The Geras Scuffle

December 13, 2020 by Pix Severus

I’ve spent a few posts lately telling you about the times I have lost ships whilst hunting MTUs, and ths will hopefully be the last such post of this kind for a while.

It would be over 3 years from my fight with Trigger, detailed in this post, that I would lose another MTU hunting ship through PvP, and unlike the previous encounter, I saw this one coming.

On this day, I was graced with the presence of my CEO from my ganking days, Solecist Project, a highsec superstar and someone I’m very proud to call a friend. We were chatting away in the MTU Hunting chat channel, when I spotted 3 MTUs in a mining site in Geras, and so I asked Sol and TonyTiger 57 (another friend we were chatting with at the time) if they wanted to join me in erasing them. They did, and so I formed a fleet, scanned down the MTUs, and waited for them to arrive.

MTUs littered the field.

There were 2 ships near the MTUs, a Covetor and a Retriever, and while waiting for Sol and Tony to arrive, yet another MTU had been dropped at the site. When my friends reached me, I warped us to the site, and we immediately set to work on the MTUs, starting with the one closest to us. At this point I noticed combat probes on scan, made a quick check that they weren’t my own (I’ve spooked myself a couple of times, haha) and made the quick decision to warp out. I’d been a bit premature on that call, which Sol made sure to let me know. I should’ve waited to see what ships were coming first. I warped back to the site along with Tony (Sol had stayed there in his Probe) and we finished off the first MTU.

Kill: Adishi Hemah (Mobile Tractor Unit)

We then turned our attention to the next MTU, some 10km away from the first, and started shooting that too. Whilst shooting this one, there were now 2 ships on scan heading for us, a Catalyst and a Coercer, and they landed 10km from us at the site’s warp-in just as the second MTU popped.

Kill: Adishi Hemah (Mobile Tractor Unit)

It had been a long time since I had been in a real fight, so I made the decision to stay and fight these interlopers. I targetted both destroyers, and the Coercer reached me first so I started firing upon him first.

Kill: Meik Odunen (Coercer)

I then switched to the Catalyst, which had done a huge amount of damage to me by this point. I had him in deep armour, but then a Rupture landed and..

Kill: Pix Severus (Hecate)

Please excuse the bad fit, it was a result of my attempt to pop an MTU in under a minute without using polarized guns! Oh, and The Damsel survived, thankfully!

I got my pod out of the site, and at that point Sol lost his Probe and got his pod out too, thankfully Tony managed to escape in his Ares. While waiting for the weapon timer, I was bouncing around in my pod and chatting with Sol in local when something weird happened.

Kill: Eva Mabuse (Catalyst)

I don’t know how he managed to CONCORD himself, did he try to gank something? Regardless, no gank victim shows on his killboard.

What happened next though was something special, and at the time I had no idea just how special it was.

Kill: Adishi Hemah (Mobile Tractor Unit)

What we are looking at here is an MTU I got on the killmail for, filled with the remains of the ship I used to hunt it. This is a rare scenario, and is the first and only time this has ever happened for me.

In the end, our little scuffle in Geras looked something like this:

Click on image for full size.

I’m relatively happy with the outcome, it was a lot of fun and I learned a few things. If I had to do the fight over again though, I’d shoot the Catalyst first, then go for the Coercer, then hopefully GTFO just before the Rupture lands.

I’ve lost ships in all sorts of ways over the years, I’ve been ganked, lost numerous ships to NPCs, and I’ve even been blapped by POS guns in lowsec. What matters though is that the MTU devastation continues on regardless.

Rats

December 6, 2020 by Pix Severus

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.

Naming Surprises and Cheeky Disguises 5

October 19, 2020 by Pix Severus

Giving a name to your MTU is the hip new trend for capsuleers across highsec, what better way to enhance your impact upon D-Scan and improve your presence in local! In this post I’ll be taking a look at some more of these memorable mobile deployables.

First up we have someone who tried to name their MTU after the Egyptian god of the afterlife, and as we can see, someone already tried to send this MTU to the afterlife, due to the sliver of armor damage it had already taken when I found it.

I put this thing to rest for good shortly afterwards, although I do wonder if we’ll see Annubis XII at some point in the future.

This MTU was found in Aphi, a system well known for having a static COSMOS site with constantly-respawning NPCs that are farmed by AFKers and bots all the live-long day. There are often a lot of MTUs deployed here, but unfortunately you need a key to get past the acceleration gate to this site.

Here we have an MTU owned by MiGhTyFoUrTwEnTy who decided to name it after himself. This MTU turned out to be mightier than I had anticipated, as it had swallowed it’s owners ship.

Kill: MiGhTyFoUrTwEnTy (Mobile Tractor Unit)

Unfortunately I almost exclusively use blasters, so I was unable to make a jibe about how I pewpewed this MTU to death with my lasers. Oh well, moving on.

Here we have an MTU that was surrounded by Orcas. It’s time to crack-out that online translator again to see what this name means.

Romanian: mtu mersi
Translates to: mtu thanks

Well, thanks for that, I guess.

Here we have another MTU surrounded by Orcas, a common sight in highsec these days. This one looks to be a name without proper use of an apostrophe, needless to say I didn’t spot anyone named Sharva or Sharvas in local.

This name is detected as being Swedish by an online translator, but the words remain the same in English as they are in Swedish. Therefore I can only assume that this MTU is named after the mother of someone named Pers. Strange.

This time we have an MTU with a Turkish name, a first for me! Let’s translate it, shall we?

Turkish: Toplayici 1
Translates to: Collector 1

That sounds about right, removing the “1” from the translation results in the word “Picker”, which also sounds about right for an MTU name.

At first glance, it looked like this MTU was named ROBOCOP and I had plans to pepper this post with all sorts of iconic quotes from the movie. Instead, we have some Cyrillic letters to decipher to find the true name of this MTU.

Bulgarian: ГОВНОСБОР
Translates to: S**T COLLECTION

I… wouldn’t buy that for a dollar.

Finally we have the first MTU I’ve ever found with an emoji for a name. MTUs are dangerous space equipment, and I believe more of them should carry warning symbols like these.

No cheeky disguises in this post, but I can guarantee you will get one in the next episode of this series! As always, if you spot any interesting or funny named MTUs out there, please take a screenshot and send it to me (Pix Severus) via EVEmail. Until next time!

Naming Surprises and Cheeky Disguises 4

MTU Hunting Tips & Tricks

October 15, 2020 by Pix Severus

Today I would like to share with you some of the tips and tricks I’ve learned whilst hunting MTUs over the years. For a complete guide on how to hunt down an MTU, see MTU Hunting 101, and for more general information on the mechanics involed, see MTU FAQ.

Dealing with NPCs

Ocassionally, when you scan down an MTU, you will find that it is surrounded by hostile NPCs. Sometimes they will auto-aggro on you, and sometimes they won’t, it is always worth waiting a little while to see if they do or not, but ensure that you are far enough away to not get pointed or killed by them.

In the case that they do auto-aggro, you have a number of options available to you:

1) Kill them; Make sure you’re in a ship that is capable of doing so, having a battleship handy is useful for taking out rats in level 4 security missions. Having experience in mission running will help you a lot here, as you can avoid triggering new spawns of NPCs, and also be aware of delayed spawns that may suprise you when you think you’re safe.

2) Kite them; If the site has no acceleration gates or warp-in beacons, you can warp to the MTU at 100km, and pull those NPCs away from it, you can then warp out when they’ve been pulled far enough away. When you warp back in at 0 on the MTU, the NPCs will have to spend time burning back to you before they can get you in range, leaving you time to pop the MTU.

3) Wait until after downtime; At downtime (11:00 – 11:15 UTC every day) most missions and the rats within them despawn. The MTU, however, may not, meaning that the once-surrounded MTU will now be sat out there in the void, ripe for popping.

Also be aware of Burner NPCs, unless you have a specific type of ship that is capable of taking these NPCs out, you will die.

Avoiding Bait

You will never be able to avoid bait 100%, but there are things you can do to minimise the risks of falling into a trap laid by an MTU Hunter-Hunter.

1) Know local; If there are only a few people in local, you can type the pilot’s names into zkillboard to see if they’re the sort of person that may be lying-in-wait to shoot you. Is there a pilot in local whose killboard is filled with highsec kills and no CONCORD losses? They’re likely a suspect/criminal hunter, and you should watch out for them. If local has a lot of people in it, you can use a tool called PySpy which will make the intel process a lot faster and easier. Thanks to Purgo for the PySpy recommendation, I’ve started using it recently, and it is very handy.

2) Check the MTU’s owner; When you warp to an MTU, right-click on it and select “Show Info”, you will then see the MTU owner’s avatar near the top of the window, click on it to see his name and check if he is in local with you. If he is in local, check his killboard. Does he have a lot of highsec kills, particularly in the system (and surrounding systems) you’re in? If so, there is a good chance it is bait.

3) Be suspicious; Did you dock up for a while to let your Suspect Timer wind down, and now that you’ve undocked there is a new MTU sat there on D-Scan that you didn’t notice before? That’s potential bait, and it is something that almost worked on me once, thankfully I followed the advice in step 2, saw that the MTU’s owner was a baiter, and was able to avoid falling for it (he also dropped combat probes on me instead of just bookmarking his own MTU, which kinda gave it away).

Always add known-baiters to your contacts (set them red) so you can see if they’re in the area when you’re out hunting.

Avoiding Chancers

Unlike baiters, these guys will only spring into action when they see that there is someone suspect in local (you). There are a few things you can do to make it harder for them to catch you.

1) Rename your ship; The easiest way to find someone who is suspect in any given system is to check D-Scan for ships and look for those that haven’t been renamed. For example, if I left my ship name as default “Pix Severus’ Hecate”, and I was clearly suspect (flashing yellow skull next to my name in local) anyone looking for me will easily be able to tell my ship is the one they’re looking for. Then it would be a simple case of finding where my ship is on D-Scan and probing it down.

2) Check D-Scan; Always pulse D-Scan while shooting an MTU, to see if anyone is warping to you or trying to scan you down with combat probes.

3) Stay aligned; If you’re in a relatively large ship, it might be worth aligning to something that you can warp to, so you can instantly enter warp if something you cant win against lands on you.

4) Use bookmarks; Create safe spots to warp to, and dock/undock bookmarks at NPC stations, which will allow you to move around the system freely, much to the chagrin of those hunting you. I like to bounce around between safe spots while waiting for the Weapon Timer to wind down, this makes it very hard to scan me down after the MTU has been popped. Oh, and if the system has player-made stations that you have docking rights with, you don’t need to make a docking bookmark to dock safely at those, just FYI.

It should probably go without saying that you should set any chancers you encounter to red in your contacts, as it is likely they will try again.

Making it Profitable

There are a number of ways you can turn a profit from hunting MTUs, this can help cover expenses such as ammo, and even ships if you tend to lose them often.

1) Sell MTUs in the systems you most frequently get MTU kills in. If a system tends to have a lot of MTUs in it, then it stands to reason that it might be a good place to sell them. After all, the people deploying them will need to replace any that you pop! You can buy MTUs cheap at larger hubs (websites such as EVEMarketer are useful for finding where the cheapest items are) and then list them at a higher price in the system you operate in. Many pilots are willing to pay a little extra for the convenience of not having to travel multiple jumps, just to make a saving of a couple of million ISK.

2) Know your mission items; MTUs often drop mission-specific items that have no value on the market, but are worth money on contracts. The Damsel is one such item, and she is usually sold for 40m ISK on contracts at the time of writing this. You can also try selling these items back to the owner of the MTU you got it from, as they may need it to complete the mission they were running. Some items cannot be found on the market or on contracts, so it’ll be up to you how much you list it for.

3) Sell locally; There is no point in hauling all your MTU loot to a trade hub to sell to buy orders, unless you need that ISK right then and there. Good things come to he who waits, so list your items as sell orders in the nearest NPC station. The benefits of this are that you can often list items at a higher price, for the reason talked about in step 1, and you also save time from lugging all that loot around. The only downside is that you will have to wait longer for your items to sell. If you wish to sell locally, make sure to train up your trade skills to increase the maximum amount of sell orders you can have.

Thats all for this post, I may update it in the future with more tips and tricks, otherwise I might just make a second post. As always, if you have any questions about hunting MTUs, feel free to contact me (Pix Severus) in game.

MTU Mailbag 8: The Fangirl

October 12, 2020 by Pix Severus

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.

Today we have an MTU Mailbag special in which I’ll tell you about how I met a pilot named Sira Cunningham, an encounter that resulted in the birth of a new MTU hunter, and a whole slew of killmails. It started off, as things usually do for me, with an EVEmail.

Like many pilots who live in, or pass through highsec, she had seen my containers lying around that tell people where I’d been, you’ll find more information on this activity in this post. Oh, and as I keep having to tell people, I’m not creepy at all. It even says so in my profile!

After a little banter, as is customary when someone calls me creepy in EVE, Sira told me that she had tried MTU hunting for herself.

Here’s that killmail for you:

Kill: Bristol West (Mobile Tractor Unit)

I explained to her that you don’t lose security status for popping MTUs, and that she must have lost the sec status in an earlier encounter. It turns out that I was correct on that matter and she had lost the security status earlier when popping a Venture out in lowsec.

We ended-up becoming friends, and sending mails to each other regularly about our respective shenanigans in-game. I was also happy to provide advice on any MTU hunting related questions she had.

Kill: Sinvyus Sinzafine (Mobile Tractor Unit)

It wasn’t long before Sira would start sending her MTU killmails to me, something I particularly enjoyed.

That is correct. When you begin shooting an MTU, a Suspect Timer starts, and this timer will last for 15 minutes after the shooting has ended. During those 15 minutes, you are free-to-shoot without CONCORD intervention in highsec.

We spent a lot of time chatting through EVEmail over the next few months, most of which I won’t show you out of respect for privacy, so I’ll keep it mostly about business, the business of MTU destruction.

Kill: WolfW (Mobile Tractor Unit)
Kill: Rader Bastanold (Mobile Tractor Unit)
Kill: PaiMei Six Shi-Tu (Mobile Tractor Unit)

In case you were wondering, you do get bounty payments from killing MTUs, if the MTU’s owner has a bounty on his head. Due to the way the bounty system works though, you don’t tend to get a very large payout, it’s usually enough to cover ammo expenses though.

Here was my response to those killmails:

Kill: Father Pimen (Mobile Tractor Unit)
Kill: Jason Skirr (Mobile Tractor Unit)
Kill: Leo Weiss (‘Packrat’ Mobile Tractor Unit)

The day before, I had encountered that very same MTU that Sira had popped, I’d scanned it down, and had just gotten it into structure when I spotted combat probes closing-in on me on D-Scan. With a Tengu on it’s way, something that my Hecate would have a lot of trouble with, it was time for me to bail. I was glad to hear that the MTU was taken care of regardless though.

Kill: Mite Ordinary (Mobile Tractor Unit)
Kill: Dmitriy Septim (Mobile Tractor Unit)
Kill: Hardly Gospel (Mobile Tractor Unit)

This wasn’t the first time I had seen the name Mite Ordinary, but I’ll get around to that in a later post.

I’d noticed that Sira had been using a Nemesis to pop MTUs with, she’d told me that the cloak provides some fun options when hunting MTUs, but was displeased that she couldn’t use the bomb launcher in highsec. This inspired me to train up a few missile skills and try the ship out for myself.

Kill: Bassen (‘Packrat’ Mobile Tractor Unit)

I enjoyed using it, but nothing beats the Hecate for this line of work, if you can fly it. Still, it got me some extra points in Empty You’s “Pop an MTU using as many different ships as possible” competition, which has been running for a while now.

It was around the time I was talking with Sira (December 2017) that I was still at around 600 MTU kills, and I’d just found my third-ever ‘Magpie’ MTU, which I happily linked to her.

Kill: Sun Ying (‘Magpie’ Mobile Tractor Unit)

This shows you can expect to kill maybe one ‘Magpie’ MTU for every 200 standard MTUs you kill. After this we agreed to team up if we ever found another ‘Magpie’ out there, and if we were both online at the same time.

We chatted about so much more than I’ve shown here, from POS bashing (an activity I was doing with my corp at the time) to The New Order of Highsec (which Sira actually invested in), to wormholes and beyond. My apparent fame within New Eden was also a matter we discussed, and she had no qualms in letting me know she was a fan, despite how creepy I was!

This cool kid is happy to have met her, and I’ll make sure to send her another mail when this blog post goes live.

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

Vocal Local 10

October 4, 2020 by Pix Severus

One thing I have noticed during my travels throughout highsec space is just how quiet it is, there could be over 100 people in local, and not a single word is uttered between those players. This makes me sad, so I like to encourage discourse where possible.

Sometimes, however, an MTU hunter can feel a little blog-famous.

It’s always nice to know that people are enjoying the blog, thanks Admiral!

Having just passed through multiple empty systems, I was delighted to finally see someone in local while passing through Eddar, a system in a very quiet region. With just the two of us in local, I left a comment about his ship’s name (which I can’t actually remember now, it was “metal” something) before moving on.

Having explored the surrounding systems fully, I then passed back through Eddar a few minutes later on my way to another region, and I’m glad I did!

This screenshot might look familiar to you, as it is the full version of an encounter with a named MTU featured in this post. After Orvom scooped his MTU, I decided to leave him to his mission running in peace.

Upon entering the system of Arnon I noticed a pilot named Rosaline plying her trade in local.

Rosaline Ramsey > Im back again, selling the infamous route to JIta. send me 10mil isk (tips welcome) and I will get you to JIta in 6 jumps from here.
Evi Polevhia > Earlier you said three. Get your story straight.
Deucey D > seems legit
Rosaline Ramsey > three was to forge
Rosaline Ramsey > customer told me it was three from exit point. 3plus three and all

At this point I’d left system, but after becoming intrigued with the conversation going on, I headed back in.

Maiali Aurgnet > no prob. thanks for the help
Deucey D > Maiali Aurgnet Account is 2 days old, wtf you have business in Jita for?
Rosaline Ramsey > :)

The locals seemed skeptical of the legitimacy of Rosaline’s business, which was selling fast routes to Jita. I saw no problem with it, and so I gave Rosaline my endorsement.

Shortly afterwards, I was contacted by Rosaline.

Let us hope she got herself a few more customers!

Here we have an encounter with another owner of a named MTU. Remember to tidy away your MTU after usage, folks, unless you want me to come and clean it up for you.

It’s always nice to return to Hek, where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came.. Hek is a great place to spot well-known highsec players, some even say that if you visit Hek during a moonlit night you might just be blessed with an appearance of James 315 himself.

Yes, still going strong after all these years, an MTU hunter’s work is never done.

This fellow spoke-up in local after seeing me go suspect, I always reward those who do with a killmail to read.

Kill: Tindale (Mobile Tractor Unit)

Kill: Andas Cardian (Mobile Tractor Unit)

After poking around the system of Atonder for a few minutes, one of the locals spoke up, perhaps after becoming perturbed at my usage of combat probes.

Kill: lace Firn (Mobile Tractor Unit)
Kill: GySgt Kossori (Mobile Tractor Unit) (Ouch!)

We ended up having a nice chat about MTUs, which funnily enough is one of my favourite topics!

That’s all for this edition of Vocal Local, but there is plenty more to come. If you see me in local, don’t be afraid to strike up a conversation with me, even a simple wave can go a long way. Who knows, you might find yourself featured in a future edition of this series.

Vocal Local 9

MTU Hunter Becomes the Hunted

September 27, 2020 by Pix Severus

It isn’t often that your friendly, local MTU Hunter loses his MTU Hunting ship, but it does happen from time to time. In this post I would like to tell you about an encounter in which I was hunted-down whilst out hunting for MTUs.

MTU Hunting is a profession that comes with certain risks, you spend a vast portion of your time in space under Suspect Status, meaning that if you’re in highsec, anyone can shoot at you freely without the intervention of the space police. Also, when you have the yellow flashing skull next to your name in local, it lights you up like a Christmas tree, and it will draw other pilots to you, looking for prey.

There are players out there who specialise in hunting down Suspect-flagged players, and I ended-up encountering one such hunter who was very good at his job. I had scanned down an MTU in Ruvas, warped to it, and started firing upon it. I pulse D-Scan constantly while bashing the MTU, to check if anyone is dropping probes on me, and to see if the MTU’s owner is on his way back to collect his MTU. I saw nothing out of the ordinary this time, and the MTU popped, as they usually do:

Kill: Toha Hinken (Mobile Tractor Unit)

After I’ve popped an MTU, sometimes I linger around in the site to wait out the 1 minute Weapon Timer, before heading to the nearest NPC station to deposit any loot I’d gotten from the MTU. That is what I was doing here, and in fact, I’d set my ship on a course in a random direction away from the MTU wreckage with my MWD active, whilst waiting for the timer. Suddenly, an Orthrus piloted by Trigger Liu lands in the pocket with me, and he sets his long-point on me. With his drones now eating through my ship’s armor, I made a snap decision to burn towards him and unleash my ship’s 800 DPS upon him. It wasn’t enough though, I’d taken his shields down to maybe 50% before my ship exploded.

Kill: Pix Severus (Hecate)

After I died, I warped my pod out to a nearby planet, only to find Trigger’s alt sat there on the planet at 0 waiting for me, thankfully I was alert, bounced to another planet (at 100 this time) only to find yet another one of his alts sat there waiting too. This man meant business. I did eventually get my pod back to station, I have at least one docking bookmark in the vast majority of highsec systems, and it’s a good job I had, because he had yet another alt there waiting for me. Sheesh.

If you remember, I had set myself MWDing away from the MTU wreck, and was still burning away when Trigger landed, if I had continued burning away, it is possible that I would have pulled range on his point and escaped with my ship intact. Hindsight is a useful yet cruel mistress.

A few days later, my corpmate, Oylpann Kumamato also ran into Trigger, but thankfully managed to escape his clutches.

Trigger Liu
From: Oylpann Kumamato
Sent: 2017.05.30 07:17
To: Pix Severus,
The guy that got you with the Orthrus the other day landed on grid with me. I was in a safe in Kappas.
I was lucky I wasnt scanning or he would have got me. As soon as he landed, I turned and warped out.
I’m guessing he has a hard on for us.
I messaged him and told him he’s got a quick scanner alt and gave him props for killing my CEO (you lol).
No replies yet but I’ll let you know if he does.

Needless to say, this Trigger fellow is now set red to the corp, so that we can try to avoid him in the future!

There are a number of other suspect hunters out there that I have had near misses with, and it certainly adds a lot more excitement to the risky pursuit of MTU destruction. I learned a lot from this encounter, but I’m very sure I will lose a number of other ships as my journey continues!

Naming Surprises and Cheeky Disguises 4

September 23, 2020 by Pix Severus

It’s time for another edition of what is becoming one of the most popular series on this blog, NS&CD. In this series we take a look at some of the strange, wonderful, or somewhat frightening names that pilots choose to give to their Mobile Tractor Units. I travel all over highsec, so if you live there and currently own a named MTU, there is a good chance you’ll see it featured here at some point in the future.

Before we begin, there have been some wonderful examples of named MTUs featured on Yadot’s blog recently, here and here, and I highly recommend you check those out!

At first I thought this name might be a reference to a certain American celebrity, but upon closer inspection the MTU’s owner (piloting a Skiff next to it) probably named it after herself. I do wonder what happened to Cardy MTU-A though!

Here we have a couple of named MTUs close together, the grammatically incorrect “A MTU”, and DENOS MOBILE. That second name looks Spanish, let’s crack out the online translator, shall we?

Spanish: DENOS MOBILE
Translates to: GIVE US MOBILE

Hmm, an odd one, but you should really be giving me your mobile. If any Spanish speakers can shed any light on this, please do.

Here we have a nice contrast. Quite a few MTU owners like to associate their MTUs with trash, calling them things like bins, trashcans, waste disposal, and the like. Some other MTU owners like to associate them with treasure though, and I personally share that sentiment.

Here we have another MTU that the owner decided to name after themself. MTUs aren’t named like this by default, so the owner had to go out of their way to name their MTU like the default name for a ship. By the way, you should never leave your ship name as default, finding a pilot on D-Scan through their ship’s name is an easy way to hunt them down.

I believe “Scoop” would be a more appropriate name for an MTU, the only swooping involved with MTUs is when I swoop in and blow them up.

These rare ‘Magpie’ MTUs with pretty names were surrounded by a swarm of Ishtars using Wasp II drones. It goes without saying that I was unable to claim them.

This seems like a good name for an MTU, I wonder if Cherry Picker 1 faced the same fate?

Here we have an MTU named after a popular sci-fi character, although I don’t really understand the connection here. Perhaps some Star Wars nerds can fill me in on this one?

Here we have what looks like a cheeky disguise, although upon further reflection it could just be a descriptive name, as in the MTU retrieves items through it’s tractor beam.

Although named MTUs seem to be a lot more common these days, cheeky disguises are still somewhat of a rarity. The search continues, and we have more episodes of this series coming up! If you spot any interesting or funny named MTUs out there, please take a screenshot and send it to me (Pix Severus) via EVEmail.

Naming Surprises and Cheeky Disguises 3

Pix Severus Pops 1000 MTUs

September 20, 2020 by Pix Severus

It’s been a long time coming, and it would’ve come a lot sooner if it wasn’t for my penchant for taking extended breaks from New Eden, but here we are. I have finally popped 1000 Mobile Tractor Units.

I’m not the first to reach this milestone, and I won’t be the last, there were even some pilots with over 1000 MTU kills before I even took up the sport. Some of the MTU hunters who have achieved this goal, most who I have spoken with personally, are listed below:

Novastarlee
Ganolen Morningwood
Ujken
Karynn Denton
Savage Rose

If you’re an MTU hunter with over 1000 MTU kills to your name, send me a mail and I’ll get you on this prestigious list.

What about the 1000th kill itself, was it anything special?

It certainly was.

My corpmate, Purgo, wanted to do something special for my 1000th kill, so he set up an MTU hunt in the system of Waskisen using an MTU dropped by his alt. I had to find the MTU and scan it down myself (so it was still classed as a hunt) and once I had reached the MTU, Purgo and Solacia Solette joined me in the ritual popping.

Kill: Iiae (‘Packrat’ Mobile Tractor Unit)

I’d like to give a huge thank you to Purgo and Solacia for making the 1000th kill a more meaningful one. I won’t forget it.

Pix Severus > thanks again for all this, it couldve just been some random empty mtu out there, but this one had meaning
Purgo > for sure man!
Solacia Solette > It was fun. I bet when you started this adventure you weren’t expecting to get a four digit kill count
Pix Severus > i certainly wasnt sol, but most of all i wouldnt have expected id make friends willing to do something like this for me
Pix Severus > youre both awesome, cheers
Solacia Solette > :D
Purgo > :D

1000 is a nice round number to collect some stats from, which should hopefully provide some more insight into what being an MTU hunter is like.

ISK Destroyed (MTUs): 13.2b

MTUs destroyed by type:
Mobile Tractor Unit: 962
‘Packrat’ Mobile Tractor Unit: 34
‘Magpie’ Mobile Tractor Unit: 4

Other Mobile Deployables destroyed by type:
Mobile Depot: 2
Mobile Micro Jump Unit: 45

Ships lost: 7
ISK lost (Ships): 318m

Biggest kill (ISK destroyed):
Kill: DAS BOOT Saraki (Mobile Tractor Unit) (478m)

Biggest middle finger from the loot fairy:
Kill: GySgt Kossori (Mobile Tractor Unit) (277m) (3.5m dropped)

Solacia, who is also Empty You’s Chief Statistician, kindly produced some more stats for me.

Thank you Solacia! The stats certainly show that I was getting a lot more MTU kills back in 2016 than any other time. Now whether that’s due to there being more MTU hunters around today, and less MTUs, or simply because I introduced other activities into the mix, I am not sure.

Finally, it’s time for the long-awaited ceremony.

I hereby award myself the Elite MTU hunter medal, and now count myself among MTU hunting’s elite.

If you’d like a medal, you are welcome to join my corp to receive one and leave aftwards. We have medals for 100, 250, 500, 750 and 1000 MTU kills, along with some other accolades.

I’ve been told that I’m responsible for a lot more MTU deaths than my personal 1000, due to the number of people I’ve inspired to take up this profession. My actual kill count would be thousands more by proxy if I counted the MTU kills of those who took it up because of my blog, or my guide. Indeed, there are a lot more MTU hunters around these days, compared to early 2016 when I started doing this, and there is a lot more MTU destruction throughout New Eden as a result. I don’t know if I’m responsible for that, or if it would have happened naturally anyway though.

I’d just like to thank everyone who has encouraged me to keep on popping MTUs over the years, whether it was through mail, local, or private convo. Another huge thank you, again, to my wonderful corp mates for helping me out whenever they could along the way.

So, what now? I’ve just hit one big ol’ milestone, perhaps it’s time to hang up the Hecate and settle down? Get a comfortable 9-5 ganking job, get married, have 2.5 drones and a pet Fedo. After all, the MTU owners of New Eden have had enough by now, haven’t they?

Hell no.

Lock up those MTUs, I’m coming for more.

MTU Mailbag 7

September 16, 2020 by Pix Severus

First, lets take a look at a mail from MTU hunter, Pod Watcher.

Here’s that killmail for you:

Kill: kus Hamabu (Mobile Tractor Unit)

Great work there, Pod Watcher! Pod is one of the few hunters that routinely removes MTUs from dangerous systems like Amarr and Jita, keep up the great work!

Geras is actually one of the systems where I have an undying container, see this post for more information on this phenomenon.

Thank you very much for the kind words, Chrinni. I was unsure about the style/theme I chose for my blog at first, but it has grown on me, and now it feels quite homely.

To answer Chrinni’s question, you get a yellow marker (Suspect Status) for shooting an MTU, not a red one. There is more info about this on the MTU FAQ page on this blog, which didn’t exist yet when I first received this mail.

If Orion’s name looks familiar to you, you might remember him from Vocal Local 8 where he said some nice things to me in local. I decided to dedicate an MTU kill to him in appreciation, here it is for you:

Kill: Sun Ying (‘Magpie’ Mobile Tractor Unit)

That’s quite the expensive thing to just leave lying around!

Wow, another Magpie! Here’s that killmail for you:

Kill: K-700 TPAKTOP (‘Magpie’ Mobile Tractor Unit)

What an excellent first MTU kill for Nemo/Revy. In the small text under the killmail he mentions that he tried to shoot the wreck and got his Huggin CONCORDed, oops! That’s a lesson learned though, and he went on to kill a number of other MTUs, before finding his feet in PvP and racking-up an impressive killboard. Congratulations!

I’ve always believed that MTU hunting is a great way to get pilots interested in PvP, and to help some of them break out of the repetitive PvE cycle that traps so many.