Green cloud of impending doom
8th September 2009 – 5.14 pmIt is possible to love your Crane too much. I am thoroughly enamoured with my personal blockade runner, speeding courier packets half-way across regions, delivering manufactured modules to varied markets quickly and easily, and although I smash through low-sec with some trepidation at least I don't avoid it. But it isn't fit for every purpose.
My agent sends me off on a reconnaisance mission, which seems curiously similar to previous ones. Warp in to one area and get shot, warp in to another and get shot by insular NPC miners, then warp in to a green cloud of impending doom. The last stage of the three-part mission requires reaching the acceleration gate and warping out before the green toxic cloud eats away your shields, armour and hull, but presents no danger from hostile ships. I have just the ship to scoot across sixty kilometres or so of space, my Crane!
It seems like a good idea. The Crane is more agile and certainly faster than my PvE Drake and can probably cover the required distance in significantly less time. Rather than ponderously crawling over to the acceleration gate, passing the time by reading about other capsuleers' exploits, I could zoom over there, marvelling at the eddies left in my wake, in space! The Crane is also not too fragile, with some shields and armour, which can be bolstered with modules if necessary. A reheat module should get me to the gate even quicker, and a shield booster would help assuage any concerns of surviving.
Hmm, I have a micro-warp drive (MWD) fitted, and the interference from deadspace will prevent its use, but I don't have a suitable reheat sitting in my mission loot box. The Crane is nippy enough, I'm sure I'll be fine, particularly with the shield booster fitted. Time to undock and warp to the green cloud of impending doom.
Of course, it is only when I am in the green cloud that I realise the Crane's speed unmodified by an MWD is actually not massively faster than the Drake, although it certainly is faster. I also notice that the shield booster I think I have fitted is, in fact, a shield amplifier, and that I have underestimated the base strength of the shields. Still, no matter, I am already in the cloud and can warp out if the damage taken gets too close to the armour for comfort, the agility of the ship good enough to guarantee a quick escape.
It's looking promising that I'll get to the acceleration gate in time, although my shields are taking a beating from the toxic vapours. I have confidence in Tigress, as I named my Crane, but keep a keen eye on my status as I progress. The shields are getting worryingly close to dipping in to the armour, but I've made it. I activate the acceleration gate and Tigress enters warp. I knew she'd make it!
Oh hello, EVE Mail is flashing at me. It's probably a letter congratulating me for being so fabulous. Um, no, it's from the insurance compa... why am I still in a green cloud? I should have warped to the mission end by now. And I'm fairly sure I shouldn't be in my pod. What the bloody hell just happened?! I was in warp, I still had some shields remaining, and yet there is the... wreck of Tigress, my Crane, sitting one hundred and fifty four kilometres from the acceleration gate. I don't understand.
In somewhat of a daze, I limp my pod back to the station, grab my Drake, despondently drag it through the green cloud—remembering to bookmark my poor, poor Crane's position—and complete the mission. I don't see whatever hit Tigress show up in my log as I warp out of the cloud this time, leaving the Crane's destruction a terrible mystery. It is a miserable task to return in a Cormorant to see what survived in the hold and what can be salvaged from my first Tech II ship, my pride and joy blockade runner.
'Don't fly what you can't afford to lose' is the oft-quoted first rule of EVE Online. It's not the ISK cost I can't afford. I quickly buy a replacement Crane to hide the real cost, that of my embarrassment in losing a ship I adore in such a stupid and irresponsible way. Throwing the Crane in to a mission for no reason other than wanting to pilot it more was an act of folly and only goes to show that I can't be trusted with nice things.
But I need to recognise my impetuous nature. I name the new Crane Tigress II, and I'll treat this one like a blockade running transport ship, not a magical ship of survival. Losing Tigress is a harsh lesson for me to learn, but I must learn it for I am almost guaranteed to have other, and more expensive, ships destroyed in the future. But if I am careful they will be lost for just causes, not from improvidence.
6 Responses to “Green cloud of impending doom”
Sounds like a bit of desync. Your Crane was dead before you got out, your client just did not know it. I've had that happen before.
The Green Cloud of Impending Doom requires massive tank to overcome, not speed. Drake was better choice. Lesson learned, eh? :)
You betcha.
Poor Tigress.
Hi pj, I've added your new blog to evebloggers.com All the best!
Thanks, Alexia!
Out of all my off and on time in EVE, that is the one mission I have never had...I have yet to see this green cloud! :( lol
It's like that bit in Wrath of Khan where the two ships are in the nebula. But green. And less exciting. Well, unless you take an expensive and relatively fragile craft in, then there is quite a bit of tension.