Thursday, November 5, 2015

Ninja Salvaging Series 3 - A dishonest carebear

They say don't trust anyone in EVE. Words to live by.

I visit a Hyperion in a mission. It's one of my favorite situations - he is 50km away from his mobile tractor unit. Too close to MJD and too far to burn at natural speed to scoop it in time. I open fire and promptly get locked.


You tend to develop sixth sense after awhile. Once mission runner can't scoop mtu in time, it often triggers the reaction. When Hyperion opened fire I was not very surprised, but still excited nevertheless. Soon I was under his guns, killing his drones one by one.


As per standard procedure I warp in my logi and start repairing Enyo in hopes to get aggro, so I could swap ship later. Which worked. Hyperion switched aggro to my Augoror. Time to show all my cards. I warp in secondary logi and have Orca on the way and open a conversation to negotiate ransom. Bo Arthie is in panic. He ignores me and convos my logi instead.


Just moment ago he was shooting an extra ship on grid and now he is asking same pilot for help. He apologizes for his aggression. Maybe I should start apologizing after blowing someone up. I wonder what kind of reaction I will get? I think it wouldn't be hard to guess. Chatting with many accounts is too distracting, so I try to focus conversation in one window and explain that extra ship is not his friend, but in fact, the same person.


I get a standard answer "I used all my isk to this ship". If I ever made a bingo table for ninja salvaging, this would be my first square. Bo Arthie claims he has only 20 mil left. I offer an alternative: eject from his ship and let me sell it to cover the ransom costs. Unfortunately I do not get an answer, but it soon becomes clear why.


He contacts my scanning alt, who is sitting cloaked near the station. In desperation, he goes through all local asking for help. I decide to play along.


Just over a minute in our discussion, Bo reveals that he has "around" 100 mil in his wallet. The amount suddenly jumped up 5 times in just 3 minutes since I stated my terms. Income that even wormhole people would be jealous of. Five more minutes and he should have all 200 mil covered.


I suggest him to send 100 mil., but the amount changed again. Now he had only 80. What is going on in his wallet?


I decide to take 80 mil as a down payment. Unfortunately he was 20 mil short to fulfill ransom conditions and thus offer got revoked and ship with pod confiscated.


Now you might think what will happen next? Will Bo claim how I destroyed his EVE and threaten quitting the game?  Will he complain how he is broke and has to mine for another month to afford another ship? No. He will buy a new Hyperion and carry on with his missions.


He did not shoot me this time. Instead, he slowly approached and scooped his mtu.

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