It was a slow evening in Venal. Ruins cans were still stingy , scenery was bleak , D-Scans were full of combat probes and Asteros were elbowing me out of the sites. Bad side of using Interceptor as an exploration ship (besides the obvious – absence of any scan/hack bonuses) is that the only weapon I can mount is a single 150mm Railgun II. Which does about the same DPS as a wet napkin. After a near miss with a few angry Hobgoblins & Warriors , I decided It’s one of those evenings and headed home. With a short stop in my high-sec station trader’s home to unload loot. Warp away. As it turns out , this moment was the last “slow” moment of the evening.

Fast forward 10 jumps. Crow on the gate. I jumped, he jumped right after me. Next gate he was already on grid before me, even with me warping first. Maybe a second or two. This is not good. Ok, maybe he’s just traveling the same route. Pick another gate off the beaten track. He’s there. Double back deeper into Venal. He’s there … fast enough to lock and point me. MWD on, burn back to the gate. Jump. Switch overview to Warp Out , land 50 off asteroid field and cloak up. He jumps into system. And stays. A minute after that a new ship jumps in. From the same corp. Combat probes on D-Scan. Time to make myself a late night cup of tea. And let adrenaline dissipate. Came back to an empty system and some assorted poultry-related taunts left for me in local. I wonder if such taunts ever work … I mean , I don’t even feel a need to respond. What did they expect ? Me uncloaking and bravely storming out with my pea shooter overheated ? If they checked my KB , they would see my last losses and know my probable fit. And capsuleers prone to rage outbursts usually aren’t the same ones that warm up to exploration.

Let’s plot and alternate route. Checking map for “Pilots in space” and avoiding bigger orange dots. Warp away. 2 jumps before null/low border with 2 other persons in system. Both from different corps and different alliances. Initiate warp. Local pops up with “BS piping on gate!!!”. Hm, what could that mean. Pipebombing ?  With one person doing it ? Naaah.

This is me after the jump :

I landed face first into a smartbombing apoc. After the disco show , I was sure I’ll emerge in a pod on the other side and was quite surprised when I didn’t.  Now , two near misses in a row … that just begs for the third. And that one luckily didn’t happen. Safely docked up in Providence, I checked the combat log :

I got away for not warping directly from gate to gate and probably just grazing the disco field. This Crow and Taranis weren’t so lucky.

Now to the final adrenalin dissipation technique – Zzzzzz.

07