Pod Pilot Report: Agatir Solenth
Greetings my fellow pod pilots, & blog readers!!!
I cannot nor will not talk about contracts that Noir. is currently taking part of. Any post contract reports will be edited of some content. Aleks has made it clear discretion is a vital part of being a mercenary. Who is to argue with the experts? However, I will blog, from time to time, about simple lessons to be learned. There are many things that people take for granted in EvE. It may be because for most veterans certain things become second nature, or that it is something they are not aware of simply because it isn’t a part of the game that the experience regularly. A null sec veteran may not be aware of wormhole timer mechanics of entering and exiting a wormhole, or a person new to mining might not be aware of how to properly time mining cycles on a rock.
As part of our celebration of the alliance’s 200thcontract, and the war decking of the biggest alliances in EvE, I have seen a couple of really silly, but easily corrected mistakes.
The first was made by a newer player mining ice in a Covetor. I was out wandering some high sec systems looking for war targets. You never know what you will come across. You might find a miner, a ratter, or a 20 man gang camping a gate. About mid way through transiting a pipeline of systems I entered a system that had 1-2 ice belts and no station. There were 2-3 people one of which was a war target. It was a large system, and nothing showed on the initial D-Scan. I crossed my fingers, cloaked and headed to the first ice belt.
As I warped closer a Coveter, Orca, and drones appeared on the D-Scan. I landed 40km away from both of them. To my dismay the war target was the Coverter. As I was in a Pilgrim, I slowly began heading toward them cloaked. As I got to under 30km of him I began to get excited that I might actually get within disruptor range… and then he warped off. I watched as it was in line with the gate I just warped from, and I immediately headed back to the gate. I was happy during the warp as he remained on D-Scan the entire time. As I landed on the gate there he was! However instead of jumping through the gate he was re-aligning back out. Again he was able to warp off before I could make the tackle.
At this point, I’m thinking he has created a safe spot and I might have missed an easy kill. I wasn’t willing to give up yet. He was a relatively new pilot. He had warped to a gate and not to a safe. He either panicked, or didn’t have a safe spot in system. So I jumped back to the ice belt. Again I was able to keep him on D-Scan as I warped. This time, however when I landed he was not there, and he soon disappeared from local.
"Oh hell," I thought to myself, there is a station next door… he went to the other gate! So I immediately warped to the gate and jumped. I was spamming the jump button as I landed. Hoping he was still there. To my surprise he was. His ship was still aligning toward what I can only guess was the station in system. I began spamming approach and target, as we were on opposite sides of the gate and the overview showed him to be 25km away, and 1km outside of my disruptor range. To my surprise in the time it took to lock him I was able to close the gap and disrupt him. HUZZAH!!! Drones away… Which resulted in this kill.
After the fight I convo’d the pilot. I think he expected me to gloat… but I’m not a pirate. I’m a merc. This is a potential future client. So I asked if he was new to EvE, and he replied that he was. I then gave him this simple bit of knowledge.
If you are going to mine in low sec, null sec, wormhole space, or during war dec while in s system with no station or POS then create safe spots. To do this, warp between two celestials (moon or planet), and create a bookmark. Be lined up to that safe spot (right click in space, your bookmark will appear and you can choose the option to ‘align to’) while mining. When you see a hostile in local (or D-Scan for WH) warp to the safe spot. Once you land at the safe align to your next safe spot at full speed. You then watch your D-Scan for probes. If you don’t see combat probes, you’re safe ***Tip***Be sure your overview is set to see them! If you do see probes, bounce from safe to safe. Every time you land align at top speed. Being aligned at full speed allows you to immediate warp off, when someone gets on grid with you.***Tip*** If you are mining or ratting in null sec I do not recommend warping directly to a station. Bubbles work… they really do.
In my humble opinion, it is this little trick that could keep high sec corps operating even during war decs. Too often leaders are too quick to demand that their pilots dock up during any war dec, instead of finding ways to continue to operate d during them. Who the hell, wants to waste their game time station spinning?!?! I think you will find if you (or your corp) can survive a high sec war dec you will be on a fast path to null sec living.
My second lesson for the day… Well I don’t think a whole lot really needs to be said.
While out, in a small gang we got a report from a scout of a war target in a Kronos. A mission faction fit marauder is a nice addition to any killboard. The order was made to make best speed to a neighboring system, so we began to race to assist. Before all of us could get there, the Kronos jumped into a couple of our guys. Points were called as they locked him up with disruptors, and webs were applied to keep him from getting back to the gate. Leaning forward in my chair I was rocking back and forth in front of my computer trying to coax more speed out of my fat, and now painfully slow, command ship. The guys that were engaging the Kronos report that he wasn’t fighting, he wasn’t doing anything, and he was going down really quickly…
What kind of silly trap is this??? In the next few seconds, almost too fast comprehend we heared over comms:
“Do we wait for you guys to get here to get on the killmail?”
“He is convo-ing me… in russian”
“No kill him before he has a chance for any friends to show up!”
“He wants to pay us not to kill him”
“I don’t think he is fit.”
“He wants what?”
“Never mind he’s popped.”
The result was this Kronos killmail. Take a look at it, can you tell me what his mistake was?
***Tip*** Know when you are under a war dec!
Until next time,
Be Bold…
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