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