My Loot, Your Tears

(Author's note: I am posting this from a cellular-connected netbook moving at 75 MPH down a highway in the Southern US. If there are glitches or errors, they can be attributed to either a small keyboard or an unreliable connection.)

Suddenly Ninjas is under a declaration of war from some fail carebear alliance that one of our members cheesed off, but they seem to fail at PVP even harder than they fail at target selection (seriously guys, hisec warfare is dumb, and we're not gonna play station games with you), so I've been ninja-salvaging in Dodixie anyway.

My third of four hits in that particular cycle was a Hyperion owned by Ju'Ane d'Ellenarile in a large single-room Angel mission. Ju'Ane locked me and launched her drones as soon as I looted a large wreck. Usually it takes a little while for a carebear to decide to throw his life away, so I was caught off guard and didn't realize that her Warrior II's were on me until the first damage notification. I barely got away, but get away I did, with 20% armor remaining on my Vigil.

In the past, I have done my ganking in a HAM Drake, but killing a battleship in a battlecruiser usually requires good RR support. With most of the ninjas off killing WT miners (carebear fail), there were only a handful of ninjas in Dodixie. After a few moments of consideration, I docked up and grabbed a Torpedo/Neut Raven I had fit up a week previous. Ninja Barlic was one jump over and answered the call to RR.

During my Vigil's Great Escape, I had bookmarked a wreck near Ju'Ane's current position. This did me no good, as I still arrived at the deadspace entry point, about 100km away. At that point I figured the game was up, as most rational people will realize that a PVP ship just showed up to shoot at them, and will move their PVE-fit ship out of harm's way immediately.

I guess I give too much credit to human rationality, because Ju'Ane started burning toward me. Even when Barlic arrived on grid a full minute later, while I was still at 35km and unable to get my warp disruptor on her, she remained focused on getting drones on me and beginning the fight. Oh well, it's your funeral, sister.

This was my first time flying a battleship, and I was afraid that I would mis-manage my capacitor and lose my point on her. Still, even with my forgetting to engage my resist boosters until she had been shooting me for 30 seconds, her Hyperion went bye-bye with me at about 40% shields. Heavy Neuts are incredibly effective against the active tanks that those carebear kids are using these days, and she never had a chance.

Poor Barlic. He overloaded his afterburner almost to burnout trying to get to me, and arrived in RR range just as Ju'Ane went into structure. I still paid him a gratuity of 5M ISK for his help. Someday I may have to fight a carebear who isn't fail-fit, and I want my fellow Ninjas as eager as possible to come to my aid.

I tried to open a convo with Ju'Ane after her pod warped off, but she had ragelogged. I eve-mailed her (to let her know that she would be featured on MLYT) and got a response in French.

Sometimes a carebear will shoot at a ninja, and then have that ninja land right on top of him with a gank ship. This is pure ignorance, and they can't really fix the situation once they're in it. Ju'Ane, however, had about 90 seconds to get out, longer if she hadn't turned and burned toward my ship. There is no real excuse for this sort of bravado, so though Ju'Ane proved that not all French are cowards, she certainly did prove that she is a fool. She paid the price, so maybe next time she'll remember the lesson: Don't shoot at ninjas.

This entry was posted on August 29, 2009 at 11:48 AM by paul and is filed under Combat, Duffers, Ninja Salvaging.