Well, my first post got a good response, something I'm rather happy about. I haven't posted in a while, and a few thing things have happened between then and now, so I'm going to lump them together in a happy post of my greatest and not all latest exploits.

Casting back in time a bit to maybe two weeks after my first kill, I was once again out cruising for someone to flip, and there are always targets for those who are willing to search. I'd already found that, for that day at least, my home system was dead to can miners (and I think I'd started becoming known to a few of the regulars), so I'd gone further afield in my hunting. I trawled through system after system and found no one who I could flip, that was, until I landed in a near-dead system on my way back home. I had my scanner open and out of habit, hit the scan button and on the results was a cruiser and a LOT of cans. I quickly narrowed the search field and tracked them down to a deserted belt, which I promptly warped into. There, in front of me, was a Vexor can mining; but he wasn't just mining into one can, he had been filling his cargo bay and then jettisoning each time, I was spoiled for choice. I sidled up to the nearest can and promptly flipped it then took myself into a close orbit around the cruiser, waiting for the response. I knew flipping a Vexor might be a bad idea as they could deploy a whole world of drone based hurt on my ass if flown by a good pilot, but the pilot was young, only a couple of months old, same as me, so I figured that I'd chance it.

Anyways, sure enough drones were launched from the Vexor, 1 Ogre I. I couldn't suppress a gleeful chuckle; the drone wouldn't even be able to hit me, let alone kill me. I locked them up and almost instantly, they flashed red as the Ogre began lumbering towards me. I hit my scrammer, then began the task of quickly webbing and annihilating his drone. That done, I proceeded to cut through his shields and armour and got him into structure. It was at this point I remembered ransoming. I opened a convo with the pilot and offered him a deal of 1 mil to let him go. As he had a Vexor, I figured he could afford it. He said he couldn't afford it and exited the convo; so I promptly returned his ship to the star dust it once was. He asked me why I had shot at him, I replied that he shot first and then left to go get my indy collect the ore and the loot. It was when I picked up said loot that I found that they'd had a few Hammerheads in their drone bay the whole time, but never launched them. Wonders never cease.


After that little encounter, I was flush with my victory, but also disappointed. It had been stupidly easy to down the Vexor, I wanted more of a challenge. So, even though it was getting late, I set out hunting again. I found a target one system over from my home, an Exqueror mining into a can. I checked out the pilot, roughly 3-4 months old, a good bet that unless he had set a trap, I could take him. I moved in and flipped the can before moving in to orbit him and lock him up. What happened next I didn't expect.

He stole his ore back.

Instantly I unleashed all of my guns on him and soon after the ship turned into a fireball. The pod warped off without a word and I set about stealing the ore back to my can, already thinking about logging off after 2 successful, if lackluster kills. It was then that he came back, in a Thorax. My pulse went into overdrive. I knew the Rax's reputation, in good hands it could melt a Frig in seconds, and even in average hands it was a serious threat. But even so, I hadn't had a decent fight, and the adrenaline in my veins told me that I only had one option; I burned straight for him.

Immediately, he opened up and I saw my shield drop horribly as his medium blasters caught a glancing blow on me, and he quickly followed by releasing a swarm of Hammerhead Is. I was in entirely unknown territory, and only a sliver of advice on this site stopped me from disengaging and bugging out. Med drones can't land good hits on a fast moving Frig, especially Tech 1 drones. With that in mind, I maintained my burn and quickly established a close, fast orbit around him. His guns ceased to be a threat as I flew rings around their tracking, but the drones were eating into my armour fast. I scrammed him, then began the process of webbing and destroying his drones. It was touch and go at first, I was killing the drones, but they were landing hit after hit, and they were mounting up. Soon enough however, the skies were clear of any drones but mine, and I set to work chipping away at his shields. They went down in a prompt fashion, but then I hit his armour and found he had a semi-decent tank going. I kept on hitting him, but I was making small headway, if any, and my ammo was depleting fast. And then, all of a sudden, his tank broke as he ran out of cap to support it. My blasters melted through his armour and then punched holes into his structure to finally end the fight in a glorious explosion. I convoed the pilot after the fight to wish him a GF, as should always be the case, and we got talking, with me giving him a few pointers on how to avoid a similar situation happening again and how to improve his fit, although he definitely had the right idea. In the end we parted on good terms.

Overall, it was a good night.

Killmails:
2010.04.19 22:05:00

Victim: SpacyCasey
Corp: Black Dawn Industries
Alliance: Unknown
Faction: Unknown
Destroyed: Vexor
System:
Security: 0.8
Damage Taken: 3736

Involved parties:

Name: Bern (laid the final blow)
Security: -0.2
Corp: Evil Hunters
Alliance: The G0dfathers
Faction: NONE
Ship: Incursus
Weapon: Light Ion Blaster II
Damage Done: 3736

Destroyed items:

Salvager I
Miner I, Qty: 3
Cap Recharger I
Mining Drone I, Qty: 3 (Drone Bay)
Expanded Cargohold I, Qty: 3
10MN Afterburner I
Hammerhead I (Drone Bay)

Dropped items:

Scordite, Qty: 181 (Cargo)
Miner I
Mining Drone I (Drone Bay)
Expanded Cargohold I
Ogre I (Drone Bay)
Hammerhead I, Qty: 3 (Drone Bay)

2010.04.19 22:33:00

Victim: Estha'r
Corp: KUSHI-NADA-HIME
Alliance: SOLITUDE COALITION
Faction: Unknown
Destroyed: Exequror
System:
Security: 0.9
Damage Taken: 3013

Involved parties:

Name: Bern (laid the final blow)
Security: -0.2
Corp: Evil Hunters
Alliance: The G0dfathers
Faction: NONE
Ship: Incursus
Weapon: Light Ion Blaster II
Damage Done: 3013

Destroyed items:

Miner I
1MN Afterburner I
Expanded Cargohold I
Survey Scanner I
Mining Drone I, Qty: 2 (Drone Bay)

Dropped items:

Basic Expanded Cargohold
Plagioclase, Qty: 3538 (Cargo)
Miner I, Qty: 3
Expanded Cargohold I

2010.04.19 22:51:00

Victim: Estha'r
Corp: KUSHI-NADA-HIME
Alliance: SOLITUDE COALITION
Faction: Unknown
Destroyed: Thorax
System:
Security: 0.9
Damage Taken: 8350

Involved parties:

Name: Bern (laid the final blow)
Security: -0.2
Corp: Evil Hunters
Alliance: The G0dfathers
Faction: NONE
Ship: Incursus
Weapon: Light Ion Blaster II
Damage Done: 8350

Destroyed items:

10MN Afterburner I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I
Medium Armor Repairer I
Device (Cargo)
Heavy Neutron Blaster I
Heavy Electron Blaster I
Uranium Charge M, Qty: 7

Dropped items:

Damage Control I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I
Cap Recharger I, Qty: 2
Capacitor Power Relay I
Heavy Electron Blaster I, Qty: 3
Uranium Charge M, Qty: 161



Now the tale, everyone, is not quite over. I have one more story to regail you with, and one I think is a great deal funnier than my previous encounters.

We're fast forwarding to the present day now, and after a spell of inactivity, I was back hunting again. I had been training ship support and combat skills during my inactivity and I was itching to test them on some unsuspecting carebear. Well, I found one, oh boy did I find one.

I had been cruising around for a little while, not finding much of interest. Or when it was interesting it was a blatant pirate trap that only an imbecile would fall into. An example of both was an AF, flown by a year old pilot, with a string of combat Corps in their history, sitting apparently mining into 2 jettisoned cans. The imbecile was a month old pilot in a Catalyst who took the bait only to be vapourised in roughly 30 seconds. That one gave me a chuckle, but I wasn't any closer to finding my own target. Until I managed to scan down a Retriever mining into a can. I sent a quick prayer of thanks to whatever might be listening to the prayers of a pirate and moved in to flip the can. No sooner had I done so than the pilot convoed me;
?[ 2010.06.15 16:50:18 ] Him > im getting my bs and im gona blow your ass to peices
?[ 2010.06.15 16:50:33 ] Me > No problem here
?[ 2010.06.15 16:52:56 ] Him > so tell your buddies to warp in
?[ 2010.06.15 16:53:13 ] Him > cuz i knowhat your trying to do noob

He warped off to station, leaving me sitting in the belt pondering whether I should, indeed, call for a little help from my corp. He was roughly 7 months old so, if he had a BS as he said, I wasn't too worried about him being able to fly it well, or even hit me with the unwieldy heavy guns most likely attached to it. It was more from the aspect that I was pretty sure even a badly fitted BS could tank my lone Incursis and his generally asshattish comments had made me want to take him down no matter what. I put in an inquiry into my corp asking if anyone was nearby, but sadly, no one was. After a moment of deliberation, I decided to see what he showed up in before finalising my plan of action. It was lucky I did, as he didn't turn up in a BS at all, but a Brutix. I couldn't help but grin, this situation was quickly looking up. I immediately closed the distance between him and me, making sure that if he opened up, he'd have a damn hard time hitting me. I still wasn't sure if I could break a tank on a Brute, but I figured that I wouldn't know until I tried. He launched his drones, and my grin only got wider; they were Tech 1 Hammerheads. If there's something I've noticed about EvE, it's that, for Gallente territory anyways, you can tell a lot about a pilot's combat ability by their drones. A good Galent combat pilot with have T2, even if they don't specialise in them. It's silly not to want the added damage and resilience they bring. He, however, had T1, and I was pretty much convinced by this point that I was in the far superior position. He continued to sit with his drones out, but didn't open up. After a minute, and watching the aggression timer tick down, I decided to try to push him into combat.

[ 2010.06.15 16:56:26 ] Me > So're we doing this or not?
?[ 2010.06.15 16:57:27 ] Him > yup
?[ 2010.06.15 16:57:31 ] Him > just us
?[ 2010.06.15 16:57:34 ] Him > no friends
?[ 2010.06.15 16:58:05 ] Me > That's correct yes. I was going to ask for help if you brought a BS, but a BC is usually a solo affair

I'd come across similar suspicion before, I once sat and stole millions worth of ore on my own from a corp mining op because they were utterly convinced I had corpies waiting to jump in and buttseks them all when they opened up on me. I knew I had to convince him it was safe to combat me, and that I was just a stupid combat junkie with too much free time. This is how it went down:

?[ 2010.06.15 16:58:18 ] Him > ire when your ready to die
?[ 2010.06.15 16:58:25 ] Him > wait 1 sec
?[ 2010.06.15 16:58:36 ] Him > y the fuck r u even doing this?
?[ 2010.06.15 16:58:43 ] Me > For the thrill of it
?[ 2010.06.15 16:58:51 ] Me > Plus any ore I can grab on the side
?[ 2010.06.15 16:58:54 ] Him > to die?or lose a ship
?[ 2010.06.15 16:59:02 ] Me > Done both numerous times
?[ 2010.06.15 16:59:22 ] Him > well lets settle this then i ant my ore back
?[ 2010.06.15 16:59:35 ] Me > Whenever you're ready
?[ 2010.06.15 16:59:40 ] Him > fire when your ready to die
?[ 2010.06.15 16:59:53 ] Me > Er, you think I want Concorded? I ain't that stupid
?[ 2010.06.15 17:00:08 ] Me > If you fire though, we get to duel as I stole from you
?[ 2010.06.15 17:00:22 ] Him > well thats to bad cuz i kno your going to tell your buddies to hop in when i fire
?[ 2010.06.15 17:00:28 ] Me > Oh please
?[ 2010.06.15 17:00:39 ] Me > A BC isn't worth that
?[ 2010.06.15 17:00:45 ] Him > sure
?[ 2010.06.15 17:00:54 ] Me > Plus, they're all away in 0.0
?[ 2010.06.15 17:01:02 ] Him > your 200k ship isnt worth my 20 mil ship
?[ 2010.06.15 17:01:32 ] Him > i dont trust liers and thifes
?[ 2010.06.15 17:01:59 ] Me > You think? Look mate, if I wanted to gank a miner's combat ship with my buddies, I'd go to low sec
?[ 2010.06.15 17:02:17 ] Me > This is just us, alone, with you in a much bigger ship

He went quiet for a moment, what I'd said seemed to have struck a chord with him. I waited with baited breath and suddenly, with less than a goddamn minute on the aggression timer, he opened up with Railguns. His drones also started knocking away at my shields, and he seemed to think that he was winning (even though he couldn't land a single turret hit) as he commented:

?[ 2010.06.15 17:04:36 ] Him > just run

As per standard procedure for me, I knocked out his drones first. They fell like flies to my upgraded skills and now T2 Hobgoblin I had along as additional DPS and soon I was hacking into his shields. It was then I found his tank, a shield tank. It was almost laughable, but annoyingly, it was holding up relatively well against my onslaught, I was only making progress in fits and starts; something he noticed.

?[ 2010.06.15 17:05:24 ] Him > i can rep you damage all day noob

What he didn't seem to realise was that I was still making head-way, and soon after, his cap gave out. My blasters started to chew hungrily through his armour, much to my glee, and his death was all but assured. But even better, was the turn the conversation took next.

?[ 2010.06.15 17:06:04 ] Him > ill give u 1 mil to leave me alone
?[ 2010.06.15 17:06:14 ] Him > ok?
?[ 2010.06.15 17:06:30 ] Him > ok 5 mil
?[ 2010.06.15 17:06:37 ] Him > how much?
?[ 2010.06.15 17:06:39 ] Me > 10 If you can afford a 20 mil ship yu can afford that
?[ 2010.06.15 17:06:44 ] Him > just stop plz
?[ 2010.06.15 17:06:54 ] Him > ok 10 nil stop
?[ 2010.06.15 17:07:01 ] Me > Send the cash, then I stop
?[ 2010.06.15 17:07:08 ] Him > stop plz
?[ 2010.06.15 17:07:22 ] Him > i only got 1 mil cash ill sell the ship plz stop
?[ 2010.06.15 17:07:52 ] Me > And how do I know that you won't skip out on the deal?
?[ 2010.06.15 17:07:57 ] Him > plz negoiate
?[ 2010.06.15 17:08:30 ] Me > Stop repping
?[ 2010.06.15 17:08:41 ] Him > ill give you 500k now and 500k when u stop web
?[ 2010.06.15 17:09:06 ] Him > i just sent u 900k
?[ 2010.06.15 17:09:15 ] Him > so plz stop
?[ 2010.06.15 17:09:35 ] Him > ill give u the rest when i dock plz i just want not to lose this ship
?[ 2010.06.15 17:10:33 ] Him > please just et me go
?[ 2010.06.15 17:10:41 ] Him > i wont mess with u again
?[ 2010.06.15 17:10:48 ] Me > To be fair, I messed with you

Well, eventually, he paid up a couple of mil, and I decided to let him go as I was getting bored with the whole affair and am, perpetually, too soft on my targets. His grovelling was my payment, and I watched him go, contented to have taught the moron a lesson he wasn't likely to forget.

And so we come to the end of my exploits for now. I hope that I've kept you entertained. I think that overall, I need to stop being so soft on my targets, as it occured to me later that I should've just told him to either eject or lose the ship, but c'est la vie and hindsight is a bitch. I'm still pretty much a n00b in a world that takes time to get any good at, and next time, my targets won't be getting off with a slap on the wrist and a humiliating defeat for being insulting little bastards.

Fly safe, or unsafe if that's your thing,
Bern