This is the story of ZIPZAPBOOP, the most annoying ship in seven systems.
Stories of EVE: Wind-up Cat & Mouse (in Space)
Written by Alex Sinclair Lack at 07/28/2022, 02:25 AM
Welcome back to our Stories of EVE series where we reach out to the coolest members of the EVE Online community and get them to tell us their coolest true EVE Online stories in their own words. We've got a new storyteller this week, the awesome Palli -- better known as CCP Spider. Who you empathise with when reading this story is a good indicator of where you stand on intergalactic trolling. Enjoy!
I'm not going to say I lose sleep over it, but my mind often returns to him.
I was out and about in Nullsec, exploring in a ship with no combat capabilities. So, if I get caught, I'm dead. But the ship does have the perk of being able to cloak. I'm going about my business, making money and feeling happy. And then I notice there's another player who's been chasing me for the last 10 systems.
But I'm feeling a little mischievous. So, I get into a system, sit on a planet uncloaked for 15 seconds, cloak up, and warp to a different spot. Then I was like, "Hey, I'm going to go vacuum the living room or something." Which I do, then I go back to my PC and see he's still in the system looking for me. I uncloak, and recloak, so he loses me again. Then I'm thinking, "Hey, I'm feeling a bit hungry. I'm going to go make some instant ramen or something."
And I just kept repeating this pattern of cloaking, uncloaking, moving around a bit, cloaking, uncloaking, hiding again. With each cloaked period being an inconsistent amount of time as I'm doing all my household chores. I'm doing this for hours. And I'm the one who ends up getting bored of it.
I've done my chores, I've had my nice nutritious dinner, I've got my cold beer out of the bridge. You know? My house is spotless. So it was eventually time to fly off and keep making money.
But this poor guy sticks in the back of my mind. I'm not going to say I lose sleep over it, but my mind often returns to him. He must have been foaming at the mouth and dumbfounded, chasing this one elusive tiny little ship moving with deranged inconsistency around the same system. Appearing and disappearing endlessly.
If I ever meet that guy, I'm going to buy him a beer. I wasted hours of his time while I was just getting on with my life.
It doesn't help that I'd named my ship something exceedingly stupid like ZIPZAPBOOP. All caps.
Good times.
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