Rifter Drifter

Inspired by the combination of Genos Occidere’s reign of terror in Providence and the videos of Kil2 and Willington I decided that it was time to go back to nullsec and see what fun I could have. The plan was pretty simple. Head in through Cloud Ring and then do a full lap of Syndicate and Solitude. I didn’t expect to get out alive but at least I’d hopefully get some good fights. I saddled up a shield tanking Rifter and headed out in search of adventure.

Most of the roam was pretty empty. Early on a found a Vexor but he warped off to a safe spot before I could get a scrambler on him. After that I continued and dodged a couple of gate camps but didn’t encounter any bubbles. At the south of Syndicate I bumped into fellow Tusker Menthez who had no idea how he’d ended up there and was just wandering around aimlessly. Eventually I found a target in lower Syndicate. A Caracal was ratting in a belt. I loaded EMP and warped in on him. Pretty quickly I had him locked and scrammed and started to eat away at his shields with my EMP ammunition. He had a target painter and quickly lit me up with it. Heavy missiles began to pound at my own shields and were slowly wearing them down. Without an afterburner I was unable to avoid his heavy missiles and I was worried that firing up my MWD would make me more vulnerable to them. It was getting close and both our shields were edging towards zero. I blinked first and decided to warp away and go find an afterburner. There was one available a couple of jumps away so off I went to track it down. By the time I came back the Caracal had docked up and after a bit of waiting I decided to cut my losses and keep moving. I traversed the main pipeline of Syndicate and found no action. Even FD-MLJ and PF-346 were empty other than a solo camping Ishtar.

With nothing much doing I decided to wander further afield in search of adventure. After passing through Cloud Ring again I found myself in Fade, home of Mostly Harmless. I was eventually hailed in local by one of the gang who had witnessed our suicidal incursion a couple of days ago. Apparently he’d been chasing me in a Sleipnir but had unsurprisingly been unable to keep up. He offered me a 1v1 in the Rifter with a sweetener of 10,000,000 ISK if I beat him. Well, there was no way I was going to turn down that offer. Especially after such a fruitless roam so far. I waited while he put together a ship and then he warped to me. As usual I burnt towards him with my MWD and shut it off as we got close. I didn’t want my blooming signature radius to make his life easier. Lock, scram, open up with my autocannons. It was instinctive now. Once he was in optimal range I began to overheat and tore through his shields and armour with almost no resistance. It seems he’d opted for a speed tank rather than a plate. Chatting after the fight it turns out that he was a fan who’d wanted to fight me for ages. My wallet suddenly flashed and I saw he’d given me 20,000,000 ISK. I didn’t need the incentive but it was good to know that this roam had already paid for itself no matter what happened to my Rifter in the future. I thanked him for his generous contribution and moved to a safespot. Once the thermal signature of my guns had cooled down I power off my systems and retired to my bunk. It had been a long day.

The next day I powered up my systems again to be greeted by the desolation of the north. The residents were off fighting KenZoku over Delve and there was little or no activity on my scanners. Rather than heading home I decided to continue my adventure and see how far I could get before my Rifter died and I took the clone vat express home. The next region in my sights was Deklein, home of Tau Ceti Federation. I set my autopilot for the station system CZDJ-1 and moved out. In 3T7-M8 I found a young pilot in an Omen. He wasn’t on scan at any belts so I tried my luck with the onboard scanner. I got a hit on a cosmic anomaly and warped to it. There he was salvaging away a bunch of Serpentis wrecks. Lock, scram, autocannons. Did I mention it was an instinctive routine? The defenceless cruiser melted quickly and I got my second kill. This was probably the busiest bit of my roam so far. A Wolf came into the system but I was able to evade him and carry on my merry way.

I made it safely to CZDJ-1 and tried to dock. I wanted to drop off my loot and try and sell it on the market here. Tau Ceti Federation owned the station and apparently weren’t receiving visitors. My docking requests were denied. My feelings were hurt. What had I done to upset them? I’m just an innocent traveller! Oh well, where next? Venal was the nearest NPC region so probably the best place to find somewhere to dock. I set course of H-PA29 and carried on.

Somewhere along the way I found a Taranis on a gate. My nullsec Rifter doesn’t have a web or afterburner so engaging him was going to be risky but I wasn’t going to shirk any challenge on this roam. Lock, scram, autocannons… you know the routine. He had a long range disruptor and no web. Brilliant! I could dictate range using my own MWD. It was all going swimmingly until a friend of his showed up in a Jaguar. The assault frigate didn’t seem to be packing a point but his presence somehow allowed the Taranis to get out of my scramble range and eventually get away with just a fraction of its hull integrity remaining. I got away from the Jaguar without about 60% hull integrity myself and ran to a safespot to allow my shields to recharge and repair the damage from overloading my guns. Once everything was fixed I carried on again. The Taranis pilot was following me in a Jaguar and trying to get me to fight him 1 v 1. I laughed and refused to be part of such a one-sided exchange.

My journey to Venal took me through a number of regions that I’d never visited before. In Branch I found a Crusader and quickly despatched him. It was an odd fit with railguns but I didn’t complain and just scooped the loot before moving on again. There were no more action along the way and I eventually ended up safely docked in H-PA29. Luckily this is the major trade hub in Venal and has a surprisingly active market. I listed my loot at good prices and it began selling right before my eyes.

From a good fights point of view this has been a bit of a disappointing roam. In I don’t know how many jumps I had a total of five fights, two of which I disengaged from. Three kills and approximately 40 million ISK profit is good piracy, though, and my ship lives to fight another day. So far she’s visited Cloud Ring, Outer Ring, Syndicate, Solitude, Fade, Deklein, Branch, Tenal, Venal, and Tribute. I’ve definitely expanded my horizons since my Where I’ve Been post last week. I guess there’s only really one thing for it. Keep roaming until I lose this ship.