24 Hour Pirate People

A day in the life of a RANSM pilot. Blood and guts, thunder, ganks, losses, traps, gate camps, frigates, battlecruisers, pods, hulks, thrashers, tears, trolls, rifters, marauding, carefree.



JAGUAR.

I had warped to the top belt in Adirain chasing an Incursus that I had spotted hopping the belts, unfortunately as I dropped out of warp the Incursus was already on his way out and as I strained to see where he had gone he left my 360 degrees blip and then the system entirely, no doubt spooked. An Ishkur assault frigate appeared on scan and I waited to see if he fancied the fight, sure enough he landed right next to me and I immediately locked up and landed a web and scram on my prey. Moving out of blaster range I was surprised to see a flight of tech I Warrior drones unleashed on me, which my shield systems subsequently laughed at as the rather embarrassingly fitted Ishkur succumbed to an easy death, swiftly followed by the murder of the capsule.

Moving over to the Obalyu/Parts pocket I noted a Brutix out in space, after narrowing him down to a local Serpentis anomaly I warped on in and reduced the bumbling battlecruiser to scrap metal with ease, again I committed the pod to the harsh coldness.

Moving back to Parts I then spotted a Vexor which was seemingly in line with a nearby planet, I warped in at zero and downed the cruiser and pod with no resistance. The Vexor pilot had a corp mate in system and I held the pod for a few minutes whilst offering the release in exchange for a fight with the corp mate, any ship would have been acceptable but a couple of minutes of silence was eventually broken by a frozen scream and a squelch.

A short time later I spotted another Vexor in a belt with mining drones out, a trap perhaps? Nope, the Vexor was sent to the scrapyard and in time honoured tradition the pilot was murdered in cold blood.

Next up a proper fight.

Jaguar versus Dramiel. I don't really have a problem with the Dramiel as such, I've actually got three of them in various hangars but I rarely fly them. The thing that grinds me and most pilots that I have spoken to on the subject is the amount of pilots, usually novice ones who think they can jump into them and press the win button.
This fight wasn't going too well, I quickly had to work on a flight of Warrior II drones that were biting at my shields, after dispatching the drones I tried to shake the 20km orbit that the Dramiel had settled in, my shields were stable at about halfway. Each time that I tried to break the pattern with some neck jerking manoeuvres I would get to within grabbing distance of an overloaded web but the Dramiel would work its way out of trouble again. Not reaching the Dramiel with my own autocannons I decided one last trick, overloading my afterburner I turned to run, managing to quickly make some ground I noticed the chase was on, the Dramiel kicking into life and giving chase, I then slammed the brakes on and the web and scram was landed and I unleashed overloaded projectile venom right into the face of the now slowed down Dram.

Dead Dramiel and pod. Result.

After a period of downtime and repairs I undocked to find a Tormentor mining in the asteroid fields, without the relevant mining permits I dished out the punishment, two-fold and then moved over to Isenan where I found this unfortunate mining barge guilty of the same crime. Medical bays awaited the pilot.

Later in the day I made my way over to the Amamake area. In Bosboger solar system I landed smack on top of another Dramiel and the fight was on, we exchanged blows and I felt 100% confident that this was going to be another victory but then the fight tipped as a Rapier decloaked in the belt and joined in the party. Lame. I continued to work on the Dramiel as we both entered structure but I couldn't hold off long enough as I exploded and the Jaguar's work for the day was over.
This was a good fight spoiled in my opinion, I guess some people just can't solo. The Dramiel must have slithered away with the tiniest fragment of structure remaining, it really was that close and I can honestly say I've never seen a structure bar so full of red without a resultant explosion soon following. Still, I offered up a good fight in local and scurried away in my capsule.


Cyclone.

I decided to mix things up a bit and undocked in a Cyclone that had been gathering dust in my Lulm hangar. Moving back towards Bosboger, the system was now empty so I warped to the top belt and waited. For a brief moment I had to leave my controls but a planned short minute turned into a few more . . . forgetting that I was parked in the top belt I returned to find . . .



A Burst mining right next to me! I kid you not. With one huge chug of my autocannons the Burst exploded and the pilot even stuck around for me to lock up his capsule and deal out another pod killing.

I then spent the next half an hour or so parked in a belt in Lulm, four, yes four Dramiels and an Enyo decided that they didn't want to have a nibble at me and I decided to dock up and fit out a Rifter. The thing is if all those Drams and the Enyo had knocked their heads together I'm quite confident they could have easily taken down my battlecruiser, but alas it was not to be.



Rifter. (with a small dose of Hurricane).

Moving towards Amamake I found another Rifter and a quick smash and grab raid resulted in this first strike for my Rifter, coming out on top against an unusual fit.

I then moved towards Egghelende and upon landing on the Egghelende gate in Siseide was greeted by the sight of approximately ten or twelve various frigates all affiliated with each other. I jumped through and they followed. None of them managed to snag me so I warped to the station and re-shipped into a Hurricane for the purpose of science.
Noticing the pilots were all still in system I narrowed them down to the top belt and warped in expecting them to be there at zero, they were. Keeping range I locked up what I could in random fashion, spitting hot projectile fire at them as they burnt towards my hulking battlecruiser. Picking off this Rifter and then this one, the gang decided they were fighting a losing battle and they wisely scattered in various directions.

Back in the Rifter I made my way over to run the Amamake - Eifer Pipe and then would progress on towards Molden Heath. On the way I got into a scrap with another Rifter, which then met its demise to the hands of my vessel. I also found a Wreathe that was parked up at a nearby planet command centre, it died a nasty death.

In Arnher I found an Amarrian Slaver crew patrolling a plex in their Coercer. Being the hot-blooded Brutor male that I am I thought it would only be fair to wander on in and introduce myself.


The Hatchery Gank.

Now back in Molden Heath, the rest of the RANSM guys and girls were suicide ganking Hulks so I decided to dock up my Rifter and join in the fun. After just one round though, intel reported the movements of various fleets so we shipped up and went out hunting them, I jumped into a Hurricane. After a few false leads we eventually managed to butcher this Drake and this Harbinger, our fire power too much for their defences. Good fun.


Suicide Thrashers.

The day was now late and the end of a long shift was approaching, however this did not dampen the spirit and great fun was had harassing the local mining communities. This Hulk was first up for sacrifice, soon followed by this Mackinaw, and then this one. I ended the night with one final Hulk slaughter. The locals no doubt annoyed at the disruption of their operations and the random memes that we kept spamming in their local chat channels.



So there you have it, that's a typical day in the life of a 24 hour pirate. Who says low-sec is dead? Who says Hulkageddon is over?


MB.