Ransoms.

So two days ago I get informed by Mutnin, one of our VETO Academy pilots, that he's following this Hyperion around a few jumps out of our home system. In his Arbitrator of awesome he points the pilot found ratting in the belts and another Academy pilot, Michael Blackthorne, and I haul ass the four or five jumps in a Myrmidon and Armageddon and warp to the belt.

The Hyperion is blasting away for all he's worth at Mutnin, but being tracking disrupted means he couldn't exactly shoot the broad side of a barn, and is deploying drones. Michael and I land roughly 10km from them and start locking up and priming guns.

The pilot either didn't fit his Hyperion properly or was still a bit too new to effectively fly one as my Armageddon was laying down the pain with 1500-2500 volleys of damage with Michael and Mutnin adding their own considerable damage as well.

We got the guy to hull and I called for a ransom which the other two agreed with. I opened private convo with the pilot and commenced the ransom.

Korthan > if you want to live
Korthan > 300m and you may leave
Korthan > if not you'll be losing that hyperion and your pod
Spookay > i've got 2.3
Spookay > 230
Korthan > 230m to me please
Korthan > Thank you and have a nice day sir.
Spookay > same to you...nicely done

Now normally I open up with "Hi would you be interested in our ship prolonging service today? We offer 100% satisfaction gauranteed!" however this time I skipped the playful intro and just asked for the isk. I found still being polite and firm has its advantages as this guy paid right away and we let him go.

So the moral of the story is: honour your ransoms. Doing so makes the victim happy and more likely to pay you next time or at least wave in local ^_^