3 Strikes But Not Out

So as if it isn’t obvious, it’s been quite some time since I sat down and wrote anything. Not for lack of logging pod time but just from a lack of motivation to write. Frankly, there’s been lots to write about, but I’ve just been lazy.

Let’s start with the fact that I’ve been in 0.0 for….what? 4 months now? Maybe 5? Up until this past month, things had been going great. I had yet to even experience the loss of a clone. This past month of December changed all that drastically. In a single month, I’ve been pod killed 3 times. In fact, they probably all happened within a 2 week time period.

The first took place while in a class 5 wormhole I’d found in our home system earlier that day. I had just finished scanning the system for other entrances/exits and decided I was a tad hungry. So I cloaked up (or so I thought) and stepped away from the controls for perhaps no more than 5 minutes. Next I know, my roommate comes walking from the back hallway and mentions he thinks something’s wrong with my computer, that a bunch of beeps and warning sounds are coming from my room. Immediately, I ran back to the room but of course it was too late. By the time I’d gotten back, I found myself already sitting in a station.

So that was loss number one.

The second loss came from what I admit to being a rather dumb move on my part. We’ve had a serious of attacks on our home systems by a group called DarkSide. It’s not hard to notice just how badly they’re beating on us by all the red on our killboards. To they’re credit, they’re very skilled, using great tactics and frankly, when you’re throwing a home defense fleet together fast, you just don’t have the time to organize a well laid out fleet to counter they’re tactics.

In this particular attack, they had moved into one of our choke points and we’re holding their ground. Unfortunately, most of our alliance was a number of jumps away partaking in what was a really great cruiser competition. Lots of good fights from all the participants. I had visited and watched the event from my Arazu recon ship when I heard the news of the attackers. Figuring I’d at least go and get some eyes on them, I made my way over to the adjoining system. When I reached the gate I knew them to be sitting on the other side of, I found a single lone Dramiel floating around the gate. Watching the intel channels, I took note of people claiming our allies, Stain Empire, was engaging the enemy fleet. For a moment, I contemplated what to do and then made the decision that sealed my fate. Figuring their fleet to be busy on the other side and being engaged would not be able to come through any time too soon, I moved to within my optimal range from the Dramiel. I recall there being a few other alliance mates present at the gate but obviously they bailed. Either way, I quickly decloaked and locked my targeting system onto the ship. I’d fired off no more than one salvo when the gate lit up like a Christmas tree. Apparently the intel had been either too delayed or just wrong period given the number of ships that swarmed me. I’d almost had the Dramiel finished off before their logistics repped him back up. After that, it was just a matter of moments before I saw my second death in 0.0 space.

The first and second deaths sucked, but I was at least able to accept with heavy spirit. The third death I will not accept however. As usual, the pathetic empire wankers, Privateers or some crap like that, have a war dec out on us. This is pretty much an ongoing thing. They really are nothing more than a bunch of pathetic Jita 4-4 station campers that continuously war dec nullsec corporations and get their thrills from killing any of the pilots going to pick up or sell goods in the Jita hub. All the while talking smack on CAOD as if they’re some big time nullsec corp when in reality, they’re the only corporation that pretty much all of nullsec alliances laugh at in unison.

Anyways, I’m making it sound like I’m mad at them for what happened but in truth I’m not at all. I come out of warp at the station. I’m a bit farther from the station than I’d hoped but I wasn’t too concerned and immediately put the engines at full and burned towards the station in my cheap little Atron frig. I already expected to lose the ship and wasn’t at all concerned about that. Sure enough the ship takes like two hits and poof. So now I’m in my pod. The genius at the docking control then sends me the notification that my docking request has been accepted and that I am to be towed into station. At this point, I should be immune to the buzzard pukes and though it lags a bit changing screens, I finally am able to breathe a sigh of relief as the image of space clears and the station sounds fill my ears.

“Wait a minute….something’s not right. This isn’t a Caldari hanger,” I think in exclamation. Sure enough, looking up at the station ID I see the big familiar symbol of my corporation, Silver Snake Enterprise! I’m in such disbelief at this point that I could only sit there for a moment in complete shock. Finally senses come back to me and I quickly check my combat logs. Sure enough, the I see the log files for the hits on my ship, and then the Docking request accepted and then…nothing. So I check my loss mails. Yep. There’s the Atron loss but no mail for the pod loss! This just will not do!

So yeah. I sent a petition to CCP about it. First time that I can recall ever submitting a petition. I’ll be curious to know how quick a response time they have. As I said in my petition, I understand and accept the loss of the ship. But not the loss of the pod given I’d received the docking request accepted long before my pod went pop. Long being like 5 seconds but hey, 5 seconds in a pod…in combat…is a REALLY long time. Hopefully they agree with my cry of foul. If I hadn’t received that docking acceptance, than I would be accepting of the pod loss too. (and the somewhat expensive implants I lost in the process)

In retrospect, yes, it wasn’t a very good idea to go to a station where war targets are sure to be at. Honestly, I didn’t even think about just using my alt, something I banged my head a few times over for afterwards. But that still don’t change my stance on the events.

Either way, I seriously have a lot of making up to do for all these stupid losses….and it seems I’ll soon be getting my chance. Actually, a lot of chances. More to come on that later though. J