Goldrush in lowsec
I have struck gold. Finally. During the weekend where the Goonswarm Federation assaulted the mega trade hub Jita I have had luck with my combat exploration. After dust had settled in The Forge I could take a stealth bomber with modules worth 800 mil+ and put them on the market just as trade reopened. The more bulky load netting a neat 400 mil worth of combat loots etc. is in contract and I have even more good stuff in my hangar. The best thing about it is I fly combat capable ships and have had interesting fights while harveting the riches of Verge Vendor and Placid low sec. Like a double boosted Hawk that insisted on tanking my light drones and staying in my face even with 3 med neuts on him. Finally his boosting Sleipnir came on scan and I had to bail with half of my Warriors and Hobgoblins in structure letting the frigate hold the field... It turned out Sleipnir couldn't pass the acceleration gate to the deadspace pocket so there was no real danger. I got redress warping back 5 minutes later and stripped the frigate size complex of a 95 mil Shadow Serpentis faction treasure that the Hawk failed to pick up. The LSE Ishtar is my favorite tool and it works surprisingly well with its superior range and good speed. Its favorite operational range is 60-90 km where it is largely safe from damage and assigning one Warden II on each of the approaching frigates makes it extremely efficient for all size targets. I have had an adventure in a smaller ship too; an expedition known as Elite Playground that I did in an Enyo. It required some piloting to balance reps, cap range and choice of targets while looking out for unwanted guests - and netted me some low end Serpentis modules and one of the low grade snake hardwire implants. The final stage brought me into 0.0 and going there in solo Enyo, heart pounding, ready to dodge bubbles and also looking for fights with locals was a 'real' Eve experience. On returning to high sec space I could start gathering materials for building my first ever Vigilant that is now in my hangar waiting to be fitted out. There are more stories but it will have to wait - next post will be some write-ups of recent fights. Nothing cruiser sized yet, it is still on my list of things to do soon (TM).