Kill of the Week: Routine Suicide

Wasn't killed this week, but I want to talk about it anyway.
http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=5915516

I teach PvP classes, including very basic ones.  In the PvP 101 class that I teach, I harp on the #1 rule of EVE: "Don't fly what you can't afford to lose!"  As far as I'm concerned, that should be written in letters of fire on the EVE log-in screen.

But sometimes I emphasize, and I add this: "When you undock, just assume you're going to lose your ship and everything in it.  Just assume someone's hunting you personally.  If that makes you wince because your fitting or cargo are silly, don't undock!"  Then I post a link to this Badger II kill-mail.

Now granted, there are more hysterical loss-mails than this simple hauler.

But the interesting thing about this kill is how routine it is, from every angle.  The pilot that lost the Badger was obviously doing a routine ammo shipment, probably for his corp.  The toon is an obvious alt.  Someone in the corp knows what he's doing, because Republic Fleet Fusion M is a great ammo choice for Vagas and Canes looking to take out armor-tanking battleships, probably in Empire war-decs.  The quantity implies the corp took these ships on a lot.  The fitting exudes "meh".  Someone couldn't be bothered to worry about it, except for its utility.

The system where the kill took place is a little off the beaten track.  That seems to have been the one nod toward security of almost 750 million ISK in ammo.

The ganker, likewise, obviously does this routinely.  The toon is probably an alt.  His killboard has almost one hundred of this sort of kill, and he makes enough ISK of his targets to put T2 fittings on his suicide ships.  This is probably his main income source, in fact: he one- and two-shots hysterically bad haulers.  He gets enough successful ganks that he was willing to risk the 50% chance that the ammo would explode.  It didn't, so he probably made a 700 million ISK profit that day.  A good PvPer can play for quite a while on 700 million, or can buy a couple of PLEXes and train the suicide alt for another two months (seems more likely).

It was a routine suicide.

Fly expensive cargos or ships long enough, and this will happen to you.  EVE rewards players that think about what they do before they do it.  Don't get caught in someone else's routine suicide.  Before you undock, assume someone's hunting you personally.  Don't be this Badger pilot.  ;-)