“There was nothing I could do. By the time I tabbed back over to my dread, the titan was gone…”
THE STAGE
On January 27 at 04:25 EVE time in the Heimatar system of Hedgiviter, speedphreak of Get Off My Lawn (LAWN), lost his Erebus to REKKINGCREW. His titan, packed with 1,270 blueprints, was worth 134B ISK. This was not his only loss during the drop. Spatula King, the super carrier alt of speedphreak, also met the same fate in a 26.2B ISK Nyx.
Yes, this kill screams ‘recruiting scam’. Many players in EVE scolded the Pandemic Legion/Purple Helmeted Warriors titan-hunting crew stating, “Weren’t they just laughing at the Imperium for killing a potential titan recruit?” Contrary to popular belief, this was not a scam, but an accident. I am here to clear up the rumors and pitchfork waving.
THE INTERVIEW
TMC reached out to RoCkEt X to get the details on the two kills. He was very cooperative in releasing several screenshots from during the hunt and kill.
TMC: Thanks for talking with us again. Was this a recruiting scam? Even The Mittani is convinced you screwed this guy over.
RoCkEt X: No, not at all. However, I can see why many would think it was. So, for starters, it is pretty normal for random dudes to send me info about supers running around. It comes from random people, Snuff, Lowsechnaya, etc. They give me a poke and say “Yo, we are hunting this dude, but he is out of our range and we think he’s headed your way.” I probably get three to four mails a day on stuff like this. So, yesterday morning, I get this:
RX: I open the clip2net.com link. The screenshot is pretty important. It shows the system he’s in judging by the star on the overview and what gate he’s on.
TMC: So why was he on the gate?
RX: Well, presumably he had just jumped into that system from the gate. So I look at the map.
RX: QP0K-B is out of range of lowsec, so he’s literally gated in order to jump. Then he got bubbled on the other side. Checking the zkillboard for E-91FV, I see that he had a Cynabal alt that dealt with the dictors. Presumably he clears tackle and jumps straight out. I look for towers in Hedgiviter and there is nothing belonging to LAWN and he is heading away from his space–he’s got to be leaving the alliance.
TMC: He seemed to be moving his supers to lowsec to leave Lawn like you said, but wasn’t doing a very good job at being quiet about it. What happened next?
RX: Once I get there with my alt, I jump in and find a dude in local. That character is the alt of another target with a Nyx we have been hunting. We have some mutual friends and it’s only him and I in local. We begin to chat:
RX: Then I get this screenshot of the titans Chimera alt:
RX: I showed him the screenshot I’d been sent by my original contact and invite him to TS3 to chat about it. Then he gives me the golden ticket.
TMC: Oh no. Was there anything you could do?
RX: Nope. By the time I tabbed back to my dread, the titan was gone. He was at zero cap, neuted to hell by the Bhaals, and he didn’t even have a damage control.
TMC: Shouldn’t they have warned you way beforehand?
RX: Yes. Normally when people join PL or if dudes want to move supers, they are supposed to poke me to get advice and help. I started doing it when we were in Delve to stop people from dying to Lowsechnaya.
RX: Well, as it turns out, him “trying to contact Rocket”, was him attempting to open the conversation with me from his Chimera pilot, as he didn’t have IRC set up yet. Now of course, the Chimera pilot is on my watchlist and set red, so I had no idea he was joining RKK. Secondly he didn’t re-log his client, so everyone else that had him watchlisted him didn’t know he had changed corps. He had joined minutes after the Erebus died, but still hadn’t re-logged an hour after the kills.
TMC: Oh man. I can see how most people would think of this as a scam, but it was just bad timing and lack of communication.
RX: Yeap. Another thing is that PL recruiting is closed, but RKK uses an external forum, so no one outside of their corp HR knew about the guy coming in and there was no way anyone in PL leadership could have known without being told. All of this miscommunication lost that man his Erebus and Nyx.
TMC: What a story! Seems like a big mistake in the end, but there was no way anyone could have known. He put it all on a silver platter and didn’t take the proper steps to ensure his safety. Thanks again for your time Rocket and we will talk to you next time!
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by Lemba.
