The Origin of Honour Tanking

You ever hear someone talk about "honour tanking" in a joking manner in Eve? Essentially it means to have no tank whatsoever in a combat situation and is especially relevant if your low slots are filled with cargohold expanders.

Do you wonder where that expression came from? Well, let me point you to an Eve Tribune article I'm going to reprint here for prosperity's sake.

Scius and the Dreadnaught

The tale of the worst pilot in Eve

Many people call themselves great PVPers for a number of reasons. Some point to amazing killboard statistics, while others boast about how many systems their troops have conquered. Others snicker and roam about with dampening warp stabbed ravens and somehow absolutely murder people.

This is not their story.

This is the story of Scius, which upon Friday, August 24 was a proud member of Omen Incorporated, a new corporation that had joined the 0.0 based alliance Exuro Mortis. He was well regarded with a fairly decent corp history stretching back quite a while. He had a pretty fair amount of personal wealth, and could fly a Dreadnaught. A player like this normally would be quite an asset to any alliance.

Nobody knew that he was a complete and utter noob with an account he purchased from a respected veteran. Nobody also knew that he’d be such a world class fuckup.

Early that morning, he flew his faction-equipped Nightmare-class Faction Battleship (With 5 Billion Isk Officer Fittings) into Aunenen, a notoriously dangerous 0.4 security system. He didn’t use a scout or even ask what was there. He somehow got caught and killed by a Mothership on the other side after foolishly trying to engage it. Never once did the thought of warping off before the horribly awkward ship could lock and get a warp disruptor on him. Never once did he think of flying back to the gate and going home. He went down like a bitch.

Later, he would comment on it casually onto alliance chat.
[02:21:32] Scius > There's a mothership camp in Aunenen.
[02:23:35 ] Scius > Mr Xtreme
[02:23:43 ] Scius > He has the Nyx.

Okay. Fair enough. Thanks for telling us what was going on 90 jumps from where the rest of the alliance was. We don’t care.

[02:23:49] Scius > I went out with my dread and went down shooting.
…

http://killboard.eve-triumvirate.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=51051
What the fuck!?

This heroic defender of the alliance had apparently become filled with rage at the destruction of his precious faction-fit battleship. He singlehandedly charged a single, unsupported Dreadnaught against a lowsec, completely invincible Mothership. And while he was at it, that Revelation-class Dreadnaught had nothing but cargo expanders in it’s low slots.

Flabbergasted, the alliance responded to his actions in throwing away a Capital Ship.
[ 2007.08.24 02:24:34 ] Righteous Fury > you
[ 2007.08.24 02:24:38 ] Righteous Fury > are fucking retarded
[ 2007.08.24 02:24:46 ] Akat > doesnt fucking matter, you dont do that shit
[ 2007.08.24 02:24:46 ] Scius > Why, because I'm not a coward?
[ 2007.08.24 02:24:55 ] Righteous Fury > get out of my fucking alliance, seriously
[ 2007.08.24 02:25:03 ] Righteous Fury > you have won the award for the stupidest shit ever done
[ 2007.08.24 02:25:47 ] Scius > What was I supposed to do after he popped my battleship?
[ 2007.08.24 02:25:49 ] Scius > Just go "ok"
[ 2007.08.24 02:26:13 ] Akat > well you dont throw more isk at them without a support fleet
[ 2007.08.24 02:26:14 ] Yokujin > i agree with RF here m8 =/
[ 2007.08.24 02:26:15 ] Scius > No one wants to come.
[ 2007.08.24 02:26:23 ] Righteous Fury > you know why nobody wants to come?
[ 2007.08.24 02:26:26 ] Righteous Fury > because we are in FOUNTAIN
[ 2007.08.24 02:26:31 ] Righteous Fury > FOUNTAIN IS NOT LONETREK
[ 2007.08.24 02:26:37 ] Righteous Fury > do I need to point you to a fucking map?
[ 2007.08.24 02:26:37 ] Scius > cyno.
[ 2007.08.24 02:27:45 ] Righteous Fury > you intended to kill it…
[ 2007.08.24 02:27:47 ] Righteous Fury > with a single dread
[ 2007.08.24 02:27:52 ] Scius > Hardly.
[ 2007.08.24 02:27:54 ] Akat > then what exactly did you "intend" to do?
[ 2007.08.24 02:28:13 ] Scius > Well, I assumed I would be aided, however, my call was unheard.
[ 2007.08.24 02:28:16 ] Scius > So, I died alone.

That’s right. He was so upset his ship got taken out, that he expected our whole alliance to suddenly get their capital ships up, make four cynosural jumps down, and engage an enemy, untacklable, E-war immune Super Capital in lowsec. All within three minutes. For those of you who don’t do much capital ops, the minimum time for this is easily 30 minutes. Probably closer to an hour. In three minutes, it’d be a bitch to reach him from two systems away, much less 50+.

I am shocked. This man is in my alliance. What was his defense of this blatant stupidity?

[ 2007.08.24 02:28:26 ] Scius > Most alliances I've been in don't take that lightly.
[ 2007.08.24 02:30:59 ] Scius > If you think I am stupid for defending my honor, fine.
[ 2007.08.24 02:35:58 ] Scius > Most alliances would've supported me.

Afterwards, he argued at length that losing 10 Billion isk out of stupitidy is ‘nothing’ to him like a mentally disabled child in denial of doing anything wrong. It goes to show how some people just have way too much RL money, going to buy way too much Eve Isk. He blamed the Alliance for being ‘jealous’ of his wealth, as he proceeded to buy another Dreadnaught. Presumably, he’s going to have that one killed by gate rats or something idiotic later.

[ 2007.08.24 02:39:39 ] Evelgrivion > Evidently, It is our fault that Scius decided to engage a Nyx in low-sec, with a cargo revelation with multiple billions of ISK in modules inside, when we were at minimum 4 cynosural field jumps away from offering backup.

His CEO booted him out of his corp immediately afterwards. For good measure, the guy who referred him to join the corp in question was also booted.

The full unedited Transcript of this ‘superb’ PVPer’s chat can be read here. Trust me, it’s ugly, yet hilarious in it’s own way. Hats off to you, Scius, for defending our honor by being a complete, but amusing moron.

-Aries Acheron

[Apologies for the broken killboard link, I'll see if I can find a replacement... here we go!
Nightmare: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=126530
Revelation: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=126531

The reason a lot of mods are missing is that as the game updates and ids get changed, old killmails with different module names become lost as a result.

EDIT: I got this in my inbox, shame on me.

Hello,

Just read your latest post about the nightmare and Rev, I remember when that happened too.

Just wanted to mention one thing, you said about km's using different id's back then which is completely false.
ID's have not changed at all, back then killmails only showed destroyed items and not items that were dropped, hence only half a ship showing. You should remember this!

Anyway, I enjoy reading your blog so keep up the good work.

Trony

I stand ashamed and corrected.]

When this happened I was in the same corporation as Scius, Omen Incorporated, and I logged in an hour after this and was immediately told "don't say anything in alliance chat! They are furious with us right now" because we let this idiot into our corp and thus tarred the whole alliance with a bad rep.

Our CEO salvaged the situation by tossing Scius and his sponsor out of the corporation but the meme had been created and "honour tanking" is forever part of the game's lexicon.

I was there... sorta. After the fact. But close!