Antikythera Elements for Sale… 1 ISK Only!!!

~or “Runnin Sleepers in Hisec, Who'da Ever Thunk It?…”

I have been having a ball in Hisec… bet those of you who know me, or actually read the stuff what comes from my brain, never thought you’d hear that from me, but it’s true…

You see I base out of Amarr when in Empire and last weekend I was in the hole solo and I scanned a hellishly long pipe out to Empire and made a store run to Amarr to sell my PI wares. I had thousands of Supercomputers, Robotics, Consumer Electronics and a smattering of over produced P2s to sell… enough to fill a fully canned and Cargo fit Prowler… vurry nice semi passive income to say the least.

Anyhoo, so while in Empire I decided to see to rounding up some of the last of my ships and goods as were still strewn here and there around the ‘verse and try to get them in the hole. These are all the leftovers from the Big Move into our new C4 homehole. Over in Mormoen I had a Mastodon and a shit tonne of GSC’s (Giant Secure Cans) full of PI and a crap load of mods plus a couple of ships so I trundled on out that way inna Prowler as I knew I had some high value stuffs and wanted to get them in to market too.

So I get out there and I’m gettin’ the Mast and Prowler loaded up and squared away when I discover a very particular SSC, Small Secure Can… one that has, well let’s just say it’s worth more than the ships and all the other CAN’s combined shall we? Hrm… Now while Prowlers cannot be cargo scanned, or because Prowlers cannot be cargo scanned, they sometimes fall prey to ganks on the off chance they are hauling something really valuable… like a SSC worth its weight in PLEX, and no, that is not what I had in the SSC… I don’t ever EVER transport PLEX… I am amazed that anyone ever does, no matter the reason.

That said, so I have this really godsawful expensive SSC I need to safely move to Amarr… so I bought a Crusader ‘ceptor and fitted it for SlipperySpeed… IE fast to warp plus just fast. But I lost the lows to the x3 Cargo Expander IIs needed to carry the 100m3 CAN… that cost me some slippery an’ some fast but not too much as she worked just fine when I finally made the trip safely to Amarr… Yes ‘made’ as in past tense so no one needs to waste time camping the route.  =P

Anyhoo, while I am doing all of this I am also as usual following them as I follow in the blogshere and Neville Smit, of NevilleSmit.com (go figger) recently posted a nice little write up, Bits and Pieces: April 2015, in which he gave us this…

“The lore also makes me want to try some new - and possibly very stupid - things. For example, I'm off to hunt Circadian Seeker cruisers today, to see if I can collect some Antikythera Elements without getting zapped by a Drifter Battleship. I'll share how that goes in a future post.”

Hm, uh, er, hm. I make my daily bread killing Sleepers in Anoikis… and ever since the Seekers first appeared in Empire space they have not really attracted much of my attention other than the very cool ‘whatthehellisCCPuptonow??’ factor, which was plenty good IMHO. But this was the first I had heard that they has started dropping stuff worth killing, and possibly dying for…

Well, it turned out one of the ships I had in Mormoen was one of my Sleeper Ishtars, schweet. I had her broke down and crated for the move so I broke ‘er out and fit ‘er up with what I felt it might take to handle Seekers, CAP stable w/ MWD off, active shield, 26k EHP, 70/82/94/77 resists and our std Gecko/Hammer II/x3 Hobgob IIs Sleeper drone setup. The tank is designed to let me kill the Seekers and also to ‘potentially’ buy me the time needed to GTFO if/when a Drifter drops on me while farming his little seeker pals… IF I’m flying smart and on the bounce that is… big ‘IF’ that…

So I’m ready and I undock… and lo and behold there is a Jove Observatory in Mormoen!! I do the warping back-n-forth thing make some pounce BMs at 160km at the station and at 200km at the Jove Observatory... then I warped into the site, 5 Seekers spawn and I go in hot...

Now here’s the fun… the Seekers do not react in set piece ways all the time, they are tough but not too tough, fast but not too fast... and they sometimes warp off if you break contact OR they sometimes follow you if you warp off!! And they will re-engage! At one point I decided to refit as they were outrunning my heavier droans and it was taking longer than I liked to break them.

So after downing 3 of the Seekers I broke contact and warped to the station pounce… and the remaining Seekers followed, landed and engaged me! I fought the same spawn at the Jove Spike and at the Station!! Schweet! I settle with the last 2 Seekers, dock up, refit to add a Web, go out and scoop the Antikythera Elements (AKEs) drop them in station and warp back out to the Jove Spike.

I piddle around a bit at the Jove Spike but no spawn to I go back to station and fiddle with my fit a bit more… go a few hops out n back to get some other mods to try, that done I head back to the Jove Spike and… 6 Seekers spawn! Hells yes! I go in and orbit close to use the web and now things are going a bit better.

One of the things that makes this so much fun is the constant and very real fear of the Drifter HotDrop... I have watched the videos and read the killmails and battle reports… Drifters kill capitols… while the Ishtar is good it aint THAT good!! So I am trying to really watch the sky but... as I am finishing off the last Seeker my attention is focused on… in order; order drones IN, burn in to the wreck, align out, loot the MTU, scoop the MTU…

So while I’m trying to do all this a Drifter spawns and I don’t realize he’s there until I get hit… but Drifter weapons fire is very distinctive and I know immediately that that’s what I’m getting hit with! But luckily I had already aligned to my pounce so I spam warp and he only gets one more hit on me before I went to warp and broke contact… but even then…

Yup… 2 hits, stripped off all shields and armor and 9% of my hull... But I DID make it out validating my mathing that the tank I had devised just might last long enough to get me out IF I was flying smart and on the bounce… and I was.

So I land at the pounce, the Drifter targets me and goes red as I go to warp to the station to repair… but the station I am in does not have repair facilities. So I undock and… He’s there… EEP! I reflexively dock up until I realize I have full shields again, still no armor and 91% hull though… so I played dock games with the Drifter for a little then warp off and find a repair station.

Now back when the Drifter had spawned I had not made pickup on the MTU as it had been pulling in the last wreck when I warped out… So I head back out for the last Seeker Drop and that MTU and damn near got caught by the Drifter again... He spawned in the site as I landed at the pounce 200km out… he warped out as I warped in I grabbed the MTU and passed him again on my way out… LOL!!

I ran another spawn a bit later so that night I ran 2 spawns of 2 waves each and scooped a total of 9 Antikythera Elements (AKEs) for an ingame estimate of 12.6m ISK each... potentially 113.4m ISK!! oh hells yeah!!! Simply the BEST and most lucrative pure FUN I have had doing anything, much less solo PvE, in Hisec in YEARS!!!!

Oh and the title? Yea that… the next night I flew to Amarr and the actual sell price for AKEs was 13,899,999.99 ISK… I was gonna put mine up for 13,899,000.00… so I typed “1” and my pinky hit the “enter” key…

<facepalm>  I got 9.00 ISK.  =\

But… derping aside… really really nice job CCP... have a cookie. =]

Fly reckless and see you in the Sky =/|)=