Struggling in a class 4 w-space radar site

We have a fleet for some Sleeper combat. Although the miners I blow up don't go back in to that system earlier, we are not keen to try running anomalies in it just in case they have managed to get some combat pilots awake. Besides, there is an occupied intermediate system to travel through too. We have a couple of radar sites and some anomalies in our home system, so we'll plunder these for now. The fleet is flying our standard twin Guardian configuration, with two battleships for DPS and jamming.

The first wave of Sleeper ships in the radar site is destroyed smoothly. A databank needs to be hacked in to for the second wave to be triggered. It's risky but possible to fly a hacking frigate in to the site, if we take care to warp it out quickly enough when the Sleepers arrive, but when flying such a small fleet we can't really spare the pilot. We have tended to fit a Guardian with a codebreaker, which can squeeze the module in to its fitting without compromising our remote repairing capabilities or tank or DPS of the attack ships. But, for various reasons, we don't have a codebreaker fitted this time.

I go back to the tower to change my fitting to include a codebreaker module, but before I can pluck one from the corporate hangar a Sleeper battleship appears in the site. We have an escalation event. I have no time to refit, and instead warp back to the site to help feed energy to and repair the fleet as the battleship is destroyed. Because of my fumbling, a colleague decides his ship can be spared the alpha damage of the next wave of Sleepers and returns to the tower to bring back a hacking frigate. It works, as the Sleepers are alerted to the security of their databanks being breached.

We are struggling a little to keep up with the damage of this class 4 w-space radar site. I'm sure we've cleared them before without too many problems, but today we have all our reppers on one ship, including some drones, and we still can't stop the Scorpion from taking some structure damage. At least it doesn't get any worse, and as the Sleepers are destroyed the incoming damage is reduced. And for the first time in months one of my drones gets targeted by the Sleepers, chewing through its shield and most of its armour as I recall it back to the drone bay in time to save it. The site is cleared eventually, but it took concentration to keep the fleet flying.

A Merlin is brought out to hack the databanks and a veritable bounty of loot is recovered before we plunge back in to combat, taking on the second radar site. The first wave of Sleepers is straightforwardly dealt with again, and the second is triggered as before, warping in 200 km away to give us plenty of time to prepare. The Sleepers' distance also means that their frigates get in close significantly before their bigger ships slowly drift in to firing range, giving us a chance to whittle down their numbers and reduce the incoming damage. Learning from the previous site we concentrate initial fire on the Sleeper cruisers to reduce the overall number of ships, before focussing on the battleships. Even though we take care to manage the Sleepers better, the final wave of four Sleeper Safeguard battleships tests our full repping powers and the fleet still takes minor hull damage—if any hull damage can be considered 'minor'.

It is possible that we have pushed the limits of our gank fit battleships, stripping armour and resistances from the hulls to provide more room for DPS modules and systems, knowing that the Guardians can compensate considerably for the tanking deficiency. At least our minor troubles with the Sleepers this evening are caused by reversible effects, as we can always slap armour plates back on the ships if necessary.

To end the evening, I think I hear an explosion whilst I am sitting inside the tower's shields in my Buzzard. Riyu has just triggered a smartbomb he has fitted, thinking that the shields would prevent it from firing. Here I am sitting in a ship with a frigate-sized hull and he's letting off a smartbomb. Luckily, I'm not damaged. But Riyu wonders if the shields stopped the damage or if I was out of range, so he flies over to me and fires the smartbomb again, because apparently I didn't act shocked enough the first time. Again luckily, I am not damaged, and I think that's the end of his little experiment. Maybe I'll experiment with wormhole mass limits and his Scorpion.

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Tags: buzzard, eve online, guardian, merlin, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scorpion, sleepers, w-space

First blood

I wake up at the tower in w-space in a freshly cleaned system, shortly after the galaxy has been rebooted. I am ready to enjoy a relaxing time scanning. I even find a wormhole on the first signature I resolve! Of course, it helps that the two lowest strength signatures are the already-bookmarked radar sites, the highest strength is obviously the bookmarked gravimetric site, and there are only two other signatures, but I still take this as a small victory. I resolve the other signature anyway, finding a ladar site. I warp to the wormhole and jump through.

Next door is system J123458, so close to being harmonious. The system is occupied, and I find the tower easily enough on the outermost planet using the directional scanner, as the planet only has two moons in orbit. The corporation's scanning man turns up at this point and he joins me in the system for some co-operative scanning efforts. Interestingly enough, we both pick the TUM signature to resolve first out of more than the dozen or so available. Clearly there is something inviting about it, and it indeed turns out to be a wormhole. My colleague stays behind to finish the current system, I jump through to scan the next one.

I find myself in a w-space system we've visited before, about two weeks ago. But my scanning is abruptly cut short when my colleague not only has found a couple more wormholes, but jumps through one of them to find some active miners. There are two Retriever mining barges and an Iteron industrial ship on the directional scanner, although the system itself is unoccupied. He starts trying to narrow down their location using d-scan, and tells me the signature identifier for the wormhole leading in to the miners' system. I jump back one system and find and bookmark the wormhole independently, then head back home to our tower to swap in to my Onyx heavy interdictor. I choose the HIC above the Manticore stealth bomber because the HIC's bubble can warp-scramble multiple targets easily, and with my wingman I won't need to sneak up on the targets.

We formulate a plan. My colleague wonders whether to use combat probes to find the ships, or scanner probes to find the site. I suggest scanner probes to find the site, because they will seem less threatening to the miners if they spot them on d-scan. Combat probes will spook them immediately, and we can't rely on them being as oblivious as the Hulk was in a previous encounter. When the site they are in is found the probes can be recalled, the site warped to, the rock they are shooting bookmarked, and then we can warp on top of them. The scan man gets me to sit on the other side of the wormhole just before he starts scanning, to give us the best chance of catching the miners unaware. He will grab the bookmark, get me to jump through the wormhole and hold my cloak, then warp me directly to the miners rather than try to exchange the bookmark between ships. It's all a matter of speed.

The scanner warps out of d-scan range of the miners to drop his probes, and quickly gets a hit on the gravimetric site they are using. He is damned good at scanning, and if this plan works it will be because of his sklls. He recalls the probes whilst warping to the site, and finds the miners shooting rocks easily enough. With a fresh bookmark he warps out and gets me to jump in to the system. As soon as he drops out of warp I am moving, and this is the critical time. My pulse is racing, adrenalin pumping, I am warping in blind to the site, and my ship is now visible on d-scan. I get ready to fire my systems in to life, the first one being the HIC's warp disruption bubble, which I will inflate as soon as I am out of warp, hopefully catching all three flies in my amber.

I see the gravimetric site zoom towards me, and the Retrievers and Iteron appear. The final couple of seconds of warp seem to take ages, but I drop to sub-warp speed and get my bubble up. All three ships are trapped! My eagerness to activate the system is too much, though, and punching the button one too many times has switched it off again soon. I have thirty seconds of warp bubble, then I must reactivate it or lose the active warp disruption sphere. I lock targets and start firing my missiles. The mining barges and industrial ship are really flimsy compared to any combat vessel and crumple quickly, wrecks ejecting bare pods in to harsh space. The pods are also trapped in my bubble. I lock them too, their tiny signature radius taking my systems ages to recognise, and my heavy missiles aren't as effective against the pods as the ships. Yes, I attack the pods too, going for the full kill.

It looks like the Iteron pilot ejects early, perhaps hoping the ship itself will deflect my attention from the new pod. It works. I am trying to position my HIC to optimally snare all three ships at all times, whilst they sensibly head off in different directions as fast as they can in order to get out of the bubble and warp to safety. I desperately try to keep my bubble on everything I can whilst using my secondary, script-loaded warp disruption field generator as a longer-range point on anything that looks to be escaping the bubble. Trying to keep all ships scrambled, whilst shooting them and selecting targets between ships and pods in an order to prevent escape is a lot of computation for my newbie self. The first Retriever pilot is killed, his pod destroyed. The Iteron pilot gets away as I blow up his ship, but I have the second Retriever pilot's pod in my sights. He, too, escapes, my bubble shutting down as pod reaches half its structural integrity. I don't know if I accidentally mashed the key to deactivate the bubble, or if I somehow run out of capacitor energy to run it, but the bubble collapses and in relief he warps away before I can destroy his pod.

Meanwhile, my colleague has warped back to our tower to bring a Myrmidon to the fight. Despite jumping as soon as he initiates my warp to the miners, by the time his Myrmidon arrives the engagement is over. It was really quick! We are left with a few wrecks to loot and salvage, and some jet-cans of ore. We both linger in the site a little while, looting the wrecks of a few Tech II systems that survive the attack, regularly checking d-scan to see if the surviving miners are coming back in anything bigger, but there is no activity. Retrieving the ore for ourselves seems a bit risky, with an intermediate system to pass through, but only an industrial ship and scanning covert operations boat have been seen in that system. And the miners are not coming back.

The Myrmidon stays in the system, but out of the gravimetric mining site, as I head back to our tower to get a Bustard transport ship. It takes two round trips to recover all of the ore mined and temporarily stored in the jet-cans, and I bring back 48,000 cubic metres of ore. That would normally take me hours to collect. This extreme mining is rather more exciting and more my cup of tea than shooting rocks.

According to a translation tool, the Russian says 'well thank you' in local communications as he flees. Maybe he mistakes my inexperience as compassion. I am still struggling to justify killing industrial ships that pose no direct threat, but killing pods is different. On a pod's destruction, the clone inside is killed and a new clone wakes up in a vat somewhere. I think in w-space the only place a new clone can be activated is back in k-space, which makes getting back to the w-space system a time-consuming process, considering the arbitrary location of wormholes appearing almost anywhere in high-, low-, or null-sec space. That is if the route in and out of w-space has been mapped that day, as the possibility exists that you are back in k-space with no known route back to your w-space system until a colleague turns up to guide you back in.

Letting pods escape allows them to return to their tower and potentially change ships to return in much more aggressive hardware, and maybe even in greater numbers. Killing the pods prevents quick reinforcements, or any at all. I still can't justify attacking unarmed ships beyond 'because I can', but pod killing serves a purpose. And now my HIC has been christened with capsuleer blood, the new corporation gaining a corpse as a trophy in our hangar. Three ships and one pod is a good start to the day. I'll do better next time.

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Tags: bustard, buzzard, cheetah, eve online, iteron, mmorpg, myrmidon, onyx, penny ibramovic, pvp, retriever, scanning, w-space

Ladar site Sleeper combat

I jump out of our home w-space system looking for the normal complete lack of targets, and find just that. Little is happening, just a colleague mining gas in a local ladar site. When Sleepers turn up to try to move on my mining colleague I get the chance to be active for a little while. I also get the opportunity to fly a Drake again, an activity I haven't done for quite a while. In fact, I can't remember the last time I piloted the Drake.

Warping in to the ladar site brings up the four Sleeper cruisers as targets, and I lock and start firing on them. The miner swaps out to an Ishtar heavy assault ship, and his superior DPS gets all the attention from the Sleepers. His ship is soon buffeted in to its armour and he warps off, leaving my Drake to take all the damage. That's okay, absorbing damage is what my Drake does best. I barely see the shields drop below 90%, the shield harmonising siege warfare link I'm using helping a little.

But engaging ladar site Sleeper guards is hardly a challenge. The Ishtar warps back in and helps finish them off, dismissing his armour damage as reparable, and then he's back to mining the gas. I go back to scanning w-space. I can't be lucky enough to find an inattentive miner twice in two weeks, but at least I locate the replacement static wormhole exit out of a class 2 system, the previous exit having reached the end of its lifetime when our scanning man found it earlier.

There's no sign of activity. At another corporation's tower in a nearby system there is only a shuttle inside the shields, and at our own only the gas miner is around. I return home and spend the quiet evening relaxing.

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

Ships scattered to the solar wind

I am almost ready to switch corporations. I have dropped my roles from DGSE in preparation and I wake up to find myself bouncing off the shields of the new tower. I have a couple of hours before the twenty-four hour grace period elapses, after which I can sumbit my application to the new corporation, and I think I will put that time to good use by rescuing my ships. It appears that the ships I moved and left in the protection of the new tower's shields are now scattered around, at least a hundred kilometres from the shields in several directions. I don't know why that's happened, but I'd better salvage them quickly as anyone with the right skills could simply jump in to them and fly off.

My Manticore, Damnation and Onyx are all floating in free space, all quite far apart. I am in my Buzzard fitted with a micro-warp drive, so reaching the first of the ships is achieved in quite a short time of full burn. I swap over to the Damnation and fly it back to the DGSE tower, which is still assembled and powered, and drop it in the hangar safely. I warp back to the new tower and realise my flustered state at seeing expensive ships scattered to the solar wind hasn't helped me think through the process. I crawl the hundred kilometres back to my Buzzard in my pod, then make use of the covert operations' micro-warp drive to speed me to the Manticore. The long crawl lets me realise how I should be collecting the ships.

Once at the Manticore I bookmark my current position before swapping boats, effectively pin-pointing my Buzzard. I warp and store the Manticore and use the new bookmark to warp directly back to the Buzzard. It is then another quick micro-warp drive burn to the Onyx, where I make another bookmark. The Onyx is stored and I can warp back to my Buzzard again, all my ships reclaimed. An Orca pilot can help me move the ships between towers at a suitable time. For now, I just wait until I can apply to the new corporation.

An exit to k-space has been found, and although it is again in the deep low-sec of Aridia I only need to dock at any available station. No longer do I need to dock at a station holding a corporate office to apply to a corporation. The low-sec exit in Aridia happens to have a station, so I don't even need to make any jumps. And once the requisite grace period has passed I am accepted in to the Wormhole Engineers, although I make the newbie mistake of quitting the old corporation before applying to the new, giving me a minute or so in the depressing company of Caldari Provisions, the NPC corporation. But it is done, I am in the new corporation. I can head back home.

On the way out of w-space, my checks of the directional scanner reveal both a Thanatos carrier and Rorqual capital industrial ship, neither of which I've seen before and both I believe being difficult to move around. On the way back home, I find the tower in the w-space system that holds these two capital ships, and take a few moments to see them in person. It is difficult to get a sense of scale from so far away, as I remain distant from the tower for safety, but I get a good idea by comparing their size to that of the tower. They are pretty big.

I think about asking in the local channel if the owner of the Rorqual could turn it a little, so I can get a better picture, but I decide against it. My curiosity sated, I go home to the tower for the night, which welcomes me as a new member of the corporation. Maybe it won't spit my ships out in the future.

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Tags: buzzard, damnation, eve online, manticore, mmorpg, onyx, penny ibramovic, rorqual, scanning, thanatos, w-space

Drakes hiding Covetors

Corporation changes are afoot. The wormhole engineers are separating from DGSE, which means careful manoeuvring of assets out in w-space as the transition to our new corporation is made. The opportunity is also taken to change from running a racial tower to a faction tower, which may cost more initially but uses less fuel, and less fuel means fewer logistic trips back to k-space. The faction tower also looks a lot cooler.

Our normal activites may be suspended during the changes, but general scanning and surveillance is not neglected. Some Drake battlecruisers are spotted on a wormhole in the neighbouring system, and I start wondering what we can do about them. I get in my Onyx heavy interdictor, and colleagues in a battleship and heavy assault cruiser join me in a fleet. Before we do anything, one pilot swaps for a covert operations boat and pokes her nose next door. There are apparently two warp disruption bubbles 'poorly placed' on the wormhole and no ships. But there may be some Covetor mining barges out and about, as well as a jet-can and a Bestower industrial hauler.

It is also noticed that the system holds a pulsar, which boosts ship shields significantly. As Drakes have a formidable shield tank, it is unlikely that a fight with them in the pulsar system will be quick. Besides, going out to look for a fight is probably not a good idea whilst trying to move towers in w-space, so we disband our hostile fleet and concentrate on the task at hand. For me, this seems to entail letting others sort out the details, although watching Orcas swoop back-and-forth is quite a majestic sight. And when scanner probes appear in the system, as noted on the directional scanner, then disappear again I swap in to a Buzzard cov-ops and head to the neighbouring system to see what's occurring.

Jumping through the wormhole I find that the two bubbles are indeed placed quite poorly, as I am engulfed by neither of them on my arrival, allowing me to warp off unmolested. I find the occupants' tower and see two Drakes and two Covetors there. There are two more of each ship elsewhere in the system, according to d-scan. A quick scan reveals one gravimetric site and one radar. The Covetor mining barges are not in the gravimetric site and wouldn't be in the radar combat site, so I don't know what's happening. I get a message that there are now Drakes sitting on the wormhole back to our home system. It's possible that the occupants have a couple of Covetors hidden in a safe-spot as a lure, hoping to snare capsuleers looking for easy miner kills. As the wormhole home is also now reaching the end of its natural lifetime I may as well head back.

I'll warp back to the wormhole via an inner planet or the star, in a bid to avoid the bubbles. But then my common sense gets thrown out the airlock as I warp to the wormhole at a range close enough for the bubbles to drag me in to them. I forget they can do that. Even so, their ineffectiveness becomes more apparent when they trap me because I am now within five kilometres of the wormhole and can jump immediately. None of the Drakes sitting on the wormhole even react before I'm back in my own system. There is not much else that I can do for the evening. I prepare to leave the corporation, so soon after celebrating my first year with DGSE but in a way that preserves continuity with the wormhole engineers. I log off in my cov-ops scanning boat in case of an emergency.

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Tags: bestower, buzzard, covetor, drake, eve online, mmorpg, onyx, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

Choices

I posted recently about motivations for raiding, which explains why I spent a while raiding. What the post doesn't cover is what made me start raiding in the first place, or why I stopped, and the motivations behind my choices.

In the early end-game of World of Warcraft I was happy to play my warlock, scampering through class raids of Stratholme and Scholomance back when those dungeons allowed ten-man raids, or going on scheduled guild runs through Dire Maul. But there wasn't much else to do. I could level an alt, and although I had a fighter I wanted to play I honestly had no idea what I was doing with her. In the end, I ran out of content to keep me entertained. There were only so many times I could see the same dungeons, or hope the dreadmist mask could drop from Darkmaster Gandling. It never did for my warlock. The options for me were to quit the game, or raid.

Trying to join a raid group was a nervous prospect for me. I can be horribly shy and am reticent when meeting new people. I only found a good guild because the friends of mine who introduced me to the game were also in the guild. And it was only months of being in the guild that let me eventually became comfortable enough to interract with others and become known. And as luck would have it, some other guild members that I knew were beginning to raid, having joined a group that was half-way through Molten Core, the first raid dungeon. I was introduced and invited along to a few raids, but the processes of the raid group, such as invitations and raid times, were opaque to me, being a newbie, and I wasn't enamoured with being treated as just another cog to be used. It was fortunate that a splinter raid group wanted to form from this larger one, not happy with the progress being made. The guild members who invited me in to the original group were also the players who were forming the new group, so I was lucky to get invited in to what became a new and democratic raiding group.

Having decisions made openly and with input from members helped me understand the processes, and I was able to make decisions about how to spend my available time. I was happy to start bashing my head against the brick wall of Molten Core, such as it appears to a group of players mostly new to forty-man raiding, particularly when we start with less than thirty. Getting experience with the trash mobs is an important step, though, and we started gaining that experience whilst recruiting.

It turned out that I was in an unexpectedly privileged position. I was the only warlock in the new raid group, pushing me to the front of every task required of the class. Healthstones, soulstones, and banishes were all my responsibility, as was ensuring my imp was close enough the main tank for the stamina buff to be in effect. In those days, it was an effect limited to the party, not the raid, so I was even placed in the prime party to be with main tanks and healers, and the raid leader. It was purely circumstantial, but gave me a sense of belonging.

Over time, we easily recruited more warlocks. We needed them, not just because of a democratic goal of equal numbers of each class, back when only eight classes were available, but because Garr had eight minions that needed at least four to be controlled by warlocks to give us a hope of defeating that boss. But I almost found myself in a quandry. I was the first warlock, I knew how the raid group worked, I had the most experience. I could quite easily have positioned myself to be the class leader by default, as each class was an autonomous part of the whole raid group, ensuring I get a spot in any raid when I am available and get to do the interesting tasks whilst delegating the more tedious ones to others. But I knew this was both against the spirit and the best interests of the group as a whole, and I also didn't want to be that person. I went the other way.

Rather than set myself up as some kind of leader, I took every step I could, using any authority the others perceived me to have, to instill a feeling of mutual equality. I actively encouraged new recruits to take positions of responsibility and, once they seemed comfortable, to lead the class through the night's raid. I would occasionally offer advice, privately so as not to undermine any authority, and within short time the warlocks were a happy and functional group of equals. It was unfortunate in a way, as I was nothing more than just another member of the group and had no influence above any others, despite being a founding member of the raid group. But if decisions were made democratically that I didn't agree with I knew I just had to accept that the group was never meant to be mine. At least I had an equal voice, and I was happy that I didn't abuse the power accidentally afforded me.

I only mention my progression in the warlock group because it is important to understand why I stopped raiding, or at least why I didn't start again. A new recruit to the warlocks joined us for a trial. Recruits had a probation period where they raid with us for a few times before a decision is made as to whether they are to be accepted in to the group as a member. The decision to accept a new member is made by the character's class group, part of the classes being autonomous sub-sections of the whole raid group. Other classes can offer opinions, but have no legitimate weight behind those opinions as to whether a recruit's application is accepted or denied. It was unfortunate for me that this new recruit was denied.

The recruit was a capable warlock, and certainly had the motivation. But he didn't understand the ethos behind the group. The warlocks had another new member at the time, and there was plenty of learning occurring, understanding boss fights and warlock roles. I found out that the recruit had sent a private message to the other new member and telling him that he would be happy to offer any advice, just send him a private message back for help. I found this unacceptable. The warlock group had always been open, and I always maintained that there was no such thing as a stupid question. Even apparently obvious questions were answered sensibly and without disdain, because it fostered a friendly atmosphere. By encouraging any question and treating them earnestly, common mistakes were avoided, and errors in judgement were corrected, all without resentment. I think everyone learnt and developed their skills much better as a result. For a recruit to start offering guidance to others privately was a serious problem. The advice may be against our common practice, or downright wrong. But the real problem was that it set the recruit to be in a privileged position, by manipulating others to consider him the expert, exactly against the principles of the group. By suggesting that any questions can be sent his way privately, the openness and sense of group spirit was actively decayed. I denied his application, stating this as my reason.

Otherwise, the warlocks were a great group. Our recruits were friendly and motivated, and I honestly believe we had no troubles because we were open about our methods and shared responsibilities. We fought our way through Molten Core, then Blackwing Lair and Ahn'Qiraj, and although we never managed to defeat C'Thun we progressed in to the original Naxxramas and were able to clear a couple of wings of bosses before The Burning Crusade was released. I even managed to nab a deckchair-styled cloak from Naxxramas that was the best cloak I found I could wear even once I made the ten level climb to 70th level. But it was the levelling that made me stop raiding.

Many players in the raid group wanted only to raid, and when The Burning Crusade was released they wanted to get to the new level cap and start fighting through Karazhan as soon as possible. Personally, I was keen to see the new zones created and explore them at my own pace. As much as I enjoyed raiding and the raiding group, I didn't want to miss the world outside. My choice was to drop out of the group at that time. After all, I had much more content to explore, it was no longer a matter of raid or quit. Of course, that time came again, albeit quite a few months after the expansion had been released. I could still visit the new level-capped dungeons, which I did, and advance my professions, which I also did, but there came a time when I had to find something new to do or quit. I applied to the old raiding group, hoping to return to friends and new faces and explore the content otherwise unavailable to me.

Unfortunately, the recruit whose application I denied so many months before was a real-life friend of some other members of the raid group. At the time, they objected quite fiercely to my reasons why I was voting not to accept the new recruit, to the point of being insulting and offensive. Other members had to step in to remind them that the decision was the warlocks', and regardless to please keep the discussion civil. I did my best to keep calm and respond respectfully, but it was difficult. Clearly there was a lot of animosity. These members were still in the raid group in The Burning Crusade and retained their sour memories of my decision, holding me personally responsible for, frankly, their friend being a dick. My application to the group was rejected, apparently only because these bitter players didn't want me back. That's fair enough, it's their decision. I found it frustrating, but there was nothing I could do. I knew it was raid or quit, so I quit. I wasn't about to find a new raiding group, because it was the players I liked most about raiding and I have trouble making new friends.

So I start raiding because it was a matter of finding something new to do or quit the game. I was lucky that guild friends could introduce me to a raiding group. If it weren't for the people I wouldn't have raided for so long. I stop raiding because the expansion gives me the new content that appeals to my playing style. And I don't start again because of a few bad apples. Without the people I didn't want to start again.

I only start playing World of Warcraft again when some friends from across the pond invite me to join them for occasional adventures. So once more it is the social aspect that draws me back to the game, and I am lucky to have friends who invite me to share the game with them. And through the new adventures, the small guild that is formed introduces me to a few new people, and our interactions help form new friendships. One of those new friends eventually comes back to form another new guild, as the Filesystem Checkwits explore old Azeroth.

As a final note, I have faced a similar dilemma with EVE Online. I tried to find a corporation but my shyness prevents me from participating fully and when they move to null-sec I come back to high-sec. I need to find something to do or quit, mission-running is no longer enough. I turn to industry, which keeps my interest at least long enough to be recruited in to DGSE, after which the game blossoms again in to being so much more than a single-player adventure. I am always grateful for the opportunities my friends offer me, and when strangers or acquaintances put their trust in me. Thank you, all of you.

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Tags: mmorpg, raiding, world of warcraft

Guardian in a structure

With nothing happening, it's time to go out scanning in my Buzzard again. A handy bookmark to our static wormhole is already in the can at the tower, which suggests our scanning man has been out already today, but I can take a look around anyway. The neighbouring system has a tower, which I find easily enough using the directional scanner, and there are no ships or pilots loitering there. Even though the system may be mapped already, I am fairly keen to have a go myself. I noticed that my scanning skills were lacking a little and one more level in two skills was trained relatively quickly, so now my scanning times should improve. And I pluck a wormhole to resolve on my first attempt!

As I am in warp to the wormhole, the scanning man finishes and announces the route to a high-sec exit is through six w-space systems, not including our own. That's a lot of uncertainty, in terms of occupied systems and wormhole stability, so I return my Buzzard to our tower and switch to the Manticore. With the wormhole bookmarks copied to my systems I head out again, a warp disruptor now fitted to my stealth bomber, looking for someone to bomb. The wormhole I choose to loiter on first leads to 'deadly' unknown parts of space, which is more dangerous than 'dangerous'. It leads to a class 6 w-space system, the highest class, which will only be occupied by the most competent and well-equipped capsuleers. Maybe I shouldn't look for trouble in there. But I will.

Oh blast, a corporation fleet forms wanting to shoot Sleepers, just as my Manticore crawls to within ten kilometres of the wormhole. I will regrettably have to abandon my adventure, and I quickly run away back to the tower, swapping in to a Guardian instead. Our fleet assembled, we head next door to plunder Sleeper sites for profit under the absent noses of the occupying capsuleers. We start with simple anomalies, a reconnaissance ship heading in first to get a good warp-in position. The probes may get a lock when scanning that allows the site to be bookmarked from AUs away, but that often means you warp in 100 km from the initial wave of ships. Sending in a cloaked vessel to get a better bookmark can prove useful. Of course, it depends on the bookmark.

There is little option in most anomalies but to bookmark the structure, and warping the fleet to that bookmark has the unfortunate effect of having the ships bounce off in various directions. We are also often left on different sides of the structure. Closing to the Sleeper ships or ensuring that a healthy mutual range is maintained between the fleet is initially complicated by first having to manoeuvre around the structure. I find this frustrating, personally. In the Guardian, I busily need to lock on to each member of the fleet as their ships arrive separately, and decide who to transfer energy to and when to activate remote repair modules to cover the Sleeper alpha strike. And if I wait until the initial debris has settled before moving out, I often then have to quickly catch up with a battleship zooming away to close range with a Sleeper. It's not that I can't cope, it's that I don't think I need to, as a fleet can be warped to an arbitrary distance from a point. Still, that doesn't mean I should get insolent and bump my Guardian off the structure like a fish out of water.

I think my message gets across, but probably thanks to a more diplomatic and friendly colleague and not my selfish actions. The next anomaly sees us warp to within a couple of dozen kilometres of the structure, making the initial engagement less stressful. And once again I can use the corporation chat channel as the fleet 'watch list', seeing announcements about ship damage before it even happens. It is pointed out, again unsurprisingly not by me, that the watch list helpfully blinks ships in red when they become the focus of aggression, already giving us Guardian pilots plenty of warning. Some wag then asks 'am I blinking yet' as the Sleepers switch targets to him, but he is actually only enquiring to find out more about the mechanics of the watch list. Corporation chat reverts to normal gossip and strategic discussions, only occasionally interrupted by the understandable yelps of fright when huge amounts of armour are lost quickly.

There is a bit of a fright when we warp in to one anomaly but someone forgets to recall their drones in the previous one. There is no call to cancel warp, so I assume the drones will simply be left behind, but half the fleet warps and half cancels to wait for the drones to return. Unfortunately, this is one of the few times my twin Guardian and I think differently, and I am flung in to the anomaly without any means to have my armour repaired. And the Sleepers start shooting me. I stay calm, my mood somewhat fatalistic this evening, knowing that I am best to wait in the anomaly for the others to arrive. If I try to flee, I could leave just as the rest of the fleet arrives and put them in to the same boat, so to speak. Thankfully, it is not long before the cavalry arrives, and my armour is barely below 50% when I am repaired back to full strength. I probably deserved to be shot for my earlier actions anyway.

In the end, we storm through seven anomalies, the damage bonus of this magnetar system helping with our clearance speed. We finish with two radar sites. The other Guardian is re-fitted with a codebreaker to open a databank in the radar sites, which spawns the additional waves of Sleepers, so that we don't need to keep switching ships in and out of the site or system. We get a huge amount of loot from the sites and databanks, even salvaging a hull from a talocan cruiser in the second radar site. It is a good haul, and another good evening of Sleeper combat.

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Tags: buzzard, eve online, guardian, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, sleepers, w-space

Impromptu datacore run

Our scanning man finds an exit. We are plonked out of w-space in to low-sec, but the system has a high-sec connection, through a fancy-pants stargate no less, and is only a handful of jumps to where my Crane Tigress III is docked. Well, it's a handful if your parents are cousins, but six jumps is still close. A wormhole along the route is reaching the end of its natural lifetime, but it was stable when our scanner first finds it so it has a few hours left before collapsing. That's plenty of time to pick up Tigress and take care of a little business.

I grab a shuttle for the journey out, making the single hop to high-sec without problems, and I soon dock and settle back in to my Crane. Woo! Corporate headquarters is close and I fly there to manage my blueprints. I don't refresh any ME research this time, instead pulling all my jobs out of the laboratories and relocating them to my personal hangar in a nearby station. I am not abandoning my limited industrial operations, but there are imminent changes to the structure of the corporation with respect to the wormhole engineering division. I simply need to consolidate my assets that are currently within corporate control.

There is still no sign of a fleet looking to form for Sleeper combat, giving me the opportunity to head back to my manufacturing base. I can drop off a newly researched blueprint and a stack of minerals, once I return to the station and remember to move them in to my ship's hold. As I make my journey, word comes back that the end-of-life wormhole has collapsed rather abruptly, discovered by another capsuleer trying to head back. It's a nightmare, I'm stuck in New Eden! It's best not to panic. With a bit of time to spare in high-sec I ponder my options. I could replenish my depleting mineral reserves so I can build more modules, but moving my BPCs, datacores and data interfaces reminds me that I have research agents working for me I haven't spoken to for months. I bet they have some results to show, and all the travel will keep me occupied for a while.

I start my datacore run simply, as one of the research agents is in the same system as my manufacturing base. I keep forgetting this nugget of information. After this, the other agents are spread across the galaxy. I go in to my navigational computer and change it to direct my path through low-sec space to shorten my route. Or I would, if the navicomp weren't already configured that way. It's good that my journey so far has taken me only through high-sec, or I might have been embarrassingly popped on auto-pilot. But now my route will be low-sec whenever convenient. The next agent to visit is five jumps away, three through low-sec. Pleasantries are exchanged, a mission request ignored, and datacores bought. On to the next agent, fifteen jumps away and twelve through low-sec.

Apart from occasional activity and maybe one or two shooting matches, in all my time piloting a Crane I have not seen a bit of trouble flying through low-sec. Maybe I have simply been lucky and avoided notorious systems. As I muse on not seeing gate camps, a stargate on my route has three Serpentis wrecks scattered around it. No other ships are around, and one of the wrecks is almost close enough to the gate's jump distance. In a moment of stupidity, I steal the loot from the wreck, because I can. I spin Tigress III around and jump to get back on course, noting that this is one of the few times I have an active 'aggression timer' on me. Ajump or two ahead I even think I spot the ship that left the wrecks behind.

The next research agent tries to make me do some work for him, but I refuse and just buy the accumulated datacores. I also sell my stolen Serpentis wreck loot, bagging me an awesome 15k ISK bounty, well worth risking my 100M ISK Tech II transport ship over. Three agents visited, one to go. But a new route through w-space has been scanned by a generous colleague. The high-sec exit is only one jump further when made exclusively in high-sec, and my aggression timer has gone, letting me fly on auto-pilot there. I am asked to pick up a mobile laboratory on my way, which I find from an NPC seller. Oh, but I am carrying a cargo of over five hundred datacores too.

A peek at the market and a bit of rough maths suggests that the cargo I'm carrying is worth around 300M ISK, which is rather a lot, even in high-sec. Luckily, the route to the new wormhole takes me within one jump of my manufacturing base. I detour and drop off the datacores so as not to risk moving them through w-space. A few more jumps and I am guided to the wormhole by a colleague, who then points the route back to the corporation tower. I make it home safely, thankfully surviving my time in high-sec.

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

Return of the Hulk

I have the red mist. Blowing up Sleepers for fun and profit is good, but we were so close to popping an inattentive miner that I have to go back for a second look. It is late and the fleet has dispersed but I want to see if the Hulk pilot has gone back to his rock. I have kept the bookmark to the bistot he was mining, so jump in to my Manticore and make the couple of hops back to his system. A quick check of the directional scanner shows a Hulk and mining drones are out, and as the miner was apparently oblivious to scanning probes and a small fleet of ships earlier I imagine he's gone back to the same rock. Cloaked, I warp to range on the bistot asteroid, and there he is.

I am actually pretty nervous, even after having tried to shake being really tense as I approached warp. I am facing a single exhumer with no weapons and which only had a hauler for company earlier, but when making other capsuleers targets there is no knowing what could happen. I suppose I'm not nervous about losing my ship, more about not making mistakes. I am also potentially about to make someone's day quite a bit worse. I stalk closer to the target, sub-warp engines at maximum cloaked speed bringing me in to the 30 km range of my bombs. One last check of d-scan shows no new activity. Decloak and launch!

Before the bomb even hits I am punching my systems in to action, locking the Hulk in preparation of loosing volleys of torpedoes its way. The bomb's explosion is grand, causing a suitably impressive alpha strike against the target as my torpedoes launch. His mining lasers are still active, but it looks like he is turning. I keep pounding him with torpedoes, hitting his armour behind the burnt-away shields, but a few more seconds sees my Manticore drop its lock as the Hulk warps away, presumably back to the safety of its tower. I don't get the kill.

Today's lesson is in appropriate ship fittings. I am still rather inexperienced at knowing what modules to fit, partly because there are simply so many different possible configurations, and I tend to copy ship configurations from sources that seem reliable. My Manticore's fitting is not poor in itself, just not appropriate. The sensor dampers fitted are perfect for preventing a target from getting a lock on my ship as I sit at range shooting torpedoes, but this assumes targets that will be fighting back. For an unarmed target whose only thought will be fleeing, I really need a warp disruptor instead. Maybe I don't get the kill, but I learn more about my ship.

The Hulk pilot is also hopefully taught a lesson. He may have got back to his tower, where he can repair the Hulk back to full integrity, but he will need to replace his five Tech II mining drones. On top of that, his five jet-cans of ore were in the initial blast radius and are destroyed, no doubt a fair investment of time by the pilot. W-space is dangerous. In fact, I don't consider the encounter to be over yet. I know where the tower is located and I have a persistent cloak fitted. I warp to the tower at range and watch the ship movements. I doubt the Hulk pilot is stupid enough to assume that I will move away within a few minutes, allowing him to continue his operation, but I am curious as to what will happen next.

There are some ship movements. The Hulk pilot swaps in to an Imicus and warps off, but I see no scanner probes launched in the system. I assume he's headed to a neighbouring system to look for signs of life, or leaving for k-space to buy replacement drones. Or maybe he's logged off. Even that could be a ruse, hoping I'll get bored within a few minutes to let him come back and mine in peace. Another couple of pilots log on at different points, one looking like he's grabbing bookmarks from a shared can, but there are no ship movements out of the tower. It was already late for me when the corporation fleet disbanded after fighting Sleepers, yet here I am sitting outside a tower's shields simply watching signs of activity. I now understand the patience of the PvP hunter. But eventually I need sleep, so I turn my ship around and warp away.

Returning home, I feel the pang of guilt that compells me to justify my attack on the Hulk. I could say that anyone who misses such obvious and prolonged warning signs that any d-scan must have reported over a period of minutes is asking for trouble, that I am reciprocating against any available target for the times I've been shot for no fault of my own, or some laughable excuse that I am protecting our own w-space borders from the real threat of miners. But any justification will necessarily be a post hoc excuse. The simple answer is: because I can.

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Tags: eve online, hulk, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, w-space

The oblivious Hulk

The evening starts quietly in w-space, I need to make my own entertainment. I could continue to mine the bistot that I began to chip away at in a local gravimetric site, but I'm not really in the mood to mine by myself. There are bookmarks in the shared can, so I don't need to scan, but the exit to high-sec is inconveniently located for any of my reasons to visit New Eden. As I wake up in my Manticore stealth bomber, and there are a few wormholes mapped out between systems, I think I'll go looking for something to bomb. The odds are slim of finding any activity, and even if I do I am unlikely to be able or want to engage it by myself. I can never be sure without looking, though, and I like my adventures.

I warp cloaked to the wormhole exit to our system and jump, finding myself alone in the neighbouring system. Some sites have been bookmarked along with the wormholes, which gets me a little excited about finding an unsuspecting miner, but it seems the only sites that have been resolved are in this unoccupied system, no doubt for potential corporation use. There are no ships on d-scan within range of the mining sites, so I warp to the outwards wormhole to continue my optimistic roam. The next system along is occupied. Not only is it occupied, but there is a Hulk showing on directional scanner, along with mining drones, a couple of jet-cans and a hauler. I've got a target! Unfortunately, what I don't have is information about where the miner is.

Being by myself, I rush back to the tower and swap in to my Buzzard. I need to scan to find the site the Hulk is mining in. Despite finding an active miner I am far from confident that he'll remain mining for long, particularly as I am far from a good scanner. I take care to warp out of range of his directional scanner when I decloak and drop my scanner probes, but as soon as the probes are positioned and I start scanning they will appear on the d-scan, surely spooking the miner in to halting his operation. If I were a more accomplished scanner and had a wingman I may be able to get the drop on an inattentive capsuleer, but anyone mining out in w-space in a Hulk must surely be keeping an eye on d-scan. Never the less, I start scanning, hoping to get lucky.

I am not going to be lucky. There are two dozen signatures in the system, finding the gravimetric site will not happen quickly. But until the Hulk warps out, I have time. I resolve a few ladar sites first, but because the target is a Hulk he will not be mining gas, I am looking for a gravimetric site. And I get one! I resolve the signature to 100% accuracy, allowing me to bookmark and warp to the site. I must surely be too late by now, it has taken me a good ten minutes to resolve the gravimetric site, and I don't yet know if it's the right one. I warp to the site to see if there are any signs of the Hulk.

Oh my goodness. Despite minutes of my scanner probes appearing on d-scan, the Hulk is sitting next to a bistot rock and is shooting away. I create a bookmark of the rock he's mining, which essentially pin-points his position and allows me to drop in on him at any range, and speed home to the tower to swap back in to my Manticore. If he doesn't run when probes appear, or even when they disappear, it is looking good that he'll be here for a few more minutes. During this time, some of the engineers have appeared and are looking to shoot Sleepers. 'Let's kill a Hulk', I say, and grab my Onyx heavy interdictor instead of the stealth bomber. It takes a little longer to assemble than simply swapping to my Manticore, but I soon have a fleet with a Zealot heavy assault cruiser, Rook reconnaisance ship, Drake battlecruiser, and Hurricane battlecruiser to fly out with my Onyx. A further engineer is out in the target's system in a covert operations boat, monitoring ship movements. It is looking to be a bad day indeed for the unsuspecting Hulk pilot.

We fly out. The operation should be simple enough. I am given command of the wing, as I have the bookmarked location of the target, but I will warp in alone initially. My Onyx can activate its warp bubble to prevent the Hulk from escaping, and once I am in the site the rest of the fleet can warp to my location at their optimal ranges, rather than us all dropping on top of the Hulk. We are on the other side of the wormhole, ready to jump. Everyone knows to hold their cloak after jump for as long as possible. The Hulk pilot seems oblivious, but maybe if he sees our small but threatening fleet he'll bug out. But seconds before we make the jump in to the system our cov-ops pilot tells us that the Hulk and hauler have both returned to their tower!

We jump in anyway and I warp the wing out to the farthest planet, out of d-scan range of the gravimetric site, hoping the Hulk heads back to continue mining. But he doesn't. It looks like we were a minute late in making his day bad. He definitely didn't spot the fleet on his scanner, as we weren't visible before he had returned to his tower, so there was no operational error on our part. I wait a couple of minutes, but there is no activity reported from the local tower. I warp the wing back to the wormhole and we jump back, returning to our tower where we change for our more familiar PvE ships and reconfigure the fleet for Sleeper combat. It may have been a notionally benign target, but I am impressed with how efficiently the engineer fleet scrambles. I am also amazed at the miner being apparently so unaware of danger whilst in a Tech II exhumer in w-space. I make a note of this system just in case I encounter it again. The evening is then spent clearing five anomalies of Sleeper activity without problems, for some good profitable action.

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Tags: buzzard, drake, eve online, hulk, hurricane, manticore, mmorpg, onyx, penny ibramovic, rook, scanning, sleepers, w-space, zealot