How not to move a carrier: A tale of two noobs

If you think hiring a pro is expensive, try hiring an amateur.

Recently a corp member, lets call him *Bill asked in corp slack if anybody could fly an Apostle.  He was friendly with a wormhole corp and wanted to move the Apostle into their wormhole.

Bill could fly other capitals, but he could not fly Amarr.  Not yet.

Now a long long time ago and in a universe far far away - lets call it *null sec your author did fly a carrier.

This was during the age of the slow cat.

For you kids that do not know, slow cat's was a doctrine of masses of remote repping carriers that were nigh unkillable.

Not that your author was that sophisticated - oh no, ever the slacker and under achiever he had a mere suitcase carrier - a carrier fit for travel, designed to move his sub caps from one staging point to the next.

The carrier favoured by your author's null sec corp at the time was the Archon - also an Amarr capital.

Thus, thinking himself imminently qualified (if slightly rusted), and ever the helpful type, your author volunteered the services of his alt, lets call her *delihla to help move said Apostle.

I mean,  get carrier, perform one jump, enter wormhole, dock at citadel... what could possibly go wrong?

Well plenty as it turns out...

At this point dear reader I will spare you (most) of the detail of the trials, tribulations and mishaps of getting *delihla into the home hole.

Suffice to say it somehow miraculously happened without anybody dying.

Not that we didn't try, oh no, there was a sabre and a bubble involved, my running back to the "gate" (*Bill had a smug wormholer chuckle at my use of the term "gate"... fu *Bill, if you had actually been scouting in lieu of just leaving bookmarks to follow none of this would have happenend....).

To the credit of self same *Bill, this was the point where he did show his wormholer experience.

Told me to wait on the higsec side of the "gate" (wormhole) whilst he did something actually involving scouting and I'm guessing, showing some kind of scary ship on D-Scan to make the big bad sabre go away...

Why wait you ask?  Because of a thing called polarisation (don't worry, I didn't know either).... An arcane wormhole mechanic that would render me unable to run back to the "gate" a second time to jump back out - likely a "bad thing" for my little helios if a sabre still was around...

Reaching the home hole without further indecent, *delihla was provided with a cloaky hauler inclusive of Oxygen Isotopes.  Well done to the ever overachieving *Bill.

Out to the null sec exit she went and was spit out somewhere in NPC Fountain.  System empty.  One unscouted gate jump and she is docked in the (also empty) station system where the Archon is located.

Board ship, move fuel to fuel bay, move hauler into hangar.  So far so flatteringly good.

As I undock *Bill lights a cyno on the wormhole entrance...  I right click on jump to and.... nothing....

*delihla: "Wtf?  Did you light the cyno?"
*Bill: "Yes, why?"
*delihla: "no jump to destination...?"
*Bill: "Right click and... then go jump to..."
*delihla: "duh... duuuudeee, I'm telling you, no destination.  Did you actually light the cyno?"
*Bill: "yes I'm sitting here in space, with cyno up" (sounds kinda panicky).  "Maybe you tried to jump too early, dock and try again."

At this point *Bill is already regretting my help.  I dutifully dock and undock.  To my delight this time *Bill is available as a destination to jump to.

At this point dear reader you'd think that enough has happened and the story would promptly end, but nooooo....

I right click jump to *Bill and.... Nothing.  Just a message saying something about needing isotopes followed by a "traffic control" message.

At this point your author's nerves are fried.  All that he can think is that he somehow put the isotopes in the incorrect bay.

*Bill: "You have to put the isotopes in the fuel bay dummy..."
*delihla: "grrr... I did... I don't understand... OH F*CK!!!"
*Bill: "What!!!?"
*delihla: "I'm getting shot at - taking damage!!!"
*Bill: "I thought you said the system was empty....!?  DOCK!!  DOCK!!" (sounds very panicky)
*delihla: "It was... IT IS!!!"  (docking, again.)

 In our defence, this was in the hey days of the "chat system bugs" where pilots in system would often not show up in local chat.... but they would show up on overview surely?

A quick check of the log.... and... aaaaahhhhhggggggg.... I was shot at by rats (my pvp overview does not show rats).... F*ck me what amateurs.... ok, lets go again.

Undock, right click jump to... and... No jump fuel message again.  At this point both *Bill and myself have moved beyond panic to mere despondency.

Somehow becoming resigned to the idea of impending doom drives mindless clicking and chatter from our heads.  I actually read the message.  To jump the ship requires Helium Isotopes.

Something clicks.  I recheck the fuel bay.  And there it is: Oxygen Isotopes.

*delihla: "AAAWWWWWHHHH F*CK ME".
*Bill: (alarmed) "What??"
*delihla: "we need different isotopes"
*Bill":"Huh" (my turn to be smug and lecture his degenerate Gallente ass about isotopes)

Luckily there are some Helium Isotopes to be had on the market (at a nice markup for the seller, but at this point we were really beyond haggling over a mere 1000% markup).

I buy the fuel, move to fuel bay and undock.

*Bill:"Only one minute left on the cyno"

Yes dear reader.  During all this time that I had been trying to find the "jump to destination", undocking, redocking, undocking..., panicked about rats and finding fuel, *Bill had been sitting stationary, on that wormhole entrance, in the middle of null sec, cyno lit for all to see....

Astoundingly nothing had happened.  Yet.

I undock, right click jump to.... and I JUMPED!!!

Enter the wormhole and dock.

*delihla: "F.U. *Bill, you can keep the helios" (trades helios to *Bill and death clones back to Jita)

No dear reader, I don't know what happened to *Bill after that, so don't ask.

Thus ends the tale, with proof that no good deed goes unpunished, as well as vindication that Bob looks after the hopeless and the hapless.

In truth we deserved to lose something through all that....



For advice on how to really move a capital ship  I leave you in the capable hands of the (late) and great **Azual Skoll over at the EVE Altruist site (unfortunately dead. Edit: the site, not the author).  Much of this site is now out dated, but some things have endured...




*Names published without changes in order to implicate the guilty.
**F.U. Azual - you never said anything about isotopes!!!