Why don't I join a Pirate Corp?

I've been asked this a few times, so I thought I'd address it here as it has been a slow news day in EVE as I didn't find anything to kill all afternoon. Finding an EVE University pilot in an Incursus this evening before log-out being my only kill of the day (He went down very quickly), his Pod although I locked it, I managed to scram his drone instead. Ah well, another one to learn from.

As an aside I'd like to thank the mysterious individual who increased my bounty who came forward yesterday and increased it again further. A satisfied reader of this here blog, you know who you are :)

So back to the question of why don't I join a pirate corp. Well it is fairly simple and there are only two reasons:

1. I will not use voice comms and all pirate corps that I would consider applying to require this for gang work.
2. I have always seen myself as the lone gunman, fighting sometimes against overwhelming odds. Not having wingmen to come to my aid.

There is some baggage that supports reason 1, Over a year back I played World of Warcraft (I hear you groan) for about three years, and I played it at a fairly reasonable level and fairly hardcore with raiding and such. Whenever I would raid I used voice comms, donned the headset and promptly ignored life outside the computer which included my Wife and other commitments. As you can imagine looking back with hindsight this was really stupid and now considering myself a rehabilitated MMO gamer I refuse to ever return to that level of ignorance and absorbption again.

Millionaire Club!

Not exactly, at least not in the sense that you are probably thinking.

I am pleased to announce that Kirith now had a bounty of over one million isk on his head, or should I say his pod. It had been sat at 5,000 isk for a long while and I'm dead chuffed it his hit the million.

Tonight's roam started well with me popping a Catalyst who went down extremely fast as he was engaged with rats too and already at low shields. What followed was then a 2 hour period with no sniff of another kill. I thought I was going to get popped myself a couple of times tonight as the first occasion I warped to a gate as a gang jumped through and I was rather concerned you might say that there would be the tail end of the gang on the other side of the gate (fortunately not). The second time was a Mean/Hellequin coalition of a few ships sat on the other side of a gate, they didn't seem bothered by me fortunately again.

Deciding to call it a night and head back to my home system I find a couple of capsuleers in a Rifter & Rupture, I guess that they are working in cahoots. I warp to what I think is the right belt and the Rifter was there, I land 4km from him so point him and engage straight away. The Rupture arrives as I do so so I lock him too but he warps away. The Rifter is going down comfortably and I can handle his damage on me along with the two rats that are also firing on me. The Rupture comes back, which I really didn't expect, perhaps his fleet mate was giving him grief for running! I target him again then the Rifter explodes and I target and pop the pilots Pod too. Switching my scram to the Rupture I set about it and I'm now only really taking damage from the rats as the Rupture doesn't scratch me. He doesn't last long being a big fat juicy Cruiser though I wasn't quick enough to catch his Pod. I enjoyed the fight no end, fighting two pilots and the firepower of some rats and coming out well on top a superb feeling to end the day on.

Slim Pickings

A morning free of work as I'm in until late I needed to make the most of my morning on EVE before daily downtime, just a couple of hours play time. Expecting it to be very quiet I was not proven wrong. The majority of the time being the only capsuleer in the systems I roamed. I did manage to snag a couple of kills, though only one was a true kill.

I noticed a Catalyst in system but he soon jumped out. I had no idea where he went but had a 1 in 3 chance of being correct so making my choice I jumped. Bingo, lady luck had smiled. He had warped towards a gate to hi-sec but did not appear to have warped to zero, I picked him up on long range directional scan at the gate. I warped after him on the off chance he was autopiloting, not that I could fire first due to the sentry guns. When I arrived he was there, I wanted to get him to agress me so settled into an orbit around him locking him. Using my camera drones I could see that he had activated his shield booster so I knew the pilot was at the helm, after a few second he warped away. Assessing his trajectory I again had a 1 in 3 chance of selecting the right destination. Choosing belt 1 I engaged warp. Coming out of warp 1500m away from him. He went down fast and didn't even shoot me once (because he had no ammo judging by the killmail). I managed to snag his pod too which keeps me heading nicely towards -10 security status.

My other kill which wasn't really a true kill was an Amarr Rookie ship which had been abandoned by a Moon. Yes I really was bored enough to scan it down and blow it up!

Another repeat customer

Perhaps I am exhausting the supply of pilots new to the area of space that I roam or perhaps some capsuleers that I catch up with do not learn. Today I came across the chap who I killed at the weekend in his Thrasher again in a Thrasher and in the same system again.

Maybe he wasn't keeping an eye on local, I don't know. But I was able to scan him down quite easily and catch up with him in a belt. This time he was 25km away. I approached him and he locked me and began firing. I wasted no time in returning the compliment, noticing that I was neither webbed nor scrammed. The fight was a fairly close one with me bleeding into structure a couple of times but ultimately it was only going one way. After the pretty explosion I attempted a ransom on his pod but when given the opportunity to save his assumed implants he merely put something in local in what I assume was some variant of Russian.

What I also wonder about this guy, not that I am complaining mind you is why on earth did he engage me and not run away, I mean I had blown him up before on the previous time we met. He must have been optimistic. Perhaps next time knowing that I returned him to the clone vats will deter him from making the same mistake again.

Picking on twins in Rifters is a bad idea

Just before logging off I spy two Rifters flying together. The pilots are far older than I, but I decide to chance my luck. I warp to 70km from the belts and they are there waiting. I select my target and engage, taking heavy damage quickly from the combined assault of both my opponents I hope that I can take out at least one before I crash and burn. Although close to doing so it was not to be and Mad Manuel is consigned to the scrap heap in the sky. Gf's exchanged in local it seems that my adversaries enjoyed the fight too.

You win some and you lose some, but I had fun in testing the limits. Another day I shall have my revenge.

Monday night is Rifter night

So I sit my ass inside my Pod, two people (including me) in local and undock the station. I am greeted by a Rifter sat outside. While under the station protection he rushes over to orbit me, locking me as soon as I am out of the stations clutches. He opens fire so we tackle each other. My shields are gone in the blink of an eye and he's into my armour. I establish an orbit and break his shields. His armour is going fairly quickly but I'm already into structure, my repper doing a sterling job of giving me a sliver of armour back every time he unleashes a volley but I'm bleeding into structure. Then I break through his armour and his structure vanishes under a couple of volleys, leaving me on around 10% armour & sturcture. Wow that was close. I realise after the fight that it was the pilot who took out my last Rifter when I had killed the Hurricane. Netting a superb haul of modules drops I leave the field surprisingly victorious and having beaten a character a lot older. It seems that my guess about him overheating his guns last encounter was probably right as all three of his 200mm Auto's had taken some damage when I came to repackage them for resale.

After safely depositing my ill gotten gains I set about another roam and soon find a Rifter pilot, a new player. Deciding I should enlighten him on EvE pvp I find him in a belt but he escapes as he's 40km away from my warp in point. I return to a safe waiting for him to undock from his station. Undock he does a few minutes later, I warp to a jump gate guessing that would be his choice and find him arriving a few seconds after I do, he jumps and I follow suit watching for where he warps to. I happily follow him to a belt and this time point him before he can escape. It took very little damage to drop him. His pod followed swiftly afterwards.

Now waiting out my GCC another fairly young pilot enters the system, and again in a Rifter. After a game of chase around the planets I catch up with him and we lock horns. Again the fight didn't last long and I disposed of his pod afterwards. I think he would have fared better had he not chosen to fit short and long range weapons.

Repeat Customer

It has been a slow day today. After some early success in taking out a Thrasher, the pilot of which didn't seem one bit amused spamming local in what I assume to be Russian until I told him I didn't understand. Afterwards I had a dry spell for a while until I came across someone I had killed before in a Rupture (again) in the same system that I killed him in last time (last weekend I think).

I assumed he would have the same setup as last time, and it turned out that I was pretty much right. The evil Neut & drones. I however was not flying the Cap boosted fit that has been succesful vs Neuts so I was somewhat apprehensive. But if I don't try I will never know so I went for it. This time he must have forgotten about his drones as they did not put in an appearance. What surprised me the most however was how limited the effect of his Neut was due to my Nos keeping me going. Granted his damage in the entire fight didn't get through my shields as he didn't use his drones. Who knows if the outcome would have been the same if I needed to use my armor repper, but as it was I got rewarded with a pretty explosion. I offered a ransom for the pod but I didn't receive it so I have added another corpse in my collection.

A little time later I was convo'd by the pilot, assuming he was going to ask why I shot him (again) I accepted the convo. All he wanted to know was "were is my stuff". I told him that I had taken some and left the rest where it died. Usually I blow up the wrecks I create but on this occasion I didn't for some reason.