Missing mugging a Myrmidon

I'm feeling a bit under the weather. I'd worry that this will affect my decision-making, but it would probably only help given my recent record. Either way, feeling a little sluggish won't matter unless I find some activity, and to do that I first need to get myself out of our quiet home w-space system. A few new signatures suggest that maybe it isn't quite so quiet after all, with a second wormhole snuggling up to a pair of ladar sites. Our static wormhole is joined today by a K162 from class 2 w-space, which looks pretty neat. I jump through to see if it looks just as nifty from the other side.

A tower is visible on my directional scanner in the C2, but no ships. The system feels fairly dead too. I locate the tower for reference and potential stalking, and warp out to launch scanning probes and take a look around. Three anomalies are bookmarked and five signatures resolved in no time, bagging me some rocks, a radar site, and a static exit to high-sec empire space. There's nothing too interesting here, until I leave w-space for high-sec and appear in Amarr. That's a pretty convenient connection.

I should get some fuel. Hauling goods between w-space and empire space can be dangerous and tedious in equal measures, but today it looks like we have a single quiet system to cross to access a market hub directly. It doesn't get any better than this, particularly not when living in a class 4 w-space system, so I want to take advantage of the situation. I consider taking a Bustard transport out to Amarr to fill with fuel, as I already know a Crane transport's worth of fuel is barely worth the trip. But an Orca industrial command ship full of fuel would be even better. An Orca stuffed with a Bustard better still!

I swap my scouting boat for the bulky Orca, throw the Bustard in to its hangar and loot in to its hold, and head towards the C2 and Amarr beyond. I make it to market without seeing another ship before the docking ring. Modules are melted down, loot is sold, and our wallet plumped up to healthy levels, moments before thousands of fuel pellets are bought to lose our new-found wealth almost immediately. Easy come, easy go. I release the Bustard from the Orca, stuff it full of pellets, and learn an important lesson about carrying cargo-laden ships in a bigger ship's hangar. Top tip: you can't.

Never mind! I have two large ships full of fuel ready to be taken home, and I only had to make the one trip out of w-space to get here. That's still a gain in efficiency, and now I am pretty much forced to make a second trip back here to collect the Bustard, or not see it again for potentially weeks. First, I'll get the Orca home. Warping to the K162 in Amarr shows the wormhole to be clear, but jumping back to w-space has activity on d-scan. A Vexor cruiser is here, and not at the tower. He's also not on the wormhole home, which is good, but it's a pity that I can't find and engage him at the moment. The best I can hope for is that he'll not see the Orca warp across the system but hang around for long enough for me to get back again.

I warp home and don't even bother dumping the fuel before reboarding my Tengu strategic cruiser and rushing back to the C2. But all I see is empty space again. Maybe I've got another touch of the space madness. Still, onwards with my plan. Rather than ditch my Tengu and hit high-sec in my pod I may as well take the Tengu out and come back for it after bringing home the Bustard, which is what I do. I didn't expect the wormhole to halve in mass as I leave this time, but I suppose I'm not the only capsuleer who has been taking advantage of the connection to Amarr. I dock, board the Bustard, and get it home without interruption this time, where I fill the tower with fuel and store about ten days' worth of overflow in our hangar. Job's a good 'un, even if I missed the Vexor.

Now I take my pod out to Amarr, where I collect the Tengu. And bringing it back in to the C2 has activity once more, this time a Tengu launching scanning probes. I loiter on the wormhole for now, wondering if the Tengu entered this way or through a new wormhole, only for the connection to flare as I sit on it. The Tengu didn't jump cloaked, but instead a Myrmidon appears from Amarr and warps away immediately. He went straight up too, where I didn't find a wormhole. There's only a gravimetric site and anomaly that way, and I suppose it's no surprise that I find the battlecruiser in the anomaly. But the probes of the Tengu are quite visible on d-scan, so are these pilots in the same corporation or are they both being somewhat oblivious of each other's presence? With a connection from Amarr I can't rule out either circumstance.

The probes disappear, and the Myrmidon's drones are recalled. The two actions seem related but I think they're coincidental. The Myrmidon warps back to the wormhole to high-sec and stays there a minute, whilst the Tengu appears on d-scan and looks to jump through the wormhole to our home system. The Tengu is exploring deeper in to w-space, the Myrmidon is having trouble surviving against the Sleepers. That's okay. That's better than okay, in fact, as the Tengu moving on may let me take a shot at this struggling Myrmidon. I just need to catch him at the right moment. I wait and watch the battlecruiser warp away again, to the same anomaly, and follow behind. His drones come out to play and he engages the Sleepers a second time.

I've set myself up in a monitoring point just outside the anomaly as usual, as the Myrmidon isn't salvaging as he shoots. Up until now, I've ostensibly been waiting for a salvager to appear, which would explain why I am ineffectively sitting a couple of hundred kilometres away from the Myrmidon when he recalls his probes again, probably when his tank is once more coming under pressure. I should be much closer to him, shadowing his movements, waiting for precisely this moment before striking. I warp in to the anomaly, getting close enough to engage, but think it perhaps too late. I will need to decloak and suffer several seconds of sensor recalibration before I can gain a positive target lock, and if the Myrmidon is already aligning out of the site all I'll do is show my ship and intentions. I just sit and watch as the battlecruiser warps out of the anomaly.

I should have got myself in a better position sooner, realising that this is a different situation to ambushing a salvager and adjusting my tactics as a result. I already knew I was looking for the drones to be recalled before making my move, I was simply in the wrong place to make that move. And, sadly, I won't get another chance this evening, not against the Myrmidon, as the ship disappears off d-scan, presumably back to Amarr. A Loki strategic cruiser appears on the wormhole to high-sec, but does nothing but sit there for a while.

I have to admit that I don't really know what's happening here any more. My best guess is that a pilot came here in a Vexor, got spanked by the Sleepers, and returned in the Myrmidon only to suffer similar troubles. That would explain why my Orca went apparently unnoticed. A second pilot found the wormhole independently and, too keen to explore some w-space, ignored or didn't see the Myrmidon making a target of himself. What the Loki came in for will remain a mystery. I warp to the wormhole too late to see that strategic cruiser, although I linger long enough to see the scanning Tengu come back this way and return to Amarr. It's all gone quiet again.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: bustard, eve online, loki, mmorpg, myrmidon, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, tengu, vexor, w-space