As I logged in and planned for a night of exploration a fleet request came in thru the alliance channel looking for pilots to take on 2 reds in the Misaba system. They were both camping outside of the Misaba station. One was the mentioned Navy Megathron and the other some sort of logistic ship. As I understood it from the comment in channel it would have been impossible to take down the Meg without perma-jamming the other ship first.
As the FC plotted some way to lure the ships out of station range, we sat there just looking at each other.
I really like the Megatron. It is a gorgeous ship that packs a punch. I've heard a lot about how the nurf-bat took a swing at it a while back, but I still think is worth its money and training. I will definitely get one in the near future and if lucky maybe a Navy Issued or a Marauder version later on.
Back to my story... After some deliberation and planning the FC gave orders to warp to a position. This is where I made my mistake... I'm still getting used to the way that different FC give orders in the channel. I was already pointed out once for warping too early. Since then I usually wait to see if we are warping as a group (fleet warp) or individually. This time I paid dearly for this.
As it happens I was opposite to the destination given. As I waited a few seconds to see if we were warping as a group or not I noticed people warping out. I started the alignment process when I got tackled. I knew that warping out was out of the question. Since I was under 1k away from the station, I immediately ask the station for docking orders. As my shields melted away and my armor started to give up I requested again and again, but all I got was a message telling me that they were granting me permission soon. At this time I was already in hull. As I waited for the explosion I had my finger over the button to ask access to the station in my pod. Then it happened....
As my ship blew up my screen refreshed and I was in a station, but not the Misaba station. I just woke up in Mista. Yep, I got podded. I have to admit that it was confusing at first. There wasn't time for the Meg to target me and shoot between the time my Thorax blew and the time I woke up at the station. Maybe it was lag... Maybe his drones locked me immediately. I have no kill mail of this, so I guess I'll never know. At least a fleet member was able to scoop all my loot.
I was not upset about the incident and I take full responsibility for it. It was another lesson and a good job by the Meg pilot. I really don't know why I couldn't get in the station. I was already there. Is not like I was far away. That part of the game annoys me. Sometimes I can get into a station immediately, but sometimes it takes 20+ seconds. I don't even know if I can get in while being attack (I think you can).
The worst part of it all was getting a ship back together. One thing I learned immediately is that I need to have a second ship fitted in that area to get back into action quickly. The corp provides us with incredible low prices on T1 ships. So not having another ship ready was a silly mistake.
Stations have varying degrees of undock ranges associated with them, and on top of that they each seem to have slight quirks in how well you may or may not dock with them depending on your distance from the station and a number of other factors.
ReplyDeleteUhm, it is kind of a guessing game most of the time, what you wanna do is if you are attempting to dock while stationary in space, always begin approaching the station and spamming the dock button once per second even if it says you're 0m from it. If you are landing on grid and you want to dock at the station, hit your afterburner or microwarp and approach the station while spamming the dock button once per second. For outposts that have a fee in 0.0 Providence you want to land on grid, let the prompt stay visible, watch your velocity meter pop out of warp and then allow it to trickle down to around 20 m/s and then accept the payment prompt. This seems to work more often than not, and allows you to almost immediately dock at most outposts. Otherwise, use the aforementioned tricks to dock quickly.
As far as your pod, if you had implants I would petition it, as you received no notice of your loss via lossmail. There is such a thing as residual podding, where excess damage bleeds to your pod as your ship explodes and pop your pod but I have only heard rumors and whispers of it, never witnessed or talked to anyone who it happened to. These kinds of things are not common, but they do occur, and a good deal of the time they should be issues you can petition. The GMs are actually fairly helpful in EVE if you just use a lot of honey.
:)
Thanks for the comments. I was unsure if it was even possible to dock while being attack. I guess it was just bad luck + position + all the stuff you explained that didn't allow me to dock in time. I did notice some of the quirks you point out, but never put too much thought about them since it wasn't critical... until now. :)
ReplyDeleteI will definitely put a petition since i lost a couple of +3 implants. I definitely have no km from the pod and like I said, I was very surprise that i blew up just as the Thorax blew up. I didn't get to be in the pod and he target me. This is why I thought it might have been some bomb or AE effect (if something like this does exist in the game).
Thanks!