2 days is all it Took

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It had to die I guess, but to go out in such a way is hard to believe. I lost my Dramiel after flying it for only two whole days. It is hard to believe that it is actually gone, but then again its hard to believe that it could do the things that it did. I am not mad since I got the dram by killing someone and taking the bpc from them for it. Also there was not a single module of any type that I had purchased, not even the rigs. I had looted all of it. So I actually have lost nothing that cost any more then the ammo.

So about how it had happened. It started off with me, Kishin Hattori, Man Bathelme, and Etuura Zellis just bouncing around looking for a fight when we decided to head to Tama on a roam. Everything was going pretty well for us. We hit Heydiales where we face melted a Sacrilege to start our killing spree. Then went all the way to Tama through the Abune pass without any real signs of life. After being there for a bit and us checking the surrounding area we spotted a Cyclone in a belt. That is when the fun started.

Kishin was the first to arrive on scene and managed to get tackle as the rest of us landed. We preceded to slowly, and I mean slowly work on breaking his tank. About half way through the a second Cyclone landed for us to tackle and hold. Finally after almost burning out all of our guns we managed to break the first Cyclone and watch it go pop.

So from there we started to work on the second Cyclone at which point a third Cyclone landed in the belt which I promptly pointed. Now we are working on the second Cyclone which believe it or not seemed like it was going to tank all of us without breaking a sweat. Working for what seem like forever allowed the first Cyclone pilot time to reship and return to the belt in a Stabber fleet Issue. Some how we managed to finally pop the second Cyclone at which point the call was made to get out.

Since the fight had taken so long Kishin was short on cap and having a hard time shaking the Stabber FI and I was still tackled by the third Cyclone. Since things had been going so well we decided to keep going and take the third Cyclone out. Etuura and Bart came back in a got secondary tackle on the Cyclone allowing me to finally break orbit on it and go in on for tackle on the Stabber FI when it made the mistake of getting to within 20km of me. Once I had it in full tackle we made short work of it and watched it go down.

So feeling the pains of battle we started to work once again on the remaining Cyclone. Now unfortunately the guy who had flown the second Cyclone landed back in belt with us in a fresh Myrmidon. Having been battered to the point of breaking and seeing Etuura's Punisher give up the ghost finally the call was made to get out. Bart and Kishin managed to make it out, but my Dram was done for it. The Myrm had managed to get me webbed with secondary tackle. This first tackle being the remaining Cyclone that at this point had me tackled for more then five minutes it seemed. I stared my aligning out throwing my afterburner to all new limits overheating it just to have the Cyclone get a lucky shot off as I broke the range of the Myrmidon's web. That was all it took for my already brutally assaulted ship to see its last.

Falling to the Temptation

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Well I finally bent to the temptation and took my Dramiel out that I have owned for over 2 years now. Yes that is right I have had this particular ship since before they got the overhaul and became what they are today. So what made me decide to take it out finally. Boredom, nothing more. I was tired of flying the same old ships that I always fly. I love my Rifter, Jaguar, Rupture, and Hurricane very much, I just needed a break from them. I also didn't want to lose my autocannons just yet, so what other choice did I have really?

So I hopped in the Dram, undocked form Hevrice 5 station and started heading out when I heard over comms that a mate of mine was out in a Dram as well. Who else could it have been but my old roaming buddy Kishin Hattori. Me and him used to have crazy roams when we both first joined the Tuskers. And just like then we ended up on one heck of a roam. We started in Hevrice and ended in Hevrice still in our Drams. But what was along the way is what makes New Eden such a wonderful place to fly.

After leaving Hevrice with Amamake as our destination we ran into this Raven in Angatalie. With a little help from my law abiding friend I pay to hang around for such occasions we had a warp in and proceeded to kill him. It was no time at all till we realized that this guy had fallen asleep in his pod and wasn't going to wake up in it. Sure enough it went down and the pod was promptly dispatched as well. I hope he learned not to fall asleep just floating in space again.

From there we made it to Oyonata without any luck. But once there we found a group of pilots acting very funny jumping in and out of system with us. They were piloting a Taranis, Hawk, and Cyclone. After a bit of chasing we decided to just go set in a belt and see what happens. It wasn't long till the Cyclone warped in. We promptly point him and started to work on him. Then came the Taranis and Hawk. Knowing that the Cyclone wasn't a real threat we went to work on the to new comers to get them off the field. Almost instantly the Taranis popped and the Hawk was pulling Kishin over 80km away from me. It seemed that for a minute the Hawk was going to get Kishin but he pulled through and brought it down as well as I kept the Cyclone pinned down. Finally we started to really work at breaking the Cyclones tank, and what a tank it was, or at least it seemed. At this point we both had lost our drones and were almost out of ammo. We started scooping the drones that were on the field up and putting them back against the target. All in all it took us about 3min to kill the cyclone alone with each of us running out of Rep Fleet EMP and switching to Rep Fleet Phased Plasma. What a wonderful fight to really break in my Dramiel.

We weren't done there though. We went the rest of the way to the Amamake area and wondered around a bit till once again I had to call in my friend with the probes to locate a Tempest in Gulmorogod. Which my friend did quite well, warping us straight to its mission. We proceeded to work our way through the deadspace pockets till we hit paydirt with me yelling on comms that I had point. Needless to say this battleship didn't last long and went kaboom.

Then after bouncing around a bit we found ourselves in the Vard system with a Hurricane and Harbinger hopping throught the belts and a Rupture on D-scan. A few misses later Kishin landed on top of the Rupture with the Harbinger about 200km and called for me to come in and help bring it down. Just as I landed and started working on the Rupture with him the Harbinger got a warp in and landed on us. We decided to overheat on the Rupture and try to get the Harbinger as well. Well the Rupture went pop but just as we got the last of the Harbingers ECM-300 drones down and through his shields another Harbinger and the Hurricane landed and the call was made to get out.

After that we did a little more exploring around the Amamake area were Kishin got a solo Dram kill and I got a Iteron Mk IV before heading back to Hevrice with some good loots and found memories. We also netted a nice 40mil apiece ransom from the Dramiel pilot after I just missed getting on the ship kill mail but getting there just in the nick of time to catch the pod as he tried to flee.

Combat For Interstellar Kredit (ISK)

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I am a pirate and therefore I make my living taking from you in whatever means I have available to me. The primary means I have is my ability to fly cheap ships and successfully beat most pilots in non consensual combat. So I don't get it why some people get mad and think that pointing this out as if it was an insult to me. I am very proud that I can make a decent living in New Eden by doing what I love, taking your things and making you mad. I think it is a rare breed that can do what I, and most of my fellow Tuskers can do. To be skilled in such a way is something to be proud of and looked upon with envy.

Lets take the last week for example. I don't have the best of track records with the kill to loss ration I guess, 16 kills to 6 loss. My isk fielded ration is good though with only 92 million fielded by me to 512 million fielded by my prey for a almost 85% efficiency. The thing is though, of the 512 million isk field, close to half of it dropped in modules for me to scoop up and sell. Sure some of the loot had to be divided, but the average split was between 3 people. That means on a week that I consider to have been a slow week and a bad one for me I am still up. Add in the fact that I also manage to ransom another 60mil, and force Gila and Thorax pilot to eject from their ships and you have yourself one heck of a way yo make a living.

Please do not mistake this as me making myself out to be some elite combat pilot, I am not that. What I am is a pirate, and more importantly a Tusker. We do what we do because we can. There is no shame in it, we kill for fun and profit. Anything else is just not in my nature.

So it has Been a Year.....

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Well it is coming up on year since I joined the Tuskers. I was apart of a recruitment drive that netted fellow Tuskers Kishin Hatorri, Tressin Khyine, Leo Solunar, Snake Bliskan, glux3 and several other freebooters, buccaneers, corsairs and plunderers. It has been amazing, I joined a corp just breaking into the top 100 in rank on BattleClinic and have taken part in helping it rise to being one of the top 10 ranked corps on BattleClinic. What a journey.

I remember being new and going out with Kishin and Leo on one of our "Epic Frig Roams" where we would gank anything we could tackle. I can also think back to the first carrier kill I took part in. Today I look back at the first campaign I took part in as a Tusker which ended yesterday with nice roam back to Hevrice. I ended up netting 83 kills for the campaign. These are all things I have done with the best bunch of pirates and brigands a lowlife like me could hope to fly with.

So it is coming up on my first anniversary of being a Tusker I would like to encourage those who want to be a pirate and those pirates that are looking for a home to consider the Tuskers. We are having a recruitment drive right now. You can go here to learn how to apply and what it takes to be a Tusker. You can also go to our EVE-O post or our Scrapheap Challenge post. There is also The Tusker Public channel ingame for those of you who are looking to get to know us a little better.

P.S. All the banner art work above was done by Tusker pilot Tressin Khyine. He does banners, signatures and blog layouts for isk. Contact him ingame via EVEmail for pricing.