Scanning from a class 5 w-space home

Our longer-living static wormhole is dead. The connection in our new class 5 w-space home lasts for twenty-four hours instead of the sixteen of our C4 home, which is taking a little getting used to. But now that it has gone I have an opportunity to get a feel for scanning our C5. I had a good rhythm in the class 4 system, knowing where to position my probes and what strength the wormhole tended to be, and now I hope to extend my experience in to this C5 too. The system is compact enough not to need too much fiddling with probes, and when I find the static wormhole it starts as a familiarly strengthed signature. Scanning promises to be straightforward here.

I jump in to the neighbouring C5 to see an unusual sight, a territorial claim unit appearing on the overview. Checking my directional scanner sees a tower but no ships, and locating the tower finds the TCU here too. I don't really know what purpose the TCU is achieving here, as it isn't bubbled or acting as bait in another way, but it's not causing any problems for me either. I warp away from the tower to launch probes, and start scanning. There are lots of signatures to work through in this system and picking one that looks like the K162 home finds me the static wormhole on my first attempt. I warp to the connection to see a festering blister throbbing a deep red, indicating passage to deadly class 6 w-space.

Wormholes to C6 w-space may look more threatening than lower class connections but they don't particularly worry me any more. My concern for this wormhole is not its destination but its size, looking rather smaller than expected. I check the information for the wormhole and find that my concern is well-grounded, the mass of the wormhole reduced to the point where the connection is on the verge of collapse. Not much more mass can pass through before the wormhole implodes. I am only in a tiny ship, though, and venture through, finding an unoccupied system. The lack of locals suggests perhaps that the C5 occupants tried to collapse the wormhole and failed, not continuing for fear of getting a pilot isolated.

I return through the critically unstable wormhole to the C5. There wasn't much point continuing past this system anyway, the wormhole limiting what ships could pass through for passage to any potential exit or to engage possible targets. I jumped partly out of curiosity as to what was on the other side, and with the slim hope that the return trip of my Buzzard covert operations boat would perhaps be enough to kill the wormhole. But it wasn't. I don't want to make any more round trips through the wormhole to quicken its demise, which leaves nowhere else to explore, despite a colleague finding an incoming connection to our home C5. He jumps through the K162 in to a class 2 system only to find it holds static connections to null-sec k-space and a C5, which today is us. With no more w-space to explore, and no targets to hassle, I head home to rest.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Scanning from a class 5 w-space home
Tags: buzzard, eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

In space, no one can hear me sulk

Another day, another chance to explore w-space. I copy the available bookmarks in our shared can and warp to the static wormhole in my Buzzard covert operations boat. Jumping in to the connecting class 5 w-space system lets me revisit a system I was in only a month ago and it remains unoccupied, so I warp to the next bookmarked wormhole. The static connection sends me to another C5 I've visited before, this time only two weeks ago, where I saw a fleet destroying a tower. The tower's gone now, of course, and the system is empty and inactive.

I jump through the system's static wormhole to another class 5 system, again unoccupied and inactive, my only option to continue being through a connection to yet another C5. The position of a couple of towers is bookmarked and I visit them, finding the second bookmark to be of an off-line tower. But I find two on-line towers anyway, as well as a lack of ships and activity. There are no more connections already scanned and my notes from my last visit indicate I would be looking for a class 6 system, which makes exploration prospects rather bleak. I head back home for now to take a break, hoping maybe a fleet will form later.

A fleet indeed starts to take shape. Now that most of our ships are back in w-space the alliance is looking to exploit our new home system's indigenous Sleepers for profit, and with a new carrier available the aim is to experience a capital escalation in one of the sites. I pilot a Scorpion battleship and check its systems, noting that the ship is unrigged at the moment. I am not the only capsuleer in a Scorpion either, as a second one is joining us for more ECM support against an expected stronger Sleeper resistance. Our twin Guardian logistic ships are joined by a Machariel and Megathron battleship, and the Thanatos carrier, where each pilot takes time to check the fittings and configurations of the ships after their transportation.

More pilots arrive and a third Scorpion joins the fleet, as does a Golem marauder and Raven battleship, with a capsuleer also preparing a Myrmidon battlecruiser to act as tonight's salvager. It looks like the fleet is finally ready, missing a few rigs here and there, and perhaps having slightly sub-optimal fittings as everyone clamours to get the most appropriate modules out of the corporate hangar, but we're ready to warp out. Except I don't, having been put in the wing commander position so that we have a legitimate fleet to enable leadership boosting, our normal squad leader lacking the skill training to handle a fleet larger than normal. I naturally don't get the squad commander's group warp command and sit like a pudding at the tower waiting to be told when the fleet is in the anomaly.

The command to join the fleet comes late, much later than expected. It seems that most people are using voice communications, a mandatory requirement for the allied corporation but not for our own, which causes problems. At least, it causes problems for me, as I am not a fan of voice comms. I don't hear any commands, don't get directions, and, in short, don't know what's going on. If I'm lucky I get second-hand information after it has been decided, and I'm not in the mood for this. I warp back to the tower, rather petulantly.

Sulking at the tower, I see that the capital escalation perhaps didn't work out too well, watching the pods of three of the battleship pilots return, and then a fourth. Capsuleers smarter than me are probably discussing what went wrong and how to fix it, but I hear none of it. And I'm not sure if leaving the fleet saved the corporation a battleship, or if the lack of my ECM caused the destruction of four. Either way, it has not been a positive introduction to regular class 5 w-space system Sleeper combat.

Posted in Gaming | 4 Comments »
Tags: buzzard, eve online, golem, guardian, machariel, megathron, mmorpg, myrmidon, penny ibramovic, raven, scanning, scorpion, thanatos, w-space

My first battleship

Fortune smiles on us. A route to empire space is found right on our door-step, a K162 found in our system that connects us to high-sec space, and the exit system is only four hops from Jita. I have a plan for bringing my ships back in to w-space, but having the wormhole bridging empire space and our home system directly makes it obsolete. I can simply send my pod out and pilot ships back, just as other corporate colleagues are doing, without a concern for w-space ambushes. I get nekkid and make my first jump through the wormhole to high-sec empire space.

The first ship to collect is my Falcon recon ship, if only because it is the closest, only a few jumps away. I already brought in my Crane transport ship, which was the only other ship I got in to that station before the exit wormhole I was using collapsed. Another station holds more of my ships nine jumps away, which is a reasonable journey to make. My route also passes through Jita itself, heart of all trade in the known galaxy, and I am tempted to treat myself to my new expensive and useless toy. But I must focus on the task at hand. My Falcon is brought back and I stow it to get naked again, heading out for my next trip.

Nine jumps through Caldari space gets me a Guardian logistics ship, which I consider to be rather important for out continued Sleeper operations, and a second round-trip brings back the Bustard, pausing briefly in Jita to fill the transport ship with some consumables. I am a little bemused to see the Caldari Concord cops sitting on the high-sec side of the wormhole home, until I find out that one of our allies is wanted and they followed him there. The space police are only after their man and aren't causing any trouble otherwise. I also notice that the wormhole has now had enough ships pass through it to drop its mass allowance by half, which I take as a sign to get my new ship whilst I am conveniently close to Jita.

I park the Bustard and once again warp around with my pod showing. I make the few short hops to Jita, traffic control remarkably responsive even with over a thousand pilots in the system, and dock to see my ship waiting for me. I couldn't resist. As I was making the jumps to and from the other stations I had the market window open and was buying the ship and fittings as I travelled, multi-tasking my way across the region. Now all I have to do is assemble and fit what is effectively my first battleship, a richly satisfying process that ends with me slipping my pod in to the black ops Widow.

I give my Widow the name Neko Ninja and launch it for its maiden voyage, revelling in simply flying this gorgeous craft. I have to wonder how often I'll actually get to pilot the Widow for more than space displays, but I had the iskies and motivation to get the skills, so here I am. The first flight isn't long, though, as I still have other, more useful ships sitting in empire storage that can be moved to our new class 5 w-space home, and I simply take the Widow back to the wormhole, jump, and warp to the tower, where I park it with little ceremony in a ship maintenance array. I take a little time to marvel at how good the light of the C5's star makes the Widow look, though.

Back to the task at hand, I return to empire space and make the nine jump journey to the station where my Tengu strategic cruiser waits patiently. I realise on the trip home that the Tengu is another gorgeous ship, which is handy as it really helps make bearable the montonous system jumps, as I spin my view and ogle the engineering magnificence of the ships. The Tengu returns at the same time as a corporate freighter enters the high-sec exit system, dropping off a whole bunch of ships in the station there. I split my time between picking up my own ships, from nine jumps away, and those from the freighter drop. I bring another Guardian in, along with a Basilisk logistics ship which only I am able to pilot out of the currently available pilots.

The freighter brings my Cormorant destroyer salvaging ship too, in which I stuff a Zephyr prototype scanning boat to save a journey. I also need to watch polarisation effects, as docking, boarding, and returning can make the jumps through the wormhole close enough together to polarise my pod, which happens once. Making my way to the station nine jumps distant doesn't carry that concern, though, and I am able to make two more trips there to bring back my Sacrilege heavy assault ship and Onyx heavy interdictor. And that's it for now.

My Curse recon ship and Damnation command ship are eighteen jumps away, and perhaps a better exit will present itself soon. The majority of my ships are now in our new home—the smaller-hulled interceptor, stealth bomber, and assault frigate returned inside an Orca industrial command ship—along with some good utility ships. And as most other pilots have their combat and utility ships brought in too, it looks like today's lucky connection will see us begin to be productive in our new home.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on My first battleship
Tags: basilisk, bustard, cormorant, curse, damnation, eve online, falcon, guardian, jita, mmorpg, onyx, orca, penny ibramovic, sacrilege, tengu, w-space, widow, zephyr

Second-day frustrations

A new day brings a new constellation to explore, and with it new hope. The bookmarks in our shared can look current, and there are no notes about unstable wormholes. I copy them to my nav-comp and take my Buzzard covert operations boat out to reconnoitre the connecting systems, and maybe see if there is a convenient exit to empire space. Jumping in to our neighbouring class 5 w-space system finds both occupation and activity. A tower is bookmarked at one moon, another off-line tower noted elsewhere, but it is the ships and Sleeper wrecks on my directional scanner that grab my attention.

There is a piloted Catalyst destroyer sitting inside the shields at the on-line tower, and checking d-scan from that position suggests that a Thanatos carrier is fighting Sleepers with three battleships, a Megathron, Apocalypse, and Typhoon. There is no way I can engage that fleet, at least not on my own, but the Catalyst will perhaps salvage behind the combat ships, making it a suitable target for a stealth bomber. I first need to find the site where the ships are fighting, but that should be easy enough.

The wormhole I used to enter the system is out of d-scan range of the tower and fleet, letting me warp back there to drop a few scanning probes. I adjust their range to maximum and position them carefully around the system, providing full coverage of celestial bodies without putting any of the probes within d-scan range of the ships. I start the scan and only have to wait a few seconds before all the anomalies in the system reveal themselves, at which point a narrow d-scan beam easily locates the anomaly the fleet is fighting in.

I warp to the anomaly, thankfully not decloaking on any structures or ships, and survey the situation. The ships are still fighting the Sleepers and there are enough wrecks to bookmark a few for reference. I check the bearing from the wormhole to make sure I know which direction I'll be approaching from, then warp back home to change ships, having already alerted colleagues about the targets. 'Please do not engage', I am told in return.

An ally wants to bring in his own carrier and doesn't want to attract any unnecessary attention before it is safely in our home system. That's fair enough, particularly as moving in to the C5 is meant to provide a good opportunity for pilots to fly capital ships, even if it leaves me a little frustrated. I abandon the hunt and, with nothing really to do, go off-line to read a book.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Second-day frustrations
Tags: apocalypse, buzzard, catalyst, eve online, megathron, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, thanatos, typhoon, w-space

First-day frustrations

Holy crap, that looks complicated. I was warned that moving to live in a class 5 w-space system with a static connection to another C5 would put us further from potential exits, but finding thirty-one bookmarks waiting in our shared can is quite daunting, if only because copying bookmarks is still quite a hassle.

I drag all thirty-one bookmarks to my cargo hold, then to my nav-comp—watching each one slowly register in my systems—and copy them back the maximum five at a time to my cargo hold to return the lot to the shared can. It's quite a palaver. With so many connections found I feel confident in leaving the Buzzard covert operations boat behind and taking my Manticore stealth bomber out for a roam instead.

Warping to our static wormhole ends my exploration early. The connection is reaching the end of its natural lifetime, wobbly at the knees with old age. I suppose it saves me some hassle in working out which direction to turn and what wormholes connect to which systems, but it does rather leave me with little to do. My ships mostly remain in high-sec empire space, waiting for a decent connection for them to be recovered, as is the case for other corporation pilots, giving us no opportunity to engage the more challenging Sleepers lurking in the anomalies here in our new home system.

Even with only an hour left before the static wormhole in our system is due to collapse I don't feel like waiting. Nor do I feel like risking the connection to jump through, never quite certain about the lifespan of wormholes in their death throes. I don't even have a mining barge so I can pretend to be productive in a gravimetric site. I power my systems down and assure myself it is just teething problems after the first day of moving. Activity will pick up again.

Posted in Gaming | 3 Comments »
Tags: buzzard, eve online, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, w-space

Settling in a C5

I wake up in my Buzzard in empty space, the comforting embrace of a tower's force field no longer present. It doesn't take long to find out the cause: the move to the class 5 w-space system is happening. The corporation had found a suitable C5 previously and parked a patient pilot in the system in preparation, so he could scan us a way in when we were ready, but now we stumble across a similar system in our scheduled scanning. It is more convenient to move across w-space systems than haul everything out to empire space and back in again, and so it has begun. Other corporate directors have torn down the tower and transferred it to the new home in class 5 w-space, keeping the connections to our vacated class 4 system open to guide pilots through as they appear.

Glorious leader Fin returns from the new system to guide me towards it, speedily crossing two intermediate class 4 systems before jumping in to the C5. The warmth of C4 space is exchanged for harsh C5 light, the star's glare piercing through the cold black of space. Our tower has an amazing view, though, floating above a giant planet's rings. It looks like a good place to call 'home', just me, my Buzzard, and some random weirdos picked up along the way. Another one is ready to join us from the now-empty C4, Fin telling her to 'turn out the lights when you leave', although halting all nuclear reaction in the old system's star seems rather drastic to me.

Pilots have been busy. The tower is anchored and on-line, defences are being moved in to position, and a couple of hangars have been erected to store ships, fittings, and other assets. But there is more to do, mostly involving retrieving everything recently transported out to empire space. I have at least all my ships to recover and return to w-space. There is a route to empire space, and although it's only to a low-sec system it is close enough to high-sec to allow relatively safe passage in and out of w-space. I copy the bookmarks across to my nav-comp, stow my Buzzard covert operations boat, and take my pod for a spin.

The exit to empire space takes me to a notorious low-sec system. I should be safe, however, if the Amamake Defence Force is patrolling, but I have not heard of any successes of theirs for a while. But it's fine, I get to high-sec without any trouble, no doubt the ADF deterring most local pirates. Checking my assets tab shows a different problem, that of my nearest ship to recover being over twenty jumps away. Twenty jumps out means twenty jumps back, and many ships can be rather slow to align and enter warp. My sleek Crane transport ship is thirty jumps away, but its utility can come in handy more obviously than any single combat ship and it can travel long distances with ease. I set the destination system and start making the journey.

Getting to the Crane is simple enough, if a little tedious, and I am soon flying back. My navigation settings now guide me the shortest route home, which takes me on a low-sec diversion but chops a dozen hops out of the journey. It may be a bit of a trek but spending time in the Crane reminds me what a gorgeous ship it is, spinning on its axis and entering warp as if space itself was collapsing in to a black hole behind me. The return home is effortless, slipping quietly through each system until I am back in w-space, relishing each movement of the Crane. But coming home was still another twenty jumps I made, and that is enough for me this evening. Hopefully a more convenient exit connection will appear tomorrow, to enable more ships to be brought in and w-space operations to begin in our new class 5 home.

Posted in Gaming | 3 Comments »
Tags: amamake, buzzard, crane, eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, w-space

Taking down the tower

The tower is coming down. Peacefully, though. Most of our ships and other assets are already in empire space, now it is time to start unanchoring defences and modules, shipping them out of w-space in to temporary storage. My Crane transport ship is already sitting in a station somewhere in The Forge but the corporation's Bustard transport ship remains, and I use that to scoop some unanchored defences. I have shot a few ships performing a similar service before and I try to learn from their mistakes. I bookmark the location of the defences, and warp to the planet and back instead of slowly crawling out of the shields under normal power. Once at the defences I scoop them and warp out, returning to again sit inside the shields. There is no drama.

We have a route to high-sec empire space scanned, taking us through three intermediate w-space systems, and a Buzzard covert operations boat is seen lurking near the exit wormhole. A single scanning boat may be no threat but we aren't going to take silly chances. I board my Malediction interceptor and head out to loiter on the wormhole where the Buzzard was seen, hoping to deter or repel any incursions. But no ships are seen, and my time can now be better spent taking the remaining assets out to empire space.

I drop the Malediction off at the tower, its small hull suitable to be hauled inside the hangar of an Orca, and move my few remaining ships to a space station. My Tengu strategic cruiser, Onyx heavy interdictor, and Sacrilege heavy assault ship all reach empire space without a problem, my bare pod coming back the same way. But when I pilot the Bustard out, laden with tower defences and some planet goo, an unfamiliar Tengu waits for me on the wormhole to high-sec. It's no problem for my exit, as I can simply jump in to Concord-policed space, but it is still a threat.

The inhabitants of the class 2 w-space system we've been using as a thoroughfare must have woken up. A Hurricane battlecruiser warps to the wormhole as well, joining the Tengu, but they seem to bore easily, warping away after a few minutes. I take my pod back through the wormhole to find a Tempest battleship now holding station, which I evade easily, but a scout reports that it jumps through the wormhole and returns. Maybe the inhabitants want to collapse the connection to prevent our passage. Getting in and out, even with ships on the wormhole, should still be relatively easy, as jumping out is simple and returning in a pod will only be a problem if a warp bubble is present, which one isn't. But taking a Guardian logistics ship out shows me a third issue, that of the wormhole shifting.

It is possible to move wormholes, a little bit at a time. The nav-comp can get a ship close enough to a wormhole to register zero separation but will keep its distance from the actual centre. But a pilot can manoeuvre her ship to sit directly on the centre of the anomaly. After a short while the wormhole will reject the stationary mass and quietly shift in space, and this can be repeated. It is possible that the C2 capsuleers are exploiting this phenomenon to confuse our bookmarks. I drop out of warp in the Guardian not at zero metres but five kilometres from the wormhole. I only have to move a little to jump, but any further and the Tempest waiting there could have got a few shots off. It also seems like a long way to have moved the wormhole manually, and maybe they have found a more efficient way.

The Guardian is the last ship I have to move, and taking my pod back to the tower is straightforward. All I have left is my Buzzard covert operations boat and I will keep that in the system for now, as it keeps me in the system. It's a shame I have just moved out all my combat ships as a colleague is kicking off a fight at the high-sec wormhole, engaging a Brutix battlecruiser that is now there. The fight starts well but it seems the Brutix is acting as a sacrifice, as the dreaded heavy interdictor appears, an Onyx inflating its warp bubble across the wormhole.

More of our pilots go out to have a bit of a scrap and an energy neutralising Armageddon battleship is destroyed, but we lose a Vagabond cruiser. The pilot too is lost, waking up in a new clone, a victim of the warp bubble preventing easy escape. An Iteron hauler of ours is lost as well, but not carrying anything important, and the fall of the ships seems to signal the end of the encounter, the locals warping away. And whilst we have control of the wormhole we rush our Orca industrial command ships out to empire space, full of ships and assets that we'd rather not lose. One Orca pilot not having the updated bookmark to the shifted exit wormhole causes a bit of excitement, landing a bit too far to jump out immediately, but ultimately no danger, getting to empire space safely to end a productive evening.

Posted in Gaming | 6 Comments »
Tags: armageddon, brutix, bustard, buzzard, crane, eve online, guardian, hurricane, iteron, malediction, mmorpg, onyx, orca, penny ibramovic, pvp, sacrilege, tempest, tengu, the forge, vagabond, w-space

Baffling some battleships

Preparation for moving between w-space systems continues. We have a scanned exit to low-sec empire space available through a class 2 system, but the second static wormole in the C2 hasn't yet been found. It will head further in to w-space but that connection may present a better exit, even in to high-sec space. I take my Buzzard covert operations boat out to take a look, passing uneventfully through our neighbouring class 4 system, noting a lack of occupation but some scanning probes visible on the directional scanner. I don't know whose probes they are but I ignore them for now.

Jumping in to the C2 takes me in to a system I visited three weeks earlier. The system was unoccupied before but now some capsuleers have moved in. Only an unpiloted Heron frigate sits inside the new tower's shields, with a couple of containers floating in space outside of the shields, which seems like a stupid place to put them. No one is home, so I launch probes and begin to scan, finding mostly gravimetric sites. A second scout investigating the scanning probes seen in the C4 has more luck, resolving a new K162 wormhole in the system, coming in from another C2. He jumps through to investigate the system only to find a clump of battleships calmly waiting on the other side of the wormhole.

My colleague jumps back to the C4, leaving the Raven, Rokh, Typhoon, and three Dominix battleships, an Exequror cruiser, and Thrasher destroyer, none of them looking to follow him to engage. He thinks they are equipped to fight Sleepers, probably fitted with remote repair capabilities. And I've found the second static wormhole in the scanned class 2 system, leading to another C2. But I don't jump in yet, waiting to see if we are to pit ourselves against the battleship fleet. It isn't terribly likely, as we lack both pilots and ships in w-space because of our impending move. The battleship fleet enters the C4 and warps to a Sleeper site, which my colleague starts to scan.

The unfamiliar fleet is found in a radar site. They still appear to have a scout in the system, one who has planted scanning probes on each wormhole in the system, but despite this care the fleet hasn't fled at the sight of my colleague's probes on d-scan. Either they aren't worried about his lone Loki strategic cruiser, which they must have seen when he jumped in to their C2, or they aren't monitoring d-scan carefully, relying instead on their scout's probes to alert them to the presence of other ships. But it doesn't really matter, as without a significant fleet ourselves we can't really engage them directly, and I have jumped onwards in to the next C2.

I find an off-line tower and a lack of activity in the C2, with a wealth of signatures to scan through that an unoccupied system generally holds. Sifting through the signatures resolves a second exit to low-sec empire space and a K162 to another class 2 w-space system, but my colleague's updates on the battleship fleet gets me thinking. Maybe we can't engage the fleet directly but we could still attack their salvager. Scanning can be continued later, for now I return homewards to change ships. Passing through the C4 is straightfoward enough. Even with a scanning probe on the wormholes a Buzzard won't raise any alerts, particularly if extra probes don't. I get back to our tower where I swap the Buzzard for my Manticore stealth bomber, warping out to sit and wait on our static wormhole.

The radar site is cleared of Sleepers. Two battleships warp out, the others remain, and the Exequror and Thrasher turn up shortly. The Thrasher hacks the Sleeper databanks whilst the Exequror salvages the wrecks, my colleague watching all the while. He considers the options, noting the remaining battleships sitting some eighty kilometres away from the Exequror, further than they were shooting Sleepers. It looks like it should be safe to bomb and point the cruiser, the Loki uncloaking to add his weapons to destroy the cruiser before we warp out away from the battleships. That's the plan, now we put it in to action.

My colleague is in a good position, calling me to jump in to the system and cloak, which I do. And then I am warping to his position, and I can feel my tension rising. I am only attacking a salvager, but under the noses of four battleships. I drop out of warp as the last wreck is salvaged, only a canister remaining for the Exequror pilot to loot. I align my Manticore quickly—which is difficult in the high inertia of a black hole system—and launch a bomb. The glide path is rather skew but the cruiser pops before my first volley of torpedoes can reach it, the Loki helping with the Exequror's quick demise. The pod is ejected and I get my warp disruptor hot again, gaining a positive lock on the poor pilot's pod with a little help from a sensor booster. Siege launchers fire more torpedoes but large explosions aren't terribly effective on the tiny pod, and I only risk two volleys before warping away from the battleships.

I don't see the pod explode, but my colleague does. He stays in the site long enough to finish off the pod and declare the loot in the wreck to be 'crappy', still able to escape from the battleships afterwards. The big combat ships were outside of their optimal range and had no modules to disrupt warp drives, and our Loki was never under any real threat. But although we are both safe I want to go back for the corpse, to add it to our growing collection. It's risky for no real benefit, but I'm not too bright. I made sure I bookmarked the cruiser's wreck as I warped out of the site and it is simple to warp back to that location, dropping twenty kilometres short so that I can hold my cloak and line up to grab the corpse.

Swooping past the wreck to scoop the corspe is pretty easy, but the solid triangle on my overview of an unlooted wreck entices me to loiter, opening the wreck to find the crappy loot that my colleague left behind. I should have paid attention, particularly as my targeting systems return positive locks on the battleships who are now shooting me, preventing me from cloaking and, well, not actually damaging me. The ships are still out of their optimal range and my small signature radius is probably mitigating what little flak from the guns is reaching me. Even with the increased inertia of the black hole system I have time to align and warp away with barely any damage inflicted, and with a fresh corpse in my hold.

The engagement was odd. The fleet seemed prepared and cautious, planting a scout in the system and scanning probes on each wormhole. Yet they ignored the scanning probes not belonging to them and did not move to protect their salvager. The result is a lack of loot for them and a kill for us.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Baffling some battleships
Tags: buzzard, dominix, eve online, exequror, heron, loki, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, raven, rokh, scanning, thrasher, typhoon, w-space

Mucking around with a Mastodon

Moving homes between wormholes poses several logistical problems. Having a wormhole die of old age can be an issue, but more of a problem is stressing each connection's mass limit with the large number of ships that need to be passed through. Our neighbouring class 4 w-space system's static wormhole feels the pressure and implodes, losing us access to the class 1 system with the exit to high-sec empire space. But that's okay, the new static connection can be found, which will also lead to a C1. We just need to hope that this next C1 will have a convenient exit, and that our own static wormhole will stand the current stress for a little longer.

The C4 is scanned by a scout and the new C1 connection resolved, and when the class 1 system is scanned we do indeed get another exit to empire space. In fact, this exit takes us to a high-sec system only four jumps away from the first convenient exit we found, where I docked my Crane transport and Falcon recon ships. This new exit will make consolidating assets and retrieving ships easier, but it doesn't help with my other ships eighteen jumps away. W-space and wormholes are capricious, though, and it is just as likely that those more distant ships will be easier to retreive when the time comes to populate our chosen class 5 system, and there really is no need to worry about anything just yet.

The first ship I move is my Manticore, but I am not leaving w-space. A Mastodon transport ship is reported in the class 1 system and I get my stealth bomber there to try to cause mischief, but not quickly enough. The Mastodon warps to the exit wormhole and jumps out to high-sec. A transport ship leaving w-space generally means the same transport ship will be coming back, and I loiter on the wormhole to catch his return. In the meantime, colleagues use the connection themselves, taking ships and other assets out to store temporarily in stations. Each flare of the wormhole gets my attention and I prepare to fire, but thankfully my overview is configured not to show corporate or fleet ships and there are no accidents.

Ships going out and coming back in again form a kind of rhythm. One ship jumps out, it docks and is stowed, and a little while later a pod jumps back in. The wormhole almost has a pulse, measured in cosmological time. But I notice an irregularity to the pulse, a couple of beats occurring far too close to each other, and this arrhythmia signals a problem. I pay much more attention to the wormhole now and am rewarded with the decloaking of the returning Mastodon. I drop my cloak, and lock and point the transport ship, who, oblivious to my presence, starts to align before the session change timer ends, preventing him from jumping back through the wormhole immediately. But deep space transport ships are quite hardy and a couple of volleys of torpedoes do no significant damage to the Mastodon, and he is able to wait for the timer to expire and jump away from trouble.

A second stealth bomber arrives to help with irritating the Mastodon pilot, and we manoeuvre away from the wormhole to bombing range. Launching bombs should be pointless, as a savvy pilot will hold the session change cloak, which grants immunity from damage, and only try to move away once it is possible to jump back through the wormhole should danger present itself. And the ten-second flight time of bombs gives enough warning for even the slowest of pilots to react. But at least we can say we tried. We wait a bit longer, the Mastodon now polarised and having to wait for the charge to dissipate, but he returns a second time. The transport ship holds his session change cloak, begins to align for warp once the timer ends, and jumps back to empire space when we launch our bombs. It's all quite predictable.

What we don't predict is a Drake battlecruiser to warp from the tower in this class 1 system to the wormhole. Glorious leader Fin is quick to engage it in her Manticore and I follow, also joined in the assault by another colleague in his Loki strategic cruiser. But the Drake doesn't appear to have come to shoo us away—or if he did he doesn't expect such resistance—and merely jumps to empire space himself. A pod then jumps in and warps away, there being no point in even trying to catch one without a warp bubble, soon followed by a Ferox battlecruiser warping to the wormhole and jumping to empire space.

I have no idea what is happening, but because it looks like the capsuleers are outside of the wormhole I suggest trying to collapse it in the hopes of forcing them to return or be isolated. It's an interesting plan, but the wormhole turns out to be more massive than we realise and would take many more jumps to destabilise than is worth making. We head homewards instead, to continue our own operation. At least, some of us do. Enough ships have already passed through the connection between the C4 and C1 that it is on the verge of collapse, and although some care is taken to ensure the larger cruisers jump through last it only takes my tiny frigate-hulled Manticore to drag the wormhole to its hyperspatial doom. A Lachesis recon ship and Loki don't make it back, but at least we weren't successful in collapsing the exit to empire space and it remains available.

It's time to scan again, to find a new route to empire space to get our pilots home and continue moving assets. I board my Buzzard covert operations boat and scan our neighbouring C4, our own static wormhole still taking the strain of ships passing through. A new static wormhole to a class 1 system is quickly found and I jump in to look for an exit, but am distracted by the sight of a Hulk exhumer, mining drones, and jet-cans on my directional scanner. Getting our colleagues back to w-space can wait, but not for long. I again show some aptitude in getting a good bearing and range of the mining ship on d-scan, but again fail to translate that in to a successful placement of scanning probes.

It takes several scans to locate the gravimetric site the Hulk was in, warping to it after the drones are recalled, the Hulk has warped out, and a hauler has come and gone to collect the ore. I bookmark the site anyway, in the vain hope that the pilot alert enough to notice scanning probes on his d-scan will be paradoxically stupid enough to return to mining within a few minutes. I get back to scanning the system for wormholes, resolving an exit to low-sec empire space that our pilots can use to return home. I check the rest of the system, finding only gravimetric sites and a K162 wormhole, but I don't feel like exploring further. The hour is late, the Hulk pilot has logged off, and I need some sleep. I head home to rest.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Mucking around with a Mastodon
Tags: buzzard, crane, drake, eve online, falcon, ferox, hulk, lachesis, manticore, mastodon, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, w-space

Starting to move w-space systems

The move to a class 5 w-space system is on. We are leaving our class 4 home behind us to progress towards owning capital ships and fighting the Sleeper escalations they create, deeper w-space connections, and more dangerous neighbours. The first stage is effectively complete, a suitable C5 found with a scanning alt parked there. With director Fin giving us the nod the second stage of preparation begins, moving as much of our current configuration out to empire space as feasible. Within a couple of days a suitable exit to high-sec empire space has presented itself at the same time as I am available and I start moving some of my ships out of w-space.

I'm not one to blindly warp in to an ambush if I can help it, and I don't simply choose an arbitrary ship for my first trip. I board my Crane transport ship, stealthy, agile, and fast, and use the copied bookmarks to check the route. Our neighbouring class 4 system is occupied but appears inactive, just as the adjoining class 1 system does. There are no pilots and no warp bubbles to be seen, making the route clear. The only cause for concern is that the exit wormhole is reaching the end of its natural lifetime, and the amount of time it has left before collapsing is unknown. I jump out to high-sec, dock, and exit the Crane, taking my naked pod back to w-space and our tower.

Although the route was clear on the way back for me, a colleague returning moments later tells of a Legion strategic cruiser loitering on the K162 of our static wormhole. I imagine the Legion pilot has noticed our ship movements, taking ships out and coming back in pods, and is opportunistically looking to catch an easy kill. I can understand his motives, and I maintain that predictable behaviour such as we have displayed is fundamentally dangerous, but the Legion pilot cannot have been paying full attention, as my two colleagues have not been taking out benign haulers but mostly capable combat ships. And now we have spotted the Legion and have all three of us at the tower we conspire to turn the tables on this potential ambush.

My colleagues ready a Curse recon ship and a Vagabond cruiser, and I join them on our side of the static wormhole in my Sacrilege heavy assault ship. We're not quite sure what to expect, but we know what we can do. We jump in to the C4 and hold our session change cloak whilst we survey the grid. The Legion has dropped a warp bubble between the K162 and the next connection along the route, some twenty kilometres from the wormhole, with the strategic cruiser itself sitting beyond the bubble. It certainly looks like he is hoping to catch someone heading towards our system, but I don't think he expects what happens next.

Our ships decloak and burn towards the Legion, the Curse getting a point on the ship preventing it from warping away. We head straight towards the cruiser, burning directly through the warp bubble, and engage all our systems, neutralising the Legion's energy, disrupting its weapon tracking systems, and firing weapons. The Legion simply cannot stand the onslaught, the pilot saying a meek 'stop' in the local channel. Sadly, it looks like the bloodlust has overcome my colleagues as they don't even register his request, the Legion exploding in a gratifying fireball. The ejected pod warps away, and we collect his drones, loot and destroy the wreck, and pop the anchored warp bubble. Our path is clear again.

I take the Sacrilege back to our tower and swap it for my Falcon, choosing to take the stealthy recon ship out to high-sec next. The route is indeed clear, and I dock and disembark from the Falcon. I take my pod once more back to, um, empty space. That's odd, I am sure I left a wormhole here. But it was a static wormhole, so its disappearance only creates a new one in the C1. A colleague still in w-space takes a scanning boat to the class 1 system, finds the new wormhole, and exits to contract a copy of the new bookmarks to me, eighteen jumps away. I'd better get started. All the systems along the route may be high-sec space but I still won't use my auto-pilot, I'm no stinkin' empire jockey.

The journey is uneventful and I am soon docking. The insurance company's normally useless Ibis frigate left for me, for docking in a pod with no other ships in the station, is actually useful, as it lets me copy the bookmarks in to my nav-comp system. The bookmark system is sufficiently arcane that any bookmarks must be copied first to a cargo hold before the nav-comp, and a pod doesn't have a functional cargo hold. The Ibis's purpose complete, I trash it, taking my naked pod to the new entrance to the class 1 w-space system and returning to our tower. The route remains clear and I return to moving ships.

My Damnation command ship is next to be taken out to empire space, docked in the exit system, now giving me ships eighteen jumps apart that I will soon have to get back in to another system. It will only be an incovenience the once, though, and I will cope. I go back to w-space for my Retriever mining barge, which soon joins the Damnation docked in the station. I'm led to understand that many cheap ships will be destroyed in w-space and bought anew rather than troubling us with moving their bulky hulls around, but I want to keep my barge as it has sentimental value to me. One last trip for now gets my Curse in to empire space and my pod back to our tower.

I still have a handful of ships at our tower. The smaller ships, like my Vengeance assault ship and Malediction interceptor, will be carried out along with others in an Orca industrial command ship. My Tengu strategic cruiser can still be used for any impromptu Sleeper operations, and the Onyx heavy interdictor and Sacrilege may be useful to have around for PvP encounters. They can be taken out last. I board my Buzzard covert operations scanning boat to sleep in, a habit I've picked up in w-space just in case something goes horribly wrong that leaves me stranded, and get some rest.

Posted in Gaming | 3 Comments »
Tags: buzzard, crane, curse, damnation, eve online, falcon, legion, malediction, mmorpg, onyx, orca, penny ibramovic, pvp, retriever, sacrilege, tengu, vagabond, vengeance, w-space