Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Back to the wormholes. My first kill

The wormhole space. It has always fascinated me. Since I was very young, I used to have day trips, scanning and doing sites in my trusty Myrmidon. Once my skills and experience grew, so did my thirst for blood. Instead of hunting for sites, I was hunting people in my, also, trusty Proteus. Since then, I never looked back. While I do like high-sec and low-sec plays, w-space is where I belong. It is my home.

Wormhole interest


Reason why I enjoy wormhole space so much is the stealth aspect. And it is not only in EVE. Starting with battlefield 2142, I used to be a recon, carrying cloak, running behind enemy lines and sniping from their backs. Same with battlefield 3, always a sniper, always discrete. This is who I am.

Major aspect in w-space that I find attractive, is that it has no local. It always annoyed the heck out of me. It's like a bloody maphack. Announcing your presence after every time you jump in. It makes really difficult to hunt. If your target is not stupid, it will be very unlikely it will become a victim. Combined local with d-scan and killboards, anyone have instant access to a lot of information on you. Not to mention if you are using extra tools like pirate's little helper. They know exactly what to expect, what ship you fly, what group you fly with. Everything. I am, of course, over exaggerating a little as there can still be plenty of kills, traps and baits, but you get the idea.

Striking from the shadows


In wormholes, stealth plays both ways. You might be cloaked, watching your prey, but so someone might be watching you. You never know when a group of ships will suddenly decloak on you. A lot of it depends on chance. You can either be at the wrong place at the wrong time, or at the right place at the right time. This time it seems it was the former. 

I have been watching one entrance in a c3 when suddenly I see an activity on scan.


With my uber d-scan skills, I quickly find their position to be on a wormhole out to null-sec.


When I land, I only have visual on Gila, but no Tengu. Before I start looking for it, I see Gila warp to what seems to be an anomaly. I follow. Once on grid, I see them both quite close to each other, orbiting an mtu. Looks like they just started the site.


I mingle my fingers while having an evil smile on my face. Here's what I have been waiting for. That feeling, when you are watching your preys and they have no idea. At least I hope so. System is quite large and my Domi fleet is more than 20 AU away. It will take some time for them to come, so I prepare as much as possible. I get 200km bookmark for a good warpin. One last time make sure that both ships are in close orbit of an mtu and will not burn out of scram range when I land. Finally I align my Dominixes and decloak them. Warp to 10 with Proteus, take one last quick look and decloak. I wait out my sensor re-calibration delay and tackle both Tengu and Gila, and send my fleet to warp.


As expected, once pilots realize what is happening, they open fire on me. There is a good reason I fly heavy tackle Proteus with no dps. And that reason is tank. It is not maximum tank fit though. I use 6 low slot and 4 medium slot layout with sensor booster for faster tackle. And I also do not carry slave or any armor implants, or any shiny adaptive membranes for that matter. I am balancing cost vs return. If my 170ehp proteus will die, probably having 300 ehp would not do much difference. 

So here I am, holding both targets when my Domi fleet finally lands and I start with the killing. I was getting a bit greedy and almost paid the price. When I've just put tackle with my Dominixes, I decided to focus fire on Gila, as it did not have web on it, I wanted to kill it before possibility to burn out of range. That all changed, when suddenly Falcon decloaked on grid. I knew what was coming. I quickly change focus of my scram from Gila to Tengu. Which was a smart move, since Proteus gets jammed and Gila warps out seconds later. Seeing as his friend still has multiple points on him and is not going anywhere, Falcon pilot decides to give up and disappears before I can even start locking it. That works for me. I resume my dps on the Tengu.


There is still an active mobile tractor unit on the field. I should kill it first, but I don't want to try my luck. If Falcon came on such short notice, there might be a blob gathering to kill me for all I know. I have no idea what is happening on the other side of that wormhole. I decide not to care about the loot and go for the kill.


Not too shabby. A 1.5 billion Tengu catch. I quickly finish off mtu and scoop what is left and do a quick gtfo. Once safe I cloak up and continue observing with my cloaky Proteus. I see Svipul warp to wreck and out. I do a check on the kill and my cargo and it seems I have got all the shinnies. They are free to pickup the leftovers, I don't mind. I won't be doing anything. A gank per system is my motto. I ship my loot to K-space and log for the day.

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