Weekend Break - Nalvula

Living in the same system for more or less a year makes you familiar with the area, but with familiarity comes boredom, you know exactly what will happen if you shoot a ship belonging to a member of this corporation, he is undoubtably baiting with a Falcon alt cloaked up around him. Therefore, every once in a while I like to go on a "weekend break" as it were, moving a few ships to another system.

For my latest break I decided to move to Ishomilken, home of fellow pirate corporations Fla5hy Red and Python Cartel. Whilst I have had some contact with Python when they lived in Old Man Star, I have not dealt with Fla5hy Red before, just knowing that they were formed from ex-Guristas Associates, another pirate corporation.

My ship of choice was my simple shield Harbinger, packing enough punch to deal with any Battlecruiser solo and having enough speed and agility to outrun the majority of ships out there, making it ideal for solo PvP.

Making my way over there on the 20th of November after finding the area around Hevrice devoid of any activity, I ran into little resistance.

Even when I arrived in Ishomilken, the system was dead. Thus, I moved onto Mara, where I finally found some action. A Falcon was decloaked 100km off a stargate, dropping combat scanner probes. Landing ontop of him, I quickly reduced him to half structure before he could jam me. Unfortunately, a Bhaalgorn, Megathron Navy Issue and Tempest landed ontop of me and I was forced to flee.

Not finding anything else of interest in space, I chose to head towards the 0.0 entry systems in Lonetrek, as there tends to be a ton of PvP happening around these systems. This proved to be correct, as jumping into Nalvula, which was along the way, I spied a Russian Raven doing a mission. A minute later, thanks to my alt I was landing on the acceleration gate to his mission. A minute after that, he was dead, his ship reduced to debris.

The Raven, Caldari Battleship

 Waiting out GCC in a safe spot, a Merlin and Thrasher appeared on D-scan, both with original ship names (X's Merlin etc.). Warping to top belt on a hunch which proved correct as both ships were there. Popping each one took a single volley, same deal with their capsules.

Whilst waiting out my now-renewed Global Criminal Countdown, my scout alt revealed a single Sniggwaffe Hurricane engaging a gang composed of roughly a dozen ships, varying from frigates up to battlecruisers 500km off a stargate. The probes were once again deployed, 30 seconds later my Harbinger landed 50km off the Hurricane and about 70km off the enemy gang. Making a beeline for the gang, the Hurricane warped off. The gang now focusing on me, I managed to pop a suicidal Stabber who was kind enough to plow into me. The rest of the gang warped off as I turned to approach them.

Below is the conversation in local before, during and after the fight.

[ 2010.11.21 00:41:50 ] Vladimir Norkoff > my god you guys are terrible.. it's just ONE hurricane
[ 2010.11.21 00:42:08 ] Vladimir Norkoff > (though tbh I am rooting for the GOON)
[ 2010.11.21 00:48:34 ] mdkREAPERmdk > tusker faggot
[ 2010.11.21 00:48:45 ] mdkREAPERmdk > killmail whore tbh
[ 2010.11.21 00:48:46 ] Suleiman Shouaa > Ouch, wasn't going to fire on you
[ 2010.11.21 00:49:02 ] Vladimir Norkoff > feh... and it was such a good fight
[ 2010.11.21 00:49:14 ] mdkREAPERmdk > you locked me i got scared :(
[ 2010.11.21 00:49:20 ] mdkREAPERmdk > i know pajama sam dont kill meeeee!
[ 2010.11.21 00:49:27 ] Suleiman Shouaa > He knows me :)
[ 2010.11.21 00:49:33 ] mdkREAPERmdk > \o/
[ 2010.11.21 00:50:26 ] Suleiman Shouaa > Gotta love their attitude

Pajama Sam is an ex-Tusker who joined Sniggwaffe. After talking to him in The Tusker's Public Channel, he convinced me mdkREAPERmdk was not as mean as he came across and is a big softie. :)

Returning to my safe spot, I had a quick bio break. When I returned, a Loki had me tackled and was orbitting me at 30km.

The Loki, Strategic Cruiser class 

After a few minutes of shooting him, it was clear that I was unable to break his tank due to Minmatar T3 Resists against Lasers and he was unwilling to come in closer so I simply burnt away from him and warped off.

I docked up to repair, whilst in the meantime my alt spotted a Deimos in a safe spot. Recognising the ship name as one of the members of the gang from earlier, I secured a warp in with my alt and quickly dispatched him. A quick look in local revealed that he had actually logged off with aggression, which would not stand. Probing down his capsule after it finished emergency warping, I popped that as well.

Docking up again, but this time to drop off loot, I spied a Proteus with a Oneiros on scan. Narrowing them down using the scanner, within mere seconds it was clear they were running a mission: mission NPC rat wrecks were on scan with them. Once again cracking out the probes, my alt started working on them. Shortly afterwards I was in warp to the spot he had probed down.

Unfortunately, they had left the mission but it was still active, judging by the number of rats still left. Waiting a few minutes in a pounce safe-spot, I warped in again but they managed to escape before I could target them. After a few more minutes of this being repeated, I noticed the Oneiros was simply sitting in a safe spot close to the mission whilst the Proteus warped in first to check it out. Probing him down was trivial and in no time at all I was tearing through his armor. Holding him in place in low structure, I wanted to tempt his Proteus buddy out, but after a few minutes it was clear he wasn't coming so I therefore finished him off, with his capsule escaping.

At this point, I went AFK for 15-30 minutes in a station. After undocking, I noticed the Loki pilot from before being outside the station in a Deimos. As he warped off, I noticed his direction and sent my alt over there to investigate. He was clearing a Radar site, which I had conventionality probed down earlier. Warping in with my main, he ran back to the station before I finished landing.

Once back on station, I decided to toy with him, to see if he would engage me. Ungrouping my guns, I started firing two lasers out of seven at him, hoping he would take the bait. After some chatter in local, engage me he did! Opening fire with all seven lasers, I easily broke through his tank and he started running away. Unfortunately, I got stuck on the station and he got away. :(

Local before and after:

[ 2010.11.21 02:05:22 ] Lady Thanatos > I don't know what is worse
[ 2010.11.21 02:05:25 ] Lady Thanatos > a deimos tanking you
[ 2010.11.21 02:05:29 ] Lady Thanatos > or you engaging on a station
[ 2010.11.21 02:06:51 ] Suleiman Shouaa > Where I'm from we actually engage on stations
[ 2010.11.21 02:07:04 ] Lady Thanatos > I'm sure you do
[ 2010.11.21 02:07:10 ] Lady Thanatos > and ruin your pretty killboard?
[ 2010.11.21 02:07:17 ] Lady Thanatos > I don't think I've ever heard such a lie
[ 2010.11.21 02:07:30 ] Suleiman Shouaa > You must not pvp much
[ 2010.11.21 02:07:42 ] Lady Thanatos > never do
[ 2010.11.21 02:08:59 ] Lady Thanatos > not going to engage again?
[ 2010.11.21 02:09:34 ] Suleiman Shouaa > Just wasting charges if you won't fire back
[ 2010.11.21 02:09:39 ] Lady Thanatos > fine
[ 2010.11.21 02:09:40 ] Lady Thanatos > I will this time
[ 2010.11.21 02:11:43 ] Lady Thanatos > ehhe told you I would

Deciding I had enough fun in this system, I moved on, entering Sniggwaffe's home system. Despite this, I found nothing undocked so I headed back to Nalvula. One of the members of Python that I knew from my Assault Frigate Tournament was in local - IEATCRAYONS so I had a brief chat with him before checking out a small loop of systems. Passing through into Nalvula again, I found 2 Drakes with GCC sitting on a stargate. Warping in at range, I started pewpewing them and took them both down.

Megathron, Gallente battleship

Heading back to Ishomilken, I docked and logged in Aurohunen after attempting to kill a neutral Megathron on a stargate. He was in 5% structure as I was forced to warp off, with me also being in 5% structure. Was very, very close, if I had slightly more tank I would have killed him.

And thus ended the first day of my break. More was to follow.

Rend

As mentioned in a previous blogpost, I lost my Abaddon after many glorious battles and purchased a new one, calling it Rend after someone suggested it in the comments for that blogpost.

Rend, my new flagship

Eager to test it out in battle, I threw it into many situations where a simple Battlecruiser would not suffice. Unfortunately, most people are intimidated by its mere presence and decided to either dock up or leave the field once it arrived.

However, I finally found an opportunity to use it in glorious combat. Late at night on a weekday, just before turning in, on a whim I decided to scan down any wormholes near Hevrice to see if there was anything to kill. Joking around with corpmates on Ventrilo, someone mentioned that knowing my luck, I would find 4 Tengus running Sleeper sites whilst I was in the midst of jumping into a wormhole. Pulsing the directional scanner as I was about to retort, I spied 3 Nighthawks and a Drake on scan, but with no POS on scan meaning they were running sleeper sites!

A Nighthawk, Caldari Command Ship

Mentioning this over comms, my corpmates started asking whether I was kidding or not. Assuring them I was not, we quickly assembled a fleet together after gathering further intel, such as the fact that the wormhole system was a Class 3 Wolf-Rayat system, giving moderate bonuses to armor resists whilst giving moderate penalties to shield resists. All in all, we rallied together 3 Amarr Battleships along with our own Drake, as well as a Heavy Interdictor for initial tackle on the wormhole entrance.

As my alt reported that they were warping to the next site, our Broadsword jumped into the wormhole and was warped to the next site courtesy of a second scouting alt. Moments later, "Bubble up" was heard and the rest of the fleet warped in. They all fell, despite them scattering in different directions in an attempt to pull away.

With the Heavy Interdictor preventing their pods warping off, we grabed individual points, in several cases chasing pods down with the Battleships. A hefty ransom of 500M was paid for the pods. All in all, we made a quick ~750M once the Nighthawks as well as the Sleeper wrecks were salvaged. After insurance, this would almost pay for the price of Rend, a good start! But I wanted more, and did I get it!

To be continued...