Kills of the Week

"The gankers are harassing, bullying, griefing, torturing...!" Rabid anti-Code carebears squeal many such things. The truth is that the bot-aspirants are busy destroying themselves. Our Agents merely give them a little nudge and help themselves to any loot that drops. Want proof? Look no further than these kills from the week of June 23rd @ 00:00 EVEtime through June 29th @ 23:59 EVEtime...

KILLMAIL

Sironis Kahoudi brought his unfit 4.5 billion isk battleship to Niarja. He practically offered himself up as a killmail to Agents Ksenya PROXY and FEAR Sotken. Why did Sironis do this? Look at his corp's name: We Mine it You buy it. No, friend, you mine it--we gank it.

KILLMAIL

Kat Agaton's Dominix is an interesting one. You see those six red-tagged modules? Those are Abyssal mods. zKillboard doesn't reflect the ship's true value because it estimates the price of Abyssal modules at 0.01 isk. Alas, Agents Aiko Danuja, Shadow Cyrilus, Alt 00, Alleil Pollard, Ange des Larmes, and Shadow Pearl are thus robbed of proper credit for the value of the kill. How much was this kill actually worth? If you have an idea, leave a comment.

KILLMAIL

Jita continues to be a fertile hunting ground for our Agents. Sales Alt negrodamus foolishly AFK'ed her 29.5 billion isk jump freighter right into the loving embrace of a gank fleet. With nearly 20 billion isk worth of loot recovered from this gank, Agents Joshua Kusion, Jared Kusion, Jack Kusion, Dubious Anime Name, Jayden Kusion, big brutor two, Bob Mechanic, Bob Painter, Mjolnir Rage Torpedo, big brutor one, Johnathan Kusion, Joel Kusion, Jake Kusion, Open Your Heart, Inspector Implant, George Painter, Bob Electrician, Jason Kusion, Bob Welder, Ilvari, Charlie Painter, Further Painting, big brutor six, Jonas Kusion, Nova Rage Torpedo, Jaiden Kusion, Dan Painter, Continue Painting, Yojiro, Homoerotic Finger Painting, Succulent Spodumain, FidgetSpinning, and Miraille will have plenty more Taloses to use.

Conveniently, they can buy all those Taloses right there in Jita.

Ganking freighters has always been the best way to structure-bash.

KILLMAIL

For a long time now, carebears too afraid to use freighters in highsec have been relying on Deep Space Transports. Now, predictably, they're fattening up the DSTs beyond all reason. BalmungS managed to lose 16 billion isk to just three gankers: Agents Votre Dieu, Narl' Amhar, and Astrid Tyrfing.

KILLMAIL

Speaking of bling: Phantom Matter lost an 8.5 billion isk Rorqual when he received a surprise visit from a New Order diplomatic mission. The mighty CODE. alliance gets some of its finest kills in nullsec these days, thanks to brave warriors like Agents WaTeR Ubersnol, Jeronyx, NateX, cuffdawg, Blaran Falsnar, Cijah Dorin, and Beandog.

Don't tell the highsec miners, though--they'll get jealous. I don't think they really mean it when they tell our heroes to "go to nullsec".

KILLMAIL

You see what I mean about ridiculous DSTs? Albinus Brutus is another example, losing 13.7 billion isk in a Mastodon. Inexcusably, he was idling near the Niarja chokepoint. Agents Astrid Tyrfing, Rungerd, Narl' Amhar, and Votre Dieu easily dealt with Albinus by using a few Tornadoes.

Triglavians? Psssh.

Halaima Miracle, Part 2

Previously, on MinerBumping... An incredible event took place in Halaima, the birthplace of the Code. A blingy Skiff and an Orca piloted by Unflinching Savior and The Ore Hunter CONCORDed themselves during an altercation with Cynthia Rotsuda.

The brief post-CONCORD conversation between Cynthia and The Ore Hunter/Unflinching Savior concluded. It was safe to say that no friendships had been made.

The fact that Ore Hunter/Unflinching was a permit owner practically guaranteed that some sort of investigation would take place. Little by little, details emerged. Cynthia had been "bumping" miners using a Heron frigate.

Said frigate was damaged--but not killed--when attacked by the Skiff and Orca, which were CONCORDed before they could complete their deadly mission.

News of the incident reached the ears of Agent Aiko Danuja, who took responsibility for Unflinching's reimbursement claim.

An EVEmail chain ensued. Unflinching was hostile toward Aiko; he assumed she was an alt of Cynthia.

The miner was reluctant to share the in-game CONCORD killmails. However, Aiko stuck to her guns.

Unflinching relented, providing Aiko links to the subpoenaed killmails. That's why we are able to share these extraordinary images.

Even a kill on zKillboard can, in theory, be faked. But with access to the in-game killmails, there was absolutely no doubt that the Skiff and Orca kills--however unbelievable they were--had indeed occurred. Aiko promised to investigate the incident as her top priority.

Unflinching was relieved. At the same time, though, he realized that his previous behavior had not helped his cause. He moved quickly to rectify the situation by sending an apology to Aiko--and a detailed account to the Saviour of Highsec himself.

What followed was Unflinching's side of the story. Would the miner be honest--or would he be tempted to spin things in his own favor?

Two points of interest: First, we have testimony from a licensed miner that buying a mining permit reduces one's chances of being ganked by members of the mighty CODE. alliance. (Cue tears from the Anti-Ganking crowd, if they're still around.)

Second, Unflinching claimed that Cynthia made an announcement in local before bumping him with the Heron.

More pieces of the puzzle came together: Unflinching apparently assumed that if his drones fired upon Cynthia's ship without destroying it, CONCORD would not respond.

A costly mistake that one would think a MinerBumping reader wouldn't make.

The miner recounted a version of the conversation between himself and Cynthia. It was incomplete, to say the least.

Some questions were answered, but others remained. And the Halaima system's hunger for justice was not yet satisfied.

To be continued...

Halaima Miracle, Part 1

Life is complicated. So is highsec.

Consider the case of Unflinching Savior. He owns a mining permit--two, actually. Apparently the Goons' Ministry of Love sells permits, too.

Unflinching's alt, The Ore Hunter, also has his paperwork in order. Though his character name does not inspire confidence, he claims to be an "outfitter of destruction". That's something, I suppose.

Next, we add Cynthia Rotsuda to the mix. Judging by her bio, she is a troubled youth. Cynthia is not affiliated with either of the gentlemen whose profiles are pictured above. But this is EVE. Their fates were bound together by the force of destiny.

Speaking of the force of destiny!

Cynthia traveled to Halaima, the birthplace of the Code. Regardless of Cynthia's past, she felt compelled to visit the famous system to see it for herself. While she was there, she was inspired to speak the truth in local chat.

What happened at 23:20 on that day in Halaima would become the subject of a heated controversy--and a mystery to be solved by those charged with investigating it.

The permit-owning miner lost a 609 million isk Skiff equipped with ORE Ice Harvesters. There's no question that CONCORD did the deed. We have the killmails. Yes, "killmails", plural.

...For at that same moment, an Orca was also destroyed.

CONCORD was responsible for the Orca's destruction, as well.

What happened? Well, whatever else may be said, those two ships--each belonging to a permit-owning miner--blew up in Halaima when they were shot by the NPC police. Those are facts. They left wrecks behind.

...And that's where things get complicated.

But, as I said, this is highsec.

When it comes to navigating life in highsec, there's only one guiding light: the Code.

Time for our Agents to get to work.

To be continued...

All He Had

His bio advertised a corporation with "relaxing mining". But somewhere along the line, Dragoncrusher Kei came to the conclusion that the Code is the only way forward for highsec.

Maybe it's because he saw people flying ships like this.

After Agent Dragoncrusher glanced in the general direction of volzaar narish's anti-tanked monstrosity, the ship blew up. volzaar couldn't believe it.

Our Agent didn't even need to gank the miner/hauler; he was AFK with an active kill right.

According to valzaar, his carelessness cost him everything he possessed in EVE. Among highsec carebears who violate the Code, this is a common fate. It makes you wonder why anyone would risk disobeying the Code. (The answer is bot-aspirancy.)

volzaar claimed total innocence--and ignorance. The kill right must've been generated by mistake.

Dragoncrusher suspected that there was more to this doe-eyed newbie's story. Two days earlier, volzaar had attacked another ship in highsec. Hence the kill right.

No EVE player is so new that he can't tell an Agent the whole truth. volzaar had a lot of explaining to do. For starters, what was the real reason he didn't own a permit?

The miner's first thought upon looking at my profile wasn't "what a handsome face" or "there's the man of destiny". Instead, his first thought was isk-related. That is a red flag.

(In case you were curious about the bounty.)

The mind of a miner tends to drift. Our Agents work hard to keep them focused on the task at hand.

Agent Dragoncrusher gave the miner specific instructions. Would volzaar follow them, or would he concoct some one-sided nonsense to send to the Saviour of Highsec?

I've long advocated for Code-related information to be added to the EVE tutorial. But newbies frequently complain about not having enough isk to buy a permit anyway. Should CCP/Pearl Abyss add a mining permit to the new account "starter pack"? Instead of selling skill points to newbies, they could make it so that 10 million isk is automatically forwarded to me each time someone buys a starter pack.

Seems like it would be a solid addition to the new player experience, no?