Sneaking up on miners

Another day, another high-sec adventure. An empty first system moves me on to a second where I resolve two wormholes, giving me options. I choose to explore through the K162 from class 1 w-space first, leaving the class 2 w-space as an alternative. And my choice looks promising, as my directional scanner shows me a Drake battlecruiser teasingly named 'Kill Me Please', but only an off-line tower also in range. The Drake disappears before I can think about locating it, and I warp off to the distant planet in the system to see if there is permanent occupation here.

A tower reveals itself on the outskirts of this C1, with plenty of ships in its shields. I see an Anathema covert operations boat, two Bustard transport ships, a Covetor mining barge, the Drake, a Harbinger battlecruiser, Iteron hauler, Vexor cruiser, and even a Rorqual capital industrial ship, most of the ships piloted too. The Drake pilot swaps to a second Covetor, which is enticing, and whilst all of the ships remain in the tower I warp away to launch probes covertly. I throw the probes out of the system for now to keep them hidden, performing a blanket scan as I return to monitor the tower.

There are only two signatures in the system, one of which is the wormhole leading out to high-sec empire space. The occupants clearly keep the system clean and, as all the pilots remain stationary at the tower and out of range of the single unresolved signature, I find out what site remains available. It's a gravimetric site, which would explain the two Covetors, and perhaps the Drake seen on entering was clearing the Sleepers from the site to make it safe for an imminent mining operation. I have the gravimetric site resolved without the locals spotting my probes, but there is one more preparatory task I should make whilst I have time.

I warp at range to the site from the tower, noting the relative postion of the rocks, including those containing high-value ores, pleased to see that I am not decloaked when warping in. I can now plan a suitable ambush, but only if the miners come out of their tower. I warp back to watch them a little longer, surprised to now see a Chimera carrier at the tower, making me wonder what on earth they do with all these ships in a simple class 1 w-space system. None of the ships is making any kind of movement either and I don't want to wait forever. Whilst they make up their minds what they want to do, I head back to empire space to see what's happening in the other w-space system I found.

It is my third visit to the class 2 system, where previously I had five towers listed as active. I take a look to see if they are still around from ten months ago, and end up warping in to a bubble trap littered with mining drones. Thankfully the trap is ineffective and my cloak holds, but now in the heart of the system I see seven force fields on my directional scanner and eight moons, and I can't be bothered with finding and checking each tower for ships and pilots, and tracking them all for activity. I leave the C2 as quickly as I enter it and head back to the C1 to see if anyone has started mining yet.

A Covetor on d-scan when I jump in to the C1 is a good sign, and he must be in the gravimetric site if he's not in the tower. I warp in at range to take a look, dropping out of warp to see two Covetors now in the site. I bookmark the can that has now been jettisoned, giving me a convenient marker, and warp out so that I can come back to drop on top of the ships. In the short time it takes me to bounce out and in two more Covetors come to join the mining party, giving me four soft targets to aim for. I wonder how many I can get.

As my engines slow down to drop me out of warp I decloak, knowing that I have to wait for the sensor recalibration delay to pass, but the six seconds passes quickly and I am locking on to all four mining barges. I pick one as the target of my single warp disruptor and prevent it from leaving, hitting the ship with salvos from my missile launchers. I am tempted to cycle my warp disrupter across multiple ships, hoping that they are hitting warp before aligning, but I want to be sure of getting the kill and hold the point on my primary target. The other three Covetors align and warp clear before my missiles pop the first mining barge, but I get the kill as desired.

I have been punching d-scan for updates, concerned that help will arrive for the Covetors, but all that warps in is the Anathema, which is hardly a threat. And as the popped Covetor's pod warps out safely I opportunistically lock on to the only ship remaining, surprisingly getting a positive lock on the cov-ops. Maybe he was relying on his cloak to activate but ended up too close to the rocks, but I don't know. Whatever the reason, he's not getting away now. I prevent the Anathema from warping and start pounding the tiny ship with missiles, watching it pop most satisfyingly. The pilot must be disorientated, as his pod hangs around long enough for me to lock that too, and I am soon scooping another corpse in to my hold.

I hit the jackpot when looting the Anathema, almost all modules surviving, including a Sisters expanded probe launcher and the covert operations cloaking device. The only problem with having such lucrative spoils from the Anathema is that I have nowhere to hold all the mining crystals that are in the wreck of the Covetor. It's only ISK, though, and I shoot both wrecks once my hold is full to the brim or piratical loot, to deny any salvage to the locals. Still I see no threats on d-scan and it is only when I warp back close to the wormhole that the first sign of defence appears. An Onyx heavy interdictor warps to the wormhole and activates its warp bubble, which would be more effective if I couldn't crawl through it cloaked and jump out to the security of high-sec.

My new cov-ops Tengu strategic cruiser is working well, allowing me to scout effectively whilst giving me enough firepower for small engagements, removing the need to change ships. The fitting may need a tweak or two to be more effective in getting in to range and out of potential danger, but being self-sufficient and temporarily not tied to a home system is quite liberating, such that I don't have to rely on any particular exit being clear or not collapsing. Tonight I am able to return the way I came and, having had enough fun for the evening, head back one hop to my mission base to empty my hold of loot, making my Tengu ready for its next exploratory adventure.

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Tags: anathema, bustard, chimera, covetor, drake, eve online, harbinger, iteron, mmorpg, onyx, penny ibramovic, pvp, rorqual, scanning, tengu, vexor, w-space

Continuing operations in a hostile environment

Maybe I should have left when the wormhole was clear. I run across so many towers stuffed with empty ships that I suspected those I initially saw on my directional scanner were the same. As it turns out, once I find both the towers out here, most of the ships are piloted, combat ships and industrials alike, and now a Hurricane and Brutix battlecruiser, and Dominix battleship have warped out and are sitting on the wormhole leading back to the class 2 w-space system I entered from, and the Probe I failed to pop is perhaps acting as scout for them. It's no bother, I suppose, even if I don't want to see if my covertly configured Tengu can avoid them, as I can easily wait here a day and leave at my leisure, my strategic cruiser being purposely equipped to scan.

But perhaps there is more for me to do here. The inhabitants may have blocked my exit from their system but it looks like an Iteron hauler is warping around locally. It would be amazing if he were collecting planet goo mere minutes after a Tengu popped one of their Anathema covert operations pilots, but I suppose stranger situations occur. All I need to do is find him, which may involve getting lucky, as this class 4 w-space system is quite large and d-scan doesn't reach in to the inner system from out here. I need to warp away from monitoring the towers to try to find my next potential target.

Dropping out of warp closer to the centre of the system reveals more towers here. One is off-line, one is on-line and, would you look at that, one is being brought on-line right at this moment, and by the Iteron too. Until the tower is on-line the force field is not active, and despite the known hostile presence in the system and the availability of combat pilots the locals have decided that sitting on the wormhole is a better use of their time than protecting vulnerable assets. I shall disavow them of this idea.

I bookmark the tower's precise location, my landing at the moon dropping me too far away to engage quickly and too near for my warp drives to get me immediately closer, and bounce off the planet to get within range of the hauler. I decloak, wait for the recalibration delay to pass, and lock and start shooting the hapless Iteron. It takes a while for my missiles to damage my target, as I overestimate my puny range, but the hauler's warp drives are disrupted and burning towards him closes the gap soon enough, as all the while I pound d-scan to see when his colleagues will turn up to send me packing. But they don't, not before his shields drop, not before his armour drops, and not before his structure disintegrates and throws the pilot's pod in to space.

At least the Iteron pilot is paying attention, getting his pod cleanly away, but I don't think these capsuleers talk to each other. As I watch the pod flee a Bestower hauler drops out of warp at the moon, and following close behind is a Hoarder industrial ship, which is hardly the combat response I was expecting! It's only a shame that these new targets warped to the moon and not the tower, as now I am once more a hundred kilometres away from both targets and this time will not be able to react in time to catch either of them. It's such a shame, as they are almost throwing themselves at my ship to be popped.

I imagine the locals have got the message now that there is a Tengu causing trouble in their system, and despite their carefree attitude to w-space flying I doubt I'll get any more easy kills. I'll see if I can make a sneaky exit. I warp at range to the wormhole to see the combat ships recalling their drones and warping away, only giving up the camp now that I've popped an unprotected ship carrying expensive tower equipment in an easily traceable position. I warp away, not wanting to crawl the distance to the wormhole if I can help it, and return to an off-grid bookmark I make at the same time. D-scan shows the wormhole to be clear, letting me warp on top of it within a few seconds and jump out of the system cleanly.

The wormhole has been destabilised, whether intentionally or not, and it's possible the C4 pilots assumed I had left the system already and were trying to isolate themselves from the threat. I suppose my attack on the Iteron really did come as a surprise. And as I move slowly away from the wormhole it flares, the Dominix appearing briefly before returning to the C4 once more, perhaps trying to complete the collapse anyway. I'm not sure if anyone saw me leave their system, but I've had my fun and I warp my Tengu back towards the wormhole leading in to this C2 from high-sec empire space. I jump out of w-space, dock in my mission base, and spend another night in a station.

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Tags: bestower, brutix, dominix, eve online, hoarder, hurricane, iteron, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, probe, pvp, tengu, w-space

Mimicking a Probe

Despite resolving a wormhole, scanning in high-sec gets off to a disappointing start. The wormhole is a K162 from class 2 w-space and reaching the end of its natural lifetime, and even though I'm happy to take a look inside in my scanning Tengu strategic cruiser I find it's the same system and wormhole that I left behind me yesterday. And I deleted all my relevant bookmarks for this system prior to scanning anew today. I'm not going to wait in here for nothing to happen again, so head back out to empire space, hop one system across, and look for fresh connections.

The system adjacent to my mission base holds promise. One wormhole is a stable K162 from class 2 w-space but my first jump will be through the second, a random outbound connection to a C2, as it offers more connections to find and a greater chance of surprising the locals. As it turns out, there are no locals awake to surprise, only an empty tower, so I launch probes and begin to scan. I resolve a gravimetric site, radar site, a small ship, and, hold on, I need to check my directional scanner. D-scan is now picking up an Anathema covert operations boat, and a Probe frigate has appeared in the system too, both of which launch probes.

I imagine a new connection has opened in to this C2, and as there are already a dozen scanning probes flying around I don't worry about mine being visible, as they may be lost in the noise. I keep scanning, looking for the wormhole that brought the two scouts here, and resolve the system's static exit to high-sec space, which doesn't get me closer to targets. A second wormhole of a K162 from class 2 w-space looks a likely origin of these two boats and I loiter there for a while, but only to see the Anathema drop out of warp a hundred kilometres from the connection before cloaking. Surely if he's from the C2 beyond he wouldn't be checking the wormhole from a distance. More curiously, I don't know why he wouldn't be warping cloaked, but I am grateful for his visibility.

The third wormhole in this C2 is the second static connection, leading to class 4 w-space. It looks like I have the wormholes here mapped and recall my probes as I check d-scan to see the Anathema and Probe warping to what looks like the other connections here, including the one from high-sec that I recently opened. I don't jump yet, not wanting to give away my position or ship class, but on reflection I realise that I am hardly likely to be able to catch a cov-ops boat, or even a cloaking frigate. I get ready to jump in to the C4 to explore more w-space when the Anathema warps in uncloaked and jumps through himself.

Not expecting to catch the boat but intrigued to see what will happen I follow the Anathema in to the C4 and hold my session change cloak. The cov-ops boat is sitting just off the wormhole, not moving, and to my delight he jettisons a can. The can will be close enough to his ship to prevent him cloaking, which now gives me a solid opportunity to intercept him. I break the session change cloak and target the Anathema, getting a positive lock and engaging all my weapons systems. The ship cannot cloak or warp away and is hit hard by my missiles, popping pretty quickly. The pilot's pod gets away cleanly, leaving me a wreck to loot and shoot, nabbing me some more scanning probes for my efforts.

Not a minute later, the Probe follows in behind. Feeling rather headstrong after nabbing the cov-ops boat I decloak and try to lock on to the simple frigate, but as I now have the addition of the recalibration delay to contend with the Probe warps away before my systems are even ready to target it. Perhaps I should have remained hidden, but at least now I think I realise the events that led to my catching the cov-ops. The two pilots are clearly from this system and no doubt working together, the Anathema returning home first. What I am supposing is that the Probe signalled his intention to return and asked for something, perhaps additional bookmarks, to be dropped for him. The Anathema took my jump behind him to be his colleague, a reasonable assumption that he didn't verify, and jettisoned the can for him not knowing what a deadly obstacle it would turn out to be. The chain of events certainly sounds reasonable.

I have my kill, I should probably turn around and explore in the other direction. But as both the pod and Probe warped towards the same planet, and there is a tower on d-scan, this must be their home system. That there are more ships on d-scan tempts me to stay longer, whereas they should probably be telling me to leave while I can, and I warp towards the planet to locate the tower, wondering what repercussions are in store for me after my opportunistic attack.

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

Tengu exploration

I want to get back to exploring. Running missions isn't rewarding for me, and not just in terms of ISK. I could get myself a new Buzzard covert operations boat to scan with whilst taking a break in high-sec empire space, but there are logistic problems when using stations. Docking adds a session change timer, during which it isn't possible to change ships. Warping and jumping between systems already takes time, and an extra thirty seconds when changing ships could mean the difference between catching the target and it blissfully going free. And besides being frustrating mid-hunt, it's tedious to do nothing for half-a-minute.

This extra delay isn't a problem when using a tower, as you warp in, change ships, and warp out, so using a Buzzard and swapping to a stealth bomber or other combat ship has never been a particular drag, but I can imagine the delay will become untenable when I am looking for a quick turnaround to try to catch a miner or salvager. Or, I suppose if I'm feeling daring, combat ships. It looks like I have the motivation to finally splash out on a covert strategic cruiser scouting boat.

I already have a rough configuration for a cov-ops Tengu, even if sacrificing a launcher to make room for a cloaking device was apparently an afterthought. I understand that it won't have the firepower or tank of a dedicated combat ship but it should still be quite capable to assault smaller ships, and certainly careless industrialists, all with the capability to scan in to and out of w-space in a single boat. I almost accept its rather ugly subsystem configuration because of its adaptability. Now I just need to find some w-space.

Not wanting to start scanning in Jita I start making my way back towards my mission base, picking an arbitrary system along the way to test my new Tengu's abilities. I resolve a couple of magnetometric sites first, but get lucky with a wormhole being in the system. The connection turns out to be a K162 from class 1 w-space, and reaching the end of its natural lifetime. I normally leave dying wormholes alone but, as I am in a scanning boat, the C1 likely has a static exit to high-sec, and I am not really risking getting isolated from any particular home, I jump in to take a look.

Two Iteron haulers are in the system, according to my directional scanner, along with an on-line tower. Finding the tower finds the ships, but both are unpiloted and unlikely to go out collecting planet goo. I notice a couple of scanning probes on d-scan now, so it's possible there is another wormhole to find. Scanning only reveals two signatures, though, the wormhole I jumped through and a ladar gas harvesting site. A bit more exploration finds a second tower, the piloted Helios cov-ops boat inside its shields probably the owner of the probes and likely to be checking to see if the static connection has collapsed of old age and been replaced with a new one. I doubt I'll see much action here soon.

I jump back to high-sec and hop across to an adjacent system to scan again. I am lucky to find another wormhole, but again it is reaching the end of its life. There is also a Maelstrom battleship sitting on the wormhole to class 3 w-space, which warps away a few seconds after I land cloaked. I wonder if there are any ships on the other side of the wormhole and jump in to take a look, but find only empty space. It's w-space I've visited before too, and although I jumped through an connection outbound from empire space this C3 apparently also has a static exit to high-sec, giving me a good exit should the wormhole die behind me. I take a look around.

The tower I have listed in my notes has been moved or replaced, and there is no one at home. Scanning reveals no anomalies and five signatures, which are mostly ladar sites. This system is rather dull too at the moment. I go back the way I came and make one more hop to take me to my mission base, where I launch probes and scan high-sec space a third time. Another wormhole presents itself, this one a stable K162 from class 2 w-space. I jump in, move away from the wormhole, and cloak, at which point a Mammoth hauler drops on top of the wormhole, loiters a while, and jumps out to high-sec. That could be interesting.

I reconnoitre the C2 to find one anomaly, seven signatures, and two ships. An unpiloted shuttle and piloted Tengu are inside the shields of a local tower, but the pilot of the Tengu doesn't look active. Knowing the proximity of the exit to high-sec to Jita I return to the wormhole, waiting for the Mammoth to return. I am hoping he is going on a simple shopping trip and will come back soon, when he will ignore the session change timer on seeing empty w-space and try to warp to his tower. Even with a few seconds of recalibration delay I may be able to decloak, lock, and disrupt the warp engines of the hauler before it can align and accelerate, and with the session change timer active it won't be able to escape back to high-sec.

My plan sounds viable, certainly enough to keep me waiting at the wormhole for the Mammoth for quite a while, but it seems his shopping trip is either more complicated than a simple fuel run or he is shunning Jita. I suppose at least this is a successful, if partial, return to w-space, waiting for a nebulous someone to jump in to a dubious ambush. My Tengu gets a test run too, and probably for the best that only its scanning capabilities are exercised on its maiden voyage. For today, I simply jump back to high-sec and park in a station for the night, ready to go exploring again tomorrow.

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Tags: eve online, helios, iteron, jita, maelstrom, mammoth, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, tengu, w-space

Two days is my limit

Empire space, day two. I take my Drake out for more missions, to make more ISK and increase my security status a little bit more. I forgot about security status gains yesterday, which are a nice benefit. Unfortunately, it still looks like I will be making a loss today, as my security agent offers me a mining mission. But this is all about the pew pew, I tell him, and he just smiles. 'The first mission is about the 'pew pew', as you endearingly put it, but subsequent missions related to the first one you accept can involve anything. Now bring me some green rocks, I need something to hold down these papers.' Damn him.

At least I have some mad mining skills, enough to pilot a Retriever, which, believe me, is mad enough. But it's not quite mad enough to make me want to travel over a dozen systems out to collect the one Retriever I have in empire space, so I'll buy one. A mining barge is no doubt overkill—overmining?— for this small rock my agent wants, and I could have made do with an Osprey, but I may as well be prepared. And I'm clearly not, as I warp my Retriever in to deadspace to find three battleships and a handful of cruisers waiting for me. I need to clear them first, which needs my Drake battlecruiser.

I head straight back to dock, swap ships, and return to deadspace to find the battleships now gone, the bounty and loot lost to an agent who can't brief me properly. But I destroy the cruisers, along with the extra waves of ships that come in afterwards, letting me get the Retriever back here and spend all of a minute ripping the entire rock in to my hold. I then get a courier mission, eventually a little more combat, another courier task, and finish with a couple more fights to complete the chain of seven missions, still making a loss on the rewards from having bought the mining barge.

Dear diary, empire space is annoying.

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Tags: drake, eve online, mining, mmorpg, osprey, penny ibramovic, retriever, the citadel

Hitting high-sec

Empire space, day one. High-sec is all mine! I have no idea what to do. I have an ancient Drake battlecruiser in this hangar, fitted with basic components and even some passive hardeners, but I am far from familiar agents. This Drake and location were from an earlier temporary reprieve from w-space when I ran missions with Fin, but my access to agents here is lousy and I need some kind of autonomy if I am to maintain interest. I think I ought to head back towards an old mission triangle in The Citadel, although I note that I don't have combat ship down there. I'll first swing by Jita to buy a new ship and fittings, flying bare pod to save time if not ISK.

In Jita, I consider buying a Buzzard covert operations boat for scanning, but I leave it for today. Anomalies can be easily found using the on-board scanner and, besides, I imagine missions will be far more profitable than anomalies in high-sec space. Unless I want to find wormholes there is little point in having a scanning boat, and as I don't have a stealth bomber for hunting or strategic cruiser for shooting Sleepers there is not much point heading in to w-space either. For now, I am one pilot and her Drake, and missions are my bread and butter.

I reacquaint myself with an old agent of good standing, offering level three missions. I could probably look for higher level missions but these will be familiar and straightforward enough to start with. As luck would have it, the first mission I am offered is breaking a blockade, which I seem to recall being rather testing. I can see if I can still fly a Drake effectively, even if I have forgotten about drones again. A quick diversion gets some drones in to my hold and I am soon popping high-sec rats left and right, my tank holding up under the strain easily enough, even if jamming remains as frustrating when used by NPCs as capsuleers.

Quite a lot of shooting later and I am left with a whole host of wrecks. I may as well try to realise some more profit out here, although that means having a salvaging boat. I could equip a destroyer and salvage old-school, but time is ISK and a Noctis salvager seems the better choice. Of course, I don't have one at all in empire space, their introduction occurring long after I make a home in w-space, so I need to buy one. Salvaging these wrecks is remarkably easy when compared to Sleepers, only needing to dedicate a single cycle of one module to each wreck, and I find it faster to loot the resultant cans than the wrecks themselves.

Four more missions are accepted and completed, each one cleaned up by my Noctis, bringing my first day to a close. Totting up my mission rewards, time bonuses, and bounties, less the cost of the ships and fittings, I have lost over a hundred million ISK. Maybe the loot and salvage will cover most of that, I don't know, but this doesn't seem like an auspicious return to running missions. Maybe tomorrow will be more profitable.

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Tags: drake, eve online, jita, mmorpg, noctis, penny ibramovic, the citadel

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit

I like racing games, arcade racing games specifically, Burnout 2 on the Gamecube being my current pinnacle of racing entertainment. I had high hopes for Burnout Paradise on the Xbox 360, and whilst the handling of the cars and sense of speed were great the game has serious flaws that have rendered it unplayable for me. Having to continually repair and change your car only at designated and sparse stations on the map makes free-driving tedious, in that you are either getting in to a race-stopping wreck every ten seconds or crawling around in the hunt for a repair station, which is antithetical to a racing game. Having to search for new races and challenges at certain junctions becomes tedious quickly, particularly when you need specific cars for some of them, and the interminable slow-motion crashes drag you out of the race for so long each time that they become boring and unwanted, made worse for being unskippable. Even so, Criterion Games show that they can create playable and exciting racing content, if you can actually get to it, and as they are the developer of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit I am hoping to find the racing game I crave.

Installing the game gets off to a bad start, thanks to more unskippable content. Various splash screens, a damned advertisement for another game, more splash screens, and someone explaining the different modes of play—even after all the initial loading time has given me more than time to read the flimsy manual thrice over—has me wondering what benefits a console is supposed to be able to offer. The developers also don't seem to consider that, for one reason or another, you may not be installing and playing the game for the first time, and going through the same tedious screens may be far less informative than even the initial waste of time. I am less than impressed to start with. I also dislike generic rock music, and although I can turn the music volume down in the options I am presented with the same music on the loading screen that I can't get past by jamming the start buttong without the first couple of lines being pretentiously whispered. It may sound petty, but imagine your least-favourite genre of music being shoved down your throat every time you load a game.

There is more unskippable content during the game, presented thick and fast to start with as you gain ranks, both in police and racer modes. Again, it may be vaguely interesting the first time you see it but after the tenth new car you just want to get back to the racing. And equipment upgrades can be important to know about, but as two of the four upgrades on each side are identical it would be nice to be able to skip at least the second presentation of what is essentially the same item. Even getting in to races has a short introduction scene, and although there is at last an option to skip the material it often feels like you are not skipping much, still taking many seconds to drop you in to the car to race. And with the early races being quite short and the 'awards' coming quickly there is a fair amount of sitting passively compared to time on the roads. Having said all that, the time spent on the roads is awesome.

The bits between races are a little tedious, but the races themselves are mostly excellent. There are several types of race, where you are taking a car for a test drive to get to the end of the course as quickly as possible, there is a race between several drivers that the police want to break up, and duels between two racers. You can play as both a racer or a police officer, with different sets of challenges as each type. Both sides of play are independent of each other, with separate career progressions, and car and equipment upgrade paths, and you can play as one exclusively or mix-and-match as you desire. The two styles of play aren't really 'different', though, as you race along the course trying to crash the other cars off the road. You succeed as the racer if you reach the goal without being wrecked, getting more 'bounty' the higher you place amongst any other racers, and you succeed as the officer by wrecking the racers, getting a better grade of pass the more racers you wreck. It can be fun to play from both sides, and not restricting the player to be one or the other removes any feeling of imbalance or animosity between the two sides.

Racing the cars feels good. The style is much more that of an arcade game than simulation, so although there are tight corners to get around you don't need to brake hard and change in to first gear to crawl around safely, you can simply tap the brakes and set your car in to a huge drift at stupid speeds and light up your tyres, not even caring too much about hitting a tree on the exit. There are plenty of cars, but perhaps they are awarded to the player a little too early and often, as you don't really get to try them in sequence and get a feel for each, particularly as many challenges artificially restrict your choice. It is important to have a feel for the car too, as it can affect how you take the corners. Some cars definitely need to drift to make many corners, whereas some of the exotic cars hold the corners much better and can go flat out through them. Not knowing how the current car handles can make the first race in it awkward, and you often need to repeat the challenge just because your first impression of the car is inadequate to drive it properly. This can become frustrating in the rapid response police challenges, where you drive a new car on what is essentially an uninterrupted race to the finish line, but one where any crashes, scrapes, or bumps adds penalty seconds to your time. Not knowing the car only adds to the frustration of fishtailing to rack up the penalties, and these are my least favourite challenges. Thankfully, the racer equivalent challenges don't add penalties for scrapes and so are just another fun race.

It is possible to enter the free-driving mode, letting you drive anywhere in the county you want, with no restrictions. Apart from allowing you to practice with cars as you get them, this mode highlights several important points. First, there is no damage bar on your car, letting you drive and crash with impunity. You never need to repair, so never need to find a repair station, nor drive slowly and boringly in case you wreck and get another interminable slow-motion animation. Second, all challenges are selected from the map, not from having to find them from free-roaming, and car selection is made after the challenge is selected. These two points correct two of the most annoying aspects about Burnout Paradise and are a hugely welcome return to getting the player to the content (once you get past the initial screens).

Third, in free-driving mode it becomes clearer that when in a race there is only one route to take. Again, a problem with Burnout Paradise was the openness of the city, where although alternative routes were available there were also definitely wrong routes to take, although 'definitely' doesn't translate to 'obviously' when you are hurtling along and trying to read a largely unfamiliar map. Having options open but being shepherded in roughly the right direction when on a race would have been preferable, and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit gets this right too. But, fourth, the landscape in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is far more limited than in Burnout Paradise. The latter has a full city of roads and intersections, whereas the former is essentially a bunch of linked racing routes, with little more to explore beyond that. Despite letting you race and crash without penalty, free-driving in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is ultimately unfulfilling because of the lack of depth to the countryside, particularly when compared with the complexity of Burnout Paradise. So it's good that the racing is thoroughly rewarding.

On top of driving very fast, screeching around hairpin bends, and sending cars rolling to their destruction down the road, there are also weapons to use. Oh yes, spike strips, road blocks, helicopters, EMP, jammers, and turbos are all available for use, although in limited amounts and only on designated challenges. They all add to the options and destruction throughout the race and create an extra dimension that perhaps isn't necessary, given the excitement of the race already, but definitely makes the race more interesting. You don't need to rely on the gadgets either, as you can bump other cars until they are too damaged to continue, although this doesn't work quite as fully expected. To inflict damage on a target car it seems that you need to strike the rear half of it with your front half, so trying to block or scrape it as it tries to get past doesn't have any effect, except maybe damaging your own car. I suppose this is because all race participants, racers and officers, are targets for destruction and intent needs to be determined somehow, so the rammer is deemed the one doing damage, which is fair enough and can be accounted for once realised.

One feature I would prefer to have available is courses with laps. Start-to-finish routes are fine but offer far less opportunity for becoming familiar with the circuit and being able to show continual improvement lap on lap. But laps around a circuit would negate the sense of reality behind the challenges, as the cops could simply put a roadblock down or wait for you to pass around again, so I can see why each race is along a single route rather than a circuit. But if a sense of reality is important then having pursuit officers driving vastly expensive supercars which they purposely ram in to other cars is absurd. There may be an over-budgeted force that can afford a Lamborghini to for high-speed pursuits, even if a helicopter would do just as well, but they would never want to damage it wantonly. It's only a game, though, and it's a lot of fun to imagine driving these cars, just don't think about what is actually happening.

Overall, I am having a whole lot of fun in a racing game again. There are still slow-motion crashes, and there are cut-aways to new police units after you, new use of weapons, and car crashes you cause, but they are handled well and always seem immersive rather than disruptive. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is perhaps not as much an arcade game as I would like but it has fast racing, doesn't care if I scratch the paintwork or lose a wheel, and has some really intense challenges. Racing four other cars whilst a dozen police are chasing along a ten mile route with spike strips, road blocks, and EMP weapons is simply fabulous. This is a modern and much improved Chase HQ.

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Tags: console, need for speed, racing, xbox 360

Targeted for destruction

Taking my replacement stealth bomber out for a roam looks like it may get an early kill, until the Tengu strategic cruiser I shadow across a couple of anomalies turns out to be blue to our corporation. His yellow skull of piracy masked the blue square of chuminess, which whilst a little frustrating makes me glad I interrogated the pilot's information as I waited for him to switch to a salvaging boat. I stop following him covertly and head home, not even bothering to scan for the new wormhole, as it will only lead to a blue system.

After grabbing a sammich I go for another roam, but all looks quiet. There isn't even a blue pilot to practice following in our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, and the low-sec exit system and the C1 connecting from that are empty too. I swap the Manticore for my Drake battlecruiser to shoot some rats in low-sec for a while. The puppet turns up and needs to get back to the home system, having been sent unceremoniously to a new clone yesterday, and I am happy to guide him to each wormhole in turn. And, as Mick is also around, once the puppet gets home and is replaced by Fin we can head in to the inactive C3 to shoot some Sleepers for profit.

Fin and Mick board their Tengus, me my Golem marauder, and we jump in to the C3 to start making iskies. The first anomaly we warp in to has no Argos guns, which is peculiar but works to our advantage, and we happily clear the site of Sleepers taking less damage than normal. The second site is populated normally, but about half-way through clearing it we realise we are not alone. Combat scanning probes appear on our directional scanners, and a Legion strategic cruiser shows briefly too. Mick immediately pulls us out of the anomaly and, as a precaution, I make a safe spot as we are in mid-warp.

We land in the planet's orbit and disperse without a second thought, me to the safe spot, Fin off to make her own, and Mick bravely warping to our K162 to reconnoitre its safety. He says the wormhole is clear, as is the home system, but quickly corrects himself when multiple hostile contacts are made and he realises he's caught in a warp bubble anchored to the static wormhole. I am luckily able to cancel the warp command a second before my Golem's drives engage, ready to flee homewards, and now Fin and I are heading to low-sec where we hope we can make the one jump to the safety of high-sec without trouble. Again it looks clear, but again looks can be deceiving.

Fin jumps through a clear wormhole to report it also clear in the low-sec system. I send my Golem towards the wormhole in the hopes of it remaining clear, but I drop on top of the wormhole to find a Tengu now there and Fin reporting a Legion appearing in low-sec. I know my bulky battleship won't be able to get back in to warp to evade the strategic cruiser in the C3 and so plunge my Golem through the wormhole in the slim hope that I can somehow escape on the other side. But with a Legion waiting for me, and the Tengu somehow not being fooled by a ship jumping through a wormhole, my Golem is locked and its drives disrupted before I can enter warp. It is, of course, all over bar the shooting, a Megathron battleship and Falcon recon ship visible on d-scan in the C3, and Mick having reported an Arazu recon ship in the home system too.

I'm not going down without a fight, loosing my Golem's full might against the Legion. I have no idea if I can break its tank before I am dead but it is the first target I can lock and it will feel the weight of my weapons. All the while I am aligned to a stargate and hitting warp, in case of mistakes, but when the rest of the hostile fleet jumps out to join in the massacre I can do little but prepare to get my pod to safety. And it is a massacre, a one-sided slaughter involving little risk regardless of the hollow 'gf's given in the local channel, as the Falcon successfully jams my systems and another ship drains my capacitor dry. I can't defend myself or shoot back and simply watch as my ship explodes around me.

I didn't stop pounding 'warp', my pod getting away from the fleet almost instantly, and I don't look back. I make it to high-sec and, with little direction to follow, set a path to an old mission and manufacturing base in The Citadel. Mick didn't get clear, falling foul on the bubbled wormhole at home. Fin managed to escape, either because of the sensor recalibration delay preventing the Legion from stopping her, or because my Golem was given priority targeting. But we are all now isolated from the home system. We also note that our assailants are the same pilots from yesterday, ambushing Fin and an ally and denying access back to our system for the night.

It's a little worrying that the same fleet has attacked us on two consecutive days, particularly as it looks like they came from our home system. It's possible that a wormhole coincidentally connected them to us again, but it is also possible that they decided to target us specifically. Without knowing what happened for sure I am not going back to our C4 tonight, particularly as they previously waited patiently for pilots to return to catch them a second time. The best we can hope for is that they will move on soon enough, if they did indeed loiter overnight in our system. But for now I think it's time to leave it all behind me and take a break.

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Tags: arazu, drake, eve online, falcon, golem, legion, low-sec, manticore, megathron, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, sleepers, tengu, w-space

Selfishly exploding

Another early start today, this time looking for an exit. Glorious leader Fin is out in empire space, stranded from the home w-space system after yesterday's ambush and prolonged sortie from the attackers. All is quiet and there is only a single wormhole to resolve, letting me jump through to explore our class 3 neighbouring system. Battleships, haulers, and a destroyer are returned by an initial check of my directional scanner, along with an unexpected tower. It is unexpected because I was only in this C3 four months ago and the tower I have listed should be out of range of d-scan from the wormhole. There have been some changes, it seems.

I locate the tower in the C3, and a second one further out of the system, finding no pilots and detecting no activity. Scanning is fairly straightforward with a dozen signatures, and I resolve rocks, gas, radar and magnetometric sites. This system has everything, even a wormhole. I already know the static exit leads out to low-sec empire space, and at the moment it is the only wormhole in the system. Jumping out puts me in the Genesis region, fourteen jumps from Fin's present system. With our home system and the C3 quiet, and no extended w-space constellation to bring unexpected visitors, all looks good for Fin returning home, and she starts the journey.

I have some time to spare, so I scan the low-sec system. A handful of anomalies are here, mostly populated by drones, and three other signatures. The signatures other than the K162 to the C3 are also both wormholes, and although one wormhole is reaching the end of its natural lifetime the other is an outbound connection to class 1 w-space, which is rather enticing for further exploration. I jump in to see if anyone is awake, but it seems even my early bird self is too late, a frigate wreck and corpse on d-scan being the remnants of fight.

A look around the C1 finds a tower with a couple of unpiloted ships floating inside its shields, but no other ships or pilots to be seen. I launch probes and scan the system, my combat probes quickly picking up the arrival of a third ship, d-scan suggesting it to be a Vexor piloted by the capsuleer whose corpse is adrift in this system, according to the cruiser's default name. I fling my probes out of the system and look for the Vexor, but it leaves quickly. I bring my probes back in and scan in the rough direction of the cruiser's appearance, resolving a static exit to high-sec, the wormhole already reduced to half mass. Fin is interested to see if the high-sec connection will reduce her travel time, but I am selfishly thinking about popping the Vexor and don't want to jump through the wormhole in case I spook it.

Assuming the Vexor will return I need a boat with more firepower, so I head home to ditch the Buzzard covert operations boat for my Manticore stealth bomber. It takes a little while to cross the three systems and by the time I return the Vexor is already back in the C1, visible on d-scan. I warp to the other wormhole to see the cruiser sitting stationary on the connection, but I don't engage. The Vexor can simply jump back to high-sec to avoid any confrontation, so my best hope for a successful attack is to catch him on his entrance and hope that he is careless about holding the session change cloak, like he appears to be now. And, sure enough, the Vexor jumps back out to high-sec. I'm not sure why he'd want to collapse the wormhole but I can't currently attribute any other motive to his actions, and I simply wait for what I assume to be his inevitable return.

I may as well spend the few minutes backing off to get in to bombing range of the wormhole, as my engagement time will be limited and a bomb gives a good amount of burst damage. I get in to position and wait for a short time before the wormhole flares again. As hoped for, the pilot pays no attention to the session change timer and reveals himself immediately. I take my cue and decloak, launch a bomb, and lock and, oh, he's warped off. I can't say I expected that, and my bomb detonates harmlessly on the wormhole. I re-activate my cloak and see from d-scan that the Vexor is now in one of the few anomalies in the system, this one already having a Sleeper wreck in it. I suppose he wants to complete what he's started, despite apparently already losing a clone to this system.

I warp in to the anomaly, thinking that maybe I can still get an opportunistic kill, but the Vexor pops to Sleeper fire before my bomb relaunch delay expires. The pilot's pod remains in the anomaly, though, perhaps pondering what to do next. Me too. Sleepers don't shoot pods, making him somewhat safe, but Pennies shoot pods and my Manticore is close enough to give it a go, I just don't know if I will be able to lock him quickly enough. I suppose the worst that can happen is he warps out, and I can align back to the wormhole so that I can avoid the Sleeper fire once they target me. I may as well give it my best shot. I decloak and, holy crap, the Sleepers target me really quickly. I don't even have the pod locked by the time I'm in my own pod and reflexively warping back to the wormhole. And my idea of 'the worst that can happen' is amended when I see the warp bubble of an Onyx heavy indictor encapsulating the wormhole to high-sec.

Thankfully, I entered warp before the warp bubble was activated, and I land on top of the wormhole. I wasn't in much peril either way, as I also have bookmarked the wormhole leading back to low-sec and the home system, so I wasn't going to be trapped, but it was rather startling to see the Onyx. For now, I simply jump out to high-sec and warp off to the nearest stargate as I get my bearings. The region seems friendly and connected enough, and there is a nearby station that has Manticores for sale, so I dock and buy and fit a new stealth bomber. I am not able to buy ammunition locally but I don't think I'll need it for the journey back to our tower. Or, at least, I won't be tempted in to making more mistakes.

I undock, warp back to the K162 to the C1, ignore a Tristan frigate that warps in seconds after I do, and jump in. The Onyx is gone, as is the other pilot, and I warp across to the wormhole leading back to the low-sec system. It is simple enough to make the few jumps home, where I load my launchers and welcome back Fin. Despite my self-indulgent and foolish endeavour, she made the journey to the low-sec system and scanned her way home. Next time, I think I should ignore obviously tempting targets and help my colleagues.

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Tags: buzzard, eve online, manticore, mmorpg, onyx, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, sleepers, tristan, vexor, w-space

Local intelligence

It seems I'm active a little too early today. Resolving the only wormhole in our home system drops me out of warp on top of a rather wobbly connection, it being the aged one from yesterday instead of a fresh link. Doing some sums shows that it should die of old age within ten minutes or so, and I launch my scanning probes again and keep myself entertained away from the cockpit, refreshing the scan every so often. After a short wait an unfamiliar signature appears, signifying the appearance of a new wormhole and the death of the old. I resolve the signature, warp to it, and jump in to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system.

That's one well-defended tower. The defences are bristling all around the exterior of the force field, like a hedgehog curled up in to a spiky ball, with a stack of shield hardeners looking like the amps at an arena concert. I suppose the thirteen-strong owner corporation really doesn't want to leave itself vulnerable in here. They seem fairly active too, or at least the system is regularly visited, as there are only four signatures and one anomaly present, and only one is a site of specific Sleeper interest. I bookmark the magnetometric site, note the exit wormhole to high-sec empire space, and jump through the K162 to explore the other class 4 w-space system connecting to this C3.

My directional scanner is clear from the wormhole in the C4, and I warp away to launch probes just in case the wormhole is being watched. Two anomalies, four signatures, and no ships are in the system, and I am able to locate a tower here. I resolve the signatures, bookmarking a ladar and two gravimetric sites, before thinking to check the status of the occupying corporation, at which point I find out that they are blue to us and therefore allies. I suppose I won't be using these mining sites as ambush points now. At least I didn't spend too much time scanning the few signatures here, but I have run out of w-space to explore.

I head back to and through the C3 out to the high-sec system, launching probes to see if there is much opportunity to shoot a few rats. A second wormhole in the system looks interesting, and even more so when I find it to be a K162 from class 1 w-space. I jump in to take a look around, locating a tower but no ships or activity, and scan to bookmark the few sites here should someone wake up. But without another wormhole in the system it looks like I really have run out of space to explore, and without any anomalies in the high-sec system I even have nothing to shoot. But at least in high-sec the stargates are safe to use, and I pick one of the four in the system to jump through to continue looking for rats.

I only get to the other side of the stargate before I turn right back around. A review of the pilots in the local channel shows a pilot from the C1 in the system. More than that, he warps in to the stargate, seemingly on autopilot, in an Imicus frigate. This poses a dilemma, as my Buzzard covert operations boat could feasibly pop the frigate but probably not on the wormhole. If I jump in and cloak my targeting systems will suffer a recalibration delay easily long enough for the frigate to warp away. If I hold off from jumping in to the system until the Imicus goes first then he will be alerted by the second flare and potentially hold his session change cloak until it is safe to jump back to high-sec and be protected by Concord.

I don't think I'm catching this Imicus in my current ship, and although a stealth bomber's lack of recalibration delay when decloaking would help I won't have time to make the journey home and back again. My best bet is hoping that the pilot will continue to be active once returned to his w-space system from empire space, and head home to get my Manticore anyway. I pause briefly in the C3, a Buzzard and scanning probes now visible on d-scan, but chasing a cov-ops boat can be an exercise in frustration and he may even be from the blue-occupied C4, and I continue on my way. Sure enough, the Imicus pilot has entered the C1 safely by the time I have crossed the C3, swapped ships at home, and made it back to high-sec, but my expectations are met as I see a new Iteron hauler on d-scan in the C1, which must be the pilot remaining active.

The Iteron may be collecting planet goo, but rather than warping around blindly I first make sure he isn't sat stationary at the tower. Confirming the ship is elsewhere in the system I start spinning d-scan around to try to locate the Iteron at a customs office. It looks like he's at one of the planets and I charge towards his current position, aiming to drop short so that I am not decloaked on landing in case he warps off. He's still there when my warp engines disengage, but I wait a couple of seconds until I am sure he's not aligning out to his next destination. Happy to see the Iteron is not moving I decloak and lock on to the ship, disrupting his warp engines. It only takes two volleys of torpedoes to rip through the hauler, and my sensor-boosted stealth bomber is quick enough to stop the pod escaping too.

I scoop, loot, and shoot. There isn't much to recover from the Iteron, as it looks like the pilot hadn't even collected an initial load of planet goo. The engagement is all rather ordinary too, but the hunt was interesting. I was lucky to arbitrarily jump in to the system along the pilot's flight path, and to have the time to swap ships that lets me catch him in a vulnerable moment. There's nothing else to do here for now and I can head back to the C3 to investigate the Buzzard pilot. Probes are still visible on d-scan in the other system and I loiter on the exit to high-sec, because if he uses this wormhole I can see if he's blue, or if not I may be able to catch him if he returns immediately and is polarised. But the probes disappear from d-scan and no ships pass me. I think I'll leave him alone and head home to take a break.

'Penny? Was that you in the Manticore?' I'm not being addressed in the local channel but our corporation's public channel, as it turns out that the Buzzard pilot is old chum and alliance member Marham, sitting on our static wormhole and seeing me jump in. It seems that both of our class 4 home systems are connecting to the same C3 today, which is a nice surprise. And just as I was disappointed to have bookmarked the sites in his C4 only to have to discard them as ambush points Marham has to ignore as potential spoils the Orca industrial command ships sitting inside our tower. He gracefully shares some intelligence on the C3 occupants with me, whilst I let him know about the C1 in the high-sec system. Apart from the two of us it is all quiet in w-space, though, and I stow my Manticore and get some food.

Ideas of later collaboration with Marham and colleagues are dashed, sadly. I return to a sitrep that both he and Fin were targets of a counter-ambush when they were aiming to engage the C3 locals. Another hostile fleet appeared, consisting of strategic cruisers, recon ships, a battleship or two, and a heavy interdictor, and locked down our w-space constellation, sending Fin and Marham back to empire space to wake up in new clones. They even sat in wait for over an hour to catch Fin coming home through the aging and wobbly wormhole, showing their levels of patience and dedication to disrupt normal operations. I am not going anywhere this evening and merely help monitor local traffic and intelligence for a while before settling down for the night. We'll get back to normal tomorrow.

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Tags: buzzard, eve online, imicus, iteron, manticore, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, w-space