Great escapes! Tell us true tales about escaping the jaws of death for $7

Definitely needed this topic, I'll take the liberty to recount the recent story of a friend and corporation mate, for us it was simply a stroke of genius.

Moving ships from one system to another is quite common, however, moving an Orca is a slightly more complex ritual, as it's a command ship for mining operations support, so it usually doesn't pose much danger, or so the poor victims thought.

The ship was in warp, in the middle of a fairly large system, everything was going as expected, listening to the sweet hum of warp travel, there were only a few seconds left to finish the journey when suddenly a small fleet of 10 T2 Frigates appeared at the gate where the Orca was arriving, and those small ships had enough firepower to destroy it.

Upon reaching the gate, there were only a few seconds to react, so he decided to wait until at least half of the enemies aggressed him, which would prevent them from crossing the gate for 1 minute, thus reducing the DPS he would receive. When his attackers started firing and he saw the opportunity, he crossed the gate and started aligning with the hope of being able to escape before the rest of the aggressors followed, however, the enemies were much more agile and faster so they caught up with him in less than 2 seconds, and here, my dear readers, is where the Orca shows its more aggressive side.

The enemies did not expect the Orca to have more aggressive equipment than usual (let's remember that it's usually a support ship, not for PvP), so without hesitation, he activated his shields and started targeting his aggressors, deployed his first drone and his best card: a Gekko, and coupled with his stasis module and his neutralizers, he slowly began to inflict damage on his aggressors. The combat was at its peak, he quickly managed to kill two of the five frigates, however, his aggressors identified very quickly the drone that was punishing them so hard and went to destroy it, however, this managed to give the advantage to the Orca, which by reducing the DPS it was receiving and while they were killing his drone, managed to shut down two frigates leaving them floating in space unable to do anything, so when he released his new set of drones they were an easy prey, at this point, he had already managed to kill 4 of his 5 aggressors, the last one simply surrendered and asked to be killed, the rest of the fleet crossed and left, not without losing one more frigate that got too close, all the enemy pilots praised his response and how he had managed to escape alone in a situation where he clearly had a numerical disadvantage, while they retreated another player from our corporation approached to care for and escort the mighty war Orca, which managed to escape and give us this incredible story.

The combat was too fast, the mental response of our protagonist was simply spot on, and I consider that I probably wouldn't have thought at that level in just a few seconds.

I also share a screenshot of how the Orca ended up and a link to zkill as evidence of such a magnificent feat.

https://imgur.com/jpYYOFG

Burning Like a Hurricane

To find the following video, I crawled deep into my archive, where the very, very old HDDs are stored. After chasing away some big and ugly spiders, I finally found this record of an occasion that happened in deep Omist. It was a warm day in August 2017, and a heatwave was about to roll in…

This tweet from Arsia Elkin reminded me of the moment, and I had to dig it up.

The best is when you get away from somebody on a heated MWD cycle that burns it out just as you escape.

Today I would have just scram-webbed that Tengu chasing me off the gate and made a safe escape. But back then, C02 was still an entity to be reckoned with; Gates didn’t look as pretty and citadels just had been introduced. And I was in a corporation that consisted of a handful of renters in some dead-end pocket too.

In the video, you can see how I check where my ship is “aligned” to. Little did I know that this doesn’t matter where your ship is facing to when your velocity is 0 before you initiate warp to. The only thing that will influence how fast you warp is the attributes of your ship. Everything else is cosmetic. This is why big ships often “drift” and their models keep turning while entering warp. The numbers are already done calculating, but the looks need to follow suit.

PG 13 comms

https://clips.twitch.tv/EncouragingBlightedBisonPicoMause-WAptvkUX-qZAEVqy

I suspect I may have linked this one before.... but here goes!

We were out on a roam - not just any roam - my signature fleet ShrinkWrapped - it's one of the most deadly NPSI content fleets out there. ShrinkWrapped kills many billions of isk with each roam - i think the most we destroyed in one night was i believe around 35BN isk. We regularly destroy more than 5BN isk per night.

Now this night was no different. I believe we yeeted to behind enemy lines into Delve and destroyed a Rorqual, and the Goons were mad.

I mean M.A.D.

They chased us, and they chased us hard, but just couldnt quite catch us. We were deploying defensive bubbles on out gates, adn warping super quickly, so eventually we managed to leave nullsec to the relative safety of losec to get safe for a break.

Anyhow, we took a short comfort break to stretch legs, refresh beers and so on, with the intention of losing our aggression to take another filament to head out again into null and harass the locals.

After the break, we regrouped and undocked and warped to the sun with the intent of firing a filament.

We piecemeal landed at the sun, and local started changing slightly - the Goonies were watching my stream!

Anyhow, one massive spike later, a quick regroup on the sun for the filament, and click.

Someone wasnt with fleet. Kick.

Click. Click.

Someone didnt have their safety set correctly.

Click.

BUGGER.

Fleet Landed. Click.

Filament up.

Far too close for comfort!

There is a moral to this story - always check your fleet is with you and active after a bio if you intend to take a filament near to hostile space! :D

As someone who typically leans towards PVE, my forays into PVP are rare but intense.

When I undock for a hunt, I go 'full throttle', deploying the most expensive sub-capital ships in the game for a form of combat many disrespect and regarded as dishonest. Yes, I'm a Black Ops-dropper. I always hide my kills to keep off zkillboard’s radar, as its intel could jeopardize my hunts. Constantly changing locations and sometimes even switching characters are necessary to dull the alertness of my prey.

I operate alone, managing several accounts as a small, migrant fleet deep in enemy territory (low and null). Each ship in my fleet, including tacklers, bait, damage dealers, and even the hauler (carrying supplies), is fitted with stealth technology and capable of utilizing Covert Jump Portal Generators or light cyno.

My usual strategy involves hiding in abandoned systems or wormholes. I use scouts to find targets, observing them to understand their patterns before striking. Once everything is set, I seize the unguarded target, light the beacon, and bring my DPS ships right on top of them. The goal is always to strike hard and fast, then disappear before anyone can respond. And as you can imagine, despite my caution and detailed intel, I sometimes fall prey to the mind games of others who try to bait me. One such instance nearly cost me my entire fleet.

The target seemed like a typical carebear pilot, routinely running anomalies and DED complexes in a T3 Loki. After several days of observation, everything seemed routine and safe. But it was a trap. His ship, unexpectedly equipped with XLASB and high EM resistance (unusual for someone hunting Angel Cartel), proved too resilient for my Redeemers. As local filled up and enemy ships swarmed, my main Black Ops began to go down.

In that moment of crisis, I revealed my ace: a magnificent Widow with an apt name 'Plan B.' This ship, equipped with an ECM Burst capable of momentarily disrupting enemy locks, was my last hope. I activated the ECM, broke the warp scramblers, and managed to escape with my entire fleet.

Landing at a safe spot, my hands were shaking. The d-scan was swarming with combat probes, but I cloaked all ships, needing time to calm down. That day's combat report was unimpressive – no kills, one bomber lost. Yet, I considered it a victory, as my prized black ops survived, on the brink of destruction with only 3% structure remaining.

It's moments like these – adrenaline-pumping, sweat-inducing – that remind me why I love EVE Online. It's a game that truly brings such unforgettable experiences.

High risk space truckin'

When hauling 5 billion isk worth of cargo (equivalent to around 50 USD) in a Bustard DST ship through dangerous LowSec systems it is usually a good idea to send a scout in front of you to check that the route is clear

Out of laziness I did not do that for today's hauling trip. A dear mistake I was going to inmediately regret.

The large pirate gatecamp in Tama was like nothing I had ever seen before. Ships of all sizes and configurations were mercilessly camping the gates, scanning every passing vessel for potential targets. My heart pounded in my chest as I realized I had stumbled into a trap.

But I wasn't going down without trying my best. I quickly assessed my options and decided that my best chance of survival lay in making a run back for the gate I had just crossed. I gunned the engines of my ship and plotted a course that would take me through the heart of the gatecamp.

As I approached the gate, my heart sank as I was inmediately stopped to a crawl by warp scramblers and webs. But I gritted my teeth and pushed forward, overheating my abterburner to the maximum of its capacity.

Bullets and missiles whizzed past me as I dodged and ducked. My shields were gone. Armor was about to fail too and damage was breaching the hull, but I refused to give up.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I burst through the the gate and into the relative security of HiSec. I let out a sigh of relief as I checked my surroundings, making sure my ship and its precious cargo were finally safe.

As I made my way to the nearest station to repair my battered ship, I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride in my escape. I had faced down the pirate gatecamp in Tama and come out the other side, a little worse for wear but alive and victorious.