Of Proteus, Astero and Proteus

Yesterday was a busy one.

We connected to a C2 vis a had 15 nullsec-type relic and data sites, which is an inordinate bounty in anyne's book. So I grabbed an Anathema and did my first ever hacking since the minigame. Thank fuck, is all i will say, about the removal of what was known as loot spew, or as I knew it, loot bukkake. I also realised that a dedicated hacking toon or hacking ship is definitely required, my choice du jour being a pimped out T2 rigged Sukuvestaa heron, with a toon which has pimped as fuck hacking skills and nothing else.

Why not a T3, Astero, etc? Well, all i will say is that there was another Astero humping a Guristas something-something yesterday who was extremely lucky we connected to that hole only via a frigate hole, otherwise he would have caught a visit from the Dick Virus (my cloaky nullified smartbomber) and got podded.

Once i had made my eyes melt from my face doing all that work, I went to look at my haul; 45M ISK for 3 hours solid, dangerous can fondling. What the fuck? Then I realised - the names and types of all the decyrptors had been changed in the patch, so the new ones resolved a 0 hold price. I had 55 decryptors of 12 different types. So....winning?

Can frottage done, I began hunting, swapping my badly fit archaeological Anathema for my Astero of Doom. I found my way through another frigate hole, an E004, into a C1. Inside was a Gnosis doing the combat anoms. I had a new corpie coming towards the hole, but he was 15 jumps out and not really much use, as he too was in an Astero. I chewed the cud for a good 5 minutes on how to take this guy out. He was armour tanked and using HAMs and Hammerhead I's. Eventually, I settled for just bringing my Phobos through the frigate holes to maintain tackle, provide neuting, and get the pod with the bubble - the Astero would drop its Hobgoblins and orbit at 45km outside of Javelin range. Given my fit, this meant the Phobos brought absolutely zero DPS, so the Astero had to do all the heavy lifting.

Fifteen minutes later, I had a new corpse to throw onto the Altar of Bob. This was actually a very satisfying fight, but still frustrating to have to go through so many shenanigans because of frigate holes.

Later on, out our N766, we interdicted a guy moving in to his own wormhole corp. Got some good bumps off the hole, and popped his Drake. Poor guy was in corp less than a day, and we sent him back to hisec.So, I can confirm that people are moving back in to wormholes - just not that guy, not yesterday.

Barely an hour later, after some logistical runs of our own, I went back out for a quick sniff around. An hour before downtime is an awkward time for me most evenings, as the wife gets home from work and I have to provide hugs, listen to the daily gossip, and discuss dinner etcetera. Today, this all got pusshed into the background due to SRS BSNS - I'd found a Golem and two Tengu running C4's.

We formed the rape fleet fairly quickly, as downtime was coming, these guys were murdering rats very fucking fast, and we could field some logi, so we would go in head first amidst the third wave BS rats, and I would likely burn my Astero.

When we landed, of course the Golem was fucked. The Tengus booked it instantly, despite my calls to tackle them first (Golem being in bastion, it was self-tackled basically). However, i maintained a long point with my Protar, and followed one of them 80km away from the Golem as my Astero dipped into 5% armour, small AAR buckling and smoking from the overheating it was getting, Golem missiles, two BS rats and a TP on it. Then, finally, the rats switched off and Guardian reps landed, so I booked it after the Tengu and got webs on.

Golem and pod.
Tengu and pod.
Tractor unit.

I'm liking my Protar (sentry Proteus). But not as much as I like my Astero.