Loss #12: The Cunning Moa

Ouelletta was unusually quiet when I came up with the best target I'd seen in days on the scanner: a Moa-class cruiser had gone into an asteroid belt. Moas aren't weaklings, but I knew its cruiser-sized blasters just wouldn't be able to catch my Rifter. I warped in, cheering as I caught the cruiser with my warp scrambler - I had already won, I just needed to wait out its shields.

As my autocannons wore down its heavy shields, a swarm of drones poured from its drone bay. "Ah good. It will be a fight, then," I thought. I turned my attention to the drones and managed to keep up with the damage they dealt to my armor as I destroyed them each in turn. I finally turned my attention back to the Moa, and worked my way through the rest of his shields.. when a proximity alarm suddenly flashed red on my HUD.

The combat had started quite far from any of the asteroids in this belt, but the Moa's pilot had inched us closer and closer while I had been focusing on taking down his shields. The structure of my Rifter groaned as the computer compensated, breaking and banking hard to avoid collision with an asteroid; vectoring me directly away from the Moa. I was a sitting duck as the Moa's blasters finally were able to align and pounded my ship with round after round of hot plasma. I escaped with my pod as I congratulated the Moa's pilot for his excellent job of using the terrain to his advantage. And I cursed to myself for losing such an excellent target.

Loss #11: Rust vs Gold

It's been good to be flying a Rifter again. The feeling of freedom that comes with flying a cheap ship is excellent - you can take on targets you know you won't win against because you don't mind losing. The loss of the Rust II was just that kind of loss.

I was on another roam, and happened into Hevrice again. I warped to a station to sit within the protection of the sentry guns while I checked my map. At least, that was my intention. When I came out of warp, there was a Maller-class cruiser flashing red in my overview.. and he was a member of The Tuskers. The Maller isn't a drone-carrying cruiser, so I knew my fast little Rifter could survive at least a little while against it. What better way to practice your combat skills than actually using them against well-respected pilots?

I was able to do about 20% damage to the Maller's armor, but his strong Amarrian armor and repair module easily held me from doing any more. The combination of my own repair module and my Rifter's speed meant that I actually survived for quite some time against the Maller's cruiser-sized lasers. It wasn't until the Maller's energy vampire had sapped my of my capacitor that I began the slow decent into destruction.

I thanked the pilot for the fight as I escaped with my pod. I certainly learned a few things I'd do to better take on a cruiser like that next time...

Loss #10: The Heritage Three

dé-jà vu –noun

1. Psychology. the illusion of having previously experienced something actually being encountered for the first time.

2. disagreeable familiarity or sameness: The new television season had a sense of déjà vu about it—the same old plots and characters with new names.

After defeating a Tusker pilot in his own home system, I was feeling a bit on the brash side again. My confidence bolstered, I resumed my route through low-sec space and ended up in Old Man Star. The system is a constant war zone - militias are constantly battling it out for control of this system on the border of Federation high-sec space, and pirates take advantage of the increased activity in the system to find their targets.

I just so happened to be scanning down a Rifter, and attempted to pounce on him in an asteroid belt. Only, it turned out I had miscalculated - the ship wasn't in this belt. I realized this as I came out of warp, and commanded the Heritage III to come about and warp to a nearby safespot, but it was too late. A Thorax cruiser came out of warp almost immediately after I did, and snagged my ship with his warp disruptor before my warp drive finished powering up. Whether he had been scanning me down, or had been tailing the same Rifter as I had, I'm unsure. But as was expected for a Thorax, I was still pounding on his armor when I lost the Heritage III.

I exchanged compliments with the pilot as my pod warped to safety. Another Vengeance lost; it was time to start flying cheaper ships.

Loss #9: Finally, the Heritage Two

The warning lights flashed in the darkness; my eyes could have been open, but my view was still blank save for a single red warning. I must be in my pod, as I couldn’t see or feel my body.

Warning: Auxiliary life support will fail within four hours.

My pod’s computer was trying one last attempt to wake its unconscious pilot, and it seemed to have worked. I mentally queried the situation, and the computer responded. The camera drone was offline, likely lost. My location was about 100 AU out from Intaki and drifting. My aux life support was down to four hours left.

Strange. A pod’s life support system should last weeks..

I checked the date and the pieces rushed back together. I had been tracking another target in the Intaki system, when I had been caught off guard by a Thorax-class cruiser. I had gotten lazy under the impenetrable (or so I thought) Khanid armor of the Vengeance I had been so successful with, the Heritage Two. My pod hadn’t been properly secured, causing my ejection from the exploding ship to fail and send me rocketing off-course, unconscious. I must have been floating out here for weeks.

I commanded the pod to find the closest station beacon and set a course for docking. Hopefully, flying blind without a camera drone wouldn’t be a liability with the automated docking procedure, but I braced myself anyway…

Loss #7: Setting a trap

“You aren’t seriously thinking of buying another one, are you, sir?” I could feel the muscles in my face tighten. I hate it when machines talked back. If I could afford an actual human secretary, that would be one thing. But an AI assistant program should know its damned place. “I am. We didn’t get the right kind of test out of the first one. Now run the damned numbers.”

As it turns out, I had splurged a bit and purchased a Vengeance-class Assault Frigate. Fully fitted, it had cost as much as five fully-fitted Rifters. Some of that had been offset by finding the un-looted wreck of a Stealth Bomber, with its high-tech cloaking device still intact. Or at least it would be, once Guillome paid me for it.

I dubbed the ship the Heritage One, since it was a ship of Khanid design. Taking it roaming through all my usual systems, I wound up in Old Man Star, but there I found nothing but a Rupture-class cruiser and a Rapier-class Force Recon cruiser. I sat outside one of the stations in that system for a while, pondering my next move and hitting my scanner from time to time.

It hadn’t been long, when the Rupture warped in close to me, and his icon on my HUD flashed red, a warning that he was an outlaw. I could shoot at him freely, without worrying about incurring the wrath of the sentry guns… if I thought I could take him. But one doesn’t get to outlaw status without being good at combat, and I wasn’t sure I could take as much damage as he could deal, even with my superior Khanid armor.

Then my HUD flashed. The Rapier pilot had been tracking this Rupture, and asked for my help killing him. So we followed the Rupture as he warped away to another station, and I sat just out of docking range while the Rapier was cloaked nearby. I targeted the outlaw and fired a single shot, then began moving away from the station. I kept my speed down as to not lose my lock on him, but in retrospect the Vengeance isn’t a fast ship, and I should have taken her up to full speed. The Rupture was on me almost instantly, and I managed to both give and take quite a bit of damage before I exploded. The Rapier had indeed de-cloaked, and was hammering away at the Rupture as I warped my capsule out. Getting in on the kill might just be worth the loss of my ship. I warped my capsule away, then back to the station so that I could see the action and dock if combat was still going on.

I cursed at what I saw: two Dominix-class battleships had arrived and had joined the fight on the side of the Rupture. There was to be no kill tonight. The Rapier pilot managed to get away, however, and as I arrived at my hangar, I found several cargo cases on the floor, with a note taped to the top one: “Thanks for the help. This should help cover your loss – from a frigate I took down earlier..” I opened the top one to find it full of high-tech focusing crystals and other expensive equipment.

This should make Guillome quite happy. If only he would show up with my damned money…

Loss #4: Punisher-class 'Tattoo One'

Same old story here.. almost no targets to be found at my time of night. I wound up wandering over to the Essence region again, and in Aeschee there were a number of pilots - most of which were members of the same corp. Looks like there was to be no hunting here, but I tried anyways. On the scanner, I noticed a Probe-class frigate and began trying to track him down. As I was doing so, a Stabber-class cruiser also appeared on my scanner. I jumped around a bit, trying to figure out where they both were, when the Stabber warped in to my location, piloted by Burn Mac of the Tuskers. Fit with high-tech modules, I decided to give him the fight he was looking for. But fighting a stabber in a Punisher is always the wrong idea, especially against a pilot from a corp I respect like the Tuskers.

The Stabber was too fast for me, even with my MicroWarp drive, and with no room for a stasis web on the Punisher to slow him down, I was unable to keep him in my range, though I have to admit the armor on the Punisher does hold out pretty well. It took longer than I expected for the Tattoo One to explode, which meant I had more time to react, and got my capsule out safely.

I chatted briefly with Burn Mac before departing, and it reaffirmed my respect for the Tuskers. Losing to you guys is almost a pleasure. Almost. Maybe you're next, Wensley..

Loss #3: Age can be deceiving

After jumping over to Orvolle to outfit another Rifter, the Restock One, I wandered around Placid and Verge Vendor again, itching to get back into the fray. Finding myself in Ouelletta yet again - it was the only system around with active pilots in it - I started looking for prey again. As it turned out, most of the pilots around were off fighting at hidden Serpentis outposts, and I didn't have the probing equipment to find them. I did track down a young pilot, only several months out of the academy, who was patrolling the asteroid belts in a Vexor-class cruiser. I decided to test him, given his young age.

I warped in about 10 klicks out from him, and instantly had his engines scrambled and was tearing through his shields. His guns couldn't even hit me as I orbited, and I began to get confident. Then, as if he had forgotten for a few seconds, his drone bay opened up and five Hobgoblin II drones swarmed out at me. I was caught off guard that a pilot so young would have the skill to control such high-tech drones, but the proof was right in front of me.. and it was chewing through my armor. I tried to warp away when I realized my error, but only escaped with my capsule. I acknowledged to the pilot that he had bested me, and went to hide in a local station to plan out how to proceed from there.

The night was turning out to be a night of expensive lessons...