Cruising the Placid - Hurricane Style

Last Sunday night the Hurricane experiment started and let's just say it was an ignominious start.

I went out and cruised lower Placid looking for trouble but quickly came to the realization that on Sunday nights at least this part of space is dead. I saw a few faces in local but rarely any ships on directional scanner. I did give chase to a Vexor cruiser at one point but he outpaced me.

I then headed north to upper Placid and things immediately started looking up. And got horribly off the rails.

I dropped into Oulley and warped to the Orvolle gate. While sitting there I was using the directional scanner to look around and narrowed a Thanatos to possibly sitting on a station. Curious, I selected the station in my scan window and clicked on the jump button.

Confused? So was I when I realized my ship jumped instead of warped. In my foolishness I thought that selecting the station in the scan window was going to act like selecting it in the overview and change the active buttons. Of course it does not so I still had the Orvolle gate selected when I jumped instead of warped. Well, faction police in high sec just LUV to see me.

I went back to base and got a new Hurricane and went back to upper Placid, avoiding Oulley and the harsh lesson it served there, and in Renarelle things got interesting. I warped to the Vlillirier gate and landed just as a Rapier jumped in and a Loki cloaked. I wasn't sure if they were working together so I jumped through into Vlillirier and found myself on gate with a Slepnier. I quickly opted to reapproach gate and sat there for a few seconds while I saw what the command ship was going to do. Eventually he tried ramming me off gate and I jumped. He jumped as well but I had the initiative and quickly reapproached gate again (no sign of Loik or Rapier) and jumped through back into Vlillirier and made my escape as the Slepnier followed too slow.

On the Aldranette gate I landed and found myself with another Hurricane. "That's more like it!" I thought to myself, but hesitated when I saw it was an FCON pilot. "Hmmm, null sec pilots rarely cruise low sec alone," I mused, but it was getting to the end of my night and all I had to show for it was a loss to faction NPCs. He locked me up but didn't engage, and we orbited each other at 1000 meters, a dance that was pleasant to watch while neither was firing. I couldn't attack first as the gate guns would put me out for certain... so I waited.

Red box. I'm pointed so I open up ready to fight and ... lock drops? What the hell? DAMN! ECM drones. And the gate flashes and local climbs as the rest of the FCON gang hops in. I know I'm dead so I concentrate on getting the pod out. I chatted for a bit with the FCON gang in local, congratulating them on the nice trap and then log out, a bit despondent.

LESSONS LEARNED

- pay attention to what I'm clicking
- lower Placid is dead, upper Placid a lot more active.
- bait Hurricane is bait. Get eyes on other side first.
- ECM drones are only awesome when they yours.