EVE Online - EVE-Pirate.com (Entries tagged as noob)

Bern's Piratey Travels

nospam@example.com (Bern) — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 02:07:00 +0200

Well, my first post got a good response, something I'm rather happy about. I haven't posted in a while, and a few thing things have happened between then and now, so I'm going to lump them together in a happy post of my greatest and not all latest exploits.

Casting back in time a bit to maybe two weeks after my first kill, I was once again out cruising for someone to flip, and there are always targets for those who are willing to search. I'd already found that, for that day at least, my home system was dead to can miners (and I think I'd started becoming known to a few of the regulars), so I'd gone further afield in my hunting. I trawled through system after system and found no one who I could flip, that was, until I landed in a near-dead system on my way back home. I had my scanner open and out of habit, hit the scan button and on the results was a cruiser and a LOT of cans. I quickly narrowed the search field and tracked them down to a deserted belt, which I promptly warped into. There, in front of me, was a Vexor can mining; but he wasn't just mining into one can, he had been filling his cargo bay and then jettisoning each time, I was spoiled for choice. I sidled up to the nearest can and promptly flipped it then took myself into a close orbit around the cruiser, waiting for the response. I knew flipping a Vexor might be a bad idea as they could deploy a whole world of drone based hurt on my ass if flown by a good pilot, but the pilot was young, only a couple of months old, same as me, so I figured that I'd chance it.

Anyways, sure enough drones were launched from the Vexor, 1 Ogre I. I couldn't suppress a gleeful chuckle; the drone wouldn't even be able to hit me, let alone kill me. I locked them up and almost instantly, they flashed red as the Ogre began lumbering towards me. I hit my scrammer, then began the task of quickly webbing and annihilating his drone. That done, I proceeded to cut through his shields and armour and got him into structure. It was at this point I remembered ransoming. I opened a convo with the pilot and offered him a deal of 1 mil to let him go. As he had a Vexor, I figured he could afford it. He said he couldn't afford it and exited the convo; so I promptly returned his ship to the star dust it once was. He asked me why I had shot at him, I replied that he shot first and then left to go get my indy collect the ore and the loot. It was when I picked up said loot that I found that they'd had a few Hammerheads in their drone bay the whole time, but never launched them. Wonders never cease.

After that little encounter, I was flush with my victory, but also disappointed. It had been stupidly easy to down the Vexor, I wanted more of a challenge. So, even though it was getting late, I set out hunting again. I found a target one system over from my home, an Exqueror mining into a can. I checked out the pilot, roughly 3-4 months old, a good bet that unless he had set a trap, I could take him. I moved in and flipped the can before moving in to orbit him and lock him up. What happened next I didn't expect.

He stole his ore back.

Instantly I unleashed all of my guns on him and soon after the ship turned into a fireball. The pod warped off without a word and I set about stealing the ore back to my can, already thinking about logging off after 2 successful, if lackluster kills. It was then that he came back, in a Thorax. My pulse went into overdrive. I knew the Rax's reputation, in good hands it could melt a Frig in seconds, and even in average hands it was a serious threat. But even so, I hadn't had a decent fight, and the adrenaline in my veins told me that I only had one option; I burned straight for him.

Immediately, he opened up and I saw my shield drop horribly as his medium blasters caught a glancing blow on me, and he quickly followed by releasing a swarm of Hammerhead Is. I was in entirely unknown territory, and only a sliver of advice on this site stopped me from disengaging and bugging out. Med drones can't land good hits on a fast moving Frig, especially Tech 1 drones. With that in mind, I maintained my burn and quickly established a close, fast orbit around him. His guns ceased to be a threat as I flew rings around their tracking, but the drones were eating into my armour fast. I scrammed him, then began the process of webbing and destroying his drones. It was touch and go at first, I was killing the drones, but they were landing hit after hit, and they were mounting up. Soon enough however, the skies were clear of any drones but mine, and I set to work chipping away at his shields. They went down in a prompt fashion, but then I hit his armour and found he had a semi-decent tank going. I kept on hitting him, but I was making small headway, if any, and my ammo was depleting fast. And then, all of a sudden, his tank broke as he ran out of cap to support it. My blasters melted through his armour and then punched holes into his structure to finally end the fight in a glorious explosion. I convoed the pilot after the fight to wish him a GF, as should always be the case, and we got talking, with me giving him a few pointers on how to avoid a similar situation happening again and how to improve his fit, although he definitely had the right idea. In the end we parted on good terms.

Overall, it was a good night.

Killmails:
2010.04.19 22:05:00

Victim: SpacyCasey
Corp: Black Dawn Industries
Alliance: Unknown
Faction: Unknown
Destroyed: Vexor
System:
Security: 0.8
Damage Taken: 3736

Involved parties:

Name: Bern (laid the final blow)
Security: -0.2
Corp: Evil Hunters
Alliance: The G0dfathers
Faction: NONE
Ship: Incursus
Weapon: Light Ion Blaster II
Damage Done: 3736

Destroyed items:

Salvager I
Miner I, Qty: 3
Cap Recharger I
Mining Drone I, Qty: 3 (Drone Bay)
Expanded Cargohold I, Qty: 3
10MN Afterburner I
Hammerhead I (Drone Bay)

Dropped items:

Scordite, Qty: 181 (Cargo)
Miner I
Mining Drone I (Drone Bay)
Expanded Cargohold I
Ogre I (Drone Bay)
Hammerhead I, Qty: 3 (Drone Bay)

2010.04.19 22:33:00

Victim: Estha'r
Corp: KUSHI-NADA-HIME
Alliance: SOLITUDE COALITION
Faction: Unknown
Destroyed: Exequror
System:
Security: 0.9
Damage Taken: 3013

Involved parties:

Name: Bern (laid the final blow)
Security: -0.2
Corp: Evil Hunters
Alliance: The G0dfathers
Faction: NONE
Ship: Incursus
Weapon: Light Ion Blaster II
Damage Done: 3013

Destroyed items:

Miner I
1MN Afterburner I
Expanded Cargohold I
Survey Scanner I
Mining Drone I, Qty: 2 (Drone Bay)

Dropped items:

Basic Expanded Cargohold
Plagioclase, Qty: 3538 (Cargo)
Miner I, Qty: 3
Expanded Cargohold I

2010.04.19 22:51:00

Victim: Estha'r
Corp: KUSHI-NADA-HIME
Alliance: SOLITUDE COALITION
Faction: Unknown
Destroyed: Thorax
System:
Security: 0.9
Damage Taken: 8350

Involved parties:

Name: Bern (laid the final blow)
Security: -0.2
Corp: Evil Hunters
Alliance: The G0dfathers
Faction: NONE
Ship: Incursus
Weapon: Light Ion Blaster II
Damage Done: 8350

Destroyed items:

10MN Afterburner I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I
Medium Armor Repairer I
Device (Cargo)
Heavy Neutron Blaster I
Heavy Electron Blaster I
Uranium Charge M, Qty: 7

Dropped items:

Damage Control I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I
Cap Recharger I, Qty: 2
Capacitor Power Relay I
Heavy Electron Blaster I, Qty: 3
Uranium Charge M, Qty: 161

Now the tale, everyone, is not quite over. I have one more story to regail you with, and one I think is a great deal funnier than my previous encounters.

We're fast forwarding to the present day now, and after a spell of inactivity, I was back hunting again. I had been training ship support and combat skills during my inactivity and I was itching to test them on some unsuspecting carebear. Well, I found one, oh boy did I find one.

I had been cruising around for a little while, not finding much of interest. Or when it was interesting it was a blatant pirate trap that only an imbecile would fall into. An example of both was an AF, flown by a year old pilot, with a string of combat Corps in their history, sitting apparently mining into 2 jettisoned cans. The imbecile was a month old pilot in a Catalyst who took the bait only to be vapourised in roughly 30 seconds. That one gave me a chuckle, but I wasn't any closer to finding my own target. Until I managed to scan down a Retriever mining into a can. I sent a quick prayer of thanks to whatever might be listening to the prayers of a pirate and moved in to flip the can. No sooner had I done so than the pilot convoed me;
?[ 2010.06.15 16:50:18 ] Him > im getting my bs and im gona blow your ass to peices
?[ 2010.06.15 16:50:33 ] Me > No problem here
?[ 2010.06.15 16:52:56 ] Him > so tell your buddies to warp in
?[ 2010.06.15 16:53:13 ] Him > cuz i knowhat your trying to do noob

He warped off to station, leaving me sitting in the belt pondering whether I should, indeed, call for a little help from my corp. He was roughly 7 months old so, if he had a BS as he said, I wasn't too worried about him being able to fly it well, or even hit me with the unwieldy heavy guns most likely attached to it. It was more from the aspect that I was pretty sure even a badly fitted BS could tank my lone Incursis and his generally asshattish comments had made me want to take him down no matter what. I put in an inquiry into my corp asking if anyone was nearby, but sadly, no one was. After a moment of deliberation, I decided to see what he showed up in before finalising my plan of action. It was lucky I did, as he didn't turn up in a BS at all, but a Brutix. I couldn't help but grin, this situation was quickly looking up. I immediately closed the distance between him and me, making sure that if he opened up, he'd have a damn hard time hitting me. I still wasn't sure if I could break a tank on a Brute, but I figured that I wouldn't know until I tried. He launched his drones, and my grin only got wider; they were Tech 1 Hammerheads. If there's something I've noticed about EvE, it's that, for Gallente territory anyways, you can tell a lot about a pilot's combat ability by their drones. A good Galent combat pilot with have T2, even if they don't specialise in them. It's silly not to want the added damage and resilience they bring. He, however, had T1, and I was pretty much convinced by this point that I was in the far superior position. He continued to sit with his drones out, but didn't open up. After a minute, and watching the aggression timer tick down, I decided to try to push him into combat.

[ 2010.06.15 16:56:26 ] Me > So're we doing this or not?
?[ 2010.06.15 16:57:27 ] Him > yup
?[ 2010.06.15 16:57:31 ] Him > just us
?[ 2010.06.15 16:57:34 ] Him > no friends
?[ 2010.06.15 16:58:05 ] Me > That's correct yes. I was going to ask for help if you brought a BS, but a BC is usually a solo affair

I'd come across similar suspicion before, I once sat and stole millions worth of ore on my own from a corp mining op because they were utterly convinced I had corpies waiting to jump in and buttseks them all when they opened up on me. I knew I had to convince him it was safe to combat me, and that I was just a stupid combat junkie with too much free time. This is how it went down:

?[ 2010.06.15 16:58:18 ] Him > ire when your ready to die
?[ 2010.06.15 16:58:25 ] Him > wait 1 sec
?[ 2010.06.15 16:58:36 ] Him > y the fuck r u even doing this?
?[ 2010.06.15 16:58:43 ] Me > For the thrill of it
?[ 2010.06.15 16:58:51 ] Me > Plus any ore I can grab on the side
?[ 2010.06.15 16:58:54 ] Him > to die?or lose a ship
?[ 2010.06.15 16:59:02 ] Me > Done both numerous times
?[ 2010.06.15 16:59:22 ] Him > well lets settle this then i ant my ore back
?[ 2010.06.15 16:59:35 ] Me > Whenever you're ready
?[ 2010.06.15 16:59:40 ] Him > fire when your ready to die
?[ 2010.06.15 16:59:53 ] Me > Er, you think I want Concorded? I ain't that stupid
?[ 2010.06.15 17:00:08 ] Me > If you fire though, we get to duel as I stole from you
?[ 2010.06.15 17:00:22 ] Him > well thats to bad cuz i kno your going to tell your buddies to hop in when i fire
?[ 2010.06.15 17:00:28 ] Me > Oh please
?[ 2010.06.15 17:00:39 ] Me > A BC isn't worth that
?[ 2010.06.15 17:00:45 ] Him > sure
?[ 2010.06.15 17:00:54 ] Me > Plus, they're all away in 0.0
?[ 2010.06.15 17:01:02 ] Him > your 200k ship isnt worth my 20 mil ship
?[ 2010.06.15 17:01:32 ] Him > i dont trust liers and thifes
?[ 2010.06.15 17:01:59 ] Me > You think? Look mate, if I wanted to gank a miner's combat ship with my buddies, I'd go to low sec
?[ 2010.06.15 17:02:17 ] Me > This is just us, alone, with you in a much bigger ship

He went quiet for a moment, what I'd said seemed to have struck a chord with him. I waited with baited breath and suddenly, with less than a goddamn minute on the aggression timer, he opened up with Railguns. His drones also started knocking away at my shields, and he seemed to think that he was winning (even though he couldn't land a single turret hit) as he commented:

?[ 2010.06.15 17:04:36 ] Him > just run

As per standard procedure for me, I knocked out his drones first. They fell like flies to my upgraded skills and now T2 Hobgoblin I had along as additional DPS and soon I was hacking into his shields. It was then I found his tank, a shield tank. It was almost laughable, but annoyingly, it was holding up relatively well against my onslaught, I was only making progress in fits and starts; something he noticed.

?[ 2010.06.15 17:05:24 ] Him > i can rep you damage all day noob

What he didn't seem to realise was that I was still making head-way, and soon after, his cap gave out. My blasters started to chew hungrily through his armour, much to my glee, and his death was all but assured. But even better, was the turn the conversation took next.

?[ 2010.06.15 17:06:04 ] Him > ill give u 1 mil to leave me alone
?[ 2010.06.15 17:06:14 ] Him > ok?
?[ 2010.06.15 17:06:30 ] Him > ok 5 mil
?[ 2010.06.15 17:06:37 ] Him > how much?
?[ 2010.06.15 17:06:39 ] Me > 10 If you can afford a 20 mil ship yu can afford that
?[ 2010.06.15 17:06:44 ] Him > just stop plz
?[ 2010.06.15 17:06:54 ] Him > ok 10 nil stop
?[ 2010.06.15 17:07:01 ] Me > Send the cash, then I stop
?[ 2010.06.15 17:07:08 ] Him > stop plz
?[ 2010.06.15 17:07:22 ] Him > i only got 1 mil cash ill sell the ship plz stop
?[ 2010.06.15 17:07:52 ] Me > And how do I know that you won't skip out on the deal?
?[ 2010.06.15 17:07:57 ] Him > plz negoiate
?[ 2010.06.15 17:08:30 ] Me > Stop repping
?[ 2010.06.15 17:08:41 ] Him > ill give you 500k now and 500k when u stop web
?[ 2010.06.15 17:09:06 ] Him > i just sent u 900k
?[ 2010.06.15 17:09:15 ] Him > so plz stop
?[ 2010.06.15 17:09:35 ] Him > ill give u the rest when i dock plz i just want not to lose this ship
?[ 2010.06.15 17:10:33 ] Him > please just et me go
?[ 2010.06.15 17:10:41 ] Him > i wont mess with u again
?[ 2010.06.15 17:10:48 ] Me > To be fair, I messed with you

Well, eventually, he paid up a couple of mil, and I decided to let him go as I was getting bored with the whole affair and am, perpetually, too soft on my targets. His grovelling was my payment, and I watched him go, contented to have taught the moron a lesson he wasn't likely to forget.

And so we come to the end of my exploits for now. I hope that I've kept you entertained. I think that overall, I need to stop being so soft on my targets, as it occured to me later that I should've just told him to either eject or lose the ship, but c'est la vie and hindsight is a bitch. I'm still pretty much a n00b in a world that takes time to get any good at, and next time, my targets won't be getting off with a slap on the wrist and a humiliating defeat for being insulting little bastards.

Fly safe, or unsafe if that's your thing,
Bern

A series of unfortunate events.

nospam@example.com (faedenwulf) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:54:00 +0100

So this is my first entry on eve-pirate and one of my first few times
at pirating. Forgive me if this is badly written or not too awfully
interesting, hopefully with time and a little more experience in both
areas it will get better .....

Our story begins in Horkkisen, a dead end system right beside Eitu and
Erila. Horkkisen is a low sec system (.4) so most of the time if we
pirate we do it in the belts or at the plex gate for fear of being
ripped to shreds by sentry guns, that is unless someone decides to
aggress us first on gate. Anyhow, a few friends of mine finally found
the time to meet and play between work, which in our case is just
short of a miracle. We had devised what we thought would be a pretty
good pirating plan, scan someone down, warp in, point, and kill until
we could ask for a ransom. (I am going to use real names in this story
as i don't think there were any hard feelings between any of us) Robhe
was flying his newly acquired vengeance, an Amarrian assualt frig,
which is great for tank and tackle but not so hot on dps. I was also
flying an Amarr AF, the retribution which is an absolutely amazing
tank and dps dealer but sadly is gimped with only one mid slot so
basically robhe tackled and i (kalebhuff) dealt dps. We also had a
third memeber of our party, Laroqu, who was a fair nooblet still
within his 14 day free trial. We had him in a punisher and he was set
up to basically, as much as i hated to say it, be our "bait." He would
sit in a belt, pretend he was ratting and when someone aggressed he
would throw down a point and hopefully we could make it in before he
got popped . As soon as we landed in horkk I popped open the scanner
and had a quick look, we had a brutix and caracal on scan. First we
split up. I would check the plex gate and robhe and laroqu would start
on opposite ends of the belts and work their way inward. As fate would
have it laroqu found both the caracal and brutix working together
ratting in one of the last belts...muahahahahahah!!! I got ready, and
warped in on laroqu, robhe and I landed at about the same time.
Immediately the brutix set in on me and unleashed his drones (tech 1 hammerheads i believe..shoulda had t2).
He honestly wasnt doing too much damage because we were speed tanking and repping just fine, even laroqu in his t1 punisher.
After about 5 minutes he went pop...WOOOO! Our first kill! Then we moved onto the caracal, for some reason he hadn't warped off, call it loyalty or just not thinking, he was there. So we sent laroqu after him to pin him down. Here is where the story takes an interesting turn...after we had him pinned, one of my corp mates Kardea, warped in to give us a little back up. However he didnt realize that laroqu was friendly and had not been invited into the corp yet. He finished of the caracal in a matter of seconds, and then...proceeded to aggress laroqu. Immediately i start slamming the private chat we had been in "LAROQU IS FRIENDLY! STOP SHOOTING HIM!" It took Kardea about 5 seconds to pop laroqu and then he preceeded to traget his pod. Again I slam private chat, then slam local "LAROQU FRIENDLY!!!!!" All the while laroqu remains silent on coms, quietly accepting his fate. After he was killed Kardea apologized and laroqu wasnt upset, as his setup was easily replaceable. I am actually going to include a text message sent to my wife from his mom quoting laroqu while the whole thing went down, it was actually pretty funny to see how non gaming women view the game....

(Laroqu (Andy's) mom to my wife) So Andy is sitting over here going
"We've got someone in the system!!!!!
we've got someone in the system!!! Oh cardao is helping us.
I think Cardao is killing me.
Cardao is about to pop me
he already blew my ship up.
I got potted..."

Meanwhile in Olfeim...

nospam@example.com (Xonja) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:31:00 +0200

First off, I've been reading EVE-Pirate a lot a year or so ago, and always loved the stories. Haven't been reading a lot recently, mostly because i've hung up the eyepatch since my parrot had to go on rehab. All that rum wasn't good for him. I'm a part time killer now, but i guess this story still fits in here. Originally posted on my alliance's internal forums, a little birdie (not my parrot, although he and Nanobot share the british accent) suggested I re-post it here. Hope it makes you smile at least

As i'm moving the bit of stuff I still have in Bosboger over to Hek, I make a quick stop in Olfeim in my Ranis. Haven't been here in ages. Sure enough, it is the same sleepy system it always used to be. A deadend lowsec with only one entrance from a 0.5, it used to be playground for noob ratters and pirates alike. It's more than quiet tonight, and the tranquility carries over to me.

Bored, I warp around for a quick scan. I don't feel like engaging anything, having my cargohold full of the shiny faction stuffs i'm hauling. The faint "ping" of my scanner barely wakes me, and like in a trance I turn the dials and knobs. My tiny 'ceptor seems to move by itself, sleepwarping in on the Scythe Fleet Issue in belt 1-1.

The pilot, short of a year old, is oblivious to my presence. I'm not too excited either, having just NPC'd my security status back up to -1.94, being barely legal in 1.0 systems again. I hate missions. Mindless and boring, almost as bad as... wait-- Getting closer, I notice a distinct glow emerging from his ship. Mining lasers! As my ship eases into a 500m orbit around his, I almost bump into the little dronies zipping about between the Scythe and a nearby 'roid. A closer look reveals them to be Harvesters, the holy grail of mining directors.

I must be dreaming. Is this some kind of set up, deliberately staged to rob me of my precious secstat? It just looks too good to be true. It dawns on me this young pilot might not have noticed that he has left the safe haven one stargate over, and is no longer under CONCORD protection. Slightly amused, I do the logical thing: I flip his can!

The ore muncher gives me an unexpected reaction. Not only does he keep mining, he reaffirms his generous altruism in local chat:

Vector 8 > you're welcome

Seems there's a mining party, and i'm invited. Coming to my senses, I strike up a convo.

QUOTE private chat:

Xonja 2zero > hi
Vector 8 > Howdy M8
Xonja 2zero > so, what are you up to?
Vector 8 > Im mining so that I can pay the 50 mil to join ur corp
Xonja 2zero > really
Vector 8 > yup
Xonja 2zero > that's kinda cute

Right. Cute in a very special way. What's he on? Joining our corp? I have no idea who he is, or since when we require 50m to join. Much less accept miners. I'm pissed off. Stupid roid humper got bonked on the head by a few too many rocks, thinks we're a mining corporation? This cannot be tolerated. His icon in my overview has changed to a dollar sign. However, I play along, holding back, drawing out this moment of tranquility. I want him to feel his stupidity, all the passed chances of running away as long as he still could.

QUOTE private chat:

Xonja 2zero > wait, let me kill these rats
Xonja 2zero > so that's done
Vector 8 > hehe....ty
Vector 8 > luv killin rats

A couple other chat windows pop up, and while I tell people to get back to me later I miss the mining Scythe picking up speed... and warping out. To station. Escaped. ARRRGH!!! Convinced now that the pilot is a noob, I figure he might still have noticed his mistake and ran to never come back. Staying in character as the friendly hisec ore thief, I keep up the chit chat.

QUOTE private chat:

Xonja 2zero > btw, you can have your ore back if you want
Xonja 2zero > i don't mind
Vector 8 > that's ok m8....It wasnt that much and there's alot to go around....gotta keep on friendly terms with my new corp m8's
Xonja 2zero > how do you mean?
Vector 8 > keep the loot
Xonja 2zero > oh, ok :)

Is he playing with me? I'm puzzled, as endlessly long minutes pass. I'm hammering the scanner, and finally, there is his Scythe again. Moments later, he's back in belt. Refitted? Expecting a barrage of projectiles and missiles hitting my hull any second now, i'm almost speechless as he turns his mining lasers back on.

QUOTE private chat:

Xonja 2zero > btw, i'm not sure if you noticed
Xonja 2zero > did you?
Vector 8 > what?
Xonja 2zero > you didn't
Xonja 2zero > you're in lowsec
Xonja 2zero > wanna keep your ship?

As I say this, I get to work. Describing his duo of Tech 1 Hammerhead and Acolyte drones as underwhelming would be giving them grossly too much credit, but I kill them off anyway, going for a ransom.

QUOTE private chat:

Vector 8 > yes
Vector 8 > I know that
Xonja 2zero > make me an offer then
Vector 8 > im in low sec
Vector 8 > I can only spare 10 mil
Xonja 2zero > well, you could spare your ship then
Vector 8 > common.....Im joining your corp after all
Xonja 2zero > doesn't look like it

While we chat, two rifters warp in. They're noobs, but go for my itsy red-flashy ceptor without a second thought. Not their lucky day. Just as I vaporize them, Mr. Mining Fleetscythe takes his chance for a bold maneuver: he ejects to save his pod! Without his skills holding it together, structure melts down to a little square, my drones still whacking on it. Phew, called back just in time :o

QUOTE private chat:

Vector 8 > bye bye

Quickly, I park the ranis at a safespot and go back in pod to pick up my catch. Expecting a lackluster mining setup worth selling for around 50m total, i'm speechless as I find this:

Over 500m worth all together it seems. I'd have settled with a 30 to 40 mil ransom. Silently, I fly my new Fleet Scythe back to Hek, a question burning in my head:

WHY? D:

So.... ahem. Anyone want to buy a Fleet Scythe with a T2 Purger?

We were carebears....

nospam@example.com (Gunnythok) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 04:19:00 +0100

War, my favorite activity. War is my business, I enjoy my work. My desire to do this work started a very long time ago in Erila. I was in my second private corporation. I joined Apex Elite Security after my own initial corporation proved impractical for one person to run. Most of our operations were those of the mining variety. All of our other work consisted of security work for Caldari Navy. Inoue was home to all of us, it had everything we needed, but not everything we wanted. It was only a matter of time before our members grew restless and began roaming into Erila and Horkkisen.

There was always the burning curiosity for new pilots to explore the low security systems. We didn't know about the prevalence of piracy in low security, we simply knew that there were "bad" people out there, so it came as something of a surprise when one of our members' brutix was being attacked while hunting guristas. Naturally, we were all enraged, but still timid to the thought of engaging another capsuleer, one who probably knew more about what he was doing than we did. I hopped into my brand new, and poorly fitted Moa, Vlad in his caracal, and Drake in his bellicose; we tore space heading over there, just in time to see the our corpmate's pod approaching the gate back to inoue. We went to the belt where it happened, not knowing what we wanted, but definitely finding out what we didn't.

We arrived to see a rupture floating about, it's pilot, Sinickal, wasted no time in showing us what she was there for and proceeded to lock onto Drake and engage with great fervor, the kind only seen by people who really enjoy what they do (I only experienced this later). Drake, like us, had no idea how to fit a ship effectively for any purpose, we all went for the fabled "MacGuyver" fit that so many new pilots choose to go with; his bellicose didn't last long, all the while we were firing everything we had at this pirate, this person of low moral fiber. Next one on the spit was Vlad, he was the first member of our corp to have a cruiser, it's a pity that it had to go without a single kill under it's belt.

I really don't need to put very much detail into the combat because if you're reading this, you can probably imagine more or less what happened. All I need to point out is that at that time, warp core stabilizers had no penalties that would deter even a new pilot like myself from fitting them, and it saved my moa. Saved it so I could warp off, defeated. I felt demoralized, I was a director, we had just recruited a new pilot not more than an hour prior, and we got sent running with our tails between our legs. After the obligatory, "We're going to keep coming back until you're dead" type of conversation that almost always happens when young capsuleers get their first taste of combat was over, we took to decreeing that Erila was off limits for our corp, we even took such a stance as to tell our people that they shouldn't shoot each other because it wasn't good comradery. Eventually, I learned to respect what Sinickal did to us that day; she inspired me to learn more about fighting, that's for certain, but she also made such an impact as to be the first big step to being the pilot I am today. Also, yarr.

Fly Safe kids,
Gun.

Cleared for publication by: Ander