Cruising The Placid - Part II

Last week I cruised lower Placid and had no luck. Would this week be better in upper Placid?

Well, I needed to do some logistics first. Half my stuff was still in Chardalane including the Wyvern and I wanted to move it to my base in Pelille. And I purchased a Chimera for BMTHOKK2 next month at a great price and wanted to get it to base as well. So I spent an hour loading up and moving stuff, getting cynos in place, and eventually everything was moved with only the loss of my cyno kestrel.

Then I clone jumped to a clone with less expensive implants and got in the Myrmidon for another roam, this time heading north from Ostingele instead of south. For those not familiar with Placid region, its contiguous low sec is in two major blocks - north and south - connected by a choke point through Vey and Frarie systems. Here is a map with the high sec systems removed.

Placid Low Sec

I started out heading towards Agoze and the systems behind it as I did not cruise there last week, and heading north from there. Again, I was looking for low sec ratters and again I did not find any. I wonder if the introduction of wormholes lured all the casual PvE pilots away in the intervening years since I last roamed Placid solo, offering space with greater reward and less chance of being preyed upon. I did run across a couple Dramiels on gates at different times but knew my slow battlecruiser lacked the speed to catch one.

With no luck in the Intaki region I crossed the choke point without issue and immediately thought I was going to have better luck. A Thrasher passed me at a gate in Eugales and did not warp to another gate and did not disappear from scan. As I was trying to track it down, a Rifter, Jaguar, and two Caldari Navy Hookbills joined it. I rubbed my hands in anticipation, ready to charge in and try to kill or scatter these frigates.

But... they were in a Faction warfare site that allowed cruisers and smaller through the acceleration gate. CURSES!

I jumped into Moclinamaud and found a Tengu on scan. As I got closer, a Manticore appeared. And an Ishkur! A tough fight to be sure, but if I could get the drop on them... They too were in a Faction Warfare site but one that allowed all ship types. I warped in and there was the Tengu and Manticore... over 70 km away and surrounded by NPCs.

Now I'm not sure if the FW NPCs in there would have shot at me or not, but I did not relish the thought of trying to close many kilometers with torpedoes and heavy missiles slamming into me only to have the NPCs take a turn. I left.

A bit frustrated now and running out of time, I decided to head home. In Frarie I saw a Stilleto on scan as I warped to the Vey gate. He spoke up in local, recognizing me from my blog and we exchanged Hi's. I landed on the gate and watched him jump through.

At this point, I'm 90% sure there is a camp on the other side because the Placid Low Sec Choke Point Tradition almost demands it. The smart thing to do would have been to safe up and log off. What did I do? Hell yeah, I jumped.

The camp on the other side was not massive, but at least 10 to 1 odds and lots of big heavy battleships. My hopes of living long enough to take something juicy down with me are dashed and I tried to crash the gate only to die in a fire still 2000 meters from jumping. I got my pod out and headed back to Pelille to lick my wounds and plan my revenge.

At least it was a step up from last week.

Next week I think I'll try something a bit smaller so I can crash some of those faction warfare sites if I find some frigs running them.