War and Cloaks

While our war with PANDA had unofficially ended because they had left the region, the formailities were still in place and we were still engaging stragglers we spotted here and there.  We were going to continue doing this for another billing period (another week), but last night I logged into my pod and discovered that we were now at war with an alliance, which PANDA had joined.  The bill for the war to continue would rise from 4 million ISK to 150 million.

I laughed to myself, and withdrew the wardec, ending it in 24 hours. Interestingly, while they had joined an alliance which we were now at war with for the next 24 hours, I saw only PANDA members in lowsec for the time I was logged in last night.  Where was their alliance?  Probably hiding.

The CEO of PANDA engaged me in conversation, laughing that now I had to pay 150m to CONCORD instead of PANDA paying 200m to us... He seemed to think he'd succeeded in 'ransoming' US instead of the other way around.  I didn't have the heart to tell him the cost wasn't immediate or mandatory.

So 4 of them were in battleships, camping the station I was in, emboldened by their new alliance membership and the shiny new battleships that they seemed to have recently gotten from their new alliance buddies. 

I smiled, and let them waste their time.  I needed to go make and eat dinner, which took a couple of hours...  After dinner they were still there, orbiting the station and waiting for me to undock.  So I went and wrote an article instead, which will soon be published on eve-mag.com.  There was another couple of hours.... 

I was actually enjoying the psychological waiting game I was playing with them.  Eventually they gave up and logged off. I think I'll continue to sit in the station every now and again and give them cause to worry, wasting their time and getting them to pull their hair out in frustration and anxiety.

My corp will continue to engage them where we find them, when we can safely do so.  We'll engage in a guerilla war.  We're not stupid enough to think it's worthwhile fighting 4 battleships with a single cruiser, but it's nice to give the enemy the sense of superiority which ultimately leads them to feeling overconfident, and then we'll strike when they make mistakes.  With 15 kills against them, compared to them getting 3 against us, I'm sure that victory will ultimately be ours.

I've been training up Assault Ships, flying around in an Ishkur, and last night I finished training on Cruise Missiles, and went to play around with my Nemesis.  Hiding in a belt, watching someone ratting and waiting for them to stop to grab loot so I can decloak and fire my missiles at them is so much fun!  But when it's an experienced pilot in a new, 2-week old clone, it doesn't work out quite so well.

He was ratting, and I waited 12km from a wreck he left behind while he dealt with another rat. When he eventually made his way back to the wreck I was near, I started getting excited.  As soon as he stopped at the wreck, I decloaked and targeted him.  All my systems were already primed, so as soon as the lock was established, the cruise missiles launched.

Unfortunately, in the 3 seconds it took to lock him, he had already started warping out, obviously having already selected a distant object and clicking on 'warp to' as fast as he could.  He shot into warp as my missiles streaked through the spot he'd just left.

I cloaked again, waiting for the next target. This was fun.