Too late for a Tengu

I get the call. A Tengu is flying solo in our neighbouring system, shooting Sleepers. That strategic cruiser sounds like an excellent target. If only I hadn't been distracted and turned up late we may have had a chance of catching it. Fin catches me up when I finally arrive, as I make a dash to copy the required bookmarks and swap to my Legion strategic cruiser ship killer, telling me that the Tengu has only just warped out of an anomaly. Damn my timing, but that's not to say he won't be back. Fin takes the opportunity to swap her scouting boat for a second Legion, now that we are both here, and returns to the C3 to continue scouting.

The Tengu is back in an anomaly, potentially giving us a shot, even if we don't know why he bugged out initially, but Fin's return is a little awkward. She's been pushed out of the wormhole too close to cloak immediately. There's not much you can do in such a situation but burn hard and hope for the best, and it seems that extra second being visible has blipped her Legion on to the Tengu's directional scanner. He leaves the anomaly again. I suppose we're not really undeterred by this as such, more pressing on regardless. It would be more foolish to assume the Tengu is leaving for good and miss the kill than wait a few minutes to see if he comes back a third time.

Fin warps around to scout the class 3 w-space system. There is no much sign of the Tengu, little more than a blip here and there, making us wonder where he's come from. The C3 is currently unscanned for us, Fin spying the Tengu and keeping herself hidden so far, but it looks like there is no support for the solo ship. No combat support, at least, as a Noctis salvager appears on Fin's d-scan, which she starts to hunt instead. The Noctis warps in to a completed anomaly and begins salvaging, an anomaly that Fin knows of and can visit herself without having to scan for the ship.

Now we have a decision. We could assault the Noctis, or wait for the Tengu to return. I think we would both prefer the Tengu in our sights but any kill is a good kill, and I am trying not to taint the decision. I have popped a number of Noctes recently and would happily let this one get away if it meant the Tengu returns, but Fin is only recently back from an unwanted absence and could use all the action we can find. Besides, unless the Tengu pilot is a complete idiot, or he didn't actually see Fin's Legion on d-scan, he won't be back. So, any kill is a good kill, the Noctis is our target.

Fin moves in to position. I'm sitting on our wormhole waiting to be called in, even if two Legions are complete overkill for an unarmed salvager. I may not get there in time from here, but I can't risk jumping in to the system in my unstealthy ship and spooking the salvager too. 'Get ready.' I'm ready. There's a final bit of manoeuvring, some helpful advice on trying to prevent the salvager warping out early, and then Fin goes for its throat. Sadly, the pilot isn't an idiot and had his ship aligned out of the site, letting his warp engines engage almost immediately. The Noctis escapes.

The Noctis doesn't leave the system, though. Fin tries to locate its position, seemingly floating in empty space, and it could be sitting on a wormhole. I swap boats to get back in to my covert Tengu, ready to find the Noctis using scanning probes, but by the time I enter the system the salvager finally has left. I look for the supposed wormhole anyway, as we may as well scan the system now that it's empty of targets, finding an exit to null-sec. The exit wormhole is too far from where Fin pegged the Noctis, as sitting on the connection would put the ship out of d-scan range of Fin's boat, but all I can otherwise find in the right volume of space is gas.

Nearly all the signatures in the C3 are ladar gas harvesting sites, the sole exception being a single gravimetric site holding rocks. Well, that and the static exit to null-sec, I suppose. Oh, hullo, and this missed signature that a final, confirmatory blanket scan reveals. Whether it is a new signature, or I just passed it by, I've found another wormhole, this one an enticing outbound connection to class 1 w-space. Scanning probes that are not mine are now whizzing about the system, the Tengu pilot back and scanning for wormholes himself, presumably, but I am more taken by the opportunties in the C1. Fin watches the C3 as I look for new targets for us.

D-scan is clear from the K162, a blanket scan being more exciting by showing me nine ships in total somewhere in the system. I warp off to find them, a little disappointed to see a third are shuttles, but perking up when seeing two pilots, one in a Noctis. The other is in a bare pod, and they are both inside a tower's force field, as are the rest of the unpiloted ships. As much as I'd like to think the pair are about to start shooting Sleepers in any of the 13 anomalies here, particularly when the pod pilot boards the Drake at the tower, it doesn't turn out that way. The pilot steers the battlecruiser to a hangar, stows it, and is returned to his bare pod.

The pilot repeats this manoeuvre with the other ships here, continuing with the shuttles. One-by-one he boards a shuttle, navigates it the few hundred metres to the hangar, stows it, and moves back for the next ship. The situation doesn't look brighter with the shuttles out of the way, as he just keeps going with the bigger ships. He boards a Ferox battlecruiser next, but even this pilot is getting bored shuffling ships around, taking his time taking it to the hangar. I've watched enough, he's only tidying up. I head back to the C3, not bothering to scan the C1 for wormholes, where little has happened but scanning.

It's all gone a bit quiet since the start of the evening. Fin returns home, getting understandably sleepy, and all I can report for the next couple of minutes is that the scanning probes disappear. Rather than send a covert ship to scout the wormholes found, the scout gets naked and bounces his pod around, which is a novel method but hardly inoccuous. Having determined that the Tengu pilot didn't come from the C1 I poke my nose through to null-sec, finding the system to be empty of other pilots. Only now, as I recount these events, do I realise that perhaps the pilot is a nomad, or maybe hunting the local capsuleers in this C3.

A nomad or stalker would explain the ships' disappearing with no destination, the safe spots already created, the two-man corporation of the Tengu and Noctis pilots. It would also perhaps explain the brief appearances of a Bestower hauler, only detected, never seen. If the pilot is stalking the C3, or roaming system-to-system, he must be configured to remain hidden, probably with a bigger ship sat safely in the system that has a ship maintenance bay. But even with that insight there's little left to do, so I return home to get some rest. It's a shame we missed the Tengu.

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Tags: bestower, drake, eve online, ferox, legion, mmorpg, noctis, penny ibramovic, tengu, w-space

Almost finding trouble

I arrive just as Fin is about to peek through one of the two K162s in the system. My glorious leader has scanned our home and found not only our static wormhole to class 3 w-space, but also connections coming from class 2 and class 5 w-space. That gives us plenty to explore to start the evening, so with Fin heading to the C2, and bookmarks waiting for me in our shared can, I head off in the other direction to see what the C5 holds. Not much, it seems, at least not that my directional scanner shows me on the other side of the wormhole. If I didn't know any better I'd say the system is unoccupied, but opening the system map shows there to be several planets out of range of d-scan, giving plenty of space to hide in.

I warp away from the wormhole to launch probes. Normally when there are no ships around, and particularly if I believe I have just opened the connection, I will brazenly launch scanning probes on the wormhole itself, but as this one has already been opened and could be directly in a pilot's flight path I am taking precautions about leaving myself vulnerable or visible. Not enough precautions, perhaps, as my initial few seconds of warp look to have flung me over the cosmic signature and decloaked my Tengu, the strategic cruiser becoming visible for a handful more seconds whilst I wait for the cloak to become active again. And that could have been bad timing, as punching d-scan as I am in warp sees a Mammoth hauler and two jet-cans labelled with times.

It is no surprise to see one of the cans disappear and the hauler dropping off d-scan a short while later, as it looks like I've arrived in the middle of a mining operation. Or perhaps the end of the operation, with no mining ships out here, although it's possible that only one pilot is active and he's collecting his own ore. I need to find the tower and determine who else is around, as the Mammoth returns to collect the second jet-can of ore. Warping across to the other side of the system finds two towers and a handful of ships, including a piloted Hulk exhumer. The Mammoth warps back to the tower, showing at least two pilots available, but when the Hulk pilot swaps to a shuttle I am supposing the mining operation has finished. I am a little too late.

Undeterred by the change of ships I warp back across the system and launch probes, now that there is no one out there to see me, and I perform a blanket scan, if only because I can and it gets my probes out of the system. Returning to the tower lets me keep an eye on the two pilots and, as they are not moving, I quickly resolve the gravimetric site the Hulk was working in, needing only three scans to get its location. I warp in to reconnoitre the site, disappointed to see a lack of arkonor that reinforces the idea that mining is stopped, before going back to watch the pilots once more. I locate the second tower, finding a piloted Orca industrial command ship, no doubt giving bonuses to the Hulk, and a second carrier. Both Chimeras, one at each tower, are unpiloted.

Two new contacts appear, one in a pod, the other an Ares interceptor. I also see a combat scanning probe on d-scan, making me worry that I haven't quite got my own far enough out of the system before a Helios covert operations boat, no doubt the actual source of the probe, warps in to a tower. I wait and watch. The pod pilot boards a Legion strategic cruiser and warps in what looks like the direction of the E175 wormhole to our home system. I follow to see what he does, which then involves a fair bit of bouncing off different planets and back to the wormhole, sometimes dropping off d-scan and sometimes staying in range. Fin has left her occupied but inactive C2 system behind to get in position on the other side of the wormhole with an appropriate ship to welcome the Legion, but he doesn't jump, and neither does he sit still long enough for us to jump him.

I realise a little too late that the Legion is probably making some safe spots in the system, using the arbitrary position of the wormhole, which happens to be high above the ecliptic plane, as a decent and unrepeatable starting point. I also realise, also too late, that if either Fin jumped in or I decloaked as the Legion was spotted dropping out of warp at the wormhole we could have caught him before he could align and warp out again. Instead I just watch him come and go, waiting for the right moment that never comes. And then a Maller arrives, the cruiser looking a little too much like bait for us to assault readily, although quite who has spotted either of us is uncertain. Either way, we leave it be until it warps out again a minute later.

The Maller is followed by a Dominix, Fin's admitting she has an irrational fear of the battleship again preventing an immediate attack. I demur to her fear, particularly as there are some awkward ships flying around. We may be able to pop the Legion, or the Maller, or even the Dominix, but if they all appeared together we would be in trouble. And if the interceptor arrived we could be toast, the tiny but agile ship probably able to avoid our missiles well enough to hold us in place until much bigger ships could chew through our defences. None of this is helped by most observations being inferred or speculation, as the wormhole is out of d-scan range of the tower and the rest of the ships, and I am getting most of my information from purely the number of ships my combat scanning probes continue to report.

We watch, from different sides, as the Dominix jumps through the wormhole and returns. The ship ignores the session change timer and polarisation effects, decloaking almost immediately and sitting on the wormhole, visible and vulnerable. That can't be a good sign. And jumping in to and then out of the system is only really indicative of collapsing a wormhole, which if the Dominix is to do it itself will take a while. Even so, polarisation effects could be used to our benefit, such that if we ambush it after its next pair of jumps we could escape home if necessary without the battleship able to follow. We decide that we'll give it a shot, using that tactic.

The Dominix jumps to our C4 and returns to the C5, this time with Fin following. But we have to abort the attack, just as we show our hand, as my monitoring of the C5 shows a Proteus strategic cruiser and Armageddon battleship coming to join the Dominix on the wormhole. We are out-numbered and out-gunned, and before long out-manoeuvred, as the Ares turns up too. This has turned in to a bit of a sticky wicket. Both Fin and I are in the C5, surrounded by dangerous ships, as they continue to collapse the connection to our home. However, we get a lucky break, as the Ares pilot is bored easily and decides to wander from the wormhole. It isn't far for an interceptor to travel, it could cover the distance in a few seconds, but that few seconds should be enough to get both of us home safely.

I tell Fin I'm making a move, that the Ares has carelessly wandered off, but she has seen it too and is already moving. I was closer to the wormhole and jump home first, the Ares caught completely unawares, and Fin follows behind. We both get home, move from the wormhole, and cloak with only the Armageddon joining us, its slow-locking systems barely a threat, if it actually cared about trying to catch us. The Ares follows soon after, but much too late to cause any consternation. To pass the time as the wormhole is steadily reduced of more mass, I warp to our static wormhole to look in the as-yet unexplored class 3 system beyond.

The most interesting aspect of the C3 is that this is my fifth visit to the system, perhaps making it my most visited w-space system out of any I've called home. Otherwise, it is occupied but empty of ships, and although the number of giant secure containers on d-scan makes me suspect there is a bubble trap waiting outside the tower all I find is a rather messy system of personal inventory. The bubbles on d-scan must be scattered around the system, on current or dead wormholes. There's nothing to see here. I head home to get some rest, where the occupants of the C5 have finished collapsing the wormhole. They used an Orca for the final blow, which revealed a cloaked Tengu returning to their home moments before the final jump. We never even knew it was there.

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Tags: ares, armageddon, chimera, dominix, eve online, helios, hulk, legion, maller, mammoth, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, proteus, scanning, tengu, w-space

Avoiding and discouraging hostilities

Another early scouting expedition finds me in an occupied but inactive class 3 w-space system. That's just fine, because it means I can take a good look around our neighbour's home now and come back to surprise them later, no probes required. At least, that's the plan. I locate the tower, bookmark the two anomalies, and scan the dozen sigantures, finding rocks and gas. Actually, it's mostly rocks, with just the single ladar gas harvesting site, which is perhaps an indicator of what the locals do to pass the time. Because the ladar site is by itself, and perhaps new, I take time to reconnoitre the site and make a decent bookmark from where I can pounce. I also resolve the static wormhole, which today leads to high-sec empire space. As it is reaching the end of its natural lifetime, and the only wormhole in the system, it looks like my scouting is over.

With nothing else to scan I resolve a few more sites and make rough bookmarks to their locations, as I have a little time to spare, and make another fly-by of the exit wormhole before I leave. Ah, the connection has collapsed, and that gives me a new one to find. And find it I do, the new wormhole being quite obvious in a freshly scanned system, and I jump through the pristine link to high-sec. The system in Metropolis is unremarkable but offers a few more signatures to resolve, one of which is an Angel vigil, the other two wormholes. The first wormhole would be a more interesting K162 from class 1 w-space if it weren't in its death throes, but the other K162 is from class 2 w-space and quite healthy. That's worth taking a look through.

Hello! I don't suppose I'm doing much else but heading straight back to high-sec to avoid this rather well-prepared fleet. I don't pay too much specific attention to most of the ships but I notice the energy beams passing between three Basilisk logistic ships, and the warp bubble of a heavy interdictor is hard to miss. The others are probably pointy and dangerous ships but I honestly don't care. This camp is overkill for any tourist that blunders in here and panics, shedding their session change cloak early and offering a target, but the presence of logistics ships suggests they are more looking to prevent pilots from leaving w-space than entering, requiring repairs to their own fleet as much as inflict damage to others. Either way, I wait until I can jump back to high-sec before doing so, returning home as scouting has definitely come to an end for now.

It's later on, and glorious leader Fin is out and scanning. She finds nothing else of interest in the still-sleepy C3 neighbouring our own system, which gives us another chance to make some iskies. The anomalies in the class 3 system are rubbish, relatively speaking, but my thorough scanning revealed two magnetometric sites, which hold better Sleeper loot, both from the greater number of ships and the artefacts to be analysed. We swap to our Sleeper Tengu strategic cruisers and start combat at the first of the two sites. It's been a while since we've attacked a magnetometric site but we do a pretty good job of limiting the Sleepers' advantages, although I manage to bring the next wave in a little early twice in a row. We clear the site without any real hassle, though, and just before we do Shev turns up and is happy to volunteer to sweep up behind us.

Shev gets an analysing boat from the hangar, warps to the wormhole, and warps back again, at about the same time I fling Fin and myself towards our K162. A Drake has appeared on d-scan, and whether the battlecruiser is local or has come in from high-sec is unknown. A local boat may not be too much of a problem. A single ship sent in from empire space to lull us in to a false sense of security, making us happy to engage it only to get our warp engines disrupted, holding us in place for the full fleet, is much more deadly. We don't jump home just yet, as I would prefer to see what happens next. We should be able to jump out and clear the wormhole should d-scan become threatening, but until then we have Shev now in a scouting boat to reconnoitre the tower and rest of the system.

Our colleague jumps in and checks the local tower as combat scanning probes cluster on our position on the K162 home. Rather than wait for the probes to complete their scan, and with Shev reporting no ships on d-scan or at the tower, Fin and I jump home. Fin boards a rather deadly cloaking ship and returns to the cleared magnetometric site, ready to strike any who would ambush us. Shev remains at the tower, where he sees the local pilot warp in, swap the Drake for a stealth bomber, and warp out again. Hearing this I swap also to a cloaking ship to watch our side of the wormhole, so that none of us are visible, which hides our numbers and capabilities nicely, whilst monitoring important points in space.

There are no jumps at our wormhole. The stealth bomber may be lurking nearby or scouting other locations in the C3. We still want to get our loot, and drawing the Nemesis in to the open wouldn't be so bad. Shev returns from scouting to jump home, swaps to a Noctis salvager, and heads to the magnetometric site. I am nearby, ready to engage if the Nemesis decloaks on the wormhole, but he remains unseen. Shev starts salvaging, I follow behind and get decloaked, but it's not so bad that we're seen to be defending our Noctis. The salvager may survive a bomb blast and we may get a kill, but it's probably better to recover all our loot without incident. And we recover the loot and salvage, all we need now are the artefacts.

Again, I follow behind Shev as he returns the Noctis home, and we both change ships. Shev prepares to analyse the artefacts, I look as dangerous as I can, boarding my ship killing Legion strategic cruiser. I follow in to the C3 and magnetometric site and shadow Shev's cruiser at a distance, Fin still cloaked and nearby in her own ship killer, the two of us monitoring d-scan as Shev recovers the artefacts. A Buzzard covert operations boat appears on d-scan, the same as noted by Fin a little earlier, and is obviously swapped to a Crane transport ship. I wonder aloud if he's simply heading to high-sec, but Shev's completing analysis of the artefacts and heading home finds the Crane's actual purpose. The local pilot has anchored a warp bubble on our wormhole.

'That is just not neighbourly', says Fin, and I have to agree. It's also rather ineffective if it isn't monitored or patrolled, but I suppose it can have a deterrent effect, particularly if a fleet thinks it has to negotiate the bubble if it has to flee homewards. I have time to ponder this, as well as my hypothetical fleet acting a bit simplistically, as I target and shoot the bubble in to oblivion with Fin's help. It doesn't take long, making it 'quite possibly the shortest bubble', as Fin puts it, as the anchoring time ends and the bubble inflates a couple of seconds before exploding under our combined fire. It seems like the Crane pilot wasted some ISK. We, on the other hand, made a handy profit from the magnetometric site. Even though the artefacts are mostly rubbish we still pocket almost ninety million ISK from the one site. And it was a good exercise to scout and recover loot with a hostile presence.

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Tags: basilisk, buzzard, crane, drake, eve online, legion, mmorpg, nemesis, noctis, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

Not trusting a truce

I'm back and keen to know what's happening. Glorious leader Fin is here, which is good, but she's unresponsive, which isn't as good. Whilst I wait to get a response I warp across to our home system's static wormhole and jump in to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, looking for changes from earlier. A pod at the tower is a change, and positive one, as is a combat probe appearing on my directional scanner, although I can't tell if the probe is from a local source or a tourist coming in from the wormhole leading out to high-sec empire space. Neither, as it turns out, as Fin is responsible for having launched the probe, which I find out when she notices my arrival.

The pod at the tower disappears after having done nothing I can discern, shortly to be replaced by a Viator. The transport ship's pilot is a new contact, the vector of the Viator's entrance in to the tower clearly showing it not having come via the wormhole to high-sec. A new pilot could mean activity, but I am progressively coming to the conclusion that some capsuleers come on-line simply to tease other capsuleers in to thinking something will happen, this one adding to my growing body of empirical data. As Fin needs another short break I pass the time watching the Viator and hoping he makes himself vulnerable in a particularly stupid way, but the biggest move the transport ship makes is a slight axis correction, probably little more than space dust bumping in to the ship, before heading off-line again. Thanks for joining us, Viator pilot.

At least Fin's back again, which means we can collapse our static wormhole connecting the home system to this dreary C3, without even any decent sites to plunder, and look for better opportunities. We board Orca and Widow, the industrial command ship and black ops ship pairing shown to be generally efficient at killing our wormhole, but this time an Onyx heavy interdictor has to be pushed through twice as well, the wormhole being a little on the chubby side. But soon enough we have empty space where the wormhole had ripped through to another system, and I am scanning again for the new connection that has opened up elsewhere. I also confirm that no other wormholes have appeared before guiding Fin to the wormhole and jumping through to explore another class 3 system.

I have a tower on d-scan but no ships, which is a fairly common sight. Launching probes and blanketing the system gives us loads of anomalies to plow through, but more interesting is the ship and drones near the centre of the system. Thoughts of having a capsuleer to fight instead of Sleepers slip through my fingers when I warp in d-scan range of the ship, seeing it to be an Anathema covert operations boat, the drones ECM variants, and a second tower to be present. Sure enough, the Anathema is unpiloted in the tower and the drones are elsewhere, not even in an anomaly. Whatever combat there may have been it was a while ago.

The lack of other pilots gives us opportunity again to shoot Sleepers, although it is best to check for other connections to try to prevent any surprises. I sift through the twelve signatures in the system for signs of wormholes, happy to find a fat signature on the edge of the system that looks just like a static exit to low-sec empire space to me. And if only that's all there was to find, but my probes return a second wormhole, which feels like a K162, and then third wormhole, that last one being the only other signature in the system that is likely to be a wormhole. I ignore the rest of the weak signatures for now as inconsequential, as we have connections to investigate.

The signature I supposed was the exit to low-sec is indeed just that. The K162 turns out to be a K162 as well, this one from class 4 w-space. Spider-sense tingling, I predict the third resolved wormhole to be an N968 outbound connection to further class 3 w-space, and I'm right again. I may be getting the hang of this scanning lark, and not a moment too soon after having spent a couple of years relying on it for survival in w-space. I'm also assuming that the C4 was opened a while back and may be the source of the ECM drones, launched to evade an attack by other capsuleers, whereas the N968 may not have been active when they were here. The C4 will be quiet, C3b is unknown.

As Fin heads in to explore C3b I jump out of w-space to at least note the exit system, if only for insurance purposes in case circumstances turn against us, and bookmark the wormhole in the Khanid region. I don't scan but jump back and warp across C3a to explore the connected class 4 system. Jumping in has three towers and no ships on d-scan, a d-scan result that has only three moons visible. Opening the system map makes the C4 look more familiar, as the system is small and there's nowhere to hide, although I think I've encountered two similar systems so I can't be sure I've been here before. My notes remove all doubt, reminding me that I was here three months ago, with the same three towers listed. All is quiet, I jump back to the C3.

Fin found four ships in the second class 3 w-space system, all of them unpiloted and floating inside the force field of a tower. It looks like we have buffer systems to either side of our neighbouring C3, which whilst not as safe as no other connections at least puts more space between us and other pilots. We both head home, swapping scanning boats for our Sleeper Tengu strategic cruisers, and jump back to the C3 to start making profit from the death and destruction of the local population. We rip through one anomaly and move to the second, where we get to the final wave of ships only to see a Buzzard covert operations boat appear on d-scan. Judging by the ship's name the boat is local, but even if it means he is alone his knowledge of the system could make him just as deadly as a scout for a fleet. I initiate the warp command and get Fin and myself home immediately.

The question remains of whether we loot and salvage, but it is an easy question for Fin to answer. 'Yes', she says, matter-of-factly. It's just one ship so far and there are two of us, and it would be unfortunate to have spent so much time this evening with nothing to show for our efforts. So Fin dusts off her Noctis salvager and I board a pointy ship to provide protection. Of course, my recent engagement is still in mind, having viewed the situation from the other point-of-view, but hopefully we aren't quite so reckless in our approach. As it turns out, the local pilot tells us that he sees we are ratting and that he'll leave us to it.

That's a kind sentiment, but if only capsuleers were trustworthy, particularly those in lawless space. It may be that he is only here for the gas or ore mining, and that he is happy for us to take advantage of the available anomalies. The problem is that we cannot really tell the difference between a noble gesture and an underhand tactic. Sadly, it's best to expect the worst. Still, it is through this adversity we learn to cooperate to the fullest, to trust each other and put our clones in the hands of our colleagues. The consequences of lawless space aren't all bad.

As it turns out we are not ambushed and Fin returns home safely with a little over thirty million ISK in loot, which is a relatively poor return for our time. But we both get home safely, and we have a little more ISK to keep us going, which is positive result. And, with that, we settle down to get some sleep.

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Tags: anathema, buzzard, eve online, mmorpg, noctis, onyx, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, sleepers, tengu, viator, w-space, widow

Scanning and selling stolen Sleeper loot

I'm only planning on a quick poke around w-space tonight, but I don't even leave the home system. Fin's around and has finished her training in black ops ships to give us more Widow powers, and she pootles around in one of the two we have in our hangar. It looks good on her. We end up shooting the breeze for a bit, talking about what's been happening, and I regale her of yesterday's tale of the interlopers; I'll be eating off that story for a while. Whilst we chat I scan. The two remaining anomalies are joined by some rocks, which I activate, and two magnetometric sites, along with our static wormhole. I don't visit the connection but keep it closed, happy just to catch up and float in space for tonight. There will be another wormhole tomorrow.

Maybe tomorrow never comes, but today is a new day. I'm hoping the wormhole I scanned previously is still present and inactive but it looks like Shev's made use of it. That's not a problem, I'd be scanning the home system anyway, as a defensive measure as much as anything, and it is a simple matter to resolve the new connection. Jumping in to our neighbouring class 3 system has a tower visible on my directional scanner, which must be anchored to one of the four moons around the only planet in scanning range. I launch probes and blanket the system, whilst I look for the tower here to make an appropriate bookmark for reference.

Finding the tower is easy, as I was in this C3 seven months ago and it hasn't moved since then. I can concentrate instead on scanning, not that two anomalies and two signatures demand much concentration. I bookmark the anomalies, note the signature identifier of the K162 home, and resolve the system's static exit to high-sec empire space. Jumping to high-sec puts me in a mighty convenient location, one hop from Amarr, where NPCs like to buy Sleeper loot and capsuleers like to trade. It looks like a good time to liquidate all the stolen loot I've accumulated.

I jump back to w-space and warp homewards, seeing an unsurprising lack of change for my having only left this dead system a minute ago. I stow my scouting strategic cruiser in favour of a Crane transport ship and throw all of the stolen loot and salvage in to its hold, making the transport rather more expensive than outward appearances would suggest. It is a simple journey across our home system and one external w-space system back to high-sec, where no one loiters on the wormhole, and one hop through a stargate puts me in Amarr. I dock and sell all the loot, plumping up the corporation wallet by a handy 750 million ISK.

I get the feeling I should be buying something whilst out of w-space and in such a convenient system in empire space, but I don't know what. The tower has enough stock of fuel, although I suppose it wouldn't harm to get more, particularly when we could find ourselves exiting to Aridia for the next two months, but I've only recently made a fuel run and don't fancy running logistics as such. I settle for picking up a few skill books, which maybe I'll inject in a fortnight's time and maybe I won't.

Training has stalled somewhat and I'm looking for a new direction, particularly as the previous plan has fallen through for now, but a new ship slightly the same as the last may not be enough to maintain my interest. It's best to keep the skill points ticking over, though, and new options at least give me something to consider. And, for now, that's all I'm getting up to. Taking the Crane home through the quiet C3 is uninspiring for any continued exploration, leaving me to part and get a sammich.

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Tags: crane, eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, w-space

Profiting from other's efforts

Intruder alert, intruder alert! I wake up on the outskirts of our home w-space system as is usual, cloaking immediately in my covert Tengu strategic cruiser, and all looks normal. I launch scanning probes, throw them out of the system, and warp to a spot within directional scanner range of the inner system as I arrange my probes to scan for new signatures, keeping them out of scanner range as much out of habit as a precaution against visitors. I can't remember the last time I was actually present when an unfamiliar fleet was actively engaging Sleepers in our system, but I know that it's happening now. I don't need my scanning probes to show me the ships, d-scan has the two Tengus and two Dominix battleships well in range, my probes simply confirm those four ships comprise the entirety of the fleet.

The intruding fleet is engaging Sleepers, stealing our loot. My probes show a diminished number of anomalies already, although d-scan only picks up wrecks from one site. I imagine they took a break, which I later realise was to salvage the wrecks before they disintegrated in space, and are starting afresh. The pilots are certainly taking advantage of the profit available to them. I'm glad glorious leader Fin turned up yesterday and we decided to realise some of the profit ourselves, blasting our way through a mere two anomalies before connection issues halted what could have been a rampage through many more. Just those two anomalies netted us a little under two hundred million ISK in loot and salvage, I can only imagine what the intruders are raking in.

I ensure I know which site the fleet is in and follow their progress, watching only on d-scan for now as I don't want to accidently bump off a structure, wreck, or ship and decloak to give my presence away. When the fleet clears the anomaly and moves on, and after the anomaly despawns to leave only the wrecks, I warp in behind them to reconnoitre the site. I make a pair of bookmarks, one that lets me sit at a range distant enough so I can warp to any of the wrecks, another of a wreck itself to give me a definite point I can always warp to. And then I sit at the first bookmark, the one distant from the carnage, and gaze upon all the lovely loot that will be filling other pilots' wallets. It seems like such a waste.

I'm not merely being maudlin, though. I make these bookmarks and keep myself hidden because I plan to ambush their salvager. The fleet clearly isn't salvaging as they shoot, and a Noctis salvager isn't obviously in the system, as my combat scanning probes don't pick up the extra ship, but the loot will have to be collected at some point. I wait in the first site in case the fleet's salvager is holding in the home system for an all-clear signal, but as the fleet fights on it seems more likely that the wrecks will be left until the fleet finishes, whenever that may be. And it may be a while. As I noted, plenty of anomalies have already disappeared, so unless we've had two roaming fleets pass through in the past eighteen hours these pilots are dedicated to their task. Having taken one break to salvage and then come back for more combat indicates they'll probably clear more than a couple of anomalies.

The fleet moves from the second anomaly to a third, with still no sign of a salvager, and so I wait for the second site to despawn and create a similar pair of bookmarks as to the first, making sure I am prepared for whatever order the sites will be salvaged in. I suppose I could try to spook the pilots, let my combat scanning probes slip in to d-scan range, but I don't know how the fleet would react. Maybe they'll retreat and not return to the system, which would keep most of our anomalies intact but deny me a shot at a salvager. And, to be honest, we're not likely to plunder most of these sites anyway, and I think I'd be content to trade them for popping another Noctis. There is also the point that if the fleet thinks they are threatened they probably won't send out a vulnerable salvager alone and unguarded, which would make any potential ambush more uncertain. I'm better remaining hidden, and here I have the advantage of appearing in the system. There are no new wormholes to give away my entrance, neither would a scout sitting outside our tower realise a new contact has appeared. If I have the patience, I have an excellent opportunity.

Another anomaly is cleared and the fleet disappears. I check the location of available anomalies and note that one is on the edge of the system and out of d-scan range of the inner planets. I warp out there to confirm that the fleet is continuing their combat, which they are, and haven't left the system, before I reconnoitre the third anomaly to make my bookmarks. I warp back to the edge of the system to keep tabs on the fleet, when I see a combat scanning probe on d-scan for the first time. I think I know what that's for, which if I'm right makes these pilots quite cunning. Happy that the fleet is shooting Sleepers I return to loiter in the first completed anomaly, in case a salvage appears unexpectedly, and mull over the presence of the probe. The fleet is now out of d-scan range of their completed sites and can no longer rely on d-scan to protect their spoils. In some circumstances I would be tempted to start looting the wrecks whilst they couldn't see me, indirectly showing my presence but at least making some good iskies. But with a combat scanning probe keeping an eye on the system the fleet can detect any new ships, warping back to shoo away looters if necessary. I remain hidden.

I make a new contact on d-scan, what I take to be a covert Tengu appearing briefly. It has been named 'core scanning probe', which is cute but doesn't fool me, and combined with its short time on d-scan makes me think it is covertly configured. If that is part of the intruding fleet it could pose problems, particularly if it intends to shadow their salvager. I won't worry about it for now, but keep it in mind. A second appearance on d-scan of the cloaky Tengu comes and goes, and still the fleet fights on. I imagine it's one of their ships, and the double showing suggests jumping in and out of the system, which are fair assumptions. But the fleet disappears, almost in a blink of an eye. And there, on d-scan, is another Tengu, this one with a strangely familiar name. Cotillion sounds like one of our ships, but I remain the sole member of our corporation in this system at the moment. I can't remember if that is Shev's ship or not, but it soon disappears too and whether it was a shadow or glitch I can't say. Either way, the fleet saw it too and it was enough to have them scuttling home, the anomaly they had moved to barely started. I wonder what will happen now.

Still sitting at range in the first cleared anomaly I wait and watch d-scan carefully. I would be surprised if the fleet left all of this loot behind, after all their invested time, and I would be equally surprised if they sent in an unguarded Noctis, so I watch d-scan not only for an approaching salvager but also any other ships that enter the system. I still haven't scanned and so cannot sit on the wormhole watching transits directly, but even a covert ship is visible for a few seconds before its cloak regains integrity. I just need to be vigilant. Oh splendid, there's a Noctis entering the system now. This is perhaps where it gets complicated, as I need to work out where the Noctis is heading, which may involve using the system map and a narrow-beam d-scan, whilst also trying to keep an eye on ships following behind the salvager. As luck would have it, it's all nice and easy. The Noctis warps nice and predictably to the first anomaly, appearing right in front of me and clearly on my overview, and d-scan picks up a Nemesis stealth bomber entering the system before cloaking.

I'm not quite sure I can believe that. A fleet of four is only going to send a single stealth bomber to guard its Noctis and, by extension, all of their unrealised profit for the evening? D-scan shows me no other ships, and I've been watching closely. Regardless, I want to strike the Noctis hard and fast. The Nemesis appeared after the Noctis, which is also a curious decision, giving me a small window when I can attack before the bomber even reaches this site to act as unseen protection. I warp in to get close to the salvager, and decloak and burn towards the ship as I get my weapon systems hot. I get a positive target lock, disrupt the ship's warp engines, and start shooting. It's an easy kill, my missiles shredding the industrial ship's shields and armour, until it pops and ejects the pilot's pod.

Catching the pod is normally more difficult, as they are supremely agile and can enter warp almost in a moment. But there is a brief sensation of disorientation, as a pilot is ripped from the links of their ship, and today it works in my favour. I lock the pod of the salvager, stop it from warping away, and start shooting. It may be brutal, but it's what I do. And as I start cracking open the pod the Nemesis appears, not in time to save the salvager but perhaps still hoping to make a difference. The stealth bomber locks on to my Tengu and starts firing. I don't even blink. I knew the Nemesis was around and although I can't say I was expecting his appearance, as a stealth bomber versus a strategic cruiser seems a little one-sided to me, I am certainly not surprised. I return the target lock and, as the salvaging pilot turns in to a frozen corpse, move my warp disruptor over to bomber, along with the rest of my weapon systems. He graciously appeared at just the right time to give me a second target.

Torpedoes from the Nemesis all but bounce off my shields, barely scratching my ship's defences. My heavy assault missiles, on the other hand, are ripping through the Nemesis. The pilot realises the error in his ways and backs off, trying to get out of range of my warp disruptor, but I counter his movement and am able to catch up and haul him back. The Nemesis is deep in to structure damage when I get his velocity back to a crawl, unable to break free, and the small ship explodes in beautiful blue flames. I aim for the second pod I have got thrown out to space today, and snare this one too. A few more volleys of missiles is all it takes to have a second corpse appear on my overview.

All the time during the attack I've been checking d-scan for signs of more ships entering the system, but none came that I could see. Indeed, with the death of the Nemesis's pilot I am left alone in this cleared anomaly, and I have time to scoop the corpses, and loot and shoot and wrecks of the Nemesis and Noctis, the latter now over twenty kilometres behind me after the short chase. Once my formalities are complete I re-activate my cloak and sit once again in a monitoring position, watching for changes and reflecting on the fight. I am still amazed the fleet sent only a sole stealth bomber to protect their salvager, particularly after being spooked by a Tengu. I am also surprised that the Nemesis attacked, although I admire his spirit for doing so. I would at least have expected a bomb assault, even though it is rather indiscriminate and would have harmed the Noctis and destroyed some wrecks, but the Nemesis was fitted with a probe launcher instead. But I am immensely pleased with the result. Popping and podding the salvager, and his protection, is more than I thought I'd achieve tonight.

That still leaves the wrecks. There are five cleared anomalies full of loot and salvage to recover. I wouldn't be surprised if a second salvager was sent out, one rather more hardy and with a more threatening guard, but perhaps the fleet of four now being reduced to half-strength prevents them trying to get their spoils, or at least is strongly discouraging. That could mean I could loot the wrecks myself, but just because they aren't going to claim it doesn't mean they won't try to stop anyone else from getting it. I watch d-scan nervously for a while, wondering if more cloaky ships will enter the system to get revenge should anyone try to steal from the wrecks, but all I see is a Buzzard covert operations boat. I don't know if he's come to monitor me, head out to empire space to guide the new clones home, or, as I only consider later, is actually the fleet's scout heading home for the night. I see no other ships enter or leave the system.

A lack of wormhole transits doesn't mean the system is safe, particularly when I'm only monitoring them passively using d-scan. But it all looks quiet, and it would be criminal to let all that profit simply disintegrate in to space dust. With a little trepidation I warp to our tower for the first time this evening, stow the Tengu for my Cormorant salvaging destroyer, and head out to the start stealing back the waiting loot. I don't head for the first anomaly immediately, although I am aware of the approaching two-hour limit for those wrecks, as I don't want to be quite so easy to find if anyone is looking. Salvaging in w-space can be worrying at the best of times, more so when an attack is known to have taken place. I suppose I was the attacker and should feel safe, but I am constantly looking over my shoulder, and that's not easy when salvaging yellow wrecks.

My previous excursion in the Marquis of Granby was only recent, so I have a little practice with burning towards a wreck, looting and cycling salvager modules, and moving to the next yellow wreck, not being able to rely on tractor beams to help me. That was in a class 3 w-space anomaly, though, with fewer wrecks, although I suppose I had ambushed a salvager that night too. Even so, I feel more at threat tonight, because I am in my home system and not roaming elsewhere. I should feel safe here. I clear one anomaly of wrecks, and then a second before returning to the tower to empty my cargo hold of loot. I intended to do so after each site but entered warp to the next before I remembered my intentions and could cancel the warp command. It turned out okay, and I needed to return after the second because my destroyer's hold could carry no more.

I move on to the third and fourth sites, sweeping through the sometimes clustered, sometimes dispersed wrecks, making good use of the bookmarks I made two hundred kilometres out to quickly and safely traverse points fifty kilometres apart. I am updating d-scan as often as my salvaging allows, having to concentrate on finding an at least acceptable path between the wrecks, early on abandoning the idea of mentally calcuating an optimal one, plumping instead for a route that would take as little time as possible and doesn't double-back. Point towards the wreck, pulse the micro warp drive, activate salvagers, loot the hull, select the next targeted wreck, repeat. Target new wrecks along a suitable path if necessary. All the time I check d-scan, but all I see is the number of wrecks diminish.

I have bookmarks to five sites, but I only remember definitely looting four, once more calling in to question my ability to count to low numbers. But I loot and salvage all the wrecks I can find from each site I have bookmared, the only ones finally left being in the started but far-from-completed anomaly the intruders fled from, which resolutely defies to despawn for me to profit maximally. I can hardly complain. Not only do I have two ship kills and two new corpses for my collection, but my salvaging in the warm afterglow has brought back a rather impressive 450 million ISK in loot. That's pure profit, all from the anomalies in our home system, and all without firing a shot at a Sleeper. It has been quite an evening.

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Tags: buzzard, cormorant, dominix, eve online, mmorpg, nemesis, noctis, penny ibramovic, pvp, salvaging, tengu, w-space

Adding insult to injury

There is still an unfinished anomaly in our neighbouring class 3 w-space system. Glorious leader Fin and I didn't start it, but I happened to interrupt the combat, albeit indirectly. I managed to locate their Noctis salvager and steal the loot that survived its explosive end, causing the rest of the fleet to come and look threatening for a bit. I've come home to drop off the loot that I rightfully claimed, but I would like to know what's going to happen now.

Rather than head back to the C3 in my covert Tengu strategic cruiser I swap to a Manticore stealth bomber. The fleet is looking for and expecting the Tengu, and could prepare a counter-ambush should I strike again. But they may not be quite as prepared for the hit-and-run tactics of a bomber, flown properly. Hmm, that's a point, I haven't flown my Manticore properly for a while, but I'm sure it will all come back to me. Not today, though, as it looks like my ambush was more effective than I thought, jumping back in to the C3 seeing none of the combat ships on my directional scanner.

Actually, the disappearance of the ships strikes me as a little odd. The tower in this system is in range of d-scan, and there is still the Iteron hauler visible that has been present throughout, so I'm wondering where the other ships have gone. Of course, sometimes I'm not so bright, and it is only now I realise the ships have disappeared not because they've gone off-line en masse but because this isn't, in fact, their home system. A little scouting finds the local tower and confirms immediately that it belongs to a different corporation than the one I engaged. That would explain where they've all gone: home.

The ships have left the unfinished anomaly behind them, with quite a few Sleeper wrecks floating unclaimed. I am tempted to grab the loot from some of them, at least the two battleships, which would net me a tidy little prize, as long as I don't panic and get my Manticore destroyed by Sleepers. Oh, hullo, there's little risk of that, as the anomaly isn't actually unfinished, it has been cleared. I had the presence of mind to locate and bookmark the anomaly the fleet had been fighting in before I took my Noctis loot home, and warping to that position has me floating amongst wrecks but no threats. If they're not coming back, and it has been a fair while, I could have all this myself.

I head home and swap ships again, this time to a salvaging destroyer. A Noctis would do little good here, tractor beams not able to pull wrecks belonging to an unallied corporation and so the salvaging ship's bonuses would go to waste. The bonuses to salvager module cycle time would be a benefit, and a Noctis fitted with a micro warp drive is no slouch, but I would prefer the agility of a destroyer, a quick escape probably of better utility in this situation. I take Marxian Principles, my Cormorant from long ago, to our static wormhole, jump to the C3, and take a careful look at d-scan.

There is no change from when I left. The tower, the Iteron, nothing else. If the other corporation has come back it is not with a salvager, and they would be evil geniuses deserving of my kill if they are guarding their wrecks against my salvaging. I warp in to the site, directly to a wreck I bookmarked when I reconnoitred the despawned anomaly in my Manticore, and get busy. I loot the wrecks and salvage, having to burn between each one, which gives me some perverse pleasure in trying to find the most efficient route to take to visit each wreck in turn, and the profit piles up in my cargo hold.

I am keeping an eye on d-scan as I salvage, and it's lucky I do. Only too late do I realise that my shortest-path between the wrecks is not a maximum-profit effort, and stopping to scoop some basic drones was probably pointless, although I think I've coincidentally managed to loot and salvage the battleship wrecks by the time a Harbinger appears in the system. I am down to two final wrecks when d-scan shows me the battlecruiser, and rather than continue my path towards the next wreck I align out of the anomaly. He could be from the ambushed corporation coming to salvage, or he could be local and appearing at the tower. I'm not taking any chances.

The Harbinger warps in to the anomaly, close to my Cormorant but not much of a threat. Before his warp drives cut out mine are engaged, and I am heading back to the K162 home. He may have been there only to salvage but must have had some offensive systems fitted, and probably a fleet waiting to provide assistance should my Tengu be flushed out again. I get to the K162 safely, jump home, and drop the additional and beautiful thirty million ISK in stolen loot in to our hangar. Had I been more prepared I could have instead warped to the planet holding the local tower and bounced off that to the K162, to make it look to the Harbinger like I was local. Warping directly to the wormhole gives away more information than necessary, but it doesn't matter. Popping a Noctis, spooking a fleet, and stealing more of their loot is a good result of an evening.

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Tags: cormorant, eve online, harbinger, iteron, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, w-space

A cloaked ship is not a safe ship

This is more like it. Combat ships, drones, and wrecks, all on my directional scanner. There are industrial ships and a tower as well, but who cares. A little w-space constellation spread out from a hub of a class 3 system connects in to our home system today, which has already given me five systems to explore and scout. I found some pilots but almost no activity in that direction, whereas jumping through our static wormhole has capsuleers shooting Sleepers and what I hope is an active Noctis salvager clearing up behind them. I don't examine d-scan too thoroughly for the moment, even to the extent of ignoring how many combat ships are out there, concentrating instead on completing a passive scan of the system as quickly as possible to try to locate my prey.

Only six anomalies are in this C3, making locating the Noctis rather swift. He's by himself in an anomaly, salvaging the wrecks his colleagues have made of the Sleepers, whilst presumably the combat rages on elsewhere. I'd look if I were concerned about being caught in a counter-attack, but rarely do fleets engaging Sleepers employ interceptors. Besides, I know how quickly a Noctis can salvage, and I'd rather catch him before the fleet decides they've had enough for the night, lest they linger in the final anomaly to protect their salvager. I can't have that.

I warp in to the anomaly, dropping far short so that I neither decloak on a Sleeper structure nor on a wreck, should the Noctis be forty kilometres away salvaging amongst a different clump. But it means I have to bounce out and back, to get in to the anomaly close enough to see my target but far enough to warp directly to him. On my first look only three wrecks remain, and none close to the Noctis. I can't really bookmark them as reference, and my puny brain doesn't register that I could bookmark the cosmic anomaly, which it looks like the Noctis is sitting on. I'll just have to wing it when I get back.

Damn the efficiency of the Noctis! I get back to the anomaly and sitting in warp range as he has the now-two remaining wrecks pulled in tight to his ship, and although they would normally offer me a beacon to warp to he has them locked by his targeting systems, which interferes with their warp signature. Something like that, but it means I can't warp on top of the ship, leaving me sitting here like a lemon. Ah, praise the efficiency of the Noctis! One of the wrecks is salvaged before the pilot can loot it, leaving a canister floating where the wreck used to be. A free-floating canister, my beacon to warp to.

I need no second invitation to get closer to the Noctis and I surge my covert Tengu strategic cruiser in to the heart of the site. However, I remain cautious. The site is salvaged, the Noctis may be moving to warp out to a safe position. Relative movement is difficult to discern when in warp and so I drop short of my target by ten kilometres, the minimum calibration of warp drives, just to make certain I don't decloak and give away my position only to see the Noctis warp clear. The good news is that he doesn't warp out. The bad news is that he cloaks instead.

I try to react quickly to the Noctis cloaking, my ship pointing directly towards it when dropping out of warp, but now gyroscopically righting itself to the ecliptic plane, maybe to stop the more squeamish capsuleers from accruing unwanted liquids, and bits of carrot, in their pods. I revert the corrections to my Tengu's attitude and request full speed ahead, hoping to bump the Noctis and reveal it once more. I wait as seconds pass and no ship is seen, pulse increasing in a fascinating way for having an empty overview, until the Noctis blinks on to my display once more. Game on.

I get my systems hot and target the salvager, disrupting its warp drive and loosing missiles to shred its shields and armour. I probably have an additional advantage here, the pilot perhaps considering himself safe when cloaked and perhaps not paying his normal amount of attention, or even in the back of the ship grabbing a drink, but when the ship pops explosively his pod manages to escape my clutches, warping freely away. I was only a split-second away from capturing him, though, and adding a new corpse to my collection. Instead, I loot and shoot the wreck of the Noctis, getting it in the right order this time, and cloak as—look out!—a Drake warps in to the anomaly.

The battlecruiser isn't close enough to my Tengu to cause any problems, but ships drop out of warp with huge deceleration and you can never quite tell where they'll end up at first blush. I pulse my micro warp drive as I cloak, giving me one cycle of full burn before it becomes unusable, and change to an arbitrary attitude. An attitude, as it turns out, that pushes me rather close to the second Drake that comes, seemingly tardily but probably as quickly as he could, to his colleague's aid. Rather than try to crawl away from the second battlecruiser out for vengeance, and still not knowing how many other ships will follow, I decide to warp out to be safe.

I bounce off the K162 home, dropping short to maintain my cloak's integrity, and warp back to the anomaly at my long-range position. Two Drakes and two Tengus had turned up by the time I was in warp, and now there are two Drakes, a Tengu, and a Maelstrom battleship. I think today I am lucky I didn't catch the pilot's pod, because if I had I may not have had time to crack it open before the fleet warped in, and if only one of them had a warp disruptor fitted I may not have escaped. As it turns out, I get the Noctis kill and have twenty million ISK of stolen loot in my hold as a reward. I think I'll drop that off at the tower, heading out of the C3 to do so.

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Tags: drake, eve online, maelstrom, mmorpg, noctis, penny ibramovic, pvp, tengu, w-space

Music of 2011, part three

After my previous collection of new music I felt a bit disappointed, and perhaps a little downhearted about my continuing search for good music. As it turns out, there is still plenty to be discovered, as long as I look in the right places. My third collection of mini-reviews of music I've bought this year finds me pretty happy.

I was more of an Amiga person in my teens, but new album Is This Hyperreal? by reformed Atari Teenage Riot gets my attention with a positive review in the NME. The machine-gun beats that open the album, in the single Activate, set the tone for a relentlessly angry and political album. There is penty to be angry about in contemporary society, all of which is elucidated well enough through the vocals and uncompromising music. The album's not an easy listen but it is engaging and worth investigating.

She Keeps Bees is another of my continuing attempts to find compelling music fronted by gorgeous female vocals. Having bees in the name of the band surely must be a positive sign, and debut album Dig On starts well enough. Saturn Return opens with some pleasant vocals backed only by a lightly strummed guitar, soon developing in to a dramatic burst of slow energy that eventually gives way to the more conventional-sounding and still thoroughly appealing second track Found You Out. The rather slow-paced songs continue throughout the album, emphasis created more by volume than tempo, which suits the gentle mix of guitar and drums and lets the vocals rest on top of the music. Most songs may be under three minutes in length, but this just means that each slice of mellow pop comes along sooner and keeps the rhythmic variety flowing. Dig On is just what I have been looking for.

Oh dear. I see some hints that Little Dragon, despite being Swedish, may be well-known and popular here. Hints like Ritual Union being their third album and not a debut, that they are playing an established venue with tickets not being bargain-priced, and they turn up on Later.... I fear that finding out about this lack of obscurity only after buying the album sounds the death-knell for my enjoying it, but even after listening to it with an artificially jaded ear I cannot help but like the electro-pop on offer, particularly on songs like the swinging Shuffle a Dream. It is jaunty, catchy, and the lead vocals are delicately pleasing. Everything seems understated and relaxed, calming even, despite having obvious pop overtones.

Love Inks have a great name, which is too often enough of a reason to pick up a debut album. So it is that I buy E.S.P. I am a little taken aback by the use of a drum machine, but I am not averse to a bit of electronica and once I listen past it to the melodies and vocals I am more than happy to relax and accept it as part of the sound, easily done when confronted by the gorgeous Leather Glove. The vocals are dreamy, guitars are suitably understated, and the songs catchy and tuneful. And just when you think everything may possibly be sounding a little too similar Love Inks pull out Rock On, somehow retaining all the familiar elements yet shifting the feel noticeably. Most songs are under three minutes long, the whole album coming in under twenty-seven minutes, but that simply makes each one a small gem that gets better with each listen. I'm really happy having bought the completely adorable E.S.P. It's almost as if I could sense I would be beforehand.

Razika are another Scandinavian band but, unlike Little Dragon, are not yet established, Program 91 being their debut album. This makes me more comfortable listening to the band, without the pressure of popularity showing its rather-too-conforming face. Straight away the pop of opening track Youth bounces along breezily, ska-influenced beats topped by vocal do-do-dos. Even when the lyrics are in Norwegian, first heard in third track Vondt I Hjertet and continued throughout the album, the enjoyment of the songs is not lessened by not understanding what's being said, although I more think I am listening to Gorky's Zygotic Mynki than a Norwegian band. Program 91 is full of good pop music, topped by a super voice, and containing enough variety within their basic sound to be a wonderful listen from start to end.

Uh oh. I buy Lights Out, debut album from Big Deal, on the strength of the review in the NME but a label on the cover of the CD has an endorsement by a major newspaper. That doesn't mean anything in itself, I suppose, even if I tend to avoid the mainstream as being mostly bland, and the lead guitar growling over the top of an acoustic guitar is a promising start to the album. The vocals are great too, the duo's voices complementing each other nicely, and it all combines well in to some enjoyable songs, if a little melancholy by design. But it seems there is only so much you can do with two voices and two guitars, which seems odd when Slow Club create so much more with sometimes less. Songs blend with each other along the length of the album, the band's sound itself not quite enough to distinguish them all clearly, but they each track is certainly good in isolation. Lights Out is a fair album and, even if the songs get a little repetitive by the end, Big Deal are a promising band.

Slow Club return with their second album Paradise, and it is a different breed to their debut. Where the first album was twee and intimate Paradise has matured and reaches out to a bigger audience, easily seen by the way that first track and single Two Cousins has successfully wormed its way in to my head after a few listens, making me come back for more. Slow Club still features primarily Charles on guitar and Rebecca on drums, and there are some reminders of where they came from in tracks like, poetically enough, Never Look Back, but even the stripped-down feel of these tracks have a more complex overall structure in the music and vocals. It is a stronger sound, less whimsical, and one that works very well once accepted. And it's good to see how Gold Mountain fits in to the Slow Club oeuvre, having stood out before in the live set as being different it can now be seen to bridge the old and new. Paradise is a great evolution of Slow Club.

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Tags: atari teenage riot, big deal, cd, little dragon, love inks, razika, she keeps bees, slow club

A bevy of systems behind us

The home system looks quiet again. So much time alone at the moment, it could drive a person to space madness. I'd better find some company, maybe bring back a fresh corpse for another tea party. Scanning finds a second signature today as well, and it's not more gas but an extra connection to class 3 w-space. Naturally, the wormhole is a K162 and not outbound, but it's more space to explore. I resolve but don't visit our static wormhole, and jump through the K162 to start this evening's adventure in w-space.

I'll call this system C3b, even though it is the first I visit. I think it makes more sense to give naming priority to the system beyond our static wormhole, for consistency of expectation and to avoid confusion. C3b looks inactive. There are two towers visible on my directional scanner but no hangars, and adjusting my settings sees no force fields either, so they are both off-line. I launch probes and blanket the system as I check my notes for previous visits. Would you look at that, apparently I popped and podded a Helios covert operations boat with my Malediction interceptor on my last visit six months ago. A rare occasion indeed, but I was chasing the Helios through a system that remains unoccupied, and with no ships present it looks like I won't have a repeat performance tonight.

The static wormhole for this class 3 w-space system leads to null-sec k-space, learnt from my previous visit, which doesn't particularly make me want to see it. But as I passed through a K162 to an unoccupied system there is a good chance there is another K162 for me to find, and I start sifting through the twelve signatures looking for it. It will be easy to ignore the K346 intentionally, as the C3-to-null-sec wormhole has a weak signature, letting me focus on the much stronger K162s. And it looks like I've found two, close together, but looks can be deceiving. One of the wormholes is a K162, from class 5 w-space, the other is an N968 outbound connection to further class 3 w-space. A third wormhole is a second N968, and a fourth is a K162 from class 2 w-space. I don't need no stinking null-sec connection.

I have plenty of options for further exploration, two connections here potentially coming from occupied systems, two others leading to hopefully unsuspecting capsuleers going about their planet goo collection. My first stop is the C2, through a K162, looking for softer targets in the lowest-class w-space. The system looks quiet from the wormhole, although some warp bubbles on d-scan suggest occupation, and launching probes and blanketing the system will be the quickest way of looking for ships. I see six in total, in two different locations. There could be two towers or one tower and a fleet out shooting Sleepers. I'm going to find out.

Sadly, there are two towers in the C2. Three, in fact, but around two different planets. At least there are pilots present, an Anathema cov-ops, Nighthawk command ship, and Noctis salvager piloted in one tower, with an empty Orca industrial command ship floating with them. The second tower has only empty ships, a Drake battlecruiser and Buzzard cov-ops boat not worth monitoring at the moment. The Nighthawk and Noctis piloted together look promising, almost like the pilots are about to shoot Sleepers in the system. Or maybe having finished shooting Sleepers, as there is little movement here. But that's okay, the results of my blanket scan let me bookmark all the anomalies here and I can move on to another system, returning if I find nothing else of interest.

I move on, but don't quite make it out of the C2 before I see a ship out of a tower. The Anathema I just left behind has overtaken me in warp and landed on the wormhole, making me glad I rarely warp to zero when scouting. He jumps to the C3 and I wait, long enough for the cov-ops to cloak and warp away but perhaps not long enough for him to have finished launching scanning probes, and I follow, hoping to catch him tangled amongst his probes and unable to cloak. All I see in the C3 is empty space. I hold my session change cloak and update d-scan, waiting to see any sign that the Anathema has moved away from the wormhole, but none comes. I am compelled to move and cloak myself, and it's only once I am twenty kilometres from the wormhole that the Anathema reappears, jumping back to the C2.

Maybe the cov-ops pilot was cloaked on the wormhole the whole time and saw my Tengu leave his system, letting him warn his colleagues of a strategic cruiser on the prowl, or maybe he warped away to reconnoitre the C3 for activity and warped back. It's hard to tell what a cloaked ship is doing. It's probably best I assume the worst and that the C2 pilots know I'm around, which is a bit of a shame, but I have three more systems to explore here. I choose the first N968 I resolved here and warp to and jump through the wormhole to what I dub C3c. Again the system looks quiet until my scanning probes show me five ships around a far planet, which turn out to be four piloted Drakes and an unpiloted Orca all sitting in a tower. They're not moving either, and less so than the pilots in the C2 with their roving Anathema, so I bookmark the three anomalies here and again move on.

Back in C3b I head towards the other N968 and jump to C3d, where from the wormhole d-scan shows me a tower and no ships. It's also a small system, leaving nowhere to hide, and there are only three moons. I can scout everything from where I sit, performing a passive scan to bookmark the six anomalies present and sweeping d-scan around on a narrow beam to locate which of the three moons the tower's anchored to. Then I jump back to the C3 and warp across to the second K162 and jump in to the class 5 w-space system. This C5 is similar to C3d, with two towers, no ships, and nowhere to hide. I don't look for the towers, neither even bothering to scan for anomalies, instead merely jumping back to C3b.

I could be scanning these systems, looking for further wormholes or exits to k-space that would offer additional opportunities to scan, but I'm merely making a first pass at the constellation at the moment. I am more likely to have a successful engagement in w-space, and the only wormholes I'm guaranteed to find in the C2 and both C3s are exits to k-space, where I'd have to spend more time scanning before maybe finding more w-space, and the C5 may not have any more wormholes to find at all. I believe time is of the essence when looking for action, and quickly reconnoitring each system lets me find occupation, pilots, and anomalies without spending any significant time scanning useless gravimetric sites in unoccupied systems.

As it turns out, not much is happening. But there is potential. All four systems connecting to this C3, not counting our own, hold occupation and two of them have piloted ships. There may not be anything happening now but there could be soon, and I am now in a much better position to act, even without having the exit wormholes covered. Having said that, nothing happening now isn't much help at the moment, but instead of sitting outside one of the two towers with pilots I can always head in the other direction. The class 3 w-space system through our static wormhole is still to be explored.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on A bevy of systems behind us
Tags: anathema, buzzard, drake, eve online, mmorpg, nighthawk, noctis, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, tengu, w-space