Can flipping, ransoming and general fun over the last month or so

I then had my first real loss. A shuttle came and flipped a can I had just flipped from someone else. I killed him in short order, but then an arazu uncloaked nearby and blew me to pieces. I got out my thorax, not knowing at this point how deadly an arazu could be, and returned. I almost made it to the arazu before my thorax also disintegrated. How dissapointing. Still, another important lesson under my belt. I've encountered the same corp many times now, and they seem to be pretty good at what they do, so I stick out of their way for the moment. Then, I get possibly the luckiest catch I will ever make. I'm searching the belts for possible targets, and suddenluy warp into the middle of a pretty big mining operation, including about 4 or 5 retrievers and a mastodon with a tractor beam hauling for them. It's too good an opportunity to miss, even though one of the miners has a negative sec rating. I sit next to the mastodon and steal the contents of a can as it nears me. Instantly the negative sec miner warps out. This sends warning signals going in my head, and I warp out and back in a few minutes later. To my joy, the mastodon is flashing red. I go to station and grab my new thorax (after the demise of my last one) and sit out nearly all the aggression. With a few seconds left, I warp back to the belt. The mastodon is still flashing, and I engage. The other miners warp back to station but I know they can't attack anymore. I convo the pilot: flexflexen > 250 mill flexflexen > let me be flexflexen > if you let me go ill give you 250 mill flexflexen > plz mothyowns > I will when I see it in my journal flexflexen > its my ship mate.. mothyowns > pay the money and I will leave flexflexen > plz stop :( flexflexen > cry flexflexen > 500 mill? flexflexen > stop plz mothyowns > when I see the money in my wallet I will leave flexflexen > kk flexflexen > how mutch thne? mothyowns > 350 mil flexflexen > 500 sry dont have lol :) flexflexen > blah.. :( mothyowns > what? flexflexen > 350 mill?! mothyowns > 250 mil then mothyowns > like you originally said flexflexen > kk thx mate flexflexen > respect flexflexen > there you go mate.. mothyowns > thanks mothyowns > I am leaving flexflexen > im all out now :( mothyowns > you can also leave flexflexen > lol but thx anyway :) mothyowns > thankyou :) That's what I'm talkin' about!! All for the trouble of going back in a cruiser. :D We had a bit of a chat after, and it seemed that surprisingly enough, their CEO wasn't too happy with me ransoming a ship with 400mil rigs on (I found this out afterwards otherwise I would have held out when ransoming). It also sounded like they had found an odd way around the aggro timer: mothyowns> but they wouldnt have been able to attack mothyowns> without getting CONCORDed flexflexen > noap flexflexen > they was allready in fleet flexflexen > and you was red for all of us flexflexen > tho, we fixed it out, so np :) flexflexen > Now the boss wanna make war whit your corp... mothyowns > hehe mothyowns > really? flexflexen > yes.. flexflexen > if you not transfer the isk back.. mothyowns > ah well, that would defeat the point of asking for it flexflexen > its lame i think.. flexflexen > tho you got untill 21:00 server time he says.. mothyowns > we already spent it, sorry :) flexflexen > else he says he can kill you in 24 hrs?! flexflexen > i dunoo, have never been in war haha :) Uh huh. So I'm getting the old "give us the money back or we war dec you with our many scary battleships" treatment. And a bit later in the convo: flexflexen > he told me if you ever talked to him, for looted from us agian, hw would start a war.. flexflexen > but he will not make war now.. So after all that deliberation by their CEO, a war isn't in the pipeline after all. Would you believe it? It almost looked like they had only said that to try and get the isk back, for some reason.... The guy I ransomed wasn't even annoyed at me really, he saw it as all part of the game and even offered to haul stuff for me in the future if I needed stuff moving. A nice guy. :) After this, I go back to my can-flipping ways, after spending my shiny new isk on battleships and the like, just in case. I catch another corporationg, Forging Industries, with a can with approximately 100k isk worth of ore in. I flip it, and the hauler goes off and returns in a caracal. Unfortunately for me, I decide to try and take it on, not realising that missiles aren't effected by turret tracking speeds and such like. I wave goodbye to my faithful incursus, but luckily I have about 5 constantly fitted at all times by now. :) However, a cruiser seems to be the ship for this job, so I swap over and return to the belt. By now there is also another thorax there to help out. 2 vs 1, hmm. I afterburn it over to the caracal and pretty much ignore the thorax, and concentrate my fire. Pretty quickly, my guns have stripped the shields off the caracal, and I'm biting into armour. But then it warps off! WCS ftl... I'm nearly out of cap by this point and so I don't bother with the thorax, and warp out. It hadn't fitted a disruptor for whatever reason. I dock, and come back out fully cap charged to find the thorax and a merlin sitting there waiting for me. I engage the thorax first, and my tank holds where his doesn't. He docks again, and since I can't catch the annoying merlin I dock, we exchange "good fight" and call it a night. Quite a fun one, too. :) Apparently though, the people I thought are actually quite annoyed at me for some reason or other. They keep setting seriously sneaky traps for me, such as this prime example: Deadly. If I had been looking the other way and somehow managed to click and drag the stuff out the can, I might have not noticed all the big ships around...There was a raven too earlier but they left pretty quick. So after that pretty poor trap, they decide to take things a bit more seriously. So seriously in fact, they make a whole new corporation just to war dec me and my single friend! WE felt rather honoured by this. Here they are, and their CEO too... So I convoe'd the CEO since they demanded 55 million to call the war off, who made me laugh pretty hard. I got some pretty interesting information: war cheif > dunno all i know id ppl bug me i kill them mothyowns > but you just said I havent bothered your corp mothyowns > that makes no sense war cheif > right im a merc too mothyowns > mmkay war cheif > hire out empty slots in my account mothyowns > how much did they pay you? :) war cheif > 90 day gtc mothyowns > really? wow mothyowns > they must really want me dead war cheif > u must be a real pain in the ass mothyowns > guess so Yep, you heard right. A 90 day gtc for stealing a measly 100k. Still, it makes my game all the more interesting with a war dec flying around too. :) Life hots up for a whole week, and then they drop it. In that time, there was one frigate fight and me just warping off from various battleships. It's a good feeling to know they're wasting 400 million or however much a 90 day gtc costs just for this.So, I guess it's time to take my trusty incursus out for a spin once again. I also have a nice domi in reserve now, for when the going gets tough. I head over to a nearby ice field I found out about very recently, as it's usually literally teeming with ice miners (which give serious lag when you warp in). A nearby can looks inviting, and I flip the contents. The miner warps off and comes back in a brutix, but I'm feeling a bit daring and a bit bored, which is never a good combo. I take it on in my trusty lil' frigate. Amazingly enough, I couldn't do anything and I got to 25km and warped off. A quick couple of jumps later and I'm back in my domi for more action, and thankfully the brutix is still lurking about. I engage, and he only eats around half my shields before popping. Not surprising when you see his elite setup. It was the most random thing I have ever seen and I can only guess it is all looted from rats: 2008.06.05 22:42:00 Victim: Kurtl A08 Corp: Center for Advanced Studies Alliance: NONE Faction: NONE Destroyed: Brutix System: Deninard Security: 0.7 Damage Taken: 15682 Involved parties: Name: mothyowns (laid the final blow) Security: 0.4 Corp: teeny tiny space pirates Alliance: NONE Ship: Dominix Weapon: **** Damage Done: 15682 Destroyed items: Plutonium Charge M, Qty: 6820 (Cargo) Y-S8 Hydrocarbon I Afterburners 75mm Gatling Rail I 150mm Compressed Coil Gun I Fleeting Warp Scrambler I Plutonium Charge S, Qty: 231 Dual 150mm Compressed Coil Gun I Plutonium Charge M, Qty: 307 100mm Reinforced Nanofiber Plates I 125mm Compressed Coil Gun I Dropped items: Medium Hull Repairer I Co-Processor I 'Halcyon' Core Equalizer I 150mm Compressed Coil Gun I, Qty: 2 Hammerhead I (Drone Bay) Dual 150mm Railgun I Plutonium Charge S, Qty: 146 Small Shield Booster I 100mm Reinforced Nanofiber Plates I Plutonium Charge S, Qty: 3240 (Cargo) Yeah, I did warn you. WCS, 100mm plates, small shield booster AND medium hull repper FTW!!! Couple of days later I caught 2 more cruisers, but it wasn't very interesting and not worth more than a small mention really: 2008.06.06 23:01:00 Victim: Nemena Longpre Corp: Ekalia Corp Alliance: NONE Faction: NONE Destroyed: Thorax System: Gisleres Security: 0.8 Damage Taken: 6908 Involved parties: Name: mothyowns (laid the final blow) 2008.06.06 23:02:00 Victim: Martch Corp: Ekalia Corp Alliance: NONE Faction: NONE Destroyed: Vexor System: Gisleres Security: 0.8 Damage Taken: 4365 Involved parties: Name: mothyowns (laid the final blow) That's all for now. Hope at least it wasn't too boring to read. :) Happy pirating!