Rifter Drifter

This week I welcomed a brand new addition to my hangar. “Wheeeeeeeee” is a Vagabond class heavy assault ship and I can safely say that I am starting to fall in love with her. This week is also momentous because I began the long and occasionally painful process of repairing my security status. That’s right. In the eyes on CONCORD I am no longer an outlaw. At the time of writing my security status has decreased from -9.98 to -4.01. I never did achieve the perfect -10.00.

Why am I doing this, I hear you ask. Well, in the new year I shall be leaving The Tuskers after 16 months of great fun. The decision to leave was a hard one to make. After all, I’ve been part of The Tuskers almost since their inception. The time has come, though, where I need a new challenge so in a couple of weeks I will be moving out of Hevrice and embarking upon a new adventure. But enough of that for now.

Ask anyone who has done it and they will tell you that ratting your security status up is a boring and thankless task. Believe me, it can be mindlessly dull. You find yourself a nice quiet corner off null security space and loop through a handful of systems killing an NPC battleship in each one. In a mammoth session last night I estimate that I killed in the region of 60 rats for a net security gain of about 1.5.

Thankfully, though, I wasn’t doing this in just any ship. I chose to take the Vagabond with me because it is perfect for operating behind enemy lines. It is fast enough to be able to escape from bubble camps, has the damage to make short work of battleships, and allows me to operate a full PvP fitting. In fact, the only compromise that I made was to fit a cloak rather than my preferred small neutraliser. While the neutraliser would allow me to deal with pesky tacklers the cloak lets me safe up and hide should there be too much interest in my activities. The penalty I pay is a vastly increased lock time but when you’re operating out of an area with very few stations and even fewer friendly ones, the ability to hide is pretty important.

After doing a bit of research I picked a constellation in the Outer Ring region called Wield as my new home from home. Access from Hevrice is easy with a variety of nullsec entry systems available and low likelihood of a camp. The constellation forms a convenient loop and most of the systems don’t have stations. Outer Ring is a quiet area anyway and I am unlikely to be massively disturbed as I go about my business. To the south IT Alliance and Pandemic Legions/Sons of Tangra are fighting over Fountain and to the north Ev0ke are mounting a successful invasion of Cloud Ring. Traffic between these hotspots is pretty limited. Perfect. I filled my hold with phased plasma charges (as well as the obligatory selection of PvP munitions) and set off towards my new base of operations.

As soon as I left Hevrice I began the process of placating CONCORD by making sure I killed a rat in every system that I flew through. Because I was familiar with the terrain I opted to enter nullsec by going into Syndicate from Harroule. As I expected there was no camp and I was able to proceed at a leisurely pace. For many jumps the only ship I encountered was a Retribution camping a sling bubble. As soon as I began to burn towards him the Retribution took the sensible approach and warped away. Despite the quietness I made a point of practising nullsec manoeuvres such as avoiding sling bubbles and cloak/warping. Before heading to my final destination I explored Syndicate a bit more. After several roams out here I’m reasonably familiar with the area.

In 97X-CH I encountered my first opposition. A Crow and two battlecruisers were camping the Y9G-KS gate. As I landed and jumped I saw them jump through with me and I was surprised to find myself caught in a bubble on the far side of the gate. I quickly aligned to a celestial and powered up my microwarp drive as the Crow decloaked and began to give chase. After what seemed like an age my lock resolved and a few volleys of Barrage later the Crow was toast. With his battlecruiser friends unable to mount an effective chase I took the opportunity to warp off to a safe and allow them to lose interest. Because this ship is new and expensive I am being very cautious with her. Not to mention that her purpose is to kill NPCs. Still, I’m not going to pass up on any combat that offers itself. I just have to be more careful than I would normally be.

I carried on to Wield constellation without further incident and settled down into a routine, ratting my way around the loop of four systems and dipping occasionally into the station system of NM-OEA where there seemed to be a regular population of about a dozen or so locals. Aware of the fact that I was new to the area I excercised caution and opted to cloak up and hide rather than fight an Ishtar and a couple of basic camps set up to try and trap me. After an hour or so I had had enough and powered down my ship in a safe place.

The next day it was business as usual and I happily pottered around killing the various Serpentis fleets in the constellation. I was even lucky enough to find a Shadow Serpentis spawn not once, not twice, but three times. Things were going well.

After a little while I noticed a Thorax sniffing around and after he’d followed me around a little bit I was happy that he was alone and decided to engage. A small pursuit followed before I found him in a belt (I think he was looking for me too) and, despite the cloak, I was able to get a lock and easily kept him at range. There was no way he was going to be able to get his warp scrambler on me and the night sky in 33FN-P soon lit up by a bright explosion.

With my ammo running low and my precious supply of faction loot safely tucked away in my cargo hold I set my navigation computer for Hevrice and began the journey home. Once again nothing untoward happened and I safely arrived in Hevrice, complete with a new security status of -6.

The Vagabond (Part 1)5.051

Related posts:

1. The Vagabond (Part 2)
2. The Vagabond (Part 3)
3. By The Skin Of My Teeth
4. A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Action
5. Keeping Up With The Jonses