Into the Faction War Zone - Part 3

 At that point, I was starting to think I'd had enough of Kestrels for a little while, although I put it on my to-do list to fly an armor Kestrel at some point. 

I got to thinking about the kinds of ships that I have been seeing flying around in lowsec. In the faction warfare plexes, I was seeing lots of artillery Thrashers, lots of Imperial Navy Slicers, lots of Coercers. But I also noticed a lot of people hanging around with exploration frigates, covops, Asteros and the like, dropping core scanner probes everywhere. I don't know if it was business as usual in lowsec nowadays, or if it had something to do with the Christmas festivities. I know there was some kind of PVE event taking place over the holidays, but never really looked at what it was. I did appreciate the free fireworks and skins though.

Anyway, I started thinking about how to kill those exploration guys.

I poked around a bit on zkillboard to figure out how others were doing it, and settled on a Hecate to probe down signatures. I've never really flown the tactical destroyers since they were introduced, but it has always been on my list. I have a strong appreciation for what tactical destroyers can do, and I was excited to try one out.

Hecate vs. Venture

Unfortunately, my first expedition around the war zone in a Hecate was pretty uneventful. I didn't spot many signs of explorers, or anything else that seemed wise to engage. The trip wasn't a complete failure, though. I did locate a Mr. Oroduil in a Venture, mining in an asteroid belt.

Several years ago, James 315 outlawed Ventures in highsec. I know, the Code isn't meant for lowsec, some of you must say, but I figure, you know, highsec...lowsec... they both have "sec" in them. Must be some crossover of the rules. Anyway, I'm sure you'll agree that the integrated warp core stabilizers in the Venture hull are a crime against humanity no matter where they may be found.

Ventures cannot go unpunished. That's why I keep an extra warp scrambler in the cargo hold of every ship I fly. I docked up and refitted to keep this slippery little bastard from getting away, then went back and rubbed him out.

Illegal Venture apprehended

Lesson learned: In Hecate vs. mining Venture fights, smart money is on the Hecate.

Hecate vs. Imicus

Finding targets with my Hecate continued to be slow. Maybe I was just out there at slow moments. 

Anyway, eventually I found the type of guy I was looking for. Warlucky82 was in an Imicus, sitting at an exploration site which I had previously scanned down. Warping in and destroying her was no real problem. 

Note the illegal warp core stabilizers this villain had in her possession.

Sadly, no good loot drops. I was shocked and disappointed with Warlucky82 when I learned that she had fitted warp core stabilizers to her frigate. She should know that these nefarious devices are only used by the greasiest, most vile cowards in New Eden. I feel slightly soiled just from having touched them with my Void S. Thankfully, they didn't stop me from turning her Imicus into slag.

Lessons learned: Maybe I had just had some bad luck, but roaming with a Hecate was feeling a little slow. I just wasn't finding a lot of targets, and the ones I was finding were low value. Hitting explorers is probably worthwhile though. I expect if I keep at it, sooner or later one of them will drop some nice loot. 

I decided to just dock up and leave my Hecate in the war zone, so I could have it handy anytime I might want to probe someone down. Then I headed back over to Hek in a Corvette and started thinking about Rifters.

Rifter vs. Curse

Even before I mastered the Merlin, I started playing EVE at the tail end of the era in which the Rifter was widely considered to be the only viable T1 frigate for tackling or solo PvP. I made my first attempt to solo with a Rifter, sadly being killed by station guns. I got my start in fleet PvP fighting war targets in EVE University as a tackler in a Rifter. At one point I ran a weekly lowsec/nullsec roam of usually 5-10 Rifters out of Solitude. The Rifter is another hull that has sentimental value to me, if not as much as the Merlin.

So I fitted out a Rifter and went back to the war zone. Sadly, I didn't last too long

Up until now, I had been mostly warping into these FW plexes after dscanning someone inside. This was largely due to impatience. I've always tended to go looking for fights rather than sit somewhere and wait for them to come to me. But I recognize that there is a very serious disadvantage in warping into a site where the other guy has had the time to get to whatever range they prefers to engage from.

This time, I thought, I'd set the trap. I warped to the first empty novice plex I saw on dscan, and landed on a Curse. Then I probably panicked and did something foolish instead of spamming jump on the acceleration gate while I was decelerating from warp. 

The Curse locked me up and killed me easily.

GF

Lesson learned: Sitting a Curse, which is invisible to dscan, on a novice plex and killing the noobs like me that blunder into it is a good trick. Maybe I'll try that one myself sometime.

Back I went to Hek, and the next day I fitted out an armor kestrel.

Kestrel 5 vs. Punisher + Loki

I spotted a Punisher in a plex in Aset. When I warped in, Dplexy McSlaveFace sat on the acceleration gate in a Punisher. I went in rockets blazing, but it became clear that Ms. McSlaveFace had a very solid armor tank. 

"Hmm," thought I, "Dplexy kind of seems like bait. But for what trap?" I dscanned for anyone who might be warping in, but saw nothing. Just when I began to feel encouraged that I would eventually grind down Dplexy's tank, Tristan daCuhna decloaked in a Loki and blasted me with his Howitzer artillery. Down I went.

GF

Lessons learned: Punishers sitting on acceleration gates are bait. Also, baiting people with an alt or one of my newbie corpmates sitting in a tanky Punisher sitting on an acceleration gate, then ganking them with a cloaky ship like a Loki or Stratios seems like a great strategy to harvest some kills. This is another one I'm filing away to try later on myself.

Thoughts on Solo PvPing in Faction Warfare Space (so far)

I've always enjoyed the occasional roam through the faction warfare zones looking for good fights. There isn't as much action in that kind of sense today as there used to be, nor is there the same diversity of ships being used. But good fights still can be had once in awhile.

But mostly in these last few days, I haven't really been satisfied that lowsec faction war space is really where I want to set up shop full time. I do have this sort of sense of compulsion to get good at this particular kind of PvP though - where you're in cheap ships going at other omega pilots who know what they are doing head to head in somewhat equivalent contests. Where it's about jockeying to engage at the most favorable ranges, managing your modules, being the guy whose finger is a little faster at hitting F1 or whatever. You know, the classic showdown in a faction war plex.

Look, I can get kills and not lose ships. I'm bad at EVE and bad at PvP right now, but I could totally just not take risks and never lose a ship except for when I have a couple too many drinks and get the idea that a shortcut through Rancer would be a good idea. I could run around working my way towards a 99% killboard efficiency by just going after low hanging fruit as a solo PvPer. And don't get me wrong - I enjoy those easy ganks where the only risk is that the target might get away. I'm an old school dirtbag pirate. I have a simple, enduring passion for ganking noobs.

But back in the day, I was also good at taking those classic good fights and winning at least 75% of the time. It bothers me that I'm not good at that anymore. I feel like I've lost my mojo, and I desperately want to get it back.

But faction warfare space isn't the only place to solo PvP. It has its own rules, its own tricks of the trade, and it can be a fun place to mess around, but there are lots of things about it which I find unsatisfying. I guess what I'm trying to do is find my niche in the game again. Once upon a time I found my niche, my reason to log in, as a solo highsec wardeccer. Those who have read back a few years in this blog will have seen some of the hilarious hijinks that I used to get up to in highsec, terrorizing whole corporations into submission, often with just a Merlin or Incursus (with a few offgrid boosts huehuehue). Wardecs were fun.

But game mechanics change, and CCP decided that they didn't like dirtbag pirates like little old me preying upon the highsec carebears anymore. They made it so that my style of wardecs became unfeasible. Since then, whenever I came back to EVE, I've been floundering around without a place of my own in the ecosystem. I retry stuff that was fun for me at one time or another, but none of it captivates my attention for very long.

Random beauty shot of a pink Stabber in Amarr to break up wall of text

What I miss about solo wardecs as a PvP experience was the experience of having an enemy corporation that I could study in detail, placing spy alts, using the watchlist back when that was a thing, using locators. Really get to know what their strengths and weaknesses are, who flies what, who puts expensive modules on their PVE boats, where their mining fleets think they are safe to mine under wardec. I liked rolling into their home system and making them all run for cover, killing the few members who don't watch local, disrupting their game play and getting them all sitting in a station or something, talking smack in local, trying to psyche themselves up to take me on. I'd be sitting there in a Merlin on their undock, camping in a dozen carebear battleship pilots, just dripping salt from every oriface.

God help me, I loved the tears, I loved the hate mail, I loved the threats to murder me irl. And I loved even more when I could piss them off enough to get them to undock and fight me. That's why I focused so heavily on T1 frigates, and rarely joined wardec corps with other scary pilots. I wanted them to be so ashamed at what they were hiding from that they would talk themselves into fighting me. And then I loved winning. It didn't always happen. I lost a Merlin or two, underestimating war targets. But most of the time I just massacred them, whole gangs of them at a time, because I was good, and because I knew every trick in the book, and fought dirty. 

Those PvP experiences meant more to me than lowsec goodfights, because I wasn't just killing a ship or two, exchanging "gfs", reshipping to do it all over again, and then forgetting the whole episode tomorrow. When I was wardeccing I was generating stories. Often I was changing the whole history of my target corporation, reshaping how they would play the game. I regularly had wartargets tell me years later that my wars had changed everything for them, motivated them to take up PvP, or move out of highsec or whatever. The emotional connection of those fights was just so much deeper than anything I've found yet in lowsec.

What I need, if I'm going to keep logging in to this silly game, is some kind of playstyle that scratches the same itch as solo wardecs did. I haven't that in the faction war zone. Not yet anyway. Maybe I'll dig a little deeper in this zone of space later on and see what kind of trouble I cause, but for now I think I'm looking for a different kind of solo PvP experience.

It was time to go to nullsec.