Pirates Ahoy! #2

Pirates Ahoy!

As a new dad I have 2 weeks off work. Yes I do all the laundry, housekeeping, nappy changing, cooking breakfast lunch and dinners and general juice-fetching for the wife and 2yr old. However there is plenty of time left to play EVE.

Within New Eden I have come to respect and admire solo pirates a lot as the skill, patience and determination required is immense. Kane Rizzel, Spectre, Wensley and Sage to name but a few of the pilots I have learned to respect outside of the Bastards.

Within the Bastards however we have some truly skilled pilots that I am proud to call my brothers in arms. Raelyf is at the top of my list as one of the greatest pilots in the game. Guts and glory for that man, solo’ing his way around EVE in any hull type. Other than that we have Arrhidaeus with a penchant for Amar Navy Slicers but again a very skilled pilot and a few others I have a lot to learn from.

Anyways enough of talking about other peeps, my point merely is that although I have a proven track record of solo kills I do not feel I am a skilled solo pirate. So time for change and experiments I figured. To soften the emotion of ship losses I have build up my main hangar with over 50 hulls and enough fitting packages (I’ll explain that later) for all of them. On top of that I have a second hangar in Old Man Star with 6 fully fitted & rigged ships and now a third hangar in Hevrice with 7 fully kitted out vessels.

I have grown an affinity for my sexy Vexor but still have to justify that love with some more kills and less losses of that bad boy. My other interests have been Ishkurs and lately my Faction Worm. Wich leads me to some piracy related stuff this week;

After an unsuccessful and boring night on Monday I prepared to log off for the night when some guys temporarily sharing our vent piped up and said the where gonna drop some carriers into Egghelende. Although tired I figured this was worth watching and signed up.

To be honest it was a bit of a fail op and I wish I had just gone to bed. On arriving in system in my Vexor (yeah I know) I warped to the Station where the action was at. A super shiny Bhaalgorn was taking some fire and was called primary. I checked the pilots name and hesitated for a moment… Kane Rizzel… I figured if Kane would have the opportunity to pew pew one of my shiny ships he wouldn’t hesitate and open fire and thus did I. Kane tanked a shit ton then docked, a great example I thought, and followed suit, logged and went to sleep. Read Kane’s Version of event here.

Tuesday saw another joined corp operation but I think that is confidential at the moment so ‘no comment’. I did get in on a few kills but also missed out on a lot as there where many in fleet with faster ships, faster lock time and I sported Heavy Missiles...

After the scheduled roam RoninData, another Bastard legend rallied a few of us to go to Amamake for some late night pewpew. Not a bad run as we managed to kill a Harbinger, Moa, Vexor, Drake, Stabber and a Crow.

I logged off in Auga that night and intended to fly my Vexor back to Evati the next day. I never made it back in my Vexor, In fact I only made it one jump. I managed to save my pod however.

All the above pushed me to go out solo and practise…

I took out an experimental Kiting Ishkur fit and made my way towards Egmar. My alt scanned out a Ranis, Caracal, and Vagabond out in a mission and figured I’d give it a shot…

Nashh jumped in, evading a small Cynabal blob and set course to where I thought my target was. On arrival at the acceleration gate D-scan revealed a lone Rifter? Wtf wher’s the Caracal, Ranis and Vaga? Activating the gate I flicked back to my alt and then realised I warped to a Minor Outpost not my alt. Silly me, o well. The Rifter and his pod popped as I aligned to meet up with the next target.

On landing at the correct gate this time it appeared my prey was still there. The warp gate slung me a short distance and on exiting warp I found the Caracal on his own 20 clicks from me. Primed and overheated point locked on and I settled into a comfortable orbit before I even launched my drones.

The Caracal warped off?!?! For some reason I managed to switch off my Warp Disruptor and kicked myself. The second warp gate within reach and the Ranis on D-scan I decided for the rage to enfold later and proceeded. The Ranis immediately felt the pain of my drones on landing as the Vaga started stripping my shield and half my armor. Time to run I figured as the Interceptor’s hull began to show. In my haste I warped to a belt not a safe, mid warp I had hoped for a round two with the Gallente Tech2 Frigate. On landing I aligned to my safe and initiated the warp drive as the Taranis landed behind me. Furious ‘cancel warp’ commands failed and the fight was over. The 3 pilots docked and that was that.

A little later I spotted the Rifter pilot back on D-scan and this time with a friend in a Hound. They were easily found but after some cat and mouse I only managed to kill the Covert Ops.

Whilst all this was going on a Griffin had been in a mission for about 30 minutes. I could not enter the mission as my MWD would be useless and it didn’t allow for T2 Frigates anyway. It seemed pointless to reship in Evati to come back but when 40 minutes hit I thought sod it and sped back to Evati in my pod. One of my trusty Worms undocked smoothly into blackness and evaded yet another camp on the way back to Egmar.

To my surprise and joy the Griffin was still on scan and after activating the second mission gate he appeared on my overview. It was clear the Caldari T1 was no match for my Faction beast.

On route back to Evati I crossed Lady Shaniqua and a duel was requested… I would have instantly agreed in my ‘up-close-and-personal’ variety Ishkur but I took a minute to decide if a scram fit, fast Tech 2 Minnie was the right opponent for my setup. What the hell, its been a good day…

Planet 1 was the meeting point and we wished each other good luck after agreeing not to squish pods. The fight lasted a few minutes but with my drones and ammo drained it appeared to be a stalemate as Shaniqua couldn’t get within shooting range.

With Arrhideaus just fitting up a new Slicer it appeared to be a good time to take off on a little roam, I invited Shaniqua along whom gladly accepted. I decided to come along in a Crow but after one jump into the roam had to jump into a Worm yet again to get access to another Minor Site.

Lucius Invictus in his fast Punisher either disconnected or logofski’d mid fight and his ship fell to the Worm’s power. I spotted Lucius in local about an hour later in his pod but he didn’t seem too happy to talk to me.

Arrhi had to log of for RL reasons which left me and Lady S to find targets. I found a Cynabal but didn’t dare to engage; I had made that mistake before and paid the price. Help was too far out thus it was time to move on.

Mr Knight was scanned down in Frerstorn but slipped the net for a good 30 minutes until Lady S got the prober out. Short work was made and the poor guy got his Drake ransomed for the handsome sum of 40 million isk. The price seemed right as he did pop 5 of my drones and the time it took to catch him. I say poor guy as Lady S has actually killed and ransomed this guy on 4 previous occasions. A friendly chat in local evolved with the pilot who seemed a nice enough guy, I wish him luck in his further adventures.

As the GCC timers ran out it was time to dock up and get some well deserved sleep. I thoroughly enjoyed flying with Lady Shaniqua and would not hesitate to do so again.

Until we meet again my friend, may it be against or alongside each other.

All in all not a bad week so far; as it stands at the moment I am top killer and top ransomer for the month. Let’s hope Raelyf and Kalius Prime take a few days off before the end of this month =)

Also for those interested I am now a recruiter for the Bastards. EVE-Mail me if you are interested in joining one of the best Pirate Corps in New Eden!


Watch this space…