My First Killmail

Yesterday afternoon I managed to free up some time to play Eve so I continued with The Ani Campaign, what I'm calling my time doing the high-sec COSMOS missions in the Ani constellation.  I had moved on to The Asylum in Lanngisi and started doing the missions from Godun Sakt, "Godun's Flunky".  As I've mentioned in the past, the Evelopedia entries for the Minmatar missions are not exactly the greatest sources of information.  If the entries were more accurate, the confrontation below probably would not have occurred.

The first mission is "Listen and Learn," which calls for obtaining four Angel Drug Addict Tags from rats in the in the Contested Minmatar Guerilla Base in Tvink. While the Evelopedia stated that they were found in the security post room, I discovered later that the tags dropped in other rooms as well.  But not knowing that, Wandering Rose hopped in her Hurricane and Rosewalker in a Cyclone and off I went to collect tags.

In the beginning, my lack of willingness to explore other rooms led me to stay in the first room, which was being worked over by a Hurricane/Drake team.  I came back a couple of times and finally found one Angel Drug Addict that had not been destroyed.  There were a couple of wrecks that I knew had the tags, but I was not going to take from a yellow wreck and set myself up as a flashy target.

Another pilot in a Rifter did not feel so inhibited.  At the time I believed he was baiting people, trying to be a ninja like Paul Clavet.  After collecting my first tag, the Rifter pilot decided to loot one of my wrecks and turned flashy.  I was a little frustrated by then and succumbed to the mindset, "see flash, shoot flashy."  I knew I couldn't kill the rugged Minmatar frigate unless the pilot was extremely dumb since I was equipped for PvE and failed to pack a point in my mids.  But I locked him up with both ships and fired anyway.  Sure enough, my alpha strike failed to punch through his shields and he warped away to a point on-grid.

He had a bookmark on grid?  It's a trap!  So expecting a gang to warp in at any second, I warped off to Tvink I.  At 0.  Pretty stupid, but what the hell?

Except, my move proved to be pretty smart, or more likely, pretty lucky.  About 2 minutes later, he landed about 30 klicks from my ships.  Okay, he was hunting me.  But he was way out of range and Rosewalker was sporting 650mm Artillery IIs and assault launchers.  Also, he was still at half-shields.  So since I had a free shot, I figured I'd scare him away and commenced firing.   His ship exploded.

I couldn't believe it.  My ships were not set up to tackle anything.  How in the world could I succeed?  Although I forgot to check local for any conversation, my wits hadn't completely deserted me and I warped off to the Republic University station in Nakugard to wait out the aggression timer.  The intrepid frigate pilot contacted Wandering Rose in a private chat.

Ninja > come out of the station
Wandering Rose > I don't think so
Ninja > coward that was not fare killing a frig
Ninja > using a bc

Actually, I used two.

Wandering Rose > um, you could have gotten away
Wandering Rose > actually, should have
Ninja > i tried but you had the range on me
Wandering Rose > I didn't point or web you

How could I?  He was out of range, even if I had a point fitted, which I didn't.  I left the Rapier back in the station.

Ninja > you used artiliry or autocannons?
Wandering Rose > both
Ninja > because i was like 25 km away
Wandering Rose > there were 2 ships

Hmmm ... I picked on a new character?

Ninja > i know
Ninja > and i could have killed you bouth you would give me one more sec
Ninja > it's a shame

Tough talk.  Of course, I'm the one hiding in the station.

Wandering Rose > you were going to warp in a gang?
Ninja > yeah
Wandering Rose > so you hanging out in the site was a trap?

I don't think he liked that, since springing a trap made it look like I wasn't picking on a defenseless frigate after all.  He tried a different tack.

Ninja > i will clean everything in the complex
Ninja > and you will have nothing else to do
Ninja > good luck
Ninja > see ya soon
Wandering Rose > have fun :)

Nothing else to do?  I was watching the Bears-Falcons game.  Did I mention that 2 more tags dropped from his wreck?  I only needed one more.  But since the site was busy, I went and found a contract for 5 more tags.  That completed the collection for Wandering Rose and if I ever decide to, Rosewalker can complete the mission as well.  Of course, if I had gone into the next room, I could have gotten all the tags I wanted.

After taking care of business, I looked up the killmail and tracked down information about the pilot.  I discovered that instead of being the new pilot I believed, he was actually one year older than Rosewalker and flew with an alliance in null sec.  I don't think he was too successful, though.  So far this year he has killed 3 ships and lost 19, including 2 Tempests, a Megathron and 4 Hurricanes.  And now a Rifter to a high-sec carebear who thought there was no way in hell he could destroy it.

Looking back on the fight, I don't really think he was trying to hunt me down.  I think what happened is that he needed to go AFK and instead of docking up (there are no stations in Tvink) he just warped to a planet.  He just had the bad luck of warping right into range of a ship that he was flashy to.  Let that be a lesson to you.  Make bookmarks.