Scouting empty w-space

An early look for an easy mark in w-space has me resolving our static wormhole and jumping to the neighbouring class 3 w-space system. And already I may have been busted. My directional scanner shows me a single core scanning probe, which could have detected the K162 popping in to existence, or maybe it went unnoticed by the scout. I'll assume that I haven't been spotted for now and continue as normal. A Buzzard covert operations boat appears on d-scan, but he doesn't warp to the wormhole I'm sitting on, and I can't pin him at a planet or the star before he disappears again, so I launch my own probes and blanket the system.

My probes reveal seven anomalies, nine signatures, and a lack of ships, and exploring finds a tower around the far planet. The Buzzard is probably still scanning and focussed away from d-scan, and I trust that to give me time to scan without being noticed. I cluster my probes around where I saw the cov-ops when he was visible and, sure enough, resolve a wormhole. I warp there to see a disappointing K162 from low-sec empire space, and at the end of its life too. I sift through the rest of the signatures, giving me rocks, the static exit to low-sec, a radar site, more rocks, some more rocks, even more rocks, and, what a surprise, rocks. I don't think the locals are keen miners.

I've finished scanning. Now what? The other probes are still bouncing around the system, so I plant my covert Loki strategic cruiser on our K162 for the moment, even if I have little chance of catching a cov-ops. I have less chance of catching it if it doesn't come this way, and when the probes disappear, presumably recalled, the Buzzard blips on d-scan at the EOL K162 from low-sec. I warp to the wormhole and poke through, appearing in a system in The Forge, where I think I spot the Buzzard pilot seconds before she leaves the system. Time to move on.

I jump back to C3a, cross the system, and exit through its static connection. Alone in a system in Derelik, I launch probes and warp to a rock field to rat and scan. Five anomalies and three signatures give me two more wormholes before I can find a rat bigger than a frigate, so I ignore ratting and investigate the connections. A K162 from class 3 w-space is interesting, as is the X702 outbound connection to class 3 w-space. I choose the X702 first, jumping to C3c to a clear d-scan result. I launch probes, perform a blanket scan, and explore.

My probes show me eight anomalies, sixteen signatures, and one ship. My notes from a week ago have a tower listed, and predictably enough the ship sits inside the tower's force field. The Chimera carrier is unpiloted and so doesn't hold my interest, and rather than sift through the signatures I recall my probes to instead look through the K162 in low-sec. But jumping to C3b spits me seven kilometres from the wormhole in w-space, which doesn't get my hopes up. My last visit had Fin and I pop a cocky Drake battlecruiser, which I remember quite well, but my notes are out of date, as the tower has moved in the intervening eleven months.

Locating the new tower has nothing to see, and a blanket scan reveals no anomalies and thirteen signatures. A quick look for K162s finds an N968 first, K162 second. The outbound connection to class 3 w-space is more interesting than the incoming wormhole from low-sec, so I press onwards to C3d to see if I will finally find a pilot or two. The tower and lack of ships on d-scan suggests no, I won't, and even when I refuse to do my usual half-arsed job of scouting and actually locate a second tower around a distant plant I still don't find any ships or pilots.

Scanning C3d resolves rocks, gas, and a static exit to low-sec, and nothing else of interest. The exit leads to a faction warfare system in the Black Rise region, which looks immediately dull. It's time to head home. I return through C3d, C3b, and out to low-sec, where a second poke in to C3c sees no change. Back to low-sec, in to C3a and, hullo, a combat probe is visible on d-scan now. There are still no pilots at the local tower, or anywhere else, leaving just some combat probes inexpertly blanketing the system. There's not much I can do about that, and as I'm feeling peckish I simply jump home, hide in a corner, and leave a set of bookmarks for my colleagues. Maybe they will have better luck than me in finding targets in class 3 w-space.

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Tags: buzzard, chimera, eve online, loki, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

Welcome back

A glitch has me off-line for a few days, and now I'm back and wondering how much has changed. Maybe some buttons have been moved, or wormholes have stopped existing, and perhaps I can blame any of this for whatever shortcomings I'll have this evening. One change I notice when scanning is that some gas has been replaced by rocks. I suspect that's more the usual churn of sites than a galaxy-wide upheaval, but we'll see. Otherwise, I start alone as usual and with just the static wormhole as an exit. I resolve the connection and jump to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system.

This looks like a nice find already, with two Retriever mining barges appearing on my directional scanner potentially giving me some industrialists to chew on as a refresher. There is also an Orca industrial command ship, Ferox battlecruiser, Noctis salvager, and tower visible, and an update of d-scan has the Retrievers missing. I will assume that they've headed to a gravimetric site and that the hunt is on! A quick check of my notes puts me in this system six weeks ago, and the tower and a static exit to high-sec are listed. Well, a tower, not the tower, because it isn't where I expect it to be.

As I locate the tower the number of Retrievers on d-scan spikes to four, but by the time I'm floating outside the force field looking at a piloted Orca there are no mining barges to be seen. There is a Cheetah covert operations boat and some core probes now launched, and the Ferox is still somewhere, so there is activity, it's just that I may have been spotted moving away from the wormhole. Either way, I warp out to launch probes, and as the Cheetah's using core probes I won't be noticed by them. I get my combat probes in to space and out of the system, and return to the tower to loiter. But I'm already too late.

My combat probes see all, and all they see are the Orca and Cheetah, along with seven anomalies and thirteen signatures. The Cheetah goes, perhaps cloaked, and just as I tell myself to be patient the Orca goes off-line. I'm either too late, or was spotted. The quick breakdown of the mining operation could suggest a natural end, but the Cheetah's appearance with probes so soon after could mean I was spotted. Either way, there are no obvious ships in the system, so I scan. I resolve three rock sites, two gas sites, the static exit to high-sec empire space, and a K162 from class 4 w-space, before a ship system crash deletes two radar sites and one more rock field from my scanning results.

The K162 is an interesting result, as its presence would generally prevent a mining operation, but I suppose it could also make the locals more alert to an external presence. It's even possible the miners were from C4a, but that wouldn't explain why a piloted Orca was in the local tower. Whatever, I recover from my crash and reconnect to my scanning probes, at which point a new ship is detected, a Mackinaw exhumer. That's odd, what with all the other miners disappearing, but maybe he's a straggler, or more persistent. Or bait, obviously.

I find the Mackinaw in a gravimetric site I've resolved, which lets me monitor him without needing to scan further. He's alone, after seeing at least six active ships before, and has combat drones launched, which at a push could be used on Sleeper drones in a C3 gravimetric site, but probably not successfully. It all looks too good to be true. But d-scan remains clear, as do my combat probes on repeated blanket scans, and, as a wiser person than me once said, bait not taken is unfulfilled, so, what the hell, I'll take a shot.

I warp in towards the Mackinaw, decloak, and get a positive lock on my target. I disrupt his warp engines, burn towards him to give the ship a bump, and start shooting. The Mackinaw returns my target lock and sets his drones on me, which is hard to determine as baitish behaviour or not, because it would be the least the exhumer could do were he prevented from warping clear. And his shields are taking solid hits, so it's all going well to start with. But, yes, it is too good to be true. The Mackinaw is probably feeling pretty fulfilled right now. The Loki strategic cruiser decloaking nearby convinces me of that, particularly when he's followed by a Falcon recon ship and Osprey cruiser.

The Loki treats me like a common miner, as he points, webs, and shoots my own covert Loki. I would be insulted if I didn't think I was completely boned. Hold on, though. Pointed and webbed, but not scrammed? MWD activate! It works. My micro warp drive flares in to action and I align towards the warp-in point I made in the gravimetric site, which handily points me orthogonally to the ambushing ships. The web is slowing me down significantly but, lucky days, my Loki opponent has only fit an afterburner and still can't keep up. I am gradually pulling away from my assailant, as the Falcon gets a successful ECM jam on my systems and a Dominix battleship warps in to join the fight.

There doesn't seem to be much the ambushers can do but continue attacking, which includes throwing a Drake battlecruiser at me, as I pull slowly away from the Loki. I am a little concerned that I still have a fair gap to create before I can warp clear, until I realise that I only really have to get about twelve kilometres away from the Loki. Nine, ten, eleven kilometres, and the web module is outranged and drops, not only giving me a new burst of speed from an uncrippled MWD but the Loki must realise it's all over and drops his point too. I warp clear and cloak, getting away from the ambushers with an intact strategic cruiser. That's got to be worth a 'gf' in the local channel, which is reciprocated.

The ships warp out and I follow behind, reconnoitring at range the C4 K162 I see them return to. The connection is now stressed to half-mass, no doubt from the earlier mining operation and now having pushed a bunch of combat ships through, and after a pause the ships jump to the C4. The Loki has a change of mind on the wormhole, though, and diverts towards what looks like the exit to high-sec. I don't mind, as I'm not going anywhere. I sit safely cloaked and away from the wormhole, watching the ships come and go as I scribble notes from the encounter, regale colleagues with my daring escape, and welcome my glorious leader on-line.

I don't feel like getting caught again and so am happy sitting by the K162 and answering mail. Fin explores around C3a and has a poke to high-sec, where she sees the Loki return a minute before I see him jump to C4a. 'He probably went to refit with an MWD' she says, and I think Fin's probably right! Either way, I've had my welcome back to w-space, and all the writing I've done whilst cloaked has soaked up the rest of the evening. But before I leave, I must get a closer look at the shattered planet I saw earlier when looking for the tower. I was distracted by the miners, then being shot at, but I understand such planets are rare, more so in w-space, so I make sure take in the view before heading home.

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Tags: cheetah, dominix, drake, eve online, falcon, ferox, loki, mackinaw, mmorpg, noctis, orca, osprey, penny ibramovic, pvp, retriever, scanning, w-space

Failing to follow-through

The last signature in the class 3 w-space system resolves to be a radar site, just like the other two non-wormhole signatures. Those sites are pretty useless in w-space, which is why they tend to get ignored, but I don't really mind. I don't even mind that the two wormholes are the K162 back to the home system and a static exit to high-sec empire space. Popping a hauler trying to collect planet goo, after failing miserably to spot combat scanning probes so terribly obvious to any directional scanner, has started the evening in the right direction. Now to spread my wings and see what else I can find.

I'm exiting w-space to start with. There's no point going home, even with its own K162 leading to some class 4 w-space, because Aii is back there and poking planet gooers too. I'm hoping high-sec will give me more wormholes to find, and more pilots to go with them. I leave C3a to appear in a curious system in the Sinq Laison region. There is only one planet, 22 AU from the star, and no stations. And despite a couple of miners peacefully chewing rocks in a nearby asteroid field there are no other signatures to be found beyond the wormhole I'm sitting on. That's not going to stop me tonight, and I take advantage of the safety of high-sec to hop one system across to try again.

The second high-sec system doesn't look much of an improvement, but two signatures are better than none. And both signatures resolve to be wormholes. One is a K162 from class 2 w-space, which is enticing in itself as well as offering its second static connection to more w-space, and the other is an outbound connection to class 2 w-space that would look better than the K162 if only it weren't at the end of its life. I go to C2a, though the K162, to see a tower and lack of ships on d-scan. And scanning reveals a relatively bare system, with no anomalies and six signatures, three of which are gas and three are wormholes.

I don't much care which of the connections to class 1 or class 2 w-space is the second static wormhole, particularly as the wormhole to C2c is EOL, and jump to a C1 that has an impressive presence. Four towers light up d-scan from the K162, which seems rather a lot of infrastructure for the weakest class of w-space, but finding one of the towers and seeing it owned by a null-sec alliance probably explains it all. I wouldn't be surprised if I find a static exit to null-sec, but only if I scan, and as a Hound stealth bomber appears at a second tower I won't be scanning just yet.

The Hound is at the tower I was about to visit next, so continue on my merry way to loiter nearby and see what the pilot does. Of course, without scanning I can hardly follow the stealth bomber anywhere but back the way I came, and he may not know of my entrance wormhole yet. Still I watch. And I am rewarded by the sight of the Hound swapped for a Badger, the hauler turning, engines burning, as it aligns towards a distant planet. Or, more likely, the customs office around that distant planet.

I align my own ship and prepare for warp, following behind the Badger by only a second. Updating d-scan as I cross the system shows me a fifth tower somewhere, as well as a Heron frigate and some scanning probes. I am keeping watch because I haven't found all the towers, know that some planets are out of range, and have followed industrial ships before to see them not visit customs offices but travel between towers. I want to be aware of any potential threats and the possibility that the Badger won't be where I think it is. As it turns out, a solitary Heron is far from a threat to my cloaky Loki strategic cruiser, and I drop out of warp a dozen kilometres from the Badger snuggling up to a customs office.

I'm in the right place at the right time. I drop my cloak, and issue commands to activate my sensor booster and surge my ship towards the Badger to soak up the recalibration delay. Now I can gain a positive target lock, disrupt the hauler's warp drives, and start shooting. For some reason I'm only getting glancing blows, and I'm not as close to the ship as I am expecting. I realise my micro warp drive isn't engaged, the command perhaps getting lost whilst decloaking, so activate the module and burn towards my target, aiming to bump it out of alignment in case it... yes, it has warp core stabilisers fitted.

The Badger warps away, suffering only slight shield damage from my devastating ambush. I reload, cloak, and warp back to the tower—actually, first to the customs office of the planet in case of pilot error by the Badger—to see the pilot's reaction. There's not much of one to start with, which gives me time to check my logs and confirm that my warp disruptor was active and I didn't suffer another fumble like with my MWD, but once he's got his wits about him once more the pilot broadcasts to the local channel. He seems pretty cool about the ambush, and as he evaded me I think he's got good reason to be.

I like to say that the thrill is in the hunt, and it is. I scanned my way to this system, located the pilot in his tower efficiently, and followed his hauler to a customs office. My execution was a little sloppy, and had I been less casual about a second goo-related ambush in one evening maybe I would have a couple more unnecessary expanded cargoholds to carry home. But it's all part of the experience. I can't rely on haulers being stopped with a single point of warp disruption, and need to be more diligent about the whole process. After all, if I get it wrong against a simple industrial ship, how will I react under pressure against a ship that shoots back? It's all practice.

I remember seeing the Heron across the system, along with probes, and wonder if maybe the frigate will investigate the wormhole I entered through and make a target of himself too. But warping across C1a a second time has the Heron disappeared, and I don't care to locate empty towers this late in the evening. I turn my Loki around and start heading home. C2a remains empty, I keep my head down through high-sec, and I warp straight to our K162 in C3a on the (correct) assumption that the pilot from earlier has gone off-line. I jump home, hide my ship in a corner of the system, and think about grabbing a snack before bed.

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Tags: badger, eve online, heron, hound, loki, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, w-space

Pausing to pop a planet gooer

All alone, so sad. I'll be scanning for adventure and opportunity, which shows me immediately that the few remaining anomalies we had have been dispersed. That sickens me. What kind of twisted mind would activate another system's sites simply out of spite? It's disgraceful. In other news, a new signature has cropped up, and I'm guessing that it's a wormhole, what with the heavy interdictor sitting on it. And because it's a wormhole.

Before I can resolve and warp to the connection the Devoter has gone, but instead of seeing empty space or a critically destabilised wormhole I land next to a healthy K162 from class 4 w-space. Then why the HIC, if not to collapse an unstable wormhole? Maybe they've seen something I haven't. And now, as they have also seen my probes, it probably isn't the best idea to explore beyond the K162 just yet. Instead, I resolve our static wormhole, make a rough bookmark from the cosmic signature, and loiter outside the K162 waiting for something to happen.

A Cheetah passes by me and in to C4a, and I tag the covert operations boat as it passes but otherwise let it be. I continue loitering, checking and replying to mail so that I am not merely idling, but nothing else happens. I think I'll poke my nose in to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system before coming back this way, as I doubt I'll catch anyone unawares. I warp across our system and jump through the static wormhole to see a territorial control unit on my overview and tower on my directional scanner. Well, well, well, I wonder where the tower is. I head towards the TCU and, lo and behold, the, uh, tower isn't there.

Whoever anchored the TCU either did so as a decoy—a pointless decoy with no decloaking bubble traps or any way of monitoring ships—or the previous occupants didn't care to take it when they left. No matter, I turn my boat around and locate the tower, giving a newly arrived Aii a sitrep as I drop out of warp to see that reds are settled here. That's interesting, but won't change how I operate. And there's still more to see, with two of the five planets far out of d-scan range, one of which turns out to hold a second tower, but still no ships.

Launching probes and scanning reveals eleven anomalies and five signatures, which I start resolving. The first signature feels like a static exit to high-sec empire space, the second is a radar site, the third is a Cynabal cruiser... That shouldn't be there. Maybe I should have planted my ship at one of the towers instead of waiting for ships to pass through the wormhole, but never mind. I throw my probes out of the system and return to the tower, to see the cruiser doing nothing, which isn't a surprise given how visible my probes were for a short while.

The Cynabal continues doing nothing for long enough that I think it best to continue my scanning, particularly with only two more signatures to go. I resolve a radar site and, damn, the pilot swaps his cruiser for a hauler. I throw my probes out of the system again, again a little too slow, and watch the Hoarder without really believing that the pilot can be so unaware of my presence as to do something so careless as collect planet goo. But his ship turns and heads towards a planet, so I point my ship in the same direction and follow him in warp.

My probes have not seen any other ships, and d-scan has been telling me the same, so I don't think I'm warping in to an ambush. This just seems a little too good to be true. But I drop out of warp near the Hoarder at a customs office, so I do what comes naturally. I decloak, get my systems hot, and lock, point, and shoot. Well, I lock and get the warp disruptor working, but my guns don't respond immediately. A second attempt gets the projectiles flying, and I burn towards the hauler to bump it out of alignment in case it has warp core stabilisers fitted.

I have barely rammed the Hoarder before it explodes in a bright blue flames, and although I aim for the pod it flees pretty quickly. I am left with just some more expanded cargoholds to add to my collection and a wreck to shoot, after which I reload and warp to the tower, remembering to cloak before I get there, where the pod pilot gets back in to his Cynabal. I still can't believe that he apparently didn't check d-scan once, not when coming on-line and not before swapping ships, as both times would have shown him my scanning probes and alerted him to a credible threat. But I won't complain, as popping a red hauler is pretty satisfying.

Aii is having fun too. He ventured in to C4a behind us, saw lots of towers but only two force fields on d-scan, along with a Russian Tengu strategic cruiser, and started popping cans in assorted bubble traps for kicks. And, would you believe it, a couple of planet gooers appeared. He goes after a Mammoth hauler, following it to customs, and manages to pop it and escape under the attention of the Tengu. He gets a better haul than me too, as the Mammoth was for some reason fitted with a launcher and scanning probes, which is a bit peculiar. All in all, the evening is shaping up quite nicely already.

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Tags: cheetah, cynabal, devoter, eve online, hoarder, mammoth, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space

Lesser loot in low-sec

I turn up after Fin turns up. 'Just the two signatures, resolving the static.' That saves me the bother of launching probes in our home w-space system, as our static wormhole is accompanied only by an expected ladar site. I merely create a fleet of the two of us for convenience, pause as Fin warps to the now-resolved wormhole, and follow her trail as she jumps to our neighbouring class 3 system.

An Orca industrial command ship and a tower are visible on our directional scanners from the K162 in C3a. This is my fifth recorded visit to the system, and the last from five months ago has a tower listed. A spin of my view and tightening d-scan's beam all but confirms the tower to be the same one, unless it's been moved one moon across, so I warp in the opposite direction to disappear and launch probes.

Warping to the tower naturally shows the Orca to be unpiloted, and a blanket scan of C3a reveals eight anomalies and five signatures. 'I'm crossing my fingers for a C2 wormhole with active pilots', says Fin, aiming high as always. I sift through the signatures, resolving the static exit to low-sec first, which Fin confirms, exiting to the Kador region and deciding to scan whilst she's there. Then I get gas, gas, a second wormhole that's just our own K162, and a third wormhole that isn't. I warp to what looks to be Fin's desired C2 K162.

Jumping in to C2a even has potential activity. An Armageddon battleship and Drake battlecruiser are on d-scan along with a pod, which almost always have a capsuleer stuffed in them. A tower is present on d-scan too, which along with a lack of wrecks takes some of the expectation out of finding the ships, but as the tower is around a planet with just one moon it doesn't take long to see that the two ships are just as piloted as the pod. I warp away, launch probes, and return, hoping that the pilots will fulfil the rest of Fin's prophecy.

I blanket C2a with my probes as I wait for the pilots to become active, finding ten anomalies and nine signatures, but I don't bother resolving any yet. There could be some out of d-scan range of the tower that I could feasibly resolve covertly, but I would prefer to see the locals move. 'Go and run an anomaly, you lubbers', says Fin, urging them on from low-sec, but they continue to sit motionless in their tower for long enough to bore me.

Fin's scanning in the low-sec system hasn't found much more opportunity for adventure. There are no wormholes to be found, but a 6/10 DED site, the Crimson Hand Supply, sounds tempting, particularly after my recent luck in a site in high-sec. As C2a and C3a remain inert, we head home, swap ships to Sleeper Tengu strategic cruisers, and take ourselves to an empty low-sec system in Kador to pop some puny rats.

The first deadspace pocket is cleaned pretty easily, and even though the second has a structure that replenishes its shields at an alarming rate we tediously chew through its armour and hull. All we really have to watch out for is a new pilot appearing in the system. I interrogate the local communication channel to see how much of a threat he is, and we're pretty safe regardless. We're in a deadspace pocket that will need scanning, and living in w-space has us used to updating d-scan. And even if he's cloaked, the acceleration gates can't be used covertly, so we should see someone coming.

The pilot passes through and leaves us alone to clear the second pocket of deadspace. We enter the third as one, and then two new pilots enter the low-sec system. They don't seem to be allies, but a third pilot gets my paranoia raised enough to suggest that we kill the Lord, loot, and run. 'Can we do that?' Apparently we can. I hear rumours of other capsuleers having loot stolen from them this way, so I thought we'd be able to steal from ourselves, and we get a fairly decent Dark Blood faction module from the wreckage, even if it pales compared to what I snagged from the frigate-populated 3/10 DED site in high-sec that I cleared in my cloaky Loki strategic cruiser. Empire space is weird.

We bug out of the site, leaving the other, less interesting battleships intact, only to see two of the three pilots in the system leave whilst we're in warp. 'I bet they've gone to C3a and are waiting for us on the wormhole.' Thankfully, my paranoia is just that tonight, and we warp across C3a and get back to our tower without interference. We drop the loot we got, get back to our covert scout boats, and I take one last look in C2a. The pilot who was in the pod is now in a second Drake, but none of the three have apparently gone anywhere yet. At this rate, they may warp out of the tower by the end of the week. I'm not waiting that long, so turn around, cross the unchanged class 3 system, and go off-line in a quiet corner of home.

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Tags: armageddon, drake, eve online, low-sec, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, tengu, w-space

Sweeping through Sleeper sites

'Which planet can I scan?'

'Penny!'

Planet Penny? What have I missed? But Fin is just welcoming me as I come on-line and not answering Aii's question. 'Your slow-scanning minions have a mostly boring class 3 w-space system, which has gas and an exit to a low-sec faction warfare system.' That does sound boring. I perform a check of the home system, to prevent surprises, and see nothing unexpected. Well, nothing except... 'and someone has cleared our anomalies'. Yes, yes they have. So what's left to do? 'Everything but scan.' Would it be okay if I scanned the low-sec system? 'Yes.' Okay then.

I use corporate bookmarks to guide me to our static wormhole, and jumping to the neighbouring C3 has a tower and Chimera on my directional scanner. The carrier is unpiloted, I am assured, and as the tower has been noted and bookmarked I don't bother swinging past it and instead head directly to the exit to low-sec. I leave w-space, launch probes in a rather uninteresting system, and recall them again when all I find is a radar and magnetometric site each. I don't think much is going to happen tonight, so when Fin asks 'are you okay to run the C3 anomalies?' it seems like our best option. Bagsy the Golem!

Aii helpfully points out that the glowing ball of redness in the system is a Wolf-Rayet phenomenon. It's easily missed when you see a lot of them, but becomes important if you're going to do more than just scan. 'Shield resists are 22% weaker in Wolf-Rayet systems', he says. Yep, and we like the challenge. We pretty much only shoot Sleepers in these C3s nowadays. We head home, swap scanning boats for shield-tanked Sleeper boats, and return to C3a to enter the first anomaly.

We lose Aii before we even start, which turns out not to be ideal, with Fin in a remote-repair Tengu strategic cruiser and me in a locally boosted Golem marauder. We survive for a whole one wave before having to warp out and wait for our third pilot to return. Or we could swap boats. I volunteer to get the other Tengu, but Fin decides instead to refit her Tengu to add a local booster to the RR module, making us self-sufficient again.

The first anomaly is cleared with little drama, although space dust should be banned from whizzing down the middle of my screen in a vivid reconstruction of a hostile ship dropping out of warp. I am also still not entirely fond of the uninventory, and its irritating handling of wrecks. An opened wreck is automatically closed when looted, but as the uninventory opens everything within range whenever it is accessed I end up with my ship's hold open after every time I loot a wreck. Every damned time. I don't ask for my hold to be opened, so why open it? And why not close it after looting a wreck, if the hold wasn't open to start with?

We carry on. Aii returns and brings a second Tengu, which speeds up combat rather more significantly than I would assume. I can hardly keep up with calling targets, locking targets, painting targets, shooting targets; targeting wrecks, tractoring wrecks, looting and salvaging wrecks; boosting my shield; updating d-scan; and moving the fleet on. Not scribbling notes during all of this would probably ease the stress a little, I suppose.

The fourth anomaly finally pushes us out of range of the local tower, but no change in the single carrier has been seen the entire time. We clear the fourth and then fifth anomalies without interruption, and in little overall time, so that Fin and Aii warp off in different directions to clear the local ladar sites of Sleepers too. They activated the sites before leaving the C3 the first time, and now a few frigates have turned up. Rather than head home I warp in behind my colleagues and loot and salvage the frigates for the paltry ISK they offer, which probably isn't the best use of a billion-and-a-half ISK ship holding three hundred million ISK in loot. But I do it anyway.

The shooting of ladar site Sleepers continues in to the home system, where a new pocket of gas holds industrial promise, and I risk the Golem once more by looting and salvaging the wrecks. Finally, I return to our tower and drop off the loot, stowing the marauder to swap back for my cloaky Loki strategic cruiser. 'Aii, do you think we should put the puppet in a speedy battlecruiser with the mining link?' Uh-oh, that sounds suspiciously like rock chomping is about to happen. I feign a headache and warp to a corner of the home system, where after a productive night of Sleeper combat I go off-line.

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Tags: chimera, eve online, golem, loki, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, sleepers, tengu, w-space

Missing ships heading home

'Let's kill the Nemesis.' Ah, good point. I was going to call it a night, but Aii reminds me of the stealth bomber sitting a hundred kilometres from the local tower in our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, abandoned and apparently unwanted. Of course, my having just popped an Iteron hauler collecting planet goo may have discouraged the locals from trying to recover the Nemesis, particularly as my ship systems crashed and revealed my own stealth bomber sitting ten kilometres from it. But as we're leaving, we may as well leave the system clean.

I am close to the Nemesis in my Manticore, and Aii can get closer in his covert Tengu strategic cruiser by warping to me or to the bookmark I share with him. He chooses the bookmark, not quite knowing where my cloaked ship is. Before we light up the bomber, I caution him against staying decloaked for too long, as I remember painfully losing a Tengu to tower defences before, particularly as we are simply shooting an unpiloted ship, so to help I lurk with the intent of target-painting the Nemesis so Aii's missiles hit for more damage.

Aii's lined up, we're both ready, so we go for it. Aii decloaks, I decloak, lock, and paint the Nemesis, and wait for Aii's recalibration delay to end. Now the missiles start flying. And, for some reason, my shields start dropping. It seems that the tower dislikes me, but not Aii. Maybe because I shot one of its owners. Whatever, I'd better cheese it. Thankfully, I positioned myself to be mostly lined up with a moon, just in case the worst happened, and I warp away from the Nemesis with a minor bit of armour damage, as the still-unharmed Aii turns the stealth bomber in to a wreck. He's fine.

I warp back and loot a nifty covert operations cloak from the wreck, bouncing out again as Aii destroys the wreck to leave no evidence of our being here. Job's a good'un, it's time to go home. I warp to our K162 and jump home, moving away to cloak as Aii reports a Legion strategic cruiser on our wormhole. That's odd, as I didn't see anyone. The Legion cloaks as Aii jumps home, but maybe we can tempt the pilot to show himself again. I go to our tower, take the time to repair the Manticore's armour—partly so that it isn't forgotten about, and partly to soak up some polarisation time—before boarding our own stealthy Legion to see how daring the other one is.

The Legion hasn't jumped to our system, as Aii has been watching, but maybe he was concerned about polarisation effects too. They should be over now, so I return to C3a and sit on the wormhole holding my session change cloak. There is no sign of the strategic cruiser, and probes are visible on my directional scanner for only a few seconds. Then again, that's all it should take, as there are only two signatures in the whole system. Eventually, my session change timer ends and I have to recloak, and I imagine seeing a Legion to go with the Tengu would have the single pilot less than likely to engage now.

I think we'll only see the Legion again if he has friends to bring, which I almost put down to paranoia but know that it is more based on experience. Either way, I may as well check the static exit to high-sec to see if the Legion comes this way, but warping to my rough bookmark made earlier shows that the wormhole must have been really close to the end of its life, as I end up in empty space. I return to our K162 and call Aii to come in and scan for the new static connection, which he does, and just when I don't think we'll see the other Legion again and stop paying attention he jumps back to our home system.

I alert Aii, asking him to return to our K162 and hold there, as I desperately fiddle with jumping through the wormhole to give chase to the Legion. I don't think I'm that slow, but after a couple of minutes of sitting in wait in our home system I have to admit that the Legion has moved away already. Maybe he is a pilot from the class 5 system connecting in to our home system and is getting home late, which he'd have to be as the K162 was EOL when I found it an hour earlier. Or maybe he was scanning for the replacement high-sec connection in C3a to guide a colleague of his home, which seems about right when an Ishtar heavy assault ship warps past Aii in C3a to our wormhole.

Again, I'm not paying full attention to what's happening, which is embarrassing but it happens, and don't decloak before the wormhole flares in front of me. By the time the recalibration delay from decloaking is over and I can start locking on to the Ishtar the ship is close enough to being in warp that I can't stop him. It looks like he heads towards the C5 K162, and I follow, as does Aii, but neither of us are quick enough to stop him, or even to see him jump through the wormhole.

But the HAC drops off d-scan, and it seems a fair assumption that he was heading this way, as was the Legion a few minutes ago. And that looks like all the ships that are coming this way, which I take to be a good situation. It's certainly better than provoking an escalated response, anyway. Aii scouts the other way again, reporting C3a and high-sec to be empty, and a fearless Fin jumps through the EOL K162 to a clear d-scan. I think that makes it sleep o'clock.

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Tags: eve online, ishtar, legion, manticore, mmorpg, nemesis, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space

Diverted by an Iteron

All looks clear at home, without even any colleagues around. Scanning picks up a second wormhole, though, and as interesting as a K162 from class 5 w-space could be this one is reaching the end of its natural lifetime. Without knowing how long the wormhole's been open I'm not going to risk even a simple look until I have a known route that will get me home again. Even a mere handful of recent encounters of wormholes dying on me minutes after resolving them, or when trying to jump through one, are enough to discourage me from being too cavalier about ageing connections. Instead, I head to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, through a nicely stable wormhole.

My directional scanner is clear from the K162 in C3a, and the sole planet out of range shouldn't hold a tower, according to notes from just two months ago. But the tower that should be in range has been taken down cleanly, probably thanks to the static exit to high-sec I know the system has, and warping to the distant planet reveals a new tower has taken its place. There is also a Nemesis stealth bomber at the tower, but it floats unpiloted inside the force field. At least, I think it was inside the force field.

I warp out to launch probes and return to loiter outside the tower, not paying too much attention as I arrange the probes, and my eye is caught by changing numbers on my overview. I am stationary, so relative speeds should not be showing, but the Nemesis is on the move. The stealth bomber is slowing down, so I think it could be some weird lag effect of my dropping out of warp, but switching from the system map to see what's happening has the Nemesis now a hundred kilometres outside of the tower. That's most peculiar, and I even check to see if some wag has named himself 'Nemesis' and I just assumed the ship was empty. But, nope, the empty ship has flung itself out of the tower.

I return to concentrate on the two anomalies and sad-looking two signatures in the system, one of which is our K162 and the other the static connection. Sorry, newly arrived Aii, but your gas is in another w-space system. A Dominix warps in to the local tower, the battleship pilot looking to have just come on-line, and so I hustle to resolve the high-sec exit in the inner system, and then the Nemesis outside of the tower. If the capsuleer is going to try to collect the wayward ship I'd like to be there to surprise him. It takes a couple of scans to get the tiny stealth bomber bookmarked, and when I do I rush home to get a better ship.

The Nemesis is in range of the tower defences, and if I'm going to stupidly lose a ship to them it ought to be cheaper than my Loki strategic cruiser. My own stealth bomber fits the bill, as well as having no recalibration delay when decloaking. I even get home and back to the Nemesis before it's collected. Better still, the pilot Aii and I are now watching swaps to board an Iteron hauler, warping off shortly after to what looks like a customs office. I can engage that without fear of tower reprisals, so follow behind, taking my best guess at which of the tightly clustered planets the local is visiting first.

He went to the first planet, naturally. I drop out of warp to see the Iteron interacting with the customs office, and I do what comes naturally. I decloak, lock on, and start shooting. And I stop shooting after just one volley, as my torpedoes in a system affected by a magnetar phenomenon make short work of a basic hauler. I try to trap the pod but, for some reason, my stealth bomber isn't able to stop it warping back to the tower. Never mind, I loot and shoot the wreck, adding more expanded cargoholds to my expanding collection, before reloading and heading back to the tower to see what happens next.

What happens next is that the pod pilot sees my Manticore crash hard. No system responds to my commands, and no matter what I do I can't restart it. I have to completely power-cycle the ship just to get it going again, which is not only frustrating but makes a mockery of trying to be covert. When I finally return, almost ten minutes later, I ask Aii how visible I was during that time. 'Very', he says. That's just dandy. Still, I don't suppose the local pilot would have been caught unawares twice in the same way, even if several more Iterons appear at the tower sequentially.

Whatever the pilots are doing, they are probably all related and just going through some daily motions. Before long, the original pilot goes off-line, shortly followed by the final Iteron, and we are left alone again. I suppose I'll update my skill queue and head home. There could be more adventure to find through high-sec, but after the frustrating crash I think I'll take popping the Iteron as my fun for the evening.

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Tags: dominix, eve online, iteron, loki, manticore, mmorpg, nemsis, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, w-space

Taking the high-sec hint and getting a Falcon

Fin, Aii, and two wormholes. What a pleasant start to the evening. The K162 in the home system comes from class 2 w-space, and my glorious leader reports that she's just resolved an outbound connection to class 1 w-space to go with the exit to high-sec empire space. That sounds alluring, and I'm sure Fin can handle whatever there is to be found, as Aii says that our neighbouring C3 has 'lots of sigs'. I'll go and help him sift through them.

I jump to C3a as Aii resolves a K162 from class 5 w-space, and as the system is scouted and empty I launch my own scanning probes to see what else there is to be found. Not much, actually. Ten anomalies and five signatures are plenty combined, but the anomalies need no additional scanning and can be ignored. Aii gives me a reference to the C5 K162, I have our home K162, which leaves me resolving the static exit to low-sec, a K162 from high-sec, and a vast gas reservoir for Aii's harvesting pleasure.

C3a is scanned and the class 5 system awaits. I jump through the K162 to a clear result on my directional scanner, and warping around finds a tower with an unpiloted Purifier stealth bomber floating in the force field. Maybe there is another K162 pointing to the source of activity, so I launch probes and start scanning the nine anomalies and twelve signatures. Along with five more pockets of gas to keep Aii busy, I resolve a K162 from class 4 w-space and a couple of radar and rock sites. I'd better keep heading backwards to ensure our gas harvesting doesn't get unduly interrupted.

Jumping to C4a has nothing interesting on d-scan, and warping around finds only an unoccupied system. Scanning doesn't find much more, apart from the expected wealth of anomalies, with no K162s being present, and I can only suppose that whoever scouted the constellation has since collapsed the originating wormhole. At least that limits the number of pilots who could be passing through, and C5a remains looking sleepy indeed. In the other direction, Fin has found more high-sec from the unoccupied C1 and has started looking at running logistics through the K162s from home. I'm going to keep scanning for now.

I pass Aii gassing away in C3a and exit through the K162 to high-sec, where resolving the four anomalies and three signatures gives me two more wormholes. A K162 from class 3 w-space is neat, but an outbound connection to class 2 w-space is neater. Jumping in to C2b has nothing close, letting me launch probes safely, and warping around finds a tower with no ships. Five anomalies are bookmarked and seven signatures scanned, giving me four more wormholes. The K162 from high-sec is dull, as is the static exit to high-sec, and the other K162 from high-sec surpasses the previous dullness by also being at the end of its life. The saviour to my scanning is the second static connection, which leads to class 1 w-space.

Two towers and a Badger appear on d-scan from the K162 in C1b, which gets me bouncing around the moons of the sole planet in range only to find the hauler unpiloted and unlikely to go collecting planet goo. I take a breath and explore the system, but all there is to find are rocks and a static exit to high-sec from the three lonely signatures. Okay, all this high-sec is getting the hint across that maybe I shouldn't shirk my responsibilities and actually pick up the replacement Falcon recon ship that we need.

Unsurprisingly, with seven to choose from, one of the high-sec exits puts us close to Amarr. And, conveniently, that one is the K162 from our neighbouring system, C3a, which makes the route short and relatively safe. I pass the still-gassing Aii, exit to empire space, and make the few hops to pick up and then fit a new Falcon, badly. I know it uses ECM, but that's about it. The important part is getting the hull and getting it home safely, which I manage easily enough.

Returning to w-space, and with a sitting target in a ladar site I can warp to directly, I test the ECM capabilities on Aii's gassing Ferox battlecruiser. That probably annoys him a little, as I drop his lock on the gas cloud, so with a successful test of the new Falcon I head home and hide so that he doesn't come to shoot me. It's been a quiet evening of mostly scanning, but finding gas, scouting, and replacing a support ship has made this a productive evening.

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Tags: badger, eve online, falcon, ferox, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, purifier, scanning, w-space

Showing my ship to a shuttle

I've grabbed a fancy module from a frigate in high-sec and podded a careless cov-ops pilot in a C1, and have still only scratched the surface of the w-space constellation. As the locals of the class 1 system set about looking for my entrance I leave them behind to find more activity elsewhere, returning to low-sec to take my choice of three more wormholes. One of the wormholes only connects to another system in low-sec empire space, which will mean more immediate scanning, but the K162 from class 3 w-space could find pilots warping around collecting planet goo with no scanning required.

Jumping in to C3b has an Orca industrial command ship, Tengu, and Legion appear on my directional scanner, along with two on-line towers. There are no wrecks nearby, so I suspect the strategic cruisers aren't up to much and probably just sat in the towers, which a bit of exploring confirms. The Legion is by itself in one tower, the Tengu and Orca in the second, all three ships piloted. There's more space to explore, with the C3 being 70 AU in radius, but nothing else to find. No more towers, no more ships. And the pilots here aren't looking like they'll move either. Rather than scan for potential wormholes I head back the way I came and choose the other connection in low-sec.

The outbound wormhole to class 5 w-space has already been stressed so that it is sitting below half mass, which could mean that whatever has passed this way has been and gone, or that the wormhole is in the process of being collapsed. As I resolved the wormhole before podding the Cheetah earlier, and it is still here, I feel safe in assuming that there is no one actively trying to crash the connection. This just means that I'm unlikely to find activity, but I'm going to take a look anyway.

Another Orca and tower are in range of d-scan from the K162 in C5a, and with just one planet also in range it is trivial to find the pair of them. Naturally, the Orca is unpiloted, and sweeping the rest of the system also finds nothing of interest. I'm tempted not to scan, particularly as C5 w-space has a tendency to lead to more C5 w-space, but I would be remiss not to at least see what's out there. And two anomalies and three signatures is far from a chore to resolve, particularly as I already know one of the signatures, and in no time I have ignored a radar site and am staring at the inevitable H296 connection.

I found it, I may as well use it, and I jump through the wormhole to C5b. D-scan is clear, and as quickly as I launch probes I recall them again. Opening the system map to arrange my probes for a blanket scan has me realise that no planets are out of range, so what I see on d-scan is what I get, and I fear for my sanity in scanning an unoccupied and inactive class 5 w-space system this late in the evening. I should get back home, and not just because my glorious leader, back from running logistics, has a couple of pilots flitting around our neighbouring C3.

A Cheetah covert operations boat looks to be scanning C3a, and a shuttle is somewhere in the system, a somewhere that isn't the tower. I head back across C5a to low-sec and return to C3a, where I update d-scan to see if I can help find either ship. Yes, yes I can, but not with d-scan. As I sit under the session change cloak on the U210 the shuttle appears, dropping out of warp about twenty kilometres from the wormhole, and from me, which puts it nicely in warp disruption range. And as the session change cloak doesn't burden my ship with a recalibration delay I even have a chance of catching the shuttle.

Knowing I need to be quick, I shed the session change cloak and activate my sensor booster immediately. My timing looks to be good, as my first attempt to lock on to the shuttle is met with warp interference, so it hasn't even stopped yet. But despite this giving my second attempt maximum time to get a lock, and having a sensor-boosted targeting system, the shuttle still turns and warps away before I can stop it. I know shuttles are agile, but I didn't think it would turn on a sixpence like that.

The shuttle disappears for a minute before returning to drop on top of the wormhole this time, jumping to low-sec after it lands. I see no point in giving chase, given that I couldn't lock the shuttle in better circumstances, but I can't resist waiting on the wormhole with my sensor booster active in case he comes back. Which he doesn't. I give him a few minutes, during which I update d-scan in case of surprises, but all I end up doing is watch a wormhole wobble. I think I've had all the fun I'm going to have this evening. I turn my ship around, warp across C3a, and jump home to hide and go to sleep.

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Tags: cheetah, eve online, legion, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space