Smashed

It's the middle of Friday night, actually Saturday morning.  Von is shut out of my system, useless to the siege of my tower.  My tower will soon die, and billions of ISK in loot destroyed or captured.  I want to go to bed.  But there are a few things left to do.  My alt, Otto, is still in the system in his Cheetah.

We stripped most of our ships when the attack first came.  But we left a battleship each, along with some other potentially useful ships fitted (logis, Cheetahs, etc.).  We hoped that the battleships might be able to make a difference in some fight for wormhole control.  This did not happen; the enemy was much too strong.  I want to strip all remaining ships, and get as much of that loot as possible safe out of the POS.

Hiljah is with me.  I warp Otto into the tower, having to slowboat across the last tens of kilometers due to the bubble wrap.  This is quite safe because I am cloaked.  I enter the tower and zip across to the ship maintenance array.  I make a jetcan to work with, then I set to, getting into ships and stripping them.  Hiljah is handling the battleships that we did not strip earlier, hoping for some chance to use.  I work on various cruisers and lighter stuff.  Most of our best fittings we have already evacuated.  Much of the stuff left is T2 fittings, with some cheap faction items.  Still, at roughly 1 million ISK per 5m^3 for the better items, it is worth the trouble to save.

My computer locks up.  I have noticed some stability problems recently, with either video card turning off its outputs but the computer still apparantly working (coms stay on), or sometimes a hard lockup.  It may be related to showing bubbles, because I have seen it a couple times in my bubble-wrapped tower.  This is nuisance.  I restart the computer, then have to wait to log into windows, log into EVE, and warp back into my POS.  Cut me a break, I want to get this done and get to bed.

Finally, I do the last ship.  I realize I have forgotten the drones on most of the ships, but I don't care at this point.  It's good enough. 

Now I go through the fittings, looking for the most valuable ones per volume.  As I do this, I realize that my current Cheetah is not very well fit.  In fact I had not rigged it yet.  So, I jetcan its contents so far, strip it, then get one of the Cheetahs that I have stripped already.  Then I fit it up.  As I do this, I realize that I can use the empty high slot to fit a second stealth cloak.  Stealth cloaks are huge (100m^3) but fairly expensive.  They are not worth saving in cargo, but slots are not cargo limited.

Finally I am fit how I want.  I could warp straight out of the bubble; the enemy has left some holes.  But we don't know that they know that, and I want to leave the option for other non-cloaky ships to warp out that way.  I figure I can exit almost anywhere; they won't bother to try to decloak a Cheetah.  So I head out to edge of the force field.  As soon as I cross it, I will engage the cloak; there will be no time for even a very fast locker to stop me because Cheetahs have a tiny signature.

I cross the edge, and hit my cloak.  Disallowed!  What?  You cannot cloak with two fitted cloaks, even if one is offline.  I immediately turn and head back towards the force field, and turn on my microwarp.  I don't make it -- pop goes the Cheetah.  I am in my pod; again I head to safety.  This time I make it.  Whew.

Grumble.  Curse you CCP.  (Not to mention my own ignorance.)  No sleep for me.

I slowboat back up to the SMA and get out a second Cheetah, and fit it up.  Just one stealth cloak, OK CCP?  Fortunately there is still one probe launcher left and some probes.  Then I load it up with the best remaining stuff, and again I head out.  Again I am carefully watching for the edge of the force field, to turn on my cloak.

This is how I feel.

As I near the edge, my video card turns off again.  I still hear Hiljah though.  I am moving towards danger!  I hit the power button on my computer as fast as I can, but I have to hold it for a few seconds to get the reboot.  Finally it reboots.  Now I must wait, then log in, and start EVE, and wait, then log in, and wait.  I do this.  I get on coms, too.  Hiljah tells me I died.  Uh oh.  There I am in my pod, warping back into my tower.  I land on grid, outside of my tower.  I head for safety of the force field, but this time I do not make it.  Podded.

Double damn.  I say good night and good luck to Hiljah.  Then I head off to bed, finally.

A few hours later, the tower comes out of reinforced.  The enemy kill it.  Then they kill everything that might contain loot.  (Only one thing does contain loot, the X-large ship maintenance array.)  Then they kill all the things.  I don't know why they bothered killing all those incapacitated POS parts, but I guess it pads the killboard.