Working in low sec

I read a lot of forums and found some statements a little disturbing that pirates are upset with carebears for not traveling to low sec to do missions. Some want to move LV4 missions to low sec in order to force carebears out of the "safe" high sec areas.

I am a little over 8 months old and still only 7 times have I attempted missions in low sec. A little pathetic I know, but for good reason.

At two weeks old I tried to enter a low sec for a carrier mission. I lasted all of 30 seconds as my cruiser was blasted to pieces by two gate campers. A couple days later a corp mate was destroyed by gate campers as he attempted to cross the line between High and low sec. I don't understand why pirates are so surprised that us carebears don't travel that frequently in low sec. Ships cost money and more importantly time. At two weeks I had to take out a loan to pay for my ship. The loss was devastating and it took over a month to recover running LV1 and LV2 missions. I don't really care to engage in PVP all that much so it only made sense to stay out of low sec.

The first loss was 8 months ago. It wasn't until two months ago that I found out where my wife hid my balls and the low sec promise of fame and fortune with better quality agents and now more importantly the elusive LV5 missions were calling me.

We gathered a fleet of 8 ships to attempt our first LV5 mission. This was the first flight of that logistics I wrote about yesterday. Being cautious our CEO jumped in to accept the mission as the rest of us eagerly waited in high sec to see where we needed to go.

We got the mission and again made a few fatal mistakes. The mission was dealing heavy damage and our CEO's Absolution was taking all the aggro. Our logistics ship was repping with ease however fearing aggro herself she accidentally flew the ship out of range and in an instant the Absolution was destroyed. This effectively aborted the mission as all chaos broke out. Many of the other ships didn't have the tank to withstand the aggro so we withdrew to regroup and come up with a new game plan.

Some members of the fleet flew to a safe spot as others flew to stations. Our CEO was sent to buy a new ship and hopefully he would be back in time to finish the mission. Then mistake number 2 became more then apparent. Two members of the fleet were flying navy megathrons. The results of months of missioning had paid great dividends to these pilots and they were proud of their ships. However we learned that they were also highly sought after by pirates. So of coarse as they tried to leave a station there was a group of pirates waiting. As the battle ensued I got the word over the coms and headed over there was quickly as I could to assist. By the time I arrived all that was left was wreckage. Another hard lesson learned about politics in low sec.

We ended up paying the pirates 10mil for protection while we finished our mission and after finishing it we headed back to home station with our heads down. A total of 4 ships lost and one pilot podded. Not a very rewarding mission as the LV5 only had a payout of 4 mil including bonuses.

It will be a week before we tried another LV5 in low sec. This time we left the navies at port. We expect to lose ships in low sec, but we also hope that not every attempt to run a high quality mission will result in destruction. This next LV5 was no exception. We were finishing the mission when we got scanned down and a pirate showed up and tagged the logistics ship. At least this time we were able to give him a good fight.

To date the events have replayed themselves every time we run a mission in low sec. We are prepared for scanners and have policies in place to try and escape or fight once we are discovered. However all this takes time and time is ISK.

In order to run any of the missions in low sec we have to run in fleets. That is not bad however each of us can solo a LV4 in high sec and in low sec due to the constant interruptions by pirates we have to fly in fleets and each mission takes extra time and planning all resulting in less isk per hour.

So if your a pirate you can stop wondering. It all comes down to time and isk.