Ready to cause mischief

For an early start I follow our scan man scanning. Our own static wormhole is found and jumped through in to an occupied but inactive system, where I barely have time to resolve a couple of sites before I am hauled by squad warp to a wormhole the scan man has found. I make a bookmark to the wormhole and warp off to locate the tower for my notes and later convenience. But it looks like a pilot has woken up, as a Hulk exhumer appears at the tower. He doesn't stay for long, warping away in his Hulk in a direction the scan man thinks is familiar. Indeed, scan man is at that moment resolving the gravimetric site the Hulk has just entered, and one more scan later he has warped in to the same site and bookmarked the Hulk's new jet-can.

I am already back at our tower and swapped in to my Onyx heavy interdictor, the first sight of the Hulk warping out getting us ready to cause mischief. Unfortunately, the Hulk warps out of the gravimetric site almost as quickly as it warped in, most likely catching a glimpse of the scanning probes all around him. He is found back at his tower, sitting inside its shields, where he remains. I get back in to my Buzzard and move on, following scan man in to the next system. Perhaps the Hulk pilot will relax after a while and return to mine, where we can catch him on our return journey.

The next system along is rather plain, an unoccupied system with a single anomaly. Discarding lots of signatures that only identify rocks and gas prompts me to check the weakest signature in the system, which turns out to be a static connection to a scary class 6 system. I jump through and check my directional scanner. I see ships, drones, defences, arrays, and a tower, but no force field. That's an interesting result and is worth closer inspection. I don't launch probes but instead rely on d-scan to find more information. Around one planet I find a moon holding a bunch of containers, another moon with drones and other objects, and a third moon having the unshielded tower, where two Buzzard covert operation ships are loitering.

A cursory check of the rest of the system finds more towers, mostly on-line and protected but one abandoned entirely. Despite all the towers there are only a few ships and maybe three or four pilots active in the system. Returning to the unshielded tower now finds a Badger industrial ship moving items around, either at the tower or removing them to elsewhere. The soft targets and lack of pilots in the system looks to offer a potential massacre. Intelligence has already been shared with my colleague, we have an alliance member also available to help, and we form a plan. A recon ship will enter the C6 and continue monitoring ship movements whilst I head back to our tower to bring the Onyx here, and our alliance chum is happy to bring a stealth bomber along to initiate the ambush. The stealth bomber will lock and disrupt the industrial ship, at which point I'll jump in to the system in my Onyx and trap the ship and pod for maximum destruction.

I swap ships and plant myself on the wormhole leading in to the C6, ready to jump. I keep a watchful eye on d-scan too, just in case someone comes from another direction. The recon ship is in position and doesn't appear to have been spotted when he jumped in and cloaked, and the stealth bomber is almost there. The Badger has been replaced with an Iteron industrial ship, which appears to be simply sitting at the tower. I have a bookmark to the tower and one of the arrays and could jump and warp directly to its position, but am told to wait for the bomber to get a positive lock and point on the target. I am getting antsy, sensing the Iteron is going to finish loading and leave soon, and that I could probably drop on top of him before he manages to align and warp out, even if he is watching d-scan, but I hold my position.

The stealth bomber arrives and closes on the hauler, but the Iteron turns and warps out. We all keep our positions, hoping that it will return, but when the two Buzzards move away and cloak it seems that the opportunity has passed. Getting a positive lock and point on the target before jumping in a ship that cannot cloak is good strategy but time is always a factor in PvP, whether needing to wait for a target to arrive or needing to act immediately to prevent it leaving. In this case, I think it was a valid risk to jump the Onyx in early and rely on the hauler being too sluggish to react in time. But we don't know. We also don't know for sure if the hauler isn't coming back, nor do we know what the Hulk is doing.

I request the stealth bomber holds his position and watches for the hauler to return. I stay where I am on the wormhole to the C6, and our man in the Pilgrim recon ship heads back to the C4 to see if the Hulk pilot has convinced himself it is safe to mine again. At least we have the pilots available to keep our options open. Sadly, all is quiet. The Hulk pilot is not around and the hauler has not returned. The operation is ended. We return home without an engagement, but we also all return home safely and with more experience. There may not have been explosions but it has been an interesting start to the day.

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Tags: badger, buzzard, eve online, hulk, manticore, mmorpg, onyx, penny ibramovic, pilgrim, scanning, w-space

Welcoming tourists to w-space

My Manticore roams local w-space looking for activity. The stealth bomber is small and agile, yet can pack quite a punch. It mostly suffers when attacking ships that can fight back, as its small hull doesn't withstand much damage, and as I am flying solo I need to limit what I can engage. I spot a Rook recon ship in a class 4 w-space system, finding it sitting inside the shields of a tower. I monitor its movements for a while, watching it access a can marked 'route' before the pilot changing ships to a Falcon recon ship and warping off. I suspect the pilot changes from Rook to Falcon to gain a cloaking device for covert travel. He zooms off directly downwards from the tower, not relating to any bookmark I have, but I couldn't realistically engage either ship in my Manticore anyway. I move on.

I reach the end of my route and all the systems I have bookmarked are still quiet. Heading back spots a Devoter heavy interdictor somewhere in the class 2 system, which quickly disappears, and then I notice an Anathema covert operations boat on the directional scanner. He doesn't seem to be cloaking either. I take a guess that the pilot has found and come in from the high-sec exit in the system, and warp to the wormhole. The ship is indeed sitting on the wormhole and I take the opportunity to decloak, lock my weapons systems, and start firing. The warning sirens in the Anathema's pod wake the pilot up and he jumps through to high-sec as his armour drops to half. I loiter for a while but he doesn't come back, his bravado not quite matching the aggressive profile he has written.

Engaging ships on a high-sec wormhole is mostly futile, as the ship can simply jump back to the relative safety of Concord-protected space. It is pointless to attempt a serious ambush directly on top of such a wormhole, but I am merely being opportunistic. A pilot is unlikely to get distracted and go AFK shortly after jumping through in to w-space, but it must occasionally happen. Sending the Anthema to high-sec makes w-space quiet again and I head home. I change ships at our tower to pick up some ore being mined by alliance members and swap a bit of banter before getting itchy feet and hopping back in to the Manticore. I go back out to see if anyone else is poking around the connected systems.

An Imicus frigate is in the C2. Initially, it looks like the ship has sensibly parked himself in a safe-spot as he scans but I consider the possibility that he has instead come in through a new wormhole connection. I jump back home and return in my Buzzard covert operations scanning boat to check this intuition. I got a reasonable bearing on the position of the Imicus before swapping ships and so concentrate my scan on that area. There is indeed a new wormhole, resolving it and warping to its location revealing it to be a K162 coming in from high-sec space. The Imicus is sitting on the wormhole, as suspected. The ship cloaks but appears to be coming and going. Perhaps he has made a newbie error and parked a little too close to the cosmic signature, not realising that the signature is a separate entity to the wormhole and having it decloak him occasionally. Whether that's the case or not, it's time to bring my Manticore here.

Normally, I wouldn't waste a bomb on such a small and inexpensive ship as the Imicus, but it being cloaked makes it impossible for me to target normally. I am hoping that bombing the wormhole will damage and decloak the Imicus and let me continue with a barrage of torpedoes. I launch a bomb and prepare my systems but the Imicus does not take damage from the explosion. Never the less, it soon appears and makes a dash for the wormhole, jumping to high-sec before I can do any damage. I wait for a while and, when the Imicus doesn't return, check the destination of the high-sec connection. I now have eighteen active wormholes currently bookmarked, which is an awful lot of w-space covered in a day.

I push my Manticore off to check all these other systems. With so many connections and occupied systems it is rather disappointing to see nothing happening in all of them. The only further activity I see on my roam is when I am again returning home and having the same Imicus sitting on the high-sec wormhole. He's not cloaked so I get in close and start launching torpedoes at him, but he's awake and gets back to empire space with only minor armour damage. There is no more activity and no corporation fleet. So many systems and all I have done is take pot-shots at high-sec tourists. At least I did some damage. I get back home to the tower and settle down for the night.

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Tags: anathema, buzzard, devoter, eve online, falcon, imicus, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, rook, scanning, w-space

Music of 2010, part one

Half-way through the year already and I have yet to review any new music I've bought. It's time to rectify the situation.

The first album I buy is surprisingly influenced by a television advert, which reminds me that I quite like Delphic's single Doubt. It's the start of the year, nothing else has tickled my fancy so far, so I buy their album, Acolyte. For a heavily marketed new band there are no surprises here. The music is straightforward enough and fairly pleasant, if a little repetitive or ordinary in places. But I still like Doubt, and other singles Halcyon and Counterpoint are equally appealing. Acolyte is not particularly outstanding but it is pleasant enough pop and won't be skipped when it comes up in my playlist.

I was interested in hearing Beach House for a while but never quite convinced myself to buy their album Devotion when the opportunity finally arose. But now they have released Teen Dream and the new album is just as well-received as the last, and my thirst for new music encourages me to buy it. The combination of the low-tempo and synthesisers used to create general pop stylings makes the album relaxing to listen to, if somewhat unchallenging. There are gems like Norway and 10 Mile Stereo that keep me entertained but otherwise the album tends to pass me by, gently easing its way along without either irritating me or making me note its presence.

Being assaulted by last year's Rip It Off means I cannot ignore Born Again Revisited, the new album from Times New Viking. As expected, the lo-fi sound is viciously distorted and loud, with tracks like I Smell Bubblegum being equivalent to standing on a village platform as an inter-city train blasts past. A couple of songs are quite harsh, with minor chords and clashing sounds producing conflicting elements, but for the most part Times New Viking create slices of cuddly fuzz wrapped in nettles. No Time, No Hope is perky, (No) Sympathy probably couldn't be a more distorted chunk of energy, and Take the Piss is a perfect sub-minute song to finish an album of short sharp shocks to the system.

I take the opportunity of buying Devotion by Beach House at the same time as Teen Dream, assuring myself I would like both. And the two albums are fairly similar, at least in style. Although the latter album shows more polish in songwriting the music in the former is recognisably the same Beach House. It is perhaps unfortunate that I only experience this progression from a regressive point-of-view as it means I mostly overlook Devotion in favour of the newer album, or those by different artists.

Kairos, White Hinterland's second album and Casey Dienel's third, deserves mention under separate cover, if I could possibly do justice to this glorious collection of beautiful songs.

The magic word 'shoegaze' is printed in NME's review of Serena Maneesh's second album, No 2: Abyss in B Minor. I remember the mid-90s fondly and although shoegazing was rightfully considered occasionally pretentious and tedious in equal measures there was plenty to enjoy as well. Now the label is used generally to refer to the more positive aspects of the genre and Serena Maneesh pile distorted guitars on top of heavy drum beats, whispy vocals gliding in the background seemingly oblivious to all around it. Reprobate! alternately has guitars squealing in urgency and soft vocals trying to drag the song backwards, Blow Yr Brains in the Mourning Rain squeezes as much in to four-and-a-half minutes as it can, whilst Magdalena (Symphony #8) brings everything to a peaceful and calming resolution. I love this album and this is the first band new to me that has got me excited so far this year.

Rolo Tomassi interest me. They are labelled as 'punkjazz', which seems appropriate given the highly syncopated rhythms, explosive sounds, and screamed vocals. The Rolo Tomassi EP, also known as Untitled, has been re-released and I pick it up for another dose after their first studio album Hysterics. The music appeals to me, even if it can be challenging to follow at times, and there are some fairly accessible tracks. I can't quite appreciate the vocals, which may be more of a generational problem, but the technically impressive playing and overall compositions make for interesting and rewarding listening. I get more out of each listening of Untitled thank I expect to, which can only be good.

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Tags: beach house, cd, delphic, rolo tomassi, serena maneesh, times new viking, white hinterland

Early scanning again

No fleet, no bookmarks, it's time to scan. My preliminary sweep with the directional scanner finds a lone mining drone somewhere in our home system, but we've had a few people out mining recently and it probably just got left behind. There are few signals now left in our system. Despite resolving the static wormhole on my first choice I scan the other two signals for completeness, getting a ladar and gravimetric site. I collect the drone, sitting alone under the corporation colours, and warp to the wormhole to start exploring further.

The neighbouring class 4 system is fairly compact, d-scan showing me everything without needing to move around, including a lack of occupancy. Launching probes and scanning reveals no anomalies at all, although there are many signatures to sift through to find any wormholes. I guess that a single jettisoned canister on d-scan is full of reinforced metal scraps, a product of salvaging Sleeper wrecks, probably left behind from all the cleared anomalies because of its bulk. Scanning finds a wealth of rocks and gas to mine, but I'm not interested. The search for a wormhole begins to get tedious and I once again pick on purpose the weakest signal to resolve. This finds me the wormhole, a static connection to a C2. But I also realise that by that point there were only two signatures left in the system. I resolve the final signature to be thorough, and thinking that perhaps a second wormhole has opened in to this system recently for it to be empty of anomalies, but I find only more gas. I jump through to the C2.

D-scan shows me lots of containers floating somewhere, but no tower. However, there is a planet out of range of d-scan and warping there reveals a tower around one of its moons. There are no ships around. Trying to find the cans leads me to think they are placed in safe-spots and I quickly stop looking for them. I begin scanning and the strongest signature turns out to be the system's wormhole, which makes a nice change. Warping to the wormhole shows it to be a static connection to high-sec empire space, which is convenient. This low-class, occupied system could promise later activity and I take a couple of minutes to bookmark a whole bunch of sites just in case, in the course of which I find another wormhole, leading in to a C4. I jump through to investigate.

There are lots of ships and two towers on d-scan. A lucky guess finds the first tower, with an Orca industrial command ship, two Iteron industrial ships, and a Probe frigate inside its shields. The second tower is easily found where, despite it having three ship hangar arrays, sixteen ships are floating inactive in its shields. None of the ships I have seen are piloted, though. I launch probes and scan the system, thinking it best to do this when no one is around, and find a wormhole leading to another class 4 system. Jumping through reveals this C4 to be unoccupied and containing three anomalies and two further signatures. After launching probes and cloaking a shuttle belonging to the previous C4 system appears at the K162 behind me. I ignore it for now and find the system's wormhole, a connection to a C2.

The class 2 system is quiet, so I launch probes and cloak to begin scanning. Moments after I cloak the wormhole behind me flares and the previous shuttle pilot reappears in a Flycatcher interdictor before warping off. I pay him little mind, but note his presence in case I run in to him again. I find a tower in this system, but no ships, and resolve a wormhole to a C1. Jumping through the connection ejects me in to another quiet but occupied system. The tower on the outer planet has two combat ships, two haulers, and a cruiser sitting unpiloted in its shields. The system itself holds another high-sec exit to empire space, giving us a choice of exits today. But there is nothing else.

I check the destinations of the high-sec exits, bookmarking the wormholes on the other side and noting their systems, and scout the w-space systems for activity on my journey back to our tower. All is quiet. But I have plenty of bookmarks that may come in handy later and any one of these systems could wake up and become active. For now, I take a break.

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

Shopping in Amarr

Scan man is out scanning, but I think I'll sit this one out. He's much better than me at scanning and I generally end up following him around, so I'll instead take it easy at the tower and read his updates. It turns out we have another quiet neighbourhood, heading through the static connection to the normal class 4 system, which leads to a class 3 system with a low-sec exit to empire space. None of the systems are occupied, although the C3 apparently used to have a tower in it and now it doesn't. I think this is the first time I can note a change of w-space system occupancy. The low-sec exit is checked, finding it to be adjacent to high-sec and only five jumps to Amarr. It looks like a good day to go shopping, if only I knew what to buy.

I head out in my Crane to visit Amarr, hopefully to spend some iskies. I haven't been blown up recently so I have nothing to replace, but my months of skill training must surely give me access to some new and exciting products. Maybe I could buy a heavy assault ship, an Asbolution command ship, or a recon ship that my colleagues are so fond of. But the Cerberus HAC seems to favour long range engagements and would be useless for our skirmishes, I still need much more training in gunnery to fit the Absolution adequately, once I even work out how to fit it, and my training in the recon ship skill itself is days away from being useful. But what my skill training lets me buy is more skill books.

I manage to find a few books that I don't already have sitting waiting for that magical time when they can finally be injected, and make the jump to an adjacent system to collect them. Although these new skills books may not put me in to a new ship they should expand my skills enough to give me more options. It's a bit of a waste of my Crane's cargo hold but it is fun to fly the transport ship again. I also remember that our stock of light armour maintenance drones has disappeared, even the ones in the Guardian logistic ships' drone bays, and I buy a new batch to take back, along with some other drones that I hope will come in useful. With nothing else to buy coming to mind I jump to low-sec and get sucked through the wormhole back in to w-space.

Whilst travelling home I investigate the abandoned tower spotted in the C4 system. It is simply abandoned, with no modules or defences around it. However, there is also a giant secure container floating nearby. The directional scanner remains clear and the tower certainly looks abandoned so I decloak and check the contents of the container. It is empty, but it remains a container so I scoop it in to my Crane's hold and take it back with me to our tower, dropping it off with the rest of my cargo. All systems are quiet and we don't have enough Guardian pilots to form a fleet. I am about to rest for the night when I realise there is a ship I can buy.

I am still dependent on other capsuleers' salvager ships in w-space and could probably use my own, particularly as I am training to use the Tech II salvager modules, partly owing to looting a bunch of them from salvager ships we have popped recently. A destroyer would fit in my Crane's hold so I take the transport ship back out to Amarr. I am unsure what ship to buy, though. I check the destroyers for each race and all of them have different benefits, whether it is increased cargo space, a better base speed, or more convenient fitting slots for cargo or capacitor recharge. I find other capsuleers recommend a Hurricane battlecruiser for salvaging, which looks decent but my Minmatar ship skills are a little lacking.

In the end I stick to my heritage and buy a Cormorant, picking up salvaging rigs at the same time but relying on our corporate hangar in w-space for the other fittings. Back at the tower, it looks like we could use some more capacitor rechargers, though, and micro-warp drives are always in demand. But I manage to assemble and fit my new Cormorant, christening it Marxian Principles, with all but the salvager II modules which I instead leave in its hold until my skill training completes. It won't be long until I will be even more startlingly efficient at salvaging wrecks.

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Tags: cormorant, crane, eve online, low-sec, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, salvaging, w-space

Giving up an ambush for Sleepers

I'm going to be nosy next door. Our static connection has been opened and the bookmark dropped, but little else seems to be scanned. I jump in to the neighbouring class 4 w-space system and check my directional scanner. Seeing only celestial bodies I launch probes and switch to the solar system map. I note my position in the system and the range to each planet, and with one planet out of the 14 AU range of d-scan I warp to it to make sure there is no one around. D-scan is again clean, making the system unoccupied. My records show that I last visited this system about six weeks ago and it was unoccupied then, but one of these days I'll return to a system that has changed.

Scanning only finds gas and rocks, narrowing down the number of suitable signatures to the point where I question whether this system actually has a static wormhole. When there are only three signatures left to resolve I puposely pick the weakest signal, just to be contrary. It turns out to be the wormhole and, of course, it leads to a class 5 system. I jump through and repeat the same checks as before, a standard routine for entering a new system and only slightly more thorough than entering any w-space system. D-scan returns only one planet within range, which at first isn't peculiar but opening the system map reveals a vast system. I may be close to the fourth and outer planet of the system but the star is 130 AU away, and the nearest planet is 97 AU distant! I don't think d-scan could ever return more than one planet in this system.

I begin scanning the system planet by planet and find out that the C5 system is occupied. A closer inspection of the tower shows that perhaps it is only recently occupied, though. One of the defences is currently being anchored and, after I return from checking the other two planets in the system, is then brought on-line. Someone is here and active. A Viator transport ship warps in to the tower and I am thinking that perhaps the hauler will move more defences out of the shields to position them. The tower only has defences at one point outside its shields and there must be over a dozen more sitting unanchored inside the shields. It may be possible to catch the ship as it positions the defences. Or perhaps it is more likely that it will make a run to empire space for more resources, which will mean finding the static connection it is probably using.

The Viator is swapped for a Dominix battleship and it sits motionless inside the shields. I notice a Cheetah covert operations boat in the system too, and some combat probes are visible on d-scan. My presence has been noted, it seems. Fin has her Onyx heavy interdictor on the other side of the wormhole in to this system now, hoping like me that we can catch a careless ship, but it looks like these capsuleers are cautious. I find the static wormhole in the system, which leads in to another C5, but don't jump through and instead monitor the tower again. The Cheetah is still out scanning and the Dominix is refusing to move, sitting surrounded by the modules still to be positioned. Considering the massive distance between the wormhole in to this system and the tower, the capacitor requirement and time needed to traverse the distance would make an ambush difficult to co-ordinate, even if the ships presented themselves as targets, and the embryonic operation is abandoned in favour of assaulting Sleepers.

I get back to the tower and board my Guardian, adjusting the fitting after another capsuleer apparently took the logistics ship out for a spin. The lack of armour maintenance drones is irritating, whether they were shot by Sleepers or lost at a site, as there are no replacements and the pilot didn't think to write a quick note explaining the situation. Having common resources only works when everyone treats them with the same level of respect as they would personal items. But the fleet is ready and we warp out to the static wormhole, now reaching the end of its natural lifetime. We should have a couple of hours at least before it collapses, although an EOL WH always makes me nervous.

We start clearing anomalies, the two Guardians not having terribly much to do in the wolf rayet system. Our Rook jams the Sleepers' targeting systems, an Abaddon blasts through their armour, and our salvaging Ishtar clears up the wrecks as quickly as they are created. But it goes wrong in the second anomaly, a disconnection causing problems for the other Guardian. It looks like our capacity to repair will run out and we'll lose a ship if we stay in the anomaly and the squad is warped out, but bad luck has the disconnected Guardian also warp-scrambled and it remains in the anomaly. The pilot returns but not in time for us to warp back, only to announce the destruction of the Guardian. Losing a ship in this manner is frustrating.

The spare Guardian is brought out from the ship hangar and jumped in to the system, and we warp back in to the anomaly to finish clearing it. Combat goes smoothly but a scanning probe appears on a routine d-scan check. Only one probe is needed to find all anomalies in a system quickly and our ships will be in plain sight, so I suggest warping out and home for safety. Given that anomalies can be found without probes at all we are perhaps facing a lone scanning boat, but I would rather find that out back at the tower than face a hostile fleet in the anomaly. We warp out cleanly and get to the wormhole home, still quite wobbly, where five scanner probes can now be seen on d-scan. It looks more like a single scanning ship is in the system, but even then we don't know what resources he can call on if we persist in making ourselves fat targets. We jump and warp to our tower with only a meagre haul for the evening, but at least we are safe.

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Tags: abaddon, cheetah, dominix, eve online, guardian, ishtar, mmorpg, onyx, penny ibramovic, rook, scanning, sleepers, viator, w-space

What's left behind

An alliance member needs to be guided out of w-space. Taking him along the route gives me a chance to passively scout our neighbourhood a little. I warp the pair of us between wormholes, waiting for him to bookmark them for his return journey, and keep an eye on the directional scanner for any activity. No ships present themselves in the three w-space systems and jumping in to low-sec only finds an empty system. It really is quiet.

I lurk in the low-sec system for a while, hoping for any kind of target to appear. I am only in my Buzzard covert operations scanning boat, hardly a threat, and there are no visitors. I jump back to w-space. Returning home finally sees some ships active, a Helios and Anathema both somewhere in a class 5 system. Both cov-ops boats disappear from the system and checking the C3, which is heading away from home, doesn't find any probes in the system. I head the other way, in to our neighbouring C4, to see probes on d-scan, which means the scanners could find their way in to our system.

Jumping home, I warp to the tower and swap in to my Malediction interceptor, now I know I can potentially catch a cloaking ship, and two colleagues get armed too. Fin plants her new Onyx heavy interdictor on our wormhole to accompany my interceptor, another colleague jumping in to the C4 in an Arazu recon ship to scout. The HIC's bubble preventing ships from entering warp should give my Malediction more than enough time to intercept a target and bump-decloak it, making us an effective pair. We don't get to test the theory, though, as our Arazu scout reports a lack of probes or anything else in the C4, and no one jumps through in to our trap.

The neighbourhood is not providing much entertainment, it looks like time to collapse our static wormhole. We wait for our alliance member to return from empire space after picking up his ship and pop goes the wormhole, the Orca industrial command ship returning safely as the connection collapses. It is time to scan again, this time with more ships available.

Our new static wormhole leads in to a system I've visited twice before, the last time only five days ago. Unsurprisingly enough, it remains unoccupied since the previous visit. The class 4 system holds ten anomalies and a bunch of signatures, which gives us a decent system to plunder with a suitable fleet. The question is asked about whether we keep this system's static connection closed and engage Sleepers, or push deeper and look for trouble. The decision is left with me, and I go looking for trouble. I resolve a wormhole within a few signatures, warp to it, and jump.

Now this looks interesting. D-scan is showing me tower modules, cargo canisters, and a Hoarder transport ship, but no force field. I mention this to my colleagues and suggest they get sharper ships warmed up, whilst I move away cleanly from the wormhole without launching probes. My first instinct is that a tower is being installed or dismantled and we may be able to catch a vulnerable capsuleer or two. I note from my records that I last visited this system about ten weeks ago, although it must have been a fleeting visit as I have no record of occupancy. Without a location recorded for the tower I need to find it, which should be simple enough but I ought to be quick.

Even though there is no force field or tower that the modules are tower defences, a ship hangar array, and a corporate hangar array it suggests to me that I will find them all around a moon in the same way I'd find a tower. I use d-scan to get a bearing on the modules until they are visible on scan along with only one moon and warp to that moon. I don't know how close I can or should warp to the moon, anchoring distances varying significantly and not knowing what to expect when getting there, and I appear over 100 km away from the Hoarder, modules, and cans. What I realise, though, is that the ship is unpiloted and everything is unanchored. D-scan remains clear of any other ships. The items look to be deserted.

Once in range of the items I call for my colleagues to jump in to the system and warp to my location, where we quickly survey the scene. D-scan still shows no other presence in the system and no one is looking to ambush us or return for the items left behind. Intelligence shows that there have been no jumps in to or out of this system for three days. I open one of the five cans floating and—fuel! The cans are packed full of starbase fuel. This is a good haul, if we can get it back to our tower. I can pilot a Bustard transport ship out here, but it would take half-a-dozen trips to return most of the items. Fin is happy to risk an Orca trip, which would haul much more and only needs to pass through one unoccupied system on its way. Our colleague sits by the modules in his combat ship, looking menacing.

Fin and I swap in to our repsective haulers and the web I fitted to the Bustard, when harrassing a Retriever mining barge recently, comes in handy again. Jumping between systems, I can lock on to the Orca and web it to help it speed in to warp, whilst I align and warp myself. The C3 is still clear of other activity and the fuel and most of the defences are scooped in to the Orca and Bustard, the Orca also able to hold the Hoarder, which stops us wondering what to do with a ship none of us can pilot. The goodies are returned to our tower safely and Fin takes back a Badger Mk II to pick up the few remaining defences.

Taking a guess, Fin suggests that it looks like a tower was destroyed, which caused its fuel to be jettisoned, and what we have found is what the attackers couldn't take with them. It seems a reasonable conclusion. For their troubles we end up with a healthy stockpile of fuel for our tower, some more defences, and a new ship. The C3 system is now clear, nothing on scan and all our ships safe. Rather than explore further, the late night and successful haul encourages us to end the evening feeling suitably positive and ready for what tomorrow brings.

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Tags: anathema, arazu, badger, bustard, buzzard, eve online, helios, hoarder, malediction, mmorpg, onyx, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

Scanning and salvaging

Early scanning sees me chasing the static wormhole around our system. Or, at least, its signature. I'm used to having the occasional cosmic signature be elusive but it is a new experience to need several scans to resolve the wormhole from a probabilistic ring to a single point to scan. I wouldn't mind so much but the class 4 system the connection today leads to is rather bland, an unpopulated system I last visited about a month ago. But the initial chase is echoed here, as I need to ignore rocks, gas, gas, and rocks as I sift through the many signatures looking for a wormhole.

In desperation, having exhausted all the signatures likely to be a wormhole, I purposely pick the weakest return signal to resolve. Normally, the weakest signals will be the magnetometric sites but I have already started to find and ignore them in this system, so I'll work backwards and see what happens. Lo, the weakest signal in the system turns out to be a wormhole, a static connection to a C5. I jump through and, noting the presence of a tower but no ships, begin a fresh scan. There are only three signatures in the system and I pick the weakest of them to resolve first, feeling rather contrary now. And, looky, it's another wormhole, leading to a C3 system. I may need to see if my probes have been sabotaged before my next expedition.

Only celestial objects appear on scan next to the K162 in the C3, and I launch probes to begin scanning. Warping around reveals the system to be unoccupied and my scan returns many anomalies that are good for plundering and a bunch of signatures to resolve. I trip over a wormhole this time, a secondary signal showing the 'unknown' type whilst the signature I picked turns out to be a gravimetric mining site. Resolving and warping to the wormhole brings me to a low-sec exit to empire space, the connection also reaching the end of its natural lifetime. It looks like another quiet day unless there are more wormholes, but I can find no others and head home to the tower.

I spy a Manticore stealth bomber in the home system. I don't recognise its name and it soon disappears from the directional scanner, but whether it has cloaked or jumped I cannot tell. I haven't seen any activity during my exploration and it could be possible I missed a second wormhole in the home system, leading in to us instead of out. I launch probes and take a look but find nothing new. The ship may have come from a different wormhole elsewhere that I failed to scan, or maybe it belongs to the tower in the C5. I take a quick look back through the systems for any traces of the ship but find nothing. I can't really worry about it at the moment and return to our tower to rest.

A little later, my colleague with the Tengu strategic cruiser turns up again. And again we have a C3 system waiting to be exploited. I have taken a second look around the w-space neighbourhood. The C5 occupants are nowhere to be seen and the EOL low-sec exit has collapsed. I haven't bothered to scan for the new static wormhole in that system, partly because it offers no direct gain to do so and partly because keeping it closed prevents low-sec tourists from invading the C3. My colleague fires up his Tengu and heads out to the C3 to engage Sleepers in anomalies, I sit in a salvaging Catalyst destroyer at the tower and wait until the first anomaly he tackles is almost clear.

Again I head out in a salvaging vessel to clear an unprotected site of wrecks, knowing that we've had our fun picking on capsuleers just like me recently. The C5 remains quiet, the previous low-sec exit has disappeared and the new one not found yet, and there is no sign of the Manticore from earlier. As long as I remain vigilant I should be okay, and the first site is looted and salvaged cleanly.

Another colleague turns up and wants a path to Jita, my communication skills obviously failing me. I try to explain several times that the exit to empire space was EOL and has collapsed since scanning it, which is why there is no bookmark to the wormhole. It doesn't exist. Eventually the message gets across and the new static connection to low-sec is scanned and found, whilst the Tengu finishes clearing a second anomaly, now with the help of another colleague in a Legion strategic cruiser. It looks like our ship hangar array is getting deadlier.

I warp in to loot and salvage the second anomaly, still no threats appearing to shoot me. A third anomaly is cleared by the Tech III duo and I sweep through the wrecks in that one too. Whilst combat is probably more glamorous there is something about the efficiency in good salvaging that really appeals to me. The C3 remains quiet, apart from our own antics, the C5 occupants are still nowhere to be seen, and we all get back to the tower safely. I transfer the loot in to temporary storage and calculate that I've brought back over a hundred and fifty million ISK in loot. Shared three ways, it's a nice haul for a few anomalies. I would have made a good target by the end of my salvaging.

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Tags: catalyst, eve online, jita, legion, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, salvage, scanning, tengu, w-space

Salvaging behind a Tengu

The home system scan is not clear. Before I leave our tower to warp to or scan for the static wormhole I check the directional scanner for extra entities. My check is made easier by everything either being in range, by virtue of my being at the tower, or a celestial body, so I can easily see unexpected objects by their distance being indeterminate. This time, there are several unexpected objects in the system and, to add a sense of impending doom, they belong to a second tower. Before I panic I check with the alliance and find out that the second tower belongs to a sister corporation and is installed to allow greater numbers of allies in to the system without risking compromise of our main tower's security. It's a good plan. As for exploring the neighbourhood, there is a bookmark for our static wormhole in the shared can.

Jumping through the wormhole in to the connecting class 4 w-space system puts me in d-scan range of only a single planet. Warping around reveals no occupants and scanning registers few signatures, letting me find the static connection to a class 3 system easily. I jump in to the C3, again to a clean d-scan return. I last visited this system about three months ago and noted that it is occupied but not where the tower is. I find the tower and add its loaction to my records, creating a convenient bookmark too. There are no ships around, which makes scanning safe, and an exit wormhole to low-sec empire space presents itself, one that is reaching the end of its natural lifetime.

Another day with a short route ending in low-sec is not terribly interesting, particularly with no activity in either of the systems on the route. I keep scanning, hoping to find another wormhole, and I do. Unfortunately, the wormhole is a K162 coming in from null-sec empire space, which doesn't help my continuing exploration. For completion, I continue scanning and am amazed to find another wormhole in this system! There are only anomalies and wormholes in here. Warping to it reveals another low-sec exit, or maybe it doesn't. I warp back to the previous wormhole leading to low-sec and end up in empty space, indicating that the EOL static connection collapsed and I have simply scanned it again in its new position. There is nothing happening for now. I visit null-sec for the exploration dot on my star map and head back to the tower.

A colleague turns up a bit later, which would allow for some shenanigans if only the capsuleers in the C3 would wake up. Or my colleague could take his new Tengu strategic cruiser in to the C3 and test it solo against some anomaly-dwelling Sleepers. He asks if I could watch his back, which I agree to even if I don't think I have any ships that would help defend against any fleet ready to attack a Tengu. I choose to hang around in my Manticore stealth bomber, because it can pass unnoticed when cloaked and could possibly become a minor irritation to other ships. The Tengu defeats the Sleepers in the anomaly slowly but with little threat of losing, at which point I return to the tower to swap in to a salvaging destroyer, coming back to clear the anomaly of wrecks whilst my colleague flies off to engage Sleepers in a second anomaly.

The class 3 w-space system remains quiet and I am enjoying myself flying around and grabbing loot and salvage. I have this niggling thought fighting its way from the back of my mind telling me that our most recent successful acts of piracy have been attacking lone salvagers and stealing their loot. I try to suppress the thought, but not so much that I forget to keep a keen eye on d-scan. The C3 occupants may wake up or we could get visitors from low-sec. A new wormhole could even open up in to this system. But I clear the anomaly of wrecks without being ambushed. Rather than flee to a safe spot whilst waiting for the second anomaly to be cleared of Sleepers I keep the micro-warp drive engaged and burn off in an arbitrary direction, fairly sure that any cloaked ship will simply not be able to catch me. I also jink occasionally to hopefully make it more difficult for ships trying to close the distance to warp in 'bouncing' off planets.

A second anomaly is cleared by the Tengu pilot and I warp to his position. He doesn't have time to attempt a third anomaly and so stays in the site with my as I salvage, which would make an opportunistic ambush less likely. All the wrecks are looted and salvaged easily enough and we make our way back to the tower with a hold full of profit. The new alliance tower needs some fuel and a convoy is arranged to travel through the low-sec exit to bring some back. I swap in to my interceptor to help out but change my mind when I remember that our own static wormhole has just started its EOL cycle. The wormhole may well have a few hours of life left before collapsing, but I consider it a little reckless to send almost everyone out of the system in such circumstances. I stay behind just in case the wormhole doesn't behave itself and a new route home needs to be found.

The convoy has a bit of fun being chased by a Curse recon ship and a couple of hostile vessels, the slow and vulnerable industrial haulers logging off briefly rather than risking running in to an ambush in one of the low-sec systems. Some scouting gives enough reassurance for the journey home to be completed and everyone returns safely. The static wormhole in to our system persists too. I didn't have too much fun vaguely monitoring the wormhole's status, but it seemed prudent to stay behind to do so.

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Tags: curse, eve online, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, salvage, scanning, sleepers, tengu, w-space

It Hugs Back at The Borderline

It's been a while since I saw It Hugs Back support Holy Fuck at the Scala. I buy their album on the night and it becomes one of my favourites of last year, the breezy shoegazing pop music really appealing to me. It can be hard to follow smaller bands, particularly when they may not last much past a debut album, and I occasionally check the website for It Hugs Back and join the mailing list. But it is opportunistically trawling through a ticket agency's page of bands playing gigs that I notice It Hugs Back are playing the Borderline. I am even luckier than I think to spot it because the band are only playing support and it is not usual for support acts to be listed separately. I snap up a ticket for The Helios Sequence, the headlining band.

I head in to London relatively early, to ensure that I will see It Hugs Back. It would be unfortunate to want to see a support band and then turn up too late. I am early enough to see the some of High Wire before It Hugs Back start setting up for their set, and I am actually quite excited. I remember enjoying their live set when I knew nothing about them and this time I have familiarity with their songs to enhance the experience. And, unlike the last time I was here, when Blitzen Trapper pack The Borderline, there is a surprising amount of room, the venue not even half-full. This just gives me a better view of the band as they juxtapose fuzzy guitars with wispy vocals.

'This is our first gig with new drummer Will', announces guitarist and vocalist Matt half-way through the set to some cheers and applause. 'Only one gig and already you're more popular than the rest of us', he continues mockingly. I don't recognise many of the songs, but they are all excellent. A couple of tracks from the album are played, which gets my head bobbing appreciatively, even if the sound levels don't quite favour the organ tonight. It is only a short set, being a support band, and before the last song Matt points out that they have 'some CDs at the back. Well, just the one CD, but several copies of it'.

I checked the promotions table earlier and only saw Inside Your Guitar for sale, their first album, so assumed the set list would be mostly from that album. But I also don't have their early singles, quite limited in number, and my assumption that It Hugs Back are mostly previewing new material turns out to be misguided. A chat with the bassist Paul after the gig reveals that the final two songs of the set are brand new, worked on only that week as their first new material with their new drummer. A second album will be forthcoming but they've been on a break and are only just starting to write more songs. I look forwards to hearing more from It Hugs Back, both recorded material as well as hopefully more gigs.

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Tags: borderline, gig, it hugs back