I’m not a particularly ‘good’ writer. Sometimes I just feel like writing to dust the cobwebs off. It may not always be about EVE, but I’ll try to at least make it interesting when it isn’t!
When I started this sparsely populated blog I had every intention of filling it on a weekly basis with swashbuckling tales of risk-averse pvp in wormhole space. In reality that was never going to happen. Enough action wasn’t going to occur (unless I was very lucky) in a single play session to warrant a decent post. It has on occasion, as illustrated by my previous entries, but never at the frequency at which I would like.
There are a few reasons for this. Probably the biggest one is a lack of time. Gone are the days when I do 10-12 hour play sessions. Now I generally find some bait and loiter whilst playing with the kids or watching a movie. I’m not as ‘active’ as I used to be.
Whilst I love being at home in the evenings it limits me to one time bracket, whereas with my previous job I had sporadic and weirdly timed shifts and I could be present in all timezones.
Another reason is reputation. Previously I’d found it easy to find explorers to exploit in lowsec, but now only the very new, greedy, unwary and afk players are viable prey. If I jump into a system, as happened yesterday, and allow someone the time to check my past and specialism on zKill, the gig is up. I could use an alt for tackle, but I’m determined to stick to one account and it won’t be long before that alt’s killboard links back to me. I can see this situation changing soon, however as I find myself increasingly hampered by not having access to an additional pair of eyes.
As for the job I previously mentioned, that’s going well. It’s been such an odd time to jump into a new role. Everything is very detached and I miss workplace banter, but my colleagues and I appear to have bonded really well, the team is great and the company has been very welcoming. It’s also been a huge culture shock for me going back into an ‘office’ based role (currently at home) following years of being away from my family, often for several days at a time. One of the biggest benefits, however has been getting to spend quality time with them.
I suppose I’d better write about some ‘swashbuckling’ now. I say ‘swashbuckling’ with emphasis because I’m now officially a police officer, in a wormhole sense of course. I’ve joined Vinnie’s Wormhole Police alliance by way of attempting to overcome my constant need to be alone, which I feel is detremental in many ways. Being a part of the alliance allows me some independence in my solo player corp, but will hopefully provide opportunities for group play which I tend to shy away from. So, that’s where we are.
In truth there’s not much to tell. Over the past week my activity has been pretty sporadic, picking off a single kill now and then. I did have some fun chasing a gas mining bot around and eventually snagging it, but that was about the extent of my fun.
Yesterday I chained for a few hours, eventually landing in J212713 after a long time hopping through barren C4s and 5s. With a static lowsec and two shaky C4 it wasn’t looking particularly promising, but I was bored and it had two relic sites, so I sat at a perch off the C4 I hadn’t come in through and decided to idle.
Then this happened.
A Hard Knocks hunting party arrived through the C4 I was sat at and proceeded to warp over to the C4 I’d come in through. I’d seen a neutral Stratios loitering in there and wondered if they had a bead on him, so I warped over to watch any potential fight. The Pacifier jumped in and disappeared for five or so minutes, leaving the brace of Sabres on the hole. Clearly they hadn’t found anything of interest and decided to return whence they came. I followed to make sure the Pacifier had gone with them.
On hitting D-Scan a few seconds later I noticed a self named Cheetah on scan, and it was an EVE Uni player. I’m always wary of EVE Uni as they rarely fly alone in wormholes and I’ve been baited by them before, plus they have some excellent pvp pilots. Was this guy with the HK party? Possibly. I don’t know who’s fingering who these days as I tend to shy away from in-game politics and, of course, he could simply be a bait alt.
Eventually he alighted on one of the relic sites and started work. The fact that he was a cherry picker rankled me. Bait or not, he needed to die.
I checked Hideo Date’s killboard and whilst he had a few kills nothing screamed bait. In I went.
I almost didn’t have him, he was pretty fly however he’d made the mistake of leaving his MWD on and provided me with the gift of a wonderfully increased sig radius.
That unfortunately was the extent of the fun to be found in J212713.
Having again completed another successful 30 kill streak on this incarnation of The Vital Spark custom dictates she should now be retired, but I’m going to see if I can get this one to 50 I think 🙂
Fly safe o/
F.
Poking Your Hole 