Needing the third name

I'd better look for an exit. After losing Fin's scouting Tengu yesterday we may need to buy a new strategic cruiser. An extra signature in the home system today turns out to be some more rocks this time, so I take the only option for a first step and jump through our static wormhole to the neighbouring class 3 w-space system. My directional scanner is clear from the K162 in C3a, letting me launch probes, cloak, and warp away to explore. My probes return eleven anomalies, nine signatures, and one ship, the ship unsurprisingly turning out to be unpiloted in one of two towers around a distant planet. After a bit more exploring uncovering a third tower, I sift through the signatures.

Rocks, gas, and three wormholes is a decent result, with a weak wormhole signature turning out to be a T405 outbound connection to class 4 w-space. That could lead to more interesting w-space systems, but not just yet. I warp to the other two wormholes, seeing a static exit to low-sec and a K162 from high-sec that would have been handy were it not reaching the end of its life, and turn around to warp my ship back to the T405 connection. Approaching the wormhole I update d-scan, as is my custom, and I notice now some scanning probes in the system, along with a Buzzard covert operations boat. That wasn't here before, and I am out of range of the towers, so he's come from somewhere.

I can't locate the Buzzard before he has a complement of probes launched and is cloaked, so I warp away, re-launch my own probes, and see if there are any new signatures. Nope, nothing new. The Buzzard must either be local, which his lack of presence at a tower suggests he isn't, or has come from one of the other wormholes. I would be surprised if a tourist came through the EOL K162 from high-sec, but also equally surprised if he found one of the other two connections I've probably just opened quite so soon. There's not much I can do about him for now, though, so I recall my probes, warp back to the T405, and jump through to C4a.

Okay, the Buzzard spotted this K162 opening with surprising speed and came through when I warped to the other connections in C3a. I know this because of the Nighthawk command ship and Malediction interceptor currently sitting on the wormhole in C4a, already handily marked as hostile towards our alliance for my convenience. I think about jumping right back through the wormhole, but remember my own advice about giving it a go at getting clear on this side first. I'd rather get caught and have to escape than willingly polarise my ship for no good reason, particularly with an interceptor apparently waiting for me. I move away from the wormhole, pulsing my micro warp drive, and cloak. Importantly, I also jink after cloaking, pushing my Loki strategic cruiser off its predictable path.

The Malediction naturally tries to find me, racing towards where my Loki was, but thankfully thwarted by my evasive manoeuvre, although he still gets pretty close. I'm not sure if the black hole phenomenon in this system is helping him or me more, but I'm safe for now. I'd better stay safe too, rather than rely on the interceptor not finding me, so I back off even further from the wormhole as a Cheetah cov-ops returns from C3a. All the ship names have the same prefix as the Buzzard I saw in the other system, so its safe to say they are affiliated, and their aggressive stance, alloyed by two Hurricane battlecruisers warping to join the small camp on the wormhole, makes it less of a surprise that they found this K162 so quickly. But if you're going to name a ship, at least get the spelling right.

With a camp forming on the wormhole waiting for me I'm in no hurry to head back, so I warp away to take a look around. D-scan is showing me thirteen ships, including the ones on the wormhole but not cloakers, and one tower. Well, I suppose if they're looking for me I should at least try to divide their attention. I launch probes and scan, not trying to hide my efforts or show any proficiency. The four anomalies and three signatures won't take much time to resolve, but if I make a meal of it the locals may think I'm an easier catch. And I've already split the camp. Although only one ship has moved from the main group to the system's static wormhole, a connection to class 5 w-space and a gravimetric site being the two signatures I resolve, at least it's something. I think.

I keep my probes visible in the system as I ponder my options. I could try to run back through the camp, and even though the interceptor is rather dangerous this may be my best option. I foolishly still don't exit w-space to bookmark the k-space side of a wormhole as a routine, so I don't have a route home should I dive through the wormhole to class 5 w-space. And although I could jump through the static wormhole to escape the fleet's attention, I rather fear that the Harbinger battlecruiser sitting off the connection is not here to engage me but to monitor. If I head this way, the fleet will move their camp along, and I will simply be one step further from home with the same dilemma.

I have other options. I could go off-line in this system and hope to return later when the fleet has dispersed, probably isolated from home but with a better chance of leaving the system intact. I could even try to be clever, and jump to C5a, wait a short amount of time, and jump back to warp across the system, hopefully passing the fleet moving the camp my way, but that is expecting too much and could easily have me polarised and caught. I think I'll just make a break back to C3a, taking the risk. I recall my probes and warp to the wormhole, where the ships have now all disappeared, and although I fancy they have gone to the class 3 system to engage Sleepers I suspect they are simply waiting for me. This way, they won't have to decloak, and they can follow me back through the wormhole without polarising themselves. Oh well, here goes.

Yep, the fleet is on the wormhole in C3a. But I am quite lucky in where I've appeared, as I am far enough from the wormhole to cloak immediately and some distance from all of the ships. Scattered drones be damned, this is looking positive. I perform my well-rehearsed practice of moving, burning, cloaking, and once again jinking but this time towards a planet and engaging my warp drive as I do. And I'm safe. Or I think I am. It looks like a ship throws a cluster of drones in my direction, although it's explained to me later that the Malediction is probably in the centre of them, and one gets close enough to just clip the edge of my ship, dropping my cloak.

I try to reactivate my cloak but I'm being targeted. That would also explain why I'm not in warp yet, and I damn Minmatar technology. I've been under the impression that Minnie ships are fast and agile, but I've seen numbers that say the Loki is slower to align for warp than the Tengu, which I switched from for my scanning boat. I don't know if that second or two was the difference between warping away and getting caught this time, but I know that all of those pulsating red boxes on my HUD mean that I'm in trouble. I try to turn my ship around to get to the wormhole, but the pulse of my micro warp drive has taken me far out of jump range, and naturally my micro warp drive is now being scrambled by one of the hostile ships swarming around me.

The Falcon recon ship jamming my targeting systems is just overkill, and really not necessary, but it hammers home my being completely overwhelmed. I align my Loki back to an arbitrary planet, wait until my ship is near destruction, so that there is little chance of the hostiles recovering it intact, and eject. I warp my pod clear of the fleet seemingly a split-second before my Loki explodes, saving me the skill point loss and my clone, and get a couple of 'gf's in the local communication channel. I'm not sure I put up much of a fight, frankly.

I still need to save my pod, though. I may be clear of the fleet but I am not home, and rather than be shipless by heading home, or run through the stable but potentially far-from-anywhere exit to low-sec, I point my pod to the K162 from high-sec. Happy to see it still wobbling away, I exit w-space to appear in a system in Khanid, a mere eight hops from Amarr. That's pretty good, as I will be able to pick up a new ship pretty quickly, and maybe even get back through the same wormhole in time. This gives me a chance to marvel at the brass of the pilots I just encountered, who send me a mail expressing concern about my ability to get back to my home system. Sure, let me join the fleet and warp my pod to your kind and sensitive souls in w-space, who are only looking out for my best interests. After all, I was only born yesterday. I wonder if that ever works.

Reaching Amarr is simplicity itself, as is buying and fitting a replacement ship. I wish the same could be said for naming it. I didn't quite vet the winning entries to my ship-naming competition thoroughly enough, as 'You'll Thank Me Later' is one letter too long, although I think I'd rather blame the bizarrely limited allowed character count. 'You'll Thank Me Late' doesn't carry the same weight, neither does 'Thank Me Later', so I have to swallow my pride and omit the apostrophe. It's overused elsewhere, I suppose. And with my new ship, name and all—the competition really has helped me out—I head back through high-sec stargates to the exit system, where I see one of the hostile fleet in the local channel, no doubt waiting for my return.

The hostile pilot is gone a moment later, but I'm not fooled. I see no point in running a second gauntlet, particularly as I suspect the fleet is experienced enough to have formed on our static wormhole and not the high-sec connection, so rather than risk my ship for no good reason a second time in an hour I resign myself to spending some time in empire space. It turns out that not only did I need to find an exit, if for the wrong reasons, but that EOL exit to high-sec came in useful after all. I park my ship in a safe spot, not caring for stations, and go off-line, knowing that by doing so I am isolating myself from home for sure. Never mind, it's time for a sammich!

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Tags: buzzard, cheetah, eve online, falcon, harbinger, hurricane, loki, malediction, mmorpg, nighthawk, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, w-space

Prophecy for a Tengu

That was a lot of food. Too much, some would say, so I'd better get active. Flying internet spaceships burns Calories, right? Whatever, Fin's here, so what's happening? 'Nothing.' Scouting the constellation earlier has apparently come to nought. I ask if we should collapse the connection and start again, only to drop out of warp next to a thumping wormhole, which Fin tells me only needs one more Orca trip to kill. I turn around, head to our tower, and grab an industrial command ship to push through the static connection, bringing it home to indeed signal the collapse of the wormhole.

Another start to scouting has a 'Noctis on d-scan, no wrecks'. A salvager in empty space is an exciting find indeed, so I jump through the replacement wormhole, start a passive scan to look for active anomalies, and update my directional scanner. There is a Noctis, and there are no wrecks, but there is also a tower on d-scan, which dampens my excitement a little. Fin locates the tower easily enough, seeing the salvager floating unpiloted inside its force field, and I check my notes. The tower's in the same place as three months ago, when I was chased to a class 5 w-space system to have the wormhole collapsed behind me.

I think I remember that day, but the appearance of a Prophecy and Ferox on d-scan stops me reminiscing and focuses me on the present. It's possible the two battlecruisers have been gassing, outside of d-scan range, but when neither warps in to the tower that Fin's monitoring it rather appears that they have come to gas, perhaps from another system. But more important than where they are from is where are they now, and that question is surprisingly convenient to answer. Both Fin and I place the battlecruisers near the fifth planet, and when I get closer to locate them precisely with d-scan I see that they are a mere 1 AU distant from the planet, almost to the kilometre. That will make scanning them so very easy.

As I arrange my scanning probes around where the ships are presumably gassing, the Ferox disappears. He remains on d-scan for a short while before dropping out of the system altogether, at which point the Prophecy takes his leave too. I take the opportunity of having no ships around to scan for the site. My probes are already in place, and given warp times to and from the wormhole I may even get a second scan, in case I need to make an adjustment. But, no, the scan is perfect, so I hide my probes again, bookmark the ladar site, and head in to reconnoitre.

I bounce off a planet in the inner system rather than warp in from where I am. My position was good for a scan, but as gas clouds tend to appear above and below the cosmic signature of ladar sites I would be likely to fly straight through one if I entered the site at range. Coming in from the side, on the other hand, almost guarantees I'll stay hidden, which in this case I do. And I see the Ferox return to the ladar site as I get my cloaky Loki strategic cruiser in to position, almost regretting my decision to scan for the site without the ships in it.

My scanning probes could have been spotted by the ships had I scanned with them in the site, but a successful hit would have let us warp directly to either battlecruiser. Now we have to rely on the ships getting close enough to the clouds before we can engage, which I suppose is almost guaranteed, if they intend to suck it in to their holds. Sure enough, the Ferox moves towards one of the clouds, and is soon joined by the Prophecy on its return to the ladar site. During this time, Fin has warped to my position, in her Tengu strategic cruiser, and we look ready to attack. Our tactics are simple: pick a ship and shoot it.

The Ferox continues to move, which is curious, and the Prophecy is stationary. Thinking that my Loki will be faster than the Tengu, I choose the Ferox and offer Fin the other target, which she agrees to. We're ready, so I warp us to the gas cloud. We drop our cloaks as we get close, alerting the pilots of our presence before we can lock but soaking up the recalibration delay that afflicts most decloaking ships anyway, and we both snare our respective targets. I go chasing after the Ferox as Fin flings missiles at the Prophecy, which launches the inevitable ECM drones.

I concentrate on the Ferox, easily keeping pace with it even if my guns are merely scratching the shields at the moment. The Prophecy is taking damage nicely, though, and as its armour drops low it curiously swaps the ECM drones from Fin to me. Whatever he was trying to do, it may have worked. The ECM drones jam my targeting systems, and, even though I manage to bump the Ferox once to knock it out of alignment, a second successful jam sees the Ferox warp clear. And just in time to save it too, as the Prophecy explodes below me, Fin finishing her target off so that its pod and the Ferox disappear out of the ladar site almost in unison.

We got one of the two battlecruisers down, which is a pretty good result, even if neither of them were fit to shoot back. What's not quite so good is that, moments after Fin loots and shoots the wreck, a Typhoon battleship drops out of warp almost on top of her Tengu, gaining a positive lock and preventing her from leaving. A Tornado battlecruiser has also appeared, over a hundred kilometres away. Pursuing the Ferox has taken me away from the action a little, giving me a chance to cloak and be safe. But updating d-scan as I activate my cloaking device sees that Fin's probably in a whole heap of trouble.

I warp out, promising to get a Falcon recon ship from our tower, as a Hurricane battlecruiser and two Guardian logistics ships are also apparently warping in to the ladar site. The Typhoon is neutralising the Tengu's capacitor, dropping Fin's defences, and the additional firepower that comes to seek vengeance for the Prophecy makes short work of the crippled strategic cruiser. I barely make it through the K162 and back to our tower before Fin's warping her pod out of the ladar site.

Popping a Prophecy seemed like a good result until we traded it for a Tengu. Once again, we were blinded by the explosion, temporarily forgetting to keep a wary eye on d-scan for incoming trouble. Had we done that, we would have left the wreck alone instead of becoming one ourselves. We also both froze a little in the gunsights of the Tornado sitting at range, but with more experience our situational awareness will improve and we will react more properly to unexpected threats. For now, we'll just leave the fleet four times our size floating out in space, and call it an early night.

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Tags: eve online, falcon, ferox, guardian, hurricane, loki, mmorpg, noctis, penny ibramovic, prophecy, pvp, scanning, tengu, tornado, typhoon, w-space

Killing a dying wormhole

I'm out for a scout, putting in some legwork for hopefully a successful later roam. A new signature appears under my probes in the home w-space system, and as it resolves to be a second wormhole I may get an earlier start to my roam than I expected. But the K162 from class 3 w-space is reaching the end of its lifetime, and probably not worth risking isolation for. I ignore the wobbly wormhole and warp across to our static connection, at which point I curse the earlier douchebags, as I see this wormhole wobbling too.

A quick peek probably won't hurt, I suppose, particularly as I'm in a scanning boat. I poke my nose through to the neighbouring class 3 system, update my directional scanner to see three towers and no ships, and note from the system map that only one planet lies barely out of range. Yep, I think that will do for me, and I jump right back home, satisfied that I've seen all I need to. But I suppose I could also peek in C3b, through the K162, and as the wormhole's still present when I warp to it I do just that. C3b is not much better than C3a, with a single tower and lack of ships on d-scan.

In fact, C3b looks worse than C3a. A corpse on d-scan means that I've obviously missed any activity that happened. I jump back home, warp to our wobbly static connection, and wait for it to die. But this could take a couple of hours, and I'd rather be more active than that. So it's good that, with the power of logic, Mick convinces me to force the wormhole's collapse instead of simply waiting. As he reasons, the K162 will have been opened first, and it will have taken time to scout and scan our system, so as long as the K162 remains the static wormhole should be safe to jump through.

I try not to mention potential tolerances on wormhole lifespans, but Mick points out that I will only be outside the home system for a little more than ten seconds at a time, so the actual risk is slight. Okay, I'm collapsing our wormhole! This will be fine. I take the Widow black ops ship through first, ostensibly because it lacks scanning power and I don't want to have to self-destruct it and me because of that. But rather than rely on luck I pause and fit a probe launcher anyway, because apparently the Widow has a spare high slot and the capacity to just throw one on, negating my reason for taking it first. A belt-and-braces approach seems appropriate for w-space operations, though.

I jump out and back in, completing the first round trip. The second is made in an Orca industrial command ship, which combined with the Widow has pushed half the wormhole's total mass through the connection. The wormhole remains stable. That's actually good, as the slightly chubby connection lets me complete the collapse with confidence, giving me two more Orca round trips without a concern about getting isolated. At least, not from the mass-stress. I make the penultimate trip, so that in a few minutes the wormhole will be dead. Mick points out that the wormhole will be gone 'one way or another', showing that he is truly wise and I should listen to him more.

The few minutes I have spare is used to feed my cats, which is about as good a use of polarisation time as I can muster. And, what with a serendipitous polarisation message and Mick's testing with a stopwatch, we determine that the polarisation time is five minutes from the first jump. That's good to know, rather than the wooly thinking that polarisation lasts four minutes from the return. And the last jump goes without problems. I take the Orca out, the wormhole destabilises critically, and it lives long enough only for me to return and kill it with mass.

A new static wormhole pops up elsewhere in the home system, which I resolve and jump through to the replacement C3a. A single tower and still no ships appears on d-scan, which I suppose is fine for a scouting expedition, so I warp out, launch probes, and perform a blanket scan. I bookmark eleven anomalies and sift through the ten signatures to find gas, and more gas, which should make Aii happy. And wormhole, wormhole, wormhole will make Penny happy. A radar site, some rocks, and two more wormholes rounds off a blessed set of signatures.

I feel less blessed when warping around the wormholes. A K162 from class 5 w-space is okay, a second one that's EOL is not so enticing, and a T405 outbound connection to class 4 w-space would be great if it weren't also EOL. That leaves a static exit to low-sec empire space, and a K162 from null-sec k-space. That's less than stellar. But a healthy K162 from more w-space waits for me, so I jump to C5a. Eight months ago I had five towers listed in this system, and I can see four on d-scan from the wormhole. Exploring further finds two more towers on the farthest planet, and one more in the inner system, with the only ship visible being an unpiloted Drake battlecruiser. How dreary. I won't scan here, nor locate all of the empty towers, but see what I can find in low-sec instead.

Two pilots, five anomalies, and no extra signatures. The low-sec system in Derelik is pretty boring too, even if rats camping near a local tower strikes me as pretty weird. I would say my scouting is done and that it's time for a sammich, but I've clearly forgotten about the null-sec connection. I detour in C3a through the K162 to appear in a system in Tenerifis by myself, so I launch probes and warp to a rock field. Scanning finds no other signatures, but ratting pops a battleship to continue the tedious task of keeping my security status increasing. And, with that, I officially declare it's time for some food.

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Tags: drake, eve online, mmorpg, null-sec, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space, widow

Empty scanning

Mr Onyx from last night has sent me a mail. Apparently, the next connecting system their class 5 w-space home had, after I left and they finished collapsing the wormhole I fled through, led to a C3 with nearly thirty signatures, a static exit to null-sec, and no other wormholes. I already know I was pretty lucky to get that exit to high-sec empire space, and a few hops from an entrance leading to home, but learning this titbit makes me glad I didn't dally. I am also curious, so mail him back, and he's gracious enough to tell me that they indeed had a scout sitting on the wormhole who saw me enter. It seems they considered the wormhole to be too close to collapsing to risk even a heavy interdictor—I've isolated myself that way—but their calculations were more solid on the new connection which they closed behind me. I like how capsuleers out to kill you are often so nice when you're not an active target.

On to this evening, and all is clear at home. The rocks of a gravimetric site have somehow been compressed to become artefacts of a magnetometric site, which is a neat trick, but still I ignore them for the only wormhole in the system. I resolve our static connection and jump through to today's neighbouring class 3 w-space system. My directional scanner shows me six off-line towers scattered amongst nine moons in range, with five of them obvious placeholders and one genuinely derelict. A single planet out of d-scan range holds the currently active tower, but for low levels of activity, as the only two ships inside the force field—an Armageddon battleship and Retribution assault ship—are unpiloted.

The corporation that owns the tower is only four-capsuleer strong, which makes me think the locals could be easy marks. But the pilot who owns the ships belongs to a different corporation within the same alliance, and that one has over eighty members. Pretty sneaky, sis. But with no one home, I'm scanning. Blanketing the system with my probes reveals twenty anomalies and seventeen signatures, so there really is a low level of activity in this C3, and I start sifting through the noise of rocks and gas. A BIG wormhole jumps out at me, but that's just the signature identifier, and the AIG wormhole I also resolve doesn't have the same emphasis. I save some rocks and a gas site in case Aii comes along, then reconnoitre the connections.

A static exit to low-sec is super stable, a good indication that I have just this minute opened it, so it is no surprise that the second wormhole is an outbound link, this one a T405 to class 4 w-space. I press on, in to C4a, and a clear d-scan. A passive scan brings up nine anomalies to bookmark as I warp to the one planet sitting out of range, which doesn't make me expect much. And there isn't much to find, even with an on-line tower anchored to one of the planet's moons. The tower is entirely undefended, and if we had a few more pilots on-line I would probably bring some big ships here to see if the owners cared enough to load up with some strontium clathrates, but with ten members in the ten day old corporation there may not be much to loot. Besides, I'm still scouting solo for the moment, so I launch probes and scan.

My probes show the five signatures to be ladar and radar, gravimetric and whavimetric. No, that last one's a wormhole, but either all the types should rhyme or none at all. If people with nothing better to do with their time can get the 'frill' back, maybe I can persuade someone to bring a greater sense of poetry to the galaxy. I consider raising a bug report, but am immediately distracted when my ship drops out of warp next to a static connection to class 1 w-space. How lovely! Of course, it would be better if the C1 was occupied, or had high-sec tourists being careless, but at least the colours of class 1 w-space mix with the black hole phenomenon to make me think of a gangrenous, bloody anus.

A lack of anomalies in the system makes me think a Merlin swept through here recently, but not an Osprey, as there are fifteen signatures that are mostly rocks and gas. In fact, all rocks and gas, apart from one radar site that may have spawned recently and the static exit to low-sec. Reaching the end of the w-space constellation has me exiting to a low-sec system in The Bleak Lands that hosts faction warfare. I don't intend to do much here but scan for wormholes, and fail in this simple task by merely uncovering a magnetometric site, another Crimson Hand Supply Depot, and a radar site. Maybe the other low-sec system, reached from C3a, will hold more opportunity. I head back that way.

Passing through still-quiet systems lands me in a system in Molden Heath, where again three additional signatures await to disappoint me. This time, along with a radar site, it is Angel rats and their Red Light District and Provisional Outpost that thwart further exploration, but a quiet night is perhaps not such a bad result after last night's excitement. And here's my glorious leader, freshly arrived and looking for fun. I give her a sitrep on our constellation. 'Shall we collapse the static wormhole?' Okay.

I use my recently created tactic of shoving exactly half the wormhole's total allowed mass through first, as a barometer to see how light or chubby the wormhole is, and it works like a charm. After one round trip by both an Orca industrial command ship and Widow black ops ship, both mass-augmented with an active propulsion module, the wormhole doesn't shrink to its half-mass state. This means we can definitely push through an Orca out, in, and out again without the wormhole collapsing, and with confidence that bringing the final ship home will crash the wormhole. So that's what we do, and it all goes to plan. I like it much better when there's less guesswork.

A collapsed static wormhole results in a replacement static wormhole. You can't explain that. But the new opportunity can't be ignored, and we jump through to another class 3 system and I get a little excited. Combat drones, mining drones, ships, and a tower! I calm down pretty quickly when my brain catches up and processes the fact that the Megathron battleship or two Iteron haulers are unlikely to be mining, and that the drones are either abandoned or decoys. Even so, haulers collect planet goo, so Fin and I locate the tower quickly so that whatever hopes we have of a soft kill are dashed as soon as possible. Neither Iteron is piloted.

The Megathron has a capsuleer on board, though, which would be pretty neat if he leaves the tower. And it doesn't look like he will. Whilst we watch and wait, I spin d-scan around to look for the wayward drones, seeing the combat drones in empty space in one direction and the mining drones in another. The combat drones aren't even abandoned in an active anomaly, so we can know who they belong to or how long they've been there without scanning, and I have done enough scanning for this evening. Rather than look for more wormholes, or wait just for the Megathron to inevitably go off-line, it's time to hit the sack.

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Tags: armageddon, eve online, iteron, megathron, merlin, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, retribution, scanning, w-space, widow

Return to Senda

Circumstances aren't really awkward. That was a bit misleading. Sure, maybe the critically destabilised wormhole I entered this class 5 w-space system through has collapsed. Maybe the single signature in the system is trivial enough to scan, and the locals had enough of a head start, that there wasn't really a race. And maybe the locals are already collapsing the new connection before I even have it resolved. I've been in worse positions. At least the static connection to class 3 w-space doesn't allow capital ships through it. This makes my escape relatively safe, under certain conditions, even if the locals have seen my scanning probes and are expecting me.

As long as the wormhole is not critically destabilised when I finally reach it, a dreadnought can't jump from the other side and collapse the wormhole just as I decloak in a doomed attempt to jump my own ship through. I won't be stuck in the middle of a cluster of ships, hurtling towards a Revelation today. And my combat scanning probes only picked up a Rokh battleship on sitting on the wormhole, so it doesn't look like ships are passing en masse through the connection at the moment. So without much tension, I drop out of warp next to wormhole stressed to half-mass, jump through, and move and cloak safely on the other side.

The wormhole flares as I move cloaked away from the wormhole. I check my notes as an Onyx heavy interdictor jumps in behind me from C5a, and see that even though my last visit was twenty-one months ago, making most information stale, I have got lucky. The system has a static exit to high-sec. The Onyx bids me farewell in the local communication channel, and as I'm safe, happy to have a decent exit, and they're about to collapse the wormhole—which I notice is now critically destabilised—I give a wave back. I watch as one more trip from an Onyx implodes the wormhole from class 5 w-space, leaving me in empty space. Well, not quite empty, as I remember my directional scanner and update it for the first time in this class 3 system to see ships, probes, and a tower. Maybe I shouldn't have drawn attention to myself in the local channel after all.

Never mind, I have a home system to get back to. Reconnoitring this C3 first locates a Harbinger battlecruiser in the tower I can see, and an elusive Proteus strategic cruiser—cloaky and probably the owner of the scanning probes—seems to be flitting between this tower and second one on the outskirts of the system. I launch my own probes, blanketing the system to reveal five anomalies and three signatures, and for once one of those signatures is not the wormhole I entered through. That's already gone, for those not paying attention. But I'm heading forwards, so resolve rocks, rocks, and the static exit. But before I enter warp a new contact appears in the first tower, the Daredevil frigate warping off to the wormhole moments before I do.

'Shoot it.' This is why Fin is the boss and I'm just a lowly grunt. My only thought was that a Daredevil sitting on a wormhole to high-sec was no credible threat, but Fin's right. I should shoot it. The frigate can't prevent me jumping, and the worst that will happen is it flits around me so fast I can't kill it, or it will bring a friend with more firepower. I'll still have the wormhole to jump through. With newfound clarity, I approach the exit to high-sec, get close enough to jump, and decloak and engage the Daredevil. It returns my target lock and we start shooting each other, but three volleys of my guns, taking the Daredevil from full shields to 40% armour, convinces it to bow out gracefully, and it is the ship that flees through the wormhole.

I follow behind it casually, seeing a Vargur marauder sitting on the wormhole in high-sec, and it occurs to me that maybe the Daredevil was deterring pilots from entering than trying to threaten my exit. I watch the frigate warp to a station, no doubt to repair its armour damage, and I move a little cockily under normal speed under watch of the Vargur. But I cloak my Loki when I realise I have no idea how Concord police aggression works, and if the Vargur could get a shot at me should he be a colleague of the Daredevil's, and although it seems unlikely I'd rather not lose my strategic cruiser from being stupid. Not again.

I'm in high-sec, and in a system in Domain. That's pretty convenient. Scouting from myself, Fin, and Aii has given us a choice of exits, and two are also in high-sec. I can make seven hops in one direction, or nine in another, to get back to a w-space constellation that still connects to home, and I pick the shorter route, setting my autopilot destination to Senda so that I end up passing through a class 2 w-space system I've not yet visited this evening. Stargate hopping in high-sec is unexciting, but livened up by Fin pointing out a local of C2a is in the exit system, sadly doing so in that system's local channel and not our private communications.

I reach Senda, see the C2 pilot, and make my return to w-space. A Cyclone battlecruiser sits in a tower in C2a, which I locate at a tower and sit and watch, whilst Fin gets a cloaky Onyx to the wormhole to high-sec to try to surprise anyone jumping in to the system. She nearly does more than that too, as the pilot spotted in high-sec enters in a shuttle and decides to get clear of the bubble instead of jumping back out. Unfortunately, the shuttle appeared on the opposite side of the wormhole to Fin, and its small signature radius and the signature resolution penalty of the cloaking device on the Onyx means that the shuttle clears the bubble just as Fin gets a positive target lock. Damn, I should have been waiting with my glorious leader, not sat impotently outside a tower.

The shuttle warps to a second tower, but doesn't sit still. It warps away again, towards a planet, but following behind doesn't locate it. The shuttle isn't at the planet or moons, but is within a tenth of an AU from the planet. That's easily scannable. I warp out, launch probes, and warp back, as I cluster my combat scanning probes around the planet. One scan resolves the shuttle's position, and I warp in to see what it's doing. The shuttle's moving, but without any obvious purpose. It's still moving enough that my initial deliberation has put it outside of warp disruption range, and I can't close the range without giving it too much of a chance of fleeing, so I bounce out and scan its position a second time. But, as I do, the shuttle warps clear anyway. I was too slow.

We miss the shuttle, but even though it is far from tough to crack it is difficult to catch. That's probably our excitement for the evening, so we pack up our ships and head home, which is just two wormholes away. We leave C2a for C3a, where I update d-scan as a matter of course. 'Isn't that Bestower new?' I say, and Fin confirms that it is. A narrow d-scan beam puts the hauler at one of the three towers in the system, and I warp there to see it piloted and pointing directly away from a customs office. That's a clear sign that the ship's already collected some planet goo. The only question now is whether he's finished or just dropping off.

The Bestower moves, spinning on its axis and pointing back towards the way it came. 'Second planet, customs office. If you can get there, do.' Fin's ditched the Onyx back at our tower and has leapt in to a Manticore stealth bomber, but she still has to warp to our static wormhole and make the jump. I, on the other hand, am aligned and in warp to the customs office right behind the Bestower. He may be making a repeat trip but there's no telling how many more he'll do, so I have little choice but to engage if I want the shot. I drop out of warp at the customs office, decloak, and burn towards my target as my sensors take their merry time to recalibrate.

I bump the Bestower, as I lock, point, and shoot. The fragile industrial ship doesn't stand a chance, exploding with little convincing required, but the pod isn't too disorientated to be caught when ejected. The capsuleer warps clear, bouncing off a convenient planet before returning to his tower, as I loot yet another expanded cargohold and shoot the wreck.

I apologise to Fin for her missing the ambush and head to the tower to see the capsuleer get back in to the Coercer destroyer we first saw him in a couple of hours ago. He clearly wasn't paying attention then, as Fin scanned the system thoroughly and found the start of our sprawling constellation. And it's been quite an evening. Lots of scanning, a bit of a scanning race, an opportunistic shot at a Daredevil, chasing a shuttle, and finally popping a planet gooer. I think it's time I get some well-deserved rest.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Return to Senda
Tags: bestower, coercer, cyclone, daredevil, eve online, harbinger, loki, manticore, mmorpg, onyx, penny ibramovic, proteus, pvp, rokh, scanning, vargur, w-space

Following a fleet

Fin's next door, and is a bit of a dawg. She's heard I like finding wormholes leading to class 3 w-space systems through wormholes leading to class 3 w-space systems, and has delivered. I jump to our neighbouring system, get a sitrep on the three towers, unpiloted Prorator transport, and sleeping capsuleer in a Coercer destroyer, and warp across to the N968 to explore deeper in to the constellation as Fin continues to scan. I enter C3b a moment after she resolves a K162 from class 2 w-space, which hopefully means we will both have interesting space to roam through.

It's my fourth visit to this C3, and although the last time I was here was only two months ago the tower I saw then has been cleanly taken down, yet to be replaced. The unoccupied and inactive system holds seven anomalies, all our favoured type, and eight signatures, which resolve to be rocks, gas, and a static exit to low-sec empire space. A K162 hides itself away to be found last, right after I announce that there aren't any K162 wormholes in the system, which makes me look quite the professional scout. But I carry on regardless, through the inbound connection to another class 3 w-space system. I hope it's not the one I used to get here in the first place, or my reputation will truly be in shambles.

Luckily, C3c is indeed a different system to C3b, at least I can claim that without anyone able to contradict me, and I see ships. Two Cerberus heavy assault ships, an Ishkur heavy assault ship, Falcon recon ship, Onyx heavy interdictor, two Tengu strategic cruisers, and an Impel transport look intimidating enough, but there is also a tower visible on my directional scanner and no sign of wrecks. I'd expect to see wrecks of other capsuleer ships more than Sleeper wrecks with these ships too. My last visit to the system was eight months ago, and there are no updates needed to my notes. The tower is in the same location, where I see all of the ships floating empty.

Having no pilots to hunt is a shame, but a passive scan of the system makes me question how often the pilots are actually active, as there are a whopping forty-six anomalies present. I suppose if they prefer to chase capsuleers than Sleepers then the anomalies just clutter up their scanners, so as a favour to them I take a couple of minutes to activate each and every one of the Sleeper sites. I would like to say the locals will be happily surprised to see a clean system within a few days, but I doubt they'll even notice. And now I'll scan, having just shot myself in the foot by leaving forty-six labels on the system map that can't be hidden. Have you tried scanning with so many labels obscuring everything? Scan first, activate second, people.

There are only fifteen signatures to sift through—maybe the locals are industrialists who leave combat ships on display for intimidation purposes—and at least the labels are only cosmetic and don't get in the way of manipulating probes. A static exit to low-sec is resolved early, followed by a K162 from class 5 w-space that's pounding with the menace of an over-stressed wormhole, this tiny connection currently sitting at critical mass. A K162 from class 3 w-space and N968 outbound connection to more class 3 w-space round off the wormholes to be found, and I ignore the other sites to jump through the N968 to look for trouble.

Maybe I've found trouble too. A Maelstrom battleship, Drake battlecruiser, and Noctis salvager all sit on d-scan alongside a tower and two Buzzard covert operations boats, but still I see no wrecks. My notes put me in this system eight months ago, when it was occupied by reds, and it still is, with the tower in the same location and none of the ships piloted. Opening the system map to find a safe place to launch probes notices a neat feature of the tower location, in that it is 13·33 AU from the farthest planet in one direction, and 13·33 AU from the farthest planet in the other direction. Considering that d-scan's range is a little over 14 AU this is a pretty convenient position. Still, no one's home to see me, so anywhere is safe to launch probes right now.

Seven anomalies and six signatures have a static exit to low-sec as the only obvious wormhole, putting me at the end of this chain. I exit w-space to appear in a system in Metropolis, which is about enough empire space I'm ready to endure at the moment, and I return to C3e to explore a different arm of the constellation. C3c has the critically destabilised C5 K162, but Fin and Aii have been busy finding their own wormholes, giving us a handful of empire connections, including a couple in high-sec, so even if the K162 collapses behind me I can get home. I'm happy to risk the dodgy connection, and jump through.

The wormhole survives, and there looks to be lots happening. Thirteen combat ships, including three carriers and two dreadnoughts, look to be creating Sleeper wrecks, whilst four haulers and two towers round off the d-scan result from the wormhole. A passive scan of the system throws up five anomalies, and Sleeper wrecks are obviously in one of them. A quick check of my notes places me here seven months ago, where I remember quite well popping a Crane transport ship installing a customs gantry. Good times. But let's see what's happening today, particularly as the two towers are not where I expect them to be.

Reconnoitring the local space sees an anomaly holding a Raven battleship, two Moros dreadnoughts, a Loki strategic cruiser, two Huginn recon ships, and two Chimera carriers, and the four haulers are the only unpiloted ships at the towers, where plenty more combat ships float in readiness. Checking the rest of the system sees core scanning probes out, making me wonder if I was spotted and someone is looking for new connections, but if the locals were competent then surely they would have either finished collapsing their wormhole with a HIC or had a scout sitting on it to see strays like me enter. I also find a second tower, which has a piloted Loki not doing much.

System scouted, it's time to monitor the combat. In warp to the site, d-scan shows me two Noctis salvagers deployed, along with ECM drones, which intrigues me. Entering the site explains all. A single Sleeper frigate remains, held at bay by the ECM drones, whilst the Noctes salvage under close guard of the rather impressive fleet. I would guess that the locals are farming the anomalies, relying on Sleeper reinforcements to arrive daily than clearing the sites completely and waiting for new ones to spawn. I think that's how it works. It also means that, with a full fleet around them, I won't have much of a shot at the salvagers.

The wrecks are cleared and the fleet moves on, warping not to a tower but a second anomaly. I follow behind to see that the anomaly has already been all but cleared of Sleepers, and only salvaging duties remain. Again, the fleet protects the Noctes, and I shy away from engaging. Aii suggests that the dreadnoughts probably wouldn't be able to hit me, at least not quickly, and that I may get a shot. But the carriers could probably deploy fighters, the final Sleeper frigate may be the scramming kind and hold me to die whilst local reinforcements are called, and I don't realise any of this until the second site is swept of wrecks and the fleet is gone.

It looks like combat is finished too, as the fleet warps back to a tower. I spy a Manticore stealth bomber amongst the ships, which looks new, and although I wonder what he'll get up to next I am a little concerned that if he has come back from roaming then even the stealth bomber's tiny hull may have pushed the sickly wormhole to its demise. I'd better check. And, balls, it's gone. I check my ship's systems to ensure they're still operational, as sometimes a crash will prevent the external cameras from updating, but everything responds. The wormhole really isn't there.

I need to scan my way out of the system and back home. At least the system holds a static connection to class 3 w-space, so k-space is only one more jump away, I just need to get lucky with where it exits to. Actually, I also need to get lucky with the C5 locals too, as a blanket scan reveals just the single signature, which makes scanning rather trivial. So trivial, in fact, that it looks like the locals have already found it and have started to collapse this new connection too, as suggested by the battleship appearing under my combat scanning probes along with the wormhole. This could be awkward.

Posted in Gaming | 3 Comments »
Tags: buzzard, cerberus, chimera, coercer, eve online, falcon, huginn, impel, ishkur, loki, maelstrom, manticore, mmorpg, moros, noctis, onyx, penny ibramovic, prorator, raven, scanning, tengu, w-space

Adding to the fog of war

I read with interest Mabrick's musings on the state of combat, with regards to the forthcoming changes to the targeting user interface. 'I find nothing as unrealistic in Eve Online as the combat', he says. Why is this? Because

Mabrick says that 'perfect intelligence about who you are fighting is terribly unrealistic', and he's right. But we don't have perfect intelligence. As TurAmarth writes in his own response to Mabrick:

what about Cloakies? Alts? Neutral spais & scouts? Corp Infiltrators? Logoff/Logon Tactics? AFK Cynos? There are still many unknowns in New Eden, we just have vastly more advanced technology is all, better 'tools'.

Add to that how the ships are fit, who's flying them, who's leading them, and you have a lot of unknowns that even our advanced technology cannot help us with. TurAmarth concludes that 'the Fog of War is not about technology, it is about the human factor.' Combat is less about which side does everything right, and more about who makes the least mistakes. A non-distinction, perhaps, but it highlights that mistakes will happen, and it's how you manage them that determines the ultimate outcome.

Never the less, even though I'm arguing that we should be given as much information as is reasonably available, I quite like the idea of providing some kind of technological denial of information. If it is technology giving us the information, then competing technology can take it away. The EW/radar battle is one that continues to progress, and there must be more imaginative ways to use electronics than effecting a total jam, or disrupting turrets and targeting range. I have a few ideas.

An obvious first thought is to jam transmissions. Mabrick points out that 'CCP has already said Dust Bunnies will be able to take down local for brief periods', which will be interesting. It would at least hide numbers and affiliations. Going further, it would be interesting if all communications could be disrupted, for short periods, at least on-grid. But because there is already a reliance on third-party voice comms in fleets I doubt that this would have as much of an effect as it could.

Mabrick's dislike of the overview extends to wondering 'what a Goonswarm attack would look like if [...] the Overview was gone', which is another interesting idea. Rather than jam the ship's ability to lock, take down its overview. Force the pilot to rely on his HUD and tactical overlay for his information. It would not prevent combat in the frustrating way that current ECM modules do, but force better situational awareness. Players would need to zoom their view out significantly so that ships don't get out of their field-of-view, but lose some fine adjustments that can be made to ship position and velocity, and vice versa.

Alternatively, jam the HUD and force players to rely on the overview, having them fly by instruments. The ship brackets and information flickers, comes and goes, during the period the jamming is in effect, as the ship's computer cannot reliably place the brackets in space, although the overview remains effective. Obviously, this option cannot be combined with disabling the overview without seriously impeding the player.

How about spoofing Identify Friend or Foe (IFF) transponders. Interrogate the target, have a decent hacking skill, and make your own ship appear to be a part of the enemy's fleet, purple icon and all. You won't actually be in the fleet, just appear as a fleet member.

Or spoofing IFF to appear as a different ship/hull, if only to the computer. Your ship broadcasts as a frigate, but you are flying a battlecruiser. Any pilot actually looking at you sees the battlecruiser, but your overview will show the bracket and class of a frigate. Only mildly confusing, perhaps, but this comes back to the human factor. A mildly confused pilot will fare worse than one not confused at all.

There are likely more examples that could be considered as new forms of electronic warfare. And the means to realise each example shouldn't be trivial, even if it is as minor as fitting a specific module. Module slots are limited, and any EW fitted will result in some kind of compromise. The results could offer considerable variety to even simple encounters. Fog of war makes for interesting combat, but straightforward denial of information in a sci-fi setting is a ham-fisted approach. Creating ways to deny that information using the technology available within the sci-fi setting, however, has significant possibilities.

Posted in Gaming | 5 Comments »
Tags: comment, eve online, mmorpg

Duelling a Drake

I'm back. Fin's here too, and is scouting around the already scanned w-space constellation. So is anything out there? 'Yes.' Oh, good. 'And no.' There is a K162 from class 5 w-space newly connecting to our home system and ships have been passing between there and an empire space connection through our static wormhole. 'I'm impotent. I tried to catch a Viator, Crane, Buzzard, and Anathema.' Oh yes? Some of the most agile and difficult ships to intercept solo, which can both burn through bubbles and warp cloaked? I don't think anyone should be upset at not catching any of those potential targets, frankly. Now Fin's checking a high-sec system before heading back home.

I'm going the other way. I scanned the constellation earlier and am keen to see what's changed, as well as hopefully expanding our connections. Jumping to C3a has the same Chimera carrier, Golem marauder, and Thorax cruiser sitting piloted in a tower, still doing nothing. Continuing to C3b also has the same ships on my directional scanner as earlier, except for the two that were piloted, and a second tower out of d-scan range remains as empty as I left it. But this is as far as I scanned previously, trying to catch a planet gooing hauler before breaking for a sammich, and the inactive system gives me motivation to look for more wormholes.

Three anomalies and five signatures isn't much, and it doesn't result in much. Rocks, a static exit to low-sec, a K162 from low-sec that is at the end of its life, and more rocks isn't a great result, but the healthy static connection at least gives me another system to explore. I exit to a faction warfare system in the Bleak Lands region, which holds two additional signatures, both wormholes. The K162 from class 2 w-space would normally be my first choice to jump through, but as the K162 from class 3 w-space could be a dead end I fancy checking that first, and I jump to C3c.

An Archon carrier, Thanatos carrier, Dominix battleship, and Iteron hauler all sit unpiloted in a tower that has moved since my last visit a year ago. A passive scan reveals a mere two anomalies, which could indicate there may only be a few signatures to check, but I definitely have a C2 to explore back through low-sec, so I turn around instead of scanning. C2a turns out to have less to see than C3c, with a clear d-scan from the wormhole expanding to be clear across the unoccupied system. But, being a class 2 system, I know I'll find a wormhole connecting to more w-space, so I launch probes and scan.

An Anathema cov-ops blips on d-scan, and as it is just a blip I ignore the ship that is perhaps just travelling home to sift through the fifteen signatures. I resolve some gas, some rocks, and an outbound connection to more class 2 w-space, and as there are no obvious K162 wormholes it's best not to keep scanning. I jump to C2b to explore deeper in to the constellation. A tower and no ships grace d-scan from the wormhole, and although my notes for this system have me last here two years ago they are useful in pointing out that the static connections are to high-sec and class 1 w-space. That's worth looking for, and scanning thirteen signatures is greatly simplified in this curious system with a single planet orbiting a star 25 AU distant.

Three wormholes are picked out of the noise of rocks and gas, getting me a K162 from high-sec along with the two static wormholes. I am, naturally, heading to C1a, where d-scan looks positive. A Tengu strategic cruiser and Drake battlecruiser are joined by a Noctis salvager, and although there is also a Buzzard cov-ops, Onyx heavy interdictor, and tower, I want to be positive about what could be happening. A lack of wrecks says otherwise, though. But locating the tower sees the Drake and Tengu piloted, and a passive scan reveals eight anomalies that the capsuleers could clear. It's just a shame that the two ships seem intent on seeing who can move the least.

I wake up when an Anathema warps in to the tower, and it may have been the one I saw briefly in C2a, I wasn't really paying enough attention. Either way, he simply joins the stillness competition the other two have got going, and I continue watching ships do nothing. After a while the Tengu goes off-line, soon followed by the Drake, except they don't. I was distracting myself on a second screen and didn't see the Tengu warp, but the Drake lingers on d-scan long enough for me to think to check the far planet, out of d-scan range, to see the pair of ships accumulating Sleeper wrecks. That's interesting. What's less interesting is that only four frigate wrecks appear, and start dwindling. The Drake is salvaging, at a guess, and the pair are not in an anomaly but a mining site.

I suppose clearing a mining site of Sleepers could be interesting, as long as combat ships are swapped for mining barges, but an ambush would mean actively scanning for the site. Luckily, the Drake and Tengu return to the tower, giving me a window of opportunity to launch probes covertly. I even have time to resolve what turns out to be a gravimetric site before any ships return. But this isn't a remark on my admittedly awesome scanning skills as much as a reflection that the Drake and Tengu pilots just return to skulk at the tower, not caring to come back out to chew rocks and act as target practice.

Hullo, they're off again, but not to the gravimetric site. They remain in d-scan range of the tower, and again only a few Sleeper frigate wrecks appear, so it looks like they are indulging in more skeet shooting. Class 1 w-space gravimetric site Sleepers can't be much of a challenge for a Drake or Tengu individually, after all. I wait for the ships' return to the tower but they stay out for an awfully long time, even after the few wrecks have been swept up. If they've foolishly got distracted whilst in the site it may be worth scanning for it, so I warp out and launch probes a second time to look for them.

I don't care to waste effort being surgical with my scanning when I probably won't take a shot at the targets, so it takes three rough scans to resolve the site. And it's a radar site. I wasn't expecting that. I warp in to take a look at what's happening, and the Tengu is keeping a final Sleeper frigate at bay whilst the Drake is hacking databases. No wonder they didn't come back, and I would say they are paying attention. As I'm already here, I interrogate the ships to find out what I can about the pilots. The Drake is piloted by a capsuleer two years in to his career, and the Tengu pilot is two years his veteran. Both ships can be competently fitted and flown with these pilots, so despite being in a C1 there may not be an easy target for me.

The evening is already getting late and I won't get a better shot tonight. It is now or nothing. The Drake must be easier to crack than the Tengu, and although I am not convinced I have the firepower to break a decent passive-fit Drake that is my target. There's no point relying on Sleeper fire to aid me, as the damned drones could target me instead, and the Tengu will be around to help too. But if the pair follow their previous pattern, the Tengu will warp out to leave the Drake to salvage, so that's when I should strike. And I should strike quickly, to catch the pilots off-guard and give minimal reaction time, so I bounce out of the site and warp to be within warp-disruption range of the Drake as they finish clearing the remaining Sleepers.

I watch the site being cleared and see that the Drake is not just a tanked loot-collector, as it is firing a full complement of missiles at the Sleepers, so this won't be simple. But it should be safe. It's unlikely the battlecruiser has a point fitted, and as long as I keep an eye on d-scan I will have enough warning to bug out if reinforcements come or circumstances otherwise turn against me. This feels more like a test of my ship's capabilities than a proper engagement. It's weird, but I get more psyched up attacked haulers collecting planet goo.

The site is cleared, the Tengu warps, and I decloak. I burn towards the Drake to soak up my recalibration delay, locking and pointing the battlecruiser before it has a chance to react. I cut my micro warp drive when close, keeping our relative velocities low, as I need to make sure my autocannons hit as hard as possible. I can't rely on glancing blows against the Drake's impressive shields, particularly as not a sliver of red appears on them to indicate damage from the Sleepers. And I get close and moving almost in synch with the Drake, letting my guns hit for some decent damage, and the full white bar gets gradually more threatening, as the shields drop steadily.

The Drake isn't taking this abuse without fighting back. My target lock is returned and the battlecruiser's launchers spit missiles at me, and after a while the pilot realises I'm not a Sleeper and that his drones will be effective too. Five angry Hobgoblin IIs are launched and sent my way. Luckily, I remembered coming in to the fight that I modified my cloaky Loki strategic cruiser with an auxiliary shield booster, and although my own shields take a pounding I am able to repair them and keep myself afloat. The Drake isn't so lucky.

I overheat my guns to push past the peak recharge point of the shields, although it doesn't look particularly necessary, and drop the Drake in to relying on its weak armour. My booster charges are running out, but thankfully it's still just me versus the Drake. The Tengu hasn't returned, and he remains visible on d-scan and so not boarding a different ship to come and help. A little more overheating, just because I can, pushes through the hull of the Drake and the battlecruiser disintegrates with a most satisfying explosion. I catch the disorientated pod and fire one more volley from my guns, before scooping a fresh corpse, and looting and shooting the wreck.

I don't have room to carry all the loot, as there are plenty of Tech II missiles surviving, but I grab the rest of the modules and Sleeper loot. And it's all Tech II from the Drake. It may not be the best-fitted Drake I've ever seen, but it certainly is a competent fit. I am actually surprised that my covert Loki was able to punch through its shields with no help. It seems I'm piloting a pretty capable ship after all. But, even though help didn't come for the Drake, now is not the time to reflect on my victory. I cloak, warp out, and leave the system. The evening was late before I found the radar site, it's definitely time to head home now.

Posted in Gaming | 4 Comments »
Tags: anathema, archon, buzzard, chimera, crane, dominix, drake, eve online, golem, iteron, loki, mmorpg, noctis, onyx, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tengu, thanatos, thorax, viator, w-space

Sucked in to a new constellation

Who can collapse a static wormhole and resist looking through the new one? Not me! I was going to take a break, but the temptation of missing a planet goo-collecting hauler being wildly reckless in the new w-space constellation is too much to bear, so I swap back to my cloaky Loki strategic cruiser, launch probes, and resolve the replacement connection. Jumping through puts me in a different class 3 w-space system, and one with ships and a tower visible on my directional scanner from the K162. There are no haulers, but the Chimera carrier, Golem marauder, and Thorax cruiser are probably not all unpiloted.

Adjusting d-scan's settings sees no wrecks, and opening the system map shows the problem that if the Thorax is sucking gas then I won't be able to hide from his own d-scanner, as the system is too small. But I should locate the tower first to determine if there are any pilots, which is a straightforward task, and I see all three ships have capsuleers aboard. The tower's defences are also somewhat incapacitated, which isn't too surprising given that the system has a static exit to high-sec empire space, and that this isn't the same tower that was here ten weeks ago. There has undoubtedly been some kind of spat in recent weeks.

The Chimera is close to the edge of the tower's force field and perhaps intending to bring some of the incapacitated defences back on-line. Probably not soon, though, and even if he did there isn't much I could do about it alone. I watch the Golem and Thorax for a couple of minutes, hoping they become active, during which time I perform a passive scan of the system, but they don't move an inch. The passive scan reveals sixteen anomalies, and one of them is perhaps out of d-scan range of the tower, which gives me an idea. I warp out there, bookmarking a spot outside of the anomaly as I decelerate from warp, only to see that I am still visible on d-scan to the tower, so still not able to launch probes covertly. It was a neat idea all the same.

If I'm going to be seen, I may as well just go ahead and scan. The pilots may not be paying attention anyway, and finding some gas pockets now would be beneficial should the pilots become alert later. I launch probes with gay abandon, and start resolving the twelve signatures they reveal. One rock site, two gas sites, one magnetometric and radar site each, and three wormholes are all resolved and bookmarked, at which point I decide the other three weak signatures don't need to waste my time. I have more space to explore, but only a little. The static exit to high-sec is joined by a K162 from low-sec, and thankfully more w-space with an N968 outbound connection to a class 3 system. I'll go there.

C3b looks interesting, with seven ships on d-scan, three of them haulers, along with a tower and a couple of cans. My notes are a year old and creaking with the age, not pointing me towards a tower holding these ships, but in spinning d-scan around looking for it I spot an errant Iteron hauler at a planet. Or, I suppose, at a customs office. I spool up my warp drives to intercept it, before realising it won't be at the customs office for long and cut my engines when a second narrow d-scan beam shows it moved on. Instead, I warp to where it has gone, hoping I'll get there in time at least to see it warp to its next destination.

Sadly, the Iteron is gone before I get to the customs office, but I soon find it again. This time, I am in a direct line between its last destination and its next, which could give me time to catch up. Or I could simply jump ahead one more planet, as the he's gone from the third planet to the fourth, skipped the fifth, perhaps because it holds the tower and was his first destination, and is heading towards the sixth. I don't follow behind the Iteron but warp to the customs office around the seventh planet instead.

I get to the customs office anticipating the hauler's appearance but with no Iteron in sight, and although he's also not on d-scan the hauler gets in range soon enough. I get ready, expecting the ship to drop out of warp close to me, and... nothing. The Iteron remains on d-scan but he doesn't come to the customs office, and it shouldn't take this long for even a slow industrial ship to get here. I imagine this has something to do with the second tower that d-scan is showing me out here, which has an Orca industrial command ship in it. I sweep the moons with d-scan and find the tower together with the Iteron, and warping there has the pilot stow the hauler and swap to sit in the Orca. I think I missed him.

Brief hunt over, I return to looking for the first tower, which is easily found. Only the Tengu strategic cruiser and Cheetah covert operations boat there are piloted, the battleship and other two haulers empty. And I've run out of time. This was only meant to be a quick look around a new constellation for a soft target anyway, and I nearly did get to shoot a pilot collecting planet goo, but for a matter of a minute or so. For now, I'm heading home to have some food, but there is more constellation to uncover later, hopefully with added opportunity.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Sucked in to a new constellation
Tags: cheetah, chimera, eve online, golem, iteron, loki, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, pvp, tengu, thorax, w-space

Isolated from dullness

Another early romp around w-space has me alone and with no new signatures to resolve in the home system, without anything to do but jump through our static wormhole to look for activity. The neighbouring class 3 w-space system looks clear on my directional scanner, but with three planets out of range, albeit one without a moon, I have hope that there will be something to see. Sure enough, a tower is anchored and on-line around one of the planets, even if it's moved one moon across from a year ago, but there's no one home. And there's not much more to see with probes, as a blanket scan shows me a single anomaly and four signatures. At least they won't take long to resolve.

Scanning the signatures gives me gas and two wormholes that are a bit dull. A K162 from null-sec k-space accompanies the static exit to low-sec, limiting my options a little, but the wormholes still lead to systems that themselves can be scanned for connections. I head to low-sec first, appearing in a faction warfare system in The Bleak Lands, where the four additional signatures my probes pick up hopefully aren't related to the active militia. Well, a radar site, magnetometric site, and two Blood Raider sites aren't connected to faction warfare, but they also don't interest me that much, and not the way wormholes do.

Maybe there is more to find in null-sec, although the wormhole connecting in to C3a makes me think I've already found it. Then again, a recent null-sec system held an astonishing eleven wormholes, so you never know what you'll find until you look. Crossing w-space to enter a system in The Kalevala Expanse even has me alone, so after I launch probes I warp to a rock field so that I can rat as I scan. But I quickly give up on ratting, seeing that the asteroid belts are infested with drones and not pirate factions, and I get enough drones in w-space already.

Scanning the null-sec system at least has two more signatures to resolve, but they are perhaps predictably Radiance and Hierarchy, which sound like dreary drone sites from memory. They're definitely not wormholes, which makes this a brief and disappointing exploratory session. Jumping back to C3a perks me up a little, with a Buzzard on d-scan. Even if I'm unlikely to catch a competently piloted covert operations boat, it's new and has a capsuleer on board. Naturally enough, I locate the Buzzard at the local tower, and so I warp out to launch probes, in case the Buzzard moves to a safe spot in order to get his own probes in to space. Instead, he simply goes off-line.

A Hound replaces the Buzzard almost immediately, so rather than disappear myself I am compelled to watch the stealth bomber for a while. It's not much fun monitoring a ship doing nothing, though, so it's almost a relief to see him go off-line within a couple of minutes too. I almost wish my timing was off enough that I didn't even see the ships in the system. I was thinking about collapsing our static wormhole to havie a poke around a different w-space constellation, but loitering outside the tower has soaked up some of the time I could have used to stress the wormhole.

I could still collapse our static connection for a new one. It would give me and my colleagues a better chance of finding activity later, rather than paddling in the same simplistic constellation we currently have, and give us an isolated system in the meantime. I jump home, grab an Orca industrial command ship, and start throwing it through the wormhole. Well, once the polarisation effect dissipates, anyway. And I mix up the process a little today, sending a Widow black ops ship through second, instead of third. The two ships add up to half the wormhole's mass allowance, so seeing its reaction to this pair of jumps gives a better indicator of the initial mass of the wormhole. Watching the wormhole destabilise this way, I'm able to finish the process precisely with two more Orca trips, collapsing the wormhole with me safely in the home system. Job's a good 'un.

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Tags: buzzard, eve online, hound, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space, widow