Bumping in to miners

Two wormholes in the home system still don't provide the fabled random outbound connection, but I get a K162 from class 4 w-space to explore through. Jumping in to the system has a territorial control unit on my overview, some 35 AU away, but closer and within range of my directional scanner is a tower and some ships. My last visit here was six months ago, when I noted the position of two towers. Judging by where the wormhole is in the system, and the location of the TCU, the two towers probably haven't been moved. I warp to the one in range to confirm it remains in the same place, and to see that only the Hurricane battlecruiser is piloted. The Rorqual capital industrial ship, two Orca industrial command ships, and Noctis salvager float empty.

I'll need to warp out of range of the piloted Hurricane to launch probes covertly, so I may as well check the status of the second tower as I do. I find it also where it was on my previous visit, with a Hulk exhumer, Drake battlecruiser, and Chimera carrier all sitting unpiloted inside the force field. The system looks pretty quiet. Launching probes and performing a blanket scan makes the system look even quieter, with no anomalies present and only three signatures. A radar site and gravimetric site accompany the static wormhole I already know about, ending this arm of the w-space constellation and encouraging me to explore in the other direction. As warping past the first tower shows the Hurricane to have gone off-line, leaving this C4 behind seems like a good idea.

Crossing the home system and jumping to our neighbouring C3 has a tower and no ships visible on d-scan, with three planets out of range. Locating the tower shows it to be undefended but well-hardened, and unlikely to fall to any siege I could muster right now, and the rest of the system holds no ships or surprises. Scanning reveals seven anomalies and fifteen signatures, with three wormholes hidden amongst the rocks and gas. They aren't terribly inspiring wormholes, though, being a K162 from null-sec k-space at the end of its life, a static connection to high-sec empire space, and a K162 from class 3 w-space also at the end of its life.

I poke my nose through the exit to high-sec, appearing in a system in the Kador region and relatively close to Amarr. All I'm after is a bookmark to this side of the wormhole, after which I return to C3a and jump through the EOL connection to C3b. But appearing in the system seven kilometres from the wormhole and on its cosmic signature makes me think I won't find anything beyond the tower and obvious lack of ships that d-scan is showing me. I turn around, heading back across C3a and return to high-sec to scan for more wormholes.

A single extra signature in the system turns out to be rocks, which ends the constellation, even if I run in to some rats whilst scanning. The Orca and two Hulks are awfully tempting targets, but I suppose they aren't rats in the traditional sense, even if they will affect my security status if I shoot them. I align out of the rock field to leave the miners alone, but accidentally press the exact combination of commands to activate my micro warp drive and bump one of the Hulks at full speed, causing him to skid out of range of the rock he was shooting. That was clumsy of me.

Being in high-sec makes me lose my stargate anxiety, so I hop one system along and scan again. But the single signature again is a disappointment, resolving to be a site holding Blood Raiders. I think that's it for my exploration for now. But my guilty conscience is playing on my mind. I'm not quite sure why I want to tease miners the way I do, but maybe I can make up for being a dick. I return to the exit system, scan the gravimetric site that I previously ignored, and then locate the same Orc and two Hulks as before. I think they're pleased to see me, but as I don't speak German I'm not entirely sure. A newly arrived Fin thinks they are asking if I have no moral decency.

Aii translates with a bit more authenticity, but it doesn't really help with a conversation. However, copying the bookmark to the higher-grade rocks in the gravimetric site, labelling the canister to be 'rocks', and abandoning it so that anyone can loot the can without consequence hopefully sends the right message.

I don't think they're taking it, probably not trusting me, or caring about the can's contents, but at least I tried. And now, as the w-space constellation is ended, empty, and dull, I'm heading home. I was going to get an early night, but I may be tempted to stay a little while longer, particularly as Fin and Aii start to collapse the K162 in our home system.

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Tags: chimera, drake, eve online, hulk, hurricane, mmorpg, noctis, orca, penny ibramovic, rorqual, scanning, w-space

Busily inactive

Having passively killed off more Sleeper sites in the home systems makes the maths easier, so I am confident there is only one extra signature today. It's just new gas, and I resolve what thankfully turns out to be our static wormhole and jump to the neighbouring class 3 w-space system without any embarrassing mistakes. Two warp bubbles appear on my directional scanner from the K162, and nothing else. It's my fifth visit to the system, the last being a little over three months ago, and it looks like the tower has gone since then. I'm sure the static exit to low-sec remains, and hopefully there will be more to find, so I launch probes to take a look around.

Straightforward scanning resolves two wormholes, and as the first I warp to is the static connection I exit to low-sec to bookmark the wormhole leading from empire space. Returning to C3a and warping across the system has me land next to a potentially interesting T405 connection to class 4 w-space. I won't know how interesting if I don't jump through it, but that's why I'm here, so in I go. A Vengeance is visible on d-scan, which I unsurprisingly find to be at the tower also in range. The assault ship is piloted, but I don't expect him to be doing anything by himself in that ship in a class 4 w-space system. That's okay, as warping around finds three more towers and a whole bunch of ships.

Three strategic cruisers, a Rorqual capital industrial ship, Pilgrim recon ship, Drake battlecruiser, Anathema covert operations boat, Hulk exhumer, and Orca industrial command ship are scattered about the towers, which all look like offering some potential. The Orca, Pilgrim, and Drake are piloted at the second tower; two Proteuses, a Tengu, and the Hulk, Anathema, and Rorqual are piloted at the third; and the fourth looks empty until a Loki strategic cruiser warps in to it. There are plenty of pilots, but little activity. Or, at least, little activity outside of the towers.

Ships are swapped here and there, with a second Drake and second Anathema appearing on d-scan, but no movement that I can detect. It's quite hard to tell with four towers spread out around the system, with only a maximum of three remaining in d-scan range at any one point in space. The Rorqual goes, a Hurricane battlecruiser appears, along with a Buzzard cov-ops and second Orca, followed by a Drake leaving. It seems every time I update d-scan there is a new ship appeared or missing, and as much as I want to keep track it is difficult to record the changes at the same time. I'd be better off finding if anything is actually happening.

A Vigilant cruiser, Pilgrim, and Rapier recon ship all seem to be out of a tower now and sitting in empty space. Those don't seem to be ships to take to Sleepers, at least not in anomalies, which puts them in a mining site or, more likely, on a wormhole. An Orca joining them makes me think it must be a wormhole, and perhaps one they are collapsing. A Buzzard on d-scan with newly visible scanning probes looks rogue, judging by its ship name, and it could be that the locals have taken exception to his appearance and are killing his route home. That's worth investigating, so I warp to a safe spot out of range of all the towers and launch my own probes, clustering them around where the ships were.

Three scans to get a result from the information I had is a little clumsy, and although a signature appears initially the final scan returns only ships. I get a solid hit on one of the ships at least, but it seems immaterial now that the wormhole looks to have been collapsed. That's pretty efficient. I take advantage of having my probes launched to perform a blanket scan to see there are only five signatures in the system, but I've been in systems before where the locals aggressively collapse wormholes used by unwanted visitors and I'd rather not get in to yet another scanning race. I recall my probes, turn my ship around, and head back to C3a.

Somewhat surprisingly, there are no ships on the K162 back to C3a, nor any in C3a itself. It's possible the C4 locals were merely collapsing their own static connection and weren't actively looking for intruders. Holding on the wormhole for a few minutes and still seeing no activity suggests the same explanation, but I still see little reason in heading back to find a static connection that leads from a busily inactive system. Instead, I exit to low-sec and scan, but the single extra signature in the system is just rocks. It looks like that's the end of tonight's exploration. Locating and stalking the four towers in C4a took its time.

Before I head home I see if I can pop a quick rat in the low-sec system. The number of pilots in the system has dropped to one, and d-scan looks clear, so I think I can get away with it. All I find to start with are frigates, but I get bolder and keep looking, moving up to a couple of cruisers until finally stumbling in to a rat battleship. I doubt my efforts will be enough to clear my negative security status, though, but each small gain will push me in the right direction. And with that done, I can head home and get some rest.

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Tags: anathema, buzzard, drake, eve online, hulk, hurricane, loki, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, pilgrim, proteus, rapier, rorqual, scanning, tengu, vengeance, vigilant, w-space

Scanning through w-space

What can I find for my entertainment today? Nothing in the home system except the static wormhole, but maybe there are pilots to find in, um, hmm. I'm pretty sure this K162 to class 2 w-space is not our static wormhole. Never mind, I apparently have managed to miscount the number of signatures in the home system, a whopping six of them, and as I've recalled my probes and would poke through the K162 first anyway I will continue as if nothing happened.

A tower and no ships are visible on my directional scanner in C2a, and the system is pretty bare with only five moons spread around the eight planets. And it's small too. It all looks rather dull. But I would be remiss if I didn't have a look around, so I launch probes and scan the four anomalies and five signatures. One ladar site, one radar site, and two wormholes looks like a positive result, until I see that the static exit to high-sec empire space is joined only by a K162 also from high-sec. That's not exciting.

I get the high-sec exit systems, one in Genesis that is far from anything and the other in Tash-Murkon that's close to Amarr, and return home to find our static connection properly this time. I resolve the wormhole and jump to C3a, which has nothing but celestial objects on d-scan. There was a tower in the system six weeks ago, which should be around a planet out of d-scan range, but seeing that it is the only planet out of range lowers my hopes that anyone will be active. Sure enough, warping across the system a tower appear on d-scan but no ships. I'm not even impressed that the tower has drifted to a different moon.

Blanket scanning C3a reveals four anomalies and five signatures, which resolve to be a ladar site, radar site, and two wormholes. What the hell, w-space? Have I got space dizzy and somehow jumped to C2a a second time by mistake? No, thankfully not, as the wormholes are the static exit to low-sec and a T405 outbound connection to class 4 w-space. Okay then, let's continue exploring. C4a has a tower, Orca industrial command ship, and Viator transport ship on d-scan from the K162, and another simple system comprising nine moons and eight planets has me soon floating outside a tower holding two empty ships.

More scanning resolves a single wormhole without caring about what the other sites are as I ignore them, and I am jumping through the static connection to more class 4 w-space. Another unpiloted Orca sits in another tower, and the eleven anomalies are accompanied by eight signatures that all look rather weak. There are certainly no K162 connections in the system, and the strength of the signatures makes me worried that I'm about to find the start of a chain of class 5 w-space. But before I give up and turn around without looking, I remember that a weak wormhole in class 4 w-space could also mean a static C2 connection.

Resolving weak signatures takes time, even getting them to 25% signal strength so they can be identified and ignored. But I find the wormhole, resolve it, and am almost giddy to see the lesser-spotted static connection to class 2 w-space. The giddiness doesn't last much beyond jumping in to see a tower with no ships on d-scan, although it's nice to revisit the system where I got my first strategic cruiser kill. But I'm heading back. Scanning has taken its time and empty systems don't offer much stimulation.

I travel back through C4b, C4a, and in to C3a, where I see probes on d-scan. It's activity, but it's too little too late. I can't be bothered to loiter by one of three wormholes to wave my slow-locking targeting systems ineffectively towards a covert operations boat. I fly past the tower in the system to see a Buzzard cov-ops piloted but inert, no doubt scanning, and telepathically tell him to get bent. I make it home as Shev turns up with good timing to relieve me, and after a last poke in to a still-inactive C2a I hide in the home system and go off-line. The w-space constellation is Shev's to roam at his leisure.

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

Brawling with battlecruisers

'The wormhole's dead', I tell Shev. Not that it really matters, I suppose, as scanning a system a minute after I collapsed a connection to a dead constellation is the same as scanning the system fresh. I don't think he's had his morning Quafe with added caffeine yet either, so I swap out of our shutter heavy interdictor and get back in to my covert Loki strategic cruiser and scan for the new wormhole myself. I killed the connection in the hopes of finding actual pilot ships, and jumping in to our new neighbouring class 3 w-space system makes me think I've found some. A Drake battlecruiser and Buzzard covert operations boat are on my directional scanner, and there isn't a tower in sight.

Unfortunately, there are no wrecks to accompany the Drake, and if the Buzzard is scanning and good at what he does the new K162 will be noticed and get the pilots alerted. But it's best to assume I remain covert until given good reason not to, so I move away from the wormhole and cloak, activating my passive system scanner as I do. Fourteen anomalies light up the system map ten seconds later, the Drake in none of them, but now d-scan is also showing me more battlecruisers. Two Drakes, a Myrmidon, Hurricane and Harbinger are all in the system, along with the Buzzard and a Noctis salvager. I still see no wrecks, though, and can't place the ships in a site. It seems likely that the ships have transited through their own connection in to this system, which would mean they are about to start engaging Sleepers. That's good for me, and bad for their Noctis.

I keep updating d-scan, narrowed down to roughly where the ships are in space, so that I can see when they move. It's possible they are waiting for their scout to complete a scan of the system, so I tell Shev and a newly arrived Fin to hold at home and hide, so that our system will appear empty if the scout takes a look. And now the fleet moves, with all but the Noctis warping to an anomaly. I think the salvager has cloaked, which is good to know but unimportant for my plans. I find the fleet easily enough and shadow it in the anomaly, getting myself in to a good position. I know it seems selfish to keep a Noctis kill to myself, but I fear jumping other ships in to the system will be spotted, particularly with the anomaly in range of our K162, and end up with no one getting a kill.

The fleet clears the anomaly easily enough, but not without warping some of the eight battlecruisers in and out of the site. I don't think they are randomly taking breathers either, and it looks very much like the ships are needing to give their tanks a break from Sleeper attention. It is tempting us to engage the weaker ships directly, instead of the undefended Noctis, but it remains eight of them to three of us and we can't be certain that the ships will scatter when engaged to make it unfair in our favour. I'm still aiming for the Noctis. No Sleepers remain and the fleet warps to a second anomaly, one more easily found than the first given that I watch the exit vector of the ships, but I remain and wait for the salvager. And I continue to wait for the salvager as the fleet rips more Sleepers to shreds.

Shev and Fin are ready to either pounce on a scout entering the home system or to join me in catching the Noctis's pod, but I don't think either are showing themselves yet. I move on from the cleared anomaly back to shadowing the fleet, making a monitoring point in the second anomaly. I can watch for the Noctis using d-scan and move to where the salvager is within seconds. Some of the battlecruisers are having the same troubles with their tanks as in the first site, so I call up information on the pilots. Some are veterans, at least several years as capsuleers, but others are new pilots, with maybe only a couple of month's experience of being in space. It looks to be a half-half split, although I've lagged behind the fleet enough that they warp out before I can interrogate two of the ships. Either way, there are some potentially very weak ships being flown.

The fleet moves to a third anomaly, and still the salvager doesn't show itself. We change our operation and aim to take down what ships we can of the fleet, whilst also stalking the salvager. And luck is on our side, as the fleet has moved to an anomaly out of d-scan range of the K162, letting Fin jump in with our cloaky Legion strategic cruiser, getting ready to pounce on the fleet as I return to watch for the Noctis. Shev has found himself a sturdy but cheap battlecruiser in our hangar, a ship we're not going to miss if we lose it, and will join Fin in her assault. When the Noctis appears we will strike simultaneously, inflicting as much damage and disruption as possible.

It really doesn't look like the salvager is coming out to play by himself, and attacking targets that can shoot back is rather more stimulating. I tell Fin I'm coming back to the third site, and we prepare to launch our assault at the fleet. I've already identified which ships look weak, and when I return to join Fin's cloaked Legion she asks me to 'pick a point and warp us in'. Okay, the Harbinger is our primary target. I warp us to within twenty kilometres, and we decloak our strategic cruisers in the middle of the fighting fleet, focussing our fire on the one battlecruiser as we call Shev to jump in to the system.

I get a positive lock on the Harbinger and disrupt his warp drive, burning to get close so that he doesn't escape. My autocannons rip through his shields a bit too easily, and rake the battlecruisers armour almost like it's not there. And soon after we start our assault the rest of the fleet have scattered like petals in the wind, leaving just us and the hapless Harbinger. So weak are the battlecruiser's defences that it explodes as Shev's ship warps in to the site, and makes me think that Fin and I should have chosen separate targets. We could probably have captured and popped two of the weak ships. Shev takes advantage of his late appearance to loot the wreck of the Harbinger, as Fin asks if I can get free. Yeah, no problem, the remaining Sleeper battleship has me webbed but isn't stopping me warping.

I get out of the site and start looking for where the fleet went. They have stayed in the C3 but aren't in the cleared sites or where I saw them originally. I think they've planted themselves on a wormhole where they think we've come from, but I can't know for sure without scanning. And as they know we're here it's probably safe to scan. I even get a quicker result as I have a bunch of ships for my probes to lock on to, and warp to see the fleet sitting on a K162 from high-sec empire space. So do they think we came from that direction? Either way, it makes little sense to sit on that wormhole waiting for us.

I move my probes to where I saw the fleet when I entered the system but find no wormhole, nor any particular site. If I had to guess, I'd say that they were using an already cleared and salvaged site as an impromptu safe spot. But as they are sat on a wormhole from high-sec, and there isn't another system to find, it looks like the fight is over. It was good fun and exciting, despite how easily we overcame the single battlecruiser, as you can never really know how a fleet will react. And I have to give credit to my colleagues, and Mick in particular, for spurring me on to engaging the fleet itself instead of yet another Noctis. Watching the ships' behaviour and getting information on the pilots was crucial for understanding the engagement and target selection.

But the fun's not over yet. The fleet may have an easy exit on the high-sec wormhole, but Fin realises it gives us an easy exit too. She takes Shev home, gets him in a Phobos HIC and her in a Golem marauder, and returns to the C3 to drop on the battlecruisers on the connection. 'They should jump out, right? How often do we get to throw billions of ISK at targets?' This is why she's our glorious leader. I've wasted a bit of time scanning and haven't given this much thought, which is why I am still in my Loki and not a torpedo-throwing Widow black ops ship, but I warp behind my colleagues as they land on the wormhole, bubble it to prevent the ships warping out, and start shooting.

It looks like mayhem, but one-sided mayhem. The battlecruiser fleet doesn't exit immediately and fires back, but the power of the Golem is overwhelming and one-by-one the ships of the fleet exit to high-sec to escape death. They all get out cleanly too, although the Myrmidon had a little more confidence in his tank than was warranted. If I hadn't been tardy in following we may have got another kill, although it may also have prompted the fleet in to leaving sooner. It's hard to tell. But they've gone, so I go home and swap to a destroyer to salvage the sites the old-school way. After all, there's no point in letting the wrecks in the cleared anomalies go to waste.

As I return to C3a to start salvaging the fleet's Noctis drops out of warp at the wormhole and jumps to high-sec, sadly after Shev has deflated his warp bubble. That's a shame, but doesn't dampen our spirits. I salvage the first two sites and wonder if the third is clear. No, not yet, but Fin's in our Sleeper-smashing Golem and takes it in to the anomaly to see first-hand what the marauder can do to battleships. She's is suitably impressed. It is quite a ship. And with the final Sleeper destroyed I take my destroyer in to sweep up, bringing home more loot and salvage.

We also realise that the corporation we engaged is a training corporation, which explains the mix of old and new pilots. 'We gave them a valuable training experience', says Fin, wondering if we should send them a bill for our efforts. We probably should, just for kicks, but with 120 Miskies gained from their efforts already ('the easiest three anomalies I've done', says Fin), the Harbinger kill, and a brawl on a wormhole, the evening hasn't left us wanting.

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Tags: buzzard, drake, eve online, golem, harbinger, hurricane, legion, loki, mmorpg, myrmidon, noctis, penny ibramovic, phobos, pvp, scanning, w-space

Nothing to see here

The culling of the indigenous Sleeper population trudges on, alongside the continued the growth of the indigenous Sleeper population. One of us should perhaps take the hint. Despite the handful of signatures dotted around the home w-space system I am still left with only the static wormhole for me to explore beyond, so I resolve the connection and jump through to our neighbouring class 3 system. C3a looks bleak from our K162, with only a moonless planet within range of my directional scanner. The system map shows I'll have to spread my attention far and wide too, as the system is over 120 AU across.

My notes on this system from my last visit may not help with my exploration, as they are fifteen months old. Even so, they remind me of the day Mick and I helped protect Fin's Orca from a Proteus, as we successfully pod the strategic cruiser to get the industrial command ship home. But rather than reminiscing I can look for current activity, so launch probes, spread them thinly, and perform a blanket scan of the system. Ten anomalies and twelves signatures can wait for now, as I change my filter to also show structures. What I see doesn't point towards the tower listed in my notes, and I warp towards where a tower now looks to be, which could save me a couple of minutes warping.

Locating the tower is straightforward enough once I know which planet it's around. I naturally find it empty as my combat probes detected no ships, and I settle down to sift through the signatures. I hop my probes from planet to planet to see 3 radar sites, a wormhole, two gravimetric sites, two magnetometric sites, a ladar site, a lovely second wormhole, and a final gravimetric site to have worked through all the signatures. I recall my probes as I warp to the first wormhole, which is a static exit to low-sec and reaching the end of its life. I poke out to appear in Domain, bookmark the other end of the wormhole for reference, and return to C3a. The second wormhole is splendid indeed, being a fresh N968 connection to more class 3 w-space. I can continue roaming.

A tower and no ships on d-scan from the K162 is fairly standard result, but a lack of anomalies in range from a passive scan is uncommon. A lack of sites doesn't bode well for finding activity, but maybe C3b can bridge me to a better system. I launch probes and scan, to realise that finding a better system here is unlikely. A scant two signatures are all my probes return, which must be the K162 I came through and the static wormhole. It looks like I'll be relying on low-sec to provide opportunity now, as I'm not expecting any locals to come on-line to an entirely bare system. I resolve the other wormhole and jump out to more low-sec space, this time in the Sinq Laison region. I'm not by myself, as it looks like a Legion is ratting, but I ignore the strategic cruiser and scan for wormholes.

This low-sec system is almost as clean as the C3 I exited, with a paltry one extra signature that resolves to be some dumb drones. It's all a bit quiet tonight. Even so, the lack of exploration means the evening is still early, so rather than head home and hide I think I'll collapse our static wormhole to give me a fresh start. At the very least I'll get to scan one more system, for kicks and giggles, but I'll be optimistic and hope to find some activity. First, I need to get rid of the wormhole and end up on the right side once its gone.

I get home and start pushing an Orca through our static connection, stressing the mass limit of the wormhole, pausing only for polarisation effects to dissipate and to make a return trip in a Widow black ops ship. I would say the process goes smoothly but my final trip in the Orca gets home with the wormhole obstinately refusing to die. I need to convince the wormhole it's no longer needed with a connection-collapsing heavy interdictor. I activate the HIC's bubbles to exit lighter than a pod and return home burning an oversized propulsion module to significantly increase my mass, at which point the wormhole gives up and implodes. And hopefully that's the last sucking noise I'll create tonight.

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

Activate all sites

The Sleepers are out of control. It doesn't seem so long ago that we had an entirely clean system, thanks to our passive activation of mining sites and the occasional fleet stealing our anomalies. Now the sites are returning more quickly than we can kill them. Today sees even more gas and rocks appear in the home w-space system, although the mining sites account for the two extra signatures that need to be accounted for, leaving me with just our static wormhole to explore beyond to look for adventure.

A Proteus strategic cruiser and Abaddon battleship could offer some adventure, as could an Orca industrial command ship and Covetor mining barge. But even though all the ships appear on my directional scanner from the K162 in our neighbouring class 3 system the combat ships are not accompanied by Sleeper wrecks, and neither are there jet-cans to indicate a mining operation in progress. In fact, I suspect the ships are all going to be found at the tower also on d-scan, particularly as opening the system map shows the system to be vast in size, with only the one planet within range.

In a way, it's rather bad luck for a wormhole to spawn within range of the planet holding the tower in a system with a 90 AU radius. Rather than being able to sneak through the wormhole without anyone having much chance of seeing you, each transition has a chance of your ship blipping in someone's d-scan. Then again, if the action is all occurring in distant anomalies, it won't really matter where the wormhole is, and the odds of the ships being piloted at the tower are, well, variable I suppose. Some corporations leave ships scattered around, others tidy them all away. This corporation is a bit of both, as the Proteus is piloted but the others aren't.

So I may have been spotted entering the system, but I suspect not. And one benefit of such a big system is that scanning isn't hampered by the possibility of someone seeing probes. Warping out to launch probes and blanketing the system, as best I can, shows there to be no other obvious ships but those at the tower, which lets me whizz my probes around this C3 without the Proteus pilot being aware I'm scanning. I bookmark the thirty-one anomalies and resolve all fifteen signatures in the hopes that the pilot becomes active, giving me perfect ambush opportunities. I scan ladar sites, radar sites, I watch as the Proteus goes off-line, and I'm left scanning more ladar and radar sites for no real purpose.

I suppose it's no surprise that the Proteus pilot wasn't going to do anything, not with so many sites left unused in the system. As I've taken the time to resolve all the sites in this system I do the locals a favour and activate them all, with Aii's help, because there are quite a few. It dries up my capacitor quickly, but within a few days this system will be close to deserted of Sleeper presence, making sitting inactive in the tower feel much less wasteful than it must do now. I don't leave my contact details, as I don't do this for the thanks. It's just what I do. Mostly out of spite.

Having activated all the sites in C3a, I exit through its sole connection to low-sec empire space. Hello, Aridia, my old friend. It's been a while, but it seems you're as dreary as always. Other pilots inexplicably in the system stop me ratting, and scanning only resolves rocks, more rocks, Blood Raiders, and a ladar site. It's all rather disappointing, much like returning to w-space to see no change in the dull class 3 system. I don't think I really mind, though, as I feel like crap anyway. Having little to do gives me a good excuse to head home, hide, and go off-line for a lie down.

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Tags: abaddon, covetor, eve online, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, proteus, scanning, w-space

When bait goes bad

Aii likes the look of the Navy Scorpion. Of course, I tell him about how I engaged the same pilot flying a Navy Raven in the same w-space anomaly not five minutes ago, had to bail out, and that this second battleship is probably bait, but that just makes the encounter more interesting. The bait battleship is probably expecting just me to come back for a second attempt, but Aii is getting a fat and powerful Dominix ready and out to low-sec empire space, connecting to the class 3 w-space system where I'm watching our target. I can tackle the Scorpion with my covert Loki strategic cruiser and Aii can bring the damage. But not quite yet.

I failed in my assault of the Navy Raven because of the Sleepers. A couple of Sleeper battleships in the wave of drones not only piled on the damage to my ship but also sucked my capacitor dry, forcing me to disengage from the Raven when it was taking structure damage. I'd rather not face that onslaught again, and particularly not when facing bait, so I tell Aii to make a safe spot in low-sec and wait for the Scorpion to whittle down the Sleepers a little first. Once the bulk of the Sleeper ships are destroyed I can warp in, tackle the Scorpion, and have Aii warp to me. It's a good plan, right up until an Onyx warps in to the anomaly, on top of the Navy Scorpion, and inflates its warp bubble. I'm pretty sure that's not me in the HIC.

Following behind the heavy interdictor are three Hurricane battlecruisers, a Talos battlecruiser, and a Navy Armageddon battleship. A small and potent fleet like that doesn't worry too much about the Sleepers, nor the Navy Scorpion, and trapped in the bubble their target has nowhere to go. The combined firepower makes short work of the Scorpion and its pod, thanks to the Onyx's warp bubble, and I'm soon left staring at a wreck and corpse left behind by a departing fleet.

On the one hand, I'm a little disappointed that we don't get the Navy Scorpion kill. On the other hand, I'm relieved that I didn't push to engage as soon as Aii was ready, or we'd have been caught in the same bubble by the same fleet, and most likely ended up in new clones like the Scorpion pilot. And just as I'm contemplating all of this, still cloaked at my monitoring point, a new contact in a Cheetah appears in the anomaly. The covert operations boat doesn't seem so covert right now, and the Sleepers are interested in the new ship. So interested that they poke the Cheetah with guns and launchers, exploding it pretty quickly. What I find more amusing is that the pilot is a regular in our corporation's public channel.

That's got to be embarrassing, and more so for being spotted by a third party. After some communication silence, perhaps for intelligence reasons, or maybe because he was too involved in the operation to notice my mocking insults, Tarunik responds. Yes, he got a bit too close to the Sleepers and they decloaked his ship, but it was a small price to pay for getting the drop on their target. He isn't terribly surprised to see that the Navy Scorpion was bait-fit, and is just happy to see a two-and-a-half billion ISK faction-fit battleship with two warp core stabilisers fall to their fleet. Personally, I'm tickled that someone else took bait meant for me, and that they smeared it across the anomaly so easily.

The fleet's Onyx warps in to recover whatever modules of value survived the Cheetah's exploding, and Tarunik's pod and the Onyx exit the site and the system. I saw the way the rest of the fleet left too, and I expect to find a new wormhole in that general direction. That is, if I scan for it, but that seems a bit dangerous. Then again, scanning itself isn't dangerous, only following through a wormhole I know contains a hostile fleet that is also known to be specifically hostile to our own alliance. Scanning by itself will be fine. I launch probes and blanket the system, surprised to see only two signatures in the whole of the C3, if only because I saw a companion of the Navy Scorpion pilot launch his own probes earlier, which I assumed to be an early warning for a second assault.

Surely that scout saw the new wormhole open in to the system, as the single signature doubling to be two would be obvious to even the newest of scanners. What's even more bamboozling is that, when resolved, the wormhole turns out to be a K162 from class 3 w-space that is at the end of its natural life. This is not a new wormhole at all but has been here for at least twelve hours. And yet the pilots were happy to send expensive faction battleships in to a basic anomaly, found without scanning probes, without posting guards or attempting to isolate themselves. I won't say they deserved to lose one of their ships, but they certainly are remarkably casual about w-space life. And kudos to KAIRS for diving through a dying wormhole and popping that bait Navy Scorpion. Someone needed to do it.

Excitement over, Aii goes back to mining in the home system and I return to exploring. There is an outbound connection in the low-sec system that I didn't bother to scan, what with finding the Navy Raven and then Navy Scorpion. Maybe now I can find more targets, although that would depend on finding more wormholes. C3b is empty and unoccupied, so all I'm really expecting to do is resolve its exit to null-sec and rat a bit. But the first wormhole I find doesn't feel nullish, and indeed the T405 leads to class 4 w-space, which will itself lead to more w-space. The prospect of an extended w-space constellation to roam through gets Aii back from mining, and a newly arrived Fin to come along to help scan too.

It all looks promising enough. Curiously unoccupied class 4 w-space leads through an X844 to more class 4 w-space, which is only curiously unoccupied until the constellation takes an unexpected turn through a U574 wormhole to deadly class 6 w-space. Even so, the particular C6 the wormhole leads to is also unoccupied, and scanning finds a static connection to class 5 w-space. And although the C5 is occupied it is currently inactive, and as much as I enjoy scanning I'm not thrilled to face a chain of C5 w-sapce this late in the evening, and definitely not with so many empty systems already behind us. I've had my fun this evening, so turn my boat around and head home.

Posted in Gaming | 11 Comments »
Tags: armageddon, cheetah, dominix, eve online, hurricane, loki, mmorpg, onyx, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, scorpion, talos, w-space

Chastening a Navy Raven

All looks quiet at home. One new signature turns out to be a rock site, which I activate before heading through our static wormhole to roam. The neighbouring class 3 w-space system has gone through some changes since my last visit five months ago, as three of the four towers I have noted should be in range of my directional scanner and I'm seeing none. There remains occupation, though, with two towers on a far planet, but with no ships visible I am left to scan for adventure.

Two wormholes in the system sounds promising but the K162 from null-sec that's at the end of its life is a lacklustre addition to the static exit to low-sec empire space. Jumping to low-sec puts me alone in a system in the Essence region, so I launch probes before warping around the rock fields to scan and rat. Two anomalies, four extra signatures, and one rat battleship. It's all looking good, particularly as I resolve two wormholes, except the rat bastard warps away after I dispose of his frigate companions. That's just not cricket. But I lose interest in ratting when the first wormhole turns out to be an outbound connection to more class 3 w-space.

Jumping in to C3b is unengaging, with a clear d-scan, but with only one planet in range it could be considered a lucky position for the wormhole to appear. Or it would be, if the system weren't unoccupied and inactive. A blanket scan of the system reveals thirteen anomalies and fifteen signatures, and as I have a second wormhole to investigate back in low-sec I decide to leave wading through these signatures for now. I jump to low-sec and warp across the system to be next to another wormhole from class 3 w-space, this one a K162. I jump in to see if it is any more active.

C3c looks as quiet as the others, with a tower and a lack of ships within d-scan range. The tower's been moved one moon across since two months ago, which is a lot of effort for a change of scenery, but a second tower reveals itself when I explore the rest of the system. A second tower and a ship, which gets more exciting when it seems the Navy Raven isn't at the tower. Even better, the expensive battleship is in one of the two easily found anomalies in the system, letting me find it without having to launch scanning probes.

I recognise the pilot as one I saw in low-sec whilst I scanned. I'm surprised that a w-spacer would attempt basic anomalies in an expensive ship after having seen scanning probes one system across, but it's possible my probes were elsewhere at the time. The temptation to engage the Navy Raven is strong, and made stronger by the battleship sitting stationary on the anomaly's cosmic signature, making it trivial to warp to. The only question now is whether I dare.

I turn my covert Loki around and take myself across C3c, out to and across low-sec, through C3a, and to our tower as quickly as I can. I swap one strategic cruiser for another, boarding Jeff K's Third Prophecy, our ship-killing Legion, before returning to the wormhole in low-sec leading to C3c. Apparently I have more questions rattling around in my head than simply if I dare to engage. Do I have the firepower to overcome the Navy Raven? Is this a bait ship? Will I be quick enough to catch it still in the same anomaly? I decide that the only way to find out is to continue. I jump in to C3c and warp to where I last saw the battleship.

A tight beam on d-scan shows me the Raven still in the anomaly, but not where in the anomaly. Perhaps more importantly, it doesn't show me what Sleepers are now in the site, but hopefully most of them will continue to shoot the Navy Raven. I drop out of warp almost on top of my target, and in the middle of a full wave of Sleepers that includes two battleships. There's not much I can do about that, so I focus on the task in hand. I target the Navy Raven as I approach and settle in to a basic orbit, getting my capacitor neutralisers working alongside the warp disruptor and missile launchers.

I don't know much about the Navy Raven, but I suspect the battleship has a fairly hefty capacitor. I overheat my high rack immediately, getting my neuts sucking as hard as they can, as well as my launchers spewing missiles. And it's all looking remarkably positive. I thought I'd struggle to punch through the shields, and indeed the Sleepers had barely tickled them, but already the Raven is bleeding in to armour, and the armour is dropping quickly. The only problem is that so is mine. It seems the Sleepers were quick to switch targets and are concentrating on my Legion over the Navy Raven. But I remain optimistic that I will still pop the Raven before my moderate buffer runs out.

The Raven's armour dives, much as I expect of most Caldari ships, and it starts to take structural damage. This is looking to be my most rewarding kill for a long time, until I am warned that my capacitor is dry. That's alarming, as is the structure alarm. It seems the Sleepers are not only shooting me but applying their electronic warfare to my Legion too. I am webbed and neuted, slowing me down to take more damage from their and the Raven's weapons, and the neuts are destroying my ability to tame the Navy Raven. I align out of the site, as my structure gets close to half-integrity, and hold for as long as I can. But as my capacitor dries up my neuts stop cycling, and even though the Navy Raven is taking structure damage too I see that he has started boosting his shields again. I have to bail out.

I push my ship in to warp—almost literally needing to get out and push because of my ship's dry capacitor—and manage to exit the site, even if I barely make it a couple of AU from the anomaly and the still-intact Navy Raven. That was so close, and both lucky and unlucky. I managed to get the jump on an expensive battleship being careless, but at just about the worst time possible for the number of Sleepers present. I think I did just about everything right, it's just that the onslaught of the Sleepers was too much for my one ship to bear. Dropping out of warp with some recharged juice in my capacitor I head directly to the wormhole to leave the system, a little disappointed by not killing the Navy Raven but happy to have no doubt scared the crap out of its pilot.

I limp Jeff K's Third Prophecy home, not crossing paths with another ship, repair the armour damage completely, but leave the structure scarred until I can get more than one small hull repper at our tower. I get back in my covert Loki and return to C3c, curious to see what the Navy Raven pilot gets up to next. Astonishingly, she is back in the anomaly, still in an expensive ship, but this time with a Navy Scorpion battleship. I also notice a Cheetah covert operations boat briefly on d-scan, plus its scanning probes, perhaps looking for my return but a bit late to do so. The Navy Scorpion must be bait and hoping I'll attack again, but I'm not going to go up against him alone a second time. Which is why I'm pleased to see Aii come on-line.

Posted in Gaming | 8 Comments »
Tags: cheetah, eve online, legion, loki, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, raven, scanning, scorpion, w-space

Music of 2012, part one

What the hell, 2012? It's August already and I haven't yet pushed out a first review of new music I'm listening to. Let's remedy that, better late than never, with the first batch of albums that have been added to my collection. Hopefully I can get the second and third instalments out in better time.

An opening track nine minutes long is an ambitious start to Illuminated People by Islet, and a pretty good one. It is too long, though, by ninety seconds and a couple of refrains too many, but until then it works well as a song and as an introduction to the album. Folky, quirky, and catchy, the album progresses steadily and surely, and without faltering after that extended initial outro. There aren't really any outstanding tracks, but neither in a positive or negative way. I don't even mind the simultaneous male/female vocals in What We Done Wrong, which generally frustrates me by masking the better voice, because in this case it works well and is a good choice. Illuminated People is a competent and worthy addition of interesting folk-pop songs to my collection.

Aabenbaringen Over Aaskammen from Casiokids starts off slowly with a laid back opening track, but changes gear straight away for Det Haster!, which bops along with a vibrato synthesiser that is reminiscent of Little Dragon. The perkiness continues throughout the album, with a solid electronica groove. The synths can occasionally sound rather basic and unsophisticated, like with the hook of Golden Years, but a lack of sophistication can have a charm of its own, as well as making the music easier to enjoy more quickly. Aabenbaringen Over Aaskammen is an enjoyable if unremarkable album of nice electronic pop music.

I am pulled in to Django Django thanks to their single Default, which bounces along with an infectious beat, and has a wonderful choppiness to it. After an Introduction, the eponymous album starts with similar-styled track Hail Bop, familiarising themselves to the bounce and beat before jumping to the single. And then everything calms down a bit. The same vocals lilt and harmonise over the music in much the same way as in the early songs, and the music itself is somewhat perky and melodic, with echoes of the bounce, but it doesn't have quite the same punch. Waveforms carries the feeling nicely, but then we are dropped in to territory more quirky than catchy. The album picks up again with WOR, otherwise it seems to plod along. Django Django is a decent enough album and pleasant to listen to all the way through, but it doesn't sustain any particular level of interest in me for long.

I felt a little guilty getting an AAA pass to see The Duke Spirit on their recent tour for album Bruiser, but only a little. Even so, I handed over my money at the merchandise counter and dutifully picked up a CD, recalling that I had curious reservations about getting previous album Neptune too, but ending up enjoying it immensely. I'm not sure I can quite say the same about Bruiser, though. At least, not yet. Unlike Neptune, which grabbed me immediately and didn't let go, this album seems fairly anonymous. It certainly sounds like The Duke Spirit in places but without their, uh, spirit, as it were. Bruiser is a pretty good album, and continues to steadily grow on me, but it isn't The Duke Spirit at their best.

I'm not quite sure why Leave Home by The Men takes so long to get going, because when it does it roars in to life and doesn't stop. And I don't mean that there is a song or two of filler before you get to the meat of the album, but that there is a good two minutes of nothing followed by another minute's intro to the first song. It doesn't really seem to serve much purpose either, just generally confusing me by obscuring the raw nature of the music to come. But it's okay, because the distorted bass, jangly guitar, and driving chorus completely makes up for it. Maybe it's the band taking a breath, steeling themselves for what's to come. And it just ramps up from there, Lotus increasing the tempo as the lo-fi nature of the recording gives it a solid feel of being in the same room as the band, whilst third track Think adds in vocals that are simultaneously shouted and drowned by sound. A curiously low-key start leads in to a wonderfully lo-fi album.

I don't think you can expect much more from a band called Bleeding Knees Club than chirpy, unfettered pop music, and that's pretty much what Nothing to Do delivers. Even some moments of brief introspection in Beach Slut cannot hold back the perky rhythms and banging tambourines for long. There's some retro pop mixed in with the more contemporary styles, but again, even though the album as a whole is competent, I find myself drifting off by the end. Nothing to Do is a happy, energetic album, if not particularly noteworthy overall.

Posted in Audio | Comments Off on Music of 2012, part one
Tags: bleeding knees club, casiokids, cd, django django, islet, the duke spirit, the men

Hopping through half-mass holes

Aii's been busy. Three gas sites have been sucked up in to his ships and presumably dumped in to storage at our tower. I doubt I'll be so busy this evening, being somewhat in pain, but after my recent ransacking of towers in low-sec empire space I feel I should at least check to see how our own tower is doing for fuel. I may enjoy the irony of mocking other people for running out of pellets without making sure we're stocked up, but the reality of losing so much stored capital would sting a little.

Before swinging past the tower I launch probes and scan. A second wormhole joins our static connection, but my directional scanner shows our force field to be currently active. Whoever links to our system hasn't had a chance to smash and grab what they can of ours, at least not yet. And as the home system appears empty of ships I reveal my cloaky Loki to make a rare appearance at our tower with my strategic cruiser, and open the tower's fuel bay. It looks like I have someone watching over me, as the fuel bay is nearly full. That gives us over a month before having to worry about throwing more pellets in to the bay, so I forget about it again and go to see where the second wormhole comes from.

The second wormhole is a K162 from class 6 w-space, sitting at half-mass, making it both deadly and interesting. I poke through to take a look, seeing some unexceptional ships on d-scan along with a tower. My notes for this system are already out of date, as the system was unoccupied ten weeks ago, but it is a simple matter to locate the tower. All of the ships are inside the tower's force field, but none of them are piloted. It could just be a sign that whatever has happened did so some time ago, but I launch probes to scan anyway, wondering if the source of activity is further backwards.

Seven signatures provide me with another wormhole, this one a K162 from class 5 w-space, also sitting at half-mass. Whatever's been moving around has been pretty massive, or there has been plenty of it. Jumping in to C5a potentially finds that mass, as a planet out of d-scan range of the wormhole holds a bunch of ships. An Archon carrier sits piloted along with a Damnation command ship, Noctis salvager, Anathema covert operations boat, and pod, as well as the same number of empty ships. Nothing's happening, though, probably because all the action occurred earlier.

I leave the C5 and C6 behind me and head towards our neighbouring class 3 system, through a static wormhole that is fit and healthy. Maybe the Archon can't squeeze through our static connection, failing to stress it like the others, but I'm not sure why the carrier would come this far if it couldn't go further, as it doesn't look like our anomalies have been pillaged. Maybe he came to suck our gas, and it wasn't all Aii after all. Whatever, I jump to C3a to see what more I can find, hopefully including some activity.

A standard class 3 w-space system is a little disappointing, with a tower and no ships visible on d-scan. A quick look for more wormholes really is a quick look, with only two anomalies and four signatures to resolve, and I find a K162 from class 4 w-space to go with the static exit to low-sec. That's got to be worth a look, although there turns out not to be too much to find, just a couple of towers and no ships. That's it for me. I could scan the C4 to look for another K162, but I could use a lie down. I'm heading home.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Hopping through half-mass holes
Tags: anathema, archon, damnation, eve online, loki, mmorpg, noctis, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space