This one's for me

I'm back, let's see what's happening. It looks like it's just me still, I may as well take my covert Tengu strategic cruiser out for a roam to see if the neighbours have woken up. Hullo, warping to the tower in the class 4 w-space system next door has a Tengu sitting about two hundred and fifty kilometres above the force field. He's not moving, either. I start pushing my Tengu towards him when it transpires our cohabitants of the C5 home also have eyes on the Tengu as a target. One chap is moving his Buzzard steadily closer to the Tengu, whilst another is readying firepower to bring to bear. I join their small fleet and start to coordinate my movements, looking to get a sweet kill to start the evening.

Damn, the Tengu warps back in to the safety of the tower's shields. I hold my vector anyway, in case he warps out to the same position again, which he does but only after swapping the Tengu for a Magnate frigate. I find that an odd choice, a pilot having trained for strategic cruisers but not covert operation boats. 'Maybe he plans to lose it', suggests a corporation colleague. Let's hope so. We are still crawling to his position as the Magnate launches probes but, unfortunately, he doesn't stay in his unsafe spot to scan and warps back in to the tower again.

I was only fifty kilometres away when the Magnate warped to the tower, and holding my course I get approximately to where the unsafe spot is and bookmark it. The fleet is now looking to catch the Magnate, hoping he is as slow at entering warp as he is scanning. Presumably he has all the local sites bookmarked, which should give him only the two wormhole signatures to resolve, but he takes his time about it. Eventually, the Magnate warps to our K162, followed by one of our Buzzards who welcomes him with a warp disruptor. The Magnate jumps to our C5 to evade the Buzzard only to be met by an anchored warp bubble and more firepower, our fleet continuing to grow as more people wake up.

The frigate doesn't try to stay in the C5, returning to the C4 as soon as he can. Despite our ships following him, and my having burnt hard to reach the wormhole in time, the Magnate warps cleanly back to his tower. We follow him, the two of us who made it close to his spot above the tower choosing to wait there in case he's foolish enough to use it again. The Magnate moves, but only inside the shields and to bring on-line some tower defences, as a new contact in a Drake battlecruiser warps in to join him in the tower. Nothing else happens here, but the wormhole to the C1 collapses of old age and I am volunteered to scan the new one.

The new static connection to class 1 w-space is found around the same planet as the old one, which is conveniently out of directional scanner range of the tower. I jump in to the C1 to take a look around, finding it occupied but inactive, the shuttle and Brutix battlecruiser in the tower unpiloted. I start scanning and resolve a wormhole, but I only grab an approximate bookmark from the scanning results for now, information coming from the fleet that both the Magnate and Drake in the C4 are wandering outside of the tower's shields. I warp back to the K162 and jump in to the C4, as the Magnate is a good two hundred kilometres from the tower and an easy target, if only we could get close enough.

It's not possible to warp to ships not in your fleet but, as Mick points out, it is possible to warp to them if scanned with combat probes. Fin is positioning probes to try to get a lock on the far-roaming Magnate, and I launch probes at the wormhole before warping to the tower to give it a shot myself. Scanning a ship's location can be difficult when you have to narrow down its general position using d-scan, but when you already know just where it is the task becomes much simpler. Whilst in warp, I form a tight cluster of combat probes set to their minimum scanning range and position them directly on the moon the tower is anchored to. I punch 'scan', wait a few seconds, and have a solid hit on all ships near the tower but the Nemesis inside the shields.

Now out of warp and far above the shields, I can warp to the Magnate. Adrenalin has taken over, even though I am hunting a tiny ship that may not even shoot back, which means I don't say what I'm doing, nor think to initiate squad warp to set every friendly ship near me on the Magnate. I may have been flying solo recently, but I'm still a bad Penny. One pilot notices me decloak as I drop out of warp ten kilometres from the frigate and joins me for the slaughter, popping the Magnate and podding its hapless pilot. Maybe it never intended to move out of the tower but he's rather further out now, waking up in a new clone in empire space. The Drake stirs too, never having got quite so far from the tower but at least now moving back inside. Anyway, as the battlecruiser was drifting slowly past the tower's guns it made him a less attractive target.

I've clearly got to get used to being part of a larger organisation again. Maybe I am being defensively quiet because I am new to the group, or maybe I am trying to prove I can be effective, but I should have been clear about my intentions and actions, and certainly considered more than just myself when engaging the Magnate. I should also remember that scanning ships sitting outside their own towers is really easy to do, as we could have caught that Tengu earlier within seconds had we thought of that tactic then. Oh well, we get a kill and, with the disappearance of the Drake, our w-space constellation is quiet once more. We can get back to scanning the C1.

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

A simple start to scanning

I wake up to see the orange and black nebulae of a class 5 w-space system. It's my first day in the corporation's beach house but it's business as usual, as I find myself alone. I launch probes and scan. Having more pilots, and more industrially minded pilots, has the C5 cleaner than our C4 base, with only a few anomalies and a handful of gas and rock mining sites present, all of which I bookmark for easy reference before visiting the sole wormhole in the system. The static connection leads to class 4 w-space, and jumping through puts me in directional scanner range of the system's star and innermost planet. I'm sure there is more to see here, so I launch probes and warp off to explore.

It's been a while since I've visited class 4 w-space systems on a regular basis, and it should be no surprise that the last time I was in this system was just over a year ago. I can't rely on my notes after such a gap, but the tower still seems to be in the same place as before. It's good to see other corporations nicely settled in w-space, this one even having a Thanatos in their C4. The carrier isn't piloted, though, neither are the Orca industrial command ship, Drake battlecruiser, and Nemesis stealth bomber, making the system inactive.

There may be no one around but the corporation remains dangerous, as they have a very effective bubble trap configured, one that pulls unwary ships straight through the tower's shields to decloak them. I imagine there have been a fair few ships popped as panicked pilots fail to flee the way they came. At least, those ships that are affected by bubbles. I'm okay but still recognise the benefit of making a safer spot to warp here to, and move away from the tower to do so. But a confirmed lack of pilots lets me scan, and I ignore the rocks, rocks, rocks, and a tiny bit of gas to get to the sole wormhole, a tiny connection to class 1 w-space being the static link here. How cute.

The class 1 system has fewer ships and relatedly more signatures than the C4 behind me, being unoccupied and full of gas. Ignoring a single magnetometric site breaks up the monotony of ignoring even more rocks and gas, and when finally found the wormhole leads out to low-sec empire space. Having nowhere else to go, I jump to low-sec and scan the system in the Devoid region I find myself in, only resolving even more gravimetric sites and a tomb. The dullness of today's constellation is almost reassuring, not being led on a merry dance through w-space after w-space system, but it still leaves me with nothing more to do for now. I head back to the bivouac to grab a bite to eat.

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Tags: drake, eve online, low-sec, mmorpg, nemesis, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, thanatos, w-space

Returning to the fold

Still on hiatus from our class 4 w-space home, glorious leader Fin and I may have opportunity to base ourselves out of w-space again. A second arm of our corporation, operating out of a class 5 system, have an exit to high-sec empire space that is close to our current mission base. In my early days in New Eden a dozen jumps seemed like light years away, particularly when it meant moving from Caldari to Amarr space, but now that same distance is a mere stroll in the park. I undock my scanning Tengu and make my way to the high-sec system containing the appropriate wormhole.

Most of our ships are still sitting in dock many jumps away. Actually, I suppose most of our ships are still in our w-space hangar, but most of our expensive and useful ships are elsewhere, leaving me only Pengu and MCP locally, my Sleeper combat and scanning strategic cruisers. I take MCP because it will be immediately useful in w-space, as well as being rather more defensive in nature, thanks to its covert configuration. It also helps me scan for the wormhole coming from class 1 w-space to start me on my expedition to join our splinter faction.

There are three carriers and a dreadnought in this class 1 w-space system! Other ships sit unpiloted in the tower with these massive ships, and I wonder just how much use they get in here as I scan the mere three signatures present. The K162 leading to class 4 w-space is trivial to find and I jump onwards, one step closer to my target. The C4 also only has three signatures, but the tower here is off-line and the system inactive. What's interesting, though, is the presence of a large ship assembly array, because if the tower is off-line then the array could still contain a bunch of ships we could claim.

Even more interestingly, when I sweep my directional scanner around on a tight beam to look for the off-line tower and ship array I find the array to be separate from the tower. Indeed, it's all alone. I quickly locate the array floating like a monolith around one of the system's moons, unanchored and empty of ships. But it being unanchored means it can be scooped and claimed itself, it just needs a ship with a big enough cargo hold to do so. Mick tells me there is a Bustard transport ship in the hangar at our C5 tower, which would do the job.

Mick flies out to guide me the last couple of jumps home and to reconnoitre the C4 whilst I swap my Tengu for the Bustard and head back to claim my find. There is apparently a Legion strategic cruiser flying around scanning in our constellation, and despite seeing him pop up on d-scan occasionally I don't bump in to him. I am able to warp directly to the unanchored ship array, scoop it to the Bustard's mighty hold, and head back to drop it as loot at the C5 tower. I swap back to my Tengu and try to settle down in this bivouac, not entirely sure about what to expect from this change of system.

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Tags: bustard, eve online, legion, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, tengu, w-space

Secret of my success

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Tags: eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Red and blue

All alone, I'll head out to scan empire space and look for more potential friends to alienate with missiles. I won't find any in the two gravimetric sites that comprise the two signatures in our high-sec home system, and I have to scan two more systems before I resolve a wormhole. What I find is quite interesting, being no mere K162 but an outbound connection to class 5 w-space. It could be dangerous, but it should lead to more w-space and further exploration, and I jump in to take a look around.

There is only a single jet-can visible on my directional scanner in this class 5 w-space system. I launch probes and blanket the system, finding it to be unoccupied and empty, so I start my look for further wormholes. There are plenty of signatures to sift through, and the lack of occupation means I can at least ignore the inevitably large number of mining sites. Sadly, the wormhole I find leads directly back out of w-space, being an exit to null-sec k-space. I was rather hoping for more to explore, so I press on with scanning.

My persistence is rewarded with a second wormhole, my optimism deflated when I see it to be a K162 from null-sec. But now I have a ship appear on my combat scanning probes, and switching to d-scan shows it to be another Tengu. I wonder if the strategic cruiser has followed me in from high-sec but he's not at the K162 leading back to empire space. Neither is the ship at either exit to null-sec, so I have at least one more wormhole to find, even if there is a Tengu to get past to explore there.

I don't have much confidence in my ship-fitting capabilities, particularly with the heavy modular design of strategic cruisers, and I suspect my covertly configured Tengu will lose to any other covertly configured Tengu, so I am not keen to get past the new arrival. I scan for the wormhole anyway, for reference, and get a nice surprise when I drop out of warp to reconnoitre the connection. The Tengu sitting still visible on the wormhole is blue, allied with our corporation and not a threat.

I confirm with colleagues who know more than me about diplomatic relations that this corporation is still in good stead with our own, then open a conversation channel with the pilot. I mention I am the other scanner in the C5, and let him know about the exits to null-sec and the one leading back to high-sec. I copy the bookmark I have to the high-sec exit and jettison it near the Tengu so that he can get direct access, linking him the destination system for information. And then I turn around, as there seems little point in jumping in to explore a blue-occupied system that most likely is a dead end.

Back in high-sec space I jump one system across and start looking for more wormholes. I find one that comes from class 2 w-space, but is reaching the end of its natural lifetime, and then get lucky with the second outbound connection of the evening. This wormhole leads to class 1 w-space, which has a better chance of holding soft targets than a C5, and as it is an outbound connection I could really surprise any capsuleers that think their system is closed.

Jumping in to the class 1 w-space system makes me realise that I am not the first to find this wormhole, partly because the connection destabilises as I pass through it, which my Tengu shouldn't do on a single jump, and partly because of the red Tengu sitting on the other side in the C1. I could try to evade the hostile pilot and go exploring, but the secret of cat-and-mouse is not being the mouse, so I wait for the session change timer to expire and simply head back to high-sec, engaging my mass-inducing micro warp drive as I do just to stress the small aperture wormhole more than is strictly necessary.

I loiter cloaked in high-sec for a short while, seeing the red Tengu jump back behind me in a casual and not pursuant manner. The wormhole destabilises critically as he jumps, making it useless for any further two-way trips, and my pettiness may have been instrumental in denying the red ship's adventures, although the few tonnes the micro warp drive adds to a ship's mass probably didn't make that much difference. Sadly, all the scanning I have done so far has seen time tick away and, rather than explore further, I turn my Tengu towards our home system and dock to get some rest.

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

Mangling a Manticore

Whilst I've been watching what may well be a cardboard cut-out of a Bestower there has been some activity behind me. The class 2 w-space system I scanned my through to get to this boring class 3 system has woken up, glorious leader Fin following in behind me in her scanning Tengu strategic cruiser to scare a Thorax cruiser off the exit wormhole to high-sec empire space, and now a Manticore stealth bomber and Myrmidon battlecruiser are flying around. I'm heading back there to get a piece of this action.

Fin's sitting on the connection to high-sec and watches as the Myrmidon jumps out to empire space. The Manticore apparently tries a bombing run on the wormhole from sixty kilometres out, which unsurprisingly doesn't get anywhere near damaging Fin's Tengu, and I get in to the system to locate the stealth bomber back in the third and least-cluttered tower in this C2. As we're both sitting there, him inside the shields and me without, I open my system map and familiarise myself with the exits. You know, in case of emergency.

The Manticore warps out of the tower again and, thanks to my conscientious attention to detail, I know he's heading towards the exit wormhole again. I follow behind, aiming to drop out of warp close to where he last was seen releasing a bomb, but all I see is empty space. Fin's Tengu is cloaked, as is the Manticore. Come to think of it, so am I. Even empty space can be threatening. I push my Tengu towards the wormhole, wondering if the Manticore pilot has realised the range of his bombs now, but get to twenty kilometres without bumping in to another ship.

I turn around and align back towards the tower, but move under normal speed. As I head back along the same vector as my approach Fin is kind enough to decloak on the wormhole as bait, trying to lure the Manticore to reveal itself to launch a bomb. The pilot isn't tempted by our target, though, and I am still not bumping my ship in to his. At least, not until I am about a hundred kilometres from the wormhole, when my cloak drops and the Manticore is also unwittingly revealed.

Hello, Mr Manticore, let me introduce you to my missiles. I get a positive lock and rain damage on the tiny ship, seeing it pop in a beautiful explosion. I manage to snag the pod, either from the pilot being disorientated or caught with his trousers down, and I am scooping his corpse, and looting and shooting the wreck a few seconds later. We get another covert operations cloaking device for our collection, and for some reason a couple of shrapnel bombs.

I am, of course, a terrible person. Once more, Fin does all the work and good scouting and I am the one to capitalise on the kill. But hopefully we rectify Fin's lack of combat today by taunting the Myrmidon in to action, as he returns from high-sec and cloaks on the wormhole. We can't do much until he shows himself again, which he does, but as both me and Fin have been pulled off the wormhole to catch the Manticore there is little we can do but watch the battlecruiser warp off. He's heading back to the same tower the Manticore used, so I follow to see what he'll do next.

The Myrmidon stays in the tower for a short while, joined by a new pilot in a Hyperion battleship, but only the battlecruiser warps out again towards the wormhole. Fin puts his distance at about fifty kilometres from the wormhole but, despite my best efforts, I can't decloak the our target this time. I try bouncing off the tower again, to try a different range on the same vector, only to see a Scorpion battleship now piloted inside the force field. The presence of potent ECM capability is our cue to leave the system, there being little point in stalking a target that we may not be able to lock on to. Fin and I take our Tengus back out through the wormhole to high-sec, and head home to dock for the night.

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Tags: eve online, hyperion, manticore, mmorpg, myrmidon, penny ibramovic, pvp, scorpion, tengu, w-space

Watching the ships coming in and going out again

Fin's popping rats, I'm looking for w-space. Scanning the home system in high-sec empire space finds no signatures of interest, and one system across only holds a couple of Gurista hideouts. The third system I scan is more interesting, with two K162s coming from class 2 w-space present. I pick one to explore first, jumping in to have my directional scanner show me a tower but no ships. I launch probes and blanket the system, locating the tower and loitering there in the meantime, confirming no ships to be in this inactive system. My scan reveals loads of signatures, which I quickly sift through to look for obvious wormholes, finding another two to investigate.

The first wormhole is a K162 from class 5 w-space, but reaching the end of its natural lifetime, and although the second wormhole is also EOL its destination of class 1 w-space makes me more comfortable poking my nose through. There are likely to be softer targets in a C1 as well as a more convenient path back to empire space should the wormhole behind me collapse. My luck may be in, as a tower and Badger are visible on d-scan from the wormhole, but I find the hauler sitting unpiloted inside the shields of the super-bubbled tower. A second tower and second ship don't hold any more promise, as the Magnate frigate is also unpiloted. There's no one here.

I head back through C2a, out to empire space, and across to jump in to C2b to be greeted by dozens of ships on d-scan. Perusing the d-scan return shows three active force fields and I start looking for the associated towers. The first tower has sixteen ships floating inside its shields, everything from a shuttle up to battleships, with six hangars for even more ships to be stored, but no pilots. The second tower has a further thirteen ships but still no pilots, and the third shows a rather poor display of only two ships, again with neither piloted. It looks like no one's home, so I launch probes and scan.

My blanket scan of this class 2 w-space system reveals nine anomalies, fives signatures, and no extra ships beyond those in the towers. I move the signatures of all the known ships to my ignored list and scan again to see a new contact appear, frigate-sized. The new ship is hard to discern on d-scan amongst the many unpiloted ships present, but I am able to find the Buzzard covert operations boat at the understocked third tower. I watch him for a couple of minutes but he does nothing, so I get back to scanning the signatures here, resolving two ladar sites and the system's second static wormhole. As the cov-ops boat remains inactive I warp away and jump through the stable wormhole to a class 3 w-space system.

A Tristan frigate, Brutix battlecruiser, and Bestower hauler can be seen on d-scan in the C3, along with two towers. A second scan, once I have moved away from the wormhole and cloaked, has the Brutix replaced by an Imicus frigate, a sure sign of activity! Or maybe delusions, but I'm going with activity for now. I locate the tower and warp there to see the Tristan and Bestower piloted, and as there are scanning probes in the system I assume the Imicus is too. The scanning frigate reveals himself before too long, sitting outside the tower's force field but near some defences. I move my ship towards his position, Fin urging me to take a shot if there are no warp disruption defences, which there aren't, but the Imicus warps away before I am close enough to make up my mind.

I can't see where the Imicus went, so while I have time, and because the system is quite big, I warp off to launch probes. A blanket scan shows there to be only two signatures in the whole system, the locals keeping it clean. As I passed through from a different w-space system I am only interested in the one signature, which will be the static connection. The signature is suitably distant from the tower that I can scan it without alerting the locals, perhaps giving me opportunity to pursue them if they decide to move. I resolve the wormhole and warp to it, but despite it being an exit to low-sec it is reaching the end of its life and is probably not going to be used any more. That's okay, the Imicus should find the K162 back to C2b, and maybe he'll find the exit to high-sec in there for the Bestower to make use of.

After a while, the Imicus returns to the tower. I watch carefully to see if he tells the Bestower about any route to empire space, but all the frigate does is warp away to the C2 K162 again, dropping off d-scan moments later. The Tristan disappears and returns, not heading in any direction I recognise and probably only indicating a shaky grip on reality, and although he soon moves towards a hangar he does nothing else. I wait a little longer, tempted by the hauler eventually doing something. Finally he moves, but he doesn't accelerate to warp speed. The pilot merely moves closer to a hangar and sits there. But the appearance of a new pilot in an Iteron hauler is exciting. Maybe the new pilot will even rush off to collect his planet goo!

Maybe the new pilot didn't mean to turn up at all, as he disappears without ceremony some time later. The Tristan has disappeared again by now, leaving only the Bestower present in the tower here, and I remain unconvinced that he's awake. All is quiet. It would be more economical to stare at a picture of a Bestower than sit outside this tower, and luckily Fin comes to my rescue. She's completed her mission and scanned her way to join me, jumping in to C2b to give a quick slap to a Thorax cruiser greeting her on the wormhole before it evades her and warps clear. I'm leaving this system behind and going back to where the action is.

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Tags: badger, bestower, brutix, buzzard, eve online, imicus, magnate, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, thorax, tristan, w-space

Stalking another salvager

Scanning empire space is so much easier than w-space. There are only a handful of signatures at best, and most are exploited quickly enough in high-sec that those that linger will be wormholes. The system that I jump to in order to continue tonight's exploration is even easier to scan, holding just the one signature. Resolving the signature finds a wormhole exiting from class 3 w-space, but the C3 itself turns out to be less than interesting. Two ladar sites and the static wormhole, which I used to enter from high-sec, accompany three anomalies in this occupied but inactive system, leaving me nowhere to go but back to empire space.

Glorious leader Fin has more luck in heading a different direction in high-sec. She finds a wormhole too, this one coming from class 1 w-space, but inside that C1 is another K162, giving more space to explore. I travel across to the high-sec system and scan my way in to join Fin in w-space, warping to her position on the second wormhole. I jump in to the class 2 w-space system beyond as Fin continues scanning the C1, resolving another wormhole that disappears before Fin reaches it. But that's okay, as I can see a tower, Tengu strategic cruiser, and a bunch of Sleeper wrecks on my directional scanner. It looks like we've found some action.

I start a passive scan of the system to locate the anomalies here, but sweeping d-scan around on a narrow beam doesn't find the Sleeper wrecks. It looks like either the anomaly has despawned already or the Tengu is in a magnetometric or radar site. As the Tengu appears to be flying solo I locate the local tower, so that I can see if he swaps to a salvaging boat. There are no other ships at the tower and, with the Tengu abroad, I see if I can find a suitably distant position where I can launch probes discreetly, but the system is too compact to allow it. Instead I use d-scan to try to keep tabs on the Tengu, and now I can see a Noctis salvager also in the same area of space.

I don't know where the Noctis was hiding but he appears to be salvaging the wrecks now, the Tengu moving out of whatever site they are clearing up. The strategic cruiser doesn't return to the tower so I try again to see if I can find him in a basic anomaly, and this time I locate him. I warp in to reconnoitre the site, getting in to position without being decloaked to see the Tengu engaging Sleepers. I call Fin in to my position, who lands far enough away to be in warp range of most of the wrecks. I need to bounce off a distant point to get in to suitable range of a wreck, and make a couple of bookmarks to let me do that.

By the time I'm back in the anomaly with the Tengu, so is the Noctis. He's a little early, as a Sleeper battleship remains in the anomaly, but he begins salvaging anyway. It's not long before the Sleeper takes umbrage at the Noctis desecrating his kin's wrecks and starts shooting the salvager, which has to warp out. That's okay with me, as it gives me a chance to warp out and back in to a better position near the clump of wrecks the Noctis was working on, my first guess being a little off. The Noctis returns, as do I, but again we've crossed paths. I warped to the wrecks, the Noctis to the Tengu, and we're once more on different sides of the anomaly, some hundred kilometres apart. This is why Fin's smarter than me.

At her privileged position, Fin is able to warp directly to the Noctis wherever it is in the anomaly, as long as a wreck is nearby. The Tengu exits the site, leaving us alone with the vulnerable salvager. We both know that now is the best time to act, as the Tengu won't even be able to react whilst it is in warp out of the site, and Fin moves to strike. As she lands on top of the Noctis I drop my cloak and burn towards the target, Fin's missiles already beginning to melt the salvager's armour. I manage to cover the distance in time to get a few good missile strikes on the Noctis, but neither of us can prevent the pilot's pod from warping clear, leaving us only a wreck to loot and shoot.

No good loot is recovered from the wreck of the Noctis, the pilot sensibly dropping off his previously collected profit at the tower before continuing here. It's a decent enough kill, though, and one that still needed coordination and some patience. But it looks like the Noctis is all we'll face here, a visit to the local tower showing the Tengu sitting inertly in the shields along with the escaped pod. Fin loots some of the Sleepers for some extra iskies and then we turn around to head back to empire space. It's been another successful hunting trip.

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

Going after gas

Two signatures are in our mission base system today, and both are wormholes. Both connections are K162s from class 2 w-space, so I pick one at random to visit first, putting me in the same C2 as only three days ago when I nearly snagged a stealth bomber looting a planet goo hauler wreck. That would explain why the tower's configuration and corporation look familiar. Even in that short time the locals have been busy, a second tower now on-line, although I suppose I could have been sloppy in my scouting the previous day and missed it. The single combat scanner probe visible on my directional scanner is deterring me from finding a quiet spot to launch my own probes, as the probe can reach further than its visibility on d-scan. I'll just settle down to monitor the two piloted Thorax cruisers at the second tower.

Maybe I won't watch the cruisers, as I could stare at a blank wall for the same amount of entertainment, and more cheaply too. As I have a second w-space system to explore I head back to empire space and warp across to jump through the other K162 in the home system. D-scan is clear in this C2, and launching probes to perform a blanket scan of the system reveals four ships, two anomalies, and two signatures. The two signatures must be the two static wormholes, one of which I just passed through, but I'd like to find the ships before I scan for the second. Two Orca industrial command ships sit unpiloted in one tower, and warping to a distant corner of the system sees a Pilgrim recon ship and Helios covert operations boat both piloted in a second tower.

The Helios is swapped for a Drake battlecruiser and the pilot warps away. He's easily found again in one of the two anomalies in the system and I am beginning to think I'll have a shot at a salvager soon. I warp in to the anomaly to bookmark a conveniently positioned wreck only to see the Drake looting and salvaging as he goes, leaving me without a soft target and a battlecruiser that could easily absorb the damage my covertly configured Tengu strategic cruiser can sustain. I suppose I'm leaving this system behind me too, but rather than scan here I'll see what the two Thoraxes have done in my absence.

Both cruisers are doing less now than before, as they are gone from the system. At least I get a chance to scan, giving me four anomalies to bookmark and eight signatures to resolve. I find a magnetometric site, two radar sites, a gravimetric site, and two ladar sites, the final signature hiding away being the second static wormhole. I warp to the connection to see it leading to a class 3 w-space system when a final check of d-scan sees the Thoraxes back in the system. I refrain from decloaking to jump, and warp to the tower to see if anything happens this time. Yes it does, both ships warp out in the direction of what looks like one of the ladar sites. I'm glad they took a break to let me scan their system.

Glorious leader Fin arrives and I guide her to scan the entrance to this C2, as I warp in to the ladar site and monitor the two Thoraxes as they harvest gas. I could strike and get one kill, but now Fin's here we can coordinate our attack and get both. And now that the pilots have jettisoned a can for their gas I have the ideal beacon to warp in to for the ambush. Fin resolves the wormhole and jumps in to the system, and I warp back so that I can send us both to land directly on top of the two gas ships. Before I initiate the squadron warp command I punch d-scan on a narrow beam and, to my disappointment, the two ships are no longer in the ladar site.

I send Fin in to the first ladar site at range for her to get the bookmark of the jet-can anyway, then warp myself to the tower to check on the pilots. It's possible they saw Fin enter the system if they are vigilant with d-scan, but judging by their absence at the tower maybe they didn't. Swinging d-scan around puts the pair of them in the second ladar site, for some reason abandoning the first, and it is simple enough to warp there and bookmark the new can they have jettisoned. Fin and I coordinate our movements again and we get ready for the ambush, clear about our individual targets and order of engagement. I send us in warp to the second site.

We drop out of warp on top the jet-can, but only in time to see the pair of Thoraxes warp out. It superficially looks like they saw us decloak in time to get clear themselves, but they are not warping to a planet and so not to their tower. On an hunch I initiate squad warp a second time and throw our Tengus back to the first ladar site, indeed finding the Thoraxes there once more, but sadly at the other gas cloud and not their can of collected gas. They don't waste time warping away from us again, this time towards their tower. It was close, but no kill for us on this occasion. It seems the gassers were bouncing between clouds, which luckily kept them safe, but we were only a couple of seconds away from catching them unawares.

The locals don't see their escape the way Fin and I do. One of them pipes up in the local channel, calling our attempt a 'fail', apparently seeing their oblivious nature and lucky timing a fault of our own. They're entitled to their opinion, I suppose, but for their arrogance I pop the jet-can of gas I landed next to, before warping back to the other site and destroying the can there too. I don't rise to the request of a two-versus-two fight either, for some reason not being quite convinced of the fairness of them being able to pick ships from their hangar to foil our Tengus, already compromised from having to fit them for covert operations. Instead, Fin and I leave the system quietly and search high-sec for more wormholes to explore.

Posted in Gaming | 5 Comments »
Tags: drake, eve online, helios, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, pilgrim, pvp, scanning, tengu, thorax, w-space

Just passing through

Just as sometimes you can scan through a dozen w-space systems and find no exit to k-space, you can scan an awful lot of k-space before you find a wormhole. I like to think that the wealth of conveniently interconnected systems out in high-sec empire space offers almost infinite possibility for finding a way in to w-space, but there are days when it looks like the reawakening of the Sleepers was just a dream. No wormholes in the mission base system is hardly disheartening, but the second, third, and fourth systems I check are also dry of any wormholes, and my next stargate jump would put me in to null-sec space.

I turn around and make the jumps back to base, continuing in that contrary direction to explore further. At last there are signatures to resolve, three of them in this system, and the first is a wormhole. It's even a stable K162 coming from class 2 w-space, and none of this empire-to-empire nonsense. The other two signatures are a radar and magnetometric site, which I ignore to jump in to the C2 to roam in my exploration Tengu strategic cruiser.

My prospects don't look too promising initially, only an empty tower on scan and a close look at the system map showing there to be nowhere to hide from my directional scanner. But class 2 w-space systems always have two static wormholes, one leading to k-space and one to w-space, which makes their K162s ideal to find when scanning from empire space, as I can be assured of having more w-space to explore once I find that second static wormhole.

Scanning is quick and easy in this C2, with only four sigantures in total and my having jumped through one of them. I'm left with a gravimetric and magnetometric site each, and a static wormhole to class 1 w-space, which is nice. I bookmark the two sites for places of potential later ambushes, and jump through to the C1 to see core scanning probes on d-scan along with a tower. What would be excellent is if this scout is from the C2 and is looking for sites to clear in this C1, and with that in mind I think about letting him finish his scanning, watch him head home to the C2, and then see what ship he brings back here.

I find a place to launch probes myself, performing a blanket scan to see how long I may have to wait for the scout to complete his scanning. Seven signatures shouldn't take long to resolve, and the four anomalies may bring a combat boat, and perhaps a salvager, in to this system shortly. Whatever will happen, I am back to waiting. Glorious leader Fin has turned up now, which adds to our firepower, and I direct her to the high-sec system and specific signature to let her join me in my roaming. She resolves the wormhole to the class 2 system easily enough, then that to the C1, and sits in wait on the other side of the wormhole to me.

Soon enough a Helios covert operations boat appears on the wormhole in the C1 and jumps through to the C2. My hopes that he'll be back in a bigger and better target are dashed when he starts launching probes on the wormhole, which I'm imagining a resident of the system wouldn't have to do, thinking he'd have a bookmark to his home tower. But Fin points out the Helios pilot was cavalier on his entrance in to the system, not waiting for the session change timer to end, and maybe we can use that when he returns. If he returns, which of course he doesn't.

I check the tower local to the C1 I am in and realise the Helios is not from here either, and instead it seems he has scanned his way from low-sec in to the C1, through to the C2, then exited out to high-sec and went on his way. When scanning is an essential activity in w-space it is difficult to know when to take a shot. A local could be scanning for reference, exploration, or looking for profit, and you can never be sure what. Sometimes you take your first opportunity to be sure of a shot, other times you wait and get lucky with a bigger target or let it go only to be left staring at empty space.

Despite my plan being sound, I could have done a better job of scouting today. I should have noted the owner corporation of the towers in both systems, to make a better call about engaging the Helios as it passed through the connecting wormhole. Had I realised the ship called neither w-space system home Fin could have probably taken a good shot, or at least scared it back in to my sights. Instead my assumptions lost us the opportunity, and with both w-space systems remaining quiet and the hour drawing on we head back to empire space to rest for the night.

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