my drones are like this.
Lately I’ve been plying the spacelanes in my Solo probing pilgrim. Pilgrim doesn’t get much love really, and understandably so, in order to fit probes on it you need to seriously compromise the tank and neuting power, but meh, I don’t like dual boxing a prober (and let’s be honest, I may as well just have a curse at that stage). Also our little lady in red has a fat ass.
I still enjoy her though, there is something about skulking around and creeping up on people before going RAAAAAAAAH NEUTS DRONES TD ARRRRR that just makes me giggle uncontrollably.
So off I went towards Egghelende, my old home, experience tells me it’s a good spot to snag the occasional confused missioner. Consider my disappointment when I entered local to find only myself present. Balls.
I hopped in the neighbouring system of Aliette and saw two in local, pressed Dscan and presto…
…Brutix
…Scorpion Navy Issue
Now, anything with a beefy passive regen (i.e. shield) tank and missiles is generally a bad target for a pilgrim, so I actually didn’t even consider taking on the Scorp initially.
I set about looking for the brutix with my probes only to notice local drop down by 1. I figured the Scorp probably saw the probes and bailed.
Scanning, Scanning, 1 hit… Battleship.
Wait what?
Ok so all that’s left is a Navy Scorpion, hmm. I asked in alliance what my chances were at beating it, most people agreed I was going to die like a bitch, but the ever enthusiastic MrChuckNorris told me to do it anyways.
Chuck gives bad advice a lot.
I still went in, I arrived to find myself in the middle of a pile of wreckage, no rats about, with a navy scorpion sitting right on my nose. Here goes nothing!
I engaged with everything, only to find that a Navy Scorpion with target painterS can hit a pilgrim just fine, his drones are also kicking my butt pretty badly.
Ok refocus, apply heat to repper, try to kill his drones.
He pulls em back in. Puts em back out. Oh you mother-
Right, I’m hitting structure, he has no point, time to be somewhere else.
I end up in my deep safe, my modules sizzling and my ship on fire. Fuck. I blew it.
noticing that my probes are still out, I hit scan on a whim. 100% hit on a navy scorpion. That idiot is still there.
I do some head math, I was obviously not killing him without help… But what if he went into the next mission pocket? There was a gate in the complex.
Telling myself to stop being a sissy (even though I just bought the pilgrim this morning) he has no tackle, so in the worst case scenario I can just bail again. I also realize I was being a tool on the first attempt, I’d been webbing him instead of his drones. Derp.
I finish repping up, some smoke still trails from my hull but it’s managable. I hit warp and land in the first pocket, Scorp is not here but still on Dscan. Good Game sir.
I pass through the gate and land right on his face, there is still Serpentis rats shooting him. Now or never.
Quicky I eliminate his drones using my web, and set about slowly chewing though his sizable shield, his cruise missiles are hurting me bad. 50% shield… 40% shield COME ON.
The damage slows down, I’ve neuted out his target painters, I’m dipping structure at this point and my repper is almost on fire. Balls to the wall. The Navy Scorpion lists to the side and explodes with a satisfying kaboom, my vantage point (being only meters away) is spectacular. I pull my drones, scoop the loot and quickly warp off and cloak up.
I spend the next thirty minutes trying not to be violently sick and shaking like I’m 95 years old. Probably should eat something BEFORE overdosing on adrenaline.
Two days later.
I’m out and about again, this time I’m not alone, Chuck is also in his pilgrim and on top of that we are accompanied by Rakkanar in his stealth bomber. We decide to head towards Antem, occupied by the Alliance-Formerly-Known-As Chains of Chaos (now, Dark Solar Empire). Readers of my blog will know them by the name Chains of Fail.
The trip over is largely uneventful but when we get to Antem, we are greeted by a local FULL of reds.
Except there is only a harbinger on scan.
I voice my concerns but Chuck, ever the eager beaver, is already in warp to a belt. I sigh and follow suit.
We land right on top of (what turned out to be) a stabbed harbinger, but unfortunately for him Chuck has a scram.
Now, bear in mind that even a single pilgrim will ruin a harbinger’s day, let alone two and a stealth bomber.
The results were predictable and Tragic as we destroyed both the ship and the pilot’s capsule.
Stab up that, bitch.
We hang around for a little bit to see if the locals stir, but nothing undocks and after our GCCs are up we head further towards the EVE gate. It’s at this point that something interesting happens a few jumps out.
Waveshifter, who has just joined us in his sentinel notices that a POS in local doesnt have a forcefield up and moves to investigate. He finds a bunch of silos, an XL ship assembly array and various other modules floating around the unpowered POS unguarded.
Being a bunch of vandals we immediately begin taking the POS apart piece by piece. A hulk and Prorator pop from the ship array and we have a hulk pilot and hauler come our way in case we can snag any goodies. Piled of Vanadium and Tungsten float in cans amidst the wreckage. Unfortunately spoil sports arrive before our hauler can and we are forced to pop the loot cans (if I can’t have it, NO ONE CAN).
The kicker?
The POS belonged to Dark Solar Empire (chains of fail) as well bwahahaha. suckers.
Three days later.
Today, I’m determined to kill something in a wormhole. This is no mean feat, because that requires me to FIND a wormhole first. On the way to the area I intend to probe, I find yet another unshielded POS. what is it with people? seriously. Sadly the only poppable bit present is a moon harvester. I kill it anyways, because that’s just how I roll.
I spend most of the days going in and out of various wormholes, most of them are devoid of inhabitants, I have a bit of a game of hide and seek with an Orca that is trying to collapse the hole on me… the game is ruined when his CARRIER joins the fun. I nearly snag a legion in a different hole, but he outruns my point and bails (yes really).
Grumpy, I’m heading back towards home (I’m at the literal END of lowsec 35 jumps from goinard at this point) when I probe around while I’m waiting for a Chains of Fail fleet to bugger off (I think they are chasing BALEX).
Another wormhole!
Heh, why not.
I go inside and poke around and notice two drakes on dscan. Wary of giving myself away I use the onboard scanner instead of probes to pick up the sites in system.
Only a single site appears, no doubt the drakes are there…
I warp at range and indeed find two drakes fighting the sleepers in the site, I realize that despite my success on the Scorpion earlier this week, my current pilgrim does not have kinetic resist rigs and probably can’t kill a WH drake fit anyways.
I sulk in my ship for a bit when I remember someone telling me the story of a pirate CEO going “ice mining” by killing a bunch of mackinaws.
I decide to opt for the same tactic, I creep close to a wreck and hold position while the drakes (slowly) finish the site. One of them warps off when the site is complete, the other oddly burns off into the distance, in no particular directions.
HMMM.
Now, at this point I pretty much KNOW a salvage boat is going to appear… but which? I’m praying Noctis…please be a Noctis….
AND IT IS!
I crack my knuckles and let out an evil little cackle in alliance chat as creep into range of the noctis, which is salvaging the wrecks at a frantic pace. Decloak. Point. DRONES. *pop*
One dead Noctis and 22mil or so in salvage in my cargo. Hells to the yeah.
All the while the second drake is burning into the distance, I’m guessing he is AFK or something.
I briefly toy with the idea of going after him, but decide that I can’t break a 500dps passive tank with any sort of expediency even if I neut off his hardeners.
I quietly make my way to the exit, imagining how much yelling there will be in their voice comms later.
It’s so good to be bad.
