Part Chimp at The Luminaire

I honestly thought he was kidding. I recognise Part Chimp hanging around in the audience, chatting and watching the support acts, and manage to have a quick chat with their drummer. The band are really friendly and John and I chat about naming their current album Thriller, releasing live recordings, and the number of bassists they've had. Three albums and three bassists, you're getting through them in a Spinal Tap-style, I say jokingly. 'Yeah, we're going on as a three-piece', John replies and chuckles. He goes to get set-up and then Part Chimp appear, as a three-piece. It looks like they really are having trouble keeping bass players around.

The band start the set with Trad, the raucous introduction to their current album exploding through the speakers. Part Chimp are loud even without a bass player. Perhaps they have cranked their amps up to eleven to compensate. But the sound doesn't seem to be missing anything, the guitars growling loudly and deeply. And after Trad we get thrown straight in to War Machine from second album I Am Come, which is probably played faster than the studio version, making the final, even quicker burst of energy at the end of the song exhilarating. Next is new song You Decide, a glimpse that Part Chimp are still moving forwards and creating, whilst Iron Pond shows that they haven't lost focus of their older material and that it is still as strong now as it was when first released.

The set continues bouncing between tracks from Thriller and I Am Come, with Today 2, Hello Bastards, and Sweet T all getting the audience bouncing or head-banging, depending on how much hair they have. The energy and loudness never relents, building up to the amazing crescendo of Starpiss, final track from the current album and a pounding wave of glorious aural masochism. Leaving the stage, Tim rests his ageing guitar down carefully against the amplifier, letting it resonate and sustain for the couple of minutes they take before returning for an encore of 30,000,000,000,000 People. One final fast song is played to stir the audience in to wanting more and Part Chimp leave the stage.

It must have been a couple of years since I last saw Part Chimp. I have missed a couple of gigs and not been able to make others, but tonight is a reminder of how incredible they are live. The studio albums are loud and powerful but it is nothing like seeing the band perform and having the music pummelled in to your body. This is why I like live music, because when performed well it is truly invigorating. I've got to see Part Chimp again.

Posted in Audio | Comments Off on Part Chimp at The Luminaire
Tags: gig, luminaire, part chimp

Pillaging w-space

I'm scanning again. There are three of us ready to scan our new connections through w-space after collapsing our static wormhole. Well, four. An ally is lost in w-space in his Falcon recon ship because the collapse went awry, which gives us motivation to find an exit to k-space. With any luck both we and he can find a way out of w-space and get him back with us this evening.

The new home static wormhole is found easily, as it generally is after collapsing the previous one, and with three of us scanning a wormhole is quickly found in our new neighbouring class 4 system. I warp to the wormhole and find it to be a static connection to a class 2 system. There are enough scanners available to continue scanning the C4 for other wormholes to let me jump onwards, hopefully to get a quicker exit.

Once through the wormhole I check the directional scanner as usual for signs of occupancy or activity and get an interesting result. There is an off-line tower in the system, as indicated by the lack of a force field on d-scan, but unlike other abandoned towers there is also a a corporate hangar and ship maintenance array! These structures could contain some juicy loot, they just need to be popped open.

Checking the rest of the system shows it to be devoid of activity. I don't start scanning, not wanting to open the system's wormhole yet. Intelligence suggests that the static connection will lead to low-sec empire space, which is less likely to have people looking for its K162 than a w-space connection, but I'd rather not be interrupted whilst breaking open the hangars and recovering what is found inside. Colleagues suggest that popping the two structures may take a while too, during which time we could be vulnerable.

I head back to our tower and swap for a ship that can deal more damage than my Buzzard covert operations boat. It turns out that I still don't really have a ship with a lot of firepower, which I ought to rectify if I could think of a suitable ship to buy. I end up taking my trusty Drake and its seven heavy launchers out to the class 2 system to start wearing down the shields on the hangars, whilst my colleagues collect the bookmarks I've copied to our shared can and choose ships of their own.

A few volleys of missiles shows that popping the hangars won't take anywhere near as long as imagined, the shields quickly depleting and my missiles cratering the armour before the rest of the fleet even jumps in to the system. I swap my fire from one hangar to the other so that my colleagues won't miss the explosions. I am joined soon enough and the first structure explodes in a beautiful fireball. But, argh, it's a trap! Despite checking d-scan vigilantly we are hot-dropped by a dozen ships all appearing at once!

I cancel my panicked warp out when I realise that we are being 'ambushed' by mining barges and industrial haulers, and that all I saw was the contents of the disintegrating ship maintenance array spilling in to the vacuum. How embarrassing. The corporate hangar is destroyed next and several cans stuffed of delicious loot are thrown in to space. We find plenty of ship fittings, a good chunk of ore, several skill training books, and other assorted items in the cans. We even find a refinery floating amongst the debris. There are also ten janitors, who I am happy to rescue to help keep our hangars clean and tidy. Now we need to get the ships and loot back to our tower.

This C2 system is sleepy, apart from our presence, and the intermediate C4 is quiet. A trip in an Orca industrial command ship seems relatively safe and the the Orca should be able to fit in to its capacious hold most of the loot spewed from the hangar. Most of the ships will need to be piloted home, though. I am able to recover a couple of Retriever mining barges and a Badger Mark II hauler, the latter also letting me take back some of the other loot. A few other ships are crammed in to the Orca's maintenance bay and some are piloted by colleagues, but as no one has skills to fly the Hoarder industrial ships they are left behind. Once the recovery operation is complete the static connection in the C2 is resolved and found to be an exit to low-sec empire space, as indicated. The destination system is recorded and relayed to our absent Falcon pilot.

It is unlikely that the corporation left these ships and modules behind voluntarily. Whether they were forced out of w-space or got isolated from this system by a collapsing wormhole, what we leave behind explains some of the other systems I've explored. A tower found with hangars floating around it will soon be looted of anything of worth, only the bare tower remaining, unable to be recovered and too hardy to be worth taking time to destroy. The next time I find a tower and nothing more floating around a moon I'll know that another fleet just happened to find it before me.

Posted in Gaming | 4 Comments »
Tags: badger, buzzard, drake, eve online, falcon, hoarder, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, retriever, scanning, w-space

Fighting over Sleeper wrecks

I missed an ambush. Luckily, so did my colleagues, as it was aimed at them. A Tengu strategic cruiser, Onyx heavy interdictor, and Curse recon ship came close to catching some corporation members engaging Sleepers, but a close eye on the directional scanner and some agile warping got everyone out of danger. Now there are plans to strike back with the hopes of hitting the salvaging Cormorant destroyer of these interlopers. I am enlisted and asked to pilot my Manticore stealth bomber, which I do, warping to our static wormhole to jump in to the neighbouring class 4 w-space system where all the action is occurring.

I bump in to a hostile Drake sitting on the wormhole in our system. I cannot drop out of warp early and to avoid its attentions all I can do is jump quickly through the wormhole. But it has seen me and my stealth bomber jump in to the adjacent system, no doubt reporting the intelligence to the rest of his fleet. It seems that I was not meant to enter the adjoining C4 just yet but although my presence alerts the hostile fleet I honestly don't think my error matters. Even if we flew as a prepared fleet to the wormhole and jumped through as one the intelligence that we were doing so would move faster than our warp engines, giving the other fleet plenty of time to intercede against any threat on their salvager.

New options are suggested, including assaulting the Drake, now in the same system as the rest of his fleet on the K162 of our static connection. To swap ships and prepare for an attack a friendly Pilgrim recon ship warps back to our wormhole but manages to land on top of a Buzzard covert operations boat. Both ships are decloaked and the Pilgrim engages the smaller ship, hoping for an easy kill before the Drake can respond. But a hostile Falcon recon ship decloaks twenty kilometres off the wormhole and targets the Pilgrim, no doubt about to start jamming our colleague, and three Tengu cruisers and a Curse warp in to help defend their fleet. Our man in the Pilgrim takes the wise option of jumping through the wormhole home to safety.

The Falcon and Buzzard cloak as their Onyx comes to join the party. The HIC settles on the K162 wormhole and activates its warp bubble, making the wormhole more difficult to use safely. My level of personal survival looks to be dropping significantly, still sitting some distance away from the K162 and surveying all the hostile ships and seeing their quick response time to threats. But, as we discuss more options for dispersing the threat, the Onyx's bubble disappears and all the hostile ships warp away from the wormhole. Reports come in that their ships have finished salvaging the Sleeper wrecks, confirmed by the directional scanner showing no more wrecks in the system, and it looks like the hostile fleet is happy to take home some profit without any capsuleer kills.

Only the Curse recon ship remains on d-scan. And then it too is gone. The few of our pilots left in our neighbouring system are able to jump home safely through the wormhole and return to our tower. With a hostile fleet a couple of jumps away and an unsafe intermediate system discussion turns to collapsing our static wormhole and hoping for a better connection.

The operation to collapse our wormhole begins. The number of jumps through the wormhole and by which ships is uncertain—the information needed to determine the amount of mass the wormhole can still pass through it before collapsing—so we take the less risky option of jumping battleships through until the wormhole's status changes. Once the wormhole's mass allowance drops below half, as indicated by the wormhole physically shrinking, an Orca industrial command ship is jumped through to speed up the process. Other pilots have combat ships at the wormhole in case of an incursion and I join in by bringing my Tengu to act as a threat, refitted with heavy missiles for greater range.

Oops, a miscommunication occurs and the Orca makes a jump when it wasn't meant to. The wormhole collapses after the jump, leaving empty space. Fortunately, the Orca was returning to our home system and is safe. Unfortunately, the Falcon sent through to the neighbouring C4 is still there. At least the Falcon has a probe launcher so that it can scan its way to an exit, and a cloaking device to keep it safe whilst it scans. The operation could have been smoother but it also could have been a lot worse. Now it is time to scan. The Falcon needs to find a way out to empire space, we need to find a way to get the Falcon back in from empire space, and hopefully the new route will be more benign.

Posted in Gaming | 2 Comments »
Tags: buzzard, cormorant, curse, drake, eve online, falcon, manticore, mmorpg, onyx, orca, penny ibramovic, pilgrim, scanning, tengu, w-space

Wormhole skirmish

There is a storm brewing. A space storm! An allied Onyx heavy interdictor sitting on our home system's static wormhole has just interdicted a Helios covert operations boat from the neighbouring class 4 w-space system, shooting it for good measure. The corporation in the C4 seems to be fairly active and had a few pilots available in the system when I passed through, taking my Manticore stealth bomber to stalk a different target. I suspect this act of solo aggression won't pass unavenged.

I pilot my Manticore back through two wormholes to see what the capsuleers at the tower in the C4 are doing, my ally in the Onyx remaining on our wormhole for now. I created a bookmark to the tower earlier and warp directly to it, arriving to see two capsuleers launching stealth bombers, a Purifier and Hound. The bombers both leave the tower and cloak. It seems likely that they are moving to the wormhole connecting our two systems, no doubt with an intention to launch bombs at the Onyx. I doubt the Onyx will be much troubled by a couple of bombs but I warp to the wormhole myself to at least keep an eye on the situation.

Warping from the C4 occupants' tower I land my Manticore thirty kilometres away from the wormhole. This is a stealth bomber's optimal range and I am initially considering engaging any targets that assault the Onyx and jump back in to this system. But I then consider that my ally will more likely want help in our home system and so I start crawling cloaked towards the wormhole. It isn't too long before I bump in to a Helios, decloaking us both. It is an unfortunate mistake for the Helios pilot not to have moved off the vector between the wormhole and his tower, a mistake that I am about to punish as my Manticore's targeting systems lock on to his cov-ops boat.

My weapon systems are hot, the Helios is locked. Torpedoes launch towards his target-painted boat, its warp engines disrupted and the Helios too far from the wormhole to jump away from harm. I call for the Onyx to jump in to this system so that he can join the fun, which he does. The Helios lasts longer than I thought it would but it explodes in a shower of molten wreckage before too long. The Hound stealth bomber has meanwhile made his presence known, coming to the aid of the Helios by targeting my Manticore and pounding me with torpedoes. I start returning fire, having looted the wreck of the Helios, but my Manticore has already lost its shields and is taking some armour damage. I warp away, out of danger.

With no warp disruption effects on my engines I manage to clear the pocket, reloading my launchers and re-activating my cloaking device. Once more cloaked I am ready to head back to the skirmish on the wormhole, at least to see what is happening. The fight has become interesting, the Navy Issue Megathron brought out of the local tower to shoot at our Onyx. And I am twenty-five kilometres from it. I quickly align, decloak, and launch a bomb at the expensive battleship, locking weapon systems and preparing torpedo tubes. The Megathron pilot likes his ship enough to notice the bomb heading his way and warps out moments before the explosion. I cloak again and crawl through the warp bubble of the allied Onyx and jump in to the home system to get a more appropriate ship.

A colleague shows good timing by arriving in the midst of this combat and he's quickly updated with the state of play. He jumps in to a Lachesis recon ship as I swap the Manticore for my own Onyx and we both warp to our static wormhole and jump through to the neighbouring C4. The Hound seen earlier is pestering our ally's Onyx, along with a couple of Hurricane battlecruisers, but our new Lachesis pilot makes short work of the stealth bomber, reducing him to smouldering metal in seconds. One of the Hurricanes warps off as he sees his new opponents, the other Hurricane not quite as lucky as the Lachesis disrupts his warp engines. We concentrate fire on the snared Hurricane but our ships are designed more for support than firepower, and the Hurricane's shield tank is big enough to resist our meagre assault.

The pilot of the Hurricane is not stupid either. He is moving away from the wormhole, knowing that jumping through would be suicidal and that drawing us away would prevent our own escape. And as it looks like we have the advantage currently it is easy to draw us away from the wormhole. I realise what is happening and urge caution, returning to be relatively close to the wormhole, but our Lachesis pilot is looking for the kill. Our Onyx ally jumps home and I loiter on the wormhole, but the Hurricane and Lachesis are now seventy kilometres away and I fear my colleague could find himself in trouble. Sure enough, a hostile Drake battlecruiser warps in at range from the Hurricane and the second Hurricane returns, and with nowhere to run and little ranged support the situation looks bad for the Lachesis.

Then the wormhole flares behind me. The cavalry arrives! The allied Onyx pilot has swapped in to a Raven battleship and is joined by a colleague in a Harbinger battlecruiser, both ships fitted to fight at long range. The Raven launches missiles, the Harbinger fires its lasers and the Hurricane and Drake reinforcements leave quickly before they become the next target after the Hurricane caught by our Lachesis pilot. The significant firepower now brought to bear causes the Hurricane's shield tank to break quickly, the battlecruiser exploding soon afterwards. The grid goes quiet.

Our Lachesis is able to return to the wormhole easily enough and no more enemy ships warp in to engage. We have destroyed three ships for no losses and successfully protected our wormhole and w-space system. Our adaptibility and the result show how our experience has grown, both from our failures and our victories. Above all, it was an exciting fight!

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Wormhole skirmish
Tags: drake, eve online, harbinger, helios, hound, hurricane, lachesis, manticore, megathron, mmorpg, onyx, penny ibramovic, purifier, pvp, raven, w-space

Scanning, stalking, sitting

There's no one around, no bookmarks in the can, it looks like I'm going out to scan. I mistake some asteroids for a wormhole but cover up my error by never mentioning it to anyone and finding our system's static connection. Jumping to the class 4 w-space system beyond shows me a tower and two Mammoth industrial ships on the directional scanner. Locating the tower reveals both ships to be unsurprisingly inside the shields, along with a Navy Issue Megathron battleship which I apparently overlooked when scrolling through the d-scan return. All three ships are piloted. Switching to the system map to start scanning is interesting, as it shows only four moons amongst all nine of the planets in the system. There is not much choice when planting a tower in here.

Our neighbouring system is also rather compact. It seems like it has been months since I last scanned an entire system without having to cover at least one planet separately. This lets me use my comparison method of finding wormholes more reliably. And find one I do, a static connection to a C3. Exploring the class 3 system finds an abandoned tower and no other signs of life. There are plenty of anomalies and a handful of signatures present, and ignoring a few rocks gets me the next connection along today's route. Warping to the wormhole shows it to be a K162, an incoming connection, the colours seeping through telling me it links from a class 4 system. I continue my scan but, as I lurk at the K162, an Anathema covert operations boat jumps in from the C4.

'8'. The Anathema pilot talks in the rarely used local channel. 'Do you really need that many probes?' Well, no, but I am assuming the presence of a second scanner is adding his probes in to the system along with mine. The Anathema pilot is making a poor assumption. I ignore him for now and find a second wormhole in the system, an exit to null-sec k-space. I jump through to find myself again in the Malpais region, this time in the L05-LN system. Checking my atlas shows the system to be part of a dead end constellation and I take advantage of this to do a loop of the systems to increase the number of red dots of visitation on my star map before heading back to w-space.

I warp to the K162 in the class 3 system and jump in to the incoming C4. I am not surprised to see a tower on d-scan, but there are no ships. As I am recombobulating myself after the jump in to a new system—checking local space and d-scan, moving away from the wormhole and cloaking, bookmarking the way home—the wormhole behind me flares and the sarcastic Anathema from earlier reappears and warps away. He doesn't cloak and I try to find the tower, assuming that he is now sitting inside its shields. I find the tower and the Anathema pilot, but it is a second tower, one without an active force field. It looks like he's setting it up! This means he is uncloaked and unprotected, ripe for shooting.

I pilot my Buzzard away from the tower a little so that I get in to long enough range for my warp engines to operate, and warp to one of the off-line defence batteries. But as I drop out of warp the Anathema disappears. He is still on d-scan and I track him down to the primary tower that I first noticed when entering the system. He may not be finished with the other tower and now I have a good bookmark to its location, it is time to head back home and swap in to my Manticore stealth bomber.

Jumping back through the w-space systems shows more activity in our neighbouring C4 system, with four cov-ops ships now loitering in the tower. I still leave them alone, focussing instead on the potential target further out. But I relay the information home anyway, as we shouldn't be caught unawares, and an ally happily puts his Onyx heavy interdictor on our static wormhole, hoping to catch an unsuspecting scout. I board my Manticore, copy the bookmarks I have made to our shared can, and head back out through the scanned systems to where the Anathema sits. And still he sits, inside the safety of the on-line and shielded tower. I wait.

I wait a little longer. I wait hoping that he will want to configure something at the other tower, tweak a setting or just gaze at his shiny rod in space, but he doesn't move. But that may be okay, as the Onyx pilot has just shot at a Helios cov-ops. The Helios easily jumped back through our static wormhole to his C4 but, considering the number of pilots seen from that system, I suspect trouble may be brewing.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Scanning, stalking, sitting
Tags: anathema, buzzard, eve online, helios, mammoth, manticore, megathron, mmorpg, null-sec, onyx, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

Becoming more comfortable in the Tengu

W-space is quiet. It's time to collapse our static wormhole again, hopefully with more success than earlier. The mass calculations prove to be more accurate this time, the wormhole becoming critically unstable when expected and imploding with the final jump home. And now we scan again. The new static connection is really easy to find and we jump in to a class 4 system I last visited four months ago. It remains unoccupied. Our newly returned scan man soon resolves the system's static connection, leading to a C2, and jumping through finds a tower with a piloted but inert Megathron battleship inside its shields. We don't scan further, instead heading home to swap to our Tech III cruisers to make some profit.

A few anomalies in our neighbouring C4 are scanned and my Tengu and colleague's Legion warp in to engage Sleepers. There is a slight cause for concern when the wrong Sleeper ship is destroyed and the next wave warps in ahead of schedule, and I warp Pengu out of the anomaly as a precaution. I still don't know the full capabilities or weaknesses of my new strategic cruiser. Warping back in shows I needn't have worried, my augmented shield booster easily keeping my shields healthy against all the Sleeper fire. I even manage to destroy a battleship by myself, when the Legion warps off to guide another colleague through the wormhole.

Having been flying ships with passive buffer or recharge tanks and limited capacitors it makes quite a change to be actively tanking and see my capacitor recharge quite quickly. But also having flown the Guardian logistics ship in to combat almost exclusively I keep forgetting that an important part of maintaining firepower is carrying enough ammunition. My heavy assault launchers fire rapidly and I underestimate the number of missiles needed to complete anomalies, but not significantly. Two anomalies are completed without running out of missiles, although I can't fully reload all my launchers when the last Sleeper explodes.

Some rough calculations, and a correction from my colleague, shows that Pengu will be firing approximately six thousand missiles an hour. This gives a good guide to the number I will need to carry with me, whether it is for a prolonged assault against Sleepers or a short burst of fire against other capsuleers. The calculated figure also informs me that I should take the next opportunity of a k-space exit to buy more missiles. I'll probably stuff my Crane transport ship full of missiles when I can. The cost won't be a problem, as the profit from just these two anomalies tonight could pay for several month's worth of ammunition. But, for now, I go home and get some rest.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Becoming more comfortable in the Tengu
Tags: crane, eve online, legion, megathron, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, sleepers, tengu, w-space

Another day, another kill

Panda cat has been hunting again. She brings in another guest to play with, one that doesn't much like being in a cat's maw and is sadly scared to death. As unfortunate as this is for the poor mouse, such is life when a cat is around. And it also gives me the opportunity to show a sense of scale, which I wasn't able to do at the time of finding the rat living in my kitchen.

This is a mouse.

This is a mouse on steroids.

It's as big as my arm, argh!

Posted in Personal | Comments Off on Another day, another kill
Tags: kitty, panda

Roaming or rambling

Rolling the hole is not quite controlled and our scout gets lost in space. He's in high-sec empire space but reports himself 'trapped' there, which is an interesting perspective on w-space life. The operation to collapse our wormhole may not have been completely smooth but our new w-space neighbourhood has already been mapped by the time I turn up to find all this occurring. There are four intermediate w-space systems between home and an exit to empire space, and then we have a choice of high-sec, low-sec, and null-sec systems to jump to, thanks to a class 3 system acting as a crossroads.

A capsuleer heads out to empire space to contract a copy of the bookmarks to our isolated colleague. When he gets back I make my own copies of the bookmarks, board my Manticore stealth bomber, and go looking for more than wormholes.

Probes are visible on the directional scanner in our neighbouring class 4 system, as well as a tower and a couple of Buzzard covert operation boats. My notes inform me that I have been in this system three times before and two months ago it was unoccupied. It looks like someone has moved in. I find the tower and see one of the Buzzards and now a Drake battlecruiser sitting in the shields, both ships piloted. There is no movement and a lone Drake is not going to be engaging Sleepers in an anomaly in a C4, so I move on to the next system along the route.

I jump in to a class 5 system and find I have been here before as well, around three months ago. The system was occupied when I was last here and still is now, the tower in the same location as my notes suggest. But there is no activity and I move on again. The C5 leads in to a C4, where the only sign of life is a few scanning probes visible on d-scan, and again I move on, jumping through the system's static connection to another C4. This system is unscanned and I am careful to bookmark the wormhole back, but warping around the system finds nothing of interest. I jump back in to the previous system and warp to the incoming connection that leads to the class 3 system.

The C3 should be quite familiar, as I was only here yesterday, although I didn't stay long enough to be involved in the popping of an Astarte command ship and a salvaging destroyer. Visiting the tower and checking d-scan shows no one to be home at the moment. I take advantage of the null-sec connection to get more red dots of exploration on my star map, visiting system Y6-9LF of the Malpais region. But there is nothing happening. The quiet route is convenient for the return of our colleague but rather dull otherwise. Heading home shows less activity than before, probes no longer visible and the two ships in our neighbouring system gone.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Roaming or rambling
Tags: astarte, buzzard, drake, eve online, manticore, mmorpg, null-sec, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

Replacing the lost Manticore

I return from my break in the hopes of opening a new connection to high-sec and buying my replacement stealth bomber. Instead I learn that our static connection was collapsed as part of a corporation operation, the local systems deemed unsuitable for current purposes. At least I don't need to go out and scan, a scout has already surveyed our new neighbourhood and has brought home the bookmarks.

We have an incoming connection from a class 6 w-space system which is occupied but quiet, the class 4 system on the other side of our static the same. Beyond that, there is a C3 with a single piloted industrial ship in a tower and a low-sec exit to k-space. The low-sec wormhole leads to a system only three jumps from high-sec and six from Tash-Murkon Prime, a good system for shopping. As there are no targets I board my Crane transport ship and head to empire space.

I load the Crane with loot and salvage from our recent Sleeper engagements and warp out of the tower. I make a note of the systems I pass through but as I am only travelling and not scanning I only note the presence of occupants without actually locating their towers. W-space is as sleepy as it was reported to be and I jump out to low-sec without seeing another ship. The journey to high-sec and Tash-Murkon Prime is simple and I am soon buying my new Manticore stealth bomber and fittings.

I sell the Sleeper loot to New Eden agents, replenishing the corporation's wallet nicely, and contract the salvage we have recovered to an alliance contact. The packaged Manticore fits in to the Crane's hold with room to spare and I undock from the cramped station to make the journey back to w-space, and then to our tower. Jettisoning the Manticore magically constructs it, after which I jump aboard and fit the launchers, cloaking device, and other modules. I give my Manticore the name Bomb Voyage and park it in the corporation hangar. My work complete, I rest for the night.

Posted in Gaming | 5 Comments »
Tags: crane, eve online, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, w-space

Making a wrong turn

I have a bomber to replace, let's see if I can do so by finding empire space. The home system's static wormhole is resolved nice and quickly, although I wonder if the signature of HFU is portentous. I jump my Buzzard covert operations boat to the class 4 w-space system on the other side. The directional scanner shows only one planet and two moons, leaving me plenty of system to explore. I bookmark the wormhole back, launch probes, and start warping around the system to look for activity.

The inner system holds a tower, seen on d-scan along with an Orca industrial command ship and a Proteus strategic cruiser. Locating the tower doesn't find the ships, though, and they are now both gone from d-scan too. It is possible they are collapsing a wormhole or maybe the Proteus is escorting the Orca out to empire space, to sell loot or buy fuel. I won't really know for sure until I either see them again or find the exit they are using. I start scanning.

My scanning of the C4 finds lots of rocks and gas, which isn't particularly unusual, and a radar site. But I can't seem to find the system's static wormhole. I even discard the final signature in the system, after hoping that a simple process of elimination would result in resolving the wormhole, and I am left with an system empty of further signatures. I must have missed something.

Indeed I have missed something. Whilst scanning the system I return to loiter near the wormhole leading back home, to monitor any traffic that may pass through. It is only when I am wondering where the system's static wormhole could be that I notice the wormhole's reference. It is an X877, a wormhole leading to a class 4 w-space system. In other words, the system's static connection. I jumped through not our own static wormhole but a K162, I simply wasn't paying enough attention.

The mystery solved, I jump back and scan the home system a second time, this time actually making sure I resolve the static wormhole. Scanning should proceed more smoothly now. Our neighbouring C4 has quite a few ships visible on d-scan from the wormhole and I soon find the tower. There are some strategic cruisers, battleships, and some smaller craft, with only two of the thirteen ships piloted. There isn't a point in the system where the tower is out of range of d-scan but I don't think it really matters, warping off to a celestial body to launch probes before returning to keep tabs on the pilots. The system's static connection is found straight away and I jump onwards in to another C4.

I was last in this class 4 w-space system around two months ago. My notes show the system to be occupied but not where the tower is, and now that I have time I go looking. I find the tower and drop out of warp almost on top of an artillery battery, but luckily my cloak holds and I can move away carefully. The tower holds two Mammoth indusrial ships and a Helios covert operations boat, all piloted. Their presence makes me wish I still had my stealth bomber in case they are planning to move. I continue scanning, noting the wealth of anomalies but dearth of other signatures in this system. The string of class 4 systems continues, as the static wormhole sucks me through to another one.

At least this C4 is unoccupied for a change. I can scan in relative safety. I resolve a wormhole quickly but it turns out to be an incoming connection from another C4 system and reaching the end of its natural lifetime. I scan all my way to the final signature before finding the static wormhole, this one leading to a class 2 system. I may find a way to empire space yet. Jumping through and starting my scan finds a wormhole almost on top of the one I came through, which is convenient. I almost don't have time to find the tower in the system before warping to inspect the scanned wormhole. It's a static high-sec exit! Oh, but it is also reaching the end of its life.

Without knowing how long the exit wormhole to high-sec will last I won't risk jumping through, particularly as I don't know how close to a decent market hub the destination system is. I will head home to take a break, hoping that the wormhole will have collapsed by the time I get back and I can scan the new static wormhole for a stable connection to high-sec empire space. The systems on the way home show no change in activity and, out of curiosity, I poke my nose back in to the C4 connecting in out the home system. The Orca and Proteus are back at the tower, now with a Tengu for company. Maybe they found the high-sec exit earlier and were able to use it. But I must be patient a little longer.

Posted in Gaming | 3 Comments »
Tags: buzzard, eve online, helios, mammoth, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, proteus, scanning, tengu, w-space