RL

Well RL well and truelly put the whamy on me this week. Helping move the equivalent of the family home put the hurt on the old body. Ah well, I'm sure Cozmik will commiserate.

I've managed to get some mining done. I've managed to get a kill on a Hulk. While it wasn't surprising that I managed to get a kill on a Hulk while flying a Tempest. What was surprising was that I managed to get a kill on a Hulk, flying a tempest while getting warped onto said Hulk by one of my newbies getting a lock on him with a T1 scanning frigate.

Here's the story. I logged on that day and got news that a class 4 we were connected to was inhabited. Not particularly wanting to deal with intruders (I was looking for some nice quiet mining), I decided to close the hole. So I got in my close range Tempest and proceeded to start the wormhole dance (out with AB on, wait 30 seconds and back with AB on, wait 4min and repeat like the Cha Cha).

While I'm doing this one of my pilots asks if he can check it out before I finish. I say sure and that I'll warn him when I get close. As I continue the dance, he tells me that um... the system isn't inhabited... I'm going to have to have some words with some of my pilots about the importance of correct reporting. There's a difference between "Inhabited" and "Has some visitors"... Meanwhile the the Hulk I had seen on d-scan still had his mining drones out. Ok I'm pretty quick with the "approach, ab on, jump" sequence but if he'd been paying attention he'd have twigged since I messed up my timing on one of them and was scanable for 30 seconds at one point. not nailing a scan on the cov-ops one of my pilots was flying was possible.

So at this point I'm peeved that the Hulk pilot is so blind and flying stupid in wormhole space. Well let's find out just how idiotic he is. My cov-ops pilot does not have combat probes in his current boat (fail) but one of my newbies volunteers to jump in one of my loaner scanning boats (win). Now there are 8 ships that I always keep in my POS. 4 Astrometrics frigates WITH all 3 probe types on board, T1 cloaks, and 2 Gravity rigs each. 4 Destroyers with 5 salvagers, core probe launchers, 2 tractor beams and 2 salvage rigs. The point is that any of my pilots always knows he can scan and salvage if he operates out of my POS. So out he comes, pops out the combat probes and cloaks while I wait on the other side.

The cov-ops pilot gives a planet and a general direction to scan near so it goes relatively quickly ( a bit of a mistake means that I had jumped in too early (100% hit but not warpable since it wasn't done by all 4 probes - it can happen). He eventually gets the 100% warpable scan and calls in his probes. I wait out the 4 minute timer and jump back in with my cloaked newbie in wing command position and the other pilot setup as scout in case he was on grid. Interesting fact: a cloaked ship can start a gang warp that warps the fleet/wing/squadron even without getting sent off himself since he's cloaked. So my newbie gang warps my Tempest right onto the Hulk.

Fail fit Hulk flown by a fail pilot. With all the mistakes we made engineering that kill he should have had plenty of opportunity to get out of dodge. Dude you didn't spot combat probes sent out by a pilot doing it FOR THE FIRST TIME... You didn't spot the BS sitting withing scan range without a cloak for 30 seconds - the d-scan timer is 2 seconds. Anyways lesson taught. Use your d-scanner or loose your ship.

Friggen noobs who can't fly their ships properly and think 0.0 space is hello kitty land... Don't get me started...