The Orca pilot and his Bot like fleet of Covetors and the Miasmos pilots seem to be randomly and singularly logging in and out for short periods of time with enough regularity to notice them. I wonder if that is an automated process, or if the pilot behind them is actively organising them. I was not the only local who noticed them.
I was again undocked today collecting skill points, at a time I am generally not active in game. I had gone through a couple of my pilots when I noticed three Triglavian Recon ships appear on D-Scan. That seems to change the entire feel I normally have for Hi-Sec.
I do not specifically AFK play – but being married with children, I am regularly interrupted during my game sessions. I might have to turn away from my screen while someone is talking to me; or walk away for 30 seconds to see someone off at the door; or spend a couple minutes finding someone’s lost sporting gear. Those short moments were relatively safe to stay undocked in Hi-Sec. That is no longer the case.
So far, my encounters or attempted encounters with the Triglavians have come down to:
1 Random Belt Encounter – Had to run
2 Attempts to Engage using D-Scan – Failed
2 Attempts to Engage cycling through or waiting in Asteroid Belts – Failed
1 Attempt to Engage using Probes – Success but had to run
1 Attempt to Engage using Probes – Failed
That accounts for my 7 – 0 total in my last post. I was able to home in on the Rats using D-Scan and Probes, but they almost always had moved before I landed.
As my new post title suggests, I finally had some success today.
After seeing my Triglavian nemesis on D-Scan, I continued collecting my daily skill points on the next couple pilots. I took a lot of extra caution as I warped through the belts. When I got to the last pilot – again my main – I decided to use the Anti Triglavian Gnosis.
I collected my required kill – and with the Rats still on D-Scan, I simply sat in the belt and waited.
Shortly after they warped in. Two Recon Damavik and one Renewing Recon Damavik.
The battle was on.
Now I made two mistakes – I should have been using shorter range ammo (I had loaded longer range to snipe an NPC earlier), and I wasted almost 10 seconds not attacking the Renewing Recon first. It did not change the outcome – but it could have.
I would likely have max skills for my Gnosis fit. For this experiment I was using 5 Quad Light Beam Laser II’s and 5 Hammerhead II drones. I was doing approximately 376 Raw DPS (against 0 resistances), and 570 Raw DPS if I had the right crystals loaded.
The Gnosis was configured to have a buffer tank with mild repairing capabilities. It had 20,000 Raw Hit points (44,400 Effective), and repaired 47 Armor per second (113 Effective).
So my excuses aside, this is how it played out from my logs.
I aligned to station and started to lock the Triglavians.
At 0 seconds they started to apply damage to me.
At 8 seconds my Lasers started to apply damage to them.
At 30 seconds my Drones started to land damage. I had taken a total of 4,476 Damage by the time I was applying full damage.
At 1 minute and 50 seconds I killed the first Renewing Recon. I had taken 12,538 points of damage and dealt 5,127.
At 3 minutes and 3 seconds I had killed the second Recon. I had taken 19,403 Damage and dealt 9,585 points.
At 3 minutes and 37 seconds I had killed the third and final Recon. I had taken a total of 21,491 Damage and dealt 13,968 points.
I had dropped to around 20% armor with my repairer not able to keep on top of the damage from even just one rat. At around that point I overheated the repairer to see if that would hold against the damage. It was borderline.
Without any repairing – I would have had to of warped out or died. They did more raw damage than I had total raw hit points.
You get no loot, no bounty and I suspect from the lack of messages, no standing change. I did salvage the 3 frigates which the client suggested was worth 8M ISK
Good money for Hi-Sec, although I presume the value will quickly drop.
As I salvaged the wrecks, I hit D-Scan, and 4 new Recon Triglavians were shown. These things seem to be there always.
My Gnosis fit is gimped by fitting the Expanded Probe Launcher. Taking lessons from this encounter I will be changing it and trying again. I need too. Against 4 or 5 Recon frigates, my Gnosis fit would have failed. I need more of everything – DPS, Buffer and Repairing. Given the Probe Launcher doesn’t appear effective, I will have to look at all the hull options across the Battlecruiser Range. I am also going to have to tank for and do damage specific to those Rats. I had read it was best to apply and tank Thermal and Explosive – I will have to double check that.
Once I get the right balance between tank and DPS I would be able to farm these relatively safely. But..
I am seeing and hearing some dismissive comments about how dangerous these things are.
I think those damage figures from 3 Hi-Sec frigates is scary.
To me they truly change the nature of Hi-Sec. If they remain as is – they would be close to insurmountable to younger casual players, and they likely make belt mining for those same players unsustainable. You would certainly have to really consider if you used a Covetor or Retriever. If they are visiting a POCO – then that too might be too risky without access to a Deep Space Transport.
It is not even like people can band together in local and clear them out. They are back instantly.
That might be another change to consider with them. If you clear the fleet, give the system an hour of peace (+/- a random amount) before they spawn again.
Now you can just stay out of belts. You can find asteroids to mine in Missions and Anomalies. You can run Anomalies or missions instead of ratting in belts. You can make sure your PI ship turns and warps quick and has a bit of a tank, and only ever sit on a POCO for a few moments to load and unload. You can band together with multiple new friends and go (carefully) farm them. There are options – but if you are encountering these things in Hi-Sec belts, they will likely have impacted the game you were used to playing.
Chaos indeed.
Edit… I should have paid more attention to the logs. The Triglavians were hitting me with an unspecified weapon (I presume Entropic Disintegrators) and Majorana Light Missile’s. The Disintegrators do Explosive and Thermal damage, the Missiles do EM and Kinetic Damage. You can’t leave a hole in your resistance..
Evehermit 