The Dark Arts: A Guide to Stealing Upwell Structures - Part 3

In my last article, I identified a corporation that was vulnerable to citadel theft, wormed my way into the CEO’s trust, and convinced him to assign me the Director role - only to have victory snatched away from me at the last moment.

I became quite disillusioned at this point. I like to do corp infiltrations in the old Belligerent Undesirables way - quick and dirty. Get in, cause as much chaos as you can in a few days, then get out. I had already been in SSRL for a week at this point. The longer I stuck around, the risk of my story falling apart increased.

There is always a balance to these things. Sooner or later the mark will google your name, or start asking awkward questions about the AWOX kills on your killboard, or wonder why you haven’t started doing any of the things you have promised to do in order to convince him to give you roles. Unless it is your first time, from the moment you enter a corporation, the clock is ticking. You need to make sure you cash out before alarm bells start ringing in your mark’s head.

At this point, I thought hard about cashing out. Alex was getting paranoid, and I had already played the best card in my hand by offering to FC fleets. I had no idea what I could say at this point to get a director role. I thought, maybe if I hang out a bit, exercise patience, and actually FC a fleet or two, I could build rapport and possibly complete the heist, but that was a daunting investment of time and effort. I had promised to provide free ships for the fleet, I had declared a plan to depart from our highsec island in Derelik, so I would need to haul ships out there. It just wasn’t looking good.

There was a couple hundred million isk in the corp wallet that I had the roles to steal, and I gave serious thought to just taking it and moving on to another corporation. In the end, I just couldn’t bring myself to give up on the possibility of a 20+ billion isk heist for a 200 million isk consolation prize, so I stuck it out.

Developing Backstory
I was at a loss as to what my next pitch for director roles would be, and I knew I would need to wait a couple days for Alex’s paranoia to subside before I asked again, so I continued being a helpful and friendly guy.

I saved some corp fittings, I spread recruitment ads around, I had long conversations with Alex about the future of the corporation - in which I made sure to build his confidence and agree with all his core ideas, while making helpful suggestions along the way.

Between Alex and I we recruited half a dozen people. Among them, to my surprise, was my old friend Deathtrooper2 - my longtime readers will remember him featured in this blog way back in 2012, when he was a key member of my old nullsec PvP corporation, Revolutionary Front. I’m afraid DT2 is probably a little mad at me right now, but it was genuinely good to see him again. We spent an evening trying to get a first few kills on the SSRL killboard - him hunting ratters in Providence and Curse, me roaming faction war space in Devoid, linking killmails and chatting. It was just like old times.

A few more days went by, and my deadline got closer - I had agreed to FC a Merlin roam at a certain day and time. I would either need to do a bunch of painful logistics to prepare for it, or find a way to get the Director role first.

The Final Con
It occured to me that maybe it would take a financial investment on my part to gain the necessary level of trust. Or at least, the appearance of a financial investment. On the eve of fleet day, I concocted an elaborate scheme to put citadel freeports in Sendaya and Curse and laid it all out for Alex. I would pay for the citadels myself, of course, but I would need director roles, I insisted, to put this exciting plan into action.

It worked.

The Hostile Takeover
The next morning I logged in, and sure enough, I was officially a Director of SSRL. This was the part where I had to move fast. I first took all the shares from the corporate wallet. As 100% shareholder, I now could not be kicked from the corporation without a shareholder vote.

Then I hopped in a Merlin and flew to the Fortizar. I first emptied the corp hangars into my own, then right clicked on the citadel, selected “transfer ownership” and transferred it to my solo wardec corporation - Dirtbag Space Warriors Coming for yor Loots [DSWCF].

Then I repeated the process at the Astrahus, and the Raitaru, and made the grand tour of Athanors. The final Athanor was at a remote location, so I clone jumped out and liberated that one too. A quick check of the “assets” tab in the “corporation” window verified that I had taken everything except a Caldari Control Tower that I didn't know the specific location of, and a giant secure container, tantalizingly named “SSRL Secure Storage” - also at an unknown location in space. I checked corp bookmarks but there were none.

Next I emptied the corp wallet. Then I went to the “politics” tab of the corp window, selected “Run for CEO”, chose a 1 day timer for the vote, and voted for myself. As I learned from this process, this initiates a 24 hour window in which shareholders can vote between me or Alex, as the incumbent CEO. As 100% shareholder, of course, there was only one possible outcome. After the next downtime, following the conclusion of the vote, I would become CEO of SSRL.

Many of these actions resulted in notifications. In theory, if Alex had been monitoring his notifications with some 3rd party app like Evanova, he might have been able to quickly log in, strip my roles, and mitigate some of the damage by transferring any remaining structures to a holding corporation.

Of course, I had prepared for this possibility by standing ready to drop a wardec on SSRL using Dirtbag Space Warriors. Under a pending or active wardec, a corporation can not transfer structures. In that eventuality, I still would have gotten all the structures in the end, because there was nothing Alex could have done to prevent the CEO vote, but he might have been able to save some assets from the hangars and wallet.

All that done, I then switched on friendly fire and cloaked up in space. It was time to write an EVE mail.

The Aftermath
All in all, Alex was a pretty good sport about things.

[ 2018.12.03 18:37:43 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > listen
[ 2018.12.03 18:37:46 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > its all within the game
[ 2018.12.03 18:37:49 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > so i'm going to eat it
[ 2018.12.03 18:38:20 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > i'd accept any reasonable offer
[ 2018.12.03 18:38:45 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > but i can't just give your stuff back for nothing
[ 2018.12.03 18:39:14 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > its the pirates code - take what you can, give nothing back
[ 2018.12.03 18:39:52 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > i've already bragged about this to my comrades and need something to show for it
[ 2018.12.03 18:39:58 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > ;D
[ 2018.12.03 18:40:15 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > how do I know
[ 2018.12.03 18:40:19 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > if I give you anything
[ 2018.12.03 18:40:24 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > that you'll give it back to me
[ 2018.12.03 18:40:32 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > i trusted you
[ 2018.12.03 18:40:38 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > and the game
[ 2018.12.03 18:40:43 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > that is all gone
[ 2018.12.03 18:40:49 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > we can go through a trusted third party
[ 2018.12.03 18:41:04 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > theres no more trusted, and how will that ev
[ 2018.12.03 18:41:07 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > even work
[ 2018.12.03 18:41:27 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > i give him the stuff, you give him the isk, and he does the exchange
[ 2018.12.03 18:41:46 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > lol, I liked you
[ 2018.12.03 18:41:48 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > in fact
[ 2018.12.03 18:41:52 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > i still do in some way
[ 2018.12.03 18:42:00 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > you're not an idiot
[ 2018.12.03 18:42:23 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > I want to help people in the game
[ 2018.12.03 18:42:27 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > ah but where's the sport in that?
[ 2018.12.03 18:42:36 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > theres still sport
[ 2018.12.03 18:42:52 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > sport is relative
[ 2018.12.03 18:43:07 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > what you find to be "fun" i find to be "detrimental"
[ 2018.12.03 18:43:11 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > you like competition
[ 2018.12.03 18:43:14 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > i like cooperation
[ 2018.12.03 18:43:17 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > thats all it is
[ 2018.12.03 18:43:21 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > difference in point of views
[ 2018.12.03 18:43:26 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > no one is right or wrong
[ 2018.12.03 18:43:40 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > unfortunately, competition is the name of the game in eve
[ 2018.12.03 18:43:48 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > To you
[ 2018.12.03 18:43:52 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > not to everyone
[ 2018.12.03 18:43:58 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > most Eve players i guess
[ 2018.12.03 18:44:00 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > i get though
[ 2018.12.03 18:44:05 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > EvE literally means everyone vs everyone
[ 2018.12.03 18:44:05 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > i understand
[ 2018.12.03 18:44:16 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > I get your point
[ 2018.12.03 18:44:20 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > not saying its wrong
[ 2018.12.03 18:44:36 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > i'd prefer to help people so that we can build up the player base
[ 2018.12.03 18:45:19 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > this won't be here forever, want to help it making it last. you made your point
[ 2018.12.03 18:47:29 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > anyway, i'll be afk a bit. if you reconsider on making a deal let me know
[ 2018.12.03 19:04:06 ] Alexander Ceasar Caesar > thanks


I didn’t convince him to buy his corporation back from me, but we parted on reasonable terms. I even gave him a decoration that I named the “Good Sportsmanship Award” and urged him to look me up if he ever wants to learn the Dark Arts. I hope one day he does.

Now that I have all this loot, I am no longer completely impoverished, and I’m fully ready for the wardec nerfs. Bring it on, CCP! Do your worst.

Stay tuned for the next episode, in which our hero will heroically slaughter some noobs, or steal some stuff...or something...

The Dark Arts: A Guide to Stealing Upwell Structures - Part 2

In my last installment, you will recall that I laid out a simple plan to steal myself an upwell structure or two, so that I would be able to continue wardeccing pubbies following the upcoming nerf that CCP Falcon continues to threaten us all with.

The plan was - join a corporation with structures, get director roles, steal shit. Easy peasey, right, my readers? I just needed to find a CEO naive enough to give director roles to me, Haedonism Bot, known Belligerent Undesirable and notorious griefer from wayback-when.

Stealth System Research and Logistics
I spent several days, cloaked up in my Stratios in a C2 wormhole belonging to my last war-targets, researching the problem, with occasional breaks to terrorize the locals. Finally I settled on a 1 man corporation called Stealth System Research and Logistics (SSRL) as my target.

The CEO of SSRL was a relatively new player, who had clearly PLEXed and skill injected to the point where he had wealth and ships out of all proportion to his age. I found him on the official EVE Online forums, lamenting his disillusionment with the game. He had set up all these upwell structures, he said, and had nobody to share them with. Unwilling to join any existing corporation, his only hope, he felt, was for people to help him build a corporation of his own.

I smirked at my computer screen. Here was a CEO in need of directors. I fired off an EVE mail to offer my services. After all, I have been a CEO several times over, and have a great deal of knowledge and experience to share.

The mark, Alexander Ceasar Caesar (Alex), was all too eager to accept my offer.

Once in, I took quick stock of my new corporation’s assets in space - a Fortizar, an Astrahus, a Raitaru, and half a dozen Athanors. More than enough to meet my needs, and to keep me in Merlins for the foreseeable future.


The Con
I quickly began efforts to convince Alex to give me director roles. My go-to tactic from my POS-stealing days was to offer to FC PVP fleets. Every CEO feels a deep, desperate need for content creators. Offer to create content, and they usually turn to putty in your hands. Then you tell them that you just need a few roles to get things done.

After my first effort, Alex quickly agreed to make me a director. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the same understanding if what that might mean. He gave me the title “Director of Military Operations”, and a few roles, but not the Director role itself. However - I did have enough access to see that the shares were still in the corporate wallet. At this point, I wasn’t sure if a mere director could transfer ownership of upwell structures, or if it would need to be a CEO, so I was encouraged by this development.

For a few more days, I waited patiently. It is important not to appear desperate for roles. I focused on being helpful, creating recruitment ads and giving Alex advice on how to grow and manage a corporation. Then I asked again for the Director role.

This time Alex agreed. When he logged in that evening he made me director. Then he logged off. I immediately flew to the fortizar, confirmed that I had an option to “transfer ownership” and made a thorough accounting of all the corp assets.

I was absolutely giddy with excitement at this point. I was going to heist my first citadels. I was on top of the world. But unfortunately, it was getting late. I have a newborn baby at home, and if I don’t get to bed early, he will make me regret it. I also wasn't sure if Alex would log back in that night, and I wanted to do the heist at a time when he wasn’t likely to be active. So I figured that I’d wait until morning. After all, I had the role, I could steal everything at my leisure. I had already won. Nothing could go wrong.

That’s where I fucked up. Alex got cold feet, and in the morning, my Director role was gone.

In our next installment, I’ll finish the story. Will our hero heroically liberate the fortizar from the perfidious carebear? Or will he disgrace himself with failure? Tune in next time to find out!

The Dark Arts: A Guide to Stealing Upwell Structures - Part 1

In the latest devblog, CCP revealed their intention to make some nerfs to wardec mechanics. There had been threats of this coming for several months. Indeed, it is what brought me back to EVE - I wanted to squeeze in a few last wardecs under the old mechanics before the nerfs, for nostalgia's sake. There had been some uncertainty about exactly what changes they would make, but they cleared that up a few days ago - the gist of it being that a corporation, for some reason, must have anchored structures in space, in order to declare war or to have war declared against them.

This is obviously another short-sighted concession to the carebear lobby, likely only to contribute to the slow decline of the game, as all such previous nerfs to highsec PvP have done. But will I let it deter me from slaughtering noobs? No, of course not. I will be a good sport about it and carry on without whinging. 

Trouble was, I needed to get myself a structure, and do it right quick, before the expansion. As an on-again, off-again bittervet, I often find I can’t keep up with changes to the game. I still find all these upwell structures bewildering. I don’t get how they work, and I don’t understand the mechanics around them, and now they tell me I need to have one or find myself a new playstyle. 

That got me thinking. My long time readers will recall that, back in the day, I made a business of stealing POSes. As upwell structures supposedly are meant to replace POSes, I started to ask myself whether or not they too could be stolen. After all - why buy what you can steal? 

I was still poor too - my meager heists since returning to the game had been enough to fill a small hangar with warships, but I only had a paltry 1.2 billion left in the wallet. Buying an upwell structure from the market, like a chump, would have put a serious dent in that. 

So I began to do a bit of research. The EVE community being what it is, I half expected to find some step-by-step guides to citadel theft out there, but none presented themselves, so I started reading up on mechanics and making a plan. 

Citadel Theft - Method 1 

As I understand it, there are two ways to steal a citadel. 

Method 1 would be to locate a citadel which is in the process of unanchoring, surveil it until that 7 day process is complete, and then scoop it before the owner can. To me, as primarily a solo operator these days, this seemed like a lot of legwork for an uncertain result. 

I got to thinking that an organized group of players could theoretically develop a systematic way of doing this, everybody re-checking a system or two daily and entering the status of all structures in some sort of 3rd party app or spreadsheet. You could probably narrow down when a structure was going to unanchor, to a window of time that would not be an unreasonable effort to surveil. 

When the time was up, you might be able to use a bumping Machariel to keep the rightful owner out of scooping range until you could nab it yourselves. This is all just theory of course, I have no idea if it would work well in practice, and it just didn’t seem feasible for a solo thief, so I opted instead for method 2. 

Method 2 - The Plan 

You will recall from my guide to POS theft, that the method was very simple. Join a corporation which owns POSes, convince them to give you the Starbase Config Equipment role, wait until the directors are logged off, then quickly unanchor the POS with all its silos and haul them away. POS theft was easy - anyone could do it in a day or less. 

Stealing an anchored citadel is also quite simple in theory, but a bit more difficult in practice. Unanchoring it completely under your CEO’s nose is not an option due to the fact that these structures take 7 days to unanchor. Therefore, citadel thefts require a somewhat different approach. 

The basic formula is this - join a corporation which has one or more citadels, and persuade the CEO to give you director roles. Then when the CEO and all other directors are logged off, right click on the structures you want, select “transfer ownership”, and transfer them to the corporation of your choice. Then, while you’re at it, steal every other corporate asset. 

And if your CEO is foolish enough to leave all the shares in the wallet, then you can do a hostile takeover and steal the corporation itself. 

Join me for part 2 - in which I selected a target corporation and put this plan into action...

War Report: ROOKIE miners and industry

In our last report, I spent a week or so in Tash Murkon, causing chaos and despair amongst the inhabitants, before making off with a pile of loot from an allied Kronos wreck.

I nearly doubled my net worth from that haul, and invested most of it in new warships for my hangar - a stealth bomber, a bumping Machariel, a Falcon. Then I went looking for another target.

ROOKIE miners
This fast growing mining corporation located 2 jumps from Jita seemed like a likely target. I had Spy Alt put in an application and she was accepted, once again, no questions asked.

Once in, I made a quick assessment, and found that there wasn’t really anything laying around that I could steal. The alliance did have a wormhole system, so I put a covops alt in there, then dropped a wardec on them. At about the same time, they were also wardecced, coincidentally, by my friends in CODE.

Under wardec, all of the older, more experienced members of the corporation, including the CEO, absconded to their wormhole system, leaving the newbies to fend for themselves in the heart of CODE. territory, without so much as a word of advice.

So, keeping an eye on their wormhole with my covops alt, I began my harvest of noobs.

Highsec Kills
The first to die was Ben Dankz in his Venture. Pilot YIN DRAGON, hearing in corp chat that I was in system, eagerly began traveling back, from wherever he was, to face me. So I waited around for him. Sadly, for him, his Navy Crucifier was no match for my Daredevil. The fight was short, the outcome predictable. Then I killed a Prospect and left system.

An hour later, the same guy with the Prospect announced that he had found a wormhole and was mining in it. Spy Alt used corp bookmarks to show the location of the hole to Syeed, who jumped in and killed the guy in his Mackinaw - my first kill in a stealth bomber.

The next day I killed a Rifter, and a Venture, then noticed the Venture guy talking smack in corp chat about how he was going to kill me with his Naga.

[ 2018.11.10 22:32:38 ] Falcon JS > i need to find someone called ameer somthing the fucker shot down my venture lastnight
[ 2018.11.10 22:32:40 ] safira jomita > they declare war on us and that gives them the right to shoot us in highsec
[ 2018.11.10 22:32:41 ] Falcon JS > followed me
[ 2018.11.10 22:32:46 ] Falcon JS > i got a NAGA for him
[ 2018.11.10 22:38:24 ] safira jomita > Falcon JS the war lasts 1 week standart, but the attacker can extend it
[ 2018.11.10 22:38:28 ] safira jomita > dont think they will
[ 2018.11.10 22:44:34 ] safira jomita > ALERT WE GOT AN ENEMY IN SYSTEM
[ 2018.11.10 22:44:41 ] safira jomita > eyes open
[ 2018.11.10 22:45:24 ] safira jomita > Syeed Ameer Ali

So I hunted him down and found him in another Venture. Rather than immediately kill him, I pretended to chase him around, hoping he'd go get his Naga.

[ 2018.11.10 23:44:30 ] Falcon JS > i like pussy
[ 2018.11.10 23:44:40 ] Falcon JS > and its saturday night
[ 2018.11.10 23:44:43 ] Falcon JS > and im playing EVE
[ 2018.11.10 23:44:44 ] Falcon JS > WTF
[ 2018.11.10 23:44:47 ] Falcon JS > :P
[ 2018.11.10 23:44:48 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > Falcon JS that's vulgar
[ 2018.11.10 23:44:58 ] Falcon JS > YO
[ 2018.11.10 23:45:00 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > you should respect women
[ 2018.11.10 23:45:01 ] Falcon JS > your dead
[ 2018.11.10 23:45:04 ] Falcon JS > mother F
[ 2018.11.10 23:45:14 ] Falcon JS > syeed ameer ali
[ 2018.11.10 23:45:16 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > am i now?
[ 2018.11.10 23:45:18 ] Falcon JS > your dead
[ 2018.11.10 23:45:31 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > who me?
[ 2018.11.10 23:45:34 ] Falcon JS > im coming for u
[ 2018.11.10 23:45:42 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > bring it
[ 2018.11.10 23:45:45 ] Falcon JS > killed me yesterday mining in your daredevil
[ 2018.11.10 23:46:01 ] EVE System > Channel changed to Local : Vasala
[ 2018.11.10 23:46:09 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > i'll do it again too
[ 2018.11.10 23:46:22 ] Falcon JS > wont do shit
[ 2018.11.10 23:46:58 ] EVE System > Channel changed to Local : Kiainti
[ 2018.11.10 23:47:04 ] Falcon JS > follow me
[ 2018.11.10 23:47:07 ] Falcon JS > plllzzzz
[ 2018.11.10 23:47:32 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > it would be easier if you just tell me where youre going

I ended up followed him to Jita, where he reshipped to a Moa. I engaged him on the Perimeter/Jita gate with my Daredevil and killed him again. A Drake joined the fight and I killed that too.

[ 2018.11.10 23:48:01 ] Falcon JS > i found him :P
[ 2018.11.10 23:48:05 ] Falcon JS > hes following to jit
[ 2018.11.10 23:48:12 ] Falcon JS > jita
[ 2018.11.10 23:48:16 ] Falcon JS > ameer
[ 2018.11.10 23:48:19 ] Falcon JS > hahahaha
[ 2018.11.10 23:56:32 ] Falcon JS > enemy in jit
[ 2018.11.10 23:56:35 ] Falcon JS > ENEMY IN JITA
[ 2018.11.11 00:02:06 ] Falcon JS > he killed me#
[ 2018.11.11 00:03:51 ] Falcon JS > hes at perimeter
[ 2018.11.11 00:04:32 ] ultrox sins > falcon
[ 2018.11.11 00:04:37 ] ultrox sins > did you kill him?
[ 2018.11.11 00:04:41 ] XaviX Mansoth > KILL REPORT PLS
[ 2018.11.11 00:06:28 ] Falcon JS > no me and klay dead
[ 2018.11.11 00:06:34 ] Falcon JS > hes in pereimeter
[ 2018.11.11 00:06:45 ] Falcon JS > Kill: Falcon JS (Capsule)
[ 2018.11.11 00:06:50 ] Falcon JS > Kill: Falcon JS (Moa)
[ 2018.11.11 00:08:02 ] ultrox sins > he used a fast ship to take you down
[ 2018.11.11 00:08:45 ] Falcon JS > we dont know we knew
[ 2018.11.11 00:08:49 ] Falcon JS > i loved that moa
[ 2018.11.11 00:08:57 ] Falcon JS > new
[ 2018.11.11 00:17:23 ] XaviX Mansoth > gtg see u tomorrow
[ 2018.11.11 00:23:39 ] ultrox sins > son of a bitch
[ 2018.11.11 00:41:10 ] Falcon JS > what
[ 2018.11.11 00:41:28 ] Falcon JS > we all need to hunt that guy
[ 2018.11.11 00:43:12 ] Untanas Volmyr > who

Wormhole kills
At this point, I felt like I had put enough of a hurting on the newbies, so I hopped in a Stratios and quietly moved into their wormhole. Meanwhile CODE. continued to ravage their highsec players and structures.

The action slowed down a great deal in the hole. All the ROOKIE guys spent most of their time docked up in their citadels. Occasionally they would warp back and forth between citadels - god knows what they were doing - but that was about all.

I did kill a random Gnosis and a random Venture, that had wandered into the hole, but that was about it. At some point they apparently put two and two together and booted Spy Alt.

Then finally, after days of waiting, ROOKIE CEO safira jomita finally undocked in a Tayra and warped to a POCO. I found her there and made the kill. I was content. I let the war end.

Planning for the future
At this point, December was fast approaching. And in December, it was being said, CCP planned to roll out another nerf to wardecs. One which would require that I have an anchored structure in space in order to declare war on someone.

Wardecs were a powerful tool in my arsenal and I did not intend to give that up. However, the old wallet was still pretty empty, and buying an upwell structure would have taken most of my remaining isk.

So I got to thinking. What if I just steal one? Would that be possible?

Tune in next time as our hero plans, then carries out, the greatest heist of his career...

Terrorizing Tash-Murkon

In my last article, the reader will recall that I, Syeed Ameer Ali, aka Haedonism Bot, OG Belligerent Undesirable and all-around excellent guy, had returned to EVE after several years, and made a failed effort to kick things off with a wardec.

Public Enemies CO - Scam Corporation
I scouted around a bit for a new victim. A mining corporation called Public Enemies CO looked promising. I put in an application, was accepted, as usual, without question, and moved to their home base in Gyerzen, an isolated lowsec system in Tash Murkon.

It became immediately apparent that Public Enemies CO was a scam corporation. They were running the old Slave Plantation Scam.

Now, far be it from me to judge anyone for being a scammer in EVE. My longtime readers know that there is almost no low to which I will not stoop in this game. But there are a handful of scams that even I balk at, and this is one of them. You have to be a cold, ruthless bastard to run the Slave Plantation Scam, although it has always been a very common one in EVE.

The way it works is this. The scammers who run this one are generally miner/industrialists, who have advanced in their career path to the point where they are producing big, expensive things. Like all serious miner/industrialists, they have spent long hours poring over spreadsheets, trying to figure out how to squeeze a little bigger profit margin from their production runs.

They have struggled with the reality that they cannot possibly mine enough ore themselves to make a real dent in what they need, and that buying materials reduces their margins to near nothing, and involves a lot of painful logistics to boot.

Then one day they had an epiphany - what if they created a mining corporation, recruited 50 miners, and required them to mine 4 hours/week “for the corporation” and drop the ore off at the exact location where it is needed. They crunched the numbers in their spreadsheets, and cash register noises started going off in their heads.

Public Enemies CO is such a scam corporation. They recruit gullible newbies, lure them back to their little industrial enclave, and trick them into thinking that it is right and normal that a corporation requires them to spent a significant portion of their play time mining “for the corporation”, receiving nothing in return.

Public Enemies CO is still aggressively recruiting - so newbies be warned.

Anyway, since they lived in lowsec I held off on dropping a wardec, for fear of tipping them off, and began farming them for kills, along with their blues in the Lost and Clowned alliance. It was a simple matter of using my spy alt to locate targets, then providing warp-ins for Syeed to quickly reach their location and kill them.

Finally getting kills
I ended my 2 year dry spell on Mischief Night, October 30, when I killed a Lost and Clowned Coveter, then a Public Enemies CO Tayra, with my Daredevil.

The next day, another Coveter slipped away from me, but I hung around, and the pilot came back in a Stabber to try to get his revenge, so I killed that too.

The bloodlust came over me. Public Enemies & Lost and Clowned were not providing enough kills to satisfy me, so I dropped a couple wardecs on corporations I had seen in the area. One of them immediately sent me a 450 million isk surrender offer, which I graciously accepted.

[ 2018.10.31 14:49:24 ] Santa Komandoo > Syeed Ameer Ali in local
[ 2018.10.31 14:49:49 ] Santa Komandoo > i thought u were getting ganked
[ 2018.10.31 14:50:11 ] Meklend Sharp > in what i fly he can try
[ 2018.10.31 14:54:32 ] HEXFORD > just warp out
[ 2018.10.31 14:54:54 ] Meklend Sharp > na i got some one to help me out i gave all my loot up to them
[ 2018.10.31 14:56:03 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > o/
[ 2018.10.31 14:56:15 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > am i famous or something?
[ 2018.10.31 14:56:28 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > do you guys...do you want an autograph?
[ 2018.10.31 14:56:37 ] HEXFORD > who the fuck is  Syeed Ameer Ali
[ 2018.10.31 14:57:25 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > HEXFORD that's what i want to know!
[ 2018.10.31 14:58:32 ] Meklend Sharp > idc he never did nothing to me i do my thing he duz his we r cool no trubble hear
[ 2018.10.31 15:00:59 ] HEXFORD > Meklend Sharp maybe he's the same as that idiot  OCCANGER
[ 2018.10.31 15:01:05 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > Meklend Sharp THE FUCK? THOSE ARE FIGHTING WORDS
[ 2018.10.31 15:01:39 ] Meklend Sharp > and how so
[ 2018.10.31 15:01:56 ] Meklend Sharp > did u really just fucking war deck me
[ 2018.10.31 15:02:08 ] Meklend Sharp > over me being chill with u
[ 2018.10.31 15:02:23 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > :D
[ 2018.10.31 15:02:39 ] Meklend Sharp > Syeed Ameer Ali u got it get ready for a fight
[ 2018.10.31 15:02:53 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > will do
[ 2018.10.31 15:03:30 ] Meklend Sharp > i try and be nice to some one and they bring war on me only in eve
[ 2018.10.31 15:03:59 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > haha yeah
[ 2018.10.31 15:04:12 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > the way she goes
[ 2018.10.31 15:04:20 ] Meklend Sharp > i hope u know what u r doing
[ 2018.10.31 15:04:36 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > tell you what, you can pay me and i'll drop the wardec
[ 2018.10.31 15:04:48 ] HEXFORD > Syeed Ameer Ali surrender now IMHO
[ 2018.10.31 15:05:01 ] Meklend Sharp > see thsi every one i tryed to be nice and got war decked what a shame
[ 2018.10.31 15:05:14 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > HEXFORD you want in on this?
[ 2018.10.31 15:05:17 ] HEXFORD > Meklend Sharp he is nuts
[ 2018.10.31 15:05:29 ] Meklend Sharp > i dont know if we can fight back o well time to dock up now
[ 2018.10.31 15:05:57 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > Meklend Sharp i'm just one person, you can fight me if you want
[ 2018.10.31 15:06:07 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > i'm not even that good
[ 2018.10.31 15:06:45 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > you have 24 hours to think about it anyway
[ 2018.10.31 15:07:24 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > i mostly just fly a merlin
[ 2018.10.31 15:07:59 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > no reason to panic
[ 2018.10.31 15:08:24 ] Meklend Sharp > i know how this works
[ 2018.10.31 15:09:45 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > at least one of us does then!
[ 2018.10.31 15:09:56 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > tell me how it works
[ 2018.10.31 15:10:26 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > i've been on a break from eve for a few years, i can barely remember how to play
[ 2018.10.31 15:11:24 ] Meklend Sharp > then y r u war decking me
[ 2018.10.31 15:11:40 ] Meklend Sharp > all u got to is talk to me
[ 2018.10.31 15:11:49 ] Meklend Sharp > wars r dumb
[ 2018.10.31 15:12:00 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > seems like a good way to get back in the game with a good old fashioned war
[ 2018.10.31 15:12:27 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > plus i think i can get you to pay me to stop
[ 2018.10.31 15:12:39 ] HEXFORD > roflmfoa
[ 2018.10.31 15:12:52 ] Meklend Sharp > i got a few friends that u could just go stay with in null for all this so u dont wast isk
[ 2018.10.31 15:12:56 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > my merlin may be small, but she is mighty
[ 2018.10.31 15:13:18 ] Meklend Sharp > stop this please
[ 2018.10.31 15:13:36 ] Meklend Sharp > ill give u back the isk u payed for the war
[ 2018.10.31 15:14:38 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > nice, plus a 200 mil profit
[ 2018.10.31 15:14:49 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > pleasure doing business with you sir
[ 2018.10.31 15:15:15 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > now lets see what other corporations are in local...
[ 2018.10.31 15:15:37 ] Meklend Sharp > ill do what it talks for my people
[ 2018.10.31 15:15:47 ] Meklend Sharp > tAKES NOT TALK
[ 2018.10.31 15:16:03 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > and another 200 mil! i love you Meklend Sharp
[ 2018.10.31 15:16:24 ] Meklend Sharp > u got me all nerve wrecked
[ 2018.10.31 15:16:47 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > ;D all in good fun my friend
[ 2018.10.31 15:16:57 ] Meklend Sharp > not for my people
[ 2018.10.31 15:17:05 ] Meklend Sharp > but yes all in good fun
[ 2018.10.31 15:24:25 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > Meklend Sharp you financed my next wardec, much appreciated
[ 2018.10.31 15:26:00 ] Meklend Sharp > that was not what i ment to do :""{

The old failed anti-ganker alliance, Defenders of Eve, yielded a couple Ventures and a Procurer, although they then immediately dropped to alt corps, in a most cowardly fashion, to avoid facing me. An ally of theirs, who had joined the war, tried to “bait” me to an ice anomaly with a Drake, then de-cloaked a Falcon on me. I killed the Drake, but the Falcon got away.

While I was at it, I reverse AWOXed a Gila, and did a bit of lowsec roaming too.

For a few days, I became the terror of Tash Murkon. All the carebear intel channels I monitor would light up with warning in a most satisfying fashion, everywhere I went. This was the good old EVE I remembered.

Cashing out
Every day I spent in the despicable scam corporation, Public Enemies CO, made my skin crawl more and more. They had yielded a few kills, and would certainly yield more, given time, but I knew I couldn’t stick around long.

Sooner or later they were going to ask why I hadn’t filled my ore quotas. There was no way I was mining 4 hours for those greasy bastards. Not going to happen. They even ripped me off. Me, Syeed Ameer Ali, who wrote the book on EVE scams. When I tipped them off to a valuable Mordus rat in a belt, they gave me only a 5 million isk “finders fee” - splitting the 800 million value of the loot between the CEO and his cronies.

I was trying to think of how I might hit them hardest without wasting any more time. I was thinking I might do the old “I need help with this PVE site, please bring an expensive battleship and warp to me” trick. The way this works is I would wait at a safe in a Drake or something, get them to warp to me, get tackle, then jump Syeed into Gyerzen in some PVE-battleship killing fit, warp in and finish the job.

However, before that could happen, I saw my out and took it. A war target of Public Enemies CO had appeared in neighboring Dabrid, and they all headed over there to fight him. My spy alt followed after, in a tackle Slasher. By the time he got there, the action was all over and one of the Lost and Clowned guys had managed to get himself CONCORDed in his Kronos, dropping 2 billion isk worth of loot. I helpfully volunteered to loot the wreck for him, and never looked back.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/73381976/

[ 2018.11.04 21:52:57 ] Katie Noban > Emiya Kado he is in dabrid, you will concorded if you aggress
[ 2018.11.04 21:53:04 ] Emiya Kado > understood
[ 2018.11.04 21:53:05 ] DaMago Mayaki > no he is wt
[ 2018.11.04 21:53:06 ] DaMago Mayaki > come
[ 2018.11.04 21:53:22 ] DaMago Mayaki > ive got him
[ 2018.11.04 21:53:39 ] Emiya Kado > ive locked him
[ 2018.11.04 21:54:17 ] Emiya Kado > fucking fuck me
[ 2018.11.04 21:54:22 ] Katie Noban > wut
[ 2018.11.04 21:54:32 ] Emiya Kado > i had him locked and was waiting
[ 2018.11.04 21:54:34 ] Katie Noban > how did that happen?
[ 2018.11.04 21:54:42 ] Emiya Kado > and my fucking cat jumped up on my keybaord
[ 2018.11.04 21:54:48 ] DaMago Mayaki > srs¨
[ 2018.11.04 21:54:50 ] Emiya Kado > so now ive lost my maurauder
[ 2018.11.04 21:54:53 ] Emiya Kado > wonderufl
[ 2018.11.04 21:54:59 ] Katie Noban > dammn
[ 2018.11.04 21:55:06 ] Emiya Kado > goes 3b
[ 2018.11.04 21:55:16 ] Spy Alt > i'll get your loot for you
[ 2018.11.04 21:55:23 ] FuzzyBunny Knutz > time to get rid of the cat..
[ 2018.11.04 21:55:58 ] Emiya Kado > im... upset to say tyhe least
[ 2018.11.04 21:56:07 ] Emiya Kado > i was just jumping in to scare him
[ 2018.11.04 21:56:12 ] Katie Noban > so you got the km of him?
[ 2018.11.04 21:56:32 ] Emiya Kado > 100km
[ 2018.11.04 21:57:04 ] Emiya Kado > if anynone is kind enough to grab whats left of my ship and give it back i would be grateful
[ 2018.11.04 21:57:52 ] FuzzyBunny Knutz > no Killmail
[ 2018.11.04 21:58:18 ] Katie Noban > https://zkillboard.com/kill/73300364/
[ 2018.11.04 21:58:21 ] Spy Alt > i got what i could fit but there's a couple things left in the wreck
[ 2018.11.04 21:58:22 ] Katie Noban > thats the enyo KM
[ 2018.11.04 21:58:33 ] Spy Alt > i got the most expensive stuff
[ 2018.11.04 21:58:48 ] Katie Noban > Spy Alt contract it back to him wherever he wants.
[ 2018.11.04 21:58:55 ] Spy Alt > ok
[ 2018.11.04 21:59:09 ] Katie Noban > ty
[ 2018.11.04 21:59:15 ] Emiya Kado > im in  Dabrid V - Moon 1 - Caldari Business Tribunal Accounting
[ 2018.11.04 21:59:26 ] Emiya Kado > if you can get all of it i would be grateful
[ 2018.11.04 21:59:39 ] Spy Alt > i'll get the rest standby
[ 2018.11.04 21:59:56 ] Katie Noban > at least it didnt give them the km at all..only concord...
[ 2018.11.04 22:00:02 ] Katie Noban > but 3.1bil....jesus
[ 2018.11.04 22:00:10 ] Emiya Kado > it as my mission runner
[ 2018.11.04 22:00:12 ] Emiya Kado > was
[ 2018.11.04 22:00:18 ] Emiya Kado > it was how i made all my isk out here
[ 2018.11.04 22:00:55 ] Emiya Kado > im done until i replace it
[ 2018.11.04 22:02:01 ] Katie Noban > damn....that sucks
[ 2018.11.04 22:02:17 ] Emiya Kado > consequences of having a cat i guess...
[ 2018.11.04 22:02:28 ] Emiya Kado > they occasionally blow up 3b isk ships
[ 2018.11.04 22:03:08 ] Katie Noban > didnt you feed him enough today or what? :P
[ 2018.11.04 22:03:35 ] DaMago Mayaki > that's one way to get your attention I guess
[ 2018.11.04 22:03:44 ] DaMago Mayaki > carefull running JFs with that guy around
[ 2018.11.04 22:06:04 ] Emiya Kado > how will i know when my stuff gets contracted back to me?
[ 2018.11.04 22:07:52 ] Emiya Kado > and why didn't my insurance payout some in...
[ 2018.11.04 22:08:30 ] Naja Nigricincta > Emiya Kado had to get a bigger ship to get your stuff, the slasher wasn't cutting it
[ 2018.11.04 22:09:08 ] Emiya Kado > does the insurance not come in when killed by concord
[ 2018.11.04 22:09:31 ] Katie Noban > not sure buddy
[ 2018.11.04 22:15:22 ] Emiya Kado > Spy Alt thank you
[ 2018.11.04 22:15:28 ] Spy Alt > inp
[ 2018.11.04 22:15:30 ] Spy Alt > np
[ 2018.11.04 22:16:00 ] Emiya Kado > i might have to downgrade to a megathron for a while
[ 2018.11.04 22:19:12 ] Emiya Kado > let me know when your ready
[ 2018.11.04 22:22:22 ] Zelt Sasen > Testie logged in  Gyerzen IX - Moon 15 - Amarr Navy Testing Facilities
[ 2018.11.04 22:22:27 ] Zelt Sasen > or jc
[ 2018.11.04 22:25:12 ] Katie Noban > Alexander LoboGris  Gyerzen
[ 2018.11.04 22:25:29 ] Phillip Aurgnet > Condor
[ 2018.11.04 22:27:55 ] DaMago Mayaki > where is he?
[ 2018.11.04 22:29:41 ] Emiya Kado > Spy Alt you still coming? your not just taking it are you?
[ 2018.11.04 22:29:47 ] Spy Alt > Emiya Kado o/
[ 2018.11.04 22:29:56 ] Spy Alt > on further inspection...
[ 2018.11.04 22:30:14 ] Tross KalSol > lol, don't stress him out, omg
[ 2018.11.04 22:30:24 ] Spy Alt > it appears you did not have a permit to fly that ship in highsec ;D
[ 2018.11.04 22:30:48 ] Spy Alt > i'm afraid i have to confiscate your stuff
[ 2018.11.04 22:31:04 ] Emiya Kado > but you'll cut me a check for 2.1b right?
[ 2018.11.04 22:31:11 ] Spy Alt > mining permits are available for 10 million isk per year
[ 2018.11.04 22:31:16 ] Emiya Kado > otherwise ill legit move out of dabrid
[ 2018.11.04 22:31:24 ] Spy Alt > www.minerbumping.com
[ 2018.11.04 22:31:37 ] Tross KalSol > I thought it was 10m a month
[ 2018.11.04 22:31:37 ] Spy Alt > ;D
[ 2018.11.04 22:31:55 ] Spy Alt > just send me 10 mil and I'll set you up
[ 2018.11.04 22:32:24 ] Katie Noban > Spy Alt contract his stuff back
[ 2018.11.04 22:32:31 ] FuzzyBunny Knutz > Don't forget the setup fee
[ 2018.11.04 22:32:35 ] Katie Noban > and i am not joking around atm
[ 2018.11.04 22:33:10 ] Tross KalSol > we will get you earning some isk Emiya, earn that back pronto
[ 2018.11.04 22:33:18 ] Spy Alt > illegal PVE in CODE territory is a serious offense, i'm not joking either
[ 2018.11.04 22:34:12 ] Emiya Kado > if your legitimately holding my stuff random for a bullshit code, then im out of this corp. is that what your telling me?
[ 2018.11.04 22:34:18 ] Spy Alt > www.minerbumping.com
[ 2018.11.04 22:35:07 ] Emiya Kado > fine. then im out. Expect me to kill you the next time i see you
[ 2018.11.04 22:35:15 ] Spy Alt > feel free to send any questions or concerns to James 315
[ 2018.11.04 22:35:17 ] Tross KalSol > Emiya, hes kidding
[ 2018.11.04 22:35:21 ] Tross KalSol > he's not in Code
[ 2018.11.04 22:35:25 ] Tross KalSol > and he's not in our corp
[ 2018.11.04 22:35:41 ] Tross KalSol > they are blue to us and we are allied, so leaving our corp doesn't help anyway
[ 2018.11.04 22:36:49 ] Emiya Kado > I had a perfectly fine setup two jumps from Jita before i came out here to help this organization. If our allies are going to be shitbags and tax me to exist, then. im. done.
[ 2018.11.04 22:36:57 ] Emiya Kado > is that clear enough?
[ 2018.11.04 22:37:31 ] Visitant > If that happens they will no longer be blue.
[ 2018.11.04 22:37:40 ] Spy Alt > Emiya Kado have a lovely evening!

In our next episode, our hero heroically returns to Caldari space and smites more war targets with righteous fury...

War Report: The Hermit's Enclave

As is tradition, every time I return to EVE after a hiatus, I get things kicked off with a solo wardec against a carebear corporation.

Now, since I started doing this, several years ago, there have been some nerfs which have changed the way one must go about solo wardecs. Most notably the watchlist nerf, which put pretty much everyone else who enjoyed this playstyle out of business.

In the post-watchlist landscape, the only practical way to do it is to plant a spy alt in a corporation, and then just hope they turn out to be worthy targets - as opposed to vile, cowardly wardec evaders. So I duly logged in a spy alt, selected a promising target corporation - The Hermit’s Enclave - and planted him in their corp.

The Hermit’s Enclave
This was a medium sized (30ish member) mining corp, with a home base on a highsec island in Aridia. A relatively well managed corp overall, they mostly used wormhole chains to move in and out of their area, in order to avoid the daily lowsec gate camps.

I moved my spy alt out to join them with his venture and assessed the situation. A half dozen people logged in most of the time, mining in highsec. An Orca guy, some mining barges. About a half billion in vulnerable assets sitting in the hangar that I could access.

Then I logged in my PvP main, Syeed Ameer Ali, and created a new corporation - Dirtbag Space Warriors Coming for yor Loots [DSWCF]. I dropped a wardec on them.

Financial Woes
Now at this point I was dirt poor in terms of space moneys. A few hundred million in the wallet, maybe a billion isk in assets - mostly tied up in doctrine ships, out in nullsec, from my term of service as a Goon during the last great war.

As a matter of principle, I do not krab, I do no industry, I do not buy PLEX. I make all of my isk from loot, ransoms, scams, and heists. As such, there are times of feast and famine, but I am spacepoor more often than I am spacerich.

I firesaled some stuff out in null and invested a significant portion of my wealth in a Stratios, then made a plan.

The Assault
The wartargets felt secure on their island, and were mining away without a care in the world. There was an Orca and a Skiff in an asteroid belt. They had bookmarked a highsec-to-highsec wormhole to travel in and out.

I used my spy alt to guide Syeed Ameer Ali to the far side of the wormhole, then sidled up beside the Orca in my Venture. When I was in position, I had Syeed enter the wormhole, and “warp to member” on the spy alt. I figured that if I could ransom that Orca it would alleviate my poverty somewhat.

Failure (and Consolation)
Alas, the enemy was on the ball, and somehow both Orca and Skiff managed to warp away as I landed in the belt.

I then realized that I had probably burned my spy alt by so obviously providing the warp in. I was so rusty at this, after years away from the game. I spent a little while trying to taunt the wartargets into undocking and fighting me, but they were unwilling.

[ 2018.10.28 19:39:08 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > Tamaris Solette o7
[ 2018.10.28 19:39:20 ] Tamaris Solette > hello sir
[ 2018.10.28 19:39:39 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > 1 billion isk and I drop the war
[ 2018.10.28 19:39:50 ] Tamaris Solette > hahaha
[ 2018.10.28 19:39:51 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > it's a fair deal
[ 2018.10.28 19:40:27 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > talk amongst yourselfs, if everyone contributes it isn't much
[ 2018.10.28 19:41:37 ] Trenus > lmao
[ 2018.10.28 19:41:41 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > otherwise, i haunt you
[ 2018.10.28 19:41:57 ] Trenus > cute
[ 2018.10.28 19:42:28 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > i will follow you wherever you go
[ 2018.10.28 19:42:49 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > at the most inconvenient times, there i'll be
[ 2018.10.28 19:43:12 ] Trenus > you sound like my ex
[ 2018.10.28 19:43:16 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > i am the last of the dirtbag pirates of eve
[ 2018.10.28 19:43:34 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > and this is what i do
[ 2018.10.28 19:43:44 ] xKolax > stand up comedy?
[ 2018.10.28 19:44:02 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > 1 billion isk. for now, the offer stands
[ 2018.10.28 19:44:21 ] Fuffuzar > Sounds like an easy way to try make money
[ 2018.10.28 19:44:35 ] Fuffuzar > Good luck you 1 person against an alliance..
[ 2018.10.28 19:44:44 ] Fuffuzar > Sounds like great fun..
[ 2018.10.28 19:44:58 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > when this is all over, you will be able to say, "that guy syeed, he is the oldest and best of the pirates, last of a dying breed"
[ 2018.10.28 19:45:16 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > "he really fucked us up"
[ 2018.10.28 19:45:44 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > "almost to the point that is was worth it, just to behold him in action..."
[ 2018.10.28 19:46:00 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > "we will remember this all our lives"
[ 2018.10.28 19:46:03 ] Fuffuzar > Lmao.. Ill look forward to that..
[ 2018.10.28 19:46:12 ] Fuffuzar > Are you Zlatan?
[ 2018.10.28 19:46:17 ] Fuffuzar > Sounds like
[ 2018.10.28 19:46:19 ] xKolax > what was your name again?  I forgot already.   I dozed off
[ 2018.10.28 19:46:32 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > Syeed Ameer Ali is my name
[ 2018.10.28 19:47:34 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > 1 billion isk
[ 2018.10.28 19:47:47 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > I also accept assets of equiavalent value sometimes
[ 2018.10.28 19:47:56 ] Fuffuzar > Ye.. That is what a merch corp takes to haunt your ass down
[ 2018.10.28 19:48:23 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > Mercs like me ;D
[ 2018.10.28 19:48:44 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > I'm afraid you'll find no help there
[ 2018.10.28 19:48:56 ] Fuffuzar > I dont?
[ 2018.10.28 19:49:04 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > good thinking though, i like that you're trying
[ 2018.10.28 19:49:55 ] Fuffuzar > I like that you are aswell
[ 2018.10.28 19:51:55 ] Fuffuzar > Goonswarm seems to like you eh? You got your ass kicked by em.. Now you need isk..
[ 2018.10.28 19:58:33 ] Tamaris Solette > looks like you've already pilfered 590 million or so from us via your alt  Spy Alt. I regret to inform you that you won't be getting anything else from us.
[ 2018.10.28 20:00:43 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > Tamaris Solette I have 3 more worms in your corp. You will pay, you just don't realize it yet.
[ 2018.10.28 20:01:09 ] Syeed Ameer Ali > I am the last of the dirtbag pirates of eve. Everybody pays.

So I threw up my hands and gave up. The war was a failure. In hindsight, this was probably a premature decision, but it made sense to me at the time.

In disgrace, I slunk away, looking for another target. I did send an email to The Hermit’s Enclave as I left, angling for some ransom to end the war, but it was a feeble effort and I knew it.

My consolation prize was the 500 million isk of stuff that I looted from the corp hangars with my spy alt and sold on contracts, before planting him in another corporation.

Tune in next episode as our hero gets his groove back, and finds more fertile fields to plow...

The Last Few Years

Most of the time I live my life these days honestly believing that I have quit EVE, that it is all over and done for me and I'm never coming back. Then EVE pulls me back in. Usually just for a few weeks and then I quit again. This is the story of my EVE career for the last 5 years or so.

My last couple stints back I didn't bother to update this blog, for various reasons. I always enjoyed documenting the stories of my EVE career in this way, and at one time I even had a certain number of fans who enjoyed reading them. At this point I'm quite sure that nobody reads this page. I don't even think anyone even really blogs about EVE in this way anymore.

When I started this page in 2012, EVE blogs were all the rage. There were numerous good ones, and numerous bad ones. They all fell into 2 basic categories - blogs about the game itself, in which the author weighs in on all the controversies of the week, and blogs like this one, about the specific gameplay experiences of the author. I've never had much use for the former category, as they are boring as shit and mostly just parrot the prevailing hivemind opinions emerging from social media at any given moment. To my mind, only the latter category of blogs was worthwhile, as EVE's exceptionalism among MMOs is in the great stories that emerge from its players. However, those sorts of blogs all seem to have died out, with the sole exception of www.minerbumping.com, replaced by streamers and youtubers and what-have-you.

So nobody cares, and nobody reads this sort of thing anymore. Oh well, I'm going to update it anyway, and if goes on as only a sort of journal for my own benefit then so be it.

I've had maybe 2 stints in EVE prior to my current one that are worth mentioning, so I will briefly tell their stories before moving on to more interesting content in my next post.

2015 - Pandemic Horde
When I logged back in to EVE after a lengthy hiatus, I found, once again, that my playstyle of choice had been nerfed out of the game in another ill-considered update by CCP. The watchlist was gone, so solo and small gang wardecs in highsec were no longer feasible. In this new era, the only way to hunt war targets in any realistic way was to plant an alt in their corporation. This can be done, but it isn't really feasible to do it on any kind of sustained basis on a scale significant enough to provide steady content for an individual, much less a gang. So I began searching for a new niche, something else that would be just as fun to do. To date, I still haven't found anything, but am still looking.

The first of several false starts for me was Pandemic Horde. The Hordes and the Karmafleets were a new and promising thing at the time, making nullsec more accessible to new players than it had ever been in the past. So I thought I would see what they were all about. Someone told me, inaccurately as it turns out, that of the two, Horde was more PvP oriented, so I signed up and shipped out to Cloud Ring.

Now way back in the day, I got my start in solo PvP in EVE University, and I still remember my last few months there topping the killboard for solo kills most weeks. Once again, I was in a large alliance, and set out with the same goal in mind - to be the most prolific solo killer in the alliance during a week of game play.

I hopped in my trusty Merlin and went to work, succeeding in topping the killboard for a couple weeks. I don't remember most of the details but I'll share a couple of fun kills.

Ratting Legion
This one I'm particularly proud of. The mighty Merlin has always been my warship of choice. Across all the PvP characters I have played over the years, I have hundreds of solo kills in a Merlin, everything up to and including battleships. However, I have never succeeded in solo killing a strategic cruiser in my favorite frigate, although it has been on my list for years. So naturally, I attack every one that I come across.

When I spotted a Legion ratting in a lowsec anomaly a few jumps out from the current Horde HQ, I obviously had to try and kill it. I warped in, got scram and webs on it, and started pounding away with my light neutron blasters.

For a moment there, as I was tearing into its shields with Void S, it seemed that my day had finally come, that I would solo a T3 cruiser in my invincible Merlin. Sadly, it soon became clear that I could not break his active tank. The good news was that he couldn't kill me either, so I still had the upper hand. I tried, to no avail, to get him to pay me some ransom, then called in the Horde batphone.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/50293868/

Campy Tornado
After being driven out of Cloud Ring by Goonswarm Federation, Horde staged in Khanid lowsec for a brief, shining moment in time, during which all the local pirates came out to pop Horde "newbeans" on the station undock, providing a steady diet of content. One guy was perched off the station in a tornado. Fortunately, someone had made corporate bookmarks all around the station, so it was a simple matter to undock in a Slasher, warp directly to him and burn him down, then warp off before his friends could get me. An easy kill, but it seemed to impress everyone, and it is always satisfying to kill something a couple ship classes bigger than you.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/50314450/

Shortly after this, Horde deployed to Querious, which was a devastatingly boring region, where there was nothing to do but be an F1-monkey in giant fleets, or shoot NPCs for isk. Bored out of my mind, I started thinking of doing some highsec shenanigans for some space-money, but when I asked the directors for clarification of the rules around that sort of stuff I only got a holier-than-thou attitude from them on the subject, disparaging the play style. Horde had become a dull, unwelcoming place, and I was sort of burnt out on EVE again anyway, so I quit for another couple years.

2017 - Karmafleet
The next time I came back, after my traditional wardec, I decided that I hadn't been terribly impressed by the "Pan-fam" culture, and signed up to Karmafleet instead. In every way that matters it was a better corporate experience. "Pan-fam" really treats its line members like trash compared to the Imperium. There really is a feeling of being a third-class citizen while in Horde. The Goons are much more inclusive. Horde also claims to have no rules, but if you do anything other than nullsec PvP or shooting rats then you will catch attitude from the directors.

Goonswarm also has a much better solo PvP community. Once again, I set about trying to top the weekly killboard for solo kills, but where I had done so fairly easily in Horde, I found that in Karmafleet it was utterly impossible - I would need to play EVE 12 hours a day to keep up with some of the excellent kill artists in my new corporation. I couldn't even make top 10.

Also, where Horde had only 2 very specific focuses - ratting and F1-monkeying, Goonswarm federation was far more diversified. Ratting and F1-monkeying were still huge, as was mining, but they also had squads doing every EVE activity I can think of, including all the stuff that Horde directors look down their noses at.

Unfortunately, I was having a bad run of luck soloing at the time, so I didn't rack up any notable kills, but I did get to participate in a large nullsec war, which was a new experience for me, although it was far less interesting to be a bit player in the Mittani's EVE-story than it is to be the leading man in my own, but I am glad I had the experience. In the end I quit EVE again and got booted for inactivity, but one day I may go back to Karmafleet. It is a corporation of the highest quality.

Moving On
Another year or two went by, as I went about my business thinking that I had finally won EVE. Then I had a baby, so I'm spending all my days around the house carrying him. He doesn't like being put down. So what else is there for me to do but sit here all day every day and play a computer game with one hand while I hold him with the other?

So here I am once again, restarting my EVE online career with a few wardecs and highsec shenanigans, as is tradition. By now I'm practically the last OG Belligerent Undesirable still standing, so shenanigans are expected of me, and shenanigans I will provide. Read all about it in my next post.