A kill is a kill

I have a shiny new marauder, with only a few scratches from a Dread Gurista so far. But as much as I'd like to pilot the Golem in to anomalies to blow the crap out of some Sleepers, if there's one lesson that's been rammed home to me in the past week or so it's that you can't make plans in w-space. By the same token, just because I'm not expecting an easy ride in to class 3 w-space full of anomalies and no additional wormholes it doesn't mean that's not what I'm going to get. After all, my glorious leader is on-line and the w-space constellation looks to be already mapped out to low-sec empire space, so maybe we can have a quiet evening of thunderous torpedo explosions after all.

My tentative plan is going awry already. Fin is unresponsive, and this time I can't even stir her by jumping through our static wormhole. That's okay, I can take a look around as I wait for her to stir, starting with our neighbouring C3. It's my fourth visit to this system, the last being ten weeks ago, although it looks like one of the two towers has been torn down since then. I think I'll find the one still on-line quickly too, as a Dominix battleship and Orca industrial command ship both appear on what was a shipless result from my directional scanner a moment ago.

The two ships do not appear to have come from the tower but rather low-sec, which is the second most obvious place to look for appearing ships. I am glad Fin has already scanned the system, as it gives me a direct bookmark to the exit wormhole to low-sec empire space without my having to launch probes and potentially spook the pilots, whatever they are up to. I warp to the wormhole in time to see the Orca cloak, which as it can't warp cloaked means he'll be loitering here for now, along with its battleship escort. But I don't think the Dominix is an escort in the normal sense, more that he is helping by being big rather than dangerous. I suspect these two ships are collapsing the wormhole.

I really need some help here. This is a great opportunity to catch a wayward Orca in deep space, just after it collapses its only escape route and has nowhere to go. I would do it myself but for the Dominix, which would rip me apart before I could wear down the hull of the Orca. If I could get Fin here with me in a Widow then we'd have the massive firepower needed to reduce the Orca to a wreck whilst using the black ops ship's ECM to jam the Dominix and prevent it from retaliating. There's not much I can do to wake Fin from whatever reverie she's in, though.

The two pilots in front of me are slow at collapsing this wormhole, perhaps overestimating the delay caused by polarisation issues, but I can't work out if that's good. It gives me more time to try to attract Fin's attention, of course, but because I continue to get no response it simply ends up meaning I am watching the Dominix do nothing for minutes at a time. If they finished the operation efficiently I could get on with being disappointed as I scan for the new wormhole. They must at least be near the end of the operation, as the Orca is now remaining in low-sec whilst only the Dominix jumps back and forth, no doubt in a bid to critically destabilise the wormhole for the Orca's final trip home.

There goes the wormhole, shrinking to its smallest size. The Orca will return shortly and I still don't have Fin's attention. It's so sad, as this is the perfect chance to cause mayhem and destruction but there is no way I can hold off a Dominix long enough. So maybe it's good that he warps away from the wormhole before the Orca returns. No, it isn't really. Even when the pilot swaps to a Cheetah covert operations boat, no doubt so that he can scan for the replacement static wormhole, it would take me so long to destroy the Orca by myself that he'd have plenty of time to swap back to the battleship—or another, even pointier ship—and blow me to smithereens. I can't take the Orca on by myself in this situation, as much as I'd like to.

Maybe I can take a shot at the Cheetah instead. I don't consider it an option at first, what with cov-ops being agile and mostly cloaked, but the pilot warps back to the wormhole and sits in plain sight. If he stays like that for a minute longer I'll get my kill, even if it's small and puny. I bounce off the planet holding the local tower and back to the wormhole at range, dropping close to the still-visible Cheetah. I decloak and hope I'm somehow not noticed for the duration of my ship's sensor recalibration delay, although happy to see probes launched and surrounding the cov-ops that will hinder any attempts at it cloaking. Still a sitting duck by the time my systems are all functioning normally, I gain a positive lock on the Cheetah and start shooting, as behind me the wormhole collapses and the Orca reappears in the system.

Destroying the Cheetah is straightforward, even when the ship tries to make a run for it. I aim to catch the pod too but being flung out of his ship has the pilot sufficiently alert for him to escape cleanly. I turn around and burn hard for where the wormhole used to be, only to see that it is now also where the Orca used to be. There was a slim chance that had I podded the second pilot at just the right time I could have been able to engage the Orca one-on-one. As it turns out, I don't catch the pod and the Orca has warped back to the local tower even in the short time it took me to blow up the Cheetah. Oh well, a cov-ops kill is better than nothing.

I swing by the local tower to see what response my attack provokes, catching the ex-Cheetah pilot board a Tornado battlecruiser and the Orca pilot go off-line to be replaced by a Legion strategic cruiser. As I am still flying solo I think that's my cue to leave. I warp back to our K162 and hold for a couple of minutes, knowing that I should be able to see any ships dropping out of warp at my position whilst allowing me enough time to jump home and clear the wormhole safely. Judicious updating of d-scan helps me spot any potential ship changes, particularly to hulls that can warp cloaked, and I see that the Legion leaves the tower and launches scanning probes. Maybe he's not as tough as I first thought, although still tougher than a flimsy cov-ops. But still, I've done all I can accomplish here alone. I jump home and get a relatively early night.

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Tags: cheetah, dominix, eve online, legion, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, pvp, tornado, w-space

Getting the Golem

I'm still here. I somehow managed not to rage-quit after yesterday's horrible, horrible attempt to regain some security status by running missions, which failed because of being continually shoved in to shooting drones. I'll probably still try to recover my security status, so I can keep on shooting idiots that throw their ships at me in low-sec empire space, even though I will probably be imprinted with a yellow skull of piracy before long.

At least today's scanning is done in easy-mode. I simply copy the bookmarks Fin has already made of the w-space constellation to my nav-comp. And it looks like I can use them immediately, as my leader is showing what makes her glorious by pointing out that the low-sec exit system is one hop from high-sec and that perhaps I could think about getting a new Golem marauder today. I'm stripped down to my bare pod and following the bookmarks out of the home system, across our neighbouring class 3 system, and out to empire space quicker than a Noctis pilot ejects.

I take my pod to and through high-sec to Jita, the obvious place to get a good deal and ripped off at the same time, giving Fin a small heart attack when she sees the corporate wallet dive almost as hard as my security status as I buy the Golem. I tell her to shield her eyes, because even the ship doesn't cost quite as much as the shield booster I'm about to buy. Thankfully, the wallet can take the stress, even if the capsuleers looking after it can't. I scrimp on the Tech II rig, though, not quite wanting to bankrupt us, and hoping that a basic version will suffice for most Sleeper combat.

All I need now is a name. Fin's great at coming up with quirky names, yet I somehow pass over them all to end up on Perdedor. The common theme to all the suggestions was the idea that we'd only lose this expensive beauty far sooner than it will pay for itself, so I thought I may as well encode it right in to the name. Suitably fitted, and stocked with ammunition and drones, I undock and start heading back towards the low-sec system holding the K162 home.

I don't jump directly in to low-sec, though. I'm not that stupid. In fact, I don't even warp to the final stargate, not wanting to give anyone watching the impression that, at some point, I will be jumping in to the murky space of low-sec. Fin will be flying an escort for me, once she gets back from moving ships around herself, so I hold in the high-sec system, aligning to dock the new Golem to keep myself safe whilst I wait. No, I won't dock, I'll scan. I set my passive scanner running and find an anomaly in the system. I can work on my security status as I wait, and throw the Golem in to trivial combat.

Pop, pop, pop! The rats can take only one volley from my torpedoes before exploding, although these are crappy rats in a high-sec anomaly and I was hardly expecting a fight. The longest wait is the week or so it takes for my massive ship to lock-on to the frigates. And because I'm in a marauder I have a tractor beam and salvagers on-line, which lets me clear up as I shoot, no ship swapping required. This anomaly is cleared and Fin's still a good while away from me yet. I don't suppose I have to stop, though. I head back one system, careful to remain in high-sec, and look for more anomalies.

I find another anomaly in the new system, but it's a bit annoying. The frigates use ECM to jam my systems, a successful cycle having me do nothing but soak up damage and a failed cycle lasting almost long enough for my sluggish targeting systems to get a positive lock on the jamming ships. Almost, but not quite. It takes two consecutive failed cycles, after a few minutes of having little to do but pulse my shield booster, before I rain torpedo doom on the jammers and settle back in to a more comfortable role of Penny the Destroyer. I'm rewarded for my perseverance with the appearance of a Dread Gurista Killer.

The Dread Gurista has a much bigger bounty than the other ships here, which should give me a slightly more than negligible boost to my security status, but it's the loot I'm interested in. What I find in the wreck is quite good, too. The Crystal Delta Low Grade implant I loot looks to be worth a hundred million ISK or so, which is quite the result for a simple high-sec anomaly. It hardly pays for the Golem but it's a step in the right direction. I loot and salvage all the ships here and move on. Or back. Fin's available and getting an ECM boat to the low-sec system.

I dock and sell the loot and salvage I've collected from high-sec anomalies, put the implant up for sale at a reasonable price, and head out to hook up with Fin. She reports the low-sec gate as being clear and I warp to it from the high-sec side. It looks clear here too, so we should be fine. I jump, align, and warp towards the wormhole. We have no problem. I could wait for Fin as a continued escort, but for some reason I don't feel quite so concerned about flying through w-space as I do low-sec. I know where my home is. I guide the Golem across the still-quiet class 3 system and jump through our K162 for my safe return to our tower.

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Tags: eve online, golem, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Mundane missioning

It's been a few hours since I took a look, so I'm hoping the dying wormhole has now collapsed. I return to space, jump to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, and warp to the bookmark where the static exit to low-sec empire space was wobbling earlier. For once, I'm glad to drop out of warp in to empty space. The wormhole is gone, a new one is out there to replace it. After checking that the local tower remains empty I launch probes to see what opportunity the new exit will give me.

The new static wormhole sits directly above the tower, which is convenient. I don't have far to warp across this big system until I'm jumping to low-sec, where I appear in the Dastryns system in the Placid region. My route to a mission base, where I already have a ship mothballed, so I won't need to waste time buying a new one, doesn't look short. Even so, the journey looks simple. I am one hop from contiguous high-sec space, which will make travelling simple and relatively quick. I won't be scanning for any short-cut wormholes tonight.

Crossing between three regions in three hops is quite striking, with the nebulae changing as I jump borders, although the dull grey mist of Lonetrek is rather dreary in comparison to every other region I've visited recently. But I'm not here to admire the scenery. I dock at my old mission base and strike up a conversation with an agent. I wonder if all this time spent away will affect our relationship, but it doesn't seem like it. He still hates me. Asking for a mission from this security agent has him wanting some green arisite, the shithead making me mine ore for him as my first task back. I get a nagging feeling that he did this to me before too.

At least I remember to take my combat ship out to the deadspace site first, and not my mining barge. I get to shoot some minor rats first, wreaking destruction before coming back in the over-capable Retriever to pull the rock in to my hold. And so I continue with the chain of missions, my agent apparently wise to my attempt to gain security status as the primary reason for running missions, as he feeds me mission after mission where I'm shooting bountiless drone ships. I might go a bit bonkers if I didn't have the help and company of a Japanese rock star.

I persevere with the first chain of missions, finishing it off pretty quickly but with almost negligible gain to my security status, and ask for more missions in a desperate bid to feel like I'm going to accomplish something tonight. And I get asked to shoot more drones, and more drones after that. This isn't funny. Where are the extravangazas and barricades that feed me wave after wave of big bounty ships? I finally get a couple of missions that have real rats to pop, but they are puny and barely worth my time. Yet the missions still take time, and my time has run out.

I still have to get home, so I bid farewell to my agent by punching him in the throat and get back in to my covert Tengu strategic cruiser. Jump, jump, jump. I hop from system to system, wondering if it is required by law to have a yellow-skulled Hurricane battlecruiser loitering on one side of each stargate. The only excitement of the evening comes from having a scout from our sister class 5 system find his way to C3b, where he picks up our corporate bookmarks and finds his way to our home. It doesn't happen often, but our two systems link in w-space. Sadly, it's too late for me to take a transport and steal all their fuel blocks and faction ammunition, so I just give Mick a wave before hitting the sack.

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Tags: eve online, hurricane, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, retriever, scanning, tengu, w-space

According to no plan

Nearly getting myself stuck in empire space yesterday has given me an idea. I spend a fair amount of time trying to repair the criminally large reductions in my security status by looking for anomalies or other sites that will have bounty-holding rats to pop. It takes time and effort just finding the rats to start with, time that perhaps should be better spent actually repairing my status. Maybe I'm finding rats the hard way, when instead I could be talking to just the right person who could point me to a never-ending supply. I have mission agents available to me. Given the opportunity, instead of scanning a system I could take the short time necessary to travel to an old agent and run a handful of missions, probably gaining more security status in the process than would ratting in simple sites.

Of course, running missions is still rather dull, but it should at least be more efficient and reliable. I can't put my plan in to action until I get out of w-space, so I start this evening by scanning as usual. I resolve our static wormhole and jump to the neighbouring class 3 system, where I realise space is still dicking with me. I was last in this system ten weeks ago, where I note a blue-occupied tower, which isn't really a problem and actually makes travelling safer. The problem is the static exit to null-sec k-space, which will probably be completely useless for getting to high-sec empire space and a mission agent. Then again, a quiet null-sec system with a few anomalies would suit my purposes well enough, so I launch probes and take a look around.

Resolving one anomaly and four signatures can hardly be called scanning, and I soon have bookmarks for the static wormhole, a magnetometric site, and a second wormhole, which I hope to be a K162 from empire space. And it is! But the connection from low-sec is reaching the end of its natural lifetime and hardly useful for a prolonged excursion. Never mind, let's see what the null-sec system is like. It's in the Providence region and populated with both anomalies and pilots. I won't be able to do anything here without forceful interruption, leaving me little option. I'm going home to collapse our wormhole and start again.

The first time I collapsed our static wormhole by myself I managed to shut myself out by failing to count properly. The second time went more smoothly, as I made a note of each trip and mass added as I went, which is what I'll do again this time. I stress the wormhole with an Orca industrial command ship, watching as the wormhole destabilises to half-mass on schedule, and critically on my final outward jump. I return home to drag the wormhole behind me, collapsing it. It takes a while to do and no time to summarise, and now I can look for an exit to empire space again.

Our new neighbouring system has six little ducks, but not Drake battlecruisers this time. I jump in to J222222 to a clear result from my directional scanner, letting me launch probes from the wormhole before warping away to explore. I find a tower on the far edge of the system, where no one's home. Scanning has a piddly two anomalies but sixteen signatures, making me think the locals don't care much for industry. Nor me, and at the moment I'm just looking for wormholes, so I ignore what is mostly gas to resolve the static connection. And what a stupid wormhole this is. Despite it leading out to low-sec, being somewhat of an improvement to the previous C3, it is reaching the end of its life and rather useless. That looks like all I can do for now.

Wait a minute. A final blanket scan of the system reveals two signatures at a planet 86 AU away, one of which turns out to be an N968 outbound connection to more class 3 w-space. That could be promising. I jump to C3b to take a look around. The system is inactive and unoccupied, with fifteen anomalies and thirteen signatures to sift through. I find a wormhole quickly, but it's a K162 from class 5 w-space and not really helping my getting to empire space, and judging by the lack of occupation and strength of the remaining signatures the static connection will lead to null-sec again.

'A plan is just a list of things that don't happen.'—Parker

I may as well take a peek in the class 5 system to see what's happening, but getting the message when trying to jump that the connection is stabilising tells me all I need to know. I don't bother trying to jump a second time. I head homewards, swinging past the EOL wormhole in C3a in the vain hope that, by some coincidence, it has died in the few short minutes since I was last checking it, but of course it remains clinging on to life just to spite me. The only change is that it appears to be surrounded by scanning probes, at least according to d-scan, indicating a scout from somewhere. A quick blanket scan shows no new signatures, so sod it. I'm unlikely to catch a covert operations boat. I'm heading home for a break.

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

Scanning my way out of trouble

I'm boned. In looking for some rats I instead found a bunch of wormholes, and have chosen the wrong door. It all looked as benign as any other jump I made to start with. The system in low-sec empire space was empty apart from me, the wormhole was clear of ships on the w-space side. But between warping away to find the pair of towers my directional scanner was showing me and wondering where all the ships were I've managed to be on the wrong side of a fleet collapsing the wormhole I used to get here. I'm pretty sure I can't use it to go back the way I came.

I think about making a run for the exit. I could manoeuvre through the loitering ships to get close enough to the wormhole to jump with little risk, even burning to get in range should I get accidentally decloaked. But I have no idea how many more jumps the wormhole needs before it collapses, which could send a dozen combat ships following me in to low-sec looking for a prize trophy of my strategic cruiser wreck. That's not even considering how many ships are currently in low-sec, waiting to jump back to add their mass to the wormhole's limit. On top of that, if my timing is bad I could make a break for the wormhole right as the last ships are jumping back to w-space, the other side of the wormhole already collapsed. That would leave me burning through the middle of a fleet with no escape route. I've been in that situation before, and it didn't end well.

I have to accept that I'm stuck in this class 2 w-space system for now. It's not the end of the world, and I'm not really isolated from the home system either. I exited w-space through our neighbouring class 3 system's static wormhole, and I can get home that way too. I just need to get back to empire space, and as the wormhole this annoying fleet is collapsing is a static wormhole to low-sec another exit will pop up soon enough. What I should be doing right now, after accepting my fate, is warping out to launch scanning probes. I could perform a blanket scan of the system, ignore all the signatures, and find the new static exit easily once it appears. But no. Instead, I watch with morbid curiosity as the final ships jump back from low-sec and kill the wormhole.

That's that. If I'm to get home this evening I definitely need to scan now, so I warp out and launch probes. I note that the scanning probes I saw earlier are still in the system, according to d-scan, and it's possible the locals will be chain-collapsing the exit. Maybe they saw an intruder, possibly me, and are looking to catch whoever they saw, or at least trap them. I've been in this situation before too, where I've had to race to resolve the new connection before the locals get their ships in place as a credible threat to my safety should I try to get past. Luckily, I'm pretty good at scanning. Even more luckily, there are only five signatures in the system, reducing the number of blind alleys. But I also realise that the local scout is using seven probes to my five and has probably ignored the irrelevant signatures already.

I stumble over a ladar site in my race to find the new wormhole, but the A239 appears as the second signature under my probes. Well, I have to assume it's the A239 until I warp to it, what with class 2 w-space systems holding two static connections, but I drop short of the wormhole to confirm that it does indeed lead out to low-sec. I am surprised, and a little flattered, that I am the first ship here. I didn't think I was that fast at scanning. But it also means I dropped quite a bit short of the wormhole, as I had expected to fly in to the fleet again. I could decloak and burn to the wormhole, or I could crawl there cloaked the whole way. Revealing myself, although quicker, seems riskier, as I am aware that some cloaked ships comprise part of the fleet, so I start the slow crawl to the wormhole hoping I can still get there in time.

Ten kilometres, eight, five. Still no ships have warped in. These capsuleers need a better scout. I finally decloak, jump to low-sec, and burn away from the wormhole on the other side without waiting for the session change timer to end. If I get caught here my only escape route would be back in to the C2, which is no escape route at all, so I may as well run whilst I can. And it's only about ten seconds after I clear the wormhole and cloak that it flares, signalling the arrival of another ship. A Loki strategic cruiser was hot on my tail, and although it looks alone it has actually dragged a bunch of other ships behind it. I watch in silent admiration as within two minutes of my exiting to low-sec the new A239 is destabilised to half-mass and then critical mass. These pilots may not be able to scan quickly, but they can definitely mobilise quickly.

I'm out of the system of ever-collapsing wormholes. That's certainly a foot forward and even though I knew I wouldn't be isolated I was certainly concerned about getting home. The wormhole I used to enter the system was one stargate hop from the K162 to our neighbouring C3. By forcing me through a different wormhole I could have ended up in any low-sec system in New Eden, and this one is twenty-eight hops away. That's quite a few jumps to make in itself, and it could be worse if I run in to any hot systems with gate camps. The evening's already late too, and I'd rather not have to make that many jumps. So I do what I do best, and launch probes to scan. I could get lucky and find a wormhole linking two low-sec systems together to get me home quicker, but I'd settle for a w-space bridging system too.

What I don't expect to see amongst my scanning probes is a titan. A Leviathan is somewhere in this system, along with a couple of supercarriers, the ship massive enough to be identified with even the roughest of scans. This system in the Khanid region is one hop from high-sec and two in another direction from null-sec, so I suppose it shouldn't be surprising to see big ships here, but I've only ever bumped in to titans once before in person. I want to see this one too. I resolve its position, apparently around a planet and so perhaps not involved in anything but logistics, and warp to it. There she is, a rather uninteresting ship from the Caldari designers except for its size. But what a size that is. The two supercarriers are dwarfed by the titan, making them look like little more than cruisers.

Sightseeing out of the way, I get back to looking for shortcuts home. The one signature in this system happens to be an outbound connection to class 1 w-space, which seems quite lucky. Jumping in puts me in an occupied system with only unpiloted ships floating in the local tower, and a mere eight signatures to sift through. I soon find a wormhole but not the static connection, this one a K162 from class 2 w-space. That's good too! The C2 connects to this C1 and so will also connect to k-space with its other static connection. If the exit in this C1 doesn't pan out I have another option to try. And the C1's exit leads to a high-sec system in the Tash-Murkon region, dropping my journey down to twenty-one jumps. That's a decent improvement, but I think I'll look in the C2 to see if I can make it better still.

The class 2 system is occupied but not empty. Two haulers sit inside the force field of a tower around a distant moon, which is enough to distract me for a few minutes. I remind myself that I'm trying to get home and, with the haulers unmoving, I warp away to launch probes only to see a new Hoarder hauler appear at a tower in the inner system. If this pilot has just woken up he may want to collect planet goo, so I watch him instead. Nope, he's just shifting materials around for manufacturing in the assembly array, and I'm still wasting time that I should be using to get home. I finally get down to scanning, sifting through a puny five signatures to resolve another static exit to high-sec. This one gets me a whole two jumps closer to home.

I'm glad I wasted that half-an-hour in the C2 so that my trip home would be nineteen jumps instead of twenty-one. That was time well spent. I could scan further but I think I've shown the folly that can ensue as a result. No, I simply point my Tengu towards the highlighted stargate and accept that I'll be going home by the plebeian route. At least most of the journey is through high-sec, letting me warp point-to-point without thinking about my surroundings or having to cloak. All I need to concern myself with is remembering when I hit the border between high- and low-sec, which passes without incident. In fact, apart from crossing paths with a couple of ships deeper in to low-sec, all of the stargates remain clear, even if the systems themselves don't.

It is actually a rather simple matter to get back to the low-sec system where my adventure started, and once there I warp to the wormhole and return to w-space as if nothing had happened. I see on d-scan that an Anathema covert operations boat has joined the two unpiloted carriers in the class 3 system, but that barely registers. I've seen so much more tonight. An Iteron hauler throwing itself at me, my security status plummet to new lows, a significant w-space fleet collapse my way home, a Leviathan titan, and plenty of stunning nebulae shift as I cross region after region. It's been quite an adventure.

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Tags: anathema, eve online, hoarder, leviathan, loki, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, tengu, w-space

Looking for rats and finding trouble

Both the static wormhole and glorious leader Fin have collapsed. Fin orchestrated collapsing the wormhole before deciding it was already late enough. I'm keen to take another look around w-space in the hopes of finding an exit close to Jita so I can buy a new and expensive toy. I jump to our new neighbouring class 3 w-space system to see a tower and two carriers on my directional scanner. I'm going to assume the Nidhoggur and Thanatos are both unpiloted, and launch my scanning probes right here. A blanket scan of the system reveals only two signatures to accompany seven anomalies, which makes scanning as simple as it can get.

Locating the tower here is straightforward too, as it's in the same place from my previous visit seven months ago. I make a note and resolve the static exit to false-sense-of-sec empire space, or low-sec as it's more commonly known. I leave w-space to appear in a system in the Metropolis region by myself. It's not a great place to bring a marauder through, but would be a neat opportunity to regain some security status brutally ripped away from me if I weren't once again in the middle of a faction warfare constellation. There are no suitable rats to engage here, and I doubt I'll find anything else in nearby systems either. Even so, I check my star map and see the constellation is quiet, so pick a direction and head one hop over to scan again.

This second system is ripe with faction warfare anomalies, but there are also seven promising-looking signatures. I'm bound to find some rats I can pop to increase my security status amongst all of these sites. The first signature turns out to be a wormhole, which is very funny, space, ha ha. The second is full of drones, which don't offer security status gains, and I'm still not laughing. The next is another wormhole, and another, and a fourth wormhole, before finally resolving a radar site! The seventh signature is a fifth wormhole, just for kicks. Oh well, I suppose I have more to explore, if perhaps not the time, and a radar site to rat in first.

I'm not sure popping a single frigate could be considered 'ratting'. It's all the first wave of the radar site comprises and without a codebreaker fitted I won't be able to trigger further waves. This is really not going as I had hoped. I'll check the wormholes and see if I can find a soft target acting stupidly to pop to lift my spirits. Warping around sees a C3 K162, C2 K162, and C1 K162, but they don't get any lower, the last two being a C2 K162 and C3 K162. I completely ignore the symmetry and head for the middle, the K162 from class 1 w-space, hoping to find the softest targets first.

The class 1 system looks clear on d-scan from the wormhole and warping around finds no occupation or activity. Despite this implying another K162 to find I have four more wormholes to check back in the stupid-sec system, and am not going to scan any deeper. I'm just looking for easy targets. I jump back to low-sec, pick one of the K162s from class 2 w-space, and jump through to see roughly the same as in the C1. Warping around finds a tower here, though, along with a piloted Viator transport ship and Prowler hauler, and unpiloted Ibis frigate. I sit and watch the ships for a couple of minutes, hoping they'll collect planet goo, but it's like watching paint dry. In the case of the Minmatar-built Prowler, it's like watching metal rust. I leave the pair of pilots behind and try the next system.

C2b looks rather busier than the previous two systems. Two towers are on d-scan along with maybe two-dozen ships, mostly combat hulls but with some industrials too. There are some probes visible on d-scan too, so someone is active and I warp off to locate the towers, wondering just how many of these ships are piloted. Not the Mammoth hauler in one tower, but the Orca industrial command ship and Helios covert operations boat in the second are. But that leaves loads of ships still unaccounted for. A bit more warping around confirms I haven't missed a tower somewhere, and adjusting d-scan shows a lack of Sleeper wrecks. I'm confused.

Here we go. A Dominix battleship warps in to the second tower with a Rupture cruiser coming in behind it, although they head right back out again. A Hurricane warps in, as does a Harbinger and a second Hurricane, the battlecruisers followed by another Orca. Blimey, it's all go, and the movement of the Orca gives me an inkling as to what's happening. I warp to the exit to low-sec, the wormhole I just entered the system through, dropping sensibly short to see a small but significant fleet of combat ships mostly loitering around it. The bigger ships are jumping in and out of the system, and I doubt they are doing so for fun. The fleet is collapsing the wormhole, my route home, and I have no idea if I'll be able to get past them. This is looking a bit sticky.

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Tags: dominix, eve online, harbinger, helios, hurricane, ibis, mammoth, mmorpg, nidhoggur, orca, penny ibramovic, prowler, rupture, scanning, thanatos, viator, w-space

Low-sec piracy

It's a new day. I have loot to trade in for a Golem marauder. Whether I can do that or not depends on how kind w-space will be to me today. There is nothing new at home and resolving our static wormhole is as easy as ABC, that being its signature reference. It all starts so easily, maybe w-space is on my side at the moment. Jumping to our neighbouring class 3 system has a tower but no ships visible on my directional scanner, which is a good result for wanting to bring an expensive ship home, and scanning only needs me to sift through three signatures to resolve the static exit. The wormhole leads to low-sec empire space, which obviously isn't as convenient as a high-sec connection, but quiet low-sec is almost as good as high-sec.

Exiting w-space puts me in the Bleak Lands region. I'm close to a trade hub but in a system with a bunch of other capsuleers, making my return home far from guaranteed. Undeterred, I launch probes and scan, hoping to find a lucky link I can use. Instead, I find sites that suggest I'm in the middle of some faction warfare. Only two signatures stick out, one holding Blood Raider rats and the other being a wormhole, a K162 from class 3 w-space. That's not encouraging, as the C3 will probably be a dead-end. It's still worth a look, though, so I jump in. The system holds an unpiloted Orca in a tower, and twelve anomalies and twelves signatures, none of which are other wormholes. It looks like I'm not getting the Golem just yet. That's okay, it's the day after getting the ISK to buy one, I just need to be patient. I head home to grab some food.

I return to see my glorious leader on-line but unresponsive, at least until I jump to our neighbouring C3. It seems a Probe frigate is on the loose somewhere and Fin is monitoring our static wormhole for jumps, which is how I caught her attention. As she keeps watch for the Probe, which may be gone or hiding, I scout C3a and let Fin know that it remains empty. Or not. A Bestower has appeared on d-scan. The hauler is not at the local tower, or at a customs office, but d-scan places it near the wormhole to low-sec. I warp there to see, yep, the Bestower is here, but only briefly. The ship jumps to low-sec, which is too tempting a target for me to ignore.

I decloak and burn to the wormhole, following the Bestower out of w-space. In low-sec the hauler is slowly aligning to a stargate, an act I soon put a stop to with my warp disruptor. A few volleys of missiles later and the Bestower explodes in a shower of blue sparks. Security status be damned, I aim for the pod, but the pilot warps cleanly away.

Not hitting the pod isn't a problem, as I doubt I really want my security status to take another nosedive. The pocket clear, I take a peek in the wreck, definitely not wanting to shoot it after the Scythe debacle, and see it stuffed with tower fuel when, hello, an Iteron from the same corporation as the Bestower warps to the wormhole.

This is getting silly. Ships are just throwing themselves at me now. I know that I do quite well stalking salvagers and planet goo haulers, but when they warp right to me, like the Noctis being exported or the Bestower interrupting our Sleeper combat, it all feels a bit easy. But I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. I lock on to the Iteron, now quite undecided as to its intention to jump to w-space, and destroy the ship as the pilot ejects early to save himself. Apparently it's all too much for him, and he rants a little in the local communication channel.

I find it amusing to be called a noob for attacking unescorted haulers between low-sec and w-space, yet the pilot doesn't see his own actions as somewhat naive. And I have no idea what he means about us taking over their system. Anyway, I have more pressing matters, in that my security status is almost non-existent now. Two soft kills and I'm almost a criminal! I'm ruined! The amount of ratting I'll have to do to recover from this loss will be mind-numbing. The horribly asymmetric nature of security status gains and losses is almost as if they don't want you to attack anyone in low-sec. I thought low-sec was supposed to be dangerous, but time and again it just shows itself to be stupid.

Oh. There's an off-line tower in the C3, which Fin and I both remember at about the same time. Fin has come in a Crane to collect the loot from the Bestower, returning to the C3 in her cloaky transport ship to locate the off-line tower. Finding it to be owned by the corporation whose members I just shot in stupid-sec space explains their little rant. It looks like a competing corporation set itself up in their system and is perhaps forcing them out. The off-line tower doesn't look attacked, though, merely off-line. Without knowing more details, it could simply be incompetence that caused the tower to go off-line, and opportunism that brought the second corporation in. Whatever the reasons, now seems a good time to go home and collapse our static wormhole, isolating us but keeping the other pilots paranoid.

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Tags: bestower, crane, eve online, iteron, low-sec, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, probe, pvp, scanning, w-space

Racking up the ISK from Sleepers

I'm back in w-space after a couple of days of shore leave. Launching scanning probes lets me see what's changed, seeing some anomalies returning to the home system after the latest fleet romped through here, but otherwise everything looks the same. And here's my glorious leader, arriving just as I resolve our static wormhole. Let's explore.

Jumping to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system has little appear on my directional scanner, just a large canister. Launching probes and performing a blanket scan reveals no occupation or any activity, leaving a rather friendly mix of twenty anomalies and four signatures. I resolve a ladar and radar site each, and what presumably is a static exit to null-sec k-space, judging by the strength of the signature. I don't visit the wormhole, though, hoping instead to keep it closed so that we can realise some profit from the anomalies. It looks like the perfect opportunity to make some iskies tonight.

Fin and I head home, swap to Sleeper strategic cruisers, and return to the C3 for some simple devastation. I misspoke before about Sleeper combat not being boring. It is boring. There may be a fair amount of activity required to ensure silky smooth clearance of the Sleeper ships—calling targets, keeping in range of each other, maintaining speed, reloading, bookmarking wrecks for later salvaging, noting which sites are clear and which remain—but it is little more than busywork, minor activity to keep the mind from seizing.

The only activity that definitely isn't busywork is watching d-scan for scanning probes or unknown ships in the system. The only reason previous outings haven't been boring is because of interlopers appearing on d-scan, causing the mechanical and routine destruction of the Sleepers to take on a more dynamic element. The lack of boredom when shooting Sleepers is not because shooting Sleepers isn't boring, it's because other pilots coming to shoot you isn't boring. And watching out for those other pilots is boring, particularly when they never come.

But you have to watch for hostile pilots, or the excitement becomes a rather expensive cost. Like many activities, shooting Sleepers is long periods of monotony interrupted by occasional moments of panic. Never the less, I seem to be in the mood for this simple activity tonight, moving through one, two, three, four anomalies without showing signs of fatigue. I can generally manage four anomalies before getting fed up but tonight I spur us in to the fifth and sixth anomalies too.

And, hey, there's a pulsar phenomenon in this C3 too, which boosts our shields. It doesn't really help that much, as our Tengus are never really wanting for shields in C3 anomalies, but it's good to know the pulsar is there. I also remember that Fin mentioned its presence when we first jumped in to the system, but for some reason the pulsar has so far seemed to stay behind me. Spinning my view around sees it at last. It may be the sight I need to push us in to the seventh and eighth anomalies of the evening.

Clearing this number of anomalies is unprecedented for us, as evidenced by my completely running out of missiles. I normally stock plenty for what we intend to use but tonight we've shot many more ships than any other continuous operation. Luckily, Fin has some spare and shares them with me. Restocked and feeling good about the operation, it seems churlish not to clear the ninth and final favoured anomaly, so I send our ships onwards once more.

Nine anomalies are cleared of Sleepers. Now we need to get the loot and salvage home, or the evening will be a waste. We swap Tengus for a pair of Noctis salvagers and divide the sites between us, sweeping wrecks in to our holds on opposite sides of the system. To be honest, I had an ulterior motive for completing so many sites. I didn't consider this to start with, but with Fin getting us about a hundred days of fuel and the wallet still looking quite healthy, my mind is once again thinking about a Golem marauder to replace the one we lost. Perhaps if we make plenty of ISK tonight I can convince Fin we can afford a new one.

Salvaging goes smoothly. We haven't been watched or stalked, and we collect all the loot without a sign of another ship. We aren't lucky with salvage tonight, though, bringing home a haul that feels below average, but the sheer number of sites completed makes up for that. We get home and stuff about half-a-billion ISK of Sleeper loot and salvage in to our hangar. That's pretty decent and it looks like I have a green light to get a Golem! Of course, all I have to do now is find a suitable connection to empire space that will let me bring one in without dying.

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Tags: eve online, mmorpg, noctis, penny ibramovic, sleepers, tengu, w-space

Swapping w-space for Serpentis rats

Wondering what awaits me in w-space today has a weak signature turn in to a wormhole in the home system. Could this finally be a random outbound wormhole in our class 4 w-system that I've yet to find? No, it's a disguised K162, how disappointing. It comes from more class 4 w-space, and I jump through to take a look around, initially seeing nothing on my directional scanner in this wolf-rayet system. The wormhole is only in range of one planet and moon, though, and I imagine there is more to find elsewhere. I warp to the planet, launch probes, and perform a blanket scan of the system.

Exploring the inner system finds a tower new to this system since my last visit three months ago. I imagine the new occupants are industrialists, judging by my probes picking up a mere three signatures but seventeen anomalies, but there is no one home currently. Both of the other signatures are gas harvesting sites, giving me a mapped constellation in this direction. Now to head the other way. I jump home, warp across the system, and enter our neighbouring C3.

The J-number of the system looks familiar, and I have indeed been here before. My last visit was only a week ago, and the one before that was just a day earlier. Even so, there is nothing noteworthy about the system, I simply have the location of the tower listed and know I'm looking for a static exit to low-sec empire space. A blanket scan finds the opposite result here to C4a, giving me three anomalies to ignore and twenty-one signatures to wade through. It's mostly gas too, but there is an extra wormhole hidden amongst it all.

Exiting through the static wormhole puts me in a system in the Solitude region, aptly by myself. Returning to w-space to find the second wormhole is only a K162 from low-sec, and reaching the end of its natural lifetime, I go back to scan the low-sec system in Solitude. My probes pick up no anomalies and one extra signature, which is not a wormhole but a Serpentis site. It's time to get my ratting Drake battlecruiser out here to gain some more security status. I ensure that both systems connecting to our home our quiet before I swap ships, heading back to low-sec content that I shouldn't be unduly interrupted.

I don't find many rats in this site. I have to activate two acceleration gates before I find them, and it looks like they all headed to this back room to gang up on me. I think my Drake won't have any problems, with empire space rats not being Sleepers, but I'm wrong. Two energy neutralising towers and a neutralising battleship suck my capacitor dry, taking my active shield hardeners off-line, and the combined damage of thirty ships takes its toll.

When I realise what's going to happen, shortly before my capacitor is depleted, I stop concentrating on the towers and start shooting the frigates that are scrambling my warp drive. It is only thanks to my noticing the scramblers that I am able to warp back to the wormhole with armour alarms blaring, instead of in a pod and quite embarrassed to have lost a ship to rats. I didn't quite expect such a response from what I thought would be a relatively simple site.

Glorious leader Fin appears in time to kindly pilot a Guardian logistics ship and repair my Drake's armour. We then swap to our Sleeper Tengus and head back to low-sec to mete out punishment on the rats. Naturally, the powerful strategic cruisers make light work of the rats, particularly when paired up, and we even get an escalation to a second site. Sadly, the second site is to be found four jumps away, in a null-sec system in the Syndicate region, and neither of us thinks it wise to attempt to get there and back in our current ships.

Heading home, we make one last check of the class 4 system connecting in to us. A Purifier stealth bomber has appeared in the tower. I watch him at the tower as Fin waits at our K162, but the Purifier's not doing anything. Perhaps he roamed the w-space constellation whilst we were ratting and got bored. He disappears to be replaced a minute later by a new contact in a Tengu, who also does nothing. Fin succinctly claims he's 'just as exciting as the last guy', so rather than waste our time here we head home and get some sleep.

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

Crashing a collapse

My skill queue is becoming increasingly meaningless. I have no idea what to train or why, so I'm simply sticking in fairly arbitrary skills for the moment, hoping they'll be useful at some point. I don't really have an aim for a new ship, or any particular ship I use often that could potentially use that incremental boost that training to level five would offer. Most of my support skills are completed, and although I could maximise my missile or ship skills in a couple of areas, the month or more of required training for a 2% boost seems a sub-optimal use of time. Oh well, just pick one to add the queue and pretty much ignore it for now.

Moving on to explore today's w-space constellation puts me in a neighbouring class 3 system I've visited before. The system was unoccupied three weeks ago and remains so now, but someone has passed through recently. There are only five anomalies and two signatures, which is unusually low for an uninhabited system. The signatures are our K162 and a static exit to low-sec empire space, which takes me to Black Rise, the Caldari Aridia. There are enough pilots out here for a small fleet, though, and judging by the types of anomaly here they are probably involved in faction warfare. The only signature in the system is the K162 of C3a too, leaving me little to do.

I consider collapsing our static wormhole and starting again, but I remember how my first attempt at doing so didn't work out so well. I ended up on the wrong side of the wormhole to the home system, but at least with an exit to empire space scanned. What the hell, I'll give it another shot. I swap my scanning boat for one of our Orcas and start pushing the massive industrial command ship through our wormhole. This time I'm not relying on memory and am writing down each passage as it occurs along with the accumulated transit mass. The wormhole destabilises to half-mass a little early but some maths suggests I should be okay to continue in the Orca, and one final return trip duly collapses the lighter-than-normal connection. Job's a good 'un.

Scanning afresh finds the new static wormhole and I jump in to another C3 I've visited before. My last time here was fifteen months ago, and it is initially surprising to see one of the two towers in the same place, until I notice that the system is tiny and has only two moons in total. I suppose there isn't really much choice for occupying corporations choosing where to anchor their tower, and this current tower is probably under different ownership. Scanning this C3 is easy, with its dinky 6 AU radius, but it's slim pickings tonight. My probes pick up four signatures, one of which is our K162 and another a static exit to high-sec that I already knew I'd find.

The first signature I resolve is a wormhole, but one that is too weak to be the static exit. I must have found an outbound connection, which is a pleasant surprise. The other signature is a gravimetric site, which I bookmark. I warp to the exit to high-sec first, planning to see where it leads before exploring deeper w-space, only to see a shuttle enter the system and warp to the local tower. A bit of activity is good to see, but not if the pilot's only going to use the connection to high-sec. As the shuttle settles in the tower I orientate myself, jumping out of w-space to be in the Tash-Murkon region and six hops from Amarr, which would be convenient if I were buying or selling. I return to w-space and warp to the second wormhole in the C3, which turns out to be an outbound connection to class 5 w-space. The pilot in the tower is still in the shuttle and not looking like he'll be interesting, so I take a quick look in the C5.

This system was unoccupied five months ago but now a corporation has settled in. And they really are quite settled, with a carriers, freighters, and a Moros dreadnought visible on my directional scanner. I locate the tower here to see a pod and the Moros piloted, but apart from a single scanning probe that doesn't look like it will accomplish much alone anyway there is nothing happening here. My notes have this system holding a static connection to another C5, and that way madness of never-ending w-space lies, so with the evening already drawing on I turn around and head back to C3a.

In the class 3 system the shuttle still hasn't turned in to a Hulk exhumer. It probably needs more radiation and some rage. I think I'll turn in for the night. But when I reach our K162 and punch d-scan one last time a Scorpion battleship has appeared in the system. It's not at the tower, according to a tight d-scan beam, so it could be collapsing the N770 wormhole. I warp across and hold cloaked near the wormhole, wondering if it's worth my waiting for a ship that may not actually reappear, and am rewarded by the sight of the battleship decloaking and jumping back to the C5. Yes, I think he's collapsing the wormhole, slowly. But can I do anything about it? 'Shoot it.'

I'm not entirely convinced I could destroy the Scorpion with my covert Tengu. 'Shoot it.' And any ship that may stand a chance wouldn't be covert and, by myself, I may not be able to get on the wormhole in time without being spotted and countered. 'Shoot it.' That TGL3's such a dick. That's not my conscience telling me what to do, that's a result of me stupidly mentioning the Scorpion in one of our communication channels and my alliance colleague wanting to get me killed. But he makes a compelling argument. I turn my Tengu around and warp home, hoping I can swap ships and get back here before the pilot's polarisation ends and he makes his next jump.

I jump through our K162, warp to the tower, and swap to the only ship I can think of for the assault. The Legion strategic cruiser should be able to punch through a battleship's shields or armour, and the energy neutralisers, given a little time, may be able to negate the ECM of the Scorpion. But I think I can guess how this engagement will end, if I even get to the point of engaging the Scorpion. Even so, I head back to the C3 with all due haste, jumping in to see the Scorpion back on d-scan already. That seems quick. I surge my Legion across the thankfully tiny system to the N770, updating d-scan as I warp to see the Scorpion still there, still there, still there, and land just in time to watch it jump back to the C5.

I land on the wormhole and follow, appearing in the C5 in time to lock on to the Scorpion—mercifully by itself on the wormhole—and disrupt its warp engines. Hullo, this is encouraging. Locking on to the Scorpion shows it to have only about 10% armour remaining, as well as some cosmetic hull damage. As my missiles are hitting for significant damage to the shields this could be a much quicker engagement than I imagined. I apply all my offensive systems to the Scorpion, draining its capacitor as fast as possible, watching its shields drop nice and quickly, but when the battleship finally reciprocates my target lock he gets a successful ECM jam and warps away, albeit in a pretty battered ship.

It was almost inevitable that the Scorpion would jam me to escape, as it's what the ship is built for. But ships fitted to collapse wormholes can be a strange bunch and there was a possibility that it wouldn't be fitted with ECM. It was also possible that, with the state the Scorpion was in, a single failed ECM cycle would have given me enough time to pop the battleship, and it's lucky for him that he jammed me. Either way, bringing a pointy ship back here to attack the Scorpion turned out to be a good idea. I should probably thank that devil on my shoulder. For now, the Scorpion disappears from d-scan and I take my cue to leave before suitably nasty ships potentially come to scare me away.

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