Haedonism Bot - PvPer, Ninja, Ganker, Scammer, Pirate, Belligerent Undesirable, Knight of the New Order. The story of one man and several alts on a mission to destroy EVE Online and make off with all its loots.
So I've had some serious CEO burnout lately, and decided that it would be best to take a (possibly
permanent) break from it, and play EVE for my own sake for awhile. My roots are as a solo PvPer and
T1 frigate aficionado, so I decided to log in my lately neglected PvP main, Kalim Dabo, hop in a Merlin and go for a solo lowsec roam. I have been hearing a lot of good things about a giant new corporation called Brave Newbies Inc., and figured I would go and pay them a visit in their home system of Rahadalon. I plugged it into my autopilot, set it for "prefer less secure", and settled in for a leisurely 80-something jumps from Solitude.
I had most of the day free to play, so I figured I would take my time and see what sort of fights I could find along the way. At first the trip was pretty uneventful. I crossed paths with a few large blobs that I didn't care to engage, and kept moving. For half a dozen jumps I kept pace with a Tusker in an Incursus who seemed to be heading the same direction. The one T1 frigate that I fairly consistently lose fights to in my Merlin is the Incursus, when it is flown competently, so I considered engaging, but decided against it. He probably could have beaten me, but made no real effort to engage me either. Perhaps he had other plans.
Roaming Kills
I got my first fight when I passed through a faction warfare area. I located a Punisher in a plex and decided to have a go at it. When I went through the acceleration gate I dropped on him pretty much at 0, scrammed and webbed him, and tore into his armor with my blasters. It took a couple minutes of pounding, and he actually put a pretty good hurt on my ASB charges, but his cap eventually ran out and then he died. I warped off to repair and reload just as a Kestrel landed on grid. The system was pretty stirred up, so I decided to move on.
The next bit of action I had was in Molden Heath. I docked up in a station to take a bio break, with a few players from a new German pirate corp called Douchebag Patrol sharing local with me. When I came back and undocked, two of them were waiting for me in Ruptures on the station undock. All of us had pretty respectable sec status (mine was an upstanding -3.1 points), so I just orbited one of them. He decided to scram me, and I immediately docked up and undocked to break his target lock, then got point on him and tackled him while the sentry guns reduced his cruiser to a yellow triangle. Then I pointed his mate, who had agressed me in the meantime, and started shooting. The stations guns were tearing through his armor, and I was tanking his drones pretty well, but I wasn't paying attention to my orbit and drifted out of scram range (noob mistake, I know), and he was able to warp off. Then I looted the one wreck and docked to drop the loot in station, and when I undocked the rupture was back. I started shooting and burned him down. His guns were unable to track me, and he had lost his drones when he warped off. Then I popped his pod.
Rahadalon
After a short detour to restock on cap booster charges and ammo, I soon arrived in the Newbies lair at Rahadalon. 70-ish people in local. I thought, "ok, lets see who I can catch out." Made a safe and scanned the top belt. There was a Thrasher. I warped in, switching to null mid-warp, and burned to him as he was looting an NPC wreck. I managed to kite out at about 8000 meters, keeping him scrammed and webbed, and chew through him with null while his autocannons barely grazed me. Looted the wreck, went to the next system to repair and reload, and came back. Dscanned the top belt again and found a Slasher. Warped in, pointed and burned him down. This was getting fun. Again I jumped over to the next system, repaired, reloaded, dropped off loot, and came back.
By now the Newbies were on to my tricks. They had a fleet out hunting me. We played cat and mouse for about a half hour. In the end, it culminated with about 15 of them, all in frigates, and one of me, sitting on a gate together. They couldn't attack me without getting blapped by the sentry guns. Some of them were already -5 permaflashies, so I decided to just start fighting those guys one by one while the rest of them orbited and watched. I had no real strategy in it other than not shooting at the Ewar frigs. First I killed a Slasher, then a Merlin. During the fights several of them attacked me and got themselves blapped. There was a bit of banter in local and one guy challenged me to a duel, which I ignored. The Merlin pilot was actually pretty good, another ASB fit, and by the time he went down I was out of charges and into armor, and the Newbies decided, fuck it, they would gank me, gate guns be damned. My Merlin died in a blaze of glory, I warped off my pod, and good fights were had all around. The one guy still wanted a duel, but alas, I had no ship. And so ended my roam and my first encounter with Brave Newbies Inc. 7 killmails and one loss, a good day, and I don't know how many more died to the gate guns.
Impressions
As an Eve University grad, I can't help but compare the experience of visiting E-Uni's lowsec campus (LSC) with visiting the Newbies in their home. From time to time I have gotten the idea in my head to get in a frigate and visit the LSC looking for fights. It is almost always a disappointment for me, mainly because when I'm in local they either dock up or organize a well disciplined blob and set out to hunt me. While I can generally evade these blobs in lowsec (i'm really good, i know), they don't spread out and give easy kills, they almost never even respond if you ask for 1v1s in local (I've even offered 2v1s and 3v1s when there were more than 30 of them around, and heard only crickets). Their entire philosophy of PvP, with the exception of certain individuals, is to play to win, not to take excessive chances and give up ships. And not to talk to hostile parties. (boring)
Visiting Brave Newbies was altogether a different sort of experience. While they clearly can and do mobilize a fleet to deal with a threat, they don't seem to panic when somebody loses a ship out in a belt. The first guy I killed chatted with me in local about my fit, the second one convo'd me and told me how I caught him by surprise, and was a great sport about it. The whole blob scene at the end was quite unlike anything I have ever experienced. It was truly a memorable PvP moment. In the end they gleefully suicided themselves to the gate guns to kill me, something I can't even imagine an E-Uni fleet doing. E-Uni would have docked up unless they had something that could tank the gate guns (which they probably would, because they actually have an abundance of veteran players).
All in all, I have to say that I am impressed by Brave Newbies Inc. All the rumors I had heard were about their great fighting spirit, and I was not disappointed.
Ok, basically I have absolutely no interest in video game politics. We all know that the CSM is a joke, and has no actual authority. They are just CCPs increasingly cynical effort to pacify the long-term player base. However, the winners of the CSM election can constitute a sort of moral victory for the play style that they represent. Maybe somebody with decision making authority at CCP will even take some small notice of them as something other than a novelty (probably not). Anyway, we, as players, certainly place a lot of importance on them, and we like to award people we like with free trips to Iceland.
My point is, James 315 just dropped out of the CSM race for very good, very valid reasons. While he has the admiration of almost everybody who plays EVE, and was practically guaranteed a win, he chose not to accept having his voice silenced by non-disclosure agreements as a condition of his ticket to Iceland. I salute his courage and respect his humility.
In the meantime, only one serious candidate remains in the election who represents highsec PvP and piracy. As those who engage in ninja looting, suicide ganking, wardeccing, AWOXing, "griefing", and generally every form of non-consensual PvP that happens in high security space, we have only one candidate for CSM who represents us. That person is Psychotic Monk, blogger and co-founder of the Belligerent Undesirables movement.
Vote Psychotic Monk for CSM8
Whether you are a highsec "griefer" yourself, or a lowsec or nullsec or wormhole veteran who cut his EVE teeth canflipping or ninja salvaging, I would urge you to vote for Monk. If you are part of a nullsec bloc putting up it's own candidates, you can rest assured that your own player base will, as always, be well represented even if you should choose to vote for Monk over your own candidates.
Yes, the CSM is a joke, and it doesn't really matter in any meaningful way who wins and who loses, but sometimes winning for the sake of winning is important. Don't let the carebears win. Vote for Psychotic Monk.
This concludes the first and probably last political post that you will ever see on this blog (until the time comes for me to run for my own free Iceland vacation).
Lately there has been a lot of hype about getting new players into the dark side of EVE, particularly Safariing or AWOXing carebears in highsec. For those of you who aren't familiar with this activity, it is the act of joining a corporation with the specific intention of going on a gleeful killing spree of it's members, taking advantage of the mechanics which allow a character to shoot members of his own corporation in high security space without being CONCORDed.
Haedonism Bot goes on Safari
I've been hearing a lot about this lately, particularly from the community of my fellow Belligerent Undesirables. I've been encouraging my own alliance members to go out and Safari carebear corporations, and to set a good example I decided to try it out myself. Here is how it played out.
Target: NXS Mineral and Ore Extraction
To find a target I checked the corporate recruitment ads in the EVE Online forums. NXS was the first industrial corp listed. So I sent in a blind application with my Safari alt, who I had rolled a couple of days earlier. The app read "I'm a new player looking to join some mining fleets." Then I logged off, and a couple of hours later, EVEMon was telling me that I had a notification that my app had been accepted.
First Kill: Retriever
First Kill.
After that I logged in for an hour or so wach day, but there were only a couple of people flying around, and they were just in Retrievers. I was pretty sure from their advert that they sometimes did mining fleets with their Orca, so I waited. After 3 days or so, nobody had undocked in an Orca while I was on, so I decided to cut my losses and try another corp. Reluctantly I undocked, used the in-game map to locate the one guy who was out mining at that time ("find corp members in space"), went to his belt, said "ohai!" in local and blew him up.
We got into a bit of entertaining smacktalk in corp chat after this. The log is a bit too lengthy to post all of it here, but I do like to share, so here it is.
Anyway, basically I figured I'd just play the thing out from there. I was kind of in a hurry to find a juicier target and move on, but felt obligated to at least try for some kind of ransom first. They were pretty much newbs, for the most part, so I started at 50 mil, and dropped the price to 30 mil a bit later. By the time I got done bantering with them, it was getting fairly late, so I opted to stay in space cloaked up for the night so they couldn't boot me, and see who would be on in the morning. A few corp mails went out:
...and with that I went to bed. Second Kill: Noctis The next day I logged in, afked a bit until a couple of people were online. This corp was really sleepy, usually there were just one or two at a time. Eventually I found two of them on in the same system, a dead end system with one gate out and no stations. I figured they were either mining or running missions, so I went there, thinking I'd camp the other side of the gate and catch them as they jumped out to turn in their mission or empty their ore holds or whatever. A weird coincidence in timing happened though. As I landed on the gate they were both there, in a Raven and a Noctis. The Raven warped off, and the Noctis jumped into the dead-end system. I jumped after, but my reaction time was slow, and he warped off. So I jumped back, put my drones out and waited. i figured the Raven probably had no point fitted, so I wasn't scared of it. (Would have hunted it down, actually, if I had logi support with me. The Noctis had to come out of there sometime, though.
At this point, they have noticed that I am ATK, so they begin to talk to me in corp chat. Neither of these guys had been online during the previous night's Retriever kill, so they were a bit confused about what was happening. I played it like the whole thing had been a sort of practical joke between the retriever and I.
[23:46:52] Zortron Andros > could we have a word ?
[23:46:57] Unexpected Platypus > sure
[23:47:08] Zortron Andros > care to explain what happened ?
[23:47:43] Unexpected Platypus > oh, we were just joking around, don't trouble yourself about it :D
[23:48:03] Unexpected Platypus > those guys are such kidders
[23:48:29] Zortron Andros > well, you did kill his retriever
[23:49:09] Unexpected Platypus > yes, well, i have a medical condition. my finger twitches uncontrollably near the F1 key sometimes
[23:49:17] Unexpected Platypus > nothing ii can do about it....
[23:50:30] Zortron Andros > so it was a one sided joke
[23:51:15] Unexpected Platypus > yeah, i apologized and reimbursed his isk, but he just wants to keep the joke going i guess, haha to each their own
[23:51:48] Zortron Andros > that i'll have to confirm with him.
[23:51:55] Unexpected Platypus > ofc
[23:51:55] Zortron Andros > how can we know you'll not do the same again?
[23:52:18] Unexpected Platypus > you have my word on it
[23:53:59] Zortron Andros > good to know
[23:55:23] Zortron Andros > so what are you up to now?
[23:56:02] Zortron Andros > ok
[23:56:06] Zortron Andros > are you sure about that ?
[23:56:58] Zortron Andros > really ?
[23:57:02] Zortron Andros > are you that person?
[23:57:30] Unexpected Platypus > haha
[23:57:33] Unexpected Platypus > guess so
Second Kill.
Right about when Zortron said, "so what are you up to now?" was when he jumped his Noctis back through the gate, and of course I pointed him and blew him up. Here are the full chat logs for your enjoyment.
That was pretty much the end of this safari adventure. I chatted a bit with the one guy who stayed logged in (a good guy, actually, who I still talk to from time to time), and left the corp to find more lucrative targets, then got caught up in some alliance business, and haven't safaried again since.
Final Impressions
Safariing people is really fun. This particular Safari didn't result in any noteworthy kills, but once I made the decision to actually start shooting, the whole thing was really amusing. There was a fair amount of downtime, when I was afk cloaked and just hanging out doing things on another account, but when the killing was happening, it was as satisfying as any other dastardly deeds that I have committed in EVE. This is also an activity that new players can do with a bit of direction and mentoring, which is also great. Next time I think I will target a larger corp though, this corp had 24 members at the time, and there were usually no more than 3 online.
This is an after action report I took from our alliance forums, prettied up for blogging. Enjoy!
Young terrorist: Zybber
So I was minding my own business yesterday, when Zybber, an Icelandic chap who recently joined RVFRO remarked in corp chat that he had missed the previous night's Thrasher roam, and he had yet to get his first PvP kill. Obviously this was a situation that needed to be taken care of. So I decided to take him out into the asteroid belts of Solitude and gank a few miners. As we were getting ourselves ready, a few more guys logged on and decided to join the fun. I sent my spotter out into the belts in Boystin, and quickly found a small mining fleet, including an Orca and two Hulks, as well as assorted barges. A surreptitious scan confirmed that the Hulks had no tank. I did a few quick calculations and decided that we had enough DPS to kill both Hulks simultaneously. I would solo one of them with my 624 DPS Catalyst, while all of the other guys hit the other one.
We got a little bit of local smack out of it:
[ 2013.03.02 00:25:27 ] Kalim Dabo > gf
[ 2013.03.02 00:27:54 ] Dirk Scabbard > did you kill anything?
[ 2013.03.02 00:28:06 ] Kalim Dabo > Kill: ZIF W (Hulk)
[ 2013.03.02 00:29:11 ] LackofGuilt > fagits die in a fire
[ 2013.03.02 00:40:18 ] Aragoni > "fagits". Cool story bro
and a supporter hopped in our public channel to congratulate us:
[ 2013.03.02 00:38:58 ] Dirk Scabbard > I wondered why so many people were in local when I logged on
[ 2013.03.02 00:39:19 ] Marcus Aler0n > lol
[ 2013.03.02 00:39:56 ] Kalim Dabo > 11o/
[ 2013.03.02 00:39:58 ] Kalim Dabo > 0/
[ 2013.03.02 00:40:08 ] Kalim Dabo > cannot type today lol
[ 2013.03.02 00:40:15 ] Marcus Aler0n > I forgive you.
[ 2013.03.02 00:41:41 ] Dirk Scabbard > y'all solved a problem for me - yesterday I abandoned 5 Hob IIs in space: today I picked up 5 abandoned Hob IIs
[ 2013.03.02 00:41:49 ] Marcus Aler0n > lol
[ 2013.03.02 00:41:49 ] Kalim Dabo > lol
[ 2013.03.02 00:41:57 ] Kaleo Faust > glad we could help
[ 2013.03.02 00:42:00 ] Kalim Dabo > glad we could do you that service
[ 2013.03.02 00:42:55 ] Dirk Scabbard > Is it standard to put strip miner I on a Hulk?
[ 2013.03.02 00:44:33 ] Kalim Dabo > i have only seen that in places where ppl expected to be ganked, pretty unusual
[ 2013.03.02 00:45:19 ] Kalim Dabo > we were wondering why he went with the expensive mining upgrades, but T2 lasers and no crytals at all
[ 2013.03.02 00:45:30 ] Marcus Aler0n > ;lol
[ 2013.03.02 00:45:51 ] Marcus Aler0n > I put strip miner1's on a hulk cos I'm lazy and don't wanna fuck with crystals.
[ 2013.03.02 00:46:31 ] Dirk Scabbard > what are those mining upgrades worth?
[ 2013.03.02 00:46:39 ] Kalim Dabo > 15 mil each
[ 2013.03.02 00:46:47 ] Dirk Scabbard > well done
[ 2013.03.02 00:47:10 ] Kalim Dabo > yeah, usually you actually lose money killing miners
[ 2013.03.02 00:47:28 ] Kalim Dabo > it's more for sport than anything else
[ 2013.03.02 00:48:09 ] Dirk Scabbard > I'll bet you surprised them - you surprised me that you came to this neighborhood to gank miners
[ 2013.03.02 00:50:26 ] Kalim Dabo > haha
[ 2013.03.02 00:50:53 ] Kalim Dabo > it's always more fun when they least expect it
We made one mistake in this engagement - I forgot to remind everybody to take their safeties off prior to the warp-in. So while I was cheerfully exploding my target, they were fumbling with their safeties, and barely got a shot off before CONCORD arrived. Oh well, live and learn.
Ragtag band of Gankers
Anyway, more people logged on and wanted to join, so we waited out our timers and reshipped, then went out scouting more targets. A quick check of the ice belt in Niballe revealed 5 Mackinaws going about their business. I scanned a few of them and found 2 without significant tank. The challenge here was that they were spread out all over the belt. We had six or seven guys at this point, and it seemed a waste to just take one down. So I set up two bookmarks "Gank1" and "Gank2", and divided the squad to spread the DPS to kill both of them. All that was fine, but I made a few serious mistakes in the execution.(Perhaps a few too many beers at this point ) I put the two groups in separate comms with separate direction to carry out the gank. This was stupid of me. I could have had us all warp to our respective targets at the same time, targets them at the same time, and fire at the same time without splitting us up like that. What can I say, I'm bad at EVE. Also, I myself warped to the wrong bookmark, meaning we had too much DPS on one target and not enough on the other. Anyway, we popped one Mack with a Pithi shield booster, and I got his pod too. Unfortunately the loot gods did not smile that day.
[ 2013.03.02 01:15:51 ] EVE System > Channel changed to Local : Niballe
[ 2013.03.02 01:46:18 ] lxAlvoxl > wow guys really
[ 2013.03.02 01:46:33 ] Kalim Dabo > gf
[ 2013.03.02 01:46:34 ] Cael Sotken > yep
[ 2013.03.02 01:46:36 ] Cael Sotken > gf
[ 2013.03.02 01:46:39 ] Geyene > gf
[ 2013.03.02 01:46:49 ] Aragoni > GF
[ 2013.03.02 01:47:00 ] Melony Matudan > Marked Kos, watch your backs
[ 2013.03.02 01:47:17 ] Aragoni > and not a single care was given this day.
[ 2013.03.02 01:47:31 ] Kalim Dabo > oooooooooooh so scared
[ 2013.03.02 01:47:55 ] Melony Matudan > good
[ 2013.03.02 01:48:04 ] Kalim Dabo > http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lfvpbpKscl1qafrh6.gif
[ 2013.03.02 01:48:41 ] Pyotr Kropotkin > poor bear =(
[ 2013.03.02 01:48:59 ] Melony Matudan > unsuspecting targets are the best targets
[ 2013.03.02 01:49:21 ] Geyene > unfortunately, you just told ust told us we're your targets
[ 2013.03.02 01:49:27 ] Geyene > soooooo we're kind of expecting it now
[ 2013.03.02 01:50:24 ] Melony Matudan > well you said you dont care lol so dont care haha
[ 2013.03.02 01:51:58 ] Sara Steel > you guys want to buy some new thrashers or guns for em?
[ 2013.03.02 01:53:10 ] Kalim Dabo > sure
Sara Steel was an ice miner in the belt who watched it all go down, and was eager to supply us with guns and ships to continue taking out his industrial rivals. He then convoed me:
[ 2013.03.02 01:53:27 ] Sara Steel > o/
[ 2013.03.02 01:53:33 ] Kalim Dabo > 0/
[ 2013.03.02 01:53:36 ] Sara Steel > what kind of guns you need for em?
[ 2013.03.02 01:53:41 ] Sara Steel > and/or other stuff
[ 2013.03.02 01:53:44 ] Kalim Dabo > lol
[ 2013.03.02 01:54:20 ] Kalim Dabo > we actually don't need them atm, but could use T2 light neutron blasters and 200mm autocannons soon
[ 2013.03.02 01:54:41 ] Kalim Dabo > good right atm, don't have much isk on my hands
[ 2013.03.02 01:54:44 ] Sara Steel > rgr.. I'll see if I can fire up some production on em
[ 2013.03.02 01:54:59 ] Kalim Dabo > cool
[ 2013.03.02 01:55:07 ] Kalim Dabo > talk to you soon then
[ 2013.03.02 01:55:14 ] Sara Steel > I'll try and make it a good deal you helped me by blowing up my comptition out here
[ 2013.03.02 01:55:29 ] Sara Steel > and helped me and my associates sell our products.. macks and ice harvesters
[ 2013.03.02 01:55:36 ] Kalim Dabo > haha
[ 2013.03.02 01:55:50 ] Kalim Dabo > good times
[ 2013.03.02 01:55:58 ] Sara Steel > can you link me the kill? I want to know how stupid he was fitted
[ 2013.03.02 01:56:37 ] Kalim Dabo > Kill: Ursas Gasiminika (Mackinaw)
[ 2013.03.02 01:56:50 ] Kalim Dabo > pithi shoeld booster
[ 2013.03.02 01:56:53 ] Sara Steel > Wow.. nice loot
[ 2013.03.02 01:56:54 ] Sara Steel > pity it didn't drop
[ 2013.03.02 01:57:11 ] Kalim Dabo > loot gods didn't really smile on us, but good bragging rights
[ 2013.03.02 01:57:50 ] Kalim Dabo > later o7
You have to love how opportunistic EVE players are - as we called it a night and left the system, another guy was complaining in local about the poor quality of salvage he had gotten from our little adventure.
After the last kill, I hear an unmistakably Scandanavian accent in Teamspeak. It was Zybber. "Uh...I fucked up man. You want me to loot the wrecks?" Poor guy missed the warp-in and didn't get a shot off. Rest assured, I'll make sure he kills something soon.
For any of you that are following the story of the Revolutionary Front, we have been focused increasingly on high security space for the interesting gameplay potential that it presents, as well as the isk that is to be made there. It's also a great place to train the newbros, with a wide variety of soft targets ripe for the plucking and a gentle learning curve.
"If the opponent feels no pain you may be forced to break bones..."
Many of our newest members had persisted in running low level missions and even (shudder) mining to make their iskies, so in an effort to both improve their income and break them of the carebear mentality I have been encouraging them to take up the Way of the Space Ninja. This is to say, haunting highsec mission hubs and scanning down bears running level 4s, then loot and/or salvage their wrecks, and if they should be so foolish as to aggress us, returning with a combat ship to hold them ransom or gank them. These pursuits require minimal skills, are fantastic ways for new players to become proficient with d-scan and combat probing, and are quite good income. A week old player who is running level 2 missions might be making 1-2 million isk per hour. When he takes up ninja-ing he can drastically improve that with a small investment in isk and SP.
Preparations
A would-be ninja would be well advised to have some skills trained and ships ready before he goes to work. There are three basic ship types that he will be primarily concerned with as a solo ninja - the prober, the looter, and the tackler. You will find some discussion of these and sample fits below.
Prober
You will need a ship capable of fitting an expanded probe launcher, with Sisters Combat Scanner Probes, and Gravity Capacitor Upgrade rigs. I also like to put a cloaking device of some kind on mine, so that I can hang around in space probing people down when I have a suspect flag without worrying that somebody will hunt me down and pop me. You can fit the low and midslots how you like. You might want a codebreaker or an analyzer in case you have the opportunity to raid an exploration site, or you may want to fit a tank of some sort. The ideal ship for this is a Covert ops frigate, but today I'm talking about basics for newbies, so any T1 exploration frigate will be just fine. Here is an example:
[Probe, anal]
Nanofiber Internal Structure I
Nanofiber Internal Structure I
Nanofiber Internal Structure I
Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
[empty med slot]
[empty med slot]
[empty med slot]
Expanded Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I
Prototype Cloaking Device I
[empty high slot]
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
[empty rig slot]
Looter/Salvager
The main thing here is to have a ship that is cheap, light and fast, with a reasonable cargohold. You will get shot at in this ship, so being able to maneuver on a hostile grid and get away without being killed is your top priority. The Vigil is a fine and classic option for this, but most any fast T1 frigate will do. You should have Salvagers in the highslots, Salvage Tackle and/or Cargohold Optimization rigs, and Expanded Cargoholds in the lowslots. I always recommend that the midslots carry a Passive Targeter and a Ship Scanner, because any time that you are in close contact with a mission runner you should be checking to see if he fits expensive modules that might make him a suitable target for ganking. You also want to dual prop with an MWD and an AB, as maximizing your ability to maneuver on grid is key to your survival and success. Here is a sample looting Vigil:
[Vigil, Thief]
Expanded Cargohold I
Damage Control I
Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Experimental 1MN Afterburner I
Passive Targeter I
Ship Scanner I
[empty med slot]
Salvager I
Salvager I
Small Salvage Tackle I
Small Cargohold Optimization I
Small Cargohold Optimization I
Tackler
The third ship that you want to have staged and ready is a tackle frigate. This is to take advantage of those times that the bear decides to shoot at you. As a very new player, you probably can't take the bear out solo if he is in a battleship and you are in a frigate, but you can come back and warp scramble him, and prevent him from leaving. Once he is in this position, he is in your power. He may have drones that can hurt you, so you want to shoot these down first, but after that it is unlikely that he can track you with his BS sized guns, so just orbit him close and keep him pinned down. Then, see if you can get him to pay you ransom to let him leave. If there are still rats on grid shooting at him, they will be making him sweat as well, and may even kill him while you hold point, enabling you to to loot his wreck. As your skills improve, it can be worthwhile to do this with an ECM ship, just to prevent him from targeting the rats and allow them to do the damage for you. Here is a basic ninja tackle fit:
[Slasher, ninja tackle]
Damage Control I
Micro Auxiliary Power Core I
Medium Azeotropic Ward Salubrity I
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Balmer Series Tracking Disruptor I, Tracking Speed Disruption Script
Limited 1MN Afterburner I
125mm Light Gallium Machine Gun, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S
125mm Light Gallium Machine Gun, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S
125mm Light Gallium Machine Gun, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S
E5 Prototype Energy Vampire
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Small Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Small Core Defense Field Extender I
Skills
Yow will need some basic skills to be able to probe effectively. The minimum that I would suggest would be the following:
Astrometrics 4 - will allow you to launch 7 probes, a nice number to use.
Astrometric Pinpointing 3 - Gives your probes greater accuracy.
Astrometric Acquisition 3 - Allows you to probe faster.
In addition, you will obviously want your basic skills to fit all of your ships and modules. You will need to be able to operate a MWD, AB, etc. If you want to salvage you will need to train Salvaging to 3 or 4 as well.
Location
Find yourself a mission hub (Google is your friend). Go and check it out. you want to see at least 60-70 people in local at any given time to make sure you will have plenty of targets to choose from. Check the surrounding systems out too, missions tend be one jump away quite often. Ideally you want to have 2-3 contiguous systems with plenty of mission runners hanging around.
Once you have identified your hunting grounds, stage your ships. You will want to keep a looter and a tackler in each of your systems ready to go. Make sure that they are fitted and insured. Usually one prober is enough to work with, but if you are working several different mission clusters you may want to keep a prober in each one and jumpclone between them. The idea is that you go out in your prober and scan down the bears, and if the system is quiet you move on to the next one, and you always have a looter and tackler handy to take advantage of whatever you may find.
Finding those Fucking Bears
Here is the hard part. Not that hard actually, but it does take a bit of practice to get good at it. You know there are bears about, but they are off in their unaligned mission pockets, so what to do? You need to locate them.
D-scan
The directional scanner is your handiest tool. Best to get comfortable with this now, because it will serve you well wherever you go in EVE. I'm not going to do a complete tutorial on d-scan here. (Try Youtube). Where ninjas are concerned with d-scan is using it to locate a mission pocket which contains both a mission runner, typically in a Battleship or a T3, and large wrecks. Noctes (Noctises) are also telltale clues. Once you have located your mission bear's general location with d-scan, it is time to drop your probes.
Combat Probes
If you are a new player, and you have never done your exploration tutorial missions, go and do them now. That will give you the basic idea of how to probe things down. The concept is the same if you are using Core Probes to find exploration sites or Combat Probes to find ships. You have already located the general area of your Bear, so narrow down the range to 2 AU or so, spread the probes out, and drop them in his general area on the map. If you don't find his ship siganature, widen the range and try again. Once you have the signature, narrow down the range and location until you have him at 100%. Then save the location.
This video explains combat probing technique far better than I can. It was made for the context of wormhole scouting, but is equally applicable for the ninja. If anything it is easier for us, because our targets are not concerned about being probed down, and usually oblivious to d-scan.
I have Him! WTF I do now?
If you are probing in a Covops, go and scout out the mission to see what is there. If you are in a T1 prober, don't worry about it. Dock up and switch to your Looter. Undock and warp to the bookmark you saved for the Bear. You may find a variety of things there - wrecks, Bears in Battleships/T3s, Noctes, red crosses, acceleration gates.
The most important things for you to do are to activate your damage control and keep moving at all times. Your looter is a dual prop ship, so when you are alone on grid or nobody is targeting you, you can use your MWD to flit around quickly. If the grid is more busy or hostile, switch to you AB so you will be harder to hit.
Now you are here, you have the choice to loot or salvage. Salvage is way less valuable, but you can do it without getting flagged as a suspect, so the bear can't shoot you without getting CONCORDed. However, this is boring, so go for the loot. Either way, go for the large wrecks.
Sometimes, you land in the mission and find the Bear or his friend cleaning up the wrecks in his Noctis. Do not be deterred by this! One of my corpies said it best:
"I write today to give you a tip about a certain ship which is close to the mission bear's heart : the Noctis. It is a ship dedicated to making looting and salvaging easy and fast for the bear - the bear just parks this beast somewhere central on the wreck field, and tractors the wrecks in from up to 70+km away, looting and salvaging them as they get close. many a bear has told stories in local about how the noctis is the ultimate ninja cock block - the ninja flies around and tries to salvage and loot wrecks, and as the ninja approaches a wreck, it is snatched away from them by the mighty noctis. then, the bears laugh heartily and toast each other with white wine spritzers sprinkled with ninja tears. cool story bro. Unfortunately for the bear, the noctis can be the well-trained and equipped ninja's best friend. Yes, if you try to grab wrecks in a field being worked by a noctis, it can be quite frustrating - the whole wreck field is in motion, and the bear always knows which wreck you're going for. However, that's obviously not how we roll. The smart ninja orbits the usually stationary Noctis at 1000m. As the bear pulls the wrecks in, the ninja just loots and salvages them as they come in range. Because you are orbiting at 1000, you are often in range if the wreck before the bear is, and can do a loot all and salvage by getting the jump on him. You need salvaging V, tech 2 salvagers (at least 2 or 3) and a couple salvage tackle rigs to pull this off (you basically have to get it in one cycle), but it is a sweet trick. it pretty much requires you to loot all, and be quick on the draw, but hey, we're ninjas, right? Now the advantage is turned on its head - the bear doesn't know which wreck you're going for until you fire up your salvagers, and if you're running 2 or 3 at a time, you've got a great chance of grabbing just about everything. In this respect, you can think of the Noctis and the bear sitting in it as your personal wreck retriever - if the bear has a noctis, now you have a noctis too! as you can imagine, when the bear realizes that his rather pricey ship which was supposed to make looting and salvaging a breeze has turned into an 80mil isk way to fuck himself over, he can get a bit salty - so leave some extra cargo space for the tears. also, it is customary, but not required, to tip your mission bear for this service." - Geyene
Holeysheeet! He's shooting at me! What do I do now, Bot?
Your first concern, should the bear decide to start shooting, is to save yourself. Keep your transversal up by making sure you are flying at an angle to you. In your frigate you are pretty hard to hit, so don't panic. Best to GTFO by warping off. Once you have gotten away safely, have a good hearty laugh, because that bear may have just made the worst mistake of his EVE career.
Never fuck with a ninja.
You now have a limited engagement timer, that allows you to legally attack the Bear without feeling the wrath of CONCORD for the next 2 minutes. This gives you enough time for you to batphone your friends, get into a combat ship, and go attack the bear. At the basic level this is the tackler we discussed above. At more advanced levels, you may be getting into a cruiser or battlecruiser, or any ship that can has the DPS to take him out, and calling your friends to assist with Logi support.
Go back in your combat ship, tackle the poor foolish scrub, and demand your ransom. He'll either pay you or he won't. Then, should you choose to do so and have the DPS to pull it off, wreck him and loot/salvage his ship. Even if you don't have enough DPS, don't be afraid to just hold him there and make him pay for you to let him go, or let the NPCs finish him off. A two day old noob in a tackle frigate can realistically get hundreds of millions of isk in ransoms or loot doing this, and you risk nothing but a 1 million isk tackle frigate - so be bold, be ruthless, and make things happen.
The ISK
As with most forms of piracy, ninja-ing can be a bit hit-or-miss, but usually provides a fairly steady moderate income with the potential for jackpot ransoms or loot. A good mission pocket can get you easily 20-30 million in NPC loot drops for 30 minutes or so of work. The key is consistently finding good missions, and for that it is best to be mobile. If one mission hub is slow or dried up, move on to another. In this way you can usually haul in between 20-40 million isk/hour with only a couple of days investment in SP and a few million in ships. Compare this to a new player with equivalent skills running Level 2 missions making maybe like 2 million isk/hour.
Disclaimer - I make no claim to be an authority on this or any subject, rather I'm just a noob-at-heart documenting my experimentation with the Dark Arts of EVE Online and inviting you to share my journey. Commentary and advice will be appreciated.
So, since my last post I have created my alliance, built my corp a bit more, and had some successful PvP ops. Most of this has been funded from my own wallet up to this point, and the well is beginning to run dry. Reluctant to resort to carebearism, I've decided lately to go full pirate for awhile in an effort to raise some isk the fun way. This will probably be the first of a series of articles exploring my efforts and lessons learned.
The Target: Mission Runners
You all have seen these guys in local if you have spent any time in highsec. They have 5.0 security status and fly around solo in battleships, often blinged out with faction modules, and without any kind of point to trap you. Most of these people are completely antisocial, will not reply if you address them in local, and are never on comms with anybody. Even if they have corp-mates in local, they may not be in contact with them in any practical way. Obviously these fellows are juicy targets. Even if they won't pay ransom they may very well drop loot that more than pays for your ammo, to say the least. The trouble is - they hide behind the shield of CONCORD much of the time and have enough EHP that suicide ganking is a costly endeavor.
Habitat of the Mission Runner
Minor mission hubs with adjacent lowsec systems
The average mission runner lives in deep highsec. They can be located easily by using Dotlan. Choose a highsec region and filter the map to NPC kills. Large numbers of NPC kills in highsec usually come from either mission runners, and to a lesser extent from ice miners. When you locate a system with high numbers of NPC kills, click on it and on neighboring systems to figure out where the Level 4 Security Agents are located. To a lesser extent you may be interested in Level 3 agents if you are targeting battlecruisers. The ideal hunting grounds for you as a pirate will not be the biggest and best mission hubs, where there is more competition, but rather those a bit off the beaten path with moderate levels of activity and adjacent lowsec systems. Check the lowsec systems for both NPC kills and Ship/Pod kills. The higher the ratio of NPC kills to ship/pod kills the better.
Highsec Tactics
There are several tactics that I have heard of. In highsec systems you have basically three options.
Wardec mission running corporations. Ultimately this may be the most profitable but requires a significant investment in time and patience to pull it off.
Suicide ganks. Unfortunately, mission boats often have a significant tank. This may be profitable if you have staked out a target and ship scanned him, so that you know that he is carrying expensive faction or officer modules. The technique is simple - scan him down, plug his fit into EFT to figure out what kind of tank he has, assemble a fleet that has the DPS to take him out before CONCORD arrives, locate him in a sensitive position (like in the mission pocket), gank him and have a friend loot the field. Divide the spoils. I haven't tried this with mission runners yet, but it is an undeniably effective tactic when you know that the loot is likely to be worth the expense.
Bait the mission runner to attack you first. I've attempted this a few times without success, but I have heard of it being done. The idea is to scan down a battleship signature with combat scanner probes, get in a combat ship and warp into his mission pocket, then loot one of his wrecks so that you go flashy, and perhaps taunt him in local or a private convo to get him to shoot you. Then defeat him in combat, ask for a ransom and/or blow him up, loot the field and run away.
Lowsec Hunting
This has been my most successful tactic. Basically, you need to find a good lowsec system. Ideally it has no stations, nobody lives there, it isn't connected to the wider network of lowsec systems and there is no piracy activity there to speak of. And it is adjacent to a highsec system where a significant number of people run level 3 and 4 security missions.
The Mission runner may look ferocious, but is a docile and foolish beast.
Once you have found a good system, get yourself a scanning alt. Mine flies a Probe with a Prototype Cloaking Device and combat scanner probes. Put him in your lowsec system, park his ship about 100km from the entry gate and cloak up. Then alt tab over to your main character and go about your business, just make sure that you and any friends who might want to come along stay within a jump or two of your hunting grounds. Form a fleet with anyone who is available to come and make your scanner alt the FC.
Once you are set up like this, just be patient. I keep the sound on for my alt so I can hear the gate flash if anybody jumps into my lowsec system. Eventually, a mission runner will show up, thinking he is safe to run his mission.
When he does, observe his ship type and the direction that he warps off heading to his mission pocket, Then quickly get your probes out and alert your fleet to get ready to jump in. Probe him down as quickly as you can and get your probes back in. I've found that most mission runners are blissfully unaware that there is such a thing as d-scan, so your probes probably won't alert them to danger. Sometimes they do, and he runs away, and you just have to wait for the next one.
Once you have the signature, jump in with your fleet, have your alt fleet warp everybody to the mission runner and do your thing. I like to do this in cheap T1 frigates with lots of ammo in the cargohold. Get in close so that his guns can't track you, warp scramble him and shoot down his drones, then turn your guns on him and chew down his tank. Extract ransom and/or loot and run away.
Oh my, the tears...
The best part of all this is the reaction of the mission runners themselves. This is the main reason why I like to use T1 frigates for this, apart from their disposable nature and low cost. When you warp in on a battleship or battlecruiser and take him down with a handful of frigates (or even just one), it takes some time to get it done while you converse with your victim. These are long minutes of quality gameplay. The reaction typically starts alon g the lines of "WTF haha frigs," progresses to "F%#@ off kids," then transitions to "Please I don't have isk for ransom," and then to "HELP ANYBODY THEY"RE KILLING ME!" This is hilarious good fun for almost everybody involved. Mission runners almost never carry smartbombs, neuts, or points, so if you kill their drones quickly there is little to nothing that they can do to a frigate but watch you buzz around them like flies as you whittle their tank away. This also means that week old noobs can participate in this form of piracy almost as well as older characters.
The ISK
So far the isk hasn't been great. I'm still working out what the best value is for a ransom. My first battleships I've been asking for 200 million and then negotiating down as far as 125, but nobody has been paying. I think maybe I'll have to shoot lower, like 75-100 million. With BCs I've been asking 50 mil, but that's probably too much as well. The loot that I have been harvesting has been fair, 10 mil per wreck or so, but not enough to give decent isk/hour. I have hopes that I'll get a good jackpot officer drop or something, but it seems like setting relatively low ransoms is the best way to maximize profit. Perhaps I should leave it unsaid, but you will make more isk if you accept a ransom and blow the fellow up anyway (not that I would ever do such a thing, of course).
So I haven't been entirely satisfied with the rate at which the movement has been growing. We have steadily grown up to about 16 members or so in a month of recruiting. This isn't bad for a start, but some are more active than others, and there are several timezones involved. The bottom line is that the local PvP activity is fairly intense, and where we are not an elite crew by any measure, if we are going to win many real victories we are going to need numbers on our side. Not huge mega-blob numbers necessarily but I'd like to get to the point where I can call for a fleet and get 10 people or so to show up. That is the point at which I think the quality of gameplay will take a serious turn for the better for our little group.
It seems like the best way to get there is to be a part of an alliance. Since we started becoming active in Curse, I have been approached by several small alliances who have shown some interest in having the Revolutionary Front become a member corporation. I have been tempted to accept some of these offers in the interest of rapidly improving our opportunities for fleet action. The downside is that joining somebody else's alliance means sacrificing our own vision and our own autonomy to help somebody else achieve their goals. Sure, it would be the easiest path to EVE success, but I have never been good at doing things the easy way, when I can do them the right way.
Failscade Inevitable?
So I've decided to take the step of forming my own alliance. Then I'm going to see if I can attract some more small corporations who share my own views of the game to join. Essentially, rather than recruiting people one at a time, I'll be recruiting in fives and tens and fifteens. I'm not sure how well this will work out, but I think it is worth a shot. I'm thinking along the lines of going after the kinds of groups who don't really know what they are doing and lacking direction and purpose, then get them roaming with our fleets and suck them into the fold. Even week old corporations full of noobs who think they want to do industrial things may be fine, as I have found that if you give a new player a taste of blood and a sense that he is part of a movement he will quickly grow to understand what EVE is really all about.
Of course, this is all in the planning stages. The first thing I need to decide is what the new alliance will be called and what its ticker will be. The obvious thing would be to call it some variation of Revolutionary Front. Something like United Revolutionary Front or New Eden Revolutionary Front (NERF), or something related like Anarchists Union or Revolutionary Council. I can think of a hundred possible names like that, but I wasn't convinced that I had the most creative and memorable ideas. So I put it out there on several EVE forums that I was looking for suggestions for an alliance name, and hinted that there would probably be fabulous prizes if somebody gave me a name that I end up using. Here is some of what they came up with
Fluffed Sheep Alliance logo
Suggestions
Space Nerds in Revolt
Fluffed Sheep (BAAA.)
Sheep Fluffers (wtf?)
HELLO MY NAME IS (HELLO.)
Failscade Inevitable (FAIL. - you're going on the list, LanFear TyRaX)
Test Alliance Do Not Ignore
MARX (both alliance name and ticker)
REAL alliance please notice
Space intentionally left ganked
Twisted Technetium
Insert Alliance Name Here
Failboat Roamers
Old Hands Always Impress (OHAI)
Spaceship Hating Internet Thugs (SHIT)
Autocannons Anonymous
Singularity Solidarity Party
No Name Nullsec Nomads (NNNN)
Yeah, I'm definitely not satisfied yet. I need a name that will simultaneously terrify my enemies, be hilariously funny, and be instantly memorable for everyone that sees it. Bonus points if it also ties into the Revolutionary theme somehow. I invite you, internet people, to come up with something better.
