August 12, 2021

I should have known this, but podding someone in hisec or losec drops your security status…a lot. I lost 1.2 off my 5.0 status yesterday by nuking a capsule in losec. I can deal with the 0.2 loss after destroying a ship, but going after the capsule cost me another 1.0 status loss. It's a grind to get back to 5. While I'm not obsessed with maintaining a high security status, it provides a good buffer so you can hunt without concern about going negative. For more on this, see Eve U's article.

My first clue should have been that I could not aggro the capsule at first. I had to disable all safeties (set it to red). Oops. Great way to get criminal status and have a kill right put on you!

August 13, 2021

Got lucky today. First a DED3 escalation in my home system got me 25 mil. Then a data and relic site in nulsec got me about 29 mil. Then looting a guy’s wreck at a gate in that system got me another 20+ mil, including a covert cloak and a set of Sisters combat probes!

I was in an Astero and warped to the gate, intending to leave. Found a wreck there of a guy I’d seen in the system minutes earlier. Rats targeted me before I could loot it. I warped off and back a couple times but the rats were all over me. So I docked in the system and took out a Gnosis out which was right at hand. Killed the rats, gobbled the loot and destroyed the wreck.

After I docked back up, the guy comes back in and says “ef…came back for my wreck and someone beat me to it.” I said “That would be me!” He said the rats decloaked him as he went to put a kid back to bed. Then I looked at the killmail and saw the wreck was a Helios.

All this before noon. Good day.

August 20, 2021

While ratting belts in a nulsec system, I saw something new…a Serpentis Dreadnought, with a 60 million isk bounty. What went thru my pea brain to think I could take it on, I don't know. He got me fast. Was scrammed and webbed. I could just watch as my poor battlecruiser gave up the ghost.

December 12, 2021

I was just flying around ratting in a few losec systems in a semi-blinged out, expensive Tengu (800 million to 1 billion ISK). Very proud of it, but only had it a couple days. A vast improvement in DPS and EHP over my existing Tengu, but I'm not experienced in this new fit.

I see a Vexor on dscan. No one else in system. So what the heck, I fly out of dscan range, launch combat probes, recloak and scan it down. By the time I get to its location its gone. I look up the pilot on zkill and see 3,800 kills and about 800 ships lost. 96% of those kills were in gangs. First mistake – thinking this pilot can only fight in gangs and can’t handle anything on their own. BIG mistake.

I send out combat probes a second time. This time I catch it and engage. Things are looking good! Within five seconds it seems, two of the Vexor’s corpmates show up, in a Loki (strategic cruiser) and a Tornado (attack battlecruiser). I get double or triple scrammed and webbed. I’m caught. I focus on the Vexor, as it is clearly going down. I glance down and see my shields are gone and armor is going down … fast. I’m gone. Just. That. Fast.

Second mistake? Unbelievably, I didn’t activate my 330 million ISK Pith X-Type Large Shield Booster! Just a total screw up. I didn’t need it to take out the Vexor, but when the others showed up, I should have acted, and fast. I probably would have lost my Tengu anyway (see first mistake – getting suckered), but I may have been able to last a whole lot longer and might have gotten another kill.

Don’t be like me, but at least this was a (very expensive) lesson learned. Just because all someone’s kills are in gangs doesn’t mean they’re an easy kill or can’t hold their own or that there isn’t danger in attacking them! Second, use the ship’s systems – that’s why you paid for them!