First Rifter Down

Well yesterday I moved from my home of Dodixie to the Minmatar hub Hek. Here I started experimenting with my Directional Scanner.

I've always had problems with the D-Scanner so I really wanted to work this problem out. I set my overview to include ships, asteroid belts and cargo containers. If you don't get the subtle hints and what I was trying to do I'll just come right out and say I was can flipping. This is pretty much the most basic form of piracy known to Eve. What you have to do is find a ship jet can mining (jettison ore to fill a 'jet can' which holds a large capacity compared to your cargohold) and essentially steal the ore which he's put into it. I thought this would be a great place to start my piracy career as I could pick and choose which targets I wanted to attack.

I spent an hour or two just scanning down cargo containers or individual ships until I felt comfortable using the D-Scanner at last. I used my new skill to track down a target that I though would present me with little challenge, a retriever. Wow was this a bad idea. I flipped his ore into my jet-can and he responded by sicking his warrior II drones on me. The battle was pretty even at the beginning. I hit orbit at 500 and started unloading my measly tech I autocannons on him. His drones were his source of damage but I really had no idea how to deal with them. Eventually I took him down to about half armour, he was pretty brittle compared to what I thought he'd be but his drones were too much. I simply didn't have an answer for them.

The battle was over in less than a minute, my first Rifter was turned into dust and I quickly escaped in my pod.

Post Battle Thoughts

Although I thought this would be an easy kill I wasn't prepared for his combat drones. I really need to find a way to get rid of these things before they take me out, I assume once they're out of the picture my kill will be an easy one.

Perhaps flying away from them, hitting my afterburner, and picking them off one by one would work, although that would mean I would have to turn my attention from my target possibly letting him warp to safety. I'm going to have to do some serious research to combat this in the future.