This week has been a weird one in Low Sec. The shifting faction war battlefields, constantly changing landscape, and a resurgence in the "bait" mentality have all contributed to what is always a challenging environment for us solo/small gang players. When these cycles come around it is always a good time to try new things, generate our own content, and generally push the boundaries. Everything in Eve is cycles, eventually it all comes around again. And again.
So it was that yesterday I decided to join my fellow Stay Frosty pilot Hunzy and fit up a Battle Venture for some fun. Ventures can be a fun little frigate in certain situations. You have to be careful about target acquisition, probably more so than in any other frigate. But, given the right circumstances, you can catch other pilots by surprise. And, if things go south on you, you can usually just warp away. Which, like most things in Eve, is only annoying when it isn't you doing it.
Only a few short jumps into our two-man roam (We were joined along the way by Hooded Injustice in his Jackdaw) I stumbled on a Thorax on scan in Aeschee. There are about 12 other people in local, so I have no idea who is flying this thing. But what I do know is that it is belt ratting. I'm watching it on d-scan jump from belt to belt. After almost zero careful consideration, I warped into it and landed right smack on top of him. He was already into half shields from the belt rats, so I pointed him and started shooting. My Venture is pulse lazor fitted, with a neut, scram-kite, and a mwd. Hunzy's Venture had an afterburner, but otherwise was the same fit. (I carried an AB and an extra scram in my cargo) While the Thorax's medium T1 drones couldn't keep up with me at full speed, they had no trouble once my cap ran out. Luckily I was able to warp away once Hunzy also managed to grab point. I immediately warped back and the Thorax exploded.
So we managed to kill a Thorax with two Ventures. Granted he turned out to be rather poorly fitted, with T1 blasters and a WCS, but still. Cruiser down.
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Situational awareness is yet another important part of success in Eve Online. Case in point. We were trying to catch a Gnosis with potentially 4 WCS in his lows. So I grabbed my Lachesis and headed to the system to help. When I landed on the gate a Condor had just jumped through to my side, so I chased it off to a small plex. It slid in ahead of me, but the point here is that it saw me. In a Lachesis.
So I went ahead and jumped into the other system and warped to a large plex to wait on the Gnosis. When, out of nowhere, the Condor landed next to me.
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Often, when things are a bit slower than usual, I will grab a ship I haven't flown in a long time. The other day I decided to grab my ancient HAM Drake and warp around a bit. As soon as I undocked I saw the Retriever on d-scan. A little investigation showed that it wasn't showing up on anything in space. Usually that means it is safed up somewhere, or doing something at one of those hidden places. All I know about hidden places is two things, they are either on the probe launcher window or they need probes to find them. So I did what I always do when alone without probes, I went to the one showing on the probe launcher window. And lo and behold I landed right on top of him.
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Wednesday Lufax organized a Crow roam down into Pure Blind. These are always a lot of fun and offer something a bit different than the usual for our pilots. As always I am dumbfounded that Null Sec gets so much attention seeing as it is really just a huge wasteland of nothing happening, people hiding inside of stations, or perching on a Citadel near a gate waiting for something to happen. And every so often they have a huge war. But, even so, sometimes we get lucky and find some poor soul out trying to do something on their own. And so it was that we stumbled across a Gnosis hanging out in a drag bubble.
The funny part of this story is that everyone else had fitted scrams to their Crows. I on the other hand, had jumped into a Crow from a previous roam that had a long point fitted. So while my soon to be dead compatriots were stuck scram kiting, I was safely kiting from actual kiting range. So I watched as, one by one, my corpmates exploded around me. The really awesome part was when the last scram dropped and the Gnosis pilot, to his credit, MJD away from me. This was the third time in the past few weeks that someone tried this and the third time my history of Hero Tackle served me well. I immediately knew what had happened, OH'd my mwd and burned him down. It is surprising how quickly a Crow can close 100k. And with only 9% structure left, I'm sure no one was more surprised than the Gnosis pilot.
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Every kill has a story. Sometimes a simple one. Often a more challenging one. And sometimes, the story is the entire thing. These stories are the reason I still undock and challenge myself every day to find new and interesting ways to explode other player's ships.
It's all about the gravy.