A distinct lack of shooting

I've had my sammich, now let's see if the w-space constellation is as full as my belly. All is clear in the home system so, after my earlier exploration, I'll take my Manticore stealth bomber out for a roam. It's more agile, harder hitting, and quicker locking than my covert Tengu strategic cruiser, as well as being cheaper to lose, although having significantly weaker defences makes losing it more possible. But if I don't have to scan I think I prefer running around in the Manticore, so out I go to our neighbouring class 3 system.

There is no change in the C3 from earlier, making it occupied but empty, and I warp across and jump through a K162 to class 2 w-space. I saw scanning probes in this C2 before I left for food, so I'm hoping to find some activity. And, sure enough, there is a Drake visible on my directional scanner, along with Sleeper wrecks. Despite the activity, however, I am not expecting much of an encounter here. The Drake is probably a tourist from high-sec empire space, come in through the wormhole connecting the w-space system to Dodixie, and as such is probably salvaging as he goes. On top of that, he's in a Drake, the passive tank of the battlecruiser being rather difficult to break. Never the less, I'll find him to assess the situation.

Locating the Drake is almost trivial, there being only two anomalies and a gravimetric site in this C2. I warp in to one of the anomalies to get eyes on the battlecruiser, finding a curious situation. The Drake is entirely stationary. I suppose that isn't terribly odd in itself, but he is not shooting and neither are the Sleepers, although the Sleeper cruisers are making lazy circles in space some distance away from the capsuleer. It's like watching gazelle frolic near a sleeping lion. Or maybe sharks ignoring a baby seal, it's hard to tell. I have to check that my own systems are working properly, as I don't recall seeing a capsuleer's ship being so close to Sleepers before without being actively engaged.

The Drake is a tourist, most likely from high-sec but definitely not from this C2. He's also a statue at the moment. Is this bait? If he is, I don't see who he is trying to goad in to attacking, and although I can check the high-sec side of the wormhole here, where I see no ships loitering with intent, it is difficult to check through the hundreds of pilots in Dodixie's local channel for any affiliated with the Drake. A clear wormhole probably just means the Drake's stopped paying attention for a moment, which is rather careless. If I were in a different ship I'd take a shot at his stationary ship, but I'm not sure which ship would be best. Just not my Manticore.

I ponder my options for my potential assault and decide on a command ship, wanting some firepower and survivability against the inevitable Sleeper attack, but as I am about to turn around from watching the Drake in the anomaly the battlecruiser beats me to it. His engines fire up and he aligns out of the site, in the direction of the wormhole to high-sec, cruises for a short while, and enters warp. I follow him out of the anomaly, seeing him jump back to Dodixie, and hold my position. I can do nothing out in high-sec except spook the pilot if he sees me jump or loiter on the wormhole, and I'm more interested to see if he comes back. Yes, 'if'.

Whatever the Drake was doing he obviously had to stop, returning only long enough to get his ship safely out of w-space. But another ship decloaks at the wormhole to get my attention, a Helios covert operations boat sitting on top of the wormhole long enough to be making a bookmark before jumping out. Maybe when he sees the exit leads directly to Dodixie he'll bring a hauler through packed with Sleeper loot to sell, hopefully from the C3 so I can catch him in-between w-space systems. Or maybe I won't see him again either.

Instead of the Helios returning another new contact appears, this pilot in a Probe frigate some 250 km above the wormhole, which is curious. Probes can't warp whilst cloaked, which makes me wonder how he got so far from the wormhole in the first place, particularly in a direction not in line with any celestial object. His position suggests he's been in this C2 for quite a while, either sitting patiently at that position or getting there very slowly indeed under normal speed, further reduced by the cloaking device. The frigate launches scanning probes and cloaks again, and even if I had the crazy idea of crawling up to try to decloak him the Probe has shifted positions, making any attempt futile anyway.

On reflection, I would say that the Probe has indeed been there for a while and is keeping a careful watch on the system. Maybe he wasn't so much launching scanning probes as re-launching them, his previous ones almost having perished before being recalled. I don't really know what he is up to, but as his probes disappear immediately, suggesting a blanket scanning configuration that keeps the probes out of d-scan range of the system, it seems likely he's keeping tabs on all ships and signatures in the system. But whatever he's up to I'm not going to catch him, and there's no sign of either the Helios or Drake returning, and the class 3 w-space behind me remains empty. I think I'll call it an early night.

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Tags: drake, eve online, helios, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, probe, w-space

Starting with scanning, selling, and stocking

I'm out for some early reconnaissance, looking to map the w-space constellation before others wake up and blithely warp around in haulers made of little more than tinfoil. It's interesting to find a second wormhole in the home system today, until I warp to it and see it is merely the decaying connection of a K162 from class 5 w-space, no doubt the wormhole used by yesterday's late-night interlopers. And with that reminder I am pleased to see all of our anomalies still present, the Sleepers still waiting to be ripped in to profitable little chunks of loot. There's nothing else of note at home, so I resolve and jump through our static wormhole to the class 3 system beyond.

There are some big ships in this system, as viewed from afar using my directional scanner. A pair of carriers in the form of an Archon and Thanatos are the biggest hulls I can see, but two battleships, a heavy interdictor, and a recon ship are also somewhere here, probably inside the local tower, if the lack of wrecks in the system is any indication. My last visit here was ten months earlier, which seems like a while ago but getting carriers in to a class 3 w-space system may mean the locals are quite settled. I have two towers listed in my notes, one still being in the same place and holding all the ships, none of them piloted, the second out of d-scan range. Warping to look for it finds nothing, giving me a single tower to monitor and no pilots obviously in the system. It's time to scan.

Ten anomalies mirror ten signatures, which for a C3 with two carriers available makes me think the corporation isn't terribly active. Systems with even a single carrier available often have no sites at all to pillage, in my experience. And with all the rocks, rocks, rocks, rocks here I don't think they're miners either. A couple of gas clouds also get in my way of scanning before, like buses, three wormholes turn up on the trot. What I find is promising, even if the static exit to low-sec empire space is boringly at the end of its natural lifetime and a second wormhole is a dull K162 from null-sec, as I also resolve a K162 from class 2 w-space. I like that.

I ignore the other two wormholes for now and jump in to explore the C2. I have a Nighthawk command ship, Orca industrial command ship, Magnate frigate, and Exequror cruiser on d-scan, which I find all unpiloted inside a tower. That's not too depressing, as I'm only scouting for now with an aim to surprise them later. And this corporation looks busier, the C2 itself holding only two anomalies and four signatures, giving me one gravimetric site full of rocks and three wormholes. One is the static connection to class 3 w-space I came through, the other static wormhole for this C2 leads out to high-sec but is reaching the end of its life, and the third is another high-sec connection, this one a K162 and stable. I exit w-space through the stable connection to see where it takes me.

Yesterday's exit from w-space may have been close to Dodixie but today's is Dodixie. That's rather convenient, a little too convenient to ignore. Instead of considering my scouting expedition complete I feel I must take advantage of this connection, and soon, whilst the systems remain quiet. I head straight back to the home w-space system, swap my covert strategic cruiser for a spacious and relatively safe Bustard transport ship, and head out to market. As luck would have it, the last convenient exit I used for selling Sleeper loot put me close to Dodixie too, so the expired contract from our missing industrialist is right on our w-space doorstep. As well as buying fuel and other supplies I can inflate our wallet a bit.

I retrieve the uncollected Sleeper salvage and put it up for sale on the general market instead of recontracting it. As it happens, there seems to be a buyer with a good price for the salvage, maybe because of competition for the items or maybe I just don't know what a good price is, and the corporation wallet gets a decent boost. I feel much more comfortable buying further fuel stocks now, although this ISK will only last for so long. I stuff the Bustard's hold full of tower fuel and head back to w-space, happy to see the C2 and C3 staying quiet. I could probably make a second trip, particularly as my efforts to balance the stored fuel are crude enough to create an imbalance that could be levelled out a bit.

I take the Bustard out again, but get as far as the C2 before getting stopped on the wormhole. Core scanning probes are on d-scan, and although they may not detect my ship directly the scout could see me leave the system to high-sec and be waiting for my return. I don't see the point in taking such an unnecessary risk and simply turn the transport around, jumping immediately back to the C3 and returning home. I'd still like to return to empire space briefly, if only to buy a couple of skill books for a diversion in my training plan, but I'll take a different ship. My stealth bomber should suffice, being able to warp cloaked and agile enough to avoid most attempts at capture.

Passing through our neighbouring class 3 system again and jumping in to the C2 sees more scanning probes in the system now, combat probes alongside cores. I was probably right not to risk the Bustard, but even my Manticore may not be entirely safe. Then again, whoever is scanning here is likely to be a tourist from high-sec, one from Dodixie no less, and realising this makes me feel safe again. I jump to high-sec, buy and collect my skill books, and return to the C2 without seeing any other pilots loitering on the wormhole. A Cheetah has appeared on d-scan in the C2 but I'm not looking for it. The covert operations boat is benign enough and my mere scouting mission has lasted long enough already.

I get home, modify my skill queue, and go off-line to get some food. It has been a good start to the afternoon, finding some decent connections and adding more fuel supplies for the tower. But even though we're fairly well stocked for now I really need to make some more iskies, and I'll need help to accomplish that, or our presence in the C4 will eventually wither and die. Until that day, which is a while off admittedly, I can continue to roam and hunt in w-space. And whilst I chomp on my sammich maybe the constellation will start to wake up for my return.

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Tags: archon, bustard, eve online, exequror, magnate, manticore, mmorpg, nighthawk, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, thanatos, w-space

Late-night movements

I am about to warp homewards when I spot core scanning probes on my directional scanner. I've missed getting a good shot at a replacement salvager being brought back from empire space, because of a lapse of reasoning perhaps because of tiredness, but my curiosity remains. I hold on the U210 wormhole in our neighbouring class 3 w-space system and wait to see what happens. It's not long before an Anathema covert operations boat appears on the wormhole and loiters, just long enough to suggest the pilot is making a bookmark of the wormhole's precise position, before jumping to low-sec.

I doubt I can catch a cov-ops boat in my stealth bomber—particularly as I have a hard enough time in a more-capable interceptor—and settle to let the Anathema think he's found a safe route that takes him close to Dodixie, one that would be perfect to ship Sleeper loot along. He comes back and warps away, which I presume must be towards a new wormhole connecting in to this C3 but which instead looks suspiciously like he's going to our own K162. I follow behind and, sure enough, the Anathema jumps to the home system. We must have a new wormhole ourselves.

I jump back home and hold on the wormhole, curious to see if anything is happening here and hoping to get an advance look at whatever ships will follow the cov-ops boat. Sadly, the first ship to pass me is a shuttle, which I ignore as a possible target, much as I ignored the shuttle earlier in the C3, it being a bit too agile to guarantee capture. The next ship is at the other end of the scale, a Loki strategic cruiser being a little too much ship for my stealth bomber to engage, both in firepower and tank. But the Loki could be travelling to the C3 to pop Sleepers, with maybe a Noctis following behind. I'm curious to see if that's the case.

I'm not going to jump in to the C3 to check if the Loki is shooting Sleepers, because if he isn't I may end up jumping in to his path and blowing my cover. And if he is in combat then he is looting and salvaging by himself, as no salvager comes past me. Indeed, the next ship that comes my way returns from the C3, and I need to identify the class quickly to decide if I engage or not. Damn, what is it with capsuleers taking shuttles out and swapping them for Devoters tonight? That's the second of the heavy interdictors brought back from empire space, and the second I'll be ignoring.

No other ships come through our system to join the Loki, wherever he is, or to pick up more Devoters. Maybe Dodixie has run out of them. Neither does our home system show signs of activity, which gives some small hope that whichever system connects to our won't be stealing all the Sleeper loot from our anomalies this time, as I'd like to realise that profit myself, and soon. But with nothing happening it really is time to get some sleep. I swap back to my scanning strategic cruiser, park in a quiet corner of the system, and go off-line.

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Tags: anathema, devoter, eve online, loki, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, w-space

Waiting for a second shot

I've been a whirlwind of activity so far tonight. At least, as far as New Eden and w-space are concerned. Popping a Noctis salvager within minutes of scanning my way out of our home system, and bagging some jettisoned Sleeper loot for my efforts, is about as efficient as I could get. It still leaves me wanting to explore our neighouring class 3 w-space system, as well as monitoring what happens to the rest of the ships there, whose combat with the Sleepers I rudely interrupted.

It soon becomes clear that the interrupted capsuleers are not hanging around, abandoning their combat and some drones to leave the C3. I suppose that's perhaps an unintentional benefit of ambushing ships in a strategic cruiser, in that it is a more aggressive show of force, one with unknown numbers behind it, than a flimsy stealth bomber which can be more easily countered and is unlikely to be the spearhead of a fleet. I warp in to the anomaly just to make sure the ships are gone, and see their drones float forlornly near some Sleepers. I would say they're not coming back.

I finally glance across at my notes for this system, to find that I have been here before, five months ago. I have two towers listed and am guaranteed a static exit to low-sec empire space to be available. I imagine the ships I spooked are not local to this class 3 system and warp off to check the second tower, currently out of range of my directional scanner, to confirm this. Instead I learn that the second tower is no longer present, even if the first tower remains in its listed location. Not only that, but a Nighthawk command ship has turned up at that tower, giving me a new contact.

The Nighthawk may only just have woken up and not been privy to my recent ambush, popping the wreck of the Noctis leaving no direct evidence, but he'll no doubt be curious as to why there are Sleeper wrecks and stranded drones in his system. I doubt I'll catch this pilot doing anything stupid. Or, at least, reckless, as scanning in Nighthawk seems to border on the stupid as far as I'm concerned, as I watch the command ship crawl slowly out of the tower's shields, launch scanning probes, and crawl back in. I'm sure I've seen a Nighthawk scan before but I don't think it was in this system. Maybe there are benefits to doing so that I am overlooking.

With the Nighthawk scanning, and only using core scanning probes that won't detect my ship, he may be distracted enough to let me scan at the same time. I could as a minimum launch my own probes and see what signatures there are here, and I warp away to drop off d-scan to do so. My combat probes show me eight signatures I have so far been unaware of, already knowing about the drones and nine anomalies here, as well as the Nighthawk, which is the only visible ship in the system. I don't scan quite yet, but when the pilot swaps command ship for shuttle, warps to our K162, and returns apparently disappointed, swapping back to his Nighthawk and launching scanning probes a second time, I think that maybe he's not the fastest scanner in w-space.

Whilst the other pilot concentrates on finding his static wormhole I sift through the signatures here, also looking for wormholes. I find one as chubby as our own K162, which is probably where the other fleet came from, and a second chubby signature feels subtly different enough to probably be the static exit. The other signatures are too weak to be obvious wormholes and I ignore them for now, preferring to try to stay covert by minimising the time my probes are visible. The Nighthawk makes another false start in his search for the static wormhole, locating on his second attempt the other K162, which comes from class 5 w-space, and having to launch probes again. Third time's a charm, and his shuttle zooms to the exit to low-sec with me behind him. I just watch him exit and wait for his return, which doesn't come soon.

When enough time has passed to ensure the pilot isn't simply waiting for polarisation effects to dissipate, I jump through the exit to end up in the Everyshore region, and close to Dodixie. Maybe the pilot took a shuttle out to buy a new ship, one that I can surprise on its return. I could also maybe sell some Sleeper loot on an expired contract, our previous industrial connection having apparently retired, but I'm rather keen to see if I can get a second kill tonight. I loiter in low-sec and hear the wormhole flare, but without a ship having passed me in low-sec. The ship is coming from w-space. It is a pod of a pilot in the same corporation as the Noctis I popped, and maybe he's heading to Dodixie to buy a replacement salvager. That would be fun to shoot on its way back.

Encouraged by having two potential returning targets I hold on the K162 in the low-sec system and wait. And wait, and wait, and wait. I suppose they have to get to market, buy and fit the ships, maybe not with all the required modules available in the one system, and then make the return journey. Wait, wait, wait. It seems to take much longer than it should, and maybe they aren't coming back. Wait, wait, wait. Ah, game on! There's the Nighthawk pilot in the local communication channel, I wonder what ship he's bringing back with him. Oop, abort, abort, it's a Devoter heavy interdictor. I know that Onyx HICs have hefty shields and although different races have different ship configurations, I imagine the HIC's role demands a sturdy tank as a basic requirement. I won't be popping that.

I'm still left waiting for what hopefully will be a defenceless Noctis to return. But if the pilot was paying any kind of attention, both to the aftermath of the attack and his journey out of w-space, he would have seen his colleague's ambusher in the low-sec system and smelt a rat. If he is bringing a ship back it won't be innocently. I could do with being on the w-space side of the wormhole, at least to disguise my presence, and probably not in my Tengu. I risk the couple of minutes it takes to get home and swap ships for my Manticore stealth bomber to set myself up in a more appropriate position to wait for this second pilot's return.

My waiting at the wormhole is broken briefly by the reappearance of the new Devoter, coming back to the exit to low-sec for some reason. He jumps out and returns, making his presence obvious when a Crane follows behind him to the local tower. The HIC was playing guard to the transport ship, which is cautious but maybe overly so in the case of the Crane, which really shouldn't have any trouble negotiating low-sec and w-space by itself. But it's not a long wait before the wormhole flares a second time and a Noctis sheds its session-change cloak with gay abandon. I shed my own cloak, revelling in the lack of recalibration delay, and gain a positive lock on the Noctis within a couple of seconds. I activate my warp disruptor and target painter, and watch my first volley of torpedoes strip the salvager of its shields. Sadly, the second volley doesn't even fire.

The Noctis warps away safely, undoubtedly having warp core stabilisers fitted as a precaution against another single-ship ambush. That was sensible, and I was pretty dumb. I could easily have anticipated such a travelling configuration of the new ship and countered it with a minor refitting of my own, to prevent even the stabilised ship from evading my clutches. I have to wonder why I didn't make such a simple change when I was only expecting to engage a defenceless industrial ship in the first place. Not only that, but I fail to think about chasing the Noctis across to the K162 to class 5 w-space, where maybe I could have got a second shot. Despite my quick start it has been a long, slow evening, and maybe I'm just a bit tired. I should go home and get some rest.

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Tags: crane, devoter, eve online, mmorpg, nighthawk, noctis, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space

Nudging another Noctis

Hi, w-space, what's happening? Not much, Penny! That's okay, I'm not going to ask about your TPS reports, I just want a poke around tonight's constellation, see what's out there. There's little left at home apart from anomalies, the static wormhole being the only signature, but jumping in to our neighbouring class 3 system has plenty to see. All visible on my directional scanner are a tower, ships, and Sleeper wrecks. I start a passive scan of the system as I discern what ships d-scan is showing me. I have a Megathron battleship, Apocalypse battleship, Drake battlecruiser, and Basilisk logistics ship as the combat ships, along with a Noctis salvager also present. But without finding either the ships or the tower I won't know how many are active, so it's good that the passive scan has finished.

I open my system map and start flitting a narrow-beamed d-scan across the detected anomalies, putting the combat ships in one and, hullo, the Noctis in another. The salvager hasn't waited for the anomaly to despawn before sweeping the wrecks in to his hold, giving me an opportunity to interrupt him without having to launch scanning probes. I suppose letting a site despawn doesn't matter too much when the rest of the fleet continues to shoot Sleepers, as any ambusher turning up in the system during combat can use a passive scan to find and bookmark the current anomaly's location before it disappears, but it remains a good indicator of whether a cloaked ship has been lying in wait or the anomaly stays empty. I have time to ponder this as I warp in at range to the anomaly the Noctis is currently clearing.

I have to bounce out of the site to get further away from the Noctis, so that my warp drive has the required distance to engage, and although there are still quite a few wrecks remaining they are all gone by the time I am in a suitable position. That's a little disheartening, but at least combat continues elsewhere, almost guaranteeing my getting another shot at ambushing the Noctis. All I need to do is get a good position in the other site and bide my time. Or maybe I can still attack now, in this site. The Noctis is stationary and, even if I don't remember doing so from a minute earlier, I bookmarked the position of a wreck mid-salvage, giving me a point to warp directly to the Noctis. I fire up my warp engines and get ready to introduce myself to the salvager.

My Tengu strategic cruiser remains cloaked as I drop out of warp, holding my position until I am sure the Noctis still isn't moving anywhere, in case it jumps to warp speed at the most inopportune moment. It is stationary. I close the gap and, when closer, decloak and get my systems hot. As I wait for the recalibration delay to release my targeting systems I pulse my micro warp drive and ram the Noctis as a precaution. If it was aimed anywhere in particular for easy exit it isn't now, but I don't suppose it was if it wasn't moving in the first place. It's immaterial now, as I gain a positive target lock and can disrupt its warp engines, and starting raining missiles on the unsuspecting salvager.

The Noctis is going nowhere as I shred its shields and armour. Something, however, comes out of the salvager, a canister jettisoned from the ship. I'm not sure what it is but my proximity to my target brings me close enough to take a look, and I see that the salvager has jettisoned all of the loot it has collected so far from the Sleepers. I'll be having that, thank you. I don't know if the pilot ejected the loot hoping his colleagues would be able to retrieve it after the fight. I rather suspect he's using it as a kind of chaff, trying to distract me from trapping his pod, and as I recover the jetsam in to my hold I keep a keen eye on the Noctis, looking for the pilot to eject. He doesn't, at least not until the ship around him disintegrates and he's got nowhere else to go.

Sadly, the pilot's pod evades my capture, despite my best efforts, and it warps clear. I loot the wreck of the Noctis, bagging me a couple of good salvager modules on top of all the loot the pilot let me have—there's a point, maybe it was a bribe—before shooting it to leave no evidence and let me cloak more readily. I have no reason to stick around now, not wanting to be introduced to the Noctis pilot's colleagues, so clear the pocket and count up my ill-gotten gains. Not only do I have a Noctis kill but also around forty million ISK in loot to take home. That's not bad for my first ten minutes in space tonight. It's going to be a good evening.

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Tags: apocalypse, basilisk, drake, eve online, megathrown, mmorpg, noctis, penny ibramovic, pvp, tengu, w-space

Quick crack at a battlecruiser

I'm not expecting much tonight, only looking to poke around our neighbouring w-space system. No one and nothing is in our home system, giving me a suitably low-key start to the evening and leaving just the static wormhole to resolve as a new signature. Jumping through to the class 3 system beyond has my directional scanner showing me what looks to be an empty system, with only celestial objects visible, but there are three planets out of range to explore. I launch scanning probes and start to arrange for them to blanket the system as I cloak my covert Tengu strategic cruiser.

A single ship is somewhere in the system, along with four signatures and three anomalies. I should find that ship, to at least confirm it to be simply floating unpiloted in an on-line tower, so that I can get on with and conclude my lazy evening. The three planets out of range of d-scan are all in different directions, which is unusual and inconvenient, but it means the rough location my combat scanning probes give me for the ship can only put it near one of those planets. I warp in the direction of the far planet and, when in range, update d-scan. My expectations are confounded when not only do I not see a ship but neither do I see a tower on d-scan's results.

Maybe my probes' rough scan at their maximum range really could put the ship 30 AU in the other direction, but I doubt it. I get a subsequent scan from the probes and confirm the ship is still in the system, and from its new position it looks like I passed it in warp. I could come up with half-a-dozen theories as to what the ship's up to but I may as well wait until I at least get an identification of its class before speculating too wildly. I warp back across the system and further, to the most distant planet, where d-scan now shows me a tower and a Drake battlecruiser. My probes are still returning just the one ship, so that's my target.

I look for the tower and easily locate it as being at one of the mere three moons around the planet, and warp directly in to a warp bubble scattered with a few canisters. Somehow my Tengu remains cloaked, coming to rest almost in the centre of the bubble, and even though I am safe I am still troubled. Where's the tower? I double-check and there are only three moons here, and the tower definitely can't be on the other two. I scrutinise d-scan more carefully and determine from the presence of a force field that the tower is on-line and someone hasn't simply scattered off-line hangars and arrays around away from the moon as a prank. Besides, the Drake is here, somewhere.

I try warping to the moon again, knowing that you cannot gauge your proximity to it from its distance measured by your instruments, but my warp engines stay silent. In retrospect, that was doomed to be useless. My Tengu has the interdiction nullifier subsystem fitted, which negates any warp bubble effects. I wasn't dragged in to this bubble, I just happened to fly to its location, so it didn't stop me from reaching my planned destination. The tower simply isn't here. Thankfully, perhaps, the Drake has also gone again, leaving me alone on the outskirts of the system. I call in my scanning probes, cluster them tightly around the planet, and scan for the tower. I get a perfect hit, naturally, and warp to the results. Thar she blows. It looks like the tower is off-grid from the moon's orbit, which is decidely queer and defensively intriguing. It also makes the bubble trap much less threatening, as there is essentially no one monitoring it, even when at the tower. Even if my Tengu had been decloaked, unless any local pilots were updating d-scan regularly I would not have been spotted, and the tower wouldn't have been able to shoot me either.

Having finally located the tower I make a solid bookmark so that I can find it again, throw my probes out of the system once more, and warp right back across the system to look for the Drake again. My probes, back in to their blanket-scan configuration, show the ship is still around, so he's not jumping between systems, and once I drop out of warp I place him easily in one of the three anomalies present. That's good, that makes him a target either in his Drake or, more likely, in a salvager. I warp in to the anomaly to get eyes on the ship, and I review the idea that I'll get a shot at a salvager as the Drake is tractoring wrecks in to be looted. But the empty wrecks remain around the battlecruiser, with no salvaging beams in sight.

I could wait for a salvager to appear, or I could shoot the Drake. She's taking hits from the Sleepers to start with and I have the element of surprise, although the capsuleer is old enough to be suitably trained to field a decent ship. The salvager would give me the best chance at a kill but I've been hitting soft targets for long enough that I may be getting a bit reckless in wanting more. I could really use a wingman for this, but I wait for one more Sleeper cruiser to explode before warping on top of the Drake and engaging her directly. I decloak as I drop out of warp, get a positive lock on the battlecruiser, and start firing. Well, damn, even though there is some hull damage on the Drake its shields are barely scratched. And, as if that weren't enough, here come the ECM drones.

I can't say I'm surprised at seeing the ECM drones, as they are an obvious counter-measure against ambushes in Sleeper sites. As Sleepers themselves aggressively engage drones it makes using them relatively pointless against the Sleepers themselves. Unless you micromanage the drones, have a voluminous drone bay, and are happy to treat them as ammunition, any drones sent against Sleepers will be popped with impressive efficiency. And if you're doing nothing else with your drone bay in w-space it makes sense to carry some ECM drones in case of surprises. You'll need to replace them occasionally, but it's less expensive than replacing ships. The drones set upon me get their inevitable jam on my targeting systems and, despite my best efforts to prevent it, the Drake warps out of the site.

Considering the healthy state of the battlecruiser's shields I don't think I was going to defeat him anyway. I probably should have waited for the salvager this time, but at least I am getting less nervous about throwing a ship in to this kind of situation to see what happens. Then again, maybe it is more of an unconcerned response to my current isolated existence, subconsciously pushing myself in to a downwards spiral of expensive failures from where I can convince myself I'm happier staying out of space. Let's hope not, though. Back to the moment, the Drake is gone. I scoop his abandoned but effective ECM drones and loot an untouched Sleeper wreck before warping out of the anomaly myself.

I monitor the pilot at the tower, from my new bookmarked position. She warps back in to the anomaly, my Tengu following behind only in time to see her warping right back out again, after which she launches a second Drake and sits in that at the tower. Whilst she ponders what to do next I scan the few signatures that are here, resolving a chubby wormhole, rocks, and more rocks. As the Drake isn't moving I warp to investigate the wormhole, finding it to exit to low-sec empire space, and jumping out to the Metropolis region. Scanning reveals two extra signatures in the system, but they are only an Angel outpost and some stupid drone site, no more w-space to explore.

Being by myself in the low-sec system I warp off to pop a few Angel rats for a bit, but they turn out to be scattered far too far apart for my short-range heavy assault missiles to cope with easily, and I am not spending ages burning towards low-value rats. I'm heading back to w-space. The C3 remains as I left it, one piloted Drake and one empty Drake sitting passively in the strangely off-grid tower, and jumping home sees no overt signs of change. I would say I have completed my poke around the neighbouring w-space system, and hide in a corner of space as I go off-line for an early night.

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

Stumbling back and forth

The rocks are dead! Long live the gas! Well, for three days or so, as I warp in to activate the ladar site that has appeared on the day two gravimetric sites have despawned. There's little more to do at home and I jump in to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system to explore, finding a tower but no ships within range of my directional scanner in the adjacent system. I locate the tower around a nearby planet, make a bookmark for a convenient monitoring position, then warp across the system to launch scanning probes out of range of anyone who may be watching.

A blanket scan of the system suggests that there aren't any pilots to see me or my probes, with no ships to accompany the ten anomalies and nine signatures. I return to float outside the tower, giving me early warning in case a ship warps in, make another paranoid blanket scan to ensure no ships have appeared in the minute or so since my initial scan, then settle down to resolve the signatures. I find a couple of radar sites, a chubby wormhole signature that is probably an exit to low-sec empire space, a magnetometric site, another radar site, and then gas, gas, and more gas. It's not a terribly exciting result.

The wormhole I resolved does indeed lead out to low-sec, jumping out putting me in the beloved Aridia region, living up to its name once more by being devoid of life. Scanning the system to see a couple of additional signatures gives me a little hope, and although I resolve a wormhole the X703 outbound connection to more class 3 w-space is reaching the end of its natural lifetime and not particularly tempting to explore through. The other signature is merely an infestation of drones, who offer no bounties or security status gains if destroyed. Thankfully there are a handful of anomalies containing Blood Raiders to pop and, with little else to do, I think I'll introduce the rats to my Drake battlecruiser.

I return home, through the sleepy C3, and swap ships to my Drake, heading back out to—hullo, there's an Iteron hauler on d-scan in the C3 now. He's probably at the local tower but he may not be there for long, perhaps looking to collect planet goo. There's little I can do in my Drake, not because it can't handle an industrial ship on its own but because it can't stealthily monitor the hauler until it decides to leave the safety of the tower's force field. I need another ship, but my recent transits through the wormhole connecting the home system to this C3 have polarised my hull. I'm stuck here for another ninety seconds, in full d-scan view of the pilot.

I do my best to limit my visibility, warping to the far planet I used earlier to launch my probes, dropping off the hauler's d-scan, but not before I've been visible for a little too long. I wait for the polarisation effect to end, checking my log for timing details of my attempt to jump through the wormhole. I'm somewhat nonplussed at how the log can report a time a full minute ahead of the system clock, but wait the required time anyway, just to be sure, before warping back to the wormhole and returning home, the Iteron still visible on d-scan in the C3 as I leave. I swap ships again, this time to a stealth bomber, and return to the wormhole. I'm expecting another delay for polarisation effects to dissipate but I jump right through with no wait.

Of course. I was polarised because of the jumps between swapping ships the first time. Jumping home just now only counts towards the polarisation timer for the second-next jump, which means the second-previous is the one that started the timer for my current return. The time it took to swap ships in to the Drake and warp to the wormhole is approximately the same as the time it took to swap in to the Manticore and warp to the wormhole, and as I waited for polarisation effects to dissipate in-between those jumps I am fine for now, as long as I don't need to return home in a hurry. But even though I'm fine to jump in to the C3 in my stealth bomber it has still taken too much time, or had my Drake too visible, as the Iteron is now gone.

I warp around to look for the ship, in case it's hiding in a corner of the C3, but there is only one planet out of d-scan range from the wormhole and the hauler isn't there. On the positive side, the short time the ship was in space probably means he wasn't out collecting planet goo and I didn't have a shot anyway. There is always another option, though, that he went out to empire space. He'd have to be a bit bonkers to take a basic industrial hauler out to Aridia and pilot it to civilisation, but all capsuleers are a little peculiar in the first place. I warp my Manticore to the exit wormhole and jump out, only to find the empty system I saw earlier.

If the pilot has taken his ship further afield it would be no surprise that the system is empty. But, likewise, it would take him a long time to get to his destination and return, assuming he wants to reach civilised space. I may be better off assuming the pilot simply updated his skill queue and went off-line, but I have some tasks I need to attend to on my computer that can keep me partly distracted. I jump back to w-space and sit cloaked on the wormhole, waiting for the distinctive sound of it flaring to indicate a ship's transit, and occasionally punching d-scan to see if the Iteron has otherwise magically reappeared at the tower, as I decipher some code.

The pilot doesn't return, either through the wormhole or, as best as my occasional checks of d-scan can deduce, at the tower. I've modified some code to stop nagging me about a service I couldn't care about and can give full attention back to w-space, so give up my futile wait for a ship that isn't coming back and return to my previous plan. I jump back in to the Drake back at our tower and head out to low-sec, only to see myself thwarted again, another pilot now sharing the system with me. He may be a benign presence, particularly with such a healthy security status, but popping rats in low-sec is a diversion for me and certainly nothing I want to take any risk over.

I hold on the wormhole for a short while in the vain hope that the other pilot is actually bringing an Iteron home to the C3, but no ship warps to join me on the K162. I think I have to accept that I'll be getting nothing done again tonight. It's a shame about my timing with seeing the Iteron, as if I had been a minute later maybe I could have stalked him, and if he hadn't seen my Drake, if indeed he had, I could have had a target. And to add to those 'if's, if I had a colleague with me we could have made a fortune from shooting Sleepers. As it is, even with what little potential there was this evening I managed to realise none of it. I really hope w-space livens up soon, at home as much as abroad, as the loneliness and impotency is beginning to drain me.

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Tags: drake, eve online, iteron, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

Bouncing battleship

Activate! Setting some gas to self-destruct is more boring than it sounds, merely warping in to the new ladar site in the home system for it to decay a within the next few days. There's a second new signature to be resolved too, which turns out to be a magnetometric site and one that I'll keep for later. Whether Fin and I'll get a chance to clear the Sleepers from it is another matter, particularly as I am tending to be alone for longer, but it's good profit if we can realise it. And until Fin turns up I may as well resolve the static wormhole and explore our neighbouring class 3 w-space system.

Seven ships are visible on my directional scanner, from an Abaddon battleship down to a Navitas frigate, along with a couple of towers. My last visit to this system was some ten months earlier, when there were three towers and a static exit to null-sec k-space. There have been some changes since then, but one of the towers looks to be around the same planet at least. And there is a third tower still, as accidentally warping to the wrong planet brings me in to d-scan range of it, which has three more ships sitting unpiloted in its force field. Finding the right planet finds most of the other ships, the Abaddon, Navitas, and an Occator transport ship piloted, whilst an Eris interdictor sits alone and empty in the final tower I find.

A passive scan of this class 3 system has already shown me sixteen anomalies rich with potential loot, but none of the ships present are looking to rake it in. There's not much I can do about it by myself either, so I warp out to a distant planet to launch probes and see what else there is to find here. In the short time it takes me to warp out, launch my probes, and warp back to the tower the Abaddon has gone, which gives me one less possible target. And although the Occator moves just prior to my beginning to scan, he only coasts downwards to start a refinery at the tower. I don't imagine he'll do much more until that process finishes, over an hour later. I'll scan.

The nine signatures here don't take long to sift through, revealing a couple of magnetometric sites, some gas, a radar site, a wormhole with the stink of null-sec all over it, a few rocks, and two more wormholes to finish. The weak wormhole signature indeed is the static connection, the other two being a K162 from high-sec empire space that's been mass-stressed and is reaching the end of its natural lifetime, and a K162 from low-sec. Despite the two additional wormholes here scanning has turned out to be rather dull. I jump out to low sec, appearing as the only pilot in this system in the Molden Heath region, where scanning finds no extra signatures, so I jump back to w-space to head across to the exit to null-sec. I stop before I get to the wormhole, as the Abaddon is back and apparently out of the tower.

I start looking for the errant battleship, presuming him to be in an anomaly and seeming like I have found him in one. But my first guess is wrong, the anomaly not holding the Abaddon, and I kick myself for not bookmarking the ladar site earlier, in case the pilot's harvesting gas. I warp back out to the distant planet to relaunch scanning probes, in case I need them, but by the time I return to the inner system I can no longer see the Abaddon anywhere. I return to my previous plan and head to the wormhole to null-sec, where again the battleship appears on d-scan. I'm not sure where he could be that would put his ship out of d-scan range of the tower but in d-scan range of the wormhole, but I sweep my scanner around again to try to find him. I think he's at a planet. That is easy to check, and I warp in to take a look.

Sure enough, the Abaddon is here, and looking vulnerable. But he's a battleship and my strategic cruiser is covertly configured. I begin an approach that will settle me in to a tight orbit anyway, as I consider my chances of victory—and survival—but no sooner do I try to interrogate the ship for pilot information than I see it warp away, directly towards another planet. Of course, that other planet is where his tower is, and I follow to the tower to find him once again safely nestled inside the force field. I also get a chance to investigate the pilot, finding him to be a veteran capsuleer and probably quite skilled in the use of a battleship. I probably wouldn't get the kill against his Abaddon by myself, and as he has two pilots he could call on for support I also may not get away if I engaged. That doesn't stop me watching him still.

I hold station outside the tower, close enough to see exactly what the Abaddon does and to see what vector he will fly out on, if any. But all he does is get close to a hangar before looping lazily around an empty hauler, and disappearing off-line once more. It looks like nothing much will be happening in this system tonight. Nor will I be venturing deeper in to w-space, as a visit to null-sec beyond the wormhole puts me in to an otherwise empty system in the Etherium Reach region, where scanning finds only a dull drone site. Even consulting my atlas shows the system itself to be uninteresting, leaving me little option but to head back to w-space and the home system, where I settle down for the night.

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Tags: abaddon, eris, eve online, mmorpg, navitas, occator, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

Shunting a shuttle

Empty system, empty heart. I need to scoop the corpses of innocent miners in to my cargo hold in order to cheer me up. And as the home system is empty I'll need to scan my way out of here so I can find those miners. I launch probes to look for our static wormhole. Damn those C6 spacers from yesterday! Nearly all our anomalies are gone, and our radar and magnetometric sites have been pillaged too. I knew collapsing the incoming wormhole would have kept our profit safe for ourselves, but we couldn't have achieved that without risk to our expensive ships. The anomalies will return, we'll get opportunity to make more ISK, it's okay. We have some new gas though, whoop-de-do and all that, and I activate the ladar site before jumping in to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system.

I have a tower visible on my directional scanner in the class 3 system but no ships. The wormhole has appeared, much to my surprise, at the edge of the system too, restricting d-scan's reach no further than the outermost planet. With no ships visible here I take the slight risk of launching probes at the wormhole and throwing them out of the system, warping to locate the nearby tower as I perform a blanket scan and consult my notes. It seems I was here four months ago, when I happened to miss catching a Cheetah covert operations boat in my Maledication interceptor. Yeah, that narrows it down a lot. My adventure the day after, shooting a Noctis under guard, makes it easy to find the missed interception attempt, otherwise it would be lost in the noise.

My notes make me confident of finding another tower in this system, which makes me glad I launched probes only in range of the inactive tower, even more so when the blanket scan reveals twenty-two ships here! I hope they're all not in combat, and I warp to where my notes indicate the second tower should be, after confirming the position of the first on the edge of the system. I drop out of warp around a moon with no tower anchored to it, but d-scan shows me that there are still two more towers to be found here and that most of the ships my probes picked up are merely shuttles. That still leaves a Drake battlecruiser and Iteron hauler to be accounted for, but I can see no Sleeper wrecks on d-scan and I doubt the Drake is doing anything interesting.

I find one of the towers easily enough, happy to find the Drake piloted and, hullo, outside of his tower's force field. He's not far out of it, close enough so that even if I could engage him he could retreat with ease, so I start looking for the third tower and the unaccounted for Iteron. Just as my warp engines kick in I notice the the Drake isn't casually sitting outside of the tower but is firing missiles, and I only get a quick glance of him shooting a couple of shuttles. Quite how the shuttles got there, or what affiliation they have to the Drake, I have no idea, and I am in warp before I can cancel the command. I locate the tower, getting a bit too close to the force field for my comfort, but thankfully remaining far enough away for my cloaking device to maintain integrity. I take immediate evasive action anyway, in case my momentum brings me too close.

The Iteron is inside in the shields of the third tower, and boringly unpiloted. I leave it behind to see what the Drake is up to, getting back to the other tower to see him gone and three shuttle wrecks left in his wake. I doubt the tower would let him get away with shooting those ships unless he were local and, sure enough, the Drake warps back in to the tower seconds later. Maybe he 'bounced' off a planet instead of crawling slowly back in to the shields. The pilot ditches the Drake for his pod, which he transfers in to another of the shuttles present, most of them from my scan being inside this second tower, before slowly manoeuvring the shuttle outside the shields, away from the other wrecks. Now this is interesting. If the pattern repeats, he'll bring a couple more shuttles out and then shoot them in the Drake, and that makes him a target. A target I want to shoot.

I warp my Tengu back to the K162 homewards, the strategic cruiser inappropriate for this task, and return to our tower at home to swap for my Manticore stealth bomber. I have to say that I really don't care for shooting a shuttle, it being meaningless padding for killboard statistics. What I'm after is the pod, hoping to catch the disorientated pilot vulnerable outside his tower, no practiced reference point to warp to, and catching a pod means I need a quick-locking ship. My Manticore has proven itself good at catching pods in similar situations, as well as being small enough to give tower defences a hard time locking on before I get my kill and flee. Of course, this all assumes I get back to the C3 before the pilot is back in his Drake.

I jump in to the C3 and warp to the tower, knowing that I'll need to bounce off a planet to get in to proper position. I only having a rough bookmark to the tower itself at the moment, which is more than adequate for monitoring activity, but I need to get in to much better position around the sphere of the force field in order to ambush the pilot. As luck would have it, it seems the pilot is flying his shuttles almost directly towards the fourth planet, which lets me bounce off that planet and warp back to the tower to land in good range of his already dropped shuttles. Good range, but not perfect. I am currently too far for my warp disruptor to affect the two abandoned shuttles but my luck is holding, as the pilot is still dragging the third towards the edge of the shields. Shuttles may be agile, but they're not fast, and my stealth bomber can almost match their normal speed.

My Manticore creeps closer to my prey, almost close enough to disrupt its warp engines and prevent an easy escape. I can close that gap quickly enough. It's time. I decloak, launch a bomb—an extravagance on a shuttle, but I feel my time is limited enough to warrant it—and burn towards the shuttle as I gain a positive target lock. BELAY THAT ORDER, CADET! ENGINE ROOM, FULL STOP! FULL STOP! Some time back I swapped the afterburner in my stealth bomber for a micro warp drive, putting my maximum speed high enough for my Manticore to burn in to the explosion of my own bomb. Colleagues have already self-destructed in such ways and I am glad I catch my mistake before it gets too embarrassing. I am also glad to see the short burn, and the shuttle's own momentum, has put me well within warp disruption range. The shuttle is going nowhere, just as its shields and armour are obliterated by my bomb.

One volley of torpedoes shreds the shuttle's puny hull, ejecting the pilot's pod in to the vacuum. This is the moment I was after and I take care to get it right. I look for the pod and target it, priming my warp disruptor in preparation. Positive lock, module activated! More torpedoes spew from my launchers as the pod is trapped by my electronics, and it is now just a few long seconds before a fresh corpse is floating in space. I'm aware of the time I've already spent in full view and close range of the tower's defences and, as I crack open the pod, am careful to aim my Manticore away from the two other shuttles, letting me cloak as soon as my successful ambush concludes. All that's left to do now is manoeuvre around the defences and wreckage to scoop the corpse to add to my collection. Job's a good 'un.

The C3 is quiet. I return home, drop the corpse in to my tea party diorama, and reboard my Tengu. Heading back to the C3 I launch probes once more and scan the system properly, already knowing about the seven anomalies here but adding rocks, gas, and a static exit to high-sec empire space to complete the exploration. Jumping out to high-sec puts me in Pimsu, which sounds more like a slightly naughty acronym than a system, but I'm there and in the Tash-Murkon region. I have little business in high-sec at the moment, although I should think about getting more fuel supplies at some point, so simply scan. In the four signatures I find a K162 from class 2 w-space that's reaching the end of its natural lifetime, but that's as far as I get before seeing a more interesting sight. The pilot I podded is in the system too.

I rush back to the wormhole to the C3 and jump in, not seeing my target's ship appear near the wormhole and hoping that he will follow me in a few seconds and be far too casual with the session change timer for his own good. But he's not completely stupid and probably saw me in the system too, thanks to the populated local channel, and is not about to jump in to another ambush, thank you very much. I hold on the wormhole until my session change cloak drops, then move away and cloak again, but the wormhole stays silent. That's okay, I can leave the pilot feeling paranoid and instead fall back to Plan B. The high-sec exit puts me close to our previous evacuation base, where a second Widow black ops ship sits, and as Fin has been training to fly one this is a good opportunity to collect it for her use.

I head home, park my Tengu and grab a shuttle, and head out to high-sec again. My victim still sits in the system and probably sees me again, but maybe he's cloaked at the wormhole and sees me warp off. It doesn't matter for now. I make the few jumps required to get me to the other Widow, the first one I bought in fact, and dock to get her ready for the trip home. I make sure she is fitted properly, and somewhat defensively, and leave the station for the journey back. High-sec travel is uneventful, my only concern, which is minor, is what will happen when I reach the C3 again. The pilot is gone from high-sec but I see no sign of him as I return to w-space. He could be cloaked but it's perhaps more likely that he got home and went off-line for the night, particularly as I warp the Widow across the C3, jump it home, and stow it in a hangar at our tower without sighting another ship. It's been a good evening.

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

Bumbling behind a Bustard

I'm back, and wondering just how much of the w-space constellation from earlier still exists. A K162 in our neighbouring class 3 system started looking a bit peaky as I returned through it from my scanning expedition, the collapse of which would cut off half of the systems worth roaming through. Glorious leader Fin is here and I look to her for an update, but she's only just arrived herself and is busying copying the bookmarks I left earlier. Rather than take my stealth bomber out for a look for potential targets I think I am better served staying in my covert Tengu strategic cruiser, equipped with scanning probes, so that I can find more systems instead.

My plan doesn't get me as far as the C3, as I stop short of our static wormhole to see a mixture of core and combat scanning probes in our home system. I maintain my cloak, and Fin and I loiter on the wormhole to see what happens. What I would like to find it is who the pilot is, what ship he's flying, and where he is from. It may be better to leave a covert operations scanning to return and report no activity so that we can hit bigger ships later than to try to stop a ship we have little hope of catching in the first place. Reconnoitring the target is all rather reliant on us seeing him, though, and as no ship passes through the wormhole once the probes disappear from our system we don't get much useful information.

We do get some information about the pilot, however. As he doesn't pass us to return to the C3 I think we can be confident that a new wormhole has opened up in to our system. I warp away from the wormhole, launch my own probes, and scan the system myself. Sure enough, there is a new signature and it resolves to be a wormhole, a K162 from deadly class 6 w-space no less. I jump through to take a dekko at the system, seeing lots of ships appear on my directional scanner, mostly combat ships, including a couple of Chimera carriers, but with a sprinkling of spare Buzzard cov-ops boats. I've even been here before, four months ago, but my notes for occupation only state 'yes' and not the tower locations. As there are five towers on d-scan I think I'll leave my notes vague for now, content to monitor direct activity at the wormhole, which for now is none.

I'm not entirely sure what we can achieve at the moment. Even if living in a class 6 w-space system doesn't indicate anything above strength in numbers, there is nothing to say they aren't competent either. It would be beneficial to see how many pilots are awake and active too, because just the one scout would make us much safer in collapsing the wormhole, but a dozen pilots waiting to rampage through the constellation will see us hide for the evening. Finding the ships spread over at least five towers will take time, though, and time we could spend in better ways. A couple of return trips with an Orca industrial ship and Widow black ops ship pair will kill the connection and not take too long, and even if we don't get to do much more with the evening at least it keeps the profit in our anomalies relatively secure. I jump back, cloak, and start counting down the minutes for the polarisation effect to end.

There is a logistical delay but we get ready to start collapsing the unwanted wormhole, when a Bustard transport ship jumps from the C6 to our system. It aligns and warps to our static connection, undoubtedly heading to empire space, and it doesn't change our plans. It is tempting to sit in wait for the Bustard, modifying our fittings to militate against the increased warp strength of the transport, but trips to empire can take a while and I'd rather not sit around for nothing. Besides, killing the wormhole would isolate the pilot and, if we're lucky and no one spots and communicates the death of the wormhole, send it warping to empty space where we can better trap it. What changes our plan is a second flare from the wormhole, a Buzzard appearing and warping away. As Fin suggests, it may well be a scout for the Bustard, watching our tower where Fin now sits.

A second active pilot watching our home system makes collapsing the wormhole reckless. If even one more pilot is available, and you have to reckon there will be at least one, considering the scout is in a cov-ops boat and not a strategic cruiser or stealth bomber, the movements of our massive ships will be relayed home and we'll get ambushed. So rather than collapsing the wormhole we'll try to catch the Bustard. A Buzzard can't prevent a quick engagement, if we get it right, which means distracting the scout. Fin swaps boats and warps off in a random direction, hopefully to fake-out the scout to follow so that I can sneak in to the tower and add more warp disruption strength to my ship, but our timing is a little off. Earlier than anticipated the Bustard is back, it warping across our system and returning to the C6 as I am refitting my Tengu.

I hurry the refit and warp out to the K162, seeing nothing on the wormhole or d-scan, and jumping through to see no sign of the Bustard on the other side either. Fin joins me, a second too late for her to react to my request that she stay in the home system, and all we can do is sit in empty space. I return home and cloak, wondering what we can do next, when Fin reports the Bustard reappearing at the wormhole. He's going out again! I align my Tengu towards our static wormhole in preparation, knowing that I will have a better shot in the C3 without the sensor recalibration delay that I will suffer if I decloak here, and having more time to engage being further away from the class 6 system, and watch the Bustard jump in and prepare to warp. I surge my Tengu forwards before the Bustard is in warp, letting me hold my cloak and confirm the transport has come to the wormhole before I follow him in to the C3.

In the C3 the Bustard is making a run for the static exit, perhaps relying on his increased warp strength to keep him safe, but I have enough disruption to stop him. I get a positive lock on the ship, disrupt its warp engines, and start shooting. Except I start shooting empty space, the Bustard warping off as if I weren't there. I would call the pilot paranoid, fitting his Bustard with extra warp core stabilisers, but as I was actually out to get him that label doesn't really fit. But never mind, a Maelstrom battleship has warped in to the wormhole, perhaps to attack the Bustard itself but probably to defend it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I lock on to the Maelstrom instead and holy crap half of my shields are disintegrated in one volley from the battleship. Maybe I should have been a little more oblique in approaching it.

To use another proverb, discretion is the better part of valour. I disengage from the Maelstrom by jumping back home through the wormhole, moving away and cloaking immediately upon re-entry. Unfortunately, I called Fin in to come and help tackle and shoot the now-gone Bustard, and her ship sits visibly on the wormhole as the Maelstrom jumps through. She manages to evade the battleship's weapons and is able to cloak safely, but it looks like our evening is ended. A Tengu has appeared on the system, Fin locating and monitoring it on the K162, showing the that occupants of the C6 are awake and prepared to defend their transport. The most we can realistically achieve, without risking expensive ships against unknown numbers, is a long-range engagement where we shoo the ships from our system, but that would only put them a simple jump away and is hardly productive for us. It's time to hide and come back another day.

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Tags: bustard, buzzard, chimera, eve online, maelstrom, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space