We are in the process of completing a C5 Mag site in a fleet of Tengus and Basi's when a new sig appears followed almost immediately by a Heron on d-scan. I immediately think to myself that he will jump back after seeing our fleet. However, I was wrong. He starts dropping probes.
I jump into my trusted scout killer and we drop probes to find the new wormhole. A few seconds later, we have the wormhole and I instruct everyone to warp fast locking ships to the new wormhole. It is a inbound connection from a C4 and the Heron pilot is still probing our system.
I drop combat probes with my alt and scan down the Heron, when I land he is 75km away and burning fast. Time for some creative strategy. Most pilots always run the way they came when spooked. I decloak my Buzzard and active my MWD straight toward him. He notices this right away and warps ..... (yep) right back the way he came. Silly Heron!
The Heron lands on our fleet and jumps on contact. Of course, we had bubble ships on both sides of that wormhole. He wasn't going anywhere. The Heron is killed and we give the pilot a free trip to a cloning vat as a reward.
I would recommend using d-scan when you jump into a system. If you are scouting in a non-cloaky ship, it is probably recommended to immediately retreat if you see a fleet of 7-10 ships on d-scan along with a bunch of wrecks. Just a thought!
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Catching Scouts
How many times have you tried to catch a covert ops ship? I have tried and tried and tried and tried with very little success. That is until recently. Someone I flew with recently used a different strategy to catch covert ops ships and I have decided to try it myself.
I am mostly AFK when a scout in a Helios jumps into our system. He scouts our system and then jumps into our static. Once he jumps our static, I deploy probes and find the C4 he came in through. He comes back in a bit and logs off. The C4 he came through has 18 ladar/grav sites so we bookmark them and a couple of corp mates clear the rats and start mining gas.
Later that same evening the original scout jumps back into the C4. At this point, I jump into my new scout killer and warp to our connection. Sure enough the wormhole flares. I poop a bubble out and get ready to lock the Helios pilot. I lock him up as soon as he appears and he jumps back to the C4.
I follow in my dictor and poop another interdiction bubble on the C4. The Helios appears and cloaks quickly, but I was able to get his direction and decloak him before he can evade the bubble. Positive lock, guns active and just before he goes down at the edge of my original bubble, the timer on my first launcher comes back up and I was able to launch another bubble. Jack Barnes is separated from his Helios and sent back to the cloning vat! Finally! I was able to catch a covert ops ship!
Just to prove it wasn't a fluke, the same ship and technique worked the next day on Mary Castro and her pod.
I am mostly AFK when a scout in a Helios jumps into our system. He scouts our system and then jumps into our static. Once he jumps our static, I deploy probes and find the C4 he came in through. He comes back in a bit and logs off. The C4 he came through has 18 ladar/grav sites so we bookmark them and a couple of corp mates clear the rats and start mining gas.
Later that same evening the original scout jumps back into the C4. At this point, I jump into my new scout killer and warp to our connection. Sure enough the wormhole flares. I poop a bubble out and get ready to lock the Helios pilot. I lock him up as soon as he appears and he jumps back to the C4.
I follow in my dictor and poop another interdiction bubble on the C4. The Helios appears and cloaks quickly, but I was able to get his direction and decloak him before he can evade the bubble. Positive lock, guns active and just before he goes down at the edge of my original bubble, the timer on my first launcher comes back up and I was able to launch another bubble. Jack Barnes is separated from his Helios and sent back to the cloning vat! Finally! I was able to catch a covert ops ship!
Just to prove it wasn't a fluke, the same ship and technique worked the next day on Mary Castro and her pod.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Trying something new
The day has come to try something new. I have been in other people's corps for most of my Eve career. While many of those corps have been a lot of fun, a small group of us decided the time had come to setup our own corporation.
We moved out of our C2/C4 home with N0MEX and started the process of looking for a new home. The first step was establishing a fitting name. After much discussion, we decided to go with Fighting Carebears. We have frequently been harassed and mocked as carebears becuase we like making ISK, so why not fly with that name.
The second step was finding a new home. Several of us are getting close to being able to fly capital ships so we decided to start with a C5/C2. This will eventually give us the option to run a few escalations while using the lower class wormholes to find PvP.
This will be an interesting experiment. After avoiding director positions for much of my Eve career, I suddenly find myself as a CEO. Weird!
We moved out of our C2/C4 home with N0MEX and started the process of looking for a new home. The first step was establishing a fitting name. After much discussion, we decided to go with Fighting Carebears. We have frequently been harassed and mocked as carebears becuase we like making ISK, so why not fly with that name.
The second step was finding a new home. Several of us are getting close to being able to fly capital ships so we decided to start with a C5/C2. This will eventually give us the option to run a few escalations while using the lower class wormholes to find PvP.
This will be an interesting experiment. After avoiding director positions for much of my Eve career, I suddenly find myself as a CEO. Weird!
Friday, May 10, 2013
Rolling Fleet+
I log in just as another group finishes running sites in our static. They roll the wormhole and I jump into our new connection. There is a Helios and a tower on d-scan. A quick check shows that the Helios is at the tower. While I locate the tower, we have 2 people drop probes and resolve the system.
The Helios is piloted but is not moving and I quickly lose interest. The scouts resolve the system and find the expected C3 static and a K162 from a C4. I check out the C3 which has no visible sign of pilots. Another scout checks out the C4 and finds several ships and a tower on d-scan.
The scout goes to find their tower while we assemble a fleet. Several of the ships are piloted so we are hopeful to get some action from them. The scout reports a Scorpion followed by a Dominix warping to the wormhole and another pilot is in an Armageddon. We suspect they may be intending to roll the wormhole and sure enough it flairs in front of me. The Scorpion jumps in and back followed shortly by the Dominix.
I instruct one of our pilots (Kalseth) to move forward in his cloaky Legion and then cross jump the next trip. A few minutes later the wormhole flares and Kalseth cross jumps. I instruct the rest of the fleet to jump into our static and hold cloak. Kalseth reports a Dominix, Armageddon and a Scorpion. He is able to get a lock on the Dominix but the Armageddon cloaks before he gains a lock. and engages the Dominix. I fleet warp the rest of us to the wormhole with instructions to jump on contact and spread points.
As we are landing, on the now reduced wormhole, a Falcon decloaks and attempts to jam Kalseth. The fleet jumps and I modify the instructions to primary the Falcon. I point the Falcon from 43km and the fleet makes short work of Pedro Montana's Falcon. He quickly warps his pod away from the action.
As we spread out from the wormhole, we managed to decloak Oreamnos Amric in his Armageddon. Or maybe he just decided to join in the brawl even though he knew there was no hope of winning. Either way, the Armageddon went down and Areamnos was given a free trip to the medical vat.
Next up was the originally locked Dominix flown by StudleyManiac. Who also received a free trip for showing up. Now where did that Scorpion go? We know he was around here when this thing started and he isn't on d-scan anymore. We lost a ship somewhere. We spread out around the wormhole hoping to decloak him. We didn't find the Scorpion but we did uncover a Noctis belonging to Studley Doright. One more free ticket! I would suggest putting the Noctis further away from the wormhole next time.
GF is exchanged in local and I strike up a conversation with a couple of these guys. They ask if we mind closing the wormhole on our way out. They seem like good guys and so we all jump back with prop mods active but it isn't enough to collapse the wormhole.
Since there are a lot of sites in the static, I agree to a temporary peace treaty so they can finish collapsing the wormhole. A few minutes later a Loki jumps into the static and crits the wormhole. The Loki jumps back and the Scorpion pilot (so that is where he went) decloaks and collapses the wormhole.
A couple of days later, I received an email from one of the pilots with the following link which provides the story from their perspective. Fly dangerous my friends!
The Helios is piloted but is not moving and I quickly lose interest. The scouts resolve the system and find the expected C3 static and a K162 from a C4. I check out the C3 which has no visible sign of pilots. Another scout checks out the C4 and finds several ships and a tower on d-scan.
The scout goes to find their tower while we assemble a fleet. Several of the ships are piloted so we are hopeful to get some action from them. The scout reports a Scorpion followed by a Dominix warping to the wormhole and another pilot is in an Armageddon. We suspect they may be intending to roll the wormhole and sure enough it flairs in front of me. The Scorpion jumps in and back followed shortly by the Dominix.
I instruct one of our pilots (Kalseth) to move forward in his cloaky Legion and then cross jump the next trip. A few minutes later the wormhole flares and Kalseth cross jumps. I instruct the rest of the fleet to jump into our static and hold cloak. Kalseth reports a Dominix, Armageddon and a Scorpion. He is able to get a lock on the Dominix but the Armageddon cloaks before he gains a lock. and engages the Dominix. I fleet warp the rest of us to the wormhole with instructions to jump on contact and spread points.
As we are landing, on the now reduced wormhole, a Falcon decloaks and attempts to jam Kalseth. The fleet jumps and I modify the instructions to primary the Falcon. I point the Falcon from 43km and the fleet makes short work of Pedro Montana's Falcon. He quickly warps his pod away from the action.
As we spread out from the wormhole, we managed to decloak Oreamnos Amric in his Armageddon. Or maybe he just decided to join in the brawl even though he knew there was no hope of winning. Either way, the Armageddon went down and Areamnos was given a free trip to the medical vat.
Next up was the originally locked Dominix flown by StudleyManiac. Who also received a free trip for showing up. Now where did that Scorpion go? We know he was around here when this thing started and he isn't on d-scan anymore. We lost a ship somewhere. We spread out around the wormhole hoping to decloak him. We didn't find the Scorpion but we did uncover a Noctis belonging to Studley Doright. One more free ticket! I would suggest putting the Noctis further away from the wormhole next time.
GF is exchanged in local and I strike up a conversation with a couple of these guys. They ask if we mind closing the wormhole on our way out. They seem like good guys and so we all jump back with prop mods active but it isn't enough to collapse the wormhole.
Since there are a lot of sites in the static, I agree to a temporary peace treaty so they can finish collapsing the wormhole. A few minutes later a Loki jumps into the static and crits the wormhole. The Loki jumps back and the Scorpion pilot (so that is where he went) decloaks and collapses the wormhole.
A couple of days later, I received an email from one of the pilots with the following link which provides the story from their perspective. Fly dangerous my friends!
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Failure to Communicate
The story you are about to read demonstrates the dangers of communication failures. You can always count on stupid. This is a old adage which is especially true in Eve.
We roll our static and jump into a fresh wormhole to find .... wait for it .... nothing! That is what we usually find in our static but we are always so optimistic.
The C4 is empty of inhabitants but the sleepers have decided it is a good hideout. There are 18 combat sites and 14 cosmic signatures. We resolve the signatures to find the usual assortment of gas, rocks and the outbound static to another C4. However, these is another K162 in the system coming from a C2.
I jump into C2A while another scout jumps into C4A. The C2 is a C4/HS wormhole and while there are several towers, there is no visible sign of pilots so I head back to join a fleet to kill the sleepers. The other scout reports a lone retriever in the C4A which is not at a tower.
Since it does not take 10 people to kill a retriever, the scout is cleared to kill the retriever if he can locate it without spooking the pilot. In this case, the pilot appears to have been AFK mining since he never responded. The Retriever and the pod are destroyed with relative ease.
By now, the plex fleet is now in the static running sites with about 10-12 pilots. The scout who killed the retriever has moved to the C2 when a second retriever from the same corp warps in from the high sec and jumps into the static. The pilot then warps directly to the C4A and jumps on contact. The scout was unable to chase him down before he is in the POS.
While the scout is sitting there debating the next step, an Abaddon from a different corporation warps in, followed by a Scorpion from the locals. We warp our plexing fleet to the C4A and jump to engage both ships. The Scorpion is killed and we pod the pilot. While we have no idea where the Abaddon came from, we kill him and send him back to hisec as well.
We assume the killing opportunity is over and the plex fleet returns to killing sleepers in the static. The scout is heading back to the C2 to scan down that chain. When he arrives at the C2A connection, the wormhole flares and an Occator jumps. He engages the Occator, but the extra scram strength of the ship allows the pilot to escape. Hold On! He just warped to the C4A connection where we still have an interdictor and a bubble. Sure enough, he lands on the edge of the bubble and is quickly locked down by the small party sitting on that wormhole. We kill the Occator and provide a free trip back to hi-sec for Tabitha.
When you see 20 ships on d-scan, you might want to reconsider transiting a wormhole in a slow ass hauler. When your team mates get owned on your static connection by a large fleet, you might want to hold off using that connection to haul in supplies. You might want to consider voice comms if you live in a wormhole. Or you could just provide us with a few minutes of entertainment.
We roll our static and jump into a fresh wormhole to find .... wait for it .... nothing! That is what we usually find in our static but we are always so optimistic.
The C4 is empty of inhabitants but the sleepers have decided it is a good hideout. There are 18 combat sites and 14 cosmic signatures. We resolve the signatures to find the usual assortment of gas, rocks and the outbound static to another C4. However, these is another K162 in the system coming from a C2.
I jump into C2A while another scout jumps into C4A. The C2 is a C4/HS wormhole and while there are several towers, there is no visible sign of pilots so I head back to join a fleet to kill the sleepers. The other scout reports a lone retriever in the C4A which is not at a tower.
Since it does not take 10 people to kill a retriever, the scout is cleared to kill the retriever if he can locate it without spooking the pilot. In this case, the pilot appears to have been AFK mining since he never responded. The Retriever and the pod are destroyed with relative ease.
By now, the plex fleet is now in the static running sites with about 10-12 pilots. The scout who killed the retriever has moved to the C2 when a second retriever from the same corp warps in from the high sec and jumps into the static. The pilot then warps directly to the C4A and jumps on contact. The scout was unable to chase him down before he is in the POS.
While the scout is sitting there debating the next step, an Abaddon from a different corporation warps in, followed by a Scorpion from the locals. We warp our plexing fleet to the C4A and jump to engage both ships. The Scorpion is killed and we pod the pilot. While we have no idea where the Abaddon came from, we kill him and send him back to hisec as well.
We assume the killing opportunity is over and the plex fleet returns to killing sleepers in the static. The scout is heading back to the C2 to scan down that chain. When he arrives at the C2A connection, the wormhole flares and an Occator jumps. He engages the Occator, but the extra scram strength of the ship allows the pilot to escape. Hold On! He just warped to the C4A connection where we still have an interdictor and a bubble. Sure enough, he lands on the edge of the bubble and is quickly locked down by the small party sitting on that wormhole. We kill the Occator and provide a free trip back to hi-sec for Tabitha.
When you see 20 ships on d-scan, you might want to reconsider transiting a wormhole in a slow ass hauler. When your team mates get owned on your static connection by a large fleet, you might want to hold off using that connection to haul in supplies. You might want to consider voice comms if you live in a wormhole. Or you could just provide us with a few minutes of entertainment.
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