The Repair Station

1st September 2008 – 7.27 am

In working to clear The Blockade I wore myself out a little in EVE Online. From picking it up as my first level three mission and finding I had to beat a hasty retreat, to striving to afford a Drake and fittings in order to stand any chance of completing the mission, then taking hours to battle my way through the dozens of battlecruisers and destroyers to complete the mission, I found I needed a break from being a space cadet.

I took some time to play my draenei warrior a bit, gaining a few levels and advancing Sapphire's professions, and had some fun with my rogue in the battlegrounds, gaining myself a competitor's tabard as well as a gold medal for winning an Eye of the Storm battle. The Micro Manager got people to come in to work on Saturday and performed many other nefarious tasks, including fitting a bank job between asking for status updates. I wasn't entirely out of EVE Online during this time, as I took the opportunity to enjoy the scenery by shifting salvage and loot between stations and getting myself in place to start talking to a higher quality agent on my return.

And return I did. With a fully equipped Drake and a little experience of taking on battlecruisers I am more confident in picking up a second mission, so start talking to my new contact. She has some work for me, asking me to shut down a repair station that is fixing rat ships in the system. As long as there aren't a hundred enemies waiting for me to warp in to the location, it should be straightforward. I hop in to Coiled Snake, load up on missiles, and head out of the station.

My Drake aligns itself as the warp drive kicks in and my engines fling me to the deadspace pocket of the coordinates given to me by my agent. Sure enough, a few tens of kilometres away is a repair station. It looks like I'm in luck and have caught it during a quiet period, as there are no hostile ships around! I lock on to the structure and let loose my first volley of heavy missiles. As the explosions light up the black background of space enemy ships light up the black display of my overview, as defences come on-line and ships warp in to protect the repair station.

As the repair station is essentially passive I concentrate my fire on the newly arrived defences, but as I do the repair station sends out waves of drones to repair any damage I am doing to gun stations or ships. Fancy that, a repair station doing its job. I find myself choosing between essentially wasting ammunition to force the station to consume its supply of drones or to endure the fire from the ships and destroy the station first. Missiles may be cheap, but I would still be under fire whilst the repair station continues to send out repair drones, so I return my focus to the station. It is not long before a satisfying explosion signals the destruction of the station.

The explosion also signals a group of mercenaries in the area that their newly constructed station has been destroyed by a lone capsuleer, and they warp in to teach me a lesson. This seems a mite unfair: either I had to waste ammunition and take a stream of weapon fire whilst the station ran out of drones or I destroy the station and double the number of enemy ships I have to fight! So be it, the numbers and skill levels of the enemy are still below that of The Blockade, and I am able to lay waste to all my attackers with my shields only slightly worried.

The mission was completed with the destruction of the repair station, destroying the enemy ships is a professional courtesy. I warp back to the station and report my success to my pleased agent. My second level three mission goes somewhat more smoothly and quickly than my first, and I look forward to taking on more.

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