I went into a Level 2 mission… near Oichyia… trying to rid a “good-as-ghosted” station of a few dratted Guristas. What a mistake I made.
I went in thinking there were a few Pithi fighters to kill, but didn’t realize that the prize money of this mission was worth much more than “a few”. Pretty coon, I had killed the first 3 volleys of 15 fighters (not without hardship), and I was seeing at least 30 more showing up. And, as an added bonus, their lock-on range was about 120km, so they were able to snipe me from MILES away – before I ever got to them.
Warped out to lick my wounds, and when I came back, I made a big mistake – showed up at 0km. It took all of 15 seconds for them to drain me of about 5800 hit points. I managed to save my drones and escape, so I recharged. Took about 10 minutes to recharge my whole ship. Then I went back in.
Big mistake.
Even when entering their space at 100km distance, they managed to snipe me. Even one got himself a few heavy missiles and threw them my way. This attack really took care of my ship, and within 16 seconds, my beloved Vexor was toast.
I subsequently flew back to my base, cancelled the mission, and logged out.
Reflecting on this, I realized something: I take a lot of risks, but I should understand that the ship takes a while to turn around and warp out of any zone. Because of this, I need to have a failsafe point indicated on my HUD. Once I have half my armor gone, it’s bailing time.
Obviously, this is not my first loss, and of course, I was insured 
 But the problem remains that this is my fault. Going into these missions by myself is near-suicidal, but I think the biggest lesson here is that you have to learn to read mission statements before taking the assignment on. Like Strangeape said to me, there’s a bunch of new missions showing up in Eve, and this may prove very interesting to learn about. so my advice? Don’t jump into a ship and get cocky. Know thyself, and don’t try and double-dare the enemy. If you have the means, you’ll take them down – but don’t EVER underestimate the enemy.
Anyhoo… hopefully you guys have started reading my blogstream -and especially StrangeApe’s brand new blog, “Drunk In Space”. If you haven’t yet, catch it at http://drunkinspace.blogspot.com/.
Beware my return…
