I learned some stuff the hard way again. I was having a nice and quiet carebearing evening with not much going on. Things were looking good, I made a nice amount of isk this week and the goal of buying my first freighter was getting closer. While ratting with my main I had my hauling alt sitting around highsec with nothing to do. So I looked for some small courier contracts for him to do while I was ratting. After a few completed contracts I stumbled upon a new contract that had a nice reward of 20mil for only 6 jumps. I did have to collect the package at a low sec system, but that shouldn't be to much of a problem as it's adjacent to a 0.5 system and I had my trusty blockade runner. The collateral was 375mil which was quite much but I figured the goods must be quite valuable, so I accepted the contract and set off to the pick up point. While I continued ratting it crossed my mind that there could be gankers waiting at the gate, but I had already managed to escape blobs with my cloak numerous times. Reaching my destination I jumped the gate finding nothing on grid and only two others in local. After docking up I immediately felt something wasn't right. The cargo consisted of miscelaneous junk not worth much and certainly not 375mil in collateral. Also there were only 2 guys in station, and I felt their eyes on me waiting for the moment I undocked. Not sure about what to do i figured to undock as fast as I could before they could form up on the undock. Maybe I could just make it with the speed of my prowler. I undocked and saw an empty overview, relieved, I made my final mistake by pressing jump. As soon as I started alining another ship undocked right above me. Another important factor in my demise was the type of station we were undocking out off. It was the Amarrian Vertical version, with the pin like antennas on the bottom where you can easily get stuck on, which was exactly what happened. I tried to correct my mistake by canceling the warp and speeding off with my mwd in another direction, but it was already to late. I got tackled, pointed and webbed and there was nothing for me to do but to watch my vessel being turned into scrap as the cloaking device had no use because the attackers got within 2000m of me. If I wanted to survive I had to speed out of the way of the station in a straight line as soon as I undocked and put on my cloak to warp away after. Having an insta-undock ready is the best way out of this trap but as I've never been in the region, that was no option. I'll make sure to set one up the next time I come across something dubious like this contract. My daily profits went out of the window and again I was cursing myself for not seeing through the scam. But with every loss I gained a lot of information about insta-undocking and learned of a new kind of scam so I guess it wasn't all in vain.
In future, the best thing to do is undock, and immediately ctrl+space. Use your minute of invulnerability to take in the situation, and don't start aligning to anything until your session change timer is up.
ReplyDeleteWhen you do align, click align and then only warp once you're up to speed - that avoids you having to cancel warp, and means you can immediately dock if anything goes wrong. It's always safer to re-dock than try to burn away - unless you're already outside of web range, burning away if almost always a bad idea and is only likely to stop you from being able to redock.
Thanks for the reply Azual, I'll be sure to remember your advice!
ReplyDeleteThe Amarrian stations usually have 100km of docking range, were you panicked not to dock?
ReplyDeleteAlso like said above, always if things are fishy dock up, buy cheap fast frigate, make your self insta-undock at ranges which are not common (means dont use full numbers, use numbers like 584km or smt, smt which is off grid!)
Also, dont be over paranoid, the things you read about pirating and low-sec systems which are constructed by high-sec players who just over think.
The courier contracts are set-up they are not really rewarding (20m, lol), but they are there just for shits and giggles. NO ONE and i say NO ONE will set up courier and camp you for days until its accepted.
People do their own stuff and shit and when they see contract accepted, they will just arrange something or maybe even not, doesnt matter, if they get their stuff to low-sec from high-sec for such a low price they have already won, if they get to kill you they will be happy and laugh, but its not really the point.
I'd suggest you to make alt, join Brave Newbies INC. and go see whats up in low-sec, its not scary, its nothing. You will learn shitloads from them, in pvp and all + you will get off your shaking in player interactions. I'd suggest you make alt with free trial hang there for 2 weeks and then just quit if you dont like it.
Best regards,
Muusika K6lab
(former BNI, now quit EVE)
Thanks for your advice, Muusika K6lab. I haven't had much experience with station games or any of the likes. I'm out in null sec with my main for a while now, so I know I don't have to be overly paranoid about the systems and regions, I'm just learning all this stuff as I've focused mostly on trading, economics and industry for the largest part of my Eve career.
ReplyDelete