Day 2

I like forums forums are great and I read them, a lot of them.
Occasionally I post too.
Logging back into Eve I took the MSCS forum advice and asked if someone would go ratting with me and almost instantly got a few offers. I like this "being in a corp" thing already.
A couple of hours in my Thrasher later and I'd racked up a few bountys and put the salvage towards constructing a new ship. I'd decided I need something bigger so I can rat solo, having corp mates to help is great but PvP'ing costs money (RvB taught me that) and I don't want to be the guy always begging for favours in corp chat so my first aim is to get a measure of self sufficiency.
Along that note I was determined to kill something solo so once the Ratting trip was over I set off try and kill a rat spawn on my own.
First asteroid belt, battleship, no chance.
Second, 2 battleships...nope
Third, a battlecruiser and 3 frigates..maybe.
I sat and thought about it for a while, and decided to try and take the frigates on atleast. One of them had locked me and was MWD'ing my way so was already ahead of the BC by about 30km (it was now my standard practice to warp in at 100km to check what was there) so he seemed like a good start. I cycled my MWD and webbed the frig, hit my orbit button and let rip with everything I had. He didn't last too long so I was feeling more confident.
The other 2 frigs had dropped back a bit but the BC was getting close now. Eff it I'm going in I lock the BC at 30km and hammer the MWD. The shields start to drop on the way in and I start to wonder if it was a good idea. Too late now and its only a Thrasher. Getting close I drop the mwd and try to settle into a tight orbit sticking to advice I'd been given and trying to get "under the guns". It worked pretty well and I was dishing out damage to the BC, the other 2 frigates had locked me by now and were MWD'ing my way guns blazing so I was taking damage. I thought I'd stay until I was in structure.

The race against time began.
The shields didn't last long but I fired up the damage control and the damage I was taking slowed, his shields failed before mine did and I was feeling good. By now the frigs were sitting at 10k and the fire was a constant drain on my armour, me and the BC both hit structure at the same time and I though about gambling but chickened out warping back to station. Repairing my armour I went straight back out, I could do this. I dropped a gyro stabiliser for an armour repairer and warped back to the belt wasting no time and hitting the mwd straight for the Cruiser. My shields had gone completely by the time I got in orbit so I waited to take damage before I cycled the armour rep a few times to heal me back up the BC had full shields again so I had to get those down plus he'd armour rep'd as well so the war of attrition began again. With the npc frigates closer I was taking damage from all 3 ships a lot quicker this time but now I had an armour rep I was topping up whenever I had the capacitor to spare and the BC was going down. As he hit structure I edged forward on my seat my eyes fixed on the red bar that grew longer in short bursts. The "capacitor empty" message snapped my back to the state of my ship for a minute but I was pretty safe, I could do this. A few seconds later and the BC finally fell with a cheer from me and I hit the MWD for the nearest frigate before taking down the last one.
I had done it, I'd ratted solo and killed a whole spawn. For me its still a big step maybe I can survive in 0.0.
What a difference a day makes.