POS Under Seige

Sometimes people make it way to easy for us pirates, (not that iam complaining) then wonder why they were taken out or ransomed or on this occasion ended up paying ISK on on a monthly basis. I'll give you all a tip, if your going to try take down and ransom a POS, find one with NO WEAPONARY whatsoever. Belive it or not, it happens.

I log in shortly after the server reboot to find a few of my corp mates asking for help to come attack a Small Gallente Tower with moon mining equipment that they had been laying down fire to for a while now. They inform me that this POS has no weapons to defend itself. With no hesitation I grab my Prophecy Battlecruiser, strip the low slots of armor tanking modules and fit it out with Heat Sink II damage modifiers.

On arriving in the system, iam ganged and warp to the party. So far its only myself, Ander, Have2Laugh and Teh Shaz. The tower is down to 40-50% Shields. (Just to explain, after the reboot of the server, the towers shields went back up to 100%, but on explaining to a GM, it was put back to where it was prior to reboot)

I lock and open fire, using Radio Crystals with my lasers seeing they do all EM Damage and most shields have no EM resistences. So there we are, sitting there attacking the POS, waiting for more reinforcements but this doesnt mean we arnt open to other opportunities.

Teh Shaz, one of the best users of a ships onboard system scanner I know, informs us he has an Apocaylpse Class Battleship on scan close to our position. Hes pretty sure its moving back and forth between Planets. We get some more support, this time a Raven Battleship. So Shaz quickly swaps his Brutix Battlecruiser for the more agile and hard hitting Enyo Assault Frigate, in an attempt to find the Apocaylpse.

After scanning around the system he gets an positive ID and has us line up the the Planet the target is located at. He warps in, and sure enough, there it is. He engages, warp scrambles and calls for back up. We forget about the POS for now and head to the new target.

Now this is where communication comes in handy, I for one, didnt know we were going to try and ransom this guy. I warp in and open fire on the Battleship. Everyone else is firing. However I didnt see the order to stop firing after a certain point. Shaz also has his turret effects turned off and thinks he has stopped firing. Before we know it, the Apocaylpse sucumbs to heavy damage and is exploding before us. Whoops.

After collecting the loot, we all head back to the POS. By this time we have 12 gang members, mostly consisting of Battleships, with a few other ship class's mixed in. In local, we see the owner of the POS turn up. He warps to the POS in a Typhoon Battleship but messes up, hes 20km from us, he warps out quickly before we can divert fire.

The shield is getting lower on his POS, theres no way he can stop our fleet, so Ander and Have2Laugh decide the opportunity is right to negotiate with him. Negotiate/Ransom whatever you wish to call it, is a skill most pirates should perfect. If you can convince the victim that paying up is the best option and that its not worth it having us destroy all your hard work and be on your back all the time, then you can profit from this immensly.

After a while of negotiating, an agreement is made. We are paid to go away and leave the tower alone, the ISK is then split between the group. More successful ransoming. However, even better is that the Corporation doesnt want any more trouble and decided to take up the offer of paying us a weekly fee for a Non Aggression Pact, therefore we leave their miners, their POS and their other corp members alone and still profit. Not only does your reputation go up, but your corp and personal wallet as well.

Tonight was a good night. Thanx to members of other corporations close to us that participated in this. You know who you are. And a tip to corporations who are reading this and arnt of the pirate variety, if you dont want your POS ransomed or destroyed, defend it by placing weapons around it! Thats what they are there for. You only have yourself to blame really.