Substandard scouting

Another day, another gravimetric site to lazily mine. I resolve the new site, warp in, and warp back out again. That'll teach those rocks to appear in my system. Now I'll see if I can stir up a similar storm outside of home, warping to the only wormhole present and jumping to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system. I find myself in a C3 I visited about three months ago, and knowing that it holds a static exit to null-sec k-space makes it unlikely I'll be bringing any more ships home. No ships visible on a blanket scan of the system isn't a good sign for hunting either, although I am early enough that I only really expect to do some preparatory scanning.

I locate the two towers in this C3 and pick one to loiter nearby as I scan the system. I bookmark the sole anomaly and have little trouble resolving the six signatures. The first is a wormhole, but one that is far too strong to connect to null-sec. It turns out to be a K162, but only from low-sec empire space. A weaker wormhole looks more like the static exit to null-sec, even more so when I visit it and see the familiar K346 designation. I finish scanning with a gravimetric site, a second gravimetric site, and, hello, a third wormhole. This last wormhole is outbound connection to more class 3 w-space, and well worth exploring.

This second C3 is also in my notes, from six months earlier. Fin and I popped a Badger hauler here back then, and it doesn't look like we stayed for long as I don't have the static wormhole listed. I have the tower in my notes, though, but there have been some changes in the intervening months, one tower moved and at least one more erected. A Dominix battleship and Buzzard covert operations boat sit in the tower in range of my directional scanner from the K162, the Dominix piloted but inactive. I warp off to launch probes and accidentally bump in to a third tower, warping past the second and a shuttle, but it doesn't look like anyone but the battleship pilot is around.

My combat probes show me the three ships I've already seen, along with two anomalies and three signatures. With the Dominix pilot dozing off I scan the signatures, ignoring the K162 to C3a, and find two more wormholes. The first is the static exit to high-sec empire space, which could be handy, the second an outbound connection to class 4 w-space. I am keen to bring back my Tengu or Crane to w-space and, having time to make a journey today, check the high-sec exit beore exploring deeper in to w-space. And even though I have time for a journey the thirty jumps from Metropolis is a little discouraging. Maybe another day.

Jumping back to C3b finds a change on d-scan, the Dominix replaced by an Imicus frigate. I've apparently forgotten about that connection to the C4 already and instead warp to the tower to keep an eye on the tiny target. Sadly, my Tengu decloaks at some point during the flight to the tower and I don't notice until I am dropping out of warp in front of the Imicus. It's quite likely he's seen my strategic cruiser appear and then cloak, and I imagine the element of surprise is gone. A potential target lost to a newbie mistake, how embarrassing. I may as well head home.

Before I get home I remember about the K162 from low-sec in C3a and jump out to see if that lands me any closer to my ships. It does, but a check of d-scan before jumping out of w-space saw a Tengu in the C3 and, again, bloodlust overcomes my desire to run logistics. I'm odd that way. I jump back to the C3, warp my Tengu over to the tower—making sure I'm cloaked this time—and watch the other strategic cruiser for movement. He does little to start with, then swaps ships to a Buzzard. He warps around four hundred kilometres from the tower, launches probes, and warps back in to the force field. Scanning means he'll find the wormholes here, and he may investigate them. Glorious leader Fin has turned up and is happy to jump in to her Crow interceptor to arrange a welcome party for the new scout.

Eventually the scanning probes in the system disappear and the Buzzard sets out to survey what he's found. His first visit is not towards our K162, unfortunately, but the N968 to the second class 3 system. I follow behind, hedging my bets and dropping far short of the wormhole, but he's aimed right for the wormhole and is diving straight in. Rather than hope he comes back still full enough of curiosity to check our K162 I drop my cloak and burn towards the wormhole, calling Fin to jump in and warp to my position. The Buzzard may not want to visit our system but he'll definitely be coming home, and we can move our welcome wagon to him.

As I am on full burn, and Fin is in warp, the wormhole still fifty kilometres away from me flares. The Buzzard has returned rather sooner than expected, and we are nowhere near in optimal positions. Perhaps because the pilot sees my Tengu bearing down on him he ignores the session change cloak and warps back to his tower, moments before Fin drops out of warp in her interceptor. It looks like I've blown my second opportunity of the day too. I don't think there is much more for us to do here for now, so I head home, dump the bookmarks I've accumulated, and go off-line to watch a vid. Let's hope I don't disappoint as much tomorrow.

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Tags: buzzard, crane, crow, dominix, eve online, imicus, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, tengu, w-space

Ending the evening with exploration

I am about to leave our class 3 neighbouring w-space system when I spot combat probes on my directional scanner. I checked the exit to low-sec one last time, seeing it wobbly and dying but still alive, and was heading home, after attacking an Orca industrial command ship but chased away by a Tengu strategic cruiser and Drake battlecruiser, when the probes appear. I thought I saw only three contacts in this system in total, and all three logged off soon after making it safely back to their tower. But there was a Buzzard covert operations boat amongst them and I can't be sure if that was a fourth contact or one of the pilots that came to protect the Orca.

It seemed a little odd that the locals wouldn't even scan for a new wormhole after my assault on them. They could assume I am a tourist from low-sec, but considering the distinct lack of signatures in the system—there was only a gravimetric site to accompany the two wormholes—it would have been trivial to check. I suppose if the pilots decided to suspend operations for the night it wouldn't really matter if they found the wormhole or not, but I still need to explain the combat probes in the system.

As they are combat probes flying around I resist the temptation to warp somewhere quiet and launch my own probes, as my ship would likely be picked up by the combat probes and give the scout someone to be wary of, or to hunt. Instead I sit on the only wormhole that should attract attention, and that's the K162 leading to our class 4 home. If the scout is local he'll only be looking for and find our wormhole, and if he's not local the EOL exit to low-sec will appeal much less than more w-space to explore. Sure enough, a few short minutes sees a Loki strategic cruiser decloak in front of me and jump through the K162 to our home system. 'Careful now', Mick warns me on hearing this new information, and I interrogate the pilot's systems to see that he is not local to the C3.

There is probably a new wormhole opened in to this system, as it's unlikely a low-sec tourist would jump through a dying wormhole. And now that the scout is out of the system I can launch probes and check for new connections, but I warp away from the wormhole in case the Loki decides to return sooner than expected. A blanket scan of the system shows four signatures now, and my previous scanning and naming of the bookmarks I made makes the new signature obvious. As I resolve the wormhole Mick bets me two million iskies that it's a K162 from low-sec. That's a bet I'll take. C3s connect to low-sec an inordinate number of times, but inbound connections could feasibly be from anywhere, giving me good odds. What I don't expect is to drop out of warp in front of a wormhole from deadly class 6 w-space. No one would have taken that bet.

I may need to be careful. Or maybe not. I haven't seen the cloaky Loki again and with the scout out and about, and presumably reporting no activity, there may be soft targets being careless even in a C6. I jump in to find out. My notes place me in this system twice before, both times around seven months ago, and I have the locations of two towers listed. The notes are now incomplete as my directional scanner shows me four towers, and with them a whole bunch of ships to be found. Some drones on d-scan makes me wonder if there's some activity, but there are no wrecks to be seen. I set about locating the towers and perhaps at the same time the ships.

The first tower I find is empty of ships, and I don't even warp across to take a look. The second has six unpiloted ships sitting inside the shields, the third holds just an unpiloted dreadnought, and the fourth has five more unpiloted ships. I think I've found all the ships d-scan is showing me in the system, making the system inactive and only their Loki scout awake. That is, if the Loki is from this system. I check the corporation information on the fourth tower, which I'm currently floating near, and it doesn't match that of the pilot, but checking the second tower shows a different corporation owner again.

The scout may be from here, but he may also be from another system connecting to this C6. I am tempted to scan for any K162s but the moderately late hour is calling me home, my earlier attack on the Orca mostly sating my desire for some action. I decide on discretion and head homewards, noting the exit to low-sec still clinging desperately to life in the C3, and not bumping in to the Loki on my journey. Our C4 looks empty and there are no probes to be seen on d-scan, so all looks quiet. I hit the sack after a satisfying night of hunting and exploration.

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Tags: buzzard, eve online, loki, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, tengu, w-space

How to collapse a wormhole

In order to collapse an unwanted wormhole you first need to identify the class of wormhole you want to collapse. Different classes of wormhole have different mass allowances, and as collapsing a wormhole relies on over-stressing this mass allowance it is important to find out the figure you're aiming to exceed. The class of the wormhole is the string comprising a single letter and three numbers that mark the entity on the entrance-side of the wormhole. The exit of a wormhole is always marked by the identifier K162 and won't be helpful. For this example I shall use the B274 class of wormhole, because the request for information came from a capsuleer who mentioned two static wormholes, so I am assuming they live in a class 2 w-space system and perhaps have a link to high-sec empire space.

There are resources available that will let you know how much mass a wormhole can pass in one trip and in total, a simple search for the wormhole class will find out. In this case, the B274 connection has a total mass allowance of two billion kilogrammes, and can pass three hundred million kilogrammes of mass through in a single jump. In order to collapse the B274 in a controlled manner it should be clear that a total mass exceeding two billion kilogrammes needs to be passed through the wormhole. For this, you'll need some big ships.

An Orca industrial command ship is handy to have available for collapsing wormholes, as it effectively pushes the maximum amount of mass through a wormhole per jump. Below that, battleships work well, but will take around twice as many trips to collapse the wormhole. As polarisation effects will be accrued, unless sufficient pilots and ships are available to make the required jumps in quick succession, the more jumps that are needed to collapse a wormhole can significantly increase the amount of time it takes. Relying on ships smaller than battleships will be an exercise in frustration and may take longer than the natural lifetime of the wormhole.

Armed with information about the wormhole you now need to calculate the masses of your big ships and determine the best sequence of jumps to ensure the safe collapse of the wormhole, so that everyone remains the right side. The fitting screen holds ship mass information, which is only slightly modified from the general information panel for the ship, accounting for the addition of fitted modules. However, one module that will come in handy is an afterburner or micro warp drive. Having such a propulsion module fitted will make no difference to the effective mass of the ship when the module is inactive, but when activated the mass will be significantly increased. This is an important tool in collapsing wormholes. The use of AB/MWDs can accelerate the initial stages of the collapse, and be used to tweak ship masses in the later stages.

With your ships ready and masses noted, both dry and with an AB/MWD activated, you can calculate how many return trips are needed to collapse the wormhole. This is left as an excerise for the reader, but I'll also use some sample numbers in a moment, shamelessly stolen from glorious leader Fin, to show that it doesn't need to be complicated. As you continue pushing ships through the wormhole it will go through some changes. The first change has the wormhole visibly shrink as it reaches its half-mass stage, where 50% of the total mass allowance has been reached. The information panel for the wormhole will indicate that its stability is reduced, 'but not to a critical degree yet'. The wormhole will also now emit an ominous pulsating sound. The second change is when the wormhole has only 10% of its total mass allowance left, causing it to shrink even further. The information panel states that the wormhole is 'on the verge of collapse'.

Look out for the changes to the wormhole's stability as you are making the jumps. Wormhole masses have a tolerance, generally considered to be around 10% of their total. This means that any individual wormhole can spawn, or respawn, with the capacity to allow between 90% and 110% of their standard maximum allowance. The visual changes to the wormhole's stability give a useful indicator to your progress and whether the wormhole may be a bit lighter or chubbier than expected. Let's look at a sample wormhole collapsing operation, assuming only two pilots and a simple pattern of jumps. Many thanks to Fin for letting me steal this information without her permission.

Note that the Orca is sent out before the battleship but comes back after it. This is to ensure the wormhole reaches critical instability with the Orca still to return, such that the one remaining jump from the Orca will definitely collapse it. It is easier to make more jumps to destabilise the wormhole with smaller ships when there is a massive ship ready to make one final push than bringing the Orca back early and potentially leaving the wormhole on the verge of collapse. There is a relatively safe way to handle this situation, involving heavy interdictors and the vagaries of warp disruption field generators, but that's outside the scope of this post.

The above information assumes a fresh wormhole that has had merely a scout or two passing through it so far. If the wormhole has been around for long enough for unknown pilots to sneak through, or was opened by unknown pilots, or has had friendly or hostile fleets jumping through, the calculations to determine the mass still required to pass through before the wormhole collapses become more involved. In particular, if you are running operations through a wormhole before collapsing it you need to take care to note what ships pass through and how many jumps are made. A few frigate-hulled ships won't make much of a dent, nor will a couple of cruisers, but anything more could throw your calculations off, which is where making jumps with or without the AB/MWD active can help. One jump made without the MWD can account for a return trip by a cruiser, for example. If you don't know what's passed through the wormhole you can still start to collapse the connection and use the half-mass shrinking as a guide, but obviously care must be taken.

Above all, the best way to stay safe when collapsing a wormhole is to assume the worst. A known and stable connection to empire space should be available to any pilot assisting in the operation to collapse a wormhole—which is impossible to get wrong when collapsing a B274—and all appropriate bookmarks must be copied in to each pilot's nav-comp. If no route is known, battleships ought to be fitted with probe launchers, as can Orcas, although Orcas could also stuff a fully-fitted covert operations scouting boat in to their ship maintenance array. Otherwise, if the operation goes awry, or some wag sees what you're doing and jumps his own probe-fitted cloaking battleship through the wormhole at the critical moment, you may end up wishing you'd simply waited for the wormhole to die of old age, unlike your capsuleer's fate as you find you need to pod yourself back to empire space.

Posted in Gaming | 6 Comments »
Tags: eve online, mmorpg, w-space

Orcas don't shoot back, do they?

All seems quiet at home, I'll scan and see what's out there today. Judging from recent experience I'm guessing 'nothing', but my optimism carries me forwards. There is just the one wormhole to find at home, and I jump to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system. A Prorator transport ship and a tower are visible on my directional scanner, and I find one inside the other with a bit of warping around. The transport is piloted and, being a transport, would be hard to catch. At the moment he's not moving, so I warp to a distant planet to launch probes covertly and blanket the system.

There's little to see here, my scanning probes returning only two anomalies and three signatures, one of them being the K162 home. I return to the tower to keep an eye on the Prorator, and as he appears to be asleep at the moment I think I can quickly resolve the two signatures without his noticing. I scan and bookmark a gravimetric site and the system's static wormhole within a couple of minutes, recalling my probes without the Prorator so much as flinching. A visit to the wormhole shows it to be the regulation C3 exit to low-sec empire space, but unfortunately reaching the end of its natural lifetime.

I don't have anywhere left to explore, so my best option is to return to watching the Prorator sit stationary at the tower. It's not terribly exciting, but you never really know what's going to happen. For example, a Hulk exhumer could turn up, a new contact warping in to the tower. Seeing a mining ship arrive when the only available site in the system is full of rocks is quite arousing, but as the Hulk's first action is to move towards the hangar I doubt I'll be so lucky this evening. Then again, maybe I'll be even luckier, as the Hulk is swapped for an Orca!

Not only is the industrial command ship pulled out of the hangar, it starts moving, aligning out of the tower. When the Hulk turned up I orientated myself with the positions of the gravimetric site and wormhole in relation to the tower, and it looks like the Orca is headed to the wormhole. Surely he couldn't be that carefree, to take such an expensive ship out of the tower without even a cursory check of the system, but I can't otherwise explain his actions. A second new contact arrives in a Buzzard covert operations boat, making three pilots in total, but the Buzzard disappears again and I've only got eyes for the Orca.

When I see the Orca apparently align to the wormhole I get my Tengu aligned too, making sure my strategic cruiser won't be embarrassingly left in the wake of such a sluggish ship. The Orca indeed enters warp and I surge my own boat towards the wormhole, aiming to drop short. I'm not sure what the Orca's plans are, whether it is to collapse the wormhole early or to make one last brief visit to empire space, and I want to see what it does before revealing myself. I should have plenty of time to make a decision, whatever it does, as the Orca hardly turns on a sixpence, and low-sec gives me the opportunity to give chase without fear of Concord intervention.

I drop out of warp to see the Orca on top of the wormhole, but it is not jumping out of the system. The big ship also isn't sitting still, slowly turning its bulk around, and it looks to me like the pilot was not expecting the wormhole to be in its death throes. This means the Orca is probably aligning to warp right back to the tower, and if I don't want to miss this rare opportunity to engage the ship I need to strike now. I decloak, burn towards the Orca, and gain a positive target lock. I disrupt the Orca's warp drive and missiles spew from my launchers. The Orca may be mostly defenceless, and this one isn't launching drones at me, but it has plenty of ship to destroy.

A plaintive call is made in the local communication channel, although it may not be directed towards me but the Orca's colleagues. I know there are two pilots available, one of which was definitely active, and I suspect I'll be seeing company soon. The question is whether I can blow up the Orca first. Its shields are nearly gone when it finally jumps in to low-sec, daring the dying wormhole to buy it some time. I follow and get my systems hot, ready and waiting for the Orca to reappear, but he's staying as quiet as he can for as long as he can.

There is no movement from the Orca to try to warp clear, nor any to return through the wormhole, and this doesn't surprise me. Jumping through the wormhole was not an evasive manoeuvre as such, he is simply using the impervious session change cloak to give him a minute or so when I can't shoot him and his colleagues time to get in to combat ships and come to his rescue. This much is obvious. It is also a trick he could perform twice, jumping straight back in to w-space once the cloak fades, which would give the cavalry more than enough time to come to his aid. At least, he could do it twice if he hadn't been spat him out to low-sec almost eight kilometres from the wormhole, leaving him three kilometres to cover before being close enough to jump home.

As soon as the Orca appears I pounce once more and resume my attack on the hapless industrial ship. I burn towards him too, bumping the Orca to knock it off-line from his approach to the wormhole, his already sluggish ship slowed by my active web. I need to keep it away from the wormhole to have a chance of getting the kill, and my tactics look to be working. All I need to do now is survive the firepower of his friends coming through the flaring wormhole. A Drake battlecruiser appears and starts shooting, joined soon after by what I take to be a second Drake, but later realise to be a Tengu. The Orca's shields are long gone, its armour almost depleted, but now I am taking damage. I need my own boat to hold up for me to get this kill.

I am finally hitting the Orca's hull, all my damage getting through to the structure of the ship, but what a structure. Each volley hits for considerable damage, but there is so much of the ship that I'm not sure my own defences will last. My shields are being worn down by the two missile boats and however much I'd like to see the mighty explosion of another Orca it's not going to happen. My shields are below 15%, the Orca's hull has only just dropped to 60%. I don't want to risk the integrity of my own flimsy armour and hull when there is still a significant amount of damage needed to be inflicted upon the Orca, so with some regret I abandon the attack and jump back to w-space.

Back in the C3 I move away from the wormhole and cloak, safely hidden before the other ships return themselves. They clearly know they are there to protect the Orca and although popping my ship may achieve that they are taking a purely defensive stance. The Tengu and Drake don't jump until the Orca does, and they don't warp away from the wormhole until the Orca does. That's sensible, because if they had warped early I would have pounced on the vulnerable Orca again. As it is, I simply warp back to the local tower and watch my shields recharge as the Orca pilot swaps to a Loki strategic cruiser.

I made a couple of mistakes. First, even though I knew the Orca was holding his session change cloak for as long as possible, and I shed mine immediately, I didn't take the opportunity to reload my launchers. In the end it probably didn't matter, but it was dead time that I should have used to better advantage. The second mistake was more unfortunate. I recently swapped out my advanced missiles for standard missiles when it looked like I'd be shooting a few rats in low-sec, and didn't change them back, despite carrying both types in my hold. I may have been shooting basic missiles at the Orca, perhaps dropping my damage by 30% or so, which is particularly galling when the Orca's massive size would have been perfect for anti-ship missiles. I don't think the extra damage would have been enough to pop the Orca as I left it, but I may have been more tempted to make use of my armour to get the kill.

Despite my mistakes I was alert and perceptive to the situation. I reconnoitred the system, made the best use of the Prorator's apparent inactivity to scan covertly, and identified contacts and ship movements. I got myself in to a postion to engage an expensive and vulnerable target, and it was only subsequently savvy manoeuvring by the target that allowed its late escort to rout me, and only after I identified and denied access to the same manoeuvre a second time. And now the three pilots are sitting passively in their tower. Whether they'll hunt or bait me is unknown until all three log off in quick succession. I suppose I have suppressed activity in this system, and until the exit wormhole dies I won't have anything more to do. I may as well go home.

Posted in Gaming | 4 Comments »
Tags: buzzard, drake, eve online, hulk, loki, low-sec, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, prorator, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space

Expanding our options

We need ships. Make no mistake, the Tengu, like all strategic cruisers, is a versatile ship and can fulfil plenty of roles more than adequately. But it is a mistake to rely on a single ship when there are more specialised hulls available. If I had my stealth bomber available I probably wouldn't have died to an angry tower, or, if I did, the loss wouldn't have been as embarrassing. An interceptor stands a chance of catching a scout in a covert operations boat. And different types and configurations of strategic cruiser will allow us to engage confidently a wider range of more capable ships, as well as shoot Sleepers for profit. With only my covert Tengu I may be able to scan and assault softer targets, but without more options I may as well be operating from empire space.

So we need ships. I've been looking for a suitable exit since moving back in to the class 4 w-space home system and poo-pooed the routes uncovered for being inconvenient. But now the limitations of relying solely on the scanning Tengu are becoming obvious and I will need to endure whatever path becomes available soon. There is a concern that we are not alone today, though, which could make moving ships hazardous. But a scan of the home system finds only the one wormhole, making it seem safe enough for now, and I jump to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system hoping to get lucky and find a connection to high-sec empire space.

Fourteen anomalies, fourteen signatures, no ships. I confirm the C3 is unoccupied, an empty intermediate system being good for importing ships, and start scanning. A system with K162s from both class 4 and class 5 w-space is not so convenient, however. At least one of the connected systems is active too, even if all I see is an Imicus scouting one of the wormholes. The frigate is unthreatening in itself, but although it could simply be a lone pilot exploring w-space it could just as equally be a scout for a larger fleet looking for targets. And, on top of the two K162s cluttering up the system, the static exit from this C3 leads to null-sec k-space, which is unlikely to offer safe or convenient passage to the high-sec system holding our ships. A Helios covert operations boat even jumps out and returns as I bookmark the wormhole, revealing more activity that we would rather avoid today.

Glorious leader Fin turns up and, thanks to us having left a couple of battleships in our hangar, we can slowly kill our wormhole and look for a better exit, although we will have to take our two battleships through quite a few times. Each paired trip makes us 'effectively one Orca when we go together', according to Fin, making me feel fat and highlighting the utility of actually getting one of the industrial command ships back in to the system. On our trips in to and out of the C3 we spy the Helios again on our directional scanners, sitting on the wormhole to null-sec, and on our next trip a Ferox battlecruiser on the K162 to the other class 4 system. Whether the Ferox is part of a roaming gang or looking to harvest gas in the C3 is unknown, and we successfully collapse our wormhole before we find out.

I scan the home system again and find the new wormhole, although it turns out to be a K162 from class 2 w-space instead. I don't think our static connection can change quite so radically to be an exit wormhole from a system, which means this link has been opened recently. I've already recalled my probes, blindly assuming I still only had the one wormhole to resolve, and rather than relaunching them I jump in to the C2 to take a look around. An Orca and two towers are on d-scan from the K162, and finding one of the towers shows the Orca to be very red indeed. 'They are space bullies', Fin advises me, knowing much more about space politics than me and why our alliance has set this alliance to such a negative standing. This doesn't look like a good system to travel through either.

The C2 may be occupied by a particularly hostile corporation but it is empty of any obvious signs of activity, and being a C2 with a connection to class 4 w-space it is likely the other static wormhole leads to high-sec empire space. It's worth finding that wormhole at least, and scanning soon pulls the B274 out of the bunch of signatures here. Checking the exit puts me in Tash Murkon, a mere six hops from where all our ships are. I would say it's worth trying to bring some ships home. The C2 looks quiet, there are no hostile pilots in the high-sec system, and we really need some ships. And, with a bit of luck, we isolated any scout from the C2 when we collapsed our connection to the C3.

Both Fin and I stow our scanning Tengus at the tower and take disposable frigates to high-sec, soon docking at the station where we dumped our assets when we evacuated previously. The hour is getting late, pretty much limiting us to one trip, so we want to make it count. Fin loads up an Orca with a pair of stealth bombers, our Legion strategic cruiser ship killers, and some other small utility ships, as well as some munitions and other supplies, whilst I make sure my Widow black ops ship is bristling with ECM modules to make it an effective escort. We undock with a tiny fleet worth around two billion ISK and make the journey back to the wormhole.

I warp my Widow ahead of the Orca to scout our route. The high-sec system remains clear of hostile contacts and this side of the wormhole looks clear. I jump in to w-space as Fin drops out of warp, d-scan showing me exactly what I saw when I first entered the system earlier, an Orca and two towers. It looks clear. Fin jumps in and holds her cloak as I warp to the wormhole leading home. Again, it looks clear, and Fin warps as I jump. The home system looks clear, both at the wormhole and on d-scan. Fin jumps in cleanly and initiates warp to the tower. I align and hold until the Orca warps out, then warp out myself, both of us getting to the tower safely.

This is a good result. We have an Orca that can be used to collapse wormholes more efficiently, as can my Widow, as well giving more capacity for recovering further assets and bringing in fuel. We also have more specialised ships for combat against other capsuleers, making us mostly operational. Other ships can be brought back in when the opportunity arises, the pressure to recover them in one go alleviated somewhat now that we have most of what we need. All we really need now are our Sleeper Tengus, so that we can start making iskies again, at which point we'll be pretty much back to normal.

Posted in Gaming | 8 Comments »
Tags: eve online, ferox, helios, imicus, legion, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, tengu, w-space, widow

Nothing but low-sec

There are two wormholes in the home system again today. One is the static connection to class 3 w-space, the other a K162 from a class 2 system. The C2 connection would be more enticing if it weren't reaching the end of its natural lifetime, but if I can scan an exit from the C3 I will be able to explore the C2 and still find my way home should the wormhole collapse. I warp across to our static connection, jump through it, and explore our neighbouring class 3 w-space system.

My directional scanner is clear of all but planets and moons in the C3. Opening the system map to see the C3 is around 110 AU in radius explains why there is little to see within range of d-scan. At least my notes tell me there was a tower here on my last visit two months ago, and warping to its location finds it still there but empty. Launching probes and blanketing the system sees no obvious activity amongst the twenty signatures, one of which will be an exit to low-sec empire space. I start looking for it.

As I am scanning a ship is revealed by my combat probes. I imagine it's on a wormhole and, sure enough, one more scan confirms the presence of a wormhole and that the ship is a Tengu strategic cruiser. I head over to take a look but by the time I have warped the 120 AU the Tengu has gone. The wormhole remains, the static connection to low-sec, and it flares as I bookmark its position. The Tengu, or maybe a different Tengu, appears before disappearing again as it activates its cloak. He doesn't look local.

Further scanning finds two more wormholes, both K162s from low-sec, and neither being an obvious source of the Tengu. Otherwise, all I find is a nice mix of rocks and gas in the system. I jump out of the three connections to low-sec to get their exit systems, hoping at least one will be close to our docked ships, but don't get lucky tonight. One K162 comes from the Sinq Laison region and is close to Jita, if not our ships, the second from Metropolis and far from everything. The static wormhole exits to the Placid region and is as inconvenient as the Metropolis connection. There is also no sign of the Tengu anywhere.

I jump back to the C3, which remains empty as far as I can tell, and head home. Now that I can get home from empire space through the C3 I can explore the C2, which looks promising at first, with an Orca industrial command ship and two Iteron haulers visible on d-scan when I jump in. I find the two towers in the system and see both Iterons piloted, and can even launch probes covertly on the edge of the system, but prospects here look dull.

There are only the three ships in the system, but only two signatures and one anomaly. One signature is the connection to our home system, the other no doubt an exit to k-space, and I can't scan the second wormhole without my probes being spotted. Not that I suppose I want another connection to empire space right now, unless it happens to exit to the system where our ships are docked, because the EOL connection cannot be relied upon. Neither Iteron is moving, or looks like it will, so I leave this system behind me.

There's little activity and not much option for bringing ships in beyond long individual journeys through high-sec, so I head to low-sec and scan for more w-space to roam through. The low-sec system in Sinq Laison has a bunch of signatures to resolve, but only an EOL K162 from class 2 w-space is sitting amongst the one radar and two magnetometric sites, some ruins, and a sronghold. The C2 is completely quiet, unsurprisingly given the emptiness of space recently, and there are too many signatures here for me to want to sift through them looking for the second wormhole, or another K162, particularly as my head's starting to hurt. I think it's time to call it a night, and turn my ship around to go home.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Nothing but low-sec
Tags: eve online, iteron, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, tengu, w-space

Lots of ships, little opportunity

I'm home alone, but happy that home is once again w-space. I launch probes and scan, just looking for a little reconnaissance of today's constellation, finding two wormholes in our home system. The addition to our static connection to class 3 w-space is a K162 coming from a class 5 system. The extra wormhole is reaching the end of its natural lifetime, which suits me, as it makes it unlikely that intruders will swarm through now. Unlikely, but not impossible. For now I ignore it and jump through to explore our neighbouring C3.

Mining drones on my directional scanner tease me in the class 3 system, as I see no ships, and there's a tower in range of d-scan too. Having been here with glorious leader Fin only one month earlier, to catch and pop a Noctis salvager, I have the location of the tower in my notes, which even if empty is in the same place. Scanning reveals eleven anomalies and eight signatures, and resolving the position of the drones finds no coincident gravimetric site. Maybe the occupants of the C5 came this way and interrupted a mining operation, the drones abandoned as panicked miners fled, or left behind as inconsequential spoils. I bookmark the position of the drones, in case a local is incautious enough to want to collect them later, and start sifting the signatures.

Gas, wormhole, rocks, rocks, gas, gas, wormhole, wormhole. That should give me plenty to explore, although I doubt the other sites will provide hunting grounds given the stray drones here. The wormholes are a static exit to low-sec empire space, a K162 from low-sec, and a K162 from class 2 w-space. The connection to the second C2 looks good to me, and I jump in. I quickly have two towers to find, both appearing on d-scan along with a couple of haulers, and I am hoping they are piloted and getting ready to collect planet goo. But warping around only finds more towers and more ships, and a simple task becomes a little more involved.

The Badger and Bestower haulers are piloted in one tower; the second tower is empty; the third holds a Crow interceptor, Buzzard covert operations boat, Heron frigate, and Phoenix dreadnought, none of them piloted; a fourth tower holds no ships; and a fifth on the outskirts of the system has another piloted Badger. By the time I have found all the towers and made appropriate bookmarks a Mammoth has appeared somewhere. I track the hauler down to one of the towers and decide to watch this new arrival, on the assumption that he is more likely to become active. And I suppose he does, but only to swap from ship to ship, and it looks like he's simply checking configurations. I decide not to waste my time watching him further, nor to flit between towers hoping to catch one of three haulers making a move.

I jump back to the C3 to explore the low-sec connections here. The static wormhole takes me out to old friend Aridia, where I know I am nowhere near civilisation. The K162 in the C3 comes from the Genesis region but looks equally inconvenient for getting anywhere, which is no surprise when I find myself on the border of the region, one hop from Aridia and only two hops from the other exit. This looks to me like a sign to take a break.

I return to roam the C3 and, as it predictably remains empty, scan low-sec for more wormholes. I ignore the bristling but not bustling C2 for now as unlikely to hold any targets I can shoot. Low-sec itself almost looks like a hunting ground, with a lone Hurricane in an easily found anomaly, but he bugs out when I appear in the system, thankfully not making me wonder if my covert Tengu strategic cruiser would win an engagement with the battlecruiser. I scan the system to resolve only a gravimetric site and dumb drones. Rather than use stargates I jump through two wormholes to appear two systems away, where I scan again.

Two wormholes from three signatures in the Genesis system is a decent result, particularly as one of them is an outbound connection to class 5 w-space. Jumping in has some big and bad ships visible on d-scan, although I suppose carriers and strategic cruisers are only to be expected in an occupied C5. I find a Damnation command ship, Machariel battleship, Proteus strategic cruiser, and Helios covert operations boat piloted at one tower, the second holding more piloted strategic cruisers, with a Legion, Proteus, and Tengu, as well as a pair of piloted dreadnoughts in a Moros and Revelation. I'll leave them to their looking mean, as this isn't a party I can crash, and go back to low-sec to explore the other wormhole found there.

This class 3 system looks promising, with industrial and combat ships on scan, but finding the tower sees that the corporation are blue to us and allies. Short of using a stargate, which only caused me confusion yesterday, this leaves just the C2 to roam and explore. Glorious leader Fin has arrived and has headed there herself, it being the only source of activity I've found that won't involve our own dreadnoughts to interrupt. Fin reports pretty much the same ships in the system as I found earlier, making it sound as dull as it was before too. Flitting between the towers sees nothing of interest likely to happen, so we launch probes and scan the system, hoping that maybe the exit will be good for us.

Only two signatures are in the class 2 system, both of them the static wormholes. One we know leads to the C3, the other exits to high-sec. Jumping out plonks us in the Kor-Azor region, which is actually reasonably close to our exported ships. Ten jumps, all through high-sec, will get us to our cache and it looks like a good opportunity to bring some ships home. Fin is already in the C3 and warping homewards as I jump back to the C2, aiming to ditch my Tengu for a disposable frigate, only to see a Hurricane now sitting on the B274 wormhole. The locals are starved of sites to keep them amused but they apparently keep watch of d-scan, noticing our scanning probes and looking to catch whoever is passing through their system.

I evade the Hurricane simply enough, moving my Tengu away from the wormhole and cloaking, but his presence is not encouraging. A Drake battlecruiser joins him and launches drones, perhaps trying to flush me out, and although the Hurricane warps away I am not getting a good feeling about using this system as a thoroughfare. We could potentially get a few ships past this minor threat, but if more hostiles appear we could end up only moving ships from one high-sec system to another. We're not going to get anything more done tonight, so Fin and I settle down at home for an early night.

Posted in Gaming | 3 Comments »
Tags: badger, bestower, buzzard, crow, damnation, drake, eve online, heron, hurricane, legion, machariel, mammoth, mmorpg, moros, penny ibramovic, phoenix, proteus, revelation, scanning, tengu, w-space

Exploring through a confusing constellation

Ah, sweet pulsar home of mine. What better way to celebrate my return than scanning an exit? And whilst I am scanning the home w-space system for the first time in a while I can start easy-mode mining too. There are a bunch of gravimetric and ladar sites cluttering up the system, but this can be rectified by warping in to visit each of them and waiting a few days for them to despawn naturally. Sure, there is less profit in clearing the sites this way, but I feel it's an efficient use of my time.

The home system hasn't got too overgrown with Sleepers in our absence, with only three gravimetric, two ladar, and three radar sites to go with the dozen or so anomalies. There probably have been a number of fleets coming through to reap the profit for themselves, which is only to be expected and fair game. Today there is only one wormhole to find, leading to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, and I jump in to see only an off-line tower on my directional scanner. Exploring by warping around and with a blanket scan using probes finds two more off-line towers and one on-line, but no ships or pilots. I start scanning.

Twenty-five anomalies is a lot of profit waiting to be salvaged, if only I had a suitable ship and some colleagues to help me. If I can find a good exit to empire space it would help with getting both of those in to w-space, which means finding wormholes. One is sitting almost on top of the K162 I entered the system through, and it is also a K162, but from low-sec empire space. A Buzzard jumps in to the C3 as I am bookmarking the wormhole, followed seconds later by a Cheetah. Both covert operations boats warp off in the direction of another wormhole I am currently resolving, their ships appearing on my combat probes as they presumably jump out of the system. I follow behind, some seconds later, once I fully resolve the wormhole.

My hopes of finding an active w-space system aren't realised, as the cov-ops boats have exited to null-sec k-space, through the C3's static wormhole. At least there is a low-sec connection available to use, as null-sec won't be terribly convenient for moving pilots or ships safely. And there's a second exit to low-sec, the third wormhole in this C3 being another K162 from empire space. I check the exit systems, one of them coming from the Kor-Azor region and far from anywhere. The other exit is equally distant from our assets, throwing me out to the Heimatar region. I'm not keen to travel so far at the moment and, with no one else around, head home to take a break for food.

On my return I find there has been little change. The C3 is still devoid of activity, although one of the K162s from low-sec has died of old age. I took my time eating that sammich. There really isn't much to do except jump to the other low-sec system and scan for more wormholes. At least there is a signature to resolve in the low-sec system, and it's a wormhole. Unfortunately the K162 from class 3 w-space is reaching the end of its natural lifetime, and although a quick poke through sees occupation there is no activity and I jump back to low-sec, exploration ended and wondering what to do.

This low-sec system is empty, not just of useful signatures but also pilots. The local channel shows me no one is around, so it is relatively safe to use the stargates here. I may as well jump one system across and look for more w-space to roam. I make a safe spot where I can launch probes hopefully without interruption before cloaking, and sitting inside a planet looks pretty safe to me. Four signatures looks promising, a wormhole on the first hit more so, but all I get to start with is a K162 coming from more low-sec. Thankfully there is a second wormhole here too, and a K162 from class 2 w-space. I may find soft targets, and there should be a second wormhole leading to more w-space. I can keep exploring.

Fin and I were in this C2 a year ago, when we popped an off-line tower's hangar and maintenance array, grabbing lots of loot for ourselves. The system is occupied again now but inactive. I scan for the second wormhole and find it to lead to another class 2 w-space system, jumping in to again find an occupied but inactive system. Empty space certainly is empty. Scanning resolves gas, a disappearing signature, and static wormholes to low-sec and another C2, but the connection to C2c is EOL. Just a quick peek in to the third class 2 system has d-scan show me a Rattlesnake battleship, Nidhoggur carrier, and Naglfar dreadnought amongst several other combat ships, but no wrecks. A previous visit has my notes give me the location of the tower and a fly-by sees only a Cheetah piloted, making this system rather less interesting than it first seemed.

I go back to previous C2 system and exit to low-sec there, ending up in the Domain region and only five hops to our assets. But getting the ships would require jumping in to low-sec safely, going through a cloud of w-space systems, then the stargate hop in more low-sec, before getting to the neighbouring C3 and then home. I suppose it's possible, but it seems a little convoluted to my puny brain. I am even having trouble picturing the extended constellation as glorious leader Fin sees the shorter Domain route home and is keen to return herself. I try to explain it as best I can before returning through the class 2 systems to low-sec, and continuing my exploration for now through the wormhole connecting two low-sec systems.

I jump from Heimatar to appear in Derelik, again far from anywhere useful. Scanning has four signatures to resolve, only one of which is another wormhole, a K162 from class 3 w-space. Jumping in to the C3 puts me in another system in my notes, a clear d-scan letting me launch probes before warping to the location of what is now an off-line tower. My combat probes show me ships in the system, though, and I soon find a new, on-line tower, with a Heron frigate and Iteron hauler inside the shields and piloted. At last, some capsuleers! I'm not entierly sure I care if they do anything, I'm just glad to see there are still other pilots around.

As it turns out, the Heron is awake, warping out of the tower. He could be heading to the wormhole but warping there myself sees no ship, although he remains visible on d-scan and is launching probes. I work out that he warped to the first planet to launch probes, but only get there in time to see the probes clustered where his ship was. He's now back at the tower and scanning from the safety of the shields. I could wait for him or his colleague to move, but I feel like I've done enough for tonight. I'll help guide Fin home, if I can find her, as the constellation is a little confusing.

I warp back through random wormholes—from this C3 to low-sec, through another wormhole to low-sec, a K162 to a C2, across to the second C2, and back out to low-sec—until I meet up with Fin, who has scanned her way to the wormhole in the Domain region, and I start taking us homewards. Not only do I find my way through the various connections, aided only by a rough and rather inaccurate map I've sketched, but I bring Fin back to our C4 without getting her killed. There's an achievement to be proud of. I can sleep easily tonight, once I get this damned map right.

Posted in Gaming | 3 Comments »
Tags: buzzard, cheetah, eve online, heron, iteron, low-sec, mmorpg, naglfar, nidhoggur, penny ibramovic, rattlesnake, scanning, w-space

Coming home

I call on Constance again to see about getting me home. Home being our class 4 w-space system with a pulsar phenomenon. Yesterday had our static wormhole opened early by other pilots passing through, and its wobbly death throes didn't look comforting. Today the system looks clear, and in scanning Constance finds only one wormhole, which is a good start. She jumps in to the class 3 system beyond and launches probes to look for the inevitable exit to low-sec empire space.

Armed with only core scanning probes Constance isn't looking for targets, but that doesn't mean she can ignore the presence of other ships. I'm beginning to think that maybe I should have equipped her with combat probes, so that hostile, or at least unknown, ships would be more apparent, as the last situation I need is for her to fly headlong in to trouble. But Constance explores the system whilst scanning, locating two towers. One has four ships, and the three empty haulers and single piloted Helios covert operations boat pose little concern for her safety.

Looking past the rocks and gas resolves a wormhole, naturally leading out to low-sec. Constance jumps out and notes the exit system. Twenty-eight jumps, says Mick. Fourty-two, says Fin. It's not a close exit, but it's not a bad one either. It's only one hop to high-sec, and a second hop finds a system with a station. Constance docks, contracts a copy of the bookmarks, and heads home to hide in a corner of the C4.

I set my auto-pilot and see a trip of thirty-three jumps ahead of me, with a short, four-hop diversion through low-sec. I could wait for a better exit but that may leave me waiting for a while. Besides, better to get back in to the home system and be in a position to scan my way out again than stay in empire space another day. I undock my covert Tengu strategic cruiser and start the journey.

Hopping between stargates is hardly exciting or challenging, and even zipping across low-sec presents no surprises in a covert ship. There are a few wrecks on a couple of the stargates but no one actively waiting for me, at least not that I can see, and I jump in to Hek unscathed. The worst part of the journey is over, crazy low-sec being left behind for the comforting embrace of w-space. I dock in high-sec, copy the bookmarks to my nav-comp, and finish my return home.

The class 3 system looks clear and I think about checking the local tower, but before I assume I'm home safely I make a fly-past of the K162. It's still there, healthy, and lacking pointy ships swarming around it. It looks good to me. I warp across to the tower in the C3 to see there both a Mammoth hauler and Hurricane battlecruiser piloted, shortly followed by a Cheetah cov-ops boat.

Just as I hope my return will see a triumphant ganking of a planet goo industrialist the Mammoth disappears in a puff of disconnection smoke. I think I'll consider myself simply glad to be home, particularly after the long journey to get here. I warp out, jump through the K162, and nod off bathed in the light of a pulsar once more.

Posted in Gaming | 1 Comment »
Tags: cheetah, constance sokolov, eve online, helios, hurricane, mammoth, penny ibramovic, scanning, tengu, w-space

Thrashing a Thrasher

I'm not even supposed to be here today. I got Constance awake and scanning in a bid to get back home, hopefully now that our camping friends have got bored and moved on to new pastures, but a second wormhole mucks up my plans. The presence of the other wormhole in the home system isn't a spanner in the works as such, but the connection was opened relatively early and the scout from the other system naturally scanned his way through our system. As a result, our static wormhole has also been active for many hours and is reaching the end of its lifetime. It could have a couple of hours of life left but I really don't want to risk getting Constance isolated from home, particularly in such an avoidable circumstance as this, and I ask her to stand down and try again tomorrow.

It's another day scanning in empire space for me. And I have plenty of space to scan before I'm back in w-space. The mission base system has nothing of interest, nor the next system across, nor the third system I scan. Space is looking rather empty of signatures until I enter the fourth system along, where three of them finally greet me. One is a Guristas Hideout, but that's okay because it gives me something to scan and the others will be wormholes, I'm sure. The second signature is indeed a wormhole, a K162 from class 2 w-space, which is lucky because the third is another Gurista hideaway. I warp to the wormhole and leave empire space behind me again, as I jump in.

A Drake battlecruiser and Sleeper wrecks are visible on my directional scanner, which is a splendid start to today's w-space exploration. I initiate a passive scan for anomalies as I consult my notes, finding this to be my second visit to the system and having the location of three towers listed from eleven months ago. The passive scan returns empty, no anomalies found in the system, putting the Drake in what must be a radar or magnetometric site. That means I'll need to scan his location, as glorious leader Fin starts heading my way with the extra firepower we'll need to take down a Drake.

I warp away to see if I can launch probes, and scout the towers whilst I have a little time. One tower is missing, and a second ship sits at one of the remaining ones, an unpiloted Raven battleship. And the Drake warps in to the same tower. This is good, because if the battlecruiser is struggling against the Sleepers I may have time to scan the site whilst he recharges his shields. It will be harder to scan the site than the ship, but as the site is out of d-scan range of the tower I can resolve it without my probes becoming visible to the pilot. I warp back out to be closer to the active site, the Drake also returned, and start narrowing down its location using d-scan.

I place the site around 3·5 AU distant and up and away from the planet I'm not orbiting. I arrange my probes in a tight cluster around where I think the Drake is, just as he warps out again. That's fine, I still have the wrecks for reference, and now that he's gone, and out of d-scan range, I can scan the site itself. I hit scan, shuffle the probes around a bit, and the third time's a charm, getting me a 100% hit on a radar site. My scanning may be a little scruffy but I am able to resolve the site and throw my probes out of the system before I see the Drake again. As I have the radar site bookmarked and still have probes active I blanket the system again. This time I see three ships, and warp to the tower to see if a friend of the Drake has turned up.

It looks like a Vargur marauder is coming out to deal with the bigger Sleepers, but it's just the Drake pilot. He stows the Vargur pretty quickly, swapping it for a Thrasher destroyer instead. It seems he was just looking for a suitable salvager or hacking ship, presumably having finished clearing the Sleepers from the site. I bounce back off the wormhole in to reconnoitre the radar site, happy to know that the site will stay alive no matter what my actions because of the databanks there. And as I warp in so does the Thrasher. I grab a better bookmark, based off one of the wrecks, and bounce back in to get closer, ready for action. Fin still hasn't got to me but I think my Tengu strategic cruiser can handle a destroyer.

I get back in to the radar site in what turns out to be an excellent situation. The Thrasher is salvaging before hacking, burning between wrecks and barely making use of his tractor beams, just sitting at one wreck and waiting for the salvage cycle to succeed before moving to the next. I am close to one of the wrecks along his route, and his path will cause him to burn directly towards me to approach it. This couldn't be much better for my attack. He will be burning straight towards me, the added mass of the active micro warp drive making it harder for him to turn away or warp out successfully. I just have to wait for the right moment.

Here he comes. I hold my cloak until he is moving full pelt towards me, then I spring the trap. I decloak, target, and disrupt his warp engines. The Thrasher turns and attempts to flee as I appear, and probably would have the speed to out-pace me if I hadn't got close enough to activate my web module. But he's trapped and held in place, leaving little option but to feel each volley of missiles slam in to his ship. The Thrasher pops and ejects the pilot's pod in to space, which wastes no time in warping away from dread pirate Penny. I loot and shoot the wreck, getting nothing spectacular but another clean kill. But that's all I'm really after.

The pod sits passively in the local tower. I have time to scan this C2 for its second static wormhole, which should lead to more w-space and perhaps more opportunity for destruction. I resolve the wormhole, a weak signature leading out to class 4 w-space, but before I jump I notice a Tengu now on d-scan. I warp back to the tower but the strategic cruiser's not with the pod pilot. Refining d-scan puts the Tengu within 0·1 AU of the tower, which could put him in a safe spot nearby. Or he could be in the second tower which I knew about but didn't create a bookmark for, idiot. I warp the short distance to another moon and, sure enough, there is the new contact. Excitement over, and not expecting the Tengu to do anything, I warp to the wormhole and jump in to the C4.

There's nothing here. D-scan shows me nothing and, as the system turns out to be tiny, there being only four moons all within range of the wormhole, my scanning probes show me nothing. There were two towers here fifteen months ago but the occupants moved out cleanly since that time, leaving a bare system. The evening's getting late too, so rather than scanning for deeper w-space I turn around and head back to high-sec. Fin and I finally hook up to shoot some Guristas together for a short while, before heading back to the mission base to get some rest. I'll try to get home tomorrow.

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Tags: constance sokolov, drake, eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, raven, scanning, tengu, thrasher, vargur, w-space