Disaster in MQ-NPY

...I woke up late, was very tired from many late nights transporting through lowsec space, and had not yet had any stimulants. Something was off with my capsule enviro-settings too, and the smell in my pod was disgusting - my first hint that this was going to be a very bad day.

I had just received a contract shipment of Zydrine from one of our top customers in Deklein the night before. They wanted it delivered to one of their Empire contacts immediately, even waiving their normal collateral fee (which was surprising given the total value of this shipment was more than 480 million ISK).

After securing the cargo in the hold of my Impel, I climbed into my pod and went through my pre-flight. My cloak was in for repairs (another bad sign screaming "don't go"), and I had managed to squeeze on three WCS, 2 nanos, 1 cargo expander and a standard MWD. With my navcom full of instas between most of the gates, I figured it would be a cake walk...

Passing out of Deklein into Pure Blind, everything went fine. I passed ISS Borealis, a friendly port-of-call, and didn't even think to check whether a cloak was available there. A few more hops towards Empire and I was the only one in local. It was ominously quiet... too quiet.

Suddenly, as I'm already warping to my next gate, a pirate appears in local with me. As luck would have it, I land on my destination gate with him right there waiting for me, drones out, and missiles at the ready. I panicked.

I warped through the gate (was right on top of it with my insta), and aligned for my next gate (frankly I should have aligned to the star and logged off, but that's another matter entirely). He followed me in and began shooting me while I was aligning to jump. I made my first mistake at this point, and set off my smart bomb to kill his drones.

My shields went down fast, but my the Impel was armor tanked a bit, and was holding up reasonably. He had me warped scram'd, so I couldn't warp to the next gate. However in the chaos that ensued, I'm guessing my 3 WCS helped for a brief second, because suddenly I could move and warped out away from him. I only had enough cap at this point to get half way to the next gate. This was a gift in disguise, one that I completely missed (again, where's the stimulants when you need them?), so instead of logging off right then at this random safe spot, I elected to allow my shields to regenerate.

Once they were back up above 95%, I made the decision to back-track to the previous system, figuring he'd be waiting for me if I continued to forge ahead. It was a good move, he wasn't at the gate when I got there. But it still wouldn't let me through because I had used my smartbomb on his drones (agression timer hadn't expired yet). So I quickly aligned for the other gate (to continue on towards Empire), and got up to full speed and waited...

As soon as I saw him warping back to me, I hit warp to gate and took off... buying me a bit of time for him to turn around and align. I made it to the gate, had to approach from 4000 meters (the BM sucked), and as I was about to get close enough to jump through, he came back, scram'd me, web'd me and I was suddenly crawling at 40 m/s towards the gate. I made the smart choice to NOT use my smartbomb at this point (will wonders never cease), and although shields were 0% and armor was 25%, I managed to get through the gate!

Now at this point, he was aggressor'd and couldn't come through the gate, buying me about 20-40 seconds of time before he'd be able to follow me through. This is where I made my fatal mistake. Instead of warping to a planet or the sun, and logging off, I made the mistake of forging ahead with my G2G insta BMs to the next gate, hoping to get a whole system ahead of him. Unfortunately for me, the next jump distance was some 80 AU and the Impel SUX when it comes to warp speed. In the time it took me to get that far (cap was fine, I made it in one jump), the pirate had entered the system, warped PAST me to the next gate, and was waiting when I got there. Once again, I found myself web'd and scram'd, and at that point I couldn't type fast enough to get him to accept a ransom before I was out my entire armor and structure and soon after ...PODDED!

I don't know how long I was "out", but I awoke at the Nonni clone regen facilities with my PerCom beeping in my ear. Seems that my Deklein customer had caught wind of my demise (or more importantly the demise of his Zydrine), and had sent me a bill. Painful as it was, I thankfully had the money to spare (had sold the Providence earlier to get a deal on Deklein POS parts), and paid 90% of it from my personal wallet. Thankfully the customer understood the dangers of 0.0 transport services, and was pleased to recover his money quickly and didn't hold a grudge.

Ugh - it was a very frustrating situation, but I had grown accustomed to the perils of 0.0 space, and chalked it up to a learning experience that had me carefully revisiting my transport strategy and ship setups. Nearly 20 successful trips later with no losses (with 5 of them actively evading PVP pirates), I consider myself a capable blockade runner who has learned from his mistakes and more carefully balances risks with rewards.

Deklein Adventures

My first major move into naught-point-naught (aka 0.0 space) was dragging LMPG kicking and screaming north to Nonni, where we made a new Empire base of operations. Thankfully with the help of my new Providence Freighter, the move was pretty simple (just a few hours to jump 15 hops at 82 m/s between gates!). However, convicing everyone in the corp that it was the right thing to do, took a little while longer :)

Before gaining access to 0.0 space, LMPG had to agree to a number of terms and conditions required to join up with the alliance Northern Freedom Coalition (NFC). There were some general restrictions about where to mine, where not to mine, what complexes were open or closed, and basic defensive 0.0 tactics to help alert and protect the collective alliance assets from invasion.

LMPG was the smallest corp admitted into the NFC, but we had proven ourselves capable at mining ice, acquiring POS fuels, and more importantly, providing a secure and regular 0.0 to Empire transport service for various customers who didn't want to leave 0.0 to sell their wares.

Things were going along pretty smoothly for a couple months - five major contracts established, pulling in 70+ million a week - until I decided to take an extended vacation with the family, and leave things in the hands of the NFC Senate. Talk about a bad idea!

I don't want to get into the finer details of the whole mess, but it went something like this: NFC gets pissed at FLA and IRON who talk big in local, and act like they own all of Deklein. Wars are declared, battles are fought... FLA and IRON get backed into a corner. A mad scramble of Mercenary Corp hiring ensues on both sides, more allies come in to the area. Guerilla tactics and rogue MC teams keep mining on the backburner for all the industrialists in NFC.

Things escalate, carriers and dreads start appearing and stomping on POSs all over the place. Further verbal exchanges rile up members on both sides, somehow Goonfleet and BoB get involved, D2 plays the "Switzerland" card, and NFC joins Sparta to try and gain numbers and systems. Bigger battles ensue, further losses on both sides, still no mining, no POS fuels delivered, more friends of FLA/IRON show up. Chaos ensues within Sparta/NFC leadership, stupid choices made, and eventually everything comes to a grinding halt within 2 weeks of the start of hostilities. A truce is agreed upon, and Sparta/NFC are forced to pull out of Deklein within a week.

This is about the time I arrive back on the scene from holidays. Stuck in a hostile station in 0.0, unable to leave (blockade outside now has me hostile - truce is over), and no rights to use or enter the station again if I do leave. Somehow I had been smart enough to set up some jump clones between 0.0 and Empire, so for the next 3 weeks, I spend most of my time flooding the Deklein market with considerable personal and corporate assets (about 1 billion ISK worth after the dust settled). During that time, I'm also able to secure myself a cloaking device and descent hauler + equipment, and manage to sneak out additional assets back to Nonni (like my entire skill book library for the corp and myself).

Aside from the "Disaster in MQ-NPY", my overall losses in 0.0 ended up being two Ravens (both insured), and two Retrievers. One of each lost to PVP enemy pilots, and one of each lost to nasty Raven belt rats. Most of that was recovered from the extensive Crokite mining that was able to be conducted in the months prior to the breakout of hostilities.

Although LMPG never did manage to get a POS set up in 0.0 (things like Senate squabbling and war prevented it), we did sneak ourselves back to Empire a little richer than we left (Corp wallet was +200 million after extraction). Overall, we made some great friends, battled some new enemies, learned some valuable lessons on PVP, and came out considerably wiser for our next adventure into 0.0!

Lowsec Transport Pilot

Learn from my mistakes... do as I suggest, not as I do :)

1. Always insure your ship, even when it's a T2 ship and you won't ever get covered for the entire cost, at least you'll get something back worth more than the default "pittance" ISK that CONCOR will give you when you die with no insurance. Additionally, because your aggressor shoots you, if you're close to a gate, you can get out and buy yourself 10-20 seconds while THEY have to wait for aggressor timer to end!

2. NEVER put weapons on a hauler - EVER, not even smartbombs. A hauler's job is always to ESCAPE and live another day. The second you shoot back in a hauler, stargates will block you from escaping, and you'll be dead before the 45 second aggression delay runs out.

3. Carry more than enough WCS when flying a hauler through lowsec space - but ideally save up and ensure you're in a proper blockade runner (Velator / Prorator), which has the +2 WCS bonus. Regular haulers don't really belong in lowsec without serious skills and fittings (and even then I advise against it).

4. Skill for and carry a cloak - even the lowest level cloak can help you live long enough to avoid capture and potentially log out from a safe spot or in-system location (planet or sun, never a moon).

5. Carry a MWD to ensure that you can get far enough away quickly from your enemies to engage the cloak (must be 2000 meters away minimum), or to be able to escape a warp bubble, or just to put distance between you and whomever is shooting at you.

6. And finally, my most important advice... don't try and be a HERO. When you manage to escape your attacker (safe spot, different gate, whatever reason), you must cloak and wait them out, or LOG OFF and don't come back for a few hours (never log off at a gate - always at a planet, the sun or a safe spot).

The Early Days

After realizing that the big money was going to be made outside the primary Empire shipping lanes, LMPG relocated to the Dantan system and were quickly recognized for their skill and speed in ice and ore mining. However, once again after gaining some additional members and building up cash reserves, Bart felt it was time to venture into lowsec space.

With significant assistance from some of the core LMPG veterans, and under the orchestrations of LT IRIS, LMPG setup their first small POS in Hiremir (0.3), and began a small moon mining operation. Sadly, this venture lasted all of about 2 weeks, as a local band of pirates (A-I-L corp) dedided that LMPG was an easy target for ransom. The POS was attacked, hundreds of millions in ransom were demanded, and negotiations and planning began.

It was quickly decided, that the corporation could not afford to pay the ransom, let alone loose the more than 500 million ISK invested in the POS components. After some insider information was received from AIL corp, Bart and LT arranged a bluff-and-run maneouver, which was successfully executed and resulted in the POS being dismantled and moved back to Empire space. Of course, AIL corp were none too pleased, and immediately declared war on LMPG.

By this time, Bart had made some strong and powerful friends with various veteran capsuleers in the Kador region, and as soon as the wardec became active, AIL found themselves squarely in the sights of a major Mercinary Corporation. Suffice to say, pirates were chased, pirates died, war declaration was rescinded - all in a matter of 48 hours. :) It's not what you know, but who you know that counts every time!

The first POS did teach us a lot - just learning about POS operations and management was well worth the little "adventure" with the pirates. But, Bart knew it would be time to venture out of Empire again soon...

Historical Record

Born to a humble, working-class Caldarian family, Bart grew up enthralled by anything that flew. His family was well-known for their orchards of the rare Pacificus Maple, a tree whose syrup not only went well on gourmet waffles, but had many medicinal properties as well. When Bart turned 13, his family owned the only remaining Pacificus Maples in Caldari space, and were well established as a supplier of syrup to both the local food industry, and the Caldari medical establishment.

All of this meant immense wealth for his family, and although his father ensured they led a simple life and did not live foolishly, Bart was able to convince his father to invest in atmospheric flight lessons, and a small aircraft. After spending much of his teenage years flying a crop duster over the family orchards.

With a passion for flight, and dreams of expanding his horizons off-world, Bart jumped at the opportunity to join up with the Caldari Navy when he reached 18. It was not an easy life, and Bart saw may battles and many comrades die at the hands of Caldari enemies and pirates. After 10 years of service and numerous battles, missions and decorations, Bart decided it was time to retire from military life, and strike out on his own.

Returning home, Bart was devastated by the news of his parent's deaths - apparently rivals in the medical markets. The family's Pacificus Maple orchards had also been burned to the ground by the unknown assailants, effectively pushing the rare tree into extinction. Searching the remains of his family's estate, he stumbled upon a hidden alcove in his father's wine cellar, which contained a handful of Pacificus seeds. Bart took them with him, vowing one day to re-establish his family's name and the tree of his heritage.

Having always been interested and adept at sciences and geology back home, he soon found a new passion for off-world mining, and quickly built up a small personal fortune. After operating in The Citadel for a number of weeks, Bart decided that it was time to create a corporation to cater to the needs of local solo-miners. Having bonded with a number of pilots new to the Todaki area, it was quickly apparent that a group effort would benefit all of them, and so - in memory of the beautiful maple trees of his family's nursery - Lonely Maple Prospecting Group was formed.