Getting a second go at a gooer
14th August 2013 – 5.22 pmHow extensive will the constellation be tonight? I shift yesterday's thirty wormhole bookmarks—only one made outside of w-space—to a temporary folder and start afresh. The home system gives me a straightforward start, the static connection being the only wormhole and my first of the day. Jumping to the neighbouring class 3 system sees an Archon carrier and two towers, which is nothing to get excited about, neither is seeing from my notes that the static wormhole leads to high-sec empire space. Maybe there's more to find.
One of the two towers present is the same as from my previous visit eighteen months ago, the other simple enough to find, so now I scan. I bookmark the eighteen anomalies for reference and sift through the eight signatures, whittling them down to a pair of wormholes. The rather uninteresting high-sec exit is joined by a neat N968 outbound connection to more class 3 w-space. Looking for opportunity I jump to C3b, but maybe I'm too late in getting here. Two flights of drones look abandoned with just a tower, pod, and Crane transport sharing the same directional scanner result.
There are no wrecks or corpses, so I have no idea when or why the drones were left wherever they are, and with no other information to go on I return to standard procedure and locate the tower. At least, that's the plan, but pointing d-scan at one planet sees the tower but not the Crane, and at a different planet the Crane and not the tower. The transport is collecting planet goo! I urge my cloaky Loki strategic cruiser in to warp but cancel the command almost as soon as I give it. The Crane will be far too quick in collecting goo and moving on for me to realistically catch it, and I am probably better served warping to the tower to lurk.
I drop out of warp amongst the defences at the tower, but not in an immediate threat of decloaking, to see the Crane returned and now at rest inside the force field. Hoping for another trip doesn't look good. The only movement the Crane makes is towards a hangar, where the transport gets swapped for a Helios covert operations boat. Will the capsuleer scan for the wormhole I just came through, or go off-line? Neither, not at the moment, as a new contact appears. On d-scan first, then warping in to the tower, comes a relative of the first pilot in a Velator. He swaps the frigate for a transport, this one a Viator. Excellent timing, sir. Go and collect that goo.
And so he does. The Viator aligns out of the tower and warps, with me following as soon as I determine the direction he's going. Catching the transport may be tricky, as he has a head start, is more agile than my Loki, and can cloak. He's not cloaking on the way to the customs office, though, so I take this as a sign of a cavalier attitude and decloak my ship early, not expecting to be seen on d-scan. I get the sensor recalibration delay over with, my sensor booster active, and drop out of warp comfortably within warp scrambler range of my new target.
I get a positive lock on the transport, disrupt its warp drives, and start shooting. I move in to give it a bump out of alignment, as the ship looks to be trying to flee, and turn to give a second bump as it continues back towards the tower, but this one's not needed. The pilot only warps away in his pod, away from the wreck of his exploding Viator transport.
That was fun, and a spot of luck. And as well as the expensive transport kill I even bag a cov-ops cloaking device from the wreck, along with the obligatory expanded cargohold. I suppose I've killed the system's activity now, though, but at least I did it by killing a ship. I suppose I may as well hang around to scan the system quickly, not that I'm expecting to find anything, before moving on.
6 Responses to “Getting a second go at a gooer”
What an idiot. He certainly doesn't know how to fly a Viator. I have no sympathy for his loss... well, I do a little but damn, he could have been more cautious. Flying to the next POCO uncloaked? Really? Landing at zero? Really? Cargo expanders instead of nanofibers? Really? Use an Itty V if you're going to do stupid things like that Mr. Carebear. Your wallet will thank you. The ship is only as capable as its pilot. Thanks for reinforcing the lesson Penny.
The kill is here: https://zkillboard.com/detail/31609586/
Personally I don't find the fit all that awful. I mean, this is planet-gooing. Most planets' goo takes up a fair amount of volume, and without expansion a blockade runner would have to make multiple trips.
He definitely ought to have cloaked, at least. And given that this was post-Odyssey, he should have noticed the new sig and never have been gooing in the first place.
I don't think Mabrick's complaining about the fit as much as it being the wrong ship for the task, or bad piloting for the ship.
The benefits of the blockade runner are its agility and ability to cloak, so use them. Drop short, cloaked, in a pre-made bookmarked spot that lets you align to another planet. Approach the POCO, decloak, move goods, warp. The blockade runner will be naturally hard to catch, but you will need to make more trips.
The deep space transport, on the other hand, has the cargo space to carry more if you want to make fewer trips. It doesn't have the agility or cloak of the blockade runner, but makes up for it with increased warp core strength and a bigger tank. In this case, warp to the POCO at zero, goo away, and return the way you came. If someone engages, ignore them. Add one warp core stabiliser to thwart the three-point scram without compromising your cargo space too much, and you should be okay against a single ambusher.
Basic T1 industrial ships are so cheap they are pretty much thought of as being disposable. I think the general advice if one gets caught is to transfer the goo back to the POCO and be prepared to get your pod clear.
So, yeah, I would agree that the pilot was either using the wrong ship, or piloting the right ship poorly. But don't tell the gooers, or I'd end up with no more kills ever.
All of that is good advice. Truly it is the hunter who knows best what prey ought to do.
I have gooed in both DSTs and T1, and of those I find the T1 superior for its disposability and large cargo hold, and also its speed. Deep Space Transports are really slow.
I do feel sad for you, Penny, inasmuch as after Odyssey 1.1 you may cease getting many gooer kills. We will have the awesome Iteron III, which -- unrigged! -- will carry 45000+m^3 of PI goods, with +3 warp core stabilization and a damage control. I think they overshot with this (and the other dedicated carriers), and I complained as much to Jester, to no evident effect. But that's what is coming.
I agree with the comments. Using a Viator for PI hauling and _not_ cloaking is dumb and deserves killing.
I use Viators for high-value trips in/out of WHs. For all PI runs I use an Itty IV or V and - where possible, a Falcon warping in parallel as backup. Making perches above / below POCOS for the falcon to land is easy enough.
Lastly, we tell all our recruits never, ever to warp directly from the POS to a POCO but to a safespot first, cloak for a minute (reset extractors, exporting goo can be done while cloaked after all) before going for the real PI run.
Lastly, Gerandor from Zhundult taught us a genius trick. When you kill a PI hauler who has PI in the hold, you likely dont have cargo space in your bomber / T3. So, just throw it into the victim's own POCO and pick it up later. In a Viator :)
Yeah, I saw some of the proposed changes to the industrial ships. I can see why CCP wants to change them, to move away from the skill progression-based ships to role-based ships, but it seems they are taking a rather blinkered approach to the changes.
If I didn't know any better, I'd say CCP has proposed changes whilst considering only the industrial ships themselves and what roles they can play, and not the roles that industrial ships can play in the wider game, including getting caught and ganked.
Well, let's see what happens when the changes go live. I may never catch another gooer again, but perhaps that could be the positive change that convinces me to pursue other activities.