Killing a station camping Maelstrom ....with help.

I work a lot in low-sec now and there's always a lot of work there as well as danger. Danger from the resident pirates of all factions and hues. In my area it's the Angels with a health (unhealthy?) mix of others.

Still, I take it in my stride and have ships set up accordingly and growing eyes in the back of my head.

This time, as I undocked from the station - I noticed a flagged criminal sitting above the station right next to his can. I recognised him a pilot called 'Kerjin'. A criminal, though I would argue whether you can class him as a pirate. As my megathron-class battleship slid out from the dock, my tactical computer detected a hostile target lock. It was Kerjin and my overview (already flashing red) indicated a lock and then he fired. My shields almost disappeared and I was impressed with his alpha-strike. Anything smaller than this ship would be in trouble. I was already aligned to get on with a mission but I decided to teach this guy a lesson.

I continued to align, the megathron slowly shifting along it's axis towards Ingunn V when I hit red alert on the ship. Claxon's wailed and my crew ran to their stations. This megathron was designed to come close, hit hard and get my marines on board. Getting a lock on Kerjin's ship - a maelstrom-class minmater battleship, tactical indicated it was 32km away. Too far for my ship to close before I was into armour. Kerjin however was very close to a secured can. I got the can to record it's location. My intention was to warp to the secure can's location and thereby land within 10km of Kerjin and kill him.

The megathron finally aligned and hit into warp. The damage was minor: all shield damage and nothing had penertrated into the thick hide of this, most beautiful, battleship. It was an armour tanker anyway. I was very unconcerned.

As my ship approached the warp in beacon, I quickly reviewed the last two minutes. Kerjin was using artillery units, high damage and low rate of fire. He was also set up for range and was probably shield tanking. Using the maelstrom's inherent advantages in shield boosting systems. I had to get close and due to his recent weapons' discharge, the emp surrounding the engines and the weapons systems interfering with the stations docking computer would bar his immediate re-dock.

On arrival at the beacon, I swung the ship around and ordered a warp in onto the can. Kerjin was still outside the station and I had to get him to continue to fire on me. My seven neutron blaster II canon batteries should be able to dish out a lot of damage and overcome his shields. However, the can he was hovering over was probably packed full of cap booster charges. He could tank my damage until he ran out of boosters. Had to bank on bleeding my damage past his shield recharge.

Bursting from warp, I arrived just a little above Kerjin, about 10KM. I immediately locked him and my stasis webber and warp disruptor snapped on. Kerjin then took my own alpha strike, at range, and his shield shrank by 15%. He locked me as I closed the distance, my afterburner glowing brightly as it pushed the mass of my ship towards Kerjin's maelstrom. An alpha strike by Kerjin knocked my shield systems almost down to 10% - my engineers shifting power from the rear shields to the frontal one but the blaster canon batteries were eating a lot of the available power. My next two salvos took Kerjin past 50% shield but he immediately boosted his shields back to about 95%. It was going to be a slow process as damage started to leak into my armour.

My next couple of salvos took him back to 45% but he boosted back up - almost to complete recovery. My drones slid out and added to the damage as did Kerjin, who sent what looked like webber drones.

Suddenly, my collision avoidance systems shrilled sharply and I was joined by an astarte-class battlecruiser, a raven-, scorpion- and maelstrom-class battleship. All four arrived at the same time and locked me and Kerjin. A quick glance and I could see that one was a pirate. All four were criminals. Not good, the scorpion fired on me while the other three concentrated on Kerjin. With the extra damage, Kerjin's impressive shield tank disappeared in a flash. Knowing that I could not take on four battleships, I recalled my drones just as I landed the killing blow on Kerjin's maelstrom. The drones buzzing round and sawing off chunks from the doomed infrastructure of the maelstrom.

I stopped firing and desparately tried to flush out the excessive heat and extra radiation from the weapons' systems. Otherwise, they would interfere with the stations docking computer and I would be stuck outside. The rule of thumb is a one minute wait, without any weapons' fire before the energies have sufficiently dispersed for docking to occur. Sitting their like a big target was not my idea of fun but the scorp and the other battleships had now locked and fired on me. I was not going to be tempted into firing at them. Oh no.

My megathron pushed through the still burning debris of Kerjin's battleship as I nosed my way closer to the docking ramps. Damage was now occuring on my armour, minor at first but increasing all the time. I was in no danger however. At least, not yet, I told myself.

Finally, I docked up - the station swallowing up the megathron.

To my surprise, concord had deemed that I laid the final killing blow, on Kerjin's maelstrom. Pity I could not pick up the loot or salvage the wreck. I chatted to some of the pirates who came in and it appeared that they were waiting for Kerjin to attack and then for them to come piling in. It was a trap and inadvertently I had sprung it for them.

Fun times indeed.

2008.02.28 17:48

Victim: kerjin
Alliance: None
Corp: Polis Action
Destroyed: Maelstrom
System: Ingunn
Security: 0.3
Damage Taken: 97628

Involved parties:

Name: Gallente Sentry Gun / CreoDron
Damage Done: 38765

Name: votrian alpha (laid the final blow)
Security: 0.3
Alliance: None
Corp: Union Aerospace Corporation
Ship: Megathron
Weapon: Warrior II
Damage Done: 24977

Name: Muhaar Gemeinian
Security: -7.9
Alliance: None
Corp: Hellequin Inc.
Ship: Astarte
Weapon: Astarte
Damage Done: 14127

Name: Redbad
Security: -9.7
Alliance: None
Corp: Tempered Steel Legion
Ship: Maelstrom
Weapon: Dual 650mm 'Scout' Repeating Artillery I
Damage Done: 11461

Name: Marak Bon
Security: 0.2
Alliance: None
Corp: Rastana CMP
Ship: Raven
Weapon: Bane Javelin Torpedo
Damage Done: 6869

Name: WayCharles
Security: -5.5
Alliance: None
Corp: Tempered Steel Legion
Ship: Scorpion
Weapon: Wrath Cruise Missile
Damage Done: 1429


Destroyed items:

Scan Resolution
Republic Fleet EMP L, Qty: 64
1200mm Heavy Prototype I Siege Cannon
1200mm Heavy Prototype I Siege Cannon
1200mm Heavy Prototype I Siege Cannon
1200mm Heavy Prototype I Siege Cannon
1200mm Heavy Prototype I Siege Cannon
Heavy Capacitor Booster II
Invulnerability Field II
X-Large Shield Booster II
Damage Control II
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Cap Booster 800, Qty: 5 (Cargo)
Core Defence Operational Solidifier I, Qty: 3

Dropped items:

Cap Booster 800
Cap Booster 800
Cap Booster 800
Cap Booster 800
Cap Booster 800
Republic Fleet EMP L, Qty: 42
1200mm Heavy Prototype I Siege Cannon
1200mm Heavy Prototype I Siege Cannon
1200mm Heavy Prototype I Siege Cannon
Invulnerability Field II
Sensor Booster II
Shield Boost Amplifier I
Local Hull Conversion Inertial Stabilizers I
Gyrostabilizer II
Republic Fleet Nuclear L, Qty: 270 (Cargo)
Republic Fleet EMP L, Qty: 450 (Cargo)
Berserker SW-900 (Drone Bay)

Killing pirates and hauling stuff

Killing pirates and hauling stuff

Hauling stuff in low-sec space is proving to be a profitable if, at times, dangerous business. Certainly, I have been locked and targeted by pirates and outlaws at the exit point of the station. The station guns, futiley firing at the outlaws and having virtually no effect. With a few warp core stabilisiers and nano-fibres; I have always managed to get away.

There is a breed of pilot that infest many a system however. Called 'farmers' or 'scum' or whatever in between by pod pilots all over New Eden.

I have no issue with people wanting to make isk and get on in New Eden; it's the reason why I am in this business too. However, they appear to spawn and block up exits and entrances all over the popular hauler routes AND they attract outlaws and pirates. It does appear that there are many groups or factions of farmers and they compete. Sometimes this competition breaks out into hostilities. Resulting in some of these farmers becoming outlaws themselves.

So one morning, I was undocking in my iteron, full of spare drone parts bound for Rokofur when I realised that I was being locked by someone. The exit point was chockful of other haulers, bumping and grinding into each other. The air was thick with expletives as other pilots yelled at the farmers to clear the exit points. As I slowed down, my iteron shook as it took a heavy missile. Then it rocked to the side as a slew of missiles hit me. What the hell? I thought to myself. Then I saw him, it was a pilot called 'Expanded111' and he was in a drake and was hitting me with missiles. I already toggled my shield booster on and was heading back to the docking bay. I successfully docked while the ineffectual station guns opened fire. The drake with it's massive shield systems easily soaked up the damage.

Checking the concord information, I discovered that Expanded111 was one of these farmers and may have mistaken me for a rival? No matter, I was not going to sit there and get blasted, not right outside my home station and not by a farmer. Switching to my thorax, I undocked. The drake was there, blasting some other hauler and also engaging a crow-class interceptor. A bad mistake on his part I think.

I locked him and let loose the drones. My disruptor came on and I set the thorax cruiser on an orbit of 1500mm; my heavy neutrons opened up spitting out anti-matter and void charges. They ate into the drake's shields easily and I was chewing into him. Expanded111 had then locked me and fired another salvo of heavy missiles at me, he failed to knock out an iteron, what chance did he have with a thorax set up for fighting?

My drones buzzed round him as did the crow. With all caldari ships, one has to overwhelm the shield systems and once through, they are soft in the middle. Their armour is poor and their hulls even more so. My blasters continued to pummel the drake's shields and I could see they were dropping too quickly for the pilot to recover. It was dying.

Once the shield system sparked and flared off, my anti-matter rounds melted off chunks of his armour and then a few seconds later, was into his hull. With it spewing out life-support gases and listing to one side, the drake, fearsome as it was, disappeared in a bright flash. The pilot's pod popped out and I quickly snagged it. The crow pilot and I killed the pod, smashing it open and flash-freezing the organic contents.

Later, I was doing my rounds when a caracal locked me and fired on me when I was passing through a belt, looking for salvage. What was going on? I thought to myself, I wanted to just get on with my work; this new year was going to get busy for the corporation and being shot at was a distraction. The caracal was an outlaw so not even bothering to open up a conversation with him, I grabbed my only available ship: a deimos HAC.

That should do.

I undocked and the outlaw caracal was still on scan though not in the same belt. Adjusting the scanner I narrowed the outlaw down to the third belt alongside another caracal. I checked my ammunition and ensured that I had a scrambler fitted to tackle and lock down the outlaw.

Hitting the engines, I zipped into the belt and landed in a shower of plasma and light. There was the caracal, it locked me immediately as I was only 15km from him. My scrambler came on ensuring that he was not able to warp out unless he had stabs on. His missiles arched over towards me, splashing over my shields. I waited until I was in my optimal.

Then I fired.

The destructive poweres of a deimos up-close is awesome. One salvo and the caracal was in hull, the tide of void ammunition completely overwhelming the shield systems of the missile boat. The next half salvo tore the caracal in half.

The pilot's pod popped out and I locked it. It did not warp away, probably because the pilot was still shocked of his ship's quick demise. I killed him without a thought since I wasn't a pirate, I had no intention of ransoming him.

The day ended with me testing out a Helios and there was another outlaw running around, this time in a Maelstrom. He was sitting at range and popping haulers and other ships as they exited the stations or the gates.

He obviously had long range howitzers installed and I tracked him in my helios, following him around. I always landed too far but I will get close. Close enough to kill him next time.