Running Away Is Serious Business

This week I'm on vacation from work, but staying home.  I meant to do some errands around the house and get some quality time in space grinding Sisters of EVE loyalty points doing some distribution missions in low sec.  Besides the loyalty points, I think getting both my pilots up to 8.0 so they have jump clone access with the Sisters is a good long term investment.  Something about the way the lore is heading tells me so.

Because of covering the SOMERblink mess I didn't get a chance to get into space until last night. This new area of space I'm in has one constellation that holds a pretty active Australian PvP corporation.  So when a mission would take me into their space, things would get interesting.

Remember all of those bookmarks I wrote about making?  Very handy, especially when undocking from a station and a non-flashy red ship is waiting outside.  Instant warp-off bookmarks FTW!

I think they should put up a sign reading, "If you enter this space, you agree to play with us."  But that's okay, I'm good at running.  I had a Zealot try to catch up to my Prowler.  With Rubicon that's insanity but until then very doable.  He was persistent, but I lost him when I did an immediate uncloak/warp/recloak upon landing on a gate.  I don't think he knew which way I went.

Of course, the constellation only had one way out and sitting on the gate was a Broadsword plus another ship.  That woke me up.  Heavy interdictors in low sec mean they have the infinite point script.  That doesn't bother me too much because I rely on speed, agility, bookmarks, and my cloak to get out of tight spots, not warp core stabilizers.  But the Broadsword meant these guys were serious and all those other ships were just waiting around until he tackled something.

After slipping past the Broadsword, he complimented me on getting recloaked so fast and we started talking.  The pilot was an American who had joined up and we had a nice conversation.  The important thing I took out of it was that pilots of cloaky ships are getting sloppy in low sec.  He told me that a lot of pilots just aren't cloaking very fast, which means he can catch them.

I ended the talk because I needed to log off for the night.  I might have stayed on a bit longer but I didn't feel like testing these guys.  They reacted pretty quickly once they realized I had entered their constellation.  Worse, they knew they were trying to catch a blockade runner and they were confident enough to think they could do it.  And from talking to the Broadsword pilot, they have success catching cloaky ships.

These Australians also aren't a gate camp at a low sec entry system looking for people bumbling into their lair, either.  Those gate camps don't bother me, until the Broadswords start showing up (and why is the Broadsword popping up everywhere I go?).  I have had a good chance to observe these guys in action.  They tend to go about their normal business and then when an intruder enters, they try to pounce.

No one's caught me in my Prowler yet.  I know someone will, but part of the game is not getting caught.  And not getting caught also involves not going into a situation where a group of pilots is waiting for me.  Being a low sec carebear may mean I'm crazy, but I'd like to think I'm not THAT stupid.