For a character born in 2009 it has taken me a rather long time to get my first actual killmail. I've not be on the winning side of many as it is, but I was truly excited to finally get one of my own where I struck the final blow. Of course, any battle hardened PvP professionals would scoff at my getting excited over a Tengu killing a Helios. I don't care, you can't rain on my parade. I actually sat smiling like a loony for ages after the kill. Let me tell you the story.
It was quiet in our home system. There was a plethora of connections for a change - C4a, C5a, and dropping probes for a timely sig-check led me to discover a new C6a. Not only that, my scanner skills appeared vastly improved as d-scan suggested I was fielding 14 scanner probes. Hmm, visitors. After finding the C6a I sat at range and chatted with my corp over where the visitor was when he appeared on my d-scan. Not only appeared on d-scan but had a distance. The Helios was 3500 km from me and uncloaked, probably reloading his probe launcher. Now what?
Keeping eyes on the K162 to C6a I waited for the Helios to leave or more friends to join him. Another corpie was in C4a scanning for a route to K-space when he reported the Helios was there with him. Right, time for a plan. He would most likely jump C4a->C6a so I decided a stop bubble would be perfect for annoying him. I didn't think there would be any chance I would actually catch the Covert Ops ship but at least I would cause distraction and force him to slow boat a long way across space. I warped to the C4a then back to the C6a at about 70 km. Launching a medium bubble is easy and anchoring it to activate is a simple matter of right clicking and waiting, um, four minutes?! I really didn't expect this to work especially with such a delay. The Helios would probably be home before the bubble went up.
Four minutes takes a long time to go by but the Helios hadn't gone home. Finally the bubble inflated and I got myself to about 15 km from where I thought the Helios would land. In comms I was talking about how pointless this was when a white bracket with a yellow box landed on my optimal range. This puzzled me. Why wasn't he cloaked? I decloaked and started hitting my warp disruptor waiting for the recalibration delay to end. At this point I still don't expect to catch the... holy crap I got a point on him. Missiles. More missiles. Yet more missiles. I was trying to keep myself out of my own bubble, fully expecting his friends to come from C6a. As a result I kept moving out of range for my HAMs causing the kill to be dragged out way longer than it should. Finally the Helios explodes and I cloak up.
The bubble is there as is the pod... oh I could get the pod too. Damn, why did I cloak? Uncloaking I have to wait out the recalibration delay a second time but still manage to get a point on the pod. Now my heart is trying to escape from my chest and it's hard to concentrate with the adrenaline. Squish goes the pod without any sign of his friends coming to get me. This time I loot the Helios wreck and scoop the corpse before cloaking. Another corpmate tells me the victim goes offline almost straight away. Guess I upset him. Looking at the value of his implants I can see why. I would log off too if I just lost a 600 Mil clone. Mind you, I wouldn't be in W-space with that much ISK in my head.
This was a night of firsts: My first bubble anchored; my first killmail; my first solo kill; my first pod. Happy days for me if not the killee.
Nice work bud o/
ReplyDeleteThat's brilliant, congratulations!
ReplyDeleteW-space is evil like that, as even if you are aiming for a ship that stands no chance of surviving or even threatening you, you can never really be sure who else is there watching, waiting. I understand all of the emotions you went through and why you did, along with the elation of getting that sweet, sweet first kill. Here's to many more!
Congratulations! Great kill, great tale. I have been flying around with a bubble in my cargo hold but it never worked for me. Glad to see the idea work!
ReplyDelete