Friday, April 8, 2011

Shit happens

I fly solo for a lot of different reasons, but the most important one, is my family life in a small apartment. Flying in fleet needs full attention and dedication from every pilot. I often cannot commit that much. I might have to force quit mid-warp to a target. But sometimes you just long for a bigger fleet.

I was in one of my regular systems when I discovered a Dominix on the directional scanner, obviously doing a mission, since it was not at any celestial bodies. And a young pilot, too. We were the only one in system, but I was in my Rifter and had no probing ship nearby.

Lucky me: A Tusker in a Rifter shows up!

I like the Tuskers, they can be trusted. At least when what you risk is just a Rifter. Have I been killed by Tuskers? Yup. Have I killed any of them? Hmm. Gotta work on that, I think. But this was not a time for a great Rifter duel - it was time to join forces!

I explain the situation and my fellow pirate immediately goes to get a probing ship.

Then shit happens. Literally. Those of you living with kids knows what I am talking about. The rest of you: I will spare you the details. Anyway, I am AFK for at least five, maybe ten minutes. I manage to squeeze in a “sorry family emergency situation” in chat. But by the time I actually get to sit down in front of my computer again, I see the following greeting from the Tusker in local: GF, Saftsuze, u suck dawg :P

A few messages later, it turns out he had warped in on the Dominix expecting me or one of his corpies to show up pretty soon - none of us made it obviously.

I just want to state this: I am really sorry I couldn't follow up on my initiative and I really appreciate that the Tuskers are cool and willing to join in on opportunities like that.

If only real life shit had hit the fan a few minutes earlier, then the Dominix would've felt the stinging pain of being taken down by a few frigates. Shit happens.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Crumbling Cane, Ripping Rifter

Old Man Star. My career as a low life scumbag started here. I did not know at the time about the reputation this system has for death and destruction. Lately, it has however been either empty, or filled with large packs of ships way beyond my target range. So I have not spent much time there lately.

This night, I did however decide to spend some time at my old central safe spot, even though the system was almost empty and only a Hurricane, apart from the local POS-junk, showed up on 360 scan. The Hurricane was in one of the belts. Or at a planet. Four in local. One of them a fresh recruit of the Federal Defence Union. A couple of more experienced pilots also in system. The lust for destruction convinced me and I warped in at 50km off the belt, giving me the opportunity to run if the Hurricane turned out to be piloted one of the more skilled pilots. When I landed I was greeted by the promising sight of the youngster happily looting Serpentis wrecks.

The youngster decided my small Rifter was no threat and continued looting while i burned towards him. Ah, the deceptive power of size!

He was engaging me once I was in range and I tried to keep the transversal high as I manually spiraled towards a close orbit. My shields held and the few Valkyrie-drones did not bother me much at all. But then, suddenly ECM! He did not run, but I kept loosing lock over and over again - not getting much damage done. And after a while my once impressive shields had to give up and I had to dock up for massive repairs of smoking hot guns and some dents in my armour.

The youngster opened up direct communication and bravely greeted me with a good fight. I saluted. But scumbags never give up on a perfect target for ransom. Once the mechanics were done, I undocked. The Hurricane had uninterrupted moved to another belt. Old Man Star certainly was quiet this night. My Rifter was going to change that.

This time I had no intention of running, so I warped in at 0km and landed on top of him - and a Serpentis Battleship! I once shot at those to keep my relations with CONCORD at a decent level. Now I consider them my closest allies. We are all red.

The shields never dipped below 50 percent, the Hurricanes ECM did not work and my overheated autocannons cooperated with the Serpentis Baron and slowly we worked our way through the shield and armour tanked Hurricane. Local spiked with approximately 20 ships and I cursed my luck but was committed to finish what I had started. Luckily they were just passing through and Old Man Star was quiet yet again - except from one particular asteroid belt.

The Hurricanes hull started to show serious structural weakness and the youngster was invited to Saftsuze's ISK Transfer Service communication channel. I wanted to kill it, but I could live with 50 million ISK as well. The pilot only had three. Old Man Star was no longer quiet as an enormous ball of fire exploded in Asteroid Belt 1 at Planet VII.

The Rifter shall from now on be known as Hurricanes Bane.