Tackled in Dek

My departure to the war zone having been delayed for reasons, I was ratting in an anom today while doing working on another monitor and my laptop. I saw a neutral in local, and gave it my attention for a minute or two. No report in intel so I made one. No discussion in standing fleet of any significance. Nothing on dscan. So I let it go, but it was on my mind.

Every minute or so, I flicked the mouse over to EVE and hit the dscan. Then I started seeing an Imperial Navy Slicer. I'm wasn't too worried about that, sitting in a pretty heavily tanked VNI and confident that my fit would let me win, survive until reinforcements came, or break tackle. 

A few minutes later, he comes on grid with me. I start to lock him up, and get scrammed. Then I put heavies on him, and put the info in standing fleet. I got him into structure and he warped off. 

(I would really like a scram drone, by the way. Is it OP? Maybe, but it would cost 20% DPS to field it, so maybe not.)

While this is happening, I am being told not to rat with neutrals in system. Which is good advice, and I knew it was a risk. I just wasn't very worried about losing my relatively inexpensive ship. I've docked a couple of times when a gang came through, but one guy? A VNI isn't exactly a glamorous kill, and that ship tanks a lot of smaller stuff.

I told standing fleet that it looked like he warped off, but in a few minutes, he came back on grid and we re-engaged. When I informed standing fleet of this news, it was not well received. I believe "you kept fucking ratting?" and "you stupid pubbie fuck" were among my responses. 

It was explained to me that even if I don't care about the loss, giving an enemy an easy kill makes them happy and rewards their behavior. Goons don't do that.

And guess what? I am totally fine with that. I like that. Goons have a system that makes things work. In BNI, no one would ever have given one iota of a shit about someone losing a ratting ship to a roamer. It's so far from my experience that this could be a concern, it never entered my mind. But BNI isn't the example of a well-run, efficient, and effective null sec empire. GSF is. A lot of things work because small changes in individual behavior add up to a huge effect in the aggregate, things like herd immunity or clean sidewalks. Now I know that ratting with neutrals in local is like littering - just don't do it, and we're all better off.

If you're reading this and think I'm nuts, I understand, but don't apply. This is not a place for special snowflake pilots who think their preferences are more important than the hard-learned lessons encoded in these rules.

Oh, the neutral? Standing fleet goons blew him up (Imperial Navy Slicer, Capsule). I didn't even get 15% damage. And I docked it up.