Spotted

It's all quiet in the home system, I've little choice but to scan. Well, I suppose I could shoot rocks or gas or... so, I've little choice but to scan. But even scanning can't have me avoid running in to gas, with two new ladar sites cropping up, making our system look quite busy with signatures at the moment. And even though running in to gas doesn't really hurt, the Sleeper cruisers waiting to shoot me in one of the sites could leave a scorch mark or two. A quick excursion in a battlecruiser pops the cruisers and nets me some ammunition iskies, leaving me free to explore our w-space constellation.

The neighbouring class 3 system looks interesting, with nine ships visible on my directional scanner. There are no wrecks, though, and as a passive scan of the system reveals a whopping twenty-six anomalies I don't think the locals are particularly active. Having only been in this C3 two months ago lets me confirm the tower is in the same place as before, where I see all of the ships floating pilot-free. That removes all their power of intimidation. I warp out to launch probes and scan, picking up twenty-one signatures to go with all the anomalies. The locals don't shoot Sleepers, and they don't mine rocks or harvest gas. They are some lazy bastards.

Sifting through the signatures finds the usual gas, rocks, and radar sites, with nothing of interest beyond the static exit to low-sec empire space. Jumping to low-sec puts me in the Bleak Lands, which doesn't feel like much of a change from the C3 but at least there are other capsuleers in the system. Quite a few, in fact, including a Broadsword heavy interdictor, Loki strategic cruiser, Stiletto interceptor, and Hurricane battlecruiser all on d-scan. I prudently make a safe spot before launching probes to scan. There's only one other signature in the system and, luckily for me, it's another wormhole, a K162 from more class 3 w-space. Glorious leader Fin's turned up and is preparing to follow behind me when I see a Tengu strategic cruiser decloak in low-sec and jump to C3b, before I get close enough to do the same.

I wasn't quite expecting that. I falter for a moment, then let Fin know what happened, and follow the Tengu. I may not be able to pop it myself but if Fin's hot on my heels then all I need to do is hold the Tengu in place. Sadly, all I can do on entering C3b is watch the Tengu warp away from the wormhole. I was too slow. I update d-scan to see no sign of the Tengu, probably meaning he isn't local, particularly as a tower is in range. I would like to think the Tengu was scouting the exit for a logistics run, but my bad timing in being too slow to catch him but just quick enough for my entrance to be noted probably means no haulers will be coming this way. I may as well scan for wormholes.

Two K162s stand out nicely from the background noise of sixteen anomalies and seven signatures, one from class 2 w-space and one from class 5 w-space. As I drop out of warp on the C5 K162 I see the Tengu again, as it once more decloaks and jumps on my arrival. It seems plausible that he was watching my scanning probes converge on the wormhole and then disappear, as if recalled, almost as if he's baiting me in to following him. I have Fin in C3b with me now, in a Legion strategic cruiser, so we could take down the Tengu easily enough, but maybe not a waiting fleet. And even though I am tempted to take a look in the C5 this is enough to get Fin nervous for me, and she's normally the one who is pushing for engagements.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I jump to the C5. What I see is nothing, but only for a second or two, then the Tengu reappears and jumps back to the C3. It's almost as if it was waiting for me to follow so that it could evade me. I alert Fin and tell her to engage, as I hold in the C5 in case it jumps back. The Tengu escapes the Legion's recalibrating sensors and warps clear, Fin trying to follow, and I jump back to the C3 just as a second Tengu drops out of warp on to the wormhole. I'm having issues with my sense of timing again tonight. I hold in the C3 on the wormhole but the Tengu doesn't jump, so I follow Fin to the C2 K162, where she thinks the first Tengu went.

Fin jumps to the C2 to have a poke around. Not wanting to be thwarted by decloaking delays again, I decloak my Tengu now so that I am ready for any running Tengu. We don't see one, although there are ships in the C2. Fin warps around and finds them, only for them to be blue-ish to us and probably not valid targets. Meanwhile, a Tengu blips on and off d-scan in the C3, indicative of a ship making wormhole jumps. But before too long I am called by name in the local communication channel. This means two things. First, the pilot must be near the wormhole, as ship names do not betray capsuleer names. Second, I've been recognised!

It turns out my readers are an intelligent bunch, not willing to decloak when given only a vague impression that I may not shoot their flattering self. It turns out we are looking in the wrong direction, which I suppose should be obvious given I first saw the Tengu in the low-sec system. This Tengu has been scouting for other ships, one of which was carrying a few billion ISK in loot. That would have been quite a prize. It seems the way our ships crossed was purely coincidental and not by design. Now he's finished his logistics and just fancies a chat, and who am I not to oblige? Fin returns from the C2 and we stalk C3b a little longer, in case more ships are passing through and I'm being bluffed, but I don't think I am. More ships are coming, though, as it seems our friend has attracted more attention.

The pointy ships in low-sec must have seen the Tengu scout moving ships back and forth, as they have since found the wormhole leading in to this C3 and are taking a look around. As I sit on the U210, thinking about heading home, the wormhole flares and a Manticore appears. That should be small fry for my Tengu but I am also not prepared, and my decloaking would give the stealth bomber more than adequate time to cloak or jump back to low-sec. And it's good I do nothing, as a Hurricane battlecruiser appears shortly after the Manticore cloaks, jumping back to low-sec once its session change cloak dissolves. Another wormhole flare brings a rather scary Arazu recon ship in to the C3, making it clear that the low-sec pirates have found the wormhole and are looking for a juicy ship to pop.

As we can't leave the way we came just yet, and as my new friend tells me there are more wormholes to discover in this C3, I warp out, launch probes, and return to scanning. And he's not wrong, as six of the seven signatures here are wormholes, my scanning resolving outbound connections to class 1, class 2, and class 4 w-space, along with the two K162s already resolved, with the final signature being a ladar site. I think we have time to poke our noses in to the systems to look for an opportunistic kill. The C1 is occupied but inactive, a single tower holding no ships. The C2 is much the same as the C1, but with an unpiloted Orca floating inside the tower's shields.

The C4 shows some initial promise, with scanning probes converging on the K162 I'm sitting on, but they soon diverge and disappear without any ship making itself known. Fin waits patiently in the C3 as I scout each system, hoping as I do for someone to shoot, but we come away empty-handed. At least we've passed enough time for the pirates to get bored and move on, letting us bridge across the low-sec system back to C3a, where there remains no activity, and jump home. It's been a good evening. A boring-looking C3 opened out across low-sec to become an exciting hunt-or-hunted operation.

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Tags: arazu, broadsword, eve online, hurricane, legion, loki, manticore, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, stiletto, tengu, w-space

Big, scary, and ineffective

I've almost run in to a couple of Golems. To be fair, the marauders are a response to my shooting an Orca industrial command ship of theirs, as it came back from low-sec empire space to w-space. Now I'm in our neighbouring class 3 system and about to scan for the wormhole the Orca fled through when the Golems come to look menacing on the exit wormhole. If only Fin was here, we could have a proper scrap. As it is, I don't think there's too much I can do against a couple of Golems, but they won't stop me completing my scan of the system. So far, I've found this C3 to be occupied, but with only an absent pilot in an Anathema covert operations boat in the local tower, and the wormhole to low-sec. There must be another connection.

I don't have many more signatures to resolve, having worked through them methodically to start with, not realising a logistics operation was occurring, so I find a second wormhole fairly quickly. I warp to the wormhole to find a K162 from class 2 w-space, which would make the Golems, if not the Orca, rather fancy toys to have in such low-class w-space. A third wormhole appears under my scanning probes, the final signature in the system, this one a K162 from class 4 w-space. This seems more likely to be a home for Golems, almost confirmed by the wormhole being destabilised to half-mass, as if at least an Orca and a couple of marauders had made a return trip.

The Golems aren't on this K162, which is understandable. They are probably looking for me, or at least trying to keep my exit threatened, rather than guarding their connection home. They may think I've entered from low-sec, or have come from the C2, instead of a new wormhole opened since their own scouting. Only one marauder is visible on my directional scanner anyway, the Golem with the Orca pilot moved away from the exit to low-sec and cloaked, which I'm glad I saw. So I know there are two Golems out and about, and I am confident I know where they came from. There's still not much I can do about it.

Hello hello, an Iteron hauler is on d-scan now. That may even be the industrial ship my combat scanning probes initially picked up moving to the wormhole to low-sec, rather than the Orca that I ended up engaging. If he was still out in empire space and is only just returning it would explain why the Golems are persisting in this system, rather than retreating when faced with my cloaking Tengu strategic cruiser. But if that's the case, I think they are in totally the wrong ships. Sure, they are big and scary, but I reckon I could pop the Iteron before a Golem could do me much damage.

I move closer to the destabilised K162 just as the Iteron warps in, confirming this to be the right place to be waiting. I hold until the ship jumps to the C4 then drop my cloak and follow, as a Golem warps in behind the hauler. That's okay. I can't say I was expecting to face a Golem, but I have considered it a possibility and think I'll be okay. On the other side of the wormhole the Iteron is nowhere to be seen. He's holding his session change cloak, I imagine, waiting for his Golem chum to protect him. As the wormhole flares the Iteron makes a break for it. I make my move too.

I shed my cloak and lock on to the hauler, disrupting its warp engines and unleashing volleys of heavy assault missiles. The Golem shimmers in to existence but does nothing. I'm not surprised, as this is the Golem fitted with a standard cloaking device, which adds a sensor calibration delay and a penalty to the ship's scan resolution, significantly increasing locking times in both respects. My missiles have shredded the Iteron's shields and armour, and rip the hull apart to reveal the squishy capsuleer centre of the ship. I am still unthreatened, so aim for the pod, snatching it before the pilot can warp clear. A few more missiles and a fresh corpse is spat in to space. Job's a good 'un.

Now the Golem's locked on to me and starts shooting. The torpedoes slam in to my shields, which take the first hit easily enough, but I've done almost all I can here. I shoot the wreck of the hauler and jump back to C3a. I don't try to loot the wreck, nor scoop the corpse, not being entirely sure if I'll remain within jump range of the wormhole if I tried to do so, as I'm also not sure how much time I'll have to flee if I need to. I choose leaving the corpse behind in preference to perhaps leaving my own.

Back in the C3, I move away from the wormhole and cloak, moments before the second Golem warps in. I get to a safe distance and hold station, waiting to see what happens next. The newly arrived Golem jumps home, the Golem I embarrassed by podding his charge comes to the C3, the pair of jumps between the two big ships critically destabilising the wormhole in the process. Nothing else happens for a couple of minutes, after which the Golem keeping watch returns to the C4, also managing to collapse the wormhole behind him.

I think that was pretty successful. I may not have caught the Orca, nor had the clout to engage a Golem or two, but podding a pilot under the noses of its formidable and rather expensive defence was a lot of fun, and quite exciting for what was essentially engaging a soft target. Shooting the wreck was the icing on the cake, denying the capsuleers their two capital drone bay modules, which may not be expensive but both survived the ship's destruction. By popping the wreck I completed the kill. This has been a splendid evening.

Posted in Gaming | 6 Comments »
Tags: eve online, golem, iteron, mmorpg, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space

Another shot at an Orca

It's another day in w-space. Home remains clear, which is always reassuring, and I need to look abroad for activity. I scan and resolve our static wormhole and jump to our neighbouring class 3 system to see a clear return from my directional scanner. The j-number of this system looks familiar and it could be, but only from ten months ago. There were four towers then, when 'Legions engage Sleipnirs, bombers' for 'no kills, no losses'. I remember that. It's all changed now, though, as three of those towers should be in d-scan range, yet I see nothing. I launch probes and perform a blanket scan of the system as I warp across to see if the fourth tower remains.

One tower is indeed in the same location as ten months ago, holding now a piloted Anathema covert operations boat. The ship looks inactive, however, and I don't see any scanning probes in the system, giving me freedom to scan myself. I bookmark the two anomalies present and start sifting through the seven signatures, resolving a gravimetric site, a second gravimetric site, an industrial ship—what? I fling my probes out of the system, no doubt far too late for them not to have been seen, and wait to see what happens.

The industrial ship doesn't come to the tower to join the Anathema, and warping to the inner system finds it gone. I also see a second tower on d-scan, one I missed from the K162 on the outskirts of the system. That's lax scouting again, Penny. It's possible a hauler left that tower for low-sec empire space, although that doesn't explain why it didn't show up on my probes initially. But I would put iskies on the industrial ship having used a wormhole. I reposition my probes and, sure enough, resolve a wormhole after two scans, the position of the hauler giving me a good starting point.

Warping to the wormhole shows it to be the system's static exit to low-sec, and also that the connection is reaching the end of its life. I also see an Orca industrial command ship heading my way, how exciting! It's possible the Orca is the ship my probes picked up and that the pilot is trying to collapse the wormhole instead of waiting for it to die of old age. I maintain my cloak near the wormhole as the Orca warps in and jumps to low-sec, and wait with baited breath to see if the tempting target returns after the short session change timer. A polarised Orca by itself would be vulnerable indeed.

Of course, the Orca isn't coming back. Maybe I should have followed it to low-sec and attacked it there, but I've missed my first chance. Let's hope I have more than one. I am at least assuming the Orca's coming back, and that its journey will be brief, given the condition of the wormhole. I wait a minute in w-space then, armed with the pilot's name, jump to low-sec myself. I make myself a bookmark of the other side of the wormhole and check the list of pilots in the local communication channel. The Orca pilot's not amongst them, but a colleague of his is in the system. That might not be good.

There's his colleague, in a Helios cov-ops on the wormhole, returning to w-space. It's possible the Helios has been scouting for the Orca, but I don't know whether he saw my Tengu appear in low-sec before cloaking and can warn the Orca pilot of my strategic cruiser, or was travelling closer to the Orca and missed me. Either way, the Orca pilot is now in local comms. I wait until I can see the Orca itself on d-scan and then jump back to C3a, where I hope the Helios has—nope, he's still here. I don't suppose I have the element of surprise. Even so, d-scan remains otherwise clear, so I should be good to take a shot at the Orca.

I hold my cloak and hope for the Orca to jump home regardless, and when the wormhole flares it looks like that's just what he's done. The session change cloak drops and I have a whale of a ship as a target. I decloak, lock, and start shooting, taking care to disrupt the Orca's warp engines. The Orca's taking damage but he's also tanking it, a shield booster effectively absorbing all I can throw at the massive ship. Hopefully that won't last for long, otherwise we'll be here until I run out of ammunition. The Helios reappears, perhaps to distract me, but my eyes are firmly on the prize of the Orca.

Here come the ECM drones, the Orca launching its natural defence mechanism. I'm not surprised, nor really disappointed. It will take a lot of shooting to down this ship and it may be a better use of both our time for the drones to jam me and let the Orca get on its way. But I won't let him get away without a fight. The drones get a successful jam on my Tengu, so I order ramming speed and slam my ship in to my target. The bump I give the bigger ship knocks it a little off course, slowing its approach to warp speed enough for the jam to cycle and for my Tengu to regain its lock and point.

A second ECM jam is countered by a second bump, and when I am back to shooting the Orca its shields are definitely depleting. I think I've caused it to suck its capacitor somewhat dry, which is good. But the Orca makes a course change, heading in the opposite direction to before. I pull back to get a run up for my next bump, but the drones get another successful jam before I'm ready and, as soon as my warp disruptor deactivates, the Orca warps away. Oh well, it was a good little scrap whilst it lasted. And here's the Helios, returned from wherever, appearing to give me a new target just in time. He doesn't run either, and it is a simple matter to pop the smaller ship, although the pod flees before I can trap that too.

I loot and shoot the wreck of the Helios, and scoop the ECM drones left behind, taking care to watch d-scan for any more hostile ships but comfortable to be close to a wormhole for an easy escape route. As I clear the wreckage and drones I wonder why the Helios made himself an easy target. It could have been an accident, or a misguided attempt to recover the ECM drones himself, or he could have been a distraction. I favour the distraction idea, keeping my attention away from following the Orca, particularly now that it has loosed a flight of ECM drones that would leave it more vulnerable, letting the industrial ship return home safely at the cost of a much cheaper cov-ops.

Sacrificing the Helios is a good idea, even if the pilots aren't to know I haven't scanned the system completely yet. But it also highlights the option that I naively hadn't considered so far, that the ships are not local to this C3 but just passing through. That gives me another wormhole to find. I warp out and relaunch my probes, and I get to work looking for the source of the Orca, although I realise an ambush may be waiting for me when I find it. In fact, the capsuleers may not be content with my stumbling in to their ambush, as warping back to the wormhole to low-sec to keep an eye on the situation almost sends me right in to the path of two Golem marauders. Circumstances are escalating.

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Tags: anathema, eve online, golem, helios, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space

Scything through low-sec

I'm looking for someone to shoot. There's no one in the home w-space system but me, and a new signature is just more dumb rocks that I activate and forget about. There being only the one wormhole sends me to our neighbouring class 3 system, which looks initially disappointing. My directional scanner shows me the familiar tower-and-no-ships result that I'm getting used to. But the day is early and an empty system now may hold pilots later, so I scan, looking for extra connections and sites for potential ambushes.

Six anomalies and a dozen signatures hold the normal gas, rocks, and radar sites. What looks like a new signature pops up under my scanning probes, it turning out to be a wormhole getting my hopes up that I'll bump in to activity, but warping to the connection shows it to be a K162 from class 4 w-space that's reaching the end of its natural lifetime. I suppose it isn't a new signature after all, nor is it particularly suitable to explore beyond. Besides the possibility of the wormhole dying and isolating me from the home system, that it is in its death throes suggests that whatever activity opened the wormhole has long since dispersed. I continue scanning.

I resolve two more wormholes, hopefully giving me more options, and I end up with a static exit to low-sec empire space and a second K162 from class 4 w-space, this one stable. I jump to low-sec, bookmarking the exit wormhole in the Placid region for safety, then return to C3a to explore C4b, through the stable wormhole. Except the wormhole I land next to is wobbly, in its EOL stage. In case I've managed to mix up my bookmarks and come to the wrong wormhole I warp to the other C4 K162, finding that EOL too. Okay, both K162s are now on their last legs, so I'm unlikely to find much happening.

It's still worth a look through the newly EOL K162. I have plenty of time to do so, a few hours or so, and there may be an insomniac shooting rocks or collecting planet goo to get himself to sleep. Jumping in sees nothing of interest on d-scan, and although performing a blanket scan of the system reveals four ships they are all empty, the capital ships being too big to stow. The ships are split unevenly across two towers in the system, which I find and note but otherwise ignore, leaving this inactive system behind as I head back to low-sec to scan.

Having six signatures in the low-sec system looks promising. I resolve drones, drones, a Scythe—hullo, what's he up to, I wonder. I don't know much about the ship, interrogating d-scan to find out it's a cruiser, then having my interest piqued when I call up the ship's information panel to see that it has bonuses for mining. It's a rusty Osprey. It's also in an asteroid belt, which makes him really easy to find but also a rather dubious target. A relatively soft target in an obvious location looks like bait to me. But, taking a look around, he has no colleagues in the system, so he's either really good bait or a little oblivious to the risks he's taking.

The Scythe is simply cruising through the belt for now, which isn't suspicious in itself but doesn't make him look particularly vulnerable. Oh, but mining some jaspet does. A Scythe fitted for mining, mining in a low-sec belt. Even if he's bait I may be able to pop him and escape before help comes, or escape myself before I am caught. It's worth a go, at least, and I am out on the prowl. I bookmark the rock the Scythe is cutting through and bounce out of the asteroid belt so I can warp in closer. And on my way out I hit a rock, even if it looks like it is some ten kilometres away at least, and my cloak drops. Maybe that's the end of this ambush.

I warp out of the belt and back in to see the Scythe still mining jaspet, his drones attacking a couple of rat frigates that have turned up. He could still be bait, I suppose, not fleeing as soon as he sees my Tengu strategic cruiser appear ninety kilometres from him, but he continues to mine the rock. I am now twenty kilometres from the Scythe and, thanks again to the rocks, my cloak is dropped. I may as well take my shot. I lock on to the ship, disrupt its warp engines, and start lobbing missiles its way. The Scythe's shields hold up a short while, then the whole boat disintegrates, sending the pod in to space.

I leave the pod alone, not really wanting to take a huge hit to my security status when popping the ship will do, contenting myself with looting what I can from the wreck and shooting that instead. I also pause to pop one of the rat frigates before realising that I am making a target of myself, and decide to warp out. That was short and sweet. And a little sour. My security status has taken a dive! I understand I get penalised for attacking another ship, but it seems a bit harsh to take a second hit for actually destroying it. Is low-sec meant to be like touch football, where pilots operate on the honour system? Shoot but don't kill?

Not only am I punished for destroying a ship I was punished for shooting, Concord have got their knickers in a twist about my shooting the wreck! 'Property damage', they call it. They could at least have warned me, perhaps with an easily ignored and dismissible dialogue box that crops up as I start to shoot the wreck. Low-sec is stupid, I should stick to w-space. Speaking of which, my probes are still somewhere in the system and I have two more signatures to resolve. One is a magnetometric site, the other is a weak wormhole, an outbound connection to class 5 w-space.

I leave low-sec behind me for the C5, finding it empty and inactive. Scanning finds an EOL K162 from class 4 w-space, which is currently the in-vogue wormhole to be seen with, and the static connection to more class 3 w-space. This second C3 is also unoccupied, the known tower from two months ago torn down to leave only a container for bookmarks. I know there's a connection to null-sec k-space to be found but I'm not looking. Maybe I'll come back later to explore further, but for now I am going home for food.

No later exploration for me! Glorious leader Fin is here and we're going to make more iskies. The only change in our neighbouring system is the death of the two EOL K162s, there being still no sign of the locals. We bring out a pair of Tengus to clear a magnetometric site and four anomalies, analysing and salvaging afterwards in a pair of Noctis salvagers, to bring home just shy of three hundred million iskies in profit. That's a pretty good haul for the evening. I wonder if Concord take bribes to fudge security statuses.

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Tags: eve online, low-sec, mmorpg, noctis, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, scythe, sleepers, w-space

Running in to a siege

Three extra signatures seems like a lot. Can they all be Sleepers? Yes, they can, being gas, gas, and our static wormhole, which doesn't really count as a new signature but a replacement for yesterday's. Silly me. I activate the two new ladar sites and jump to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system. I see some ships on my directional scanner, the Tengu strategic cruiser, Rokh battleship, Drake battlecruiser, and Noctis salvager potentially out shooting Sleepers, and the Viator transport maybe collecting planet goo. But there are no wrecks in the system and I suspect I'll either find no pilots, or pilots doing nothing. I move away from the wormhole and cloak, and perform a passive scan of the C3 anyway.

My passive scan throws up nine anomalies, which I bookmark whilst checking my notes. This is my third visit to the system but the last was fourteen months ago, and as the C3 was unoccupied back then I suspect I'll need to locate the tower the old-fashioned way, using d-scan. It takes a couple of minutes before I'm floating outside the tower, looking disappointedly at all of the empty ships inside its shields. At least they aren't blue, I suppose. Confirming a lack of activity, it's time to scan. I warp away, launch scanning probes, and blanket the system. I've cleared all the anomalies from the scan results already, leaving me with fourteen signatures to sift through. I'd better get to it if I want to go anywhere tonight.

Ladars, radars, and gravimetric sites, oh my! A single magnetometric site hides away amongst the noise, along with two wormholes. The system's static exit leads to low-sec empire space, which wouldn't be surprising even if I hadn't noted it over a year ago, and the second wormhole is a boring old K162 from high-sec. By Odin's 0·6 system, I jump out to a region that is Devoid, but not of pilots, where I don't even bother scanning, instead heading back across the C3 to its exit to low-sec, where I do scan. I am simply getting back in to the habit of getting exit systems for emergency use. Maybe one day doing so will come in handy, even if I hope otherwise.

Two signatures are in the low-sec system, which turn out to be gas and some drones. How dull dullity dull. I pop some Gurista rats in the sole anomaly here, hardly a strenuous activity, and decide to scan the high-sec system after all. One extra signature is in the high-sec system, causing me to wonder what the odds are that it also is a wormhole. Pretty good, it turns out, as I stumble in to a K162 from class 2 w-space. This is a rather good find, as the C2 system will have a second static connection that leads to more w-space, which should prolong my exploration. I jump in to class 2 w-space with good spirits, only to see on d-scan a whole fleet out and about somewhere. Even better!

Well, 'even better' if the fleet is shooting Sleepers and leaving an unguarded salvager to sweep up behind them, but I rather suspect not. There are no wrecks to be seen on d-scan and I wouldn't imagine a battleship fleet of an Armageddon, Abaddon, Megathron, Typhoon, and three Tempests, plus several flights of drones, would have much difficulty demolishing Sleepers in a C2, even without a pair of Guardian logistics ships to keep them all afloat. Something else is happening here. Maybe manoeuvres, as the ships all appear to be coincident with the local tower, and as drones are out I imagine they are not sitting passively inside the shields.

Ah, how slow I can be sometimes. The fleet is indeed at the tower, but this is no training exercise, the tower itself is being actively engaged. All of the defences have been incapacitated and now the tower is being steadily ripped apart. And with the static exit to high-sec I imagine the fleet will return after the tower enters its reinforced mode and depletes its strontium reserves, or maybe even simply stay here. And as I watch the fleet shooting mechanically at the tower, Guardians supplying extra capacitor juice to the hungry, hungry battleships, a Prorator transport ship appears, this one blue to our corporation.

It looks like the Prorator is supplying ammunition to this operation. That he is allied to our alliance, and none of the other pilots are, is interesting but not so much to try to find out what's happening here. It pretty much stops me interfering, however, if I could actually think of a way to interfere without stupid risk to myself. I don't feel like interrupting, although it would probably take a fair amount of threat to interrupt the tower attack, nor do I want to announce my presence to the fleet because of the sole blue pilot. My explorer spirit has been sated for the evening, so I simply turn my boat around and head home, thankful that I'm not the one shooting a stationary object for the next few hours.

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Tags: abaddon, armageddon, drake, eve online, guardian, megathron, mmorpg, noctis, penny ibramovic, prorator, rokh, scanning, tempest, tengu, typhoon, viator, w-space

Oracles for two

Home is empty, without even a glorious leader in sight. A new signature tries to keep me company but I don't want to waste time shooting rocks. Let's see what else is out there in w-space today. A single canister is visible on my directional scanner in our neighbouring class 3 system, with my notes from eight months ago suggesting a tower may be further afield. I launch probes and warp to the tower's listed position, finding it still there and orangified. It would be impressive to face the Drake battlecruiser, Abaddon battleship, Megathron battleship, Rifter frigate, Nemesis stealth bomber, and pair of Imicus frigates, if any of them held pilots, but no one's home.

My notes also tell me this C3 has a static exit to high-sec, which could be useful. We've been lucky recently with some good connections. Then again, with two more wormholes amongst the six anomalies and five signatures here we may not want to risk a logistics run with some vulnerable ships. Along with resolving the exit to high-sec empire space, I find the signature NIL to be a K162 from null-sec k-space, which is so close, w-space overseers, but still wrong, and an N968 outbound connection to more class 3 w-space, sadly reaching the end of its natural lifetime.

I pop out to high-sec, appearing in the cosy-sounding Bleak Lands, looking to be far from anywhere, before returning to C3a and poking my nose through the dying wormhole to C3b. I see an off-line tower and nothing else, so I launch probes and perform a blanket scan of the system as I warp away to look for occupation manually. I find a tower with an Orca inside its shields, but the industrial command ship, the only ship my combat probes detect in the system, is unpiloted. There's nothing for me here to risk a circuitous trip home, so I jump back to C3 and out through the K162 from null-sec.

There's no one else in this null-sec system in the Querious region, so I launch probes and scan for more connections. Two extra signatures could be promising, but I resolve only two sites called Independence and Radiance, which are suitably cryptic names. I consider hopping across to high-sec to scan there, but my glorious leader has arrived and is planning a trek to Amarr for a new toy or two. I'm game. I head home, ditch my scanning boat, and warp pod-nekkid towards Domain.

The ships we are buying today are the new Oracle battlecruisers, a little late to the party but we're not really that hip anyway. And we're buying Amarr because the Caldari ship uses guns, and we can't use guns. Of course, the Oracle uses lasers, which are guns, but we kind of know how to use them because of tentative plans to fit in to a Revelation dreadnought. And we know a bit about projectile weapons because of equally tentative plans to sit in Loki strategic cruisers. But hybrid guns are a mystery. And so we buy and assemble yet another giant robot head that is typical of Amarrian engineering.

I name my Oracle the Almighty Tallest Purple, which has to be shortened to Tallest Purple because of futuristic naming restrictions on spaceships, and fit it with guns and upgrades according to Fin's wisdom. I know nothing of gunboats, this probably being my first proper one, and we head back home with some relatively cheap, low-mass damage machines. I get to the high-sec system holding the wormhole with Fin three jumps behind, which she thinks is 'situation normal'. I think she plans it, personally, letting me be her canary for danger.

Jumping in to w-space has the C3 remain clear, at least from any obvious signs of ships, which lets me warp to the nearest customs office to give my new boat a test-firing. Yep, the lasers work, that's a good sign. I'm only scratching the customs office, though, despite the quite impressive damage I seem to be inflicting. If we want to wreak any havoc on customs offices we'll need a few more of these ships and plenty of time on our hands. But for a test-fire a barn door is as good as anything, and I am happy to be shooting in a new ship for the first time in ages.

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Tags: abaddon, drake, eve online, imicus, megathron, mmorpg, nemesis, oracle, orca, penny ibramovic, rifter, scanning, w-space

Muddled by the mystery hauler

If there's a match for my patience it's my persistence. Fin and I have spent half the evening watching a Hoarder hauler refuse to move, then tried to ambush a Cheetah covert operations boat that didn't want to explore beyond its home system's normal borders, before giving up when the Hoarder seemed to warp past us whilst remaining at the tower. Now the Cheetah is in the tower piloted by the Hoarder capsuleer, leaving doubt as to how many pilots and ships there may actually be active here.

I returned to the tower to find the Cheetah as my last action of the night, but my persistence won't let me actually leave. Despite the crazy level of coincidence required for the unknown hauler to return from low-sec at just the same time as I take one last look at the wormhole, particularly after having waited both at the tower and the wormhole for a fair amount of time already without bumping in to another ship, I warp back to the low-sec wormhole. But I am not just going to sit on the wormhole this time, I jump to low-sec to see if I can spot a familiar name in the local communication channel.

Well, would you look at that. I jump to low-sec at the same time as the mysterious Hoarder returns to the K162. I suppose that's good, in a way, as I honestly had no idea what name I was looking for in local comms, but it's pretty obvious when the ship is two kilometres from you. However, I now have the problem that the Hoarder is jumping in to w-space whilst I am sitting in low-sec, waiting for the session change timer to expire. On top of that, the pilot must know someone has just jumped out of their system, and he will be warping as quickly as possible after he jumps.

I never thought I'd say this, what with it giving a lower chance of catching ships and pods on wormholes, but I am glad of the reduced session change timer. I don't have a drawn-out wait before I can jump back to the C3, and on my return to w-space I decloak and get my sensor booster active immediately. The Hoarder is still aligning to enter warp, but not for long, as I get a positive lock and disrupt his engines. My missiles vaporise the industrial ship's shields, pound through the armour, and disintegrate the hull. The Hoarder explodes.

The pilot really could have escaped. She knows I jumped out to low and that I followed her back, all she had to do was jump back herself and warp clear in low-sec, realising that my ship would be polarised and unable to follow. But I suppose it's always easier to think clearly after the fact. Besides, the pilot isn't disorientated enough to let me catch her pod, and it warps out, towards the local tower. I loot and shoot the wreck, giving me another soft kill of little value, and still no corpse to scoop.

At least the mystery of the missing Hoarder is resolved. The Cheetah pilot scanned the exit to low-sec, returned to the tower, swapped to a second Hoarder, and went out to empire space herself, leaving her colleague in the tower as he was. Our stalking and reconnaissance simply missed the short periods she was in the tower. I take one last look at the tower, seeing the original pilot still in the Cheetah and the escaped pod now in a Tempest battleship, and, with a sense of closure, head home to sleep.

Posted in Gaming | 2 Comments »
Tags: cheetah, eve online, hoarder, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, tempest, w-space

Suffering some slight space madness

Dammit, someone's stolen all our anomalies again. I'm sure we left loads of them scattered around but now there are only a handful left. They really held the system together, did they not? If I didn't get bored quite so quickly shooting Sleepers then I may be slightly irritated by this turn of events. As it is, I simply launch probes and scan, looking for our static wormhole and another opportunity to explore a dynamic w-space constellation. There are no new signatures in the home system either, not even a stressed wormhole to show signs of a fleet's travels, but at least that keeps exploration simple. I resolve our static wormhole and jump to our neighbouring class 3 system.

That's curiously soothing, popping out of the wormhole to be exactly 20 AU from the furthest planet. It's the only planet out of range of my directional scanner too, and all I can see that is in range are two off-line towers. I launch probes and perform a blanket scan as I warp to the outer planet, seeing a Chimera carrier and Rorqual capital industrial ship on d-scan at about the same time as my probes report them as the only two visible ships in this C3. I locate the tower to confirm the ships to be unpiloted, before settling down to the Herculean task of resolving the three signatures here.

Well, two signatures. I know the third is our K162. And as there aren't any anomalies in the C3 I am not in the least surprised that the two unknown signatures resolve to the unknown type that denotes a wormhole. This system is kept spotless, I have to admire that, even whilst wondering what the pilots do as they wait for new sites to appear. Go to empire space, I suppose, as their static wormhole leads to low-sec. The other wormhole is a K162 from null-sec, terminating the w-space constellation early again.

My glorious leader arrives and I update her on our situation, as I exit to low-sec to find myself again in the Genesis region, a popular destination for class 3 w-space system wormholes currently. Today, a single hop will take me to high-sec, and Fin suggests we export the loot we've accumulated recently, which sounds like a good idea when scanning the system finds nothing of interest. I head home, board a Crane transport ship, and take it loaded with loot to market. I sell salvage and Sleeper loot, and melt modules stolen from other capsuleers, plumping up our wallet to healthy levels again.

Back in w-space, I bounce off the tower in the C3 in my Crane, just to see if anything has changed. It has, a Hoarder is now sitting piloted in the shields. I let Fin know and scramble her stealth bomber here, as I take the Crane home and bring my own Manticore back to keep watch on the hauler. Maybe he'll want to collect planet goo, making himself a target, as there definitely isn't much else he could get up to. And there really isn't much to do, for any of us, as we watch and wait, and wait, and wait.

The monotony is broken by a Cheetah covert operations boat appearing on d-scan and launching probes, before disappearing again, presumably cloaking. But that's a bit odd. Our K162, the K162 from null-sec, and the static wormhole are all far out of d-scan range from the tower, so the Cheetah launching probes so close to the tower is perverse. Either he's a local pilot and hiding in a safe spot whilst scanning, a complete idiot, or a new wormhole has opened in to the system and he's a complete idiot. Either way, Fin and I are still watching the Hoarder and waiting for it to move.

The Hoarder refuses to budge, and with a puny three signatures for the Cheetah to resolve it may be worth trying to catch the cov-ops instead, should he investigate beyond our K162. I jump home, get an interceptor on to our side of the wormhole, and rely on Fin's eyes in the C3. Catching a cov-ops without a bubble for help is tricky, but he looks to be a slow scanner, so maybe he's a slow pilot too. Most likely, he doesn't care to explore our system, as Fin reports the Cheetah appearing on d-scan and disappearing again, after the probes themselves disappear. That sounds like a jump.

It's not long before the Cheetah reappears briefly, pretty much confirming that he left the system, and now we wait to see if he investigates the other wormholes. 'If he's blue, I'll cry', says Fin. If he's blue, I'll shoot him. Actually, he's looking more like a local scout, as a Hoarder zips past d-scan before disappearing itself, obviously not visiting a customs office but very probably heading to low-sec and further in to empire space. It looks like we were waiting in the wrong place.

Just to confirm what's been happening, I get back in to my covert Tengu strategic cruiser and perform another blanket scan of the C3, confirming no new signatures present. But reconnoitring the tower again sees the Hoarder and its pilot still there, in the same position, not having moved an inch. I'm not entirely sure what's happening with that Cheetah and ghostly second Hoarder now. I go to sit on the low-sec wormhole for the moment, hoping that the Hoarder at the tower will return from low-sec and give me a target.

Whatever the situation, it has beaten Fin's and my patience for tonight. We're ready to call it a night. Fin heads home and goes off-line, I bounce off the tower one last time to see, oh, the Cheetah, but with the pilot of the Hoarder. That makes even less sense, unless I've been hallucinating. Did I really see the Hoarder in the tower a few minutes ago, or was it the Cheetah? Is it really the same pilot? I don't know any more. I think I need rest. I turn my boat around and think about getting some sleep.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Suffering some slight space madness
Tags: cheetah, chimera, crane, eve online, hoarder, mmorpg, rorqual, scanning, tengu, w-space

Leaving combat to meet a hauler

I'm back, what's cooking? A fuel BPO, which is apt for my apparently off-hand comment. Apart from that, I imagine we're sandwiched between two systems of absent pilots. Glorious leader Fin confirms that for our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, but jumping through the K162 in our home system to class 4 w-space shows that there are now no pilots there. My earlier destruction of a planet goo hauler doesn't appear to have caused any ripples. Maybe we can try again in the C3, where a Badger hauler looks poised to make itself vulnerable. Fin and I take a pair of stealth bombers in to our neighbouring system to stalk the industrialist.

Warping to the tower has me doubt the likelihood of any action in this C3. The two pilots at the tower are the same as I saw earlier, albeit now with the Prorator transport swapped for the rather less able Badger, but the Buzzard covert operations boat probably hasn't moved in the past three hours. The odds of them becoming active just as we turn up seem slim. Maybe we can use that to our advantage, though, as there are plenty of Sleepers to shoot here, and all of the sites are out of d-scan range of the tower, clumped in the centre of the system with the tower anchored to a moon around the outermost planet.

Before we get too excited, it's best we collapse the K162 in our home system. Although there's no one home at the moment the circumstance could change at any time, potentially bringing ambushing ships in to our path. We throw a pair of Orca industrial command ships both ways through the wormhole, then follow up with one more Orca trip behind a Widow black ops ship, collapsing the wormhole with no drama. And so isolated, making a quick scan of the home system just to make sure, we board our Sleeper Tengu strategic cruisers and jump back to the C3 to make some profit, starting with the magnetometric site I resolved during earlier exploration.

Clearing the magnetometric site of Sleepers is straightforward enough, even if we trigger a new wave a little early to bring us three battleships at once. It's still only a class 3 w-space site, nothing to panic about. As is our tendency, we salvage and loot the site before moving in to plain anomalies, and we get a better haul than yesterday's magnetometric site, even if we have no deserted Talocan cruiser today. Dumping the loot at our tower, we're back in our Tengus and jumping to the C3 for some simple anomalies, warping to the first of the dozen or so decent ones present.

Sleeper combat itself isn't a particularly taxing task, but it's what goes on around you that you need to be aware of. I'm updating my directional scanner regularly, looking for early warning of any potential ambushers, when, mid-way through the second anomaly, I spot a Bestower hauler somewhere in the system. That's peculiar. I ignore the Sleeper frigates beginning to swarm around me and the two battleships that tickle my shields, sweeping d-scan around to look for the Bestower. I'm assuming he's accidentally come out to collect planet goo without realising a couple of Tengus are stealing his anomalies.

I think I've found the Bestower. I warp myself and Fin towards a customs tower, leaving the Sleepers behind for now, to drop out of warp at a bare customs tower orbiting the planet, no Bestower nearby. Assuming the hauler's moved on, I sweep d-scan around again, even though I know chasing a pilot collecting planet goo can be an exercise in frustration, only for the Bestower to appear in front of us, warping in to the customs office we happen to be sitting on. I may have guessed his previous location incorrectly, but I seem to have been lucky in going to his next destination.

I can only imagine what's going through the Bestower pilot's mind as his ship slows out of warp to see two Tengus waiting for him. Personally, I'm quite happy to see him. Not only is chasing a hauler between customs offices frustrating but doing so in a ship without a warp disruption module seems masochistic. But for the Bestower to drop in our laps like this, landing on top of us, waiting and ready, we have the maximum amount of time to get the kill even if we can't electronically prevent him from warping.

The Bestower's active warp engines prevent us gaining a target lock, but we keep trying until, eventually, the hauler's engines cut out. And, before we know it, it's a flaming ball of blue fire. My covert Tengu makes quick work of haulers, but our Sleeper Tengus, with more launchers and damage upgrades, chomp through the Bestower in a single volley of missiles. We aim for the pod but, neither of us fit with sensor boosters or warp disruptors, it unsurprisingly gets away. We loot and shoot the wreck, and we're back in warp to our wormhole. I imagine Sleeper combat is over until we at least see what the repercussions will be.

We ought to salvage the first anomaly of wrecks first, which will let us realise the profit whilst simultaneously seeing if any pilots will come looking for us. We pilot a Noctis salvager and Manticore stealth bomber, and sweep up all the loot without interruption. I suppose if the locals weren't looking for us before they'll be hard pushed to locate a despawned anomaly. Fin heads homewards, I go to the tower to reconnoitre the response. Well, something's happening. A Manticore of their own is boarded and warps off directly below the tower, probably some misdirection. And the second pilot boards a Drake, which could be bait or their best response. Either way, it looks like we may have a little scrap.

The Drake warps away but, as I know the inner system is all out of d-scan range of the tower, realise he hasn't gone far. And then the Drake launches scanning probes, and my hopes for a confrontation drop a little. There are a few more movements, the Manticore not seen again until it returns to the tower and boards a second Drake. There is some excitement as the scanning Drake moves, bumping off a hangar a few times, but all he does is visit a second hangar, recall his combat scanning probes, and warp out to relaunch core scanning probes. We are in for a bit of a longer wait.

The excitement is all too much for non-scanning Drake, who goes off-line before too long. Still, there is the chance the scanning Drake will reconnoitre our K162, where we could catch him. We just need to be sly. As I'm monitoring the tower Fin creates a point far enough away from the wormhole to be able to warp to it, then plants a Widow cloaked at that point. Should the Drake warp out to our wormhole, Fin should be able to warp to meet it at whatever distance it chooses to drop short, giving it a surprise.

But, sadly, the Drake doesn't leave the safety of the tower, even after the probes are recalled. Or have expired. Maybe the pilot is happy simply to know that we came through another wormhole, without needing to know if that is from w-space or k-space. Whatever his reason, it is too late to go back to shooting Sleepers, and we're not waiting any longer for nothing to happen. It's a rather anticlimactic end to the evening, but we're over a hundred million ISK richer and have another kill chalked up. That's a pretty good result.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Leaving combat to meet a hauler
Tags: badger, bestower, buzzard, drake, eve online, manticore, mmorpg, noctis, orca, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, sleepers, tengu, w-space, widow

Persevering for a PI popping

It feels like a while since I've shot another pilot for kicks and giggles. I should remedy that. I've got the disco playing, let's go hunting! Well, exploring first, and there's no guarantee I'll find anyone, but thanks for harshing my buzz, Penny's inner voice. Even so, I have a good start to this afternoon's adventures, as two new signatures in the home system both turn out to be wormholes. One is a K162 from class 4 w-space, the other a K162 from class 2 w-space. Normally, I'd jump in to the C2 to look for soft targets, but that K162 is looking rather wobbly and may not last much longer. I'd better leave it alone for now.

Jumping through the healthy K162 to C4a has a tower visible on my directional scanner, but no ships. The tower wasn't here six months ago, so I can't rely on my notes to warp directly to it and need to locate it the old-fashioned way. But as there's no one here and no guarantee of other K162s to find, I head back the way I came and across the home system to explore through our static wormhole. Our neighbouring class 3 system doesn't look any more active, only a couple of off-line towers visible on d-scan from the wormhole. Launching probes and performing a blanket scan reveals no ships, but it does show seven signatures and a clump of twenty-nine anomalies all in the centre of the system.

I find a tower on the outskirts of the system, with no one home, and start scanning. Picking the signatures in no particular order, I resolve a magnetometric site, some gas, a wormhole, a radar site, a second wormhole, and some more gas. Fascinating. The wormholes are, well, the first one is the system's static exit to low-sec empire space, which I jump through to bookmark the low-sec side before returning home to poke through the dying connection to class 2 w-space. Now that I have a way home I can risk the wormhole collapsing on me. Or I could, if it were still there. It seems the wormhole really was quite wobbly, as it has died in the short time I've been scanning.

Back in the C3 I check the second wormhole I resolved, which drearily turns out to be a K162 from low-sec. Popping out through the K162 puts me, love a duck, in Canard in the Genesis region, where I may as well scan for more connections. Of the four extra signatures, one is a wormhole that dies before I can reach it, the second is also a wormhole, a K162 from class 1 w-space that is nearly dead, and one radar and magnetometric site each. I still have my way home, so I quickly poke my nose in to the C1. I see a Dominix and Armageddon on d-scan, a lack of wrecks probably putting the two battleships unpiloted in the tower. That's good enough reconnaissance for me, and I jump back through the dying wormhole to low-sec.

I pop a few Blood Raider rats in low-sec to pass some time and gain some security status, then return to C3a, warp across the system, and exit through the static connection to resume scanning for wormholes. I don't find any, only another magnetometric and radar site pair, and a trial yard, whatever that is. But heading back to w-space and across C3a now has a Buzzard covert operations boat and Dominix battleship sitting piloted in the tower, and the pilot of the Dominix soon swaps in to a Prorator transport ship. That's mildly interesting, but I don't rate my chances of catching the cloaky transport.

I watch the Prorator for a while, as it engages in the thrilling activity of sitting still, before realising I could be more productive elsewhere. I have paint I could be watching dry. I head home to take a break. Except a pang of persistence hits me and I feel compelled to take a second look in C4a, through the K162 connecting in us. Jumping in has activity in the previously empty system, a Tengu strategic cruiser and core scanning probes visible on d-scan. As I ponder how my own scanning Tengu would cope in combat against another the probes vanish and a Buzzard appears on d-scan. I suppose that's not a covert scanning Tengu after all, so I warp off towards the tower to see what's happening.

What's happening, Penny, is that the Tengu pilot has swapped to a Bestower whilst I was in warp. That is awesome. I keep my eyes on the hauler and, yep, there he goes, warping off to what is most likely a customs office. I follow, hoping I've picked the right office, dropping out of warp to realise that I haven't, as the Bestower is nowhere to be seen, except indirectly on d-scan. I spin d-scan around to try to catch up with the hauler but luck is with me, as the customs office I'm sitting on is next on the Bestower's route. He warps in to me instead.

The only disadvantage to the Bestower warping to me is that we end up on different sides of the customs office. I can easily burn in to range of my warp disruptor, but I won't be able to bump the hauler with the office in the way. I'll just have to do my best from where I am. At least I can decloak and get my systems hot as the Bestower drops out of warp, unable to effect any course change as he does. As a result, it is pretty easy to get a positive lock on my target, and my warp disruptor keeps the ship from fleeing as missiles tear through his hull. I didn't need to bump him after all.

I'm not quite quick enough to snare the pilot's ejected pod, instead watching it warp away and, checking d-scan, getting back in to his Tengu at the tower. I loot the wreck of wondrous spoils that is an expanded cargohold II module and shoot the wreck, cloaking again once done. The Tengu doesn't come out to get revenge but simply floats passively in his tower. That's okay, I got my kill, even if it is a soft target and with no corpse to show for my efforts. I can go home and grab a sammich now.

Posted in Gaming | 4 Comments »
Tags: armageddon, bestower, buzzard, dominix, eve online, low-sec, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, prorator, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space