Looking around w-space

I'm up and ready to take another poke around w-space. There's no one at home, which is a good start and lets me take my time to get settled, although I suppose it doesn't really matter how much time I take with only one undetermined signature. I resolve our static wormhole and jump to the neighbouring class 3 w-space system to be greeted by a clear result from my directional scanner. Not entirely clear, I suppose, but a medium container amongst the planets and moons is hardly a sign of occupation or activity. I launch scanning probes and blanket the system, picking up three ships all looking like they are clustered together around a single planet. I imagine they are sitting in a tower there.

Warping across the system finds a tower and the ships, an Orca industrial command ship, Maelstrom battleship, and shuttle all unpiloted. No one is home. I bookmark the sole anomaly and start working through the ten signatures also revealed by my probes. I resolve a ladar site and a wormhole, leaving it unvisited as I search for more. I find more, but more gas harvesting sites when I really am only looking for wormholes. There is plenty of gas, as it turns out, with only the penultimate signature offering a change of pace by being rocks instead, before the final result being the second wormhole I was hoping for.

The first wormhole I resolved is the system's static exit to low-sec empire space, its super-stability a good indicator that I have only just activated it and that the locals have not been awake for at least a day. Or, I suppose, not wanting to leave the system for at least a day. I pop out to low-sec to get the exit system, which is in the Placid region, before jumping back to the C3 and seeing what other connection I have resolved. Sadly, it's just another link to low-sec, this one a K162. This wormhole comes in from Genesis, where I decide I may as well scan, seeing as I'm here now.

The anomalies in the low-sec system in Genesis are populated by dumb drones, although Blood Raiders are present in one. The three additional signatures turn out to be a radar site, an outbound wormhole to more class 3 w-space, and a K162 from class 1 w-space. I ignore a passing fleet that fills up the local channel briefly, or they ignore me, and jump in to the C1 as my first choice in trying to find squishy targets. Two Drake battlecruisers aren't exactly squishy, but I'm supposing they are nestled inside a tower seeing as there aren't any wrecks on d-scan. Finding the tower has me warping straight through a bubble trap, complete with canisters looking to decloak snared ships, but the integrity of my cloak remains. Neither Drake is piloted, so even if I had bumped in to a can I wouldn't have been noticed.

A blanket scan of the C1 reveals ten anomalies and eight signatures, but no other ships. Rather than look for another K162 heading back in to deeper w-space I recall my probes, return to low-sec, and warp across to explore already discovered C3b instead. Jumping in has nothing of interest on d-scan, and my notes point me towards an on-line but unoccupied tower that was here two months ago on my last visit to the system. My probes reveal a mere two anomalies but eighteen signatures, which is too many for me to care about sifting through at the moment, particularly with no guarantee of finding anything but a different route to k-space. Then again, I'm not slow at scanning and my options for exploration are limited. I start looking for wormholes.

The only wormhole I uncover is the C3's static exit to low-sec space, which is a bit of a shame. The wormhole leads out to the Domain region, which is conveniently closer to assets and market hubs than the other two exits, and is even only one hop from high-sec, but I have no current need to leave w-space. I jump back to C3b and head homewards, passing through low-sec and in to C3a. Our neighbouring system remains unsurprisingly quiet and I consider scanning the low-sec system on the other side of the static wormhole here. It doesn't hurt to take a look. The system in Placid has two additional signatures, one being a Serpentis outpost and the other a wormhole, which turns out to be a K162 from more class 3 w-space. The connection is unstable but not critical, which is enticing.

Trying to jump through the wormhole gives a disheartening result. The wormhole is stabilising and denies me passage, which means there are definitely no pilots in the system on the other side. Whatever activity pushed enough ships through the wormhole to mass-stress it happened hours ago, with no one returning since then. I don't even bother jumping my scouting boat through the wormhole now, as I know I won't find anything. Thus ends today's exploration, a few systems explored but no other pilots found. Returning through C3a has me bounce off the tower in the hopes that someone has woken up but there's still no one here. I warp across to our K162, jump home, and go back in to hiding. Maybe there will be more to find tomorrow.

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

Ransacking a radar site in low-sec

An empty system is a quiet system. I'll see if I can find one not quite so empty, which means scanning our home first. After a minor absence a couple of anomalies have reappeared, the rocks are gone, and I'm left with a single signature to resolve. There is nothing but our static wormhole that needs to be found, and I warp to it and jump through to explore our neighbouring class 3 w-space system for today. It's just planets and moons at first blush, only celestial objects appearing on my directional scanner from the K162. There are two planets out of d-scan range, offering hope for occupation or activity, so I launch scanning probes, throw them out of the system, and warp away from the wormhole.

One ship, fourteen anomalies, and nineteen signatures are returned from my probes with a blanket scan of this C3. The ship is a Retribution assault ship, sitting unpiloted in a tower around the planet that I happened to choose to warp to first. Checking my notes places me here some nine months ago but the notes are no longer relevant. The tower I've found is not listed and the two that are have since been torn down cleanly. I don't even have the type of static wormhole listed, our last appearance here having us try to catch a Drake battlecruiser and fail. There's no one here today, so I can scan and determine the static wormhole now, and with so many signatures to sift through I shall concentrate on looking only for wormholes.

Maybe it's because wormholes tend to sit further from celestial objects than other types of cosmic anomalies, but there seems to be a tendency for them to appear as split signatures on scanning probes. Picking one of these split signatures lets me pluck a wormhole out of the noise straight away, which I resolve but don't visit just yet. Otherwise, my goodness, it's just rocks out there. I ignore gravimetric site after gravimetric site, until a single ladar site interrupts the monotony, and then a second wormhole appears in the middle of my probes. I shall assume that is all to be found, as there are only two weak signatures left, and I warp to the wormholes to see where exploration takes me next.

The first wormhole is a static exit to low-sec empire space, and I jump out so that I have the destination system registered in case I get in to trouble and need to come back this way. Today I find myself in the Molden Heath region, which is fine for scanning but not for logistics. And scan it I shall, as jumping back to w-space and warping to the second wormhole may put me next to a connection to more class 3 w-space but the wormhole is reaching the end of its natural lifetime and I'm not keen to explore through a dying link. Low-sec has a couple of additional signatures to resolve, or at least determine their type. Both signatures turn out to be radar sites, but I find the second impossible to resolve. That's okay, I rarely come out to empire space for this kind of activity. Then again, I am by myself and w-space tends to be more of a slog when solo, so a low-sec radar site may be a good way to pass some time.

I head home, through the sleepy class 3 system, and swap my scanning boat for a Drake, refitted with a codebreaker for the radar site. There are no rats to greet me when I warp in to the site, leaving me to pootle along to the containers, making me think that perhaps I should have tried to squeeze the micro warp drive on to my battlecruiser. I hack a couple of cans and find that some Angel rats aren't keen to see me steal anything from empty boxes, turning up to be little more than a minor distraction as I crawl between the cans. A pilot entering the system is more of a threat, particularly when he is followed by five more, all plain as day thanks to the populated local channel, a blessing compared to the opaque communication channel in w-space.

I see no scanning probes looking for me, and even though I am in a site that requires scanning to find I am not comfortable. There is nothing preventing these pilots from scanning known sites in advance and swooping down on unsuspecting pilots who are too preoccupied looking for probes on d-scan. I align my Drake out and get ready to warp, seeing a Hurricane battlecruiser on d-scan, then two, now three. And they are gone. It looks like a roaming fleet was just passing through, local draining down to just me and the pilot of a Badger hauler, who I am content to share the system with. A few more Angel rats appear to let me profit from their bounties, and I clean out the rest of the containers.

It seems I was a little unfair in proclaiming the cans to be empty. The first was, which coupled with previous experiences of empire space sites like this made me less than optimistic, but my earlier experiences are also mostly in high-sec space and less profitable anyway. Tonight's haul gets me over a handful of decryptors and some datacores, all of which adds up to maybe thirty million ISK in profit, which isn't shabby at all for my time. And it serves to remind me that my research agents are still accumulating datacores for me. I should probably get around to making another datacore run, but only when I've nothing better to do. I seem to be okay for iskies at the moment. For now I simply head home, through the C3 that continues to show no change, and get some sleep.

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Tags: badger, drake, eve online, hurricane, low-sec, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, retribution, scanning, w-space

Obstructing a null-sec short-cut

I'm by myself again, with an urge to find some company. Two unexpected signatures in the home system may provide it, particularly as one is a wormhole in addition to our static connection. The other signature is just some dumb rocks, which I activate. The second wormhole is a K162 from class 3 w-space, which isn't an exotic difference from our own static connection to class 3 w-space, but as it was opened from the other side I'll be looking there first for other pilots.

Jumping in to the C3 has drones but no ships visible on my directional scanner, along with a couple of towers. I locate the towers for reference, having a Hurricane appear on d-scan as I land outside the second. The battlecruiser only blips on my scanner and, as the system turns out to be small enough for d-scan to cover it all, I doubt he's local or the owner of the drones, but probably has crossed the system between two wormholes. I launch probes and start to scan, looking for these wormholes, which should be easy with only six signatures to sift through.

First I find the drones, curiosity overcoming my desire to leave them alone. I don't need to resolve their position fully before realising they are probably in one of the two anomalies, and I warp in to take a look. Yep, there they are, three ECM drones floating near some Sleeper cruisers. Two drones, one. Pop, pop, pop, the Sleepers wake up and destroy the alien drones as they somehow detect my cloaked presence in the anomaly. I suppose it's too late to pretend I'm not in this system, and start ignoring gas and rocks as I scan.

Pew, that smells like a wormhole leading out to null-sec, no doubt the system's static connection, and I leave it alone for now. A second wormhole is picked up by my probes at the same time and place as an Occator transport ship. The Occator goes as I warp to the wormhole, finding it to be a K162 from high-sec empire space, one that has had enough ships pass through to make it critically unstable. I threw my probes out of the system after resolving the wormhole—or rather the Occator, which was sat atop the wormhole—but now there is no sign of the transport ship and I bring them back in so I can resolve the final signature.

Out of the system go my probes again. The appearance of an Iteron hauler is responsible this time, not on the K162 from high-sec but merely on d-scan. I wait a short while but the Iteron doesn't appear at the wormhole I'm sitting on, d-scan placing him on the connection to null-sec. Then again, d-scan won't show me a difference between the Iteron being on the distant wormhole and it warping to my position, as the path is on the same line. I would need to adjust the range gate of d-scan to make that distinction, and I don't know how far away the other wormhole to null-sec is for reference. Actually, I don't even know if the wormhole leads out to null-sec, not having visited it yet. What I do know is that I won't have much effect sitting here.

If the Iteron is coming my way it will land on the wormhole, and jump to Concord-patrolled high-sec, thumbing its nose at me if the wormhole survives its transit and I am absent-minded enough to follow. I have no better option than to warp to the presumed null-sec connection, so I do. In warp I wonder what the Iteron is doing if not warping across this bridge system between null- and high-sec. Maybe the Occator pilot saw my probes and has planted the Iteron on the wormhole as bait, ready with a small fleet in null-sec waiting for me to chase the Iteron. I could probably evade that, but I still don't like the thought of waltzing in to an ambush.

Oh, would you look at that! My concerns about the Iteron being bait would appear to be unfounded. The Iteron remains on what does indeed turn out to be a K346, but now the Occator is there too. Maybe they are making a trip to high-sec together, which through a critically unstable wormhole may only allow one ship before collapsing, leaving one of them floating vulnerable in w-space. But the transport ship has pooped a jet-can that the Iteron is moving towards. An educated guess is that the Iteron doesn't know the way out beyond returning the way he came and has asked for wormhole bookmarks, which the Occator has just provided. This is distinctly not bait-like behaviour, how exciting!

I should act quickly. I decloak and burn towards the wormhole, which takes me towards the ships. After the recalibration delay ends I am able to gain a positive lock on both ships, but the Occator breaks it almost immediately by returning to null-sec through the wormhole. The Iteron remains, though, and he looks to be almost out of range of the wormhole. I may be able to stop him. I start shooting the hauler, pumping missiles in to his surprisingly sturdy shields. I'm hoping to prevent the ship from getting close enough to the wormhole to jump, knowing that I could follow and continue the assault but preferring to stay where I know there are currently no other ships, but I fail to realise that I started too far from the Iteron for my web module to snag it.

The Iteron is moving full pelt towards the wormhole, which admittedly isn't fast for a hauler but he must be close enough to jump. He doesn't jump. I keep shooting, and he still doesn't jump. I don't understand. We are both on top of the wormhole now and yet still he remains in this system, as his shields finally give up and I shred his armour and hull. Maybe the Iteron became polarised on the wormhole for some reason, realising he didn't have the required bookmarks to travel and jumping back to null-sec before being told to rendezvous with the Occator in the C3. Either way, I have a pod to catch, which is pretty easy to do when the pilot is already disorientated, afflicted by a session change timer, and sat on what looks like an easy escape route. A few more missiles introduces the capsuleer to the void.

I scoop, loot, and shoot, recovering some expanded cargoholds, shield modules, and a bookmark. As I suspected, the jettisoned canister from the Occator held coordinates for the Iteron to follow, and I must have decloaked and panicked the pilot before he could copy the bookmarks to his nav-comp. I move away from the wormhole and cloak, holding station as I find out if the pilots were related. They look to be in the strongly related corporations, judging by the names and logos, if not the same one, but there is a detail rather more interesting than their alliance.

I have no idea what neodymium is, but the Iteron was apparently stuffed full of it. An Iteron V, the largest of this class of ship, modified with cargo optimisation rigs, one of them Tech II, and fully fitted in the low slots with cargo hold expanders. The hauler was carrying over forty thousand units of neodymium, at an apparent loss of 750M ISK. I thought this was just another soft kill, an easy target popped opportunistically. And I suppose it was, but I am tickled pink to see the extent of the loss. Normally the haulers I pop have a bit of planet goo, or are empty because I catch them too soon, or too late, but this time I caught a big fish.

Maybe 750M ISK is not a huge loss for a null-sec corporation, but maybe this corporation is not a major faction out there either. And I would suspect that if you are transporting so much potential ISK you would want to protect it with at least an equivalent value of ships. I suppose crossing a single w-space system to reach high-sec seemed like a low-risk activity to the null-seccers. Of course, none of the neodymium survived the explosion, but that's okay. I would face the same risk recovering it as the Iteron did in hauling it, particularly it being on top of a wormhole. Then again, no one else comes through the wormhole in the time I am sitting there cloaked, gawping at the value of their loss. Either way, I've killed the activity in this system.

I head homewards and onwards, jumping through our static connection to another class 3 system. This one is curiously unoccupied. It looks like any other unoccupied system, with plenty of signatures and anomalies making themselves known to my scanning probes, also marking the system as infrequently visited. Sifting through the signatures finds only the one wormhole, it being a static connection to null-sec perhaps explaining in part the lack of occupation. But the C3 isn't as unvisited as I assume, as this K346 is reaching the end of its natural lifetime. The static connection must have been activated hours ago, but whoever did so has not left their own wormhole as a trace. That's okay, my super-expensive Iteron popping has made my night already. I recall my probes, jump home, and kick back for the night.

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Tags: eve online, hurricane, iteron, mmorpg, occator, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, w-space

Unspectacular scanning and sitting in a new ship

All looks quiet at home, just an ordinary day. I know it's not going to be, but first I will scan and look for trouble, to keep me amused during this last short period of waiting. My folder of old bookmarks remains from yesterday, which I still refuse to discard just in case the wormhole-generating technology in our system is malfunctioning, but I hope I don't need them. Scanning looks simple again, just the magnetometric site and our static wormhole to be found amongst the normal anomalies. But, no, those aren't the normal anomalies, they are greatly diminished from yesterday. We've had visitors, and they've stolen most of our loot!

It's my fault our anomalies are gone. Well, maybe not that they are gone, but that we don't have the profits from them safely stored in our hangar. The peaceful nature of yesterday and plentiful easy anomalies made me think that we should take advantage of the situation and spend the evening shooting Sleepers, but I wasn't in the mood for it. Instead we went abroad and found no one to shoot, twice in the same system, ending up achieving nothing for the evening. Then again, you never can know what's waiting on the other side of a wormhole and our wallet was healthy, so looking for activity seemed rational enough. And the Sleepers will soon be back, and in greater numbers. Or is that Sand People?

The availability of anomalies doesn't mean much when I'm alone at home anyway, leaving me free to explore the w-space constellation. I resolve our static wormhole and jump in to our neighbouring class 3 system. It's not yesterday's, that's a relief, and I delete my old bookmarks with some delight. But isn't that a lot of small secure containers I see on my directional scanner. I would say there is either a bubble trap waiting for me at that tower, or the locals are scrupulous about personal inventory. I warp out of d-scan range to launch probes only to find a second tower instead, one without all the cans floating around. I try again, this time finding a place out of d-scan range of structures and am able to launch probes.

A blanket scan of this system reveals one anomaly, three signatures, and two ships. The two ships aren't that much of a surprise, d-scan having picked them up at the same time as the second tower, so I know they are a Buzzard covert operations boat and Abaddon battleship, but I am yet to ascertain whether they have pilots. I do that now, locating the tower and seeing both ships piloted. I make a bookmark to this tower's position and warp off to find the first tower, avoiding what turns out indeed to be a bubble trap well-stocked with cloak-interfering canisters floating in it. I make a safe bookmark to this tower too and go back to monitor the two pilots.

An Anathema cov-ops boat warps in as a new contact at the tower before thinking better of spending the night in space, shortly replaced by a different pilot in a Dominix battleship. Despite their presence, it doesn't look like the pilots plan to do anything this evening, which is perhaps not surprising given almost a complete lack of sites in which anything can be done. I don't want their inactivity to stop me, though, and as the system is big it looks like I can resolve the two additional signatures here without being spotted, so I do. I find the static exit to low-sec empire space, which is sadly reaching the end of its natural lifetime and not worth travelling through, and a second wormhole, which is a K162 from low-sec. I was hoping for more w-space, but low-sec space will have to do if I want to complete exploring. I jump through the K162.

Naturally, I find myself in the comforting bosom of despair that is Aridia. There are a few lost pilots in the system with me, none from the C3 corporation, and it's maybe one of these that opened the connection to w-space. As the wormhole was opened from low-sec I create a safe spot in the system before decloaking to launch probes, even as I doubt I'll be lucky enough to find a second wormhole here. I loiter near the entrance to the C3 as I scan, to monitor jumps, but none occur as I resolve the only other signature in the system. And, as a pleasant surprise, it turns out to be another wormhole. My interest is piqued, but it occurs to me that whoever scanned the wormhole to the C3 probably also resolved this second wormhole, and that they may have set up a camp to catch other scouts. After all, it's happened before.

I'm not being entirely rational in fearing a camp inside the other system, if only because I met no resistance on the K162 in the C3, nor on the wormhole in low-sec. And warping to the new wormhole sees no ships again, although it's not quite a new wormhole, the K162 from class 1 w-space being quite wobbly and near to collapsing from old age. I don't think I'll explore that system. I risked an EOL wormhole recently, popping an Iteron for my efforts, but the situation was different. I certainly have a way home should the wormhole collapsed, but my entrance to w-space is in the heart of Aridia and not contiguous high-sec, as it was before, and I don't rather fancy making my way through however many low-sec stargates to return here. My exploration for tonight is ending.

But the wormhole is so tempting! Maybe the wobbling is hypnotic, but I can't help but poke my nose through to take a quick look. I jump in to the class 1 system and punch d-scan, seeing nothing at all. All that is in range is a bunch of planets and some moons, no structures, no ships, nothing capsuleer-made at all. It is also my first visit to the system, giving me no notes on what may be there. Okay, that's good enough for me, I jump back to low-sec, the wormhole persisting all of the twenty seconds my nervous look took me. I wasted more time procrastinating about going in in the first place.

Exploration is complete for the evening. I return to the C3 to find no change at the occupied tower, the same ships in the same positions as before, making it time to call it a night. But there is one more item on the agenda before I hit the sack, which is what will make today more than ordinary. I jump home, warp to our tower, and swap ships. I have endured a few weeks of otherwise useless training so I can have Orca piloting skills. Fin assures me that being able to plant my pod in an industrial command ship will come in handy, and I suppose it will let me collapse wormholes more efficiently on my own. Not tonight, though. I'm happy enough simply to sit in one for briefly, before switching back to my scouting ship and going off-line.

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Tags: abaddon, anathema, buzzard, dominix, eve online, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

Familiarity breeds contempt

I turn up as Fin turns up. I really hope I'm not just another of my glorious leader's many alts, although I have long suspected of being just such an entity. It would explain an awful lot. But I suppose the pretence must be maintained, and I remain in-character as I take a look around our home system. All looks clear, clearer than yesterday with the recent gas build-up now dissipated, leaving only anomalies, a magnetometric site, and the static wormhole. It's all nice and easy.

I resolve the wormhole and jump in to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, giving me nothing to see. My directional scanner just sends me a blank look, adjusting its settings to show everything confirming that it isn't a system's error but there really are only celestial objects in range. Checking my notes doesn't help me today, this being my first visit to this C3, so I launch probes and perform a blanket scan of the system. There's almost nothing here. No anomalies, no ships, and a mere six signatures to hold any hope of excitement tonight.

There are two planets with moons outside of d-scan range, either of which could hold a tower. I adjust the settings of my probes to show me everything and a cluster of structures appears around one of the planets, the one out of range of d-scan that holds more moons than the other, and I warp off in that direction with the expectation of finding a tower. I find three towers, as it happens, but only one force field is active. I disregard the off-line towers for now, one apparently bare and the other only having defences anchored around it, and am soon floating outside the force field of the active tower.

Of course, no one is home in the C3. If they were my combat scanning probes would have detected their ship, so I sit outside the tower merely as a formality as I scan, ideally to give me early warning of new contacts waking up or returning from another system. No one appears as I resolve rocks and gas, gas and rocks, and the stink of a static exit to null-sec k-space. There are no other wormholes here, nor any combat sites for us to engage Sleepers in. We could push through to null-sec and keep exploring, hoping for further connections outside of w-space, but we can guarantee a new connection by instead collapsing our static wormhole and starting again.

Fin is already home and preparing her Orca industrial command ship as I forlornly discover the final weak signature in the C3 is not a magnetometric site but a gravimetric site, so I am soon behind her in my Widow black ops ship. A couple of paired return trips through our wormhole are made, which mathematically should be enough to collapse it, but today the wormhole is on the chubby side and we need to push through a little extra mass. Fin uses a heavy interdictor to make this operation safer, giving us a better chance of both ending up on the home side of the wormhole, and after a couple more time-consuming jumps the wormhole collapses. Now we can start again.

I don't merely look for the new static wormhole but actually act as if I am starting anew. I blanket our home system to confirm a lack of new signatures, so that we won't be unduly surprised by intruders, and am happy to see the same result as earlier. One signature is gone, replaced by another, which is the new wormhole that I resolve and jump through, with Fin following behind. Well, this all looks a bit familiar. So familiar that I warp directly to the tower in this class 3 w-space system, not going from memory or from my notes but using a bookmark that I am almost glad I only moved to a folder marked 'old' instead of deleting immediately on the collapse of our previous static wormhole.

There's still no one home in this system. I would even wager that there are no more than six signatures, with no anomalies present, without going through the bother of launching scanning probes. Stupid Sleeper technology, trying to compensate for not sending me to this system before by sending me twice today. I think I'll take this as a sign that I won't be productive tonight, and rather than collapsing our static wormhole a second time without any kind of adventure in-between I simply head home and hit the sack. Maybe we should have realised some of the profit racking up in the anomalies at home instead of exploring, but you never can know what is to be found out there until you look.

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

Crashing a corpse recovery

Hello, Mr Drake. A new battlecruiser has appeared in the tower of our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, which I find out only on a cursory check whilst on my way home to collapse our static wormhole. The constellation has looked boring so far, glorious leader Fin already shoving an Orca industrial command ship through the connection to start the process of killing it, but now a pilot has woken up. He's probably in the wrong ship for doing anything here, unless he has activated the only site in the system, a ladar gas harvesting site, and plans to pop the arriving Sleepers. Or maybe the young pilot is updating he skill training queue, disappearing shortly after I arrive at the tower. What a tease.

I suppose we're going ahead with collapsing our wormhole. On getting home, I push my Widow black ops ship through the connection, and Fin continues with her trips in the Orca, the wormhole disappearing on schedule. I scan the home system again, as if it were a brand new day, finding two unfamiliar signatures. One must be the new static wormhole, the other turns out to be another wormhole. It's not a new connection, though, as the K162 from class 2 w-space is wobbly and reaching the end of its natural lifetime. I don't think I'll be exploring through the wormhole, but I won't be ignoring it entirely either. The additional link presents a risk, but one we know about now.

The static wormhole is healthy, having only now been opened, and Fin has jumped in to take point. I wait on the wormhole in our system for a sitrep. 'Badger, Bestower, Drake, Drake, and corpse on scan—and tower.' That's certainly interesting, if only because of the corpse, but it also seems like we are late to the party, also because of the corpse. Fin locates the tower using d-scan, reporting all the ships to be there except the Badger. That's my cue, and I jump in to the C3 hoping to find the hauler at a customs office somewhere. Unfortunately, the Badger disappears seconds after my arrival, and although there is a planet out of range of my directional scanner warping out there doesn't find the missing ship.

Floating far out of d-scan range of the tower, ships, and corpse, but within range of some ECM drones, I check my notes for this system. I was in this C3 six weeks ago, when it was occupied by blue pilots. I still tried to pop a Noctis salvager that day, visitors to the system. And it looks like we won't have to be friendly today either, Fin now at the tower and informing me that the corporation here is no longer allied to ours. She also checks the name of the corpse, who turns out to be the only blue pilot in the system. She won't be much help in her current state. I launch scanning probes whilst safely out of range before joining Fin monitoring the tower, who sees a piloted Cormorant destroyer warp in, followed by a Manticore stealth bomber. It looks like we've perhaps arrived only shortly after the engagement that created the corpse, and maybe we can surprise our no-longer-friends.

It may help our chances of ambushing the local pilots if we find the corpse. I open my system map and start to narrow down its position using d-scan. I am assuming the combat occurred on a wormhole, but adjusting d-scan's range shows the corpse to be far too close for that to be likely. Indeed, the corpse is really close to the tower, so close in fact that it almost must be around a moon. I switch back from the system map to the normal view of space and, with d-scan on its narrowest beam, check the moons around the current planet. Sure enough, there's the corpse incident with one of them, and with a Buzzard covert operations boat apparently in the same space. I let Fin know what's happening and go to take a look.

There's the corpse, and there's a giant secure container too. I can't say what happened here but I can say what's happening. The Buzzard warps back to the tower, the pilot swaps for a Manticore, and then warps back towards the corpse. I follow him too, landing just short of the corpse and hoping to catch the Manticore, but the other ship has appeared near the GSC instead. I warp up to the can to join him but before I get there he's already moving down towards the corpse. The Manticore is not cloaking because the pilot wants use of his propulsion module, burning at full speed to cover the distance as fast as possible. Trying to warp back to the corpse makes me realise why the Manticore is doing this the slow way, the corpse not a suitable object for warp engines to lock on to, but I simply use the bookmark I made of the corpse's position and warp to that instead, getting back to the frozen body in a fraction of the time the Manticore will take.

I point my ship towards the Manticore burning in my direction and plot an intercept course. Fin is with me and on the other side of the Manticore, as I'm hoping we can catch him on both sides at once. But the stealth bomber is flying fast, we'll need good timing if we want to catch him and not simply watch as he zips past us. He's almost in warp disruption range, certainly close enough that our paths are now diverging a little too rapidly for my cloaked ship to be able to correct, and so I drop my cloak and get my systems hot. I activate my micro warp drive and hope to get my Tengu back on an intercept course. But the Manticore pilot is alert enough to notice the appearance of my strategic cruiser, altering his path and cloaking shortly afterwards. I spur my Tengu on again, becoming passive when its focus disappears, but fail to bump in to the Manticore.

I cloak and warp back to the tower, seeing the Manticore appear a few seconds after me. And now I realise how stupid and impulsive I was. I know what I was trying to achieve, catching the Manticore unawares and when it would find manoeuvring away from me difficult, but there would have been a much better opportunity had I waited for the stealth bomber to reach the corpse. The target would have slowed to a crawl, been close to an object that would prevent it cloaking, and been in a completely predictable position for any interception that was needed. All I had to do was wait. I bungled the ambush. I apologise to Fin, who understands that sometimes the best plans are made retrospectively, and we sit and wait to see if anything will happen now.

The pilot of the Manticore says hello in the local communications channel, before dropping to his pod and disappearing. He's gone from the system but not off-line, returning a few minutes later in a Ferox battlecruiser, mumbling something in Russian possibly suggesting that I am stuck in this system, then actually goes off-line to leave us alone in the C3. That's it for us for tonight. I like to think I've learnt a bit more and that I'll know what to do for the next time. I'd prefer to be able to assess the situation a bit more clearly the first time, though. Never mind, there will be other opportunities. But, for now, Fin recovers the blue corpse and we head home and hit the sack.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Crashing a corpse recovery
Tags: badger, bestower, buzzard, cormorant, drake, eve online, ferox, manticore, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space, widow

Ten minutes through a dying wormhole

Glorious leader Fin's been busy. 'C3 is boring, HS static, exit four from Dodixie', all of which is shorthand to say that the class 3 w-space system beyond our static wormhole holds nothing of interest but leads out to high-sec empire space a few jumps from a trade hub. And not only has she scanned her way through our neighbouring system but Fin's also taken an Orca that way, made the short trip to Dodixie, and brought back an industrial command ship full of fuel. Maybe not fuel in proportion to the needs of the tower, but it's fuel, and lots of it. I'm normally happy just to remember that the tower needs fuel occasionally, and when making a shopping trip always make the mistake of assuming equal volumes of each fuel are consumed in each cycle.

Now Fin is 'puttering towards my can', meaning the jettisoned canister that she's being aiming the interceptor towards for a week or so, hoping finally to stumble elegantly in to the same grid and remove it from our directional scanners for good. That seems as good a hobby as any, and whilst she makes more headway I'll take a shufti in the C3, hoping for some activity now that we are both present. Nothing presents itself from the K162, even the tower out of range of d-scan from here, which Fin has scouted and offers me its location. It's quicker to get the position of the tower from my leader than my notes, although in warp I find out that I was here a mere ten weeks ago and am aiming towards the same moon where a tower was anchored then too.

Still no one is at home in this C3. I launch probes and perform a blanket scan of the system, not really expecting ships or other signs of activity to leap out at me but hoping that perhaps a new wormhole has connected in to here. There's not much hope, with only three signatures in total appearing on my probes—no ships, not even any anomalies—but that leaves one beacon of hope that isn't the K162 home or static exit to high-sec, and Fin didn't mention this single signature that is sticking out like a sore thumb. Maybe because it is a ladar gas harvesting site and about as interesting as actually harvesting gas. It's a strong signature, though, so I take the extra ten seconds required to resolve the site to 100% and bookmark it, before pointing my ship towards the exit wormhole.

Jumping to high-sec has me launching probes again. I don't think I need anything from the market at the moment, although I get this niggling feeling that I should be and occasionally am using consumable items and that this necessitates replacing them, so I launch some scanning probes to take a look around. The only other signature apart from the wormhole I'm sitting on turns out to be another wormhole, a K162 from class 1 w-space, which would be so much more exciting if it weren't reaching the end of its natural lifetime. But as I float a few kilometres away, staring at the wobbly connection, I reason that the C1 probably has this exit to high-sec as a static connection, which if it collapses means a new wormhole to high-sec will open. And as our own exit from w-space connects to high-sec, if I get stuck inside the C1 I should have a fairly comfortable route home, if perhaps lengthy if I am unlucky. I think it's worth a look inside the C1.

Lots of ships greet me in the C1, but for a change they aren't all sitting with drones out on the wormhole I just jumped through. Instead the ships are only viewed indirectly on d-scan, along with a couple of towers. As there are no wrecks to be seen in the system I doubt I'll find the ships anywhere other than the towers, but what I really want to know is if there are any pilots. I bookmark the wormhole and warp away, narrowing down the location of the two towers using d-scan. I note the position of one tower without visiting it, as it holds no ships, the second tower looking like it has them all. All the ships, and no pilots, it seems. Except not all the ships, as broadening d-scan's beam again reveals an Iteron hauler abroad. But where?

The hauler is back at the tower, a second or two after I notice his absence, warping in to the force field from the direction of the inner system. I don't have much time to wonder if perhaps I've missed my shot at a defenceless Iteron collecting planet goo when the ship turns around and fires up its engines. I align to an arbitrary planet simply to get my ship moving and up to speed as I try to gauge the heading of the Iteron. Industrial ships are ponderous movers, the Iteron taking its time to line up to its destination, but when it does it clearly points towards only one planet, and more likely its customs office, before entering warp. My covert Tengu strategic cruiser is right behind it.

I know what I'm doing almost before my thoughts register. If the Iteron is at the customs tower I attack it immediately. This decision is partly because of the uncertainty of remaining life of the wormhole, and partly because if I am too cautious this time I may not get a second chance, the hauler possibly only making this repeat excursion to collect the last of the planet goo. Besides, because of my timing, if I end up on-grid with the Iteron it shouldn't have time to turn around and escape. And indeed, although I drop short of the customs office to see the Iteron there I don't so much wait for the recalibration delay as my Tengu decloaks as wait for the Iteron itself to finish dropping out of warp, its active warp engines generating interference that prevents gaining a positive target lock seconds after my own systems stop complaining.

Popping the Iteron is a formality. The fragile industrial ship is essentially caught before it even exits warp, and pointing in completely the wrong direction to think about escaping. A few volleys of missiles rip down to and through the hauler's hull, ejecting the pilot's pod in to hard vacuum, the speed and violence of which must have disorientated the pilot enough to fumble with his controls. My Tengu locks on to his pod and stops it escaping, needing only few more missiles to crack that open and give me a new corpse for my slowly growing collection. I scoop, loot, and shoot, which takes a little finessing to work out how to cram what planet goo will fit in to my hold and leave the excess to be destroyed in the wreck, then warp cloaked back to the tower.

Nothing's happening at the tower, which isn't surprising given the lack of pilots. And, I suppose, the mysterious disappearance of the only local pilot recently in the system. I would say my work here is done, so I head back to high-sec through the still-available wormhole, warp across to the K162 to the C3, and jump back to w-space. I like not having to use stargates, although I appreciate their immutability. And now that I've selfishly slaughtered a capsuleer by myself it looks like time to collapse our static wormhole and look for more, so that Fin can join in too.

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Tags: eve online, iteron, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space

Hit and run away like a scared schoolgirl

The home system looks empty from where I am. I wonder what it's like from the other side, and once I launch scanning probes I warp across the system to find out. Pretty much the same, which I suppose is good. My probes let me know that a couple of sites have disappeared recently, which I suppose is also good, as it makes scanning simpler and the anomalies full of Sleeper loot remain. Scanning certainly is quick with nothing much to find, letting me resolve our static wormhole and jump to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system without much fannying around.

My directional scanner shows me nothing interesting in the C3, which is getting to be an unusual return these days. It looks like I am merely out of range of a couple of towers, if my notes from six weeks ago are still relevant today. Warping around finds one tower gone and the other where it was before, but no one's home. I sift through the twelve signatures here to find gas, gas, a K162 from low-sec empire space, more gas, even more gas, a magnetometric site to break the gassy tedium, the static exit to low-sec, some more gas, and, hullo, an outbound connection to class 3 w-space, which is good for more exploration. I complete scanning this C3 with a radar site and, would you look at that, another wormhole, this one an outbound connection to class 4 w-space.

I have options. I'll press on to the second class 3 system, being lower-risk and more likely to terminate to empire space—barring the apparently increased likelihood of finding additional wormholes in C3s. I see two Manticores on d-scan in C3b, plus a tower. Stealth bombers don't generally get left floating freely in force fields when not in use, but it also seems a little careless to sit cloaky ships in full view of any passing pilots rather than park them somewhere nearby when idle. Even so, I locate the tower as being in the same place as ten months ago and find both Manticores there and piloted. I have launched probes already and a blanket scan shows me no anomalies and twelve signatures. I doubt I'll be able to ambush anyone here without scanning but as I have another system to check I shall head that way first, instead of potentially revealing my presence indirectly to these two pilots.

Entering the class 4 system has a clear d-scan result, with only one planet and one mooon out of range. I launch probes and perform a blanket scan as I warp across to reconnoitre the outer planet. All I find is an unoccupied and empty system, one with a mere four anomalies but twenty signatures. That makes sense, as passing fleets will gladly rip Sleepers apart for loot but not care too much about spending time harvesting the rocks or gas available. I start resolving the signatures, looking only for wormholes, and am happy to stop scanning when I see appear an X877 connection to more class 4 w-space.

Pushing forwards puts me on another K162 with no signs of activity within range of d-scan, only an off-line tower. My scanning probes pick up a single ship somewhere, along with two anomalies and eight signatures, and as the former is nowhere near the latter I assume it to be nestled inside a force field, which indeed is where the Thanatos carrier sits unpiloted. I scan again, again happy to consider the first outbound wormhole I find to be the system's static and sole connection, jumping forwards again in to the third class 3 system of the evening. At least I see core scanning probes in C3c, a good sign of activity, even more so when a Cheetah covert operations boat appears briefly on d-scan.

I locate the tower in this class 3 w-space system after launching probes. I'm pretty much ignoring the cov-ops flitting around until he crops up again, this time on my scanning probes. I take a cue from his general position as where to scan for a wormhole, indeed resolving one where the Cheetah has no disappeared, but the stink from null-sec k-space is unmistakable, bringing me to the end of the constellation. But only a temporary end. After a diversion to what is disappointingly a K162 from more null-sec a third wormhole sits under my probes, this one another N968 outbound connection to class 3 w-space. I can continue forwards.

A Mammoth hauler and Imicus frigate are both appealing if rather soft targets, which I find quickly thanks my previous visit a mere three months ago. Sadly, although the tower is in the same place as before neither ship is piloted. A blanket scan of the system shows that only those two ships are visibly present, and the six signatures hold the static exit to low-sec but no other wormholes. Now I've reached the end of the constellation, one that I feel is interesting enough to sketch, my first in a while. But it's not terminated properly, C3b not having been scanned for its exit. I'm heading back that way to check for activity, so even if the two Manticores are still there I'll launch probes and quickly complete my map.

C3c has no change, even after all of several minutes I spent away from it. C4b is quiet, C4a remains unoccupied and empty, and there's nothing happening in C3a. Jumping in to C3b has a Scorpion battleship now accompanying the stealth bombers, along with core scanning probes out and about. Maybe they belong to the Cheetah I saw earlier. I warp away, launch my own probes, and head to the tower to watch the ships as I scan, at which point I realise that the Scorpion is not here. I see no wrecks on d-scan, which doesn't surprise me, and assume that the battleship is sitting on a wormhole. I narrow down its position to a rather coarse 1 AU and thirty degrees on d-scan—battleship hulls are pretty big on combat probes—and resolve its position within two successive scans with my probes. What I don't find is a signature in the same place. The Scorpion is in empty space.

I warp to the Scorpion's location, dropping short and having thrown my probes back out of the system, and consider just how stupid it would be to attack it. Probably pretty stupid. He's not affiliated with the local corporation of the Manticores in the tower, so could be bait. But the scanning probes in the system are cores and not combats, so he can't be waiting for the current scout to ambush him, not being coincident with a wormhole or site that can be found using core probes. He's also not moving and not in a particularly easy position to scan, which is not bait-like activity. Never the less, a Scorpion can have a hefty tank and has ECM to negate an attacker's target lock, and he may still have friends waiting nearby. But what the hell, I'll give it a go.

I move my Tengu to orbit the Scorpion, just to get my strategic cruiser moving if nothing else, then decloak and lock on to the battleship. I start raining missiles in to its shields, updating d-scan to see just how reckless I've been, but nothing obvious is coming to help. Maybe the Scorpion doesn't need help, the pilot awake and reciprocating my target lock, getting a successful ECM jam on my systems shortly afterwards. That settles it, as I'm not going to try to whittle down the Scorpion's shields in-between waiting for successful jamming cycles to end, instead aligning my ship towards the K162 to C3a and warping out. At least my warp drives weren't being disrupted.

Perhaps the Scorpion is being used as a scanning boat. I've seen stranger choices, but even with ECM he is being a bit blasé about surviving. He may be able to shrug off a single scouting boat, but a small fleet will spot him just as easily as I did and rip his battleship apart with little effort. There is still no sign of help coming his way as I jump out of the system, which I would at least expect to see if he were actually bait. And if he were bait he'd be fitted with a warp disruptor as a minimum, even at the cost of an ECM module. Whatever he's doing out there, I gave him a poke and ran away. And I still don't know where this C3 leads. Never mind, it's been an evening of exploration ending with a minor engagement.

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Tags: cheetah, eve online, imicus, mammoth, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, scorpion, tengu, thanatos, w-space

A miss and a hit

There's an interceptor in our home system. I don't feel threatened, though, as the Malediction is bearing the name Sad Panda and is sharing my otherwise empty directional scanner reading with a jet-can. Fin's hunting that errant canister down again. As she gets closer, but still days away from the can, I perform a blanket scan of our home to see what's new. Noting, apparently. Fin in the interceptor, some anomalies, three already bookmarked sites, and the new static wormhole are all my probes reveal. I resolve the wormhole and jump through to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, Fin close behind now having swapped to her cloaky strategic cruiser.

I am in a fairly standard class 3 system. There is a tower on d-scan but no ships, scanning probes finding one anomaly and twelve signatures, which turn out mostly to be gas. Fin resolves the static exit to low-sec empire space, the only wormhole present, jumping to an empty system. Having disregarded all of the signatures in the C3 I launch probes in low-sec to look for more wormholes, finding one in the only extra signature in this system beyond the handful of Gallente-populated anomalies. How exciting, I've stumbled on a K162 from class 1 w-space. Jumping in to the C1 gets me tingling even more, a pair of haulers appearing on d-scan along with a tower. I must locate them.

No sooner has d-scan picked up the Badger and Iteron than it loses them again, both ships apparently morphed in to a lone Heron. I'm sure my eyesight isn't so bad as to misidentify two industrial ships for one frigate, but a second check confirms that only the Heron is visible now. I locate the tower and see it empty, which at least gives me hope of bumping in to the Heron where I can shoot him, until the frigate warps back in to the tower and, unsportingly, goes off-line. It looks like we got here too late to be a part of any action, and scanning finds only a radar, ladar, and boring ladar site here, no other wormholes leading elsewhere.

We're going to have to head backwards for some action, but I don't know what to do. We could shoot Sleepers for profit, but we've shot a good number of them recently and seem to be in good shape. We could collapse our wormhole and start again, but I'm feeling a bit indifferent to activities that can feel like chores at the moment. I suppose we need to take advantage of opportunities to make ISK when we can, because it could be a week or more before we are safe to do so again, and we may as well plunder that single anomaly in the C3. Or we could investigate the source of core scanning probes in our home system.

Being mere core scanning probes at home lets me warp away from the wormhole and launch my own probes without my ship being detected, unless the scout is also actively checking d-scan and is coincidentally within range. I'm betting not. Fin holds on the wormhole to see what passes through whilst my blanket scan confirms two new signatures now in our system. And as I confirm this a Cheetah covert operations boat appears on d-scan, but not on our static wormhole. I warp back there anywhere, cloaked again in my Tengu strategic cruiser, to join Fin loitering in hers, just in time to see the Cheetah appear clear as day on the wormhole. Fin engages, I crawl a bit closer and add my ship to the engagement, but despite getting a positive lock and single missile launch at the cov-ops boat it jumps through the wormhole to evade us.

Jumping through the wormhole is hardly unexpected behaviour, so we are quick to follow behind the Cheetah. I abandon my probes, happy to leave them in the home system for now, and try to catch the scout on the other side of the wormhole, but cov-ops boats are agile and can cloak. The Cheetah disappears, my Tengu cannot get close enough in time to bump in to him, and we are left staring at a K162 and little more. Fin stays to watch the wormhole and, with d-scan, the system, whilst I jump home to reconnect to my probes and resolve the two new signatures. And as I scan I ponder on the Cheetah's curious actions.

The Cheetah warped to the wormhole uncloaked, yet cloaked in the C3 to evade us. I wonder if this perhaps means he is a relatively unskilled pilot who cannot use covert operations cloaks yet, limited to the lesser modules that cannot function during warp. As if to confirm this suspicion the Cheetah decloaks fifty kilometres from the K162 in the C3 to launch probes, a strange position indeed unless the Cheetah cannot warp whilst cloaked. We may get a second shot at him, as long as he's going to head back our way. It looks like it, as one of the signatures I resolve is a K162 from class 5 w-space, the other being a new ladar site that I bookmark and plan to activate when I get the chance. For the moment, I feel it more important to reconnoitre the C5.

A tower is on d-scan along with some ships in the C5, locating it also revealing pilots. And these pilots could cause us problems if we try to engage their scout. I could cause them problems first, or at least the Iteron hauler that is on d-scan but not in the tower, but all I manage is to chase his exhaust between a few customs offices before giving up and seeing him nestle safely back in the tower's force field. The moving Orca industrial command ship may be a tempting target if they are planning to collapse the wormhole after our assault, but the ponderous ship just seems to be moving between two separated hangars. The Dominix battleship could certainly be a threat, but it moves out of the tower's force field to inspect a can belonging to the pilot, judging by its name, before bouncing back in to the safety of the shields.

The appearance of a Dramiel frigate looks menacing even when it is ditched almost immediately for a Tempest battleship, but the pilot just wants more room to stretch his legs as the ship doesn't then move. The pilot of the Orca swaps to an Occator transport ship, the Dominix pilot downgrades to a shuttle, and although there is activity it all looks like busywork, simple logistics in the running of a tower and keeping minions content. Even though the pilots here and the pilot of the ambushed Cheetah are in the same corporation there is no sign that the Cheetah has alerted his colleagues of a couple of Tengus on the prowl. We may have a chance of catching the Cheetah uninterrupted.

We may have a chance of catching the Cheetah, just not in these ships. Fin swaps her Tengu for the Malediction, whilst I return home and to our tower to refit our Onyx heavy interdictor so it isn't in a wormhole-collapsing configuration. We really need to get a second HIC so that we don't need to fiddle about like this, particularly as I am only just loading ammunition in to the refitted launchers when Fin announces that she has just missed intercepting two ships coming back through our static wormhole. I punch d-scan and see indeed the Cheetah returned, as well as a Helios cov-ops with it. It looks like the scout was guiding a friend home.

All looks lost. The cov-ops boats have evaded Fin, she doesn't have the location of the K162 to their system yet, and I am ineffectually piloting a HIC in our tower. I'm not giving up, though. I fling the Onyx as fast as it can turn towards the K162 and, in warp, tell Fin to warp to my position on my mark. If we can get HIC and interceptor to the wormhole in time and trap the ships on the other side we may still have a chance, as slim as it seems, particularly if the Cheetah cannot warp cloaked. I land on the wormhole having missed the Helios, it no doubt having jumped home to the C5 already, but the decloaked Cheetah is there, and too far from the wormhole to jump.

I activate the Onyx's warp bubble, trapping the Cheetah in place, and gain a positive lock. It's only when I'm loosing my first volley of missiles that I realise my 'mark' has not been sent to Fin, thanks to the dodgy focus selection of the communications channels. I correct this and get her warping my way, remaining only too conscious of the possibility that the Cheetah can escape through the wormhole once it gets close enough. My web will slow it down, as well as perhaps its pilot's own confusion, and I continue to pummel it with missiles. The Cheetah explodes in my bubble with a satisfying flash of light.

The pod has nowhere to go. My bubble prevents it warping away, the session change timer prevents it jumping through the wormhole. I lock the pilot's pod and activate the scripted warp disruption field generator, holding the pod in place with the created infini-point. I am still concerned about the number of pilots in the C5, even if they seem a bit dozy, and the infini-point lets me drop my bubble in case I need an escape route myself. Here's Fin, a little late for the Cheetah, I'm afraid, but I've kept the pod warm. We still have enough time to crack it open and retrieve the corpse before its session change timer ends.

The pod is popped, I scoop the corpse, and loot and shoot the wreck, clearing the pocket immediately afterwards. It was a good opportunistic kill and I don't want to get caught preening over the wreck of my victim. Examining what I have in my hold is very interesting. I have a warp core stabiliser and covert operations cloak all of a sudden. The stabiliser may explain the Cheetah's defiance in the face of our assault, particularly as the space dust indicates a second one was fitted too, but the covert operations cloak means the pilot must have been able to warp cloaked. The cloak couldn't have been fitted and sitting off-line, because of lacking skills, because we both saw the Cheetah cloak.

Maybe the pilot was really pushing his luck, trying to tease potential ambushers by flagrantly showing his ship and planning to warp away laughing as his warp core stabilisers break simple disruption effects. I don't think he's encountered many bubbles before, and particularly the threat of a heavy interdictor's mobile bubble. That's only speculation on my part but I can't otherwise see why he would not be using his cloak at every opportunity. Maybe he's learnt his lesson now. Or his new clone has, as he wakes up in a space station in empire space, his corpse now taking a seat at the child's table in my tea party.

And, look at that, getting involved in the hunt has got me perked right up. Sadly, no one from the C5 comes to investigate the massacre, as Fin and I watch the wormhole from the safety of cloaked ships, and neither of us are inclined to see if they have any ships waiting for us on the other side of the wormhole, mostly because it's getting late. We warp away and settle down for the night, happy after another productive evening.

Posted in Gaming | 3 Comments »
Tags: badger, cheetah, dominix, dramiel, eve online, helios, heron, iteron, malediction, mmorpg, occator, onyx, orca, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tempest, tengu, w-space

Dropping on a Drake

That Drake's new. Certainly, it's hard to tell a new ship at a glance when there are so many visible on the directional scanner, and made harder when checking d-scan after transiting between systems brings up a completely different display. But I've been vigilantly watching d-scan in this class 3 w-space system whilst glorious leader Fin and I rampaged through four anomalies in our neighbouring system, and I distinctly remember there being only two Drake battlecruisers before. Now there are three.

A count of the ships confirms my suspicions, after I've already alerted Fin to the threat. There are sixteen ships now, not fifteen. I don't really have much choice about where to go at the moment, sat in my Noctis salvager on the K162 in the C3, prepared to collect the loot from the Sleeper wrecks, as I am likely polarised from recent jumps. The Drake has turned up at just the wrong moment. Or maybe just the right moment, as Fin had a short delay to refit and hasn't jumped to the C3 yet. I ask her to turn around and get a Falcon recon ship, then come and protect me as I warp away to begin salvaging.

Fin thinks we'll be pretty safe anyway, as the anomalies are despawned and the pilot will need combat scanning probes to find us. I'm not taking the chance that the pilot doesn't have his home anomalies bookmarked for convenience. My many ambushes on salvagers has led me to consider my own salvaging strategy and I believe I can keep myself relatively safe, at least to start with, and start sweeping wrecks in to my hold as Fin swaps for the Falcon. I keep watching d-scan, to see if the Drake gets swapped for a different ship, but all I see is the ship named 'I See Scumbags'. Fin and I agree that he's probably a little bitter about our incursion to his system.

I salvage all four anomalies without interruption and with a cloaked Falcon watching my back, although there is a blip on d-scan that we both see. A ship appeared and went missing, a second Noctis. We can't be sure what happened, my guard staying close to me rather than watching the tower, d-scan being our only source of intelligence, but I would guess that the Drake pilot was hopping between ships. I don't think we have a new contact, but we shouldn't rule it out. More interestingly, when I am salvaging in the fourth site I notice three extra-site wrecks on d-scan. I am sure I cleared the other sites thoroughly, so these wrecks must be new. Surely the Drake isn't out shooting Sleepers with hostile pilots, albeit in benign ships, in his system.

Salvaging is complete, I feel safe. I burn aligned to our wormhole and call up the system map. Finessing d-scan confirms the Drake is out of the tower and coincident with the Sleeper wrecks, apparently in another anomaly. This is odd behaviour, but I note the anomaly he's in and enter warp, jumping home and jettisoning a bookmark to the Drake's rough position for Fin to pick up. It would be silly not to at least take a look at what he's doing. I dump the loot in to our hangar as Fin boards a cloaky Legion, one of our ship killers. I board the second one, not stealthy but rather more pointy as a result, and as Fin scouts the Drake's position I hold on our wormhole waiting for the signal to join her.

What Fin finds is curious. The Drake is in the anomaly but neither he nor the Sleepers are shooting. The battlecruiser is simply making a rather large orbit of the site. This doesn't look particularly encouraging. It rather looks like bait. Regardless, Fin has to get closer to the ship before we can engage, giving us time to assess the situation. Fin's in a better position to do this than me, so I leave the call to her. Whilst she bounces around trying to get closer she notes that the Drake seems very passively fit indeed, maybe not even the blue sheen of active hardeners in effect. An experienced pilot in a well-tanked Drake will pose problems, we may not have the firepower between us to pop the ship.

The Legions may not be able to break the Drake's tank, but a well-fit passive Drake will have the signature radius of a small moon. A torpedo boat will hit the battlecruiser pretty hard. A torpedo boat with ECM would even help us survive any counter-attack, either from the Drake itself or any acquaintances he may have waiting. Oh my, I've waited a while for this, a chance to use my Widow black ops ship in legitimate combat. I seem to remember using the Widow in anger before, but this time it's actually needed.

I warp back to the tower and hastily refit my Widow with some ECM modules tuned to Caldari systems, the Drake along with most of the ships in the C3 tower being Caldari, before returning to the wormhole. 'Jump in and warp to your range in ten', says Fin. 'Mark.' I jump in and warp to Fin's position, far enough not to get in the way but easily close enough for my torpedoes to reach the target, and land in the anomaly to see the Drake successfully tackled by my partner. There are three Sleeper cruisers here too but I'll ignore them for as long as I can, focusing my fire and jamming on our target.

The Drake's tank is solid. I can understand why Fin thinks we may have to warp out without a kill, even without signs of a counter-attack coming, as the battlecruiser's formidable shields regenerate a good 30% before our eyes. 'I can't hurt him', she says, a little dejectedly. I can! That increase in his shields was eye-opening, but it all came when I was reloading my torpedoes. Now that I am firing again the shields are once more falling impressively fast. My Widow is taking huge chunks out of the Drake with each barrage, and I am feeling suitably powerful in my beautiful, underused ship. And I only need to pulse my shield booster occasionally to recover from the attentions of the Sleepers. I would say this is going well.

I don't need to reload a second time. My torpedoes hit with full force, evaporating the Drake's shields with astonishing ease, before crushing the armour and hull in the blink of an eye. We aim for the pod, but my modified battleship's systems are far too slow to catch him, as well as not being fitted with a warp disruption module, and the Drake's drones confuse Fin in to disrupting one of them instead. That's okay, I wasn't expecting to catch the pod in these ships, although it does mean we have to endure the douchebag's childish taunts a little longer.

We loot the wreck and clear the pocket. I somehow manage to leave a couple of drones behind, in a battle when I both actually have drones and remember to use them, and the battlecruiser wreck is intact. I am still wary about this being a trap, despite already having got the kill, and would prefer to get our two billion ISK's worth of ships home safely, which we do. Job's a good 'un! The motives of the Drake pilot are bizarre and I don't think I want to speculate on them too much, and in the end it was good awareness, scouting, and coordination that got us this kill. It was also a good choice to swap to the Widow, as I doubt any other ship we have available would have broken the Drake's shields. We will sleep peacefully tonight.

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Tags: drake, eve online, falcon, legion, mmorpg, noctis, penny ibramovic, pvp, w-space, widow