Hey everybody, Jim Bridger here. My apologies for the lack of good salvage tales here lately; I can’t speak for Marlenus, but as for me, I’ve been too busy in 0.0 to develop any good salvage exploit tales. Down there it’s all brute force and no finesse … you don’t have to outwit anybody, you just need to blow their shit up. And in a weird sort of reverse incentive program, the fleets I’ve been flying with tend to give all the loot to the people who get blown up, which takes much of the fun out of looting and salvaging, even if it is the brotherly thing to do.

But tonight, see, I was passing through Ironfleet’s home system, with time to kill while I wait for a jump clone timer. I docked up and what did I find but an ancient and creaky Thrasher, fit with meta four guns and so old it still has at least one large rig on it. And a hauler named “Ore Relocation”, parked right beside it. Par-tay time!

So, I had to go out and prowl the belts for some ore.

Found some, too. First potential victim was a three day old in a mining destroyer, who jetted a can right in front of me. I ate his Scordite, found it bland and insufficient. Was feeling preemptively bad about taking candy from babies, when he called me a fat fuck in local. That made me feel good again, warm and fuzzy even. But, sadly, he warped away without attempting to teach me a lesson.

Next potential victim was jet can mining in an Osprey cruiser. Lots of lasers going, two Hobgoblin I drones out. Too much scordite to eat, so I flipped it. Hobgoblin me, baby!

Sadly, no. He warped away in silence.

I waited. He came back in a Badger. Really? Oh, please oh please.

No. Prudence prevailed. Badger docked up without reclaiming “his” ore.

It felt really *weird* prowling the belts looking for cans to flip. When I left here, I was a PvP noob — I had some ability to fight in the limited can-flipping situations I created for myself, and I’d learned some fleet combat during faction warfare, but I had only the most limited ability to judge a fight in advance, and I didn’t really know what fights I could hope to win in the ships I was flying. Now, a year later, after constant 0.0 craziness, I still don’t consider myself a serious PvP guy, but I’ve got a totally different outlook on combat. Patrolling the belts in .7 space, I feel dangerous in a way that I never did before, and confident that I’ll be able to assess potential fights as they develop. I hadn’t really noticed the change until I dropped back into old familiar ground.

So, no suicidal noobs got harmed tonight, and I had a few moments of hopeful fun, plus cussing in local. Tomorrow I’ll be back down in Providence again, shooting at Amarrian roleplayers, those slaving bastard fucks. Nice shot of nostalgia for me this evening.

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