I have part six half finished and ready to go. I left it because I was tired and decided to head to bed. Couldnt sleep so I figured I’d just do one quick mission. Oh how I regret that. A quick bit of background, missions range from Level 1 – 4, each increase in level is a fairly big jump in difficulty (and usually in ship class). However thanks to siding with the Amarr during the Sisters of Eve ESA I’d enough standing with the Amarr to jump straight to Level 2 missions. I’d done about ten or so of them and while some of them had been tough I’d managed to pull through, earn some ISK and upgrade my Destroyer. So I logged in and requested a mission (which are semi random), got a simple courier mission which I banged out and figured, sure why not one more before I hit the hay? I wont have time to play tomorrow because I’ve loads of cooking and prep work to do for Christmas dinner. Oh past Mick, you are a fucking idiot.
My first clue should have been that the mission paid out over 800K and about 700 loyalty points, which was almost double what the usual payout was. But fuck it, how tough could it be? So I accepted the mission, did a few last minute tweaks to my ship and warped into the combat zone. Things were going well, I’d finally bought some long range ammo and watching the bastards get fried as they flew into range was enjoyable. Then I noticed that none of my shots were hitting. So I flew in closer. Still nothing. Closer still. I was getting pretty shot up at this stage. Oh shit five of the fuckers were disrupting my tracking. Time to warp out and repair. Which I did. Then I warped back in, only now the warp in point was surrounded by those target disrupting fucks who knobbled me as soon as I warped in. Tried to kill them. Got shot to shit. Retreated. Repaired. Jumped back in.
Took me three jumps to actually figure out how Tracking Disruption worked. Another jump or two. My fucking repair bill was around 470K at this point. I’d be fucked if I was going to let that money go to waste (oh sunk costs how ignoring you fucks me once again). So target disruption doesnt just lower your chance to hit, it drops your range by about 75-80%. Which is bad. So I thought, why not embrace it? So I threw on my shortest range, highest dps lasers. I needed to get balls deep to hit anyway, why not make use of it? New lasers equipped I flew back in, plan was to take out the tracking ships one by one, fly out and then back in when I needed. And it worked. First ship down no problem, wasnt that badly damaged, figured I’d risk another. That was a risk that did not pay off.
Watched in horror as not only did I fail to hit, a few lucky shots from the enemy decimated my shields and getting tangled up in an asteroid (sometimes when you hit an object in space your ship basically spaz’s out) meant I took too long to warp out. If it wasnt six in the morning I would have screamed FUCK as loud as I could as I watched my fucking ship explode. I had it insured, just barely enough to replace the ship. But it was the fucking equipment on the ship, which you cant insure and which was worth 1.5 times as much as the ship itself that really stung. So now I have no fucking money, no fucking Destroyer and no fucking hope!
Not sure what to do now. It’ll take me about a week to train up to fly a Cruiser (never mind afford the fucking thing). I dont really want to buy another Coercer (the Destroyer I was using). I never really liked it and used it because you get one free in training. Clearly its a bit too squishy for Level 2 missions, even with the (fucking expensive and now exploded) Tech II armour tank I was using. It worked fine against small groups but mobs of frigates, especially with tracking disruptors absolutely murdered it. Blockade is meant to be a sort of benchmark mission it seems, wish Id known in advance so I could have declined rather than quit it. As quitting it lost me all the fucking rep I’d built up today.
Might just mine while I train for my Cruiser or I might approach missions properly, take my Punisher out of mothballs and start with Level 1 missions. Even worse my rage has guaranteed sleep will elude me for a while to come.
Feast your eyes on my sorrow. This is all thats left i.e. nothing. Fuck, just realised you can see the insurance payment notification in the top left hand corner. Bastards.
