Fuel and Sleepers

No scanning for me today. Glorious leader Fin's on her way back to the home system with a nav-comp full of bookmarks. As she navigates w-space Fin tells me that our neighbouring class 3 system holds wormholes to null-sec k-space, low-sec empire space, and a second C3. The only activity, such that it is, is a lone pilot in a shuttle in C3b. The good news is that C3a's static wormhole leads to a low-sec system that is a mere six hops from Amarr. It sounds like an opportunity to make a fuel run, although the three intervening low-sec systems means we'll be doing it in nothing bigger than Crane transport ships.

I board Tigress III and copy the delivered bookmarks to my systems, heading out as soon as the ponderous chore is complete. Passing through C3a has me updating my notes according to Fin's scouting, as the two towers that were here ten weeks ago are now whittled down to one, its location passed on to me by Fin. My directional scanner shows me that there is still no one home, although I feel pretty safe in my Crane.

I jump out of w-space in to an empty low-sec system, where I set my auto-pilot to guide me to Amarr. The trip is made through more empty systems until I reach high-sec space, making it nicely uneventful. Fin's crunched some numbers about how much fuel we could use and I open the market window to start buying as I make the last couple of jumps, Fin now starting the journey herself. I dock in Amarr, stuff the Crane with fuel, and head out as Fin warps in to the station I'm leaving.

The journey home is livened up slightly by a pilot appearing in low-sec. The stargate flashes in front of me before a Viator transport ship decloaks, perhaps making a similar run to ourselves. He's no threat. W-space looks as quiet as we left it and I get home to dump the fuel in to storage. Another Crane-load remains in Amarr to collect, with Fin on her way home, so I go out for a second trip, only notable for the pod I see on a stargate and crossing paths with the same Viator again. Our combined trips fill the tower with a month of fuel and some excess, which will keep us going nicely.

A short roam in a stealth bomber makes w-space look quiet indeed, even the shuttle disappeared from C3b, a system where I popped a Noctis recently, before stealing salvage until a battlecruiser interrupted me. There are no pilots out shooting Sleepers today, but maybe there should be. Our three-system constellation is empty and C3a holds three decent anomalies we could plunder. Fin and I swap to Tengu strategic cruisers and go for a romp next door.

I'm a bit careless in anomaly selection. I arbitrarily managed to pick the one of the three which is in d-scan range of the tower, leaving wrecks behind for any new pilot to see immediately and before we could know about them. Thankfully no one wakes up as we shoot Sleepers in the other two anomalies, but this is the kind of circumstance I should be paying more attention to. We get away with it today, and we return in Noctis salvagers to collect our pillaged loot, bringing a decent but unspectacular 120M ISK in profit back to our tower to end a simple and pleasant evening.

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

W-space isn't friendly

Fin's collapsing the wormhole as I turn up. On hearing that we have an 'empty C3 leading to Goonswarm null' it sounds quite reasonable to sever that connection and look for a better class 3 w-space system to have as a neighbour. My glorious leader is on her last jump to collapse the wormhole, leaving me nothing to do but scan the home system in preparation for resolving the new static wormhole. All goes smoothly, which Fin accidentally describes as 'txt book'. A new wormhole pops up in the system, I resolve it, and we both warp to see what lies on the other side.

Only one planet is in range of my directional scanner from the K162 in the C3, with nothing but its moons to be detected. I have time to launch scanning probes and throw them out of the system as I consult my notes, which look positive today. Seven months ago this C3 was occupied by allied pilots, and as it has a static exit to high-sec empire space it could be a useful system indeed to link to, as long as nothing has changed. I warp across to one of the two towers in my notes to find none there, and although there remain two towers in the system neither of them belong to allies any more. That's unfortunate, and although it doesn't preclude our travelling through the system the presence of a wreck and pod might.

Locating the new towers finds both the wreck and pod, one at each of the two towers. The wreck is of a Gallente industrial ship, probably destroyed by a tower's automatic defences, the pod is sitting in the second tower. No, he's not. The pod is actually outside of the tower. Thoughts of sweeping a Crane transport ship past the wreck to loot it are dropped when we see the pod drifting freely. I'm already warping homewards when Fin asks if we should pop the pod, swapping the relatively bulky and slow Tengu strategic cruiser for my faster-locking Manticore stealth bomber. As I change ships Fin gets herself in to position so I can warp to her to get close to the pod.

I return to the C3 and bounce off a reference point before warping to Fin's position, her Tengu warping off as I approach so that we don't decloak each other. The pod doesn't look like it's moving, but it is, just slowly. By the time I land where Fin once was the pod is out of range of my warp disruption module and edging towards the tower's force field. Thankfully, it is approaching the tower obliquely, giving me some time to get him back in to range. Once I get close enough I decloak and activate all my ship's electronics, along with my siege launchers. The pod is caught and ripped apart by my torpedoes, a corpse ejected in to space as my aligned Manticore warps out before the tower's defences can react.

It is another smooth execution. I warp back to the tower to scoop the corpse for my collection, and Fin launches probes to scan now that there is no one in the system to be concerned about. Of course, it doesn't really occur to me that the pod isn't local to this C3 and that he may be the owner of the popped industrial ship outside the other tower, not until I get a frustrated mail from the new clone asking why I killed him. I ponder the question for a little while, trying to think of a suitably diplomatic answer, before replying with a simple truth. 'I don't do ransoms.'

Fin suggests trying to recruit the fellow and after pointing him in the right direction he joins our public channel. He's not there to be recruited, though, but to question our actions again. That's fair enough, and we're not rude or mean, but we are a little curious as to what people think w-space is. I don't know if low-sec gets the same kind of incredulity from pilots losing their ships, but there seems to be a minority opinion that w-space should be friendlier. Or, I suppose, not as cut-throat. But as Fin says, there is no Concord, there are no gate guns, there is no penalty to shooting other capsuleers. This is frontier space, there are no rules.

Maybe the confusion arises because of the way wormholes can be scanned from high-sec that lead directly to this lawless space. A simple jump not even through a stargate can send you from Concord-protected safety to constellations where pilots will sooner pod you than say hello. But that's not to say we aren't friendly, just wary. Those pilots who ask questions first will either get shot first or lose their opportunity to gain whatever resources they were after. That's just the way it is out here. Either way, it's rarely personal. You are just another target.

We do our best to calm our podded pal, or at least try not to rile him further, and get back to scanning. Fin resolves the exit to high-sec, which is stable and leads out to a system only six jumps from Rens, and continues to resolve wormhole after wormhole, making the convenient exit look less useful in such a congested constellation. I explore beyond a K162 in to unoccupied and inactive class 5 w-space, where I resolve a K162 to class 4 w-space. It is in the C4 where I find a tower belonging to a couple of scouts we've seen on d-scan flitting around the C3, but their having a Loki strategic cruiser as an escort thwart our hopes of catching one of them.

Fin explores through two more wormholes from C3a, both in to more class 3 w-space, and almost has some targets in one of them until they go off-line almost as quickly as they appear. The other systems all look quiet and uninteresting and we decide to halt exploration to take some advantage of the exit to high-sec. I stuff my Crane with Sleeper loot and salvage, as well as the Minmatar control tower I stole and all the loot from my recent low-sec radar site pillaging, and head out to make us some iskies. Fin takes her pod out and buys a new heavy interdictor, so that we don't need to refit our Onyx between combat and wormhole-collapsing configurations.

We both also pick up some skill books whilst we are in empire space, some of them even being ones we haven't already bought, injected, or trained. It's a shame that so many wormholes connect in to our neighbouring C3. We could have stuffed an Orca industrial command ship or two with tower fuel if there wasn't the possibility that scouts or combat ships could cross our path at any moment. Even so, we stock up on what we can carry to keep us happy in w-space for a while, making subsequent trips to empire space less crucial. We'll need fuel at some point, and should buy a replacement Drake for the battlecruiser we had to abandon, but for now we are living well.

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Tags: crane, eve online, loki, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space

Salvaging Sleepers and stealth bombers

Nom nom nom, I wonder if anyone's appeared in our neighbouring class 3 system yet. I can't say for sure, but I know that glorious leader Fin is in our w-space home. She reports that the two ageing wormholes I resolved earlier have died, which should prevent angry strategic cruisers chasing me from at least one direction, and that our neighbouring system is boring. All she's seen is an Anathema covert operations boat, probably a tourist from low-sec, scanning in-between the several times he's had to launch probes.

Because of the dreary nature of the current constellation Fin's in the midst of collapsing our static wormhole and asks me to join her. I swap in to my Widow black ops ship and, along with Fin's Orca industrial command ship, we warp to the wormhole to give it the final push of death. But mid-warp I remember that I also resolved and bookmarked a magnetometric site in the C3, and ask if Fin would like to clear that for iskies first. She agrees, so we turn our ships around without jumping, leaving our static wormhole unstable but with enough mass limit left for our Sleeper Tengus and salvaging boats to pass through without trouble.

The magnetometric sites of class 3 w-space are becoming more familiar, even if I cause the second wave of Sleepers to appear early. I remain cautious with target selection, preferring to add the least threatening ship to a subsequent wave than be caught out assuming the Sleepers should be shot in anything like a logical sequence, and combat progresses smoothly. A Helios cov-ops appears on our directional scanners, at which point I confirm with Fin that she definitely saw an Anathema earlier, and then I direct a narrow d-scan beam towards the tower in the system. The Helios is there, perhaps a newly awake pilot.

We keep watch of d-scan as we continue shooting Sleepers. It's not an ideal situation to clear sites whilst potentially hostile pilots are in the same system, but at least we have a vague idea that there is only one of him and can tell from d-scan what ship, if any, he'll bring out to engage us. Sure enough, one of the three stealth bombers previously unpiloted at the tower disappears, no doubt piloted by the new arrival and moved out of the tower to cloak. Our simple Sleeper combat has got complicated.

A single stealth bomber shouldn't cause any problems for our Tengus but bringing in a Noctis and analysing boat will present tempting targets. Of course, any attack will depend on whether the locals know of this magnetometric site and have it bookmarked, as well as any potential knowledge of our wormhole. We can't simply leave a Tengu in the site and trust it will act as a deterrent, as a bomber could engage our Noctis on the wormhole, leaving the supposed escort powerless to retaliate or rout the attack. The wormhole could even be the weak link, as we don't even know if the locals keep current bookmarks of all their sites.

The pilot knows exactly where we are, if not precisely. The Nemesis decloaks over fifty kilometres away from our position and, for some reason, launches a bomb our way. It doesn't get close, of course, having a maximum forty-five kilometre reach, but the range of the attack keeps the Nemesis far enough distant to let him warp away cleanly. Of course, as our Sleeper ships don't have warp disruptors fitted he could have goosed our Tengus and still got away cleanly, had he been quick enough. It is a curious attack and, I feel, somewhat pointless. All it has done is show that he can get his stealth bomber in to this site, which just gives us more information to work with.

We finish clearing the Sleepers from the magnetometric site and head home to get a salvager and escort. We've been discussing the plan since the Nemesis first disappeared from d-scan, so we know what we're doing. Fin refits a Noctis to withstand a little more expected damage and I eschew stealth for outright threat, swapping in to my Maledication interceptor. I've seen an interceptor withstand a bomb blast, and how easily one can melt a stealth bomber, so it seems like the best choice of ship for the current situation. In our new configuration we return to our static wormhole and jump in to the C3.

Content to see that we aren't going to be attacked on the K162 in the C3 I warp my Malediction in to the magnetometric site and start looping around a wreck. No bombers appear and d-scan looks much the same as before, and I call Fin in to start looting and salvaging. Wrecks are tractored in to the Noctis, I move my Malediction to peform lazy loops around Fin instead of a wreck, and I update d-scan as a good protector should, understanding that Fin is otherwise engaged. A Magnate frigate appears on d-scan, along with a new Purifier stealth bomber. An Anathema is swapped for a Punisher frigate, and the Purifier and a Nemesis disappear. Plenty seems to be happening, just nothing that is directly affecting us. There is also clear indication that we're dealing with more than one pilot now.

Two Purifiers decloak in the site at the same time! I start to move towards them but don't activate my micro warp drive for maximum speed, knowing that the propulsion module will increase my signature radius and any damage inflicted, waiting for any bomb to be launched and affect me first, but none comes. I start burning hard towards the two ships but they cloak again before I get close enough to target them with my limited range. I don't realise it at the time but I suspect their appearance to be a piloting error, the two ships stumbling blindly in to each other and interfering with each other's cloaking device; a false start, if you will. I return to orbit Fin in her Noctis, still valiantly salvaging under threat, when the Nemesis from earlier appears. This time, it launches a bomb that will hit the both of us.

My shields are shredded by the bomb, although I have scraps left that spare my armour any damage. Fin's Noctis has taken a big hit too but survives. Now it's my turn. I burn hard towards the Nemesis and disrupt its warp engines, pummelling it with rockets and what seems to be more of an LED than a laser, as it throws volleys of torpedoes towards Fin. The Noctis takes two, three, maybe four volleys from the Nemesis before my rockets rip through the last of the stealth bomber's hull, ejecting its pod in to space. And the pod has little chance of escape against my fast-locking ship, giving me a new corpse to add to my collection. So far so good. One attack repelled and the Noctis still salvages.

Less than a minute after I scoop, loot, and shoot the corpse and wreck of the Nemesis, the two Purifiers reappear, one almost on top of me and the other on the far side of Fin. I tell her to get out, knowing that a second bomb would destroy her ship, whilst I easily deal with my second bomber of the night. I don't quite know the motivation of the Purifier decloaking so close to me, as it is quite a sacrifice to make to keep the second safe, but perhaps its fitting of a warp core stabiliser helps explain that it thought it could get away from me. Not when I'm packing three points of warp disruption, sir. The Purifier and its pilot suffers the same fate as the Nemesis.

Fin got out of the site safely before the bomb detonated, just the one launched from the Purifier on the other side of Fin from me. That pilot clears the site too, my attention focussed at the time on his colleague, now a corpsicle. Fin returns home, swaps the Noctis for a second, to save time on repairs, and returns to complete salvaging, which now includes a Purifier wreck. I can't loot all of the lovely and expensive modules that were saved in the explosion and it seems a shame to destroy them when we have a voluminous Noctis readily available. Fin sweeps up all the Sleeper wrecks first before salvaging the Purifier wreck. Now we just need to analyse the Sleeper artefacts.

Analysing the artefacts poses a new risk, as our dedicated ships won't withstand a bomb explosion, and it would be remiss of us to leave the potential bulk of the profit behind, particularly as we've already reduced the number of available hostile pilots by two. Rather than rely on a simple cruiser Fin refits one of our Drake battlecruisers, bringing that more resilient ship to the magnetometric site in the C3. I suggest swapping ships too, for a different counter-attack strategy, but we decide that I am acting as a pretty good deterrent so far.

Fin warps in and starts analysing the artefacts, moving between the containers pretty quickly. Judging by d-scan the locals have given up on throwing stealth bombers at us, which isn't surprising given the Drake they now face and what my Malediction has done to them so far. I learnt the hard way the result of interceptor versus stealth bomber, although admittedly not as hard as Fin, and I am using that information to our benefit. Now battleships are appearing at the local tower, an Armageddon at first and then a couple of Dominices. It could be a threat, but it could be bluster, perhaps one of the remaining pilots ejecting ships from a hangar to give the impression of activity and threat where there is none. We can't completely ignore it, either way.

Fin has analysed half the artefacts when the Armageddon and a Dominix appear 250 km from our position in the site. 'Go!' I shout to Fin, wanting to preserve our lives more than make ISK, and align my interceptor out of the site as a precaution. I hold, waiting for Fin to enter warp, but the Drake is bumping off the Sleeper structure and unable to align back to our wormhole. The two battleships warp in from their distant position to be right on top of Fin's Drake, causing me to burn hard for a few seconds to increase my separation, not wanting to lose my own ship for no reason. But the Drake's engines are disrupted and Fin is not going anywhere.

I warp to the wormhole home, jump, and get back to our tower as quickly as possible. But I only manage to swap to a Falcon recon ship and configure its ECM modules to counter the battleships by the time Fin says she has ejected from the Drake to get clear. The battlecruisers shields were gone and its capacitor sucked dry. There seemed little point in staying with the exploding ship. Fin's pod gets home safely, which is the important point. I muse that maybe the artefacts they can recover will pay for replacement ships and clones for those we popped and podded today, but Fin tells me that most of the artefacts were wrecked and unlikely even to pay for the cost of the clones.

And in ISK terms we did pretty well. I note with some chagrin that we recovered no loot from the Sleeper battleships, which gives the most profit, but probably not because the neighbours stole it and more because the wrecks were destroyed during the first bombing run against our Noctis. Despite that, we have nearly forty million ISK in Sleeper loot and salvage, and at least ten million more in modules recovered from the popped stealth bombers. I suppose I could have swapped from interceptor to ECM boat to better escort the analysing Drake, saving us the cost of replacing the battlecruiser, but that's always a decision made more easily in hindsight, and a fitted Drake is actually cheaper than a Noctis.

Moreover, we had an exciting and eventful evening. What started out as simple Sleeper combat turned out to be a night of combat and counter-combat with other capsuleers, protecting ourselves whilst we plundered what wasn't ours. We did well to remain aware of the threats and identify potential attack vectors. Although we couldn't prevent the attacks we countered them more than adequately, hitting our ambushers harder than they hit us, with only a single misstep in not changing our strategy occurring at the end of the evening. It doesn't sour the experience, though, and we both come away invigorated and happy to be pilots in w-space.

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Tags: anathema, armageddon, dominix, drake, eve online, falcon, magnate, malediction, mmorpg, nemesis, noctis, orca, penny ibramovic, punisher, purifier, pvp, sleepers, tengu, w-space, widow

Chasing gets me chased

I'm out for a quick poke around w-space, to see if anyone is being careless. Not at home they're not, where all is as expected. I resolve our static wormhole and jump through. The neighbouring class 3 system looks imposing, with three stealth bombers and one well-equipped tower visible on my directional scanner. Then again, a visible stealth bomber can't be that imposing unless it appears unexpectedly in front of you. Or behind you, I suppose. My point is that as they are persisting on d-scan then they are probably not piloted. What is more interesting, however, is that I am in d-scan range of only one planet, the second planet of the system. That suggests a curious system.

Opening the system map shows how curious the system is. Comprising just two planets, the system's only moons are around this second one, and the inner, bare planet is almost hugging the star some 20 AU away. It's an unusual system, but an easy one to scout. I can even warp away and launch probes out of range of the tower, just in case the Hound or either of the Nemesis stealth bombers is piloted. Performing a blanket scan reveals only the three ships I already know about, along with three anomalies and twelve signatures. I warp back to the second planet and locate the tower, with its eight hangars and five ship arrays, to see my initial assumption was right and that the ships are empty, letting me settle down to scan.

Wormhole, gas, rocks, rocks, ship—hullo. I swish my probes out of the system and back in to a blanket scanning configuration, and by the time I've done that the ship is gone. I was leaving the resolved wormhole unvisited for the time being, preferring to monitor the tower, but now I'm going to take a look. Unsurprisingly enough, it is a K162, so opened from the other side and most likely the source of the ship. The wormhole opens in from class 4 w-space but is quite wobbly, reaching the end of its natural lifetime, so I am not keen to venture through. Rather than return to the local tower I stay to loiter here, just in case a C4 dweller is looking to force the collapse of the wormhole early. I wouldn't mind getting temporarily isolated from the home system if it means I get to shoot an Orca.

No industrial command ship appears from the C4, not after any potential polarisation timer ends, and not after I complete a thorough scan of this C3. I find mostly rocks and gas, with a single magnetometric site that could be of interest later, and only one other wormhole. I check the second wormhole, at the risk of warping past a hauler returning from a quick last trip to market, to drop out of warp next to an exit to low-sec. I could now head back to wait on the wormhole from the C4 but I suspect that a pilot has either already returned, and I detected his jump home, or is still out. I jump through the wormhole to low-sec to see what's out there.

I appear in the Genesis region, two other pilots in the low-sec system with me. One of the pilots is called Scanny McGee and belongs to a w-space corporation, so I suspect I've found my scanner probe blip. I move away from the wormhole and cloak, shortly after which Scanny appears in his Helios and jumps in to the C3. I decloak and follow behind, knowing that covert operations boats are difficult to catch in normal circumstances, more so when not in a suitable boat, and almost impossible when piloted competently. Sure enough, Scanny McGee moves away from the wormhole and cloaks with what looks like practiced ease, leaving me nothing to aim for.

I warp across the system to the K162 he'll presumably be heading for, keeping my Tengu decloaked if only because there seems little point in trying to hide my intentions now. The Helios indeed appears in front of my ship again and jumps through to the C4, and again I follow. We re-enact the previous wormhole scene but this time in dangerous w-space, his cloaking and my burning and failing to bump in to his tiny ship, it probably entering warp before I'm even close. Now I cloak, as I punch d-scan and check the results. There's a tower, a Badger hauler, and a Legion strategic cruiser. I wonder if that Legion will respond to—yep, here he is, dropping out of warp on the wormhole.

The Legion starts orbiting the wormhole, most likely trying to get lucky and decloak me. I am ready to risk the EOL wormhole collapsing by staying here for four minutes more, preferring to shirk off any polarisation effects that may work to my disadvantage if I jump back too early and am caught than lose my ship stupidly, when in his bid to uncover me the Legion unwisely moves too far from the wormhole to jump quickly. I take the opportunity to decloak and jump back to the C3, glad that I weighed the risks and assessed the situation, as I am spat out well under two kilometres from the wormhole. But the Legion's errant movements have given me plenty of time to move clear of the wormhole and cloak safely, at which point I order full stop and sit to monitor the connection.

The wormhole flares behind me, after a longer period of time than I was expecting. It is not the Legion that has followed me but a new contact in a Loki strategic cruiser, presumably with the Legion still sitting on the other side of the wormhole for maximum threat. He seems confident about the life left in the dying connection, or knows he has an exit and can be guided back home, but isn't straying far from it. I do nothing but watch and wait, and after a while the Loki returns to the C4. It looks like the system is clear again and I doubt any other ships will venture through that connection.

I bounce off the tower in this C3, seeing no change from earlier, before heading to low-sec to scan. The only wormhole I find in the low-sec system is also EOL and not worth the trouble of exploring beyond, and my little two-pronged chase has sated my appetite for excitement for now, so I feel no need to shoot rats in either the magnetometric or radar site I also resolve. One last look at the tower in the C3 and the K162 from the C4 shows no change in the status of either, so I jump home and go off-line to grab a bite to eat.

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

Another empty ambush

I've scanned the w-space constellation and found it bare. I had to stop with the minimal route, our neighbouring class 3 system having a single wormhole exiting to low-sec empire space, and the low-sec system also holding no other wormholes. I am returning after a short break with the intent to roam the C3 in a stealth bomber, hoping to find vulnerable ships pottering around in any of the sites there that I already have bookmarked. Instead, glorious leader Fin reports that all remains quiet and dull. On the positive side, glorious leader Fin is here, giving us options.

The main option is to collapse our static wormhole and start again. Whilst this means abandoning all of my earlier reconnaissance it is still the best option, particularly with little opportunity to shoot Sleepers for profit, or capsuleers for fun, in the C3. We also have available two Orca industrial command ships to push through the wormhole at once, now that I have trained to fly one, which should speed the process along somewhat. Maybe we're pushing too hard, though, as the second trip, with me in a Widow black ops ship this time, has the wormhole become critically unstable when Fin exits the system.

Thankfully, despite us both being in the C3 in massive ships with our wormhole looking like it may not survive the return of my Widow, I manage to squeeze through to get home without killing the connection. Fin returns after me, her Orca easily over-stressing the wormhole to collapse it, and we both end up safely in the home system. It was close, though. Maybe we should revisit our calculations. Not now, obviously, as I have a new static wormhole to find and potentially targets on the other side of it, so I board my covert Tengu strategic cruiser and scan again.

There are no new signatures in the home system apart from the expected wormhole, giving us no surprises. Fin and I warp to the new connection and I jump through to the C3 beyond, reporting lots of warp bubbles and an off-line tower on my directional scanner but otherwise the system appearing clear. I launch probes and perform a blanket scan of the system. Two ships appear on the scan, and I warp around to reveal them as a pair of strategic cruisers, both the Loki and Legion piloted but nestled inside the force field of a distant tower. I bookmark the six anomalies my probes also picked up, but probably in vain as it doesn't look like either of these ships is about to shoot Sleepers.

We think about actively luring the ships out of the tower but realise this would only work if the pilots are themselves watching d-scan, which is unlikely if they are not doing anything else. Hullo, the Legion's awake at least, as the ship moves to a hangar and swaps in to an Anathema covert operations boat. The cov-ops warps out of the tower and launches probes, with me behind him but unable to locate the ship in what sensibly looks like a safe spot. There are only three signatures in this C3, one of which must be the static wormhole and another our newly opened K162, and Fin is keen to catch the Anathema should it come our way.

Fin swaps ships to an Onyx heavy interdictor, adding a cloaking device so that she can sit on our K162 in the C3 to act as scout on top of providing the warp bubble to trap our prey. I return home and board my Malediction interceptor, planting it on our side of the wormhole, relying on Fin for information as to the Anathema's whereabouts. Using d-scan, she detects the probes moving around the system, the scout probably resolving their static wormhole, before they all cluster around our K162. He seems to be taking his time about scanning, although I suppose there's little sense of urgency with only three signatures to resolve. The probes finally disappear, and now we wait to see what the Anathema will do.

It's been a while since I've waited to ambush a scouting cov-ops, and even longer since I've had a HIC along to give me a chance of catching one, but this experience seems much like the others. Many scouts apparently don't have the explorer spirit, apparently content with merely resolving the wormholes found without feeling an unrepressible urge to see what lies beyond. Today's Anathema looks to be no different than the others. If he visits our wormhole it is only from a distance where he remains cloaked. Fin and I wait a little longer with nothing happening before I swap back to my covert Tengu and reconnoitre the tower in the C3 again.

The Loki remains where he was in the force field, the Anathema returned to the tower and sitting stationary. Whether he caught a glimpse of my Tengu or Fin's Onyx on d-scan and knew not to explore further, or is waiting for his colleague to become active again before putting his scouting to use, I can't say. All I know is that he is stubbornly refusing to die to us, which just isn't cricket. And the hour is getting late once more, leaving us little option but to both return home and get some sleep. Maybe we will find adventure tomorrow.

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Tags: anathema, eve online, legion, loki, malediction, mmorpg, onyx, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, tengu, w-space, widow

More low-sec hacking

Early reconnaissance worked out well for me the last time I did it, so having enough time to spare today I am out early again, scanning and scouting the w-space constellation. The home system looks clear, although three sites have spawned during my short absence from space. I resolve and bookmark a radar and magnetometric site each, and resolve and activate some rocks in a gravimetric site, before warping to today's static wormhole and jumping to our neighbouring class 3 system.

My directional scanner is clear of anything interesting, an off-line tower and a bubble showing signs only of previous capsuleer occupation. Launching probes and performing a blanket scan of the system has four anomalies and seven signatures but no ships, so when I find a tower on the outskirts of the system it's not surprising there's no one home. It's not particularly disappointing either, as this is a reconnaissance expedition after all. The signatures are the usual rocks and gas, there being few enough sites that I resolve and bookmark them all in case their positions will come in useful later, and I find only the one wormhole, an exit to low-sec empire space.

I jump through the wormhole to find myself in a system in the Molden Heath region with two other pilots. I notice a cynosural beacon in the system too, which probably accounts for one of the other pilots, if not both, so the system feels pretty safe. I launch probes and scan, revealing a few anomalies full of Angel rats, which I look to pop for some pocket money and a slight increase in my security status now that the two other pilots have left the system to leave me alone, but warping to the anomalies finds no rats. I have to entertain myself by scanning the seven signatures here instead.

Resolving a radar site in the low-sec system could be good for ISK, a second one even better. Dumb gas is dumb, as are rocks, but a third radar site is making me want to get my Drake battlecruiser in here to rake in some iskies. I have to remind myself I'm out to explore for the moment, and although the final signature in the low-sec system is of the 'unknown' type it resolves to a rogue drone infestation. And now that the w-space constellation has definitely terminated I can think about hacking the radar sites.

I return to w-space, note no change in the C3, and head home for my Drake. I make sure I have a codebreaker fitted and enough ammunition, and head back to low-sec. Two pilots once again share the system with me so I will need to be cautious, but unless the others are fitted with scanning probes I won't be found in the radar sites. One pilot leaves the system as I start popping rat ships, the other flies through d-scan range in a Jaguar assault ship before leaving too. I become more comfortable knowing there is no one looking for me, and revel in looting the cans in this site of some pretty substandard loot. How disappointing.

Moving on to the second radar site has the Jaguar pilot back in the system, d-scan having him bouncing around. He could quite possibly be actively looking for my Drake, hoping it is in an anomaly or asteroid belt, idly ratting. Oh, hello, he's inviting me in to a fleet. Maybe he wants a private chat, perhaps to say he's giving up trying to find me. Yeah, right. He can't find me and hopes I am distracted enough to automatically accept the invitation so that he can warp right on top of me, which being in a fleet allows. Thankfully I'm not that stupid. I decline the invitation and, shortly afterwards, the pilot leaves the system again.

The second radar site also has rather disappointing loot, making me wonder if my previous experience was a fluke. But I'm out here and in the right ship, I may as well move to the third and final radar site. I clear the rats without any hassle, no more pilots trying to hunt me, and easily double the value of loot retrieved from the previous two sites. I end up with a pretty good haul of datacores, encryptors, and a couple of skill books, giving me maybe forty to fifty million ISK in profit. It's not w-space iskies but pretty good for the effort and risk. Now it's time to go home, dump my loot, and get some food. I'll be back later to see if the neighbouring C3 wakes up.

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Tags: drake, eve online, jaguar, low-sec, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

Salvager's supernatural senses

The home system is clear. I can use this time to update my skill queue, and it's going to take some time. I still don't have a particular plan for my skill training, leaving me floundering to pick skills here and there to train from IV to V on the grounds that having them 'would be nice'. At least my view about what constitutes a long skill training time has adjusted appropriately. I remember when I would feel like I was dragging my heels if I wasn't updating the queue at least every other day. Now any skill taking under ten days long to train feels short and worth sticking in the queue, which, I suppose, only complicates choosing.

Eventually I find a skill that could use a small bump for over a week's training time and update my queue. A second scan of the home system confirms that, amazingly, no new signatures have appeared in the time I spent procrastinating, so I resolve our static wormhole and jump in to the neighbouring class 3 w-space system. My directional scanner is clear, only showing me a single planet near the edge of the system, which is good, as this time I have been spat out under a kilometre from the wormhole. I burn away from the K162, launching my scanning probes as I do, and cloak as I throw the probes out of the system.

I have warped to an inner planet before my probes are arranged for a blanket scan of this C3, d-scan already showing me a tower, Cynabal cruiser, and Sleeper wrecks. My notes let me know where the tower probably is here, having last visited only three months ago, whilst I narrow d-scan's beam and try to locate the Cynabal in the anomalies. I find him, but with no Sleeper wrecks. The cruiser then strategically changes in to a Tengu, although widening d-scan to an all-encompassing beam again shows the Cynabal elsewhere and that there are now two ships in the system.

My fiddling with d-scan has also shown that most of the wrecks are in a despawned anomaly, which would be more of a shame if there was a Noctis salvager available to shoot. I would guess that the Cynabal and Tengu are shooting Sleepers and a third ship will sweep up behind them, but no new wrecks appear and no current wrecks disappear. I have no idea what either ship is doing. Only when the Tengu disappears again, making me wonder if he's covertly configured, and the Cynabal turns up in the despawned site does it look like it's the cruiser salvaging.

I have been warned before that the Cynabal is a superfast cruiser, one that could easily cause me problems if paired with a second combat ship, like a Tengu. Because of the circumstances I am not thinking about engaging the Cynabal, but I can still spook him and cause disruption that way. D-scan lets me find the despawned site with some degree of certainty, and I cluster my combat scanning probes in a 4 AU pattern roughly where the Cynabal is salvaging, and scan. The first result is a healthy 84% hit on the cruiser, the second shows him gone from the despawned site. A few seconds later has d-scan show him having left the system. Job done.

The retreat of the Cynabal leaves me with fourteen signatures to sift through, although I will be wary of any K162s I find in case I jump in to a waiting ambush. I resolve a wormhole early on but it is only the static exit to low-sec empire space, and although it's not impossible that the visitors came through here its location doesn't tally with the snippets of intelligence d-scan has been feeding me. Then again, it's just gas, gas, gas out here, and before I get the whiff of another wormhole a ship appears on my scanning probes, confirmed by d-scan as a Probe frigate. The ship's accidental appearance within my probes' spheres of influence lets me resolve its position within a couple of scans, and I warp to its position.

In the hopes that my scanning the Probe's position seems more incidental than on purpose to the pilot I rearrange my scanning probes so that less of them are in d-scan range, whilst not letting them all disappear as if I have recalled them having got my desired result. I hope to keep the Probe in the despawned site as I line him up for a shot, assuming he's watching d-scan as the Cynabal did, if it isn't actually the same pilot. My plan doesn't quite work immediately, the Probe having moved from his scanned position by the time my Tengu has warped to it, although he has brought me to the despawned site, with some wrecks still to be salvaged.

I bookmark the wrecks left in the site, now in three disparate groups, and bounce off a nearby planet to get closer to them. The Probe has warped out of the site by the time I get back, hopefully just bouncing out himself to cover the distance between the wrecks quicker and more safely. I keep shifting my scanning probes around to make it look like I am merely scouting the system, until the Probe returns. I find myself sitting near the wreck the Probe didn't choose, as it draws close to the other remaining pair. I could wait, but suspect the frigate may take long enough to salvage two wrecks for me to bounce out and back to his position, and if that doesn't work I should still have time to relocate to the last wreck whilst the Probe makes the same manoeuvre.

I warp out of the site, flip my ship and warp right back, only to land next to the two wrecks to see the Probe now at the one I just left. It's like he can sense my cloaked ship. I would feel less paranoid about that if it weren't for only one of the two wrecks I've landed next to being looted and neither being salvaged, whereas the single wreck I just left is being looted and salvaged by the Probe. Surely the frigate must return to these two wrecks, loot the other one, and salvage them both. That is, if he can't see through my cloaking device. The lone wreck is salvaged and disappears, the Probe warps out, and I get ready to receive him with open launchers.

Catching the frigate should be easy. It can't warp cloaked, and although agile and potentially fast I will be able to watch it drop out of warp and time my decloaking to negate the recalibration delay I'll suffer. Knowing that he will warp to the wrecks gives me his position to a degree of certainty too, and I am close enough to the pair of them to be able to snare and keep pace with the frigate when it tries to flee. I feel like I am in a good position. All I have to do is wait for the Probe to return and finish salvaging, which he has so far done so thoroughly in this despawned and apparently safe site.

He's not coming back. The Probe drops off d-scan and makes no reappearance in the site, leaving me sitting like a lemon between the two yellow wrecks. Maybe the unlooted wreck is only from a Sleeper frigate, offering little in the way of ISK, but these are the only two wrecks left unsalvaged. Unless my cloaking device is on the blink, or the pilot had supernatural senses, I have no idea why these wrecks would not be claimed. I wait a bit longer, and wait, and wait, and wait, hoping that the Probe's hold was full and he had to lighten the load before returning, but he doesn't come back.

D-scan shows me a Heron frigate appearing and disappearing, as well as a Manticore stealth bomber, but there is no sign of the Probe and neither ship detected by d-scan looks to join me in the despawned site. Maybe I should have persevered in resolving the final few signatures in the system, as it looks like there must be a K162 here and that some easy targets are passing through it at the moment. I have since recalled my probes, though, and I dare not warp out of the site now, not after sitting so patiently with these tempting wrecks.

And now a Dramiel appears, a frigate as fast as an interceptor and potentially deadly for my Tengu. I back off from the wrecks a little in case it warps in to the site, but it seems to be acting more as a threat. It's working, too. The Dramiel won't be able to defeat my Tengu by itself but neither will my Tengu be a credible threat to the fast Dramiel, and if the frigate snares my bulkier ship allies could be called in to finish me off with superior firepower. When a Helios covert operations boat appears on d-scan and starts launching probes it's time for me to leave. If they find the K162 home and stalk it I could end up either isolated or dead.

It's time to go home. I'm still paranoid that the Probe saw through my cloak somehow, as absurd as that seems, but I really could have and should have popped him. Rather than bouncing around and letting my target control the field I should have picked my spot and waited, which I suppose I did but too late. I leave the C3 behind me without a kill and with little to show for my evening. But I also leave it without anyone waiting for me, or anyone following me. I settle down for the night, safe in the home system.

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Tags: cynabal, dramiel, eve online, helios, heron, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, probe, scanning, tengu, w-space

A day in w-space

There's nothing new at home, just rocks and the static wormhole, so I jump to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system to start tonight's exploration. A tower but no ships are visible on my directional scanner, keeping tonight's slow but relaxing start going, and I launch probes and perform a blanket scan of the system. No ships appear in the spheres of my combat probes, but I am shown six anomalies and nine signatures. I bookmark the anomalies and start resolving the signatures, or, rather, ignoring them. It's mostly rocks and gas out here as usual, with a sole magnetometric site that I take time to resolve fully in case Fin turns up and would like to make some iskies. Three wormholes in this C3 are interesting, though.

The wormholes I find are somewhat less interesting when viewed not through scanning probes but on my overview, as I have only found three connections to low-sec empire space, one outbound and two K162s. I exit through the static wormhole first, to share a system in the Black Rise region with two other pilots. Scanning finds a base for Guristas, a K162 from class 2 w-space that is at the end of its natural lifetime, and a radar and magnetometric site each. I don't feel adventurous enough tonight to risk the dying wormhole, instead swapping my scouting Tengu strategic cruiser back at our tower for a Drake battlecruiser and returning to low-sec to clear the radar site for profit and security status.

A Drake belonging to a second pilot is in d-scan range of my own in the low-sec system, and thankfully not to be found in the radar site I warp to, and he stays away as I hack in to the various containers. No rats turn up to try to discourage my pilfering, leaving me with a decent amount of loot but no increase to my sec-status. I turn around, jump back to w-space, and board my Tengu once more. The evening is still young and I have more low-sec to scan. I pick one of the two K162s in C3a and jump out to Domain this time, another quiet system but this time holding a healthy wormhole, a K162 from class 3 w-space. I'm going in for a look.

D-scan is clear from the wormhole and I prepare my probes for a blanket scan. My notes illuminate me a little before I scan, placing me here twice before. The last time I was here, about nine months ago, I pop a Noctis salvager in my stealth bomber, but I see no such activity today. I warp to the tower but find it moved one moon across, then realise there are two towers and it's likely not the same corporation as before. There are also two ships visible inside the second tower, neither the Heron frigate nor Chimera carrier piloted. A mere two signatures convince me to look for a further K162 but I find only rocks to accompany the static wormhole. I return to low-sec.

I again pause my exploration briefly and warp in to an anomaly populated with Sansha rats, easily eradicating them from the system even in my covert Tengu, gaining the security status I wanted from the earlier radar site, before jumping back to C3a and exiting through the second K162 to a third low-sec system, this one in the Placid region. Two extra signatures in this system result in two wormholes, one an outbound connection to class 3 w-space, the other a link to high-sec, a type of wormhole I have not come across before. Despite its novelty I am more interested in continuing my exploration of w-space, jumping through the X702 to C3c.

A Moa cruiser on d-scan is interesting, although it may not be harvesting gas but sitting inside the tower also visible. Having only been in this system five weeks ago I warp across to the tower, only to find it thoroughly bubbled and disabled. All defences have been incapacitated and there are no traces of hangars or other arrays. There was nothing notable about this system on my last visit but a coup has occurred since, the locals perhaps seeing it coming as suggested by a giant secure contained dumped in space renamed to indicate the new hostile occupation. I locate the tower of the victors, with the Moa floating unpiloted inside the active force field, and update my notes.

I don't care to scan for the static exit to high-sec, but just before I warp back to the K162 I entered through I realise the system is bigger than d-scan lets me see. It would be silly not to explore the entire system before deciding it inactive, so warp off to one of the two distant planets. And in the far reaches of the system I see a Heron on d-scan, but adjusting my scanner I see a second off-line tower and consider the frigate to be abandoned and neither worth stealing or wasting ammunition on. But locating this second off-line tower sees no Heron nearby and further adjustments to d-scan place it some 4 AU from the planet. I don't know what it's doing out there, but I'd like to find out.

I warp away, launch combat scanning probes, and cluster the probes around the planet on their 4 AU resolution setting. I pick up the Heron and a signature in roughly the same place, which surely cannot be coincidence. My suspicion that the scanning frigate is sitting on a wormhole is confirmed with a second scan, and it only takes a third before I have both the Heron and wormhole resolved completely. I recall my probes and go to greet the Heron, warping to its position and not the wormhole's, in case one is not sitting on the other.

By finding the Heron I have accidentally scanned the static exit to high-sec I intended not to. And warping to the Heron's position was the right move as the pilot is some 95 km from the wormhole. He's not cloaking, which is curious, and surely sitting on a wormhole to high-sec would be safer than floating uncloaked so far away from it. I'm not going to complain, though. Neither am I going to make any silly mistakes, and rather than decloak and try to catch the agile frigate immediately I close the distance between our two ships first, decloaking only when a pulse of my micro warp drive will surge me forwards to bump my target, denying him the opportunity to cloak or a quick alignment and warp as my sensors recalibrate.

I get a positive lock on the Heron and start shooting. I am expecting no resistance, assuming the pilot to be away from the controls and surprised to see on his rushed return as alarms wail that he's not cloaked. The Heron explodes without a fuss and I catch and hold the pilot's pod, loosing missiles against that new target. It's all a bit clinical and merciless, really. I scoop the corpse, and loot and shoot the wreck, at which point I learn a couple of points. First, the Heron wasn't cloaked because it wasn't fitted with a cloak. Second, the pilot is only a day in to his capsuleer career. Oops. Still, a target is a target.

My return to the active tower in this C3 is no longer necessary. I was looking to see if the pilot is a member of the local corporation, but in finding he is only a day old I also see he is not out of the academy. I also note now some core scanning probes in the inner system, probably the ex-Heron's, which shows he was actively scanning. He must have come through another wormhole, his warping from there better explaining his position at the static connection at the range I found him. And in brutally slaying a young capsuleer my evening's expedition draws to a close. There is no change in the systems I travel through to get home, where I drop the corpse and loot in to our hangar and settle down for the night.

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Tags: chimera, drake, eve online, heron, low-sec, mmorpg, moa, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space

Gigs of 2011, part three

I appear to have been to more gigs in the past couple of months than the whole year before. I am trying to get out more, which is kind of working. I am getting out of an evening and, for the most part, enjoying seeing live music, but the secondary effect of meeting people isn't happening. I don't suppose gigs are the place to do that, I dunno. Either way, I'm getting to see some great bands and, for the most part, having an enjoyable evening each time.

Will Haven/RSJ at Islington Academy

An unexpected outing, Power Armoured Beard invites me along to the Islington Academy to enjoy some extreme metal. It's outside of the normal genres I enjoy listening to, but I'm not averse to new music and I certainly appreciate the skill and volumes involved. Support band RSJ are new and noisy, the lead singer—growler, maybe—even taking advantage of a still-filling audience to bring his voice in to the front rows.

Main act Will Haven are somewhat different from the stereotypical bands of the genre, lead singer having a different vocal feel altogether, although the guitars are as distorted as ever and double-pedal bass drumming is the order of the day. Will Haven are promoting a new album and it is obvious from the reaction of the audience which songs are new and which are old, as the level of energy rises significantly when the songs are recognised. I'm not sure if I'd have the music playing on my iPod in the background, but its certainly great to see live.

Dum Dum Girls/Veronica Falls/Novella at ULU

I'm seeing Novella for the second time, only having been introduced to the new band last week. They play the same set, happy with how it works, and it works well. I enjoyed their previous gig enough to turn up early at ULU to see them play again and now with some small familiarity with their music enjoy the set a little bit more. Novella have promise and I'll be looking out for them.

I've also seen Veronica Falls before. The first time I was quite keen to see them, and now I'm wondering if the sour impression was misjudged. Not really. For goodness sake, someone buy the drummer a hi-hat! Making do with only a snare, low tom, and bass drum may be a gimmick but it makes for some incredibly dreary drumming, with pretty much no variation between songs. It's like having a guitarist who learns one chord and then strums that single chord a little bit differently for each song. And it's a shame, because otherwise Veronica Falls seem pretty good, certainly good enough to make me want to like them. But I can't get past the horribly monotonous drumming that drags the rest of the band down with it. At least others in the audience are enjoying them enough for me to hear the wonderfully British shout of 'very good! very good!' between songs.

Considering my review of the Dum Dum Girls album I Will Be essentially came down to criticising the monotonous drumming it is a little unfortunate that Veronica Falls are supporting them. I try to remain optimistic, as the band now have another album of material to work from, and at least the drummer's working from a full kit, so although the same pattern crops up regularly, and the drummer unfortunately frequently rides the low tom like Veronica Falls, there is enough variation to keep me mostly entertained. I recognise some of the songs as being from the first album, most obviously Bhang Bhang, I'm a Burnout, and the new material is jolly enough. Before the band leave the stage they announce that it is bassist Bambi's last gig, and they bring on flowers and champagne to celebrate her time in the band. When someone shouts out wanting to know why she's leaving, guitarist Jules pauses before saying, '...she has better things to do'. I kind of feel the same way. It's been a fun enough evening and it's good to get out, but getting out for the sake of getting out isn't working, as I am still by myself and don't have anything to do between sets. No reflection on the Dum Dum Girls, but I feel I need to be more discriminating when looking for gigs to go to, and not just see bands because it's a night out, unless I have company.

Besnard Lakes/Suuns at the Scala

'I'll throw a ball out and we'll play the Name Game.' Suuns keyboardist is talking to the half-dozen people standing in front of the stage, although maybe twice that are on the platforms at the back. The Scala venue is small but this is a tiny audience to walk on stage to. Suuns didn't have to worry, though, because almost as soon as the hypnotic keyboards and thumping bass drum kicks in to begin the set with Arena people come flooding in from wherever they were hiding. And the impressively driving songs keep coming, from Gaze, Pie IX, Sweet Nothing, through to Up Past the Nursery, each one is a keen reminder why I am thrilled to see Suuns play again, even if it is only in a support slot. Zeroes QC remains an excellent album, and Suuns live are a dynamic force.

I've not heard of headliners Besnard Lakes but I'm happy to hang around and see what they're like. Pretty good, I suppose, if not entirely my cup of tea. It certainly isn't bland or generic music, and I stick around to soak up the experience to the end of the set. 'This is our last song', says the lead singer/guitarist, to a chorus of disappointment from the fans. 'Oh, come on, it's twelve minutes long', he says, 'it's like five songs in one!' He's not wrong, and Besnard Lakes can certainly keep a song interesting for twelve minutes. I stroll back to Euston after a suitably entertaining evening.

Bo Ningen/Serafina/Esben and the Witch at Shoreditch Church

I wasn't too sure about making my way to the far-away lands of East London for this gig, but the map put a tube station apparently within walking distance. I was a little surprised, then, to find myself accidentally walking past Cargo only a stone's throw away from the church. Then again, I suppose I also thought Cargo was a bit out-of-the-way when I first looked at getting there. It turns out to be convenient enough to get to, although I doubt there will be many more gigs at this church. On to the music!

I have to admit that I'm not a fan of Florence and the Machine, can't stand Noah and the Whale, and wasn't impressed with another $NAME and the $OBJECT band I saw supporting Wilder, so I'm not expecting much from Esben and the Witch, if only because of the band name. The set perks up during the second song, but that's because Jarvis Cocker comes in and sits within arm's reach of me, if I had freakish five-foot-long arms. That's about as cool as Esben and the Witch get, although there's nothing particularly bad about them. The play some fairly unremarkable shoegazing and produce some imposing soundscapes to go alongside a suitable performance, but it doesn't get me excited. Not like saying hi to Jarvis between sets. Too cool!

When a harp is plonked on the stage I get worried that I am about to see the same act that supported School of Seven Bells, and that I'd end up seeing which would win in a fight between the venue's sound system and my iPod, but thankfully it's a different act. Second act Serafina is one woman and her harp, no backing tapes. The lyrics are a bit too literal for my tastes, preferring more metaphor even though I rarely extract the meaning, but it's all rather pleasant and apropos, given we are in a church. It also provides quite a stark juxtaposition for the main act.

Yes, I'm seeing Bo Ningen for what must be the fifth time in five months, or something like that. But each time I've seen them, even if it's been less than a week apart, they've played a different set. And not just one track substituted here or there but a completely different set. As Yuki tells me before the show, when I bump in to him, it keeps them fresh, which really must help when they are playing so regularly. Considering that Bo Ningen have played two more shows in the past week on top of this one keeping the music fresh has got to be important. Tonight's show is different again, and fairly short for a headlining performance, but they rein nothing in for playing in a church, even relishing the relative grandeur compared to other venues. The set comprises only four songs and is not a full headlining set at forty-five minutes long, but performing four songs in forty-five minutes is still impressive to experience.

I'm loving recent single Henkan more each time I hear it, and the lilting Yuruyakana Ao sounds sublime given the acoustics of the church, an amazing song to hear in this environment. And the band end with a full version of ?, or maybe even extended from the nearly sixteen-minute-long album version, the slow build-up exploding in to a throbbing rock riff that culminates with a thrashing of psychedelic guitars, Yuki even unplugging his axe and playing the lead instead, producing wails of feedback before swinging his unplugged guitar in windmills. It's another blisteringly energetic performance from Bo Ningen, one that ensures I'll be seeing them again, but not for a couple of months, as they are returning to Japan for a while.

Pink Mountaintops/Pinkunoizu/Dark Moon at the Lexington

The website for the Lexington makes it seem rather sophisticated, so I am tickled when I turn up on my first visit to see it is simply a less dingy Barfly. Being a venue on the first floor of a pub, the Lexington is small and compact, but its being relatively new means it is well-furbished at least.

First band Dark Moon are pretty good, lead vocalist having a wonderful voice and lead guitarist wailing away nicely on what must be a very expensive Gretsch. They are nothing world-stirring but are certainly competent enough and I'd happily watch them again.

Second act are from Denmark and start off slowly. The first song drones away for what seems like ten minutes without any real change in direction and I kind of drift off a little, but then it surges in to overdrive and crescendoes impressively. And their other songs follow the same kind of pattern, in that they set a baseline rhythm, hold it for a good while, then explode. Despite my initial impressions, I really enjoy the band and would like to hear more. After the set I ask their singer the name of their band, as it wasn't mentioned, and he tells me. And I stare blankly for a second. Yeah, I say, I'll never remember that, mostly because I'm not quite sure what he said, and not just because of the accent. 'It's a silly name, hard to say and hard to spell', he admits, but says that they have an EP for sale and I can get the name from that. I don't buy the 12", although I'll see if digital tracks are available separately, but at least I find out they're called Pinkunoizu.

I've not seen Pink Mountaintops before, despite following them through three albums from the beginning. I think I simply missed them before, but now I get lucky when flicking through listings. I'm quite excited. I'm a little less excited when the drumkit is removed entirely from the stage and not replaced, but I suppose there are plenty of songs that can be realised with only a guitar and keyboards. As it turns out, the keyboard is relied on a little too much, as well as a sampler for some drums, creating an overall sound that perhaps isn't as live as I prefer. Never the less, it is distinctively the Pink Mountaintops, perhaps reimagined a little for live performance, playing songs spanning the three albums so far, and the opening track of forthcoming album. The music's good, in a decent venue, and I get to hear Tourist in Your Town as a duet, which makes me a happy bunny indeed.

White Hinterland/Genuine Freakshow/Dead Sons at Madame Jojos

Busy bunny me has managed to get double-booked. I was planning to see Danish punks Iceage at Corsica Studios, but favourite band White Hinterland hops across the Atlantic for a quick jaunt around the British Isles, ending with a solo show at Madame Jojos in Soho. I couldn't pass by this opportunity to see them again.

First on the bill is Dead Sons, who are entertaining and enjoyable. Plenty of heavy drums and good songs. It can be hard to know how such a live performance will translate to a studio recording, and harder still when the merchandise table is broken down before the end of the night so I can't buy the 7" with download code for the MP3s. I'll see if they're available independently, as I quite like Dead Sons.

Next up is A Genuine Freakshow, I think. It's not the band on the bill, but they mention their name near the end of the set. I'm a little wary of the frontman looking a little too Bombay Bicycle Club-esque, but thankfully I don't get assaulted by pretentious university-band tosh. The rock staples of electric guitar, bass, and drums are backed with violin, cello, and trumpet, providing a well-orchestrated and interesting sound. I think they are worth checking out a bit more.

I've only seen White Hinterland once before, touring for the amazing Kairos album, with collaborator Shawn Creedon. Tonight, it's Casey Dienel playing solo, just her keyboard and effects pedals on stage. And she needs little else to create some beautiful music, looping her own voice live to shape layer upon layer of harmonies, and it's amazing to watch and hear it all come together. It doesn't always go to plan, though, Casey admitting that the joy of live looping means that you have to embrace the failures, and half-way through the final song Icarus is restarted for Casey to get a better sound looping. During the set, we also hear Thunderbird and No Logic from the current album, otherwise it's mostly new tracks, and they all sound good. It's wonderful to see White Hinterland, clearly so passionate about the music she creates, and I look forward to seeing more performances in the future.

Slow Club at Union Chapel

It wouldn't be Christmas without Slow Club's Christmas gig at the Union Chapel. I'm excited to be seeing the duo again and they make quite an audacious and excellent start by performing a low-key cover of Pulp's Disco 2000. It's the only cover they play, most of the rest of the set coming from recent album Paradise, including the catchy and energetic If We're Still Alive, Where I'm Waking and Two Cousins, bringing on extra musicians to create the fuller sound. Or, in the case of Two Cousins, to press the wrong button and cause the song to grind to a halt in the first bar. Rebecca thinks this is wonderful, if only because it makes for a better story still than the drummer's idiosyncratic behaviour in a previous gig. Slow Club still go slow occasionally, getting wistful with Never Look Back and letting a saxophone solo run slightly long in Hackney Marsh. And, of course, the gig wouldn't be complete without an encore of Christmas songs from their EP, Christmas, Thanks for Nothing, running through jolly favourites All Alone on Christmas and It's Christmas and You're Boring Me, yet somehow failing this year to get the audience singing along to Christmas (Baby Please Come Home). And with stage banter as good as their music, it's great to see Slow Club again.

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Straight-line scanning

An empty home system is a good place to start an evening's quiet exploration. Rocks and gas that appeared earlier in the week have dissipated, leaving me with some newly clustered rocks to ignore and a static wormhole to jump through. The designation of our neighbouring class 3 w-space system looks familiar, but thankfully only looks it, being merely similar to the J-number of a system from yesterday and actually new to me. I can see three containers on my directional scanner and nothing else, so I launch probes and perform a blanket scan of the system.

I suspect there is a tower at the edge of the system, out of range of d-scan, warping in that direction already as my scanning probes show me six ships that my first pulse of d-scan didn't detect. I normally warp to the planet and locate the moon around which the tower is anchored from there, as it offers the best angular separation of each moon, but the outer planet in this system has only two moons, not only giving good odds that I'll pick the right one initially but also confirming where the tower is anchored should my guess be incorrect. This time I'm right, but I nearly pay for my good guess by bumping in to a defence, dropping out of warp under five kilometres from it.

There is no one here to see if I decloak, though, all the ships floating unpiloted in the tower's force field. I would still have needed to reactivate my cloak to avoid the tower's defences, but letting other pilots know you are in the system is generally a bad idea when planning an ambush. Not always, but generally. With no one home I start sifting through the eighteen signatures here, bookmarking the two anomalies first. It's mostly rocks out here, the only wormhole I find being the system's static exit to low-sec empire space.

I jump out of w-space to take a look around, appearing in an empty system in the Essence region, scanning revealing two additional signatures. Resolving the signatures gets me even more rocks, like I'm in desperate need of them, and a second wormhole, this one an outbound connection to class 3 w-space. In I go. There are plenty of ships to see on d-scan in this second C3 but no wrecks or jet-cans that would indicate activity. I locate the two towers here, one holding nine of the ships, the other holding a single Badger hauler, no pilots to be seen at either. Pausing only to wonder why an eight-capsuleer corporation would have nine ships not kept securely in one of their three hangars, I warp out to launch scanning probes.

Eight anomalies, five signatures, and no unaccounted for ships are revealed by a blanket scan of C3b. Again, I find mostly rocks, with a touch of gas, and just the one wormhole, this time an exit to high-sec. I keep moving forwards, jumping out to the Tash-Murkon region, where scanning has only one other signature to resolve, a base for Sansha rats. Exploration ends along a simple chain of w-space and empire space. Heading home unsurprisingly sees no change in C3b—a system I left two minutes earlier—the low-sec system remaining mostly quiet, and C3a sleepy. I jump home, swap to a Drake battlecruiser at our tower, and head back out to low-sec to shoot some rats.

I am only engaging a few Serpentis pirates in an anomaly, but it will help repair a bit of the loss taken to my security status when engaging the shuttle in low-sec yesterday. I also need to take care that I don't become a target myself. There are two pilots in the system with me, both of them in a militia. I don't know how the militia operate but I would be amazed if they don't take pot-shots at non-militia targets. So far they seem to be keeping away but I am quite aware of how easy I am to find in the anomaly, not even needing scanning probes to resolve my position.

More pilots arrive in the system, a Nemesis stealth bomber appears then disappears on d-scan, and now I see an Ishkur assault ship and Catalyst destroyer nearby. It's possible the stealth bomber has scouted my position and is keeping tabs on me, ready to call in the other ships. And it's just as possible I'm being paranoid and that the ships are busy shooting each other. Even so, I'm not here for any great purpose and don't want to lose a ship from my being reckless. I feel I've shot enough rats for today and warp out of the anomaly, sparing the rest of the Serpentis for the sake of myself, and return to w-space to settle down for the night.

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Tags: badger, catalyst, drake, eve online, ishkur, low-sec, mmorpg, nemesis, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space