Learning what DIAF means

Yesterday I logged in to the sound of boredom.


Some corpmates, Aelith, Moph, and Riddick, in particular, were rather bored. So bored in fact was Aelith that he was actually considering just going to work.


We REALLY need to war dec someone. I have no idea why it hasn't happened yet. As promised, I got my yellow skull before the week was out, and I'm doing my best to not wreak some violence on some poor soul, or even some of those pirates I enjoy reading about so much on their blogs just for the thrill of combat (fighting them probably means them wreaking it on me, but that's how it goes).


Anyways, after Aelith mentions he's so bored he might just go to work, I announce that I'm planning to go roam low-sec. My plan? Act like a newbie, rat, hopefully get someone to agress me so that I can attack them without losing anymore standing, and generally have a good time or die trying!


With a plan like that, it can't go anywhere but wrong.


Aelith, Moph, and Riddick joined me. We were all flying cheap ships. My Thrasher, completely fitted out, cost 700k ISK tops. Quick number crunching shows it'll smash through any frigate sized vessel willing to get into scrambler range. I hoped anyways. I haven't actually TESTED it to see if this is the case, but in my guess, 7 200 I's should at least approach Jaguar DPS. (addendum, with my skills it was 300 DPs, roughly double jaguar DPS and 3/2 Wolf DPS)


After putting together our crap fleet of 2 Rifters (1 artillery, 1 autocannon), 1 Merlin (probably Rail/Missile fit), and my Thrasher (autos, MWD, scrambler), we jumped into Hagilur.


Unfortunately for us, we did more ratting than actual killing by 100%. Which is to say, zero killing, because no one would agress us, despite the 9 other people population. In fact, no one so much as warped near us.


We repeated this trend for a few more systems before deciding that null sec was a better opportunity. Surely we would find blood, a victim's or ours, splattered in red mist across empty space there!


We arrived in EOA-ZC, and the whole trip we saw practically no one and no one in local. Entry into that first null sec system was the same. It was nice to see two warp bubbles leading to the gate from any celestial body though. We hoped to take advantage of it later. Until such a time however, I flew off grid and made a safe spot for varying reasons, one of which was to avoid flying into the bubbles in an attempt to get out.


After that, since there was no one in local, and we ALL needed to make some headway into sec status in case of pirating in Ebodold again, we went ratting, and encountered some belt rats, one of which was an Obliterator.


"Dude, they're going to chew us apart!" groaned Riddick. Thankfully, I had a bit of null sec ratting experience in small ships and knew that this would not be the case. We hence proceeded to obliterate the Obliterator, with me cawing at the end, "Hey, I thought he was supposed to Obliterate us!"


Immediately after said rather pointless and time wasting ratting, a hurricane pops on local. We make our way to the gate, but are confused because the pilot, Vile Plague, is blue to us. After a minute, he makes up our mind for us and locks us.


At this point we should have run. If someone agresses you on the gate, it can't go well for you. Then again, we were there for bloodshed, his or ours, and blue or not, it was going down right there.


I would like to say that it all went well from there, that we smacked him hard. It's really the reverse though. Hobogoblin II's literally tore Aelith's Rifter apart while I downed 2 or 3 of those nasty little buggers, and during this a Falcon piloted by his alt, also named Vile Plague, jammed out Riddick and Moph completely. An Ishkur who was also blue apparently jumped in, but I don't think it participated in the fight as it didn't show on any killmails.


Aelith imitated the big bang, and I played follow the leader maybe 15 seconds after that. I'm pretty sure Moph followed soon after, though I was a bit busy trying to preserve my pod, so I'm not entirely certain. I know for a fact that Moph went out in a blaze of glory, and Riddick was the only one to get away with his ship intact, which, incidentally, was my ship, since I traded it to him at Hek so that he need not lose his more expensive Hurricane.


Our killboard doesn't look particularly good, even with the fudging of some losses not being reported because not everyone uses whatever the hell company we are, so there's no need to make it worse by losing a 40 mil hurricane. 4 ships that cost a total of less than 3 mil is a much more acceptable loss, especially when you're planning for it!


That all said, we all got away, all but Riddick in pods since he was flying the loaner Rifter. Even though we got owned REAL bad (so bad...you would think 3 rifters and a thrasher should be able to smash a hurricane, right?), we still had a much better time than we would have running missions, plexes, or mining. Ugh, mining...no call for it anywhere for us EXCEPT in w-space, and we won't be going there again. Been there, done it to death.


Maybe next time we'll snag a kill. When Battleclinic lets me log in again, I'll add in the killmails at appropriate points.