Ironfleet Towing And Salvage

I was bummin’ around when Love Denied came into the State Protectorate militia channel, cursing bitterly and most foul about having lost 250 million ISK due to having fallen asleep at the helm of his rigged Crow interceptor in Komo, only to be popped and podded (with many valuable implants) by a roving gang of (he said) battlecruisers piloted by Gallente scum (although scum was not the word he used. Given his propensity to use female body parts as vile curses, is it any wonder he calls himself Love Denied?)

Onward. I don’t really have any ships handy for slugging it out with enemy battlecruisers, but the theory is, all I really need to do is hold them in place and let the Caldari Navy do the heavy work. I do have a Blackbird with a warp disrupter, put together for just this sort of eventuality. So in it I hopped and headed for Komo.

Komo was showing two war targets in local, one of whom was docked. I waited outside the dock.

He undocked. I locked, warp scrambled, hit the ECM buttons, and opened fire. He shot off about half my shields, broke my lock somehow, and warped to the Motsu gate. I followed.

Arriving there, I found some friendly Caldari militia as well as two more war targets, one of which was a badly battered Megathron. I locked the mega, scrammed-and-jammed him from here to Wednesday, and opened fire. The other two war targets began pummeling me, but they had problems of their own — somewhere in here, one of them wound up in a pod.

Just about then, the Mega (by now well below half structure) came unjammed and began blasting me to hell. Being an utter ECM newb, I completely forgot to mash those buttons again. POP! And I was in a pod, so I left, feeling pretty good about my small contribution to bringing down one very tough battleship.

The nearest ship for looting my wreck was one of my combat Cranes. By the time I got back, the other FW guys were mopping up pods, but there was a flashing red shuttle. Why not? I locked him (which turns out to take about twenty seconds in a blockade runner), warp scrambled him, and blew up his shuttle. He was carrying ten units of Quafe Ultra, but it didn’t survive the carnage.

2008.06.27 21:31

Victim: Planning
Corp: Federal Navy Academy
Alliance: None
Faction: None
Destroyed: Caldari Shuttle
System: Komo
Security: 0.8
Damage Taken: 508

Involved parties:

Name: Marlenus (laid the final blow)
Security: 1.4
Corp: Ironfleet Towing And Salvage
Alliance: Caldari State
Faction: Caldari State
Ship: Crane
Weapon: Caldari Navy Thunderbolt Heavy Missile
Damage Done: 508

Destroyed items:

Quafe Ultra, Qty: 10 (Cargo)

As you can see, he was not a war target, and his security status is 4.9, so I’m not sure what he did in a shuttle to get a general criminal flag. I also have no idea why he didn’t warp away, although I guess maybe he was just watching the carnage and didn’t care about losing his shuttle and his Quafe. This is definately the most bizarre kill I’ve ever gotten in my Crane.

I was able to loot the drops from my Blackbird wreck as well as a few TII pieces from the Megathron, though the guys who had killed it had righteously took most of the goodies and were gone by then. It turns out to have been one heck of a Monsterthron, fully rigged and a mix of T2 and faction fit. I confess to being a little impressed that they brought that monster into Caldari space.

Wrathful Hawk of Warsmiths, one of the other three Caldari militia on the killmail, says my one successful jam cycle saved his Raven, a credit I’ll happily take. All in all, a fun combat and (I think) a very nice use of a fully-insured Blackbird that I fitted with hangar scraps.

The deep space transport is not normally seen flipping cans. It’s slow, and it’s expensive. However, it does have the virtue of being able to empty a jet can in a single trip — a virtue when one has the element of surprise sufficient to take advantage of it.

But I get ahead of myself.

Tonight I was buzzing about in my covert ops frigate, looking for safe spots and war targets and poor lost drones and whatever else might be lurking in the unknown spaces between the planets. It’s one of the most relaxing ways to play eve for me, and is the reason I have yet to purchase a drone in this game.

After one of my scans, I noticed a strong signal for a mining drone, a long way above the ecliptic in a place one would not normally expect to find a mining drone. Probably abandoned by a mission miner, let’s go have a look.

Warped to 10km and found myself right on top of a Hulk, snuggled up against an Omber roid, mining into a jet can. He’s got a full cloud of mining drones out, the sky is full of Thukker Missionary wrecks, and he’s got two buddies in a Drake and an Arbitrator. By some miracle, I did not get decloaked, so I steamed gently out towards open space under cloak while contemplating the tasty tableaux.

The Hulk pilot was in an NPC corp, so I didn’t need to worry about his buddies, unless… could they be playing can ownership games? Nope, the jet can belonged to the Hulk pilot. This should be safe enough. It’s theoretically possible he has a second set of combat drones, plus a warp scrambler, plus a web (to keep me from outrunning his scramble range in the time it takes his drones to eat me), but I’m not too worried. I’m thinking, he’s in deadspace, he’s got friends who cannot help him, he’s probably complacent and half AFK. With good salvage technique, he’ll never ever even get a chance to react.

I had to think this through very carefully, because the only hauler inside of five jumps was one of my expensive Bustard deep space transports. I usually try to avoid getting a criminal flag in that thing. But this setup was just too juicy to ignore. A fully expanded Bustard is a sluggish pig, but this should be doable.

And indeed, it was a picture perfect operation. The Bustard’s warp to “zero” was, as always, at about 2,000 meters, so I approached the can for a few seconds to get within the 1,500m transfer range. As soon as the open button lit up, I used the shiny new “align to” option on the right click menu to align to station. While I waited to align, I opened the Hulk pilot’s can.

Bingo! Nearly full — 29,927 units of Omber. Sweet! Ore goes into the Bustard’s hold, mash the warp button, make a cup of coffee, take a satisfied sip as the Bustard lumbers into warp. Nobody even tried to lock me.

If these operations were always this smooth, I’d be a richer man than I am.

Hey everybody, Jim finally figured out how to use a killboard, and then posted all his FW wins and losses (although he says he’s lost at least one more destroyer than the killboard shows). So far he’s been in on an impressive 27 kills, although most of these are vessels that got excessively primaried. (For instance, Jim pumped carbonized lead into a Heavy Interdictor along with 48 other people, doing three percent of the dealt damage).

My favorite item on his killboard list so far is a noobie ship loss he never even mentioned to me. Apparently he was returning home in his reaper when he stopped to salvage some wrecks in the best tradition of Ironfleet. A Cormorant destroyer caught him well off the gate with his pants around his ankles, so to speak, and he was blown up and podded. With (and this is the good part) sixteen million ISK worth (killboard pricing) of freshly salvaged nanite paste and Caldari Navy ammo in the cargo hold of his free reaper.

Today he went with an expeditionary fleet in support of Amarr operations against the Minmitar. However, he says Amarr fleet command were a bunch of elitist pricks in the best royal fashion, refusing to talk to the Caldari volunteers on Eve Voice and insisting that fleet members download and install supplementary voice chat software under combat conditions. And they were excessively rude about it, to boot.

The operation went bad around Auga. Jim got pounded to scrap by a Caracal (destroyers and heavy missiles do not mix) and the fleet seemed (to Jim) well on its way to annihilation when Jim lagged out and crashed to desktop. He escaped in his noobship and made no effort to rejoin the fleet, which was apparently retreating to Amarr space in very poor order. Gee, I wonder if that could have anything to do with fleet leadership refusing to use the one comms system every Eve pilot is guaranteed to have?

Returning to the Caldari lines near Tama, Jim hopped in another destroyer and went out with a fifty-ship fleet on a long combat patrol that met and crushed (meaning, killed a bunch and made the rest scatter) two different Gallente fleets of comparable size. Jim ended up jumping home four times with salvage, including what looks to me like about fifty million isk worth of Tech II guns and mods.

As for me, I took a Bustard-load of Condors (ten of ’em) down to the front lines, fitted them all out with T1 tackle fits, named them Ironfleet Tackler #1 through Ironfleet Tackler #10, and started advertising them for free in local to anybody who wanted to get back into the Tama fight. Got a lot of scepticism in local but gave away five of them, and also got some thanks and donations of fittings for making more. Ironfleet will be doing more of that in future, it’s the least we can do to pay back for some of the rich salvage that comes home from Jim’s fleet fights.

I am actually pretty proud of those free Condors. T1 to be sure, but they come equipped with overdrive, afterburner, warp disruptor, two missile launchers, Bloodclaw missiles, and a salvager. (You were expecting something else from Ironfleet?) To accommodate different preferences and skill levels, the folks who asked for one of these also got (in cargo) a pair of rocket launchers, some rockets, a warp scrambler, a webber, a small shield booster, and a 2nd-best-named 75mm gun with antimatter ammo to swap into the high slot where I fitted the salvager. It’s no uber pwnmobile, no, but it beats the pants off an Ibis with a Civilian Gatling Gun, and if there’s ever been a fleet commander who said “No more, I’ve got too many tacklers” I haven’t heard of it.

One other logistics contribution I’m making to the Caldari war effort is to try and stock some common modules and ammo on the Nourvokaken market, which is very shallow and badly supplied. I’ve heard some complaints about my pricing, because I’m deliberately putting everything up at (as near as I can tell) about twice the regional market price. The idea is simple — if you’ve got the time, please go get what you need in Jita. But if you’re in a raging hurry to fit out a ship so you can get back to the fight RIGHT NOW, my overpriced modules will be available as a convenience. This is not about the ISK — I could sell 10,000-ISK T1 mods for 20K until Hell froze over and the gross profits wouldn’t buy me another Bustard or anything else I care about — but about making sure that the items are there for the people who need them in a hurry. I simply don’t have the mineral or haulage resources to flood the market with enough modules to make a difference at market pricing; Ironfleet is not really an industrial corp despite my dabblings in the market.

Still, if any in the militia buys modules from Marlenus and is upset about the “war profiteering” prices, please send me an Evemail and tell me how much ISK you want back. If it’s a reasonable estimate of the amount you’ve “overpaid” for instant convenience, I’ll be happy to refund it as part of my patriotic contribution to the Caldari war effort.

Jim Bridger here again. Went out tonight in a second disposable destroyer, and this time I hooked up with the militia fleet that had spent half the day trying to get into Tama. The camp inside Tama tried an assault into Caldari hi sec just before I got there, leaving a ton of wrecks behind. Our fleet headed into Gallente space to capture some stuff, while Marlenus came on behind in one of his Cranes to pick up some salvage.

This was my first time ever moving with a fleet or using EVE voice, and I was clearly not the only one. Our commander was calm and clear, but suffering from lack of intel and from our poor coordination. Nonetheless, we cleared some FW objectives (we were light on small ships so I got to clear and capture a Gallente “minor facility” pretty much alone), shot a couple of random pirates who came sniffing too close to the fleet, picked off some out-of-position Gallente scum, and then (eventually) let ourselves get “found” by the OPFOR fleet.

That was my first big fleet battle, and it was chaos, but I did most of the damage on a rifter and helped pop the same “bait newbie” that lured me in earlier in the day (apparently he was working as bait and scout for the main Gallente fleet — no wonder I got pwned!) After that I got blown up again, but escaped in my pod. I’m not sure how the fleet battle ended, because I had to quit shortly thereafter and never got the intel.

All in all, it was a fun experience despite not having much obvious point. I did however salvage all the wrecks I came near, and Marlenus picked up a ton of stuff from the failed excursion out of Tama. In addition to quite a bit of T1 shipgear, we got four expensive pieces of T2 gear and six (!) bits of T2 salvage from player wrecks — more than enough, Mar says, to cover the cost of the ships I lost today.

Fleet combat turns out to be surprisingly fun, even when it’s chaotic and disorganized. I’m not sure I’d want to do it every night, but it was a refreshing change of pace.

Interestingly, there were a lot of pirates and Alliance guys sniffing around our FW operations, but they were for the most part flying smart and staying out of our way. Our guys were pretty trigger-happy, and we popped several neutrals just for making the fleet commander nervous. I really think that if there are militia fleets conducting regular operations in low sec from now on (and I’m pretty sure there will be, with or without rewards), the character of low-sec has just changed dramatically. The pirates won’t be going away, but their risk factor just skyrocketed, which means they’ll have to dial back on their WTFuberPWN shipfits and fly with a lot more humility and care. Result: more opportunity in lowsec for regular folks.

For as long as I have been flying the Crane blockade runner in Q-ship mode, it’s been my ambition to blow up a Hulk mining barge, if I could ever find one whose pilot thought he could safely shoot at the “helpless hauler”.

Of course, that goes back to the days when Hulks cost half a billion ISK or more, and aggressive Hulk pilots were hard to find. And in any event, the few times I’ve tangled with Hulks, the battles have been inconclusive — I’ve had a DPS shortage, or the Hulk pilot called in reinforcements, or the Hulk pilot managed to get away when I was short of cap to hold him or her down.

So tonight is a proud night in the annals of Ironfleet. Eventually the word is gonna get out — you really shouldn’t shoot at Ironfleet Towing And Salvage unless you’re ready to kill what you’re shooting at. That helpless hauler? Eh, not so much as it turns out:

2008.06.08 03:25:00

Victim: maddhatter
Alliance: Wildly Inappropriate.
Corp: Draconic Industries
Destroyed: Hulk
System: [redacted]
Security: 0.5
Damage Taken: 5692

Involved parties:

Name: Marlenus (laid the final blow)
Security: 1.4
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Ironfleet Towing And Salvage
Ship: Crane
Weapon: Havoc Fury Heavy Missile
Damage Done: 5692

Destroyed items:

Strip Miner I, Qty: 2
Plagioclase, Qty: 12088 (Cargo)
Expanded Cargohold II

Dropped items:

Strip Miner I
Expanded Cargohold II
Solid Pyroxeres, Qty: 7050 (Cargo)

A few highlights of information about the encounter:

• When I warped in on Maddhatter’s jet can, he was being met and “serviced” by an unaffiliated alt in an Iteron. So I found the can empty, except for one unit of ore. (Which, of course, I salvaged from where it lay drifting, dangerously, among the stars.) Key point: Maddhatter risked his Hulk to punish the loss of one (count it with me, ONE!) unit of plagioclase.
• The drones he launched were a full flight of Tech I Hammerheads. That was a relief. He never came close to breaking my tank with those. If he’d launched Tech II drones, I know from bitter experience that it would have been a much closer fight, at best.
• It took me eighteen heavy EM missiles (Caldari Navy Thunderbolts) to break his shields. I then paused to reload with Havoc Furies (explosive) to finish him off. That took eleven more shots. Note from the killmail that this Hulk was tanked to factory specification, without any additional aftermarket tanking equipment installed. I assume it’s trivial to tank a Hulk so that it cannot lose to a blockade runner transport mounting one heavy missile launcher, but this pilot did not avail himself of his tanking options.
• Maddhatter has been playing this game since June 16 in the Year Of Our Lord Two Thousand and Three. In other words: for just one week short of five long years. Although there have been subsequent employment excursions, Maddhatter joined the current corp (the first time) in 2004. So this does not “feel” like an eBayed character, despite the Tech I drones, the lack of tank, and the dangerously aggressive flying.
• After the Hulk went “kaboom”, Maddhatter warped silently away, without smack or communique. The alt hauler laboriously closed up on the wreck (slower than me, so I got the modules that dropped in the wreck) and was still snuggled up against it (attempting to salvage?) when I came back in a different salvage vessel to salvage the wreck parts. Disappointingly: “(notify) You successfully salvage from the Gallente Elite Mining Barge Wreck. Unfortunately there was nothing to be salvaged. “

My only regret, in all of this, is that I cannot be a fly on the wall in corp chat as Maddhatter attempts to explain how (and more importantly, WHY) he lost his hulk to a guy in a hauler.

Today I had what might be my largest (by volume) salvage from one location.

I spotted something I have not seen in months — a hulk, mining alone, jetting ore into as many as five time-stamped jet cans. It was a horrible plague of dangerous jetsam in the spaceways, I tell you, an entire cloud of obstacles to navigation!

For such challenges does Ironfleet exist. To the salvage fleet, men!

The enterprise was not without risk, because you don’t want to take just any old ship into drone range of a pissed-off hulk pilot. And this guy had potential to be dangerous — he was a 2003 pilot and he was in a large corp with hundreds of members. It wasn’t clear what storm of shit might be landing on my head at any time, so I was forced to be cautious.

In the event, the hapless hulk pilot appears to have been alone in the system, with nothing more exciting than a large hauler as an alternative ship. He put up no fight at all, though he did stop mining and start hauling (two trips in the hulk, then at least one in a Bestower) while I carefully rounded up the hazardous cans, transferred their contents into Ironfleet cans, tractored them out of the roid hell they were in, and guarded them in open space until it was safe to undock the Bustard transport for collection.

At the end of the day I hauled three full jet-cans (plus a smidge) of ore home to the Ironfleet hangars, without having to fire a shot.

Shame on El’basin of Sankkasen Mining Conglomerate [SKMC] for such flagrant pollution of the spaceways!

I am increasingly finding myself in the position of teaching hard lessons to newer players. I don’t do this with scorn — we were all new once — but I do find myself wondering sometimes if I’m the first hostile opponent they have ever encountered in EVE.

Tonight when I logged in, the first banter in local I saw was:

Tang Ra > hes robbing u
NeoEclipse > ya i saw that..
Tang Ra > a lots of nasty ppl in this game

That was enough hint of loose ore waiting to be salvaged for me; I jumped in my Crane and went salvage hunting.

Sure enough, I found NeoEclipse hanging in the belts in a destroyer, near a jetcan. He’s in a corp, and his mining lasers were not lit. Real, or bait? No matter, I’ll chance it.

Sadly, the can was light — not even a Craneload. Still, I emptied it. And bedamned if he didn’t launch some drones and sic them on me!

Alert for a trap, I nonetheless did the necessary. It was fast and ugly, because his drones were his only weapon and he had no tank except for his small armor repper:

2008.06.03 06:45:00

Victim: NeoEclipse
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Galactic Revolutionary Forces
Destroyed: Exequror
System: [redacted]
Security: 0.5
Damage Taken: 4357

Involved parties:

Name: Marlenus (laid the final blow)
Security: 1.4
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Ironfleet Towing And Salvage
Ship: Crane
Weapon: Havoc Fury Heavy Missile
Damage Done: 3839

Name: Guristas Despoiler / Guristas
Damage Done: 518

Destroyed items:

Rich Plagioclase, Qty: 1114 (Cargo)
Small Armor Repairer I
Miner II, Qty: 2
Hornet I, Qty: 2 (Drone Bay)
Survey Scanner I

Dropped items:

Miner I
Co-Processor I
Miner II
Hornet I, Qty: 2 (Drone Bay)
Basic Co-Processor

Ugly! What was he thinking? Ah, there’s a hint — he’s less than two weeks old. Did he, do you suppose, take from this a salutory lesson, and resolve never again get cocky in a ship that’s packing a full rack of mining lasers?

His remarks in local suggest… maybe not. And dig the supportive-but-inarticulate sidekick who chimes in part way through the conversation:

NeoEclipse > u fuck
NeoEclipse > Marlenus
Marlenus > LOL, attacking the helpless hauler not such a good idea?
NeoEclipse > ya i guess so. but now im goin to have you killed for sure. everytime i see you in this zone im goin to bait the shit out of u with everyone in here.
Marlenus > Good luck with that.
NeoEclipse > this is my base so it wont be hard
Marlenus > We’ll see I guess.
Esplin9466 > jes vee vill
NeoEclipse > i hope everyone can read in this area and marks you down. freakin idiot. 2 yr player and total jackass.
Marlenus > LOL, if they can’t read it here, they can read all about it on the Ironfleet Towing And Salvage blog at Ironfleet.com
Marlenus > And you attacked a transport ship in a mining cruiser with no guns, who was the idiot again?
NeoEclipse > u are..just to remind you. you are
Marlenus > If that’s what you have to tell yourself, OK I guess…
Esplin9466 > goo bagz
Esplin9466 > = bagz of goo
Esplin9466 > jizzimous goo

I confess I came closer to taunting the poor boy than I usually like to do, but he was trying so hard to offend me, it seemed a pity not to rise to his bait a little bit.

Jizzimous Goo, over and out…

This is the story of the tough little badger who met a bad end.

A few days ago there was this guy, see, who was jet-can mining in a Cormorant mining destroyer. He’d been at it quite a while, and his can had an old time for a name. So I loaded my Crane from his jet can, and flipped the rest of the ore into an Ironfleet can.

The destroyer left quickly, which is often a sign that the guy is coming back in something bigger and meaner.

So I came back, first, in my stealth bomber. And cloaked.

About two minutes later, here comes the miner. In a Badger? I guess he wants “his” ore back.

He approaches the Ironfleet can, takes on a load of ore, starts flashing red. I uncloak and launch a volley:

Your Caldari Navy Wrath Cruise Missile hits whitesonar (Badger), doing 490.0 damage.
Your Caldari Navy Wrath Cruise Missile hits whitesonar (Badger), doing 490.0 damage.
Your Caldari Navy Wrath Cruise Missile hits whitesonar (Badger), doing 490.0 damage.

A Badger I survived that volley? Impressively tanked!

And impressive reflexes, too, because he was warped out before the next volley arrived.

My stealth bombers not typically being fitted with warp scramblers, I decided to go back for my Crane. He’s hauling ore, I’d better haul some too.

I grab another Craneload. Jet can is getting low on ore, now. I decide to orbit the can and see if he comes back with the Badger again.

He does! And while he scoops the last of the ore, I am turning on my warp scrambler and opening up with the missile launcher.

Pretty soon it’s all over but for the scooping of the loot:

Victim: whitesonar
Alliance: NONE
Corp: School of Applied Knowledge
Destroyed: Badger
System: [redacted]
Security: 0.5
Damage Taken: 5385

Involved parties:

Name: Marlenus (laid the final blow)
Security: 1.3
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Ironfleet Towing And Salvage
Ship: Crane
Weapon: Caldari Navy Thunderbolt Heavy Missile
Damage Done: 5385

Name: Guristas Despoiler / Guristas
Damage Done: 0

Destroyed items:

Medium Shield Extender I, Qty: 2

Dropped items:

Cap Recharger I, Qty: 2
Expanded Cargohold II, Qty: 2
Veldspar, Qty: 6842 (Cargo)

Tech II cargo expanders, yay! And note the pair of destroyed medium shield extenders. Tough little Badger!

UPDATE:

Today, same system. Here’s whitesonar, now in a Retriever barge, mining into a properly-anchored giant secure container. Lesson learned?

The day started off poorly, with one of those out-of-the-blue Mars versus Venus misunderstandings with the girlfriend that had her in tears and me going “WTF?” and feeling like I walked into a hidden buzz saw.

We made it up and she went shopping, but when I logged into EVE, I got it into my head that I wanted to blow somebody up. I figured it might cheer me up.

So, I hopped in my trusty old Crane transport with the concealed heavy missile launcher, and went looking for ore. I always need ore, and sometimes I get to blow stuff up.

First pilgrim I found was jet can mining in a Retriever mining barge. That’s always a good sign. So I warped to his jet can, and found it just about jammed clear full. Nice!

I stuffed the Crane’s none-too-large cargo hold, and repackaged the rest into an Ironfleet jet can. Mr. Retriever left. I took my first load home, came back in a stealth bomber, and cloaked. Will Mr. Retriever please come back in something else, and take something from an Ironfleet can? I really want to blow something up today.

Sadly, he did not return. So, after a suitable interval, I went and got the Hot Iron Extricator (a Badger II fitted for this sort of project) and made two quick trips.

(Aside: I often hear smack-talk in local about how “can flippers and thieves” don’t care about the ore, but just want to blow people up. It’s true that today, I did want to blow people up. But my ore hauling ways are really about the tritanium. Have you priced that shit lately? It turns out that a nearly full jet-can of mixed Veldspars refines, with my skills, to just over 800,000 units of tritanium, which, at the best available buy order in the station I took it to, is worth 2.5 million ISK. Not that I’d ever sell it — I still don’t have enough battleships to play with. But when Ironfleet flips your can, we want the ore. The kabooms are strictly a bonus.)

So anyway, Mr. Retriever would not play with me. On to the next belt! There’s always another pilgrim.

And in the very next belt, I found a young player (only two weeks old, give or take) sitting in an Osprey cruiser. No mining lasers were running, which made my hackles go up. Plus, he was corped and allianced, which made them go up further. Is this a real target, or is it bait?

While I watched, he warped away. So I closed on the can and investigated its contents. About a thousand units of ore more than would fit in my Crane. So, I filled the cargo hold and deposited the rest overboard in an Ironfleet jetcan.

Right about then, Mr. Osprey Miner came back, in a Badger II. Hmm, he sees another hauler, if he’s really as new as he looks, maybe he thinks I’m no threat? So I start motoring away, about half speed, like I’m aligning slowly to warp away. Waiting for him to pull “his” ore back out of Ironfleet’s can, but not really believing he’ll do it.

Motor motor motor. Reduce speed a little, don’t want to get too far away. Motor motor motor. Will he do it?

He did it.

Sorry, Mr. Osprey Miner, but you picked a bad day to take ore from an Ironfleet can.

Time to target the flashy red Badger II. That takes awhile in a Crane. Then I’ll turn on the warp disruptor… uh oh!

What with all that that motoring, I’m now too far away — about 2 klicks outside warp disruptor range. All engines astern! Full stop! Get on the steering oars! Crank this wobbly pig around! OK, now start shoveling on the coal!

Slowly, slowly, my trusty combat Crane lumbered back into warp disruptor range. For a miracle, the target has not gone home. Now he’s not going anywhere, so I start lobbing heavy missiles up his wake, closing rapidly so I can scoop whatever he drops.

Poop! Now that’s a sign of guilty panic if I ever saw it, he’s just jettisoned a can. Is he saying I can have my ore back if I just leave him in peace?

Probably. But this is not Ironfleet’s day to be peaceful.

Kaboom. Kaboom. Kaboom. By now he’s in armor, he’s turned on some sort of ineffectual shield booster, and it’s all over but the pretty lights. Wait for it…

Pretty lights. Yay!

I feel better now.

Here’s the mail:

2008.05.24 00:19:00

Victim: Tantulous
Alliance: Red Dragon Industries
Corp: steal will Defense
Destroyed: Badger Mark II
System: [redacted]
Security: 0.7
Damage Taken: 2841

Involved parties:

Name: Marlenus (laid the final blow)
Security: 1.3
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Ironfleet Towing And Salvage
Ship: Crane
Weapon: Caldari Navy Thunderbolt Heavy Missile
Damage Done: 2841

Destroyed items:

Civilian Shield Booster I
Monopropellant I Hydrazine Boosters
EP-S Gaussian I Excavation Pulse

Dropped items:

Bookmark (Cargo)

Doh! Another civilian shield booster guy! And it didn’t even drop. {/emote cries}

Predictably, it wasn’t long before Tantulous was in contact, in local. To his credit, there was zero smack. But he wanted (a) his stuff back and (b) compensation.

I guess it wasn’t going to be his day, either.

[ 29:48 ] Tantulous > hey marlenus, what gives, I grab the wrong container because you emtied mine when I wasn’t looking and you blast me, bit of a cheap shot aint it, especially on a badger.
[ 31:16 ] Marlenus > No offense mate, but you emptied an Ironfleet can right in front of me, and I was in a hauler too, so it didn’t seem like much of a cheap shot to shoot at you.
[ 31:39 ] Tantulous > except for one thing, you stole from mine I took a little from one of yours, mine had 5 times as much and ya stole it, I picked the wrong bloody one by mistake and what did ya do, my badger had no offensive weapons, I want my stuff back.
[ 33:57 ] Marlenus > I prefer to call it salvage, but whatever. I won’t be returning ore that’s been hauled to the Ironfleet hangars. And there’s a warning that pops up when you pick someone else’s can by mistake … or have you turned that off?
[ 34:27 ] Tantulous > I never seen any warning, and if there is one it’s never been turned on.
[ 34:48 ] Tantulous > and salvage, cock you shouldn’t have took it in the first place.
[ 35:54 ] Marlenus > You should be getting a warning and be required to click an OK button before “accidentally’ taking something from a can that’s not yours.
[ 36:22 ] Marlenus > As for my salvage activities, I’m afraid we differ there — that’s what Ironfleet does, and we do enjoy it.
[ 36:31 ] Tantulous > well i didn’t, you should get the same warning.
[ 36:50 ] Tantulous > it aint salvage man it’s stealin.
[ 36:59 ] Marlenus > I did get the warning, that’s how I know it’s there. You must have turned yours off, there’s a little checkbox to do that.
[ 37:15 ] Marlenus > We disagree on what to call it, I fear.
[ 38:04 ] Tantulous > I feel a little compensation is in order then for the mistake and insult, a small suggestion.
[ 38:48 ] Marlenus > Tantulus, it was no mistake on my part, and will nto be compensated for. Salvage of this kind is our corporate mission.
[ 38:50 ] Tantulous > I only want what is rightfully mine
[ 40:59 ] Tantulous > I still think I should receive compensation man.
[ 41:15 ] Marlenus > For what? I am honestly baffled by that idea.
[ 42:27 ] Tantulous > a mistake made, an accident and an attack that was not neccisary
[ 43:13 ] Marlenus > You made the mistake, are you suggesting you’d like to compensate me for taking from an Ironfleet can, or perhaps for the ammo I expended after you did so?

[ 43:22 ] Mack Grafton > the problem is, these “salvagers” are purposefully can flipping so they can attack you in your haulers and mining ships, its not an accident at all

[ 44:04 ] Marlenus > Those caldari navy heavy missiles are not cheap!
[ 44:38 ] Tantulous > the accident was waht i made man grabbing wrong bloody can, shouldn’t have used them then.
[ 46:13 ] Marlenus > With the greatest of respect, I’m skeptical of the accident theory to be honest; there is the matter of the warning you say you’ve never turned off, which is a well-known game mechanic and very hard to miss if it’s on.
[ 46:57 ] Tantulous > I have never had this warning since I started the game

[ 47:01 ] Salarion > And the moral of the story is? anyone?
[ 47:21 ] Tantulous > leave other peeps cans alone
[ 47:30 ] Salarion > wrong answer
[ 47:41 ] Tantulous > enlighten me please?
[ 47:43 ] Marlenus > I think I know, but I’ll wait for it…
[ 47:57 ] Salarion > DON”T use cans
[ 47:57 ] saltanx > never use jet cans
[ 48:02 ] Sudwerk > Who’s laughing at this?
[ 48:10 ] Linnea Celesta > o/
[ 48:15 ] Gankey > o/ hehe
[ 48:19 ] Mack Grafton > done use jet cans
[ 48:19 ] Marlenus > Me. Could we get that advice in a four-part harmony?
[ 48:51 ] Salarion > la l la la

By now I had a smile on my face, and then the girlfriend came home from the store with strawberry/blueberry tarts so she was happy too, and the day was much improved. Tantulous, if you ever read this, it was nothing personal, I’d have blowed up Santa Clause just then, if he’d been foolish enough to go flashy red on me. And salvaged his eight tiny reindeer for sausage, too.

I went moon surveying tonight, checking out all the POS installations in my system to see what sort of abandoned junk might be available for scooping. And indeed, at one POS I found eight giant secure cans, neatly lined up 5km apart in a gentle arc just outside the force field, named “POS Can 1” through “POS Can 8”.

Oddly, these were not anchored. They scooped nicely. Here’s what it looked like as I was scooping container #4:

Sadly, all but one of the cans were empty. #7, however, turned out to be full of oxygen and robotics:

The robotics alone are worth $6.8 million ISK; the eight cans are worth another another 2.2 mil, for a haul of about nine million ISK. Not bad for quiet and peaceful scooping!