Hulkageddon Day

The Captains Log 19/10

 

This past weekend (17^th and the 18^th) was Hulkageddon Weekend in which I. a few corp mates and 14 other corps went on a rampage through High Sec popping (killboard) Hulks left right and centre. All thanks goes to Helicity Boson of Python Cartel for organising it and to 00sage00 for telling me about it. I bought and fitted about 40 destroyers for this op (how I got the ISK for this will be covered in another post to follow) and gave them out to any corp member who decided to join me in this great task. After two days of Hulk killing I came out at number eight on the killboards, I was higher and could have stayed higher if it wasnt for sec status being all burnt up, thus preventing me from staying in empire. I.M.M though has come out at number two on the killboard with 18 kills and 107 points, which is not bad since we were just about the only non-pirating corp involved in Hulkageddon.

Even before we proceeded with Hulkageddon we had people warning the local denzians of our earlier Hulk killing antics which made it very hard for us to find some Hulks to kill at the start of the campaign. We were even forced to create a new Alt just scout out Hulks for us.

Gorax DaDestroyer > there are 4 pilots in system who are known to be suiciders.  be on the lookout fellow miners

commander savor > too all minner i.m.m is in sys they took out 9 bill of hulk the other day

However, after a few false starts we got our first kill in Elonaya, where we struck rich at the local Ice belt. Oorukai in his ice mining Hulk was quickly reduced to space dust floating amongst the Ice. VeePrime was the next to fall the might of our destroyers (and one Ibis). It turns out he wasn’t paying much attention though as his pod never left the tangled remains of his wreck, which forced Hansgrit to pod him. As we all wanted to see this happen we all warped to the belt and watched the pod goo splatter across his old Hulk wreck. CONCORD though didn’t look kindly on our inaction and proceeded to blow up all our ships, including the rigged hauling badger I was flying (YouTube). To Mar was the next to die, only tacking one Catalyst to kill him (we had three on him just in case) followed by Olvi III who didn’t suspect a thing. Cindy Miner (YouTube) was my favourite kill as he had a Hulk valued at 853 mill due to T2 rigs and a faction shield booster, which unfortunately didn’t drop. After filling the belts in Elonaya with CONCORD and forcing the miners to run a way and hide, we were forced to find kills elsewhere, which turned out to be in Piekura and the surrounding systems. Sponti was the first kill over in this new space. Killing sponti though brought my sec standing so low I was trapped in Piekura and Saatuban next door as the surrounding systems were now patrolled by CONCORD who were ready to destroy any ship I brought in there. Api died next bring my sec status to -4.28, a hairs breath from being outlawed throughout all of high sec. The death of Hatecorner though pushed my sec status over the edge making me an outlaw.

After the weekend was over 58 Hulks, 22 Retrievers and 5 Mackinaws had fallen victim to the combined might of Hulkageddon. In total 181 Catalysts, 29 Thrashers, 18 Coercers, 12 Typhoons, 5 Brutixs, 5 Armageddons, 3 Rifiters, 2 Coromorants and 2 Pilgrims (why?) had being lost. It also turns out the biggest tears that we got were from our own alliance, as some of our alliance mates didn’t appreciate what we were doing. Ah well next time they should join in.

 

Further Links

YouTube – Thanks to Daquaris for all of these.

I.M.M scam a Hulk, I.M.M Hulkageddon: Win some lose some, I.M.M Gank Ice Miners, I.M.M Hulk Gank Hulkomania

Blogs

Flashfresh – The Pirate

Caldari Outpost

Helicity Bonson

The Irony of Ganking

 The Captains Log 18/10

  

So as you all know I have being Ganking Hulks in High sec (there is another post coming about this soon for the Hulkageddon Weekend). However, my sec status has gotten so low (no empire for me anymore) that it has become necessary for me to retire to 0.0 and go ratting to repair it and get some ISK to fit my Phoenix. Today though, it was my turn to get ganked while I was ratting in my Raven (called Peace). I was engaged by some Sansha Rats at the time so I didn’t stand a chance when Pawulonek’s Vagabond engaged me. He splattered my Raven all across the asteroid belt.

There is one problem with this kill though. Pawulonek is part of Coven alliance who is allied with Systematic-Chaos. This was a blue on blue kill. The justification for this kill was that I was ratting in their space, which I was. However, when I was ratting in the space there was no one else there, it was not being used and I was given no warning when started to engage me. He simply warped into the belt and shot my Raven down. This is not the first time this has occurred as Pawulonek has shot down other blues as well.

Once this event had being reported in alliance chat a nice little debated fired up. On one hand people felt the reaction was justified, though over the top as I was going against rules. Others though said the action was inexcusable esspetilay without a warning. Curse vonPilgrim was all for killing Pawulonek then and there (as he had also lost a ship to him) and I was going to join him until our alliance leader told us very clearly not to do it. I was not going to go against him. So I went to the next system over and started ratting. Anyway it is all going through diplomatic channels now.

–Update–

I was given 100 mill to replace my loss of the Raven after the destruction of my ship

The last image of my Raven

How to kill a Hulk: Vexor and Catalyst Gank Setups

The Captains Log 16/10

 

I have had a few requests for how to set up some ships to gank hulks. So here it goes.

The first thing and only thing you need is damage; puts as much damage potential on to your ship as humanly possible. This includes fitting the biggest guns possible to your ship and then adding as many weapon upgrades as possible. Yes I know going over three is normally not worth while, but what else are you going to put? A buffer tank you say. There is no point in that, once CONCORD is there they jam you so lasting longer is not that big of a deal. Just get out as much damage as you can. Also buy some faction ammo, you only need few rounds to last you before CONCORD gets there. Also, use blasters as they do the most damage out of all the weapons systems out there, so that generally means flying Gallante. That is the basic fit you want on any gank ship. You can then put on other modules as you need (such as points, drone upgrades, afterburner etc).

Now when using these fits make sure that you have at least two Vexors per Hulk (one may do it if it is not tanked). For the Catalyst you can get away with two (again if not tanked) but you should aim for a minimum of three. Now without further ado the setups (thanks to Daq for writing them up).

 

Vexor

Magnetic Field Stabilizer I
Magnetic Field Stabilizer I
Magnetic Field Stabilizer I
Magnetic Field Stabilizer I

Omnidirectional Tracking Link I
Warp Scrambler I
Warp Scrambler I

Heavy Neutron Blaster I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Neutron Blaster I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Neutron Blaster I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Neutron Blaster I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Small Energy Neutralizer I

Garde I x3

Catalyst

Magnetic Field Stabilizer I
Magnetic Field Stabilizer I
Magnetic Field Stabilizer I

[empty med slot]
[empty med slot]

Light Neutron Blaster I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S

Hobgoblin I x1

So now that you know the setups, get out there and use them.

What happens when you celebrate? Hulks die, that’s what.

The Captains Log 15/10

 

Well all my uni assessment is done for the semester (apart from exams) so I thought this was a reason to celebrate and the best way to celebrate was to kill a macro miner, particularly XxBlack PearlxX. So I utilised my locator agent who reported that XxBlack PearlxX was now living in Sotrentaira after I had chased him out of Eskunen. Below you will find a diagram of the important parts of Sotrentaira.

 

The macro that he was using now warps him out of belts once it sees that a hostile as warped into system, though as soon as the Hulk docks it will undock again and warp back to a belt and then straight back to the station. Now from the diagram I drew for you can see a problem, most of the belts are located at one planet so when leaves the station I can’t tell which belt he has warped to. The only way to know which belt he had warped to is when he warped to one of the planet VI belts. So that is what I waited for, and waited and waited some more. Then he did it. He started aligning to belt VI-1, so I hit warp, landed and proceeded to overload my guns and deploy my drones, ready to deal death to him. As soon as he landed I was all over him, and then CONCORD was all over me. I stared in disbelief as I watched him warp away. This could not be happening. Not again.

Well there was only one way to rectify this mistake, bring a bigger hammer. Now I could go with a bigger ship like a Brutix or I could get help. Before I bought the Brutix I gave corp chat a go and found that Daquaris was ready to take up the call to arms. While discussing our plan of attack on vent another corp mate Maximus Sotar also decided to join us and try something new. However, by the time they both got to Sontrentaira, XxBlack PearlxX had stopped running his macro and wasn’t coming out to play.

— Warning! Below follows the account of the deaths of multiple carebares. Yes we were suicide ganking. Yes we were greifing. Yes it was fun. —

 YouTube – I.M.M Ganks Some Hulks

Well if XxBlack PearlxX wasn’t going to play with us we were just going to have to get our fun elsewhere. So we gathered up our Vexors and started hitting the belts to find us a juicy target. Static52 and Hago Mierdo were the first to be found, along with an orca pilot who, were mining peacefully away at a belt full of Veldapar. We split the team in to groups of two and proceed to take out both their Hulks, leaving a cloud of CONCORD in our wake. These guys weren’t very happy about this turn of events and ran off to get some PvP ships to take us on. However, once they realised that we were willing to fight them, with me in a Dominx, Max in a Myrmidon and Daquaris in a Caracal, they ran off with their tails between their legs.

Now that there was four of us we figured we could do this suicide ganking a little cheaper and proceeded to fit up Catalysts for the duration of our little party. These Catalysts did the trick and reduced St0necolds and a little latter Mc Cumaills Hulk to little more than scrap metal in no time flat. It was also interesting to note while we were doing all this XxBlack PearlxX was following use around in a shuttle watching. You would at least think he would try to warn them about what was going to happen.

With the success of our Hulk killing spree other potential suicide gankers came out of the woodwork, in the form of Stoned Runner, Hawkeye1221, Da Misses and K4R1K00. We even achieved corporate sponsorship with our CEO giving us 25mill to buy as many destroyers as possible which were to be used along with the ones we already had. Stoned Runner got his first bloodletting with death of Interfearons Hulk, while Hawkeye1221’s first kill was on Honny Dew. Now the interesting thing about Hawkeye1221 is that he is already an outlaw in high sec and CONCORD will try to kill him. So he would have to sit in station until we found a target, undock, warp straight to us then engage as soon as he landed. He also performed another neat trick. After killing the next Hulk piloted by Commander savor he managed to enter warp before CONCORD landed and led them on merry chase around the system until he was finally popped. Commander savor also didn’t like the fact we were looting and salvaging his wreck and brought out a Drake to shoot Daqauris in his loot scooper, which brought us all out in our PvP ships ready to play with him. However, as soon as he saw us bring in the big guns he ran away. Sigh what is it with carabares and them running away? He was also the first one to cry about his loss in local.

One Hulk pilot, Ankhov Kesvoya, thought he would be safe if he warped to a gate where there would be sentry guns to protect him. How wrong he was. Sure the sentry guns will shoot us, but if we put five Catalysts (and a punisher) onto you, you will be just about alphaed, reducing your ship to smouldering rubble cluttering up the gate.

After that kill Hulks were becoming hard to find. Those who were still in the belts tended to warp out as soon as they saw us or sat mining in belts of past atrocities where CONCORD was still present. Nevertheless we persevered and managed to kill Centir Maa, Saphir sargeone and Raven Pox, after which we ran out of Destroyers.

To put things into some perspective though not every Hulk we attacked died. Sometimes we botched it up and didn’t get everyone attacking at the same time. Other times the Hulk managed to align out. All in all, we killed 11 hulks totalling around 1.745 billion isk in damages and in process lost 5 cruisers, 32 destroyers, 2 frigates (those are known loses from the kill mails of the Hulks, we lost a bit more due to failed attacks).

Other little things that have came out of this is that my sec status is now -2.6, so I can’t enter any 1.0 sec systems. That means I’m going to have to do some ratting now. Sigh. Also I now have a bounty on my head for 2 million isk (that’s enough to buy, insure and fit two more destroyers). Anyway it was fun night. Do it yourself. You know you want to.

How to kill Black Ops

The Captains Log 13/10

 

I haven’t had much time to play this past week so I have lost nothing and killed nothing. However, my corp as being active and they have scored some nice kills (I really wish I had of being there). One of the local threats down in Esoteria is Burn Eden. They love to put cyno alts in your system and when they find some out mining, ratting or just not paying attention, they hot drop you with Black Ops ships. They are very good at it and I cannot stress that enough. Back when I was in Cartel Alliance we had a lot of problems with them and they loved hitting us over and over (they even dropped a Titan on a Dominix to kill it). They had a campaign just for us called clubbing baby seals.

Anyway one of our corp members, Die1 got fed up with them hanging around in our space so he set up a trap for them. He got Eat Bush to go out ratting in a Raven Navy Issue and waited for the Burn Eden cyno pilot to engage the CNR. Of course Burn Eden couldn’t pass up the opportunity to kill the CNR. We had set up traps before and they had failed, so Burn Eden was confident they could handle anything we hit them with. Psychotic Turtle, our favourite local cyno pilot, decloaked ready to bring in the rest of Burn Eden Black Ops team on top of Eat Bush.  

And then the trap was sprung. Our Sabre pilot warped in ontop of the Black Ops ships and dropped a bubble trapping a Rapier, a Widow and Redeemer. Eat Bush then lit his cyno and our carrier fleet jumped in on top of Burn Eden. The Rapier died. The Widow died. The Redeemer  died. The only ship we lost was the Sabre. I encourage you all to look at the kill mails, the faction fittings they had on their ships are very nice. 

A new planet

The Captains Log 10/10

 

Ever since I first saw that blog about the new planet graphics over at Crazy Kinux’s blog  I have wanted to see them myself.  So to see them myself I jumped on the Test Server and went to my nearest planet, only to bitterly disappointed when I saw that it was only Prime Planets that had the new graphics. So yesterday I gave into the urge again and took a quick visit to New Caldari and took a couple of snap shots.

The old graphics

The new graphics

Big picture

I particuly like what they have done with the Caldari Monument in the new graphics. Im sure the inhabitants of New Caldari appreciate having a large monument sticking ouf the surface of the planet. I personly wish the new planets where the same size as the old ones.

Continuing the Good Work

The Captains Log 9/10

 

After I killed Jessy Parker down in Thiarer he decided to leave the system and continue his macoing ways elsewhere. Well I couldn’t let this happen. Thankfully, though Ivanna Nuke was near a locator agent, so he employed that agents services and informed me that Jessy Parker was living in Eskunen, five jumps out of Jita. So I packed up my stuff and followed him into Caldari space.

Upon arriving at Eskunen I parked my ship outside of The Caldari Constructions Warehouse and waited for Jessy Parker to log on. I waited for three days and he did not show. I came to the conclusion that he must have have given up on EVE or decided that macroing was bad and therefore he logged on at different time to me. All was not lost though. In observing the local inhabitants of the system I had came to realise that there were other macro miners going about their macoring ways. This could not go on. They had to be stopped.

The first target was Dacascos, a proud member of the Sebiestor tribe who quikly died quietly while mining. There was no sound from his Hulk as my Vexors blasters tore the armour plates from the ships internal structure. As the Hulk exploded I sat back in satisfaction and smiled at the good work I had just done. My work was not yet done though. I went to Jita and bought fittings for four more Vexors with the intention of killing another four macro miners hanging out in Eskunen the next day.

 

So the next day I powered up my Vexor ready to take out those macoro miners. I was looking forward it. Four Hulks. Four Vexors. A perfect match. For this attack though I recruited the help of Ivanna Nuke to provide me with warp ins and scoop the loot in his Taranis. First on my list was XxBlack PearlxX. My Vexors made quick work of his hulk reducing it to smoldeing bits of scrap metal. Of course Concord reduced my Vexor to scrap metal as well. but hey that’s alright, thats what it is there for. After we blew up XxBlack PearlxX his pod warped back to the station and the back to belt and then kept on repeating it over and over. Looks like someone never told the bot to stop mining once the hulk was blown up. While I was preparing for the next target though XxBlack PearlxX opened a convo with me and procceded to talk/abuse/threaten me in German (If anyone can provide a translation, please do).

XxBlack PearlxX > abschussfreigabe

XxBlack PearlxX > thx

XxBlack PearlxX > : )

XxBlack PearlxX > man siet sich immer 2 mal im leben

XxBlack PearlxX > wie arm mus man sein

XxBlack PearlxX > eine miner zu zerstören

XxBlack PearlxX > hulk

XxBlack PearlxX > arm arm

XxBlack PearlxX > nup

XxBlack PearlxX > pfffff

XxBlack PearlxX > pieser

Prometheus09 > oh sorry wasnt watching

Prometheus09 > dont worry ill be back

XxBlack PearlxX > o4 dadel ok

Prometheus09 > might not make it befor DT but hey ill be on after

XxBlack PearlxX > eh hulk zu zerstören pffffff

Prometheus09 > oh and speak english i dont want to google translate everything

He then began to escalate thins by undocking a Tengu and bring his alts out in combat ships, one in a Raptor and the other in a Corramant. Well this guy is an asshole. I had a well planed night ahead of me in which my four Vexors were going to blow up four other Hulks and now this guy was going to wreak it. Well there was only one thing to do. Blow up his Tengu. I debated between buying a Torp Raven and Blaster Dominix to do the job and ended up settling on the Dominx. So off I flew to Jita bought everything I needed and then started to come back to Eskunen only for down time to come along. I had every intention of continuing the fight after down time but it seemed XxBlack PearlxX wanted to dock up in Jita. Ah well there would be time enough to gank him tomorrow. Big

XxBlack PearlxX Tengu in action

As it turned out XxBlack PearlxX had bought another Hulk and was toiling away in Eskunen the next day. Perfect. Ivanna Nuke also came out again in his Taranis to once again relay tactical information to me. Ivanna scanned XxBlack PearlxX down and gave me the go ahead to warp to him. As the warp bubble collapsed the soothing sight of strip miners reducing asteroids greeted my eyes. Pity I wasn’t here to watch that, but it make a nice background for the explosions that where to come. My Vexor began to pounding against the Hulks shields, but somthing was wrong… they were not breaking fast enough. I cried out in frustration as Concord arrived and jammed my ships interface, preventing me from killing my prey. XxBlack PearlxX then proceeded to warp his hulk to the nearest station, where he then undocked his two alts in active shield tanking Drakes. I in turn I undocked my Dominix ready to lay waste to his ships if he attacked me (he had to shoot first as he had kill rights on me and wouldn’t get blown up by concord). Big picture

Twin Xx Drakes

Unfortunately, he did not shoot me and after 20 minutes or so docked back up leaving the comment ‘boring’ in local. Well if he wasn’t going to play with me I would just have to find some fun elsewhere. Ivanna found another Hulk in system piloted by Mandrake lord999 who was also on my to kill list. Once again I warped on top of the hulk and like all the good times before proceed to tear his ship apart. Concord was not going to stop me this time and nor could they. However, it turns out Mandrake was not a botter. As soon as I killed him he started abusing me in local prompting Ivanna Nuke to get a bucket out to catch the tears. Mandrake then opened a convo with me, which I was going to post but it is too long. To summarizes it though…

            Mandrake abused me

            I said he was a botter

            He said he wasn’t, and the evidence pointed to him not being one

            I apologised to him

            He told me how much he hated macro miners

            I told him to give me names so I could kill them

After that convo I docked back up to get some much need rest. Suicide ganking takes allot out of you. Logging back in latter revealed that XxBlack PearlxX had left Eskunen for greener pastures (or pastures that just didn’t have me in them). But let it be known XxBlack PearlxX that you have not escaped. I know where you are. My alts are already with you, watching you every move. I will be with you soon and another one of your Hulks will die.