Sunday 14 December 2014

It's Cactus (a tale of unfortunate providence)

Ever since the advent of the Dick Virus, our corp policy toward sigs in the chain has now changed. Whereas previously we would just log the data, relic and gas sites and ignore them (probe to 25% to identify as such ad ignore) we now have to spend the extra time to probe them down to at least 75% to identify which of the relic and data sites are the nullsec type sites, and bookmark them in case of hackers and archaeologists comng through at some undefined point in the future.

Yesterday we did this, and because it was a PVP and logistics day, and our chain was big (25+ holes), we left the two in our C2 connection alone, but BM'ed them for future use. I am no longer the sole person in the Sudden Buggery POS to have a Dick Virus, it seems, for Daldaman had decided to shell out on one and was patiently lurking a Habitation Coils while shuffling planet shit with his alt.

Midway through an API check, he pipes up that a Legion was running the site. We have the Legion in site, and we've seen an Anathema - presumably the hacker.

We assembled the blob on the N766, but the legion was burning through the stuff super-fast, and we were a bit slow. We made a decision to wait for him to start the next, or maybe we could snag the salvager, or wait for him to come back for more hacking. I hopped into the Dick Virus and jumped into system, warping to site and setting a pounce.


Then the Legion warps out and there is an Orca on scan, and .he swaps to a Proteus, and warps back to site. The Anathema swaps into a Catalyst. The Orca is in the direction of the POS at planet 6, and we all agree it is at the POS. But...it wasn't on scan before, I'm thinking. Who cloaks an Orca at their POS? Or is he running in and out of hisec, and can we bubble trap him? So I warp over to the POS bookmark (I now have circa 1,800 POS's bookmarked in w-space) and....no orca. Orca on d-scan, within 1 AU. 1 + 1 = 3?

The penny has dropped. I know who this is.

I scuttle off to the farthest planet, off d-scan, and place the probes over planet 6 at 2 AU, ready to go. I declare we are waiting for the salvaging to finish. We're now hunting whales, not Legions, nor Catalysts or Anathemas.I warp back to P6 M25, and see for a brief second, a Catalyst on grid, and the orca disappears from d-scan. The Catalyst has warped to site, and I'm pretty sure I am on grid with a cloaked Orca which contains a legion which eats C2 relic sites for breakfast.

The Catalyst takes forever to salvage. Literally the slowest and lamest salvaging attempt known to man. But we wait, and a couple of people sign in and wander in to serious business comms and are told to STFU and get on the N766.

After a good ten or fifteen minutes the Catalyst finishes and sure as sunshine, lands 438km off us at P6 M25, and the Orca decloaks. I hit the probe button and align to the Orca as the probes cycle. 100% returned, and I squad warp in, dropping cloak as I go. Bex decloaks in his Legion and we point the Orca.

The Catalyst swaps to an Anathema. "Tackle that anathema!" Bex says, obviously thinking what I'm thinking - the dude is hoofing it with the blue poo or something. Instead, I just stab F2 to F6, and blap him back to hisec. He doesn't even have a chance to initiate warp before he's a freeze dried deep friend corpsicle.

We beat the Orca down, farming an ejected Venture, and Daldaman beats me to the Orca pod with his own Proteus bombs.

I had seen this guy before, running his cloaky Orca setup before. I'd come close to nabbing him, but he disappeared through a wormhole to another C2, collapsing it behind him, and disappeared into the ether for a good 12 months or more before today. He had a good plan -  decloak yourself at the same celestial as a POS, and most people will assume that if they see an Orca scanning toward the same planet as a POS, it must be at a POS. He also picked a planet with 25 moons - he was just unlucky I was on the same moon as him, and had the POS bookmarked so I could tell he wasn't at it.

That is how you gank 2.38 billion ISK. But I am sure Cactus will recover - he's been at it long enough, he must be making good bank.

1 comment:

  1. That was one glorious Orca snag!
    Made my day :)

    ReplyDelete

Anonymous shitposting is disabled. If you want to insult me anonymously about EVE on my blog, you can fuck off.