Scanning in a hostile system

Fin's stuck out in empire space, in Amarr of all places, and I've been having fun podding a Noctis salvager. W-space life isn't fair sometimes. Although I've poked the hornet's nest I really ought to scan our neighbouring class 3 system to see if its exit is suitable to try to sneak Fin back home. I am currently monitoring the tower in the C3, after popping their salvager, and the locals are scanning and tooling up. Indeed, as I am about to warp away to get my scanning boat the Manticore stealth bomber leaves the tower and cloaks.

The Manticore at large doesn't really worry me. I am currently in my own Manticore, and confident that going head-to-head with a second Manticore will see me victorious I warp towards the wormhole home. I drop short, by design, and crawl slowly towards the K162, wondering if I will bump in to the hostile stealth bomber, should he have come here himself. But I see him drop out of warp on top of the wormhole, where he jumps through. The Buzzard covert operations boat that scanned the wormhole is here too, but simply cloaks. I'll wait here for a bit.

Or maybe I won't wait in the C3. I could try to sucker the other Manticore in to engaging me early, perhaps even whilst my session change timer shields me, particularly as I think I could win in a straight fight. I move towards the wormhole and jump home, ready to see what will happen. Back in our home system I am reminded that we have a pulsar phenomenon, as my shield capacity increases significantly. Sadly, my current shield strength has to catch up with the expanded capacity, a situation the hostile Manticore will have already acclimatised to, actually giving him the advantage. Oh well, it's good that nothing happens on my arrival. I clear the wormhole, cloak, and warp to our tower.

I presume the Manticore has come here just to have a quick look around, see who else is here, whether our tower is here or in another system. I loiter near our wormhole for a while, to ensure that he leaves our system once he's taken a look around, which he does. Now it's back to our tower to swap in to my Buzzard, so I can return to the C3 to scan for an exit. Jumping back to the C3 puts me far under two kilometres from the wormhole, which makes me a little vulnerable. It shouldn't be a problem, though. I find a suitable celestial object heading away from the wormhole, align to it, pulse my reheat, and hit warp, cloaking as soon as I can. The Manticore decloaks thirty kilometres away as I do this, but launches no bomb and appears to just watch me warp safely away.

I make a second warp movement, to take no chances about being followed, before launching scanning pobes, and start taking a proper look around. As I scan I sit outside the local tower, where a Blackbird recon ship and the Hawk assault ship from earlier are piloted. I soon resolve the system's static wormhole, an exit to low-sec empire space, and there are no other wormholes in the system to find. I jump out of w-space to get the exit system, putting me in a dead end and twenty jumps away from Fin, where I wait for a few minutes. I am prepared for some attention when I jump back, and would rather not have polarisation issues should I need to use the wormhole for a second chance at escape.

The exit is too far for Fin to travel tonight, and a little inconvenient with the low-sec space to traverse. I'll have to take another look tomorrow. That is, if I get back to the tower myself. I jump back to w-space from low-sec, appearing almost five kilometres away from the wormhole this time, which is much more comfortable. It is an easy matter to move away and cloak, and I am not even sure anyone is monitoring this exit. I warp to the wormhole home, and jump and manoeuvre on the other side without any difficulty too. Getting home is easy-peasy, and I return to the tower in a rather anticlimactic way to get some sleep.

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Tags: blackbird, buzzard, eve online, hawk, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, w-space

Easily distracted

Fin's around again as I turn up at our tower. Is anything happening? 'I am in Amarr.' I'm pretty sure that's not in w-space. Oh, wait, we're missing an Orca, and your Buzzard is unpiloted. I probably should pay more attention to the little details. It seems Fin was trying to collapse our static wormhole to isolate us from neighbours with carriers and dreadnaughts, and she succeeded surprisingly early, requiring her to take the industrial command ship out to empire space. It's up to me to find a new exit for Fin's return.

Thankfully, before she made her last jump, Fin noted all the signature references in the home system, and rattles them off for me. Ignoring those as I scan helps me resolve our new static wormhole nice and quickly, and I jump through to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system in a start to get Fin home again. My mission goes off the rails pretty quickly, though, when my directional scanner shows me nothing more than a Covetor mining barge in the system. Now I'm on the hunt!

I move away from the wormhole and look to get out of d-scan range of the Covetor, so that I can launch combat scanning probes, but only end up warping close to a tower in the system. D-scan shows me more ships too, and I ought to find them to determine how safe it is both to launch probes and assault the miner. Locating the tower is straightforward, where two Tengu strategic cruisers, a Buzzard covert operations boat, and Noctis salvager all sit piloted, scuppering my chance of launching probes undetected.

Maybe I don't need to rely on inattention to launch probes without being seen. It's true that there is no celestial object in the system out of d-scan range of both the tower and the Covetor, but it looks possible that a suitable safe point made between this outer planet and one of the others could place me out of range of all the ships. That would let me launch probes and hunt the Coveter sneakily. At least, it would if the Covetor were still mining. My first warp to attempt to create the safe spot lands at the far planet only to see an empty d-scan result, and the mining barge should certainly be visible if it were still active.

At least with the Covetor gone I can launch probes, even if there may be no point now. I quickly get my combat probes out of the system and re-activate my cloak, then warp back to the tower, where I see a third Tengu joining the Noctis. There are still only four pilots, though, so perhaps the miner has simply bored himself to sleep. Never the less, there still looks to be opportunity for mischief, with the Noctis piloted and the three Tengus warping out of the tower. My probes are already launched, making it trivial to find all the anomalies in the system and the specific one the strategic cruisers are now in.

I warp in to the active anomaly, bookmark a suitably positioned wreck, and head home to swap the Buzzard for my Manticore stealth bomber. I return to the C3, and move away from the wormhole and cloak. I appear to be unnoticed so far. The three Tengus remain on scan, and I waver between warping to the tower to monitor the Noctis and keeping my eyes on the Tengus. I end up warping in to the anomaly, to see if the cruisers leave the anomaly for another, only to see the Noctis warp in as the Tengus warp out. They aren't even waiting for the anomaly to despawn. But my scouting leaves me a hundred kilometres from the Noctis, far from an ideal bombing range.

I already have a bookmark to the cluster of wrecks the Noctis is starting on, and there is a planet opposite me I can bounce off. I warp out, turn around, and warp right back in, aiming to drop short of the Noctis by a mere twenty kilometres. It is potentially close to launch a bomb, but at least I won't have to manoeuvre to get in to range of my warp disruptor. And my navigation systems do a fabulous job, putting me twenty kilometres from the Nocits, and perfectly aligned. As soon as my warp engines cut out I decloak and launch a bomb, gaining a lock on the salvager and pointing and painting it.

The bomb detonates, shredding the armour of the Noctis, and I follow up with torpedoes. A single volley is all that is needed before I am locking the pilot's pod, and a couple more volleys reduce the pod to a corpse. My instinct is to loot the wreck and scoop the corpse, but I fight it and back off instead, re-activating my cloak, fully expecting the Tengus to warp in to rush to the salvager's aid. But my d-scan shows differently, only one Tengu left in the second anomaly, and he soon leaves too. I keep updating d-scan but see no changes, and it looks like they have simply bugged out.

I turn my Manticore around and crawl towards the wreckage. D-scan remains clear as I decloak to scoop the corpse, and loot and shoot the wreck. The systems of the Noctis were still active after the bomb hit too, and its tractor beams brought in two more Sleeper wrecks that were out of range of the explosion. I take a few seconds to loot those wrecks of their Sleeper loot, and a third wreck not too far away, shooting the empty wreckage afterwards, all without any ships warping in to the anomaly. This is turning in to a fairly profitable kill.

A Buzzard finally appears on d-scan, launching probes before disappearing, and I decide discretion is now advisable. I warp to the tower to see what other ship movements are being made, finding a Hawk assault ship, Drake battlecruiser, and Manticore all there now. I imagine the Buzzard pilot is looking for a wormhole that brought me in to their system, but perhaps also the exit to bring their missing pilot's new clone home. Um, that reminds me, I was supposed to be doing that to get Fin home. Maybe I should get back to scanning too.

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Tags: buzzard, covetor, drake, eve online, hawk, manticore, mmorpg, noctis, penny ibramovic, scanning, tengu, w-space

Late to the party

Fin's in her Legion and is pleased to see me. 'Oh, sure, now you get here.' I can sense her pleasure in other ways than mere language conveys. It seems Fin has been in a little dust-up with our current neighbours, engaging a Drake battlecruiser on our K162 in the class 3 w-space system next door, before a Pilgrim recon ship and Tengu strategic cruiser turned up to effectively chase her home. At least Fin still is in her Legion, not losing the strategic cruiser so soon after buying it, even if she doesn't get a kill herself either. If the ships had all turned up together, though, I imagine the Pilgrim would have been the primary target, and quite likely to pop.

Maybe our neighbours are still near the wormhole, and now that I am here we have more firepower to surprise them with. I have to admit that I'm not comfortable jumping through a wormhole to fight on someone else's terms, though. They could have different ships, or more pilots arrived themselves, and if our only escape is to get back through the wormhole it puts us at a disadvantage. If they can hold us on one side, they can hold us on the other. But curiously enough both sides are at a disadvantage in our respective home systems. Our pulsar phenomenon doesn't help our Legions' armour, and the cataclysmic variable in the C3 doesn't help their ships' shields. Neither side wants to jump through the wormhole, even if doing so boosts our systems or hinders the opponents'.

I say 'neither side', but Fin is keen to go back and provoke a response, now that she has her secret weapon that is me. I remain unconvinced of my status as 'protector' but board my own Legion and follow Fin to our static wormhole, leading to the C3. If Fin can lure the ships to engage again then we will have some advantage by adding my Legion to the fight. I will hold on our wormhole to start with, waiting to see what Fin finds on the other side, rather than showing our hand early.

As is often the case, nothing waits for us on the other side of the wormhole. Rather than wait for a surprise the pilots have wisely left, probably happy to have ousted the Legion from their system. I don't think they were really after a serious engagement as much as perhaps a lucky kill, or just to try to rescue their colleague in the Drake. Our wormhole isn't forgotten, though, as a little bit of loitering has a Dramiel frigate drop out of warp at long range from Fin, to orbit the wormhole. He's just keeping an eye on the situation, and Fin isn't silly enough to try to be pulled away from the wormhole to engage the fast frigate.

It looks like an impasse. The neighbours are happy to merely monitor what we do, no doubt to strike should we be stupid. We're not happy to be stupid, and it doesn't look like we can provoke our neighbours to be stupid in return. One remaining option is to collapse our wormhole and start again with new neighbours, but Fin sensibly decides against trying to push an Orca back-and-forth through the wormhole with a Dramiel around. We simply have to leave the situation at a stalemate. A promising start to the evening ends with us spinning our Legions back at our tower.

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Tags: drake, dramiel, eve online, legion, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, pilgrim, tengu, w-space

Legions and pulsars don't mix

I can be pretty absent-minded at times. Fin's gone out to empire space to buy something new and shiny, and I'm sitting inside our tower spinning my Legion strategic cruiser around, musing with colleagues over its fit and the special modifications I've made. The effect of the pulsar phenomenon in our home system inevitably crops up, as I point out that the effect on the Tengu's shields has given it an advantage during field tests here, but when I check the numbers I am reminded that the pulsar has negative effects too. And not just any negative effects, but penalties to armour resistances, directly affecting the Legion's survivability.

I thought my copy of EFT was lying to me through its teeth, the effective fitting tool—used to simulate different ship configurations—not working quite so well under virtualisation. It is actually giving me fairly accurate numbers, just for normal systems. Adding the effect of the pulsar modifies the expected strength of the Legion's tank to what I am seeing in the home system. This has two consequences. First, even in a pulsar system the Legion looks quite capable. Second, outside of our system, without the deleterious effects of the pulsar, I could be formidable. As long as the capacitor lasts, though, as the pulsar also helpfully boosts its recharge rate.

Even with this new information I shall continue my skill training to support the Legion further. The skills will not only help the Legion but are generally useful enough to either benefit me directly or to encourage further expansion in to piloting different ships. I can't really bemoan gaining skill points that are marginal anyway, not when I don't currently have cause to fly my Damnation command ship, and I only really use the even more skill-intensive Widow black ops ship to collapse wormholes. And, speaking of Legions, Fin's trip to market is to fit her second one, which seems an extravagant purchase but makes sense to us.

As I am doing little more than almost appreciating the ugliness of my ship, I can let Fin know our current stocks of various modules, either that she requires for her new Legion or are general purpose enough that we could always use spares. She buys modules and spares for those we don't have, or are low on stock, and saves iskies for the few modules we have plenty of, fitting and bringing her ship home. I finally stow the Legion to swap for my Manticore stealth bomber to reconnoitre our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, mostly for Fin's return and partly my curiosity.

When Fin found it the C3 was inactive, although there is an on-line tower in the system. When I jump in to the C3 I see a Zealot heavy assault ship on my directional scanner, getting me so overexcited I accidentally toggle my cloak when moving away from the wormhole. I hope the pilot isn't paying attention for what seems like an age before I can reactivate the cloak, or he won't come out to play. As I find the Zealot sitting passively at the local tower it's quite possible he didn't detect my entrance to the system, but there is now a second pilot somewhere, a Buzzard covert operations boat briefly on d-scan as he launches probes. He may have spotted me too.

There's nothing else happening in this C3 for now, the Zealot motionless and the Buzzard scanning, and I go out to meet Fin. This is just a formality, of course, as it's not like she inadvertently forgot to bookmark the empire side of the exit wormhole and needed guiding home. We both jump back to w-space and cloak, for the new Legion has the covert reconfiguration subsystem, Fin heading homewards and me to keep tabs on the Zealot. But when the scanning probes are recalled by the Buzzard—who sensibly warped off-grid to launch probes and scan—both local pilots disappear, apparently not motivated to do anything else this evening. I suppose that's it for me too, given an empty C3, and I return to our tower and hit the sack.

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Tags: buzzard, eve online, legion, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, tengu, w-space, zealot

Looking for missiles

Despite only just getting home from being stranded, Fin's back out in high-sec empire space. We got the Orca home safely, and Fin transferred the hauled fuel from the industrial command ship to our tower, with overflow being stored in a hangar, giving us over a month's worth of breathing room. Now she's out buying ammunition, as we realised that perhaps we are not optimising the damage our new Legion strategic cruisers can achieve. But the exit we have doesn't appear to be terribly convenient for the market, not being near a hub and thirteen hops from Jita. Fin can't find the ammunition we want and is instead picking up bits and bobs, including some more of the bombs that we find so useful.

Thirteen jumps is a fair distance, but sounds like a good excuse to go on a trip in my Crane transport ship. The time should pass quickly enough and I think the correct ammunition is worth taking time to get, particularly as we have no control over where exits from w-space could take us. Just as we could find ourselves one hop from Jita tomorrow, making me feel like I wasted my time, we could get a string of exits to null-sec and be effectively isolated for days longer. I board my Crane, travel through our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, and jump out to high-sec empire space.

I set my destination to Jita and start my stargate-hopping journey. I have the market window open, browsing for what other fittings we may need, and marvelling at the complete lack of the missiles we're looking for. But the first stargate jump changes everything, and I now see a few dozen sell orders for the desired ammunition. I also notice that the orders are in Dodixie, which sounds like a familiar enough system to me to be at least a minor market hub, and it is really close. In fact, Dodixie is only three hops away from the exit wormhole, it just happens to be across a region boundary and opaque to the market interface.

My journey is much shorter now, perhaps causing me to go a little wild. I buy a quarter of a million advanced missiles and stuff them in to my Crane's hold, returning home much sooner than expected and regretting a little my unrestrained spending on the corporation account. I don't think we'll need to restock these again, ever. And now that we're both home, and have all the fittings we think we need, it's time to collapse our static wormhole. With a hostile fleet seen roaming the C3 next door, coming from class 5 w-space and headed by a heavy interdictor, it is probably best that we don't make targets of ourselves.

The Orca has already made a one-way jump, coming back from being stranded in empire space, which should make collapsing the wormhole simpler. Fin even has a Scorpion battleship parked in empire space near today's exit, abandoned during one of our system moves, which she thinks will be a good finishing blow to the wormhole if it is brought in. I can go out to pick that up. Completely ignoring my good advice of not making ourselves targets to the HIC, I stow my ship and warp my naked pod across the C3 to the exit wormhole, thankfully not seeing any hostile ships, and jump out to collect the Scorpion.

As I dock Fin informs me that our static connection became critically unstable on her final trip out, and that her return will be enough to collapse it. More than that, the Scorpion will do the same, stranding her in the Orca once more. I return home still in my pod, having to leave the Scorpion behind, but at least our wormhole collapses with us both on the right side. Fin lets me get my pod home and in to a Buzzard covert operations boat before returning herself, and I scan and ignore all signatures at home, making it trivial to find the new static wormhole when the old one collapses. But I leave the connection inactive, as it is getting late and I would quite like an isolated system for a now.

It's time for a second test of my Legion. I have tinkered with the fitting, compromising its tank a little for a boost to other systems, which I consider unfortunate but necessary for its success and, paradoxically, its survival. Fin uses her Tengu to put the Legion through its paces again, and we run a couple of simple exercises out in a safe spot in our home system. The changes made to the Legion's configuration look positive, giving my strategic cruiser the upper-hand, if only just. But more skill training can help with that now, improving armour resistances a little, negating rig drawbacks, and finishing the last subsystem skill. At least the ship is looking good in theory and trials, even if combat will be a bit different in practice.

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Tags: buzzard, crane, eve online, legion, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, scorpion, w-space

How to perform a blanket scan of a w-space system

This post has been superseded by a more detailed explanation of how and why to perform a blanket scan of a w-space system.

I often mention performing a 'blanket scan' of a w-space system after entering it, and although the general concept and aim may be deduced from the name I have yet to mention my method in convenient bullet form, so here goes.

1. Launch combat scanning probes, preferably somewhere out of range of any other pilot's directional scanner.



2. Adjust the scanning range of the probes to be 16 AU.



3. Move all the probes so that the bottom edge of the scanning sphere is slightly above the ecliptic plane of the solar system.



4. Edit: Hit 'scan'. You'll get no results, but you'll move the probes out of the system directly upwards, avoiding them warping visibly through the system after being arranged for the blanket scan.
5. Adjust the scanning range of the probes to be 64 AU.



6. Arrange the probes so that they cover the entire solar system.



7. Hit 'scan'.

The scan will return all anomalies, ships, and other signatures in the system, without your probes being visible on anyone's directional scanner. Steps two and three can be ignored if you are not concerned about being covert, because then all that really matters is to 'blanket' the system with the sphere-of-effect of the scanning probes.

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Tags: eve online, mmorpg, scanning, w-space

Getting home

Fin's getting closer to returning home. A puppet has found our new static wormhole, jumped in to the neighbouring class 3 w-space system, and even resolved an exit to high-sec empire space. All we need to do now is get the Orca industrial command ship through the C3, which may not be straightforward if anyone gets in the way. Even if the locals in the C3 are not active there may still be trouble. After all, it was high-sec tourists that prevented Fin's safe return from a fuel run in the first place.

The class 3 system we're hoping to travel through may not be sleepy, either. An Iteron hauler was noticed jumping from high-sec in to w-space on the puppet's exit, although he could do nothing about it. In the hopes of finding a squishy target, and getting Fin home, of course, I launch my Manticore stealth bomber to take a quick shufti around the C3. On jumping in I immediately see on my directional scanner a Hurricane and two Drakes, which look to be active one way or another. A jet-can is on d-scan too, but it seems unlikely that these three battlecruisers are all harvesting gas, so maybe they have only just started Sleeper combat.

I sweep d-scan around to look for the ships. The anomalies here have already been bookmarked by the puppet, and I picked up copies from our shared can, but the battlecruisers aren't in any of them. The ships are at a bookmarked location, though, the exit wormhole to high-sec. Perhaps this system has attracted tourists too, and a refresh of d-scan sees a Broadsword accompanying the battlecruisers. This is no Sleeper combat fleet, the presence of the heavy interdictor is to trap pilots and their pods.

Setting up camp with a HIC on a wormhole leading to high-sec empire space is an odd choice. Anyone jumping in can simply jump right back out again, without any real threat. The only way this fleet will trap any ships effectively would be if the HIC's warp bubble pulls up short any ship warping to the wormhole. I explore the C3 and find the local tower, making a note of the corporation, then warp to the wormhole. Sure enough, I get dragged in to the Broadsword's bubble, but it is a simple matter to back off safely when in a cloaked ship like my stealth bomber. Unsurprisingly, the pilots in the fleet do not belong to the local corporation, and the tower is out of d-scan range of the wormhole, making the bubble potentially deadly.

I continue backing away from the wormhole, and the fleet, and make a new bookmark a good distance away, which should let me warp here without getting caught in the bubble. Now to work out what to do. I consider bringing my Widow black ops ship in, to warp it to my safe bookmark near the wormhole and cloak, just to see what the fleet will do. But Fin's not happy with that idea, preferring to let the pilots get bored and wander off on their own, and she has a point. Moreover, if the fleet sees my Widow and guess where I came from they could easily move their operation to catch me going home, which will only trap me in the C3 and doesn't improve Fin's chances of getting home. Instead, I simply monitor the fleet's activity, as Fin brings the Orca through empire space, jump by jump closer to home.

The hostile fleet has either been here for a while or they get bored quickly. It doesn't take long for the battlecruisers and heavy interdictor to warp away from the exit to high-sec, seeing from d-scan that they warp to a K162 coming from class 5 w-space. I follow behind them, at range, not making it to the wormhole before they leave the system. I see no point in following behind them, as I would rather they continue to think that there is no activity in the w-space constellation, warping home to get a support ship for the Orca. Rather than refit the stealth bomber I swap in to my Buzzard covert operations boat and bring its fitted webber on-line, heading back to the C3 in order to help Fin's Orca when she arrives.

The C3 continues to look empty, and warping to the exit wormhole to high-sec sees no ships. I maintain a little distance for now, in case the fleet returns, but all I see is a shuttle appear on d-scan, bearing the name of the Broadsword pilot. 'I do not understand this tactic', quips Fin. The shuttle drops out of warp at the wormhole and jumps to empire space, the pilot perhaps going to collect a ship and preferring travel in a shuttle to a bare pod, which seems like the best evidence that his fleet has disbanded for the time being. It seems that Fin will have a smooth journey through the C3 to get home after all.

We aren't going to take any chances getting the Orca home safely. Rather than warp directly to the wormhole, Fin gets within d-scan range and checks that there are no ships on the high-sec side of the connection first. There's a little moment when neither of us knows what kind of ship an infiltrator is—it's actually a drone—but soon enough Fin's Orca is jumping in to the C3. I push my Buzzard closer to the wormhole and decloak in preparation and, when the Orca appears, lock on to Fin's ship and activate the web.

Reducing the maximum velocity of the ship with a web only reduces the current velocity if the current velocity is greater than the new maximum. Otherwise, the current velocity merely becomes a significantly higher percentage of the maximum velocity. And as a ship enters warp when it is aligned and reaches three-quarters the maximum velocity, timing the webbing of a ship right slingshots it in to warp much quicker than it could achieve normally, particularly if the ship is a lumbering mass like the Orca. Fin zooms away from the wormhole towards our K162, and I follow behind, having aligned myself whilst webbing. We both jump and I slingshot the Orca towards our tower, getting us back safely with no ships seen during the short w-space trip. 'It feels so good to be home.'

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Tags: broadsword, buzzard, drake, eve online, hurricane, iteron, manticore, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

Scouting stalls

Operation Recover Fin moves on to its third attempt. There is a slight delay as I have to wait for a wormhole to collapse, yesterday's foray in to class 3 w-space being late enough for the static wormhole to linger in to the early afternoon, but it gives me an opportunity to ignore all the signatures in the sytem in preparation. As I pace around my cockpit impatiently I occasionally hit the scan button to get an update from my probes, even though I can see the static wormhole a few dozen kilometres in front of me. One such impromptu scan reveals a new signature which, if a wormhole, must be a K162 for it to have appeared before the current static connection dies.

I resolve the signature and, seeing that it is indeed a wormhole, I warp back to our tower to swap the Buzzard covert operations boat for my Malediction interceptor, zipping off towards the newly scanned connection in the hopes of ambushing a scout. But I don't find a K162, just the C247 designation of our static wormhole. I suppose I was looking at an echo just now, warping back to see that, yes, the previous wormhole is now no longer. I return to the tower and swap ships back, taking my Buzzard through the wormhole in to the neighbouring system, to look for an exit to k-space.

Or maybe I'll get my interceptor again. I'm not feeling particularly capricious, but my directional scanner shows me several core probes in the C3, a quick adjustment putting all of them within 4 AU of our K162. It is flimsy evidence of probe convergence, but if there is a chance a scout in this C3 may be heading my way I would quite like to meet him. I wait until I can jump back home, then break my cloak and do so. I swap boats again, taking my Malediction to sit on our side of the static wormhole to the C3.

I wait for a little while, wondering if the scout will obligingly jump through the wormhole or simply make a note of the wormhole and go home, my question answered when the wormhole flares! I get my weapon systems hot and wait for the ship to appear, understanding that any sensible pilot will at least wait for the session change timer to end. It doesn't take long for the Helios cov-ops boat to finally reveal itself, and as fast as my interceptor's systems are I cannot lock on to a ship jumping back through a wormhole.

There aren't many options a pilot can take to escape. He can either try to warp away, jump through the connection, or stay and fight. I was expecting one of the first two and am fully ready to follow the Helios back in to the C3. I break my cloak at the earliest opportunity on the other side of the wormhole, so that I can fire up my weapon systems again. The Helios now can only warp away or fight, as his ship is polarised from the recent transit, and he unsurprisingly tries to flee. What surprises me is that I don't need to bump his ship to decloak him, gaining a positive lock immediately. That's fine by me, and I start firing rockets towards my target.

The Malediction is more of a tackler than fit for damage, but even a few rocket launchers are more than a match for a fragile cov-ops. The Helios explodes in a beautiful fireball, ejecting the pilot's pod in to space. I try to lock the pod too, thinking it easy, but it warps away in a flash. Maybe I should have bumped the ship at speed to disrupt the alignment at the moment of destruction. But missing the pod is okay, I've popped the ship. I loot the wreck, grabbing the cov-ops cloak, but can't take it all. I leave the warp core stabiliser behind, as well as some standard ammunition, and destroy it along with the wreck. D-scan looks clear again, and I jump home.

It looks like the Helios had fitted two warp core stabilisers, and may well have been relying on them to evade unwanted attention. It's a shame, for him at least, that I put the full force of my interceptor's warp disruption and warp scrambler modules on his ship, crushing his engine's warp strength. And this isn't the first time I have overwhelmed a ship's boosted warp strength to the bemusement of the owner.

It's odd that the Helios didn't try his luck getting away on our side of the wormhole, though. Of course, he probably thought that he'd need to get past me again anyway, on his way back, but it makes sense to try. First, it's good practice in evading an interceptor. Second, if you fail you can jump back as you initially planned. Third, if you manage to get away, you have the option to wait for at least a few minutes before coming back so that, fourth, on your way back you again get two attempts to escape the interceptor, even if the second then puts you back on the wrong side. It's all about survival. But it's probably more odd that the Helios didn't even unleash his Hobgoblin II drone on me.

I swap boats again, back to the Buzzard, to finally scan the C3 for an exit. I was looking to bring Fin home, I haven't forgotten. There is no one waiting on the other side of the wormhole, and no change on my directional scanner. I omitted mentioning earlier that a tower is visible on d-scan from the wormhole and I only mention it now because something is missing. I don't see the pilot's pod, nor did I see it before I jumped out of the system. I don't think the Helios pilot is local to this C3.

I've been in this system before, but it's all change. One tower in my notes is gone, the other off-line, and a new one has been anchored and brought on-line, but it has been six months since I last paid a visit. I update my records, notice that the system holds an exit to null-sec k-space, and only launch probes to scan because I want to see where the Helios came from. I indeed find a K162 leading back to class 4 w-space, but I leave it alone. Either the pilot is planning his own ambush, or he won't come out to play again for a while. Besides which, none of this gets me closer to getting Fin back. I return home and, with the help of a puppet, collapse our static wormhole to start anew. But before I scan a second time I need to take a break.

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Tags: buzzard, eve online, helios, malediction, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, w-space

Looking for a better exit

The collapse of our static wormhole is imminent. I have the luxury of being able to scan the home system and ignore all signatures, which will let me isolate the next wormhole easily. The Orca industrial command ship comes home, the connection closes, and I start scanning for the one new signature. Instead I find four. I scratch my head for a while, wondering how it is possible for four new sites or wormholes to appear in the space of a minute, until I realise my mistake. My probes were spread thinly, to cover the entire system, and three signatures were only resolved to spheres, not being picked up by enough scanning probes. Instead of selecting all the signatures in order to ignore them I simply assumed that they were all automatically selected, leading to the few left behind. It is trivial to work out which are bookmarked sites and which is the wormhole, though, and I am soon jumping in to another neighbouring class 3 w-space system.

This is interesting. I am seeing some Sleeper wrecks on my directional scanner in the C3, but no ships. Maybe the anomaly has been cleared and a salvager is due to warp in. I start a passive scan of my surroundings, not wanting to launch probes in case a ship warps in and sees them, whilst spinning d-scan around to find the approximate location of the wrecks. My scanner finds a few anomalies, but none of them contain wrecks. Checking my notes quickly puts me in this system a month ago, and I have the location of a tower but not the status of the static wormole. Warping to the tower finds nothing, though, and exploring the system thoroughly finds no towers and no ships, which is curious. Some pilot must have caused the Sleeper wrecks.

I launch probes and begin to scan, picking up seventeen anomalies in total, along with a bunch of signatures. None of the anomalies hold wrecks, and there is still no sign of ships. It looks like someone may have been chased out of their Sleeper combat. I resolve a wormhole, a K162 from class 4 w-space perhaps explaining how the wrecks were made, but I have more to find in this C3. A second wormhole is a second K162, this one from a C3. I suppose one fleet came from the C4, a second from the C3, and one interrupted the other. But I still haven't found this system's static wormhole, and still don't when the third wormhole found is a T405 outbound connection to class 4 w-space. Dammit, I'm looking for a way out, I don't have time to explore!

The fourth wormhole I resolve in the C3 is a rather weak signature, making me think that it will be a static exit to null-sec space, and it is. That doesn't really help with getting Fin home in a fuel-filled Orca industrial command ship, but at least there is a second C3 to explore, which itself will have an exit to find. Jumping through the K162 in to the C3 sees core scanning probes and an off-line tower on d-scan. I ignore the minor activity and focus on scanning an exit, launching probes and blanketing the system. Two anomalies, six signatures, and one ship are returned on the first scan, and my notes have me here only two weeks ago. This is the system of my failed assault on a gas harvesting Thorax, and although the locals may not be too pleased to see me again it doesn't look like any are around to care. The single ship is an unpiloted Iteron hauler at the tower, making it quiet here apart from the inferred presence of the other scout.

I resolve a wormhole quickly, and even though it is a K162 it comes from low-sec empire space and at least gives another option. A second wormhole is a K162 from null-sec space, and not useful. The third wormhole I find is the system's static exit to low-sec, but the link is reaching the end of its natural lifetime, making it unreliable. At least there is one stable exit to empire space, and jumping out even puts me in Caldari space, six hops from Jita no less. It's a shame, then, that Fin became stranded on the other side of the galaxy. The journey is too far to travel at this late hour, and it looks like Fin will spend another night in a space station instead of floating in space.

It's time for me to get some shut-eye too, but my curiosity compels me to at least poke my nose through the other resolved wormholes. The T405 leads me to another system I've visited before, the occupants having moved out at some point in the last eight months, leaving the C4 empty and inactive. Back to the C3 and through the K162 to the other C4 finds a tower but no ships, although the tower isn't where I expect it to be. This is my third time here, a system I apparently visit at six month intervals, and I take a moment to note the location of the new occupants' tower and see the previous tower where I expect it to be, still anchored but off-line. It's good in a way that no one is around. Without thinking I am missing an opportunity to hunt I head home and get some sleep.

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

Looking for an exit

Fin's got herself stranded in empire space. At least she also potentially stranded some high-sec tourists, who were threatening the return of her Orca industrial command ship laden with fuel. Jumping back out to empire space and collapsing the wormhole behind her, Fin decided being stuck in high-sec was better than being dead, which the battlecruisers, cruisers, and destroyers locking and disrupting the Orca were looking to achieve. However it happened, though, it's up to me to get Fin home. Resolving a wormhole in our home system seems like a good start, until warping to it finds it to be a K162 from another class 4 system. A bit more scanning is needed to find our static connection.

The C4 holds promise of activity, but the C3 is my first choice of destination. The C3 will lead to an exit to k-space, potentially bringing Fin home, and the capsuleers from the C4 also may have passed through our system to the C3, which it would be prudent to find out. My directional scanner shows no signs of activity when I enter our neighbouring w-space system, though, and a blanket scan reveals no ships in the system. I find a tower, on-line but empty, and monitor it as I resolve the six signatures that are present along with three anomalies. At least scanning this C3 should be quick.

I resolve the system's static wormhole, which goes with the general C3 trend to be an exit to low-sec empire space, but otherwise there is just gas to be found. I jump out to low-sec to get the exit system, turning up in the Derelik region and many hops from anywhere. Actually, the low-sec system is just far from my assets, which are clumped around Caldari and Amarr space, as there seems to be a minor market hub a mere eight jumps away. I could use a couple of different rigs to modify my new ship's fitting and make a detour to buy and collect a pair.

On my return to the wormhole I drop out of warp a little short, so that I don't automatically decloak. It's good that I do, because a Buzzard covert operations boat is lurking on the low-sec side of the link to w-space. He sits there for a short while before jumping in to the C3, making me think he is a scout from w-space noting the exit system himself. I wait a minute and follow in behind, hoping the pilot has warped clear of the wormhole to give me an unnoticed entrance. The C3 looks clear and I pay the Buzzard's appearance no mind, heading home and dropping off the rigs at our tower. D-scan stays clear and I don't see the Buzzard again.

I haven't checked the incoming connection from the C4 yet. I swap my cov-ops scanning boat for a Manticore stealth bomber, looking for a simple roam rather than an involved scout, and warp to the K162. Jumping through to the C4 gives me a curious sight on d-scan, there being only a single planet and a Buzzard visible. There is no tower and the Buzzard isn't at the wormhole, and as it can warp cloaked I can't really say why I can see it. I am about to warp to the planet to see if I can catch a careless capsuleer when the cov-ops boat lands a little distance from the wormhole. I am quite taken off my guard, unsure whether to engage or monitor, but d-scan remains clear apart from the planet and Buzzard.

The Buzzard jumps, heading to our home system. I snap out of my reverie and follow to give chase. I try to get a lock on the K162 side but the Buzzard warps. I surge my ship towards our static wormhole, being the most reasonable path for a fleeing capsuleer to take, dropping out of warp to see him jump through to the C3, which I also do a second later. I am a split-second from locking the Buzzard and disrupting its warp engines on our K162, but push on to chase him to the exit to low-sec, where again we both jump and I try to snare him. The Buzzard pilot is quicker this time, warping away safely to a stargate before I can get a lock. I just watch him go and loiter on the wormhole for a while.

I head back to w-space and all the way to the C4 connecting to ours, ready to take a proper look around. I locate a tower, with several ships inside its shields, three of them piloted, but I may have tipped my hand in chasing the Buzzard. I suppose it depends where the Buzzard came from, but if he was a low-sec tourist he certainly got to the second C4 quickly enough. My guess is that he is local to this w-space system and he has had time to warn his colleagues of my presence. I leave the C4 behind as Fin turns up, hoping to be rescued from the over-population of empire space but finding the current route home to be less than desirable. With help from a puppet our static wormhole is collapsed, presumably with the chased Buzzard now himself isolated. Now I can start again.

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