Sunday, February 24, 2013

Ratting on gates

Is a very bad idea when you're in null-sec.

I logged in to EVE on a Wednesday to find that my corp was becoming a member of a null-sec renting alliance. By Friday, the first cynos were being lit, and our band of newly-minted null-bears was straggling out to null, member by member. Some people slipped through without seeing another ship, while I managed to lose those 3 Atrons trying to get in.

As the people who live in null-sec can tell you, NPC ships spawn all over the damn place. You've got your sites/anomalies/complexes/belts/etc. where you can shoot NPCs 23/7. The one place you don't want to shoot NPCs in on the stargates.

Guess who tried their hand at ratting on a null-sec gate?

In the hustle and bustle of setting up our new null-sec home, no one had bothered to get the channel address for our new overlord's intel channel. If you were paying attention to local, and not ratting on the gate, this wouldn't be a problem. Any time you see a neutral spike in local, you warp to a POS and wait it out. It's not complicated.

At least, it shouldn't be. If you're in the bright idea business like I am, you noticed a two frigate/two battleship NPC spawn on the gate you just jumped your Badger through. Being completely unaware of the dangers involved in ratting on a gate, you figured you might as well come back in an artillery Hurricane and pop some rats for easy ISK.

That's when a roaming gang of neutrals jump into the system, drop three interceptors on your battlecruiser, and make a mess of your ship.

I got my pod out, so I didn't compound my loss by losing my implants. It was only when I was safely docked up that I realized I had never set my medical clone to the null-sec station we were living in. If I'd been podded, I'd have needed to fly all the way back down from the high-sec system we used to base out of. I'm lucky I hadn't needed to repackage my Hurricane to get it moved to null, or else I would probably have forgotten to insure it as well.

I've since recovered somewhat from my loss. My killboard efficiency is back over 50%, thanks to an alliance roam where I had the bright idea to KM whore on a 200 million ISK ship with my light drones. My kill to loss ratio is still a shameful 1:5, but at least I'm not losing ships I can't afford to replace.

Maybe I should start flying Tech 2 ships, losing a few of those should tank my stats again.

- Sam.

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