LOL Fits #5: "I'm sorry sir, we had to put her down."

During war there always seems to be a bounty of strangely fitted ships that get killed, and this war is no exception. Amidst all the death and destruction, one must find humor where they can in order to cope with the pain and suffereing that comes with war.

There comes a time in every pilot's life where he or she thinks that it would be a good idea to go mining in a battlecruiser after their alliance declares war on yours. That moment came for Kluftrin last night.

He was relieved of his burden by three frigates. No tank or ammo was found in the wreck. We lol'ed.

Mining Cyclone

LOL Fits #4: The Failure of Highsec Hulks

While tallying up Hulk ganks for the past month, I stumbled upon a startling realization: Highsec Hulk pilots are clueless when it comes to tanking their ships. I don’t know whether it’s laziness or complacency, but the results are a suicide ganker’s dream.

Seeing this startling trend, I decided to publish the results of our study for the betterment of all citizens of New Eden to do with as they will. See, I’m not totally heartless...

Keep in mind that Hulks have 4 mid slots, while Procureres and Retrievers have only one. So let’s take a look at the latest group of failed mining setups, shall we? The list I've compiled covers the month of August, and lists what each pilot had fitted in his or her mid slots at the time of pew. A couple of the ships were war targets that I've included just for the sake of completeness. Many Ninjas died to bring us this information.

Hulk Ganks

3 Cilvilian Shield Boosters, 1 Survey Scanner

4 empty mid slots

4 Invulnerability Field II’s

4 empty mid slots

2 named hardeners, 1 Survey Scanner, and 1 empty mid slot

1 Survey Scanner, and 3 empty mid slots

1 Small Shield Extender, 1 Survey Scanner, and 2 empty mid slots

1 Small Shield Booster, 1 named shield recharger, 1 Survey Scanner, and 1 empty mid slot

2 passive shield resists, 1 Small Shield Booster, 1 survey scanner

Retriever Ganks

1 propulsion mod

1 empty slot

1 Tech II Small Shield Extender

Procurer Gank

1 empty mid slot

As you can see, many of the fits are pretty comical, but I noticed an even more disturbing trend: One half of all Hulks ganked were rigged - an expensive choice for poorly tanked mining vessels. 

Of all of the suicide ganks undergone by TEARS, we received hate mail, tears, and requests for reimbursement, but there was absolutely no retailiation by any of the miners or thier respective corporations. 

All ganks were performed in high security space, which contributes to miners' (false) sense of security that undoubtedly inspires them to act so carelessly.

Hopefully this information will inspire others to take part in the experiment, knowing that miners are making the job that much easier for you. You may even get some fan mail.

All Your Sanity Are Belong to Us

This tale has be told elsewhere in parts, but a complete telling is just too epic for me to pass up. I've summarized heavily and left out chatlogs because the full tale is quite long.

It all started a while ago when Paul Clavet killed Drucore's Typhoon with a Caracal. Needless to say, the whole affair illicted some of the greatest tears I've ever seen, in which Drucore got so frustrated that he was literally smashing his keyboard in anger. That story can be found here. 

Fast forward a little bit.

TEARS, being the avengers of floating internet space rocks that we are, has been hitting a few highsec Hulks this month, and wouldn't you know it, Drucore not only harrasses mission rats, but he's also an avid shooter of veldspar. Well, this atrocity was one that needed to be dealt with. Drucore minus one Hulk. 

Enter Elizabeth Hope. Now Drucore, outraged and frustrated that his Hulk was not safe in high sec, contacted a friend of his to get revenge. Elizabeth Hope, CEO of Zahn Consortuim, made threats of war claiming that her corporation was more than capable. She claimed to have done 26 billion ISK in damages to the Goons, and was now threatening us with repeated poddings. We weren't impressed.

A week or so passed by, and Elizabeth's promises of war went without incident. Apparently she was all talk, and frankly I wasn't surprised. News travels far and wide however, and a few of our friends decided that they wanted to take the fight to Hope and her corporation. Our friends discovered a POS in wormhole space owned by Zahn Consortuim, and their new alliance, Death From Above. What?! Not safe in a wormhole? Say it ain't so!

A few of the guys jumped into the wormhole to mix it up with them. We got a few kills and ended up chasing the enemy from their little hole, taking out the alliance CEO and his Vulture in the process. Then the guys began work on the POS.

The POS was put into reinforced mode, and unfortunately for Death From Above, they hadn't been able to get enough fuel into the POS before they were chased off. Reinforced time was only 5 hours.

The wormhole was then invaded by a fleet of rabid Ninjas and friends when the medium tower came out of reinforced mode, and eventually the POS fell to our continued hammering. Have I mentioned how much I love stealth bombers? Hope's alliance apparently had enough of a wormhole beating and moved out to null sec, while Elizabeth herself ended up leaving the corp she had founded in favor of greener pastures.

Fast forward again.

I went out looking for more high sec Hulk pilots, when I found Drucore mining in a belt not far from our home system. This guy apparently doesn't learn.

Once again, we paid him a visit and exploded his Hulk. He launched a few insults to us in local and in some private convos with a few of our fleet members, but finally ended up in a conversation with me, asking what he had to do in order for us to just leave him alone.

We showed him the error of his ways and informed him about the fall of Elizabeth Hope and her empty threats. The long and short of it was that Drucore ended up in the service of TEARS. He agreed to pay us daily protection fee providing that we promised to make sure that nothing bad would happen to any more of his mining vessels. He paid paid for a week in advance.

As of now, Drucore is delinquent on his payment, but I can't say I blame him. One of my corpmates, who shall remain nameless, ended up talking Drucore into ejecting out of his fully fit and rigged Raven. Drucore, looking for acceptance from TEARS, and having expressed an interest in joining the Ninjas, had put a little too much faith in his new friend. I need not say that Drucore donated his Raven to the cause. 

Drucore has since joined a new corporation because his old one failed to support him when he was in need. Poor Drucore. Again, I can't blame you. I hope you find what you are looking for in your new home. Maybe we'll even meet again someday. 

Quote of the Week

By Ghengis Tia, concerning Suddenly Ninjas

"Why don't you fess up to who you really are? Opportunists who'll harass, annoy, and take advantage of other player's efforts no matter who they are, where they are, or when they're online. More or less a hi-sec empire Goonswarm.

"You've banded together to create a force in Eve, I'll give you that. The rest of Eve will have to deal with you, just as they deal with Goonswarm. You're organized, know what you want to do, and go do it. Much like any other corporation, I guess, but with a somewhat darker bent."

 Via the EVE-O forums

I Accidentally the Whole Wreck

There I was minding my own business, salvaging and looting like a crazed apocolypse survivor, when all of a sudden I got shot at by a trio of mission runners. The offenders: A Raven, a Rokh, and a Basilisk. I bailed out as soon as I saw them fire and returned to the station with barely a scratch. I parked my salvage ship and boarded my mission runner-killer Raven.

By the time I returned to the deadspace area, all three of my friends had left for fear of the wrath of the ninja. Disappointed, I returned to the Dodixie M 20 station, swapped my Raven for a Buzzard, and went back to the mission cloaky style to scope out the gate and wait for their return.

It wasn't long before the mission running team returned. The Rokh was not with them this time, only the Raven and the Basilisk were present. The Raven activated the acceleration gate and warped away while the Basilisk waited behind for a few moments. I can only guess that he was taking up the rear guard position in case I returned. Eventually he activated the gate and warped into the mission.

Excited, I raced back to the station to get my Raven once more. After a quick swap I arrived back at the scene, the aggro clock ticking the whole while.

I activated the acceleration gate, and as I came out of warp I was sitting almost directy on top of the Raven. Locked, pointed, webbed, neuted, torpedoed, and droned, his remote repper friend bolted like a fart on the wind. Now it was just a matter of seconds before he went down.

As the Raven began to enter armor, I got a convo request from the pilot, followed almost immediately by a second frantic convo request as soon as I hit accept.

[ 2009.08.13 20:12:00 ] Skilluuhh > give you isk ok

I cut the torps and deactivated the neuts.

[ 2009.08.13 20:12:26 ] Velocity Prime > how much?
[ 2009.08.13 20:12:46 ] Skilluuhh > i got only 23,4 ill give it to you

Not going to be a good day for this guy...

But by this time, the NPCs had been working their destructive magic on him, and even before I could refuse Skilluuhh his oh so generous offer, the rats had taken him down to low structure. With no capacitor and no tank left, Skilluuhh was about to go down whether I liked it of not. Oh well, at least it made the decision of a ransom an easy one.

He popped.

I hit the afterburners and flew over toward his wreck. I targeted it and then activated the salvagers - wait! Those weren't salvagers, those were torps I just fired! Ack!

The wreck exploded and I watched my hard earned reward go up in smoke. Fortunately, there wasn't anything too spectacular that got destroyed with the wreck. Funny though that my natural reaction to seeing a wreck nearby was to immediately target and hit the F1 key.

Salvaging: It's in the blood.