Making back some iskies

13th April 2012 – 5.50 pm

I've suffered more losses than got kills recently. Or it feels that way, anyway. Maybe they haven't been entirely unexpected, what with flying in to waiting fleets or engaging obvious bait, and I have mitigated each loss by flying what I know I can afford to lose, but I still feel a little reckless of late. I think I need to settle down, regain my composure, and rely on patience and timing to select the right targets. And with that in mind, I launch probes to start scanning. Hopefully I can find a nice soft target or two that I can explode to make me feel better.

Yesterday's fleet has gone from the home system, as has the ladar site I initially found them in. Neither result is surprising, as w-space is ephemeral that way. The drones the fleet scattered over the ladar site's cosmic signature are still here, though, and two new ladar sites have popped up overnight. The stupid gas just won't dissipate. I bookmark and activate the new sites, then cautiously collect the discarded drones. I'm a little paranoid that a cloaky ambusher is waiting just for this moment. No one is, but at least thinking so keeps me alert.

Now I can warp to our static wormhole, jump through, and explore our neighbouring class 3 system. Or I could, if the wormhole weren't wobbling all over the place like a Minmatar frigate fresh off the production line. Our connection is already reaching the end of its natural lifetime, opened by a scout unknown at some undetermined time. I could still explore through the wormhole but I have no guarantee it would remain open long enough to see my return. It looks like I'll be hanging around waiting for the connection to die of old age before I'm doing anything.

Ah, here's Fin. And my glorious leader keeps on being here, which is a positive sign, considering all of the disconnection issues we've faced recently. With an EOL wormhole, no other connections, and a couple of dozen anomalies in the home system, this seems like an excellent opportunity to make some iskies. But maybe I spoke to soon, as Fin makes an unscheduled exit. She returns a minute later and is keen to get involved in w-space activity, so we form a fleet and hope that the first disconnection was anomalous.

A second disconnect doesn't bode well, particularly as it occurs before our Tengu strategic cruisers are refit and ready to tackle the class 4 anomalies, but Fin returns and we keep calm and carry on. Continually punching her directional scanner seems to keep Fin's connection alive, and doing so is good practice when engaging Sleepers in w-space anomalies, so let's give this a go. I warp the pair of us to the first anomaly, not entirely coincidentally the closest to the tower, and we start poking Sleepers with explosive warheads.

Fin is amazed that 'we are still here, still connected, and not dead', and rightfully so. It seems like ages since we last engaged Sleepers, or even spent any amount of time together. Long may this continue, as w-space is lonely at the best of times and having my partner absent for so long only compounds the emptiness. Tonight, combat is smooth. The first anomaly is cleared without any drama and a brief pause back at our tower gives me enough time to salvage the site, gaining us around eighty million iskies in loot and salvage from wrecks that are white for a change.

We surge in to a second anomaly, then a third, pause to restock on ammunition before continuing in to a fourth, and then break out the Noctis salvagers. We sweep up one site each and combine forces to salvage the remaining one, bringing back a pretty decent haul. Including the first site, our total profit for the evening is around 450 million ISK. That doesn't quite cover the loss of my Tengu, and we still have tower pellets to pay for, but we're pushing the wallet in the right direction again.

  1. 3 Responses to “Making back some iskies”

  2. Have Fin give this latency fix a try wowinterface.com/downloads/info13581-LeatrixLatencyFix.html . It halved my latency back when I played wow and should work for other games.

    By Terin on Apr 14, 2012

  3. There seems to be a fair number of people suffering from the random disconnect issue in EVE at the moment. There's a thread about it in the EVE O forums.

    https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=82128

    From the posts it seems most are from Australia, but there some from other parts of the world as well.

    I've been having the disconnect issue too – I've installed BattlePing and so far that seems to be working.

    By Aethraen on Apr 14, 2012

  4. Thanks for the suggestions. I'll pass them on to Fin.

    By pjharvey on Apr 14, 2012

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