Nothing but a single Sleeper wreck

Will exploration today give me a meandering map or compact constellation? I get my covert Tengu strategic cruiser on-line earlier than usual to find out. An extra signature at home turns out to be just gas, so I resolve our static wormhole and jump to the neighbouring class 3 w-space system. My directional scanner looks entirely clear when I enter the system, and only shows me anything when I fiddle with its settings and two off-line towers and their associated defences appear. I launch probes and blanket the system, the fourteen signatures and twenty anomalies making this C3 certainly look unoccupied.

Warping around finds no active towers to replace those now off-line. My notes put me in this system three weeks ago, which let me now I'm looking for a static exit to null-sec k-space, and would perhaps explain the turnover in occupation. I'm more interested in finding any other wormholes, even though the prevalence of anomalies would make this a great system to shoot Sleepers and strip them of iskies. I won't tackle the indigenous drones by myself, though, so finding no wormholes but the static connection leaves me little option but to head out to null-sec and continue scanning.

In fact, I'll indulge myself in scanning with a touch of ratting, as I find myself in a system in the Venal region with no other pilots around. Three extra signatures sound promising, and although one resolves to a wormhole the N432 connection not only doesn't lead to w-space but also is reaching the end of its life and probably not worth risking. The other two are just stuffed with Guristas, and I won't visit as I don't think they'll be making me any specialty coffee. Before I head back the way I came, I check my atlas of the region to see I'm in a cul-de-sac, at the end of a chain of half-a-dozen null-sec systems. If this dead-end is empty, maybe the others are and I can scan and rat along the chain.

As with many of my plans, I'm pulled up short at the first step. I make one hop through a stargate to be confronted by a bunch of pilots. Thankfully not on the stargate itself, just in the system, so whereas I won't feel safe ratting I can still scan. Well, I can scan in as much as I can launch probes and move them around a bit, but a lack of signatures sends me scuttling back to the home w-space system. I would say it's a good time to collapse our static wormhole, so I swap to an Orca industrial command ship, wait for my polarisation effect to end, and start stressing the connection.

I'm more comfortable collapsing wormholes now, switching to a Widow black ops ship mid-way through the process to finesse the numbers a little. But it is only on the last scheduled pair of jumps when I realise quite what I'm doing. There is some risk involved with the possibility of being isolated from the home system, and perhaps having to navigate a couple of low-sec systems to get to the safety of high-sec empire space, but if this collapse goes wrong I'll be deep in null-sec with an expensive brick of a ship. It's probably best not to dwell on failure here.

The collapse goes to plan. I return to the home system through a critically unstable wormhole, crashing it as I do, and I am left warping away from empty space with a new static connection to find. I get back in my Tengu and do just that, resolving the wormhole and jumping to what is hopefully a more interesting class 3 system. And it certainly looks that way. There is a bubble on d-scan, with an adjustment bringing up a single Sleeper wreck too. I wonder what's happening. Or, I suppose, what has happened.

I activate my on-board scanner to ping all the anomalies, placing the wreck in one of them, before warping out to look for occupation at the one planet out of range. But there's no one here. The wreck abandoned in the anomaly is from the second wave of Sleepers too, and warping in to reconnoitre shows that the third wave appeared, so some time was spent here, not just testing shots. However curious the situation, I won't find anything by thinking about it, so I get my scanning probes to work. Eight signatures accompany the five anomalies, and I sift through them whilst keeping an eye on the wreck.

Apart from the static wormhole, which I know from a previous visit leads to high-sec space, there are no connections to find. It's just gas, which makes it a little perplexing as to how the wreck came to be here, as well as a little disappointing that I have no more w-space to explore. Even more disappointing, the static wormhole is reaching the end of its life, ending exploration for now. That's okay. I can go home, grab a sammich, and come back when there is a fresh connection to high-sec, at which point I can decide what I want to do with it.

Posted in Gaming | 4 Comments »
Tags: eve online, mmorpg, null-sec, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, tengu, w-space, widow

Decay but no death in w-space

What to do, what to do. I have scanned a fair-sized w-space constellation already, so I could roam around it in a stealth bomber, but our neighbouring system has a reinforced tower and customs office that still have a day left on their timers, the class 4 system behind that was quiet earlier, and behind that lies a string of unoccupied systems. I could scan further backwards, looking for the source of the chain of w-space, but with a chance of collapsed wormholes there's no guarantee I'll find it. My third option is to head out to empire space and scan for more w-space from there.

Or I could help with the tower siege my glorious leader's started, spurred on by our recent success in destroying a similar tower. This time there is only a Talos battlecruiser on display, but it's the disruption more than destruction that's on Fin's mind. The small, bare tower is likely the base of operations for the corporation involved with the hostile takeover of the C3, and it just seems funny to poke their own tower with a stick to see what happens. Three of our pilots are already shooting the tower, so I could probably help best by scouting for them. The C4 connecting in to C3a may have been quiet, but if that changes it's best to find out before being ambushed.

I take my Tengu strategic cruiser from the home system to C3a, and then to C4a, where a Purifier stealth bomber appears on my directional scanner. As I scouted this way earlier I know where the tower is, making it straightforward to confirm that the Purifier's there. The piloted ship sits stationary inside the tower's force field, and all looks safe for the continuing siege. I could hang around here and watch the Purifier, in case he decides bombing our trio of ships would be a bit of a laugh, but I'm feeling reckless. Shooting a tower is disruptive, but finding moving targets would be better, and I head back through C3a and out to high-sec space to scan for more wormholes.

One extra signature in the high-sec system in Devoid resolves to a Sansha Watch site, which is dull. Still, stargates are easy in high-sec, so I hop across to the next system and scan again, where four signatures wait to be found. More interestingly, two of the many pilots in the busy system are members of the corporation who own the tower Fin's currently shooting. One of them warps in to a rock field in a Hulk exhumer, so they're clearly not too concerned with what we're doing. Coincidentally, a Falcon recon ship blips on d-scan in C3a, which reminds me that I saw one earlier too, although I never found out where it came from. Exercising caution, Fin halts the tower siege and retreats homewards.

Two of the four signatures in the high-sec system resolve to be wormholes, both outbound connections, one to class 1 w-space and one to class 2 w-space. The other two are weak, and although they could be outbound connections themselves I think I'll stick with what I have for the moment, which is pretty decent already. As I tend to do, I pick the class 1 system to explore first, which ends up not taking long. A Talos and a tower are on d-scan, but there are no wrecks to suggest the battlecruiser is busy with Sleepers. I locate the tower to find the ship empty, so rather than scan for what is probably a connection back to empire space I return the way I came, stressing the wormhole to half-mass as I do. I'm clearly not the first capsuleer to find this connection.

I cross high-sec and enter C2a, where d-scan shows me two towers and a Tengu, but still no wrecks. At least the Tengu is piloted, when I find it at one of the towers, but there is nothing else happening in the system. I warp away to launch probes, returning to watch the Tengu as I perform a blanket scan, which reveals three anomalies and nine signatures. I'll assume a stationary strategic cruiser means a pilot who's not paying attention, and start sifting through the signatures. There's just the standard fare of magnetometric, gravimetric, ladar, and radar sites, and two static wormholes in this C2, where the wormholes lead to more class 2 w-space and exit to low-sec. I'll choose C2b, please.

A tower and no ships looks like a step backwards to being boring, but I find the tower quickly from it being in the same place as a few days ago. There's nothing notable about this system, although I may add 'need to de-clutter' in to my records. The twenty anomalies and fourteen signatures make this supposedly occupied system rather unkempt. Scanning comes easy to me, though, and I throw my probes here and there, ignoring rocks and gas, to resolve four wormholes. Phew, exploring could go on for a while longer! But the wormholes say otherwise. The static connection to class 3 w-space is reaching the end of its life, as is a K162 from class 4 w-space. A K162 from class 5 w-space may not be wobbly but it is shrunk to the size of a walnut, being critically unstable and on the verge of collapse.

The only healthy wormhole in this C2 is the second static connection, which only leads out to high-sec and does me no good. I suppose I'm going home. The Tengu remains motionless at the tower in C2a, and the K162 returning me to high-sec is now EOL, giving me a hint that I have come to this part of the constellation too late to catch any pilots unawares. Stargates stay easy, and C3 is quieter now that the tower's not being assaulted. Curiosity takes me back to C4a, where the same Purifier sits at the tower, and I can't help but want to look further back and actually find some trouble, but jumping in to and warping across C5a finds the wormhole to C5b EOL. I've done lots of scanning today, but it was all a bit too late. I head home with nothing to show for my efforts but an ephemeral set of connections mapped.

Posted in Gaming | 1 Comment »
Tags: eve online, falcon, hulk, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, purifier, scanning, talos, tengu, w-space

Backwards scanning

I'm out for an early reconnaissance of w-space, and maybe even a trip to empire space. But let's not get carried away too soon. Scanning the home system has some new gas drift in, but nothing else to find apart from the static wormhole. I often wonder if the signatures portend anything, and today's wormhole signature of QQZ maybe does. Jumping to our neighbouring class 3 system has a Talos battlecruiser, Falcon recon ship, and some drones be visible on my directional scanner, plus a tower, although the Falcon doesn't hang around for long. Refining d-scan shows me the Talos is in the tower, the drones are in an anomaly, and, well, it doesn't take d-scan to see that the locally owned customs offices have been assaulted and are in reinforced mode. I would say some QQz have been shed here recently.

The tower in range of d-scan is not the same tower that was here six weeks ago. Warping to the edge of the system finds that tower still here, but maybe not for long. It too is in reinforced mode, and it looks like the system is being contested. On the one hand, with the timer extending beyond a day, we'll probably miss any fireworks or opportunistic ambushes. On the other hand, this C3 will probably be rather quiet for the time we connect to it and relatively safe to travel through. I launch probes to scan, looking for a connection to a currently more active system. I think I can safely ignore the gravimetric site, as I doubt anyone will be mining here today, and focus on resolving the two wormholes I find.

One wormhole is the static exit to high-sec empire space that I'm expecting to find, the other is a K162 from class 4 w-space, which may account for the missing Falcon. I'll confound anyone watching and ignore that system for now, and head out to high-sec instead. I exit w-space to appear in the Devoid region, and only a few hops from market hub Rens. I think I'll take that trip I considered. I return home, swap the scanning boat for a Crane transport, and go to Rens with a shopping list. And, of course, it's only when I get to my destination and dock that I realise I probably should have brought our loot out to sell too. Dummy.

I buy some supplies, mostly just some modules that we're conspicuously short of at the tower and a bunch of missiles that are useful when ratting, and stuff them in the Crane. I could feasibly make a datacore run now, as they must be stacking up at my R&D agents and I have time, but checking the routes shows the closest agent to be nineteen jumps distant. That probably sounds further than it is, but it's enough to put me off the idea for now. We'll get a better exit for datacores soon enough, I'm sure. I undock the Crane and head home, dumping the supplies in our hangar and swapping in to a Manticore stealth bomber to roam in the class 4 w-space system I found earlier.

I pass through the still-quiet C3a and jump in to C4a, where an Orca industrial command ship, Helios covert operations boat, and tower rather uninspiringly all light up d-scan. This small system has all the planets in range of d-scan too, so there's nothing else to see, and as there are no probes whizzing around I doubt that the Helios is active. I locate the tower, using my notes from eighteen months ago, to see the Helios piloted but doing nothing. I'll loiter, though, because capsuleers tend to spring in to action when you least expect them to. And, as if by magic, probes pop up on d-scan. I don't remember the Helios launching them. Maybe I blacked out for a minute.

Assuming I am in full control still, I credit the probes with belonging to a different scout, and warp across to lurk on the wormhole instead of outside the tower. The probes disappear after a while and I'm rewarded with the sight of a different Helios, this one not local, decloaking and jumping to C3a. Catching a cov-ops is difficult, but I'm in a quick-locking, agile ship that stands a fair chance, so I give chase through the wormhole. I miss him, obviously, but I maybe gave him a bit of a start. And I let him know I am here, and so his colleagues probably know too. Maybe it's time to get a sammich.

I could go off-line and come back later, but my curiosity is piqued. I can't let others wander around a mapped constellation without knowing it myself. I go home, but only to swap back in to my scanning Tengu strategic cruiser before returning to C4a to scan. The three anomalies and four signatures take no time at all to resolve, giving me some rocks, a touch of gas, and a K162 from class 5 w-space. Let's see if there's a welcoming committee for me on the other side of that K162. Nope. Nothing. D-scan is entirely clear, in fact. It's a big system, though, so I warp out, launch probes, and blanket the system as I look for occupation.

So many signatures sit under my probes that I doubt I'll find an active corporation living here. Adjusting the filters for the results confirms a lack of structures in the system, and I don't need to warp back-and-forth across this C5 to look for nothing. Instead, I sift, sift, sift through all the signatures, so many I don't even care to count them, until, finally, I find a wormhole. It's another K162 from class 5 w-space. I can already feel the headache forming.

I jump in to C5b to an empty d-scan result, and open the system map to see what I am missing. Moons, that's what. I warp across the system, past six planets holding two moons between them, to the seventh planet hogging five all to itself. That's pretty greedy, but its posturing hasn't attracted a corporation to anchor a tower around it. I'm in another empty and inactive C5. I don't want to scan backwards through a chain of boring class 5 w-space, but I suppose it would be churlish not to even launch probes.

That was a mistake, launching probes. Fifteen signatures used to sound imposing but I'm pretty sure I could rattle through them quickly with my practiced expertise. Sure enough, a wormhole pops up with little fuss, appearing under the local star, a K162 from class 4 w-space. And, just to confuse me, I resolve a second K162, this one from even more class 5 w-space. Damn it, I could be eating a sammich now! I am predicting the end of the w-space constellation, with the absent scout coming from one of these two systems. But which one?

I choose C4b, but I choose poorly. The system is as empty and unoccupied as the previous two, so there must be more to find, just not right now. I return to C5b and through the K162 to C5c, in to yet another empty and unoccupied system. Where did the Helios pilot come from? Who opened all these wormholes? My only solace is that he won't have a fleet coming this way looking for action either, as no one sane would travel through so many empty systems for a chance of maybe running in to a stealth bomber. And I'm not scanning further back now. Maybe later. I'm going home to get some food in me.

Posted in Gaming | 4 Comments »
Tags: crane, eve online, falcon, helios, manticore, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, talos, w-space

Taking a change of pace in null-sec space

I've been finding some other capsuleers to play with recently, which has been fun. Actually, I think I mean 'toy with', but, either way, I'd like to find some more. There's just the static wormhole in the home system today, and Fin hasn't arrived yet, so my decision processes collapse neatly to jumping to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system to explore. C3a holds a fairly standard directional scanner result of a tower and no ships, but as it's 18·5 AU to the furthest planet there is is more here to see. And, whilst I'm looking at the system map, it's a shame that this K162 is in range of the tower, as it is 5 AU to the nearest planet and outside its orbit, making it a pretty good safe spot for the system. Then again, bookmarking my way home and warping across the system shows that the tower sees all, so I appeared in perhaps the best possible position. I'll launch probes at the wormhole.

It seems the locals are generally busy, or get generally busy neighbours quite frequently, as there is only a single anomaly to be found and a couple of strong signatures amongst the ten here. The other signatures are all pretty weak, making them time-consuming to resolve, and I wonder if whoever clears the other signatures just can't be bothered to resolve these. I know the feeling, as I'm not champing at the bit to ignore radar, magnetometric, and weak gravimetric sites, but if I want to find the static wormhole that's what I have to do. I suppose I could warp around and activate these sites, but I'm not doing someone else's job for them. I stick to resolving the single wormhole, which will be an exit to null-sec k-space, and recall my probes, just in time for a Cheetah to warp in to the tower. Neat.

The appearance of the covert operations boat is not so neat after all. He lurks at the tower for a minute and goes off-line, probably after a simple update to his skill queue. I loiter a little longer, in case a planet goo pilot follows in his wake, but no one else appears. Okay, I'm going to null-sec. I exit the C3 to appear by myself in a system in the Geminate region, which gives me a fine opportunity to rat and scan. I launch probes and warp to the first rock field as I arrange for the first scan, getting a bit of a surprise when I come across a hauler to pop. A rat hauler, but a hauler all the same. So I pop it. The other rats there are two bulkers, whatever they are, and I pop them too. And it seems that the rats are getting in on the mineral inflation that we've been seeing, as the hauler was carrying 340,000 units of mexallon and the bulkers two million units of tritanium each. That's going to take more than my Tengu strategic cruiser to get home.

I'll scan before recovering the ore, as I may find a more interesting way to pass the time than moving rocks. Scanning in itself is arguably more interesting, but perhaps not in this case. Out of the nine signatures that look initially promising only one turns out to be a wormhole, with the others being sites. Okay, I'll haul the rocks, even before looking at the sole wormhole. We could probably use the ISK. I head home, through a still-quiet C3a, and grab a Bustard transport from our hangar, taking that to null-sec to load up with ore. And I'll need two trips in the voluminous Bustard to bring back so much tritanium. Mining this much ore would have taken me ages, whereas popping the ships who already took the time to do it took seconds. This is my second-favourite way to mine.

Back in my Tengu, and back in null-sec, I poke my nose through the K162 from more class 3 space that I resolved. Three cans are on d-scan, nothing else. My notes from five months ago have a tower in the system, around the only planet out of d-scan range from the wormhole, and warping across confirms it to still be there. A Tengu, Noctis salvager, and Iteron hauler all light up d-scan with the tower before I get visual contact, which excites me until I see them all floating unpiloted inside the tower's force field. Nothing's happening here. I could scan again and hope that a second K162 is waiting to be found with activity behind it, sit and wait at a tower and hope that a pilot will turn up and do something stupid, or make my own entertainment out in null-sec.

The null-sec site called Pith's Penal Complex sounds like a challenge. Rather than assume I can throw a ship in to the site and expect to survive I do a bit of research. I would be foolish to send a Drake battlecruiser in to this 8/10 DED site, but a well-equipped Nighthawk command ship may be able to handle it. Let's see if it can, because we have a Nighthawk at the tower. Well, Fin does, and what's hers is mine, and all that. I just hope I don't get it killed. Dredging up memories that rats aren't like Sleepers, I swap the fitting around a bit, as I know what sort of rats I'll be up against and adjust the resistances of my shields accordingly, and head out to null-sec to see what the site holds. Ships. Lots of ships. It's good they're not Sleepers, or I wouldn't last ten seconds.

I start carefully whittling down the rat ships, making use of their tendency to pick one target and stick to it until death to give my drones a chance to pop some frigates whilst I work on the bigger ships. I often forget I have drones, mostly because I generally don't have them, and in this case maybe I should have forgotten. The great settings reset bites me on the arse again, as the drones pop one frigate and then wander off to shoot another and wake up the whole site of rats to my presence. Maybe that's more realistic than waiting to be shot one wave at a time, but I'm not craving realism in my space combat at the moment, as I quite like breathing. I struggle to remember where the setting is to make my drones only do what I bloody well tell them to do and nothing more, when my glorious leader comes on-line. What great timing!

I update Fin with today's hare-brained scheme of mine, and she agrees to come and help. Coming to null-sec in one of our Sleeper Tengus, Fin brings a bit boost to damage as well as remote repairs for the Nighthawk's shields. And as the rats refuse to target a second ship once they've picked one we simply need to make sure they pick me first. Combat has just become easy. I am the tank and I have a capable healer by my side. This is what I do. The first area is cleared and we warp to the second, which goes more smoothly than the first, until I navigate in to a ten kilometre-wide radar dish and bump around it for a bit, but we're soon clear of the dish and activating the gate to the third area.

Now that's a lot of missiles. All the ships are shooting me, with a few exceptions that are swiftly dealt with, and we are picking off our targets with ruthless efficiency. It's not long before we're left facing just the battleships, which fall under our combined fire with less hassle than we were expecting. So now it's just us and the... pop goes the boss. Done! I burn to the wreck to loot it of the Rattlesnake BPC, but all I get is his personal effects. Ah well, it was a nice change of pace, and we get to salvage all the wrecks for some pocket change too. And we're much safer than in w-space. As Fin says, 'we have local here! It is like cheating'. Yes, yes it is.

One last look at w-space has probes in C3b, on the other side of the null-sec system, prompting me to act as scout as Fin and Aii, who turned up to help salvage, get a Flycatcher interdictor and Crow interceptor on the wormhole in null-sec to wait. An Anathema cov-ops appears in w-space, which I only see perhaps because he crashed in to the cosmic signature by mistake, but he doesn't jump in to our ambush.

The cov-ops is not local, either, so when he disappears again I launch probes and scan this system, quickly finding the K162 he probably used, coming from class 2 w-space. I jump in to reconnoitre and call the ambush over this way, thinking that the Anathema will have to head home at some point, but we abort as a Tengu appears on d-scan in C2a for just long enough to launch probes and cloak. We will lose a ship to the Tengu if he finds us, so it's probably not worth waiting for the Anathema. This is only amusing because Fin and Aii are warping back across C3b as I move away from the C2 K162 and cloak to see the Anathema appear and jump through.

We couldn't have known an extra minute could have caught us a fly. Sometimes you wait for ages to see nothing, and sometimes you stumble in to activity. Then again, maybe the Anathema was cloaked on the wormhole and waited until we were clear before jumping home, and we wouldn't have caught him anyway. We had the right idea, anyway. Now it's time to head home and settle down for the night.

Posted in Gaming | 2 Comments »
Tags: anathema, bustard, cheetah, crow, eve online, flycatcher, iteron, mmorpg, nighthawk, noctis, null-sec, penny ibramovic, tengu, w-space

Curiosity is a killer

Curiosity is a killer. I have mapped the w-space constellation to be our static wormhole connecting to a system with two dying wormholes, where the only adventure to be found is that of getting isolated, which doesn't appeal to me that much. But in the process of collapsing our wormhole I see core probes appear in the neighbouring system, which then disappear after I get an interceptor ready to ambush whoever is scouting, only to reappear when I get tired of waiting and throw another Orca through the wormhole. I am about to give up for the night when I instead think it a good idea to take my scanning Tengu strategic cruiser back to the class 3 w-space system to see what's really going on.

Returning to the C3 has only one probe visible on my directional scanner, which baffles me. The system is tiny, a mere 7·5 AU across, which means that any scanning probes that are actually resolving signatures will be visible to d-scan from anywhere in the system. And now there are four probes to be seen. This is weird, particularly as there is no ship to accompany what is only reasonably explained by the launching of probes. There is little point in hiding core scanning probes, which these are, out of the system, as they won't pick up new contacts in ships, regardless of whether or not the ships can see the probes themselves. I can't understand what's happening.

I reconnoitre the two wormholes I resolved, and both are still alive. The K162 from class 2 w-space and static exit to high-sec empire space—well, Aridia—survive, even if they are both quite wobbly indeed. Maybe the scout is from the C2 and is expecting this C3's static connection to die soon, before their own wormhole does. Or maybe a new K162 has opened in to this C3. Either way, it's worth my scanning again to make sure. I launch my combat probes and blanket the system, revealing the same four anomalies and eleven signatures as earlier. There are no new connections to be found. So where is the scout from, and what's he scanning for?

There she is. A simple Probe frigate appears a hundred kilometres from the C2 K162, before warping away. A Probe! That's what was scaring me from continuing to throw the industrial command ship through our wormhole to collapse it. Well, kind of. I saw a Nemesis stealth bomber buzzing around too, and it's generally better to assume the worst than carry on regardless. For all I knew, the Nemesis knew what I was doing and called in a scout to find our wormhole before I could finish over-stressing it. But now I know it's only a Probe—unafilliated, probably with no support, and a frigate that cannot warp cloaked—I am keen to catch it and release some frustration on its bolts and rivets. The only problem with this plan is that I have no idea where the ship warped to.

I try to scan for the Probe's position, which my combat probes allow me to do, but the frigate disappears. Cloaked, jumped, I don't know, but the pilot's still on-line. And the Probe is back on d-scan. I catch another glimpse of the ship, this time sitting on top of the exit to high-sec. I get to the wormhole just in time to see the Probe warp away again, and I have a second attempt at resolving its hiding position. Got her! A few seconds before the frigate cloaks I have a solid hit on its position, letting me warp in and bookmark her safe spot. But how did she get all the way up here?

I sit and wait in the safe spot along with, presumably, the Probe. After a while it reappears, a couple of kilometres from me, and... does nothing. I like that. Because of the sensor recalibration delay my Tengu will suffer when decloaking I pretty much need a sitting duck if I'm to catch my target. Seeing the Probe just sitting there I grasp at the opportunity, and end up clutching hard vacuum. I decloak and start to lock on to the ship, but only for it to warp away before I can prevent it. That was bad timing, and must have given away my knowledge of this safe spot.

The Probe warped to the exit to high-sec, and I follow. There's not much I can do when a ship can simply exit w-space to be safe, but I am keen to see what happens next. She cloaks, that's what. At least, I think that's what, but I turn out to be wrong. I wait on the wormhole and watch for the next move, and am surprised to hear the wormhole flare. It seems another visitor has braved a dying wormhole to explore w-space, until the same Probe decloaks and warps away. I suppose I didn't get here in time to see her jump out before, but at least I stayed to see her return. And she appears to have warped to the same safe spot as before, so I turn my Tengu around and go back there myself.

Sure enough, the Probe is back where I missed it the first time, only now we are both on top of each other. I try to decloak only to find that our proximity has already shed my cloak, which also means the Probe can't hide. That happy coincidence has soaked up the sensor recalibration time too, and I gain a positive target lock pretty much as soon as my warp engines cut out. Now it's a simple matter to destroy the fragile frigate with the might of my strategic cruiser, almost to the point where I feel a little guilty for using overwhelming force. Almost, but not quite. I pop the ship and aim for the ejected pod, clearly feeling no regrets, but it gets clear.

I loot and shoot the wreck of what little was both fitted and survived the explosion, before chasing the pod a little around this C3. I don't hold much hope of catching it, as it is easily agile to warp away from a spot before my Tengu can come to a halt next to it, but I find two more safe spots as my probes pursue the pilot. It makes me wonder why the pilot went back to the safe spot I found her Probe in if she had others available. Maybe she honestly missed seeing me decloak next to her the first time, after entering warp. Or maybe it is such a good safe spot, perhaps the location of a collapsed wormhole, that it was the automatic first choice. Whatever the reason, I don't catch the pod, seeing the last of it as it exits to Aridia through the still-dying wormhole. That's okay. I may not have got to collapse our wormhole to look for adventure but I ended up having a little game of cat-and-mouse anyway, and getting a kill out of it too.

Posted in Gaming | 2 Comments »
Tags: eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, probe, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space

Probes come and probes go, but waiting lasts forever

I'm on-line and looking for trouble, preferably other people's. Our static wormhole looks to be in the same position as yesterday's, and although I recently stated that confirming this still takes time I was, naturally, making it more difficult for myself. Thankfully I see the error of my ways, and I am warping to the old bookmark as I cluster my probes around it on the system map. If the wormhole is indeed in the same position I will be floating next to it before my probes can resolve it, and if it's coincidentally only nearby I continue to scan the signature. I drop out of warp to see wormhole the devourer sitting where the corpse of the old wormhole would be, if that's how they worked. Which I suppose they don't.

Jumping through to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system has my ship unmolested by the wormhole, as far as I can tell, and I update my directional scanner to see drones. Seven drones are somewhere, and as two are capacitor-draining Infiltrators I suspect foul play. With no ships on d-scan, I am probably turned up too late to get embroiled in whatever action this system has seen. I should take a look around. Well, that was easy, as looking around involved opening the system map to see that this tiny system is only 7·5 AU across, holding four planets and two moons. I would say I've seen all there is to to see here.

I launch probes and scan, revealing four anomalies and eleven signatures. The drones are not in one of the anomalies and, refining the scan a little, are in empty space. Maybe they are in a despawned site, or near where a wormhole once was, but there's no telling how long they've been there. As for what's actually out there, it's mostly rocks and gas, which I happily ignore. The only signatures of interest are a single magnetometric site, that is less appealing without help to clear it, and the system's static exit to high-sec empire space. Okay, those, and a second wormhole is interesting too. What can I say, it was hiding from me.

The second wormhole is a K162 from class 2 w-space, which normally gets me tingling with expectation, but this one is reaching the end of its life and I stop caring. Or do I? With a handy exit to high-sec, I can always pop out of the static wormhole here, bookmark the other side of the connection, and explore the C2 with a way home should the wormhole collapse. All of which would be a great plan if the wormhole out of this C3 weren't also EOL. Still, it's risk a dying wormhole or do nothing, so I forge ahead with my plan. I exit through to the faux high-sec of Aridia—which doesn't give me the best return route—and return to w-space to see what lies behind the wormhole to C2a. Space is the answer. Really, I should have guessed that.

D-scan is clear from the wormhole, with only one planet in range and a 55 AU warp across to the other side of the system. At least there's occupation to be found at the end of the flight, although there are no ships to be seen to indicate activity. No ships, that is, until I warp back to the dying wormhole and see a Nemesis blip on d-scan. I turn around and head back to the tower, marvelling at what little can be achieved during long periods of warp travel, to see if the stealth bomber returns here, but no ship appears. Okay, I'd better leave this dull system alone for now. I warp back across to the wormhole, happy to see it still survive, and jump to C3a.

I hold on the wormhole for a minute, wondering if the Nemesis knows about me, and nothing seems to be waiting. All looks clear, and with no occupation here and two dying wormholes I doubt the Nemesis would loiter here for long. I warp to and scoop the abandoned drones and return home, with a plan to collapse our static wormhole for better opportunities. I prepare one of the Orca industrial command ships for wormhole-collapsing duties and, when sure that I won't be polarised, head to the static connection to start mass-stressing it. And, would you look at that, the first jump in to C3a has core scanning probes visible on d-scan. I find activity just when I don't want it.

I get the Orca home safely and, as I never learn, swap to an interceptor. I plant my Malediction on the static wormhole and wait for whatever scout is now active in C3a to jump in to my ambush. But I have no idea if the scout is coming, or what he's flying, or if he's still active. I am on the wrong side of the wormhole and have no scout of my own to relay any of this information. And so, like almost every other time I've done this, I wait for nothing. I finally decide to jump in to C3a and try to provoke whoever could be there, but doing so sees empty space all around. It would be impossible to unintentionally hide probes in a system this small, so it looks like the scout has come and gone without investigating our wormhole. I'll continue to collapse it.

I take the interceptor home, swap back to the Orca, and make a second jump after my polarisation has expired again. Dammit, the probes are back! I would think someone is toying with me if it weren't for the fact that these are core scanning probes, and so cannot detect ships. Well, the scout's out and about again, and maybe this time will find this wormhole. I go home again, stressing the wormhole to half-mass as I take the Orca back through it, and put my Malediction back on our side of the connection. But now I'm not only waiting blindly for a scout, I'm doing so whilst polarised and behind a wormhole that's throbbing from being destabilised to half-mass. Sod it, I'm going to bed.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Probes come and probes go, but waiting lasts forever
Tags: eve online, malediction, mmorpg, nemesis, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

Getting lucky in finding wrecks

Fin may be here in spirit, but not much looks to be happening. As I wait for my glorious leader to get back from the khazi I scan the home system, free from pesky mining sites for once, for our static wormhole and jump to the neighbouring class 3 w-space system. A typical sight of a tower with no ships appears on my directional scanner, which gets me off to a slow start, but I always know there could be opportunity elsewhere. Even elsewhere in the same system, if it's big enough and the locals are shooting Sleepers, or space-loopy enough to be collecting ore. As is weirdly common in my travels, only a single planet is out of d-scan range from the K162 I'm sitting on, which makes finding activity here unlikely.

I warp across the system, confirm there are no pilots out here, and launch probes to scan. A blanket scan reveals one anomaly and seven signatures, two of which are picked up as wormholes almost immediately. The connections being so close together makes scanning the pair quick and easy, so much so that I resolve a third wormhole before I even reach the first. At least exploration is looking promising today. The first wormhole is a K162 from class 5 w-space, the second a K162 from low-sec empire space, and the third the system's static exit to low-sec. That's not a great result, but far from bad. Now I ignore some rocks and gas, before finding a fourth wormhole, this one another K162 from low-sec. And that's my lot.

There's not much more w-space to be found, but the empire systems can always be scanned if C5a proves to be quiet. Or, holy crap, if it's the opposite of quiet and kinda puts the fear in me. Jumping through to the class 5 system has a whole bunch of ships on d-scan—and thankfully only on d-scan—including an interceptor, battlecruisers, battleships, a carrier, and a logistics ship. There's a tower visible in the system too, but finessing d-scan a bit shows that only the Hulk exhumer, Chimera carrier, and Helios covert operations boat there. The rest are elsewhere, and as the interceptor is not likely going to be used against Sleepers I'm not surprised to see no wrecks.

Some kind of engagement is happening here, or about to happen, and although I don't want to be a part of it I am curious as to what's going on. The fleet isn't around a planet, so they are not destroying a tower or customs office, and as they aren't engaging Sleepers they won't be in one of the few anomalies here. D-scan puts the fleet about 1 AU from a planet, 13 AU from the static wormhole, and now with an added Thanatos carrier. There may be some wormhole combat happening. I warp clear of all the ships and launch probes, a blanket scan of the system now showing four ships. I'm sure there were more than that. The ships really have gone when I warp back to the centre of the system, which is good. I can scan their position without them seeing probes and hurtling with all deadliness towards my exit.

The wormhole I find where the ships were is a K162 from null-sec k-space. The fleet makes sense now. I don't know what kind of fight they are looking for in null-sec but I'm not so curious as to throw my ship in to them as an aperitif. There is also unlikely to be a Noctis following in the fleet's wake, so I can safely ignore this class 5 system for now. Or, rather, I can ignore this class 5 system for my safety. I recall my probes, head back to C3a, and pick a low-sec system to explore instead. The one through the static wormhole sounds good to me, particularly as Fin is scanning for activity through the first K162 from low-sec in C3a.

I appear in a system in the Placid region, with a nice chap who explains the Yugoslavian origins of my name, before warning me about a gate-camp in an adjacent system. That's very kind, but where I go I don't need stargates. Three extra signatures in this system resolve to give me a K162 from class 3 w-space that's reaching the end of its natural lifetime, as well as a stable C3 K162. The stable wormhole is more attractive, so, given that Fin's found a similar EOL C3 K162, I see what I can find in what we label C3d. I see more ships—two Legion strategic cruisers, a Harbinger battlecruiser, Archon carrier, Viator transport, Orca industrial command ship, and Manticore stealth bomber—and more towers. Many more towers. Five of the blighters. And Sleeper wrecks! I move away from the wormhole and cloak, as my on-board scanner gets to work. One anomaly is returned, which for some reason I cannot bookmark.

I can warp to the anomaly still, which is good, and getting there shows me perhaps why I can't bookmark it: it has despawned. My timing was impeccable, I would say, picking up the anomaly moments before it became unavailable. I hope that my arrival through the wormhole was just as smooth and that I wasn't spotted. But I wouldn't bet on that, as the Harbinger is replaced by a Proteus strategic cruiser and, despite the wrecks floating unattended here, a Noctis salvager is nowhere to be seen. Well, until a salvager comes out there's no point me sitting in the cleared anomaly. I have my monitoring position made, and my time will be better spent finding the towers and noting what pilots are around.

Most of the ships are at the tower by the territorial control unit, naturally, and with pretty much every ship piloted. I would expect a fleet of this size to take the precaution of sitting a scout on any active wormhole to warn of intruders, and as the salvager still hasn't appeared I think it best to assume I've been spotted. Even so, not much happens beyond swapping a few ships around, and the Archon carrier looks to be prepped. Maybe they are getting ready to collapse the static wormhole in one swoop, trapping me in their system. I've been in that situation before. Or maybe they are simply casual about w-space life. No one warps away from this main tower, but a Noctis appears at another. Back to the site!

I get to my monitoring point in the despawned anomaly with enough time to spare to wonder if I should look for the Noctis directly. But the salvager warps in and I cut my warp engines, moving instead to align towards the wrecks. I may die now. I would say that I will be amazed if there isn't a cloaky escort for this Noctis, or a sufficiently quick response from the rest of the fleet. But if that really is the case then I shouldn't engage, I suppose. But here I go, warping to get closer to the salvager. All looks clear, without the Noctis acting suspiciously, as if he knows I'm here. I decloak, await the damnable sensor recalibration delay to end, and lock on to my target.

Launchers blaze missiles towards the Noctis, and I burn in to give it a nudge here and there. Whilst I'm close, I loot a pair of Sleeper battleship wrecks of their loot, as the Noctis pilot seems otherwise engaged to think about doing so, for some reason. No help decloaks, no fleet warps in. The Noctis pops and, despite my best efforts, the pod flees. I loot and shoot the wreck, and warp back to my monitoring point to calm down a bit. It's never only about who you are shooting, but who else may join in, and there is nearly always risk involved, particularly when you don't have time to reconnoitre properly. In this case, it all worked out.

The only response I provoke is for the salvager pilot to return to the site in a Tengu strategic cruiser, which then starts to loot the wrecks without salvaging. That stops me thinking about looting them myself, and instead I consider going home. If the fleet didn't know about me before they must do now, and even if they were entirely ambivalent to my destroying this Noctis they may get themselves together enough to blockade my way out. I check the wormhole back to low-sec using d-scan, and it looks clear. I decide to take my leave, and warp to the exit to low-sec and jump out. As I cross the low-sec system to get back to C3a I check my hold. I got a fair haul from the Noctis, plus the Sleeper wrecks I looted, giving me about seventy million ISK in profit. That's a good result. I pass through an empty class 3 system to return home, where I dump the loot and find a quiet corner to go to sleep in.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Getting lucky in finding wrecks
Tags: archon, chimera, eve online, harbinger, helios, hulk, legion, manticore, mmorpg, noctis, orca, penny ibramovic, proteus, pvp, scanning, tengu, thanatos, viator, w-space

Tower apocalypse

Fed and ready to frolic, I'm tempted to take a stealth bomber roaming through the w-space constellation. It's already been scanned and there has been activity seen in at least one direction, but it has been a few hours since I was last around and new wormholes may have opened. I think it would be more productive to take my scanning strategic cruiser out again, at least to look for new targets before settling for what we can see. And it's a good plan, because there isn't much to see. The K162 from class 2 w-space in the home system is wobbling its way to imploding of old age, and through our static wormhole the only activity in the class 3 system has my glorious leader about to burst a bubble.

The warp bubble surrounded a K162 from high-sec empire space in C3a, until about five shots in when the wormhole collapsed. It's not an inconvenience to us, then, but destruction of property is always a fine goal in w-space. Still, I had a dream that the wormhole would collapse and the locals would wake up and send a flimsy hauler along to collect the bubble. It would be the perfect ambush, with an industrial ship caught in its own bubble, and then its pod, and so with a fair measure of undue optimism I suggest Fin stops shooting the bubble. Whilst we wait for the locals to appear, I exit through their static wormhole to low-sec to scan afresh. And the locals may actually appear soon, as the static connection is reaching the end of its life too, which could mean we are close to their activity period.

In the low-sec system I bounce across space to check on the two wormholes I found here earlier. Both K162s are gone, from class 6 and class 3 w-space, the latter where I popped a salvaging tourist whilst his chums watched. It's no surprise they're gone, as the wormholes were EOL when I found them, and maybe more have appeared now. I launch probes and scan, but only get the same gravimetric and two radar sites as I saw earlier. I return to w-space feeling a bit aimless. Um, Penny? You could always scan C3a for new connections. Oh, right. I'll do that. I scan, see no new signatures, and thank my subconscious anyway but we still have nothing to do. Nothing apart from popping the bubble and collapsing our static connection.

Combined fire takes down the anchored bubble quickly enough, and two Orca industrial command ships over-stress our wormhole nicely. The wobbly C2 K162 is still in our system but we don't feel much threat coming that way, particularly as we haven't actually seen any ships jump through to our home system, and so we peacefully finish off collapsing only our wormhole with a supercruiser and a final Orca trip. The new static wormhole is simple enough to find, confirming there are no new signatures at home at the same time, and we warp to it and jump through to see what's in the replacement C3a. A Navy Apocalypse battleship shooting Sleepers, that's what.

'I think we can take the Apocalypse', Fin says, and I think she's right. The pilot of the Apocalypse probably thinks so too, though. Fin looks for the tower, I look for the battleship, Fin finds both. A passive scan reveals the anomaly with a Sleeper wreck, and warping in to the site sees the first wave destroyed and looted, and the second wave mostly untouched. The Apocalypse is back at the tower with Fin, unpiloted now, and an Anathema is on the loose. It must be the same pilot, because there are only three ships in the system—the other being a Sigil hauler—and no hangars at the tower. I spy the Anathema launching probes at a planet and warp to surprise him, but land too far to make a fuss of myself. The probes disappear, the Anathema cloaks, and a couple of minutes later the pilot goes off-line. That could be the end of our fun for the evening.

Then again, even though whoever lives here believes in self-sufficiency, as the three-member corporation is living out of a covert operations boat, hauler, and battleship alone, they don't believe in defences. The tower is bare not only of modules, but also guns, missile batteries, and even hardeners. The tower really is bare. And small. And left to us to do with what we please. 'We could put it in to reinforced mode', says Fin, knowing that we don't stand much chance of actually destroying it, but wanting to be disruptive all the same. Sure thing, let's do it. After all, there's not much the local pilot can do here but bring out his Apocalypse to defend, and that's what we wanted all along.

We jump home, swap to Oracle battlecruisers, and return to start the tedious shooting of a stationary object. At least the Oracles have lasers, so that we don't have to worry about reloading, and big lasers at that, doing plenty of damage with each volley. But it's still quite dull. We update our directional scanners regularly, just to make sure we're not about to be ambushed, but nothing comes. It's just shoot, shoot, shoot, and essentially all to irritate someone. I suppose that's what we do. I take the time to order some furniture, and even my Tallest Purple gets bored and decides to have a lie down. And slowly, slowly we whittle down the tower's shields until we hit the magic 25% mark, at which point damage bleeds through to its armour and triggers... uh, nothing.

The tower doesn't enter reinforced mode, where it becomes invulnerable for as long as its supply of strontium clathrates lasts, which can only mean it has no supply of strontium clathrates. This tower has no defences at all! We were ready to turn around and head home, but now we are tempted to keep on shooting. It will take at least half as long again to destroy the armour and structure as it did the shields, but we can actually blow up the tower and get the Navy Apocalypse as a result. That seems worth the effort of staying awake a little longer.

Thankfully, the armour and structure are weaker than the shields, and progress is much smarter. It's still rather tedious, even with the enlisted help of a puppet, but we can see our target drawing ever closer. Quite why my lasers turn invisible near the end of the siege, I'm not sure. But it may also be why the tower doesn't explode, simply disappearing from space-time once we shred its last 1% of remaining structure. I was really hoping for much more of a bang than a whimper after all this time, making the culmination of our efforts rather anticlimactic. Still, the tower's gone, and the meagre but shiny reward is ours.

I'm so mean. I snatch the Navy Apocalypse before Fin can, stranding the Tallest Purple for our puppet to collect. I need to learn how to share. It's an interesting fit but I don't really know battleships, and it looks expensive enough. I take the Apocalypse home. Fin collects the Sigil, leaving the system bare but for the off-line Anathema, only to see nothing in the hauler's hold. Quite how the pilot was living here with no resources is a mystery. Maybe he had moved in recently and was planning on bringing in defences, hangars, and more ships, who knows? He may change his mind now, after we've ruined his w-space existence. Still, a completely unprotected tower holding an expensive ship can't be expected to last long in lawless space. And it turns out that Fin was right after all. We can take the Apocalypse, just not the way we expected to.

Posted in Gaming | 8 Comments »
Tags: anathema, apocalypse, eve online, mmorpg, oracle, orca, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, sigil, w-space

Dropping in on day trippers

They might be on to me. I've not ambushed a planet goo-collecting hauler in quite a while, which makes me think I've got to shake my routine up a bit in order to surprise them again. So I am in space earlier than usual in the hopes of catching a pilot or two out and about. There's no one obviously in the home system, but a stray signature resolves to be a K162 from class 2 w-space, which is a good start to my afternoon. I also resolve our static connection but don't visit it, simply bookmarking the cosmic signature for now, electing first to see what's happening in the C2.

A combat probe is visible on my directional scanner on the other side of the wormhole. I move and cloak, hoping that I manage to do so in the window when the probe is not actively scanning, only to then burn over the invisible and therefore unavoidable cosmic signature. The otherwise uninteractable singularity decloaks me, making me visible once more to the combat probe, and I have to quickly reactivate my cloak and, once more, hope my timing is lucky. If it is, it's luckier than my manoeuvring. Now I can explore and see who's seen me. Warping across the system finds a full five towers, along with a Tengu strategic cruiser, Omen cruiser, Helios and Cheetah covert operations boats, and a Bestower hauler.

Well, I say I find the towers and ships. What actually happens is that I see the five towers on d-scan, but by the time I've located each of them around their specific moon the Helios has disappeared, swiftly followed by the Omen and Tengu. The two remaining ships float empty inside a tower's force field. I can't find the missing ships elsewhere in the system, which I suppose is why they are missing, leaving me with nothing to stalk and a scout or two potentially stalking me. I turn tail to leave the system and run over the cosmic signature again as I return to the wormhole, making me as visible on d-scan as the Ishkur assault frigate that is now wandering around. I would care more if there was much I could do about the Ishkur, but as he keeps bouncing around planets I can't even see if he's local. I jump home.

Warping across the home system takes me to our static wormhole, and I jump to the class 3 w-space system beyond. A tower and no ships is what I expect to see on d-scan, although I really wanted to see a vulnerable hauler too, preparing to make its rounds. Still, an empty system gives me a chance to resolve all the sites here for potential ambushes later, and is appreciated when I realise there is nowhere I can get to that is out of d-scan range of the tower to launch probes covertly. With no one home it doesn't matter so much. Scanning is straightforward, with one anomaly and ten signatures to bookmark, giving me rocks, rocks, rocks—is it all rocks? If it is, I may be wasting my time resolving sites the locals never intend to visit.

There's more than rocks here, thankfully. Then again, there's nothing interesting about a K162 from high-sec empire space that's reaching the end of its life, apart from the mighty warp bubble that's encapsulating it. Some gas harvesting sites aren't great either, but they break up the monotony of the rocks, and I am left with a static exit to low-sec and one radar site. I exit w-space to be in a system in the Khanid region, where scanning reveals six signatures. That's promising. I've seen enough rocks, thank you, and the radar sites would be mildly interesting if there weren't other pilots in the system, but two wormholes is nice. An EOL K162 from deadly class 6 w-space isn't as enticing as I was expecting, though, and neither is a K162 from more class 3 w-space that is also EOL.

I poke my nose in to C6a just to see if some soft target is being silly, but there is nothing on d-scan. That's good enough for me, as I don't relish being isolated from the home system and having to scan my way home from a C6, so I return to low-sec and warp across to and jump through the wobbly K162 from C3b. Entering the C3 won't be so risky, because if the wormhole collapses I can simply scan the new one and be spat back out to a different low-sec system. And that's good, because jumping in to C3b sees a Drake battlecruiser and Apocalypse battleship on d-scan, along with two canisters labelled with ammunition types. That's odd. I would be surprised if there is a duel in progress between these two ships, but why drop ammunition in w-space? You can just shoot each other without having to provoke an aggression by stealing. More must be going on.

More is going on. The two ships drop off d-scan, and warping across the system finds them along with a Tengu strategic cruiser, as well as some Sleeper wrecks. I have found activity! All I need now is for the combat fleet not to be salvaging as it goes. A passive scan picks up six anomalies, and the fleet is in one of them, which is good. I also need to check the other side of the system for occupation before I do anything impetuous, and doing so finds a tower but no more ships. I make a note of the owner corporation and warp back to get eyes on the fleet, as it would be good to know if they are local or not too. Warping in to the anomaly at a safe distance shows that the fleet isn't local, which is good, and that there is no looting or salvaging happening, which is excellent.

That's interesting. There are more wrecks in the system than in this site, and taking a proper look at d-scan shows a Caldari battlecruiser wreck amongst them. I have a bit of time before this site is cleared, so I check the other anomalies and find the wreck. It looks like this fleet has been here a little while and tried a different anomaly to start with, but called in a second wave of Sleepers early and found them a bit tough to handle. Now they've got a new battlecruiser and are trying again, but they're not doing too well still. The ships warp out of the active anomaly whilst I am trying to make a suitable monitoring point in it. They drop off d-scan, but I pick them up again when I return to the exit to low-sec, d-scan placing them some 7 AU away, near another planet. They must be retreating to a wormhole, and I think I'll scan for that.

I launch probes near the empty tower, out of range of any of the ships, and get them out of the system. I warp back to monitor the ships, and when they've dropped off d-scan again I start looking for the wormhole. It's pretty obvious, there being only two signatures in the whole system, and knowing where to look makes resolving it pretty easy. I recall my probes and warp to what turns out to be a K162 from high-sec. O-ho, I'm dealing with tourists. What I don't yet know, though, is whether the ships returned to the anomaly or bugged out back to high-sec. That is soon determined, by warping back to my monitoring point in the anomaly, where the ships indeed are. This is working out nicely. All I need now is for a Noctis to appear.

With one Sleeper left in the site, the Drake warps out and reappears with the salvager I've been waiting for. The only problem is that the Drake, Tengu, and Apocalypse don't move on to another site, perhaps frustrated enough with w-space already and just wanting their loot, leaving the Noctis guarded. Still, it doesn't look too bad for me. The Tengu does nothing, the Apocalypse scoops an abandoned drone and then does nothing, and although the Drake looks to be shadowing the Noctis to start with the battlecruiser soon drops off to create a significant gap between the ships. The Sleeper wrecks also take the Noctis away from the Drake and Tengu, leaving only the Apocalypse close enough to cause trouble.

I would bet these ships don't have warp disruptors fitted, and if they do I can easily burn away from a battleship in my covert Tengu, which is the only ship close enough to be a threat. I don't normally ambush ships under guard, but the situation looks benign enough, the pilots are from high-sec, and they don't seem to be used to w-space. I'm going to take a shot. I don't warp directly to the Noctis but just close enough to see what it looks like in person, as my monitoring point is sufficiently distant to distort the view. When I get in range all looks peachy. The Tengu and Drake are too far to be any real threat, and the Apocalypse is welcome to take a few pot-shots at me if it wants to. I decloak, burn towards the Noctis, and get my systems hot.

I get a positive lock on the salvager and start shooting, disrupting its warp engines to prevent it escaping. As expected, the two distant ships don't even lock on to me, and the battleship aggresses and shoots back, but he only really scratches my shields. The Noctis can't withstand my assault missiles for long and explodes with a bright flash, ejecting the pilot's pod in to space. I aim for the pod but it evades me, so I loot the Noctis as I align out of the site and warp back to my monitoring point, cloaking as I do. By the time I turn around to look the Apocalypse and Drake are gone, as is the pod, leaving only the Tengu and wreck of the Noctis. Job's a good 'un!

As well as being patient and cautious, my ambush was inadvertently efficient. I have a tendency to shoot first and think about loot second, but this time the path of the Noctis and the position of the other ships meant I struck when the salvager was looting the final wreck. I looted all that survived from the explosion, which at about fourteen million ISK may not be much but it's ISK that the high-seccers won't be seeing. I also destroyed their sixty million ISK Noctis, which looks like it had been active in empire space before coming to die in w-space, and they probably lost forty million ISK of battlecruiser in an aborted earlier attempt at engaging Sleepers. It's been an expensive expedition for these pilots.

I warp across to the K162 in time to see the pod and Tengu return to high-sec, leaving empty handed. And as well as getting lucky with my exploration I am lucky in getting home. The ageing static connection to low-sec in this C3 is still there after stalking the fleet, letting me return to low-sec and then C3a and the home system without having to scan or use a stargate. I would say I've been successful this afternoon. Seeing no one from the C2 in our system, I go off-line for a deserved sammich.

Posted in Gaming | 3 Comments »
Tags: apocalypse, bestower, cheetah, drake, eve online, helios, ishkur, mmorpg, noctis, omen, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space

Looking the wrong way

Will anything happen today? Fin's here, for a start, and our shared bookmarks folder looks to hold the locations of K162s from both class 2 and class 5 w-space. I get a sitrep from my glorious leader, who is now in the C2. 'The C5 has a Mastodon putting up a tower.' Nifty. I'm assuming that's the transport ship and not Fin discovering a new civilisation using mammals to construct places of worship. Either way, it's got to be worth a look. I swap my scanning boat for a Manticore, modifying the stealth bomber's fitting to squeeze a couple of extra points of warp disruption on it, hoping to counter the transport ship's boosted warp core strength, and head to C5a to see what's happening.

There's no Mastodon on my directional scanner from the wormhole, but there are ships. I can see a Thanatos carrier, Prowler transport, Orca industrial command ship, Moros dreadnought, and Charon freighter, which are all pretty big and expensive. There are also two towers, both of which Fin found, and she points me towards them. One tower has the dreadnought, freighter, and carrier, the other the Orca and Prowler. Only the Prowler is piloted, and he's the capsuleer configuring this second tower. He's doing everything whilst remaining comfortable inside the force field, though, bringing one defence on-line after another, in-between sips of his gin and tonic. I doubt he'll do anything particularly stupid for a while.

Meanwhile, Fin's found a second class 2 w-space system connected to the first, and points out that our neighbouring class 3 system is yet to be visited. That's all the prompting I need to leave this dull C5 behind me. I return home, swap back to my Tengu strategic cruiser, and warp to and jump through the static wormhole. D-scan shows me a Drake and some drones, but there are no wrecks, and I can also see an Impel transport and a tower. It's possible the battlecruiser is engaging Sleepers, but I think it more likely to be sitting in the tower. I perform a passive scan of the system anyway, just in case the Drake is particularly hardened and having a go, and see sixteen anomalies here, fourteen of them our favoured type. It's beautiful.

Erk! As I admire the state of the anomalies the Impel disappears off d-scan. I'm missing activity! I pull my socks up and locate the tower. I find the Drake in the tower, piloted but inactive, which tells me the drones are strays, elsewhere in the system and belonging to no ships. Poor drones. Let's hope they become self-aware. And let's hope I don't drift any closer to this tower. Dropping out of warp puts me within ten kilometres of the force field, which isn't dangerous but is far from comfortable. I bounce off a nearby moon to get to a better monitoring position, just as the Impel returns from wherever it went.

I get back to the tower in time to see the Impel disappear again. He warps off to empty space, and I am quick enough with d-scan's range gate to determine he warped to around 7–8 AU from the tower, towards and below the fifth planet in this system. That's good enough for me. I wait until the transport drops off d-scan and bring my probes in to find the wormhole. There are a few signatures in that volume of space, but I pluck the wormhole out of the fourteen signatures in the system thanks to my scouting. It's a bit weak, though, making me think it leads to high-sec empire space. I warp to find out that, yes, it connects to high-sec, of all the luck. At least I resolved the wormhole before the Impel returned, which he does a minute later.

I consider bubbling the wormhole, which could impede the Impel enough to have a good shot. But the wormhole is in d-scan range of the tower and so any anchoring and the bubble itself should be obvious. Besides which, we lost our only bubble, as the C5ers from a previous night popped it when we left it in space to inconvenience them. That'll teach us. I could get my stealth bomber anyway, but damn that shortened session change timer! There's almost no time to catch a ship on a wormhole these days, all because some impatient capsuleers who have access to space stations want to admire their ship collections more quickly. Wormholes aren't like stargates, as you're spat out the other side within range to jump right back. There's no long crawl required to retreat the way you came. Then again, I suppose there is also no traffic control preventing jumps when you have aggression, so there are balances.

I return home and swap back to the Manticore, even though I know I'm on a fool's errand. I take the stealth bomber to C3a and plonk it on the exit to high-sec, and wait for the Impel. I may have enough time to lock on to the ship before it can jump back to the safety of Concord-patrolled high-sec, but I can at least try to be disruptive. Wait, wait, wait. And now a Buzzard covert operations boat appears on d-scan and launches a combat scanning probe in plain sight. Damn amateurs, they ruin it for the rest of us. He disappears and I get back to waiting, which is a fancy term for doing nothing, until the Buzzard reappears on d-scan. And stays on d-scan. And is still on d-scan. You know, I think he's local.

Adjusting d-scan and pointing it towards the tower shows the cov-ops to be there. That would explain his lacking the desire to stay hidden, but I'm not retracting my insult. Now the Buzzard is swapped for a Manticore of his own, which may mean he's found our K162 and is going to explore. Good, as that means I can leave this waiting game and try to catch the stealth bomber. I warp homewards, holding on the wormhole as the Manticore blips off d-scan, and hope he's coming my way. Fin returns from her scouting, and missing a hauler returning from somewhere, to sit in wait on the other side of the wormhole in a Flycatcher interdictor. Now we're both waiting.

The Manticore appears on d-scan again, then is off once more. Where he goes, nobody knows. I haven't actually scanned this C3 either, only having found the wormhole the Impel was using, so it's quite possible the Manticore has headed in a direction of greater opportunity, although how he managed to find it with just one probe escapes me. I think he's not going anywhere. At least we haven't spent this time waiting for a ship we can't catch, only one we can't see, but the evening's pretty much over. Fin stows her interdictor and goes off-line. I take my Manticore for a look through the constellation my leader uncovered behind us.

I find I'm actually a little unsettled by roaming through unknown systems in a ship without probes. I suppose I haven't done this in a while, and as Fin is now off-line I make sure each wormhole back the way I came is available, in case of oversights when copying them. But besides my own vulnerability there is not much to see. C2a has a tower and no pilots, C2b has a tower and the Mammoth that Fin found and watched for a bit, but by the time I find the tower the Mammoth has gone off-line itself. I suppose that's it for tonight. I turn around and head home to sleep. It hasn't been a bad evening overall. We found ourselves in the right places, it just happened to be at the wrong times.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Looking the wrong way
Tags: buzzard, charon, drake, eve online, flycatcher, impel, mammoth, manticore, mastodon, mmorpg, moros, orca, penny ibramovic, prowler, scanning, thanatos, w-space