In a previous post I told you about how I had lost a ship whilst hunting MTUs, after being hunted down by another player. In this post I would like to cover the instances in which I have lost ships to NPCs (rats) whilst out hunting.
Rogue Drones
These are nasty little blighters, dangerous too, something I learned the hard way. It would be my own impatience in the end though, that cost me a ship.
This loss comes from my early days of MTU hunting, back in those days I had just started using my alt in her battleship to take out the rats surrounding MTUs in active missions. The main problem with doing that though is having to jump a slow old battleboat, upwards of 30 jumps at times, across highsec.
I had found an MTU in the lesser-travelled system of Stou that was surrounded by rogue drones. That wasn’t all though, there was also a player wreck right next to it, a cruiser wreck, and I wanted it. Not wanting to jump my alt’s ship a very long way through highsec to meet me, I decided to fit a mission-capable ship in Dodixie, the nearest trade hub, and try to take these things out myself.
Bzzt… 01101100 01101111 01101100
Perhaps the fact that another player had already succumbed to these things should have been enough warning, but when it comes to MTUs I can often find myself becoming blinkered. I warped in at range to hopefully pull some of the drones away from the MTU, only to find only some would aggress at a time, purely based on proximity. I took a few out, and took a lot of damage, I actually had to warp out and back in again a couple of times to avoid dying, and on the third warp-in my luck ran out. I had pulled too many, lingered too long, and the damage was too great.
Kill: Pix Severus (Thorax)
After that, I did what I should have done from the start, and warped my alt in her battleship all the way out there to delete those drones. With that done, the MTU was free to pop.
Kill: Clarissia Nai’lo (Mobile Tractor Unit)
You can see the remains of Clarissia’s ship here in this MTU, but not my own wreck, as I died too far out from the MTU’s tractor range.
This was my second-ever ship loss in the pursuit of MTU destruction. Lesson learned?
The Burner
In this case, I lost the ship I had first started hunting MTUs in, a Raptor named “ur mum lol”, to an elite NPC. I had scanned an MTU down in Inder, and saw that there was a player wreck next to it, this meant that the MTU was most likely filled with the remains of that player wreck, and I wanted it, I wanted it bad.
After scanning it down in my Hecate, I warped to it and when I landed I saw an acceleration gate that told me I could only bring Frigates through. I then knew that this was an Anomic mission, which contains very powerful NPCs called Burners. Knowing how dangerous those things are, I had second thoughts about proceeding, but I didn’t want to just leave it there though. I thought to myself “What if those things don’t start shooting you until you get into range, or make an aggressive move against it?” I grabbed my Raptor and headed back to test this theory out, and I learned the hard way that Burners auto-aggro.
Kill: Pix Severus (Raptor)
Not-so-clever girl.
If I come across any more MTUs left in Burner missions in the future, I will just bookmark the MTU, and make a note to come back after downtime, when the mission should have despawned.
I’m not the first MTU hunter to lose a ship to a Burner, and I’m sure I won’t be the last. If you’re thinking of taking up this profession, consider this a forewarning.
That covers all my NPC deaths thus far whilst pursuing MTU devastation. From these deaths I’ve learned to be a little more patient whenever I find an MTU surrounded by rats. I’ll make sure to keep you updated on any further costly mistakes I make, as it is all just part of the journey.
MTU Hunter 