Misinformation

A fun part of EVE is when patience and improvisation pay off.

A stealth bomber had been frequenting our system, popping NPC battleships in asteroid belts and moving on. He was doing this to raise his security status, and we've become aware of his patterns.

A friend and I fleet up and pass the time by running some sites (dynamic spawns of NPCs that need to be scanned down by probes), when we notice another visitor: a Thorax cruiser. He isn't just passing by; I pinpoint him to a belt with growing wrecks.

I'm in an armor Hurricane battlecruiser, which isn't the speediest of boats. I enter warp and land about 60 km from him. My overheated point (warp disruptor) reaches 28 km, and he definitely has time to warp away--but he stays. I get close enough to disrupt his warp drive, but he is a bit faster than I. He launches some drones and begins kiting me at about 30 km. I have some drones of my own and send them toward him.

He either just realizes that he can warp, or he doesn't like his chances, but he warps with only his shields missing, leaving his poor drones behind. During this time, our stealth bombing interloper enters the system, and my friend has him located at a belt. I race over to assist, but the tiny frigate pops before I arrive.

This is local chat:

StealthBomber > took you long enough
StealthBomber > gf
Friend > took close
StealthBomber > ?
Friend > was hunting the cane
StealthBomber > ah
StealthBomber > got my sec up tho... all that matters ... was a good ship ... did its job
Friend > think [he's] with the thorax
ThoraxCruiser > the cane and I just crossed paths in one of the belts
Friend > did not think I would catch you

No need to alert the Thorax that we are together, my friend pretends that he was actually hunting me. Gotta love misinformation.

I sit in space idly waiting for my criminal flag to wear off, when our Thorax reappears on the directional scanner. And he's at a belt! He either bought our story or has some of the biggest cahones around.

My cloaky friend snags him no problem, and I arrive just in time to sneak in a shot or two on the killmail. His pod whisks away, but we stick to our story:

Friend > luck cane
Friend > lucky cane... should have gunned you held the thorax
Hasugo Numani > skin of my teeth :)
Hasugo Numani > 10% structure
Friend > could nt over burn much more lol

Maybe we'll see the Thorax again.

Phantastic

A lot of the events in EVE that I found to be remarkable and intriguing (e.g. being chased, acting as bait, any combat) are becoming quite ordinary and part of my usual play sessions. I will however tell a humorous but tragic tale of a Phantasm.

I had been killing some NPC pirate mobs (ratting) to pass the time in our home system and was sitting outside a station to repair my armor when a friend of ours logs in and undocks from the same station. He is in a Phantasm cruiser and drifts well past the undock point, and I think nothing of it. All of a sudden he opens fire and blows away my shields and armor in two volleys. I dock just in time to change my pants.

I pipe up in local, "whoa, I thought we were friends :(" He apologizes and explains that he's under the influence of some substance. So naturally we fleet up. A third pirate in a Loki joins our squad, and we set out for some PvP.

I in my Rupture cruiser and the lit pilot in his Phantasm are sitting on a gate, waiting to jump into the next system to bounce on whatever poor soul the Loki catches. A new pilot enters local and the gate flashes, indicating that someone has jumped into our little ambush. It's a Caracal cruiser that decides to take its chances by returning to the gate it just came from (When you use a gate, you spawn at some point on the other side approximately 15 kilometers from it, but must be 2500 meters away in order to activate it.)

We open fire, a clear criminal act, and evaporate the Caldari cruiser's shields in the few seconds it takes the hull to approach the gate. But alas, he jumps back through, no doubt shaken. We can no longer sit on the gate as the gate guns are shooting at us for our actions, and we warp to a point 200 km away (outside of the 150 km gun range).

The Loki can't find anyone actively ratting, so he asks me to come and bait. I jump into the system, warp to a belt, and begin killing rats. The Loki is covertly configured and sits cloaked like a guardian angel.

A minute or two passes and the Phantasm pilot, left unsupervised in the adjacent solar system, cries out on voice chat. He has tried to shoot someone at the gate again, but the gate guns are tearing him apart. His 150 mil+ pirate faction cruiser explodes, "well that was embarrassing."

Out of combat ships nearby, the Phantasm says good-bye and leaves fleet. Poor guy.

Whoops

I was misinformed on the range of station guns. They have 150 kilometer range, in fact. 150. One-hundred, fifty.  Yep.

And then like a moron, I lost my pod.

There isn't much of a story to tell other than playing cat and mouse with this guy. He lands at 100 km from the station, burns out to 130k. I come out to greet him and aggress since I thought the sentry gun range was 100 km (NB: It is 150 km). I die very quickly to what I originally thought was this Thrasher, grab the first thing I can  find to warp away (the station that is at 130 km), spam the warp button, and lose my expensive egg as I am just sitting there (a warp target needs to be at least 150 km away).

Not my proudest nor cheapest nights of EVE.