nail my Hurricane.

Pretty lights :) Oh god the armour...

Also his rigs gave him a decent resistance to my Fusion rounds, which would explain my frankly lackluster DPS against his armour. However, I was quite pleased that even with all this against me, my strategy (if you can call it that) of "Neut the living daylights out of him" worked in my favour, and no doubt saved me from an embarrassing lossmail.

Ironically until I had seen the fit, I felt quite bad for killing what I thought was a noobie player, but the moment I saw the PvP fit, I didn't care. Nice to know I have standards.

Anyway, scan them bears out, but remember, some of those buggers are grizzlies :)

Tl;dr Good planning can save your life :P

Messing with the Mission Bears Part 2

I'll warn you now, this post is text heavy due to the amount of rage in local this bear produced. Don't fear though, I still have some screenshots for you. Anyway on with the post ;)

Once again I'm in Penirgman scanning away, looking for people in missions. I'm having a bit of trouble nailing down this one signal, ZTN-003 and I make it my personal challenge to catch this slippery bugger. After fifteen minutes of swearing and losing the signal several times, I have a 100% location on a Nightmare. Ah.

I'm not even in the site and I know this is going to be problematic. The Nightmare is worth nearly a billion ISK by itself, and a "decent" fitting is normally enough faction mods to make you cry. This is not some random newguy bashing away at L4s in his Drake. This guy knows what he's doing, and if he actually attacks me, I'll be surprised as hell.

Anyway, I pull my probes and warp in.

As I hit the grid I land barely 20km from the Nightmare; pilot name Diokletion. I start flying towards the nearest large wreck. By the look of the rats and the mission space, I'm in the middle of a L4 Blockade. Sweet. (For those who don't mission much, if at all, the Sansha Blockade is one of the hardest and most lucrative missions you can get in terms of bounty and salvage . That said it's not massively difficult to complete in a decently fit faction battleship)

Within ten seconds of being on grid, I get a chat invite from Diokletion. I'm pretty sure he's either going to offer to turn the wrecks blue for a certain amount of ISK (something I usually do for Ninja Salvagers) or he's going to go for the straight up rage. Guess which he chose.

*Private Chat*

Diokletion > gtfo
Seraph Minayin > lol why
Diokletion > just fuck off
Diokletion > 1v1?
Seraph Minayin > XD
Seraph Minayin > magnate vs nightmare
Seraph Minayin > good times
Diokletion > nope
Diokletion > pvp ships
Seraph Minayin > i pvp in my poid <- I spell bad I know
Seraph Minayin > rawh
Diokletion > take something please
Seraph Minayin > huh? <- I'm acting dumb here, he clearly wants me to aggro him
Seraph Minayin > oh you warped
Diokletion > oh rly?
Seraph Minayin > oh crap <- Rats target me and my armour drops fast
Seraph Minayin > lol gg <- Never fear, I escaped!
Seraph Minayin > hey your back <- I wait on D-scan until he's back in site and warp back
Diokletion > i report you
*He leaves*

Lol you mad bro? Besides he can't actually report me for anything :P

So anyway I stick around his mission a bit longer and salvage about five or six large wrecks. So far I'm at almost fourteen armour plates, and I've barely worked for it. Yet again new guys, at this rate don't bother training for Level 4's, just whack in some salvage and scanning skills and you'll have enough ISK for your first month easily (not PLEX, just general costs).

First wreck, you can see Dio with the red minus :)

Diokletion seemed to get a bit pissed at this and switched to Local chat.

*Penirgman Local*

xxxSKELETORxxx > you guys are suck.. boring war. have a good night guarding IX-3 we go to sleep
Diokletion > Seraph Minayin take something you faggot
Seraph Minayin > i think you mad bro
Seraph Minayin > calm down, it's a game
Diokletion > yeah and you ruin it <- First tears?
Seraph Minayin > so me salvaging a few wrecks is making you hate eve
Diokletion > no hate you
Seraph Minayin > :(
Seraph Minayin > but i like your shiny wrecks
Seraph Minayin > it's not like im attacking you
Diokletion > i wish you would
Seraph Minayin > dude lets talk this over like sensible adults
Diokletion > so i can destroy
Diokletion > YOU
Seraph Minayin > seriously
Seraph Minayin > well you seem a bit mad
Diokletion > maybe


I keep salvaging, mainly the wrecks close to him so I'm always in his vision ;)
I salvage some more wrecks but he stays quiet. I get bored and send him an invite.

*Private chat*

Diokletion > 5secs
Seraph Minayin > so are we cool?
Diokletion > nope
Seraph Minayin > this is just my job dude
Seraph Minayin > dont hate
Diokletion > GTFO AND SHUT UP
*He leaves*



At this point I'm actually having more fun winding him up than I am stealing his shiny wrecks :)
More plates in my cargo...
Another chat invite. I wonder what he wants?

*Private chat*
Seraph Minayin > hey
Diokletion > just to let you know im gonna pay a mercanery corp to kill you <-TEARS :P
Seraph Minayin > sounds good
Diokletion > its worth it (:
Seraph Minayin > lemme know when you get one
Seraph Minayin > thats cool, waste your money
Diokletion > sure (:
Seraph Minayin > so we friends now?
Diokletion > no im not a fan of gay ppl
*He leaves again*

Bringing out a merc corp purely for a ninja. I am loving this...

I get bored just bumping him so I flip one of his cans. He begins to lock me, then realises what he's flying and warps off. Uh oh. I warp to a wreck 170km away and align to my station. I don't want to lose my salvage :P

He warps back in. In a Tengu. Wow. I warp out to my station then realign to the mission and spam D-scan.

U MAD BRO?

*Penirgman Local*    -   Huge Chunk, I've edited out the bits not relevant to his rage :) 

Seraph Minayin > awwh a t3 vs a magnate
Diokletion > (:
Seraph Minayin > you scared of losing?
Diokletion > now you wont come back
Seraph Minayin > says who ? ;)
Diokletion > dunno, maybe meh?^^
Seraph Minayin > well you're blinded by rage over a few pixels so you might be biased


At this point he pops up in my overview. Oh noes! I dock up


Diokletion > where are you now?^^
Seraph Minayin > cloaked up watching the paladin :) <- His friend apparently dropping in
Seraph Minayin > i assume you know him
Diokletion > you cant fit a cloaking device into the pala <- I think he means the mission
Fixit Tickit > Dickletion I think you should quit before you embaraas yourself some more.


Local players join in the fun!


Diokletion > wow nice spelling (:
Fixit Tickit > It was intended
Jeinvay Kunsu > wow a spelling nazi
Fixit Tickit > err
Seraph Minayin > he bought out a fully fit pvp tengu to attack my little scanning frigate
Fixit Tickit > embarass*
Seraph Minayin > somebody is overcompensating


Fixit Tickit > somebody is downright scared
Fixit Tickit > im a lil' drunk excuze my spelling
Diokletion > if hes ninja salvaging meh i gotta take my revenge <- Seriously?
Jeinvay Kunsu > have fun with that
Diokletion > i will xD
Fixit Tickit > Have fun.
Seraph Minayin > its quite pathetic how pissed you are at me salvaging
Fixit Tickit > /emote patiently waits for tengu killmail. <- Want this
Seraph Minayin > they're my wrecks as much as yours
Diokletion > let me think
Diokletion > mmhmm
Diokletion > mhmm
Diokletion > mmhmh
Diokletion > mhmhm
Diokletion > NO
Seraph Minayin > why not
Diokletion > its my mission dude
Seraph Minayin > so
Fixit Tickit > what?
Seraph Minayin > not your ship <- I mean the wreck, not his Nightmare :)
Diokletion > i know that ur too low for eve (: <- Too low? What?
Fixit Tickit > not your space
Seraph Minayin > its a sansha ship if anyone's
Fixit Tickit > you have to share with others
Wife Xadi > stop crying about it, and do someting about it
Diokletion > my mission
Seraph Minayin > right...
Seraph Minayin > the wrecks are a side effect
Seraph Minayin > which i take advantage of
Jeinvay Kunsu > it might be YOUR mission, but its in EVERYONE's space...  <- Excellent point there
Fixit Tickit > if it is his mission, how are you in it?
Diokletion > you are playing eve 2 years less than me i have more exp so i know what to do<- LOL?!
Seraph Minayin > scan him down
Fixit Tickit > I know
Seraph Minayin > its not hard
Fixit Tickit > I'm just proving a point
Seraph Minayin > lol diok
Seraph Minayin > if you're so experienced why are you still doin  level 4's?
Fixit Tickit > lmao doik
Jeinvay Kunsu > age does not dictate experience
Fixit Tickit > age does not dictate anything but potential for skill
Seraph Minayin > and i put my skill into scanning ;)
Fixit Tickit > I tink, that if concord has not done anything yet
Fixit Tickit > seraph is 100% allowed to take and salvage your wrecks
Seraph Minayin > ^


I undock after my aggression timer is done and warp back in.

*Penirgman Local*
Seraph Minayin: HI BESTFRIEND


I couldn't resist.

He wasn't pleased.


*Still in Local*
Diokletion > ur such a frickin coward <- Wait, I'M the coward in this equation?
Seraph Minayin > \o/
Seraph Minayin > lolol
Fixit Tickit > um...
Seraph Minayin > magnate vs t3
Fixit Tickit > tengu.... magnate
Seraph Minayin > yes not fighting makes me a coward
Fixit Tickit > who;s a coward?
Fixit Tickit > tengu >.> magnate
Fixit Tickit > really?
Fixit Tickit > ser, if you fight him i'll give you drunken reps with my oni <- That would make my day
Seraph Minayin > lol
Seraph Minayin > i dont pvp <- False information incase of a fight. Shit mind games is how I roll
Fixit Tickit > i do
Seraph Minayin > i have a ratting arbi <-This was purely so he'd assume my arbi was crap if he attacked
Jeinvay Kunsu > altho i remember the bit about salvaging/stealing: Its not a crime, you're just borrowing stuff without the intention of returning it
Seraph Minayin > does that count
Fixit Tickit > uh
Fixit Tickit > naw
Seraph Minayin > shame


By this point Diokletion had finished his mission and warped off while his friend in the Paladin murdered the last few rats. He logged off a few minutes later. Rage quit?
I stuck around and salvaged all the large wrecks. Final count of 25 armour plates. Woo!

What I found funny was that, now the tables are turned, I'm totally on the Ninja's side. I can see how stupid it is that mission runners see wrecks as their property, yet only a few days ago, I likely would have venomously defended Diokletion. And also I have much more respect for ninja salvagers, this is clearly a fully fledged profession. I only have basic skills, somebody who specialised in scanning could no doubt make money salvaging way more efficiently and much faster than I did. 

Final salvage total, and I only went for the large wrecks :)

I may do a short guide on what to do to make money on your first month in EVE, and this will definitely make the grade if I do so.

I may not have got a kill but his rage was certainly entertaining for an hour or so. Hopefully I can find him again and relive old times ;)

Next post will be about how I finally get a kill doing this. Third time lucky amirite? Right?


Tl;dr Making mission bears rage is almost as fun as pew pewing them :D

Messing with the Mission Bears Part 1

Yesterday I went on my first scanning session to search for missioners. I quickly fitted up a Magnate for the job and headed over to Penirgman. I had been reading forum posts on the best techniques for finding them, and alot of posts lamented that by the time you had a 100% signal on a missioner, they had already warped out. I only had basic scanning skills (III in most things), and I was worried that I would never catch anything.

I reached Penirgman and warped to a moon to begin scanning. I didn't want to sit outside a station with probes everywhere and give the game away. I started scanning for ships and soon realised a problem. I had literally over 150 hits with a whole system scan. There was no way I could single out a mission runner through all this. I ran over to the forums again and checked the posts.

Oops. I forgot to create a custom filter to scan down battleships.

Made new filter and hits dropped to around 50. Still quite a few too many. I moved my probes away from stations to avoid picking up any battleships waiting on station. A small cluster of battleships appeared "underneath" the system. I chose one at random and began scanning it down. It was far easier than I expected, and I had a 90% signal within eight minutes or so. I dropped the scan range down to 1AU and instantly got a 100% signal. I pulled my probes, saved the location and warped to it.

Oh hai

My first mission bear was Nekron xD. He was flying an Apocalypse Navy Issue, but within minutes of me landing on grid he warped out. How odd. I salvaged all the large wrecks I could get my hands on, but he still hadn't come back. I was speed tanking the remaining rats so it was no problem to wait, but I got bored and warped back to station to drop my loot. I then headed back out to scan down a new person.

About ten minutes later I had another 100% signal, this time on an Armageddon. I warp to the mission, only to discover the mission gate was locked and I need a "R.S Officer Passcard" to unlock it. Sigh. I open contracts and check what's available. There's one in system for 12 mil, or one two jumps out in Amarr for 30k. I went for the 30k one obviously.

I get back with the passcard and pray he's still in there. Jackpot!

Y U SALVAGE IN A BATTLESHIP

"Rightism" however, was salvaging as he went. Damn, I would need to loot a wreck as it got tractored past me. I set myself up between him and a wreck and waited while it flew towards me. Click "Loot all". Bam, stolen goods aboard and I aligned to the station. I seriously did not expect him to engage, he was a 2007 player and should know better than to...

Oh it's on now...

Oh he just shot me.

I warp out and grab my Arbitrator, full to the gills with neutralisers, tracking disruptors and a cap booster. I felt ready. I warped back to the mission. He was still there!

He was also 60km away. And I had forgot to fit an afterburner or MWD in my excitement. I had a web instead. Derp. I had given the game away at this point though, so I burned towards him at about 360m/s. This was going to take a while. It wasn't until I was 45km out though that he actually seemed to notice me flashing on his overview and locked me. He launched drones and waited. I crawled closer.

At about 42km his drones started flying at me. A mixed flight of Hobgoblin IIs and Acolyte IIs. I launched my Warrior IIs and hit the enemy drones with a web. They dropped fast. Rightism launched another flight of drones, this time with two mediums and three lights. I didn't see the mediums at first, as they lagged behind slightly, so they did a surprising amount of damage to my buffer before my Warriors made them explode. I was barely 30km out when he launched an Ogre II, a Beserker II and more light drones.

Seraph vs the bottomless drone bay

Jesus christ how big was his drone bay?

My Warriors seemingly had little effect on his heavies, despite the ease with which they tore apart the light drones. His heavies were tearing through my buffer scarily fast but I had almost killed one and I hoped the DPS would drop swiftly if it went down. I aligned but stayed on grid. Ogre II was at around 50% armour and mine was around 10%. Too close. I pulled drones and spammed warp as my armour broke. My Damage Control was saving my hide, but my hull was falling fast...

That is basically no hull at all

I warped out with 4% hull while in full panic mode. At first I thought I had lost my ship when it stopped for the "warp boost", but seeing her flying through space while burning a smoke trail made me happy as hell.

Emotions for pixels. Who'd of thought it.

I checked over my loot from the two missioners. About 8 armour plates and a random assortment of chips and broken capacitors. Not a terrible haul. Plus it showed that missioners get very upset if you steal from them.

Crap I did wrong
- Should have fit a propulsion module. No AB/MWD on a PvP fit is an unforgiveable sin
- Didn't bother to actually check what drones I had. If I had taken Valkyrie IIs, I probably could have murdered the heavy drones before they evaporated my buffer
- Forgot to switch out resistances for EM/THERM damage. That Ogre was doing insane amounts of damage to my thermal hole
- Forgot to turn on my tracking disruptor early, and I'm pretty sure he got in some lucky shots with his main guns because of this

But overall I made a few million and learned some important lessons. Next time, I'll try and actually kill something :P

Tl;dr Scanning for lols and profit is good fun

Quote of the Week - Sun Tzu Inspired

The quote this week comes from our esteemed CEO. Without further ado...

Myopic Thyne > The best battles are those that are won without firing a shot


At first I thought this was incredibly stupid. How can you win a fight without actually fighting? It doesn't work.

Then later on I spoke to a ninja salvager (Dan Sen) while I was missioning. Besides some interesting information he told me, (which I posted about earlier) he also linked me this killmail.

Huh?! He used a target painter and instapopped a battlecruiser?

Well no, it's actually alot simpler than that. This killmail is all down to the way killmails are formed/calculated (whatever you want to call it). Any offensive module fired at a player is recorded in their damage log until a session change occurs (e.g docking), even if it does no damage. This is how people whore on killmails by firing at something far out of their range, even if they don't hit it, the shots are still recorded as attempted damage, and therefore shown on the killmail.

Still not make sense?

What if I told you (if you didn't already know) that CONCORD is not shown on killmails?

Yeah this is suddenly awesomely stupid. Here's the sequence of events from what Dan told me.

Dan scans down the BC -> Dan begins to loot and salvage, therefore turns flashy red to the BC -> BC fires on Dan, but he survives, target paints the BC and warps out -> Dan waits out aggression timer and warps back in -> BC assumes he still has kill rights on Dan and fires -> CONCORDOKKEN -> Dan gets more free loot and carebear tears


So I guess it is possible to win a fight without you firing a shot :D
Myo clearly knows what he's on about when impersonating Sun Tzu...

Misson Running gets interesting

I was running missions earlier this week to earn a bit of extra ISK. I was worried about getting poor again (a constant fear for me) and the nearest Incursion was 15 jumps out and in LowSec. The nearest HighSec Incursion was over 20 jumps. Far too much effort for the chance of being accepted into a fleet for only a few sites. So instead I refitted my Scorpion Navy Issue for L4's and headed out to Penirgman. I decided not to bother salvaging the missions, and instead simply go for the bounties. On my first mission I had a Ninja Salvager warp in on me.

Normally these guys piss me off, and it was a battleship heavy mission (Mining Misappropriation or something), so the salvage would be worth quite alot. However this time I couldn't care less about the salvage and turned all my wrecks blue so he could loot them too. Surprisingly the ninja sent me 5mil as a way of saying thanks and we started chatting.

I asked him about "Ninja Salvaging" and he said he'd only tried it a few times (including this one) and normally had decent results (in the range of around 5-8 mil per mission salvaged). I was intrigued, and after he'd cleared my wrecks and left the conversation, I did some extra research. While the ISK wouldn't really be worth it to me, it definitely sounded like a good way for new players to earn ISK without having the horror of grinding standings for Level 4's and with a far lower skill threshold. I dug deeper...

And hit a forum post complaining about "Ninja Looting". The poster essentially was complaining about the practice of scanning down misson runners and looting the wrecks. Obviously this turns the looter flashy red to the misson runner, allowing the missioner to fire at them, which this guy did. However this time instead of simply dying or running away, the ninja came back in a fully PvP fit battlecruiser and beat the living daylights out of the missioner. The ninja then made off with around 300mils worth of faction fittings, laughing all the way.

I was horrified and inspired at the same time. Recently my carebear side and my PvP side have been disagreeing alot, and this situation was no exception. My carebear side completely understood where this unlucky missioner was coming from, especially as my faction fittings on my SNI are worth over 300mil also. Having to replace that ship would be devastating for me. Don't fly what you can't afford to lose? I can afford to replace it, but my god I would be EVE poor afterwards.

However my PvP side wanted to start trying this immediately. 300mil in lootz, and carebear tears? Awesome. Plus if they shoot at a ninja looter, they've accepted the inherent risk in that, so losing his ship was a side effect of his idiocy. No mercy for the stupid people!

I researched more and found a good mission system to start trying this out. Surprisingly it wasn't too difficult... Oh wait :P

I then tried to find the main weaknesses of mission ships.
- Reliance on active tanks
- Total lack of warp scram/disruptor
- Ammo/Resistances will be chosen based on the mission being run.
- Will hopefully still have full rat aggro

So what?
- Active tanks are usually only "burst" tanks for PvE. Getting an active tank totally capstable gimps the rest of the fit and is barely needed, if ever (Note to self, write a post on why being cap-stable is seriously overated in PvE). This means that a couple of neuts will utterly screw up the tank of a missioner. Easy kills ftw.
- The lack of any tackle on the other guy's part is a huge advantage to the ninja. Start taking more DPS than you expected? Just warp off. He can't stop you.
- To maximise tank/DPS, missioners will fit to nullify the main portion of a rat's damage, and fit ammo (if applicable) to hit their resist hole. Amarr space is mainly Sansha/Blood Raiders, which means EM/Therm damage. So I should use those resistances in my tank and use kinetic/explosive ammo to hit the runner in his resist hole.

Luckily Hobgoblin IIs use Therm/Kin ammo and Warrior IIs use explosive rounds, no need to train for new drones. Neuts means any ship with utility highs is best, and it needs to be fast enough to catch them before they warp off. A ship that also is not well known as a PvP boat would be an advantage, as the missioner will feel more confident in winning, and therefore engaging anyway. However it needs decent DPS so the missioner doesn't have time to call for his corpmates, and it needs enough tank to survive against battleship size weapons. A battlecruiser sounds like a good idea at this point.

Time to start looking for fits. My next post will hopefully be the results of my messing with bears :)

Tl;dr Ninja looting sounds fun as hell