Third time will be a charm

I have some time on my hands, I think I'll take an early look around our w-space constellation. Finding our static wormhole is easy enough, and jumping to our neighbouring class 3 system sees a couple of ships and a couple of towers on my directional scanner. My notes also let me know where I am. I was in this C3 only seven weeks ago, where I missed bombing an Iteron hauler setting up a tower and a Prowler transport ship sent for whatever reason to jump through the K162 leading to our home system. I found the towers on this previous visit and they are both in the same place, letting me locate the two ships without fuss, both sitting unpiloted in different towers.

It's clear to scan, and I warp away from the towers to launch probes. The only problem is that there is nothing to find. A scan of the entire system returns no anomalies and only three signatures, one of which is the K162 home and another being the system's static wormhole. A single ladar site is the only other point of interest in the whole system. I check the exit wormhole and am not surprised to see it leading out to low-sec empire space, but getting the exit puts me in The Forge and only one hop from the safety of high-sec. Scanning has been rather quicker than expected, leaving me enough time to make the journey to Jita to buy a replacement Legion.

I drop my scanning boat back at the tower and take my naked pod out to empire space, making the eleven jumps through mostly low-sec to get to Jita. I collect the contracted subsystems and buy the strategic cruiser's hull and all its modules from the market. I stick to roughly the same fitting as used in the two I recently got destroyed, still feeling confident in its ability given better circumstances. I hedge against overcompensating armour for speed when buying and fitting rigs, though, fitting one armour and one speed rig initially and buying a second of each to fit at a later time, when I make my mind up about which attribute is more important.

On the whole, buying the ship is a straightforward exercise. I am getting better at remembering to buy ammunition and charges, and undock with a fully functional Legion. I even have a name ready, one that I am happy with, and I point Jeff K's Prophecy towards her first stargate jump. My journey back to w-space is extended by six hops, wanting to avoid low-sec as far as possible, but it doesn't feel particularly long. Jumping in to the low-sec system finds a few rats loitering on the stargate and, as I am in a potent combat ship and there is only one other pilot in the system, I pause to shoot the cruiser and two frigates.

As I am popping the rats whilst barely taking a scratch even to my shields the stargate flashes behind me, signaling a new ship entering the system. A Prorator transport ship appears, shedding its session change cloak. I'm loitering on a low-sec stargate in a Legion, I'm feeling piratey, I may as well act the part. I try to lock on to the unarmed hauler but he cloaks immediately and probably warps to the next stargate on his route. It was worth a try, but I'm not here to catch unwary travellers. I warp Jeff K's Prophecy towards the wormhole and jump back to w-space. Seeing no change in the C3 sends me homewards, where I park my new Legion and take a break for food.

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Tags: eve online, jita, legion, low-sec, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, prorator, scanning, w-space

Engage and retreat

Ah, great days. The last time I was in this class 3 w-space system we pop a Machariel battleship, narrowly missing getting a second kill too. That was ten months ago, though, and the two ships I can see on my blanket scan of the system are not where I have the tower listed. Even if the tower were in the same place it's hardly likely that we'd have a second opportunity to catch a faction battleship fighting Sleepers in an anomaly. But there are ships to be found, and glorious leader Fin and I are ready for some action.

I warp off to locate the tower, finding both ships at the same time. A Mammoth hauler is unpiloted, a Cynabal cruiser piloted but inactive. My blanket scan also revealed sixteen anomalies and seventeen signatures, which will take a while to sort through, but with most of the signatures out of directional scanner range of the tower I can probably resolve most of them without the pilot realising I'm here. I start to position my probes to begin sifting through the signatures when a new pilot appears, turning up at the tower in a Nighthawk command ship, shortly followed by another pilot, this one in a Pilgrim recon ship. The system is waking up.

The Pilgrim warps out of the tower and is replaced by an Anathema covert operations boat. I won't get much scanning done now, and if the Anathema pilot is careless I may get a lucky shot at his boat, but I'll want a different ship myself in that case. I warp homewards to swap in to a Manticore stealth bomber, noticing now that there are probes everywhere in this C3, none of them my own. I eschew the stealth bomber for an interceptor, which I plant on our static wormhole, waiting for a curious scout to jump in. But now I can't see what the locals are up to, whether they are still scanning or not. And the seventeen signatures may take them a while to get through before they find our wormhole.

Fin volunteers to take up a lurking position on our wormhole in an interceptor, allowing me to board my Manticore and sneak back in to the C3 for reconnaissance. Jumping back in to our neighbouring system I see only probes on d-scan, none of which are particularly near our K162. I warp to the tower to keep tabs on the pilots, noting the Cynabal and Nighthawk are here and the Pilgrim still gone. The Anathema is not to be seen either, and when the Pilgrim warps back in to the tower I wonder if maybe I imagined the cov-ops boat and the recon ship went out to scan instead.

Shortly after the Pilgrim gets to the tower he's warping out again, but it doesn't look like he's heading towards our K162. I check my system map, letting me poing a tight five-degree d-scan beam towards the bookmarked K162, and the Pilgrim is coincident with it. Okay, he did warp to our wormhole, and I'd better follow to see what he's up to. I drop out of warp to see no ships, except the Pilgrim is still on d-scan. That's curious. And now he's gone from d-scan, and he isn't back at the tower either. Maybe he's finally found the button that activates his cloaking device, but I still have no idea where he's cloaked.

Four of the nine probes disappear from d-scan. That makes sense, as nine probes is too many for one scout to handle, suggesting two are active and maybe the locals have one searching for the other. The Anathema, certainly not imaginary, appears on d-scan, but not at our K162, and disappears again. This is very strange. He's not at the tower, although a Falcon recon ship appears as I warp away again, and finally Fin reports a jump in to our home system. Someone's found our wormhole, at least. Fin has also swapped in to an Onyx heavy interdictor, to suitably threaten any of the ships we've seen so far, which works perfectly on the Anathema that has entered our system.

I get back to our K162 and decloak. The cov-ops boat will be fleeing as quickly as possible from our HIC, wanting to warp immediately on re-entering the C3 to avoid the warp bubble. I don't think being visible will affect the pilot's decisions, and this way I can have my sensor booster active, giving me a better chance of catching him. He jumps back and appears straight away, as expected, but the agile ship is still too quick for me, entering warp before I can get a positive lock. It was close, but we have also highlighted ourselves as targets for the C3 locals who outnumber us. I cloak up and reposition my Manticore, Fin swaps the Onyx for a Buzzard cov-ops and cloaks at a safe distance from our static wormhole.

Checking the tower finds the Nighthawk, Cynabal, Falcon, and Anathema, accompanied by a second Cynabal and Anathema. One cov-ops warps towards our K162 and I follow, hoping maybe to decloak him after he lands if he doesn't move off his vector, but I give up trying to bump him when a Cynabal drops out of warp at the wormhole too. The cruiser jumps in to our home system and loiters on the wormhole, but we're not presenting a target any more. The Anathema decloaks forty-five kilometres away from me and burns to increase the distance quickly. He hasn't seen me, I think he's just getting out to warp range of the wormhole, which is confirmed when he warps from his distant position to be on top of the K162. For that time that took I don't know why he didn't just burn towards the wormhole, frankly.

The Pilgrim makes a reappearance, also at our K162, making our disappearance look more prudent, and the locals soon get bored and leave our system and the K162 behind them. There are plenty more ships movements, though, with the Cynabals, Anathemas, Pilgrim, and Falcon all showing up on d-scan, none of them really sure what a cloaking device is for, and I am convinced that there is another wormhole almost on top of our own. It is the only explanation for the curious movements. As Fin is in her Buzzard she gracefully comes in to see if she can find anything, and indeed resolves a wormhole close to our own, the system's static exit to null-sec k-space.

It seems that we have probably confused the C3 occupants, or at least added to some confusion. I suppose the locals have been looking for a scout and thought they found the source when we tried to ambush their Anathema pilot, but when we cloaked and denied them information they assumed some misdirection and kept poking the wormhole to null-sec. But whatever else is happening time is marching on. With a little care we collapse our wormhole, using the Orca industrial command and Widow black ops ships, no one apparently monitoring or following us as we do. Isolated again, we get some rest back at our tower after an interesting evening, albeit one without shots fired.

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Tags: anathema, buzzard, cynabal, eve online, falcon, mammoth, manticore, mmorpg, nighthawk, onyx, orca, penny ibramovic, pilgrim, scanning, w-space, widow

Making up the loss

It's time to collapse our static wormhole. Not much else is going to happen in our neighbouring class 3 w-space system today. At least, not now our Legion strategic cruisers have been destroyed in a skilful bait operation, which also initially catches the locals. It is perhaps a little risky to push an Orca industrial command ship through our wormhole in to that hot C3 but our chances of survival will be helped by the ambushers probably not yet realising we are from a different system. It won't take long for them to find out, though, and they may well scan for our wormhole to potentially cause more trouble.

As more security for the Orca I plant my Widow black ops ship a distance from the wormhole, ready to jam any pilot that may follow Fin home, hopefully to keep her free to warp. 'I probably shouldn't mention the Onyx', she tells me. No, please don't. I muse aloud about whether an Orca or bubbled Onyx would be the faster ship as Fin reports scanning probes zipping around in the C3 as she makes the second trip. The third requires both the Orca and my Widow to effect the collapse, so I warp back to our tower and then directly to the wormhole, which is quicker than crawling the distance under cloak, even with the Widow moving faster cloaked than not.

I jump in to the C3 as Fin's Orca drops out of warp, wanting to spend as little time as possible in the hot system. My session change timer ends, I jump back, and the wormhole shrinks to become critically unstable. Perfect. Fin follows me back and the wormhole disappears, a hostile pilot spotted briefly in the C3 just as the Orca jumps home. Whether he had only just turned up or was watching the collapse is uncertain, but it doesn't matter. We're isolated again. The question is, what to do next? We've lost our Legions and need to replace them, which means finding an exit and making more ISK from Sleepers, so we may as well open our new static wormhole and see what's in the next C3. And we don't need Legions to pop mining barges or salvagers, so we may even get lucky.

Scanning finds the new wormhole and I jump through to take a peak at what waits on the other side. I see a tower and Rupture cruiser on d-scan, and a tight beam suggests they share a location. The class 3 system is too small to hide from d-scan anywhere, so I locate the tower before deciding whether to launch probes or not. I find the Rupture piloted inside the tower's shields, prompting me to start a passive scan of the system, even if the ship looks inactive. I warp away from the tower to repeat the passive scan and get full coverage of the system, finding only one anomaly in total.

Despite our loss earlier I am wondering if we can lure the pilot out in to an ambush. We could send a Heron frigate in to the system to look like a newbie scanner, whilst have a bigger ship waiting on our wormhole to catch and pop the cruiser. Of course, this depends on the pilot being attentive, not swapping ships, and the Heron surviving long enough for the ambusher to arrive. If the pilot's not paying attention he won't even see our bait. If he swaps ships then our own choice of ambusher could be poor. And if the Heron pops too quickly he could warp away with a kill and no loss. But we'll give it a go anyway.

Because we have a new-found passion for losing strategic cruisers I board my Tengu and fit it with a warp disruptor, which hopefully should be powerful enough to kill whatever the pilot may bring to pop the Heron. The frigate is chosen so that the Rupture will be more then enough firepower, us effectively relying on his laziness not to swap ships. And to give her more survival time Fin drops on to a celestial far from the zero point. As for the pilot paying attention there is not much we can do. Or so it seems. Fin gets in the role of a newbie by using the same method technique as Mick did previously, 'accidentally' warping to the tower. Her uncloaked ship must appear on the overview for several seconds as she pretends to panic and turn around, so that our target doesn't even need to check d-scan to notice activity. Still he doesn't move. I don't think he's awake.

As the local is refusing to come out to play, maybe slumped drunk over his controls, we could probably steal the sole anomaly in this system from him. A single distracted pilot is probably not much of a threat for a Golem marauder and Tengu, but even so I ask Fin to take care watching d-scan for any changes. I will be checking too, but I know that looting and salvaging can be fiddly and not give me quite as much time to be vigilant for threats. We swap ships at our tower and Fin warps out ahead of me. The first battleship appears some distance outside of my torpedo range, so Fin closes with it a little first before calling me in to warp to her position.

'Oh, I almost passed out', Fin tells me as I enter warp, 'I saw a Golem'. Her careful monitoring of d-scan sees only my ship, but a change is a change. I have often checked d-scan to see a Tengu appear in the system, my simple mind taking a second or more to realise it's actually part of my fleet. But we're good, it's just us and the Rupture, and a few Sleepers. We shoot, loot, and salvage, getting home without a change in status of the C3 and with just under seventy million iskies in profit. That's got to be close to the cost of two new Legions, almost balancing out our evening perfectly.

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Tags: eve online, golem, heron, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, rupture, scanning, sleepers, tengu, w-space, widow

Counter-ambush with a twist

Fin warps back to our tower to drop a bookmark in our shared can, politlely letting me jump ahead in to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system. I'm not sure why, as I completely missed spotting the wormhole amongst all the other signatures and had to follow behind just to get here, but I'm always happy to take point in exploring. Today sees a Drake battlecruiser on my directional scanner in the C3, along with an off-line tower, but no wrecks. Within a few seconds a Rokh battleship arrives to accompany the Drake, and now a Myrmidon battlecruiser too. I pause for a little longer, expecting tell-tale signs of combat to show, but drones are not launched and wrecks are not appearing.

The C3 is fairly large, and its 45 AU radius easily gives me somewhere discreet to hide whilst launching scanning probes. I am looking for an active tower, as well as a potential anomaly or wormhole where the combat ships are lurking. I blanket the system with my probes and find six ships present in total, along with what looks like an active tower, and nine anomalies. I head off to find the on-line tower, where I see a Crane transport ship, Buzzard covert operations boat, and Hoarder hauler all piloted. Now to find the combat ships.

Checking my notes finally shows that I was in this system four months ago. Although knowing that the system was unoccupied then doesn't really help me now I have the location of the off-line tower listed, and I wonder if the ships are all there and trying to destroy the it. But warping directly to the moon I have listed in my notes sees only the off-line tower there. Fin has a better idea, musing that the Rokh and Myrmidon could feasibly be harvesting gas, although the Drake's presence is anomalous. As I am fiddling with d-scan to get a bead on the combat ships the Rokh and Myrmidon warp out, leaving the Drake behind.

I think Fin's right, they are mining gas, and the Drake is there to repel the inevitable Sleeper attack, which looks to have just started. This is good timing, as I have their location refined to a five degree beam and approximately 3 AU away. With the tower out of d-scan range and the Drake occupied with shooting Sleepers no one may be monitoring d-scan. I arrange my probes and hit scan, hoping for a positive first result, so that we can ambush the mining ships when they get back, but my mojo is lacking today. It takes two further scans to get a result I can bookmark and warp to, and even then it is for the Drake and not the ladar site.

Poor scanning notwithstanding, I can still warp in to the site to get a decent bookmark for an ambush. But when I drop out of warp in my cloaked Buzzard I am rather disheartened to see a Tengu strategic cruiser and Onyx heavy interdictor arrive to engage the Drake themselves. We've been beaten to the punch. Or maybe we haven't, as Fin suggests taking on the Tengu in a counter-ambush. That sounds like a good plan, particularly as the aggressors probably won't be expecting a response to come from a different w-space system than this C3. We have the ships to attack the Tengu too, Fin pointing out that it is as 'good a time as any to lose our Legions', boarding her strategic cruiser as I head home to get in to a second.

We warp back to our static wormhole, clear about our primary target of the Tengu, whilst I point out that neutralising the capacitor of the Onyx may help in a pinch as it can force the warp bubble to deactivate. Knowing that time is of the essence no bookmarks have been shared yet, so as we jump in to the C3 I pause briefly as Fin bookmarks the wormhole home, in case of emergency, and I punch d-scan. The Drake appears to be surviving so far against the Tengu and Onyx, which isn't too surprising, and note the appearance of a Manticore stealth bomber from somewhere. All looks good otherwise, and I warp us to the approximate location of the engagement.

Dropping out of warp puts me on the wrong side of the Onyx to get to the Tengu, forcing me to burn through the warp-disrupting bubble to engage our target. It is unfortunate but the kind of risk needed to get a good kill, and I push directly towards the Tengu. What's more unfortunate is seeing five more Tengus warping in to our position. Regardless of whose side they are on, I am sure it is not ours, and within seconds of the start our assault has become a rout. I'm not sure where Fin is and I don't think I can help her if I did know, all I can concentrate on for the moment is getting straight back out of the Onyx's warp bubble.

I continue to neutralise the Tengu and fire missiles its way, but I am moving away from it and trying to find the edge of the warp disruption effect. I'm not convinced that will get me completely clear, as the Tengu itself has a point on my ship, but I am also thinking about my pod now. For a second the Onyx's bubble drops, but it really is just a second. It looks like Fin's neutralising the capacitor of the Onyx to give us a better chance of escape, and so I switch my neuts across to the HIC too. Mind you, I probably don't have thirty seconds left to survive, which is the guaranteed cycle time of the bubble once activated, as my armour is already badly damaged, alarms sounding everywhere.

I'm surprisingly unpanicked considering the circumstances. Admittedly, I have not been thinking with particular clarity up to this point but now I am calm and rational. I spin my view around and spy a convenient planet in a direction directly away from the Onyx and fleet of Tengus, and I bear in mind how ships' engines react when engaging warp drives. When activating warp drive and external factors prevent it, the ship's drives default to their previous state. This unfortunately can often be sitting stationary, which doesn't help when needing to achieve three-quarters normal velocity to enter warp. But if you align your ship first then when you are prevented from entering warp your engines will default to being aligned, ready to warp instantly.

I align to the planet I've spotted and start mashing 'warp'. I am not clear of the warp bubble and one Tengu has its point on me, but if they make a mistake, or I survive just long enough to get clear, I am out of there. My Legion doesn't make it, disintegrating around me in an explosion of lost skill points. Ejection to avoid the loss wasn't on my mind this time, probably because my pod would still be in the HIC's bubble, and it seems my pod still is inside the warp bubble. I align again and return to mashing 'warp'. It only takes a couple more seconds and I am free, travelling faster-than-light to my saviour of a planet. It seems I got close enough to the edge of the HIC's bubble in my Legion that the Tengus weren't quick enough to lock my pod before I could make it just over the edge. I hope Fin's okay.

I bounce off the planet to a second, wary not to warp directly to our K162 in case the session change timer hasn't expired when I get there, and not staying in one place for more than a second. I doubt anyone is chasing me, but I won't be caught if it can be prevented. I check the timer has ended and warp back to our K162, jumping home and reaching the tower safely. I don't suppose the fleet hasn't found our newly opened wormhole yet, which is good. And Fin is roughly okay, despite losing her Legion too. That was only to be expected, considering the circumstances, but her pod was trapped and ransomed. The good news is that they honour the ransom and let her go, reuniting her pod with mine in our tower's force field.

That's pretty frustrating. Two more strategic cruiser losses for no kills, and still our Legions remain effectively untested. They should be capable of defeating other strategic cruisers, or bigger ships in some circumstances, just not in the face of overwhelming force. Fin points out that we got the target Tengu down to 50% shields, and that was after I had already stopped paying attention to attacking and was trying to escape. Some recovered skill points, a new Legion, and I'll be trying again when the next opportunity arises. Today looked like a good chance, either ambushing the gas harvesting ships, or counter-ambushing the Tengu and Onyx, but we fell for a trap that we once tried ourselves, sending out minimal force to provoke a response, with greater numbers waiting in the wings.

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Tags: buzzard, crane, drake, eve online, hoarder, legion, manticore, mmorpg, myrmidon, onyx, penny ibramovic, pvp, rokh, scanning, tengu, w-space

Profiting from unoccupied w-space

No one's around, there are no bookmarks in our can, I suppose I have nothing to do but scan. I soon find the static wormhole, with the number of signatures in our system remaining manageably low, and am jumping in to a class 3 w-space system I only visited a week ago. The C3 remains unoccupied, which isn't a surprise for the short time involved and for a system with an exit to null-sec k-space, and is littered with anomalies. Twenty-three sites of specific Sleeper interest are here in total, sixteen of them being the efficient, profitable ones that we prefer. If only I wanted to shoot Sleepers, there is plenty of profit available to me.

A mere seven signatures wait to be resolved in the C3, and I make quick work sifting through them. I see little point in resolving ladar and gravimetric mining sites in unoccupied systems, and ignoring them lets me move on to the more interesting signatures, like wormholes. The first wormhole I resolve has a pretty chubby signature, particularly as I know I'm looking for a null-sec connection, and I suspect it to be a K162. I keep scanning without visiting it but, sure enough, a second wormhole lets itself be known, and the weaker strength signature is more appropriate for this system's static link.

Checking the fat signature first indeed puts me next to a K162, but only one that comes in from high-sec empire space. So much for extra w-space exploration, but maybe it will give me a convenient exit to collect the new Legion strategic cruiser subsystems that have been delivered. I jump out to find myself in, um, Aridia? DOES NOT COMPUTE. As part of a cosmic joke, I am in a two-system high-sec island in a deep low-sec region. But in an effort to make the best of the situation, and remembering our popping the cocky Retribution previously, I hop one system across to see if there is any action occurring.

Empire systems tend to be bigger than their w-space counterparts, which whilst giving me ample choice for where to launch probes discreetly also makes the directional scanner less useful. It's difficult to gauge the whereabouts of ships using a 14 AU scanner when the planets are generally 20 AU or more apart. But my combat scanning probes show three ships in the system, and there are two pilots in the freakishly convenient local channel, and I go looking for them. I don't find much, though. A Kestrel frigate is at a tower, as is an Ibis rookie ship, and although the Catalyst destroyer sitting outside a station looks vaguely like a target the cynosural beacon it has lit suggests otherwise. And moments after I land to recon the beacon an Archon carrier jumps in. I think I'll leave them alone.

I don't have much to do, so I take myself home and dump my current bookmark collection in to our can for my colleagues, and take a break. When I return it seems that my bookmarks have been ignored, if only because they scanned our system and part of the C3 before me, without leaving the breadcrumbs for me to follow. Never mind, the exploration was interesting, and now we have the numbers to clear some of the anomalies next door quickly and efficiently. We form a fleet with dual-Tengu strategic cruisers and a Golem marauder, warping off to start the slaughter.

The first anomaly is cleared without a hitch, even if I forget to turn my tank on until we're warping to the second, but the next presents us with an unusual initial configuration. Two Sleeper battleships and a lack of Argos guns suggests we are finishing what other capsuleers started, which is confirmed when destroying the two ships brings no more waves. I fling my colleagues towards the third earmarked anomaly as I finish salvaging the wrecks, following soon behind, the one-tractor, two-salvager configuration for my marauder more efficient than the reverse, if requiring a little extra management of modules.

Eight-and-a-bit anomalies are blitzed in good time, the only trace left behind us being a jet-can with a handful of reinforced metal scraps. The Golem's hold is capacious, designed for looting as it's shooting, but it can't quite cope with the bulky scraps recovered from so many Sleeper ships. Even without the scraps, I bring back a little under half-a-billion ISK in loot and salvage, which is a good score for the evening. And, with the wallet potentially plumped up and everyone home safely, I think I'll get some rest.

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Tags: archon, catalyst, eve online, golem, ibis, kestrel, low-sec, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, sleepers, tengu, w-space

Safe to slay Sleepers

All our anomalies are gone, courtesy of some recent visitors. And with this being my first time in a while scanning our home system there are quite a few more changes to the bookmarked sites. Despite resolving a wormhole relatively early I keep scanning, needing to update my system map to more accurately reflect what Sleeper infestations are around. It takes a little while, and I don't check every site, but eventually I am satisfied that I vaguely know what's happening here. My thorough scan also makes me confident that there are no other wormholes connecting to us, and I warp to our static connection to explore today's constellation.

The neighbouring class 3 w-space system has ships and drones visible on d-scan from the wormhole, along with a tower, but there are no wrecks. I must investigate. I am able to launch probes discreetly at a distant planet, blanketing the system to confirm only three ships and eight drones are out in the system, along with sixteen anomalies and nine other signatures. A bit of warping around locates the tower and ships together, the Oneiros logistics ship, Noctis salvager, and Iteron hauler all unpiloted, but the drones are elsewhere. It seems likely that combat was interrupted earlier and the drones were left behind, the site now disappeared. Whatever happened, the system is quiet now.

I scan the C3, recovering the drones for our own use and resolving some uninteresting mining sites, a couple of radar sites, and two wormholes. The second wormhole could lead to the source of the earlier attack, if one actually occurred, which could lead to current activity, although I would more imagine that the victors would be plundering this system of its Sleeper profit if they were still around. I visit both wormholes, the first turning out to be the C3's static exit to low-sec empire space, which sends me out to the Solitude region. There are nine capsuleers in the system, d-scan showing me drones and some combat ships, but the ships quickly disappear to leave the drones behind. It looks like I just missed some more combat.

Jumping back to the C3 and warping to the other wormhole brings me to a K162 from high-sec empire space. I exit w-space again to find myself in Derelik. I take another look around, noting the presence of some pilots and perhaps some activity, but stop trying to locate a Hurricane battlecruiser apparently in a safe-spot when glorious leader Fin reminds me that I am in high-sec, and probably shouldn't be looking to engage other pilots unprovoked. W-space has clearly conditioned me. There's nothing much to do at the moment, and I head home to grab a bite to eat.

When I get back our loot has been exported to empire space, scrap metal has been refined, and there is still no activity in the class 3 w-space system. We may as well take advantage of the anomalies there. The corporation wallet is looking healthy, but it's only really back to where it was before I splashed out on the Golem marauder. There are six good anomalies to run through, so Golem and Tengu strategic cruiser are boarded, and off we head! The evening's looking profitable when I rip five melted nanoribbons from the first Sleeper battleship, and I even suggest that we should stop there. I don't think we'll see a better ratio of profit to time, but there is always hope, even if only two more ribbons are salvaged in the rest of this first anomaly.

I'm still not always noticing when I start to take damage from the Sleepers. They like shooting Fin's Tengu, that's for sure, but they occasionally switch to me. And as I can't run my booster permanently, and am generally quite focussed on painting and shooting, looting and salvaging, even having half my shields turn red doesn't grab my attention as effectively as I would hope. But it shows that the outrageous expense of the Gist B-type booster is worth the cost, its massive repair amount saving us ISK by not having to buy replacement Golems, pulling my shields back to full within a few cycles, even under continuing fire.

All six anomalies are cleared of Sleepers and their wrecks in good time, the C3 remaining sleepy the whole time. We bring back a decent three hundred and twenty Miskies in loot, although over a quarter of all ribbons recovered were from that first battleship. Salvaging can be such a capricious enterprise. Now we collapse our static wormhole and start again, hoping for some squishy targets in the next class 3 system. The added mass when taking the Golem out to shoot Sleepers helps with collapsing the connection, and it goes smoothly with just a few trips in Fin's Orca industrial command ship. I have time to make a pre-emptive scan of the home system, letting me ignore all current signatures and have the new wormhole light up like a beacon.

Jumping in to the C3 smacks of deja vu. I see drones and a ship, along with a tower but no wrecks. It's a little easier to tell not much is happening this time, as I doubt a Prophecy cruiser is using mining drones, and again I find the ship unpiloted at the local tower. I launch combat scanning probes, locate and collect the drones to crush in to minerals, and sift through the seven signatures that are keeping the lone anomaly company. I resolve a radar, ladar, magnetometric, and another ladar site before finding a wormhole—which is the static exit to high-sec, and in pristine condition—continuing my scan to... hold on, that looks like a new signature. It is, and a wormhole too.

Fin comes to our wormhole in an interceptor as I resolve the newly appeared connection. A wormhole being opened is generally followed by a scout jumping through, and we'd like to be ready to welcome him. I find the K162, which comes from low-sec, and Fin jumps in and warps to my position. At least if the scout flees we can give chase back in to empire space without fear of Concord poking their prissy noses in to our business. No one jumps in to the C3, though, and instead I jump out to see what's occurring. I even decloak and look stupid on the wormhole, but attract no attention. Whoever scanned the wormhole perhaps wasn't intentionally looking for it. It looks like nothing is going to happen, so Fin and I simply head home to hit the sack.

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Tags: eve online, golem, iteron, mmorpg, noctis, oneiros, orca, penny ibramovic, prophecy, scanning, sleepers, tengu, w-space

Buzzed by a Buzzard

Collapsing the wormhole isn't going to plan. Fin's been throwing her Orca industrial command ship through it, and Mick's added a battleship or two. But it takes the Curse of Penny to destabilise the wormhole to a critical degree, shrinking to the point of collapse on my way out of our home w-space system. I miss Fin's message to hold in the class 3 system and jump home instead, failing to notice that there are apparently now scanning probes visible on directional scanner, and maybe a scout to catch.

I don't think the presence of probes in the C3 gives us a potential target. My outward jump put the wormhole on the verge of collapse, which would make the scout foolish to pass through it and potentially lose his way back home. And even if he came through and we tried to catch him he would only jump back, and we would be foolish to follow. We probably have over fifty million kilogrammes of mass to work with, but risking isolation from our home system in pursuit of a mere covert operations boat seems unwise to me. Fin simply jumps home to see the wormhole collapse behind her, and we start scanning for the new connection.

Mick jumps through the next static wormhole to an exciting sight, two Covetor mining barges on d-scan with a jet-can timed from only seven minutes ago. These are bigger punching bags than a cov-ops, and we have the full mass of our wormhole to get suitably destructive ships through. There is also a tower in the system and in range of d-scan from our wormhole, but Mick finds a planet out of range of the miners and tower in order to launch probes. I am already in my Onyx heavy interdictor and warping to sit on our wormhole, and Fin boards a stealth bomber for some big firepower in a small package.

It looks like we've been spotted already, though. The two Covetors are no longer out in space, and one has been replaced by a Buzzard cov-ops. Mick locates the local tower and finds both ships there, seeing the Buzzard warp away to launch his own probes. It looks like we won't be catching these miners, but if they were sharp enough to catch Mick's entrance in to the system on d-scan then they would surely have seen his scanning probes if he had got around to hunting them. Even so, we may still have a target, as the Buzzard looks to be efficient in resolving our wormhole. Fin swaps in to her interceptor to combine with my HIC's warp bubble to be an efficient cov-ops trap.

I'm not expecting the Buzzard to jump in to our system. After all, the miners were vigiliant enough to spot a new ship in their system for the few moments it wasn't cloaked, and to not only retreat to their tower but also look for a new wormhole so that they have no surprises. It seems unlikely that the scout will put himself in any more danger than necessary, and simply note the wormhole's position and head home. So I am caught a little unawares when the wormhole flares without Mick announcing his jump, and I activate my Onyx's warp bubble as a precaution.

No ships appear, the Buzzard obviously holding his session change cloak upon seeing the HICceptor pairing waiting for him on this side of the wormhole. My full attention is on my systems now and I have the wormhole selected in anticipation of the Buzzard's return to his own system. And when his ship finally decloaks his first action is indeed to jump back, trying to avoid us, and I follow straight away. I decloak on the other side as soon as I can and activate my bubble, happy to see Mick ready and hot in his Loki strategic cruiser. The Buzzard makes his break, trying to get clear before my bubble can stop him, but he's caught. I even manage to get a positive lock on his ship, the pilot apparently not trying or able to cloak.

The Buzzard is helpless in my bubble, Mick and I have him locked and are shooting, and Fin has arrived to help ensure the kill. Our target is burning away from us quickly, no doubt with the aid of a micro-warp drive, but his shields are gone and armour dropping. He manages to get out of the warp bubble but he's stuck a little longer, as I have my longer-range infini-point on him as a precaution. And even though his ship is now deep in to structure damage it looks like he's getting clear. Mick's Loki is loaded with short range ammunition, my own heavy assault missiles don't extend past my bubble, and Fin's MWD hasn't engaged on her interceptor. We watch the Buzzard warp away with smoke trailing, so close to getting a fresh kill.

Cov-ops are hard to catch, and we did a good job just getting a positive lock. I think the Buzzard pilot's relieved, getting back to his tower and taking a break. Mick continues scanning the system, locating some anomalies and a magnetometric site, which he thinks we should plunder, perhaps as a release of steam. Mak's turned up to help us with the tricky Sleeper combat as well, giving us two Tengu strategic cruisers, a Loki, and a Golem marauder. We clear only the one anomaly, our preferred type, before moving in to the magnetometric site, both of which are in d-scan range of the tower so should shield us from any nasty surprises. But the system remains quiet and we blast through the Sleepers, recovering loot, salvage, and artefacts worth around a hundred-and-eighty million ISK. It's not a bad result for two sites, and we head home to rest for the evening.

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Tags: buzzard, covetor, crow, eve online, golem, loki, mmorpg, onyx, penny ibramovic, pvp, sleepers, tengu

Tracking Tengus

I pay only a brief visit to our neighbouring w-space system today, at least to start with. I follow Fin in to the class 3 system shortly before she reports seeing a Heron, two Tengus, and wrecks on her directional scanner. We ignore the frigate and concentrate on the pair of strategic cruisers which seem to be shooting Sleepers. As Fin locates the combat I search for the tower, finding it easily using d-scan around a planet with just the one moon. I jump home having been here for maybe a couple of minutes, and warp to our tower to borrow a Legion strategic cruiser fitted for engaging a Tengu.

Fin has uncovered three anomalies in the C3, one of which the Tengus are in. She warps in to the site and makes a suitable bookmark close to the two Tengus before coming home to change ships herself. The cruisers are employing remote repair, so our plan is to neutralise the capacitor of one whilst disrupting and shooting the other. The stealth Legion is taken back in to the C3 by Fin, with me sitting on our static wormhole waiting to be called in to join the fight. Only we may not have one, as the Tengus appear to have finished with a Noctis now salvaging. But checking the cleared anomaly with d-scan shows one of the Tengus is guarding the salvager, giving us our opportunity.

I am called in to the C3, and I jump through our static wormhole and hold my session change cloak on the K162, as Fin warps to the anomaly. Even the Noctis is too quick for us today, as both targets leave the anomaly before Fin can engage. I am left in a dilemma. Fin's fine, as she has a cloak, but I will be plain as day in under a minute. I could jump home again, and be prone to polarisation issues should the Tengus come out to play with Sleepers again, or be visible to our targets and as a result discourage them from leaving their tower. Fin has a better idea, having scoped the system more thoroughly than me, and sends me to the tenth planet. I warp away, happy to know that I will be out of d-scan range of the tower as well as the two remaining anomalies.

Fin takes her stealth Legion to monitor the tower, where the remaining Tengu is swapped for a Badger hauler. Whether we've been spotted or not it looks like combat is over for the locals. We still may get our shot, even if it's a simple industrial ship collecting planet goo, and I let Fin know I am happy for her to chase and catch the Badger as it warps off. Whilst Fin has the frustrating task of following behind a ship picking up planet goo I relocate to the customs office around the tenth planet, knowing that if the Badger comes this way he will only see me when it is already too late. But what I see first is a Crane transport ship, and only on d-scan.

The Crane doesn't visit the customs tower I am lurking around, and is spotted a couple more times on d-scan and then by Fin back at the tower. It's curious that the transport ship is not warping cloaked, which is its primary benefit, even in a system they think is safe. They may not be so convinced of their safety now, if the Crane pilot has been checking d-scan on his trips out here, as my Legion would show up quite obviously on an otherwise empty d-scan return. Indeed, the Badger warps out in my direction but apparently only to reconnoitre, not appearing at the customs office and moments later seen by Fin to return to the tower.

I think it's fairly obvious there is a wormhole out in this direction, which is just bad luck for me to be hiding here. Then again, when the Badger is swapped back for a Tengu, maybe it won't be bad luck if the pilot thinks I am a tourist from empire space and he can ambush me first. Fin's presence is surely still unknown, and adding her arsenal to my own would surprise the Tengu's assault almost as much as the ship killer configuration I'm flying. Of course, the 'ship killer' has so far killed none and lost one, and all this assumes the Tengu will come out looking for me, which he doesn't.

I'm not doing much good sitting out here in my Legion, so I jump home and swap back to a Buzzard covert operations boat, hoping at least to scan the wormhole the Crane has been using. And as the location is out of d-scan range of the tower I resolve the wormhole without my probes being detected, bookmarking the exit to low-sec empire space in case the locals use it again. Mick turns up to join us and, having an extra pilot, and the two C3 locals back in their apparently natural state of being in a Tengu each, gives me an idea. I swap back in to my Legion and sit on our wormhole as Mick gracefully volunteers to take a bait Heron out in to the C3.

We plant the scanning frigate on a suitably obvious celestial object within d-scan range of the tower, and get Mick to launch probes and act noobish. Sitting uncloaked on a planet whilst scanning is good enough, and there's not much else you can do to look inexperienced without flying in to the shields of the tower. Despite his best efforts to take his time and be an obvious target Mick doesn't tempt the Tengus out of their tower. He finds another wormhole whilst scanning, though, even if it's simply a K162 from low-sec, which may explain why the locals haven't yet scanned for our own K162, as they may actually believe we are low-sec tourists.

Going totally method as scanning newbie, Mick forgets to bookmark the K162 from low-sec, but it doesn't matter. The locals are doing nothing and we can't lure them in to their deaths. How peculiar. We all head home and collapse our own wormhole, to isolate ourselves for the evening. We can look for targets again tomorrow.

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Tags: badger, buzzard, crane, eve online, heron, legion, mmorpg, noctis, penny ibramovic, tengu, w-space

Low-sec Retribution

Glorious leader Fin's here and scanning. She resolves our static wormhole almost as soon as I arrive, letting me ride on her coat-tails to jump in to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system right behind her. The directional scanner shows no sign of ships, letting us launch probes and take a look around. A blanket scan of the system shows ships and a tower, as well as nine anomalies and five signatures. I go looking for the tower and run headlong in to the first well-thought-out bubble trap I have encountered in w-space. The cans are not spread willy-nilly in the warp bubble but placed anticipating the direction of arrival, not only decloaking my ship but surrounding me such that my best chance of survival is to burn in to the bubble.

A one-second burn in to the warp bubble lets me safely re-activate my cloak, thankfully before the tower defences take exception to my presence, and I can quietly manoeuvre back out of the bubble to make a bookmark that will ensure safe subsequent visits here. And all the ships seen on my combat probes—a carrier, and some battlecruisers, stealth bombers, recon ships, and industrials—turn out to be unpiloted, so no capsuleers I'm aware of saw my arrival. Confirming the lack of capsuleers in the system means we can scan, Fin efficiently finding two wormholes. The opportunity for more exploration looks to end when both connect to low-sec empire space, though, one wormhole being the system's static connection and the other a K162.

We each check the destination system beyond one of the wormholes, Fin exiting to the Kor-Azor region, whereas I am greeted by bacon's lesser relation, turning up in the Ham system in Khanid. But maybe it's not so bad here, a brief check of d-scan showing me a Retribution assault ship and some wrecks somewhere in the system. I move away from the wormhole and cloak, and start a passive scan. Whilst the thirty seconds tick down I sweep d-scan across asteroid fields, stargates, and stations, not finding the Retribution at any of them. The passive scan completes and a lone anomaly appears highlighted in my system map. D-scan puts the Retribution there, which is convenient.

I've alerted Fin already and we have decided to try engaging the Retribution, despite my confusing it with the Absolution command ship. My poor ship recognition skills explain why I merely defer to Fin's suggestions for our own ship selection, happy with me in my Sacrilege heavy assault ship and her in a Flycatcher interdictor. We can't use the warp disruption probe launcher in low-sec space, of course, but the number of advanced rockets the Flycatcher can spew is impressive. Combat fleet formed and bookmarks shared we warp across the C3 and jump in to low-sec. The pilot is still in the anomaly and we enter warp to greet him with firepower.

Our ships land in the anomaly where the Retribution is shooting rats, but he warps out before we can get a positive lock and disrupt his warp engines. That's rather anticlimactic but I suppose not unexpected. There's not much to do now but warp back to the wormhole. The Retribution doesn't jump out, though, which is easy to tell in empire space where the local channel transparently shows every capsuleer present in the system, and perhaps because of this the pilot isn't afraid to swear at us in Russian. At least, I assume he's swearing at us. Yep, okay, that's swearing.

The invective is definitely aimed at us too, which should be obvious from our interrupting him, but also because there is no one else in the system. That's another convenient feature of a populated local channel, being able to tell when reinforcements arrive. With no one else around we can't really take seriously this pilot's attempt to extort ISK from us to escape our own fates, even if we would normally. What's more curious about his behaviour is that within a minute his Retribution returns to the anomaly. We could try to catch him again, but not in our current fleet configuration, as we've already seen that he has time to warp clear.

I will take advantage of another difference between w-space and empire space, in that empire rats rarely change targets once attacked. Warping in to a w-space space anomaly to engage other capsuleers always carries the risk that the Sleepers will turn their attention to you, but empire rats will continue shooting your target, happy to remove the original threat to them first. My plan is to bring my stealth bomber in to the system, benefit from its cloak and lack of recalibration delay to gain an initial lock on the Retribution and disrupt its warp engines, then have Fin join me and take over, letting me flee if I start taking too much damage. It seems like a good idea to me.

I disappear from the local channel for a couple of minutes as I make the journey home through w-space, stow the Sacrilege, and board my Manticore. I get back to low-sec and am quick to activate my cloak, so that even though the Retribution can see I've returned he won't know what ship I'm in. For all he knows, I've jumped in through a stargate on the other side of the system. It is simple enough to warp in to the anomaly again, seeing the Retribution taking on two rat battleships almost forty kilometres away. That's a little far for my warp disruptor to have effect and I start closing. I'm initially concerned that the Retribution will be aligned and ready to warp out again, but I see that he is in a tight orbit around one of the battleships, mitigating some damage with speed.

The Retribution's orbit around the rat works to my advantage, as he is soon within twenty kilometres of my Manticore, easily close enough to get a point. I call Fin in and, once she confirms she's in warp, I decloak and get my systems hot. The Retribution has no time to react. I get a positive lock, disrupt his warp engines, and burn in close to prevent his escape, throwing torpedoes at him as I do. Fin arrives and adds her rockets, the remaining rat battleship continuing to shoot the Retribution too. I get ready to warp out but the Retribution is barely scratching my shields, my main concern now being running out of capacitor juice. Our combined firepower overcomes the assault ship's tank, and once his armour is pulverised our target explodes.

Fin and I have already agreed to let the pod go. There's no real gain in killing the capsuleer, unlike in w-space, and getting the Retribution is satisfying enough. And it's the first loss in security status for both of us, which is quite exciting! We loot the wreck, finding some nice salvage that he's collected, along with Tech II lasers and Imperial Navy crystals, and warp back to the wormhole. The big, red global criminal cool-down looks quite imposing, but I ignore it and jump back in to the C3, wormholes apparently blind to injustice.

Excited by our low-sec piracy, we check the other low-sec system for signs of activity. Despite there being a dozen pilots and plenty of ships around, it seems they are not making targets of themselves but perhaps trying to make targets of others on stargates. We're both happy with our single kill for the night, and end the evening by making opportunity of Ham being only three hops from Amarr and buying some more stocks of fuel for our tower. We make two trips each, filling up our Cranes in Amarr and avoiding the gate camp between high- and low-sec on our way back. Despite there being a bit of a brouhaha, as two Hurricane battlecruisers and an Onyx heavy interdictor catch a third Hurricane, we both safely return home with a couple more weeks' worth of fuel to keep us going.

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Tags: crane, eve online, flycatcher, hurricane, low-sec, manticore, mmorpg, onyx, penny ibramovic, pvp, retribution, sacrilege, scanning, w-space

Making back the ISK

I'm feeling like a burden on the corporation wallet at the moment. My extravagant purchase of the Golem marauder, its deadspace shield booster almost doubling the cost of the ship, and yesterday's loss of my Legion strategic cruiser are weighing on me. I have been contributing to filling the wallet up again by converting Sleepers in to profits, and the Golem has certainly made us more efficient, but I may have been taking more than my fair share recently. With any luck we can find more Sleepers to shoot today, at least to ease my conscience a little. Fin's scanning when I turn up, the final signature in the system resolving to be our static wormhole, and I follow her in jumping in to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system.

I've been in this system before, twice in fact. The previous time had me looking for an exit a couple of months back, which was after bungling an ambush on a gas mining Thorax cruiser. There are no ships visible on the directional scanner now, and exploring the C3 even finds the tower to be absent. It seems the occupants moved out, maybe after depleting their local resources. There are only three anomalies and three signatures here, two ladar gas mining sites and the static exit to low-sec empire space. I briefly consider trying to sell the system, as we haven't encountered unoccupied C3s much lately, but both my interested contacts are off-line and I'm not too keen to get bogged-down dealing with other capsuleers.

There's not much to do in our neighbouring system, the anomalies not even being our preferred type, so we collapse our static wormhole and start the evening again. The collapse is smooth, the new static wormhole is easily resolved, and glorious leader Fin and I jump in to more class 3 w-space. D-scan is clear and a quick check shows that none of the system is out of range, making it another unoccupied C3. This one, however, is rather more unkempt than the previous, Sleepers running wild in twenty-nine anomalies. There are also seven signatures present, which I think we ought to check for other wormholes before we bring our expensive ships in to engage Sleepers, and I start sifting through them.

Ladar, ladar, ladar, wormhole—which I keep unvisited for now—magnetometric... It's a 'go for Sleeper pew', says Fin, except the last signature in the system is a second wormhole. The weak strength of the signature made it look like it was going to be something different, but now I'm supposing it's the static exit, no doubt leading out to null-sec k-space, and that the fatter wormhole resolved earlier is actually a K162. We need to help ensure we won't be interrupted in combat, so I visit the fatter wormhole, finding it is indeed a K162, and jump through to the class 4 w-space system to look for activity.

The connection to the C3 is a C247 and likely to be the static wormhole, maybe making this system the start of the chain. I warp to a celestial object to launch scanning probes, not wanting to make myself a target on the wormhole, where a blanket scan finds a couple of towers and four ships near the outskirts of the system. Warping there finds the ships all to be unpiloted, and there are no overt signs of activity in the system. It looks safe to clear anomalies in the C3. It's odd, though, because there are no anomalies at all in this C4, making me think that the occupants would jump at a chance to profit from the proliferation of Sleepers in the C3. I suppose it's possible that they already have, and there were far more than twenty-nine anomalies earlier. Either way, if we are vigilant with d-scan we should hopefully notice any pilots from the C4 waking up and joining us in the C3.

Fin and I get home to swap our scanning boats for combat ships, Fin in her Tengu strategic cruiser and me in the Golem. This should be nice and smooth, as we can stick to our preferred anomaly without running out, bouncing from site to site efficiently. I've taken Mick's suggestion to run two salvager modules and one tractor beam, as it seemed that I was waiting on successful salvaging more than wrecks being pulled towards me, and it looks like a positive change. Although I still have to lag behind in the anomaly whilst I salvage the final wreck, at least it is generally only the one wreck and it is quickly recovered instead of having several wrecks scattered around my marauder waiting for attention. And in the quiet moments of tractoring the final wreck Fin warps ahead to the next anomaly, engaging the first wave of Sleepers and getting closer so that when I warp in I am already in torpedo range. It all works quite well.

The only problem encountered in clearing the anomalies is the burden of having too much to do. I'm getting used to the shoot, paint, loot, and salvage shuffle, even whilst punching d-scan regularly to check for hostile ships, but I'm still not used to having to pulse my shield booster. I have plenty of capacitor juice to do so, just not enough to run it permanently, like on the Tengu. This isn't really too much of a problem, as the Gist B-type x-large booster gets my shields back to full in quick time, but I really need to notice sooner to keep my heart-rate down. There is an alarm that sounds when shields hit 30% strength, which is fine for PvP when you expect to come close to dying, but in less-threatening situations it would be nice to have it sound at 50%. Less of an alarm and more of a warning, letting me know that I'm not paying enough attention. You'd think the white bar rapidly changing to red would catch my attention, but apparently not.

We don't get in to any real trouble being shot by Sleepers, and sweep through six anomalies before the hour gets late. All loot and salvage is collected as we go, negating the need to bring the Noctis salvagers in and probably affording us the time to complete an extra anomaly because of the time saving. The recovered salvage was light to start with but picks up in later anomalies to be almost respectable. Our profit for the evening is a little over three hundred million ISK, which is fair and makes me feel productive. A quick check of the C4 before hitting the sack sees no change, the system still inactive, and poking my nose out of the exit to null-sec in the C3 finds a Sansha incursion in progress. It all looks rather exciting, but I doubt I can do much by myself, judging by reports from other capsuleers, so I simply head home for the night.

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