Sunday, April 19, 2015

Finding a pos without forcefield

Observing in Stealth


Once I'm done with scanning and if there's no activity, I usually park my Proteus on one of the wormholes, preferably with good connecting system such as highsec. Then I go off to watch TV, spend time with my girlfriend or do something else. I keep camera close and wormhole jump sound to the max so I hear when there is activity.

Watching highsec I got numerous jump activation in and out. It caught my attention. Looks like there is something going on. Few ships shooting each other and few more land. Looks like some random encounter.


Quite juicy. And it doesn't look like its full fleet. There are some ships on scan appearing and disappearing, so I think it's safe to assume I should expect twice the size. It probably is too much for my Domi fleet to handle. However, since it's a high-sec wormhole, I would only need to kill someone and jump out to safety. Which could be tricky thing. Only way I can get someone is if they get themselves polarized. Plus, my Domi fleet is in another wormhole, so as soon I decloaked my Proteus, Devoter probably would bubble up, making my Dominixes land on the edge. Only way for me is to initiate warp before the bubble and most likely, before decloaking Proteus to tackle.

One more negative aspect, is that my main - Zosius, has hundred kill rights hanging on him. So I would have to use mwd+cloak trick or I would die. Even though I like to take risks, I decide to observe some more. Unfortunately, before I could plan my move, fleet warps out.

Defenseless pos


With fleet gone, I go do some scanning. There are new signatures that I need to resolve. One of the systems I find has a pos without forcefield. It's a common sight for someone who hangs out in w-space. People tend to leave their pos and its modules, because unanchoring them takes more effort than they are worth. However, my blood started flowing. And here is why:


Yep, those are corp hangers and ship maintenance arrays that are still intact. Despite living in w-space for the most time, it's been only once or twice I have ever encountered a pos with these structures and no force field. This can be big.

I quickly find the moon and check it out. Sure enough, my d-scan was not lying. Pos is laying there, unprotected. Is someone moving out? Did it really ran out of pos fuel? Many questions arise, but no time for answers. I am not the only one. There are probes scanning the system. Someone else is here. 


I have to make a snap judgement call. I could wait for someone else to find the pos, but odds are that it will be a corp and they will get the fleet to shoot the structures. Despite probes flying around, I decide to go for it. It would be very sad if it dropped something shiny and I had to bail, but no risk, no champagne.

I quickly warp my Domi fleet to position and get to work. I shoot structures as fast as I can. They are not particularly tanky, but 2 corporate hangars and 2 ship maintenance arrays still takes a couple of minutes to break. Once I get the killmail, I quickly check if there's anything worth of looting. I am under extreme pressure. I now see sisters combat probes on scan. Someone might not be very adapt with d-scan, so to find my position they opt out for an easy way - using combat probes. After reviewing the killmails, there doesn't seem to be anything of value.


Only one SMA that was not empty. Didn't drop much apart from some mining equipment. Certainly not enough to risk my ships to retrieve it. I warp out. Happy with the damage done and my ships still being intact I cloak up at the safe spot. It would be interesting to stick around and observe, waiting for someone to try and check out wrecks. However, it's getting late and I call it a day.

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