Delaying the decision

People are in the home system, and they seem to be expecting me. This can't be good. Oh sure, they are my glorious leader and Aii, but what could they want of me? I ask what's up, and, more importantly, what the new signature is. 'The static wormhole.' Mmm. But I've taken that in to account. Given the bookmarked signatures I can see, and what the dumbscovery scanner is showing me, what's the other new signature? My colleagues can only see four, I can see five. They'd best get the Golem marauder and Nighthawk command ship safe whilst I investigate.

The new signature pings the discovery scanner of my colleagues as I launch probes and scan what turns out to be, quelle surprise, a new wormhole. Maybe it's good that I turned up when I did, but let's see. I warp across to drop next to a K162 from class 2 w-space, and I may as well jump straight through to find out what may have been getting ready to jump our Sleeper fleet. But there's nothing obvious on the wormhole in C2a, and I doubt a hostile fleet would want to be covert in such a situation.

My directional scanner shows me more than my overview, and the Navy Issue Omen cruiser and Devoter heavy interdictor look to be more the sort of ship I expect to see preparing to ambush our fleet. The six towers also visible deters me from trying to get eyes on the ships directly, but perhaps I am better watching the wormhole for transits. 'Should I act baity?' says Fin, wondering if we can counter the couple of ships that may be sent her way. I dunno, not yet, particularly as a Harbinger battlecruiser adds to the ships in this C2 system, swapped immediately for an Armageddon battleship.

Whilst loitering on the wormhole I've been busy with d-scan. It seems that one of the six towers holds all of the ships, which seems only natural, and that tower is easy enough to locate. I can spare a minute to see how many pilots we could be dealing with, and warp across to see all three ships have capsuleers on board. As I'm away from the wormhole, I may as well also check that one planet sitting out of range. Two more towers, one unpiloted Mastodon transport. So that gives us three known pilots, and most likely one scout who probably remains in our system.

With any luck, that one scout won't know about my presence, having moved from their K162 to reconnoitre our home system. But even with that advantage, I'm not as convinced as Fin that 'we can take three', if only because we don't know what their scout is flying. Sure, if it's just the three ships, with the scout in a flimsy covert operations boat, we can have a decent scrap. But what if the scout is in a cloaky brick of a Proteus strategic cruiser? We would still have a decent scrap, but perhaps we shouldn't throw our most expensive ships at them just yet.

If not our expensive ships, then what? To be honest, we really aren't set for this kind of encounter, one against another small PvP fleet. Ambushes we can do, but head-to-head fights almost never occur. I'm not even sure what ships we have in our hangar for this kind of engagement, and am loath to give away my presence to take a look. And Fin and Aii are suffering from paralysis of choice. Maybe we should see what these pilots intentions are first, and try to force their initial move.

Fin and Aii warp back out of the tower to continue clearing a site, whilst I sit on the wormhole, updating d-scan, to see what happens. The Armageddon becomes a Harbinger once more, a new contact in a Cyclone battlecruiser warps to the tower. What's the next move? Personally, I would expect the fleet to warp to the wormhole before a scout calls in probes to scan for our ships, but who knows. 'We've been burnt by expectations of rationality before', says Fin.

Nothing happens. Fair enough, I suppose, and it's even possible that there isn't a scout watching our fleet, that the wormhole was opened but not traversed. Maybe we should move to Plan B, and crash the wormhole. But not mechanically. We'll do it smart-like. We need to be aware of the risks and mitigate them, which starts with knowing that this C2 system with a static connection to C4 w-space will also hold an exit to high-sec. We can use that if we are engaged, rather than stubbornly insisting on trying to get home.

Of course, we don't have the high-sec wormhole scanned yet, and I still don't want to give away my presence by scanning for it now. So first action: make some safe spots to wait in should we need to. As I do, a Helios cov-ops blips on d-scan. Is that the scout returned home, the unknown variable now accounted for? I dunno, but I do know that the Devoter has warped to the wormhole by the time I return from making the safe spots, the HIC joined soon after by the Harbinger and Cyclone. Circumstances become interesting when the HIC's bubble is inflated.

Clearly someone is watching our pilots, and they may even be thinking what we're thinking: that we're going to kill the wormhole. That changes our strategy. It looks like we can see all the committed ships, and they are trapped in a bubble on the wormhole. The main issue that I can see is that these pilots have the wormhole advantage. If we jump in to them, they can jump away from us. If we follow, we are polarised and they are not, letting them jump away safely. Whoever presses the encounter concedes this advantage.

The matter of polarisation is the least of our concerns, apparently. We still can't decide what to commit to the fight. It's a little embarrassing, to be honest. We should give some kind of fight, particularly when the numbers aren't overwhelming, but in what? And it seems we can't decide before the fleet gets bored waiting, the Devoter dropping its bubble and warping clear, followed by the Harbinger. That's disappointing. It's disappointing because it looks like we missed a fight. Because it looks like we didn't want to fight. It's also a little surprising, in that we simply weren't prepared for this kind of fight. We can do better than this.

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Tags: armageddon, cyclone, devoter, eve online, golem, harbinger, helios, loki, mastodon, mmorpg, nighthawk, omen, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

Bumping in to a Bestower

High-sec here I come! The activity in the class 2 w-space system I was just meant to be passing through has been suppressed, giving me a new corpse to carry, and so I can get on with scanning for more wormholes through the static exit to Essence. Seeing three extra signatures is a positive start too, although watching them drop to two is a little rum. I suppose that one was a site that has been cleared.

The other two signatures are wormholes, which I discover by launching probes and resolving both. I warp to the first as I resolve the second, landing near an outbound connection to class 1 w-space As the second signature is really quite weak it will also be an outbound connection, making neither a particularly good choice to explore, so instead of warping back-and-forth I'll just drop through this wormhole to C1a.

Going through an outbound wormhole isn't great, with the discovery scanner shouting its spawning, and appearing almost eight kilometres on the other side of the connection in this class 1 system doesn't make me feel optimistic about finding any entertainment. The system will only lead back out of w-space by default too, so I am pretty much relying on finding a K162 or two to keep myself amused.

I launch probes and perform a blanket scan of the system, revealing twenty-two anomalies, eleven signatures, and an unsurprising lack of ships. Exploring finds a tower, though, so I loiter there as I sift through the signatures. I also see four mobile depots in the system. They may be worth looking for, if only to experiment at shooting them. One is near the tower, the other three around a different planet, all easily found with my combat probes. I also incidentally resolve a wormhole at the same time, because I'm that good at scanning.

A ship appears under my probes, which I manage to identify on my directional scanner as an Imicus before it disappears again, and now there are core scanning probes whizzing around. I hide my own probes and warp to the wormhole I resolved, wondering if perhaps the Imicus came from that direction, or may head that way once the scout resolves it too. Maybe not, though, not with the exit to low-sec being at the end of its life. I don't have a much better spot to lurk, and although I could warp to the K162 I came through my ship has other ideas.

It all goes dark. I try to restart my Loki, but the strategic cruiser is adamant about my taking a short break. Eventually, I manage to kickstart a network connection back to life, and I can get the Loki powered again, but I can only imagine how long my ship has been visible in this class 1 w-space system. Long enough for the Imicus to spot, most likely, although only if he checked d-scan. His core scanning probes wouldn't have detected me.

So I have a slight chance of still catching the Imicus, made slighter by the core probes disappearing, the frigate blipping on d-scan, and nothing jumping past me. Oh well. I still have my own probes out, hidden high above the ecliptic plane in their blanket-scanning configuration, so it's probably worth my having a poke for possible wormholes the Imicus left through. I bring in my probes and, on the first scan, the EOL J244 I'm sitting on crackles.

No, that can't be the Imicus, not if it didn't go past me. And it isn't the Imicus. It's even better. A Bestower hauler appears in space next to me, piloted by a capsuleer red to our corporation. If that weren't lucky enough to stumble in to, I get luckier still in that he stumbles in to me. Literally. As soon as I think 'I'm having that' and try to de-activate my cloak I realise that I can't. It's already been dropped by the Bestower, thrown through the wormhole to appear within two kilometres of my own ship.

Thanks for inadvertently helping to soak up some sensor recalibration delay, red. Have some autocannon fire for your troubles. I lock on, scramble the Bestower's warp engines, and start shooting. I rip through shields and most of the armour of the hauler, who poops some probes in surprise before deciding that jumping back to low-sec would be a better option than dying in w-space. That's cool, I can take the hit to my security status. I follow behind.

Decloak, lock, shoot. The Bestower explodes with a couple more volleys of autocannon fire. I don't aim for the pod, not in low-sec, which may be why the pilot returned this way. That doesn't stop me looting the wreck, which at first looks like I've bagged what survives of a resupply run. The Minmatar fuel blocks went down with the ship, not that we could have used them anyway, but there is a good clasp of modules and ammunition to steal.

It's not just modules and fuel that were in the Bestower. It takes Aii's admiring the kill report to spot the packaged Anathema covert operations boat that was also being carried. It's a shame to not have it survive, but it explains a lot of what else was being hauled. The Bestower was carrying all the parts to put together a hacking ship, including the ship itself. No wonder it's coming up as a listed loss of 180 Miskies. Packed to the gills, vulnerable, and red. This is the kind of hauler I like to find. Or for it to find me. Either way, it makes for a happy Penny.

Posted in Gaming | 9 Comments »
Tags: bestower, eve online, imicus, loki, low-sec, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, w-space

Probing with a Probe

Across to C2a and out to empire space to scan. The class 3 w-space system connecting to our home system is a veritable hub of w-space this evening, but the number of options available is a little crippling. Rather than potentially fan out even further, opening even more connections for threats to appear through, I think hitting an empire system and looking for a K162 to a simpler constellation may be a better choice to find an encounter.

I pause in the class 2 w-space system only to locate the tower and see if either of the two ships visible on my directional scanner is piloted. They aren't, the Prorator transport and Velator frigate both floating empty inside the tower's force field. At least I can discount them as targets when I come back this way. Now to high-sec. I don't even need to scan my way there, as my glorious leader has already scouted this way, giving me a convenient bookmark to the exit. I just align my ship and warp.

My cloaky Loki strategic cruiser lands a short distance from the wormhole, and once again I am glad I don't warp point-to-point when scouting. A last update of d-scan before leaving sees a Mammoth hauler in the system, and a pilot newly on-line is probably a pilot worth watching. I turn my Loki around and warp back to the tower, finding the Mammoth, and settle down to wait and watch what it does.

There's movement from the Mammoth. It's only towards a hangar, though, and a ship hangar at that. I don't think I'll be catching the hauler so easily, and, sure enough, the Mammoth is swapped for another ship, a Probe frigate. I imagine the Probe will start scanning for wormholes, which perhaps isn't so bad. If the pilot scans, she'll either warp to the wormholes, making herself vulnerable in a ship that can't cloak, or perhaps be content that nothing there is nothing untoward in the system and consider collecting planet goo.

The Probe warps out of the tower, launches probes, and returns to be inside the force field. This is my cue to open the system map and orientate myself with respect to the wormholes. It's easy today. The connection to C3a is above the ecliptic plane, the one to high-sec below it. I should be able to tell where the Probe is going the moment it starts aligning. The only problem now is that guessing what the pilot will do in a ship that can't warp cloaked. Will she warp directly to the wormhole, or drop a hundred kilometres short first?

What the pilot will do is warp in an entirely unexpected direction. The Probe aligns almost directly away from both wormholes in the system, and not towards any site or signature I can see. But all is explained when the frigate lands back in its spot a couple of hundred kilometres outside the tower to relaunch the probes. I guess she pressed the wrong button and recalled her probes early. A bit more scanning and the probes disappear from d-scan again, presumably intentionally.

I've decided what I'll do when the Probe reconnoitres the wormholes. I'll just wait for her to exit to high-sec, as who can resist finding out where their wormhole takes them today, and catch her coming back polarised. I think it's a good plan, right up until the pilot drops from her Probe to a pod, and jumps in to a Hound stealth bomber, which aligns and warps out of the tower towards the high-sec wormhole.

I give chase behind the more agile ship, only in warp wondering why the pilot would scan in a basic frigate when she has the skills to pilot a stealth bomber fit with a covert operations cloaking device. Surely a Cheetah cov-ops boat would be a better choice. Whatever. Now my basic hunt has been made harder, as the Hound will have reached the wormhole before me, and not only can I not tell what range it landed at I can't reliably tell whether it jumped through or not. I think it's best that I assume not.

It's a good assumption. I approach the wormhole and wait for it to crackle in announcing the return of the Hound from high-sec, when instead the bomber decloaks and jumps out to high-sec. It got here sooner, but landed near the cosmic signature and not the wormhole locus, which gave me time to see it leave. Now I can wait for it to come back. A ship that can warp cloaked is harder to catch, but not impossible, and being ready for it will help. I decloak, activate my sensor booster, and approach the wormhole. And I wait.

I keep on waiting. A minute passes, which is more than enough time to note the high-sec system and its proximity to market hubs and return. A second minute passes, and I'm beginning to suspect that this pilot is being cautious. A third minute passes and I think it's all over. Polarisation effects haven't ended yet, but it seems that the Hound will not be returning until they have. I give it one more minute, still see no Hound, and move away from the wormhole to re-activate my cloak.

Belay that order, cadet! The wormhole crackles just as I shimmer in to invisibility mode. It's got to be the Hound returning, and as I am so close it's probably best to give an ambush a shot now and not wait for a second opportunity. Cloak goes up, cloak goes down. Sensor booster back on. There's the Hound. I go for a positive lock, and get it. Activate the warp scrambler, get the autocannons chattering, and after only three volleys the Hound disintegrates.

I'm surprised I caught the stealth bomber. Perhaps the polarisation effect wasn't timed quite so well by the pilot. Now she's under the effects of a session change timer from being expelled from her exploding Hound, which is plenty of time for my sensor-booster Loki to lock on to her pod and rip it open with one more volley of autocannon fire.

And so patience pays off again, getting me another sweet kill on a high-sec wormhole. The Hound is rather better than either the Mammoth or the Probe too. Forty million ISK in ship and fittings destroyed, and over a hundred million ISK in implants. That was worth the wait.

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Tags: eve online, hound, loki, mammoth, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, probe, prorator, pvp, scanning, velator, w-space

Wormholes, wormholes everywhere

'Closer to me, by a jump.' Sounds to me like our glorious leader is trying to get Aii home. With any luck, Aii took himself to empire space voluntarily, and he sounds chipper enough, so I focus on what circumstances are in w-space currently. And it seems to be quite a mess, according to Fin. Our neighbouring class 3 system has a whole bunch of wormholes, seven of them, with more wormholes to be found in each connecting system, and still several systems are to be explored. I don't think I can sit idly by with exploration to be done.

My first destination is backwards, through a K162 in the home system to class 4 w-space, where Fin says there are systems as yet unscouted. It may be good to know what's stalking us from behind. Not much yet, with a tower and no ships visible on my directional scanner, but Fin salvaged a Navy Apocalypse battleship in the system earlier. Someone's been around. I imagine this system will remain dormant for now, though, so instead take myself through one of the two wormholes already bookmarked and waiting for me.

Out of a choice of wormholes to class 3 and class 5 w-space, I pick the C3 destination first. Punching d-scan after jumping through the connection sees a tower and no ships, but also a corpse and wreck of a frigate. That's a little unusual, and biomass doesn't last long in space. It must be fairly fresh, if not entirely promising for finding further activity. I locate the tower, and I locate the corpse. It looks to be in orbit around a planet, but is actually next to a customs office.

Maybe the frigate was baited in to ambushing a hauler that wasn't actually collecting planet goo. Or maybe he was gooing normally, but the now stupidly buffed hauler had enough defensive and offensive capability to not just withstand the frigate's attack but counter-attack successfully. Of course, that's just conjecture. But I bet it's exactly what happened.

Whatever happened, it has, in fact, happened, and is not happening now. My Womble instincts kick in, and I scoop the corpse and shoot the wreck to leave the system looking tidy again, before launching probes to scan the system. Thirteen anomalies and five signatures only hold one fat signature, which will be the static exit to low-sec that I don't really care about, and the others will either be sites or rubbish outbound wormholes. If it's not a K162 I don't want to find it, not with other, good options still available.

I leave C3b behind, cross C4a, and jump through a K162 to C5a. Now I can see some ships, thankfully on d-scan, as well as four towers. The ships are a bit of a mix, and there are no wrecks, so there's probably nothing happening. But, still. Ships. All but the Arazu are coincident with one of the towers, so I ignore the recon ship to see if there are any pilots. Yes, four, in an Anathema covert operations boat, Curse recon ship, Typhoon battleship, and Proteus strategic cruiser. Could be threatening, less so when doing nothing inside a tower's force field.

I warp away from the tower, launch probes out of d-scan range, and blanket the system. My scan reveals nine anomalies and six signatures, but it's probably worth leaving this system alone instead of scanning. There may be another K162, but I'd rather not give away my presence to the local pilots. I recall my probes and return the way I came, through C4a, in to home, and across to our neighbouring C3a. I pass through C3a to C2a, and out of C2a to high-sec, ignoring the already scouted systems in favour of looking for more wormholes outside of our local constellation.

Aii returns from high-sec, through a different entrance than the one I used, before I manage to launch probes, and sees a Nemesis jump from our home system to C3a. The stealth bomber saw Aii's Viator transport too. Is it time to dangle some bait in front of a pilot? I think so. I head back to C3a, as does Fin, and we sit on the K162 to home as Aii prepares to return to high-sec. We need Aii to do it, to reduce suspicion, and hopefully the Nemesis pilot will think that our colleague simply has confidence in his cloaky transport. Let's see.

Aii warps the Viator to our static wormhole, jumps to C3a, and bungles a little when heading towards high-sec. Intentionally, of course. But no Nemesis appears. Aii docks, pauses meaningfully, and returns to w-space and the home system, and still no stealth bomber. I suppose he wasn't interested, and has moved on. Not like this Helios cov-ops that has appeared in C3a, spewing probes everywhere.

I can't tell where the Helios came from before it cloaks, and although I spot a second Helios on d-scan it too launches probes and disappears before I can get an idea of its direction. I'm tempted to jump home and drop in to an interceptor to wait for these cov-ops boats, particularly with only a Nemesis also on the loose. But I remember the seven wormholes in this system alone, and the increasingly labyrinthine connections spreading out from them. Even when the scouts find our K162, the odds that they'll jump to our system first are slim. I'm not waiting around for nothing. I'll look for other options.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Wormholes, wormholes everywhere
Tags: anathema, arazu, curse, eve online, helios, mmorpg, nemesis, penny ibramovic, proteus, scanning, typhoon, viator, w-space

Hacking open a hacking Heron

The second wormhole in low-sec is a K162 from class 3 w-space, one not obviously being collapsed by an Orca. More's the pity. Jumping back to w-space has circumstances return to normal, with a tower and no ships visible on my direction scanner. Normal circumstances mean normal operating procedures. I warp away from the wormhole, launch scanning probes, and perform a blanket scan of the system. Twenty three anomalies, nine signatures, still no ships.

I locate the tower and sift through the signatures for wormholes. There's one, but it's a K162 from low-sec. There's another, a K162 from class 2 w-space looking more attractive. And a third wormhole connects from null-sec, so I know where I'm going. To a system in The Spire, so that I can finally add that image to my collection. Now back in to and across C3c, and to C2b.

Two towers and no ships has the activity levels not picking up yet, but warping away from the wormhole to launch probes has my bumping in to two more towers, this time with two ships. D-scan shows the Orca industrial command ship at one tower, the Epithal hauler at the other, and I warp across to check on the Epithal first, stubbornly believing it to be the easier of the two ships to catch. Maybe it's just more likely to leave the tower than the Orca.

I find the Epithal piloted. I don't know if that's good or bad, but on the assumption that it is good I float nearby and wait and watch it for a bit. A wasteful bit. As I wait, Aii checks through our static wormhole and Fin comes on-line, and still the Epithal does nothing. Maybe I should head back towards my colleagues. Or maybe I should check that second tower out here, now that a pod appears to be sharing it with the Orca.

The Orca is empty, the pod is inside the force field of the other tower. Will this capsuleer do something? Um, no? No. He goes off-line. Whatever. I'll head back, taking me through a now-dying wormhole to C3c, and from there to low-sec. A Heron frigate is somewhere in the low-sec system, which I find floating near one of the local stations. Given the young age of the pilot, I consider it probably best to leave him alone, right up to the point that the Heron warps away. Now he looks more like a valid target.

The frigate isn't in the sites I scanned earlier, but there seems to be a fair bit of churn in the empire systems. Launching probes and scanning for the Heron finds a new relic site, the Heron inside it, and now I'm thinking he's fair game. I warp in to take a look, and bumping off a structure and getting decloaked tips my hand. I get a positive lock on the frigate and, well, I don't suppose I can say I disrupted his warp engines when a couple of quick volleys of autocannon fire rip the tiny ship to shreds.

Being low-sec I let the pod go, as if I had much choice, and loot the wreck and leave the site. The newly nude capsuleer tries to mock me in the local communications channel, to make me feel guilty about losing him a bunch of ISK. I'm not averse to compensating bad luck, but this capsuleer is being a dick about his loss. Not only that, he had a Tech II cargo scanner fitted to his cheap frigate. He had ISK, and chose to risk it in low-sec. Let's hope he also paid for insurance, or maybe he'll just get a new transfer of ISK from a rich uncle.

I think that's it for me for tonight. It's not a big kill, or a good one, but it's something. Kinda. Popping a young pilot in a frigate is difficult to justify, and there could be an argument that doing so will keep capsuleers out of low-sec. But encouraging pilots to come to low-sec by not engaging them seems like a perverse tactic. When do we start attacking them? And when we do, won't that stop them coming back anyway? With my safety set to yellow, if that lets me attack another ship is that all the justification I need, or are there moral implications to be considered too?

Posted in Gaming | 6 Comments »
Tags: epithal, eve online, heron, low-sec, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, w-space

Crashing a wormhole crashing

A short break has my returning to a home w-space system with a distinct shortage of anomalies. I know we were clearing them recently, and made a dent that kept our wallet nice and healthy, but I thought we had a few more in reserve than are now in the system. I suppose it's possible my colleagues continued culling the local fauna in my absence, but I think it's more likely that a passing fleet took an interest in the potential ISK the anomalies represented. At least we made a good profit when we had the opportunity, and there are some left to pillage at our leisure.

No pillaging of Sleeper sites tonight, though, not with my being by myself. I need to look further afield for my entertainment, so launch probes to scan. Old gas sites are gone, new gas sites have appeared—that seems a little redundant, but whatever—a data site is new, and today we have two extra wormholes. Two K162s lead backwards to class 4 and class 3 w-space, plus we have our static connection to class 3 w-space. K162s are better, though. Which one first?

C4a could well be a dead end, so exploring that seems like a good direction to exhaust quickly. And it may well be quick, as jumping in to the system lands me well over eight kilometres from the wormhole locus. It's almost certainly dead here, but is it an end? I launch probes and perform a blanket scan of the system as I warp away to explore. Checking my notes in warp shows that this is my seventh visit to the system, which was unoccupied eight months ago. It's unoccupied now too, which leaves me sifting through the nine anomalies and twelves signatures for K162s. Nope, none. Whoever was here has been and gone, and this is indeed a dead end.

Back home and through the other K162 to C3b, where again my directional scanner is clear from the wormhole. I'm only two kilometres from the locus this time, so I am more optimistic about finding occupation, if not activity, at least until I open the system map to see only one planet and its one moon sits out of d-scan range. Never mind, I can scan for wormholes, and launch probes, blanket the system, and warp to that one moon to—how about that—find an on-line tower. There are no ships or pilots, though, so I am still reduced to scanning.

Plenty of anomalies aren't that interesting, and C3b holds only three signatures to resolve. One is the T405 leading to our home system, one will be the U210 static exit to low-sec empire space, and I'm guessing the third will be a K162. It's a wormhole, anyway, but before I find out where it comes from I get distracted by jumping to low-sec and seeing a lone Buzzard in a system in the Genesis region.

The covert operations boat persists on d-scan, so I launch probes with a hope to catch it in a data or relic site. The Buzzard is definitely in space, but apparently it's in space near a stargate, as the ship and its pilot leaves the system within a few seconds. Never mind. I have probes launched, I may as well scan the four extra signatures present, and although I try to find a rat to pop some minor traffic passing through deters me. Just scanning, then.

Two wormholes, one relic site, one data site. All resolved, the wormholes for exploration, the sites for potential ambushes on unsuspecting pilots. New contacts come and go through the low-sec system, one being the Buzzard passing through in a different direction, another ship looking under my combat scanning probes to perhaps be near the first wormhole. I should investigate. And getting closer sees an Orca on d-scan. Closer still, the industrial command ship is indeed on the wormhole, jumping through as I drop out of warp.

Ah, bad luck, missing an Orca heading in to w-space. I am almost twenty kilometres away from the K162 from a class 2 system, which is too much space to cover even if I decloak my Loki strategic cruiser and burn my micro warp drive. The Orca will have gone by the time I get there, and I would have uncovered myself to any other watching eyes. Still, it's worth getting closer to the wormhole to poke through to C2a, in case any other ships come this way. Speak of the devil, the wormhole crackles.

It's the Orca again! Is he going out to buy or sell more, or—yep, he's crashing the wormhole, as evidenced by his immediate return to C2a. This time I am close enough to follow. Decloak, burn, jump. I'm going in blind, but who cares. I get my bearings as best I can in w-space, seeing the Orca and, hullo, two pods sitting on the wormhole. Is it my birthday already? I suppose the pods are time-sharing the Orca to mitigate polarisation effects, which explains the short time between repeated jumps, but I can think about that later. I decloak and start locking all three targets, one pod warping away quickly, the second missed by my ratting ammunition that I still have carelessly loaded, and the Orca held in place by my warp scrambler and his own polarisation effects.

The second pod finally gets ripped apart, so I turn my autocannons on to the Orca. Chewing through the industrial command ship will take a while, and I somehow think I won't be afforded the time I need, and not just because the wormhole crackles again, a little more ominously this time. The Orca's escort appears, a Falcon recon ship. That's not a bad choice, even if it's a frustrating one. I lock on to the Falcon and move my guns towards it instead of the Orca, hoping to remove the recon ship as a threat whilst keeping the whale close with the scrambler, but it's all over.

My target locks drop, the Falcon's ECM working as intended. The Orca still needs to enter warp, though, and I don't give up immediately. As my Loki is reduced to an expensive hauler I move over to scoop my corpse trophy, and hope for the Falcon to drop an ECM cycle, right up to the point when the Orca speeds away from the wormhole. The Falcon has retreated from the wormhole too, maintaining range to protect his ship. I'm not going to be suckered in trying to engage him so far away, not that he wants me to either. I'll show myself out.

I jump back out of w-space to low-sec, and move away from the wormhole and cloak. I stay in the system and near the wormhole for now, not so much to see if I can catch anything else but simply to pose a potential threat to the pilots. They recognise it, naturally, and send a Prophecy battlecruiser out to patrol the wormhole, along with a Tengu strategic cruiser, just to discourage me from interfering further. Sure thing, boys. I just sit at a safe distance and watch as the Orca comes and goes. When the wormhole drops to critical levels the two escorts return to w-space, and behind them the Orca goes. The wormhole goes. And so the Penny goes too.

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Tags: buzzard, eve online, falcon, loki, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, prophecy, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space

More of the same Sleeper combat

No bookmarks beyond the home system, five gas sites, and a glorious leader on-line. Gassing? 'I'm doing no such thing. No such anything.' Well, in that case, it looks like we're nicely isolated again, and still have a bunch of decent anomalies to plough through. Maybe we should make hay while the sun shines. 'I would hate to see someone else grab them', says Fin of our anomalies. Then it's settled. It's another evening of shooting Sleepers.

Now, how should we do it? I've been happy bouncing around in our Golem marauder with a micro jump drive, pausing occasionally to activate bastion mode, with Fin flying independently in a Tengu strategic cruiser. But I could understand if that arrangement weren't preferred. Thankfully, I am indulged an awful lot by Fin, who is 'happy with our previous arrangement', if I am. Yep! Let's do it.

'Ready. Try to keep the bloom down to a minor retina scarring.' Roger that. Warp drive initiated towards an unglamorous but important part of w-space living. And if we get enough liquid ISK, maybe we can get a second Golem so that I can be shown how a cruise missile-fit marauder would be much more efficient than the torpedo fitting I perversely prefer.

The first site is cleared without drama, much as it should be, although I am getting my angles wrong when using the micro jump drive. Only on the first wave is it suitable to jump straight towards the Sleepers, as the subsequent waves have the gall not to appear at a convenient hundred kilometre increment. I get it wrong again in the second site, the MJD not quite taking me where I want to be. It's operator error, of course, but Fin is reassuring. 'Got it wrong again. That is our motto.'

I am not quite where I need to be to reach that final Sleeper in the wave. Fin comes across to me in her Tengu, just to say hi, and gives the Golem a nudge. Hey, that's an idea. The bastion module prevents my moving, but maybe I just need a hand. I ask Fin to bump me towards the retreating Sleeper, getting a run-up first for better effect. Her Tengu backs off a bit, turns, and burns towards me, ramming the Golem with some speed. I spin a bit on my axis, but stay rooted in space. I have no idea how the bastion module works, but when active it apparently anchors the ship its fitted to to a different plane.

The second site is cleared. I try to do better with my angles in the third site, and I get pretty close. My efforts are definitely better, if not actually good just yet. Then again, my jump to the battleships in the third wave couldn't have been much closer, it's just that the pair of them run off in different directions, both directly away from me. Still, Fin and I work well as a team. She deals with the cruisers, I pop one of the battleship, and by that point the remaining damage is low enough that I can drop out of bastion mode to pursue the final Sleeper. Well, as much as any unmodified Golem can pursue anything.

The third site is cleared. In to the fourth, and I'm getting the hang of bouncing with the MJD to get in to range and balance the number of remaining targets with my mobility. It's like practice makes you improve. Weird! A slight kink happens when Fin's Tengu petulantly goes off-line without warning, leaving me alone in the site. My first instinct is to warp back to our tower until Fin reappears, but then I remember that the whole point of fitting the Golem with a bastion module was so that it could survive in these sites by itself. We tested it.

I warp back to the fourth site to continue in Fin's short absence, and it's pretty short. Fin recovers her Tengu as I am in warp, and she appears in the site almost at the same time as I do. That worked out well. Even so, Fin suggests that it is probably a good idea to 'finish this and get salvaged'. Our aim is helped when Fin remembers to re-activate her shield hardeners, after the unscheduled interruption. We're so professional.

Four anomalies cleared of Sleepers, now to clear them of the Sleeper wrecks. Our combat ships are swapped for a pair of Noctis salvagers, and we split up. We can do more damage that way. It's a simple task to loot and salvage, and today we bring home a good haul, compensating for recent poor results. Another four hundred million ISK in plunder is brought back to our tower safely, to be stored until we get a decent route to empire space. That'll keep us going for a while longer.

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Tags: eve online, golem, mmorpg, noctis, penny ibramovic, sleepers, tengu, w-space

Golem, Tengu, Sleepers

Is anything happening? I tend to ask that whenever I come on-line, whether someone else is around or not. The only difference is who answers. Today it is not me, but my glorious leader. 'Not yet. Scanned, not opened the wormhole.' And is it only the static wormhole in our system? 'Yep.' Should we ISK? 'Yep.' Okay, then. My non-standard use of use of an item as an activity doesn't faze Fin. But I suppose not much does.

So it's an evening to shoot Sleepers and generate profit. But how are we going to do it? Normally we fly in paired Tengus, each one fit to send shields and capacitor juice to the other. But with our Golem marauder now configured to survive our home anomalies, thanks to the bastion module, I would quite like further opportunities to use something other than a strategic cruiser.

Do we have a Tengu with a local repair module? 'It can be arranged.' Excellent, as that means we can fly that Tengu alongside the Golem, the marauder ripping apart the battleships, the strategic cruiser the frigates and cruisers. And, of course, being somewhat selfishly motivated, as Fin refits a Tengu I board the Golem. I'm pretty sure, though, that Fin doesn't mind. Bastion module, micro jump drive, and torpedoes are all a bit fiddly, compared with the ease of zooming an agile Tengu around at your whim.

And off we go, warping to the first anomaly. In essence, it's another experiment. We know that the Tengus can clear the anomalies, and we know that the Golem can too, albeit inefficiently; but how will this pairing work? Or, rather, how well will it work? As much as I like the feeling of sitting in progressively more expensive ships, both in ISK and skill training costs, flying the marauder will have to be at least as efficient as the paired Tengus for us to consider continuing this experiment.

All looks to be working well for the first anomaly. We were already adapting as we were in warp, Fin saying that 'I will be working from smaller ships to larger. You work down the other way'. This is a break from the standard procedure of concentrating fire on single targets. But with different weapon systems providing different benefits, it makes more sense to hit what we're best at hitting.

I have one site's worth of experience in the Golem, which I initially think lets me bounce around with the MJD more effectively. But in retrospect it is more Fin's presence that helps with that. Having her Tengu concentrate on the smaller ships lets me focus more on getting close to the bigger ones, a particular advantage in the third wave, when the frigates appear. I merely bounce one way, wait for the MJD to cool down, and bounce in again, closing the distance to the battleships.

At least, that's the plan. It's not always obvious which direction I should head when using the MJD, and the first site's bounces seem effortless compared to the frustrations in the second. I probably just get over-confident and assume that any general direction is good enough. It isn't, as I find out when a particularly wrong direction lands me over 150 km from my targets. That's not good, not with the MJD range of 100 km. But Fin saves me again, creating a wreck from a cruiser to give my warp drive a point of focus.

One mistake made with the MJD makes me pay more attention, and my bounces get better. Not great still, but better. This settling-in period, as I hope this is, doesn't really convince Fin that our home anomalies are suitable for a torpedo boat. She may be right, but personally I am quite enjoying the involvement and judgment required to make it work. On top of moving around, my target selection also becomes important, given the limited range of my launchers, even in bastion mode, and how the Sleepers all try to run away from me.

Another aspect of combat that's important is remembering that my shield booster doesn't get activated with the bastion module, not automatically. Thankfully, from my early flights with the Golem in class 3 w-space anomalies, I discovered that the ship's shield alarms can be configured to alert me to danger earlier than the default. And, also thankfully, the shield alarms work, and can be heard. So all continues to run smoothly. Sleepers are popped, and in a time comparable to flying the paired Tengus. Similar time, about double the ISK being flown. Now that's progress.

All in all, we wreak havoc in four anomalies, all without interruption. That's about all we have time for, but we can't quite leave it there. We swap combat boats for industrial, and each take a Noctis salvager out to sweep up the mess, rake in the profit. We bag some good salvage this time too, coming back with well over four hundred million ISK in loot. That's not a bad result for an evening of light drone slaughter.

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Tags: eve online, golem, mmorpg, noctis, penny ibramovic, sleepers, tengu, w-space

Sitting Manticore

I leave the boring class 2 w-space behind me, bridge across our home system, and jump through our static connection to class 3 w-space. Updating my directional scanner after the transit sees the normal sight of a tower, but what's this? A ship? Inconceivable! But that definitely looks like a real Ishkur assault frigate and not a cunningly named hangar. Maybe there is hope for this evening yet.

Opening the system map sees that just one planet is in range. With only four planets in the entire system sparsely spread across 160 AU of space, I'm not sure if that makes our K162's placement good, for finding the Ishkur so soon, or bad, for making our jumps possible to spot from the tower. Then again, I suppose it doesn't really matter, not with the discovery scanner pinging the new signature of the K162 to the Ishkur's pilot. If the ship is even piloted. I'm getting ahead of myself a little.

I think the Ishkur was piloted, an inference I draw by the assault frigate disappearing before I manage to locate the tower. Maybe it still is piloted and elsewhere, because how can I tell with so much empty space around me? It's best to check and, as I'm going to scan anyway, I warp out, launch probes, and perform a blanket scan of the system. Two, in fact. Did I mention that this C3 is somewhat big?

Twelve anomalies, nine signatures, no ships. The Ishkur is gone. Fine, then I'll scan. That weak wormhole won't be much fun, as it will be outbound and subject to the whims of the discovery scanner. The chubbier wormhole could be the U210 exit to low-sec, as could the second chubster, or third. Or the fourth. A bit of gas rounds out the results, as I bounce between wormholes still scanning, trying to make best use of these long warp times.

The weak wormhole is an outbound connection to class 5 w-space, and I'm still not interested in knocking before I enter a system. The K162 from class 2 w-space looks much more inviting, already opened, probably unmonitored. Also probably nothing happening, but it's better than the outbound connection. I won't belabour the point any more this evening, or I'll just depress myself. That leaves me with a K162 from null-sec, the expected U210, and a second K162 from null-sec, which has me scurrying back to the connection to class 2 w-space.

Another tower, another ship. This one is an Occator deep space transport, a prime target for my faction warp scrambler. Then again, who would use a transport to collect planet goo now that basic industrial ships specific to the task can be made more voluminous and less vulnerable to ambush? But I'm heading down dark corridors of the mind again. Locating the tower sees the Occator piloted, which gives me a little hope, but seeing the ship in the idle alignment makes me think nothing will happen here.

I warp away from the tower, launch probes, and scan. After all, to catch the Occator I'd need to find its route first. My probes show me the usual sites, plus two wormholes. One is a static exit to high-sec, making an Occator ambush even less likely, and a K162 from class 3 w-space. That'll do, keeping the w-space connection alive. And jumping to C3b sees a Manticore on d-scan. This time, there's not even a tower.

As interesting as seeing a ship in empty space can be, I'm rather less excited by the presence of the Manticore. It's probably how the ship is a stealth bomber, and that if it were piloted it would probably not be visible. That the Manticore remains visible on d-scan is probably a good indicator that there still remains not much happening in the constellation. But it's also a fair sign that the ship may be abandoned. A stealth bomber's worth scanning for.

I warp away, just in case, to launch probes, bumping in to a tower and some ships by accident. The industrial ships look interesting on d-scan, less interesting when locating the tower and not seeing any of them piloted, but the corporation that has settled here has a curious name. 'Sitting Manticore'. Maybe it would be mean to steal the stealth bomber. Or funny. Personally, I'd go with 'profitable'.

Launching probes and scanning for the stealth bomber makes me think that it may be piloted and bouncing around, given how much variation there is in the ship's position from scan-to-scan. But I get a solid hit, warp across, and see the Manticore empty and abandoned amongst the incapacitated defences of a destroyed tower. Okay, we're having that. Aii is available, so drops to his pod, warps my way, and nabs the Manticore from under my prow. Blink and I miss it.

I did actually miss it. I glance at another screen, turn back, and the Manticore is gone. Cloaked, I assume, as Aii is quite chuffed with our newly claimed ship. It's fully fit, and with good modules. A nice addition to our hangar. I have no idea why it was left out here, but it's a decent find. And probably all we're going to get tonight. I'm okay with that, and so is Aii. We head home to stow the stolen ship, and go off-line for the night.

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Tags: eve online, ishkur, manticore, mmorpg, occator, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

Watching a ship go out

There's been another signature explosion in our home w-space system. It can't all be gas, not all three new signatures. Performing a blanket scan, as is good practice even when coming on-line, sees no ships in the system, so I get to scanning the signatures. Two gas sites, one wormhole. Plus the static wormhole. It's better than nothing, and indeed the K162 from class 2 w-space looks quite inviting. I'm going in. The discovery scanner won't even knock ahead of me this time.

The wormhole looked so good from the other side, but appearing in C2a over six kilometres from the locus may not be a good sign. There are plenty of ships on my directional scanner, though, so I won't dismiss this system just yet. I can see an Armageddon battleship, Broadsword heavy interdictor, Helios covert operations boat, Hurricane battlecruiser, Manticore stealth bomber, Orca industrial command ship, Raven battleship, and two Venture mining frigates. There are two mobile depots deployed too. I wonder if that's notable.

It's quite a mix of ships. Maybe they're scattered unpiloted inside the also-visible tower. D-scan suggests they are all at the tower, at least, and locating it sees that there are some pilots. The Raven, Helios, Manticore, and one Venture all have a capsuleer's pod inside them. But all the ships are accounted for at the tower. One mobile depot is not, however, which could make it interesting. I give Aii a sitrep as he comes on-line. 'They're just sitting at the tower? How boring.' Well, quite.

Actually, not all ships in the system are sitting at the tower, as seen by an Imicus frigate warping in from somewhere. Oh, but that means that they are all now sitting at the tower, so forget that last bit. No, hold on, the Imicus warps out again, and in my lack of excitement I've forgotten to orientate myself. Maybe the frigate went to the wormhole leading to our home system. But Aii's on the other side of that connection and sees no jumps, and when he enters the C2 to join me he also sees no Imicus. It went elsewhere.

The one ship that moved is gone. Sod it, I'm scanning that mobile depot. It's actually pretty easy, and I resolve the structure soon enough, sending my cloaky Loki across to end up floating near the tiny depot in otherwise empty space. I dunno why it's here, and I don't know if it's in use. I do know that it's within d-scan range of the tower, so I don't quiet fancy testing the depot's strength. I'd rather catch a ship visiting it. Perhaps the Imicus, although he's not here now.

Ship changes register on my combat scanning probes, returned to a blanket-scanning configuration, and with Aii, now cloaked outside the tower. A Dominix battleship appears, disappears, and appears again. That's a little ominous. A short trip by a battleship is suggestive of collapsing a wormhole, albeit slowly, and rather than be caught unawares I warp across to take a look at the wormhole home. It's still healthy, not even destabilised to half mass. Maybe there's another wormhole that the locals don't want.

Whatever's happening, it's not much. What to do, what to do. Watch the ships do not much for a bit longer, apparently. Ah, movement. The Dominix accelerates, followed by the Raven, and I anticipate their warp by heading back to the mobile depot. I don't know why, it's obviously not where they are going, but I suppose I only know two possible destinations in this system so far. That can be changed, particularly when Aii sees another battleship warp away from the tower. 'Near the fifth planet.'

I scan near the fifth planet. There's one signature, and it's a wormhole. Warping across sees the system's second static wormhole, this one a connection to high-sec empire space. There are no ships here, though. At least, not right now. 'Imicus warped off.' It's right here, Ray. It's looking at me. Or maybe the Imicus is looking at the wormhole, as it turns and manoeuvres closer, close enough to jump through. The locals need better bookmarks.

The Imicus is gone, but perhaps he'll be back. And perhaps he'll be back pretty soon, soon enough to be polarised. I'd like to take advantage of that, even against a minor ship like a frigate. It's not like this system promises to provide us with better opportunities. I decloak my Loki, activate the sensor booster, and sidle up to be best buds with the wormhole.

Nothing. The Imicus isn't taking another quick trip to high-sec, it seems. A bit more waiting has a bit more nothing, and by now polarisation effects will have dissipated. I bid adieu to the wormhole's locus and re-activate my cloaking device, in the vain hope that I can still catch something here. At least we're out of d-scan range of the tower, so hopefully no one saw my Loki loitering languidly by the high-sec exit.

But, no, still more waiting sees still more nothing. The Imicus doesn't return, the battleships don't return. Heading back to the inner system and the tower has no new changes. Overall, I'd rate this system as 'disappointing'. Maybe I'll have better luck through our own static wormhole.

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Tags: armageddon, broadsword, dominix, eve online, helios, hurricane, imicus, loki, manticore, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, raven, scanning, venture, w-space