Running in to a Revelation

So much for my not expecting to find anything. Mick takes a better look around the class 5 system in today's w-space constellation and gets a second interesting signature, a K162 coming in from deadly class 6 w-space. He saw a Broadsword heavy interdictor sitting on the wormhole but it's gone now, which is good, as I could make use of that connection for my picture library. But although the HIC is not to be seen the battleships coming and going would indicate the C6 occupants are looking to collapse the wormhole. I warp across to the C5 and see that the wormhole is still healthily above half its mass allowance, and I feel safe enough in my Buzzard covert operations boat to jump in to the C6 for a quick picture taking opportunity.

That's a curious circumstance. The wormhole drops to half-mass when I jump through to the C6, which isn't impossible for my frigate hull to trigger but it seems unlikely. Even so, I only need to take a couple of quick pictures whilst my session change cloak holds and jump back again, and all will be well. The Loki strategic cruiser lurking nearby doesn't even faze me, as there is nothing he can do as long as I don't break the session change cloak. Snap, snap, I get a couple of pictures to represent this class of wormhole leading from C6 to C5 w-space and, with the session change timer expired, am safe to head back. I break my cloak and jump through the, er, I jump through... Oh. The wormhole's not there.

It looks like the wormhole is there, but my nav-comp is telling me it isn't. I try again to jump out of the C6, but now the wormhole really isn't there. And as the newly appeared Revelation swallows up my external view I begin to make sense of what is happening. My Buzzard didn't destabilise the wormhole, the dreadnought jumping out did, we just happened to transit at the same time, making only the single flare. The Revelation jumped home before me, only interested in collapsing the wormhole and not taking pretty pictures, so although an after-image of the wormhole glowed for a few seconds there was no exit in the C5 for me to pass through. I'm isolated.

I'm isolated and careering towards a dreadnought. My normal procedure for jumping back through a wormhole is to approach it, which breaks the cloak, and jump. I've not really worked out what to do when the wormhole collapses the very moment I am trying to jump, and I would hope for a lower-pressure situation in which to work it out. When I couldn't jump this time I at least had the presence of mind to re-activate my cloak, but my movement has pushed me closer to the returned Revelation, close enough to break my cloak again. I now have several ships breathing down my neck, no escape route, and no cloak. The Loki has me targeted and is disrupting my warp engines, and if not being able to warp or cloak is bad enough he has also started shooting me, the cad.

I regain my composure, impressively so, if I say so myself, and stop floundering like a fish out of water. I point my Buzzard towards a celestial object, align towards it, and hit the reheat. My shields are dropping but I'm pulling away from the strategic cruiser, and the dreadnought and whatever else is around me are barely scratching my defences. I'm out to eighteen kilometres, nineteen kilometres, easily outpacing any pursuers and seconds away from being able to warp to safety, all the time spamming the 'warp' button to get me out of there the moment I'm clear. But it only takes one well-placed volley to disintegrate my armour and hull in an instant, and my pod is thrown in to space. The locals didn't even need that Dramiel frigate to keep me from escaping, it dropping out of warp moments before the explosion.

My pod gets clear. I was aligned and still hitting 'warp'. But I don't have much option now. The locals realise this as much as I do, asking 'what are you going to do now in your pod?' Die, I suppose, I reply, setting the self-destruct option. I have no means for exiting this system, or w-space in general, and waiting for rescue could take a week of sitting around doing nothing. I have a clone waiting to be woken up, I may as well make use of it, preferring the saving in time over the ISK cost in replacement implants. And that's when I get an offer I find perversely attractive.

I'm dead anyway, I'd rather go out in style. And there can't be many more stupefying deaths than being podded solely by a Revelation. I'm game. I warp to the chosen planet and am a little offended that the locals drop the Broadsword on me first, but he is sent away again soon enough to leave just me and the Revelation. I try to do what damage I can in my pod, which turns out to be none, and I feel the force of a full broadside from a dreadnought's lasers on my pod. It's quite invigorating, but perhaps only worth experiencing the one time.

My new clone—me, I suppose—has some shopping to do. First for another clone, and second for a shuttle, because for some reason I no longer have a pod. I didn't realise this when I binned the Ibis rookie frigate, apparently not the worthless piece of scrap I usually take it for. I can't get the couple of jumps to Jita without a pod or a ship, and I don't have either. I buy the cheapest shuttle I can, which is a few hundred percent above the market price to sting capsuleers like me, causing Fin to put the seller on a 'kill on sight' list. But once in my shuttle I have a new pod, and I get to Jita, buy new implants to make me smart again, and look for a new Buzzard. We have spare ships at the tower but those are for w-space accident and recovery, and as I have the convenience of being at the market it makes sense to take a complete new ship back with me.

It's not long before I am zooming through empire space again, and my earlier scanning found and bookmarked the exit from our neigbouring C3, giving me an immediate route home. And once home, we form a fleet to make back some of the ISK my misfortune lost us this evening. One anomaly in the C3 is cleared, with my Golem marauder and Mick and Fin in Tengus, then back for a magnetometric site in our C4 pulsar home, where I join the other two in a third Tengu configured for remote repair. Not entirely sure of our capability, we first head to a standard anomaly we're confident of completing, and obliterate the Sleepers soundly enough to then warp directly to the magnetometric site and clear that without any concerns too.

Fin and I get to use our Noctis salvagers again, for the first time in a while. My Golem has closed down that little avenue of pleasure, although the marauder has undeniably made collecting loot safer. I've almost forgotten how to pilot a Noctis, though, and it takes me a few wrecks to get back in to the swing of salvaging in one. But soon enough all the wrecks are looted and salvaged, and Mick has recovered the artefacts from the magnetometric site, and we're counting our profit. Totting up the goodies from each site, we bring back around four hundred million iskies of Sleeper loot, which covers my costs and gives us more to bank. All in all, it's been quite an evening.

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Tags: broadsword, buzzard, dramiel, eve online, golem, loki, mmorpg, noctis, penny ibramovic, pvp, revelation, scanning, sleepers, tengu, w-space

Taking the back route home

Fin's coming home. After being caught on the wrong side of a collapsing wormhole, being guided through some null-sec space, and settling in a class 5 w-space system for a night, there now exists a relatively safe path to bring our glorious leader back to our class 4 pulsar home. The route isn't even through our static wormhole but thanks to a K162 opening in to us from a class 2 w-space system, whose second static connection exits to high-sec empire space. Despite the convenience, the C2 may not be entirely safe to pass through as a Tengu strategic cruiser has been spotted there. I grab the bookmarks from our shared can and head out to reconnoitre.

There is indeed a Tengu in the C2 connecting to us, but he is sitting passively at a tower and doesn't look like he's going to move. The system is small enough that I can't get out of range of the Tengu's directional scanner, so I can't launch probes without potentially being seen, and I think it would be best if the first suspicion the Tengu had of visitors was when our Orca industrial command ship was warping across its system and almost home. Rather than scanning the C2 I simply check the exit wormhole to high-sec, finding it now to be reaching the end of its natural lifetime. I update my colleagues and then leave the system behind me, with nothing much else to do.

I have more options. Our own static wormhole has not been visited yet, giving me a class 3 w-space system to explore. Jumping in sees an Orca on d-scan, along with two towers, which I will locate. Opening the system map shows me just how easy finding the towers will be today, because the nine-planet system only has a total of four moons, and as towers can only be anchored to moons it rather limits the options. I don't bother spinning d-scan around looking for the towers, thinking it will be quicker to warp to each moon and use a process of elimination. Unsurprisingly, the Orca is unpiloted inside one of the towers' shields, making the system empty of other pilots, and I launch probes and scan.

A blanket scan of the C3 finds three anomalies, six signatures, and the Orca. I work through the few signatures systematically, resolving a wormhole, some mining sites, and a second wormhole. The first connection leads out to high-sec space, the other a K162 from class 5 w-space. I get the exit system first, jumping out to Lonetrek and a mere two hops from Jita, before delving deeper to w-space and jumping in to the C5. My notes show I've been here before, with one tower remaining in the same place and the other moved at some point in the past seven months. A Vulture command ship and a pod are at one of the towers, but as I warp to see if the ship is piloted my display corrupts and I need to force a reboot of my Buzzard covert operations boat.

Dust blown out of the systems, I am back on-line. And now the Vulture and pod have been joined by two Tengus, four Drake battlecruisers, a Chimera carrier, and a second pod. I suspect that the Buzzard's crash took my cloaking device off-line long enough for the locals to see me on d-scan, and that my presence is no longer a secret. Never the less, I warp to a distant planet, launch scanning probes, and blanket the system. Four anomalies are returned on the scan, along with the ships I know about and a bunch of signatures that I suspect are uninteresting, except for the already known static wormhole to the C3.

I warp back to the tower to see what the locals are up to, seeing the Chimera and one Tengu gone, and a Manticore stealth bomber now piloted, which moments later warps off towards the wormhole. There's not much I can do here for now either, even if my presence is still unknown, and as Mick and Fin are safely home and taking a break I think I'll do the same. I wait a couple of minutes for the Manticore to have hopefully cleared the wormhole before jumping back myself, and I get home unmolested. Time for some food.

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Tags: buzzard, chimera, drake, eve online, manticore, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, tengu, vulture, w-space

Separated scanning

From home, to class 3 w-space, to low-sec empire space. The current constellation is mapped and bookmarks are available, which I copy and head out to check for any activity and maybe new connections. Jumping in to our neighbouring system sees someone definitely around, as there is a pod visible on my directional scanner, and a host of large and scary ships hopefully sat at the tower. Carriers, dreadnoughts, and T3s, oh my! Warping to the bookmarked tower gives me time to check my notes, seeing that I've made a previous visit to the system six months ago. The tower is in the same place, but with a Chimera and Nidhoggur carrier, and Pheonix, Naglfar, and Moros dreadnoughts I'm not surprised they haven't moved. I am rather more surprised at finding out that, although there are piloted strategic cruisers at the tower, the pod has no capsuleer inside.

I think our best chance of having a productive evening is to isolate ourselves from the neighbours, and Fin starts pushing an Orca industrial command ship through our wormhole to destabilise it. I keep my Widow black ops ship nearby, but no one chases Fin home and the wormhole collapses with little ceremony. Mick scans the replacement static wormhole and reports the new C3 to be unoccupied and leading to null-sec k-space. There are a couple of good anomalies we can clear for some quick profit, which we decide to do. My Golem marauder comes out once more to team with a pair of Tengu strategic cruisers, and we blast our way through waves of Sleepers. Not as many waves as usual, though, as the second anomaly has already been started, diminishing our profit a little. We still get home with a little under a hundred million iskies, which is a pretty decent return for our time. Now we collapse our wormhole again.

All goes according to plan with the wormhole's destabilisation, the added Golem and Tengu trips speeding the process up, until the connection collapses behind Fin's Orca. That wasn't meant to happen. Maybe we got a wormhole that could tolerate less mass than normal, as we understand there to be a margin of ten percent either way on the allowed total transit mass. It normally seems to make the wormhole 'fatter', but in this case we got one on a diet, and it simply couldn't take one more Orca trip. At least the Orca has scanning probes, even if it means Fin's only exit is out to null-sec. Mick and I can try to help by finding our new connection and seeing if, by chance, we can also get out to k-space near Fin's exit, and get her home safely as soon as possible.

The new wormhole is found again, Mick reporting a tower and no ships in the class 3 w-space system beyond. There are two core scanning probes visible on d-scan, though, and rather than follow Mick in to the C3 to scan I plant my Malediction interceptor on our wormhole in case the unidentified scout heads our way. But we may have a better opportunity, as Mick finds a second tower and a piloted Mammoth hauler, and it looks like it is warping around collecting planet goo. Mick watches the hauler closely, I sit in readiness on our wormhole. 'Planet three, customs, go!' I jump in, bookmark the wormhole home, and surge my interceptor towards the customs office around the third planet. I drop out of warp to empty space, Mick informing me that the Mammoth left almost as soon as it landed, perhaps spotting my Malediction on d-scan as I was in warp. It was close, but for now I take my ship back to the wormhole and loiter with intent.

There is a bit of to and fro with ships at the tower in the C3 and with me at ours, as our targets try to decide how to counter my interceptor, and Mick and I work out how to counter their counter. It all comes to nought, with the targets going quiet, maybe making their manoeuvres more defensive than aggressive. Mick takes the time to scan the C3 as he watches their tower, resolving a K162 connection from class 5 w-space and the static exit to high-sec empire space. The exit doesn't get us close to Fin, but at least it connects us again. I'm interested in the two other w-space systems at the moment, and when Mick comes home to copy the bookmarks to me I take my Buzzard covert operations boat out to explore.

My first choice of system is the class 5, entering which gives me a clear result on d-scan. A blanket scan of the system reveals four ships, which turn out to be unpiloted at a tower, and only five signatures, which even though I entered through a K162 is far from a burden to scan to see if the rabbit hole goes deeper. And indeed it does, two more wormholes cropping up in the system. The first is a K162 coming from null-sec empire space, and although it is reaching the end of its natural lifetime I jump out to see if it is close to Fin's position. Seventy jumps, she says. I return to the C5 and warp to the other wormhole, this one a K162 from class 1 w-space. I may as well continue exploring, and jump in.

D-scan shows me a beautiful sight, a Retriever mining barge, five mining drones, and an Iteron hauler all together in the system. I excitedly update Mick, giving him directions to get to the C1 through the previously unscanned C5, as I try to find a spot when I can launch probes covertly. I can't get out of d-scan range of the miners without then being visible to a second tower, where a Drake battlecruiser sits piloted. I take the view that the Drake is probably paying less attention to d-scan than the miners and decloak to launch probes where he but not they can see. I fling the probes out of the system, reactivate my cloak, and warp off to get close to the Retriever.

He's still mining, I think I got away with launching my probes. Now I need to position the probes so I can warp in to give him a surprise. I can get within 3·5 AU of the Retriever, and from there locate him on d-scan to a five degree cone in space. He's above the ecliptic plane and happily oblivious to me so far, and I take care placing my combat scanning probes on and around where I think he is. And, with that done, I warp back to the wormhole leading to the C5, where Mick now sits in his cloaked Loki. I am ready to scan and warp Mick in the direction of the miner. I hit 'scan', calling my probes in, and hope I've been accurate enough. Damn, a 99·99% strength hit is good, but not enough to warp to. I quickly reposition and scan a second time, again getting a cosmic hair's breadth away from locating the miner. And this time, so sure was I of a successful scan, I recalled my probes.

Recalling my probes is probably not a disaster. If the miner was paying any kind of attention he'll be leaving now, not waiting for a third scan to find him, and if he wasn't paying attention I have time to relaunch and try again. The Iteron has warped out already, returned to a tower, but the Retriever and drones remain. Maybe it's coincidence, the Iteron returning to drop off mined ore, and I warp away again to relaunch my probes, but by the time I've done that the Retriever too has gone from the site. Maybe a third scan would have been quick enough to get a definite position for the Retriever, Mick's Loki warping quickly enough to catch him, but tonight my aim was off. It happens. I at least scan the gravimetric site the Retriever was in, having a really good idea of where it is, in case they come back, but both ships have now disappeared from the system. I doubt they're coming back.

Scanning for the gravimetric site also happens upon another wormhole, which I take time to resolve too. It turns out to be the system's static exit to high-sec, and again not likely to help with getting Fin home. But Mick has negotiated with some allies for a scout to help Fin navigate some null-sec, and she has advanced a few systems without bumping in to any hostile activity. And the last, safe null-sec system she lands in holds a wormhole leading in to class 5 w-space, which is a much safer place for her to be in that null-sec, and also offers the possibility of exiting to low- or even high-sec space with more scanning. Probably quite a bit more scanning. But Fin's situation is much improved from earlier and we can continue looking for connections to bring her home. For now, with this C1 quiet, the C5 still asleep, and the C3 also empty, I simply head home to get some rest.

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Tags: buzzard, chimera, drake, eve online, golem, iteron, loki, malediction, mammoth, mmorpg, moros, naglfar, nidhoggur, orca, penny ibramovic, phoenix, retriever, scanning, sleepers, tengu, w-space, widow

Ambushed on the prowl

I'm so proud. I spot the wormhole's signature out of the dozen or so littering our inner system, recognising the strength and positioning of the two split signals. A brief search finds no more likely looking signatures and I warp to the static connection, jumping through to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system. A quick check of my directional scanner has me jumping right back home again, the four core scanning probes sending me scuttling to plant my Malediction interceptor on the wormhole. I have no idea if the scout will head this way, or jump in to our system, but I'm prepared to wait to find out.

Settling down, listening for the flare, I check d-scan more thoroughly and reference it to my notes. The d-scan result persists across jumps, as long as I don't refresh it, so I can see that no ships or towers were detected, and only the four probes. My notes tell me I was in that system only four months ago, and although it was occupied then it may not be now, as the tower should have been anchored to a moon visible to d-scan. The tower was moved cleanly, though, as no defences or the off-line tower remains. Checking a separate source shows me that the C3 has seven planets, with d-scan only showing six, so it could still be occupied and active.

Glorious leader Fin turns up and is happy to join me in waiting for no one, bringing the Onyx heavy interdictor to pair with my interceptor. And we wait. And wait a bit longer. And the scout wins, as I get bored and decide to take a look for him. I jump in to the C3, see no probes on d-scan, and point my ships towards the outer planet. As I get closer I refresh d-scan to see a tower and four ships appear, the Prowler transport ship, Hulk exhumer, Mammoth hauler, and Heron frigate probably all sitting inside the tower's shields. I wonder how many are piloted. I won't bounce my Malediction off the tower to find out, or even loiter to find the right moon, but head back and swap to my Buzzard covert operations boat.

Warping back to the wormhole is speedy in my interceptor, but a casual last check of d-scan as I am about to jump home sees the Prowler once more. The tower is out of range now, so seeing the transport ship means he is moving. I spin d-scan around and check the customs offices, hoping that I can catch him collecting planet goo, but don't see him. Reverting to a full-system scan has the Prowler gone, no doubt left the system. I jump home, swap to my scanning boat, and go back to the C3 to find where the Prowler went. With any luck, we can catch him on his way back.

I launch probes at the wormhole and start scanning, warping off to locate the tower and see how many pilots are awake. I try to keep my probes out of d-scan range of the tower initially, but finding that the Heron, Hulk, and Mammoth are all empty makes me more cavalier, and I throw my probes around the system with gay abandon. I concentrate my efforts away from the tower initially, as I saw the Prowler on d-scan from our K162, and I resolve a wormhole soon enough. The connection to high-sec empire space is probably what the Prowler used, even if it is a K162 itself and not the system's static wormhole. Just to make sure, I keep looking.

A second wormhole in the C3 is also a K162, this one coming in from low-sec empire space, and, along with a few ladar sites, that exhausts the strong signatures. I suspect the static wormhole leads out to null-sec k-space, and looking at signatures of about half the normal strength finds the K346 shortly after a new ship appears at the local tower. A Harbinger battlecruiser warps in, which the newly arrived Mick sees, and I am relying on the pilot not being attentive as he's waking up whilst I finish my scanning. I am sure there are no more wormholes to find and recall my probes, as Fin jumps through the high-sec exit to appear in The Forge, and conveniently close to Jita. I think it's safe to say the Prowler left using that wormhole.

We can ignore the Prowler for now, what with the Harbinger here to bait instead. A rough plan is to stick the Onyx on the wormhole to high-sec and try to get the battlecruiser to engage, which will probably only work if the Prowler returns and calls for help, as the wormhole is out of d-scan range of the tower. Mick and I stay hidden for now, making Fin look vulnerable, but his Loki strategic cruiser and our hangar at my disposal should give us the advantage. I jump home, with Mick keeping eyes on the C3 tower, and swap the Buzzard for my Legion strategic cruiser, warping to our static wormhole to wait for the signal to jump in and engage.

The Legion is probably overkill against a Bestower hauler, which the Harbinger pilot has now enticingly switched to. I swap again, to a Manticore stealth bomber this time, which lets me lurk cloaked in the C3 and be more readily available whilst still having more than enough firepower to pop an industrial ship. At least it looks like our HIC on the wormhole will be useful, because if the Bestower warps to the high-sec connection he will hit the edge of the bubble and be caught too far from the wormhole to jump and close enough to be engulfed by the Onyx. If only the Bestower would move out of the tower.

We have a new contact. Five combat probes are on d-scan in the C3, and they appear to be concentrating on Fin's Onyx. It looks like our bait is working, only for unknown aggressors, and I will need more than my Manticore again. Getting used to finding ships in the hangar, I am once again in my Legion and sitting on our wormhole in preparation. When a Drake is spotted I am warping back to the hangar yet again, this time swapping to the Sacrilege heavy assault cruiser, which seems like the best choice against the Caldari battlecruiser. Contact is made in the C3 as I am returning to our wormhole, and Fin announces she has the Drake. I jump in to the C3 with due haste and warp to her position, getting ready for combat.

I drop out of warp to see the Drake being rightfully pelted with missiles, and I lock and start shooting it myself. It's only after I launch and add my drones to the fight that I realise the Loki nearby isn't Mick, it's a second hostile. More contacts are made! A second Loki and a Brutix battlecruiser are warping in, and it is with regret and some sense of urgency that I recall my drones and turn the Sacrilege around, initiating warp back to our K162. More ships still turn up and I am locked by the hostiles as I am still aligning out. I watch my velocity steadily increase, not knowing if it will suddenly drop to indicate my engines have been disrupted, but whoever has targeted me is not stopping me from leaving. I enter warp and leave the fray behind.

Mick has left too, exiting the system using the connection to high-sec, but Fin was drawn off the wormhole. Already slightly askew in the direction of the local tower, hoping to catch the Bestower further from the wormhole, it was difficult to tell if the Drake had bounced off her bubble and was retreating or trying to pull her ship further away from safety. The Drake's motive is clearer when the Harbinger, Brutix, Vagabond cruiser, and two Lokis also warp in, and now Fin is some fifty kilometres away from jumping, engines disrupted, and heavily webbed. There's not much left to do but listen as Fin counts down the kilometres, getting twenty-five kilometres from the wormhole before the hefty tank of the Onyx finally crumples, the heavy interdictor exploding.

Fin's pod gets away from the aggressors, thankfully, and she returns to our tower understandably feeling rather deflated. It seems that a scout from low-sec found the connection in to the C3, saw the Onyx on d-scan, and promptly scanned its position before calling in the fleet. Whilst it looked like an opportunity for us to surprise the aggressors, what I should have realised was that any fleet feeling strong enough to pop a HIC would have the firepower to swat Mick and I aside first.

No doubt satisfied with their kill the aggressors leave the system, back the way they came. They aren't loitering to wait for superior numbers to arrive to counter their fleet. We can use the convenient exit to high-sec ourselves now, Fin heading out to buy a new Onyx for our hangar. I stick my Widow black ops ship some distance from our static wormhole in defence, and Mick continues to reconnoitre the C3. And as we sit passively, the Prowler we initially were waiting for jumps in, ignores the session change timer, and warps back to his tower, oblivious to the evening's activity in his home system.

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Tags: bestower, brutix, buzzard, drake, eve online, harbinger, heron, hulk, legion, loki, malediction, mammoth, manticore, mmorpg, onyx, penny ibramovic, prowler, pvp, sacrilege, scanning, vagabond, w-space, widow

Stinging a Scorpion

Glorious leader Fin's trying to clear some gas, so I think it's best I leave the system for a bit. The static wormhole is easy to find, perhaps a bug surfacing in the Sleepers' technology causing it to appear in the same place as yesterday, and I jump in to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system to explore. My directional scanner shows me a tower and a host of warp bubbles in the C3, but no ships, and I launch probes to scan. The system map shows me how small this C3 is, such that nothing is hiding out of range of my sensors, and I can skip straight to sifting through signatures, not needing to keep my probes from being seen.

The first fat signature I resolve is a wormhole, which I keep unvisted for now in case we want to engage Sleepers in any of the eleven anomalies here, but a second wormhole changes the circumstances. My natural inclination is to visit both wormholes in the hopes of finding a K162 leading to an occupied w-space system, full of hapless miners who don't know how to use d-scan—and a pony too, whilst I'm wishing—but the extra wormhole could also be a random outbound connection that is best left closed whilst we shoot Sleepers. There is no way of knowing without visiting the wormholes, and potentially opening the connections. As Fin is keen to earn some iskies this evening, after some recent fuel and ship purchases, we decide to assume the connections are both outbound.

I continue scanning, looking for further connections and possible ambush locations should the local corporation wake up, finding only rocks and gas for my efforts. I also spot a strategic cruiser appear in the system, but it's only Fin getting a head start on the first of the four good anomalies we are looking to profit from. Resolving and bookmarking the final mining site in the system I recall my probes and head home, returning a minute later in my Golem marauder to join Fin's Tengu. We rip through the Sleepers, I sweep loot and salvage in to my hold, and the first anomaly is cleared. Fin has to take a quick break, curtailing our Sleeper shooting for now, so after I dump the fifty Miskies of profit at our tower I take my Buzzard covert operations boat back out to open the scanned wormholes.

As it turns out, I'm probably not opening either wormhole. I'm certainly not opening the K162 coming from class 4 w-space, and I can only assume that the scout that did open it also found the C3's static exit to low-sec empire space. There is more to explore after all. I briefly jump out to low-sec, to bookmark the other side of the connection just in case I need to make use of it, and head in to the C4. D-scan is clear from the wormhole, no ships or towers visible, and I take a chance in launching probes without warping elsewhere first, hoping that no one will cross my path as I do. A blanket scan of the C4 reveals no anomalies, four signatures, and three ships.

I suspect the ships all to be at a tower in the C4, and a bit of exploration confirms that. But the two cov-ops boats and the Tengu are all piloted, so there may be some activity to poke with a stick. I lurk at the tower in the C4 for a while, with Fin returning in the meantime, but nothing happens. The most activity I see is the refinery being operated, which also could be one of the pilots restarting it, and a sure sign that these ships aren't moving from their tower. My hope that they would seek anomalies in the C3 is dashed, so I head home, get back in to my Golem, and warp with Fin back to the C3 to continue our evening of Sleeper combat.

I initiate squad-warp as we enter the C3, then cancel after hitting d-scan. I was rather casual about checking d-scan in what I considered to be an inactive system, but I shouldn't have been. A dozen scanning probes are now in the system, which is a sure sign of activity. Fin returns her Tengu from the anomaly to the wormhole and we would jump back, but my recent return passage has polarised my pod, preventing the Golem from passing back through the wormhole for a few minutes. Thankfully the scout is using only core scanning probes and my ship won't appear on them, and he is likely too engrossed in scanning to also refresh d-scan, probably keeping our presence unknown.

And this is why I use combat scanning probes. Inactive systems don't always stay inactive, and it gets tedious to switch between the scanning and d-scan panes just to check that nothing has changed. It is easier to let the combat probes pick up changes in system activity. I noticed Fin's Tengu enter the system earlier and was ready to react, and if I were this new scout I would see both the Tengu and Golem. For my battleship to remain 'hidden' whilst I wait out the polarisation effect is great for me, but an opportunity lost for the scout. At the very least, we remain unknown information to the visitors.

The polarisation ends and I jump my Golem home, Fin's Tengu following. It seems a little unlucky to warp away from the C4 tower moments before the two cov-ops boats come out to scan the C3, but at least we reconnoitred them and spotted their probes. Now we can lay an ambush, as we get my interceptor and Fin's heavy interdictor sitting on our static wormhole in wait. And we certainly do wait. It's possible the scouts took a fortuitous glance at d-scan and saw our two ships and continued to scan, knowing it to be safe, but not wanting to venture through any wormholes. Fin thinks we can modify our ambush to cut off their route home instead, and we jump in to the C3 and, seeing there are no longer any probes on d-scan, warp across to the K162 to the C4. I jump in to the C4, Fin holds in the C3, but all I see is empty space at the wormhole and, bouncing off a moon close to the tower, the same three ships where they were before. It looks like we scared them back in to inaction.

We take our ships home again, swap back once more in to our Tengu/Golem pair, and head in to the C3 for our third attempt to shoot Sleepers. It's our plan, we're going to stick to it. Would you believe it, there are now two Tengus on d-scan! And, of course, both of our ships are polarised and can't return home immediately. We could try to assault the Tengus, arguably being in a slightly more capable configuration, but with no warp disruptors fitted there isn't much we could do besides scare the ships away. It looks like we're having that effect anyway, as although I manage to locate one of the Tengus in an anomaly the other has gone. The second disappears soon after the first, too.

It's at this point that I need the brains of someone like Fin to say what should be obvious: there could be a new wormhole opened in to the C3. We probably haven't been seeing the C4 capsuleers come and go but a new fleet find the system, scan it, then come to plunder some Sleeper profit. The polarisation effect ends again and we jump home, Fin swapping to the Tengu-killing Legion strategic cruiser and me in to my Buzzard to find the wormhole. I jump back to the C3, launch probes, and blanket the system. I'm glad I took time to note all the sites earlier, as now I disregard them all to leave one new signature. Quelle surprise, it resolves to be a wormhole. Warping to the new connection shows it to be a K162 from class 2 w-space, and just as I am bookmarking its position the wormhole flares!

Apparently ignoring the session change timer, a Scorpion battleship appears in front of my cloaked Buzzard. Curiously, he turns back towards the wormhole and, presumably as soon as he can, jumps back to the C2. To answer Fin's earlier question, yes, I think the appearance of our Tengu and Golem was scary. It's unlikely the Scorpion pilot came to reconnoitre the C3, as there are better ships for that purpose, and the only reason a battleship will be pushed through a wormhole and returned so quickly is if the intention is to collapse the connection! The Scorpion has left the system, Fin enters from another direction and warps to my position near the wormhole, and I head home to swap to a pointier ship.

For the first time this evening I am glad of the polarisation effect. The Scorpion pilot's passage gives me almost four minutes to get home, change ships, and return ready to ambush whatever is pushed through the wormhole next. Fin's taken the Legion, but I have plenty of choice left in our hangar. I plump for the Sacrilege heavy assault ship, which should give plenty of firepower for a quick attack, and I head back to join Fin waiting eagerly on the C2's K162 for the next transit. Her plan is to lock whatever jumps through, then follow it back to finish the job. That sounds good to me. I make a quick check on the status of the wormhole, noting it not to be reduced to half mass yet and therefore safe for both of us to use.

It isn't long before the wormhole flares again, this time the pilot deciding to hold his session change cloak. The cloak doesn't last forever but the Scorpion disappears again anyway, it jumping back to the C2 to flee the two rather threatening ships suddenly appeared. Fin and I follow, easily getting a lock on the slow and bulky battleship on the other side of the wormhole, and missiles start pounding in to the Scorpion's shields and then armour. I am a little cautious at first, as the battleship can sport some heavy armament, but even though the Scorpion targets me I am not being hit. Neither am I being jammed, which is also to be expected from the ECM ship, but maybe the Legion is getting all the attention.

Moments before our missiles rip through the remaining structure of the Scorpion the pilot ejects. I see his pod leave the sinking ship but can do nothing to prevent it warping clear, as the battleship explodes behind him. We loot and shoot the wreck, and pause to see what will happen next. There are plenty of ships on d-scan in this C2 and there must be at least a second pilot, but no one came to the Scorpion's aid. A ship warps in seconds after we shoot the wreck, but it is only a Merlin frigate and neither a threat nor much of a target. We both target and shoot it, but the Merlin burns out of range quickly enough. It looks to me like it is trying to draw us away from the wormhole and I'm not falling for that. I order a tactical withdrawal, and Fin and I jump back to the C3 and retreat to a relatively safe distance from the K162.

As we wait to see if any more ships will follow behind we exmaine the record of the Scorpion's destruction. It's no wonder the assault went smoothly, the Scorpion had no weapons fitted and only multi-spectrum ECM modules. It looks like the battleship was configured solely for collapsing wormholes, with minimal defensive capability. I hope the pilot now realises how ineffective multi-spectral ECM is, particularly considering that with seven fitted he could easily have squeezed a racial jammer of each type on to his ship. Had he done so, the Scorpion may have been able to warp away from us today.

There is not going to be a counter-attack. No one jumps through the wormhole from the C2, and I'm not going to jump back in to see what's happening. If they are waiting for us it will be with ships that they are confident will kill us. If they are not waiting for us then there is nothing to see. We're both happy with our Scorpion kill, anyway. We took the information available to us, inferred the presence of a new connection, recognised the behaviour associated with collapsing a wormhole, and mounted a successful assault against a battleship. We didn't know at the time that it was unarmed and defensively neutered, we just got lucky, making it still an exciting assault.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Stinging a Scorpion
Tags: anathema, buzzard, eve online, golem, helios, legion, merlin, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, sacrilege, scanning, scorpion, sleepers, tengu, w-space

Data for a good cause

There's a Badger hauler on my directional scanner, which I suspect is collecting planet goo. I won't chase it, though, as it is only glorious leader Fin making the rounds in our home system. But it means there has been no scanning done yet, our bookmark can lying empty, so I take my Buzzard covert operations ship out to look for wormholes. Finding a wormhole is pretty easy today, what with it almost jumping up and down for attention near our outer planet. But I am cautious to use the indefinite article now, never too sure about how many wormholes there may be until a more thorough check is made. And we again have a second wormhole in our home system today.

I am joined back at the tower by Fin, her chores complete, and we each pick one wormhole to visit and head off in different directions. I end up at our static wormhole, Fin at a K162 from class 4 w-space, and we both jump to the connected systems. Our neighbouring class 3 system is fairly standard fare today, although the three off-line towers must exceed some quota. There is an on-line tower too, with no one home, and scanning the system finds seven anomalies and seven signatures. Nothing extraordinary.

Fin's luck looks to be better, seeing on directional scanner a Viator transport ship, an Iteron hauler, and a tower. But even though the Viator turns out to be piloted there is no reason to stalk it, as the owning corporation is allied to us. At least they shouldn't cause us any trouble, I suppose. I suggest collapsing the blues' static wormhole for them, which may be ethically dubious but is far from an act of aggression. I would simply prefer there to be fewer complications for w-space movements, and no misunderstandings about our mutual standings.

As an Orca industrial command ship is pushed through the K162 to start the collapse I sift through the signatures in the C3. One wormhole is nice and obvious, and it turns out that all the remaining signatures are too weak to be K162s, leaving us with just a lovely exit to high-sec empire space. The high-sec connection comes with remarkably good timing, as I have only minutes earlier been contacted by a friend about selling him my accumulating datacores. That sounds good to me. Knowing that they will be put to good use gives me motivation to make another datacore run, an activity that can take a while to complete and not see profit for a while. But with reassurance that he is happy to buy all of them from me, even several hundred, and having an exit to high-sec, I think my evening is worked out.

I jump home, copy my bookmarks to share with Fin, and swap to a Crane transport ship. Even though I am jumping out to high-sec I expect some travel to be through low-sec space, and I know from experience that datacores are bulkier than I imagine, particularly in high quantities. I warp across the C3, jump to high-sec, and check my location. It seems I'll be hitting low-sec rather sooner than anticipated, as for a bit of a joke fate has put our exit on a dead end, high-sec island. My first hop is to low-sec, and it is two more hops before I get to high-sec proper. Still, it's a piece of cake in the Crane, the most difficult aspect of my journey being trying to work out the most efficient route between my four agents.

I give up trying to determine the shortest route between four points, mostly because my first leg is over twenty jumps regardless of the destination, and simply settle back to take in the scenery. There are no surprises for me along the route, the only hint of a gate camp being a single red skull in a Legion strategic cruiser who I blast right by. I hop from agent to agent, making it sound much quicker than the eighty or so jumps really are, as we negotiate prices for the datacores. I'm happy to give a discount to my contact and we reach an amicable contract price, although he is surprised by the almost two thousand datacores I've managed to accumulate since my last run. I am too, to be fair.

I contract the datacores in a high-traffic system that happens to be on a convenient path on my way back to w-space, and continue on my way. Another red skull sits on a stargate by himself, this one in a Zealot heavy assault ship, but that again is the only threat I pass by. I return to w-space, warp across the empty C3, and jump home. Mick and Fin have passed the time tidying the home system, activating all our gravimetric and ladar sites to mark them for disposal, showing how far we've come from our industrial roots. It's been a quiet but profitable night.

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Tags: badger, buzzard, crane, eve online, iteron, legion, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, viator, zealot

Low rumblings

The w-space constellation's already been mapped, I think I'll take my stealth bomber out for a spin. I board my Manticore, copy the bookmarks to my nav-comp, and set off towards the static wormhole. Jumping in to our neighbouring class 3 system returns me to a system I have visited once before, and although I am expecting some change to have occurred in the intervening eleven months I find the tower to be in the same place as listed in my notes. This corporation looks to be quite settled. There's no one home, though, only an Abaddon battleship sitting unpiloted inside the towers shields.

The rest of the C3 is empty, and emptier than when it was scanned earlier, a wormhole connecting in from further w-space having collapsed of old age. And despite there still being two wormholes present they both lead to low-sec empire space, a K162 leading in to the system and the static connection outbound, curtailing my roam rather disappointingly. Then again, low-sec doesn't have to feel like a dead end, even if continuing to pursue capsuleers there is destroying my security status. I may as well check both exits to see if opportunity is on the other side.

Jumping first through the K162 puts me in a system with several other pilots, and as my directional scanner suggests they are mostly in interceptors I think I'll leave them alone. The other wormhole lands me in a rather quieter system, in the Bleak Lands region. Just me and one other pilot are present, and he looks a bit sleepy. Yet again, I don't have to treat this as a dead end, but I will need to get a different ship if my adventure is to continue.

I return to w-space, but before I warp home a routine check of d-scan shows a Helios covert operations boat somewhere in the system, as well as one scanning probe. I sweep d-scan around to try to find the Helios but he cloaks soon enough, and a few seconds later not even the probe remains. For once, I am not going to lay an ambush for a scout I've seen for all of five seconds, and instead continue with my own plan. If the Helios, or his chums, show up again I can change my mind about hunting.

I get home, swap Manticore for Buzzard, and take my cov-ops to the empty low-sec system to scan for more wormholes. Actually, the appearance of the Helios in the C3 makes me pause, and I stop to scan the w-space system first. It shouldn't take long, as glorious leader Fin scanned everything earlier and left me the bookmarks, with signature identifiers included, so I should be able to find any new signatures easily. I ignore the three gravimetric, two ladar, and single radar sites, along with the known wormholes, and am left with two signatures to resolve. Maybe I have more to explore after all, thanks to the new scout. Or maybe not, as I resolve only a new ladar and radar site each.

No new wormholes means returning to my plan, and I jump out to low-sec to scan there as well. Unsurprisingly, there are no wormholes in the low-sec system either, although I find a few anomalies and a magnetometric site. As there is still no one around I decide to risk my Tengu in the sites in low-sec, the danger not so much coming from the rats I'll encounter but from other capsuleers seeing my strategic cruiser as an enticing target. I should be okay with the lone and inattentive capsuleer, which makes it more of a surprise that on my return to the low-sec system in my Tengu the local channel is now peaking at twelve pilots.

I continue with my plan to shoot rats, but keep an eye on the number of pilots in local and put d-scan to use, getting ready to warp my Tengu back to the wormhole if any ship gets close to me, or if I see scanning probes. Within a couple of minutes the system population is back down to safe levels, no doubt the roaming gang just passing through. I calm down and rip through the magnetometric site, opening the cans to get a bunch of disappointing salvage for my efforts at the cost of swapping a shield hardener for the analyser module. I move on to one anomaly, then another, seeing the roaming gang return through this system as I pop rats like a bored engineer with bubble wrap.

It is only when I get completely blasé about the threat level of the anomaly when I decide maybe I should warp out. Webbed, neuted, and aggressing every rat in the site drops my shields to alarm levels, but I get out and back to w-space without losing my Tengu in a rather embarrassing fashion. And Fin's here now, we can shoot Sleepers instead. I swap the Tengu for my Golem marauder, Fin boards her own Tengu, and we jump in to the still-sleepy C3 for some rather more profitable combat. There are four good anomalies here, which won't take long to clear.

I get to hear the shield alarm again, in my much more expensive Golem, when I fail to realise how much attention the Sleepers are paying to me. That's what happens when Fin and I start reminiscing about our days as logistics pilots, flying Guardians to keep our armour-compromised fleet afloat. The Gist B-type booster once again proves its worth and pulls me back up to full shield strength in no time, and we continue shooting without missing a beat. Three anomalies are indeed cleared efficiently, loot and salvage swept in to my Golem's cargo hold as we go, but moving to the fourth sees us pause.

A Cheetah cov-ops is now on d-scan, according to Fin. She warped ahead to make a start whilst I finished salvaging the last battleship wreck, although it looks like someone started this anomaly before us anyway. The Cheetah is probably only at the tower in this system, only spotting it now because the other anomalies weren't in d-scan range, but it's still a good reason to stop. We've had our fun, made about a hundred and thirty Miskies in profit, and are getting home safely. I think I'll grab myself a bite to eat.

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Tags: abaddon, buzzard, cheetah, eve online, golem, helios, low-sec, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, sleepers, tengu, w-space

Tussling with a Tengu

The system is disconnected from the imposing class 2 w-space inhabitants, and both of our ships made it home safely. The same cannot be said of their ships, even if it is only a sole covert operations boat that is now isolated. And judging by the fact that it is launching probes it has no current route out of here. The capsuleers from the class 2 w-space system may have opened their static wormhole in to our home, but they didn't look any further. I already know where our own static wormhole is, and I'm going to show that just because we collapsed their wormhole it doesn't mean we don't look for fights. I swap the Widow black ops ship for my Malediction interceptor and zoom to the wormhole, jumping through to wait on the other side for the Buzzard to come through.

Fin is in two minds about joining me to ambush the Buzzard. Bringing a heavy interdictor would give us a much better opportunity to catch the cloaking scout, but she is concerned about making such overt moves. I can see her point, even if the scout only has one possible direction to travel, but my main concern is the potential occupation in our neighbouring class 3 system. I may have found the wormhole but I hadn't looked any further until now, and there is a tower visible on my directional scanner. Thankfully, there aren't any ships on d-scan, which although it doesn't guarantee there are none in the system at least keeps my presence unknown for now.

The Buzzard predictably comes through the wormhole, looking for an exit to k-space so he can find a path back to his home system. As soon as the wormhole flares I am ready, systems hot. I miss getting an initial target lock, the Buzzard cloaking immediately, but my interceptor flashes towards the cov-ops boat and bumps it, interfering with the operation of the cloak and giving me a second chance. A split-second before I gain positive lock and start disrupting its warp engines the Buzzard warps away, leaving me all fired up with nothing to fire at.

We may have a third chance of catching the Buzzard. Although we haven't mapped this C3 yet Mick has turned up and is only too happy to scan for the exit wormhole. It's a race between the Buzzard and Mick's Loki now, as our target tries to escape w-space and we try to stop him. Mick's scanning is good and he resolves a wormhole quickly, but as he is in warp he notices that the other set of scanning probes has disappeared from the system. And, sure enough, the Buzzard gets to the wormhole leading out to low-sec, jumps through, and warps away before my Malediction catches up. Mick and I sit on the wormhole in low-sec wondering what to do next. Maybe we can shoot that Tengu.

A strategic cruiser has dropped out of warp about ten kilometres from us, perhaps having scanned the wormhole, and looks a little unsure what to make of the the Loki and Malediction apparently guarding it. I'm not quite sure what to do either, and there are a few seconds where we just stare at each other. Apparently Mick wasn't wondering, and was quickly checking the pilot's credentials and looking for any of his colleagues in this low-sec system, before locking and attacking our new target. Given this positive move I lock the Tengu too, to add what little I can to the assault. Warp engines disrupted, the Tengu has little option but to jump in to w-space, placing him squarely on our turf.

We jump back to continue attacking the Tengu. I drop my session change cloak as soon as I can and try to lock the Tengu, but it must have the covert reconfiguration subsystem, as it cloaks and foils my targeting systems. I surge my Malediction towards the Tengu but fail to bump the cruiser, a ship somewhat larger and less agile than a Buzzard, making me a bad interceptor pilot. Once again, we are left sitting at a wormhole wondering what to do next. Waiting seems like a good idea. The Tengu pilot is not local to this C3 and didn't act like he expected to be jumping in to w-space at all. There is a good chance he will be heading back through the wormhole to low-sec empire space, and if he does we will be waiting.

I don't think I want to wait in my Malediction for the Tengu. It may help us catch the strategic cruiser but it may not help us destroy it. I have a much better ship stowed in our hangar, and I head home quickly to board my Legion, so I can use one strategic cruiser to catch another. Along with Mick's Loki we should now have enough firepower, as long as we can catch it, which is where Fin comes in. We no longer have to worry too much about showing our intentions, as the Tengu knows we're here and aggressive, so she brings the Onyx heavy interdictor to loiter on the w-space connection to low-sec. I jump my Legion out of the system and in to empire space, as we aren't likely to catch the Tengu as it crawls cloaked through the warp bubble, making sitting in wait on the other side of the wormhole my best option to engage.

The low-sec system is nice and empty, making waiting less stressful. Only one other pilot is present and, from d-scan, it looks like he's in a Jaguar assault ship. He's noticed me too, and my ship, telling me in the local channel 'I hope it's a missile one'. Why's that? 'Because, to coin a phrase, all Amarr are cap-heavy pieces of shit.' He seems alright, this Jaguar pilot. We have a little chat, and although he suspects me of being in the system to hunt he doesn't think my security status reflects that. I'm not quite sure how to say that null-sec kills don't affect status without my sounding like an arse, so I simply smile and let him draw his own conclusions. He leaves the system soon enough, and it's just me sitting on the wormhole.

It looks like the Tengu is biding its time, and just as we start to wonder once more what we can do the answer comes that we can shoot him! The wormhole flares and the Tengu appears in front of me. Whether he was expecting to see my Legion or not is immaterial, I have a positive lock and am hitting his shields hard and draining his capacitor. Mick and Fin jump out to join the assault, but not long before the Tengu makes a second last-ditch attempt to evade us, once more jumping in to w-space. We follow, knowing he will be polarised and have nowhere left to run, but again he cloaks and, now without an interceptor and the Onyx's bubble activating a second too late, he escapes.

Maybe we should have kept the Onyx on the w-space side of the wormhole. Its infini-point and missile launchers would certainly help the attack anywhere, but the bubble cannot be used in empire space. Leaving it in w-space would have encased the Tengu when it jumped back, although we weren't expecting that it would. Either way, it remains in the C3 and with only one way out, which returns us to a state of waiting. The only question for us now is where to wait. We could be here a while, particularly as a good option for the Tengu is to hide somewhere safe and do something else for a couple of hours, so we try to make the exit look more appealing.

Not polarised myself, having only jumped in to w-space, I jump back to low-sec to loiter once more on the wormhole. The system remains quiet, and my presence cannot be gauged by the Tengu. Mick and Fin disperse, Fin jumping home and swapping the Onyx for her own interceptor, us thinking it a better choice in both w-space and low-sec for snaring the Tengu, and Mick loiters here and there in his cloaky Loki. If the Tengu jumps out now, Mick will join me and Fin will jump in and warp to the wormhole to catch the Tengu on its next expected return.

We're waiting a long while this time. Only the lure of the strategic cruiser kill, made more tempting by the rate at which its shields dropped, keeps us engaged. And our patience is rewarded, as eventually the Tengu shows himself again, jumping out to low-sec. I see the pilot appear in the local communication channel before the wormhole even flares, but I pounce on the Tengu when it appears once more, draining its capacitor and dropping the cruiser in to armour with my missiles. He once more returns to w-space, and both Mick and I follow as Fin is warping across the C3 to make sure we don't miss the kill this time, but Mick calls out hostiles approaching.

I am back in the C3 and have missed locking the Tengu before it cloaks again, making me wonder how he doesn't manage to do so out in low-sec to escape. Fin has turned her Crow around and is warping back to our K162 after seeing multiple wormhole flares, many more than expected for me, Mick, and the Tengu. And now I see the Drakes too, the battlecruisers decloaking and targeting me, getting point on my ship and preventing my own escape. The Tengu has gone, I don't fancy my chances against multiple Drakes, so I take the route left open to me and jump through the wormhole out to low-sec.

Another Drake waits for me in low-sec, but too far from the wormhole to disrupt my warp engines. Knowing I am now polarised, and can't jump back through the wormhole, I disregard the session change timer and initiate warp, hoping that I am quick enough for none of the other Drakes to follow and catch me. I enter warp and breathe a sigh of relief, before making a safe spot and hiding there as the rest of the Drakes return from w-space and, after a few minutes, are joined by their colleague in the Tengu. It looks like he was first waiting for us to leave and, when we didn't, took no chances and called in the cavalry to get him out of w-space safely.

It seems I was too intent in attacking the Tengu and failed to notice all the other pilots enter the low-sec system, and it was down to Mick that we all manage to keep our ships safe from the counter-attack. The Drakes are not here to hunt us down, though, only to rescue their own pilot. As soon as the Tengu is out of w-space and warping to the stargate the ships start leaving the system, until once more only Mick and I are left. It was close. If only we had been able to snare the Tengu in w-space we would have got another decent kill. As it turns out, we end the evening as we started it, running away from bigger trouble than we expected.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Tussling with a Tengu
Tags: buzzard, crow, drake, eve online, jaguar, legion, loki, malediction, mmorpg, onyx, penny ibramovic, pvp, tengu, w-space

Collapsing under stress

Glorious leader Fin is in her Bustard, and is either sleeping or seeing how long it takes to walk from one end of the transport ship to the other. Either way, she'll be indisposed for a while, and as there are no bookmarks currently available I launch probes to scan our home system. Finding the wormhole is easy enough, but a second signature looks suspiciously like one too. In my experience, only wormholes appear quite so far from celestial bodies, with most sites of specific Sleeper interest sitting comfortably close to planets. Resolving the second signature indeed reveals that I was hasty to use the definite article above, and we have a K162 in our system.

I make rough bookmarks to the deadspace signatures of the wormholes and copy them to our shared can, in case I can get Fin's attention, and board my Manticore stealth bomber. I ignore our static connection for now and jump through the K162 to the class 2 w-space system connecting to us. I left my scanning boat behind on the assumption that I would have no further wormholes to find, and although the C2 will have a second static connection it will only lead to k-space and my assumption that the system will be the origin of whichever scout opened the wormhole may still be good.

Yikes. Nineteen ships and a single tower all appear on my directional scanner in the C2. I adjust my settings and see no Sleeper wrecks, so I am hoping they are all unpiloted, but locating the tower finds the reverse to be true. All four battleships, eight battlecruisers, four logistics ships, and the few assorted remaining ships are all very much piloted, even if their level of activity is dubious. Most of the ships are stationary, some are making lazy orbits around others, and it is only a defence being brought on-line that suggests any of the pilots is actually paying attention. And despite the number of ships here the tower is currently weakly defended, so seeing defences being activated makes me think these pilots are settling in to a new home.

Normally, a corporation moving in to a w-space system will be vulnerable to an ambush, or at least a cheeky bombing, but we may have missed the opportunity already. And besides the tower being on-line and force field active, warping around finds two off-line towers and a second on-line one belonging to a different corporation that I suspect will be off-line soon. As much as I like to be a disrupting influence, I think I'll simply leave these capsuleers alone. I still have our neighbouring class 3 w-space system to explore for adventure, and I can come back to scan for the second static connection here later if necessary.

On second thoughts, that incoming connection from the C2 will only be a cause of trouble. There are enough ships available to romp through our system and force us to retreat to our tower for the evening, it would be better not to ignore it. Thankfully, the Y683 class of wormhole has the same mass allowance properties as our C247 static, which will making collapsing it straigthforward. Fin's got back to the cockpit of the Bustard and agrees that collapsing the connection is the best option. We may even get away with it, as the C2 occupants are hopefully looking in the other direction, as more pilots are warping in to the tower from presumably the connection to k-space.

Fin boards her Orca industrial command ship and makes a return journey safely, although I am sitting some distance from the wormhole in my Widow black ops ship in case she is followed back. A second round-trip goes without a hitch, and the wormhole destabilises as expected as she jumps back. It looks like the C2 pilots haven't pushed too much mass through the wormhole yet, and we can collapse it confidently. But as Fin's Orca warps back to our tower the wormhole flares again, and a Buzzard covert operations boat moves away and cloaks. We may have been spotted. No other ships come through the wormhole, though, and as we only have one more coordinated jump to make we should be okay.

We wait for the polarisation effects to end, and as we do I take the time to move my Widow within jump distance of the wormhole, and prepare for the final push. Fin warps her Orca back to the wormhole and, as it lands, I jump my Widow in to the C2. That's curious, was that a ship I saw briefly as I appear in the C2, or a glitch in my systems? Whatever it was, we have a separate problem. When Fin jumps to join me in the C2 the wormhole destabilises to a critical level, indicating its imminent collapse a little sooner than we expected. Theoretically, the wormhole will allow a little under a hundred million kilogrammes to pass through it, and as my Widow masses fifty percent more than that it looks like one of us will be staying behind.

If one of us being isolated from the home system wasn't awkward enough, that really was a ship I saw on my overview. The Loki strategic cruiser decloaks as it is joined by a second dropping out of warp. We have definitely been noticed, and the Buzzard was not scouting our system but there to provide intelligence. Fin finds out that I don't have a probe launcher on my Widow and orders me home, although that now looks like a a death sentence for her Orca and, as we have no exit from the C2, her pod too. And whilst it may appear to be cowardly self-preservation to do so quite so readily, I jump back to our home system, just as more battlecruisers and battleships drop out of warp on our position. I leave just as a Machariel battleship surges towards me at ramming speed.

As I hoped, my Widow doesn't collapse the critically unstable wormhole on my passage through it. It wasn't a blind hope either, as we have seen this behaviour at least once before. Wormholes have engineering tolerances on them, making some more massive and others less, and there has been an occasion where my Widow has passed through a similarly critically unstable wormhole without collapsing it. I jumped back because the Orca definitely would have collapsed the wormhole, whereas there was a slight chance my Widow wouldn't. Now I'm calling for Fin to come home. 'If I can', she says, her Orca locked and warp engines disrupted, and a second Machariel having rammed her already, no doubt hoping to push her away from the wormhole. But I see the wormhole collapse and, after a few seconds, Fin's Orca appear in front of me.

It's not just Fin's Orca I see in our home system. The spying Buzzard has made a reappearance, and I suspect it was trying to flee back to the C2 when Fin collapsed the wormhole. I lock the Buzzard and start firing cruise missiles its way, watching it warp away before even the second volley can strike, even at this short range. I can't prevent it fleeing, not having any warp disruptors fitted on my Widow, as I never intend this ship from getting anywhere near enough to the target to use them. I was also in no hurry to run from the wormhole, as only one ship was coming back to join me, and if it hadn't been Fin I was confident my ECM systems would let me evade the threat.

It's been quite a start to the evening. A simple exploratory visit and defensive operation quickly became complicated. Thinking one of us would be stranded in the C2 and have to scan our way out seemed like a reasonable option for all of five seconds, before some very angry ships swooped down to our position to prevent any notion we had of surviving. It was only good coordination, experience, and a bit of luck that brought us both back safely and once again isolated from the threats. My biggest disappointment is that despite now having burnt in to my memory the image of a Machariel dive towards me, filling my screen against a background of strategic cruisers and battlecruisers, the only image I managed to capture electronically is a murky one of my Widow shooting a Buzzard.

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Tags: buzzard, eve online, loki, machariel, manticore, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space, widow

Crossing paths with a scanner

The wormhole's moved today, so much for it being static. I'm back to scanning for its location before I can jump in to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, where I find myself revisiting the home of the mighty ducks. It looks like I won't have a hunting ground today, except one of the towers I have listed in my notes should be in range of my directional scanner and it doesn't show up. Warping around finds the second tower to be in the same place, but not owned by a corporation I recognise, making it look like our new friends have moved on from this system already.

Being able to hunt in this class 3 system would mean more if there were ships around. But having no one around lets me scan without being detected, and I can bookmark the fifteen anomalies and various mining sites at my leisure. It is only after bookmarking a handful of the gas and rock mining sites that I realise their abundance is probably more an indication that the occupants don't mine much and I am wasting my time resolving them for potential later ambushes. It's time to ignore ladar and gravimetric sites and concentrate on locating wormholes. I resolve one wormhole that has a chubby signature, making me think that it's a K162, only to find it is the system's static exit to low-sec empire space, and it's the only connection present.

Jumping to out of w-space sends me to the Black Rise region, and although I'm only six hops from Jita the route would take me through Tama, and I don't fancy running through any gate camps right now. I scan the low-sec system for further wormholes but only find the one other signature, which turns out to be a radar site. It's better than nothing and clearing it should give another slight boost to my security status, so I get my Tengu, slap a codebreaker in place of a shield hardener, and leave the wrecks of the puny rats in my strategic cruiser's wake. I recover a user manual and a BPC for an esoteric tuner data interface from the cans in the site, which is okay but hardly exciting.

I drag glorious leader Fin out to low-sec, getting her in a Noctis salvager to see if we can earn any kind of iskies from our time, as I turn around to head home. The C3 remains quiet as I warp across it, but jumping in to the home system sees an Anathema covert operations boat sitting a dozen kilometres from our static wormhole. I try to gain a positive lock on the cov-ops but it evades my Tengu by cloaking, and as I don't have any warp disruption modules on my cruiser I am not too bitter about that. But it looks like we have a new wormhole connecting in to our system, and I warp home to park my Tengu and switch ships. I want to find the new wormhole but I also would like to catch the Anathema, so I board my Malediction interceptor and warp to our static wormhole.

Fin's coming back from low-sec in her Noctis as I land on the wormhole, and she reports the Anathema sitting on the K162. I was too slow getting back to our static connection, and Fin can hardly engage the cov-ops boat in her unarmed salvager, so she jumps home as I jump out. There is no sign of the Anathema or scanning probes, and jumping out to low-sec sees no pilots there either. Coming back to the C3 sees the Anathema now on d-scan and launching probes, and a quick sweep of d-scan and a hunch makes me think he's incautiously chosen the star as a location to launch his probes. I fling my interceptor towards the star only in time to find the probes right where I land, but no sign of the Anathema.

I leave the Anathema to scan for now, on the assumption that he has to head back through our home system, and loiter in my interceptor on our static wormhole. Fin is working to remove the assumption, boarding her Buzzard cov-ops and scanning our system for the inferred K162, which she finds with ease. The wormhole comes from more class 4 w-space, but jumping through sees no sign of occupation. More scanning resolves another K162 leading back to another C4, at which point Fin returns to sit in an Onyx heavy interdictor at the wormhole with me. With two more wormholes bookmarked we can try to catch the Anathema on our static wormhole and continue backwards for further chances if he escapes our clutches. We're back to waiting again.

Mick arrives and we give him a sitrep, his curiosity then sending back through the K162s to what turns out to be the Anathema's home system. He finds a tower with three industrial ships in its shields, the Primae, Mammoth, and Iteron all unpiloted, and the corporation matching that of our target pilot. There's no activity in that C4, though, so Mick comes back and through our static wormhole to reconnoitre the C3. There is no Anathema and no probes, and jumping out to low-sec finds no pilots either. We're waiting for no one again. We disperse the camp and find it is too late to start a new operation, even to shoot a few Sleepers.

As there is nothing else to do this evening I quickly pop out to the C3 and then to low to sate my own curiosity. I'm a little surprised to find the Anathema pilot staring at me in the local channel in low-sec, just me and him. I hold my session change cloak and jump back to w-space as soon as I am able, heading home to the newly reformed camp on our static wormhole. I fear it is going to be ineffective again, though, as I was just as plain to our target in the low-sec local channel as he was to me, and if he had any notion of who I was he would turn around again and wait a bit longer. Indeed, a second check of the systems by Mick shows the target to have scarpered.

It's a shame, as our timing was just a little off. Just five minutes either way would have either seen the Anathema return or the hopefully benign face of Mick in appear in low-sec instead of my own. But now we really don't have a target. I take a quick look through the connecting class 4 w-space systems and, apart from the riddle of their now being a Loki strategic cruiser and Hound stealth bomber in place of the Primae, yet still no pilots, there is nothing to report. It's been another quiet evening of waiting for nothing.

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Tags: anathema, buzzard, eve online, hound, loki, low-sec, malediction, mammoth, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, primae, scanning, tengu, w-space