Obvious bait is obvious

Fishy activity

After recent gank I was continuing with my trip. Just few jumps out I found activity. A rather fishy acclivity that is. What comes to mind when you encounter situation as per below picture?

If you think "free target" then you must be quite new to EvE and you will probably soon learn the hard way that if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

It's not that I mind taking a bait. I have taken few myself, but you have to be smart about it. You have to know who and what you are up against. Think of an engagement plan. What are bailing options if things go south and etc. Usually, when someone is baiting, whatever fleet they have, it probably is too much for my solo fleet. Were I with my corp at that time, this story would be different.

Watching the bait

Since I was flying around in the system, it's a good chance I am the one being baited. It might be dedicated for someone else, but surrounding systems are rather empty and timing with me checking systems is just too big of a coincidence. While I watch bait, I do background check on the corp and the player. Trying to find peak times and add some to watch list. I end up with around 10 active players online and mapped. Fleet composition looks a bit too much for me, but I haven't given up yet.

3 dominixes, with neutralizers and remote reps are not to be taken lightly of. If I manage to setup my spider tank and drone assists, it could be quite a killing machine, that can fight off even a small gang. Tricky part is, to split the fleet. While 10 players is too much, I could take on 5-6 of them with more confidence. So I watch the bait. Some cloaky t3's appearing and disappearing on d-scan only reinforces theory, that there's a fleet ready and waiting for unlucky bastard to take the bait.

The only way for my to come out of this ahead is to wait for their ship to jump, then tackle with proteus and tank until their fleet arrives. Assuming they would be eager to jump for a kill and not wait on the other side all the time. I probably would need to tank until 30%. Goal would be to make half fleet join on the dps, then jump with them going after me and then jump back again, getting myself polarized, but also half of their fleet. It's a lot of ifs. And even though I know from which wormhole they came, I haven't scanned their home system and I really don't like taking obvious bait without knowing enemy fleet composition. In other words, not too fancy to suicide. Not until I get my trophy kill of my current pilgrimage trip.

Teasing the bait

Eventually prophecy warps out, probably tired of waiting. I see cloaky proteus and tengu jump around. It is hard to track 2 connections so I have no way of knowing who is where. I do some teasing though. When wormhole seems empty, I orbit around with my proteus uncloaked, trying to provoke them to show up. As long as there are no interceptors and/or dictors I am quite safe and untouchable. Speak of a devil, guess who shows up on d-scan!

I warp back to my safe and watch a little bit more. Nothing shows up, patiently waiting, as if they expect me to take the bait. I decide not to play my luck and go inactive. Set my proteus on connection where bait came from, minimize EvE and go do other things, while keeping max sound, just so I can hear jumps and spot activity to see whats up. As expected, baiters get bored and after not seeing any movement they go other things. By watching their wormhole, I spot a fleet of around 5-7 t3s and few other random ships warping around. I can only regret, that I have not met them on another time outside my pilgrimage trip. I would have loved to take the bait with my corp waiting around the corner. I love wormholes for the mind games you can play. With no local, you can easily hide half the fleet and bait the baiter. Before logging off, I did convo the guy. Seems they didn't know what to expect either and assumed there could be even bigger fleet waiting for them. That would explain why they were flying cloaky gank fleet.