Today was a good day

I find a Blood Raider 5/10 DED site in low-sec, with cyclone sitting on acceleration gate. I do not know what is his plan, but I doubt he can do this site.

I am not very excited about t1 battlecruisers. Sure I will grab and kill one should opportunity arise, but I will often wait for the bigger fish. I watch Cyclone align and warp off. Perhaps he saw my combat probes and is expecting trouble.

It's been a long time since I wanted to try combat site stalking. Idea is to get inside the plex, cloak my fleet and wait for someone to come and do the site. If you try to get someone through the gate, chances are he will spot you or will be too far away for you to grab him once you land in the room. Most of the times you will also get decloaked by the beacon. So ganking someone in a plex in a normal way may not have such high success rate. On the other hand, waiting for someone inside the plex sure would bring that "WTF" moment that I like so much.

Getting in the battleships is a bit tricky. I get my Proteus to get initial aggro and then warp in my Domi fleet one by one. I land 3k off the beacon, so I manage to cloak and move before npc aggro switch. I only have to re-warp one Dominix, that was unlucky to land 1k off the beacon first time. Once all ships are in position it was time to wait.

Good thing I like about deadspace is that you can't get cyno dropped. Of course there are other risks involved. Such as if you get disconnected, npc will make sure you stay up in space 15 minutes. Also staying in the same room with a lot of celestial trash that can decloak can also make it tricky to grab speed tanking Tengu.

I did some waiting but noone came to plex. I guess initial guys that had it scanned spotted random Dominixes at the plex. Time was passing by and silence in local was finally broken.

Looks like someone was doing background research on me and my corp. I do the same and see that the guys are pirates with good k/d efficiency. They know what I am up to and I know if I see them at the site it won't be good news. I wait for a little bit more, but decide to leave it and go back to wormholes. Perhaps if I find an empty system with a plex, I will try it again.

Back in w-space, I settle down inside a c3. Something interesting is happening in this wormhole. I see a blockade runner warping to exits and dropping bubbles on them.

I get very excited. Setting up bubbles usually means farming is about to take place. Its a common practice between wormhole folk. I patiently wait while all bubbles are anchored and get very pleased to see Proteus and Cyclone on d-scan at one of the anomalies.

It's been awhile since I got a strategic cruiser. To see a farming Proteus is a rare sight. I must get him.

As expected, they both are shooting sleepers and I tackle them without a second thought.

Proteus goes down and so does Cyclone. I was not interested in the battlecruiser and all my attention was on the strategic cruiser, so I do not know, why Cyclone did not burn out of point range. I shoot a mobile tractor unit, lose all my shiny dropped loot in the process and warp back to safe spot. I really should try focusing mtu's first, but multiboxing four ships is not easy. With each Dominix I start locking my target, toggle secondary points, neuts and launch drones which will attack your target as soon as it is locked. Then I proceed to lock all friendlies and setup a spider tank. Only then I could lock mtu and refocus fire on it. That's why sometimes I just try to get over with my kill as soon as possible.

Once I'm done, I go back to orbiting wormhole. I do not expect any action anymore. System has a lot of evidence of violence so locals and any tourists will know it's not safe. If you see some activity in the open your warning bells should ring. That's exactly what happens when I spot a couple of pirates jumping in in Armageddon and Hurricane Fleet Issue.

I do the research and find out that they are from a pirate corp, that is very active and has a lot of kills. Something feels very off here. Not even one hour passed since my gank and there are ship wrecks on d-scan. What are they up to? I could take them on, but I have no idea what's on the other side. Almost all kills are exclusively in low-sec and null. Why are these two guys in w-space? What is going on here?

I watch them for a bit. They warp around the system, warp to low-sec connection and back. They shoot the bubble and I see Armageddon cloak up, then decloak and jump out. Weird behavior. I am very tempted to kill them in a bubble, but that would be quite a gamble.

Finally, I start to make sense out of their actions. Without revealing myself and just sitting tight I think pirates get bored. Now I see Armageddon jump in, jump out and does it for a couple of times. He is rolling the connection! Hurricane has also jumped out. I guess they understood they won't get any fight here so decided to close the door. Well, if they were looking for action, I'm gonna give it to them, but on my terms. I wait for the battleship to jump out and quickly warp all my fleet on the wormhole. I setup spider tank, set drones to assist mode and wait. My sensor boosted Proteus will lock that Armageddon before he can move. Activation sound, here he is.

I tackle him and go for the bump with Proteus and Dominixes. He has multiple srams, points and webs on him. He is not going anywhere.

Shield and armor drop very fast, but I start struggling with a hull. It takes quite awhile for it to drop. I don't like hull tanks. They always smell of a trap to me, but it might just be my paranoia as no ships jump through. Armageddon explodes and pod warps clear. Another successful hunt.