Dealing with Customer Complaints

Well I'm no expert in the ransoming business. Most pods I can snag are young chars without expensive bling bling hardwired into in their brains. I 'm trying to ransom before podding nevertheless, but sometimes a system is busy with lots of criminals which could warp in any time or [raises voice] a Dramiel is already burning towards me. In those cases I just shoot the pod.

Residence in Egghelende VII - Moon 22.
Try the Steakhouse!

So I'm sitting in my Egghelende cabin the other day, reviewing recent combat logs with my intern Ms Lebowski when an angry customer transmission comes in:

Customer > you kill me yesterday
Customer > and you destroy my implantats
Customer > give me 50.000.000 milion on new byu for me and i dodnt kill you . ok ?
Sobczynski > did i ask you for ransom?

I skipped through the logs and found what I had suspected: I had not ransomed that guy. Trying to figure out the damage I had done, it turns out he had all slots filled with something. I then resorted to the final step of every B2C interaction:

Sobczynski > Hmm, usually: No refunds.
Customer > yes you destroy me yesterday and new clone all my implantats lost
Sobczynski > It seems I forgot to ransom you yesterday. So it's my fault indeed.
Customer > ok i find you
Sobczynski > Ok, I'm in Amamake at the moment. I'll be in in Vard, Auga, Siseide or Egghelende later. You can find me there.
Customer > ok thanks good fly
Sobczynski > pleasure talking to you.

Phew. For a minute there I thought he might file a complaint at my corps issue tracker!

I'll attach another example of a successful transaction, this time with a very nice and funny young pilot. You see the classic steps of a successful ransom applied (I have highlighted the the key phrases).

#1 Friendly Greeting and a GF

Sobczynski > hi there
Sobczynski > gf!
Customer > no :(
Customer > you kicked my butt

#2 Establishing a cordial atmosphere for the negotiations

Sobczynski > i have an range fit, bad luck mate
Customer> oh i see

#3 Ransom Offer

Sobczynski > 5 million for your pod?
Customer > i have never been held at ransom
Customer > where is my knight in shining armor?

#4 Guiding the customer through the process

Sobczynski > no sweat, i'll guide you through the process
Sobczynski > ok, you pay and you wont get podded
Customer > i see
Customer > ok how
Sobczynski > normally theres a time limit :)
Sobczynski > right click my name-> give money

#5 Completing the transaction

Customer > there ya go
Sobczynski > thanks mate.
Sobczynski > pleasure doing business with you

Daddy Needs a New Set of Implants!

After each pod-ola I try to come up with an useful set of hardwiring implants. I get podded quite a lot, so they musn't be too expensive, 10 million in my head, that's enough I say! I don't care about learning implants anymore so we're talking about slot 6 and up.

My main interests are commitment and changing myself damage, speed and agility. So I chose:

• SLOT 6: SX-1 (+3% projectile damage) for less than 1 million ISK
• SLOT 7: AY-1 (+3% agility), 8 million ISK
• SLOT 9: ZGA100 (+3% optimal range), 4 million ISK

Prices are roughly the cheapest sells at Rens. Some other interesting implants are either too expensive or don't fit into my skull:

• SLOT 6: CY-1, +3% speed
• SLOT 6: MY-1, +3% Afterburner/MWD speed
• SLOT 7: AX-1, +3% tracking speed
• SLOT 7: ZGC100, +3% falloff
• SLOT 8: ZET300, +3% hull

Isn't there any interesting implant for slots 10? I'm not too gaga over SLOT 8's +3% hull either, but I don't see any useful alternative here. Another question: Did CCP change the slot mappings at some point? A lot of web resources seem to have them wrong.

Extermination Postponed, or: The One Hour Siseide Extravaganza

So there I am again, in my Rifter, minding my own business, which is basically scanning people to exterminate them, you know, with EXTREME PREJUDICE. (I must admit that it turns out that the people I engage to exterminate with extreme prejudice are actually out to exterminate me. And they succeed a lot lately. I'm not sure why, but I think I might have become a little too cocky after seven kills in a row one day with one Rifter.)

Spending Quality Time in Siseide, Heimatar.

But I digress. Finding Amamake D-scan mostly empty once again I jumped into Siseide en route to Auga. Siseide didn't seem busy except for a Magnate (nom de guerre: Probe) sitting in planetary orbit. Unfortunately the Magnate's behaviour was not ... , um, encouraging. It warped to other planets a few times until I managed to get a lock and land a nice salvo, but before the second shot I got this outrageous error message:

[ 2010.11.08 23:06:03 ] (notify) Target is invulnerable.

Now I don't know if there was some sort of foul play but let me tell you something: I'm not through with CCP.  That's my vow to you. Invulnerable Targets must go! If shooting fleeing targets is wrong I don't wanna be right!

But I digress again. Now what's nicer than attacking an unarmed T1 frigate? Right: Attacking a battlecruiser. More specifically: Attacking a Myrmidon–which is by my standards an ugly punch in the face of every aesthetically aware pilot. I'm not kidding.

I warped into the belt, approached directly and set an orbit of 14 kilometers. Then, surprisingly and all of a sudden I got this error message:
[ 2010.11.08 23:12:40 ] (combat) Hobgoblin II belonging to Shamdex Vox hits you, doing 56.4 damage.

Battlecruiser with drones?
When did that happen?

A lot of them. Turns out the Myrmidon had drones! Needless to say I fled the scene, my display turning red within seconds. Deeply in structure waiting out that annoying GCC I decided not to pursue the extermination of that particular Myrmidon. I scanned and warped between safe spots when I spotted a Rifter but with my damaged ship I was clearly not able to engage. I decided to ignore the GCC, docked, repaired my baby and undocked, pretty eager to get that Rifter. I knew I would have to undock and warp away pretty quickly since the criminal flag was still on. Nevertheless:

[ 2010.11.08 23:29:10 ] (combat) Caldari Sentry Gun II lightly hits you, doing 207.3 damage.
[ 2010.11.08 23:29:10 ] (combat) Caldari Sentry Gun I places an excellent hit on you, inflicting 377.4 damage.

Ah well, with my puny shields gone I engaged the fellow Rifter which was obviously cooperating with other criminalz in local namely one sexy Jaguar. After a few hits I had stripped the Rifter off it's shields and half it's armor, but the Jaguar warped in closely and I disengaged.

Again, damaged, with fresh GCC I postponed the killing of the two frigates. Scanning and poking around I found myself two very young cruiser pilots in a Celestis and an Osprey. They did not agree on their extermination  either so I had to chase them around a little before I could point and engage the Osprey at Siseide IX. Then suddenly:
[ 2010.11.08 23:50:57 ] (notify) Target is invulnerable.
The Osprey warped out! Ok, switching to the Celestis. After a few blows:
[ 2010.11.08 23:51:25 ] (notify) Target is invulnerable.

Ah, f... it. One minute later I scanned the Jaguar, kited it and ... what can I tell you, the Rifter jumped in and the Myrmidon too. Before they could lock me I tried to disengage once again like a coward but while I was aligning my traversal speed dropped allowing the Jaguar to land the final hit before I managed to warped out.


There goes my Rifter.


I was so close to warping that I didn't expect the explosion–next thing I saw was a medical tube thing at a station!

Good fight to all of you!

Nestor, or: Bad Day at Pator Tech School

I started Eve to have some relaxation and innocent and wholesome fun. Now I'm sitting at Amamake VI, Moon 8 getting yelled at by some NPC corporation manager with a german accent.

"These Excel sheets showing your combat records ... You're joking, right?"

I've had a bad week. I've had a very bad week.

"... October 25th, you lost against a Tristan, 20 minutes later you get killed and podded by a Slicer, then ..."

The Slicer caught me when undocking my unfitted Rifter. I wasn't paying too much attention, so my pod and the implants blew up. Another twenty minutes later I undocked with my freshly fitted Rifter just to be killed at the station because the guy got close. I fly arties you know.

"The CEO won't be too pleased with your ... ehm, efforts, Sobczynski."

Next week I have a performance feedback meeting at the Pator Tech School headquarters. There will be some yapping about sentry guns and GCC, picking the right targets and avoiding Eve U ganks I'm sure. Damn, why did I join one of Eve's most elitist corps?

Can one be kicked out of an NPC corp?

Totally Romantic Stuff

Franziskar

I'm having trouble with my alt.

O.k., I know you've got to be on good terms with your alt. At least if you want to keep the stream of supplies coming and maybe some monetary support in case you find out that living off of loot doesn't work for you. And it doesn't work for me either! But lately she started nagging a lot about getting my sec status fixed and moving to a POS in high security space and doing some missioning or trading or hauling … all kinds of boring stuff.

But, … well, you know.

Bunny Lebowski, Traveling

Pirate yuppie live style is not just about preparing power point presentations for your CEO and dispatcherating mostly harmless travelers. It's also about dating cheap floozies on the side, which I do.

So I picked up Bunny one day in Eszur, an aspiring student of computer arts. Quite contrary to the rest of the crew (and their captain), she's pretty savvy! She reconfubled my gyrostabilizer in no time!