MTU Mailbag 3

It’s that time once again, for me to dig through my backlog of EVEmails and showcase the various comments and questions I receive from pilots across New Eden. Unlike some other hunters out there, I don’t mail the owners of MTUs I have popped, I sit back and let them contact me. I may change this approach in the future though.

It is always nice to receive positive mails such as this one. I have always chosen politeness over smacktalk, even in my ganking days where I would receive nothing but death threats in return. Of course, there is a time and place for smacktalk, for example it can be used as a tool to get someone to undock who otherwise would’ve stayed hidden, and it can also anger some people enough in the heat of the moment to cause them to make mistakes. There isn’t much call for that in my line of work at the moment though, I’d rather make as many friends as possible right now.

One of my goals in New Eden is to get more pilots talking in local, as to me there is nothing more depressing than entering a system filled with dozens of people, and having not a single word exchanged between them. I believe that keeping it friendly is the best way to encourage more pilots to communicate with me, and with each other. After all, who would want to open their mouth when all they get in return are snarky responses?

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Let me grab those killmails for you:
Kill: Selcrim Arkenvos (Mobile Tractor Unit)
Kill: Gogela (Mobile Tractor Unit)

Those are some huge MTU kills there, thank you for sharing them with us, Shaela. A follow-up mail to Shaela confirmed that these MTUs were popped during the aftermath of some citadel attacks in Perimeter, hence the unusual loot found within.

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Thank you very much, Ieze, I do indeed have a lot of fun doing what I do. On another note, I tend to get a few mails titled “Sorry” from time to time, either for sending me random mails, or asking questions, but please don’t. I’m very happy to receive each and every mail I get, there’s no need to apologise.

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I received this rather cheerful mail from Elenow who was looking for tips and general info about the game, having recently started playing EVE with a few friends.

I, of course, recommended popping a few MTUs, after all, that’s what I do. I realise that it isn’t for everyone, however,  so I asked her what she and her friends wanted to do. It seems like they were looking to get into the world of mercenary work, and had run into some trouble/fun in that regard, which Elenow’s killboard can attest to. The method of ISK-making I recommended was incursions, as it would help with learning to fly as part of a larger fleet, and pays-out extremely well. If I was to recommend an ISK-making activity today though, it would be wormhole exploration.

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This mail was formatted in such a way as to make it rather hard to read at my UI scale (90%, in case you’re wondering) so instead of resetting my UI, which is a pain, I’ve copied and pasted the contents below.

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Hello and thanks!
From: c4binfever
Sent: 2017.02.13 18:56
To: Pix Severus,

Pix,

o/

I found your blog after randomly clicking on your character in local. I really enjoy reading it and wanted to say thanks – I have racked up quite a few MTU kills now using your guide and fits.

Reading your posts gave me an idea to further persue ninja salvaging and start a little project called The Junk Committee. It’s just a small group of ninjas that hope to work together. I haven’t got all the details ironed out yet though.

I wanted to pick your brains about ganking. I seen your killboard and you have done some ganking before. I was wondering how you pick targets, and where you shoot people? Is there any money to be made solo ganking?

kind regards
c4binfever
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It’s always nice to hear that someone has found my MTU hunting guide useful, as it makes the time I spent making it feel all the more worth it. Here’s c4binfever’s killboard if you want to see his MTU kills. His corp, The Junk Committee, was an interesting idea, similar in nature to my own corp, which at the time I received this mail hadn’t grown beyond being my own one-man operation. It seems that he had created his own blog at some point, named after his corp, and I remember getting a few hits from his blog as he mentioned mine on it. Check out his blog here: The Junk Committee.

Its not often this MTU hunter gets asked about ganking, but it was indeed a profession of mine, and is something that I still do in an opportunistic capacity. I won’t go into full details, but I gave c4binfever some basic advice in my reply. My advice to you, if you’re looking at getting into ganking, is to check out the MinerBumping blog, it has a great resource on how to get started. Otherwise, feel free to mail me and I’ll help you if I can.

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After reading through these mails again, I was happy to see the different ways in which people found my blog and learned about my activities. Whether it was through the official EVE Online forums, my network of “Pix Severus was here o/” containers spread throughout highsec, or just from clicking my name in local, presumably after seeing me go suspect.

That’s it for this edition of MTU Mailbag, if you have any comments or questions for me, don’t hesitate to send in a mail. I reply to all mails I receive and there’s a good chance your mail will appear on this blog at some point in the future.

MTU Mailbag 2

The Angry Miner

When you have hunted MTUs long enough, you begin to notice certain patterns to the reactions of capsuleers whose MTUs you have successfully destroyed. For example, you can pop MTUs owned by mission runners all day long and not hear a peep from them, but the moment you so much as look in the direction of a miner’s MTU, all hell breaks loose.

Some examples of this have already been featured on my blog in the past, in this post a Russian miner launches a tirade of abuse at me through local chat, and in this post, a miner actually grabs his PvP ship and attacks me.

One night, on a typical hunt through the Essence region, I noticed an MTU on D-Scan in Villore and parked myself at a moon. I was about to start the process of probing it down when I realised that it was actually in an asteroid belt and I could just warp to it. I can remember feeling a little trepidation at this point, knowing that when you attack an MTU in an asteroid belt, there is a good chance you’re going to have to deal with an upset miner, one way or another. This time, however, the kill went by uneventfully, it was your typical asteroid belt MTU kill, filled with ore and cheap rat droppings.

kill: Sandra Boirelle (Mobile Tractor Unit)

I went to bed after this kill, but when I logged in the following day, I found this rather rude EVEmail waiting for me:

*Sigh* Here we go.

I don’t get a lot of correspondence from angry folk, most players either find what I do amusing, or they are completely oblivious to it, but still, it happens from time to time. I decided that it was important to help this player calm down and look at things objectively, so I responded thusly:

That should help…

…maybe not.

A few minutes after that last mail, the miner sent a follow-up mail where she, for some reason, started talking about Microwarpdrives, wardecs, and MTU mechanics.

Be a manly man.

In a response mail, I tried to get her to understand that I don’t do what I do out of malice, I do it to make highsec a cleaner place. However, I also questioned her knowledge of MTU mechanics, which in hindsight may not have been the best thing to do at that point.

Yikes.

With the threat of execution looming over my head, I sent one desperate final mail to try to calm her down, but it was futile. I received no further communication from this capsuleer.

Let this post serve as a warning to any prospective MTU Hunters out there. One day you are going to find an MTU in an asteroid belt, ice field, or mining site/mission, and chances are you will have to deal with this kind of hostility.

The Dissatisfied Customer

Today we have a special treat, a short story from fellow MTU Hunter, Oylpann Kumamato. Pour yourself a hot drink, put your feet up, and join him on one of his many adventures.

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I was heading back to Simela, my happy hunting grounds, after flying through multiple backwater systems with no luck. Tristis is already in Simela in her trusty CovOps and bazinga! One MTU. She locks it in after 2 scans and warps to it at 100km. Two Battlecruisers are running a mission there, a Ferox and a Drake Navy Issue.

Fast Foward 10 jumps and roughly 8 mins later the Battlecruisers have left grid, and left that dangerous deployable out there. I fleet up my dynamic duo and when Oyl gets in system, I warp to Tris who is now orbiting the MTU cloaked at 30km. Oyl makes quick work of the MTU and after the weapons timer, I dock up in a nearby player owned station.

Kill: Selendria Hinonami (Mobile Tractor Unit)

While I’m looking at the Killmail, I notice that Local Chat had an interesting recruitment link.. from the same person whose MTU I just purged, within seconds of her MTU exploding:

Shortly after, I get an Eve Mail from said victim:

Click on image for full size.

I reply back I’m just doing my job!

Click on image for full size.

They respond that they want reimbursement so I offer what I feel is fair compensation:

Click on image for full size.

I also offered some sound advice (for free!) on future purchases:

Hope you get as good of a laugh as I did out of it.

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I certainly did, thank you for the story Oylpann, and I have no doubt we’ll be seeing more of you in future posts. Stay tuned. Also, if anyone reading this has an MTU story of their own to share, please mail me (Pix Severus) in-game.

Furthermore, we now have a new page on the sidebar, MTU FAQ, which aims to answer those questions most commonly received about MTUs and hunting them, check it out.

MTU Mailbag

Ever since I began my career as an MTU Hunter, I have received quite a lot of mail from capsuleers across New Eden, and now I would like to share some of them with you. Unlike some other hunters out there, I don’t mail the owners of MTUs I have popped, I sit back and let them contact me. I may change this approach in the future.

Kill: katrin zoloto (Mobile Tractor Unit)

After putting this mail through an online Russian to English translator, we get the following:

container
From: katrin zoloto
To: Pix Severus,
Victory: katrin zoloto (Mobile Tractor Unit *) what’s the point for you?

A good question, the point of hunting MTUs, for me, is to clean highsec of unwanted scan signatures, and have a lot of fun in the meantime. I kept my response brief in the hopes that it wouldn’t come out as incomprehensible garbage after putting it through a translator:

Я очистки пространство всех заброшенных сооружений и трутней
(I clean space of abandoned structures and drones.)

This was the second mail I had ever received about MTU Hunting, the first being from a fellow called Jarrod Jones which can be found towards the bottom of my guide to MTU Hunting here.

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Kill: Ryan del Maina (Mobile Tractor Unit)

This is the most common form of mail I tend to receive from mission runners whose long-abandoned MTUs I have popped. Many don’t remember leaving an MTU out in space, whilst some know that they had left one out there somewhere, but never bothered to scan it down and retrieve it.

This MTU kill was an interesting one, with the MTU containing ship modules typically found on ganking Catalysts. It is possible, of course, that he was simply using a ship with small hybrid guns, lost it in a mission, and had his shipwreck sucked back into his own MTU. However, as the system in question was Osmon, a popular level 4 Sisters of EVE hub, it is more likely that the modules in the container are the remains of a ganking ship.

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Kill: Maks Gotdar (Mobile Tractor Unit)

I received this rather descriptive mail from Maks Gotdar after destroying his MTU in the system of Sheroo, which is next-door to the popular Sisters of EVE hub, Apanake. This mail doesn’t tell us much, apart from perhaps that he was very confused about having his MTU blown up. My response to him clears things up a little, however:

Going out of my way to complete other people’s missions for them is a nice side-activity I do for the benefit of my fellow capsuleers. I would encourage all MTU Hunters out there to do the same if you are given the chance. Knowledge of missions can be very beneficial in the pursuit of MTU annihilation, and I find that mission runners themselves tend to make very effective hunters for this reason.

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Kill: DerthGerps (Mobile Tractor Unit)

Some pilots tend to be quite happy after I have popped their MTU, showing gratitude for finally removing that niggling-feeling that they’ve left something behind. Although I detect a very slight hint of sarcasm in DerthGerp’s mail to me, I will take it at face value.

Since killing his MTU, DerthGerps has gone forward and racked-up quite a number of MTU kills himself, good for him!

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Kill: NgotoI (Mobile Tractor Unit)

This is one of my favourite mails, and makes a nice change from the rather short mails I tend to receive. I hadn’t heard that song before NgotoI brought it to my attention, you can listen to it here (may not be available in your country). I think this should become the unofficial theme song for MTU Hunting, what do you guys think? If you have a better idea, send me some MTU-related lyrics to your song of choice!

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I did not expect the kind of mails I have received since I started hunting MTUs. I was expecting a lot more tears and general bitterness, but perhaps that expectation came from my past experience as a ganker. That isn’t to say I don’t receive any tears at all, mind you, because I do, and if you stick around for future posts, you’ll see them for yourself.

Pix Severus was here o/

Some time ago I came up with the idea of leaving a calling card in the systems that I hunt in, for the purpose of letting people know that their friendly, local MTU Hunter is never too far away.

I was there.

The original plan was to anchor a Small Secure Container at the location of MTUs I had popped, but I decided to leave them at Stargates instead so that more people would actually see them. These containers have to be anchored at least 100km away from large structures and entities such as stargates, and at least 5km from other structures and deployables, including MTUs and shipwrecks. Once they are anchored they will last a minimum of 30 days until they disappear from space. If you right-click on one of these containers, either in-space or in your overview, and select “Show Info” you can find information about the container’s owner.

As you can see, I didn’t put a huge amount of thought into the message these containers would.. contain, opting for the time-tested “[name] was here” format, and hoping it would give pilots something more fun to read than the Russian corp ads which surround seemingly every gate in highsec these days. I didn’t expect the kind of reaction I received for simply placing these containers across highsec, indeed it wasn’t long before mails from capsuleers across New Eden came trickling into my inbox, telling me where they saw my containers, and what they thought of them.

I had also received many private messages from other pilots, and people had even joined my MTU Hunting chat channel after they had found my character bio from the containers. The message had even been mentioned on the official EVE Forums. I also placed a few containers advertising notme7’s chat channel, which worked to bring more people into it. So to anyone looking to advertise or send a message using this method, I can tell you that it does work, pilots do notice them.

Some facts and tips about Small Secure Containers:
– You need to anchor the container to make it last the full 30 days in space before it despawns.
– Unanchored containers will despawn after a couple of hours.
– You need the skill Anchoring at level 1, to anchor containers.
– They can only be anchored in systems that have a security rating of 0.7 or lower.
– Right-click and Show Info on a container to see who deployed it.
– For more info, check out the Uniwiki entry here.

Upon returning to EVE late last year, I noticed that one of my containers had managed to last almost 6 months in space without disappearing. How could this be? Containers are supposed to decay after a month without the owner using them in some direct way (opening them, putting an item in them, etc), and my account was inactive the entire time. The container in question was one that I had placed 100km off the Uedama gate in the system of Sivala.

After a short period of confusion concerning this, I remembered something that had happened around 6 months prior that may provide an answer to the mystery of the undying container. Whilst out MTU Hunting one night, I received a message saying that, due to unlawful aggression against me, I now had a killright against New Order Agent, and CEO of The Conference Elite, Mildron Klinker. I found this quite perplexing, he wasn’t in system with me and hadn’t done anything to me; a quick conversation with the man himself cleared things up, however.

A kill right against a ganker is about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

Shooting a container in a rookie ship is common practice across highsec for resetting CONCORD and allowing further ganks to take place in that system. If you shoot someone’s container in highsec, CONCORD destroys your ship, and the container’s owner gets a kill right against you, and this is what Agent Klinker had done with my container. It seems quite likely, then, that the reason my container had managed to survive for so long is because it was shot. This must surely be some kind of bug, but one that I personally don’t mind, because it saves me from having to replace that particular container every month or so. I have received a number of other kill right notifications over the last few months, as gankers use my containers in their work, and I’m very happy that my containers have proven useful to content creation in highsec.

Placing containers in space has provided me with some fun communications, and new information about the mechanics of EVE, so I’d say it has definitely been worth it. This isn’t the end of this story though, these containers turned out to be the gift that just kept on giving, and would spark a series of events that would lead me to many new adventures. Stay tuned for the continuation.

Return of an MTU Hunter

A few months ago I decided to take a break from EVE due to personal reasons, I have now returned to continue my journey, after all, those MTUs aren’t going to pop themselves.

EVE has changed a little in the few months I’ve been away, with a permanent free trial being added to the game, meaning that you can now play EVE (with trial limitations) indefinitely, for free. I want to make it clear that EVE going “free to play” is not the reason I’ve returned, I was coming back anyway, and besides, I love my shiny T2 ships and modules too much to not subscribe. I am excited at the prospect of having a lot more potential friends to play with though.

When I logged back into EVE a few days ago, the first thing I noticed was a number of EVE mails waiting for me. I wish I could have been there to reply to these mails as they came in, but everyone needs a break at some point:

Win Anin’s killmail can be found here, also if you look at her killboard, you can see she racked-up quite a few MTU kills. Lady Mordea’s killboard can be seen here, she also managed to pop a few MTUs. I’m very happy that people found my guide useful, put it into practice, and had fun with it.

This is a little late now, but I’ll link my current fits here for anyone interested: Hecate and Svipul. Both fits take you to the limit of CPU and PG, so ensure you have good core fitting skills before attempting to use them.

It’s not every day someone creates a corp in your honour, the sentiment is very much appreciated. Here is manxman69’s killboard, he has killed an impressive number of MTUs thus far. Keep up the good work!

I have received a few more EVE mails which I will be posting at a later date in a seperate blog entry. If you wish to send me a mail, please do so, I enjoy reading them and reply to almost all of them. EVE mails weren’t the only thing waiting for me upon my return. I had been added as a contact with neutral/good/excellent standing to no less than 10 different people, 1 of whom had also sent me a mail. I also had an application to join my corporation, which had unfortunately timed-out a long time ago.

Now that I’m back, it’s time to return to the crazy world of MTU molestation, and as you can see from my killboard, I am slowly easing my way back into it. I’m also close to achieving 500 MTU kills, I think reaching a milestone like that deserves a medal, don’t you?