Road to nowhere

I feel relaxed enough to start the evening updating my bookmarks for all the sites in our home w-space system. We really don't have many to keep track of, and any gravimetric or ladar mining sites are activated upon discovery, leaving only anomalies and, as of today, a handful of radar sites. It's really easy to keep the location of anomalies up to date, not requiring any more than a single scan to reference, but the radar sites take a bit of resolving. At least if they are lingering sites I already have the bookmark and can assume they are in the same place, it is only new signatures I need to resolve fully, and despawned sites that I have to delete. Scanning doesn't take long to complete and before long I am jumping in to our neighbouring class 3 system.

Core scanning probes are visible on my directional scanner, along with a Retriever mining barge and tower. I jump home and swap the Buzzard covert operations boat for my Malediction interceptor, sticking it on our wormhole to wait for the scout. But, silly me, I didn't look before I leapt, failing to take in to account the distance of the probes to our K162. I am likely to be waiting a while, and more probably until I get bored and find no one is coming. At least I have some papers to read, so I catch up on my research as I wait. And eventually I get bored enough to jump back to the C3 to check on the scout, where I find no probes and only the Retriever on d-scan. I really should learn my lesson one day.

I get back in to my Buzzard to explore the C3 properly. The Retriever is unsurprisingly found unpiloted inside the tower's shields and a blanket scan shows the system to be empty and inactive. I sift through the fifteen signatures for wormholes, finding one straight away, but it feels like it's going to lead out to null-sec k-space. Indeed it does, the weak signature being the static exit to lawless New Eden. There are more wormholes to find, though. A second is an outbound connection to class 5 w-space, a third is a K162 coming from more null-sec space, and a fourth is a second outbound connection to a C5. The K162 is a bit concerning, as it has been opened from null-sec space and holds the possibility of a small fleet coming in to cause mischief, and as I check the activity in the C5s glorious leader Fin starts to collapse our static wormhole.

The first class 5 w-space system looks empty from the wormhole, a blanket scan revealing no anomalies, seven signatures, and no ships. There is a tower somewhere and warping to find it has my Buzzard somehow threading the needle through a neat bubble trap, narrowly avoiding the containers scattered around. But with no one home and our wormhole being collapsed I don't bother scanning any deeper here, heading back to the C3 and in to the second C5, where the most I find is an off-line tower amongst the many anomalies and signatures. It looks like time to head home and kill our wormhole. One last push with Fin's Orca industrial command ship and my Widow black ops ship collapses our connection, and we're back to scanning again.

Jumping through the new wormhole to the class 3 system beyond sees only an off-line tower and a few piddly drones on d-scan. Further exploration finds two on-line towers that are far from active, and five signatures to resolve. Thankfully there are four wormholes in those five signatures, one being our own K162. The system's static exit leads out to low-sec empire space this time, and the other two wormholes are both connections to class 2 w-space, although one is reaching the end of its natural lifetime. The final signature is a gravimetric site, which I bookmark in case the locals wake up and have a burning desire to shoot rocks to ease themselves in to the day.

Fin jumps in to the first C2 as I finish resolving the gravimetric site and check the exit. The low-sec system is mostly empty, although scanning finds a K162 from more class 2 w-space, and jumping in sees scanning probes in the system. Having not quite learnt my lession yet I burn home to get my interceptor on the wormhole in low-sec, not knowing if the scout has already headed this way or has any intention of exiting w-space. An Iteron hauler appearing on d-scan in the low-sec system excites me briefly, but it doesn't warp to the K162 I'm sitting on and checking the C3 after the ship disappears from d-scan sees nothing there either. We're not finding much happening today, the first C2 that Fin explores holding no ships and no other connections of interest.

Getting bored of scanning for nothing we both head homewards and jump in to combat ships to clear the lone anomaly in our neighbouring system. I get to feel the might of warhead upgrades V boosting the damage of my torpedoes, which makes shooting Sleepers a whopping 2% quicker than before, and we are rewarded with around fifty million ISK of loot to take home. It's a fair result for one site. We dump the loot and hit the sack, the evening at least ending on a productive and profitable note. Maybe we'll have some targets to find tomorrow.

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Tags: buzzard, eve online, iteron, malediction, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, retriever, scanning, sleepers, w-space, widow

Low-sec is dangerous

Another day, another empty home system. I copy the bookmarks gracefully dropped in to our shared can and go out exploring. The two Badger haulers, Dominix battleship, two Drake battlecruisers, Ferox battlecruiser, Heron frigate, and Kitsune electronic attack ship all make our neighbouring class 3 w-space system look busy, but there are no wrecks or jet-cans on my directional scanner and I suspect not much is happening. Warping to the tower confirms my suspicions, as I find none of the ships piloted and the system devoid of activity.

Two K162 wormholes in this C3 could offer opportunity but, judging by the time the bookmarks were made, are probably no longer around. I investigate each connection only to arrive in empty space both times, leaving me with little option for exploration but to scan and hope for a new wormhole to have appeared. Eight signatures hide only rocks and gas, but I still have the system's static exit to low-sec empire space to venture through. I jump out to find myself in the Aridia region, a couple of other pilots in the system with me, and with some anomalies and signatures it looks like it's time for more low-sec ratting.

Fin arrives, our glorious leader boarding a Nighthawk command ship to complement my Drake for low-sec anomalies, but when we jump out to low-sec we immediately think about turning around. Core scanning probes are out in the system and converging on the wormhole we're sat on, and I think we could try to catch whatever scout is headed this way. We could be stymied by wormhole polarisation issues and, judging by the proximity of the probes, may not reach this wormhole in time to intercept the scout, but we can give it a go. We jump back home, swap to an interceptor and interdictor, and get back to sit on the static wormhole in the C3, waiting a mere fifteen seconds for the polarisation on my hull to dissipate.

I am not on the wormhole for more than ten seconds before it flares, Fin still warping across the C3 behind me. She drops out of warp to launch a warp disruption probe, bubbling the wormhole, as I lock and start shooting a Cheetah covert operations boat. Our target flees back to low-sec quickly enough and we both follow, but despite getting a decloaking bump on the other side of the wormhole the cov-ops is suitably aligned to warp away before I can lock him and disrupt his warp engines. A quick check of the local channel shows that none of his colleagues are present, so no immediate retaliation can be expected, and we return to our plan of shooting rats.

I've apparently scanned a 6/10 DED complex, which probably means something. Most likely it means that my tank-compromised, short-range PvP Drake is not really suited to the combat here, although Fin's better-fitted Drake is coping rather better. We both have to warp out occasionally, me more often than Fin, but adding newly arrived Mick's firepower in his Loki strategic cruiser lets us progress well enough. As we shoot, the low-sec system occasionally gets some travellers passing through, and I keep a watchful eye on both the local channel and d-scan to ensure our safety from other capsuleers. One passer-by even asks about our status, but I don't care for the personal level of the details he's after and ignore him.

It is when Fin's taking a breather and Mick's changing ships back at home when I notice combat scanning probes appear on d-scan. Judging by the few people in the system and the lack of other ships on d-scan, I think I'm the target of the scout. I have noticed a Ferox sitting in the system for a short while now, and have him positioned on a stargate, and suspect that my own persistence in this system will see him paying me a visit soon. I alert Mick and Fin and request suitable ships to repel the battlecruiser, as I bail out of the combat site to loiter on the wormhole instead. Sure enough, the probes relocate to find me again and, within a minute, the Ferox is dropping out of warp on to my position, getting a lock and engaging me.

I sit passively initially, getting an update on my colleagues' locations, thinking we could make a good target out of the Ferox. But local spikes, more contacts appear on d-scan, and I jump through the wormhole as I call to abort the operation. Fin hasn't left our system yet, holding for positive confirmation of a target, but Mick is in the C3 on the wormhole and spots a Moa cruiser waiting for me. That's not all, though, as we both warp homewards, thankfully not having our warp engines disrupted, seeing several Hurricane battlecruisers and a Rokh battleship appear on d-scan, having jumped in to the C3 in chase of us. I should have known that we'd be outnumbered again by a roaming gang, but I didn't think the Ferox would be the tackler.

We're clear and the low-seccers leave the C3, perhaps not caring to scan any deeper in to w-space, and we leave the low-sec system behind too. As was the plan, albeit a little earlier than intended, we collapse our static wormhole to offer us a new C3 to explore. Sadly, we only find an empty system with no anomalies and only three ladar gas harvesting sites. Without even looking through this C3's static exit to low-sec we collapse our wormhole again. On one trip through the wormhole a Cheetah appears in the system, which somehow manages to evade Mick's Dominix bearing down on him, and even though the cov-ops pilot looks to be scanning the system he doesn't venture through our wormhole to get trapped in our HICceptor ambush.

Waiting for the scout not to appear takes a little while and looks to bring the evening to a close. We make one more trip with an Orca industrial command ship to destabilise our static wormhole critically, but rather than collapse it completely we leave it in its unwelcoming state. We are unlikely to get any visitors through the connection, and certainly no big ships, and it is now too late to explore a third system for adventure. We head back to our tower to get some sleep.

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Tags: badger, cheetah, dominix, drake, eve online, ferox, heron, kitsune, loki, low-sec, mmorpg, moa, nighthawk, orca, penny ibramovic, pvp, rokh, w-space

Shooting Sleepers for fun and profit

A bit of early scanning finds little of interest. Our neighbouring class 3 w-space system holds a pulsar phenomenon, an on-line but empty tower, and a mutated handful of anomalies. There is only one wormhole present in the dozen signatures, which I keep closed for the time being, the rest mostly resolving to be gas and rocks. I decide to wait for company to arrive, either friendly or hostile, before getting involved in any operation, and grab a sammich back at our tower.

Still no one is around when I return from stuffing my face, either at home or in the C3. All space and no capsuleers makes Penny a dull girl. I warp to our neighbour's static wormhole to see what I can find, jumping out to null-sec k-space in the Outer Passage region. Only one other pilot is in the system with me but only for a brief moment, leaving me alone again. I scan the system, hoping to find anything to keep me entertained, but the only signature besides the wormhole leading to the C3 is a drone site.

I'm not sure if shooting drones will help my security status or not, and rather than waste time in the site I think about wasting time warping between asteroid belts looking for rats. But jumping back in to the C3 sees a Tengu strategic cruiser on my directional scanner, looking like he's launching probes to scan. A Tengu is interesting but a cloaking ship will be almost impossible to find, and the pilot isn't sitting inside the local tower whilst he scans, so I don't even know if he's local. But the probes converge on the home K162 and, with the promise of some excitement, I jump back and swap to my Legion strategic cruiser to throw a welcome party for the Tengu.

Welcome parties only work if the guest turns up, of course. Mind you, as both our home system and the C3 hold a pulsar, harming armour and helping shields, I am a little relieved that my armour-buffered Legion doesn't get to tangle with the shield-tanking Tengu. After a wait I scout the C3 again to find no sign of the Tengu or any scanning probes, and I am back to Plan A of shooting belt rats in null-sec. Disappointingly, and perhaps inevitably, the rats are also drones, and although my Drake makes short work of them I am perhaps not making best use of my time.

Shooting Sleepers is more profitable. Or, at least, their loot is more compact, and although clearing anomalies solo can be a little time-consuming I may have spent a couple of minutes activating all the ladar and gravimetric sites in the C3 when I scanned earlier, alerting the putative Sleeper defences of capsuleers' presence. I take my Drake back to the C3 and warp to the first mining site to pop the rather weaker Sleeper drones than are found in anomalies, looting and salvaging the wrecks as I go. I clear two mining sites, pocketing twenty-four million ISK in profit, before Mick turns up and suggests we make real ISK in anomalies. That sounds like a plan!

I get home, swap to my Golem marauder, and head out with Mick in a re-jigged Tengu. Three sweet anomalies are swept through efficiently, netting about a hundred and forty million ISK in loot and salvage for about the same time cost as my belt and mining site ratting. We move on to the sole magnetometric site in the C3, clearing two waves of Sleepers before both changing to more suitable ships for the range and damage mitigation requirements, the dual-remote-repair Tengus rather more capable for the task. As the Sleepers here are always shooting and neutralising a single target, rather than splitting their attentions, remote-repair works better than local repair modules, as the companion ship has all the capacitor juice it needs to effect repairs and we are never really tested.

When cleared of Sleepers, I bring a Noctis salvager in to the site to sweep up the wrecks whilst Mick analyses the artefacts. Another sixty-five million ISK in loot and salvage is recovered, and Mick estimates the artefacts are worth around a hundred and sixty million ISK. That's over three hundred and fifty million ISK for a short afternoon's shooting, which is rather splendid. A quiet day has turned in to a profitable adventure.

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

Tackling a Tengu

It's just me, Fin, and some combat probes in our home system today, and the probes are Fin's. I turn up just as our glorious leader has resolved the static wormhole and she warps the two of us in its direction. Having found the wormhole it's only fair that Fin gets first look in our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, and I jump in only after she reports that nothing but a can and warp bubble are visible on her directional scanner. Exploration reveals no towers or ships, and fourteen signatures are scattered around the system with seven anomalies. Tag-team scanning should whittle down those signatures quickly enough.

Most of the signatures in the C3 are clustered around the inner system, which lets me discard a handful of rock and gas sites in one scan, as well as finding me a wormhole. The chubby signature resolves to be the system's static exit to low-sec empire space, which is expected but not terribly exciting. We keep scanning through more rocks, more gas, a couple of radar sites and, oh, a second wormhole. The weak signature makes me think it may be an outbound connection to class 5 space but, giddy up, it actually leads to a class 1 w-space system.

The C1 turns out to be quite dull. There are two off-line towers, no current occupation, and no ships in the system. A blanket scan also reveals a lack of anomalies and some twenty signatures to sift through, which looks a bit boring. I was hoping for some suckers to shoot. I scan anyway, wondering where this C1 will lead me, to find one wormhole. Two wormholes. Three! Three wonderful wormholes! A-ha-ha! We have another static exit to low-sec, a K162 coming from class 2 w-space, and a K162 coming from a class 4 system. There is potential here for adventure.

I jump out to get the low-sec exit system first, which is empty and uninteresting, before exploring through the K162 coming from class 4 w-space. A tower is on d-scan, along with a Mammoth hauler, Iteron hauler, and Crane transport ship. The Crane promptly disappears and I move away from the wormhole to cloak, holding my position for a minute. The Crane doesn't pass me and as the wormhole I'm sitting on is the system's static connection it is reasonable to assume that the pilot's gone planetside for food. Locating the tower shows the two other ships are unpiloted and, although finding a second tower elsewhere in the system, this C4 is empty of activity.

Leaving the C4 behind me for now I cross the C1 in to the C2, where d-scan shows me another tower with a Drake battlecruiser and Buzzard covert operations boat probably sitting inertly inside its shields. I warp towards the planet to find the tower when refreshing d-scan now reveals a second Drake and a Tengu strategic cruiser in the system, along with the lovely sight of Sleeper wrecks. I quickly find the tower, seeing the Drake and Buzzard both piloted and possible additional threats, or targets, and start a passive scan of the system. One anomaly is in range of my on-board scanner and the Drake and Tengu are there. I warp in, bookmark a couple of wrecks, one close to the ships, one in a cluster further away, and head homewards.

Fin's already jumping in to the home system as I leave the anomaly, and we're wondering if we should aim for the Tengu or a possible salvager. I think it depends on how quickly we can cross the two intermediate systems, as there was only one Sleeper battleship and two frigates left in the anomaly, although there could be another wave of Sleepers to come. We should aim for the Tengu to define the ships we take, which will let us easily pop a salvager as second choice if we don't get back in time, and Fin boards her stealthy Legion strategic cruiser and starts making her way back to the C1. I jump home, jettison on the wormhole a copy of the bookmarks to the anomaly, and warp to our tower. Fin grabs the bookmarks on her way out, not having to slow down and so maintaining the slight time advantage from her taking point.

I board my own Legion and turn around for the trip back, letting Fin know which bookmark was close to the two ships. She jumps in to the C1 and warps to the anomaly to see the Sleepers cleared and the two ships sitting idly nearby. Pressing the advantage of having a cloaked attack scout, Fin closes on the Tengu as I drop out of warp at the wormhole to the C1, and she engages our target. I jump in to the system and warp to Fin's position, seeing the Tengu trapped by Fin's Legion, and add my own weapons to the engagement. A Drake warps in to help his Tengu colleague, probably entering warp before my second Legion was spotted, as he bounces right back out of the anomaly, before Fin or I can swap our spare warp disruptor to snare the battlecruiser too.

The Tengu is hurting badly, now taking heavy armour damage. The pilot bails out and warps his pod clear, although his slow alignment almost gets himself caught by our Legions, moments before the Tengu explodes in a blue fireball. This is how our Legions are supposed to work, and they performed brilliantly. It's a little peculiar that we took almost no damage in return, but that's nothing to complain about. We loot and shoot the wreck, and clear the pocket, giving ourselves virtual high-fives as we warp back towards the C1. 'You should go back in a stealth bomber', says Fin. Yeah, that sounds like fun!

We drop the Legions off at our tower and board Manticores, going back to the C1 to see if the locals think we're gone and will salvage what they can from the anomaly. It looks like they may, a Drake warping in to the anomaly from the tower, perhaps as bait, perhaps as protection for a salvager, and warping in myself sees he actually is the salvaging boat. It still seems a bit risky and maybe we should have kept Fin's Legion here and mine in the C1, but our experience has shown that it is often best to leave whilst you are ahead. We try to line up the salvaging Drake for an opportunistic bombing run, but it looks to be using a micro warp drive to move between wrecks and our cloaked bombers can't keep up. It doesn't matter, we got an good kill and it looks like we upset another precious little snowflake who thinks his corporation should be allowed to shoot Sleepers in peace.

Our last act is to bump our Manticores in to each other moments after the Drake leaves the now-empty anomaly, decloaking each other. Trying to align to a fast-moving ship made our flight paths converge, despite starting a good twenty kilometres apart. There's no one to see us, though, and we are turning to leave anyway. The locals don't intercept us on their static connection to the C1, the intermediate systems remain inactive, and we get home safely.

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Tags: buzzard, crane, drake, eve online, iteron, legion, mammoth, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space

Bumping in to danger

All is quiet. At least, for us. Mick and I have popped a Noctis salvager in a class 2 w-space system connecting to our home, and are leaving that system behind to find nothing happening through our static wormhole. Neither the neighbouring C3 nor the C5 connecting in to that holds any activity and, with glorious leader Fin turning up, we decide to collapse the K162 at home to isolate ourselves more properly from the C2 pilots. Some ECM support is provided but not needed to keep the Orca industrial command ship safe, the occupants of the C2 not noticing or caring what we are doing.

The K162 is killed efficiently, all of us in the home system when it happens. We can shoot Sleepers in the C3, and reconfigure the fleet to take two Tengu strategic cruisers and my Golem marauder to do just that. There is only one sweet anomaly present, making even our small presence seem somewhat overkill, but a radar site tempts us to continue combat and we warp in to shoot, loot, and root through the databanks. Shooting is easy enough, the waves of Sleepers presenting no problems, and I concentrate on looting and salvaging the last of the wrecks in my Golem whilst Mick heads home to grab a hacking boat.

We may have a problem. Warping to the K162 home Mick bumps in to a Proteus strategic cruiser, and we're fairly sure he's not with us. Mick is able to evade him easily enough, jumping through the wormhole and warping to the tower, but he advises us to finish salvaging and get home. My salvagers cycle and rip apart the last wreck, and Fin and I warp to the wormhole, which looks clear, apart from Mick now sitting on it in his Dominix battleship. We jump through and I hold my cloak initially, in case there are any threats. It looks clear, but a few repeated punches of my directional scanner gets me calling for us both to warp, warp, warp.

Fin and I leave the wormhole behind us as a Nighthawk command ship warps in, the Myrmidon battlecruiser also on scan no doubt following closely behind. We're both safe, but the Proteus has reappeared in the C3 and Mick is engaging it, the Myrmidon jumping in to assist the strategic cruiser against our colleague. This could end badly, particularly as Mick is polarised and cannot jump home for a couple of minutes more. In preparation of his hopeful return I board my Widow black ops ship and, bouncing off a planet to approach at a less predictable vector, warp to the wormhole to provide ECM support.

Oops, an Onyx heavy interdictor has arrived and activated its bubble, and my Widow is dragged to its edge, a good seventy kilometres closer to the Nighthawk than I aimed for. I turn around and burn away, activating my cloak as I do, which thankfully lets me move faster. The Nighthawk comes looking for me, but I jink and he doesn't come particularly close. And Mick is holding his own against the two ships, his trusty Dominix putting up a good fight. We may scrape through this.

Multiple new contacts! Five Drake battlecruisers, a Harbinger battlecruiser, Ashimmu cruiser, Falcon recon ship, and Tengu all warp to our wormhole as a fleet, a second corp but part of the same alliance as the first. I don't bother waiting to see what happens now, still far too close to the action to be of use even if Mick returns, and drop my cloak to warp back to the tower. But it seems Mick is okay. The Myrmidon jumps out of the engagement as his armour is finally demolished and, without support, the Proteus leaves too. It's possible the Onyx's warp bubble just saved our colleague, as the nine new ships aren't able to warp directly to the wormhole, and can't immediately jump in to the C3 to strike the final blow. Mick warps away from the K162 and heads out through the C3's static exit to the safety of high-sec empire space.

I board my Buzzard covert operations boat and warp off-grid of the tower, keeping an eye on d-scan, both on a wide beam and narrowly towards the wormhole. Within a couple of minutes all of the hostile ships have warped away from the wormhole and left our system, none of them seemingly going to the C3. That was close. We had two billion ISK of ships shooting Sleepers and another quarter-of-a-billion ISK in loot and salvage in my hold. It was lucky that Mick bumped in to the Proteus, seeing the threat before it appeared. Granted, the fleet can't have seen us at that point, with the K162 being out of d-scan range of the site we were in, but that actually made it more dangerous for us. The Proteus could have cloaked and warped, spotted us on d-scan, and called the fleet to be waiting for us on our own static wormhole as we jumped home. Then we would have been looking at wrecks, and probably waking up in new clones.

The appearance of the fleet means there must be a new wormhole open in our home system. Now the ships appear gone, perhaps with the exception of a cloaked scout, I launch scanning probes and do indeed resolve a new signature, the K162 coming from class 4 w-space. I park my Buzzard on the wormhole to monitor activity. All looks clear and it seems that Mick could come home, Fin and I just need to convince him it's safe to do so. He doesn't really want to run the gauntlet in his prized battleship, and I can't blame him at all, but Fin reports the C3 as being clear and I have detected no jumps through the K162. A bit more lurking and encouragement and Mick gets home and, with some persuasion, goes back to the C3 in the hacking boat to claim the contents of the databanks that we abandoned earlier, with a mumble that we 'may as well push our luck'. That's the spirit!

Both systems remain quiet as Mick returns to the still-present radar site, hacks the databanks, and brings home another thirty million ISK of loot. It looks like Mick's able combat skills and Fin's and my evasion techniques have discouraged the other fleet from poking us a second time, all the better for our survival. On reflection, it's quite funny how we closed one connection to isolate ourselves from trouble only to have a new one open up shortly afterwards bringing even bigger trouble. This unpredictable and ephemeral nature of wormholes makes them frustratingly dangerous, but in a good way. You've got to love w-space.

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Tags: ashimmu, buzzard, dominix, drake, eve online, falcon, golem, harbinger, mmorpg, myrmidon, nighthawk, onyx, orca, penny ibramovic, proteus, pvp, sleepers, tengu, w-space, widow

Noctis under guard

Our new neighbours remain busy. I left them after they popped a hauler trying to pass through their class 2 w-space system and now Mick is watching their Noctis salvager clear up Sleeper wrecks in an anomaly. He'd be shooting it, if it weren't for the Legion, Tengu, and Drake guarding their loot collector. The strategic cruisers and battlecruiser are enough of a threat to deter a straight attack, but a hit-and-run with stealth bombers may be possible. I'm too slow in getting through the K162 in our system, though, the Noctis salvaging the final wreck and leaving the cleared anomaly before I am close to being ready.

It doesn't look like combat has stopped, as only the Noctis returns to the tower. The ships aren't in an anomaly this time, it seems, and must have moved in to a radar or magnetometric site. This may be good for our plans to ambush the operation, as the pilots will want to hack databanks or analyse artefacts, which may take another combat boat out of the pocket. Mick finds somewhere out of range to launch probes and starts narrowing down their position in space. The best time to scan would perhaps be when the Noctis warps in to the site, the ship changes maybe distracting the pilots, so I monitor the tower to let Mick know when he moves.

The Noctis moves, Mick scans. He has the site and he warps in, guiding me there as well. Even though the Noctis has warped in none of the combat ships are leaving, there being no sign of a hacking boat for this radar site yet. We are also quite a distance from the salvager, and with the site on the outskirts of the system there is not a good shot to be taken. All the planets are behind us, so I cannot align to have the Noctis between my Manticore and a convenient celestial object to effect a quick exit. And as this class 2 system holds a black hole phenomenon, which decreases ship agility, turning to leave will take longer, which is just what I don't want when trying to evade the guard ships.

This is interesting. The Noctis has finished salvaging and has moved on to hacking the databases. One ship fits all for these capsuleers. But the extended reach tractor beams are useless on the static Sleeper databanks, making the Noctis alternate between being a sitting target and a slow-moving one. I have not sat still watching the salvager but instead moved from my distant position to being closer to the databanks, the black hole-boosted speed letting me get around to the other side of the structure so I can even align out towards a planet. And now the Noctis is slowly moving his way towards me. Mick heads home to bring a second stealth bomber for what now looks like a good opportunistic shot.

It seems Mick's re-entry to the system may have been spotted. The previously uninterested Drake warps out and comes back to the radar site in a Deimos heavy assault ship along with a companion in a Hurricane battlecruiser. That's okay, as the Noctis continues hacking the databases, even if the ships are holding a fairly close orbit to him at all times. We manoeuvre our stealth bombers in to position, realigning a couple of times as the Noctis successfully hacks a databank and moves on, and we're ready. With one last check that we are facing the Noctis and have an exit vector, we coordinate our launch, decloaking and throwing a bomb each at the target.

I am in warp as my bomb detonates and I see no explosion, but Mick reports the Noctis's destruction. We got him! Both of us clear the pocket too, showing that the combat ships were not much protection after all, although we are not able to remain to loot the wreck for ourselves. Mick goes back to give it a go, but because of the proximity of the wreck to the structure in the site, and the need to turn almost right around to warp out again, the Deimos catches and pops his Nemesis in a slightly misjudged approach. I warp in at range, not really relishing losing my own bomber, but when the combat ships leave the site I sneak a peak inside the wreck. As expected, all that is left are some metal scraps, any items of value already recovered by the locals at that point.

The wormhole leading home remains clear of any ships, the locals either not aware of where we came from or just not particularly bothered. Either way, there's not much else we can do here for now. They have superior numbers and are alert to our hostile presence, and it is probably best we let the situation calm down, at least for the moment. We head home to take a look at what's happening in the other direction, through our static wormhole.

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Tags: deimos, drake, eve online, hurricane, legion, manticore, mmorpg, nemesis, noctis, penny ibramovic, pvp, tengu, w-space

Not getting involved

Two holes to penetrate sounds like fun! One is our static wormhole, leading to class 3 w-space, the other is a K162 coming from class 2 w-space. As the K162 must have been opened from the other side there is more likely to be activity in the C2, so I head there first. Jumping through and punching my directional scanner in to life shows nothing of interest, but launching scanning probes and blanketing the system reveals four ships. I soon locate three Harbinger battlecruisers unpiloted at one tower, and a fourth unpiloted at a second.

I start to scan the C2, resolving a ladar site, the second static wormhole, and a radar site before the wormhole I warped to flares. I fling my probes out of the system and hold position until a Heron frigate appears and warps away. I don't try to engage the ship because the recalibration delay to my targeting systems from decloaking would have scuppered my chances, and there is no point giving away my position just yet. But the Heron disappears instead of heading to one of the two towers here. Wondering if he came from our neighbouring C3, and is using the exit here as a convenient connection to high-sec, I warp home and jump in to the C3 to look for him.

But if I've only just opened our static connection then the Heron can't have come from this C3. I'm not thinking straight. I take a look around anyway, finding a tower, no ships, and handful of signatures to scan. As the Heron clearly is not here I head back to the C2 to scan for more wormholes. At least, I would if there weren't a Legion strategic cruiser, Deimos heavy assault ship, Tengu strategic cruiser, and Breacher frigate on d-scan now. I easily place them sitting on the only other wormhole I know about here so far and warp in to take a look.

Camping a connection between w-space and high-sec empire space is a fairly futile endeavour. Even if a ship stumbles in to your fleet they can hold the session change cloak until the session change timer ends and then simply jump right back out to safety. But it can work to deny entry to the system, I suppose. And, it seems, it can catch haulers. The wormhole flares as I watch and before long an Iteron appears. Missiles fly and guns bombard the hauler as it turns sluggishly back towards the wormhole, before exploding in a flash of light. Huh, I didn't expect that.

I doubt the firepower was that overwhelming to give the pilot no chance of escaping, even if industrial ships are generally quite flimsy, and I imagine the hauler would have escaped if he could. My best guess is that the Iteron was dropped in to the system over five kilometres from the wormhole and the black hole phenomenon, which decreases ship agility significantly, made turning the bulky ship too slow to return to within jumping range of the wormhole in time. His pod gets away cleanly, warping away from the wormhole and disappearing without jumping back to high-sec.

There must be another wormhole in the C2 but I am not going to scan for it. I doubt the passers-through will be coming out to play any more, and I see no benefit in alerting the locals to my activity. I head back the other way and scan the C3, finding the static exit leading out to high-sec itself but reaching the end of its natural lifetime, a K162 from low-sec also at the end of its life, and a stable K162 coming from class 5 w-space. A quick exploration of the C5 sees a pilot in an Anathema covert operations boat disappear, a pilot in a dreadnought go to sleep, and seven gravimetric sites to accompany the lone signature of the static connection to the C3. There's not much to do at the moment, so I turn around and grab a bite to eat back at our tower.

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Tags: anathema, breacher, deimos, eve online, harbinger, heron, iteron, legion, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space

Malinterception

There are lots of wormholes today, and directions to all of them are available in convenient bookmark form. I copy the bookmarks to the nav-comp of my Manticore stealth bomber and go out for a roam. 'But no one in space', Mick tells me as I leave. We'll see about that. Our neighbouring class 3 w-space system is occupied but empty, the outbound connection to a second C3 has a piloted Chimera carrier in a tower but no activity, and I ignore the wormhole to class 5 w-space here to instead jump onwards in to a C6, finding carriers and dreadnoughts and a couple of pilots but nothing happening. But I get pictures of the connections between class 3 with class 6 w-space for my collection of wormhole colours.

One class 5 system connecting in to this C6 is interesting only in that it holds an entirely defenceless tower of a three-member corporation, which makes me wonder how it has survived for so long. None of the three pilots are awake, though, making this C5 enticing but uninvolving for now. A second connection to a C5 in the C6 is unoccupied and empty too, and, heading back to the other connection in the second C3, so is the first C5 we encounter in today's constellation. Yeah, okay, there's no one of note around. I think I'll take a nap.

Feeling a bit groggy still from my afternoon catnap doesn't make for the safest of roams, but I go out again in my stealth bomber to see if I can find any activity in our convoluted chain of w-space. Still no one is around, except for the couple of pilots who look like they leave their ships as often as they leave their tower. The best activity w-space can muster, and it is pretty good, is Mick's return, who comes out in his cloaky Loki strategic cruiser to scan two of the three class 5 systems for their static wormholes, in the hopes of finding more than vacuum.

C5b holds a static connection to class 4 w-space, but the wormhole is reaching the end of its natural lifetime and I'm rarely comfortable jumping through dying links. Mick tries to encourage me by pointing out that his probes can get us back to safety if necessary, adding that it also 'means they won't be expecting us'. He makes a good point, but I sit like a scared girl in the C5 as he pokes his Loki through to take a look around. There are ships, big ships, but nothing particularly happening and we still have another class 5 system to explore for excitement, so we leave the lack of action behind to head in another direction.

An Omen cruiser appearing briefly on Mick's directional scanner in C5c is interesting, and warping around finds him a second Omen and five Moa cruisers, with a couple of jet-cans for company. I think we've stumbled on to a gas harvesting operation, one we could crash. I held back jumping in to the system whilst Mick scouted, and I am already zipping homewards to get an Onyx heavy interdictor back this way for maximum disruption, whilst Mick narrows down the position of the gassers. They are still active by the time I get my Onyx on the wormhole in the C6, where I sit as Mick positions his probes. Within a minute I am called to jump in, and Mick warps us both to a ladar site. We are on!

Sadly, we drop out of warp to see two jet-cans and nothing more, the last Omen disappearing from d-scan even. I suppose with that many ships there was a good chance that one of the pilots would spot the probes in time, even with Mick's keen skills. But we have two cans of gas to collect for ourselves, and again I am heading homewards, this time to bring back a hauler. Mick continues scanning, now that we're rumbled, and finds a K162 coming from class 2 w-space, but the appearance of an Occator transport ship on d-scan shows that this is not the wormhole the gassers came from, and that maybe I don't need to bring the Bustard after all.

The Occator even has a Falcon recon ship as escort, relying on its ECM to keep their hauler safe. It can't keep their gas itself safe, though, as Mick pops one of the cans as an alternative to shooting their ships. He seems to be taking care of business there, so I jump in to my Malediction interceptor and sit on our static wormhole, having seen core scanning probes in C3a, our neighbouring system. I am a little taken by surprise when a Cheetah covert operations boat appears next to me and jumps out, a Cheetah I saw earlier but disregarded as scanning too damned slowly. I follow him through the wormhole but fail to bump his cloaking ship, showing that he doesn't fly as slowly as he scans.

Opportunity missed, I press on and head back towards C5c in case my nippy ship can be of use there. Maybe it can! The wormhole connecting C5c with the C6 flares and, after waiting for the session change timer to expire, an Anathema cov-ops no doubt startled to see my interceptor jumps right back to avoid me. Again, I follow and, again, I fail to lock my target or bump his ship to decloak him, showing that only well-piloted interceptors need to be feared. Meanwhile, Mick has found a pair of K162 wormholes both coming from class 5 w-space in to C5c, one of which is the origin of the gas miners and, now, a Myrmidon battlecruiser.

The Myrmidon is baiting us, I'm sure. He's sitting on his own K162 and moving to engage him must surely be pointless or suicidal. If we attack at range he will be able to jump back home to avoid destruction, and if we get close we'll soon be met by all his colleagues lying in wait on the other side of the wormhole. We have, after all, seen seven piloted ships in total. I head back to cover our exit, not being much use in a fragile interceptor some hundred kilometres from an ambush, only to see the Anathema jump out to the C5. I warped to land far from the wormhole but am in a stupidly fast ship, boosted by the system's black hole, and cover the seventy kilometres in a handful of seconds to jump out before the Anathema has moved. Again he doesn't want to be caught out and jumps back, again I follow, and, yet again, I fail to intercept the ship. I clearly need more practice at this.

I suspect the Anathema to be the scout of the corporation we've interrupted, as the Myrmidon warps to the connection back to the C6. My ship is now polarised, preventing travel back to the C6, which could be trouble if I weren't able to retreat a hundred kilometres in a few seconds, and I sit far from the wormhole just watching the battlecruiser. And now the situation looks a little different. He may be confrontationally trying to block our exit home, but unless all the other pilots are in cloaked ships there will be some travel time involved before they can join in, which could give us opportunity to escape. Mick decides to give him a poke.

The Myrmidon's shields drop quickly but his armour withstands any damage Mick's Loki does, actively repairing itself. There is some to and fro as distances are closed and opened, drones launched and recalled, but it's a stalemate. In case I can make a difference I blast back towards and through the wormhole and head homewards, to get a different ship, but my movement is all it takes for the reinforcements to arrive. Mick jumps out of the C5 as a faction frigate turns up to probably hold him place for the cavalry, and he clears the pocket without much danger. I suppose I won't be needing that bigger ship now either, as I don't think we'll want to get in to a seven against two fight, not when the odds aren't in our favour.

There is a little bit of activity in the systems on our way back home, but we only manage to spook a second gas harvester and get more big and pointy ships out looking for us. I am encouraged to try to engage a Hurricane in my Retribution, but I've already turned my assault ship around and am heading home when the battlecruiser first appears at the tower in C3b. I think I've had enough excitement for one evening.

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Tags: anathema, bustard, cheetah, chimera, eve online, falcon, hurricane, loki, malediction, manticore, mmorpg, moa, myrmidon, occator, omen, onyx, penny ibramovic, pvp, retribution, w-space

Roaming local w-space

A bookmark leads me to our static wormhole, but no further. It's up to me to explore the vast new frontier before me today, how exciting! And by 'vast new frontier' I apparently mean 'the same class 3 w-space system we were in only three days ago'. We came, we saw, we shot Sleepers. There was nothing notable about this C3 then and there's nothing notable about it now. A tower is still here and still empty of other pilots, there are no anomalies left in the system, and the few signatures are mostly rocks and gas. Even jumping out through the static exit to low-sec finds a relatively empty system. How dull.

We collapse our wormhole to start again, as Mick arrives to point out on scanning our home system that there are two wormholes here. Maybe I should have looked a bit closer to home for adventure. I snatch copies of bookmarks to the wormholes from Mick and head towards the K162 in our system, which comes from class 3 w-space itself, taking my stealth bomber out on the assumption that the C3 is the origin system of the constellation. And I'll be wrong about that, as I warp my Manticore around looking in vain for occupation, finding only an empty system, much the same as it was three months earlier.

I jump back and warp across the home system towards our new static wormhole, joining Mick in the C3 beyond. A tower and a ship is in this system, the Bestower hauler even piloted. I loiter outside the tower watching the ship closely for an signs of movement as Mick scans the ten signatures present. He resolves a K162 coming from high-sec empire space, the static exit to low-sec, and a third wormhole that's dead on arrival. No more wormholes to resolve, Mick heads back to the C3 connecting in to our home system to find whoever passed through to open the wormhole. I keep watching the Bestower.

There is plenty to find in the other C3, with wormholes coming from and leading to null-sec k-space, and coming from and leading to class 4 w-space. I leave the idle Bestower behind to look for actual activity, following Mick like a puppy to get bookmarks for each of the wormholes. He heads to C4b, a tiny system holding three on-line towers and no ships, I jump in to C4a, finding a tower occupied by blues. At least C4b, being the system connected by the outbound wormhole, has its own static wormhole to find, and I head across there whilst Mick scans.

In case any pilots turn up I want to get the locations of the towers in this C4, but Mick tells me he hasn't looked for them. That's okay, I can do that whilst you resolve the wormhole. And it turns out to be pretty easy, there being three towers here and only three moons in the whole system. I think I can safely guess where the towers are. And the C4 holds a static connection to another C3, which itself is occupied but empty, and a static exit to null-sec.

W-space is all rather disappointing tonight, almost as much as heading back through our home static connection to find the Bestower at the tower now in a different orientation, suggesting he went out to collect planet goo whilst we were distracted in the other direction. Oh well, I don't suppose he'll make a target of himself again, and there's no one else to shoot, so I jump home and park my ship at the fly-in to watch a film.

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Tags: bestower, eve online, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, w-space

Missing gas and getting rocks

There is w-space activity today, but it may already be too late for me. 'I spooked their salvager', Mick tells me of a corporation in a class 4 system connecting to our neighbouring C3. Mick's now sitting in a cloaked heavy interdictor on the K162 in the C3 waiting for a juicy ship to pass through. I board my stealth bomber to provide some more agile yet still cloaky support. Our neighbouring system is occupied but empty of local pilots, and I jump in to the C4 to check what our potential targets are up to. There are two towers, with a piloted Anathema covert operations boat and unpiloted Bestower hauler at one, and an Orca industrial command ship and Badger hauler both unpiloted at the second.

As I am checking the second tower Mick reports that the Anathema jumped to the C3, putting me in the wrong place at the wrong time to couple with our HIC for an effective trap. That didn't deter my colleague, though, who activated his warp bubble anyway. The Anathema merely cloaked to avoid a target lock and, presumably, crawled out of the bubble to safety. And now we really must be out of luck, as the targets will be aware of the HIC sitting on their K162 and either hole up or come out with some decent force. 'Check planet six', Mick says, 'there was a Moa harvesting gas near there'. It's a long shot but I warp out there and, huh, the cruiser is visible on my directional scanner along with a jet-can. Don't these people talk to each other?

I don't have a bookmark to the ladar site the Moa is in, but Mick does. I warp back to the wormhole, Mick jumps in, and he flings me towards the gas clouds. I drop far short of the clouds and the Moa, which is good, letting me bookmark the jet-can to bounce back in on top of the target. Unfortunately, by the time I return the Moa is gone, but at least he left the site before my Manticore was decloaked by the gas. I retreat hurriedly and re-activate my cloak, but perhaps I am better served monitoring the tower for ship changes and movements. I warp back to the inner system, sadly noting on d-scan that I am passing a Badger heading the other way, and by the time I have turned around and am back in the ladar site the Badger and the jet-can full of gas are gone. It seems my timing is off this evening.

I still don't think these pilots talk to each other, or take threats seriously. The Moa was harvesting gas for several minutes after his colleague was threatened by the HIC, and even though he left the site before I could get in range to engage him a fleeing pilot doesn't return to collect his haul. Whatever their peculiar motivations and practices, we're back to watching and waiting. Mick jumps back out to sit on the K162 and I monitor the two towers in the system for activity. The gas harvester goes for food, Mick returns home, and the Anathema returns. It's only when a Cormorant destroyer appears, flits between the towers, then boards a Manticore and warps to the wormhole that it looks like anything more will happen.

I follow the Manticore to the wormhole but see no sign of it jumping to the C3. There is a possibility that he's waiting for one of us, or just any capsuleer wandering in to his system, and we try to bait him. Mick returns in his Arazu recon ship and acts like a newbie on both sides of the wormhole, but there is no sign of the Manticore. Now that he's here, Mick checks the local tower and sees a new pilot appear, board a Drake, and warp off in my direction. The battlecruiser doesn't appear at the wormhole, and a little d-scan fiddling puts him about 3 AU distant in what looks like empty space. As another new pilot arrives in the C4 and we start to get outnumbered glorious leader Fin arrives, evening the odds again. We update her on the situation and she prepares for an assault on the Drake.

The Drake is gone, at least on d-scan from the wormhole. Mick has warped away from the tower to launch combat probes, hoping to scan the Drake's position, so I warp across to take a look. The Drake pilot is now in a Retriever, the other new pilot has swapped to a Covetor, and both mining barges warp out of the tower. This is looking rather splendidly like the start of a massacre. Fin chooses an Onyx heavy interdictor for this battle, coming as fast as her warp engines will push her towards the wormhole to the C4, as Mick starts narrowing down the location of the gravimetric site. A can has been jettisoned and ten mining drones are on d-scan, establishing the miners as currently settled. We're ready.

Fin jumps in, Mick hits scan, and we're in warp. Our three ships drop on top of the two miners and Fin activates the Onyx's warp bubble, stopping both from escaping and, just as importantly, trapping their inevitably ejected pods. The only uncertainty at the moment is which pilot will be corpsified first, as we didn't really discuss it, but it's much of a muchness against unarmed barges. One pops, the pod is destroyed, the other pops, the second pod is destroyed. Job's a good 'un. Fin's bubble is dropped, and we scoop, loot, and shoot, leaving only the jet-can full of ore in the site. And it is indeed full of ore, twenty thousand cubic metres of crokite already mined by the two ships. I think we can have that.

To collect the ore Fin heads home to swap the Onyx for a Bustard transport ship, but as she jumps out the Manticore resurfaces. He doesn't engage or follow and quickly cloaks again, so I move to keep close watch on the wormhole and Mick the two towers. The Bustard can probably take a bomb blast and has enough warp strength to escape a single disruption effect, so we formulate a plan. Fin will jump in and dither a little whilst warping to collect the spoils of miner murder, hoping the hostile Manticore will present itself as a target to me. If he does, we should get another kill, and if he doesn't we get the ore without any fuss.

As it turns out, we get the ore without any fuss, which is a little disappointing. But once Fin has left the Manticore once more resurfaces at the wormhole before cloaking again. He's too far for me to engage directly but, would you look at that, it seems like the pilot has warped from his tower to a hundred kilometres from the wormhole without moving away from the flight vector. I think I can take advantage of that inexperience to reveal him again. I bounce off one of the moons to drop out of warp a hundred kilometres short of the wormhole and, lo, I bump in to a pilot I haven't seen for a minute at least. I welcome him with my warp disruptor, target painter, and torpedoes.

The Manticore is popped without a shot fired back, which perhaps explains why his pod is so easy to catch and destroy, giving us our third corpse to scoop tonight. What it doesn't explain is why he was sitting absently at a standard and obvious position, particularly after two other pilots were brutally slaughtered in his system. But why were those pilots even mining in the first place? I can only assume that the Moa really didn't see the Manticore or Phobos on d-scan as he blithely hauled gas. Or that the Anathema didn't care to tell anyone about the Phobos whose bubble gauntlet he had to run through to exit the system. And all that after having their salvager chased earlier. What we've got here is a failure to communicate.

Wondering how deep the ignorance lies we see if we can bait the Absolution command ship now at one of the towers. It may simply be launched as a deterrent, though, a ship to scare us off. We leave, but only because there is nothing more to shoot here. I actually consider planting a scout in this system to give us a route back to take further advantage of these easy pickings, but decide to throw back these little fish. If the capricious nature of wormholes throws us together again that would be great, but until then we leave the system behind us to drop off the corpses, loot, and ore at our tower and hit the sack for some restful sleep.

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Tags: absolution, anathema, arazu, badger, bestower, bustard, cormorant, covetor, drake, eve online, manticore, mmorpg, moa, onyx, orca, penny ibramovic, phobos, pvp, w-space