So lately I’ve been involved in Buster’s POS Survey. As a result, I’ve been shooting a lot of derelict POS. The isk is decent, and occasionally I dec a semi-active corp that has targets in it. Some of them fly Hulks:

Hulk 1

Hulk 2

There was an Orca that I had pointed, but the return of the Hulk pilots in a pair of Myrmidons pushed me off the field and I had to take my victory and go. They haven’t undocked since.

One thing found in the survey was a stick-only active POS with a pilotless Orca inside it. The POS corp was a single character, and the Orca was owned by another. I decided to drop the dec and grind the POS on the off chance they wouldn’t notice for a couple of days. I’d had some really good loot pinata scores and am fairly swimming in isk (by my meager standards), so what was a little time and money spent on the attempt? They got wise to my plan the day the tower was supposed to come out of reinforce. I wasn’t going to steal the Orca after all. Still, I had a lot of isk and decided I’d by myself something shiny (see picture).

I wandered around Minmatar space menacing POS owners and docked alts for a few days. And then today, I see a member of a corp that hasn’t logged in in the entire six days I’ve been at war with them. I shrugged and ran a few locates. He was docked, but not too far away. I decided to close in and get a scout on him. After about fifteen minutes, he undocked his Fenrir.

I haven’t shot a freighter since I came back to Eve. I started moving my shiny new ship into position while my Astero pilot paced him and watched him dock twice more. Meanwhile I asking around to see if anyone had a big hauler to scoop some loot, just in case. No one did. Figuring he was working on a market run–he’d been steadily approaching Rens–I got a scan on his freighter to confirm no core stabs and fitted two webs with a long point. The scan also showed he was hauling an impressively small 7,000,000 isk worth of T1 frigates and drones, so I waved off the efforts at getting a hauler in range. With him undocking 1 jump out in Odatrik, I sat on the gate in Rens and waited while he went a completely different direction.

Thankfully freighters are painfully slow, and my alt was able to catch up quickly. I confirmed his new heading and decided to run him down. I jumped into Odatrik just as he jumped into Trytedald, and then held at the Trytedald gate until he entered warp for the Ivar gate. I jumped, warped, landed, and jumped into Ivar before he landed. If he noticed the red star flash through local, he must have assumed I was going elsewhere.

After holding cloak for the full 60 seconds, he found himself pointed and able to travel all over 20 meters per second. My newest toy chewed through his poor tanking skills with ease. Halfway through his armor, I decided it was time to chat.

FloppieTheBanjoClown > Why are you flying a freighter during a war?

Cynimar > what war?

FloppieTheBanjoClown > The one I declared on your corporation.

FloppieTheBanjoClown > You can save your ship. 500 million.

Cynimar > kk

FloppieTheBanjoClown > My wallet’s not blinking.

Cynimar > let me dock and you got it

FloppieTheBanjoClown > That’s not how this works.

FloppieTheBanjoClown > I’m the guy with the guns. I make the rules.

Cynimar > no guarantee that you would honor the agreement

FloppieTheBanjoClown > You’re running out of structure.

Cynimar > yep

Cynimar > you could stop shooting

FloppieTheBanjoClown > I could.

And I did stop shooting. At 2% structure. He was pinned down 30 km from the gate (I’d been bumping him as best I could while ensure my webs stayed put) and knew his Fenrir was doomed. Expecting him to stall or pay, he managed to surprise me: he ejected. The Fenrir dropped to 0% structure but failed to explode, and he warped away before I could achieve a lock. So there I sat, holding down a freighter I couldn’t fly. While there hadn’t been anyone nearby capable of scooping loot from its wreck, Belligerent member Thane Artrald had a pilot three jumps away in Rens that could board my new prize. He logged in the alt, bought a skill book, used some unapplied SP, and was instantly Fenrir-ready. He boarded, docked, and contracted me my next PLEX payment in short order.

Upon inspecting the ship in station, I found that I’d done 81 million isk in damage to it. It’s technically at 0 hp right now, the repair quote showing it to be 106.3% damaged.

I think I’ll bring some remote reps and patch it up myself later. My Orca pilot is a few weeks from being able to fly it, so I find this to be a timely acquisition.

After giving it a bit of thought, Cynimar made the worst possible choice he could have made here.

He could have paid the ransom and gambled. We all know I would have destroyed it anyway, but after the insurance payment (assuming he bought insurance) he would have lost roughly half the value of the ship. He could have simply allowed me to destroy the ship. After his insurance payment, he would have taken a few hundred million in losses. He could (and obviously did) eject. This abandons his insurance payment, AND gives up the ship. He’s not out the entire value of the ship. But I suppose he didn’t take the killboard loss.

As a parting thought before he docked and went silent, our latest donor to the cause left me with this:

Cynimar > the prices of my goods just went way up

They did indeed. Far more than was necessary.