Pages: [1] :: one page |
|
Author |
Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 0 post(s) |
Telemicus Thrace
Thrace Inc Ushra'Khan
|
Posted - 2007.04.17 07:56:00 -
[1]
Well I have hit another personal Eve landmark. I was going to do something to mark my first podding but it was such a non-event (black screen on undock -> clone) I didn't bother. That and I got podded twice more that same evening. It was a huge battle. ;)
This though is about the loss of a ship. Before I continue I should point out this is not a whine thread nor am I leaving Eve.
Last night I was flying my Mammoth "Symplegades" through Providence to pick up some supplies for Unity Station. I got jumped by Outbreak and taken out. I in no way wish to diminish their kill but I totally blame myself for this. I had done the run twice that evening without incident and got sloppy. I was empty so I should have switched cargo expanders for stabs. I was chatting to someone and missed the intel that Outbreak were between me and my destination. Even when I entered the system and saw them in local instead of cloaking before they got to my gate I took a punt and decided to warp on through. The rest as they say is history and yes I feel suitably foolish.
"So what?" you are probably asking. Well firstly I have long been proud of the fact I have never lost a hauler to enemy fire (ok, technically I have still never lost a cargo). Not only that but the Symplegades was one of the first ships I bought when I started the game back in early '05. I have been to more places and had more adventures in that one ship than any other. You could say despite all the combat ships I have flown that rusty old industrial represented my time in Eve to date.
So, to mark the occassion I have decided to recap the history of my favorite ship. It's an homage, an indulgence. After all the scrapes I have been through in that boat it feels wrong to let her pass without something being said. Who knows, some new players might find something useful in here.
When I first came to Eve it was with a background as a smuggler in various other Sci-Fi games. I quickly realised that smuggling wasn't all that in Eve but there were so many pirates that I'd get all the same action but from the other side of the law. I could also see that Eve was a complex game and starting out as a hauler pilot would make me some ISK in a familiar art while I learned how things worked.
My first ship was a Probe that I bought on my first day. I replaced this as soon as I could with a Hoarder that I named Argo. Argo bought the farm setting up a cyno field near a POS, very messy incident, only a few months ago. On day 3 of my Eve career I headed out to low sec for the first time and encountered my first gate camp. I got away and very quickly learned some basic survival skills that have served me well to this day. I ran cargo for NPC freight missions and other players through the area while I trained up for a Mammoth.
I had scrapped together the huge sum of one million kredits to buy her from the Six Kin station in Abudban. I named her Symplegades after the clashing rocks that legend says the Argo passed between. It was also appropriate to name her after clashing rocks as one of her first roles was as a mining support ship. One of my corpies had just trained up for a Scythe and we would mine in Abudban and Rens over a few beers on a Sunday arvo. In my time running around the Amamake area in Argo I had found a few ways in and out that were not frequented by pirates. When there were a few of us about we would head into Seseide and the surrounding areas to mine some higher end ores. A few drilling cruisers and Symplegades all under the watchful eye of a Stabber. A few pirates stopped by but never in anything big enough to take us all on at once, ECM proved handy on a Mammoth even though her lock time was shocking. Of course once one had spotted us we would move our operation before he came back with friends.
....
>> RECRUITING << |
Telemicus Thrace
Thrace Inc Ushra'Khan
|
Posted - 2007.04.17 07:57:00 -
[2]
In between mining ops I would run freight for Six Kin to fund my new interest, Covert Operations. Of course these skill books were not cheap and the cloaking device alone was 16mil (them was the days). One saving grace was that in between training useful skills then a bit of learning skills to train more useful skills it was going to be a while until I could fit a Cheetah.
I tried my hand at NPC trading but that ended with what I called "The Dirt Run". I had found a seller of Enriched Soil (or some such) and a buyer only a dozen systems away with a fairly decent markup. The only caveat was the patch of low sec between the two. I sunk all my ISK into soil and set out in the shuttle I carried with me to make some instas. I learned at this point that all items in Eve have different volumes, I had bought enough dirt for 23 runs. That's 276 jumps. Suddenly the few mil payout didn't seem worth it but all my ISK was now soil. So I got on with it. After a few uneventful runs I came across a pirate camping one of the gates. Ginger Magician and his rather obvious alt Ginger's Mistress. His Raven was sat a fair way off the gate, no doubt to avoid the guns. As I decloaked and aligned I waited for the tell tale glow of inbound missiles. Instead I was hit by a volley of lasers!
I got into warp with 40% hull and decided that investing in some repair mods and some shield boosting might be a good idea. While I had dragged stuff for Six Kin around I had done a fair bit of reading. I knew he wouldn't get into tackle range and I knew he couldn't deploy a bubble. I don't think either of us had at this point thought about his alt bumping me off alignment at the gate so I was confident I could just take the fire and use my repair mods to patch myself up on the rest of the run. I did six more runs and eventually he seemed to give up even shooting at me. The following evenings were uneventful and after I delivered the last load I decided there had to be a better way.
I decided to see if the player courier market had picked up. I found about a dozen freight jobs all low sec to high. I could just afford the collateral to do two at a time so I went to work quickly. I nearly got popped a couple of times outside the pickup point in Amamake but otherwise my now familiar routes in and out served me well. By the end of the afternoon I had made about 20mil. That was a lot of ISK for a noob like me, of course I know I could probably make more grinding NPC missions but if I wanted to do that I'd just play Freelancer for free.
Anyway, I was very happy with all the new equipment I had bought and my training was going well. Then something great happened. This was the moment that the full meaning of playing an MMO hit me. I got an EveMail. All those courier jobs I had done were for the same corp. They were impressed by the speed I had got them done in and the fact I had got all the goods out of a fairly notorious system without losses. They wanted to negotiate a private contract. The deal was simple, fixed sizes and a fixed rate per jump. They were to be restricted to our corp and have no collateral. This meant we could take all the missions at once, if we lost any shipments we would reimburse them for the loss. On our side the deal was each pilot takes whatever they manage and gives half the profit to the corp and keeps the other half for themselves.
....
>> RECRUITING << |
Telemicus Thrace
Thrace Inc Ushra'Khan
|
Posted - 2007.04.17 07:57:00 -
[3]
All the pick-up points were low sec, lunar minerals and T2 components. The delivery points were high sec factories or trade hubs. We set-up offices in high-sec areas near each low sec pick up point and at the destination. This meant we could do quick hops into lowsec when it was quiet and when the camps started up we would do the long high sec runs office to office. There were a few pot shots here and there. I had just fitted a cloak to the Symp and regularly used the cloak, align, decloak, warp routine to get past snipers. One of my corpies had the closest call of all. He had scouted the area a few minutes before in a shuttle but when he went back he found 4 pirates had just started camping the gate. After taking heavy fire he managed to crash land his ship with 5% of it's hull intact. How he survived is a mystery but needless to say it's to date the tightest margin we have ever got a ship away on.
After that the corp hiring us decided they would rather just bribe the local pirates to leave us alone than have their goods at risk. After that things got much easier. After a few weeks of doing this we had racked up about 300mil mostly semi-AFK reading the forums and chatting in public channels. We even got given a bonus in the form of a Mastadon that none of use were anywhere near being able to fly (I gave that to a corp mate who only recently lost it to a nanophoon, some of it's containers can still be seen 137km off the gate where he got bumped). In that time I travelled through hi-sec and low through Minmatar, Caldari and Gallente space. I used the flight time to read about ship fittings and tactics as well as study the trade markets I was passing through. All of which was to benefit me later.
The ISK I had made was enough to buy a Cheetah which I could now just about fly. Some of my talk in the Minmatar channel about open space and free trade was met with violent opposition. Apparently NBSI was the only way to be and a noob like me was never going to see 0.0 unless I joined an alliance. Well I never liked cigarettes until I saw my first No Smoking sign so needless to say I set my sights on the rim of known space (dun dun dah!). Luck smiled on me again, a member of a group called the Star Fraction had seen my argument in the Minmatar channel and sent me an EveMail. It invited me to a chat channel where I met a lot of Freespacers. From them I learned about a region of 0.0 that was unclaimed, I also learned where all the camps were normally found. The region was Pure Blind, on the far side of the map from us. Still, it could be made to work. I sank the entire corp account into a small POS, refinery and fuel for a week. I loaded that and my Cheetah into the Symplegades and went to take a look.
The route from Heimatar was easy enough, the only problem being the Aunenen system (or Pwnenen as the local pirates called it). It was closest to our back door route into Pure Blind and a major pirate camp racking up hundreds of kills a day. To go around meant an extra 40 odd jumps and I had so much gear it would take all our haulers in convoy to get out there. Thanks to my covert ops and some nice timing we got everyone through. Just a matter of waiting for some poor sod to get jumped by the pirates and then getting our guys through while the pirates were distracted. Sorry to those guys we didn't warn, the camp was hardly a secret, I could see it from Rens and your loss was my opportunity. I never claimed to be a saint.
Well, long story short after much diplomacy and fair few firefights we packed up after a week. The lunar mineral market had collapsed, our combat pilots couldn't take on the rats and the minerals we mined just covered the cost of the ships we lost. Still, we learned a lot. ...
>> RECRUITING << |
Telemicus Thrace
Thrace Inc Ushra'Khan
|
Posted - 2007.04.17 07:58:00 -
[4]
After that I focussed on ship construction so Symplegades was relegated to hauling minerals and ships. Then a chance conversation with an ex-corpie and customer now in the Ushra'Khan led me back to 0.0. While delivering a Tempest I got wind of a need for POS fuel out in some backwater called Providence. Before long I had set up a POS out there and the Symplegades was bringing fuel in and rat loot out. I must have run the various pipes in and out of that region in the Symplegades a thousand times in the last year. She has deployed POSs in frontline positions & used her cloak to act as a makeshift scout when the situation demanded it. She got renamed "Q-Ship" as an internal corp joke but she was still the Symplegades to those in the know. She even delivered a squad of fitted Rifters to the frontlines in Catch during the ISS / IAC war and then went on to serve as a Cyno ship. In quiet moments she was even seen surveying moons in various systems, her large cargo bay and cloaking device making her perfect for the job.
After nearly two years operating in every situation and environment you could ever imagine a Mammoth going she met her end. On 16th April 2007 she was intercepted and destroyed by hostile forces. There were no survivors.
I hope you enjoyed the read, even better if you got something useful out of it. If anyone else has a particular ship (not build, a single ship) that has gone above and beyond, pulled of miracles or just has a special place in your heart get scribbling. For every killmail, every wreck, every abandoned container drifting at a gate there is a story.
>> RECRUITING << |
Disco Flint
Caldari
|
Posted - 2007.04.17 08:16:00 -
[5]
Sorry for your loss, usually I don't mourn after ship losses, but when you have had her for such a long time and have taken her on so many spins then it's a sad day indeed... ah my first Ferox... almost a year back...
Nevermind, that was a nice story, good read.
|
SiJira
|
Posted - 2007.04.17 08:25:00 -
[6]
GREAT STORY
publish it !
|
Ket Halpak
ANZAC ALLIANCE Southern Cross Alliance
|
Posted - 2007.04.17 08:31:00 -
[7]
Nice story mate.
My special ship is my badger 2, I have had it since the day I was able to fly it. In it's time I have used it to: - afk mine kernite in empire space - run courier missions - Haul for mining ops - Trade - I have made numerous runs to 0.0 space and back solo in it
I'll never forget the day I first put a cloak and t2 expanders on it.
I never used to bother with scouting as being on dialup it creates a large amount of lag when both of them jump through a gate or warp, or issue commands to both at the same time, not being able to do so it a large liability too.
I set off for my 120 jump round trip hauling stuff to 0.0 and hauling out cheap mins (who could pass up isogen for 30isk a unit?). During the empire part of my run I experimented with the cloak, seeing how fast I could recloak after jumping and how long it took me to get to warp after uncloaking. After 2 jumps into the pipe, I encounted a poorly set up gate camp with a large bubble. I panicked as the cargo I had in my bay was worth about 80 mill. I waited till just before my cloak was about to dissapear after the jump, hit the afterburner, cloaked and immediatly changed my direction.
Now a decent gatecamp would have had an inty at my location within seconds, but they only had a slow frigwith no drones orbiting it aproach my location. I swear I was only 50 meters from being decloaked, but after that I made my way slowly out of the bubble a fair distance at my slow speed and continued out of my journey.
My faithfull badger now sits in my hanger in empire, replaced by ablockade runner _____________________________________ Check out my poorly written blog at RantingsofaCarebear.blogspot.com |
Splagada
Minmatar Tides of Silence Hydra Alliance
|
Posted - 2007.04.17 08:32:00 -
[8]
that's an awesome story ! ------
Relaxed corp recruiting |
Telemicus Thrace
Thrace Inc Ushra'Khan
|
Posted - 2007.04.17 10:33:00 -
[9]
Cheers guys.
Nice one Ket, I think I'll get back in my Prowler for a while as I debate if I just get another Mammoth or a Mastadon. I'm leaning towards Mammoth myself. A trapped indie is dead either way in those situations.
I thought I'd be more cut up about it than I am. It got me to thinking back and when it hit me I have been flying that ship practicly since day one I thought it was amazing enough to put in writing.
>> RECRUITING << |
|
|
|
Pages: [1] :: one page |
First page | Previous page | Next page | Last page |