It is an ex-humer

There is even more to explore. All the excitement in the class 2 w-space system has meant I haven't gone through our static wormhole yet. But by the time I am in position to do so our scan man has gone to the edge of his previous exploration and continued deeper, finding a couple more wormholes and the systems beyond. I am happy to kick back and relax whilst he searches for targets, warming up my Onyx just in case.

A lone Tengu strategic cruiser is spotted, but it cloaks or jumps and its position becomes uncertain. It doesn't seem to be part of a larger fleet, though, and could be a target itself. However, seeing a Covetor and Hulk on the directional scanner presents a rather more tangible target, and our scan man goes looking for them. Both mining ships are in the tower in the system, but not for long, as they warp out. He starts scanning for gravimetric sites and finds the one they are warping to. He grabs a quick bookmark to the site and makes his way back to the home system to collect the rest of us.

Scan man gets in to an Arazu combat recon ship, I am in my Onyx, Fin has her Nighthawk, and we have a Hurricane for that extra bit of firepower needed to destroy mining ships. We don't wait to copy the new bookmarks, as we have most of the journey copied already. Instead, we'll add the new wormhole locations as we travel. A few jumps later and three of us hold on a wormhole, the Arazu jumping through to warp cloaked to the gravimetric site to get a warp-in to the miners. Something goes wrong and the Arazu is decloaked, so he calls for us to jump and warp at will. I get in to the system and warp to his position, where he has the Hulk snared, its warp engines disrupted.

I activate my heavy interdictor's bubble and lock-on to the exhumer. The Covetor is over 100 kilometres away, the pair perhaps wisely mining different rocks. The fleet converge on the poor Hulk pilot, his ship destroyed and pod exploded without second thought. The ship's wreck is looted, we cram as much ombre in to our holds as we can fit, and warp out. I am relying on the squad warp as once again in my haste I fail to bookmark this side of the wormhole after jumping. We make it out of the system quickly and cleanly, confident enough to start thinking about trying to find that Tengu. We find it, but the strategic cruiser has returned to its tower and is sitting inertly in the shields. It's the end of the evening, so we copy its example and head home.

Posted in Gaming | 3 Comments »
Tags: arazu, covetor, eve online, hulk, hurricane, mmorpg, nighthawk, onyx, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space

Restraining a Raven

The corporation has been busy. My colleagues are out of our home system and shooting an off-line tower that they owners didn't feel was worth paying a ransom for. That's a shame, but I suppose as our fleet has already popped the hangars and stolen everything ejected there isn't much left to save. I don't know what system they are all in, nor do I think there is a viable route there any more, so instead of joining them I grab what bookmarks I can find in our shared can and go exploring our local neighbourhood. Rather than head straight out through our static wormhole I take a quick look at the two incoming K162s. One is reaching the end of its life, but the other is quite stable and that's the one I jump through.

I enter the class 2 w-space system and quickly find the occupier's tower. A Drake battlecruiser and Osprey cruiser are manned inside the shields, as is a capsuleer's pod, but the more interesting feature is that their tower is in reinforced mode. As I understand it, a tower can be attacked up to a certain point, after which it enters reinforced mode for up to twenty-four hours, dependent on the amount of strontium fuel reserves. During this time the tower is invulnerable to further attacks, but once the strontium is depleted the tower becomes vulnerable again. There isn't long left on this tower's timer before it is no longer reinforced. The occupants will probably want to restore the shields, and the presence of a high-sec exit to empire space could also tempt them to make a supply run, if they haven't already. There are potential targets here.

To make the opportunity more enticing, the high-sec wormhole is out of scan range from the tower. I bookmark a point about thirty kilometres away from the high-sec wormhole and towards the tower, switch to my new Onyx, and plant it to block the exit. A friendly scout tests the efficacy of this bubble. Warping cloaked from the tower to the wormhole the scout is pulled out of warp in to my bubble, which makes for a good trap should the occupants try to fly out of their system. Warping back presents no such problems, however. It is probably late in the day for them to be making an equipment run anyway, and by myself I won't be able to break the tank of a Drake, so sitting here is ultimately a bit pointless.

A Buzzard appears on d-scan, uncloaked, and I try to narrow down his position, but he cloaks before I can warp to him. I return to sit on the wormhole a bit more, content to find out that the fleet from the earlier tower operation is returning through this high-sec connection. My Onyx is actually protecting the fleet a little. Once they are gone, I return to the wormhole connecting our system, where a corporation Hurricane battlecruiser is sitting waiting for some action to be found, whilst the Buzzard's probes are homing in on it. Before anything happens, a Raven battleship is seen at the tower, moving out of the shields. Ravens are quite sturdy and it would only have to move back in to the tower's shields to break any target locks and be safe, but we have a plan.

The Hurricane pilot returns to refit the ship a little, adding two web modules to drastically slow the Raven's engines. I get in to the only ship I currently have that has any amount of DPS, joined in a second Drake by Fin. Our scout is in position, giving us a good warp-in point on the Raven, clearly communicated. We jump in to the C2 and align to the planet, letting us all enter warp quickly when I activate the squad warp command. Our ships drop almost on top of the Raven, thanks to our scout's position, and we immediately lock, web, and start shooting. We bump the Raven to further frustrate its movements before realising that manoeuvring in between it and the tower is probably a better tactic. All the while our missiles and guns batter down the Raven's shields, and the tower guns fire on us.

The Raven is slowed down and our damage is enough to destroy it, causing a satisfying explosion. The Raven's wreck is looted, I shoot the wreck, and we warp away cleanly. Our Hurricane has taken most of the damage in the fight but we are fine. Checking the Raven's fitting shows that it sacrificed what must have been a shield booster for a shield transfer array, removing most of its tank in preparation to repair the tower's shields. To add further injury to injury, we swap in to a wing of stealth bombers and head back to catch an Osprey or two in the same position. Unfortunately, we are not able to co-ordinate our movements accurately enough whilst cloaked and two ships bump in to each other, decloaking both ships. It is a laughable attempt at a bombing run, particularly as I end up launching a bomb in the wrong direction in a hasty and disastrous attempt to salvage some dignity. We go home instead, happy with the Raven kill.

Before our scout leaves the system, a Phobos heavy interdictor appears along with some battleships, an Apocalypse, Dominix, and two Navy Ravens. They are not at the tower, though, brought out in defence, but come through the high-sec wormhole. The Phobos plants itself on the wormhole and activates its warp bubble, preventing escape, and the battleships warp to the tower and start firing warning shots. Our scout returns, but Fin's curiosity gets the better of her. She jumps through the now-EOL wormhole back to the C2 and starts monitoring the situation. The battleship fleet makes a ransom demand of five billion ISK or they will destroy the tower. Not only do they seem capable of doing so, they are undoubtedly the same pilots who put the tower in to reinforced mode. I think we got lucky, our minor antics occurring before this fleet turns up, particularly sitting my Onyx on the high-sec wormhole and bringing the fleet back through it too. A little later and we would have been in trouble.

The occupants of the C2, now defending their tower, bargain with the pirates, making a counter-offer of one billion ISK. Meanwhile, Fin is trying to sell the occupants passage through our wormhole for a lesser price. It's quite audacious to offer help to people we've just shot, but Fin has the skills to do it. The occupants want to stay, though, and their offer to the pirates of one billion ISK is accepted and paid. The pirates shoot the tower anyway. The occupants can't protect it against the battleship fleet and end up fleeing to hide in safe-spots in the system, perhaps hoping to rebuild later. They are having a really bad day. Fin makes it home before our connecting wormhole implodes and we settle down comfortably in our tower, happy that it's not us under attack.

Posted in Gaming | 2 Comments »
Tags: apocalypse, buzzard, dominix, drake, eve online, hurricane, mmorpg, onyx, osprey, penny ibramovic, phobos, pvp, raven, scanning, w-space

Back to scanning and repping

A potential mining system is reported as found. We don't look for systems with rich gravimetric sites so we can mine ore, though, the report is to make us aware that perhaps we'll have defenceless targets to shoot at some point in the evening. Let's hope so. I spent a day out in empire space, having stupidly got myself killed, but now I am back through the wormhole and have brought a new Onyx heavy interdictor with me. I have called it Mothman.

Being home again gives me access to my ships. I jump in to my Buzzard, copy the current bookmarks from the can, and go out to take a look at these systems for myself. Our neighbouring class 4 system is unoccupied. I press on to the next system, which is occupied but empty of activity. The only gravimetric site in the system is already bookmarked. That's good work. I jump back to our neigbouring system and start scanning, looking for potential sites and any signs of incoming wormholes, which could pose threats.

I find loads of ladar gas mining sites in the C4, accompanied by one gravimetric and one magnetometric site, both of which I bookmark. There are no futher wormholes, which makes this a rather good system to engage Sleepers in. Before I return to the tower I warp in to the gravimetric site and get bookmarks for the arkonor and bistot rocks, then head back to the C3 to check again for activity. There is nothing happening, but again I get a good warp-in bookmark for the gravimetric site, to ensure I don't get decloaked by rocks should I need to warp in to the site later. I then make use of the null-sec exit wormhole in the system to get another red dot of exploration on my star map before returning home.

Our fleet gets prepared to fight Sleepers. We fly a standard configuration of big ships with two Guardian logistic ships in to our neighbouring system and start clearing the local anomalies. There is a curious moment when one of the Sleepers tries to warp scramble a drone, which is perhaps a little insulting to us capsuleers to think the Sleepers cannot tell us apart, but otherwise the combat is smooth.

We take a break after the fourth cleared anomaly, our salvaging Ishtar sweeping up after ourselves, after which we see our homewards wormhole is reaching the end of its life. Rather than push our luck and continuing we warp home safely. I quickly check the C3 system but still find a lack of activity, so go home to rest. The evening's profits start to pay back the ISK I spent to replace my Onyx too.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Back to scanning and repping
Tags: buzzard, eve online, guardian, ishtar, mmorpg, onyx, penny ibramovic, sleepers, w-space

Blitzen Trapper at The Borderline

The Borderline is smaller than I remember it to be. I imagine it has been remodelled, or maybe my failing memory really is because I haven't been here for ten years, but the venue looks different. I am impressed that all the members of Blitzen Trapper are able to fit on the stage with all of their instruments and still be able to jump around to their impassioned folk rock, more so when I realise half-way through the set that there is a sixth member I can't see. I thought I had a clear view of the stage, the column slightly obstructing my view of the bassist, but a guitar solo apparently coming from nowhere makes me squeeze my view around to see the headstock of a third guitar. Actually, it is the second phantom guitar solo that makes me realise I am missing a member of the band, the first just makes me scratch my head in confusion.

Blitzen Trapper warm up the audience with a couple of tracks from album Furr, but the band are here to promote forthcoming album Destroyer of the Void. There are plenty of new songs to hear and Blitzen Trapper say that it is fun to play them. The new material sounds good, but it is difficult to fully appreciate them on a first hearing. For me, the joy in music comes from repeated plays that allow predictive and nuanced listening. I personally prefer to have listened to the recorded material before seeing a band perform songs live, but I know I also enjoy getting a new album to hear songs I previously heard live, the new yet familiar music evoking memories of the gig.

There is plenty to enjoy in tonight's gig. I have no idea what any of the new tracks are, and apparently I missed the release of the Black River Killer EP, perhaps thinking it was only a single instead of a fuller release, but it all sounds good. And Lady on the Water and Sleepy Time in the Western World are performed from Furr. The title track of that album is also played, which gets a warm reception and some audience participation.

The band are not shy with the audience either. When Marty announces that there is some confusion as they cannot read the writing on the set list, he has to quell the crowd. 'We weren't opening up the floor to suggestions', he tells us, although that doesn't stop more from coming. They even get asked to play Neil Young's On the Beach, which the band seems to think they have been asked to do before, perhaps even the last time they came to London. Blitzen Trapper actually improvise their way through the start of the song before saying that one day they will actually play the entire album, and we'd better be there for it. We are then told 'Eric is going acoustic' and that as he changes 'we should banter'. Someone in the audience asks what happened to the drummer's beard, which is a 'good question. Brian, what happened to your beard?'

'Do you want the truth?'

'No, we're entertainers', replies Marty again, 'come up with an entertaining lie.' So Brian says that he was getting fed up with being treated like a tramp, although there were positive aspects to that too. He is happy that someone noticed, at least. The acoustic number is played before the whole band are brought back. A couple of older songs are played, title track of third album Wild Mountain Nation being a joy to hear again, but it is the rambunctious mayhem of Devil's A-Go-Go that is my highlight, fittingly played as the final song of the encore. The seemingly amelodic and stilted track can only be fully appreciated when seeing it performed, the band jumping around and impressively keeping in time with each other across the shifting rhythms. It is a brilliant end to another exciting Blitzen Trapper gig.

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Tags: blitzen trapper, borderline, gig

A series of unfortunate events

Destroying a salvager has annoyed a fleet. The Tengu strategic cruiser has found the wormhole connecting to our home system easily enough but it looks like he gets bored quickly and warps off. The four Drake battlecruisers leave the anomaly where we engaged the Cormorant destroyer and jump out of the system. It looks like they've lost interest. I suspect differently, and that they are instead changing ships to rather more dangerous PvP configurations. Seeing a Raven battleship, Armageddon battleship, Phobos heavy interdictor, Hurricane battlecruiser, and Jaguar assault ship appear on the directional scanner confirms my suspicion. Luckily, our own fleet has made it back home safely, with the only ships left in this system having a covert operations cloak fitted.

We've met these people before, too. The corporation is the one whose pilot took it upon himself to bomb our tower to provoke a response, which he gets, and my inexperience gets an Armageddon of ours destroyed. Even if I hopefully know better now, they clearly are well-organised and equipped, and know what they are doing. It was really frustrating that the last time they engaged us we should have been blue to them and not valid targets, if our agreement with the alliance had been honoured, and kind of amusing now that they left the same alliance only a few days previously. Had they still been in it, we wouldn't have attacked their Cormorant salvaging destroyer. But it also means they can shoot us back, and they are looking to do so.

I would probably be safer back home at our tower than in this system. A pair of eyes in this system is valuable if we are to do anything, though, and we have a stealth bomber that is loitering some distance away from our wormhole. He can monitor ship movements and alert us to changing threats. But for me to return I need to run a gauntlet of alert and capable PvP pilots. The Raven, Armageddon and Phobos are on this side of the wormhole, the Jaguar and Hurricane on the other. This won't be easy, but I keep boasting about how to move away from wormholes safely. It's time to put my knowledge in to practice.

Getting to the wormhole is easy enough, finding a clear approach vector that doesn't decloak me. As soon as I jump the wormhole will visibly and audibly flare and there will no doubt be activity and pilots ready to lock and shoot me. I get within jumping distance of the wormole and quickly decloak and jump. Arriving on the other side, I hold my cloak as I find the ships around the wormhole and the best direction to move away from everything so I can activate my cloak immediately and hold it. The wormhole flares again as a ship follows me through. Without delay, I push my ship away from the wormhole, cycle the reheat and engage my cloak. My Buzzard moves quickly away from the wormhole and cloaks as the Phobos heavy interdictor's warp bubble activates, preventing me from warping away. That's okay, I'm safe. I change direction when I am a few kilometres away, just in case someone tries to follow and decloak me, and slowly move out of the Phobos's bubble. I'm clear.

I don't warp out but move away from the wormhole, knowing that the HIC's bubble will prevent any attempt at warping to the wormhole from range. And we need to fight at range to defend. What is needed is a point away from the bubble that we can warp to, and I manoeuvre my Buzzard to get a good position to bookmark for that purpose. Meanwhile, one of the hostile pilots has spoken in our home system local channel, complaining that 'you attacked my alt mofo'. Would sir like some cheese with that whine? I didn't realise you could go around shooting anyone you wanted but everyone else needed permission to shoot you. 'We will crush your POS'. What a terrible bluff. In my experience, those who are capable and motivated in to destroying something aren't likely to announce it first.

I am fairly sure I have the strategy to repel these intruders, we just need to attack from range. But my colleagues are curiously reticent to get in to long-range ships and shoot the attackers, my skills of persuasion not able to convince them of the relative safety in doing so. We end up with a stealth bomber monitoring ships on one side and my Buzzard monitoring ships on the other. After a while of no activity by ourselves, the hostile ships get bored and go home, leaving our own and the neighbouring system. But I am certain they have a scout in our system. They did before, which we nearly kill the last time we encounter this corporation, and it gives a definite advantage to know what ship movements are occuring. I say we need to keep a watch for that scout leaving before we are safe. And then a Hound stealth bomber of theirs comes in to our system.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Hound bombs our tower out of futile spite before running away again. With my combat Buzzard on one side of the wormhole and a stealth bomber on the other, we may be able to trap him. In fact, with the rest of the fleet gone I could probably catch the Hound on the wormhole with my Onyx. I warp back to the tower to change ships, warming up my heavy interdictor in case of a bomb attack. As I am getting coordinated, a Harbinger battlecruiser is spotted on our wormhole and one of our pilots in a Lachesis recon ship engages it. Not wanting to leave our pilot out there alone I warp in to help, and as my Onyx is fitted with short-range heavy assault missiles I drop on to the wormhole. This was a mistake, as our eyes in the neighbouring system announces the return of the battleships. I try to warp out again but the Hurricane has my warp engines disrupted and I cannot flee. In stupid desperation, as the number of ships coming increases, I take my only exit, through the wormhole.

Jumping through the wormhole was my worst possible option, and I feel stupid for doing it. I put myself in a losing position, handing my ship to the incoming battleship fleet. To teach me a lesson, my Onyx is destroyed and, as 'session change in progress' keeps beeping at me, my pod is swiftly despatched too and I wake up as a new clone in a space station. Out in empire space, in dock and not even actually in space for once, I have time to reflect. Actually, I fly my Ibis the few jumps to Jita to buy a new Onyx whilst I reflect. I knew how to engage the enemy with relative safety, yet I got myself rightfully killed.

I know how it happened. I should have fought the attackers at range, and definitely not on the wormhole. It was when the fleet had dispersed that I launched my Onyx, to tackle a lone, small threat. When a different ship turned up I should have changed ships to one with good range, but my own pressure to engage quickly meant I took the wrong ship to the fight. When I was warp-disrupted I should have disengaged by flying away, preferably towards our tower or other celestial object for quick entrance to warp when clear. I would have cleared the range of the disruptor eventually, or drawn the hostile ship away from the wormhole and in to danger himself. Jumping through the wormhole was just plain wrong. Oh well, maybe next time I'll listen to my own advice, and if I lead by example maybe I can get others to follow.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on A series of unfortunate events
Tags: armageddon, buzzard, cormorant, drake, eve online, harbinger, hound, hurricane, jaguar, lachesis, mmorpg, onyx, penny ibramovic, phobos, pvp, raven, scanning, tengu, w-space

Catching a Cormorant

Someone is being nosy. There are probes visible on the directional scanner along with an Arbitrator when I wake up at our tower in w-space. The uncloaked cruiser seems like an odd choice of ship to be scanning in, so it could be a separate vessel. But when I launch my own probes, to try to find where the visitors are coming from, the other probes disappear along with the Arbitrator. I am not sure if this is a juicy target or a lure for a trap. I find our static wormhole and it appears to be the only wormhole in our system. I am now wondering who has opened our wormhole, if it is the only entrance in to our system, as it cannot be opened from the other side. Checking the bookmark can shows nothing recent added, but it is possible that someone simply forgot to copy it across.

A colleague turns up and we head through the static wormhole to scan our way further out and try to find our visitor. The system is big but unoccupied, with plenty of anomalies and signatures. It would be a good system in which to clear Sleepers if we could get a fleet. I manage to locate a wormhole, and as it leads in to a class 2 system it sounds about right for an uncloaked scanner to come from. Jumping through to the C2 shows a tower but no ships, and scanning finds a low-sec exit to empire space and a connection to another C2 system. I jump through to the next C2, which turns out to be vast, the outer planet sitting in a 106 AU orbit. A piloted Helios sits in the shields of a tower in the system and too looks to be scanning. There aren't any signatures to resolve except a wormhole, which leads to another C2. I jump through but only briefly, returning almost immediately when I hear of a Drake battlecruiser appearing in the C4 adjoining our home system.

By the time I am back in our neighbouring system there are now four Drakes and a Tengu strategic cruiser present. None of the systems I have passed through would indicate such a force, suggesting a new connection has opened in to this system. A Cormorant destroyer appears on d-scan, which really makes it seem like the small fleet is here to engage Sleepers with a salvager following behind. The destroyer isn't sitting on a celestial object, but he won't be with the main fleet just yet. I swap to combat probes, move them quickly out of d-scan range, then make use of d-scan to get a good bearing and range on the Cormorant. I am calling for other colleagues who have turned up to get in to combat ships and sit on the other side of our wormhole, ready to jump in and be warped. There is some procrastinating about what ships would be best, but as it looks like we'll be hitting a salvaging boat it really doesn't matter. What matters is time, and I need ships to be ready before I bring my combat probes in to position.

The opportunity passes. Our small fleet sits on our wormhole and I try to get a positive scan on the Cormorant, but he has moved. Perhaps all is not lost. Not only has the Cormorant moved but the Tengu and Drakes have too, suggesting that I have not been spotted but they have completed one anomaly and are moving to the next, the Cormorant going in behind them to clear the Sleeper wrecks. I push my combat probes out of range of scan again and check the system map for all the anomalies in the system. I know that the first one they clear is out of d-scan of my current position but not from the system's static wormhole, I pick one at random and warp to it at range. Bingo! The Cormorant is salvaging alone. I bookmark a wreck he has yet to get to and warp to the wormhole home, calling for everyone to jump and hold. As soon as I drop out of warp at the wormhole I initiate a fleet warp back to the bookmarked wreck, all of our ships getting the signal and rushing across the system for the ambush.

The timing is good, dropping out of warp on top of the Cormorant as he reaches the final wrecks. I am there first in my agile Buzzard, but I am not helpless. I make use of the warp disruptor and rockets that have for a while been fitted on my covert operations scanning boat and stop the Cormorant fleeing as the rest of the fleet arrives to bring significant firepower.

The Cormorant doesn't last long, popping quite nicely and ejecting the pilot's pod in to vacuum. The pod escapes just as four Drakes arrive to see what the fuss is about. I am stuck on a Sleeper structure and am unable to get myself clear quickly enough to loot the wreck, instead deciding to warp the squad out, but it isn't clear if we all make it. A check moments later revelas that everyone is out and safe, although a couple of ships have taken heavy damage. A fleet formed to engage Sleepers is unlikely to have any tackle, so it was probably only manoeuvring around the structure that would have caused problems getting clear. We get a good kill. Now we need to deal with the consequences.

Posted in Gaming | 3 Comments »
Tags: arbitrator, buzzard, cormorant, drake, eve online, helios, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space

Where I've not been recently

I've visited an awful lot of systems in the past six months, it makes it a shame that few of them appear on a map. I haven't even made many trips to empire space—appearing in an arbitrary location and having to make several jumps here and there to go where I need—spending almost all of my time instead in uncharted w-space. But I have been taking advantage of null-sec exits to get some red dots of exploration appear on my star map.

My previous map of my travels is clearly focussed on high-sec space. Although there are plenty of treks through low-sec on the side, null-sec remains entirely unexplored. Living out in w-space and scanning for wormholes occasionally offers a relatively safe means of entering and leaving null-sec space, and now that entering a system from a wormhole registers a visit on the star map some new systems appear sprinkled around the periphery of my map.

What is most interesting, however, is the colour of the map. It is almost entirely red, unlike previous revisions. The first time I looked at the map of where I have been I pondered for too long the colours of the stars. It was clear that the size of the dot related to the total number of visits, but the colour didn't seem to correspond to any clear metric. Now that I have spent months away from any of these systems and my map has almost uniformly decayed to a state of minimal activity it seems clear that the colour represents recent activity.

I wondered previously if the brightness corresponded to recent visits, but as I had red dots that had been visited more recently than yellow dots, and orange dots with both older and newer visits, I discarded that idea. But it was a good guess. The brighter the colour, the more regularly the system has been visited recently. It doesn't help my current map look any more interesting, but at least it answers a question that had me confused for a while.

Posted in Gaming | 3 Comments »
Tags: eve online, maps, meme, mmorpg, null-sec, penny ibramovic, w-space

Scanning to nowhere

Fin is scanning our neighbouring system. A bookmark to our static wormhole has been left in our shared can, so I make a copy and set off in my Buzzard to join her. The system is unoccupied and has a wealth of signatures, mostly gas, and Fin lets me know which signatures she has already ignored. This is a nice and lazy way to scan. I resolve even more gas and some rocks before Fin finds the last signature to be the static wormhole. She warps to it, I follow, and we jump through to a class 5 system.

There are two towers in this C5, but no activity in the system. They are not a quiet corporation, though, as their system is clear of everything but four anomalies and one signature. And as we didn't enter through their static connection that single signature must be a wormhole. We resolve it, warp, and jump through to another C5 system. Another occupied system, this one holds a Chimera and Archon, both carriers and both sitting in the same tower's shields. They are also in good standing with us, showing up as 'blue', so hopefully I won't get shot if they find me. We start scanning, although there is no point bookmarking sites in this blue system, and heading back to the tower to keep an eye on the ships sees a Buzzard return and drop a jet-can named 'BM C4'. I am supposing this system holds a static C4 wormhole, and indeed we find it soon enough.

The next connecting system is unoccupied and getting too far away from our home system to be worth scanning further, particularly with two occupied systems between us. It's time to collapse our wormhole, hoping to get a new connection that offers a good route to empire space or some juicy targets. We return to our home system, Fin gets the Orca ready and I refit a web module to my Buzzard to help speed the Orca in to warp. We are getting better experience of collapsing our static connection and after four round-trips the wormhole disappears as planned. Before it goes, and during one of the waits for the Orca's hull polarisation to end, I launch scanning probes in preparation to look for the replacement wormhole. I perform an initial scan to get the probes to warp away from me so that I can re-activate my cloak without having to move further away from the wormhole. This turns out to be a really good, if unintentional, idea.

My scan of the entire system before the wormhole is collapsed returns every signature currently in the system. I can safely ignore all of these, assured that the new wormhole is not amongst the signatures as it does not yet exist. However, when the current wormhole is collapsed the new wormhole will be the only new signal, and a second scan will identify it immediately without having to sift through the signatures of any local sites. It isn't a particularly difficult task to ignore sites already bookmarked, but when it is possible to have a guaranteed single return of what you are looking for it is most convenient. Even though I can resolve the new static wormhole quickly, Fin entices me to mine instead of going out scanning again, noting that if we don't activate the connection we are relatively safe to shoot rocks. I scan the wormhole and jump through.

Our new neighbouring C4 system is unoccupied and empty. I am lucky in my first scan of the system, after finding the signature of the K162. I get to ignore six ladar sites and get a 97% strength return signal on a wormhole after only two scans. The wormhole turns out to be a K162 reaching the end of its life, so I leave it and continue scanning. Fin finds the new static wormhole, again leading to a C5, jumping through to explore whilst I finish scanning the C4. I find nothing but ladar sites and anomalies, which is curious in its lack of gravimetric mining sites. I reason that a mining operation came in here from the K162 and cleared out all the ore, and wonder if they are active in their own system. Risking the EOL status, I jump through the K162 and see mining barges and an Orca on scan. Finding the local tower shows the ships to be in its shields, only the Orca piloted. But if the Orca is manned and running its mining links it could mean miners are active elsewhere in the system.

I warp around the large system to try to find a mining operation in progress but find no activity. I launch probes and look for gravimetric sites, returning cloaked to the local tower to monitor the ships there. Even though I find a static high-sec exit I remember that the wormhole I came through is EOL and realise that there is little point risking becoming isolated when there is no obvious activity. I return and head through the other wormhole to the C5, where an exit to null-sec space has been found. I jump through to take a look, squeezed out in to C-0K0R in Fade, under Mostly Harmless sovereignty. The null-sec system is empty of other ships, prompting Fin to check the neighbouring systems too, whilst I launch probes and scan for possible wormholes. I only find a gravimetric site, Fin another empty system. We both visit the two adjacent systems for extra exploration points before returning to w-space and our tower. W-space is quiet again tonight.

The next time we are in our home system with an inactive static connection and Fin suggests mining I will take her up on that offer. As much fun as the hunt is, whether successful or not, and as financially rewarding as pillaging Sleeper loot happens to be, without targets to shoot or a fleet to engage Sleepers there is little to do. Scanning provides an interesting method of exploration but is not profitable in itself, and is only a means to an end. On the other hand, mining at least provides tangible results with the same level of company and helps to make use of the resources we have. There is good reason to explore the systems around us, but after finding them to be undesirable to be connected to us and collapsing our wormhole I need to recognise the value in following a different course of action, instead of continuing to bang my head against a wall.

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Tags: archon, buzzard, chimera, eve online, mmorpg, null-sec, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

A massed fleet of one

I am flying solo again. I head out to scan, hoping to find some juicy miner targets. Resolving the location of our system's static wormhole I warp to it and jump through to find I am spat out over 9 km away from the wormhole. This is further than I recall happening before and a distance that would make running back more difficult. It is good that the only object within 14 AU of me is the system's outer planet, although the vast size of the system may make scanning a little tedious.

With nothing showing on d-scan I drop probes to get my initial reading of the wormhole, to get its signature for comparative scans, and warp to the centre of the system to start looking for occupants. I don't see any towers, but the Covetor, Retriever and Procurer mining barges with accompanying jet-cans are an exciting d-scan return. As I left my probes around the outer planet they are too far away for the miners to get spooked, so I make use of the directional scanner to narrow down both their bearing and range from my current position. This I can do. Positioning probes accurately using this information is still difficult for me.

I try to get a better idea of transitioning between my live view and the system map by using the map browser to determine north. I normally try to triangulate my bearing using celestial bodies, but it would be convenient if I can get a quick and accurate bearing from the map browser. I can't, because the interface doesn't want me slaughtering innocent miners, but I plant my probes in the general direction of the miners despite this. It takes me a few attempts to resolve the gravimetric site and once I have a solid hit I recall my probes and warp to it at range. The miners haven't reacted to my probes being visible on d-scan and are still happily mining away, gracefully dropping a jet-can for me to bookmark. It would be rude not to use the can as a reference point.

I warp back to our tower, knowing that I haven't scouted the rest of the system to see what other ships are around, but this is too good an opportunity to pass. My Onxy heavy interdictor is launched and I warp back to the wormhole. I know I am far out of d-scan range when entering the neighbouring system, so I am confident I will catch the miners before they can warp out. I engage my warp drive and get ready to activate my systems. The Onyx lands right in the middle of the four ships—a Bestower has come to pick up there ore, which is a pleasant surprise—and my warp bubble snares them all. I lock my weapon systems on all the ships and start shooting.

It doesn't matter the order in which I shoot the ships, but I need to destroy the pods as they eject. A pilot's pod is much more agile and somewhat quicker than a mining barge, as well as being more difficult to lock and hit, so I want to shoot the pod before moving on to the next ship. It is only when the first pod is almost out of my bubble that I realise my heavy assault missiles (HAM) are no longer damaging it. That the pod is almost clear of the bubble doesn't matter, as my scripted warp disruption field generator extends further and can be used, but I didn't realise using HAMs would be quite so short-ranged¹. My choice is either to move towards the pod to catch it and potentially lose the other three ships, or let it escape and not make the same mistake with the others. The choice is obvious and I destroy four ships, three of the capsuleers also waking up in new clones.

The wrecks are looted, corpses scooped to my hold, and I warp out of the pocket in quick succession. I don't want to linger for long, particularly as I have no fleet behind me. I still don't know if the system is occupied, so I switch back to my Buzzard and come back to take a more thorough look around. I find a tower in the system, holding a Chimera carrier in its shields! It is unpiloted, but I am tickled at my apparent audacity of launching an attack with this imposing capital ship in the system. I return to the scene of my crime to see if it is perhaps safe to grab the ore left behind, but when I get there d-scan shows me probes, a Cheetah, and a Hurricane battlecruiser nearby in the system. They seem to be looking for someone. I warp out to the K162 side of our wormhole to see if the probes are moved out there, in case the occupants could come through to our system, but they don't. Back to the gravimetric site and the Cheetah is poking around the wrecks, and Typhoon, Abaddon and Armageddon battleships are now launched.

A Badger Mk II warps in to the mining site to collect some ore. I return to our tower to swap in to my Manticore stealth bomber, perhaps to pop the cans, wondering if maybe this would have been a better choice than returning in the Buzzard the first time. Jumping back in to the system I know that if I warp to the site from the wormhole I will have 80 km of rocks or so between me and the wrecks and cans, remembering the orientation of the site from previous visits. Instead of warping to it directly I bounce off a planet on the opposite side of the site, which drops me out of warp in completely clear space and with an excellent line-of-sight to the target cans. Watching d-scan only gets me more nervous, as the number of battleships and other combat ships increases. I have to admit that I am impressed that they can gather so much support in such a short time, although I have to wonder why none is in the gravimetric site itself.

The Badger warps back in, and he's alone! This is too tempting an opportunity to pass on and I am quickly in the perfect position to launch a bomb. I decloak and launch, locking on to the Badger to finish the destruction with my torpedoes, this time remembering that I have a warp disruption module. But just the bomb is enough to turn the industrial ship in to twisted, smouldering metal, the pilot's pod ejected in to vacuum and free to warp away. I burn towards the Badger's wreck to loot it before warping away, and get a chuckle when d-scan now shows a Sleeper wreck. The battleships aren't looking for me after all. With that revelation I don't jump home but return to the gravimetric site to lurk for a bit longer. I doubt much else will happen, particularly as the bomb destroyed the wrecks and jet-cans—although five giant secure containers curiously remain—but I am interested to see what occurs next.

A Typhoon battleship warps in to the gravimetric site, looks around for a minute, then warps off. All the battleships are no longer on d-scan and only the one Sleeper wreck is visible. Curiouser and curiouser. I warp to the system's tower to see what's happening and see no change in activity. I am left wondering where all the ships have gone. It is only when I check the kill mails that everything starts to make sense. The miners I popped and podded are from a Russian corporation, the tower I am monitoring, and its Chimera carrier, belong to a different corporation. The Russians probably scanned this system and were wary of the carrier but considered the system relatively safe, as long as the capital ship remained unpiloted.

What perhaps the Russians weren't expecting was another connection to open in to the system, which I created when I scanned and jumped through our home system's static wormhole. A heavy interdictor then blows the crap out of four of their ships and pods three pilots. A bit later, a stealth bomber squirts lemon juice in the eye of the pilot that escaped—for it was the miner who escaped who piloted of the Badger. I was tickled finding out that nugget of information. The information the Russians have about numbers and attackers is probably muddled and difficult to determine, and perhaps they think I belong to the occupant corporation, maybe even alerting the carrier pilot to wake up and cause trouble.

I don't quite know how else to explain how a fleet of half-a-dozen battleships abandons the system after fighting only one Sleeper, not even stopping to collect all their drones. Maybe there is a more rational explanation for their actions, but I like the idea that little me scared away a Russian fleet all by myself.

1. It is only later that I realise I was fighting in a black hole system, which adversely affects the range of missiles. In a normal system the HAMs extend beyond my HIC's bubble, as expected.
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Tags: abaddon, armageddon, badger, bestower, buzzard, cheetah, chimera, covetor, eve online, hurricane, manticore, mmorpg, onyx, penny ibramovic, procurer, pvp, retriever, scanning, typhoon, w-space

Surprising a salvager

It's good to be motivated. Our scan man isn't able to return home from empire space using yesterday's route so I can go out to scan for a new route. My newly acquired Sister's scanning probes will come in handy, thanks to the Heron pilot who unwillingly donated them to me. It's getting a little more difficult to find our system's static wormhole, as the Sleepers are gradually moving back in, but find it I do. I jump through to an unoccupied system full of signatures, plucking a wormhole from the list on my first attempt. You have to love my comparison method of scanning. The wormhole turns out to be a K162, not the system's static, so I return to scanning. I find gas, gas, gas—okay, my comparison method isn't that reliable—rocks, and another wormhole. This is the system's static connection, leading to a class 3 system.

The C3 is occupied and there is a Buzzard visible on the directional scanner. As it is visible I am supposing it is not scanning, otherwise it would be cloaked. I warp around and use d-scan to find the tower, whilst my launched probes scan for signatures. I accidentally find a wormhole around the same time I locate the tower. The low-sec exit keeps me scanning, and the Buzzard is indeed in the tower's shields. Further scanning resolves a high-sec exit to empire space, albeit protected by a large warp bubble. I think I'll blow that up. But first I jump to high-sec, dock, and contract a copy of the bookmarks to our scan man. I even remember to bookmark the high-sec side of the wormhole, so I don't need to scan my way back again.

On my return route to our tower I poke my nose in through the K162 in our neighbouring C4 system. The system on the other side is unoccupied, but if the wormhole was opened then there is likely to be another connection in here, so I launch probes and scan. After a previous day's complete mapping of two systems but no resulting fleet to make use of the results I concentrate only on finding wormholes for now, at least until I find some trace of activity. It looks like this system is a dead-end, perhaps the previous visitors collapsing their connection in to here, but the final signature I resolve is a wormhole. But as I don't bookmark the other signatures, only resolving them until I can determine their type, it doesn't take quite as long to reach this point as it could have.

I jump in to an occupied system. Not only is it occupied, but there is an Ishtar heavy assault ship and five battleships on scan, two Typhoons, a Dominix, Scorpion and Armageddon, along with a few Sleeper wrecks. I have found some activity. I locate the two towers in the system—one with a few dormant ships in its shields, the other empty—then set my on-board scanner to passively find anomalies in the system. I wonder what I am going to do when I find this battleship fleet and am almost deterred from looking. But there's no harm in looking, I suppose. Warping to a few anomalies finds the fleet and, impuslively, I bookmark one of the wrecks and warp out to get my Manticore stealth bomber.

Two or three stealth bombers may be able to assault a lone battleship effectively, but I am not quite sure what I hope to achieve with my single Manticore against a squad of four battleships. Never the less, I jump back in to the system and warp to the anomaly they were in. Just before I jumped out when I left, I took care to bookmark the anomaly so that I would not be relying on only the bookmarked wreck as a warp-in point. The cluster of wrecks was quite voluminous and I don't want to be accidentally decloaked on arrival. I drop out of warp at a safe distance from everything, seeing the four battleships huddled together and a Hurricane battlecruiser salvaging the wrecks. I also notice that all of the ships are spider tanking, each running a remote repair module on another to improve efficiency. The Hurricane even has a complement of medium armour maintenance drones active on it.

Dropping a bomb on the battleships would only serve to provoke them, dealing nowhere near enough damage to be a threat. And even without the repper drones on the Hurricane, engaging the battlecruiser would only get me shot by the battleships. But I see an opportunity. The are some distant wrecks that the Hurricane will need to reach and the battleships are pleasantly inert, perhaps unaware of my presence still. If I can catch the Hurricane at one of the distant wrecks I may even be out of range of the battleships' weapons, giving me a little time to go for the kill. The only problem is that my bearing puts me between the battleships and wrecks, where I would rather maximise my distance from them. Every now and again, though, I have a good idea.

I spot a planet almost diametrically opposite my ship from the wreck. With the Hurricane nearly finished where he is I quickly bookmark the furthest wreck, warp to the planet, then warp back to that wreck at range. Because warping at range always puts you short of your destination, I find myself on the other side of the wreck than I was, at a good attitude to approach for a bombing run, and over 100 km away from the battleships. This now looks like a good opportunity.

The Hurricane burns his way to the two remaining wrecks, which gives me time to remember that he will no doubt activate his tractor beam to pull the wrecks to him. I change my vector to fly directly towards the battlecruiser, instead of aiming at the final wreck, and at the right moment I decloak and launch. My bomb glides slowly ahead of me whilst I lock the Hurricane, paint it for a more effective explosion, damp its sensors, and get ready to open fire with torpedoes once the bomb hits. Note that launching torpedoes early only gets them caught in the bomb's explosion, destroying them and negating the first volley. My bomb explodes, dealing the Hurricane a decent amount of damage, and activating my siege launchers knocks out its shields. The battleships don't appear to be alert and moving, this is going well! And then the Hurricane warps off.

In my excitement and anxiety I completely forget to activate the most important module, the warp disruptor. What a tool. But this is why I need to engage to destruction, or I will never learn. I quickly cloak whilst kicking myself and get out of the pocket. The enemy ships may not come looking for me, but the element of surprise is gone and there is not much more I can do alone. Instead, I take out my aggression on the poor warp bubble protecting the high-sec exit wormhole.

My torpedoes are much more effective against this large bubble than the small ones Fin and I destroyed recently, but its stronger defences may negate my extra damage. To continue the extravagant waste of resources against inanimate objects, I launch a bomb against the bubble every time my siege launchers pause firing to reload, which at least stops too much shield regeneration even if it is costly. Eventually the bubble bursts, freeing the wormhole from obstruction and making high-sec trips easier. Mentioning which, I pop out myself to check the market for missile skill books. It is quite serendipitous to find the wormhole leads to an academy system, one that has the missile books for sale. I only need to dock to pick them up, no system jumps required, and I am soon heading back to our tower to take a relaxing bubble bath.

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Tags: armageddon, buzzard, dominix, eve online, hurricane, ishtar, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, scorpion, typhoon, w-space