Rifter Drifter

After my first trip out to Wield constellation I had learnt a couple of things. First of all the Vagabond is an excellent ship for operating behind enemy lines. I had been able to shrug off any attempts to pin me down with consummate ease. The other thing I had learnt is that the Vagabond burns through ammunition at a rate of knots. I had also forgotten to take any nanite paste out to repair the damage done by overheating my modules.

Now that I was familiar with the region I made plans to set up a mobile operations base. My hauler alt, Grr’k An’Har (you’ll learn more about him soon), can fly transport ships and I decided that it was time to set him up in a Prowler. Oh boy was I impressed by this ship. Even with Grr’k's basic skills it handled like a Vagabond only with the bonus of being able to warp cloaked. It made a heady change from the wallowing Mastodon that he had been flying before now. I quickly set him some navigation homework with a side dose of thermodynamics and sent him off towards Wield with a cargohold full of ammunition and nanite paste as well as a giant secure can that he could use to set up a supply dump for Wensley.

With his supply lines sorted Wensley no longer has to worry about making return trips until his task in Wield is completed. Once again I undocked the Vagabond and headed out into the wilds of the Outer Ring. Yet again the journey was pretty uneventful with only a small Ev0ke gang worth noting. Once I arrived in Wield I began to get on with the task in hand. So far this time I have had no faction spawns to comment on but I have been getting involved with the locals more often.

Now that I’m more familiar with the Vagabond my confidence is growing. I think its also helped by the fact that Outer Ring is a reasonably undesirable backwater and not home to any noted PvP organisations that I know of. The odd largish gang passes through but I haven’t seen the locals active in groups of anything more than three or four. Happy that I’m not going to get blobbed I have been engaging them more often. On my terms at least.

When I first arrived back in 33- I saw an Armageddon and Condor in the system. I eventually narrowed them down to a belt where they had somehow dragged a Shadow Serpentis spawn about 3,000 km away from the belt centre. There was no way I was going to be able to burn there and after a couple of half-hearted attempts to make a midwarp bookmark on top of them I gave up the chase. No sooner had I given up than I landed in a belt with the Condor. I hit him hard but he warped before I could get my point on him. Not to worry, I just followed him to the next belt where I was able to alpha-strike him before he could escape. I never got another shot at the ‘Geddon and later saw the same pilot in a Raven with wrecks in the belts but he always safed up whenever I entered system.

The residents of MT- were beginning to object to my presence a bit more severely than they had so far. I jumped into 33- from JV- only to discover a Phobos landing on the gate with me. I held cloak hoping he was passing through but he dropped a bubble and support began to land including a Raptor class interceptor and Maulus frigate. Following the usual drill I aligned to a convenient celestial and began to burn out of the bubble. Predictably, the Raptor gave chase and I was able to lock him and destroy him with ease. The gang didn’t give chase and I warped away and cloaked up until they got bored. It didn’t take long and they soon dispersed.

On another occasion I saw a Crow on scan. It was obvious that he was there to tackle for a larger gang and I decided to spring his trap. I warped to a belt at 100 km and began to burn away from the centre. Sure enough the Crow landed about 150 km from me and began to close for the tackle. He flirted with the edge of my lock range before making his mind up and began closing on me. My own lock resolved and a few rounds later the Crow was dust. I went back to loot the wreck and got the fight of my life when a Hurricane, Zealot, and Pilgrim landed right on top of me. Without looting I burnt out of range as the Hurricane and Zealot pointed me and my cap was nuked. With one desperate last burst of my overheated MWD I made it out of range of their warp disruptors with just 20% of my shields remaining. I warped to safety and lived to fight another day with my heart racing.

Since then I have had a fun fight with an Ishtar and Thorax where I let the Ishtar get away in structure because I was being too cautious about getting webbed and scrammed by the Thorax. They had a Blackbird too but I couldn’t get him before he and Thorax warped away. Another time I had a Hurricane in hull but let him get out of disruptor range just long enough for him to warp away. Finally I had a fight with an Ishtar where I wimped out because local spiked with a battlecruiser and HAC gang. I have managed to kill a Taranis and Rifter that tried to tackle me, the Rifter even got me scrammed.

So, despite what people have told me, ratting has been pretty good fun. I’ve made plenty of ISK (including four faction spawns that have dropped two low-grade Snake implants) and my security status is very nearly fixed. I’m nearly there now and beginning to run out of ammunition so it might be time to send Grr’k on a supply run. Once I’ve got to -1.9 I think I’ll change my routine and begin farming a system properly to see how much ISK I can make. I’ll need a whole hangar of new ships next month anyway…