Good-bye Pod. Hello Clone!

I have been podded for the first time.

Should I be proud that I have managed to avoid being podded for nearly fours years, or does it just switch on the big 'Carebear' neon light?

Regardless, I'm pleased with the way I went down: fighting.

Our C2 static for the day was very active. There were six POS's, and most of them were full of nothing but industry structures. Their 'home' POS contained an active Tengu and Loki. I sat and watched them for a while, but with all the industry that was going on (I've never seen so many Silo's on D-Scan!) I decided they were too busy to worry about a couple of ships passing through. Their system had a few shiny signatures and anomalies, but it would be suicide to harvest from an active 'Hole. I went ahead and scanned the sigs and found a C1 branching off. It was also active. By this point I'd had enough of scanning, so went on to other things.

My CEO opened up comms with the inhabitant of the C1. They were new to Wormholes, but friendly. He ended up harvesting the Ladar sites there while I took advantage of our static Low-Sec's proximity to Jita. He harvested the clouds into cans and went back in his Badger to collect them. On his return he got jumped by the inhabitants of the middle 'Hole. He managed to warp away, but they had put up a warp-bubble on their side of the Wormhole. He stayed cloaked in the C1 while I charged across in my bomber. There was a Hurricane sat next to the 'Hole for the C1. I got in range (which took me into the bubble) and fired a bomb. His shields dropped and he began targeting me before I could re-cloak. My first priority was to get out of the bubble, so I tried to turn. However, he quickly gained ground and webbed and nueted me. I opened fire with my torpedo's, but with no cap I couldn't use my target-painters or sensors-damps. My speed was also reduced to about 140m/s. However, even through all this, his turrets couldn't track me. I was getting hit for very little damage while my trusty torps stripped his armour.

I was going to win!

With my heart pounding in my chest I abandoned the idea of getting out of the bubble and started to orbit the Hurricane. I was like a puppy around a new toy as I watched his armour-bar turn more and more red. Then a Drake warped in. My hopes were sucked dry from me as his Corp-mate targeted me. Knowing it was going to be over very soon, I started towards the Drake. By now, my bomb launcher was ready to go again, so I hoped to fire one at the Battlecruiser in my dying breath. It didn't happen. My Manticore popped and I was a pod floating in space. I selected a planet and spammed the warp-button. Nothing. I was still in the bubble.

Damn.

After a few alarm's sounded I was back in Ichoriya. I checked my Combat-Log and opened up a conversation:

Hamlox Helmholtz: Howdy
Akinesis: gf, man
Hamlox Helmholtz: Thanks, man. You were wailing on me in that Manticore!
Akinesis: Yup :D
Akinesis: I thought I had a chance, but then the Drake showed up and it was all over =P
Hamlox Helmholtz: I was a bit surprised... all of the sudden it turned into "Oh, S***!"
Hamlox Helmholtz: Yeah... my damned guns couldn't hit you.
Akinesis: I should have got out the bubble to save my pod, but I was too determined XD
Akinesis: =)
Hamlox Helmholtz: Bloodthirsty, yeah!
Hamlox Helmholtz: Good fight to you, see you around!


I'd made a lot of mistakes (as is expected from being so green at PvP), but I had great fun. I learned a lot from that short experience, and I'm glad the guy thought I was a good challenge. But the biggest disappointment was my CEO got disconnected while this went on, making my distraction useless. Still, I feel I gained a lot more than I lost.

After I stroked my mission-running Scorpion Navy Issue a few times in Ichoriya, I set destination to Jita and un-docked. I rebuilt my Manti, plugged in new implants and then went back to the 'Hole 200million ISK lighter.

In a way, I'm glad I got podded. The hard-wire implants I had before were fitted a long time ago when I was still a noob.  I can't even remember what I had, but I most likely had ones that weren't really aiding my character. And I had never thought of going back and upgrading them. After a small bit of research, I bought ones that actually give me bonuses relative to my play-style.

My losses also furthered this very morning. I had some reading-up to do for my course, so I took the Covetor into a Grav site to suck up some ABC ores. I always keep a watchful eye on D-Scan, but as I was reading I was pretty much AFK. At one point I saw some Core-probes pop up, so I got my Buzzard and did a combat scan. With no probes popping up, I made the decision that this WH was no use to the probing pilot (we keep our system very dry). So I pulled my Covetor back out and went back to mining. I even turned my speakers down so the strip-miners wouldn't bother me (!). The rest you can guess. It's times like this that I'm thankful I left the Hulk in Empire.

RIP Covvy!