I wake up and jump into my ship for more space ship excitement. My usual check of my unwitting hosts show several piloted ships in the tower and a drake somewhere else in system. Having kept the bookmark of the radar site from the previous day, I decide to check it out.
Sure enough, the drake is in the radar site clearing out the rats. This is the second time I have seen this pilot running sites solo while other characters were online at the towers but not active. They don't seem to be alts so I am guessing it is just corp mates who are doing something else.
As I move in to shadow the drake and mentally rehearse tackling, I see a hostile T3 appear on d-scan, drop combat probes and then disappear. I quickly move away from the drake pilot expecting him to head to the tower. However, the probes also disappear after about 15 seconds and the drake pilot continues on his merry way.
I have moved into position about 30 kms above the drake when the T3 uncloaks and tackles the drake. D-scan immediately shows that the T3 pilot is a heavy tackle for a small gang who shortly land at zero on the drake and proceed to destroy ship and capsuleer in short order. They loot the wreck, blow it up and then disappear. Apparently returning to whence they came through the static C3. None of them knew they had an observer parked 28 km from the action.
Maybe saving their radar site wasn't such a good deed after all. The drake pilot now has to find his way back home but I log for the evening before seeing him return.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Friday, July 27, 2012
A failed ambush
I log in to my hostile home and immediately check both d-scan and my contact list for known pilots. No one appears so I deploy probes and resolve the six signatures in system. My scan speeds are increasing. There are 2 radar sites and 4 wormholes tonight. I find the 2 expected statics, a periodic and a K162. Since both the K162 and the B274 look identical, I surmise they are coming from the same region of space. Which turns out to be correct.
Upon jumping through the B274, I find a Probe sitting a few kilometers from the wormhole. This could provide entertaining so I move off the wormhole and cloak. After a few minutes he jumps into the wormhole. Did he see me? Unknown. Did he think I left? Unknown. Did he decide I wasn't a threat? Unlikely. Is he acting as bait? Unknown. Is he stupid? Maybe.
I give him a minute to move away from the wormhole and then jump in behind him. He is not visible at the wormhole but he is on d-scan and core probes are going out. Now I need to find him. It has been a while since I tried finding hostiles using d-scan but I am able to locate him at the moon of an inner planet, only to see him warp off as I land. This time he disappears off d-scan. The probes are still in system so I check the far planet and sure enough he is here somewhere. I resolve his location a little faster this time, only the see him warp again as I land. That is coincidental enough to have me checking to see if my cloak is up. It is! Luck is just favoring this little bugger at the moment.
Another check of d-scan now shows 3 additional ships and the Probe. For the next 20 minutes, I keep seeing various ships appear and disappear while the Probe appears to warp at random distances to random moons. Twice he warps to the same moon I am at but is too far away each time for me to engage and the other ships nearby have made me very cautious. All of the pilots appear to be from the same corporation and I know now that there are at least 4 and maybe 5 of them.
After a while, the combat ships disappear and a salvage ship shows up. A quick check of the closest radar site shows that they were running the site but I have no idea what all the jumping in and out was about. In any case, I decide this is a good time to ambush these thieves since there are no combat ships in range and I move to engage. However, I am too slow getting into position and the Noctis warps off safely.
As the Noctis leaves, a cruiser lands and microwarps to one of the sites cans to start harvesting it. I am given another opportunity, although the value of the target is considerably less. I start moving into position for the ambush at the nearest can. It has been awhile since I attacked anyone and the blood is pumping. I uncloak and activate my modules and then start the lock as soon as my targeting delay ends. Positive lock!
That went way better than expected. I was expecting to screw something up since it has been a while. WAIT!!! The error message that the target was out of range of my warp scrambler let me know before his ship warp off that I had failed my objective and was not going to get this kill. I wonder when I exchanged the disruptor for a scrambler? Oh well! I guess I managed to screw it up after all.
The hostile targets exit system with lots of laughs at the newbie pirate that tried and failed to kill them. I can only take solace in chasing them off for my hosts. Even if they will never know of my good deed in saving their other radar site. The time has come to call it a day.
Upon jumping through the B274, I find a Probe sitting a few kilometers from the wormhole. This could provide entertaining so I move off the wormhole and cloak. After a few minutes he jumps into the wormhole. Did he see me? Unknown. Did he think I left? Unknown. Did he decide I wasn't a threat? Unlikely. Is he acting as bait? Unknown. Is he stupid? Maybe.
I give him a minute to move away from the wormhole and then jump in behind him. He is not visible at the wormhole but he is on d-scan and core probes are going out. Now I need to find him. It has been a while since I tried finding hostiles using d-scan but I am able to locate him at the moon of an inner planet, only to see him warp off as I land. This time he disappears off d-scan. The probes are still in system so I check the far planet and sure enough he is here somewhere. I resolve his location a little faster this time, only the see him warp again as I land. That is coincidental enough to have me checking to see if my cloak is up. It is! Luck is just favoring this little bugger at the moment.
Another check of d-scan now shows 3 additional ships and the Probe. For the next 20 minutes, I keep seeing various ships appear and disappear while the Probe appears to warp at random distances to random moons. Twice he warps to the same moon I am at but is too far away each time for me to engage and the other ships nearby have made me very cautious. All of the pilots appear to be from the same corporation and I know now that there are at least 4 and maybe 5 of them.
After a while, the combat ships disappear and a salvage ship shows up. A quick check of the closest radar site shows that they were running the site but I have no idea what all the jumping in and out was about. In any case, I decide this is a good time to ambush these thieves since there are no combat ships in range and I move to engage. However, I am too slow getting into position and the Noctis warps off safely.
As the Noctis leaves, a cruiser lands and microwarps to one of the sites cans to start harvesting it. I am given another opportunity, although the value of the target is considerably less. I start moving into position for the ambush at the nearest can. It has been awhile since I attacked anyone and the blood is pumping. I uncloak and activate my modules and then start the lock as soon as my targeting delay ends. Positive lock!
That went way better than expected. I was expecting to screw something up since it has been a while. WAIT!!! The error message that the target was out of range of my warp scrambler let me know before his ship warp off that I had failed my objective and was not going to get this kill. I wonder when I exchanged the disruptor for a scrambler? Oh well! I guess I managed to screw it up after all.
The hostile targets exit system with lots of laughs at the newbie pirate that tried and failed to kill them. I can only take solace in chasing them off for my hosts. Even if they will never know of my good deed in saving their other radar site. The time has come to call it a day.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Watching a fight with scanners
I wake up and log into my temporary home. A hostile wormhole seems an odd place to call home, but I have been here several days and am getting to know my new neighbors a little. As far as I can tell, they have no idea I am "living" in their wormhole and I intend to keep it that way for a while.
A check of known contacts and the tower shows no activity so I drop probes and start looking for signatures. I have resolved 4 of the 5 signatures when I get announcement that one of the locals has logged in. My scan probes are quickly recalled leaving an unknown signature in the system.
A check of the local tower shows that the new pilot is online and sitting in the shield not moving. There is really nothing of much interest in this activity and as I am about to return to my safe spot, another pilot and then another shows up at the tower. As one of them changes ships, d-scan now shows what appears to be a hostile contact. Two of the three pilots warp out to the approximate location of the unresolved signature and then disappear. I surmise that location is a wormhole but cannot be entirely sure since both of the locals and the hostile were in stealth capable ships.
I keep a close eye on d-scan and in a few minutes a wreck shows up and the hostile pilot is now in his capsule. The capsule quickly disappears but I have no idea if they podded him or if he escaped. I make a note to check the killboards tomorrow to see if I can figure that out.
Evidently, the locals are happy to end the night with a kill as they log off soon afterwards. Now is a good time for me to finish resolving what I suspect will be a K162 connection. I deploy probes and quickly get a lock on the missing signature to find that it is indeed a wormhole but surprisingly it is a Y683 instead of the expected K162. Interesting!
There doesn't appear to be any more activity in my home so I jump into the C4. I have multiple notes on the corporations in this wormhole and even though no one appears to be around, I return home without deploying probes. It is time to call it a night anyway.
A check of known contacts and the tower shows no activity so I drop probes and start looking for signatures. I have resolved 4 of the 5 signatures when I get announcement that one of the locals has logged in. My scan probes are quickly recalled leaving an unknown signature in the system.
A check of the local tower shows that the new pilot is online and sitting in the shield not moving. There is really nothing of much interest in this activity and as I am about to return to my safe spot, another pilot and then another shows up at the tower. As one of them changes ships, d-scan now shows what appears to be a hostile contact. Two of the three pilots warp out to the approximate location of the unresolved signature and then disappear. I surmise that location is a wormhole but cannot be entirely sure since both of the locals and the hostile were in stealth capable ships.
I keep a close eye on d-scan and in a few minutes a wreck shows up and the hostile pilot is now in his capsule. The capsule quickly disappears but I have no idea if they podded him or if he escaped. I make a note to check the killboards tomorrow to see if I can figure that out.
Evidently, the locals are happy to end the night with a kill as they log off soon afterwards. Now is a good time for me to finish resolving what I suspect will be a K162 connection. I deploy probes and quickly get a lock on the missing signature to find that it is indeed a wormhole but surprisingly it is a Y683 instead of the expected K162. Interesting!
There doesn't appear to be any more activity in my home so I jump into the C4. I have multiple notes on the corporations in this wormhole and even though no one appears to be around, I return home without deploying probes. It is time to call it a night anyway.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Finding a wormhole
The time has come for my next adventure. My interest in other games is dwindling again and it is time to re-visit the Eve Universe. Of course, with that renewed interest, I find a strange compulsion to return to wormholes.
Upon logging in, I jump into a scouting ship and head out of my home base. Of course, I am on a new PC so I spend the next hour setting up and configuring my overview since I was not smart enough to save my overview settings and back them up.
Once I finish fussing with the overview, I launch probes and spend another 30 minutes relearning how to probe. Finally, I locate a wormhole and warp to the entrance. The K162 is nearing the end of its life and it is critical on mass but leads to w-space. I have a cloak, probes and nowhere I need to be anytime soon so I jump down the rabbit hole anyway. What is the worst that can happen?
After jumping, it occurs to me that I should have been setup to do a quick d-scan immediately on entering the system. It takes me longer to get this up and scanned than it should, but I get it done before my session cloak expires. Only a few warp bubbles show on d-scan so I move off the wormhole and cloak.
Now what? Oh yeah! What class of wormhole is this and who lives here? The wormhole is a B247 so if I remember correctly, I am probably in a C2. I look this up and confirm that my memory for signatures was accurate for once. Now to find the inhabitants. There is only 1 planet out of d-scan range of me so I warp out to look around. It takes me much longer to locate the towers than it should have since I was a little concerned about the warp bubbles and cans which usually indicate a trap.
I locate the inhabitants towers but no one is currently home. Only an unpiloted industrial floating in space. After thinking about it for nearly 2 seconds, I decide to stay in this wormhole for a while. I need the practice scanning anyway. Since it is past time for me to get some sleep, I create a safe and log for the evening.
Upon logging in, I jump into a scouting ship and head out of my home base. Of course, I am on a new PC so I spend the next hour setting up and configuring my overview since I was not smart enough to save my overview settings and back them up.
Once I finish fussing with the overview, I launch probes and spend another 30 minutes relearning how to probe. Finally, I locate a wormhole and warp to the entrance. The K162 is nearing the end of its life and it is critical on mass but leads to w-space. I have a cloak, probes and nowhere I need to be anytime soon so I jump down the rabbit hole anyway. What is the worst that can happen?
After jumping, it occurs to me that I should have been setup to do a quick d-scan immediately on entering the system. It takes me longer to get this up and scanned than it should, but I get it done before my session cloak expires. Only a few warp bubbles show on d-scan so I move off the wormhole and cloak.
Now what? Oh yeah! What class of wormhole is this and who lives here? The wormhole is a B247 so if I remember correctly, I am probably in a C2. I look this up and confirm that my memory for signatures was accurate for once. Now to find the inhabitants. There is only 1 planet out of d-scan range of me so I warp out to look around. It takes me much longer to locate the towers than it should have since I was a little concerned about the warp bubbles and cans which usually indicate a trap.
I locate the inhabitants towers but no one is currently home. Only an unpiloted industrial floating in space. After thinking about it for nearly 2 seconds, I decide to stay in this wormhole for a while. I need the practice scanning anyway. Since it is past time for me to get some sleep, I create a safe and log for the evening.
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