Name's Roach, and I'm a pirate.
It wasn't always like this, but that's another story. Let's just say, he who hunts pirates must take care lest he realize the pirates are, on the whole, having more fun. And while you scan the abyss for manageable targets, the abyss is scanning you. Then it goes: "Really, shouldn't you be over here?"
So, here I am, prowling the Sneezy system in my Celestis-class cruiser Rogue/Wizard, when I spot something out of place. There's a Hyperion in an asteroid belt. A battleship, quite capable of shredding a cruiser in seconds, assuming a straight-up slugfest. It appears to be hunting some poor schmucks from the Serpentis corporation.
This is wrong on so many levels. The Serps are dumb as a fifteen-line string of code, which is pretty much what they are. Non-Players. Even their battlecruisers can be handled in a cheap-as-dirt frigate. Simply put, bringing a 100+ million piece of hardware to do the job of a 250k throwaway ship indicates an astounding lack of sense.
Of course, he could be bait. There could very well be half a dozen guys sitting cloaked right next to him, or hanging on the stargate one system out, waiting to pounce. It's been known to happen.
But there's a reason I fly cruisers worth 10 million or less. Caution is for pilots in ships they can't afford to lose. I'm all about the adrenaline rush and the acceptable loss.
I double-check the ship scanner - yes, my target's still in that asteroid belt. Where in the belt, scanner doesn't tell, but... a battleship is - usually - slow as a glacier. Even if I come in at some distance, I can most likely close the gap and scramble his warp drive before he can align for escape.
Then again, I did give up some firepower and durability to squeeze a recon probe launcher onto my ship. Might as well use it. Out goes the Snoop probe and just over a minute later, I have the Hyperion's exact location.
Timber the shivers! Lock and load! Hoist the warp drive and avast the navigational array! (Fine. I live in the country, but I do not speak the language.)
My cruiser enters the belt a mere 20 kilometers off the battleship. Target lock acquired, warp disruptor activated. Let slip the drones of war, the missiles of vulnerability-specific damage and the railgun of every little bit helps.
I hold my breath.
An entire fleet of nothing decloaks off my bow. No cavalry charges into the system. Alrighty then. Just a matter of beating up a single ship ten times the size of mine.
The Celestis isn't a fast cruiser. It lacks the outrageous firepower of the Thorax. It's got nothing on the durability and drone complement of the Vexor. My current setup has no shield boosters, no armor plates, no repair systems. It will fall to pieces if a frigate gets lucky. The Hyperion? A few solid hits and I'd be gone.
If it could lock me.
What the Celestis has, is a bastard of a gadget called a remote sensor dampener. Actually, mine has three. This will slow any hostile target lock and reduce their locking range to a fraction. This is how you avoid a straight-up slugfest.
I'm not fast, but fast enough to stay between the maximum lock range of the Hyperion and the minimum range of my own warp disruptor. I don't hit hard, but he can't hit back at all.
The question becomes, can I break him? It's entirely possible to set up a battleship well enough to withstand all the damage a cruiser can dish out. Indefinitely. And the longer I take, the greater the risk of intervention. The Hyperion pilot might not have cavalry on standby, but this is Sneezy. Low-sec crossroads of the damned. Crawling with pirates, most of which are a lot scarier than me.
As my weapons chew away at his shields, I spot the tell-tale flash of a shield booster. Good news. Gallente ships lean towards reinforcing armour. His self-repair setup is not efficient. I might just be able to pull this-
Two minutes into the fight, his shield all but gone, the Hyperion pilot warps away.
I utter the curse of small-time low-sec pirates everywhere.
Bloody Warp Core Stabilizers.
A WCS will counter the effect of a single point of warp disruption, which is all I had. It badly hampers your own fighting ability - effectively sensor-dampening yourself - but this isn't much of an issue when fighting only AI pirates. It appears the Hyperion pilot wasn't entirely devoid of sense after all.
I shrug off the annoyance and prepare to look for targets elsewhere. One last check on the scanner before I leave...
Oh dear. I take it all back. Someone is setting a new galactic record for sense-lacking.
The Hyperion has not left. Not docked. Nor safe-spotted up. He has gone to another local asteroid belt. He knows I'm still around, but figures I can't pin him down long enough to kill him. Given my current ship setup, this is true.
Now, I could drop a sensor dampener and install one more warp disruptor, but it'd take some time. And for all I know, he could have two warp core stabilizers on. Three would be unlikely, since it'd make him so nearsighted and slow-locking that he'd kill things faster and further by getting out and throwing rocks.
I hop on a comm channel. My own corp mates aren't around, but we do have some friendlies. Well-mannered honourable dirty scumbags like ourselves. Most of them Swedes. Warms my heart.
"Got a ratting Hyperion in Sneezy. I know! Just need a couple points, don't bother with big ships. Anyone nearby?"
I get two enthusiastic replies. Grinning, I launch another Snoop probe. Twenty seconds before the result comes up, my Celestis is joined by a pair of other cruisers. Insomniac brought a Rupture. Fine ship, all duct tape, autocannon and heavy armour. Billy flies a Thorax, hard-hitting but somewhat glass-jawed. Also, it has an interesting, much joked-about shape.
In the belt, half an astronomical unit away, the Hyperion is blissfully shooting at non-players. Not running an actual agent mission, which might make his foray into low-sec vaguely profitable. Not keeping a close eye on the local channel. Not checking his scanner. Quite secure in the knowledge he brought enough WCS to run if trouble approaches again.
Guided by the Snoop, three cruisers land on top of him, all at once. It's not pretty.
If not for the running, I would've 'sploded him on my own, eventually. With at least three points of warp scrambling, he's not running this time. The 'Rax and Rupture being proper combat ships, there's about five times as much firepower being brought to bear.
The last of his armour breaking, the Hyperion pilot logs off.
Maybe he thinks this will save him. It won't - if you've been fighting, your ship stays in space for ten minutes even if you're not online. Maybe he thinks it will save his pod, with its expensive implants. There are better ways to do that. Ways that involve playing the damn game.
Now, I'm pretty easy-going as pirates go. I don't bother too hard with catching pods if there's no practical reason for it. (E.g, backup can warp directly to a gang-mates' pod, which means it's often prudent to "banish" them, even if they present no direct threat.) I don't respond to smack talk and will cheerfully compliment people who blow me up. Well. Most of the time.
What does offend me, is people trying to avoid losing by kicking over the poker table. So to speak.
A ransom demand now impossible, we gleefully batter away at the Hyperion until it explodes. The player being offline, the pilot's pod automatically initiates a one-million kilometer emergency warp and zooms off. Like a ship, it will remain in space for another ten minutes.
We loot the wreck. The surviving modules are nothing spectacular, but well worth the effort. I do some quick math and pay my cohorts equal shares. Thank them for responding on such short notice. Grin at the rush of beating up a 100+ million Hyperion in three cruisers worth at most a quarter of that. Non-sensible opponent or not, a battleship is a battleship.
Then I grimly deploy my last Snoop, find the playerless pod hanging in empty space and squish it. Name's Roach. I'm a dirty scumbag pirate. But I have standards.
Epilogue:
Two hours later, the magnificent Rogue/Wizard (bane of the unwary, avoider of fair fights, evil one-trick pony) is a flaming piece of wreckage.
See, I'm sitting in a safe-spot, just a bit giddy, not paying much attention. When my evil twin manages to probe me out. An Ares interceptor drops in and slaps a warp scrambler on me. Not a problem. I triple-sensor-dampen the speedy little bastard and his lock breaks. Completely failing to realize what the presence of an interceptor means, I decide to see if my combat drones can catch him. They can, just barely. I chuckle smugly, as the Ares pilot takes extremely evasive action.
At which point another Celestis and two 'Raxes come screaming out of warp and I get a terminal dose of my own medicine.
Blink and slip. You go boom. This is EVE and why we love her.
It wasn't always like this, but that's another story. Let's just say, he who hunts pirates must take care lest he realize the pirates are, on the whole, having more fun. And while you scan the abyss for manageable targets, the abyss is scanning you. Then it goes: "Really, shouldn't you be over here?"
So, here I am, prowling the Sneezy system in my Celestis-class cruiser Rogue/Wizard, when I spot something out of place. There's a Hyperion in an asteroid belt. A battleship, quite capable of shredding a cruiser in seconds, assuming a straight-up slugfest. It appears to be hunting some poor schmucks from the Serpentis corporation.
This is wrong on so many levels. The Serps are dumb as a fifteen-line string of code, which is pretty much what they are. Non-Players. Even their battlecruisers can be handled in a cheap-as-dirt frigate. Simply put, bringing a 100+ million piece of hardware to do the job of a 250k throwaway ship indicates an astounding lack of sense.
Of course, he could be bait. There could very well be half a dozen guys sitting cloaked right next to him, or hanging on the stargate one system out, waiting to pounce. It's been known to happen.
But there's a reason I fly cruisers worth 10 million or less. Caution is for pilots in ships they can't afford to lose. I'm all about the adrenaline rush and the acceptable loss.
I double-check the ship scanner - yes, my target's still in that asteroid belt. Where in the belt, scanner doesn't tell, but... a battleship is - usually - slow as a glacier. Even if I come in at some distance, I can most likely close the gap and scramble his warp drive before he can align for escape.
Then again, I did give up some firepower and durability to squeeze a recon probe launcher onto my ship. Might as well use it. Out goes the Snoop probe and just over a minute later, I have the Hyperion's exact location.
Timber the shivers! Lock and load! Hoist the warp drive and avast the navigational array! (Fine. I live in the country, but I do not speak the language.)
My cruiser enters the belt a mere 20 kilometers off the battleship. Target lock acquired, warp disruptor activated. Let slip the drones of war, the missiles of vulnerability-specific damage and the railgun of every little bit helps.
I hold my breath.
An entire fleet of nothing decloaks off my bow. No cavalry charges into the system. Alrighty then. Just a matter of beating up a single ship ten times the size of mine.
The Celestis isn't a fast cruiser. It lacks the outrageous firepower of the Thorax. It's got nothing on the durability and drone complement of the Vexor. My current setup has no shield boosters, no armor plates, no repair systems. It will fall to pieces if a frigate gets lucky. The Hyperion? A few solid hits and I'd be gone.
If it could lock me.
What the Celestis has, is a bastard of a gadget called a remote sensor dampener. Actually, mine has three. This will slow any hostile target lock and reduce their locking range to a fraction. This is how you avoid a straight-up slugfest.
I'm not fast, but fast enough to stay between the maximum lock range of the Hyperion and the minimum range of my own warp disruptor. I don't hit hard, but he can't hit back at all.
The question becomes, can I break him? It's entirely possible to set up a battleship well enough to withstand all the damage a cruiser can dish out. Indefinitely. And the longer I take, the greater the risk of intervention. The Hyperion pilot might not have cavalry on standby, but this is Sneezy. Low-sec crossroads of the damned. Crawling with pirates, most of which are a lot scarier than me.
As my weapons chew away at his shields, I spot the tell-tale flash of a shield booster. Good news. Gallente ships lean towards reinforcing armour. His self-repair setup is not efficient. I might just be able to pull this-
Two minutes into the fight, his shield all but gone, the Hyperion pilot warps away.
I utter the curse of small-time low-sec pirates everywhere.
Bloody Warp Core Stabilizers.
A WCS will counter the effect of a single point of warp disruption, which is all I had. It badly hampers your own fighting ability - effectively sensor-dampening yourself - but this isn't much of an issue when fighting only AI pirates. It appears the Hyperion pilot wasn't entirely devoid of sense after all.
I shrug off the annoyance and prepare to look for targets elsewhere. One last check on the scanner before I leave...
Oh dear. I take it all back. Someone is setting a new galactic record for sense-lacking.
The Hyperion has not left. Not docked. Nor safe-spotted up. He has gone to another local asteroid belt. He knows I'm still around, but figures I can't pin him down long enough to kill him. Given my current ship setup, this is true.
Now, I could drop a sensor dampener and install one more warp disruptor, but it'd take some time. And for all I know, he could have two warp core stabilizers on. Three would be unlikely, since it'd make him so nearsighted and slow-locking that he'd kill things faster and further by getting out and throwing rocks.
I hop on a comm channel. My own corp mates aren't around, but we do have some friendlies. Well-mannered honourable dirty scumbags like ourselves. Most of them Swedes. Warms my heart.
"Got a ratting Hyperion in Sneezy. I know! Just need a couple points, don't bother with big ships. Anyone nearby?"
I get two enthusiastic replies. Grinning, I launch another Snoop probe. Twenty seconds before the result comes up, my Celestis is joined by a pair of other cruisers. Insomniac brought a Rupture. Fine ship, all duct tape, autocannon and heavy armour. Billy flies a Thorax, hard-hitting but somewhat glass-jawed. Also, it has an interesting, much joked-about shape.
In the belt, half an astronomical unit away, the Hyperion is blissfully shooting at non-players. Not running an actual agent mission, which might make his foray into low-sec vaguely profitable. Not keeping a close eye on the local channel. Not checking his scanner. Quite secure in the knowledge he brought enough WCS to run if trouble approaches again.
Guided by the Snoop, three cruisers land on top of him, all at once. It's not pretty.
If not for the running, I would've 'sploded him on my own, eventually. With at least three points of warp scrambling, he's not running this time. The 'Rax and Rupture being proper combat ships, there's about five times as much firepower being brought to bear.
The last of his armour breaking, the Hyperion pilot logs off.
Maybe he thinks this will save him. It won't - if you've been fighting, your ship stays in space for ten minutes even if you're not online. Maybe he thinks it will save his pod, with its expensive implants. There are better ways to do that. Ways that involve playing the damn game.
Now, I'm pretty easy-going as pirates go. I don't bother too hard with catching pods if there's no practical reason for it. (E.g, backup can warp directly to a gang-mates' pod, which means it's often prudent to "banish" them, even if they present no direct threat.) I don't respond to smack talk and will cheerfully compliment people who blow me up. Well. Most of the time.
What does offend me, is people trying to avoid losing by kicking over the poker table. So to speak.
A ransom demand now impossible, we gleefully batter away at the Hyperion until it explodes. The player being offline, the pilot's pod automatically initiates a one-million kilometer emergency warp and zooms off. Like a ship, it will remain in space for another ten minutes.
We loot the wreck. The surviving modules are nothing spectacular, but well worth the effort. I do some quick math and pay my cohorts equal shares. Thank them for responding on such short notice. Grin at the rush of beating up a 100+ million Hyperion in three cruisers worth at most a quarter of that. Non-sensible opponent or not, a battleship is a battleship.
Then I grimly deploy my last Snoop, find the playerless pod hanging in empty space and squish it. Name's Roach. I'm a dirty scumbag pirate. But I have standards.
Epilogue:
Two hours later, the magnificent Rogue/Wizard (bane of the unwary, avoider of fair fights, evil one-trick pony) is a flaming piece of wreckage.
See, I'm sitting in a safe-spot, just a bit giddy, not paying much attention. When my evil twin manages to probe me out. An Ares interceptor drops in and slaps a warp scrambler on me. Not a problem. I triple-sensor-dampen the speedy little bastard and his lock breaks. Completely failing to realize what the presence of an interceptor means, I decide to see if my combat drones can catch him. They can, just barely. I chuckle smugly, as the Ares pilot takes extremely evasive action.
At which point another Celestis and two 'Raxes come screaming out of warp and I get a terminal dose of my own medicine.
Blink and slip. You go boom. This is EVE and why we love her.
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