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.