It’s no secret I do a lot of belt salvage in my Crane transport. She’s tough and fast, has a cargo hold big enough for many jobs, and the one heavy missile is enough to give an unpleasant surprise to many of the miners who think they’ll pop themselves a “helpless badger”.

So today I went for my daily belt sweep, and found a bunch of plagioclase floating in the vicinity of a Covetor. And that’s the Crane’s big weakness — as haulers go, the hold size is minimal.

So I grabbed what I could and stuffed the rest into an Ironfleet can. Haul to station, empty, undock, return.

Blink, blink, blink, here’s a new party heard from! An Iteron V is flashing red, and the Ironfleet can is missing. Well, we can’t have that, can we? It’s lock and rock time.

Dang. Not sure I ever shot an Itty V before, but it takes a long time to chew one up with one missile launcher.

About half way through the chewing, the guy in the Covetor decides to come to the Iteron’s rescue. His three Vespa I drones began chewing on me.

So picture this, folks! It’s a slow motion dogfight at knife fight ranges, since I warped to zero and everybody’s moving at Iteron V speeds. Two haulers and a mining barge, plus three drones. The world’s biggest slowest furball.

Eventually the Iteron goes *pop*. Loot? Would you believe I got one Cargo Expander II (yes!) and one Civilian Shield Booster? (What the fuck?)

The painful thing: Four more of those expander IIs went pop:


2007.03.24 20:26
Victim: vririeed
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Science and Trade Institute
Destroyed: Iteron Mark V
System: [redacted]
Security: 0.7
Involved parties:
Name: Marlenus (laid the final blow)
Security: 1.1
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Ironfleet Towing And Salvage
Ship: Crane
Weapon: Havoc Heavy Missile
Destroyed items:
10MN Afterburner I
Civilian Shield Booster I
Civilian Shield Booster I
Expanded Cargohold II
Expanded Cargohold II
Expanded Cargohold II
Expanded Cargohold II

Jesus people, you fit fifty million isks worth of cargo expander on your ship, can’t you afford to get a decent shield booster?

But let’s not forget, I’ve still getting chewed on by a few drones. Covetor? You still here? You still want a piece of this?

Apparently, yes:


2007.03.24 20:30
Victim: Amigal
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Native Freshfood
Destroyed: Covetor
System: [redacted]
Security: 0.7
Involved parties:
Name: Marlenus (laid the final blow)
Security: 1.1
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Ironfleet Towing And Salvage
Ship: Crane
Weapon: Havoc Heavy Missile
Destroyed items:
Expanded Cargohold I
Strip Miner I
Strip Miner I
Civilian Shield Booster I
Vespa I, Qty: 35 (Cargo)
Plagioclase, Qty: 5561 (Cargo)

The third strip miner dropped, so all in all, it was a good morning’s salvage.

3 Responses to “Slow Motion Dogfight”

  1. Brian says:

    Lol, nice man. My covy flys with all the T2 medions to cover all the damage types plus a small T2 shield tank. Not much but it’s enough to run away when needed :)

    Loving your site so far!

  2. Marlenus says:

    Trust me, TII drones is enough to make me think twice about engaging a Covetor in my Crane. Loot and scoot, maybe, but stay and whittle with the missile launcher? Naw, no thanks.

  3. Brian says:

    I still like the Battle Occator best- fit a hard T2 armor tank and a single T2 light neutron blaster with Void S. Meds are T2 rechargers or boosters, a high level webber (X5 in my case) and a long distance scram, plus an afterburner. It’s funny to hold battlecruisers in place long enough for friends to come and get the kill, and frigates, destroyers, small cruisers, and industrials die to the fury of the single blaster XD

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