Slow night ends with Sleepers

All the myriad connections from yesterday are no doubt gone, leaving me to see what we're left with today. Surprisingly, it looks like we still have all our anomalies, although that may have more to do with Fin's one-sided flirting in the local channel with a pilot from the connecting class 6 w-space system than a lack of desire for the anomalies to be pillaged. As alluring as Fin is, you don't want her in a strategic cruiser looking over your shoulder as you try to make some easy profit. And even though all of yesterday's wormholes are dead there is again a second one to find in the home system, our static connection to class 3 w-space joined by a K162 coming from more class 4 w-space. I'll look for activity through the K162 first.

Jumping in to the C4 has nothing show up on my directional scanner beyond celestial bodies, and opening the system map shows it to be too compact to hide anything. On the assumption that I have another K162 to find I warp away from the wormhole to launch probes and scan. I may only be looking for wormholes but I find only rocks and gas. Whoever came through this way turned around again, probably disgusted at the chain of class 4 systems they found, and collapsed their originating wormhole. That makes this C4 somewhat benign, although it remains another system in the constellation where an expected wormhole can appear and cannot be completely ignored as safe.

I jump home, warp across the system, and head in to the neighbouring class 3 system to explore. Hullo, that's a lot of ships, from a carrier and dreadnought, through strategic cruisers and battlecruisers, down to a lowly Ibis frigate. There are, however, no Sleeper wrecks on d-scan, and as there is only the one tower it should make the ships easy to find. A previous but unnotable visit to this system has a tower position, although it has apparently been moved one moon across at some point during the previous six months. Maybe the view is better from the other moon, I can't really tell through all the warp bubbles anchored around the tower. I can tell that none of the ships are piloted, though.

Warping clear lets me launch probes and scan, blanketing the system revealing only the fifteen ships in the tower. I also note that the owning corporation is only seventeen pilots strong, which makes their display of ships an aggressive posture more than a necessity. They are also not terribly active, and not just today, as the thirteen anomalies and twenty-four signatures attest. I start sifting through them, plucking out a chubby wormhole on my first hit, that turns out to be the static exit to low-sec empire space. Now I ignore rocks and gas in clumps, such are the signatures clustered together, and that's all I find. Only rocks and gas, no other wormholes appear.

I head out to low-sec to continue my exploration, noting that the exit wormhole is now nearing the end of its natural lifetime. Either that, or I didn't notice how wobbly it was on my first visit. I'll assume I was paying attention before and that the wormhole has a good three hours of useful life left, and I jump out to find myself in, of course, Aridia. There's no one in the system with me—why would there be?—and scanning reveals only one extra signature that turns out to be a radar site. There are a bunch of anomalies, though, and although they are mostly drones there are a couple of Blood Raider sites. I raid through them to pass a little time, barely getting my shields scratched and being a little too cosy only having to watch the local channel for signs of danger.

There looked to be some promise this evening, with a K162 at home and loads of ships in the C3, but nothing's come of it. Even my glorious leader Fin turning up doesn't change much. The C4 behind us is a passive threat and the many ships in the C3 would make running anomalies awkward, but I don't want to get in the habit of waiting for the perfect conditions. We should shoot some Sleepers. As much as I want to collapse the K162 at home I have to acknowledge that our home system is just as likely to spawn a new connection, and although that risk almost doubles with the extra system in the constellation I am happy to leave the unoccupied and empty system alone, certainly after Fin reconnoitres it to confirm a lack of change. I think it's time to get our Tengu strategic cruisers out and plunder our neighbouring C3.

It is a little awkward looking for a change in activity in the C3 with so many ships parked at the local tower. However, it is possible to watch d-scan for changes rather than absolute readings, and I end up refreshing my scanner regularly looking for additional contacts, only occasionally checking that the same ships are present as before. And I am watching diligently, as I want my recent loss to be a mistake, which can only be the case if I learn from it. A repeated mistake, particularly an expensive mistake, borders on incompetence. But it all goes well.

It almost feels like wasted effort to check d-scan so often when no ships turn up to introduce our fleshy bodies to the hard vacuum of space, but that's like saying it's not worth looking for traffic when crossing a road unless a car's coming. You don't know unless you look. All that's left to do now is swap to our Noctis salvagers back at home and sweep the loot from four anomalies in to our holds. As long as we are as careful doing this as we were in our combat all should be well.

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

Looking back over a thousand posts on EVE Online

My first post about EVE Online is short, in the spirit of my journal at the time, merely reporting that I am giving the game a go. It somehow garners zero interest from the community. It is soon followed by first impressions, four days later, a fairly straightforward post about the basics of EVE Online, naturally including my first tentative experiences and, naturally, my first ship loss. My trial fortnight ends and I consider subscribing. Space has me hooked, but I don't quite have the time to invest, it seems, as I am still playing World of Warcraft and City of Villains.

Of course, I subscribe, after only a short delay, and get back in to space. I am still pootling around in missions, and will be for quite a while longer, just enjoying the sci-fi setting and spaceships, upgrading from frigates to cruisers to battlecruisers. My journal is now filling up quickly with almost all EVE Online-related posts, although it is still dotted with experiences from other games and life around me. There is also an interesting look at being the victim of a can-flipper and my initial attitude towards it. Looking back, I would say my frustration is more at a lack of clear education about the laws of high-sec and Concord, and what are considered good practices. Being thrown in to a new world, particularly one where others have lived for years already, is much akin to entering a new society and not knowing their local customs. It is difficult to learn how to behave and what to expect, and when situations go completely against expectations there will be frustration. I would say the post is still valid as an indication of how newbies will perceive the game if they are not given firmer guidelines on behaviours to watch out for and how to avoid them.

Being in the NPC corporation becomes tiring, if only for the inane chatter in its communication channel. I want to find a corporation but never find joining a group of strangers easily, so take the easy way out as usual, and create my own corporation. The chatter's gone, but it isn't really the ideal result, and I keep on looking for a corporation where I might fit in. I apply to join an actual corporation within a few weeks, but a couple of weeks after that I'm still not in a corporation. My lack of employment is sorted out within a week, getting in to a corporation at last, and one that will introduce me to PvP. And it does, but not quite as I planned. Instead, I ignore an autopilot warning that I am entering low-sec in my Drake fitted with cargo hold expanders and hauling modules and ammunition to my new base of operations. I jump in to a gate camp and promptly lose the Drake, all my fittings, and my current clone. Welcome to PvP! I take it better than being can-flipped, perhaps because I realise pretty quickly that I only had myself to blame.

The new corporation roams low-sec, with me along for the ride. I seem to enjoy it, and it's certainly a new experience. I am nervous about making mistakes, which is understandable but a bit silly, but try my best to get involved. But just as I'm getting more comfortable, and only a couple of months after joining, the corporation gets an offer to move to null-sec space, which I feel is too big a jump for me and I leave. I still didn't have much experience with PvP and null-sec still seemed big and scary at the time. I think I made the right choice, as I probably wouldn't have get as involved as necessary had I made the move.

I return to Caldari space and pick up mission-running, but ponder my options for my future in space. I decide to become an industrialist, learning about blueprints, getting a gift from Kirith Kodachi, and entering manufacturing with missiles. I also get the attention of a certain other capsuleer with an invitation to join a new corporation. I join Kename Fin's corporation and start living the life of an industrialist, which seems to suit me, even if, like most other parts of New Eden, I don't fully understand it. Never the less, I take the natural path of making standard modules before moving on to consider invention and manufacture of Tech II modules.

The Apocrypha expansion gets rolled out with little fanfare from me. I remember thinking that wormhole space would be out-of-bounds for me, in much the same way null-sec felt, and that the new Tech III cruisers were sufficiently out of my reach if only because I still couldn't afford Tech II ships! The expansion didn't seem particularly exciting. If I only knew. Manufacturing continues, I start research whilst continuing to increase my standings with Core Complexion, Inc., which nets me my first datacores. But some members of the corporation want to brave w-space. I suppress my shrinking violet tendencies and volunteer to help, and three months after Apocrypha hits I go on my first sortie in to w-space. Ah, so much to learn, like the mass limits of wormholes, as we can't cram a Charon through a connection to a class 2 w-space system, but the corporation gets set-up anyway. And so my w-space adventure begins.

Our first w-space PvP encounter happens a week after entering w-space, a day after I first woke up in w-space. We are ambushed in a system connecting to our own, a warp bubble dragging us short of the wormhole home and trapping everyone. Well, everyone but me, where I luckily end up on an edge with a clear line to a planet. I manage to manoeuvre and warp out and back, avoiding the bubble this time, and get home safely. My colleagues aren't so lucky. W-space, it seems, is dangerous, even if Sleepers are not. It is still early in my w-space adventure, so I am continuing to spend more time out in empire space, continuing with invention, although it seems that the first w-space system we inhabited is torn down pretty quickly. A second w-space system is located by scouts, probably Mick and Riyu, both very keen to exploit the riches to be found in w-space, and we move in.

We were still mainly industrialists when moving in to w-space, and we lose some exhumers to an ambush in a gravimetric site. It's all still quite new to us and we don't quite know how to react. Pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and get back mining. But a corporation theft causes us a little too much damage and we make a temporary withdrawal to empire space again. It is only a few weeks before I am back in w-space, which I interestingly refer to as 'where I belong'. Not for long, though. At least, not in that particular system, as it runs dry and the call is made to dismantle the tower and move on. I don't think we've quite worked out the idea behind getting a decent static wormhole yet, although we move deeper in to w-space once we work this out, setting up in our first class 4 system.

We are adapting to w-space, there is no doubt. We understand we'll be ganked, but rather than sitting back or hiding we come up with a plan to make a cruiser death squad, a squadron of cheap and disposable ships that will shoot back but probably lose, hopefully encouraging our aggressors to feel suitably manly and let them move on instead of stalking us. Meanwhile, we are slowly drifting towards the dark side. I find some miners, although I don't think about shooting them, and we are more curious about other pilots in w-space than scared in to hiding. We also move even deeper in to w-space, setting up in a C4 with a static wormhole to a second C4, putting us at least two systems away from k-space.

Curiously enough, once you have the tools at your disposal there grows an itch to use them. It is only a couple of days after getting my Manticore that I lob a bomb at an interceptor sitting on a wormhole. Somehow I get away too, although the interceptor easily survives the blast. And so it begins. Still, I have time to reflect on a year with DSGE (which later becomes Wormhole Engineers) before I get some action, which doesn't quite come when we steal a tower, although I get to act scary in my Onyx heavy interdictor. Entering the nexus of w-space is an interesting distraction, but it isn't until I find a rather oblivious miner, and return to catch him mining before I engage with the full intent of destroying a ship. I don't manage the kill, not having my ship suitably configured, but it's a good start.

After my first thrill of the hunt I am back a week later, taking the Onyx our to brutally slaughter some innocent miners and claim their ore as my own. There's no going back now, I can taste their blood. We get poked in our home system, teaching us to trust no one, but we also hit others in their systems, including interrupting Sleeper combat to down a combat ships. We don't restrict ourselves to soft targets, we'll hit anything viable. A Drake battlecruiser, an Orca industrial command ship with suitably relaxed colleagues, the first of many salvagers, a Raven dawdling outside its tower, an expensive Machariel faction battleship, as well as taking out a formidable Nighthawk and Drake pairing. The more enthusiastic members of the corporation even get us tackling a Nidhoggur carrier.

We get hit ourselves too. I lose an Onyx and my pod, amongst other carnage, in a retaliatory strike for the first salvager we kill. An attempted ambush backfires when we find the targets to be more numerous and better prepared than us, although that doesn't stop us taking our best shot. Some communication issues prevent us getting our first strategic cruiser kill, ending up with some losses instead, and I still have to learn not to bite on obvious bait. Some Drakes are tougher than we give them credit for, I lose a Legion learning never to go back once you've tipped your hand, we get successfully counter-ambushed, and counter-counter-ambushed, as well as various other losses. The biggest loss was when our Sleeper fleet was caught in action, although the size of the loss was more because of the hostiles denying access to our system for a while, even if the ISK loss of the Golem and Tengu was substantial in itself. We shook them off after a short while, and returned to continue our operations as normal.

It's not all been plain-sailing. I'm not terribly social, hence being comfortable in the small fleet conditions of w-space, but I can still produce some frisson with other pilots. Moving to the C5 system looked like providing greater opportunities for us, and it did, but I couldn't get on with a larger group, getting frustrated with having nothing to do initially. The frustrations continue as logistics continue, but I get some perspective and settle down. Even so, changing operational conditions are not what I agreed to on joining the corporation and don't feel up to the change, so I end up sulking. My solution is to strike out on my own, even if I don't have a solid plan, and thankfully I am saved by Fin, who is of the same mind. We take to scanning from high-sec empire space to look for a new w-space system to occupy, before the corporation stumbles across an off-line tower in a suitable system and we get a lovely gift of a new home.

Along the way I get a whole bunch of new and exciting ships. The Crane transport ship with it's Lai Dai paint job, which I lose stupidly in surprisingly quick time. Skill training for the Guardian logistics ship takes me close enough to gain the command ship skills, and I pick up another ship based mostly on looks, the Damnation. Naturally, I also end up training for the Guardian, and although I never pictured myself in a healing role I pick it up and become quite proficient, although I imagine that's more because of Fin's continued tutelage than my own inclination. Incidental skill training gets me sat in a Manticore stealth bomber, even though I am still not considering any kind of career in PvP. I must have got the bug, though, because, inspired by EVE Monkey, I train for and buy an Onyx heavy interdictor, even if I have trouble bringing it in to w-space initially. A Malediction interceptor is added to the hangar, mostly because it's cheap, and on the other end of the spectrum I get a gorgeous Tengu strategic cruiser, cross-training to a Legion later on, and a Widow black ops ship becomes my first battleship, followed later by a Golem marauder as my skill training progresses. My wallet progresses too, and I buy more utility ships, like a Falcon recon ship, a Curse recon ship and no doubt some others that don't merit individual entries.

Apart from my collection of ships helping me pop Noctis after Noctis after Noctis, hauler after hauler after hauler, as well as plenty of ore miners and gas harvesters, and even picking up the occasional ransom, either by ransoming the ship or popping the ship and ransoming the pod, I have had some adventures worth highlighting either for their unusual circumstances, amusing incidents, or because they made what I consider to be a great story. Continuing with miners, an early sortie in the Onyx bagged me several miners in one go, followed half-an-hour later by their hauler trying to recover the ore. Surprising some gas harvesters introduces the cliffhanger in to my writing. I present cliffhanger and cliffhanger again when I feel the narrative device will work, if only to reduce the size of individual posts. I take it upon myself to bomb a Bhaalgorn solo, when it is surrounded by friends, and give us all a scare. We catch a Curse caught in the middle of its own chase, move on to get our first strategic cruiser kill, and profit when being in the right system at the right time spots an active tower's force field going off-line.

An improbable chain of w-space connections gets me drawing schematics, an allied pilot gets a lucky escape from w-space after a wormhole collapses on him, and I sneak up on a safe spot outside a bubbled tower. Manticore versus Manticore sees the Manticore win when a bomb is loosed at the fleeing ship, we chase down a Caracal cruiser not expecting to be caught so far from a wormhole, and don't even limit ourselves to w-space when we pop a Retribution in low-sec. Running protection saves an Orca by popping a Proteus, my search for wormhole colours gets me podded by a Revelation dreadnought, and my exploration evolves from scanning to shooting when I buy a covert Tengu. I lose that first scanning Tengu to an angry tower in an impulsive popping of an Imicus, but its replacement has me stumbling in to Titans in null-sec when I pause to take a look around. I nearly pop another Orca that has to call on friends to survive, because Orcas are tempting targets. I don't always fall for traps, occasionally managing to spot obvious bait. And operational security means that when I wake up to intruders in the home system I can shadow them and deny the intruders any profit. I even recover the corpses, even if it means relying on manual control.

And as Btek points out, on top of my adventures and stories I occasionally wax informative. On a meta level I describe my writing process with my anatomy of a post. I felt we had enough jargon out in w-space to create a w-space glossary that I promoted to be a static page instead of a regular post. I tried to encapsulate what it takes to hunt in w-space, which didn't get much attention probably because it was incorporated in a narrative rather than broken down in to discrete steps. Undeterred, I answer questions and try to explain the directional scanner's role in hunting, with diagrams, as well as learning my lesson to create a step-by-step guide on how to perform a blanket scan of a system, recently followed-up with a more detailed guide on how to scan the Penny Ibramovic way. I plagiarise my glorious leader to focus on how to collapse a wormhole, but my magnificent octopus took months to compile, a comprehensive guide to wormhole colours, which I later embellish with a table of wormhole types when I realised most other sites contain some confusion on the subject.

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Tags: eve online, mmorpg

A thousand posts on EVE Online

This is the thousandth post I've published tagged with EVE Online. That's quite a few. I think now is a good time to take a look at how my journal has progressed since I started playing, obviously influenced by my involvement in the game, as well as highlight some of the most interesting moments. Some commenters provided some welcomed feedback about my journal and letting me know what they appreciate, focussing on the posts about EVE Online. I'll begin by looking at how my writing style has evolved and been shaped by New Eden and beyond. Tomorrow I'll publish a retrospective of the thousand posts.

Ardent Defender and Zandramus mentioned my consistency and daily schedule. The open nature of the game is what has given me my stories, experiences that are sufficiently personal in a way that World of Warcraft couldn't quite create consistently, although the adventures only really open up once the beaten path is left behind and I dabble with PvP. I would say that PvP in EVE Online is pretty broad, though, as it would include manufacturing and the market, as well as other areas of involvement, such as courier services, that I haven't come close to. Essentially, knowing that what I was doing was almost certainly not what someone else was doing gave me the motivation to record my experiences, and as they could be different each day I started writing regularly. Indeed, often there would be days where I felt I could write enough to cover two posts, or more.

The daily schedule came about because of my own reading habits. I knew that I liked posts appearing in my feed regularly and consistently, and would prefer having five posts drip-fed to me one a day rather than as-and-when they would be written. It made sense for me to publish my own posts in the way I'd like them to be presented to me, so that when I wrote a couple of posts to cover a single gaming day they would be scheduled over two days instead of one, providing a more balanced feed. As my activity increased and the types of encounter prompted more detail, and I like detail, I ended up generating enough posts to easily cover posting once a day, including weekends, and so I did.

In fact, I generated more than seven posts a week, even playing maybe only five days a week, and still do on occasions. This has led to my worst-kept secret of the several-week lag between what I do and what I post. There are beneficial reasons behind this, including operational security, and calming down after dramas to gain perspective rather than fanning flames, but the reason is simply that I was writing too much. I thought about dumping a load of posts in quick succession to bring the delay down, but in truth it suited me. I could draft my posts and leave them for a couple of weeks, editing them with fresh eyes to find mistakes or make corrections to ambiguous sentences, and schedule a handful of them at once another week or more in advance of publication.

I don't need to write, edit, or schedule any particular day, or even get on-line to play, as I always have a buffer. It lets me take a night off if I don't feel like playing, or am going to a gig, or have my weekly RPG night (which I also chronicle, although in a different style), and I never feel like I should be playing, that I should be creating more content. It really helps remove some of the self-created pressure of maintaining a daily schedule.

There is also the issue of writing about an evening where nothing happens, which Zandramus also mentioned. I must admit that I wasn't sure about how to approach a quiet night, or slow weeks, because writing about nothing is not easy, in itself or to make interesting, and could easily be dull for the reader. But at least wormholes come and go in w-space, replaced by connections to new systems, unlike the persistent stargates in known space. Exploration can also be an end in itself, although it is always better when the constellation can be completely mapped with time to spare, and that it leads to at least one system where there is something to see.

Partly because of the daily posting schedule, partly to show what w-space life is like in totality, and not only the interesting times, I decided to chronicle all my time in w-space. I don't think it helps corporation recruitment, or game adoption, to post about the exciting nights and pretend that there are no boring times. Some days there is little more to do than scan through a few wormholes, finding no one and having no colleagues on-line. But I am showing what life is like in w-space, and all the better if I can make that sound interesting, or at least fulfilling, if only some of the time. I feel the quiet days also provide a good contrast to when something actually happens. Sure, we can go a few days without seeing another pilot, but then we get involved in a mighty scrap, either on the fighting side or trying to escape the clutches of hostile pilots.

Given the buffer of posts I have and that I include details of even the most minor of operations, it has been tempting to gloss over certain incidents at times, even if they are a little embarrassing. But as a Snyperal comments, I admit my mistakes, including the stupid ones. I'm not special in this respect, but it's still an important part of my journal. I act stupidly sometimes, either from ignorance or an occasional burst of stubborness, and each time I really ought to learn from the experience or I'm doomed to suffer it again. The best way to learn is to analyse the circumstances and situation, to try to determine what went wrong, what I could have done differently, and if there was any preventative action I could have taken. And, despite my blushes, I feel I can't withhold this information simply because it could make me look a fool. We all look stupid sometimes, and it is often the case that we learn that it isn't so bad when many people have done the same.

Even so, there are days when so little happens that I simply can't bring myself to try to make the evening's lack of events interesting enough for a post. On those occasions I will often wrap up the previous day's events in to the start of the next day's adventure, writing a simple paragraph or two to keep the narrative flowing without slowing down the pace to slower than a crawl. On one occasion I gloss a fairly standard night of Sleeper shooting in to a couple of sentences, in this case because I didn't think I could eke the unremarkable profit-making in to a full post, and also because the next night was so much more exciting and I was keen to write about that before it drifted too far from my memory.

Snyperal and Theorine appreciate my attention to detail, which isn't achieved by relying on my memory in order to write my posts. I understand how unreliable memory can be, filling in gaps with more interesting or self-centred details, which is why I take notes whilst I play. EVE Online has a good balance of action and strategy that gives time to make these notes. I can do little in warp except monitor d-scan, panic, or stare in to space, which makes it a good time to jot down a note or two. Scanning doesn't need to be a particularly quick exercise, and shooting Sleepers has the occasional moment for note-making, although little generally happens during Sleeper combat that's worthy of taking notes. Otherwise, I'll grab moments either before combat or after where I scribble down whatever information I think will be important to remember, although I never remove my focus from the screen if it would compromise the operation. I am at the controls whenever I need to be.

My notes have evolved over time. Initially they were rather basic, and I would fill in the narrative from memory jogged by what I felt was important enough to note. My anatomy of a post shows a relatively early example of my note-taking, along with how I piece the notes together in to a post. Since then, I suppose I've hit my stride. I have written enough adventures to have a style, even if I'm perhaps mostly unaware of it, to the point where I am often drafting the narrative as I fly. Whilst in space I am thinking about how I'll introduce the evening, what focal points there currently are and if they are likely to change, and what is motivating my actions. As a result, I am taking more detailed notes now, often with turns-of-phrase already completed.

I'll also occasionally add notes in the margins after a complex or involved interaction, either to include a detail I know is important and that I'm likely to forget if I don't write it down, or to clarify my thoughts and motivations that could too easily be modified by hindsight. It's important to me to explain why I am performing a certain action, what I suspect is occurring with the other pilot, as considered before events unfold, so that I can present a fairer reflection of the situation. On particularly exciting or otherwise engaging nights I am often returning to my notepad to clarify one point or another, or just to add a natty phrase, just so that I can faithfully capture the experience. Better to do it whilst still hopped up on adrenalin than wait until the sobering light of day.

So that's what my journal has been on the meta level. Tomorrow we can see the journey I've taken on the way to writing a thousand posts about EVE Online.

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Tags: eve online, mmorpg

Scanning the spectrum

It's time to see what's out there today. And it will have to be 'there' because here at home it all looks the same as yesterday. Scanning probes tell a slightly different tale, with a few new signatures cropping up. Although I'm expecting a new static wormhole, there is also a new radar site, and a second and third wormhole. I have options today. Warping to visit each wormhole shows me what I have found: the static connection to class 3 w-space, a K162 from class 5 w-space, and a K162 from class 6 w-space. The K162s look a bit dangerous to me, still feeling a little rough around the edges from even a short planetside break, so I warp to the C247 and jump first to our neighbouring C3.

There is a tower visible on my directional scanner in the C3, which I find quickly enough. This being my fourth visit to the system, the last time being six months ago, I have the tower's location listed in my notes and I simply confirm that it hasn't moved. There are also no ships around, so I warp away, launch probes, and take a virtual look around. Four anomalies and ten signatures is manageable, but with two more systems behind me to explore I'm only going to be looking for more wormholes right now. Hey, there's one. My first hit picks out the static exit to low-sec empire space, which would be lucky if I didn't then get an outbound connection to class 4 w-space with my second hit, and another one the same with my third. It seems wormholes are easy to come by in this system.

Here come the rocks. One, two, three, four gravimetric sites ignored, leaving me with a lovely outbound connection to class 1 w-space to resolve and, as the final signature, yet another wormhole, outbound to class 2 w-space. This C3 is a nexus, the only K162 present being our own, the other five wormholes leading outwards. Not only that, but I realise that I have wormholes leading to all classes of w-space, from the lowly C1 up to the deadly C6, although class 4 w-space is overly represented. And here's a Fin.

I head home and copy all the wormhole bookmarks for Fin to use, before I return to the C3 and head towards the class 1 system, happy to look in the lowest class of w-space for the weakest targets, whilst Fin is happy to explore the more threatening space linking in to our home system. I don't find much in the C1, six ships picked up by my combat probes all being empty in a tower, and the seven signatures present being mostly gas. I resolve a wormhole leading out to more class 3 w-space, but it's the exit to high-sec that interests Fin. 'If it's close to Amarr', she says, 'maybe we can stock up on fuel'. I jump out to get the exit system only to find myself two jumps from Amarr. Fin has strange powers.

It would be convenient indeed to get fuel, but only if we can safely bring it back to our tower. So far we have only explored a few of the many systems all linked together in a rather bristly clump, and until all systems can be deemed at least visibly inactive should we consider hauling our way to and from high-sec. Next stop for me is the second C3 system connecting from the C1. Jumping in has a few bubbles on d-scan and nothing else, but exploring further finds four towers that would be ominous if it weren't for the silos present at each one. More ominous is the second ship that disappeared from my combat probes before I could get in d-scan range, as I don't know if he's cloaked and scouting or gone off-line. I'll have to ignore it, assuming for now it was an industrialist checking on processes, but keep it in mind.

I go back to the C1, then C3a, and across to the C2. I've been here before too, and although I have a tower listed it's no surprise that it has moved. This is where we rather surprised a Caracal cruiser helping to lay siege to the system, and although we won a small battle we probably didn't influence the war. There's no one home at the moment and, still with more systems behind me to explore, I don't bother scanning for further wormholes. Instead I jump back and head onwards to the first of the two class 4 systems, which turns out to be unoccupied, but with an off-line tower floating somewhere, and inactive. Again, I refrain from launching probes and jump back.

I am heading towards the second C4 when I spot not only core scanning probes on d-scan in C3a but a Helios covert operations boat too. I narrow d-scan's beam and confirm that the Helios is not in the tower before trying to locate where the still-visible Helios is sitting. My first guess is on one of the many wormholes here, a scout having found the K162 and jumped through, but d-scan shows them all clear. And still the Helios sits uncloaked, indeed long enough for me to find his location around a planet, but not quite long enough for me to warp to his position. The Helios is gone and so are the probes. Without knowing where he came from there is no way I can follow, so I ignore the sighting for now and continue along my original direction and jump in to C4b.

Why, there he is. Not on the wormhole in C4b, looking nice and vulnerable, but the Helios I just saw in the C3 is on d-scan, along with a second Helios and a tower. I locate the tower and warp to it to find that, bastards that they are, the two piloted ships are blue to our corporation. I suppose it wouldn't have mattered if I'd found the Helios in time in the C3, as I probably wouldn't have shot him. I make a note that the system is occupied by blues and head to the C3 again. Fin, meanwhile, has determined the C6 connecting to our home system to be initially inactive but now has pilots waking up, whilst the C5 has a Naglfar dreadnought shooting Sleepers in an anomaly whilst a carrier sits waiting to escalate the engagement. I've seen how long this kind of combat can take, and even if we were to wait for a salvager to come out the C5 has four pilots loitering in a tower, potentially ready to launch a counter-attack. It's probably not worth our time.

We have a convenient exit, but a rather inconvenient w-space constellation. The route outwards looks safe enough but we cannot be sure that pilots won't be waiting for our return to the home system. We also can't collapse either K162 at home without a significant risk of being spotted and interrupted, which prevents us from doing much domestically too. As such, I take a second look in the C1, an occupied system that I scanned thoroughly, but find it just as inactive as earlier.

There are more systems to scan for wormholes—a connection to class 4 w-space to find in the C2, and the non-blue C4 must contain a w-space wormhole—and if I find an exit to null-sec in C3b I'll have connections to all classes of space, but I'm not up for scanning for scanning's sake. If we find anything to shoot it would have to be a soft target or we again risk being ambushed ourselves coming home in our pointy ships. It's okay, there's been plenty to explore, and finding all classes of w-space connected together was interesting. I'm heading home to settle down for tonight.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Scanning the spectrum
Tags: eve online, helios, mmorpg, naglfar, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

A curious container

I'm back up to full offensive strength in my Tengu. The recent loss of my previous strategic cruiser knocked some skill points out of my head, but I've relearnt them without much sense of loss, thanks in part to a coincidental short planetside break to watch some live music. All I need to do now is to find some innocent capsuleers on who I can realise my regained offensive powers. Sleepers would do in a pinch, with a bunch of new anomalies spawned in our home system, but I'm alone and won't be taking them on solo. I scan for our static wormhole to look for excitement.

There are four signatures at home, two of which I recognise as already bookmarked sites, and one of the remaining pair obviously being our static wormhole. The other signature is a boring radar site and not another connection for further exploration possibilities, which is made more disappointing when warping to the static wormhole finds it to be quite wobbly indeed. Clearly a scout passed this way half-a-day or more ago and opened our connection, having his own wormhole die before ours. The only positive circumstance is that the new jet-can I noticed on d-scan is sitting on the wormhole. I had initially ignored it as being impossible to find, but here it is.

I leave the jet-can alone. As unlikely as it seems, sitting on a dying wormhole, it could be the lure for an ambush, enticing me to decloak in order to check the contents, making me a sitting duck for any other ships nearby. I haven't spotted any activity here so far, but I doubt I am the only pilot in w-space who has the nous to fit a cloaking device to their ship. And here's another pilot with good sense, my glorious leader arriving just as I am wondering what to do next. Now we can wonder together.

Fin's out looking for a different jet-can. We have two others littering our system, perhaps left on wormholes by visiting corporations, or off-grid from wormholes just to be annoying, or in safe spots to be complete gits. My leader has borrowed Sad Panda, my Malediction interceptor, optimised it for greater speed, and has made progress in narrowing down the location of one of the canisters. It will still currently take ten days at maximum burn to reach it, so a bit more finesse with the warp drive is needed. And unless Fin has fitted the Malediction with a probe launcher I think we have company.

Core probes appear on my directional scanner, and they don't belong to either of us. That's interesting, but there's little I can do about it so far. The probes disappear and a minute later a Loki decloaks on the wormhole five kilometres from my position. I am tempted to engage the strategic cruiser but I could use some help and I don't think Fin has the wormhole's location yet. If the Loki flees to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system I'll be on my own, maybe for the night if the wormhole collapses, and possibly dead. I hold my cloak and watch, asking Fin to swap boats for a ship killer and to get to my position.

The Loki chomps the jet-can on the wormhole and jumps through. Now I'll never know if it contained a bookmark labelled 'look behind you' or a dozen PLEXes. More importantly, however, I am wondering if the Loki is coming back. It seems likely that a new wormhole has opened in to our home system whilst I was passively sitting here, the Loki scout scanning and taking a risk on the wormhole to poke his nose through. If that's the case he'll be coming back, and in to our hasty ambush. To give a better chance of catching him I decloak and get ready to engage. Fin has joined me, and we both wait for the wormhole to flare a second time, announcing the return of the Loki.

No flare comes soon. Knowing I will be alerted by the sound of the wormhole's activation, a little too viscerally at times, I launch probes again and switch to the system map to re-scan our home. I find no new signatures, only those I positively identified a short while back, which means no new wormholes have connected to us. This information changes the situation. Now it seems that the Loki found his way to our system and lay in wait for activity, no doubt hoping to ambush unsuspecting capsuleers, and probably planting the jet-can as his bait. I imagine his launching of probes and scanning was his last check for new connections, perhaps prompted by seeing my probes flying around, before deciding to look for a more active system.

The Loki doesn't return. Fin pokes her nose through to the C3, confident from checking external resources that our wormhole has over an hour of life left, to see some ships in the class 3 w-space system. There is even a Loki, but the ship's name does not match the one that passed through the wormhole in front of me. He's long gone, it seems. Fin takes a couple of minutes to confirm that all the ships are unpiloted inside a tower before returning safely home. And as Fin makes lazy orbits around the wormhole, myself content to sit in one position, both of us ponder our options.

Personally, I don't like the thought of a roaming Loki being close by, particularly as he seems content to jump through dying wormholes. I imagine he's operating without a home at the moment, wandering system to system looking for action, and I'd rather not give it to him so easily. So we're not running anomalies tonight. I also don't fancy waiting another hour before we can be active. I'm just going to hide in a corner of the system and settle down with a book. We can have a new adventure tomorrow.

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

How to scan the Penny Ibramovic way

Scanning is a perverse activity. By stripping it down to a series of steps that can be described simply I am making the process algorithmic, which means it could be performed automatically by a computer. Presumably, our powerful spaceships have computers on-board, except maybe Minmatar ships, and as they are meant to be ideal for handling repetitive tasks I have to wonder why we don't just have a 'scan' button that launches probes and, ten minutes later, gives us a set of bookmarks for all the sites and wormholes in the system. Well, I know why we don't have that, I suppose, but given that the steps to successful scanning are precise and never rely on 'feel' or intuition I have to suppress the notion that I could be doing something more productive when ignoring that twentieth gravimetric site in a system. But at least scanning doesn't take me forever, and I am producing this rather limited but finely detailed guide in the hopes that it may help others to improve their own scanning.

This is not a definitive guide to scanning, and certainly does not help with hunting pilots sitting safely in sites. There will be no video tutorial because I don't have the software available to do that, although I am trusting the steps will be descriptive enough to preclude needing video. I simply aim to show the basics of how I scan a system, with the reasons why. Before I start, there are terms that ought to be introduced and basic methods to be explained, so that the pictures will make sense.

When launched, a scanning probe can be said to be represented by a sphere and a box. The sphere of the probe is its range, represented by a distance in AU that is the radius of the sphere. The box sits at the centre of the sphere and allows the probe to be moved in space.

Adjusting the range of probes can be achieved either by dragging the sphere of a probe inwards or outwards, or highlighting the probe in the scanning interface and using the context menu to adjust the range. I find dragging the sphere to be more convenient, as I am generally otherwise manipulating the probes anyway.

There are arrows pointing outwards from the box in both directions along each of the three axes. Dragging the probe by an arrow allows free movement of the probe in space only along that axis of movement. The probe's box has six planes. Dragging the probe by a plane allows free movement of the probe along that plane in space.

Movement of the several probes at once can be achieved with the use of the shift and alt keys. Shift-dragging a probe will also move all other probes in the same direction by the same distance. This allows simple movement of a cluster of probes. Shift-dragging also works to change the range of all probes when dragging one probe by its sphere. Alt-dragging a probe will move all probes in relation to the virtual centre of the probes, so that if the probe you are dragging is moved towards/from this virtual centre then all the other probes will be moved towards/from the centre by a similar amount. Alt-dragging lets you alter the relative separation of all of your launched probes at once.

Note that when dragging probes by the arrows only the sphere of the probe is visible, but when dragging the probe by its box some concentric rings appear. These concentric rings are important when determining the separation of the probes for optimal scanning strength. For this guide, I will refer to the sphere as the outer limit of the probe, then the first concentric ring and second concentric rings as working from the sphere inwards to the box itself.

The other movement to be concerned with is zooming in and out of the system map. I use the mouse-wheel for convenience. Zooming in lets you align probes around signatures more accurately, as well as alter the ranges and separation of probes with greater precision.

Note that the view in the system map starts around your ship and any rotation of the display will have its vertex around that point in space. The vertex can, thankfully, be changed by selecting another object on the map, whether it be a planet or a bookmark, or a probe. Selecting a probe by clicking on its name will centre the display on that probe, in all three axes. This action can be performed after moving the probes to make life much easier for the scanning capsuleer. Edit: in Retribution, centring the display is achieved by double-clicking on the probe's name.

To start scanning, first we need to launch probes.

1. The first probe is launched.



2. The second probe is launched and moved.



The position of the second probe is not arbitrary, except for the direction it is moved. Drag the probe by the arrow so that it moves along the single axis and remains lined up with the first probe, until the tips of the arrows are just touching. This placement doesn't need to be precise, just close enough to form a consistent pattern.

3. The third probe is launched and moved.



4. The fourth probe is launched and moved.



5. The fifth probe is launched and moved.



It should be apparent that each probe is moved to a different position relative to the central probe, and each time dragged by the arrow to keep it aligned. The probes are moved so that the arrows are touching and a consistent distance is maintained between each probe. It doesn't matter that the separation of the probes is arbitrary, depending on how zoomed in to the system map your view is, as this is corrected in the next step.

Note that I keep the first probe where it is and use it as the central probe of a five-probe scanning configuration. This lets me easily position the other probes around this central probe.

I use five probes because it is relatively quick to launch them, the expanded probe launcher can hold ten combat scanning probes in total to give me two complete launches before needing to reload, and as well as the fifth probe adding extra scanning strength it provides an excellent reference point for scanning itself.

It is possible to use seven probes, adding one vertically above and one vertically below the central probe, which works just as well and adds even more scanning strength, but it can make moving and adjusting the probes a little more fiddly.

It's worth taking the twenty seconds to set-up the initial configuration of the probes in this way, because with liberal use of shift- and alt-dragging the probes will not have to be moved individually again.

6. Set the initial range of the probes.

Probes are launched with a default range, which for my combat probes is 8 AU. I find this to be a suitable range for a first scan, but if a different range is desired you may as well wait until all probes are launched in space so they can all be set all at once, by shift-dragging a sphere of a probe.

7. Adjust the separation of the probes.



For optimal scanning strength from each probe I find that the central position should be covered by the area between the first and second concentric scanning ring. Alt-drag the top plane of one of the outer boxes inwards, so that the central box is mid-way between the first and second concentric rings.

8. The probes are moved to their initial scanning position



Shift-drag the probes by the plane of a box to move them all at once to the region of space to be scanned. Normally for me this is with the probe range set to 8 AU and the probes centred on a planet, or a suitably central point of a small cluster of planets. It's possible to start with a greater range and work downwards, but I find that more time is wasted with the additional number of subsequent scans when started at 16 AU range or greater than working with a smaller volume of space and moving the probes from planet to planet. An initial blanket scan of the system can also highlight where signatures are or aren't likely to be found, which can also reduce time spent scanning. But a planet that produces no results after a single scan centred on it at 8 AU range can then be ignored in all future scans, rather than being continually encompassed by a 16 AU or 32 AU scan.

I am cheating a little in this example, as I know where I expect to find this signature, hence my apparently odd choice of initial scanning position.

At this point, select the central probe to move the system map to have that probe centred in your view.

9. Scan.



This will produce the initial result, where unless you have perfect scanning skills and a tricked-out ship most signatures will be unidentified red blobs. We need to pick one of those signatures to resolve.

10. Rotate the view to the horizontal plane.



Pick a signature and rotate your view down to the horizontal. From here we can adjust the position of the probes so that they are on the same vertical plane as the signature. It is important to do this probe movement first, as in CCP's wisdom your view cannot be rotated fully to ninety degrees so that you are looking directly down and instead are restricted to a slightly oblique point-of-view. As such, adjusting the horizontal probe position before the vertical can then introduce a new horizontal error because you are not looking directly down the vertical axis of the probes.

Note that the view rotates around the central probe, if you selected it as suggested. Try scanning and rotating the view without selecting the central probe at some point to learn a lesson in frustration.

11. Adjust the probes' vertical position.



Shift-drag the probes so they all sit on the same vertical plane as the signature to be resolved. This can be done using an arrow or box, as another adjustment still needs to be made in the horizontal plane.

12. Rotate the view to back to the vertical plane.



With the vertical adjustment made, we can forget about that pesky third axis again for now.

13. Reduce the range of the probes by one step.



To get a better scan result on the signature we need to increase the strength of the probes, which means reducing their range. Always reduce the range of the probes one step at a time. Any greater reduction is a tempting way to save time but could result in not quite covering the signature's actual position with the probes and it being fuzzier than before, taking an unnecessary extra stage to correct for the supposed time-saving step. It will probably help to zoom the view in a little at this point.

14. Re-adjust the separation of the probes.



Now that the range of the probes has been altered the separation of the probes needs to be re-adjusted. As before, alt-drag a box of one of the probes so that the central probe sits in the middle of the first and second concentric scanning ring.

15. Adjust the probes' horizontal position.



Shift-drag the cluster of probes so that the central probe sits atop the signature to be resolved. The vertical position has already been adjusted, so the fuzzy red blob of a signature should now sit in the centre of all five probes.

Select the central probe to move the system map to have that probe centred in your view. To save a couple of seconds, the next scan can be started before moving the system map in this way.

16. Scan.

The second scan will give a better result than the first, although it may not seem like it if you are scanning a particularly weak signature like a radar or magnetometric site. In this case, I have resolved the signature enough to see that it is a ladar site. Oh joy. At this point the site can be safely ignored if you are only looking for wormholes, but if you want to actually harvest the gas or bookmark the site's location to ambush potential gas harvesters we need to continue. In my case, this is a site in our home system and I want to activate the site so that it disappears after a few days.

Now we repeat the procedure, to refine the result further.

17. Rotate the view to the horizontal plane.



18. Adjust the probes' vertical position.



I shift-drag by a probe's box this time to move laterally as well as vertically. It doesn't really matter, although a box is a more central target to aim for with the mouse.

19. Rotate the view to back to the vertical plane.
20. Reduce the range of the probes by one step.



21. Re-adjust the separation of the probes.



22. Adjust the probes' horizontal position.



Select the central probe to move the system map to have that probe centred in your view.

23. Reduce the range of the central probe by an additional step.



Because the scanned signature strength is around 50% I reduce the range of the central probe by an additional step. If I'm lucky, this extra boost in scanning strength centred directly on top of the signature will be enough to resolve the site to 100% instead of needing a subsequent scan, saving time. If it doesn't work, it will take one more scan that was necessary anyway, so doing this step is not lost time.

24. Scan.



The site is resolved to 100% strength, as indicated by the signature turning green. It can now be bookmarked and warped to directly from the scanning interface.

If resolving a low-strength signature, like a radar or magnetometric site, sometimes your probes will be at their minimum range and only give a final reading of just under 100%. Don't dismay. If this occurs, realign the signature to be in the exact centre of your probes and scan again, or if it is already in the centre simply scan again. This next scan should give the 100% result required to warp to and bookmark the site.

25. Bookmark the resolved signature.



It would be silly to resolve a site to 100% and not bother or forget to bookmark it. I indicate the type of site by a leading initial, followed by the three letters that form the first part of the signature identifier, followed by the complete name of the site that is given automatically. Other naming conventions work just as well.

Note that bookmarking a site bookmarks its cosmic signature, whose placement will differ based on the type and variation of site. Never bookmark a wormhole solely from the scanning interface as the cosmic signature can be several kilometres from the wormhole itself. Use the scanning interface result only as a rough guide for wormholes, and always visit the wormhole to get a precise location to bookmark.

If you forget to bookmark the signature, don't worry. Sites and wormholes remain resolved to 100% until a session change occurs, so subsequent scans in a different volume of space don't negate the result. However, be aware that ships and drones are not similarly saved results and need to be bookmarked before any subsequent scan.

That's just a single signature resolved. Now we start again. Revert the probes to their original range, adjust their separation, and move them back to an initial scanning position. Another scan will let you pick the next signature to resolve, following the same steps.

It's possible to short-cut scanning a little, mostly when multiple signatures are close together. If you are only looking for wormholes you can cluster your probes around several close signatures and hope to get a 25% or better result so that more than one site can be ignored at once. Or you can note the approximate position of nearby signatures when scanning at 4 AU or even 2 AU, so that when you resolve the current signature you can move the probes to that remembered position and continue scanning without having to revert right back to an 8 AU range.

The above steps may seem like a lot of effort, but that's because of the detailed explanation included with each step. Once what is trying to be achieved is understood scanning can be performed fluidly and quickly. With practice, more time will be spent waiting for scan results than adjusting and moving probes. Using less detail, and with the initial launch and adjustment steps removed, the process can be seen to flow better.

• Shift-move probes vertically.
• Shift-reduce probe range.
• Mouse-wheel zoom in.
• Alt-adjust probe separation.
• Shift-move probes horizontally.
• Scan.
• Centre view on probes.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Mining sites are ignored and wormholes found in no time.

Posted in Gaming | 17 Comments »
Tags: eve online, mmorpg, scanning

Gigs of 2011, part two

More gigs! I am trying to Get Out More and seeing live music has long been an activity I've enjoyed. It seems the obvious way for me to do something away from a computer, even if I end up seeing Bo Ningen a dozen times this year. They like to gig, and I like to watch them.

Bo Ningen/Ruins Alone at Corsica Studios

There are only so many ways I can describe the same band, and this is my third time seeing Bo Ningen in the same number of months, in the same venue as the last time. Merely supporting this time, and apparently opening the evening's acts, Bo Ningen still put on an excellent show, sticking with mostly songs not on last year's debut album and promoting their soon-to-be-released single. They are, as always, completely brilliant, dressed and strutting vibrantly, creating a wall of well-executed noise. The single sounds great, another new song brilliantly starts with guitar and bass playing different time signatures, and the energy and excitment is ever present. I look forward to seeing even more of Bo Ningen.

Main act is Ruins Alone, apparently a band that has been around for ages in various guises, but is my first contact with them. And by 'them' I mean 'him', as tonight it is just a drummer on stage—hence the 'Alone'—playing a bunch of songs with backing tapes. This is perhaps more entertaining for me now that I am learning to play drums than it would have been before, but despite it being pretty much a masterclass in technique, as each song almost looks like an improvised solo, there is only so much marvelling I can do. Interesting, but not particularly entertaining as a gig.

Cloud Control/Big Deal at the Scala

I don't know Cloud Control and only bought Big Deal's album a few weeks before the gig, but in my pursuit to Get Out More I buy a ticket. It's interesting how publishing what I get up to can be a motivating factor in seeking activities. I quite like Big Deal and had a poke around the internet to find that Cloud Control seem jolly enough, so even though I'm going back to the Scala venue that has given me poor experiences of late I am thinking positively. Big Deal are as good as expected, the duo serenading the audience with most of their album competently enough, although also as with their album it all feels a bit similar towards the end, with little apparent variation between the two guitars and two voices. In short bursts Big Deal are rather good, in concentrated form I find it difficult to maintain interest. It was good to see them, all the same.

Before Cloud Control come on stage a couple of Polish people take an interest in me, as I am looking characteristically sullen. I am quietly tolerating some chap's repeating gestures as he chats in the middle of the crowd, his elbow occasionally jabbing in to my back, which may explain why I am introduced to the pair with them asking 'why so serious?' Luckily, they don't then tell me how they got their scars and then cut me, but instead we get chatting and I even get bought a drink. Apparently, they have to get me drunk. I'm okay with that, it's part of my New Year's resolution to drink more, being almost a tee-totaler before, so I experience the after-taste of a Red Bull and vodka with some curiosity. Naturally, by the end of the evening, and after another drink, we get a bit frisky, but only a bit before I sensibly head home instead of following them to Soho. But, yes, Cloud Control. They are pleasant enough, if a little bland. There were plenty of people in the audience who were fans and singing along to their favourite songs, but for me the highlight was their first song of the encore, a cover of The La's There She Goes. A fairly average gig, then, but the best night I've had in a couple of years.

The Joy Formidable at Kentish Town Forum

I think I overdosed on The Joy Formidable a little. I saw them quite a few times in the previous year and listened to their various releases, including the excellent live album of the Garage gig I went to. Maybe it was the crappy experience at their Koko gig, or expecting too much of debut album The Big Roar but the band looked to be losing their sheen. But here I am Getting Out More, so I pick up a ticket for their gig in Kentish Town. It's been a long while since I've been to the Town and Country Club Forum, maybe the last act I saw here being Beck so many years ago, but it remains a good venue. Large, but inviting. The support acts are pretty good, The Dig seeming interesting until And So I Watch You From Afar blow them away, along with many unprotected eardrums. And when The Joy Formidable appear on stage and start playing it's like being reintroduced to old friends.

It has been a while since I've seen The Joy Formidable live, or listened to their music, and hearing it again played with such passion is invigorating and comforting in equal measure. The band clearly enjoy what they are doing and appreciate all their fans, also evidenced by all the extra-gig promotional activities they arrange, and it all comes across in their performance. The Joy Formidable also indulge in the art of live performance, not content to play live versions of studio recordings but to extend and enhance their songs in ways that augment the live experience that don't translate easily to the studio. I think my reawakening is helped by most of the songs played being from A Balloon Called Moaning and live favourites from before the debut album release, but even the encore of the later material is uplifting and energetic. The Joy Formidable continue to rise.

Bo Ningen/Blood Music/Advert at CAMP Basement

The gig for Bo Ningen's single launch is listed as having Factory Floor DJs. Normally, who the DJs are doesn't really matter to me, if only because they are stuck in a booth inaccessible to gig-goers and we're simply presented with a selection of songs between bands that we probably wouldn't realise were hand-picked anyway. But tonight there they are, spinning discs right next to the stage, two of the three members of Factory Floor! The band really impressed me when I saw them support Fuck Buttons about eighteen months back, so I can't help but say hi and fawn over them a bit, having a brief and pleasant chat with the drummer. Asking about new material I'm told an album is due out next year, which should be worth looking out for.

First band Advert have a big and noisy sound, and I wish I could remember more about them than their being a band to watch. With Part Chimp breaking up soon Advert are just the sort of band that could fill the gap. Next up are Blood Music, who are also noisy but have technical problems. Their kit is old, apologises the singer/guitarist, and dodgy jacks mean their sound cuts out a bit too often and they need to swap amplifiers, borrowing one that isn't theirs. That works out for me, as the main amp was cutting through my teeth but swapping for the smaller one let me hear the music instead of feel it, and when they aren't fiddling with connections Blood Music are pretty good.

Bo Ningen are the main act, performing to support the launch of their new single, which naturally gets played during the set. It is lively, loud, and as Japanese as everything else Bo Ningen has done so far, screamed out through speakers as the guitarists wail and riff on their guitars, when they aren't making elaborate arm movements. As well as the single and some more new tracks, the band plays some songs from their debut album that I haven't heard live before, which considering this is the fourth time I've seen them play in four months shows the depth they can bring to each performance. I'm still loving Bo Ningen and don't see that changing soon.

2:54/Novella at Corsica Studios

2:54 are being hyped at the moment as a great new band and despite not having heard their music, not even getting around to finding anything on-line, I pick up a ticket to see them play their Corsica Studios gig as part of my plan. I write 'see them play' because that was what I was expecting, but instead over-use of the fog machine combined with a back-lit stage means I see very little. The lead singer is little more than an amorphous blob in silhouette, and I literally cannot see the drummer half the time for all the fog. I'm not entirely sure why the stage is lit from behind, or why strobe lights are flashed directly in to the eyes of the audience, as I have long been under the impression that it is the band that should be illuminated for the audience to see. Half-way through the set I wander from my position near the front to stand further back in the venue, curious to see if it makes a difference. It does, but only in that the strobes no longer hurt my eyes. I suppose I should review the music a little, but the complete lack of performance, at least any I could see, probably negatively influences my perspective. Being bored at having nothing to watch, 2:54 don't sound that special, and although it's maybe a little unfair to think of them as yet another Florence and the Machine wannabe that is my lingering impression. I won't discount them yet, but tonight's gig was a poor showing.

The night isn't completely wasted, however. Support act Novella produce a good set—one that I can see!—with some interesting and lively songs, along with an extended penultimate song that droned along in a very pleasing way indeed. And when bored with standing in 2:54's fog and retreating to the back I grab a serendipitous chat with them, learning they'll be supporting Dum Dum Girls next week, a gig I already have a ticket for. In that case, I can look forward to seeing Novella again.

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Tags: 2:54, advert, and so i watch you from afar, big deal, blood music, bo ningen, camp basement, cloud control, corsica studios, forum, gig, novella, ruins alone, scala, the dig, the joy formidable

Quietly scanning and shooting Sleepers

Fin's found a wormhole as I arrive, but it's not our static connection. It's easy to assume that the first wormhole you resolve will be what you're expecting to find, especially in your own home system, but we're staring at the bloody pustule that is a K162 from deadly class 6 w-space. That's a little foreboding, particularly after recent events, but there aren't any ships visibly causing trouble in our system and the wormhole looks quiet from this side. A second scan finds our static wormhole and we decide which way each of us wants to explore. My glorious leader chooses the glorious option and jumps in to the C6, I take the less risky route to the class 3 system.

My directional scanner shows me a tower and a lack of ships in the C3. I warp out to a distant planet, where I hope I can launch probes covertly, during which time I consult my notes. I was here for my second visit five months ago, and I have the location of two towers listed. That should save time, and as a bonus I know I'm looking for a static exit to high-sec empire space. I don't think we need a convenient exit currently, having only just bought some new ships and skill books, but having a good exit is always an opportune time to buy tower fuel.

I've launched probes safely and am now back in the centre of the system, floating outside the larger of the two towers. I had to look for the second, it having been moved since my previous visit, but it wasn't difficult to find. Arranging my probes to perform a blanket scan reveals little of interest. There remains no ships, and I see a paltry three signatures to go with eight anomalies. I know two of the signatures will be the K162 home and static connection, and the third resolves to be a radar site.

I warp to the exit wormhole, which is super-stable and suggestive that no one, not even the locals, have been here today, and jump out to high-sec. Well, shit, it's Aridia. It's good that we don't need a convenient exit, because this certainly isn't one. I launch probes and scan, the only other signature in the system also being a wormhole. Poor buggers, connecting to high-sec Aridia too. Or not, as the wormhole is an outbound connection to class 2 w-space, which would be much more exciting if it weren't stabilising as I try to jump through.

There may be no one home in the C2 but there will be a wormhole linking to more w-space, so I push through to explore. I find a tower, my probes find three anomalies and eleven signatures. I get no further than ignoring some rocks when I recall my probes and head home. Fin found occupation in the C6 but no activity and is nearing the end of collapsing the connection between our system and theirs. I head back to add my Widow black ops ship to the accumulated mass to pass through the wormhole, happy to help sever the link and keep us safely isolated from whatever may come that way.

A final pair of jumps is only enough to destabilise the wormhole to a critical degree, not collapse it. Fin pushes a supercruiser through the wormhole for one final effort, but still the wormhole clings on to life. 'Anything coming through will kill it', says Fin, which is probably true, but is she okay with that? I have to ask, because it seems I am not the best judge of safety. We decide to leave it. It seems that any ship that manages to come through the wormhole will end up a target for us, not a threat, and have no way back to run. And so, with the wormhole in its deathly state, we swap ships to our Sleeper Tengu strategic cruisers and head out to the C3 to make some more ISK.

I make a pit stop in Aridia, of all places, as the high-sec system has a station. I managed to buy the wrong subsystem for my replacement Tengu, thanks to the stupidly limited number of stored fittings causing me to pay much less attention to the previously useful service and instead have the wrong one saved. I waited for a high-sec connection to fix this, instead of risking another flight through low-sec in a ratting boat, because we're still not able to refit subsystems in w-space. Not that I'm bitter about these niggles.

Sleeper combat passes uneventfully through one, two, three anomalies, the only change in the fourth being a lack of Argos guns and an absent first wave of Sleepers. The barely started anomaly is not a portent of hostile intervention and is cleared as smoothly as the others. D-scan is watched studiously the whole time we fight, today no ships or probes appearing at all, and we even push our luck by bringing two Noctis salvagers in to sweep up twice as fast in separate anomalies. We get home safely, 185 Miskies better off, there being no excitement today. But having experienced excitement recently the relative lack of extra-Sleeper stimulation is welcome.

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Tags: eve online, mmorpg, noctis, penny ibramovic, scanning, sleepers, tengu, widow

Looking for a Loki

The Fin Report: we're at the end of the universe. My glorious leader is ahead of me and scanning, quite thoroughly, our neighbouring class 3 w-space system. It has 'two exits to low-sec, about four jumps apart, in the arse end of Khanid—one hop from Aridia'. And now the weather forecast: a wormhole will collapse, swiftly followed by a light sprinkling of Sleeper combat. Shooting Sleepers seems like a good option, with an empty constellation and a new ship to do it in, but we'd better do it properly this time, which means isolating ourselves instead of relying on fortune to keep us safe.

Or we could shoot Sleepers in the C3, as it has a couple of magnetometric sites, holding better profit if we can get it, and some anomalies if we get time. Fighting abroad will also keep my attention focussed on my directional scanner, instead of being distracted by shiny objects and moving images. Fin returns home, I grab the bookmarks she copies for me, and we head out in our Sleeper Tengu strategic cruisers, Wooster getting its first taste of combat. Not having been in to the neighbouring system yet, after jumping in I ask Fin if the system is occup—yikes! A Tengu, Nighthawk command ship, and Onyx heavy interdictor show up thankfully not on my overview but on d-scan, accompanied by two Orca industrial command ships, an Impel frigate, and, what a relief, a tower.

Fin's been here and scouted the system, happy to confirm all the ships I see were present earlier, floating unpiloted inside the tower's force field. It was a little startling to see them on d-scan, all the same. But knowing they are empty and, currently, harmless I throw both our ships in to warp towards the first magnetometric site. I feel confident about Sleeper combat in class 3 w-space, although this site doesn't look identical to others we've done recently, and I'm mostly guessing at what ships trigger further waves of Sleepers. I quite like learning by doing, and any threat of an additional wave of ships can be mitigated by sensible target selection.

We still need to warp out once, when the final wave of battleships pummels Fin's Tengu's shields in to submission, but we get clear and repair without hassle. That was mostly my fault, not using the full defensive capability of the Tengu pair, which I'm sure we can correct for the second site. Before we get there we'll clean up this first site, collecting our loot whilst we can, particularly as Fin needs a short break soon. I grab an analysing cruiser, Fin a Noctis salvager, and we sweep up all the Sleeper loot and artefacts in to our holds, all the time watching d-scan for additional threats or danger, all the time seeing none. Our first sortie is a success.

Fin takes a break, I swap boats and take station outside the tower in the C3. I hold there, not paying too much attention to space, merely watching out of the corner of my eye for any obvious changes. Nothing happens by the time my leader is back and I warp home reporting nothing out of the ordinary having occurred. We swap back to Sleeper Tengus and return to the C3 for the second magnetometric site. But when I jump in to the C3 this time d-scan shows me a Loki strategic cruiser and scanning probes in the system. I spin d-scan around and probe the tower, not seeing the Loki there, and advise Fin to hold.

I'm a little late with my communication, as the wormhole flares with Fin's entrance. It's not a problem, she can jump back when the session change timer ends. After my recent transit I am polarised, though, keeping me in this system for now. I don't think I'm in trouble, as the now-despawned magnetometric site will be a suitable place for me to hide in plain sight, particularly as the Loki scout is using core scanning probes which won't detect my ship. I have a little over a minute before I can jump through the wormhole again, so I warp to the empty space that we were fighting in a little while ago, hold for a few long seconds, then return to the wormhole, which now lets me pass through it.

Shall we hunt the Loki? 'Absolutely', says Fin. Okay then! Fin boards a Legion strategic cruiser, one of our ship killers. I waver about boarding the second Legion, as it is not fitted with a cloak, and choose my scanning Tengu instead, both letting us scout whilst still having enough firepower to defeat a single opponent. And Fin sends me in to the C3 to reconnoitre, where I see a bunch of scanning probes but no Loki. We may have a bit of a wait ahead of us. Fin wonders if I was spotted, but I doubt it. I had the session change cloak when I spied the Loki, at which point it was probably focussed on launching probes and not d-scan, after which it was likely arranging the probes in a scanning pattern and actually scanning.

Eventually the probes disappear from d-scan and I tell Fin to get ready, but when the Loki appears it is not at our K162. It looks like the Loki has found one of the other wormholes and, as Fin reported the static connection was reaching the end of its natural lifetime, I warp to the K162 from low-sec to see if can catch the Loki. He's not there and he's back on d-scan, so I warp back to the K162 home in case Fin's about to ambush him. Just as I enter warp the Loki appears on the wormhole I'm leaving, but that turns out to be not such a bad situation. My short sighting of the ship has given me a pilot name as well as showing that the ship is blue. It looks like an allied corporation has found their way in to the same C3 as us.

I relay the information to Fin, who is, like me, a little disappointed that we can't shoot the Loki, and she opens a diplomatic channel to confirm our reciprocal presences in the C3. With the niceties out of the way it's time to see what being blue really means, as we swap back to our Tengus and return to the C3 to clear the Sleepers out of the second magnetometric site, as planned. It seems we won't be blindsided by the blue Loki, perhaps because Fin is talking to the boss-man of her corporation, who has reminded his pilot about checking statuses before engaging. I am invited in to the conversation and we have a pleasant chat about w-space tactics and secrets whilst we finish off the Sleepers, note the Loki's comings and goings, and sweep up the loot from the second site much as we did the first.

The Loki scans, we finish our combat and salvaging, and we get home with bundles of loot without being interrupted. It's been a good evening, even if our target turned out not to be one after all. Over two hundred million iskies of loot, salvage, and artefacts are dumped in to our hangar, ready to be taken out and converted to actual currency when we next get a decent exit. We don't continue from the magnetometric sites in to the anomalies, lacking time, which is a shame as a quick look revealed over forty of them. That's the untidiest occupied system I've seen in a while, but it was to our advantage. A few more nights like this and I won't feel so guilty about losing Pengu.

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Tags: eve online, impel, legion, loki, mmorpg, nighthawk, onyx, orca, penny ibramovic, sleepers, tengu, w-space

Replacing Pengu

I have a new Sleeper boat to buy. Losing Pengu, my first Tengu strategic cruiser, was harsh but reminded me that w-space is dangerous and that I need to pay attention. And I need to buy a new boat, otherwise we won't be able to shoot Sleepers to earn the iskies that lets us buy new boats. It's a bit of a vicious circle that, so I really need to make sure I don't lose another ship before we've made some ISK to cover the cost of this replacement. And, perhaps more importantly, I really ought to get the replacement Tengu home from market safely.

Of course, I can only get a new ship home once I've got to the market in the first place, as there are remarkably few space stations in w-space. It's good that getting out of w-space is relatively straightforward, particularly living in a system with a static connection to class 3 w-space, as all class 3 systems lead to k-space. Then again, an exit to k-space doesn't guarantee an exit to high- or even low-sec empire space, and even if I'm lucky today and have what is a relatively standard exit from a C3 out to low-sec I could still find myself in Aridia. But I won't know until I look, so I launch probes and scan.

I bookmark a new radar site in the home system and note that as the only unexpected signature, before resolving the static wormhole and jumping to our neighbouring system. The C3 is familiar, having only been here a month earlier, and nothing notable happened on that occasion. I also know that I'm looking for a static connection to low-sec, which may not be a positive result but certainly isn't negative. I launch probes and blanket the system, confirming a lack of ships, and locate the tower in the same place as it was previously, watching it for new arrivals as I sift through the sixteen signatures here. Twenty anomalies taunt my lack of Tengu, which I hope to remedy soon enough.

The first hit on my probes, on the outer planet, reveals a gravimetric site and wormhole, which is lucky. I ignore the rocks and resolve the link, warping to find it to be the system's static wormhole. That's good enough for me for now, particularly as I can pick up where I left easily enough if the exit is poor, and I recall my probes and jump out to take a look at where I am sent. I appear on a K162 in the Kor-Azor region, only five hops from Amarr, although three systems from high-sec. That may be okay, I'll need to check the route, as well as the availability of Tengus in the Amarr capital.

The route to high-sec looks okay, few pilots in the systems and only a Harbinger on one of the gates. I could probably avoid the battlecruiser, if he's not been moved on by the time I bring a new Tengu through here. And there are Tengus galore available in Amarr, the influence of the Caldari ship reaching far and wide for encounters against rats, empire and w-space alike. I buy the ship, the subsystems, and all the fittings required whilst cloaked near a stargate in Amarr, glad to have stolen half-a-billion ISK in loot recently to help pay for the new ship, before turning around and heading home to ditch my scouting ship so that I can collect my new Sleeper boat.

What an excellent time for my glorious leader to arrive. Fin agrees to help me bring the new Tengu home safely, boarding a Falcon recon ship that she can use to scout the low-sec systems and, if I am caught, shrugging off target locks against my ship with the Falcon's ECM capabilities. I strip down to my bare pod at our tower and go back to empire space, making the trip through low-sec a second time, reaching Amarr without incident and assembling and fitting the new Tengu. The hardest part of this was done yesterday, Fin already coming up with a new name, and I launch Wooster on her maiden voyage.

Low-sec stays quiet as I take the Tengu home, Fin staying one jump ahead and relaying information about pilots in each system and the lack of ships on stargates. Wooster gets back to w-space and to the home system without trouble, returning us to full operational capability once more. And our wallet is still remarkably healthy, which encourages Fin to entice me to make the journey again, this time to buy a new scouting Tengu. Fin's been happily buzzing around in a Buzzard for her scouting, and whilst the covert operations boat is a fulfilling its role perfectly I have been bugging her to get a new Tengu to allow her more opportunities to engage ships when out scouting, instead of having to return for a combat ship. It looks like my nagging has worked.

I strip to my pod again and return to empire space, Fin still shadowing me in the Falcon. It is a simple matter to get to Amarr and copy the fitting of MCP, my own scouting Tengu, although the faction micro warp drive is rather an expensive option. Our healthy wallet drops to an adequate but depleted level of wealth, the second strategic cruiser of the night bought straight off the market. It's okay, though, as we make good use of these ships. And once more I make my way back to the tower. Fin scouts ahead of me but I insist I should be fine. After all, if the covert Tengu I've just bought and fitted can't make it home safely through a couple of low-sec systems I think we'll be in trouble piloting it in w-space.

Both Fin and I get home without being hassled, low-sec stargates remaining empty of camps, and the neighbouring class 3 w-space system staying quiet. We need to make some more ISK before we can get in any more trouble, but we are in a good position to do that, both with ships and paranoia in place. Just not tonight, though, as it's late. I transfer the new scouting Tengu to Fin and board my own, and we each hide in our own little corner of the home system to bed down for the night.

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Tags: buzzard, eve online, falcon, harbinger, low-sec, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, tengu, w-space