Picking on a tower

Another early start means I am scanning. Fin is already through our static connection and gives me its signature reference so that I can quickly follow behind. This early scanning may find some sleepy targets, or the sites we bookmark may become active later, when we can drop in to them without needing to launch probes which would alert the pilots to our presence. Or we could find a whole lot of empty space. At least then we could shoot Sleepers in peace. Our neighbouring system is unoccupied, and leads in to another class 4 w-space system. Jumping through bring us in to a system we last visited about five weeks ago. I have the location of a tower in my notes and warping to the moon shows the tower is still there and on-line. There are a few industrial ships, an Enyo assault ship, and a Harbinger battlecruiser, but nothing particularly threatening and nothing piloted.

The system's static wormhole is found and I jump through to a C1, Fin staying behind for now. The C1 is unoccupied and quiet and I start scanning for the next wormhole. Fin is keen to shoot the defences on the tower in the C4, thinking them particularly weak with only cruise missile batteries on-line. I find a wormhole in the C1 and say that if the connection is an exit to empire space I'll help shoot the tower, otherwise I'll keep jumping. If the wormhole leads out of w-space today's chain of systems ends here, but if it leads further in to w-space there could be more legitimate targets to strike. I warp to the resolved signature and find an exit to low-sec space, so I turn my Buzzard around to return to our tower for something with bigger guns. I'm not quite sure what, though.

I am inclined to pilot my Drake, probably offering the most damage but feeling rather plain, and my recent training in gunnery makes a colleague's Harbinger somewhat more exotic whilst perhaps offering greater damage over the short ranges we'll be shooting. Fin chooses her Drake, so I take the Harbinger. Our plan is to destroy the warp disruption module first and then pick away at the rest of the defences, pretty much just indulging in some vandalism. Fin has a bookmark to the first module, allowing us to drop almost on top of it, and we start shooting. I soon realise that my unfamiliarity with the Harbinger, as well as not having fitted it myself, means I am here in a ship without any means of repair, so I am relying on buffer for protection. This isn't so bad, as the tower's missiles aim for Fin after a while, but I probably shouldn't hang around for too long if the situation deteriorates.

It isn't long before a pod turns up at the tower. I would imagine that an empire alt character has received a corporation alert that this station is being attacked, causing the w-space capsuleer to wake up. He doesn't board a ship immediately but instead brings more weapon systems on-line. With my lack of reppers I am told to warp out if I can. I can and I do, bouncing off a suitable planet to get to our return wormhole. I consider bringing back an ECM boat to help Fin escape the warp disruption module, but it is uncertain whether ECM would work. As neither of us could light the module with our target painters we assume ECM would be useless. Instead, I jump in to my Manticore stealth bomber and head back to provide what little support I can.

Fin's Drake holds up quite well but can't withstand the extra firepower brought on-line, and once the shields are down the Caldari battlecruiser explodes shortly afterwards. Her pod sits awkwardly still under the tower for a while but successfully warps away safely. I quietly watch, and line up my Manticore, as an Imicus and Cormorant come out of the shields to loot and salvage the wreck. I release a bomb and risk a volley of torpedos before re-cloaking for safety, hitting both ships, several modules, and destroying the wreck, but neither ship explodes. There is nothing more to do here, so I head back to the tower to reunite with Fin. 'As we were going for a warp disruption battery, do you think we should have fit warp core stabilisers?' Fin asks. Yes, probably. We live and learn. And at least we've cleared a little bit of space in our bulging ship hangar array.

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Tags: buzzard, cormorant, drake, enyo, eve online, harbinger, imicus, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, w-space

Holy Fuck at Heaven

A man wearing a tribal mask with a draping straw beard walks on to the stage and starts a sequencer, introducing a simple drum beat before layering other sounds and patterns over the top to create and manipulate rhythms and grooves. It is fascinating to watch Sbtrkt as he twiddles knobs to add dynamic breaks, alter the patterns, or segue in to a song with a different tempo. But one man on stage fiddling with a control console does not make for an engrossing gig, and my mind often wanders as the simple white-trainered two-foot shuffle and head bob continues on stage. I would like to have Sbtrkt playing on my stereo at home or on my headphones whilst I am out and about, as the beats appeal to me, but it doesn't quite work as a traditional gig. Maybe if everyone was dancing it would be different, but they're not.

Holy Fuck may suffer the same fate, being an electronic-based band, but they have much more happening at any one time, helped enormously not only by having four members but also by including some traditional instruments. The beats are provided mostly by a drummer behind a full acoustic kit and a bass player hits all the low notes, the other two members manipulating sequencers, keyboards, and all manner of electronically archaic instruments. Whilst the same head bob is seen, the physical efforts of the drummer amplify the effect of the beats, the bouncing of the bass player resonates with the intensity of the rhythms, and the occasional use of echoed voices through live microphones realises a vivid atmosphere of creation. It feels more like music is being made, not simply played back with tweaks.

Most of the new album Latin is played tonight, and with an intensity that brings the songs to life. For me, Latin doesn't seem to have the raw energy of the eponymous debut, yet seeing and hearing the songs played in London's Heaven venue makes me feel the music, appreciating the more laid-back beats that grow in to solid grooves and occasionally explode with frenetic outbursts. Hearing the slow-burning Red Lights, seeing how Stilettos is created, and revelling to the incredible P.I.G.S. live I can now sense the new direction of Holy Fuck. The impression of the first album is heightened by having a lo-fi recording sound, and leaving that behind gives a muted initial feeling of Latin which is deceptive of the continued energy in the songs.

A few songs from the debut album are played and, apart from a stronger recognition from the audience, they blend perfectly in to the new material. Lovely Allen and Super Inuit are great to hear again, but the real joy is in hearing the new material brought to life. There is an encore and we are treated to a couple more songs, the band thanking the audience through their echoed and distorted microphones, almost weaving the reverberations in to the songs. The spirit of rock and roll is thwarted again by a strict curfew that enforces a single encore, regardless of audience or band desires, but Holy Fuck leave the venue vibrant.

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Tags: gig, heaven, holy fuck, sbtrkt

Kicking back in Sleeper anomalies

The interlopers are gone, our system is quiet. Our neighbouring class 4 w-space system has no new wormholes connecting in to it, the occupied class 2 along from that shows no activity, and neither does the empty C1 that ends the chain. We are nicely isolated from threats at the moment and the C4 is helpfully stuffed full of anomalies. It is a fine time to be able to assemble a small fleet to venture out and attack Sleepers to plunder their exotic technology.

Two Guardian logistic ships, a Rook combat recon ship, Megathron battleship, and Abaddon battleship assemble at our tower ready for combat. We have remote reppers, ECM, and plenty of DPS, all with only one capacitor-hungry ship. The Abaddon can be fed constantly, whilst the only peckish Megathron can be given a nibble when necessary. The local systems are quiet enough that we don't need to worry too much about clearing up after ourselves quickly, concentrating on combat now and salvaging later.

A Wolf Rayet phenomenon is present in the C4 we fight in and as it increases armour resistances it has quite a big effect on the armour-heavy Sleepers. It also lets us Guardian pilots fly almost on automatic, which makes for a relaxing, uneventful evening of combat. As our fleet's damage is not sacrificed by dragging a salvager around with us we make good progress, clearing five anomalies easily enough before time runs out.

I am quick back to the tower to snatch the Catalyst destroyer out of the ship hangar, heading back to indulge myself with some dedicated salvaging. I get a bit involved in my efficiency, missing a couple of questions and one or two engineers saying good night, but this is the best part of the evening for me, once I add alliance wrecks to the overview so that I can see them properly. I take my haul of loot and salvage back to the tower, then head out to check for signs of activity in our local systems. Space remains as sleepy as I have become, and I return home to rest.

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Tags: abaddon, catalyst, eve online, guardian, megathron, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, rook, salvage, scanning, sleepers, w-space

Prepare to repel intruders

The static wormhole has imploded, there is a new one to find. It doesn't take long scanning to locate the position of the home system's wormhole, and two of us warp out of the tower to begin today's adventure. We jump in to a system we've visited before, almost three months ago. It was unoccupied then, and a quick check of the system shows it to be unoccupied now. As a result, there are lots of anomalies in the system, although only a handful of signatures. We find the system's static wormhole soon enough and jump to a class 2 w-space system. On the other side of the wormhole the directional scanner shows no activity, but a bit of warping around finds a tower around a distant planet. There are a few ships sitting passively in the shields, and no activity.

I use my comparative method of scanning to try to find the next wormhole on our route. I note that although comparing a known wormhole's return signal with other signatures can give reliable results some analysis still needs to be performed. The number of probes overlapping any particular signal will affect its return strength, requiring the comparison to be adjusted accordingly. With equal skill and luck I find a wormhole quickly, the system's static connection leading in to a C1. My companion gets a second wormhole, a convenient exit to high-sec empire space. I jump through to the C1 to find a system with only a single planet. The lone planet is being used, three towers around its moons all running reactions in silos. Apart from a fourth, off-line tower there is nothing else in here. I bookmark a few gravimetric sites opportunistically, find a second wormhole exit to high-sec, and realise that our scanning adventure has reached its end.

My colleague heads home. And when he gets there he reports the presence of a Helios covert operations boat. We are not sure where it has come from, not matching either corporation in the C1 or C2 we have scanned. He scans our home system and finds an incoming wormhole, warping to the K162 to gauge it as coming from a class 2 w-space system. My colleague jumps through to reconnoitre, finding himself staring at a Brutix battlecruiser and Jaguar assault ship. He comes back once the session timer ends and a Drake battlecruiser follows him, the Drake warping away from the K162 to somewhere in our system. Now returned home myself, and watching the situation unfold, I make a bookmark away from the wormhole—in case interdiction bubbles appear—and return to the tower to swap ships. I return to sit at moderate range from the wormhole in my Damnation command ship as the Drake comes back and starts circling the wormhole. I lock on to the Drake but hold fire.

I sit and watch. The Drake doesn't make any aggressive moves to begin with, but he eventually targets me back and launches missiles. The Jaguar pilot jumps through the join the Drake as we start shooting each other, and I swap targets to attack the assault ship first. I doubt I have the firepower to break the Drake's shields but I may be able to discourage the Jaguar from hanging around. Sure enough, he jumps back again after a couple of volleys. I stop shooting the Drake, not wanting to waste ammunition, but my colleague returns in a Megathron fitted for longer range. I swap my Damnation for my own Drake, with its extra launchers and bonuses to damage, and we try to use our combined firepower to irritate the intruding Drake pilot. Whilst we may still not break the intruder's shields, we also don't seem to be in any danger. The Drake's pilot has weak missile skills or a sub-optimal fitting, because although our attacks are reaching him his missiles fall several kilometres short of us.

We reach an impasse. We aren't breaking the Drake's shields and he can't hit us at our chosen range. My colleague is keen to get closer range ships and try to overpower the Drake, but I discourage this idea for now. We don't know what's on the other side of the wormhole and I certainly don't want to get snared in a trap so foolishly again, so soon after losing my Onyx in a similar position. Attacking at range to discourage further intrusions seems like our best tactic for now, at least until more support turns up. The Drake warps away from the wormhole, only to reappear about 150 km away from it. My colleague suggests this implies the Helios is still in the system and monitoring us closely, hence being able to give the Drake a point to warp to. This only adds to the caution we need to maintain currently, as any attack we try to mount will be noticed in advance, as we move ships out of hangar arrays, allowing our opponents to more successfully counter it. We need to remain patient and level-headed.

I warp out in my Drake and bounce off a planet to try to get the Drake back in to optimal range, but he returns to circle the wormhole by the time I get back. I move back closer and hold, watching the wormhole for activity. My colleague heads back to the tower and has to disappear briefly, leaving me alone. A Typhoon battleship jumps through from the C2 and cloaks. The ship then decloaks as it moves through the wormhole, making a fairly silly mistake, but soon cloaks again. With its extended appearance I am able to see that it is headed directly for me, no doubt trying to snare my Drake, and I warp back to the tower to safety.

A few minutes later a communication appears in the normally empty local channel. The impasse is recognised and a ceasefire is offered, with the condition that they are allowed to collapse the wormhole. This will remove their presence from our system and give them a new connection to explore. I agree, stating that I will monitor the collapse but not engage. I am asked to show myself at the wormhole, which makes me rather nervous if only because I have changed to a stealth bomber and have manoeuvred my way around to the back of the wormhole ready to launch a bomb if necessary. My Manticore is quite vulnerable, but I agree, at least to see what happens next. I decloak, wait for the cloaking time to lapse and re-activate the cloak as soon as I can, moving off in an arbitrary direction as soon as the cloak is engaged again. The intruders are satisfied and start the operation to collapse their wormhole.

A couple of battleships are passed through the wormhole a few times. The Drake still circles, only returning when the wormhole is on the verge of collapse. The battleships jump through one last time and the wormhole collapses almost on command when they return to their own system. As I sit in empty space, ensuring that no ships were left behind, then warping to our own static to see if anyone jumps through, I am invited in to a conversation with the intruder who offered the ceasefire deal. We have a little chat about tactics and opportunity, and the potential of becoming allies to grant safe passage through each other's systems in the future and offer escorts to exits to empire space if needed. I think to myself, 'what would Fin do?' and, as we shot them, think that becoming allies is exactly what she would suggest. I ask this chap to contact Fin directly to arrange the details.

Our system is empty again, no ships are lost on either side, and we have perhaps made new allies. It's been an interesting morning.

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Tags: brutix, damnation, drake, eve online, helios, jaguar, manticore, megathron, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, typhoon, w-space

A miner's life is short

Space doesn't exist. There may be the occasional molecule of gas floating around aimlessly in the void, but quite how nothing, the vast emptiness of vacuum, can be claimed to be something I'm not sure. Or the server is down. And luckily it is just a server problem, leaving the philosophical musings to be cast aside in favour of flying internet spaceships through wormholes. Having distracted myself I am not the first engineer in our system. Our scout has even already found our static wormhole and jumped through, noting that the wormhole didn't have to stabilise and that another capsuleer must have entered the system before him. The system is unoccupied, which suggests that whoever has come through is likely to come back. I convince another colleague of this and we jump in to a Malediction interceptor and Lachesis recon ship to stalk the connecting wormhole.

It seems reasonable to assume that we'll meet a capsuleer coming the other way. The system reboot was not long ago and to scan a route out and get home so quickly would be quite impressive. The presence of a scanner in the next system along gets me excited, but our scout reports him as belonging to the corporation in that system and unlikley to be travelling our way. We may be waiting for nothing, but at least I am tickled when our scout continues through the class 2 system in to a C1 and finds an exit to low-sec space to a system called Arshat. That must have been the unfortunate result of holding a competition where the winner gets to name a system. Even more interesting is when our scout reports two Hulk exhumers and jet-cans present in the C2. He uses his skills to locate them in a gravimetric site, the rest of us prepare for more unfair destruction.

I return to the tower to get in to my Onyx heavy interdictor, am joined by a Nighthawk command ship, and jump to our neighbouring system and warp to its static wormhole where the Lachesis still waits for action. Our scout gets some bookmarks, jettisons them for us to copy after he jumps back to where we loiter, and goes back to the tower himself to change to a Myrmidon battlecruiser. During this time we discuss a plan. The wormhole is out of range of the Hulk's directional scanner, making our entrance easier, but the two ships are not sitting next to each other. Our scout got bookmarks for a can next to each Hulk, as well as manoeuvring to get a spot between the two ships. It is possible that I can drop my Onyx between them and capture both in my bubble. But I don't like the thought of missing both by trying this. Instead, I will drop on top of the first Hulk and as we pop and pod him the Lachesis will prevent the second from escaping until I can move my ship and bubble across. The plan sounds good, we're all on the wormhole, and we jump.

Everyone is through to the C2, squad warp is initiated to the first Hulk. We are out of d-scan range, so they cannot see us coming just as we cannot see if they are still there. But they are still there, as we drop out of warp on top of one of the pair of exhumers. I activate my warp bubble and we start shooting the first ship, the Lachesis joining in but moving towards the second Hulk already. I have my second, scripted bubble locked on to the second Hulk to stop him warping away too. The first Hulk explodes quickly and his pod is held in my bubble. There was brief talk earlier of ransoms, but first we must capture the second Hulk. Unfortunately, excitement overcomes the senses and a couple of pilots don't realise that the Onyx's bubble is not encasing the second Hulk and they fire upon the ship. I start moving, podding the first pilot as I do, making the executive decision to forgo the ransom rather than risking his escape too as he shifts ever closer to the bubble's edge. But my moving is in vain, as the call to stop firing comes too late and the Hulk explodes. The second pod warps away cleanly, evading attempts to target its tiny structure. Now to clean up.

We ought to get out of the pocket quickly. There are three corporations present in this system and a Tengu strategic cruiser was spotted at one of the towers. But there is a surprising amount of ore to be collected and we are in a fairly strong fleet. The intermediate system between the ore and our home system is unoccupied, so hauling our spoils is not going to be too dangerous, as long as it can be picked up safely. The combat ships stay in the system, two in the gravimetric site and one at the wormhole, and I take my Onyx home to swap it for a Bustard transport ship. There is talk about collecting the ore from the mining site and jettisoning it on the other side of the wormhole, letting us clear the pocket more quickly, but that sounds like a way for the Bustard to get polarised from quick multiple trips through the wormhole and point out that it would probably be quicker to haul it home anyway, which is what we do. A second character grabs an Iteron Mk V industrial ship to help with the haul, although it still takes several trips to collect it all.

In total, we haul over 210,000 cubic metres of ore back to our tower, split evenly by volume between spodumain and jaspet. It is an impressive amount to have mined, and certainly a huge amount to collect for our short time spent in the gravimetric site.

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Tags: eve online, hulk, iteron, lachesis, malediction, mmorpg, myrmidon, nighthawk, onyx, penny ibramovic, pvp, tengu

Nicely isolated

I don't have much time but I have a desire to explore, or hunt. The possibility exists of finding a target or two and surprising them, disappearing as quickly as I appear. I even have a colleague to help, and a quick scan of our system finds the static wormhole. We warp to it and jump, keen to find items of interest. An initial return of the direction scanner looks promising, with a tower visible but no force field, but the off-line tower has no desirable modules visible and only weak defences. I warp off to investigate this abandoned tower, getting an initial bearing using d-scan.

Arriving at one of three possible moons I decide I have been unlucky, as no tower or defensive modules are visible. I then realise that my troubles with the overview are not quite over yet, as a couple of shadows in the distance turn out to be the tower and a few gun batteries. The brackets for the structures are not showing, and I still don't know why. It's possible that in trying to return my desired settings yesterday I misconfigured others, but I don't think I could have got them this badly mangled. For safety, so that I don't decloak around defended towers accidentally, I use some of my limited time to reconfigure yet again my overview, adding the structure and module brackets back to my display at least. I doubt this is the last modification I'll need to make, though.

This abandoned tower is the only structure present, making the system unoccupied. With our static connection leading in here it comes as no surprise to see that the system has plenty of signatures, and I re-join my colleague in trying to find the next wormhole on our route. Because I warped off to find the off-line tower rather impetuously I forgot to bookmark the wormhole home, so I need to resolve the wormhole completely to return to it and bookmark it. As a result, I have no comparative signal strength to use to try to find other wormholes in the system and have to rely instead on experience and intuition. So it is that we both scan and discard all but one signature in the whole system, the final one necessarily being the static wormhole. It takes a bit of chasing around too, my colleague surmising that it is thus likely to lead to a C5 or C6. Indeed he's right, as warping to the resolved signature finds a connection to a C5 system. We jump through the pristine wormhole.

The class 5 system is also unoccupied with plenty of signatures to sift through. To find targets we need to continue scanning for another system. Thankfully, I am able to get a comparative scan of the return wormhole to improve my results, and after only one false return of some rocks I find a wormhole around the outer planet. This connection is also pristine, not yet begun its cycle of life, and leads in to deadly w-space, a class 6 system. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I jump through. I bookmark the wormhole home and use d-scan to take a look around, seeing nothing in particular initially. The system is big enough to have planets out of d-scan range and I start warping around to find any occupants, but I find none. An unoccupied class 6 system makes a change from all the ones we find populated with capital ship pilots. It also means our own system is relatively safe.

With our current route heading from home, though a C4, C5, then C6, all unoccupied, our only danger is from other connections opening in to those systems or our own. As it stands, our corporation has the opportunity to explore and plunder three systems of increasing danger with minimal chance of interruption. I suggest we don't scan the C6 for a wormhole and instead keep it clear, in case a corporation fleet can form later to take advantage of this excellent situation. Besides finding the opportunity, my time has run out for now. We both head back home to our tower. I copy the bookmarks we have gathered in to our shared can and take myself off-line.

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

Tweaking the overview for the alliance

A couple of systems have been scanned, there are bookmarks in the can. I think I'll see if anyone is coming out to play in w-space today. Or I would, if I could see the jet-can. My overview no longer has the can listed, although spinning my view around shows it still to be there. I could pick out the can visually and open it that way, but I want to know why the overview no longer displays it. Our new alliance is now formed, the only change since the overview last displaying properly, and it is suggested that I should change that state in the overview settings to get the can to appear. Now I am no longer ignoring 'pilots in your alliance' does the trick, but I have no idea why.

The can isn't a pilot, although it is explained that 'pilot' is the UI being misleading—say it ain't so—and in this case it is synonymous with 'asset'. That makes some sense, but it still doesn't explain why the can disappears in the first place. Before we were in an alliance the jet-can was presumably a corporate asset and it was as ignored in my overview settings as alliance assets, yet the overview displayed it. This makes no sense to me at all but I grudgingly accept the problem as fixed, if only so I can escape from the tower's shields and go exploring. I copy the bookmarks from the can, warp to our static wormhole, and jump.

The neighbouring system looks unoccupied from the position of the wormhole. The directional scanner shows a couple of warp bubbles discarded somewhere, but an otherwise empty system. I decloak and move away from the wormhole, launching probes as I go. Or, at least, I think I launch probes. The probe bracket is no longer visible on my display. I know that probes cannot be added to the overview, for some reason, but until today the bracket—the icon overlayed on to the physical item in the display for clarity and extra information—was visible. I expect more overview shenanigans related to joining the alliance.

There may not be immediately obvious uses to having the probe bracket visible, but it still concerns me. First, it is useful to see them being launched. Probes are tiny, and without seeing their bracket a hostile ship can be launching probes without an active watcher realising. D-scan is useful, but having eyes on the subject should be more reliable. Second, if both jet-cans and probes have had their settings quietly altered in the overview I have to wonder what else will be different and need modifying. I spend a frustrating number of minutes trying to return the probe bracket to my display with no success. I thought I had a fairly good grip on the fundamental workings of the overview, but I am just getting irritated. And a fleet has formed for Sleeper combat and I am holding everyone up. It has taken me about an hour to jump through our bookmarked static wormhole and launch four probes, nothing else.

I give up on understanding the terrible UI in a wave of self-indulgent pessimism, jumping back to our home system and swapping in to a Guardian for fleet operations. My hope now is that some stupid UI decision, or my sinking in to apathy, doesn't result in the loss of a friendly ship. To help with my sour mood we have three capacitor-hungry Abaddons—one more than the previous operation and two more than usual—and two spare energy transfer arrays that can only really be used when the Guardians aren't running all of their reppers at once. We mostly manage, although balancing capacitor use when we can't actively see capacitor levels is a little awkward and relies on updates from the Abaddon pilots.

Luckily, my mood helps to reinforce the new discipline the corporation is trying to instil to operations, now that we are growing a little. All communications related directly to the current operation are sent to the fleet channel, any other chatter should remain in a separate channel. It's best to start this discipline when we are still small, as it should make it more natural for new pilots to follow by example when we grow further. And apart from a discussion on how an Abaddon can use quite so much energy, clearing anomalies in our neighbouring system is performed smoothly. After a period of low Sleeper activity, we are getting back in to our groove, blasting our way through five anomalies quite quickly. And when three have been cleared another colleague appears and volunteers to run a salvaging boat behind us, increasing our efficiency. Our brief operation ends with all pilots returning to the tower safely and sixty million ISK wealthier.

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Tags: abaddon, eve online, guardian, mmorpg, overview, penny ibramovic, scanning, sleepers, w-space

Going backwards through wormholes

There is no one here. But maybe there are strangers waiting for me elsewhere. I launch probes from my Buzzard, find our w-space system's static wormhole, and go looking for activity. The neighbouring system is unoccupied and quiet, and scanning soon reveals its own static wormhole. The connection leads to another class 4 system, but the wormhole is reaching the end of its life. I don't want to risk jumping through if I don't have a separate route home, and if it is the only wormhole in the system then this will be my shortest w-space adventure so far. But if this system's static wormhole has been opened, and the system is unoccupied, someone else must have visited here and there could still be a K162 for me to find.

Some extra scanning locates the expected K162, and it is stable too. Knowing that someone must have passed through these systems to open the wormholes gives me hope that I will find some activity, but that I also need to take care. Opening a static connection almost guarantees that nobody will be waiting on the K162 side, but going through a K162 to the static side could present a nasty surprise. In this case, when I jump I find only empty space and a deserted return signal from my direction scanner. I launch probes and start scanning as I confirm that the system is unoccupied, knowing that I am looking for another K162 wormhole to continue my exploration. I find lots of rocks, which I bookmark in case industrialists return to mine, and then the wormhole, a K162 coming in from also dangerous w-space.

The next system looks familiar, being big and having an outer planet orbiting at 90° to the celestial plane, but the system doesn't appear in my records. Again, the system is unoccupied, so again I must be looking for a K162 wormhole. I am going backwards, covering a route already opened by another capsuleer. A k-space visitor is unlikely to scan several systems deep for no reason, so I doubt I am following this path back to an exit to empire space. I must eventually find an occupied system, unless one of the static wormholes along the route has imploded. I continue to scan, sifting through the many signatures to resolve in this system. I look for OIL and find only gas, but am able to pluck a likely signature and resolve a wormhole before long. For the first time on my journey I can recognise the class of system on the other side before jumping. The wormhole leads to 'deadly' w-space, it's a class 6 system.

Out of curiosity I move close to jump through and take a look around. But just as I approach the wormhole a Purifier stealth bomber appears and, well, disappears again. I am afraid I wasn't paying enough attention at that moment and don't know if he jumped in to this system or not. His ship's attitude suggests he did jump in and I simply miss the flare, as there is no flare when he disappears and it would seem more likely that he cloaks and warps away from the wormhole. I wait a few seconds then approach the wormhole and jump myself, I should be relatively safe from a stealth bomber after all. In the C6 there are only a few warp bubbles visible on d-scan, but there are three planets out of range of d-scan. I bookmark this side of the wormhole, for my return, then warp around to look for towers. I don't launch probes, as I don't expect there to be any other wormholes, or any activity I would want to interrupt.

One planet has a tower with three command ships and a dreadnought parked inside its shields, only the Sleipnir command ship being piloted. A second planet has two towers anchored to its moons, with big industrial ships at one and the other showing no signs of activity. The last of the outer planets has three towers, these having strategic cruisers and capital ships scattered lazily around. I'm going home. I have probably found the origin system of today's route through w-space, and there is no sign of life between our home system and theirs. On the return journey I see probes visible on d-scan in the C5 system, and a Manticore rubs shoulders with me on a wormhole but leaves me alone. There is otherwise still no activity, and a final check of the EOL static connection in our neighbouring C4 shows it is still EOL and static.

The home system has no probes visible, so it looks like the K162 leading in to our system has not yet been found, and probably won't be until the EOL connection next door implodes. Indeed, there is not much else to do until the wormhole dies. Although the neighbouring C4 is sufficiently isolated from the only other connecting occupied system for us to fight Sleepers in relative safety, not enough Wormhole Engineers turn up to form a suitable fleet. It remains a pleasantly quiet evening.

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

Collapsing wormholes for profit

I'm early, but not that early. The previous static wormhole has gone and I delete all my bookmarks to start again. A colleague is out and scanning, helping me to ignore a handful of signatures quickly, and we track down our static wormhole easily enough. The neighbouring class 4 w-space system is occupied and I find the tower thanks to its ideal placement. The tower is on the only moon in the system that is in scan range of every celestial body. It is only when I launch probes and start scanning that I realise there is a second tower in the system. I'll look for it when I'm ready to move on, as there is no activity worth monitoring at the moment.

The system's static wormhole is found and although I suspect there is nothing more of interest a farewell scan reveals a K162. The incoming wormhole is reaching the end of its life so I note its position but move onwards through the static connection in to a class 5 system. The C5 is big and I scan the two outer planets separately from the inner system, using the comparative scanning method to pluck a wormhole from the signatures on my first attempt. I also warp around the system for the directional scanner to get full coverage, finding two towers when I do. There is no activity and only a Scorpion battleship and Mammoth hauler parked in one of the towers. Warping to the wormhole I resolve shows it to be an EOL K162 and I keep looking. A static wormhole to a C2 is found, which is promising, but it too is EOL, which is not. Not much more can be done until this wormhole dies of natural causes, so I head home to be productive elsewhere.

A bit later, I return hoping to find a new wormhole opening in to a class 2 system full of targets, but instead I find that our own static wormhole has been collapsed and scanning has started anew. The neighbouring C4 being occupied and bereft of anomalies was the motivation to collapse our wormhole, when we are looking for Sleepers to engage. Mind you, it seems that our scanning man is currently in a system occupied by pilots with capital ships, which could make us consider collapsing the wormhole again. I stay in the tower for now, but he returns and copies the bookmarks to the shared can with no talk of collapsing our wormhole. I copy the bookmarks to my systems and head out to get acquainted with our neighbourhood.

The connecting C4 is unoccupied, a system we visited some ten weeks earlier. The next system is also unoccupied, and quite peculiar. There are only two planets, the first 0·2 AU from the star and on a normal orbital plane, the second 20·8 AU out and orbiting 90° from the plane. I poke my nose through the null-sec exit here, visiting IMK-K1 in the Tribute region, before continuing through the next wormhole to the system with the capital ships. We have been here before too, about six weeks ago, so I've probably already seen the Rorqual capital industrial ship, Moros dreadnought, and two Chimera carriers that are here. There is also a null-sec exit here, and I briefly find myself in the 4RS-L1 system of the Impass region. I like getting new dots of exploration. There is no activity in w-space though and I take another break.

Later still, we have a fleet. Our situation looks good, if unchanged. Our neighbouring C4 is unoccupied and has some sites of specific Sleeper interest to pillage, with an unoccupied buffer system between us and any potential threat. We should be okay. Our first targets are the two magnetometric sites, and our twin Guardians are fitted with analyser modules to access the artefacts in the sites. It feels like a while since we've fought Sleepers regularly, but they remember me. All of the initial wave rushes to greet my Guardian, hugging me so hard that my shields drop and the armour gets a little crushed. Our capacitor-hungry Abaddons have to beat the Sleepers off with lasers in the end. They were just being friendly, I'm sure. The first wave is defeated. To alert the rest of the Sleepers we need to steal some of their artefacts, so Fin and I put our Guardians to work. Fin's artefact doesn't trigger a new wave of ships, and mine is stubbornly remaining closed.

'Come and open this, would you? I think I loosened the top a little.' The artefact eventually opens, but it isn't until we analyse a third that the Sleepers turn up and we are back in to combat. The third wave arrives spontaneously, bringing four Sleeper battleships to us. I remember from earlier encounters the huge alpha damage the four ships deal and switch off all my reppers in preparation. As soon as a name on the watch list blinks red, signalling incoming damage, I target that ship and activate all my remote repair modules, even switching my repper drones across. As the Sleeper's target is a battlecruiser it will need all the attention it can get. Our pilot is a little inexperienced too and has trouble aligning to warp out, resulting in a fair bit of structure damage as it bleeds through from the armour, but we stay on top of the damage and our ECM kicks in soon enough to regain our advantage in deadspace.

One pilot swaps his combat ship for a specialist analysing frigate, the rest of us move on to the second magnetometric site. The four Sleeper battleships arrive again, but they target one of our own battleships, making their strike much easier to cope with. The analysing frigate has scooped all the artefacts in the first site and comes to clear the second, the fleet moving on to basic anomalies instead. We clear two anomalies after the two magnetometric sites, I return to help with salvaging, and we bring home bundles of loot, including the remains of two deserted Talocan cruisers. The profit for the night is a little over one hundred million ISK each. I've already recovered the cost of losing my Onyx.

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Tags: chimera, eve online, guardian, mammoth, mmorpg, moros, null-sec, onyx, penny ibramovic, rorqual, scanning, scorpion, sleepers, w-space

Analysing the threat of w-space tower attacks

Glorious leader Fin witnesses the destruction of an active w-space tower. It doesn't happen to us, but the thought of having our home vaporised is unsettling. One colleague remarks of the invaders that 'we'd better hope they don't find us'. Perhaps, but I don't think we are as in danger as the poor chaps who get attacked. In fact, they were in a losing position from the start. The convenience of their static high-sec exit also becomes their downfall.

It was perhaps only a matter of time. Their high-sec wormhole is big enough to allow for battleships to enter and leave safely, and as the connection is static it will always lead out to high-sec empire space. That makes it easy for a fleet to travel to the new exit system, with no null-sec, low-sec, or w-space connections to traverse. Once the occupied system is found, either from empire space or from scanning outwards from a deeper w-space system, the occupants are vulnerable. A battleship fleet can be flown in, the tower attacked and put in to reinforced mode, and the battleships can leave again. All that is needed is for a scout to remain present in the w-space system. The Buzzard that we saw, and his combat probes, was no doubt from the hostile force, but we didn't realise this at the time.

Normally, the twenty-four hour period of reinforced mode is almost a guarantee of safety in w-space. Wormhole connections will implode by then, making it much more difficult to relocate the same system to return to finish the job. But the static high-sec exit makes the return much simpler. Indeed, not just the scout could remain in the system but the whole fleet, guaranteed to be able to leave quickly and safely to high-sec after the secondary attack. But the static high-sec exit also means that everyone but the scout can leave and be productive during the time the tower is in reinforced mode.

The scout only has to find the static high-sec wormhole and relay the exit system to the rest of the fleet. The battleships can then make the journey through high-sec and rendezvous with the scout to return to the system. This adds perhaps half-an-hour travel time to the operation. And there is little defence against this. The static wormhole can be collapsed, but its static nature means a new one will appear immediately. And whilst it may be true that a wormhole doesn't create its exit until it is opened, the presence of the hostile scout means that any new static wormhole will be found and activated.

Stopping the scout isn't easy either, as he only has to jump briefly in to high-sec, policed by Concord, to gather the intelligence of the current exit system, before returning and hiding, monitoring system activity. I can only think of two options that may work, but both are potentially risky and far from guaranteed. There are probably more and better options, but I am still learning w-space and PvP tactics.

First, collapse the wormhole every ten minutes or so, starting before the tower comes out of reinforced mode, beginning to repair the tower as soon as it becomes possible to do so. The continual changes of exit system may cause the battleships to alter course enough to make them give up, or offer enough time to repair and restock the tower sufficiently. But there is no guarantee that the new high-sec exit system will be far removed from the previous one, and the battleship fleet may arrive whilst you have large, expensive ships trying to collapse the wormhole, exacerbating the problems.

Second, try to trap the hostile scout outside of the wormhole. Collapse the wormhole and find the new one immediately, warping aggressive ships suited to catching covert operations boats to it. Either catch the scout trying to exit, trying to enter, or prevent him from re-entering. If any of these goals are met, collapse the wormhole again and your system is hopefully isolated, allowing the tower to be repaired in relative safety. Check occasionally for the presence of scanning probes in case a second scout is present. Of course, snaring a cov-ops boat is difficult, and more so when the other side of a wormhole is high-sec space. The pilot could also quickly grab the bookmarks and call for reinforcements to thwart the effort to collapse the wormhole quickly, even if the scout is popped and podded.

Essentially, having a high-sec exit makes returning to the system far more convenient than normal, with only a minimal presence needed to be maintained by the attackers. Living deeper in w-space negates many of these problems. A scout could indeed remain in the system and the main fleet could leave, the scout finding them a route back in. However, as I have consistently seen during my scanning, a reliable exit is uncommon. There are often occasions when our only option is to head through a capital ship-infested C6 system, the only exit is to null-sec space, or the best route to empire space is through a C1 system that doesn't have the capacity to let battleships enter. An easy route is far from guaranteed. And if a route doesn't exist, the scout has no recourse to collapse the wormhole and start again.

Collapsing our static wormhole is a valid tactic for us, though. Unlike the high-sec exit, once we collapse our wormhole we only open a new connection to w-space. The new system must then be scanned to find a route to empire space, and it is almost assured that at least one further system will need to be scanned too. We won't need to catch the scout, we can simply collapse our wormhole, wait for him to exit, and collapse the wormhole a second time whilst he is scanning for the exit route, isolating him from our system without any reliable way of finding us again.

This is not to say we are safe. If someone wants an occupied w-space system enough they will take it. Rather than leaving a scout in our system they will leave the whole fleet. But first they have to find us, and then they have to want our system. We are just another C4, with nothing particularly special present. I am confident that the attack on the C2 system was opportunistic, the convenience of the static high-sec exit providing the motivation to attack and return. We certainly need to be aware of potential invaders, but we are far from at threat as the recent attack suggests.

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Tags: eve online, mmorpg, w-space