Checking the home system's clear

I'm up early to take a look around. This isn't an opportunistic check for external planet gooers on their rounds, but rather to see that nothing is happening in the home system. A tower, presumed hostile, definitely unwanted, was erected yesterday, and destroyed yesterday. No one came to save it, no hate mail has been received about its destruction, but I want to make sure our message has been made clearly. We won't abide squatters.

All looks clear to start with, appearing as I do within directional scanner range of where the hostile tower briefly was, but launch probes and performing a blanket scan shows differently. I've warped to the centre of the system as my probes complete their scan, which lets me switch to d-scan to see that the ship my combat probes are detecting is a Cheetah covert operations boat. And it's not one of ours.

The Cheetah disappears soon enough, which is natural for a cloaky scout, and I resolve our static wormhole close to where it was spotted. It's possible that the cov-ops headed to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, and a second wormhole in the home system suggests that he may not be a capsuleer missing his tower and looking to leave our system. Warping to the other wormhole sees it to be a K162 from class 2 w-space, and one with a red Venture sitting on it.

I can only watch as the mining frigate warps from the K162 before my engines cut out completely. The Venture disappears to empty space, which isn't in the direction of our static wormhole, but towards one of our ladar sites. Good-oh, that gives me a target to hunt, and one easily found. We have no new sites today, so I can use the bookmarks of current sites that we keep maintained. No scanning is necessary.

Finding the Venture is straightforward enough, but that alone doesn't catch him. Having a bookmark to the ladar site where our visitor is sucking gas merely gets me close enough to see him. Depending on his proximity to the centre of the cloud, I may not be able to do much more. I make a perch on the outskirts of the ladar site and survey the situation. The Venture is about a dozen kilometres from the cloud's signature, and beyond it from where I am. That's not ideal, but perhaps not terrible either.

I will only have a couple of kilometres for my cloaky Loki strategic cruiser to cross before my warp scrambler can successfully snare the target, and I have six seconds of sensor recalibration time to do it after dropping my cloak. That sounds achievable. I just have to hope that the Venture pilot doesn't react in good time. Let's see how alert he is. I warp in to the centre of the cloud and watch for my cloak to drop. When it does, I activate my sensor booster and micro warp drive, and burn towards the frigate. I get in range of my warp scrambler and try to lock on to the Venture, but it warps clear a second before I can stop it.

Missing the Venture is disappointing but not embarrassing. Warping to our static wormhole instead of the C2 K162 to give chase is definitely embarrassing. I don't know why I care to mention it. By the time I get to the right wormhole the Venture has left the system. I see no point in diving through the connection when the pilot, and now probably his corporation, is aware of my presence, so wait near the wormhole to see if there will be a reaction. And as the Venture is red because it is part of the Transmission Lost alliance, any reaction will probably involve bait.

No ships return to our home system now, perhaps making the Venture a lone pilot looking to steal some gas from a neighbouring system when everyone is meant to be asleep. Had we not had intruders yesterday I dare say I would be too. And I wouldn't be surprised if it is the same pilot who was in the Cheetah earlier. At least the ships are coming from outside the system today. No one passes through the K162 from C2a as I watch it, so I leave it behind to see what's in C3a instead. No one and nothing, and an expected static exit to null-sec, from notes six weeks old.

Scanning five anomalies and seven signatures in C3a gives me gas and rocks, rocks and gas, a magnetometric site and the null-sec exit. I consider ignoring the static wormhole, but curiosity gets the better of me. I warp across to see where the exit leads, only to pull up short when seeing the wormhole's at the end of its life. That's better to find out now than later, as I will expect one missing signature and a new one when I return. And, of course, the C2 K162 could offer opportunity too. For now, satisfied that home is safe, if not entirely secure, I take a break.

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Tags: cheetah, eve online, loki, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, venture, w-space

Halting a half-hearted invasion

There's no rest for the wicked. I've come home, after an embarrassingly unsuccessful hunt of ships that can barely shoot back, and sent myself to a quiet corner of the system to go off-line, when a casual updating of my directional scanner shows me a tower. Not our tower, but a tower. I'm pretty sure we haven't configured a second tower in our system, but d-scan is pretty clear on the subject. A tower, with an active force field, ship maintenance array, and corporate hangar array, is on-line around a planet where there should be none.

An alien tower is a concern. I recently repudiated the idea on Twitter that, as a w-space denizen, I felt I 'owned' our system. I don't think we do, but that doesn't mean we're happy to share the space we inhabit. To say the home system is 'ours' is merely to use semantic shorthand. Whilst it is possible to co-exist, given the right circumstances, it can be difficult to know when those circumstances are right.

The new tower may belong to peaceful industrialists, looking only to mine ore, harvest gas, and maybe cull the Sleeper population. Their only care to us could be to try not to annoy us by taking more than they need. On the other hand, this could be the first step in a hostile claim to the system, where the capitalist pig-dogs want the system all to themselves and us out. Considering the tower is small, and cheap, and has no defences, not even shield hardeners, I imagine the former holds over the latter. Even so, and notwithstanding how the corporation managed to find our system, this aggression will not stand.

I get on the bat-phone, and one colleague is handily near a high-sec wormhole through a convenient class 2 w-space system currently connecting to us. TG's even buying a replacement Oracle battlecruiser, just right for shooting big, static objects, even if the circumstances of its being bought are frustrating. He understands the significance of an alien tower in a w-space system and rallies the troops, and although the hour is relatively late and there is a fair journey between our two exit wormholes, a fleet forms to come to our aid.

As the fleet makes its way to the high-sec wormhole, coalescing in the empire space system, I start crashing our static wormhole that leads in the other direction. We don't really need anyone coming in to disrupt a siege, and certainly not from the owners of the hostile tower. But half-way through someone points out that keeping the wormhole alive but in critical condition is probably better, what with it having a static exit to null-sec. There's not much chance of reinforcements arriving through a deep null-sec wormhole. And a critical wormhole won't let many ships through to help, as well as being obvious if someone does collapse it to look for a new one.

New aim: critically destabilise the wormhole. I can do that. A few trips in an Orca industrial command ship will be simple to make. I even spot a Cheetah covert operations boat come to our K162 in C3a when the wormhole sits at half mass, and seeing the wormhole in such a state, and noticing it flare as I enter the system, the pilot thinks better of coming this way. He backs off and cloaks as I return through the wormhole. It's still not at critical mass, though, but that's fine. A round trip with a heavy interdictor, mass-boosted both ways, ensures the wormhole is close to death.

I have a couple of minutes before the fleet arrives. I take the time to make a couple of strategic bookmarks around the hostile tower, in case we need one, before jumping in to my own Oracle to join in with the siege. Battleships, battlecruisers, a strategic cruiser, and a whole bunch of drones, oh yeah. The shields of the hostile tower aren't even at full strength when we start shooting, showing how recently it was brought on-line, and gives us a bit of help. Not that we need it. Once everyone starts shooting, most sooner rather than later, the shields drop steadily. The only question now is if the tower's fuel bay has any strontium.

If the tower is fuelled with strontium, it will enter reinforced mode as the first damage bleeds through the shields to the armour, at 25% shield strength. The fleet will then stay overnight to finish the job the next day, and I'll be preparing bacon sarnies in the morning to feed some hungry men. If the tower is as ramshackle as it looks and there is no strontium, there will be no reinforced mode and we just keep on shooting until it explodes. 40% shields, 30%, 27%, 26%, 25%... 24% shields, oh yeah. We keep shooting.

The armour and structure of the tower is a fraction of the shields, so although we have more shooting to do the second part of the operation will proceed quicker than the first. I don't quite anticipate how quickly, and it's amusing to see the structure tick down almost like a timer, thanks to the damage output of our excellent pilots. Tick, tick, tick, tick, BOOM.

The tower explodes, shortly followed by the CHA and SMA, which only relinquish thirty thousand units of plagioclase, the weirdoes. And there's no sign of anyone turning up to protect their claim. That's a shame, but uncomplicates matters. They came, they mined, they got evicted.

I grab a Bustard transport ship to retrieve the ore for our ship-building projects, rather than letting it go to waste, as the fleet lets off some steam by testing TG's Oracle's tank. 'ST and Mick ... volley me to armour. I'm in a shield tanked Oracle. They then forget their drone aggro.' I'm not quite sure how funny that is, considering how it was a replacement ship bought only an hour or so ago after a previous loss. My laughter was appropriate to whatever the situation merited, I'm sure.

We give TG a ship to protect his pod on the way back through C2a to high-sec, and onwards to their C5 home, as well as plenty of thanks and gratitude for the alacrity with which the visitors were forcibly removed from our system. And now, or, at least, after I check the other corners of the system for errant towers and finding none, I can get some rest.

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Tags: bustard, cheetah, eve online, mmorpg, oracle, orca, penny ibramovic, pvp, w-space

Zipping past a Zephyr

I'm feeling kinda tired. I hope I don't cause any mistakes. But any mistakes I make will only affect my own pod, as it's just me in w-space at the moment. Well, not just me, as there's a proliferation of Sleepers in the home system, with another new site today, but I don't suppose the drones will roam through wormholes looking for pilots to ambush. But I appear to have misspoken. It is a new signature my probes have detected, but a second wormhole and not a new site. The K162 from class 2 w-space looks like a good place to start the evening's exploration.

Jumping to C2a has my directional scanner reporting clear, with two planets sitting out of range. In one direction is a tower, with a Helios covert operations boat and shuttle, neither piloted, and many silos. The other direction has a second tower with extra silo capacity, but no more ships. Launching probes and performing a blanket scan reveals as good as nothing in the system, with three anomalies and two signatures. The locals like their silos to be stocked, it seems, as the two signatures will be the two static wormholes, one of which I entered through.

I resolve the second wormhole in C2a, naturally an exit to high-sec to accompany the connection to class 4 w-space, and jump through to get a safety net for the night. I appear in a system in The Citadel, four hops to Jita, and although I am tempted to make a fuel run I am more interested in what lies beyond our static connection, so return to w-space to find out. Very little, as it turns out, with C3a being unoccupied and empty, and my notes indicating there being an exit to null-sec to resolve. At least the one anomaly and thirteen signatures, and the weak nature of the K346, will make me search for the wormhole this time, although I don't count that as much of a blessing.

A chunky wormhole may spare me the fuel run yet. Then again, chunkier than a K346 it may be, it still isn't as fat as I expect a K162 to be. A second wormhole also feels too big, but the third seems as I expect the null-sec connection to appear. Either way, I get three wormholes instead of the one, which hopefully gives me options. The first turns out to be the outbound connection I suspected, a T405 wormhole to class 4 w-space. The second is a K162 from class 5 w-space, and the last is indeed the null-sec exit. As a surer sign of activity, I jump through the K162 first.

A tower appears on d-scan from the other side of the wormhole, along with a Charon freighter, Zephyr, and two sets of scanning probes. It's a curious result, as the Charon won't be scanning, and I would be surprised to see the Zephyr actually being used for its designed purpose. But I suppose cloaked scouts are the best kind of scouts and I could simply be seeing competence in action. Checking my notes for the tower location, and opening the system map to see it being at the farthest planet and a mere 8 AU distant, I am reluctant to want to scan for K162s in a system too small to hide in. But warping to the tower gives me other ideas.

The Charon is actually piloted, but that's not what catches my attention at the tower. What does is that the Zephyr is not here. A sweep of d-scan suggests the exploration ship is around one of the planets, which makes it feel quite like bait, particularly with two sets of scanning probes active, but I can at least take a look. Warping to the planet sees nothing, though, and the Zephyr doesn't appear to be at one of the moons. A different adjustment to d-scan gives the game away, however, as it shows the ship to be under a thousand kilometres from my position. I would say the pilot came here and sent his ship skimming off in one direction, in a bid to stay safe without a cloak.

Knowing how close the Zephyr is, and how quick and easy it will be to resolve his position, I make up my mind to find him, particularly as I see the combat scanning probes have disappeared from d-scan. Remaining almost invisible from searching eyes, I launch probes where I am, aligning my cloaky Loki strategic cruiser in the approximate direction of the Zephyr as I do, and cluster them all around my own ship in a tight arrangement at their lowest range. One scan resolves the Zephyr, and my alignment warps me to his position in seconds. Sure enough, the Zephyr is coasting gently along the solar wind in no fixed direction. But he still moves quicker than my Loki under cloak, and already he is further away than my warp scrambler can reach.

I don't really consider range to be an issue, though, not as much as time. I drop my cloak, activate my micro warp drive, and burn towards the Zephyr, closing the range within seconds and gaining a positive target lock. I disrupt the ship's warp engines and start driving autocannon fire in to its tiny frame. My closing distance, and then speed, prevent any significant damage to start with, but soon my guns rip chunks out of the Zephyr. And then stop. My lock drops, and I cannot target the ship any more. Unsure as to the problem, I perform a systems check, only to see that I have somehow sped right up to the Zephyr and beyond, to the point where I am again out of range. I watch as the exploration ship warps away, still mostly intact.

That was careless, but more so because the owner of the first set of combat scanning probes has appeared. It seems a local pilot in a Buzzard cov-ops was looking for the Zephyr too, and his scanning probes disappeared because he also found him. The Buzzard decloaks as I swing past the Zephyr, and now that one has gone I target the other, hoping to bag at least one kill for my efforts. But, again, the ship is too far for my short-range scrambler to affect, and the cov-ops warps away from harm easily. I reload my guns, cloak, and kick myself.

This class 5 w-space system holds a black hole phenomenon, which greatly increases ship speed at the cost of decreased agility. My micro warp drive indeed sped me to my target, but I should have been more aware of how sluggish my ship would react to turning or stopping. Overshooting the target by such a distance was sloppy, and potentially cost me two kills. A good volley on the Zephyr could have popped it, and given me the Buzzard for seconds. Instead, I'm warping back to the wormhole from C3a with nothing but a little shame. Failing to account for my environment will always be to my disadvantage.

There's little point loitering in C5a with two pilots that know I'm there. Besides, I have a class 4 system beyond the T405 to explore. It's a bit bland, though. C4a is unoccupied, although the wormhole flares behind me as I complete a passive scan, revealing nineteen anomalies, and I see a Cheetah cov-ops appear and warp to empty space. That's good, as it gives me an idea of where to find another wormhole in the sprawl of twenty-eight signatures. There is still a fair volume of space to cover along the path of the Cheetah, though, and it's my third attempt that uncovers a K162 from a second class 5 w-space system. Scanning can be quite a chore, huh?

Already tired, and disappointed at mistakes made, I ignore looking for the static connection in C4a for the chance of locating a target in C5b. Sadly, all I see is another empty system, hinting at another K162 to be found, and combat scanning probes visible on d-scan. The combat probes will spot me if I decloak to launch probes, so it seems like a good time to call it a night. I head back through C4a and in to C3a, where I spot core scanning probes in the system. I don't know whose they are, and I'm no longer in a mood to lie in wait for a scout, so disregard them and jump home to get some rest.

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Tags: buzzard, charon, cheetah, eve online, helios, loki, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, w-space, zephyr

Return to the radar

So we've spooked a pair of ratting battlecruisers, and a potential gasser in the process. Now what? Well, I'm in a class 2 w-space system, entered from a K162 in high-sec, and there's at least a static wormhole to class 3 w-space to find, if not the system the Drakes came from. I may as well give the system a quick scan. I warp away from the radar site I scared the Drakes from to launch probes, in the slim hope that they were just taking a break and will return, which means getting within directional scanner range of the local tower. And, would you believe it, the Drakes are back.

Not only are the Drakes back, but they are at the tower. They are local to C2b, and not come from a different system. That's unexpected, and a little peculiar, as the ships definitely stopped being in the system for a short while. Even so, I warp to the tower to see what they do, and watch as one Drake warps back towards the radar site, the second staying at the tower for now. I follow to watch the first Drake once again engage the Sleepers, and alert glorious leader Fin that we have a target.

There are seven Sleeper cruisers ganging up on the Drake, which, even in a C2, is perhaps a little too many for me to withstand whilst trying to take down another capsuleer's battlecruiser. For now, I wait, and watch the Drake whittle down the cruisers to a more manageable number. It takes a while, though, even for a six-year old character. Both Fin and I start to sense a trap-ish vibe to this return.

Because of our shared vibe, I bounce off the local tower to see what the other pilot is doing. Floating, that's what. He's still in a Drake, so if this is a trap then he's either holding character well or not hiding their intentions particularly well. I go back to the radar site, where there are still too many Sleeper cruisers to engage our target, but I can still take a closer look. The Drake is moving, which I initially took to be for damage mitigation, but now the battlecruiser has moved far from the created Sleeper wrecks and cruisers. I want to see what he's doing.

Sure enough, the Drake is taking precautions. The ship is aligned to the fourth planet, which will let him leave the site with moment's notice, making it more difficult for me to stop him, particularly with the recalibration delay from dropping my cloak. But if I can get in front of the Drake I could bump him out of alignment, hopefully giving me the few seconds I'll need to gain a positive lock and disrupt his warp engines. I pick a wreck that looks to be in rough alignment with the Drake and planet, and bounce out towards the planet and back in at range to the wreck. Needless to say, my rough attempt fails miserably.

Even if I were in a good position now the Drake has realigned to another planet, probably because his path has taken him far from the still-active Sleepers. I can try to get in front of him again, this time being a bit smarter about it. I can't get close to the Drake whilst under normal cloaked speed, but I can manoeuvre my Loki strategic cruiser perpendicular to the Drake so that I end up with his ship between mine and the planet he's aligned to. I bookmark my current spot, note the range of the Drake, and bounce off the far planet and back in to the radar site, gauging my return distance so that I should appear in front of and close to the battlecruiser.

The second attempt is much better. I am a little above the Drake, but only a shade over ten kilometres away, and in front of him. This is a good position, as dipping down should, when I decloak, let me bump the Drake significantly out of alignment. I start my manoeuvre, call for Fin to jump in to the system and hold in her Legion strategic cruiser, and decloak. A pulse of my micro warp drive sends my prow in to the Drake's, giving him a good bump and, from that, enough time for me to get a positive lock. My warp scrambler activates and, with the Drake snared, Fin warps to my position.

I settle in to an orbit around the battlecruiser, micro warp drive active to keep my speed up and mitigate the missile damage, as my autocannons rake in to the ship. Aii has turned up and is heading our way with another ship, and Fin's Legion drops out of warp nearby to add some mighty damage to my own. The Drake focusses damage on me, probably wisely, and my own shields take a bit of a beating, but nothing serious yet. And here come two more ships. Aii is entering the system to help, but before he arrives the second Drake comes from the local tower, much as expected.

The first Drake was bait, of sorts at least, as the second has been refitted with a warp disruptor, which gets applied to my ship, stopping me fleeing. That's okay for the moment, particularly as my engines are only disrupted and not scrambled, which may be important soon. I'm chewing through my ancillary shield booster charges, but they last long enough to see the first Drake explode nicely. The pod flees, Aii in our Onyx heavy interdictor not being able to position himself in time, and we shift focus to the newly arrived second Drake.

I say 'we', I mean my colleagues. I start shooting the second Drake too, but running my micro warp drive against the first Drake has sucked my capacitor mostly dry, and my ancillary shield booster has run out of charges. I can't stay here much longer, not whilst I remain the focus of our prey. Thankfully, not being scrammed helps. I turn my ship directly away from the Drake holding me and make a break for it, pulsing my micro warp drive when my capacitor has the juice for it. I'm pulling clear at about the same speed as my shields drop, which is a little unsettling. I'm still not sure if Minmatar ships have armour, as such, and I don't want to test this theory out in such an expensive ship.

The occasional recharge pulse of my capacitor gives just enough juice for my micro warp drive to get me out of warp disruption range of the second Drake, still shooting me. I activate my warp drive, now that I can, and get clear, with some shields remaining. Back in my perch in the radar site, I pause to reload my guns and recharge my shield a little. I want to head back for the pod of the second Drake, but his ship's already deep in armour damage. By the time I turn around and warp back the three hundred kilometres I return to a pair of wrecks only, the pod already fled. We loot and shoot the wrecks, and clear the pocket, getting a 'gf' in the local channel for our efforts, which I reciprocate.

That was fun! Going back against the Drake by myself would probably have ended badly for me, so having Fin and Aii as support made the ambush successful. And the Legion, despite the energy neutralisers turning out to be useless against the entirely passive Drakes, really ripped the Drakes to shreds, although the Onyx made a good show too. In the end, a good hunt, with a little skill and a bit of luck with the timing, gave us two good kills and some excitement.

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Tags: drake, eve online, legion, loki, mmorpg, onyx, penny ibramovic, pvp, w-space

Spooking ships

I come on-line just as Fin drops out of warp at our static wormhole. I jump in to the fleet and warp towards my glorious leader, as she jumps to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system. Fin sees an Orca industrial command ship, a shuttle, and five towers on her directional scanner, and has intel on the system holding a static exit to high-sec empire space. 'We can get Aii back', she says. Back? Here was only just here. 'You know Aii.'

I jump to C3a to join Fin, warp to a distant planet not holding any towers, and launch scanning probes. Performing a blanket scan of the system gives an interesting result, with five ships lighting up my combat probes. I'm sure there were just two a moment ago. I check and double-check that the extra ships aren't ghost signatures, caused by awkward positioning of my probes, but there are five ships detected. Warping back to the inner system sees two of them, an Imicus frigate and Badger hauler, but before I can pin them down using d-scan they are gone. My probes now show two ships in the system.

Along with the ships in flux, my combat scanning probes revealed four anomalies and five signatures, which will take no time to scan. A K162 wormhole from class 2 w-space would be much more attractive if it weren't so tiny, destabilised as it is to critical levels, and the static exit to high-sec is obvious when I resolve it owing to its signature strength. And, whilst I scan, an Imicus is somewhere, gone, somewhere, gone. Another wormhole could help us find it, although the K162 from null-sec is not as much fun as if it had been another w-space link.

The Imicus is back again, but where? I find the frigate as I reconnoitre the wormhole to high-sec, seeing the Imicus near and approaching the wormhole. I can't tell how far he is from jumping so let him exit rather than reveal myself a moment before he escapes naturally, and instead loiter with vicious intent on the assumption the pilot will return moments later, his ship polarised. Fin has got a heavy interdictor ready to help catch him, and hearing that the Imicus has exited the system warps across to cover the wormhole.

Huh, there were five ships before, and I only ever saw four of them. Or so I thought, I suppose. Updating d-scan whilst on the wormhole—we may have a safe exit to high-sec, but it remains prudent to know what's coming before it gets to you—sees another Imicus in the system. It doesn't really matter where he is, although I warp away from the wormhole to find him bouncing between the towers, as both of our ships, decloaked and ready to strike, are obvious on d-scan to anyone in range. The second Imicus is likely to have relayed our position to the first Imicus, which has so far stayed in high-sec.

I may as well see where the high-sec wormhole leads, to check for the presence of the first Imicus and to identify the route home for Aii. I appear in a system in The Citadel, where over a hundred dust bunnies are making everything messy. There's one orange in local too, and it's our Imicus pilot decidedly not making himself a target. If he's not inclined to play with us, and who can blame him, I may as well scan. And amongst the many, many miners and their helper drones is one extra signature, which resolves to be a wormhole. It's a K162 from class 2 w-space too, which is nice.

Knowing that C2b will have another w-space connection, if not activity itself, I ignore the Imicus and jump to see what I can find. D-scan is clear from the other side of the wormhole, but my notes from eight months ago suggest occupation and a wormhole to class 3 w-space waiting to be scanned. I launch probes, blanket the system, and warp off to explore. I don't find the towers, but I do see two Drake battlecruisers, a flight of drones, and a whole bunch of Sleeper wrecks on d-scan. My blanket scan indicates that there isn't any more activity to find, so rather than look for towers I look for the Drakes.

The battlecruiser pair aren't in the sole anomaly in the system, and the number of Sleeper wrecks indicates they are in a site. My blanket scan has a fuzzy signature that gives me a pretty good bearing and range for the ships, so, with a minor adjustment, I cluster my probes around that signature in tight formation and scan. I get a good result. Not great, but definitely good. I warp in to what turns out to be a radar site, aiming to drop far short to reconnoitre only for now, to see a distinct lack of Drakes when I get there.

My one, quick scan has spooked the pilots, who must have been watching d-scan quite closely to have reacted so rapidly. The site isn't cleared of Sleepers, and loitering for a couple of minutes doesn't have the battlecruisers return to continue. On top of that, calling for Fin to bring a heavy duty ship to the C2b K162 wormhole in high-sec has her scare away a Venture mining frigate new to C3a as she passes through. It doesn't look like it's going to be our evening.

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Tags: badger, drake, eve online, imicus, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, venture, w-space

Ripping open a Reaper

Haii Aii, are you still in empire space? 'Nope. I've mined 6k units of arkonor from a gravimetric site in the home system.' That's pretty impressive. 'And sucked up half of the oldest gas.' The man's a machine. As Aii does what Aii does best, I does what I does best. Do best. I launch probes and perform a blanket scan of the home w-space system, confirming just the single new signature, which will be our static wormhole, keeping Aii safe for the time being. But he's just finished his industrious activity anyway, so after resolving the signature I warp to it and jump to our neighbouring class 3 system to explore.

A tower appears on my directional scanner in C3a, along with a Nidhoggur carrier, Orca industrial command ship, and Occator transport ship. At most, I'm expecting only the latter of the ships to be piloted, and even then they could all be empty. Locating the tower is done manually, as my last visit, from ten months ago, had no tower in the system, perhaps explained by the static wormhole exiting to null-sec. And once located, I see that the Occator is indeed piloted. Rather than see what the two planets out of d-scan range potentially hold, I sit and watch the transport for a little while, in case he moves.

The capsuleer in the Occator has either wandered away from the cockpit, has dozed off, or is drunk. Or maybe all three. Either way, he's not moving, so I take my cloaky Loki strategic cruiser on a tour of the system, seeing nothing else of interest, and taking the opportunity to launch combat scanning probes. A blanket scan of C3a reveals thirteen anomalies and four signatures, which isn't much to sort through, and I resolve gas, a wormhole with a Buzzard covert operations boat on it—oops—and a second wormhole. The wormhole that isn't the static connection may have been neat had my probes not been visible when the Buzzard appeared in the system.

The Buzzard looks to be active, as a core probe appears on d-scan. Do I return home to plant an interceptor in wait for the cov-ops? Sure, why not. I put my Malediction on the home side of our wormhole, ready to ambush the Buzzard if he comes my way, with Aii watching the other side of the wormhole for warning. 'Proteus on d-scan.' Well, damn, I'm sure my probes told me the scout was a Buzzard and not a brick of a strategic cruiser. '...in place of the Occator.' Oh, that's much better. Even so, the Buzzard takes his time, then disappears in a direction that doesn't bring him my way. Once again, I've waited for nothing.

I get back in my Loki and return to C3a, where a couple of new contacts are at the tower, but somewhat inconsequentially. A couple of ship changes makes Aii think we're watching a fashion show, and before too long one of the ships, a Cheetah cov-ops, takes a stroll down the catwalk. The ship warps out of the tower in the direction of our K162. Damn, maybe I should have stayed in my interceptor just a couple of minutes longer. Well, never mind, he can have a poke around our system. If we leave him alone for now he may come back and do something bigger, or at least do something in a ship we have a chance of catching.

Whilst the Cheetah is gone, a Reaper appears on d-scan. The frigate is new and not at the tower. D-scan points me towards the fourth planet in the system, which seems an odd place for the rookie ship to be. But heading that way shows that he is indeed there, just not for long. I watch him warp away to another planet, and following sees the same behaviour again. The third planet he warps to has a jet-can some distance away, which the Reaper visits before warping to another planet. Maybe the canister has some significance, and rather than trying to keep up with the agile frigate I can wait here and see if it returns.

I don't have a long wait, as the Reaper drops back on-grid within a minute, but curiously not near the canister. That's rectified in a few more seconds, as the frigate warps towards the jet-can, towards me. I drop my cloak as the Reaper irrevocably warps my way, and activate my sensor booster to help catching him. It works, as the pilot can't get his ship back in to warp before I gain a positive lock and disrupt his warp engine. My autocannons spew projectile ammunition towards the Reaper which, good for him, shoots back. But it's a fait accompli, and the Reaper explodes without much encouragement. It's not much of a kill—almost nothing, in fact—but it was definitely a ship I could catch. It'll do.

I catch the Reaper's ejected pod too, and turn that in to a fresh corpse for my collection. After I scoop, loot, and shoot, I poke my nose in to the jet-can to see what's there, and am bemused by the single unit of tritanium ore I find. That will be the desultory gift given to all pilots of rookie ships, like a lump of coal at Christmas, and it seems that the pilot dumped it purely to give him a beacon to warp to. Quite why he didn't then bookmark the position of the canister is beyond me, but there's more to what he was doing than first appearances.

The cov-ops from our home system returns to C3a, and says he likes our system. He says this almost to no one in particular, but then warns Aii that he has other hostile pilots in the system. The Reaper maybe is one of them, and even though he didn't seem particularly threatening there is probably more going on that we realise. What was a rookie ship doing bouncing around the planets anyway, and why is a second apparently doing the same? From their actions and the comment of the local pilot, perhaps the rookie ships are piloted by disposable capsuleers, setting up tactical perches that will be of use to the veteran pilots that don't care to show their ships at the moment.

As if to confirm my suspicion, the pilot of the Reaper returns within half-an-hour, in another Reaper, and resumes where he left off. Seeing this, I wouldn't be surprised if the pilot intentionally let his pod be caught, to give him a quicker jump to a station. I consider bouncing around after him again, but with no jet-can as a focus I won't be able to predict where he's going. And as the locals are aware of the hostiles, and of at least one of us, they are not going to be careless with their own actions. Happy with my minor adventure, and knowing we're not going to get anything more, I head home to go off-line.

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Tags: buzzard, cheetah, eve online, loki, malediction, mmorpg, nidhoggur, occator, orca, penny ibramovic, proteus, pvp, reaper, scanning, w-space

Dying leads to death

It's been a few hours since the curious incident of the exploding planet gooer, so what's changed? For a start, our static wormhole is now in its end-of-life stage and has been destabilised to half-mass. That it is EOL can be explained by the wormhole no doubt having been opened by scouts coming from another class 4 w-space system connecting to us. That K162 was at half-mass when I found it, so although my own transits through our wormhole didn't destabilise it, those from our neighbours perhaps did when they inevitably came through to explore our system. What's more curious is that the K162 from C4a is now critically unstable.

It's quite possible our C3 neighbours scouted further back in the constellation, to see just who they are sharing w-space with today, but what they pushed through the wormhole to destabilise it so much I can't say. Either way, they would have found a C4 system with no occupation and no other wormholes, and our home system must have looked relatively quiet too. And although I don't know how much life is left in our wormhole, that the C4 K162 lives should mean that our connection will survive at least long enough for me to poke through and see what our neighbours are up to now.

An Iteron appears on my directional scanner from the K162 in C3a, which wasn't there earlier. There's a tower too, one of three, all of them out of d-scan range of the others, so it's easy to locate the Iteron and see it piloted inside the force field of the closest tower. Not really thinking I could catch two planet gooers in the same system in the same day, I watch the Iteron anyway. You never know, and the locals may think our system is dormant now, after the excitement a few hours earlier. But the hauler goes off-line within a few minutes, which makes the appearance of a Drake battlecruiser on d-scan appealing.

Looking for the Drake has the ship in one of the ladar sites I scanned earlier. I fully resolved the few sites, all gas, knowing I'd be back and hoping to catch a ship watching for probes but with me needing none, but I didn't think that a likely scenario. I would say that external scouts opening our wormhole so that it is now EOL is working to my advantage. The locals probably think I'm sleeping. But I'm here and ready to ambush a ship. I just need to not get carried away.

The ladar site is too close to warp in to it directly and expect not to be decloaked by a gas cloud, so I warp to a distant planet so that I can return along a vector closer to being parallel to the ecliptic plane. I check d-scan as I warp to the planet, knowing that it puts me in range of another tower, and kick myself for not warping to the tower directly. I see more ships, and although I can reliably say which ones are piloted—the Venture mining frigate, Megathron battleship, second Drake, and Ibis frigate are new to the system—I cannot know they are actually at the tower. But never mind. At least I know which site is active.

As my ship turns to warp in to reconnoitre the ladar site, an update to d-scan shows the Megathron and second Drake disappear. Unsurprisingly, they have moved to the ladar site to join the first Drake in shooting the Sleeper Sirius guns that have appeared to prove a threat to mining ships. A single Drake would be a neat target. Two and a battleship are too much for me to tackle by myself, so I wait. The ships are likely to be replaced by gas-suckers at some point, and those I will be able to ambush. I think.

I'm not entirely sure if I will be able to get close to gassers without probes. I am in the ladar site, the clouds are in front of me, as will be the ships, but my warp engines may not have a beacon to lock on to. I can't warp to a ship not in my fleet, and offering a fleet invitation may be a little suspect. And although I could warp to the gas clouds they are often big and fluffy enough that their cosmic signature could be many kilometres away from the sucking ships. But I only think about this now because I have little else to do as the combat continues. It may not even be a concern.

There goes the last Sirius gun. The three ships warp away, but not to the tower. It's easy enough to find them again, in a second ladar site, thanks to my earlier scouting, but as I make a second tactical perch I am a little dismayed to see a lack of Sleepers. The Megathron and two Drakes are nestled up against a pair of Ventures, apparently acting as muscle for the operation. I couldn't take the three combat ships before, I can't take them now. Perhaps they are configured purely for Sleeper combat and are not fitted with warp disruption modules, which would let me warp in, pop a Venture or two, and get clear with some shield damage. But do I risk my Loki strategic cruiser on how the other ships are fit?

Thankfully, there's no need to risk a hit-and-run. The combat ships warp to the other ladar site again, taking the Ventures with them before this cloud is fully harvested, but apparently only for bookmarks to be made of the clouds in the other site. By the time I have got to my first perch the ships are gone, back to sucking on the cloud where I first saw them, only now the combat ships are gone. Maybe they are gone to clear another ladar site of Sleepers, or to relax in a tower after a job well done. I don't really care. What's important is that they are not here, with the Ventures. And me.

I should be in luck with getting close to my targets too. The Ventures are further from the gas cloud's signature than my warp scrambler works, but not by far. That shouldn't be a problem, both because my targeting systems will need to recalibrate after decloaking, which will let me burn in to range easily enough, and because the last time I shot a Venture it evaporated with a single volley from my autocannons. If I'm lucky, I can bag both ships, and maybe even catch a pod.

One last check of d-scan sees no imminent return of the combat ships, so I push my ship in to warp, aiming for the heart of the cloud and within reach of the two Ventures. I'll be working on instruments again, as the cloud is generating an awful lot of light, but my overview should let me know what's going on, even if I can't see explosions. As my ship decelerates from warp I watch for the moment my cloak drops. When it does, I activate my sensor booster first, micro warp drive second, and surge towards the two frigates. My targeting systems become responsive after a few seconds, and I aim for both ships, gaining a positive lock on both.

One Venture is arbitrarily chosen for the first autocannon volley, and disintegrates. I reactivate my guns on the second as I attempt to lock the newly ejected pod, watching as the capsuleer flees and the second Venture crumples as quickly as the first. The second pod isn't so lucky in getting clear, and I catch it before the pilot can get clear.

I crack the pod open as Sleepers appear to join the fun, and although I personally think the fun's all over the Sleepers have other ideas. There is still a Loki for them to play with, being somewhat indiscriminate with their targeting when it comes to non-Sleeper ships, so I scoop the corpse and loot the remnants of the Ventures before twisting my ship back towards my perch.

Clear and safe, I reload my guns, cloak, and relax. Actually, I can relax at home. Our wormhole was dying when I left it, and it's possibly not there now. Rather than risk getting isolated just to bask in the aftermath of a couple of simple but rewarding kills, in a system where the most that will now happen is for me to be hunted, I warp across to the K162 still wobbling away and jump home. Now I relax. This has been a good day. An early gooer kill stopped my dry spell, and the decision to fully scan the system made catching a couple of gassers later much easier than having to employ combat scanning. I think I'll ignore our dying wormhole, even with the C4 K162 now dead and gone portending its imminent demise, and enjoy an early night after a decent day's hunting.

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Tags: drake, eve online, ibis, iteron, loki, megathron, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, venture, w-space

Early customs collection

I really want to actually shoot someone today, preferably with an explosion at the end. I don't care whose by this point. To this end, I'm up early to hopefully catch a bleary-eyed planet gooer going on his rounds. An unexpected signature in the home system gets me off to a promising start, as the K162 from class 4 w-space could mean there are already active pilots starting to get themselves motivated to perform some drudgery that will only be enlivened by projectile ammunition spewing from my autocannons.

One curious complication is that the K162 is sitting at half-mass, already stressed by ships passing through. That's more activity than I'd expect for this hour, so maybe the wormhole was opened a while back. Swinging past our static connection shows that to be healthy, so it's possible that not the same mass was sent through our system, only in to it, although having all our anomalies still present doesn't corroborate that. Perhaps the K162 is in the process of being collapsed, because our neighbouring class 3 w-space system leads somewhere dull. But waiting on the wormhole for a couple of minutes has no ships entering. I'd better take a look.

Balls. I appear in C4a over seven kilometres from the wormhole, which is a fair indication that nothing has been happening in the system for a long while. My directional scanner shows me nothing too, and exploring reveals an unoccupied system. That could give me another wormhole to find, and one where the system beyond is actually awake, so I launch probes and scan the four anomalies and five signatures. Gas, rocks, and two radar sites are all that the C4 holds, so whatever connection brought ships this way has been crashed. C4a is a dead end.

I have another system to investigate for activity, so jump back home, warp across to our static wormhole, and enter C3a. Crapsticks. This time, I appear over eight kilometres from the wormhole, which really can't be a good sign. I am too early today. I can still take a look around, though, and maybe find more wormholes and w-space systems. I warp away from the single tower with no ships on d-scan so that I can launch probes, only to bump in to a second tower, this one with ships. I expect the Orca industrial command ship, Bestower hauler, Ares interceptor, and Retriever mining barge all to be empty, but locating the tower sees the Bestower piloted. That's a nice surprise.

Appearing in the system so far from the wormhole is a generally good sign of prolonged inactivity, so I imagine the pilot of the Bestower has only just woken up. That's good. Well, that's good for me, as it means he's probably getting orientated before going out to collect planet goo. It's not good for him, because now I'm glued to the tower, waiting and watching for his ship to move. My only problem is that this tower is on the edge of the system, quite far from the rest of the planets, and as the planets all seem much closer together because of the relatively narrow angle between them it will be difficult to determine an accurate vector when the Bestower warps.

Because of the difficulty with gauging exactly where the Bestower would be warping towards the inner system, I feel a warm surge of an impending successful ambush as the hauler turns and aligns towards the nearest planet, the one the tower sits around. We are so close to the planet that the HUD brackets for the planet and its customs office are distinctly separated. The Bestower is quite clearly heading to customs, and so I follow it confidently. It's pretty easy to decloak on approach, lock on to the hauler, and destroy it in a few volleys of my autocannons. The pod flees, my targeting systems not quite agile enough to stop it, leaving me to loot and shoot the resultant wreck.

That's my kill. It's from a soft target, and cheap, but it's valid and what I was after. That's good enough for me. Now it's back to general w-space operations. I watch the pod in the tower swap to a Heron frigate and do nothing, so warp away to launch probes—finding a third tower with more empty ships on the other other side of the system—and perform a blanket scan. I bookmark fourteen anomalies and scan the six signatures, there being few enough that I fully resolve and bookmark them all. I'm not going to hang around now but I will be returning, and in several hours' time, so there's an ever-so slight chance that my presence will be forgotten or discarded by then and I can catch some pilots without needing to launch probes for once.

It's gas all the way in this class 3 system, with the exception of the static exit to high-sec empire space. I jump to high-sec to complete the simple constellation map, appearing in a system in Essence, and leave my exploration at that for now. I return to w-space, see the Heron has gone off-line, and head home for a sammich.

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Tags: ares, bestower, eve online, heron, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, pvp, retriever, scanning, w-space

Ghost ships

Aii's on-line, but doesn't look to be home. That wouldn't surprise me, as he was in empire space until late last night, and seeing the bookmarks not updated so far today pretty much confirms his status as locked out. I'd best scan to find him a way back. An unexpected signature at home is only gas, so I resolve our static wormhole and jump to the neighbouring class 3 w-space system, where I see ships on my directional scanner. Ships and drones, in fact. And a tower. But it's not so much the tower that makes me think the ships are inactive, or the lack of wrecks, but more the ship types.

A couple of stealth bombers would only be active if they were also being stealthy, so seeing them on my directional scanner makes me consider them likely to be empty. Three scanning boats aren't going to be using a flight of drones, and neither is the hauler, so I am confident no combat is currently occurring, and a lack of probes gives the impression that the scanning boats are dormant. The Badger may still be piloted and ready to haul, though, so I look to find the tower. Which I do, by accidentally warping to the right moon. That's a time saver, particularly as all of the ships but the Imicus are empty.

No probes visible on d-scan suggests the Imicus is taking a breather. I warp out, launch my own probes, and blanket the system. Five anomalies and seven signatures won't take long to resolve, and I ignore some gas and a radar site to bookmark two wormholes, all with no movement from the frigate. The static exit leads to low-sec, and it's yet another link to a system in Aridia, so thankfully the second wormhole is a K162 to more w-space.

Jumping through the K162 sees a very red nebula for a class 4 system, which is explained once the black hole pulsating in the background is noticed. Unsurprisingly, the system is unoccupied. I have another K162 to find, and find it I do, amongst the plentiful rocks and gas that litter the ten anomalies and seventeen signatures. It's another C4 K162, making this already feel like the beginning of an extended chain leading back through class 4 and, potentially, class 5 w-space.

C4b is also unoccupied, so I launch probes and start sifting through the twenty-six anomalies and fourteen signatures to look for more wormholes. Ah, chubby signatures, how I could cuddle you for being so easy to filter. There's a K162, and it's a relief to see it coming from class 2 w-space and not the C5 or C4 system I was fearing. The C2 with a C4 connection also will give us a high-sec wormhole with its second static link, which could help bring Aii home more conveniently than through Aridia. Even better, a second C2 K162 in C4b will double our options.

C2a turns out to be big, at 143 AU across, with four towers that remain from eight months ago, but, despite there being sixteen ships, seven of them Orca industrial command ships, there is no one home. Such a vast system gives me pause, as my probes don't quite stretch so far to blanket the system in one go, but a couple of passes shows there to be a mere four signatures to go with sixteen anomalies, which won't be a chore to resolve, once I have their rough positions. Gas accompanies the static exit to high-sec, which may not be that helpful given that it leads to the Genesis region, and a K162 from class 2 w-space that's at the end of its life.

The K162 may be EOL, but I happen to land on top of it when dropping out of warp. For some weird safety reason, I consider my best option to press on, and I jump to C2c. And already I think I should return. My notes tell me that, over two years ago, a wormhole collapses on a fleet operation, so I had best be wary of this capricious system. But I'm here, d-scan is clear, and two planets sit out of range. I'm sure I have time to check them. Yep, I do. One tower, with an empty Dominix battleship is all there is to find. I'll head back, through a wormhole that thankfully remains.

My glorious leader has followed behind me and split off to C2b from C4b, also finding a tower and empty Dominix, so I continue backwards, through C4a in to C3a. A single combat scanning probe and a few core scanning probes are working in C3a now, so maybe the Imicus pilot is awake. No, that sole combat probe becomes many, which makes two scouts active, and the Imicus hasn't shifted since I left the system. Suspecting tourists, I take my cloaking Loki strategic cruiser to the static exit to low-sec and loiter, hoping to catch whoever gets quickly bored with w-space and desires a return to empire space.

I look to be catching myself, if I'm after a quickly bored pilot. How long can it take to scan seven signatures, particularly with two pilots sharing the burden? Okay, the core probes disappear from d-scan, and are followed by a Helios covert operations boat appearing on my display. The cov-ops jumps to low-sec, and I let him go, the damned slippery eel. But he comes back. And even though he's polarised I still let him go, because I'm not going to catch him. Well, not with that attitude I won't.

The Helios, not orange and so of uncertain origin, warps in C3a, and in a direction that looks to be towards our K162. I follow and give the pilot a little while to get comfortable in our home before I jump through the K162 myself, to give our visitor a welcome. Sadly, he's not got himself mixed up in the middle of launching probes, still holding his session cloak when I arrive, so I haven't got lucky. But as my jump will have been registered, when the Helios appears I wave my targeting systems in its general direction anyway. You've got to have a go sometimes.

Naturally, the Helios evades my simple attentions, warping clear. But I see him warp to apparently empty space, so the new wormhole will be at home and not in C3a, which is good information. I warp out, launch probes, and blanket the system. There are no new signatures. That's odd, because how did the Helios warp to where he did otherwise? I have no idea, and now he's jumping back through our static connection to C3a. I follow again, but as I need a few seconds to recall my probes I am too late to do anything but watch the cov-ops warp away a second time.

I see the direction the Helios warps in C3a too, and it looks to be joining with a Tengu strategic cruiser and Scorpion battleship on d-scan. I ping the known wormholes and see none of the ships, yet they remain in the system. They don't come past me, don't go to low-sec that I can tell, and don't look to have come from C4a. And where from C4a would they have come anyway? I am convinced there must be a new wormhole in this system. Sadly, my probes aren't, as a new blanket scan sees the same number of signatures as before, the identifiers matching known sites. Nothing is new.

Where did the Helios come from? Where did he go? What wizardry does he employ to warp to empty space like he does? Whatever the answers are, not only do I not have them, I don't care to find them. The Helios, Tengu, and Scorpion have all disappeared, and as I can't tell where they came from I can hardly work out where they went. The best I can do is update my colleagues, after which I return to the home system to hide and forget I ever saw those ships.

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Tags: badger, dominix, eve online, helios, imicus, loki, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, scorpion, tengu, w-space

Sabre rattling

I'm relatively early to w-space this evening, but my glorious leader is earlier. Fin's gone from home and is in a class 2 system, connecting to our own, leaving our neighbouring class 3 system unexplored. Not for long. I warp across the home system and jump through our static wormhole, updating my directional scanner after the transit to see a well-equipped tower but no ships. My notes from five months ago point also to a second tower, and both of them remain as before, which cuts down exploration time. With no one home, I scan.

The results of sifting through five anomalies and six signatures look good, with gas, rocks, and three wormholes, one of them from a weak signature. The system's static exit to low-sec, leading to Essence, is joined by a K162 from class 4 w-space, and a rather gorgeous-looking V301 connection to class 1 w-space. In the hopes of finding a squishy target, I go to C1a. But a tower and no ships is dull, and twelve anomalies and twenty signatures is quite a handful to scan.

I don't care to find C1a's static exit to low-sec, so concentrate on likely K162s. My plan, like most others, doesn't go so well, as I resolve the static wormhole by accident, and so extend my search naturally to scan the whole system. And, again, my plan goes awry, thanks to dodgy wiring taking the link to my ship down. Thankfully, swearing, power-cycling equipment, and a bit of patience brings everything back on-line after a short while, and I return to find nothing else of interest.

Exiting from C1a puts me in a low-sec system in Aridia, of course, confirming that resolving the wormhole really wasn't worth the effort. I head back to w-space, to C3a, and through the K162 to C4a to look for better luck. The tower is at least accompanied on d-scan by a ship, even if the Orca industrial command ship is almost certainly unpiloted, but I can hope. A blanket scan of the system reveals no anomalies, three signatures, and the Orca, which makes finding out there are no K162s really simple. It's all a bit dull.

I turn around, taking myself home and in to C2a where Fin has scanned. Three wormholes are in the system, including a static exit to high-sec, and one outbound and one inbound wormhole connecting to class 2 w-space. I leapfrog my leader to see what's in C2c, through the K162. A tower, no ships, and nothing out of d-scan range. That'll do, pig. I cross Fin in C2a again to see if anything better is in C2b, and there may be. A tower, Orca, and Magnate frigate doesn't look too promising, but a combat scanning probe briefly appearing on d-scan shows activity.

My notes show change in C2b. Six towers were present five months ago, which shouldn't include the one currently in range. There has either been expansion or a change in ownership, which exploring will help me determine. I locate the new tower, seeing the Magnate piloted and orbiting lazily around the tower inside its force field, and I am stopped from exploring further by a Sabre interdictor warping in, swapping to a Tengu strategic cruiser, and warping back out. Let's see where he went.

There are no more towers in the system beyond the first, but a Corax destroyer is somewhere, the Tengu somewhere else, and I can't pin either of them down in an anomaly. As I am fiddling with d-scan, trying to get a decent bearing whilst occasionally checking to see that both ships still are, in fact, in space, local comms has a pilot pipe up pleading to be left alone. It seems he wandered in, no doubt from the static connection to high-sec I know is here, to see what w-space looked like, and is being hassled in his attempt to get back out.

The Tengu has gone, as has the Corax, and I don't know what ship the panicked pilot is flying, but I take the opportunity to launch probes. And, as the ships have gone from the inner system, warp back to the tower to see what's afoot, nearly bumping in to the Tengu as I do. The strategic cruiser is outside of the force field for some reason, and I think that perhaps he is protecting the Cheetah covert operations boat, which is also out of the shields and launching probes. That is, until both ships have returned to the safety of the force field, at which point I spot the corpse new to d-scan, and see it floating right where the Tengu just was.

The Tengu pilot is back in his Sabre and in space, probably having killed the Corax capsuleer who—accidentally?—warped to the local tower, perhaps to find the other tourist. I call my probes in and scan for the interdictor, correctly assuming he's on the wormhole. I get a solid hit quickly and warp in, seeing the warp disruption probe already launched, but launched too late. The Imicus frigate of the tourist was in warp before the Sabre could get in place, and so drops on top of the wormhole to let the ship jump to safety.

That leaves the Sabre sitting on the wormhole. And although it's a wormhole to high-sec, the Sabre is still a target. I manoeuvre closer to the interdictor, Fin brings her ship in to the system, and together we kick him out to high-sec. I didn't think we'd have a big enough strike to hit the Sabre with enough ferocity to prevent him jumping to avoid us, but we gave it a go. And we push the pilot from his home system, turning the tables on him after picking on a smaller pilot. Yeah, I'd have gone for the Imicus too, so I'm not pretending to be ethically superior. I just like the poetry of the situation.

Now we're at an impasse. The Sabre won't return as long as we're around, and we already know there is a cov-ops available that can watch the wormhole. And even if the pilot jumps back, unless he's really careless, or doesn't know about polarisation, he can simply return to high-sec if he's caught again. I'm not about to waste my time for simple denial tactics, and neither is Fin, so with no fanfare we submerge in to cloaked conditions and head back the way we came.

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Tags: cheetah, corax, eve online, imicus, loki, magnate, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, pvp, sabre, scanning, tengu, w-space