EVE Online - EVE-Pirate.com (Entries tagged as arbitrator)

Can flippers be-ware

nospam@example.com (Saint Juliana) — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 17:09:00 +0200

Inspired by entries in this site, and the deplorable yet entertaining antics at mylootyourtears. I resolved yet again to try strike out at can flippers and griefers. I have spent quite a few hours, with my main - mining away in a Vexor or an Exequror, but something about a 2006 toon mining in a cruiser in a belt doesn't encourage the locals.
So to this end I brought forth Saint Juliana, to strike righteous revenge on the piratical denzins of high sec.
I thought I would give some newbie pirates a surprise, and loaded a Bellicose with ancillary current routers. I wanted 4 midslots, so that I could fit a propulsion mod, dual webs, and a scrambler. To ensure nothing could escape my grasp. I fitted a Medium neut so that the helpless frigate would be capless - to let my 8 warrior 1 (some spare incase of getting webbed and killed), 2x dual 180mm autocannons and launcher chip away at them.
The extra grid rigs let me fit a 1600mm plate for my tank. A formidable opponent for any can-flipping frig. Well, I mined, and mined, a couple of days without response.
When this evening I decided to actively seek out the flippers myself, rather than let them come to me.

Saint undocked the Bellicose in Amarr, a bustling market hub, and scanned the nearby belts. A a few cans, hulk, arbitrator and a punisher (a notorious can flipper) on scan. Narrowing them down to a particular belt I warped in to assess the situation.
There was an arbitrator mining away with two mining lasers, and a can sitting along side. The punisher was lurking nearby, and the hulk rapidly left the area. I checked the corp details of the two pilots, while I began my own excavation of an asteriod. Nothing untoward, and no obvious friends in system.
The arbitrator locked me right away, and began some rather unsocial behaviour, bumping the Bellicose, mining my asteriod. And generally being a bastard.
My initial thought was that the punisher might be his pal, and that the arbitrator might act as a remote repair station for the formidable tank of the punisher if I engaged it.
So I thought I best even up the odds.

I quickly fitted a couple of T1 remote reps to my main Sanguine in his Arbitrator, and some medium repair drones. The Bellicose was made to kill frigs, not go toe to toe with an arbitrator, which doesn't need cap to do damage, and which has a much better tank.

By the time I had done this, and returned to Saint, I saw that the punisher had gamely tried to can flip the aggressive arbitrator, and had very rapidly been vaporised.

Well, with Sanguine entering system, I suppose I'll take a crack at it. I jettison a can, and sure enough the arbitrator flips it right away - and a hauler alt arrives and whisks my ore away almost instantly. Lock and engage. Hammerhead II's descend on Saint and rip through the shields of the basically stationary cruiser. I scurry to warp in Sanguine and get the reps on, but in the heat of the moment, the fleet menu is rather tricky to navigate. By the time he arrives, Saint is down to 50% armour, and the meager DPS of the Bellicose has just cracked the Arbitrators shields. Overload Reps, and armour repair bots are engaged.
Saints tank now holding, she continues to chip away at the arbitrator, now webbing his drones, and sending 4xwarrior 1's to ping away at them. He is too smart for that and recalls them, and considering he is at 200m from Saint, they are instantly deployed again. Saints Bellicose tank is holding barely, perhaps she can hold long enough to chip away at him? But the cunning arbitrator has neuts fitted, and the Bellicose's meager cap is now gone. As the damage control goes offline, and Sanguine too runs out of cap, she drops into structure. Damage control back online, another cycle of the remote armor repairer, but its too late. Pop goes the Bellicose.

The arbitrator by this time is at about 60% armour of what is clearly a buffer tank, and without hesitation he aggresses Sanguine.
Although it was a quick fit, Sanguine has a medium nos fitted, and 3 Cap rechargers. As well as a medium armor repper. So cap shouldn't be a problem this time around. I launch my own flight of Hammerhead II's and we go toe to toe. Sanguines armour is dropping, unable to quite tank the damage from the Hammerheads, but I have yet to overload. We slug away at each other, but I can see I have the upper hand. The aggressor hits structure first, I begin to overload at about 10% armour remaining. He pops with a satisfying explosion.

I give him a GF in local, but he is out of there, Amarr is full of spam anyhow.

An enjoying skirmish, I came out slightly ahead isk-wise due his collection of drones. My Bellicose was tripple rigged, which was a little excessive, and his arbi was tripple tri-marked. If I were to make a crime fighting Duo between Saint and Sanguine I would do away with the 1600mm plate and rigs, and add 2 x EAN and a damage control instead. And put t2 remote repps on Sanguine, as well as repping rigs so I could perma-run the cap. But it was a split second rapid fit with what I had in the hanger. I mean I COULD bring Sanguine in a RR Dominix, but where is the fun in that?

I would still pit the solo Bellicose against any frigs, probably even 2 frigs at once - with the fitting. But if people are game to can flip an arbi, maybe I should switch to them. Sure would make it easier.
Fun and games, I hope for many more.

Gank gone wrong...

nospam@example.com (pushbyte) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:03:00 +0200

this evening started out like any other. we are at war with another corporation but they havnt been around to fight, so i decided it was a nice time to learn how to probe out ships. i started in otou, my new old stomping ground. its one of my favourites because of the arrangement of belts makes it pretty easy to find people on the directional scanner. so i start probing and after about 20 minutes of that and no positive results, i decided to give up and try my luck on some targets i saw on directional scanner. i dock up and grab my trusty arbitrator all t2 fitted with my array of drones. this may not seem like much to you, but with only 4.5mil sp, i think im doing pretty good to have a -10 sec status mainly from the use of my arby.

i head out to my scan spot to start looking through the belts. i can see them on 360 but cannot seem to find anything on 5. so i decide to sit in a belt and wait. nothing comes. i grow bored and tired and make one last attempt at 5 degree scans and i get a hit, a punisher on planet 6! this is too good to pass up and will be easy for me to pop if i can get a lock on him before he bolts. i warp into to planet 6 area at 0 and viola, there he is and ready to fight.
Continue reading "Gank gone wrong..."

Arbitrary Judgement

nospam@example.com (Blacknova) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 11:54:00 +0100

Due to the encouragement received (thank you Kissa for your comment on my last post!) I am going to tell you all a tale of a slightly better battle than last time! Huzzah!

Many players believe that in combat, having a bigger ship means you win. This, as I am about to demonstrate through the incontrovertible truth of "Me saying it", is not the case. I have recently begun to grow a little tired of my can-flipping activities - miners are a spirited bunch, but aren't always equipped to provide a stimulating battle - and so have found a new way to curb my blood-lust. I need only three things: A scan ship with probes, a cruiser, and the ability to stop myself hitting the "Warp" button when I enter structure. The last of those was absolutely vital in this encounter...

My weapon of choice - the Amarr arbitrator. I am a drone specialist, and so probably should have trained for Gallente, but the Amarr vessels looked so pretty and shiny, how could I resist? Anyway, enough of my rambling - on to the method! Firstly, I use the scan-ship to scan down a mission runner in one of the major level 4 mission hubs (But which one? Ah, you shall never know! Unless I tell you later). I then proceed to it at warp in my arbitrator, appraise myself of my target, judge his viability for pew-pew, and then...steal his "ultra-valuable" mission loot. It's usually something like a cap booster 800.

At this point, the following thoughts tend to cross the mind of the target. Either 1) Hey, that guy's in a cruiser stealing from a battleship? Something's going on here...I'm not rising to it. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the sensible option, which I implore you all to take if I ever show up in your mission. Alternatively, the mark could think 2) Hey, what does this guy think he's doing, stealing my cap boosters? I shall show him my 1337 pew-pew skillz! I must be able to win easily, because I'm in a battleship!

Unfortunately for my victim in this story, they thought 2) was the best answer to their problem. I had scanned myself down an Abaddon! I like Amarr battleships - because I armor tank, I have pretty nice EM resistances, and that's pretty much all lasers do. This particular Abaddon was fighting Guristas - so naturally, I gave them every chance by taking Explosive drones that they were weak to. Aren't I lovely?

As soon as I went flashy red, I saw myself being targeted. Wonderful...now let's see if that plate holds up. I almost forgot to turn on my damage control II, but was rather glad I did...the first volley cut my armor down to 40%! At this point, I seriously considered running like a frightened child. I then weighed up the options: 1) 2 more shots like that and I'm toast. 2) I'm 15km away from this guy. Most likely using beams. Probably inside multifrequency optimal. 3) My afterburner means I can close rather quickly... 4) Oooh, I have tracking disruptors! *pokes activation button*.

Unfortunately, that wasn't quite enough...another shot slammed into my hull, setting alarms off across the ship. Tactical readouts showed my armor vanish, and my hull plummet to 14%! My ship was on fire, and the metaphorical space-rats were abandoning ship. Oh dear...well, no time to align and warp now!

I hit the warp disruptor and the armor repper, waiting for the next shot. After the cycle time of about 9.2 seconds, it came. White-hot energy lanced out of the Abaddon's guns, scything towards my stricken cruiser, and...missed. My tracking disruptors had done their work, and I was now within 2km of the ship. There was nothing it could do to hit me!

I surveyed my arsenal - now I had all the time in the world. There were no members of my victims corps in channel, so I could do this calmly. With 14% hull, I couldn't make any mistakes...especially not with my orbital velocity. It was then that I noticed a cloud of drones spewing forth from the Abaddon...the Hornet I's of imminent doom! Launching my own light drones (tech 2), I made short work of them and the vespa I's that followed. Now I had truly eliminated all threats, and I recalled my light drones and threw my medium drones upon the battleship.

Slowly, my drones pecked away at the armor of the mighty vessel. After 15 minutes, there were still none of the pilot's corpies in local - and now they couldn't touch me anyway, as the aggression timer was over. Yay. Still, I had about half of this guy's armor to go. It was at this point that I remembered that I had neuts fitted.

Feeling like an idiot, I threw my tech 2 neuts onto the ship as well. The armor started dropping rapidly now - obviously his repper couldn't function without cap. My capacitor needed careful management too, but I had the advantage of a Nosferatu as well.

A further 2 minutes of this treatment and I had armor down to a tiny sliver. I toyed with the idea of seeing it explode so I could have a nice, shiny, Abaddon killmail to polish, but I remembered my lessons that I learned on EVE - Pirate...Real pirates ransom. Unless its a war target. Opening a conversation, I am treated to a lovely, polite opening line from my victim..."Wtf?". Granted, I have just committed a random act of violence against them and their shiny ship. I start with my customary "Hello sir, you appear to be in a spot of pirate - related difficulty. Shall we agree a price to rectify this situation?". My victim is quite co-operative, and pays me a cool 35 million for the safe release of their ship. Honoring the ransom, I de-activate my scrambler and watch the battleship limp towards the nearest station. Now to get the holes in my damn ship fixed...

I had thought that the end of the story would lie there, but no! My CEO received an EVE-mail from my victim, which he forwarded to me (After he had stopped laughing at my new escapades). Here it is, readers - the message itself. Bear in mind that the character I attacked was 2 months older than my own.

"Being a chick and new to this game I just have to say something. I just want to tell you its really crappy what your corp member did to me. I understand your corp likes pvp and Im a 'carebear' but II havent learned enough in this game so its my choice. Its one thing to pvp its another thing to come into someones mission who is minding there own business almost kll them and ransom them I dont think thats fair play. Personally I think its fucked up. And I am sure this is falling on deaf ears since youzmay condone this action but I feel I had to say my peace. And this is definately not directed to you personally but someday I will get a grasp on this game and get my shit together (as long as people like your mate dont jack me) and what goes around comes around."

No spellcheckers were harmed (or used) in the creation of this EVEmail. By the way, I really look forward to the time they do come after me and "What goes around comes around". I could use a fight!

Until next time I manage to find something interesting in my Inbox, this is me, signing off. Fly safe - but not too safe!

Finally some Action

nospam@example.com (needle) — Sun, 11 May 2008 14:43:00 +0200

While I have ben playing eve for over a year, a good bit of the last 6 months or so I have spent in Empire missioning... acquiring assets, training skills etc. Before that I spent some time in lowsec in the Khanid region doing mostly ratting, and while there was some pvp involved there, it usually meant me getting jumped while drunk and semi-AFK and getting killed.
Of late I have been itching for something more exciting than being a carebear... so I have been pushing my corp to go into lowsec and do a little pirating. A number of times we've gone out to some nearby lowsec areas with no real luck. You know, a lot of, "almost got a point on him, or they had warb stabs fit.... well its late lest go home."
Even more recently most of the more experienced players in the corp have not been plaing as much... new jobs, exams and the like, so I have taken to going looking for pew pew myself, again with little luck, no deaths but no kills either...

Finally some action.

Cleared for publication by: Ander

Continue reading "Finally some Action"

Midnight Piracy

nospam@example.com (pewpewpew) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 07:01:00 +0100

Long time reader, first time poster. Apologies for any mistakes, or if it's just terrible.

Bored of the 0.0 grind and lack of targets I logged on my alt in Empire for a jaunt around lowsec. Looking at my hangar I found I still had a t2 fitted Arbitrator, a survivor of a previous lowsec gang. My old stomping grounds as a noob antipirate, then a noob pirate, beckoned.

Coming out of the docking bay I found myself taking pleasure again in simply piloting a ship. The sleek wedge of the Arbitrator made a quick turn and entered warp sharply, despite the oversized 1600mm armor plate. Checking my drone bay and laser crystals, everything seemed in order. The only fault I found was with my low-tier named webber. With luck I could find a more powerful one in the wreck of another craft.

Cleared for publication by: Ander
Rest of story moved to extended body.

Continue reading "Midnight Piracy"