Ironfleet Towing And Salvage

Do you ever notice, on all those forum threads about mission salvagers, how the mission runners in their big fat carefully-tanked battleships like to talk about how unfair it is that there is “zero risk” to the people who probe down and salvage their missions?

Well, that hasn’t been my experience.

It seems like every time I go mission probing in a covert ops ship (for the probing speed bonuses) I lose the damn thing and swear I’ll use cheaper ships next time.

Yesterday, I lost a Buzzard to lag in Dodixie.

I’d jump-cloned down that way because my alliance peeps were having a big operation there, but I was too late for most of the party. So I fitted out a covops with cheap gear and started on an ordinance survey of the system; if I’m going to play there, I need a set of probing bookmarks.

My early work with long range probes got me several good hits on mission runners well away from the ecliptic, so the project was a smashing success; with the bookmarks I got, I can now reach almost anywhere in the system that a mission runner is likely to be.

Unfortunately, in the process I found a Dominix battleship sharing a deadspace with a bunch of wrecked Amarr Navy battleships, and three that weren’t wrecked yet. In fact, it looked like the last three were “way over there” and not woke up yet.

I couldn’t ignore all those lovely armor plates, so I started salvaging. And heck, if those battleships wake up, I’ll have plenty of time to warp out when they start targeting me, right?

I forgot I was Dodixie, a mission hub every bit as notorious for lag as Saila was back in the day.

I’m salvaging, three un-agroed battleships on my overview. There’s a noise, as of lasers firing. My screen refreshes. I’m in a pod.

My client, apparently, didn’t bother alerting me to the whole “you’re being locked” part of the process.

It wasn’t really a problem, long run; I got in my free Ibis, put salvagers in the top slots, came back for my loot, salvaged my wreck, finished salvaging the mission, and came out with an Ibis-load of the mission runner’s loot on top of that. In fact, I got so many Armor Plates, I think I may have paid for the ship I lost. But it was annoying.

I had a little bit more fun with the diplomatic contact that resulted from this combat the day before yesterday. You’ll remember that I wasn’t quite sure what the Retriever pilot had done to start flashing red. Well, I got this convo:

Careos Ordo > Hail sir.
Marlenus > Hello, what’s up?
Careos Ordo > I understand we had an incident between our corps in the last few days.
Careos Ordo > It appears to be a misunderstanding, I didn’t want any ill feelings.
Marlenus > Did we? If so, it’s news to me
Careos Ordo > Its on the front page of your site.
Marlenus > Oh. That’s not an incident, it’s just normal business.
Careos Ordo > Not the way we operate.
Careos Ordo > Your ship was accidentally attacked by a drone.
Marlenus > Hmm, I do not believe so. “The logs, they show nothing.”
Marlenus > And the drones were not in space.
Careos Ordo > Well, my pilots assured me whatever happened they meant no aggression.
Marlenus > Hmmm, I must agree that scooping of the drones would seem to support that story.
Careos Ordo > If you loot, that is your way, I will not judge you for that…I just wanted to let you know that there was nothing from our side. I don’t want to start a war.
Careos Ordo > They had kill rights on your man because he had looted a wreck earlier.
Marlenus > No worries, I’m not in the diplomatic loop for my alliance … there’s zero risk of war to you guys from the incident, I’d say
Careos Ordo > They might have been worried the drones would attack, or they did on accident…something.
Marlenus > And I never take offense at getting shot at
Careos Ordo > Interesting business you guys run there.
Careos Ordo > I still don’t know how your indy was able to take out a mining barge.
Marlenus > Heh, that’s actually no secret
Careos Ordo > it is to me, obviously
Marlenus > The blockade runner is not an indy, it’s a transport…
Marlenus > …and it has fitting for a heavy missile launcher
Careos Ordo > oh, my guys reported an indy
Marlenus > It’s basically a cruiser with one gun
Careos Ordo > gotcha.

There was more, but that’s the gist. A perfectly civil, careful diplomatic contact that’s a credit to their corporation. Why am I mentioning it here? Because it underscores what I love about flying the blockade runners. There isn’t an industrial in the game that can launch heavy missiles, but when people see me coming, all they can see is “harmless indy” and it’s an impression so strong, it colors their perceptions even after they’ve flown home in a pod.

Of course, that Retriever would have died just as fast to a well-fit BattleBadger or your basic Iteron-of-Doom; I’m not trying to slight those time-honored (and funny as hell) combat platforms. I’m just saying. People see what they expect to see.

It’s amazing what I find in my hangars, sometimes.

I was down in Nourvokaiken, cleaning out a hangar full of “old junky stuff”. This stuff came from two places. Some of it’s ancient mission loot that I salvaged for a friend in another corp — he’d run the missions and I’d do the loot/salvage duty. Usually I dumped the melty junk into his hangars via contract for his industrial people to refine, but after his corp went moribund, I found a few station containers full in various places that I consolidated in Nourv while I was based there during the early days of Faction Warfare.

The rest of the junk is stuff I hastily salvaged during Faction Warfare. As you can imagine, salvage during battles is very tricky — often I’d just grab the stuff out of wrecks that went floating by, while trying to maintain fleet formation and not be the last guy to warp with the bubble. Usually I inspected the stuff with great interest, but sometimes, I was busy.

So, I was sorting junk tonight. And guess what I found, in an old wooden crate full of miscellaneous battleship guns and broken shell casings?

1x Domination 1200MM Artillery.

In two and a half years of playing this game, I’ve accumulated precisely four faction modules. And yet, somehow I managed to bung this one into my hangar without ever noticing it?

Mind you, I’ve got no current use for this. Maybe Jim Bridger will shoot large arties someday. And I can’t tell how much it’s worth; right now there are two WTB contracts for one up for minor millions, and one guy wants to sell three of them for 225 million total. So that’s the brackets on the price range, somewhere between 15 and 75 million. It’s not a gamechanging find, or anything.

But still, you should have seen my face when I scraped the old grease crust off the nameplate with my multi-tool and saw what I had.

Sometimes the simple pleasures are best.

I was in a system where I don’t have a cloaked Prowler yet, so I was prowling the old fashioned way, in one of my beloved combat Cranes. Found an old-school Covetor mining barge, mining neatly into two numbered jet cans.

They consolidated nicely into one full jet can plus the hold of my Crane.

Covetor pilot left quietly, presumably to get a bigger meaner ship.

So I left too. Came back in an ugly Ferox I like to call the Iron Crowbar. It’s fitted for belt bullying work, to be honest, so it’s a bit LOLwhut for combat. But it looks real mean.

When I got back, the Covetor pilot had returned in a Caracal.

While he was thinking about what to do (in his shoes, I’d have blown the Ironfleet can and left) I put the Ironfleet can on the tractor and began relocating it away from any likely warp-in points. I guess he was too attached to “his” ore to do that.

Instead, the Caracal pilot left, then shortly thereafter logged or left the system.

I went home for a Bustard, which made one quick trip of bringing home the ore. Neat, clean, and profitable!

I’ve been told that salvage in most complexes is nerfed and sucky, and that’s been true in the lower-level ones I’ve seen. But I was in a 3/10 today where the salvage was excellent.

At least, excellent if you count the player wrecks. Most notable was a Minmater Elite Frigate wreck, with Russian name, that gave me nine million ISK worth of T2 salvage (including an incredibly rare Intact Armor Plate) plus three T2 guns and some more useful T2 fittings and ammo. Dude was fitting T2 Power Diagnostics to keep those guns fed, but he was mixing 280mm howitzers and autocannon. Is that ever a good idea?

Today I was flying about in a belt in my newest (shiny!) Prowler when I spotted an oddity.

I like oddities; they usually spell opportunity.

Today’s oddity was a Retriever, jet can mining, flying three TII drones. Usually Retriever = newbie miner = tech one drones.

So I took a second look. He was sharing a jet can — his jet can — with a Hulk. The Hulk pilot had corp and alliance tickers, but the Retriever pilot, tigris32, was Science and Trade Institute (starter NPC corp) and was a full two and a half years old. I thought about that for a second, and guessed that he was alt hauler for the Hulk pilot, who must have decided to put him to work. So, I started creeping (still cloaked) toward the can.

Before I got there, the Retriever pulled his drones in and flew away.

To get the hauler? Looks like it; the jet can is full.

Now, normally I haven’t been a can flipper, not in the pure sense of trying to use the flip to fool the other pilot into “stealing” from me unwittingly. That’s just not got a high enough success rate for me; jet can miners tend to pay better attention.

But, there’s nobody around, the Hulk pilot probably has no eyes in this grid at this moment. I flipped the can, moved a way a little bit, and cloaked. Worth a try.

Rumble rumble rumble, here comes tigris32 in a Badger II. He swoops right to the can, and without any hesitation at all he starts flashing red to me.

Uncloak, start locking, lock lock lock, warp scramble, missles away! (I really enjoy it when I get to play the Romulans.)

I’ll give him this much, as Badgers go, this one had some crunch. But he never had a prayer:

2008.12.25 01:33:00

Victim: tigris32
Corp: Science and Trade Institute
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Badger Mark II
System: [redacted]
Security: 0.7
Damage Taken: 3357

Involved parties:

Name: Marlenus (laid the final blow)
Security: 1.2
Corp: Ironfleet Towing And Salvage
Alliance: Tear Extraction And Reclamation Service
Faction: NONE
Ship: Prowler
Weapon: Caldari Navy Havoc Heavy Missile
Damage Done: 3357

Name: Guristas Imputor / Guristas
Damage Done: 0

Destroyed items:

Shield Recharger I
Expanded Cargohold II, Qty: 2
Depleted Uranium S, Qty: 30
Cargohold Optimization I, Qty: 3
‘Anointed’ I EM Ward Reinforcement
Giant Secure Container (Cargo)
Giant Secure Container (Cargo)
Giant Secure Container (Cargo)

Dropped items:

Expanded Cargohold II
Catalyzed Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
Small Shield Booster I
250mm Light Carbine Howitzer I
Heat Dissipation Field I
Depleted Uranium S, Qty: 962 (Cargo)
Ballistic Deflection Field I
Giant Secure Container (Cargo)
Giant Secure Container (Cargo)
Giant Secure Container (Cargo)

After he went pop, I scooped his modules, and one of the three giant secure containers that fell out, and as much of the ore as would fit. Then I moved away some and cloaked again.

By now his egg is gone. What will he come back in?

Would you believe, he came back in a Navy Raven?

I just watched from under cloak for awhile. Eventually, he flipped the Ironfleet can back into one of his. Normally I’d have stalked him until he parked the Raven, then tried again to get the ore; but I had a real-world obligation. So, instead, I crept out to about 30 clicks, orbited the can, and uncloaked long enough to blow it with one missile. His cruise missiles, I’m pleased to report, were plenty survivable; I couldn’t have tanked them forever, but as expected, I had lots of time to blow the can and warp out.

He had stuff to say in local in an unknown language.

While checking the belts today I found an unlooted Dread Gurista wreck. Looted it for a Multiphasic Bolt Array (high-meta ballistic controls worth 10M+ in my location) and a Dread Gurista copper tag.

The fun part? The person who killed the DG, John Crush, was mining about 10km away from the wreck. In a Badger II. He hadn’t bothered to loot.

“Safe”, of course, being a purely relative term.

After another day prowling around in Morsus Mihi space, I decided it was time to come home.

I learned a lot on that jaunt.

One thing I was hoping was that I’d find poorly-secured loot to scoop. I did come back with half a dozen nice high-meta named mods that I found cleaning up after local ratters, but nothing substantial in value. In low sec and empire, you often find drifting garbage associated with POS projects, especially stuff left drifting inside force fields that remains after the POS goes unfueled and the forcefield drops.

I didn’t find anything like that in 0.0 space. I don’t know if it’s a general rule, evolutionary pressure, or just a clean operation by Morsus Mihi tenants, but I put eyes on every POS installation in close to twenty MM systems, and the only scoopable object I found there was a single Giant Secure Container. Unfortunately, it was floating just outside the shields of a very serious-looking death star, and I didn’t feel comfortable trying to scoop-and-scoot under the POS guns, complete with webbing and scrambling batteries. I don’t know how fast the warp scrambling battery can lock a transport, and I’d like to test it in a disposable (preferably “borrowed”) Badger II before trying it in my blockade runner.

Those were some ship-shape POS installations. Clean, tight, and devoid of anything that could be readily shoplifted.

I also looked at every belt rat in those twenty systems, and shot a fair few of them. What I learned from that is what I already knew, which is that my Prowler is a bit puny for 0.0 rats. I can, however, kill most anything up to cruiser size with the fit I was packing, and with some fitting changes it wouldn’t be too hard. As I was fit (for agility and speed) it was a challenge; and I burned far more ISK in faction missiles than I got back in loot. As expected; this was a voyage of discovery and science.

The one hauler spawn I found had four cruiser escorts and two medium “Gatherers” based on the Osprey hull. It was a challenge killing the first cruiser with the DPS I had, while surviving the fire of the four enemy cruisers. But once I killed the first one, the rest dropped easily, if slowly. One Gatherer dropped a million units of Tritanium, which was nice, but not so useful fourteen jumps from the nearest station I can dock at. The other one dropped 30k units of Isogen.

I only saw one faction spawn, and it was a Dread Gurista battlecruiser that I could not scratch. I did try, just for giggles, but his natural shield regeneration shrugged off my puny missiles.

Coming home, with a hold full of loot even if it wasn’t enough to pay my ammo bill, was uneventful, with one notable exception. Jumping into the last system before lowsec, I expected to find a gatecamp on the Taisy gate. No worries; on my last trip through, I made a bookmark 300km off the gate so I can scout the camp and make sure I’m not warping through a bubble.

What I did not expect, being an awful noob at 0.0 combat, was the huge frickin’ bubble around the gate I jumped IN through … the next gate down the pipe in the direction I was coming from.

After I got done soiling the interior of my pod, I took stock. It was hard to see my position within the bubble because the camera was zoomed all the way in. There were wrecks on my overview, there was a handful (or more) of live ships present, I could hear the sound of some other poor fool being shot at, and most importantly, something had decloaked me. I needed instant action.

I hit the afterburner and the cloak button, in that order. Cloaking failed because I was being targetted, and indeed, I now saw three or four ships targetting me in the overview. The distant Taisy gate was visible sort of vaguely in front of me, so I right-clicked it and attempted to warp. No joy, still in the bubble, but moving fast now. Shields are melting, I’ve got some active tank so I turned it on, this shit is getting serious. Am I out of the bubble? Have they got me warp scrambled yet? Surely I’m dead. Let’s try that warp again!”

Hey! “Warp drive, activated!” Yay! But it’s not like I was aligned, and the shields aren’t looking good. Let’s kill the afterburner, shall we?

And….WHOOOOSH. I am gone, I am cloaked, and they never even scratched the armor. Remind me to send a postcard of appreciation to Core Complexions, Inc. for building the finest blockade runner in known space.

The above is how I remembered it; I wrote it before I looked at the ship’s logs. The logs show I was actually in a 20km bubble from a Warp Disrupt Probe, presumably launched by MrHooke who was present in a Heretic inderdictor. As for damage, I took:

* four Bloodclaw Light Missiles from Grantavius Fowler, for 50ish each
* two Caldari Navy Paradise Cruise Missiles from Ensidious, ouchy at 520ish each
* one volley of three Wrath Cruise Missiles from Yurrin Range, much calmer at 120ish each
* one volley of six mixed heavy missiles from Argos Knightblade, mere tickles at 20ish each
* one exceptionally painful Caldari Navy Bloodclaw Light Missile from MrHooke, for 243.8 damage (how he do dat?)
* one little gunnery scratch (13.9), also from MrHooke.

We rejoin our intrepid dirty-underwear-wearing hero in mid warp to the Taisy gate:

There were ships present at the Taisy gate, but no bubble; I hit the stargate, uncloaked, and was back in sweet bubble-free .3 space. It felt safe, which told me I’d been in 0.0 for too long.

Now I’m back in high security, ship and cargo and all. I’ve got plans to refit before the next voyage out, sacrificing a smidge of agility for better damage. More on that as the plan comes together.

I knew there’d be salvage to be had, if I skulked around 0.0 long enough.

Jumped into Yet Another Empty Morsus Mihi System (YAEMMS). I’m alone in local. Only: is that a cyno?

It is. How is that even possible? I thought you needed a ship and pilot to put up a cyno field.

So, I warped (cloaked) to it, at 100 km.

Two ships there. A Badger, apparently piloted, and a Kestrel, unpiloted. And a cyno field.

This I cannot explain. I keep staring at the pilot’s name, then looking back at local and seeing it still empty. WTF?

So I decide to watch and see what happens.

About a minute later (I’m guessing), the cyno field drops and the Badger vanishes. If it warped, I didn’t see it.

There’s still an empty Kestrel sitting there. I watch it. It sits there. Time passes (not a lot).

I remember I am a salvager, and there’s no telling what might be fitted on, or stored in, that unclaimed frigate.

Still nervous about pilots who don’t show up in local, I decided to park my prowler in the short-term lot. Then I egged to back to the Kestrel and jumped on board. A quick hotwire and we were outta there!

The Kestrel, it turns out, is a bare hull except for a fitted cyno generator. I considered flying it all the way back to Taisey to repackage it, but I wasn’t keen on leaving my Prowler in a shallow safe that long. So, I blew it up, hoping the module would fall out. No joy. Salvage: failed. (Although I did get 90k ISK from the Interstellar Commerce Commission.)

So, I assume the Kestrel put up the cyno, and then the pilot bailed out and jumped into the Badger. Then (perhaps when I came into the system) logged off or disconnected? What I don’t understand is why the Badger did not warp away from that spot, if it was a logoffski situation. I also don’t know enough about cyno fields to know if they stay up longer than the piloted ship that puts them up.

If anybody can explain what I saw, comments would be welcome!

Flying the new cloaked blockade runner has a lot in common with submarine warfare. Which makes it great fun, if you’re willing to be patient.

Today I was flying around when I spotted a Retriever mining barge mining into a jet can. He was a long way away at the other end of the belt, so I bookmarked his can and warped away to a planet, warping back to the jetcan at zero.

He was gone.

The jetcan was full. It had a name.

I created an Ironfleet can. I gave it the same name. I put the ore from his can into my can.

Does this trick ever work? I mean, the can is the wrong color. But then, there’s greed to consider.

I moved away a few kilometers, cloaked, and waited.

Sure enough, within just a few seconds the Retriever pilot was back, this time in a Badger II. Upon warp in, he sat motionless a long time.

Then, he crawled over to my can. Again, he sat motionless a long time.

Then he heeled around, clearly aligning to something. Le sigh; he’s not falling for it. And if he does a clean grab-and-warp, I won’t have time to decloak and lock and scramble him.

Then, another lengthy wait. He’s clearly thinking about it, and thinking hard.

Ah ha! Now, he’s red flashy.

Decloak, wait for the uncloak delay, target, lock, locking, locking, locking… sweet! He’s scrambled. Fire all torpedoes!

Except, of course, what I’ve got is one heavy missile launcher. It will have to do.

Boom, boom, boom. He’s tanked pretty well, this is taking time. His shields are about gone though.

What’s this? He has initiated self-destruct? That, I’ve never had anybody do before.

No worries; he doesn’t have two minutes. Boom, boom, boom, he’s popped.

Two giant secure cans full of ore fall out, some useful modules too:

2008.12.11 01:13:00

Victim: Cavros Demetri
Corp: Firestorm Tactical Industries
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Badger Mark II
System: [redacted]
Security: 0.7
Damage Taken: 3187

Involved parties:

Name: Marlenus (laid the final blow)
Security: 1.2
Corp: Ironfleet Towing And Salvage
Alliance: Tear Extraction And Reclamation Service
Faction: NONE
Ship: Prowler
Weapon: Caldari Navy Thunderbolt Heavy Missile
Damage Done: 3187

Destroyed items:

Expanded Cargohold II, Qty: 3
Shield Recharger II, Qty: 2
Giant Secure Container (Cargo)
Azure Plagioclase, Qty: 11142 (In Container)
Giant Secure Container (Cargo)
Azure Plagioclase, Qty: 11142 (In Container)

Dropped items:

Invulnerability Field I
Medium Shield Booster II
Burned Logic Circuit, Qty: 2 (Cargo)
Sensor Booster I (Cargo)
Salvager I
Shield Recharger II
Giant Secure Container (Cargo)
Azure Plagioclase, Qty: 11142 (In Container)
Giant Secure Container (Cargo)
Azure Plagioclase, Qty: 11142 (In Container)

While I’m hauling his full cans, I notice that he’s smacking in local. We converse. It actually goes fairly well once he calms down, even though somebody who used to smacktalk me back when Ironfleet was a baby and I was salvaging in a tricked-out Badger II) can’t resist chiming in to share her low opinion of me:

Cavros Demetri > marlenus you’re a knob. you tipped my can then got my badger. what a cock cheese
Marlenus > I got your cans of ore too. ;-)
Cavros Demetri > hope you choke on them
Marlenus > It seems unlikely
Cavros Demetri > hmmm… welll hope you’re refining chokes you lol
Marlenus > You thought about that load a long time before taking it … you can’t say you didn’t have a bad vibe
Cavros Demetri > i spend nearly an hour mining for some knob to nick it. yeah it was mine. the principle of it
Marlenus > Oddly enough, it was floating alone in space when I found it.
Marlenus > From my perspective, some “knob” nicked it from an Ironfleet can
Cavros Demetri > funny that. you obviously didnt realise that a jet can needs a larger ship to recover it
Marlenus > Larger that what? Your cans are in my hanger
Marlenus > Your former cans, I should say
Cavros Demetri > you’re just taking the piss. shame you cant mine you’re own stuff eh?
Marlenus > Why should I mine, when there’s ore floating abandoned in space?
Cavros Demetri > you knew exactly what you were doing.
Cavros Demetri > you waited cloaked for me to warp
Marlenus > Of course I knew what I was doing, Ironfleet has been in the salvage business for almost three years
Marlenus > How many blockade runners do you see in this business? It’s a specialized trade
Cavros Demetri > nothing hard a bout sitting cloaked waiting for someone to warp away for their hauler.
Cavros Demetri > no skill at all
Valeria Crossroads > 3 years of being a bad human, sad that some are proud of it
Marlenus > LOL at Valeria
Marlenus > I’m just playing the game, same as the rest of you
Cavros Demetri > “LOL at valeria” 3 years and thats the best you can say
Valeria Crossroads > ore thiefs are people who would be a traitor in a real world war
Marlenus > It’s plenty good, she doesn’t have any merit to her attacks
Cavros Demetri > but she hasnt been dishonest
Marlenus > She’s one of the many who confuse in game fun with out of game morality
Marlenus > I haven’t been dishonest either
Cavros Demetri > you took out a harmless badger. ( is quite funny )
Cavros Demetri > yeah you played with the rules though
Valeria Crossroads > stealing is bad, in or outgame
Marlenus > Nothing dishonest in shooting at a ship that goes flashy red
Marlenus > And in-game, it’s not stealing.
Valeria Crossroads > yes it is other wise you would not been flagged as a thief when you do
Rocky Dean > it’s only stealing if you get caught. : P
Cavros Demetri > then firing cruise missiles at a badger. is that what you consider challenging?
Marlenus > Cruise missiles? I wish. You try to fit cruise missiles on a blockade runner, just let me know how it works for you
Cavros Demetri > well i wont be jetting when i get my hulk. and the corp will be told about you.
Marlenus > Oh good.
Rocky Dean > um, ya, I’m gonna tell my corp on you too Marlenus. : P LOL
Cavros Demetri > ill tell my mummy while im at it
Cavros Demetri > lol
Marlenus > My alliance chief will be delighted at the publicity.
Cavros Demetri > lol
Rocky Dean > oh, by the way Marl, any other juicy spots i could join in on the free lunch with that you’d suggest? : )
Cavros Demetri > try uitra
Marlenus > Not sure what you’re asking Rocky
Marlenus > It’s a full time job for me just keeping the local belts free of nav hazards
Rocky Dean > cans with free ore in them, i love those. : )
Cavros Demetri > you’ll find a few ibis’s there. thatll challenge you
Marlenus > Actually Cavros it’s not as easy as you think finding people who are willing to go flashy red like you did. There’s plenty of challenge to it.
Cavros Demetri > well, to be honest i did align to the station but clicked the wrong frigging one when i tried to warp so lost alignment bugger the thing lol
Marlenus > Yeah, you’d have got away if you’d done a clean flip-and-scoot
Cavros Demetri > i knew you would attack when i took the ore back
Cavros Demetri > yeah but im down to using this darn mouse touch pad thing on my laptop its driving me nuts
Marlenus > Ouch, I couldn’t fly with a touchpad
Cavros Demetri > yeah it pissed me off. sorry mate i know its a game just pssed i got the wrong station to warp to
Marlenus > I understand, no hard feelings on my end
Cavros Demetri > lol nope. fair play i like the tactics. not seen that before
Marlenus > I do try to be original, and the cloaking blockade runner is new tech for everybody
Cavros Demetri > right. i need sleep so ill catch you all later. well done marl. you got my ore:-)
Marlenus > Night Cavros
Cavros Demetri > nite! i might reset your standings tomorrow lmao

I found myself inside a mission today, in one of my odd shipfits that looks more dangerous than it is, and salvages better than it should.

Mission runner was there salvaging in a destroyer, but I saw a cargo can, which turned out to have several million ISK worth of robotics in it. So I flipped it to Ironfleet possession, put it on tow on my tractor beam, and wandered around salvaging a few of the more worth-while looking wrecks.

Mission runner was aggrieved. We had this convo, where I’m attempting to be as polite and friendly as possible without being unduly helpful:

Ziief > why do you have to flip my can man?
Marlenus > I don’t have to. I’m just salvaging
Ziief > u just took my robotic parts man, that’s messed up, i havent played this game for long and need the isk more than you could ever
Ziief > and cant you run your own missions so u can salvage your own wrecks?
Marlenus > I don’t think you understand … salvaging stuff floating in space is what I do, just like you run missions
Ziief > you saw me salvaging my own wrecks dude, is not like it was abandoned wrecks floating in space like you like to call it
Marlenus > Um, wrecks are not owned, so they weren’t “your own”
Marlenus > Wrecks are free to whomever gets there first
Ziief > ohh really? what about the robotic parts you stole from me man?
Marlenus > I scooped some parts floating in space, nothing in this game is yours if you don’t have it under control
Ziief > do you really have the need to steal crap like that?
Marlenus > I don’t consider it stealing
Marlenus > Have a look at the ironfleet.com blog, you’ll get a better sense of why we like to play the game this way
Ziief > alright you fucking piece of shit, i tried to come to terms with your cocksucking ass, you’ll have it your way, this shit you stealing from me, will cost you dearly, be prepared to face a serious raping, you’ll learn a nice lesson you piece of shit

Oh, my.

We tremble, we do.

My alliance brothers in the Suddenly Ninja corporation have a monthly contest for who can generate the choicest “spouting off” from a salvage customer (although they don’t put it quite like that). It’s not an alliance-wide contest, I don’t think, or I’d have to enter this one.

Since robotics are bulky, I went back in one of my combat Cranes, and even then I had to leave a few behind. Ziief showed up right behind me in his Badger II, and I briefly thought I’d get to shoot at him. But he executed a smooth scoop-and-warp on the handful of remaining robotics, and (whether because of lag or client-side sluggishness) the can didn’t pop and he didn’t turn flashy until he was already (from my perspective) vanishing into warp. Ah, well, can’t shoot ‘em all.