Ironfleet Towing And Salvage

I have been experimenting with siphons, which seem a natural fit for Ironfleet’s grand tradition of aggressive salvage.

Unfortunately, although I was clear on the fact that unattended POS guns would not shoot at my siphon, I didn’t give adequate consideration to the likelihood that they would kaboomski the ship I sent back to see if anything had been siphoned. Whoops, I guess I didn’t need that ship anyway. :( However it was a bummer to lose the 17mil worth of polymers that was in my cargo after I liberated it from somebody else’s siphon. [Waves at -BAD.]

Truth is, I never spent much time in range of POS guns before, although Jim visited those vicinities often, in heavy-iron 0.0 fleets with repping available. I had it in my head from the experiences of many long years ago that small ships didn’t face much risk from POS guns — a fact which I can now manifestly report is untrue. My fragile covops died instantly, the tanked and stabbed Maller I sent for the wreck couldn’t get out fast enough either.

So, help an old man out, would you? What’s a good ship and fit and strategy for emptying a siphon under POS guns? Or is there no way to do it except for looting the siphon with perfect timing and being in and out before the guns find the range?

All suggestions and advice gratefully received.

Update: I went back in a Velator, based on some bad web advice that POS guns take “forever” to lock small targets. My velator lasted 7 measured seconds on grid.

I did more research, found this:

Different POS modules have different lock speeds. A small gun locks pretty fast (given their 250mm scan res it would take ~8s to lock a frig), where medium guns (75mm SR, ~30s) and large guns (35mm SR, ~55s) lock very slow. Additionally, Warp Scrambler, Disruptor, and web batters have even lower scan res (30mm SR, taking a long time to lock even a battlecruiser (~30s).

This time I took notice of what killed me: Small faction guns. I think maybe some special effort went into making this particular tower hostile to siphoners.

Blowing up the truly young EVE player (rara avis though he be) is never my priority. Too much like taking candy from babies. And I never put any effort into pursuing them. But if I find one when I’m out on routine salvage patrol, I’ll give them a chance to be idiots, and shoot if they turn flashy red. It’s not the funnest part of my job, but it’s part of what I do.

So today I found an 18-day old player in an NPC corp, in a Retriever mining barge, flying two Hornet I drones and “guarding” 100,000 Concentrated Veldspar in a jet can.

You know what happened: I relocated the ore. The barge pilot did not (for a change) sic his drones on me, but he went flashy red anyway. I assume he attempted to remove ore from the Ironfleet can. Whether he noticed the can flip, I have no idea.

But he flashied, I shootied:

2011.11.06 17:44:00

Victim: Filan Rin
Corp: Science and Trade Institute
Alliance: Unknown
Faction: Unknown
Destroyed: Retriever
System: [redacted]
Security: 0.5
Damage Taken: 1912

Involved parties:

Name: Marlenus (laid the final blow)
Security: 1.3
Corp: Ironfleet Towing And Salvage
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Crane
Weapon: Caldari Navy Thunderbolt Heavy Missile
Damage Done: 1912

Destroyed items:

Survey Scanner II
Concentrated Veldspar, Qty: 19999 (Cargo)
Medium Liquid Cooled Electronics I, Qty: 3
Strip Miner I
Hornet I, Qty: 3 (Drone Bay)

Dropped items:

Quantum Co-Processor I
Strip Miner I

It was worth doing, if only for the 100k units of shiny Veldspar.

The pilot logged immediately, which always makes me feel bad. I’m here to play, not drive people out of the game. But I can’t make people learn the essential HTFU skills…

It’s been slow since I got back into Eve. I’ve been doing a bit of exploring, diving into wormholes looking for excitement, checking local belts for hostility-crippled miners, visiting mission runners in their missions, all the usual stuff. But the pickings have been slim. Most everybody mines in a secure fashion, and anybody who cares about mission salvage has an alt in a Noctis, so there just isn’t as much for a hard-working salvager to do as there used to be. This is not a whine; it was true before I left the game and I’m well aware that I need a new program to keep myself entertained. All this exploratory nosing-about is with an eye toward finding it.

So far, I haven’t. But I get bits of old-fashioned fun along the way.

Today when I popped out my probes to survey the system, just with a general eye toward finding out who might be in space and have cans that needed salvaging, I quickly popped up a little gravimetrics site with a Covetor mining barge in it. A Covetor? Really? Who flies a Covetor these days? If you can fly a Covetor, you’re just days away from flying a Hulk. I haven’t seen Covetors in large numbers since Hulks got cheap. And when was the last time I killed one? Jim Bridger caught one in a Rifter back in 2008, but me? I can’t remember, but the last one I can find in my archives is this one from 2007.

But, here he was. With a jetcan out. He named it “Giant Secure Container” … a trick even more stale than jet-can mining in a Covetor. And get this, he was flying two Civilian Mining Drones (WTF? Never seen those in actual use before) and three Hornet I combat drones. Is this some kind of ridiculous bait?

It gets better. Pilot’s name is Bady Ast, a member of YasTec [YAST] “for 7 years and 8 days.” Wow, birthdate? August 9, 2003! Old enough to know better, that’s for sure!

No matter. I bookmarked his jetcan and went for my trusty Crane. Maybe surprise and the arrogance of age will buy me the hostile reaction I’m looking for. If, as I suspect, this is an old old character who has spent most of the last seven years not playing, maybe there are nuances to jet can mining he has not yet encountered.

So there I was, coming out of warp next to a jet can half full of golden omber and kernite. As usual, I took what I could and transferred the rest to an Ironfleet can.

I’ll give Bady Ast some credit, he pays more attention than the average miner. In fact, he was locking me up before I finished manipulating the ore. Could this be a live one?

Sure enough! As soon as he had me locked, those three Hornets started buzzing me, and Bady was flashing red. So of course I did the usual routine, and started shooting the Covetor.

Interestingly, right when I got through the shields, Bady Ast dropped offline. I though it might be a lame (or really really obsolete and these-days ineffective) logoffski tactic, but he came back online while I was still shooting armor — really, as fast as it’s possible to get back in the game, I’d say. So I’m guessing it was an internet interruption.

So then the inevitable happened:

2011.11.03 23:44:00

Victim: Bady Ast
Corp: YasTec
Alliance: Unknown
Faction: Unknown
Destroyed: Covetor
System: [redacted]
Security: 0.5
Damage Taken: 3637

Involved parties:

Name: Marlenus (laid the final blow)
Security: 1.3
Corp: Ironfleet Towing And Salvage
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Crane
Weapon: Caldari Navy Thunderbolt Heavy Missile
Damage Done: 3637

Destroyed items:

Kernite, Qty: 1514 (Cargo)
Residual Survey Scanner I
Modulated Strip Miner II, Qty: 3
Expanded Cargohold II
Hammerhead I (Drone Bay)

Dropped items:

Expanded Cargohold II

Just my bad luck none of the strip miners dropped!

Bady warped away with the alacrity of someone who expects to come right back in another ship, so I docked myself, and jumped in a stealth bomber to go back and observe.

And here is where I probably misplayed the encounter. Shortly after I got back, another character showed up in a Harbinger battle cruiser. And when the Harby pilot got there, she went straight for the Ironfleet ore can.

My natural assumption was that she was an alt of Bady’s. And I didn’t want to give that ore back, because a flashy Harby would be a bit of a challenge for the bomber I was in. So I uncloaked, blew the can, and recloaked.

A moment later, here comes Bady in a Megathron, still flashy red.

And sorely was I tempted. Bombers have a pretty good chance at soloing your average battleship. But the Mega has a huge drone bay, and with the wrong drones, there’s no hope at all. And Bady is old, my friends. Those Hornet Is made it look like he has no skills, but they actually did a surprising amount of damage to my Crane’s shields. If this guy has actually been skilling since 2003, my usual “I can get away with this crazed scheme because skillpoints” plan goes right out the window.

Too, the Harby was still there. And last time I checked (it was a long time ago, true) high-sec aggression mechanics allowed a neutral third party to rep without consequence. I wouldn’t expect repping capability to be fitted on a Harby, but then I wouldn’t expect to find a Covetor jet can mining, either. Just one more chaotic variable, but it was enough to quash my temptation. I shrugged and docked.

It was — maybe — a mistake. The Harby pilot engaged me in conversation, said kind words about this blog, and says that after I left, the ‘Thron popped — get this — three Ogre Is and two Wasp Is. I considered going back, but by then, the relevant aggression timers had run out, and it was getting on toward my mealtime.

(The Harby Pilot, it turns out, is a reader of this blog, and has her own blog called A Scientist’s Life In Eve. I haven’t mentioned her EVE name here, because I can’t see where she used it on her blog, and I’m therefore not sure she’d like them to be associated.)

So today I was cruising the belts in Eitu, looking for interesting salvage opportunities. And I zoomed into this one belt just as an Omen and a Rupture made a failed gank attempt on one Hulk pilot by the name of Paragon Prime.

They had some flashy red pods, but in my combat Crane, I didn’t expect them to be stupid enough to wait around for my heavy missiles. Nor were they. They warped away, followed quickly by the Hulk pilot (who probably went in for a change of underwear and a pod-swabbing).

And then I noticed the Hulk pilot had some ore cans littering the spaceways. So I consolidated them into an almost-full Ironfleet can, and docked for a Bustard.

And then there was a pleasant exchange of mails, while I was hauling my new ore:

bastard
From: Paragon Prime
Sent: 2011.10.25 04:52
To: Marlenus,

you fucking bastard

——————————–
Re: bastard
От: Marlenus
Отправлено: 2011.10.25 04:52
Кому: Paragon Prime,

Huh? Whuh I do?

——————————–
Re: Re: bastard
From: Paragon Prime
Sent: 2011.10.25 04:53
To: Marlenus,

you stole my ore freak

——————————–
Re: Re: Re: bastard
От: Marlenus
Отправлено: 2011.10.25 04:53
Кому: Paragon Prime,

Ore freak? Is that like a militiaman or an exotic dancer? I’ve never seen one of those…

——————————–
Re: Re: Re: Re: bastard
From: Paragon Prime
Sent: 2011.10.25 04:54
To: Marlenus,

you stupid idiot

I do so love a creative bit of invective!

When I finally escaped from the Klein-bottle wormhole system, I dropped into Amar high sec in devoid. Whilst having a glance around, I found an offline pinata research dickstar POS — my guess is, it’s kept offline and only brought up in time of war.

Only, the corporate hangar array was not anchored.

Now, I’m not fully versed on how arrays work. I know that when you blow them up, they have a chance of dropping stuff that’s inside. And I think I know that if you blow up a control tower, anchored mods will come unanchored, can be scooped with a hauler, and can be repackaged in a station like secure containers — whereupon any loot will fall out, with no risk of loss.

What I don’t know, though, is whether you can deliberately unanchor an array that’s got stuff in it — or whether this hangar array had to be empty when it was dropped or unanchored in the place I found it.

No matter, for an array worth 15 million ISK, I’ll go buy a Badger and haul that puppy into a station.

Which I did. Of course I watched with great interest as it repackaged, but nothing fell out.

Oh well … it was still a fast 15 million.

Does anybody remember this post, in which I describe the very first time Ironfleet Towing And Salvage ever came into serious conflict with another EVE player?

One of my friends (and partners in that particular “crime”) described our salvage operation against that POS as “throwing rocks through window panes”. We didn’t know what we were doing, we didn’t get any loot, but we did a lot of damage and enjoyed watching POS modules blowing up really good.

Well, late yesterday, Ironfleet Towing And Salvage returned to its roots … with a vengeance. I lost a ship, too … the first one in almost two years (710 days, to be precise — although Jim Bridger lost plenty during that time, during his leave of absence from Ironfleet to go play in 0.0.)

This story really begins last night. The last thing the Empress and I did before we logged off was to find and survey a new Class 1 wormhole. At that time, there were two active towers in there, both belonging to A Very Cynacle Alliance [AVCA]. And in those towers, there was one live pilot (name of “paragous”) just sitting inside one of the towers (for at least an hour) in a Probe named Anal. (Original, huh?)

Well, life happens. Fast forward 20 hours or so, and when I logged in today…guess how many force fields were on scan? Still two towers, only one force field. Woah, Nelly!

After a quick bit of zipping to my bookmarks, this is what met my wondering eye:

Would you look at all those fat hangars! Just sitting there!

However, there is the little problem of the active pilot, one moon over on the same planet, in easy D-scan range.

But, how active is he, really? He seems to be perma-logged in here, but I’ve never seen him move. And he’s what, 10 months old? In a Probe? I’ve got to wonder how scary he’ll be in truth. But, on the third hand, hello, tissue paper bomber?

It doesn’t matter. I’ve got to see what’s inside some of those lovely hangars.

But first, some preparation. I should at least probe down the exit to highsec, so that if I get anything hugely valuable, I’ll be able extricate it to safety. And for that matter, if I liberate some tasty ship hulls, I’ll want to be able to go dock my bomber and come back for them (depending on the level of local opposition).

So, there was some nattering and probing time lost here. And maybe it wasn’t as discrete as it should have been, because right when I was about to uncloak and start torping POS facilities, the Probe shows up.

OK, I can wait. He goes away again.

So I uncloaked and started demolishing the Corporate Hangar Array. It goes smoothly enough, but as I’m into the structure, I see the Probe vanish from d-scan and be replaced with a Hurricane. Shite, he’s reshipped into a bomber killer!

At this point the array goes boom and drops two cans. I just have time to open them and look inside (a bunch of reaction compounds I don’t recognize, some POS fuel, no mods of any kind) when the Hurricane arrives on grid.

I boogied…and came right back cloaked, of course.

The Hurricane sat right on the cans, like a broody hen sitting on her eggs.

There followed some fair few minutes of me thinking, and him sitting. My thoughts were running to the bad odds of bomber versus alert battlecruiser, and my countervailing advantages (mostly, skill points).

Finally I decided, well, I’ve got about sixty klicks of torp range on this beast, and there’s no way a 10-month-old character is going to be fit to reach out and touch me at that range. So, I lined up, uncloaked, and started sending torps down range. This first time, I don’t touch my afterburners; I just stay aligned and see what he does.

Of course, he charges. Turns out he’s MWD-fit and packing autocannons. I let him get close enough to launch drones and tickle me with the ACs in deep falloff before I warped out. He, in turn, took several volleys of torps, which hit him for about 2.5k per volley. But he’s fit to tank Sleepers, clearly, because he can take it for a little while at least.

So this time when I came right back, I set up out in a distant orbit, and turned on my afterburner when I uncloaked. Could he close with me? About the time I got through his shields, he decided not to find out; instead, he warped off, giving me the chance to switch targets and blow up the mobile lab. Yay! A can fell out.

Whoops, the Hurricane is back, and close! Time to bounce.

And again, I came back cloaked, picked my range, and drove him away with torpedoes. Then I blew up the ship maintenance array. Out fell a Hulk — which I don’t have the skills to fly — plus two destroyers, several frigates, and a shuttle. Not the ships I would have rather seen, but still, not bad.

But the Hurricane is back, and this time, he wants to kite me. He’s running straight away, and although at first it seems like I can dictate the distance, eventually he pulls out of torp range.

And then, I have to confess, I don’t understand quite what happened next. From a distance of about 90KM, he appeared to enter warp, and then landed pretty much right on my head.

I’m NOT a PvP god. There are many better than me. So I don’t mind admitting, I’m not entirely sure how that was accomplished.

Possibility 1: A failure of situational awareness on my part. Could he have actually gotten out to 150+ clicks from me, and I just think he was closer? And then he warped to a tactical bookmark after cleverly leading me right over it? I suppose it’s possible; I was pretty busy and my adrenaline was up. But man-o-man, I don’t think he got that far from me at any time.

Possibility 2: I’ve seen some amazing things done with on-grid warps, using the assistance of a probing covert ops ship. So, when a Covert Ops probes you down, can he then fleet-warp his buddy to the probed location, even if the warp is shorter than 150KM? I’ve played with combat covops warps, but I never tried that, and do not know the answer. I know I never saw probes on my d-scan, but I can’t say I was watching carefully enough for that to be dispositive. Certainly there was no sign of a third pilot in local at any time, but a careful covert pilot doesn’t leave much spoor.

No matter. I popped.

Ouch:

2011.04.29 01:23:00

Victim: Marlenus
Corp: Ironfleet Towing And Salvage
Alliance: Unknown
Faction: Unknown
Destroyed: Manticore
System: J105700
Security: -1.0
Damage Taken: 1321

Involved parties:

Name: paragous (laid the final blow)
Security: 0.1
Corp: Unfortunate Enterprises
Alliance: A Very Cynacle Alliance
Faction: NONE
Ship: Hurricane
Weapon: 425mm AutoCannon II
Damage Done: 1321

Destroyed items:

Caldari Navy Juggernaut Torpedo, Qty: 111 (Cargo)
Dual Light Beam Laser I (Cargo)
‘Skadi’ Coolant System I (Cargo)
Gamma S (Cargo)
Core Scanner Probe I, Qty: 3 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Juggernaut Torpedo, Qty: 22
Small Warhead Calefaction Catalyst II
Multifrequency S (Cargo)
Ultraviolet S (Cargo)
Target Painter II
Medium Pulse Laser I (Cargo)
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Large Auxiliary Thrusters I
Coreli C-Type 1MN Afterburner

Dropped items:

‘Shade’ I White Noise ECM (Cargo)
Core Probe Launcher I
Ballistic Control System II, Qty: 2
Dual Light Pulse Laser I (Cargo)
Juggernaut Torpedo, Qty: 928 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Juggernaut Torpedo, Qty: 11
Warp Disruptor II
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Core Scanner Probe I, Qty: 8
Guristas Ship Log 180983465 (Cargo)
Ultraviolet S (Cargo)
‘Arbalest’ Siege Missile Launcher, Qty: 3

That was an old bomber, too — so old it would have been fitted with cruise launchers, back in the day. See the large rig it had? Oh well, fly it like you stole it…

Moving on. I said “Nicely done” in local, got a “gf” in return. This while my pod is warping to a planet with the hurricane in hot pursuit.

And then, I bounced right back to the tower. Where, you will recall, there were two destroyers and three loot cans.

I am determined to salvage what I can out of this expensive combat lesson.

So, I land on the tower. There’s a dessie in boarding range, so I board it. Hurricane is not visible. The two cans of reaction goos are right there, but I’m interested in whatever dropped from the lab. It’s a few clicks too far away to scoop, so I start motoring over there.

Damn this destroyer, it’s fit for gas mining only — three gas suckers high, and no other mods at all. So it’s a wallowing pigdog. But it gets me to the lab can.

Which I opened. And saw row after row after row of lovely blueprints:

( click pic for a larger view )

Scoop like you’ve never scooped before, Marlenus! Because that damned Hurricane is back on the grid.

And, I’m out! I wish I’d had time to pop that loose Hulk before I lost the bomber, but I’m just me, I can’t do everything.

So, I jumped out to high sec and docked my blueprints. Then, it was time for dinner and some TV with my girl.

Hours pass.

I watch TV. The Empress sits in space, watching the two towers. When I get back to the computer, she reports that my Hurricane pilot (or somebody) vanished the Hulk and the frigates, then went back to his functioning tower, got back in his Probe, and is hanging in his accustomed spot.

But the defunct POS? Is still defunct. And still has those three manufacturing arrays…

What this job needs is a Drake.

Unfortunately, my only Drake is in my corporate hangar, 28 jumps away. And I haven’t flown it in two years; it will need refitting. Jim Bridger, now Jim has Drakes out the ass … but most of them are down in 0.0, or various resupply centers at the edges of 0.0.

I think about going to a minor market hub about 10 jumps away, but I know that will be frustrating and slow. Faster, I decided, to eat the 28 jumps, fit in my stupidly well-stocked Ironfleet hangar, and jump 28 jumps back. Maybe by then the Probe/Hurricane pilot will have logged off for the night?

And so it proved. About the time I was halfway back, he logged.

A lot of jumps later, I’m back on the defunct tower, shooting arrays:

The popping goes without incident. The ammo array drops another nice set of original blueprints:

The equipment assembly array drops three jetcans full of minerals, mostly low-end, plus a couple of module blueprints. I grabbed the Megacyte, some Noxium, and the blueprints:

Sadly, the drone assembly array dropped nothing.

Since there was not a peep in local, and I brought along a thousand spare missiles…what the heck! I went ahead and blew up all of the defensive arrays. Here’s the last one going “Kaboom”:

And then, a good day’s salvaging work done, it was time for bed.

I haven’t run the numbers on the facilities I blew up, or tried to price my trove of not-very-expensive but nicely-researched blueprints. (Yes, they are all originals; or it least, every one I’ve clicked on so far has been both original and heavily-researched.) Did it sting to lose the bomber? Yup. But would I have done anything different? Tactically, sure. But all in all, it was an operation in the best spirit of Ironfleet … I had to do it.

I leave you with a final look at the structure kills on my combat log:

Ironfleet has always maintained that we are just in the ore hauling business for, you know, the ore. And back in the day, I hauled a lot of ore. But these days, genuine jet can miners are hard to find; the Orca, hauler alts, and cheap cargo rigs offer too many alternatives.

There’s always that one guy, though. Today, it was Capo Kicx, a sixteen-month veteran of the game and the junior member of the 2-person Kicx Family corp [KICX]. He was mining in a Hulk, flying Tech II combat drones, and had accumulated two full jetcans of assorted ores.

Well, that would not do. I had to flip that ore into Ironfleet cans. I really thought that might get me a combat reaction, and perhaps it would have. Except, Capo suffered a disconnection, and warped off without his drones.

I salvaged them.

Eventually Capo got back on line, and his Hulk returned. In space you cannot hear the screams of “WTF, where are my drones?” But still they scream.

Then he docked, and did not return. I got to scrounging in my assets, and discovered that I had an ancient dusty Bustard in this sytem, placed here years ago for just this sort of eventuality. It was fully cargo-expanded, so even without rigs (when I fitted this ships there were only large rigs, and they were oh-so-spendy!) it can haul a full jet can in one load. Two round trips and quick refine later, I was up 4.5 million easy ISK.

Just in it for the ore, I tell you!

So, I was getting bored with the hunting around my usual hangouts. And I saw some assets down in Dodixie that needed my attention. So I packed a few trade goods into my fighting Crane, and set off on a combination hunt and trading expedition.

Part way there, I stopped by the system of Kamio. And cruising belt to belt, I found that there was an active mining corp in system — Rare Earth Elements, LLC [REELC]. Six or eight guys in local at any time — which makes engaging them tricky! — and at least half of those in mining barges. (But remember, I’ve been burned in the past by guys in Retrievers helping my primary target.)

So when I found a Retriever with a mostly-full jet-can out, naturally I flipped it, keeping only what would fit in my Crane. (Long way from home, no backup hauler handy.) But the guy was flying a full rack of mining drones, and he wouldn’t take from my can, so no joy there. I blew the Ironfleet can and moved on.

Actually, I docked; it was time to watch some TV with the girlfriend.

Then a bit later, her phone rang and it was a call she wanted to take. So I sat back down at my computer, and started checking the belts again.

And what’s this? Another REELC Retriever with a chock-full jet can out. How many friends does he have in local? Six? Careful…

Flipped can, loaded up what ore I could fit. This guy is flying combat drones. Started flying away — the urge to pounce is always strongest when the “prey” is seen to be fleeing. And sure enough, he’s locking me!

Truth to tell, I messed up the combat. I had my Ironfleet jetcan locked also, so once his drones started shooting me, I shot back at the barge … but I warp disrupted my own jetcan. If he’d wanted to flee, he might have had time.

But no … I caught him on the next cycle. This might be because my missles were just pecking him. It was the toughest Retriever I’ve ever seen — it seemed to take forever to beat him into rubble. At least three times as many missiles as I usually need for a Retriever. WTF? He actually had time to try to run away from my point, but of course he didn’t have the speed.

And of course, all the while I’m expecting his vengeful buddies to come skidding out of warp, intent on violencing my boat. But finally, he popped. And what’s this in his wreck? Modulated Strip Miner IIs? Tasty!

2011.04.15 03:40:00

Victim: Darrium Sinclairium
Corp: Rare Earth Elements LLC
Alliance: Unknown
Faction: Unknown
Destroyed: Retriever
System: Kamio
Security: 0.7
Damage Taken: 1872

Involved parties:

Name: Marlenus (laid the final blow)
Security: 1.3
Corp: Ironfleet Towing And Salvage
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Crane
Weapon: Thunderbolt Precision Heavy Missile
Damage Done: 1858

Name: Guristas Arrogator / Guristas
Damage Done: 14

Destroyed items:

Small Armor Repairer I
Mining Drone I, Qty: 2 (Drone Bay)
Expanded Cargohold I
Plagioclase Mining Crystal I

Dropped items:

Plagioclase, Qty: 6714 (Cargo)
Survey Scanner I
Plagioclase Mining Crystal I
Modulated Strip Miner II, Qty: 2

Scoop, align, blow Ironfleet can full of ore, dock safe. And then it was time to place a stern phone call to the missile compartment. “What were you idiots shooting at him? Spitwads?”

There was an uncomfortable pause. Then “Uh, Captain…”

My mistake. Damn. I’d been stalking a Hulk earlier, and he had TII drones up. That can be dicy, and I often start a fight like that by taking out a drone or three with Precision missiles. Which — you guessed it — were still up the spout for this whole combat. Doh!

This is turning into a pretty good EVE day. While out looking to see if a I could make it a mining barge trifecta, I found a Dread Gurista Arrogator in a .8 system. Two heavy missiles later:

Low-Grade Crystal Delta, I’ll take it!

The targets are harder to find, but they’re still out there.

Today after about ten jumps of hunting roam (which takes a lot of time when you’re checking all belts in a Crane) I found a hapless Retriever pilot parked next to an almost-full (!) can of Pyroxeres.

Well, that spatial navigation hazard had to be fixed, so I put that ore into an Ironfleet can.

He didn’t have me locked and he didn’t have another can out and he wasn’t flying any drones, but he immediately turned flashy red. So, I figure he must have said “Mine mine mine!” in his best Daffy Duck voice, and yoinked some of the ore back into his cargo hold.

Bad idea. Retrievers being what they are, he popped like popcorn. He had just enough time to launch some combat drones and set them on me, but it didn’t do him any good:

2011.04.09 22:05:00

Victim: Mmel
Corp: Elite Institution of Scholars and Sickos
Alliance: Unknown
Faction: Unknown
Destroyed: Retriever
System: [redacted]
Security: 0.7
Damage Taken: 2162

Involved parties:

Name: Marlenus (laid the final blow)
Security: 1.3
Corp: Ironfleet Towing And Salvage
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Crane
Weapon: Caldari Navy Thunderbolt Heavy Missile
Damage Done: 2162

Destroyed items:

Solid Pyroxeres, Qty: 2643 (Cargo)
Mining Laser Upgrade I
Concentrated Veldspar, Qty: 376 (Cargo)
Strip Miner I

Dropped items:

Residual Survey Scanner I
Guristas Hellfire Assault Missile, Qty: 1000 (Cargo)
Dread Guristas Copper Tag (Cargo)
Strip Miner I
Guristas Iron Charge S, Qty: 1000 (Cargo)
Quantum Co-Processor I

Note the two bricks of tasty Gurista ammo in the salvage — that’s better loot than Retrievers usually drop.

I was in a system where I’ve operated before, so I had a Badger II handy; that meant I got to take all that lovely ore home, too.