100 Nullbear Kills - Part 1: Hecate Raid on R1O-GN

I undocked from the Perkone Factory in Uemon, home sweet home, in a sleek Hecate that had been sitting mostly neglected in my hangar, apart from a few Venture kills, since I moved into the area in January. To me, these new-fangled T3 destroyers are still a bit confusing. Three different modes? What the heck am I supposed to do with that, right? Don't I have enough to deal with just managing my modules? Nevertheless, I have been impressed by the high dps and versatility of the Hecate. I had been wanting to play with one and see what it could do. So I set my course for R1O and took off.

I took the direct route. Nine jumps across Etherium Reach. When I jumped from Paala into LXQ2-T, I quickly realized that things had changed. When last I played EVE, back during the war, this strategic system was largely abandoned, save for a few ratters. Now there were bubbles around the gate, and a host of Pandemic Legion folks sitting on a nearby citadel. Pandemic Legion still exists - who knew? 

Anyway, I warped off to a perch, avoiding the bubbles, then went to investigate the next gate. It was bubbled too, though not as heavily. A stiletto followed me, but with a bit of misdirection, and a little back and forth, I successfully shook off my tail and continued the rest of the way to R1O unimpeded.

As I arrived in R1O, I took note of a striking difference from last January - I was the only neutral in local. Previously, there would have been at least a couple cloaky campers, if nothing else. I had heard rumors of a new deployable structure called a Mobile Observatory or some such, that was supposed to be the death of cloaky camping as a playstyle. As an occasional cloaky camping enjoyer myself, I had been somewhat critical of such a change to the game. However, my opinion on the matter has shifted, and as this story continues I think you will see why.

I soon dscanned my first target. Pippin Tobin was ratting in an Algos. I kept my Hecate in propulsion mode and warped in. The target was at 80 km, orbiting a wide circle around the anomaly. I burned for them, activating my microwarpdrive. They sicced their drones on me and I began taking a surprising amount of damage (I had not learned to manage both the multiple modes of a T3 destroyer and an active tank at the same time - maybe I never will).  Soon I was in close range. My warp scrambler and dual stasis webifiers pinned Tobin down, and I switched to sharpshooter mode and fired my blasters, shredding their little T1 dessie in seconds.

It was getting a little late for me, so I then bounced between safe spots until my aggression timer was done. I probably needn't have bothered - nobody reported me on the intel channels. The denizens of nullsec seemed to feel safe in their homes.  They felt no need to scroll through the 300 names in local to spot the one neutral, whose name starts with "S". Pippin wasn't piping up to warn them of danger either. I did a safe logoff.

The Next Day

The next day, a little bird told me that Skegg0x, of Pandemic Horde was mining in a Procurer in an anomaly, surrounded by a cloud of Mining Drone Is. I logged in and warped to their location, activating my warp scrambler and firing my blasters. I was a little concerned about the Procurer's formidable drone bay and what it could do to a Hecate. As a decade-long frigate specialist, I am always mindful of light drones.

Fortunately for me, Skegg0x had filled their drone bay with spare Mining Drone Is. Because you never know when you're going to need additional Mining Drone Is.

Anyway, they went down in flames.

No other targets presented themselves, so I bounced between safes for 15 minutes. Nobody mentioned me in Horde intel channels. Is the standing fleet sleeping? I wondered. My instincts told me I should mouth off a bit in local chat, but I hesitated. If they haven't even noticed I'm here yet, how far can I push this? I logged Syeed off.

Shortly after, my birdies reported Ingram Ironheart, a pilot I would ultimately meet on several occasions in the near future, ratting with another Algos. They didn't fare much better than Pippin Tobin.

Again, I bounced around for 15 minutes and logged off. The bouncing was getting a little tedious, but I was having a blast just plauing casually, logging in for 30 minutes now and then, getting an easy kill, then logging off. This would be easier and more fun with a cloaking device so I don't have to warp back and forth while I wait out my aggression timer, I thought.

James Ocker - Master Baiter

A couple hours after my encounter with Ingram, my intel network reported James Ocker mining in a mining anomaly with something called a "Porpoise". One of those new fangled ships that I don't know about yet. What does a Porpoise do? Some kind of mining ship I think. Mining ships die easy, right? There was also another fellow there in a Procurer, but I ignored them. I was interested in cracking open one of these new Porpoises to find out what might be inside.

I warped in Syeed and threw scram and webs up on James Ocker, then blasted away. Disappointingly, my blasters were only slowly chewing away at a beefy shield buffer. Then I found myself warp scrambled and webbed by the Porpoise. A trap.

Next thing, the grid was filling up with the TKE Standing Fleet, and I died - but successfully warped off with my pod and pod-jumped back to Uemon.

Reflections

My adventure with the Hecate had been an illuminating experience. I have wasted hundreds, possibly thousands of hours of my life roaming around looking for kills over the years. It's true that I have gotten some good kills that way, but most of the time the action was really slow - an hour or more of roaming for every kill.

That's why I gravitated to highsec PvP back in the day. Highsec is the most target rich environment. Back when we had classical wardecs and watchlists, I could just visit my wartargets in an Incursus with perfect offgrid boosts and get easily accessible 1vX PvP in highsec at any time of day. 

But, disappointingly, not many people appreciated classical wardecs in the way that I did. Least of all CCP, who nerfed them out of the game. Ever since, I have been adrift, looking for a playstyle that gave me the same kind of fun as wardecs did, but not finding it. Dabbling at participating in the big null blocs, and smaller corporations as well, but never finding a good fit.

Something about that roam in R1O felt like the potential of a new playstyle for me. There were like 300 people in local, every one of them in Horde or blue to Horde except for Syeed. Unless their monitors are huge, that means they need to scroll down to spot me in local. There's an obvious degree of anonymity in that - I got 4 kills over the course of  more than a day before anyone mentioned me in the intel channels. The one obnoxious thing about this was needing to wait out the aggression timers before doing a safe log off. With a cloaking device, though, I could do that afk.

This also suits my casual approach to the game. I have a wife and kid, I can't just plug into EVE all day at this stage of my life - but I can grab 30 minutes here and there, log in and immediately find a PvP encounter, then log out. I don't have the time to roam, but if I just live full time in a target rich environment - and the staging systems of the largest nullsec blocs are target rich environments - then maybe I can find action fast enough to work with my lifestyle.

It'll buff out

But I wasn't sure about the Hecate. It was fun to fly, but there were just too many buttons to keep track of - active tank, different modes. I'm just back from a break. I'm rusty. I needed something easier to fly. Also, I enjoyed the Hecate's dps, but it is flimsy. And I wanted something which could stay out of scram/web range, because if I got scrammed and webbed I would always be a sitting duck for the Standing Fleet. The Hecate had awesome dps, but it was also very flimsy. If I'm going to hunt ratters in nullsec, I want to be able to kill Ishtars and Gilas. I know that Hecates do kill these successfully, but they also get killed in those encounters a lot too.

I looked at my hangar and settled on an Osprey Navy Issue. This time, I put a Mobile Depot and Prototype Cloaking Device in the cargo hold.

100 Nullbear Kills

I used to come back from a break and run a solo wardec first thing to get the rust out before considering joining a corporation. That can no longer be done. I needed a new tradition to get myself back in the game. I wanted to join a corporation and find new space friends, as most of my old circle are long gone, but I didn't want to rush into another corporation that doesn't suit me, having been down that road a few times.

So I set myself a goal - get 100 solo kills before even looking at corporations. With a bonus goal - do it before the end of November.

I hopped into my Navy Osprey and again laid in a course for R1O-GN.

Lowsec Patrols

Note: This article was written back in February but I never published it until now. A bit dated, but it's a part of my story that should be told. Shortly after these events I took a break from EVE, returning on Halloween. More shenanigans coming soon!

It was an slow Thursday evening. My little bird flew from its nest in Uemon and went all the way to Molden Heath looking for targets, to no avail, before he gave up and began making his way home. As he passed through Ofage, a system which continues to yield fine killmails, he noticed Ms. SabbathRules, of Hollow Point Collective, in local chat. Nothing was on dscan, nobody was hanging out in the local freeport.

Always a thorough scout, Little Bird did not give up so easily. Ofage is a rather large system. There are several planets which are out of dscan range from anywhere else. He fluttered his little wings and flew to a random moon of one such planet to see what there was to see. It was a lucky guess. Ms. SabbathRules was sitting right there in a Stratios, next to her mobile depot. At that point, I had not seen a great target in my neighborhood for some time. Ventures and T1 haulers, the occasional belt ratting destroyer, these had been my latest kills. My last Orca kill had just slipped off my 7 day highlights on zkillboard. I was itchy for something with a little bling, and Stratioses are a ship class that often gets fitted expensively.

Stratios

"What do I have that I can kill a Stratios with?" I asked myself. The Stratios, for those who do not already know, is an awesome cloaky faction cruiser. A massive drone bay, plenty of capacitor to operate several medium energy neutralizers at length, a versatile 5/5/5 slot layout. These things wreck pretty much whatever they need to wreck, when competently fitted and flown. SabbathRules was a newer character, but I don't trust in that since skill injectors came out. She had not yet lost a Stratios, so I couldn't check her likely fit on zkill. 

I considered a Brutix, a Hurricane, a Loki, and dismissed them all. My first time flying a Stratios, years ago, I killed two Brutixes without breaking a sweat. My Hurricane fit was inferior to my Brutix fit in every aspect except range, so that wasn't a great option either. Plus, without a covops cloak, I worried that the Strat would see me coming and disappear. Stratioses are slippery - the key to victory would have to be surprise. My Loki could probably do the job, but I'm a little nervous flying strategic cruisers, due to losing one embarrassingly when I logged in for a week last year to check out the nullsec blackout. In the end, I decided that a Stratios vs. Stratios 1v1 was the fight I should try to engineer. See - a fair fight. Nobody can accuse me of poor sportsmanship.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, my little son needed me, so I left my little bird cloaked and afk, and walked away from EVE for awhile. When I came back, Stratios and depot were gone. With regret, I gave up and went on looking for more targets. Everywhere I went, I came up dry. It was a slow night in Uemon.

The Next Day

My little bird once again roamed to Ofage, and was surprised to see SabbathRules in local again. "I wonder if she put her mobile depot in the same spot?" I mused.

Lo and behold, there it was, in the exact same location as before. A beautiful, glistening mobile depot, shining like a jewel in the moonlight. I had Ms. SabbathRules patterned. She shows up in Ofage, puts her mobile depot at that particular moon, warps off and does god-knows-what all cloaked up or off dscan in this huge system, then comes back and scoops her depot when she is done.

I undocked Syeed in his Stratios, and made best speed for Ofage. When I got there, I maneuvered under cloak to within 5km of the mobile depot. I wanted to be right on top of her when she decloaked. Then I waited. 

I wasn't sure how long it would be, so I kept one eye on my laptop and started making some baby food. I got my oven pre-heating and sliced a large butternut squash along the grain. Then I took a nice sharp edged spoon and began scooping out the seeds.

Suddenly SabbathRules decloaked in her Stratios next to the depot, 6.7km from me. I tossed my squash onto the counter, seeds flying everywhere, then dropped cloak and locked her up. My warp scrambler and dual stasis webifers snared her beyond any hope of escape as I spun up my energy neutralizers and deployed a flight of Ogre IIs.

Ms. SabbathRules thought only of escape. She unleashed a flight of ECM drones and tried ineffectually to maneuver away. She made no effort to shoot at me with her Domination 650mm Artillery, which would not have been effective in such a close orbit anyway. Moments later her Stratios exploded. 

With great satisfaction I plundered the most expensive modules from the wreckage of her ship and then returned to my lair in Uemon. I continued preparing butternut squash purée with a smug grin on my face. Finally, a little isk coming my way to make up for all the Stabbers I've been losing.

Strat down

Meeting DarkSide.

Later on, I was scouting for more targets when Little Bird spotted another Orca jumping into Tasti from Messoya. The pilot was Halbarad Deis of Mastracorp - a generic mining corporation of no particular distinction. As I watched, the pilot warped off to an NPC station. A situation worth keeping an eye on, I reflected. 

I continued along my usual scouting route, not finding any other interesting targets, then swung back through Tasti again. Right there in a mining anomaly, in plain dscan range from the Otosela gate, was Mr. Deis in his Orca, along with two of his corpmates in a Venture and a Procurer. Nobody else was in local at that moment.

The situation was urgent. This was a fairly high traffic location. Other people were going to notice. The life expectancy of that Orca could be measured in minutes. Somebody was going to kill him, and I wanted that somebody to be me. 

I undocked in the Brutix I had purchased specifically for slaying Orcas. My readers will recall that last week I had found that killing an Orca in a Hurricane took an excessively long time, so I went shopping for a higher dps option. At 982 unheated dps, a blaster Brutix was the solution I had come up with. It was 2 jumps from Uemon to my target.

As I jumped into Tasti, I clicked on the ore anomaly and hit "warp to zero". But then, unexpectedly, a Guristas rat on the gate locked me up and warp disrupted me. Fuck! And here I am, defending NPCs against the brutal aggressions of PVEers all day long. You would think they could show a little more gratitude. I deployed a flight of light drones and set about killing the rats on the gate.

Meanwhile, two DarkSide pilots jumped into system and turned up on grid with me at the gate in a Stiletto and a Phantasm. Things were looking worse and worse. They had to be seeing the mining gang on dscan, even while they considered what to do with me. I could already feel this whole operation going sour. They were going to go after the Orca, I knew it. And if I was there, they would get me too. Taking me on the gate wasn't going to be a winning situation for them because of gate guns, but in an anomaly? I was fucked.

On the other hand, not killing that Orca wasn't an option. The red mist of battle had clouded my eyes. I finished off the offending rat, recalled my drones, and went into the asteroid anomaly brazenly, while the DarkSide pilots watched.

Naturally, the Stiletto followed me in. We landed 40km from the miners. I spooled up my microwarpdrive and went directly for the Orca. The DarkSide interceptor landed a warp disruptor on me. I launched a flight of Hobgoblins and sent them his way as I made for Halbarad with all possible speed. For real, that Stiletto pilot needed to be getting his priorities straight, I thought. There was an Orca on grid. We could sort out our differences later. 

My drones did their job, and forced Stiletto-Person off the grid, just as the other DarkSide guy in the Phantasm was landing. Then another one in a Daredevil. It didn't matter though. I had already accepted that my Brutix was fucked. I just wanted to see the Orca burn.

I smashed into Halbarad, warp scrambled him and unleashed all 1106 heated dps of hull tanked fury on their absurd lowsec afk mining operation. Orcas are tanky as heck now with all the EHP buffs that they have received over the years. Really slow things to kill, but this Brutix fit was made for Orca-slaying. Pretty soon the shield alarm had to have been going off. Whether he noticed, I can't say. Three DarkSide Stilettos landed on grid, including my misguided friend from earlier. Then a Thrasher, an Ares, a Cynabal, an Orthrus, a Loki, a Legion, a Stratios, a Gnosis, a Guardian and a Lachesis. Red boxes everywhere.

My shields and armor began stripping away. I was right in the center of a drone storm with Halbarad. Blasters and autocannons and lasers and shit blasting everywhere. I barely noticed. I had complete tunnel vision on killing Halbarad. It was taking awhile though. As they went into low hull, I noticed that my own hull tank was holding up pretty well. Like really well. Then I noticed that there were no points on me. Huh, I thought. I guess my work is done here.

I warped off to a station and docked up, then alt-tabbed over to my covops scout and watched Halbarad's Orca explode. 

2nd lowsec Orca kill in a week

The Syeed Maneuver - a Tragedy

To me, citadels are new fangled things that I don't understand. I'm a dinosaur who really only has a very shaky understanding of current game mechanics. Yet I seem to be able to make up for that through just pure reckless aggression, and a few tricks I've learned.

I don't really know what citadels can and can't do. I know they can fit weapons. I actually briefly owned several highsec citadels after I heisted them back in 2018, as my long term readers may remember. But I only played around with the mechanics a little bit before unanchoring and selling them. I'm still living off that isk today.

But I have figured out one thing about citadels. People tether to them and then go afk sometimes. They believe that they are safe. They are not. The tether only extends a certain distance from the citadel. What that distance is, I don't know exactly. But I know that if you bump an afk ship away from a citadel, at some point the tether disappears and you can kill them. I call this "the Syeed Maneuver". I've gotten 5 or 6 kills that way.

However, as I was to learn, it is not without risks. Shortly after the Orca kill, I was patrolling a bit in my Stabber, when I spotted esuwy esuwy in a Nereus sitting on an Astrahus in Akora. Aha, I thought, let's try the Syeed Maneuver. The Stabber is an excellent bumping platform, so I easily sent the industrial ship flying. Then I closed in for the kill. As soon as I was in close, esuwy returned to the keyboard and landed a warp scrambler and webs on me. Then the Astrahus opened fire with some kind of freakin citadel drones or something, and down I went. RIP my purple stabber.

poor Stabber