"Universe, meet Bob. Bob, EAT universe."

The posting blitz continues with 3 posts in less than 24 hours. You'd think I was having fun in game or something.

Anyway, I hit a few milestones this weekend, but one in particular seemed worth sharing.

Meet Bob the Bhaalgorn:

I've always wanted a pirate battleship, and now I have one, thanks in part to the willingness of morons to give me their money/wrecks/loot.

I have to say, the practical application of this ship in my day-to-day ninja activities is going to be limited at first, as there are a few skills I want to brush up on a bit before I get ballsy with it. I have also gotten utterly spoiled by having an Orca on hand for ship swaps, and this tubby bastard is way too big for the ship maintenance bay.

The idea of having to wait out the session timer in the station to swap ships is fairly abhorrent to me at this point, so I think I am going to have to ween myself off using the Orca slowly. I will no doubt miss a few kills because I didn't get back to the potential victim fast enough, however any missed opportunities will be worth it when I finally get to warp this fucker in on top of some unsuspecting shlub and watch him shit bricks.

Yarr!

-Vil

You're Doing It Wrong

I am going to keep this one brief. Instead of lengthy storytelling, I've prepared a serious of clever slides to convey the point of this post.

Wait, what? But, wha... why?!

It get's better...

I won't even bother discussing the mid slots. I've said enough.

In summation:

Carebears are literally retarded. Killmail.

-Vil (is dissapoint)

Back in Buisness

"Human nature is such that people are born with a love of profit. If they follow these inclinations, they will struggle and snatch from each other, and inclinations to defer or yield will die. "

- Xun Zi

After a bit of a dry spell in the sucker department, I had a fairly good weekend all told. I bagged my first (two) faction battleships, and one of them was kind enough to fit himself with some faction loot for me. What a sweetheart, right?

The Victim:

It started at the end. I had been scanning down missioners all day on Sunday and I was just about to log off when I happened upon two Drakes and a Navy Issue Scorpion doing a Damsel in Distress mission. I ship scanned all three and saw that one of the two drakes was obviously higher SP and had a very decent fit, and the scorp had very nice selection of faction mods on it. Hoping they would bite, I went to work.

Now I both love and hate the folks who run missions in a posse, because they are far more likely to shoot at you, but it is always an iffy situation with that many ships. You have to make sure that none of the ships has a point or anything, as ninja traps are common in situations like these, and you have to make sure you can tank the damage that they are able to put out. I am confident with the tank on my Sleipnir, but even drakes can burn me down if there are enough of them and they are fit correctly.

Combine that with the fact that I usually end up missing out on the expensive ships, and it's doubly iffy. The majority of time I end up fighting tooth and nail and end up just killing a battlecruiser or something because the bigger ships will bail as soon as they take a shot.

Anyway, so I flew around this mission for a while in my vigil, looting and salvaging what I could, which if you have ever done this mission, isn't much (as the wrecks all salvage into heavy metal parts). I had pretty much decided that no one was going to shoot me after a few minutes so I figured I'd make the best of this and grab my super-duper ninja stabber to properly loot and pillage this usually fairly lucrative mission.

Turns out, a cruiser was a juicer target than a frigate, and the three stooges almost instantly shot at me.

I burned back to the orca, grabbed Steve (the sleip) and was back just in time to see one of the drakes warp off. The Navy Scorp however, was right on top of me. I locked him up, pointed him, and began to unload. I noticed that between the remaining drake and the scorp my shields were dropping really fast and I was barely able to keep up pulsing my x-large booster and burning through cap booster 800 charges. I had considered trying to get in range of the drake to put some pressure on him to make him leave, but he was almost 50km away, and I didn't want to risk having the point on the battleship drop.

So I gritted my teeth, overheated my guns, and kept shooting. Around the time I managed to get him through shields, the third friend reappeared in a Republic Fleet Firetail. My heart lurched when he popped up on my overview. Luckily though, he stupidly warped to his drake friend (40ish km out) rather than the scorp. If he had warped to the scorp he would have been close enough to establish a fast orbit and I could have been in trouble. After landing, he burned straight at me (transversal is hard) so I stopped shooting the scorp and turned the guns on the firetail. One volley got him to half armor, but the 2nd missed as he was close enough to start orbiting at close range. Luckily however, that first volley really hurt him, and I had small drones out. So I put the drones on him, and with no armor left he pretty much completely panicked and warped off.

At this point I put the guns back on the scorp and around the time he hit structure, the drake warped out. The fight was over at this point.

I tried for a ransom, admittedly aiming a bit high.

Oh well, perhaps 250 was a bit overzealous. Can't win em all.

And with a boom and a LOL, he went all explody. Killmail

All told I made about 150mil off of his loot, and the 840 mil value of his ship padded my killboard nicely. This was my most valuable kill to date, and was a mighty fine end to my recent dry spell.

Oh, and not to forget... when I was looting his wreck I couldn't help but notice that, luckily, the damsel had survived:

The random militants, ship's crew, and various other male denizens of the SuperFun Concetration Daycamp hangar were *very* enthusiastic about the new guest.

Good times.

-Vil

Hakai Ginma is a cold-blooded killer

I just wanted to toss up a quick note to commemorate my friend Hakai Ginma's very first solo kill. I made sure to swing by in my Tengu to take a picture for posterity:

The kill was *way* overkill, just like we like it in uCARE. The fairer the fight, the less interested we are in it, so today Hakai, you did us proud.

Killmail

The Furious Anger

"There is nothing more galling to angry people than the coolness of those on whom they wish to vent their spleen"

-Alexandre Dumas

It's been a good week, all things considered. I had one paragon of intellectual prowess give me 75 million to kill his Rokh on Sunday. This was doubly awesome as this was my first Tier 3 Battleship solo kill.

His comment with the donation was sweet too. *hugs*

Killmail.

I also especially appreciated the fact that he was thoughtful enough to help me pad my killboard by putting a Tech II CCC on that bad boy. Nothing says awesome like giving a pirate 75 million in ransom and then losing your 370 million isk ship anyway!

Later that day I had another genius named Dhanistha Athanasia suicide not only his Raven, but also his alt Noctis to me at the same time, which was rather entertaining. I entered a drone mission of some kind to find a Raven and Noctis, both with nearly identical names. I proceeded to fly around and loot only the expensive compounds, thinking this might get a rise out of them, and sure enough, Dhanisthawhatever took the bait. After he shot at me and before I even had a chance to leave the room myself, he immediately warped off with his alt. He didn't dock immediately, so I fetched the combat ship anyway, and when I returned to his now empty mission I decided to just chill for a while. I tossed out a few d-scans, but unfortunately he wasn't nearby.

With 2 minutes left on his aggression timer I had assumed he was docked and was about to give up when to my great surprise, Dhan and his alt warp back in and his Raven immediately starts yellowboxing me. Once the fight starts in earnest he unleashes his secret ultimate weapon.... REMOTE SHIELD REPPING BATTLENOCTIS. I really wish I had taken some screenshots of this epic execution of skill and strategery, but I was too busy laughing to be bothered.

Anyway, the Noctis took exactly 12 seconds (five HAM volleys) to kill. Oh well, better luck next time, buddy. His secret weapon handily dispatched, the Raven went all explody soon thereafter. I had intended to try a ransom, but had a bit of a snafu with my private message windows and wasn't able to talk to him before he popped. Needless to say, after both of his ships were dead, he didn't have much to say.

Killmail.

Last but not least, I thought I'd share a fun conversation I had with a very special uCARE contributor named Transporter:

Cha-ching! And then...

Right around the time I am viewing his info and realize that this character was created in 2003, he, of course, gets all bro on me:

Clearly me stealing his 50 mil and killing him anyway didn't get the point across that e-honor was not high on my list of priorities. I quickly set him straight.

Yep. http://ucare.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=9205778

-Vil

This shit just got real.

"All war is based on deception"

-Sun Tzu

Holy shit today was win. Only one kill, but I gotta say, it was pretty entertaining.

The Victim:

Like all of these things, it started with a wreck.

It had been a fairly boring day, with several promising situations (including one faction fit Golem that took a shot at me but docked up immediately afterwards), but no real bites for myself and the CARE patrol. I had told the girlfriend I was going to log off soon to watch TV, so I was about to quit for the night when I happened up a Worlds Collide mission in progress by our friend Sierra Alphatango here.

Upon warping through the first gate and landing in the first room, I find Sierra about to kill the final two NPC ships in the room in a Megathron. The real treasure in this room however, is an unlooted Gallente Battleship wreck! Hoping for a tech 2 bounty, I immediately zipped over to the wreck and looted it. Jackpot. There were 3 Meta 4 Large Railguns, 2 or 3 Tech II cap rechargers, some Tech 2 hardeners and a T2 large armor repper.

Unsuprisingly, Sierra here took exception to me profiting off of his earlier failure:

He was obviously stupid, because he immediately shot me, but I was hoping that by convoing him I could keep him busy typing long enough for me to get to the Orca, grab the Tengu, and get back. So I played innocent and kept him talking for a few minutes.

As soon as I entered the mission I dscanned in the direction of the warpgate and sure enough, his ship, simply dubbed "Megathron" was still on scan...

I overheated my AB to cross the 25km distance to the first warp gate. He sent the message about being about to leave right as I hit the Warp button at the gate. My heart was racing, I knew it was going to be close.

I landed in the room... just as the red name on my overview flickered off grid. I had missed him by less than 5 seconds. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement, but at this point it was still a huge win. I got about 15 mil worth of free shit from his wreck, and almost an entire mission to loot and salvage. So I decided to call in some of my buddies to come and salvage the mission. I hung out in the second room for a few minutes, but eventually decided to give up. I warped back to the Orca and went afk for a minute to grab a drink.

When I came back, I was just about to switch back to my probing ship when I noticed Sierra was still in system. I asked on comms if anyone was docked at the station, and Traigren was. I asked him to see if Sierra was docked, and he informed me that he was not. This meant the sucker was still in space! I figured he was probably landing at a gate to leave or was, well, anywhere other than the most obvious place to be (silly me to think so, right?), but I warped back to the first room of the mission and threw out one last dscan.

Holy shit, he was back in the mission! At this point I had about 5 minutes left on his agression timer, so I burned as fast as I could to the first gate. He wasn't in the second room, but the last NPC ship that was up when I was last there was dead, and he was still on dscan, so I warped into the third room, and there he was, 60km away. I had a moment of despair, as he almost immediately began to align to the station as soon as I landed on grid. Our Orca character doesn't have skirmish links yet so, at best, my point is good for 36km.

I had to at least try though, so I overheated and burned out to him anyway. A week ago I would have typed "I was expecting him to immediately warp out..." but of course he just sat there like a lump of stupid, waiting for me to come tackle and kill him.

Naturally, I was able to casually saunter over to him and point him, and when I lit him up his tank simply MELTED. I was taking advantage of his explosive resist hole, but even still, he didn't even seem to be repping or anything. I don't know if he suddenly had a narcoleptic attack or something, but it's no wonder he lost a Megathron earlier in this mission.

As he approached structure, I opened convo:

I figured a gentle reminder of his previous loss may yield some ransom results, so I went full speed ahead.

He hemmed and hawed for about 20 more seconds, and finally, my wallet blinked.

In all fairness, I DID say 10 seconds. Sorry, the kill request form had already been signed and filed at the head office while he kept me waiting. He had to die at that point, it's company policy you see. Killmail here.

I thought it was pretty cute that after all that he tried to get me to commit space sepukku by podding him. Sorry Sierra, you had the stupid well enough covered for the both of us, but nice try. As derp as all of this was, I do have to say that his response to my question about what he learned was fairly poignant and profound, if simplistic.

Not wanting to leave the poor crew of this mission heron hanging, I also went ahead and killed the last few ships in the last room and liberated the Ship's Crew.

The crew is doing well, only two of them were crushed by unsecured cargo on the trip back to the station. They are currently being offered controlled sanctuary in the SuperFun Concentration Daycamp area of our corp hangar, and will remain there indefinitely for their own protection.

Anyway, I think the total haul we walked away with was around 80 million, as the meta 3 and 4 guns we sold were worth many millions each, plus all of the tech 2 mods we got off of both of his wrecks and the 50 million donation he made to our righteous cause.

Good times.

-Vil

uCARE Killboard: http://ucare.eve-kill.net/?a=home

Things are starting to get productive (UPDATED)

“Betrayal is the only truth that sticks”

- Arthur Miller

So it's been a pleasantly busy couple of days. I managed to get 4 kills night before last, and then another 2 last night, along with my very first ransom (and subsequent double-cross).

The Victim:

The first probes dropped of the night netted me a sig that turned out to be a Dominix piloted by our friend BRONC0 here, so I warped to the mission as usual in my vigil and began to loot and salvage. A few minutes went by with no reaction from the Domi, and I had almost decided that he was just going to ignore me when a Thorax warped in practically on top of me and yellowboxed. I lost a vigil the other day in a situation just like this, and while vigils aren't expensive, I still had my finger on the warp button.

Sure enough, the Throax took a shot at me almost right away, so I warped to the WARCA to switch to my Tengu. Figuring the thorax would be long gone by the time I got there and that the Domi would continue to ignore me, I warped back.

I was of course pleasantly suprised to find that both pilots were still on grid. I suppose after I have done this long enough, my amazement at how stupid people are in this game may abate... but I digress. I locked the Thorax up and unloaded about 3 or 4 volleys of Cal Navy Fulmination HAMs at him and he just dropped like a rock, popping just as the Domi was opening fire on me. After the thorax died, it took me about 30 seconds to get the Domi into structure, and I figured, hey, let's try for our first ransom!

He didn't even think about it, try to stall, or negotiate. 10 seconds of deliberation and he paid right up. Clearly, I should have held out for more...

Okay, I will admit that I stole the BETRAYAL line from pioneering ninja and eminent scoundrel Paul Clavet, but in my excitement, I simply couldn't help myself.

Anyway, He went boom, and paid me for my time. He unfortunately didn't stick around long enough to ruminate on what he learned, and rage logged in his pod almost immediately afterwards.

Good times.

uCARE killboard: http://ucare.eve-kill.net/?a=home

EXTRA AWESOME UPDATE:

When going through my wallet after tonight's capers, I couldn't help but notice one transaction in particular:

Interestingly enough, the only Kinetic Hardener I had to sell was looted off of a Dominix I killed earlier that night. Weird, huh?

-Vil