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So I had bought a few plex to supply myself with plenty of pvp equipment. Yes, I got tired of doing missions. Anyhow, I understand Eve is harsh; just look at my lossmails. Ive lost plenty of isk, mostly due to being not smart about where or how I fly. Well, this time, I was extremely cautious. I scouted ahead in a punisher. I checked my maps for pod kills and ships blown up in the last hour. I checked amount of pilots docked and active, jumps made, ect. I took ALL possible pre-travel precautions possible for me.
I will go over my losses in a bit, but first, I was using my travel fit orca. Low cargo space, a dc2, a warp stab just in case, and shield buffer equipment fit. I got my Orca up to 220k hp with modules active. I also put on a cloak and 2 neuts. Good to go, and it proved to be good against the problem I ran into my first jump into low sec on my trip back towards Oddelulf. I ran into a Hurricane pilot.
So I had seen this pilot already yellow as I warped in. You would think I would not have jumped through with my previous bestower lost to a similar situation. Well, I am not in a bestower, now am I? Nope, so I hadnt learned from my previous mistakes. Luckily for me, he was fit with a long point, and lucky again that when I jumped through, I was already closely aligned to the next gate. He had me targeted, scrammed, but not webbed. He ate through roughly 5% of my shields before I warped off. I bet he was like "wtf happened?" I was like, omg, Im safe for now! I made it to the next gate, jumped through. Next one, safe. And the next one. Only one more low sec system to go: Amamake!
This is probally the worst system to travel through. Its a hotspot for young pirates, old pirates, and a bunch of griefing. Its also full of impatient people, as we'll see when I go over my losses. So I jumped through, clicked my cloak immediately, out at 15km from the gate. Only one person was here when I jumped through and I know they saw me. But they were on their way out the other direction. I aligned while cloaked and this is agonizingly slow in an orca. I uncloaked and hit warp to 0 for the next gate. I could jump through on landing, and be safe. Or so I thought.
A mere second or two after uncloaking, 2 or 3 others uncloaked nearby. I didnt catch the name of that hurricane pilot earlier, but I think he relayed some info to other pirates about my escape because these 3 all jammed me. My only hope for escape was to go back to the gate. And that takes a long time in a 67 speedy orca. I made it to 10km before my overview filled up with a few more reds. I hadnt engaged with my neuts or drones because I wasnt planning on fighting. I was running. Now, I wasnt going to go anywhere.
I kept slowboating it to the gate, but I was soon webbed, so I was even slower. When I hit about 50% shields, their FC sent me a convo invite, I accepted and he offerer out an 80 million ransom. Oh my gosh, totally worth it, but I had just spent all my isk on my pvp stuff that is sitting in my corp hangars, which they cant see and wont get a part of if I do die. I tried to quickly explain that I had spent it all, I only had 18million left. I offered a 100 million back if I could dock up and sell some stuff to get the funds, even offering to do so in this system. I got a reply of "Then die like a noob." Hm.
Well, my ship was down to armor by this point, so I started aligning to the next gate out of the system to save my pod. My ship popped, I aligned and my pod got stuck mid warp. Like its warp engines were active, but I wasnt warping out. The speed stayed at roughly 70% full and in the time it took me to see this, hit stop and rewarp, my pod was caught in 3 scrams. I was told 50 million in convo again to save my pod. This guy was seriously fucked in the head as his ADD kicked in and he must have forgotten I said I didnt have it, and now my reply was "I had over 500+misk in my orca that you just lost out on a part of because you didnt let me dock and sell." His reply? "We dont ransom anyways"
Wait, so you offer me a ransom to not pop my ship, then you offer again to keep my pod alive. Yet you dont do ransoms? What the fuck?! Yes, my tears are flowing, not because I lost my ship or supplies, but because of the dumbassness of these pirates. I will from this point forward, not accept ANY ransom from ANY pirate and they can blow my ship to peices along with my pod. I will offer ransoms if I have the oppurtunity and *I* will honor them.
On to what I lost. In list format because its plenty:
Orca x1
Ashimmu x2
Vengeance x5 (2 of which were in ship bay fully fit)
Punisher x15 (one was fully fit in the ship bay)
Magnate x3 (all 3 were fully scanner fit)
12 gatling laser II
12 Scorch
12 INMF
5 or 6 EANM II's
Full slave implant set (4 already installed, the last 2 in corp hangar)
And the 5 hardwirings I had implanted to enhance my small ship skills (small energy weapons, repair and armor amounts)
So thats what, 3 billion isk? If I had been able to dock, I would have just sold one of the Ashimmu's that I was planning on using for some cruiser pvp and given them the isk as I had promised. But no, these little "pirates" blew it all up for a lil bit of salvage and barely anything worth their time. Im on my laptop, so I wont be adding a killmail here, but you might be able to search me on Battleclinic. Im not sure if it auto updates for me, I added my api, but I havent checked to see if it auto uploads my kill and lossmails.
Either way, I lost about 75% of my assests because I had spent it all prior to the travel. Im fine with that, its probally my biggest loss to date. What Im not fine with is the fact I was ransomed, then later told they dont do ransoms anyways. I like to pvp, I really enjoy it when the playfield is level. I hate playing OP classes to get that extra ability that is an easy I win button. This experience I had yesterday was not fun. It wasnt pvp. It wasnt even profitable for the ones who attacked me. So they boosted their killmail with an orca and pod kill. Oh boy! You also missed out on 100misk, possiblely more because Ive been pretty generous this weekend and I was actually willing to make these pirates time worthwhile with giving them all the isk from selling one of my Ashimmu's.
They made a mistake in not trusting me to pay after I docked, which I understand that mistrust. They made a mistake in killing me though as well after I gave my word to pay after selling some stuff. Nobody wins in a situation like this. I lost 2.5-3 bisk in assests, all they got was another industrial kill to pad their mails. Honor among pirates in New Eden has been lost by the majority, which is really sad imo.
Will I quit over this loss? No, but it is really depressing. Its the second time Ive gotten a supply of pvp items blown up during travel. The Black Frog/Red Frog service is looking better to me now. I am really saddened though by the actions of these pirates in Amamake and I will be taking 2 weeks or so off of EVE. I am moving all this week into my new place finally and this loss has just made me jaded towards EVE and the oppurtunity to pvp. I dont want to be killed by blobs, and I dont want to be a part of blobs.
I want pvp, and it may be dieing in EVE for me because thats all I see happening outside of pre-arranged 1v1.
My pirate corp actually does honor ransoms. I don't think they would have agreed to let you get away though. Trusting someone you're trying to kill/extort is a pretty hard thing to come by. You can find the pirate corp by looking up Anjali Subranni. If they accidentally get you after getting the ransom, they refund you.
ReplyDeleteIf you find yourself needing some ISK to recover, shoot me a mail.
As for solo PvP, yeah, pretty hard to find anywhere. I try to avoid Amamake and Old Man Star when possible.
To be honest, I wouldn't have let you dock although you could have ejected some sort of asset as the ransom.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, it was a monumentally silly thing to do flying an orca through low sec, especially without an mwd(Mwd+Cloak trick).
Dont give up though, join a good corp as well, one that encourages a mixture of small gang pvp and solo when no one is there to fly with. Also fly cheap and the losses wont matter so much.
Thanks much for the advice and offer, Truen1ght. I know your corp does do ransoms, as Ive been on the wrong side of one way back when I first entered nullsec being a noob. Ill find solo pvp, its out there, such as that hurricane pilot who attacked me at the first gate. I think I would have fought him if I had been in my vengeance. May have lost, but w/e =P
ReplyDeleteFor Korg, I understand their mistrust and tbh, I would have similar issues letting someone go. In mid fight, I did tell them to open up my bio and check my blog for my api to find for sure I didnt have the money they requested, but thinking back, youre right, I could have offered one of my assests to be jettisoned. Hindsight is always 20/20 =)
As for being silly, have you not read my blog before? This isnt the first stupid/silly thing Ive done =P I didnt have an mwd and in this specific case where everyone warped in so quickly, it would make little difference.
Anyhow, thanks again for the advice and tips, I do appreciate the viewpoints of others of my journey and deaths.
"I didnt have an mwd and in this specific case where everyone warped in so quickly, it would make little difference."
ReplyDeleteIt makes ALL the difference. With MWD and cloak the only way for them to catch you was to actively decloak you which they had not done.
Also, you are accusing them of planning to dishonour a ransom but they have not done that. And that qoute could simply mean they rarely bother even asking for ransoms.
Axazia, lol I have just finished reading your last couple of blog post and your right you have done a couple of silly things but no more than anyone else so dont worry too much.
ReplyDeleteAs for the mwd cloak trick, if executed properly they wouldnt have gotten tackle in the first place. Gankbears whine about it alot :).
But keep up the blog its one of the more entertaining I have read.
WOW Axazia you have been having some really bad luck as of late. I understand what you are going through as far as trying to do it on your own. I applaude you on your efforts.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure what hours you are on but if you are looking for a wingman or two let me know.
-Jadark
I'd have assumed that snuff box would honour any ransom they bothered to offer, although 80m for an orca is suspiciously low; most pirates who are intent on making money from ransoms will ask for 50-80% of the ship or pod's estimated value (any less and you may as well just take your chances with the Loot Fairy; any more and the, ah, client is unlikely to pay).
ReplyDeleteHowever, taking an orca into a busy area of lowsec like Amamake without heavy backup is... inadvisable, to say the least. You really should look into using blockade runners to move your unfitted frigate and cruiser hulls into lowsec, or just use Black Frog. Alternatively, if you're determined to use a bigger hauler, base in a *quiet* lowsec system with a rarely-camped highsec gate (these are more common than you might think, even in relatively busy regions) and use a web-warping alt to get your hauler off the gate ASAP.
However, since you apparently have a positive sec status and are just dipping your toes into lowsec, I'd suggest that instead of trying to move ships into lowsec in bulk, you would be better off basing out of a highsec system with a lowsec gate. That way all your logistical troubles vanish and you can still easily slip into low and get a feel for your local area (which are the quiet systems and which are heavily traveled? who lives in the area and what sort of playstyle do they favor? are any gates regularly camped and if so, which are they and are there any good alternative routes you can take to circumvent them?). With this information and experience, you'll be far better situated to make a good choice of system and home station if you decide to set up a lowsec base of operations.