Straight-line scanning

I see a classic pairing when jumping in to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, a Drake and Catalyst appearing on my directional scanner. The battlecruiser creates the wrecks and the destroyer salvages behind, but d-scan is not showing me any wrecks in the system and I suspect the two ships are sitting in the tower here. I bookmark the twelve anomalies a passive scan reveals anyway, just in case the pilots are taking a break, but locating the tower finds the ships empty. It's time to launch probes and scan.

Twenty-two signatures are quite a few to sort through, and although the first signature I resolve turns out to be a wormhole I keep scanning. It would be handy to keep the static connection closed and clear some of the anomalies of Sleepers for profit, but I'll need to ensure there are no other wormholes connecting to this system first. It's good that I keep looking, as I find a second and third wormhole soon after. And I keep on scanning right up to the last signature, which turns out to be a fourth wormhole. Oh, that's the last-but-one signature, as there appears to be one I missed. Or maybe I didn't miss it, as this definitely last signature is also a wormhole, a K162 from class 5 w-space, and it has potentially only just been opened. I'll take a peek at what's on the other side.

A Navitas frigate is on d-scan from the wormhole in the C5, along with two off-line towers. The Navitas disappears and I take that as my cue to launch probes and blanket the system. There are some anomalies and signatures, but the bunch of ships sitting on the other side of the system interest me more, and I warp off to investigate. I find the Navitas sitting in a tower with a Buzzard covert operations boat, and a second tower holds a piloted Scorpion battleship. The rest of the ships are empty, and even then only the Navitas of the three piloted ships looks awake, which is probably why he logs off, damn him.

With activity in this C5 I doubt I'll find a K162 here, and anyway I have other connections to check in the C3. I jump back to our neighbouring system to see what my scanning found. Warping around gives me another K162 from class 5 w-space, the static exit to null-sec k-space, and outbound connections to both class 4 and class 5 w-space. There's plenty of opportunity here. My first choice is the C4 but jumping in sees only a tower with no ships, and I may as well check the other systems for obvious activity before getting bogged down in scanning. The second K162 from class 5 w-space looks similar to the C4, with two towers and no ships visible, so I jump back to the C3 and head to the outbound wormhole to class 5 w-space.

D-scan is even emptier in this C5 system, with only the outermost planet in range. I'm here now, so rather than heading back to scan another system I may as well take a look around, and I launch probes and blanket the system. No ships, no occupation, and over a dozen signatures to sift through. Okay, here I go. The third signature I resolve is a wormhole, but only yet another K162 to class 5 w-space, and it takes a fair bit more scanning to finally find the static connection, which also leads to a C5. Checking through the K162 first finds an occupied but empty system, not even another K162 amongst the four signatures, so I am back to C5c and jumping onwards to C5e.

I may have some luck in this C5. Combat probes are visible on d-scan, none close to the wormhole, but it's my notes that give me hope. I was here eleven months ago, which isn't recent enough to offer good intelligence on occupation, but the static connection will remain the same and this one should be to a class 2 w-space system. I ignore the other scout in this system and start scanning, resolving a K162 from null-sec to leave only really weak signatures. I can't recall seeing a wormhole signature appear so weak and I even need to launch a couple more scanning probes to fully resolve the wormhole, but there it is, and it does indeed connection to class 2 w-space. I hope this has been worth the effort.

A Bestower hauler is on d-scan along with a tower, and I find the former sitting inside the force field of the latter. At least the hauler is piloted, making me excited about potential planet goo piracy. Excited enough to sit patiently for a while outside the tower, watching for the Bestower to twitch even slightly, but he remains perfectly still. I could wait for a bit longer, but only if I thought I had something to wait for, and even though I am only four systems deep all the scanning and exploration of ancillary connections along the way has taken time. It's getting late. I think I'd rather slump watching a vid than stare at this boring Bestower, so I turn my ship around and head homewards.

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Tags: bestower, buzzard, catalyst, drake, eve online, mmorpg, navitas, penny ibramovic, scanning, scorpion, w-space

Searching for some action

'Drake is at customs.' The burst of information as I wake up at our tower is brief but exciting, Mick tailing the battlecruiser in a class 3 w-space system to find it floating outside a customs office. He's a sitting duck, if you'll pardon the pun, but too much for Mick's stealthy strategic cruiser to handle alone, particularly if the piloted Raven battleship at the local tower is called in for help. But the route to the C3 is known and bookmarks are available, all Fin and I need to do is pick appropriate ships.

I find choosing the right ship is a bit like getting ready to go out, you can't just grab something at random and hope to get a positive reaction. You need to know what other pilots are flying, what we're up against, and what is actually available. At least it isn't a faux pas for two of us to turn up in the same ship. I decide to board my Sacrilege heavy assault ship, remembering it being recommended for a previous assault on a Drake, and Fin gets her own Raven ready, as much to counter the possibility of the other one as it is to pound the Drake itself. It looks like we're ready.

We're in our ships and about to warp out of the tower when the Drake turns and returns to his own tower. We remain hopeful that he'll come out and make a target of himself again, but he simply logs off. What a dick. Wallflowers Fin and I stay where we are as Mick looks for more targets through some unexplored wormholes, and we may be lucky still. A carrier is an ominous target, but we can't ignore the Thanatos and its fighters appearing on Mick's directional scanner in a class 4 w-space system. It looks like the carrier is in a simple anomaly, accompanied by a Dominix battleship, and Mick warps in to recconoitre only to find that they are blue, and allied to us. Spoilsports.

Mick tells us that the pilot is now in a Noctis salvager, the anomaly cleared and the wrecks being cleared up. 'Is the Noctis blue?', I ask, and am told that it is. Oh well, another opportunity we have to pass over, but there is another class 2 w-space system to explore. Rather than sit patiently waiting for reports to come I swap boats to be in my covert Tengu strategic cruiser, and head out to join Mick in his scouting. I warp across our neighbouring C3 and through a second class 3 system, where Mick had his sights on the Drake at the customs tower. I recongise this system too, it being where I ambushed an Orca industrial command ship only to be shooed by a Tengu and Drake, probably the same pilot. It's nice to see them again so soon.

I jump in to the C2, which has a couple of empty haulers sitting in a tower somewhere, and warp across it to join Mick on the now-resolved static link to more class 3 w-space. He jumps in as I am in warp, reporting one ship in the system and a tower somewhere. In I go! The system number looks familiar and indeed I've been here twice before, the last time only ten weeks ago. I have two towers listed in my notes and warping to one of them finds the Mammoth hauler that Mick's probe detected, and it is lacking a pilot like the ones in the previous system.

I take a moment to update my notes to reflect the now-missing second tower before we both head home. This C3 only has a connection leading out to empire space, leaving us the choice of watching empty space or starting a diplomatic mess. This is the way the evening ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

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Tags: dominix, drake, eve online, mammoth, mmorpg, noctis, orca, penny ibramovic, raven, sacrilege, tengu, thanatos, w-space

Either too quiet or too busy

My magnetic personality continues to work its charm, except for somehow reversing the polarity and repulsing instead of attracting other pilots. Alone in our empty home w-space system I scan for wormholes. I have six bookmarks to sites I know about, and there are seven signatures to be found in the system. That's the six known sites plus our static wormhole, which makes scanning short and sweet before I'm jumping to our neighbouring class 3 system.

All I see on my directional scanner in the C3 is an off-line tower and some wayward warp bubbles. Capsuleers really need to tidy up after themselves. The system is unoccupied and empty, there being no anomalies even, leaving me only sixteen signatures to search through for the possibility of activity. Ignore, ignore, ignore. Scanning goes more quickly when you're not concerned to bookmark rocks or gas for potential ambushes. I resolve two wormholes, though, one more than I was expecting, but the second connection doesn't offer much in the way of opportunity, the static exit to null-sec k-space being joined only by a K162 also from null-sec.

I exit the C3 through its static exit to turn up in the Outer Passage region. There are a few pilots in the system, obvious from the populated local channel, but I'm more interested in looking for more w-space. I won't find it here, just drones, lots of drones, and the one signature that is the K162 I'm sitting on. I jump back to the C3 and warp across it to explore the null-sec system beyond the K162. I am once again in Outer Passage, a mere eight hops from the other system, and this time there are two extra signatures to resolve. I suspect the Raven battleship on d-scan is shooting drones in one of them, but that still leaves one potential wormhole.

Yay, it's a wormhole. No, really, the signature is 'YAY' and it's a wormhole. In fact, both signatures in this null-sec system are wormholes, the Raven being somewhere else entirely. I am feeling rather lucky, actually, as each wormhole is an outbound connection, one to class 3 w-space and one to class 5 w-space. They may not be as likely to lead to occupation as a K162 would, but their static wormhole remains yet to be discovered so I have more exploration to do. I choose to visit the C3 first, both for potentially softer targets and because it will probably only lead back to k-space, letting me engage in or disregard the system quickly should the constellation beyond the C5 get convoluted.

Erk. I jump in to the class 3 system only to be greeted by five ships. Three Vagabond cruisers and two Curse recon ships are waiting on the wormhole, which is a nasty welcoming party. Even if I thought I could evade these ships normally, which I'm not convinced I can, I have not really jumped in to the system but stumbled, my Tengu being less than two kilometres from the wormhole. I have little choice but to jump back to null-sec and flee. The good news is that the ambushers have launched drones, no doubt trying to make it more difficult for me to move away from the wormhole and cloak, but they have actually done me a favour.

The session change timer ends, I break my cloak, and jump back to null-sec. Back in k-space I move immediately, there being no point waiting for the timer to expire this time, and easily clear the wormhole and cloak before any of the ambushers follow behind me. By launching their drones the pilots had to wait a couple of seconds to recall them back to their bays before they could jump, those precious seconds being all I needed to make good my getaway. In null-sec the Curses and Vagabonds once again launch drones and try to flush me out, but it's too late. I'm at a comfortably safe distance from the wormhole where I casually watch their futile search.

My only problem now is working out where to go. Checking on the information of the ambushing pilots shows them to be null-sec residents, part of a large alliance too, and unlikely to be w-space denizens. I could still explore the C5 here, but I don't know if a second squadron is planted on the other side of that wormhole. I could jump out to evade them too, but if the C3 ambushers are called to sit on the null-sec side of the wormhole I could be toast. I've had one more near-death experience tonight than is on my quota, so would be happy to go home for an early night. But that's a few 'what-if's, and as the ships don't appear to be keen to warp around to check the other two wormholes in the system, to see if I head through one of them, I am probably worrying about nothing. I'll explore the class 5 system.

In warp I check my notes for the C3, finding out I'd been there three months earlier, and that I'd only be looking for another connection to null-sec. I'm fine with leaving it alone. Jumping in to the C5 to has only a clear wormhole to greet me, and a tower and four ships on d-scan. That's it, not even any hangars, arrays, or defences, just a tower and four ships. I locate the tower to find the four ships sadly but inevitably unpiloted. Launching probes and scanning has one anomaly sitting lonely amongst seventeen signatures, and I perform the quick quick scanstep to resolve the only wormhole here, a static connection to more class 5 w-space. It's worth a dekko whilst I'm in a frame of mind to explore.

Core scanning probes are visible on d-scan in the second C5 in the constellation, so is an Orca industrial command ship, Occator transport ship, and Hurricane battlecruiser. A tower floats around a moon somewhere, that somewhere easily located to let me see the Orca piloted, just as the Occator and Hurricane drop off d-scan. I warp away to investigate the one planet stubbornly sitting out of range of d-scan to find a second tower, this one with a sadly unpiloted Covetor mining barge. I spotted an Enyo assault ship on d-scan whilst I was in warp but it is gone by the time I've found the third tower out here. Something is happening, but I can't yet tell what. A Daredevil frigate appears somewhere too, and my best guess is that a wormhole is being camped, or maybe some combat is happening on the other side of it. Either way, I'm going home.

The wormhole back to the first C5 remains clear, as does the first C5 itself, and I exit to null-sec with no surprises waiting for me. I am a little concerned that the null-seccers I left behind are now waiting for me in the other C3, the one I need to use to get home, but luckily Mick and Fin have turned up and I can use their ships as remote sensors. Mick is kind enough to locate and jump through our static wormhole to check the C3 from the inside, where he detects no ships. And with this information I jump in from null-sec to a clear wormhole, letting me get home safely. In retrospect, maybe my ambushers are from the null-sec system on the other side of that other C3, which is why they were reluctant to move away from the wormhole, but it's nothing I thought about at the time.

I update my colleagues on the night's constellation, which Mick neatly sums up as 'either too busy, or too quiet', and we decide to isolate ourselves from the current systems. Fin's Orca pairs with my Widow black-ops ship to collapse our static wormhole, those two-to-three months of specialised skill training really coming in handy for me to pilot a ship that has little other function out here than be a wormhole killer. At least I still enjoy its styling, and it is really effective at collapsing wormholes with the Orca. The wormhole dies on schedule to give us more w-space to explore, but I stay behind. I've had my fill of action and am feeling sleepy, so hit the sack as my colleagues scan the new constellation looking for targets.

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Tags: covetor, curse, daredevil, enyo, eve online, hurricane, mmorpg, null-sec, occator, orca, penny ibramovic, raven, scanning, vagabond, w-space, widow

Trying to stay unseen

There are supposedly even more pilots in our home system now, and even if they are friendly they are nowhere to be seen. I feel their presence, if not see their ships, as someone has left bookmarks in our shared can, pointing me towards our neighbouring class 3 w-space system. I copy them across to the nav-comp of my covert Tengu strategic cruiser and head out to explore. My directional scanner is clear from the K162 in the C3, and warping to the local tower sees a Cheetah covert operations boat only briefly, as the pilot calls it a night and disappears. The system seems dead.

The system is not all that is dead here. Two wormholes were scanned in this system earlier and were apparently reaching the end of their natural lifetimes when resolved. Now, a few hours later, both of them are gone. Finding the new static exit to high-sec empire space gives me a reason to scan the system, but doing so doesn't reveal any other wormholes. Jumping out to high-sec puts me in the Sinq Laison region, which is close to Dodixie and maybe good for importing some more fuel, which glorious leader Fin would know about better than me. A simple scan in the high-sec system finds no other connections beyond the K162 I'm sitting on, so I head back to w-space and our home system.

Fin indeed thinks we could get some fuel in easily, and takes a Bustard transport ship out to empire space so we can resupply our tower. I help in my own way, scanning the home system as a defensive measure, looking for any unexpected inbound connections. I find one, too. A K162 from class 2 w-space has appeared, one that I had better investigate to ensure Fin can get home safely with no surprises. I warp back to our tower to copy a bookmark to the wormhole in to our shared can, for easy reference when Fin returns, and swap to a stealth bomber. I'm not expecting to scan the C2 and just need an agile and covert ship to let me reconnoitre for now.

I jump in to the C2 and immediately see a threat. A Drake battlecruiser loiters eighty kilometres from the wormhole and, if he's fulfilling his responsibility adequately, must have seen me enter the system. I hold my session change cloak for now but the Drake doesn't blink, so I take the initiative and move away from the wormhole and cloak. Only once I have been identified does the Drake warp away and although I imagine there is no hunting to be done here there is certainly activity to be monitored. As long as the locals stay in this system we'll be fine, but if they enter our own we will need to be ready.

D-scan shows me the Drake still somewhere in the C2, along with two towers and a couple of Mammoth haulers. I locate the towers, one heavily protected by warp bubbles, to find the Mammoths unpiloted. But I think there is activity in the bubbled tower, as a Manticore appears on d-scan before disappearing again. I imagine the stealth bomber has gone to wait to ambush me, but I ignore him for now. I explore the further reaches of the system, finding no other towers but perhaps a second Drake. He appears to be sitting in empty space, my assumption being that he's monitoring a second wormhole. Or maybe it's the same Drake warping between the two static connections. I should have paid more attention to the battlecruiser's name when I first saw it.

Fin makes it home without hassle. Our neighbouring C3 remains quiet and she doesn't flush out the Manticore at large. We try a bit harder and Fin plants an interceptor on the K162 to the C2, hoping the bomber will be tempted enough to engage, but there is no sign of him. A new contact appears at the bubbled tower and I warp there to monitor his activity. The pilot boards an Onyx heavy interdictor, a threatening ship indeed, and Fin asks me to 'holler if he warps'. He warps, I holler, Fin backs off from the wormhole, but only to a safer distance. It's okay, though, as the Onyx warped in a different direction, his destination unknown as I still only have the one reference point here, that of the wormhole home.

There are definitely two Drakes warping around this C2, but where they are and where they are going I have no idea. The Manticore resurfaces to swap to a third Drake and warps off to join his colleagues, which includes the Onyx, and Fin reminds me that there is a distinct possibility that I wasn't spotted. Either that, or my direction of travel is too uncertain for the locals. Maybe they think I am an empire space tourist, coming in from a different wormhole, and that I'll be heading back that way, trying to catch me there. It's a fair assumption to make, but if that's the case it is a little careless not to at least put a scout on the wormhole where I was first spotted.

Fin decides to start stressing the wormhole connecting our two systems, bringing an Orca industrial command ship out to begin collapsing the link. As she warps to the wormhole a third Mammoth appears in the system, which looks good to me. But the pilot immediately swaps the hauler for a second HIC, his Broadsword warping out of the tower straight away. Fin naturally starts to get jittery, but the HIC again doesn't head our way, and one round-trip with the Orca is made. It's only then that we realise that the hour is late and that if even if we collapse the wormhole we won't be doing anything else, and there no longer seems any point in taking the risk to do so, particularly as the C2 pilots don't seem to want to come to our system.

D-scan can now detect an Onyx, Broadsword, Drake, and Crow interceptor in the C2, all in the same spot in empty space, and perhaps on a wormhole suitable for ambushes. They won't get any opportunities from us, as we ignore their C2 for the comfort of our C4. We can't even be sure we got the attention of the locals in the C2. We simply leave them chasing their tails and get some sleep.

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Tags: broadsword, bustard, cheetah, crow, drake, eve online, mammoth, manticore, mmorpg, onyx, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, tengu, w-space

Music of 2011, part two

It's September already, and although normally tardy with my new music reviews I think the generally lacklustre recent purchases, and a malaise about finding new bands, better explains my reluctance to scribble down my thoughts. There's a gem hidden away in this selection too, so it's not all bad. And I already have more good music lined up for the next collection, with hopefully more on its way, and maybe that fresh injection of tunes was the motivation I needed to get this second review of the year completed.

With a name like Take Care, Take Care, Take Care I don't see how I can ignore Explosions in the Sky's latest album. Listening to it gives me a different impression, sadly. It seems to start okay, until two minutes later I am still hoping for the album to start in earnest. I don't mind the odd concept song, long tracks in general, or instrumentals, and Explosions in the Sky certainly can create interesting and musical songs. But it doesn't help that four of the six tracks are all over eight minutes in length, with one of the remaining two clocking in at over seven minutes, and so many long tracks back-to-back feels too much like a lack of editing. Individual concepts could be tightened and brought to an earlier resolution, moving on to the next for a fresh experience, or at least an aural rest. Instead, and particularly because of the lack of vocals in this case, the music feels pretentious. Take Care, Take Care, Take Care is an album I feel I should really like but always come from away feeling tired instead of invigorated.

Gyratory System is a brilliant name for a band and I pick up their debut album New Harmony with high hopes. It's a little simplistic at times, the rhythms and riffs jolly enough in themselves but even when layered on top of each other not really offering much feeling of sophistication. Other times it all feels a bit atonic, in a rather amateurish manner. The music isn't bad, but I feel a lack of depth to the tracks, giving me nothing to latch on to so I can explore it on repeated listens. What I hear is what I get, making it a rather superficial listen, and by the end of the album I just want the simplistic repetition to stop.

Repetition is easy to do but difficult to get right, really difficult in fact. Gyratory System don't quite manage it, but Moon Duo certainly do! Second album Mazes starts out with droning synths over a four-to-the-floor drum beat, vocals complementing the music soon enough, before a fuzzy guitar starts noodling over the top of it all as if Rudi had finally found the New Sound. And it all works brilliantly, even though very little seems to change in the course of the song. The repetitious beat is catchy enough to hold the track together, whilst the vocals and soloing provide enough variation to keep it all interesting. It's musical genius, and it just gets better. Titular track Mazes is next, with an even-catchier groove that pops along like it's summer all year long, and then we get to a more lo-fi feel with Scars that works for its simplicity. And noticing each layer that is sequentially added at the start of the brilliant When You Cut gives an appreciation for what Moon Duo build with each song. Mazes is masterful.

If you ever wanted to know what Times New Viking sounded like without so much fuzz cranked over everything they do, then look no further than latest album Dancer Equired. Instead of turning all the lo-fi knobs to eleven Time New Viking are chilling out, but just a little. They still sound like Times New Viking, just more human. But I can't work out if that's good or not. Try Harder and New Vertical Dwellings are prime candidates for the band's overdriven output, okay as they are but just feeling somewhat awry without the fuzz pummelling your eardrums, whereas Don't Go To Liverpool breezes along perfectly with a clean sound. Meanwhile, Downtown Eastern Bloc sits right in the middle, a fabulous song by itself with a hint that some fuzz would make it sound more like Times New Viking without changing how it feels. But just relaxing and letting the music play out, instead of thinking too hard about the lack of fuzz, finds Dancer Equired to be another fourteen chunks of two-minute fun.

Having got not quite overly excited enough about Bo Ningen, reading that Boris is a Japanese experimental band understandably gets my attention, particularly as their latest album is called Attention Please. Sir, yes sir! I know nothing about Boris, so learning that this album features only Wata on vocals means little to me. And for an experimental group the music sounds pretty mainstream, but maybe this is an intentionally mainstream release. It's pop, it's rock. It's quiet, it's loud. It's enjoyable, if unremarkable.

To send my obscurity levels in to overload, my final album in this selection is an eponomously titled album from Control Zèbre, a French jazz trio I saw busking near the Abbesses Metro station. They were lively, charismatic, and very cool, and being on holiday I was happy to pick up one of their albums to take home. The only problem was that I didn't know which of the two CDs available would best reflect their current style, and I think, although I can't be sure, that I managed to pick their debut, which may explain the less polished feel. The songs are good and I always like a bit of jazz, but the album doesn't quite capture the experience of seeing them play on the streets of Paris. Funny, that. It's a good album, all the same.

Posted in Audio | Comments Off on Music of 2011, part two
Tags: boris, cd, control zebre, explosions in the sky, gyratory system, moon duo, times new viking

Bringing more ships home

Why must there be scanning probes in the home system? I was coming home for an early night, after evading a counter-attack and scanning empty space, but now I feel compelled to plant myself on our K162 in an interceptor, to sit in wait for the scout. So that's what I do, swapping my strategic cruiser for a Malediction interceptor and jumping in to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, the next logical destination for a scout scanning our C4. And now I wait.

And I wait, and I wait, but no scout comes jumping in to my almost-threatening ambush. Glorious leader Fin appears, though, which is relatively good timing. I ask her if she can seen any probes on her directional scanner in the home system, and she can see none. Ah well, I've been waiting for no one again, but at least I also haven't jumped back to check only to miss them by doing so. If the scouts don't want to press forwards, I can scan backwards, getting back in to my Tengu to look for the K162 that brought the scout here.

I launch scanning probes and take a look around our home system, as a Hurricane appears briefly. The battlecruiser goes as soon as it appears, and although I think I had found the new connection there is now no longer any sign of a signature I cannot account for. Either we have a cloaky Hurricane camping our system, or the wormhole that brought the scanning ship earlier has just been collapsed. It's possible whoever was scanning saw my interceptor rush off and decided not to bother with our system any longer, or maybe we indeed have another unwelcome guest. I suppose we'll find out soon enough. For now, we can collapse our own wormhole and take a second look for opportunity. I have time.

A Widow black ops ship paired with an Orca industrial command ship makes collapsing our static wormhole almost trivial. The C247 can withstand two million kilogrammes of mass passing through it before it collapses, and one round-trip of our two ships, masses augmented by micro warp drives, pushes one million kilogrammes through the wormhole. Along with the odd scouting ship here and there it only takes a couple of trips to kill our connection, all for perhaps a month or two of skill training to pilot a black ops ship that has no other real benefits in w-space. I still think it looks really cool.

Deleting my bookmarks and scanning the home system afresh finds the new wormhole, and I jump in to another class 3 w-space system. I see a Rupture cruiser and two towers on d-scan, which are all easily found. There may be eight planets in the system but there are only two moons in total, and the entire system is in range of d-scan of itself, making there nowhere to hide. Once the Rupture is confirmed at a tower and unpiloted I can safely say the system is not overtly active. Scanning the system reveals only the one anomaly but twenty sigantures, which are a fair few to resolve, but it shouldn't take long with two of us and we start sifting through them.

Two wormholes reveal themselves here, both links to empire space. The system's static connection leads out to low-sec space, and a K162 comes in from high-sec. The exit to low-sec is ignored for now as we check where the high-sec connection comes from, jumping out to the Khanid region. The high-sec system seems far from most systems of interest, but it places us within single-digit hops from where our remaining ships are stored. We've brought in most ships of obvious utility, and there are some that probably don't need to be returned, but that still leaves a couple that could be useful. I think I have time to collect one of them, the only question being which one.

I stow my Tengu and head out to high-sec in my pod. I wonder if I should get the Falcon for its ECM capabilities, or maybe the Curse for a more aggressive PvP ship, both recon ships having obvious benefits but fulfilling different roles. Or, my colleagues chip in, I can bring back both. I could, if I had time, but I am only making one trip tonight. It's already later than I wanted to stay in space. There is a bit of back-and-forth about cramming ships in to haulers, but Fin comes up with the best solution. She comes out too, collecting her second Orca and opening up its hangar bay for both the Falcon and Curse, along with some of the ships she has lying around.

Transferring the Falcon and Curse to Fin keeps me in my pod, but rather than fly naked back to w-space I pilot a Nighthawk command ship instead, which may come in handy one day. Or maybe it will be just another ship to take up space in the hangar and need to be moved between systems in the future. But it's nice to have lots of toys to play with, particularly expensive and capable toys. Our journey home is uneventful, staying safely in high-sec all the way to the wormhole, and the C3 and our home system remaining quiet and inactive. Now I can sleep.

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Tags: curse, eve online, falcon, hurricane, malediction, mmorpg, nighthawk, orca, penny ibramovic, rupture, scanning, tengu, w-space, widow

Orcas are tempting targets

Finally my Sleeper Tengu is recovered to w-space. I don't really have a goal for my time any more, so I suppose I'll simply see where my scanning probes take me. They take me first to a new radar site in our home system, which I won't bother visiting. Now they are showing me a new gravimetic site. I will visit this one, activating it so that it will disappear again within a few days. Ah, they've discovered the static wormhole, and it is the only connection here. I press on to explore today's w-space constellation, finding myself in a class 3 system with only two containers and two off-line towers in range of my directional scanner. I'd wager the exit here will lead me to null-sec k-space again.

The derelict towers and defences left behind certainly indicate a system that connects regularly to null-sec, but this may work to our advantage. No occupation and no ships combined with over twenty anomalies makes for a potentially profitable evening, and only the day after we get our Sleeper ships home. I can't assume that the system will remain quiet, though, and I start sifting through the twenty-two signatures here to ensure there is only the one wormhole. Rock and gas sites are ignored until I get to a weak signature that stinks like a null-sec connection, and it is indeed the sole wormhole to be found here. I don't visit the connection, keeping it inactive, and take a couple more minutes to ignore a radar site and bookmark a magnetometric one before heading home. I'll take a break to wait for glorious leader Fin's arrival, at which point maybe we can rake in some iskies.

I return to find myself still alone in w-space. Fin can't be far behind, I'm sure, and I can still make good use of my time. Plenty of ship losses are caused by capsuleers assuming their constellation remains unchanged, but I am not taking that chance. I launch probes and scan our home system, confirming that there are no new signatures, and then jumping to the C3 to do the same there. It's not quite as straightfoward to achieve in the C3 as at home, as we only have seven signatures in our C4 but there are over twenty here, and I didn't bookmark or note all of them from earlier. Even so, at least I counted them all, so if there are still twenty-two I can be confident that all remains the same. Or a couple of ships can appear on a blanket scan of the system, giving a clear indication that there must be a new connection.

Core scanning probes appear in the C3 as I start looking for the new wormhole, resolving it fairly quickly for it being quite a fat signature. I warp across to take a quick peek through what turns out to be a K162 from class 4 w-space, but before I get close enough to jump an Orca industrial command ship jumps and decloaks immediately on entering the system. Pounce! Without a second thought I decloak and burn towards the juicy target, locking, disrupting, and shooting as soon as I can. I am waiting for the Orca to jump back to the C4 to try to evade me, ready to follow behind to continue the assault, but he's just sitting there and taking it.

I can't believe the Orca pilot's dozed off at the controls moments after jumping through a wormhole, and I don't believe it. He's waiting for reinforcements to get organised before drawing me in to a counter-ambush. His ship can take a lot of beating, too, so he probably isn't fretting too much just yet. And, sure enough, as my missiles are still steadily shredding his armour, the Orca jumps through the K162. Of course it's a trap. Of course his buddies are waiting in scary ships for me. Of course I'm going to follow him.

A Phobos heavy interdictor is on the other side of the wormhole and waiting with its warp bubble active. That would seem a little careless, as it traps the damaged Orca too, if it weren't also for the Armageddon battleship, Loki strategic cruiser, and Oneiros logistics ship ready to engage my poor Tengu. That's certainly enough to discourage me from continuing my attack, even without the magnetar phenomenon in the system providing a damage bonus to my four would-be attackers, but a second Loki warps in just to push the point home. Yes, okay, I'll leave your Orca alone.

I wait for the session change timer to end, taking the time to assess the situation, and jump back to the C3 only to find the owner of the scanning probes I detected earlier. They don't belong to a benign covert operations boat, or simple scouting frigate, but a Proteus strategic cruiser, piloted by a red-skulled pirate, and with drones out and ready for me. Escape may not be as simple as I was hoping. At least I am far enough from the wormhole to cloak immediately, and have a clear path to follow away from the wormhole. I move and cloak as soon as possible, not wanting space to get too cluttered with the other ships coming in behind me. The Proteus spots me and tries to follow, burning in my direction as the Phobos appears and bubbles the space around the wormhole in the C3. The chasing Proteus gets close, but not close enough. I warp to safety.

It was obvious what was going to happen but I couldn't let the Orca simply get away. Actually, I suppose I could have, particularly as I have been the victim of an Orca as bait before, but they are such tempting targets. And I can be certain that the pilots didn't know I was there initially either, so it wasn't intentional bait, it just worked out that way. Now that I'm clear I can warp back and see what the capsuleers are up to, as if I need to guess. The C3 is unoccupied and only has an exit to null-sec, so the Orca is being pushed through the wormhole to collapse it. Sure enough, the Orca is back on the K162 and looking vulnerable. A couple of ships jump back and forth, no doubt trying to destabilise the wormhole enough for one more Orca jump to kill the connection, leaving the Orca sitting here waiting for the right moment to return. In fact, it seems like a great time to attack it again, they'll never be expecting this.

I'm kidding. I watch another ship jump out, critically destabilising the wormhole, and then both it and the Orca return to the C4, the wormhole disappearing behind them. It's a little sad, as that's the second time in a couple of weeks that I've caught an Orca on a wormhole I've not been able to pop. I suppose I've been able to survive the counter-attack each time, which is probably more important. I am left alone in the C3, with the same number of signatures as earlier, and Fin's still not turned up. I may as well open the exit to null-sec, as I cannot guarantee that the scanning Proteus hasn't done that already, and explore there. But all I find is a radar site in this system in the Etherium Reach system, nowhere else to explore. I think I'll head home for an early night.

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Tags: armageddon, eve online, loki, mmorpg, oneiros, orca, penny ibramovic, phobos, proteus, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space

Bringing Pengu home

Job's a good 'un. Our static wormhole is collapsed smoothly, and I delete all the bookmarks to the previous and rather disappointing constellation. So many links to empire space, and none of them usable to collect Pengu. But now we have another chance of finding a decent link to high-sec and an opportunity to bring home our Sleeper strategic cruisers. Glorious leader Fin and I start by swapping our massive ships for scouting boats, resolving our new static connection, and jumping in to the class 3 w-space system beyond.

Exhumers, haulers, and frigates, oh my! Maybe I'll be distracted again, it happens easily enough, but locating the tower in this C3 also locates the ships and all of them are lacking pilots. An empty system makes roaming rather pointless and so I launch probes and scan. A static exit to low-sec is found soon enough, which Fin jumps through to end up in the Genesis region and far from our ships, but the seven signatures also hold a second wormhole. I strike gold, resolving a K162 from high-sec that comes in from the Lonetrek region! A mere nine hops to Pengu is the closest I've been since getting back to the home w-space system, and I have a route through high-sec too.

The result isn't quite as good as it first looks, though. As Fin points out, the route isn't entirely through high-sec, with a single low-sec system sitting in the way. And not just any low-sec system, but Aunenen. That should probably mean something to me, which is why I am glad I can rely on Fin's knowledge and experience. She lets me know that Aunenen is notorious for being used by pirates to show unwary travellers how wrong they are to think a single hop through low-sec can't be that dangerous. Travelling through Aunenen could get us killed.

We could collapse our static wormhole again, but I don't think we'll get this close to our ships again for some time, particularly as the serendipitous exit is a K162. I think I'll take a chance on getting Pengu home tonight. I leave my covert strategic cruiser at our tower to take an agile frigate to high-sec, which should get me to dock safely at least. And travelling through Aunenen shows that there are pirates around, a Hurricane pairing up with an Onyx heavy interdictor on one of the stargates littered with wrecks. It seems likely that the battlecruiser is remotely boosting the sensors of the heavy interdictor so that the HIC can quickly lock ships and use its infinite-strength warp disruptor to prevent ships evading them. Not even warp core stabilisers would help me here.

Fin's got my back again. We'll be piloting strategic cruisers home—Fin collecting hers too—which are reconfigurable. I forget this, because even though strategic cruisers are built using Sleeper technology that comes from w-space the ships are not reconfigurable outside of a space station in k-space. W-space inhabitants have no access to the inherent flexibility that strategic cruisers offer, despite being the source of them all, not that I'm bitter. Today I will be in a space station and, as Fin suggests, Pengu can be modified to help me get through the dangerous system, before reverting the fitting in the high-sec system holding the wormhole. That's good thinking.

I dock and ditch my frigate, getting back in to Pengu at last, and buy and fit a covert reconfiguration subsystem for the Tengu. I have a covert operations cloak sitting in my hangar, from one of the scouts I popped whilst roaming from here during the eviction, and fit that to my cruiser. Whilst no guarantee of safety, being able to cloak and warp cloaked will make travel through Aunenen much easier. I make a few more modifications, refitting purely for survival and not combat, remembering to stow the swapped modules in my hold, and head out to make the journey home. I don't have far to go and am soon jumping in to Aunenen again, where there look to be more wrecks but, thankfully, no hostile ships lurking on the stargate.

I'm glad there are no ships to greet me, as I have appeared in Aunenen almost on top of one of the wrecks. A little closer and I would not have been able to cloak and may well have got caught. But close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, I suppose, as I am able to cloak, and no one is there to catch me anyway, and I warp across to exit the system through another stargate. It is a simple matter to complete the rest of the high-sec journey, docking in the system with the K162 to reconfigure Pengu back to her original form, and I warp to the wormhole to return to w-space. The C3 stays empty and no one is waiting for us in our home system. We both get our Tengus back to w-space without issue, and we can finally think about shooting Sleepers for fun and profit again.

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Tags: eve online, hurricane, low-sec, mmorpg, onyx, penny ibramovic, scanning, tengu, w-space

Stealthing and bombing in w-space

I can't yet undo my previous scanning and delete all my patiently collected bookmarks. I am back from afternoon tea and was hoping glorious leader Fin would be here and we could kill our wormhole. Despite my best efforts, and various potential exits, I still haven't found a convenient route out to empire space so I can collect my Sleeper strategic cruiser, only some dying wormholes. And I won't be finding a new route until Fin arrives so that we can collapse the wormhole. I may as well make use of my bookmark collection and take my Manticore stealth bomber out for a roam through the fishy w-space constellation.

Jumping in to our neighbouring class 3 system finds nothing, and even more nothing than earlier. The two wormholes that were in their death throes are now not even holes in space, although the K162 from class 5 w-space is still here. I ignore exploring that system, though, as a transport ship was flying about earlier and whoever was active then is now probably busy elsewhere. My only option is to continue out to null-sec k-space, where there is a wormhole to more w-space to roam through. I warp across null-sec to the next C3, where a Hurricane is new and piloted at a tower, and scanning probes are flying about the system. The battlecruiser's not moving and, with even more w-space available, I move on for now.

I exit the system to low-sec empire space and head over to a K162 from more class 3 w-space. I drop out of warp ten kilometres from from the wormhole to see a Helios and Buzzard sitting on the K162, one of the covert operations boats jumping in to the C3 and the other moving to do the same. This would be a good opportunity to sit and wait, if my Manticore hadn't stumbled across the invisible yet still interfering cosmic signature and got inadvertently decloaked. I'm not sure why cosmic signatures can't be coincident with their wormholes, or why they act as physical objects so as to decloak ships, and because of that why they cannot be seen! The Jovians must hate us.

Unveiled and spotted I do what I can with the situation, and burn towards the wormhole to chase the two boats. I jump in to see the cov-ops boats cloak, when they either warp away or wait to see what I do. It's hard to tell what an invisible ship does. I move and cloak myself and, with little other option, warp to one of the two towers here to try to follow the pilots. If I have followed them they are pretty quick at changing ships, as two pilots at the tower are sitting in a Falcon recon ship and Iteron hauler. In fact, the Iteron hauler has even managed to get outside of the tower's shields. Maybe they aren't the same pilots.

Hang on, the Iteron is outside of the tower's shields! Not only that, but he's about twenty-five kilometres from me, which is good bombing range. Happy not to be in my Tengu this time, knowing how a tower can cripple a strategic cruiser, I align to the Iteron, decloak, and launch a bomb. With my momentum carrying me towards the hauler I try to gain a positive target lock so that I can disrupt its warp engines, but a split-second before I do it warps clear. That was pretty quick. Either I got a positive lock and it has warp core stabilisers fitted, it was already aligned and ready to warp, or hax were involved. Whatever the reason, my bomb explodes only to hit a defence. It was close, but no cigar-shaped ship kill for me this time.

I follow the Iteron but he only warps to a second tower in this system. I had my one shot and missed it, and now that the pilot has swapped the hauler for an Ishkur assault ship I turn around and leave the system. Back out in low-sec the other K162 to class 3 w-space is reaching the end of its natural lifetime, and I remind myself that I'm not currently roaming in a ship with a probe launcher and leave it alone. That leaves me only the C5 connecting to our neighbouring C3 to explore. Or, with Fin's arrival, a wormhole to collapse and a new constellation to unveil. Maybe I'll even get back in to Pengu's pod at last.

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Tags: buzzard, eve online, falcon, helios, hurricane, ishkur, iteron, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, tengu, w-space

Dashed by old age

Pengu's coming home! Okay, maybe not right away, as I haven't even scanned the home system for wormholes yet, but I am optimistic about retrieving my strategic cruiser from high-sec. W-space can't keep sending me to null-sec forever. So with a positive spring in my probe launcher, I resolve our static connection and jump to the class 3 w-space system, which no doubt contains an exit to high-sec empire space. I'm so excited!

Three drones and a warp bubble are visible on my directional scanner, but nothing else. Expanding my search of the system beyond the range of d-san, by launching probes and blanketing the system, finds only empty space. That the system remains unoccupied since my last visit six months ago, along with the large number of anomalies and signatures present, strongly suggests I am not looking for an exit to high-sec but one to null-sec k-space. Poor Pengu, so many Sleepers to shoot, but so far away from them all. I scan anyway and resolve the weak-looking signature to indeed be an exit to null-sec, but I'm not giving up yet.

I sift through rocks and gas in this empty C3 looking and hoping for a random outbound connection to continue exploration, and I find something. Sadly it's not an outbound link but the more likely K162 I see before me when I drop out of warp, and the inbound connection from class 5 w-space is not exactly helpful. In all likelihood, even if there are more K162s to find heading backwards through w-space, the starting point will probably remain in w-space and I'd only be wasting my time scanning in that direction.

There are still more signatures in this C3, though. I ignore rocks and gas—in fact, radar and magnetometric sites mostly—to see a Probe appear near the K162 I'm sitting on. And by 'near', I mean 200 km away, but that's nose-to-nose on an astronomical scale. I think about trying to get closer when a Prorator decloaks on the wormhole itself before jumping through. The Probe then warps to the wormhole and jumps too, probably following his colleague in the transport ship home.

I am close to resolving another wormhole in this C3 when the K162 flares again, the Prorator coming back and warping off in roughly the direction of the wormhole I am scanning. If I didn't know any better I'd say there was a convenient connection to empire space here, which the C5 occupants are using. I'm almost tingling with expectation. I resolve the wormhole and warp to it to find a K162 coming in from high-sec! But it's very wobbly and reaching the end of its lifetime, which isn't encouraging. I check the exit anyway, as I could risk the remaining life of the wormhole for a short trip, but I end up in Minmatar space and two dozen jumps from Pengu.

A fourth wormhole in the C3 is an oubtound connection, but the wormhole to more class 3 w-space, and its guaranteed exit to k-space, is also at the end of its natural lifetime. I'll have more hope looking for additional wormholes in null-sec, and I jump through the static exit to do just that. There are lots of drone sites in this system in the Malpais region, and the four signatures here look promising. Two of them turn out to be gravimetric sites, one is the K162 back to the C3, but one is indeed a wormhole, leading out to more class 3 w-space. This newly found C3 could have a stable connection to high-sec!

Or maybe I've gone around in circles. I'm sure C3a was unoccupied, so the unpiloted ships in the tower here are a hint I'm in a different system, but the K162 from class 5 w-space gives me a feeling of deja vu. At least the static connection doesn't lead to null-sec—there's a K162 present that does—and instead exits to low-sec empire space. It's not quite high-sec but it could offer a good route to Pengu. Or I could end up in the Devoid region, still two dozen jumps away from my desired ship. Right, I'm scanning this low-sec system too, there is a route to be discovered.

It is the day of the C3. Two wormholes are resolved in this low-sec system and, despite hoping for a low-to-high-sec connection, both are K162s from class 3 w-space. I think that's the end of my hopes, I may as well explore the two C3s here to look for ships to take out my frustrations on. And you never know, I may find a K162 coming from a class 2 w-space system that has a second connection to high-sec. Picking one of the two wormholes at random to jump through I find myself in an occupied system with scanning probes on d-scan. I launch my own probes and blanket the system, finding three ships. My notes put me here four months ago and list two towers, which remain in the same place and hold the three unpiloted ships. My interest is waning.

With probes launched I may as well scan, and my eerie influence over my own destiny finds me a K162 from class 2 w-space. My tenuous grip on reality also means this K162 is very wobbly indeed and, even if it would last long enough for me to scan in the C2, the wormhole probably will die before I even get back to our tower, if I can find it still. I leave this system to check the other C3 found from low-sec, hoping I'll have better luck there. And although I get an even more direct sign that I am destined to get Pengu today, resolving a K162 from high-sec itself, the wormhole is again wobbly. Maybe I have a problem with my graphics card.

I check the exit system anyway to find myself closer to Pengu than through the other exits, but still fifteen jumps away. Mind you, even if I had ended up in the system holding Pengu I would not be confident of the wormhole living long enough for me to warp 160 AU across this C3 more than once. That's it, I've run out of systems to explore and wormholes to find. There's not much more to do but head home, copy the twenty-one bookmarks I've made to our shared can, and take a break for food. I gave it my best shot, but I'm going to have to wait a little longer until I can get Pengu back to w-space.

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Tags: eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, probe, prorator, scanning, w-space