Sunday, August 30, 2015

Not your average day

Sometimes you must look for action, sometimes action comes to you. This is the life in EVE. It was supposed to be another standard day. I was in the middle of tackling an Astero that was unfortunate enough to do sites in the system with me present.


That was a good 120mil kill. And since the day was just starting, it set me in the right mood. You know, it was one of those moods when some people just dance or sing and be happy in general for no particular reason. I was happy too, but instead of dancing and singing I killed this Venture, that I normally wouldn't bother exposing myself for.

Things started getting interesting when I visited one of c4's and found activity. There were two Tengus and a Raven doing sites and from the looks of it, they just started.


Excellent! That leaves me a plenty of time to get my fleet in position. Besides, I don't like to make my move in a fresh site as sleepers are always on my ass. When everything is ready, I grab both Tengus. I only expect to hold one of them as it's hard to keep both ships tackled if they try to burn away, but this time they are up a fight.


Soon both ships fall to heavy neutralizers and drones. I check both wrecks, but find nothing more than t2 mods. Upon checking kills I see they both are fully t2 fit. While no shiny loot, two strategic cruisers is still a great catch.

I'm back at my home wormhole. It's been plenty of action so far, I feel like I have used up my luck for today. I haven't been intensely looking for ships to gank. All targets were just within a jump's reach from my home, but Bob proves me wrong again. He still requires for more sacrifices, and thus I see two ships appear on d-scan.


I find them at one of anomalies, fully occupied by sleepers. Without wasting much time, I make a position bookmark and think through my move.


As much as I would love to tackle them both, it's not going to be possible. They are too far apart, so I decide to prioritize Legion. It's a bit difficult to get to him as there are no celestials close by. He does seem to be burning towards sleepers he's shooting though. I warp to intercept, but land not quite where I wanted. Legion is still 28km off and there are a lot of wrecks on the field that I almost get decloaked too early.


Phew, that was a close call. Had I revealed myself too early, Legion could have gotten away, but in the end, I managed to slowboat into scram range and grab him. Domi fleet was staying in the same system, so they arrived quite early. I kept Gila on the endge of my point, but he managed to get away once he realized there's nothing can be done. Legion went down. There's nothing more satisfying than killing an active tanked ship with heavy neutralizers at your disposal.


Another t3 kill! A third within the same day. Bob has been very generous and as usual, I repay my respects with explosions. There's an understanding between both parties.


Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Never lose hope

There is a reason I multibox three Dominixes. It is mostly so I could take on bigger gank opportunities. I did not intend to have this setup in the beginning. It all just had built up to it. I had a main, then I got a scanner alt, then I got a Jump freighter alt and then I got a manufacturer alt. I wanted to try different things and also to rely as little as possible on the others. Reality was that I barely manufactured anything, freighting was not done often and even when I did, I used contracts. I did, however, run exploration sites and found out that having 4 accounts was super effective. A Megathron and three Dominixes with drone assist made any pve activity a breeze. Before I knew it, I started using them in pvp more and more and got dependent on it quite a lot. Especially being in small corps, bringing few extra ships made all the difference: "Shit we are outnumbered, oh, Zosius has logged in, we can fight!"

I used to hunt solo in a cloaky Proteus, but biggest catch I could get was a Drake. Later I found three Dominixes worked quite well for hunting. They have utility, packs a punch and can take a lot of punishment. They do, however, have their disadvantages: are slow, long locking times with cloak fitted and can be hard to multibox as hell.

How big is too big?


While I can gank fat juicy targets or small fleets running sites, there are limits. I end up in one of the wormholes. A c4 that was empty an hour ago, but now is lively. At first it was just a couple of ships. I saw a Typhoon log in, then another one. As time passed, more ships kept coming in.


I went from being excited to being concerned. I didn't know what was the plan as these guys appeared to be very indecisive. Ships being swapped back and forth for whatever reasons. If it was a farming fleet, don't they have the usual setup? It did not look like a pvp fleet either. So I kept eyes on them until they finally warped to an anomaly.


Shit, that is a lot of ships. They also seem to be spider tanking. I am trying to figure out what would be my best approach. The standard situation is that I tackle with Proteus and have my Domi fleet in warp. This might not be possible as there are simply too many ships on grid. I don't think I could tank them all. As a rule of thumb I have to account for sleeper aggro too.

To make matters worse, they have remote shield transfers. The only way I could kill anyone, is by focusing on Basilisk first. I crunch the numbers in my head. My gut says this doesn't feel right. It would simply be too much dps to tank while I setup my tank and focus damage on the primary. I continue to observe them while trying to decide what to do.


Should I go in? Perhaps when my Domi fleet lands they will warp off  leaving tackled corpmates behind. My Proteus pilot does not have a slave set, but maybe it can still tank enough if I pre-warp my Dominixes? I change overview filter and see a huge cloud of drones in addition to ships. Fuck, I don't think I can do this. I have to face the truth - my balls are not big enough.

While the guys are busy with their farming, I observe them while watching some anime at the same time. I still hope I can gank their salvager ship. If I'm lucky, he will salvage all the sites without dropping off the loot in between. After awhile I they all warp back to the tower and I see one of them swap for a destroyer. Well, that's a bummer, I thought. Then I see something interesting happen. Both Typhoons warp to different directions. They are warping to the sites they just finished.


This is my chance! I quickly follow the first Typhoon and see him collect mobile tractor unit and warp back off. Shit, I'm too late. I go check on another one, which is 14AU away. I land in my position bookmark and see the battleship sitting on his mtu with 0 speed. It's now or never. I initiate warp, decloak, get my systems ready and tackle the Typhoon. Soon my Domi fleet lands and  dps starts flowing.


In the end his friends never showed up. Another good side of Domi trio is the "wtf" moment. They look scary enough to give gank victims a second thought about sending a backup and it also has enough dps to melt an average ship before a response fleet can be assembled.


An almost 300mil worth kill. It was worth the wait. I knew Bob will provide an opportunity. He always does.

Saturday, August 22, 2015

Paranoia

Sometimes you can encounter weird situations in w-space. With no local and no eyes down the pipe, one can get very paranoid, therefore a tinfoil hat is recommended while piloting in the unknown. I logged in and started scanning the system when I heard a jump sound. I saw an Astero jump from one of the wormhole connections and warp to low-sec. Then another jump sound and Mastodon, a Minmatar deep space transport ship, suddenly appeared. Damn, I only have my tackle Proteus on. It's so unexpected and while it looks like a potential target, it may have some warp core stabilizers fitted, so I am not sure if I should even try to get him. Perhaps I should lay low and pretend system is empty. That's exactly what I do, but transport ship doesn't warp away. It just continues to move to no particular direction while Astero returns from low-sec and lands on the wormhole. They are both from the same corp.


This is very strange and to be honest, I am struggling to understand this behavior. If he would be afk, his ship would just sit and not move. If he would warp and went afk, it would land on other wh and stand still. Instead, he just moves to direction, not even aligned to anything as far as I can tell. If I didn't know any better, I would say this smells awful lot like a bait. I had encountered deep transport ships before that had scram fitted. This would be a perfect trap, luring target far away without possibility to make escape by jumping through the wormhole.

But who would they be baiting? I have logged only some minutes ago, in a deep safe. There's small chance my ship has been spotted and close to zero chance they knew the pilot (unless they saw Proteus on d-scan when I logged in, checked system's kills and made a guess it was me, by doing analysis of ships I bring and creating bait based on educated guess, and fleet waiting on other side, ready to kill me, all this in a few minutes since my log on.. oh my god, I need my tinfoil hat).

I check their killboard and conclude that this being a bait is a very small chance. I decide to go for it. I quickly log in my Domi fleet and burn at Mastodon at full speed and tackle him at 40km off the wormhole. That's a long distance to cover by going 200m/s. Bob doesn't approve such negligence and if he doesn't have warp core stabs in lows, he is about to pay the price.


Well, what do you know. No blob is jumping through the wormhole and no rescue ships on d-scan. Mastodon pilot woke up and changed his course back to the wormhole. That's very optimistic if you asked me. In his place, I would eject and at least try to get pod to safety in case there's an interdictor on the way. Meanwhile, my Domi fleet lands and I unleash everything I have on the transport ship. It goes poof.


Looks like it was a shopping run, sadly without any blue loot to sell. A kill is a kill and every ship is equal in the eyes of Bob.

Friday, August 21, 2015

Looking death in the eyes

Day started pretty innocently. I was minding my own business, with cloaky Proteus parked in the system, when I spotted an Astero on scan. Since I have all the sites pre-scanned, it doesn't take long for me get visual.


I make position bookmark and plan my move. Astero carries a bit more of a punch than normal covert ops frigate. Since my Proteus is almost dpsless, I usually bring one of my Dominixes to get gank done quick and dirty. This time, however, I decide to just "test" how long it will take for me to kill an Astero with two small smartbombs and a single heavy neutron blaster.

Once he moves to the next can, I make my move and grab him. Astero looks disoriented for a bit, but then I see a warp disruptor icon suddenly pop up on my screen. Well shit, I am being tackled back. It's not unseen for an Astero to carry a disruptor to kill other explorers. Real panic sets in when I suddenly click d-scan and see bunch of ships. Results say 3 Gilas and 2 Rattlesnakes are coming in. What the fuck? I'm sure not even a minute had passed since our fight started and bunch of ships are already coming in? Having in mind battleship warp speeds, I can only assume I was very unlucky with my timing and that it is a farming fleet that just happened to be in warp when I attacked and went answered call of help against a single Proteus.

I have no time for theories and I need to act fast. There are 5 ships coming in. My mind does calculations on its own and I instinctively warp my Domi fleet to the rescue. I may be an underdog in this fight, but it's not like I don't have a chance. It all depends on what kind of fits they have and their fighting skills and coordination. I'm willing to take the odds.

When Domi fleet is in warp, I realize my ship is disrupted, but not scrammed. That means my micro warp drive is still active and I have Astero scrammed and webbed. I overheat my mods and try to break the distance. It goes quite well and before you know it, I am out of 20km range and safely in warp. Now I can return and choose my targets from a distance. I am not interested in holding down as many targets as I can. Afterall, it's me who is being ganked.

Enemy fleet takes "long" time. I assume it was a fleet warp with Rattlesnakes, but they are on the way, there's no mistake. With Proteus safely out, I check on my Dominixes that are on collision course with the enemy. I start to regret my decision to warp as Proteus managed to get away on it's own. Regret grows even more when I realize that one of my battleships stayed behind. It had a cloak still on so fleet warp did not affect him. Fuck.

Two Dominixes will be a food. I need my trio to put up a fight so I quickly decloak and initiate warp. Meanwhile my other two Domis land on the enemy fleet.


There's still 18AU to cover for the missing Domi. It should take around 30 seconds. I hold my "out of warp invulnerability" session as long as I can and also warp back Proteus. I hope it would show as an attractive target. It is much easier to repair than a Dominix. I end up committing all my arsenal of weapons, but in a very disorganized way.

With each second passed, I am more and more accepting that this may be the end. Who knows what kind of reinforcements will arrive in the next few minutes? Coms are probably going nuts. While I nervously wait for those red boxes and disruptor icons to appear, I see an interesting sight. Their fleet starts to warp off one by one, until lone Rattlesnake is left. I quickly try to lock him, but good luck doing that with a battleship that has cloak fitted. Soon there's only me left on grid. Perhaps Bob still has some plans for me. I quickly gtfo back to my safe and initiate convo to get some answers.


I try to find out if it was a farming fleet, which I am quite sure it was. It could have been a great fight, but both sides chose safety over uncertainty. Without proper research no one could know what to expect. I am offered a fight, but hell will freeze before I will engage in an arranged brawl. Its gank or get ganked life for me and I live to fight another day.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Violent life in wormhole space

I am flying around w-space, scouting and looking for opportunities. A part of a charm is that a single directional scanner check can tell stories on it's own. Like in below example, I see an Algos at the site with sleeper wrecks.


If you look closely, it's not only sleeper wrecks. Actually, don't even need to look that closely as there are 3 wrecks that are not sleeper's. They stand out quite a lot. It seems like farming operation went horribly wrong. Since site is despawned or it's a signature, I can't have eyes without alerting whoever is still in here. I decide to check killboard for intel.


Looks like I found what just happened. Some guys were just ganked by Spectraliz IIZ, I know them well. They are a very active Russian corporation that operates within my timezone. It's not the first time I see them gank very close to my location. And most certainly, they are one of the most frequent corps I meet in my travels. It might be just a coincidence, but their killboard is amazingly active for 150 members. I say amazingly, because most of them happen in w-space and as someone who lived in this environment for the bigger part of EVE career, I know how difficult it can be to find targets, especially when you happen to live in higher level wormhole like c5/c6. So big respect to these guys and I am trying to stay away as much as possible as soon as I spot one of their scouts. Nothing much I else I can do here so I moonwalk back out to my system.

After ganking Paladin of the locals, I know they have another one. I have spotted it at the tower for a brief moment. However, I am pretty sure I am being watch listed and whenever I see guys log in, they log out within 5 minutes. Sometimes even 1. Not that I try to gank them for a second time. I simply did not find new location to stay in.

System generally is clean. Data/Relic sites do not normally stay longer than a day and there's only a handful of anomalies present. So someone is doing them. Maybe day trippers, maybe locals. I have a rather small time window when I play EVE, so I am sure I miss out on a lot of gank opportunities. This time however, I spot a Helios on d-scan, which I find at one of the data sites.


I wait for him to finish hacking current container and align to the next one and grab him when I see a hacking beam. I then proceed slowly killing him with my two small smartbombs and a medium blaster that is missing it's shots half the time. Finally Helios explodes. Nothing fancy, just some t2 stuff and a few site drops. I grab that 8 million loot and shoot the wreck. I really wish I had a smartbombing Proteus for these situations. Too bad large smartbombs use so much space and I don't feel carrying twice the value in cargohold when my primary tackle ship takes risks every day. Smartbombing small ships with pods is a lot of fun though.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Eyes on the wormhole will not save you, Part 2

In my last post I covered about a Paladin kill that had eyes on the wormhole, but did not see a gank coming from within inside.

While Paladin is a nice kill, it was not that shiny as I'd hoped. It seems population of EVE is getting "smarter" and does not pimp their ships unnecessarily anymore. A ship with t2 mods gets the shit done just as well. Good for them, bad for the hunters. It was time to look around. My visit in this wormhole had served it's purpose, now I needed to see what's out there. I began scanning, starting with low-sec connection.

Low-sec has 3 wormholes and all of them are c3. Perhaps one of them will have something going on or at least will be a potential new home to stalk in. I finish mapping and go in. I immediately get my interest up. There are sleeper wrecks on scan. I move and cloak up to investigate situation further, but...


...I immediately get greeted in local. My Russian is not the best, but I believe he asks "what are you looking for?".  In other words, the guy is declaring that I have been spotted and that they have eyes on the wormhole.  All hopes for surprise attack are gone. Or are they?

Since they know I'm here I decide not to stress too much and calmly look around. By playing with d-scan, I find out that wrecks are generated by a Tengu and that he is at some signature. Despite them knowing they have guest, Tengu continues shooting sleepers.


He probably is feeling safe, in that signature of his. I can't get to him without combat probes and he is probably spamming that scan button like a mad man. But what do I have to lose? I warp to the outer planet and drop my probes.

I am an experienced prober. It's a must have skill if you are hunting and want to be successful. Not all targets are found at the anomaly and sometimes you have to scan them out to get them. Here's mini guide of combat scanning:

I warped to a closest celestial to that Tengu. Changing the distance, I deducted that he is approximately 2 AU. I then pinpointed his direction to 5 degree angle. Once I had distance and direction, I moved probes to be exactly in the center to where I am looking through the map layout and still get a 5° angle hit. Do not forget to focus your present location, in my case - the planet.


I double check that distance is approximately 2 AU by holding alt and selecting central probe to see outer lines. If edge of central probe's bubble at 2 AU is reaching the planet then position is good. I then decrease range to 1 AU and click scan. I probably could get a hit at 0.5 AU, but it has very small margin for error, so I hope 1 AU will be enough to get a return of 100%. Scanning is in process and as soon it is over I recall my probes, regardless if I get a warpable hit or not. Minimizing visibility time for probes is the key, In this case, I am successful.


Had I not had a 100% hit, I would have repeated whole process again, only this time I could see his approximate position and adjust accordingly. I don't get too excited. Remember, they know I am here and I expect this Tengu to be gone off the grid by the time I come. But he does not, he continues with the site.


Shit's about to get real. I make a position bookmark and quickly warp my Domi fleet into position. Well, quickly might be a strong word.


Wormhole is bloody 125 AU away. It will take my battleships two minutes to get into position. Good news are: they don't have eyes in low-sec system. Otherwise, if a cloaky Proteus didn't make Tengu stop farming, three Navy Dominixes would surely ring some warning bells. Once my fleet lands, I make my move.


It takes awhile for fat potatoes to align and warp. Meanwhile, Tengu and sleepers are dishing out a lot of pain.


Finally Domi fleet lands and heavy neutralizers and drones get to work. Once the juice runs out, strategic cruiser goes down.


A combination of shiny and t2 mods. Probably would be over a billion worth of killmail, had price of deadspace shield boosters not tanked. Regardless, it's a good kill and I thank Bob for granted opportunity. Nothing more rewarding for a hunter, than a successful kill, shiny or no shiny. I loot and shoot the wreck and get out. Day later, I receive the following mail:


As I thought, Tengu pilot did not think he was in danger as he couldn't see combat probes. That is why it is so important not to have probes out for more than one scan cycle. With a little bit of luck and good timing, you can catch your prey by complete surprise even if they do check d-scan rather actively.

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Eyes on the wormhole will not save you

I've been abandoning EVE. She doesn't like to share. If you are doing stuff, you better be damn sure it will cost you most of your leisure time. How to avoid that? Don't go out. Leave a date with EVE for another day, because she will not take it kindly running in the background while you pay no attention to her.

I've been fooling around. My friend convinced me to play Battlefield 3 and I got hooked on it again. Played it for some days until I got sick of it again. Then there was The International 2015, a Dota2 tournament.  I haven't played that game in a year, but watching pro matches I couldn't help myself and wasted several days of free time on Ability Draft. I get addicted too much, too fast. Or should I say I am an addict and all I need is a little taste and I can get dragged back into it.

Meanwhile, EVE was running silently in the background or not running at all. And in return shit didn't happen. D-scan was empty, there was nothing else but ambient sound in the system. While I do advocate this afk style gameplay, you do need to put a little grain of salt in an effort if you want to find targets. Which means scanning surrounding systems, checking few jumps down the pipe every now and then. If you stay in one place you have to be extremely lucky or live in a good system that has activity guaranteed. It was neither for me so  I decided to change up.

Surprise gank


I have scanned another wormhole, with few sigs present and a corp that has few active players. Perhaps not a perfect location, but I was too lazy to look for a better one. I mean, someone has been doing those anomalies and I'm sure as heck gonna try to gank it.

Fast forward almost a week and nothing was happening. Signatures were still disappearing so something was going on, it just probably was happening when I was at work. One fateful day I log in. Nothing on scan until I warp out of my deep safe to the center of a system and see a very unusual sight.


Wrecks! And a ship! I am a bit disappointed with Damnation on scan. What a strange choice of ship to do c3 sites. I find him at the tower. I watch for a couple minutes and get puzzled. No one is salvaging wrecks and no one is in a rush to do the next site. Something is off here. I take a closer look at Damnation and see him with an active ECCM module or some shit. It feels like it is made for ganglinks, but they are useless inside the tower's forcefield. There's still nothing on d-scan. Only outer planet that is off range is where I logged in and d-scan was empty at the time. My gut says to check again, just for the heck of it.

*Click*


Cyclone? No, it's a fucking Paladin, a holy grail of pve ships. My Bob, I don't even remember last time I had encountered one. It takes me a moment to find him at the only Anomaly in range.


Just look at him. Sitting out there, in the open. I better not fuck this up. We must have passed each other in warp. It would explain why I didn't see it when logged in and when warped to another side. That is quite interesting timing, but now I have an opportunity to make my stay in this system count. There's only one problem - he is well within range of where my Navy Dominixes are logged out. I have two choices:

1. Wait for him to do another anomaly in the center of the system, outside d-scan range.
2. Grab him and log in my Domi fleet, hoping I can tank and hold him enough time.

While first choice might seem safer, I have had bad experiences before when I bet on carebear doing one more anomaly, only to have him pos up and be done for the day. No, this time I will go with option two.

I get to log-in menu of all my Domi pilots and get my Proteus into position. This is it. Log log log, decloak and tackle Paladin's ass. Fleetup my Domis, set squad commander and initiate warp. Paladin unleashed drones on me, but I got relieved when I saw they were light drones and not ecm. Soon my Domi fleet landed and got to work.


Marauder went into bastion mode and did his best to tank the incoming damage, but he was no mach for Dominix Navies with heavy neutralizers. Once cap ran out it was over pretty quick.


Not the most expensive marauder in the world, but still a worthy prey. It's pilot seemed quite surprised.


He had eyes on the only wormhole signature in the system. He was safe as he would instantly hear when someone entered and could warp away to safety. And normally that would be the case. Unfortunately for him, I am not a random day tripper. I am a hunter and I can be watching and waiting for you for days without you even realizing it.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

EVE and common sense

Some things in EVE just don't make sense. Don't make sense to me at least. I decided to do some order updating for my market alt. An activity I am doing once a month at best. I don't know why I bother, but it does help paying the plex bills of my trading alts. Everyone who does trading most likely, at least once, have price misstyped and sold item for ridiculous price. As it happened to me.


I was lucky I had my buy order setup just before I set the sales order. Unfortunately it was one quantity too small and I ended up donating 100mil to some trader. Not big money, but that could have easily have been 400mil. I saw many traders bring this up, yet no action from CCP whatsoever. Selling for price set and not to the highest order available can be especially dangerous when one has deep pockets. Set price for some expensive items with large quantity and mistype a price - potential loss of billions. It doesn't reward anything and instead it makes you miserable of losing hard earned ISK. If EVE had these small things polished up and give players less hassle for a change I would be very happy. One can dream no?

When EVE plays tricks on you


My stalking has been full of action. I had a glorious fight with an Imicus, a t1 scanning frigate, from which I came out a winner. With two small smartbombs and one medium blaster it took longer than you would expect.


Behold, a 1 million killmail. Totally worth it. I feel compelled to destroy ships that fit warp core stabilizers. It just makes me feel good about myself as if I made EVE a better place.

Of course I had few other opportunities but EVE did not want to let me use them. Take for instance this Astero.


You think everything looks normal? Well, it probably would if it was a mining site. But it is not. It is a Relic site. Those containers he is hacking? They magically disappeared after I made 100km bookmark and warped to it within 100km. I ended up with my standard 200km position with one small problem - I couldn't warp to Astero as cans were no longer visible.

No biggie, shit happens. I shrugged it off and waited for another chance. Next day I spot a Heron at the site. Everything looks good. I warp to 100km, make bookmark, warp to celestial and warp back to 100 again. Somehow data containers are far away and Heron is hacking empty space. I initiate warp and hope his ship is where I see him and it's only containers that are not displayed right.


A nice 8mil kill. I'm on fire! Of course when I approached wreck I couldn't open it. Go figure. I had to rewarp again for grid to be correctly synced again. At least they let me lock and shoot.

After stressful pvp I continue with my trading and do some market updating until I make one missclick. No, not the price.


I accidentally reset quickbar when trying to select bottom item. Might have seen this on reddit as I was quick to post a rant there. It is rather a big deal, since I spent a week reviewing and hand picking items, sorting them by investment value. All work gone in one click. It was a bit upsetting. It would have been a disaster if I hadn't 2 more accounts with the same list. It would have been gone forever. Instead, I had to navigate to systems folder, find EVE client, try to figure out which user<randomnumber>.dat files belong to who and make a copy from traders that still had this list to the one I deleted. Exporting/importing quickbar option? Giving a warning message? Madness! At least CCP Goliath replied and acknowledge the issue: "We have an open defect on this issue, no assignee at this time however.".

But wait, there's more! I was camping this c4 and suddenly hear a jump sound. Let's see who it is. Perhaps a potential target?


Well fuck. I see EVE working in mini window, but can't make it focused. I click on it and nothing happens. Of course Zosius' client opens up just fine. Not sure who's more at fault here, CCP or Microsoft.

On the bright side? I saw this Venture and said "Meh".



If a 2011 char mines in a venture in a wormhole system, he probably really needs that isk.

Monday, August 3, 2015

Stalking high-sec wormholes

I like nomadic lifestyle in EVE. It is best provided by wormholes, with their always changing location. Sometimes, you don't have any good connections available so you have to poke your head out in the empire. I ended in one of the high-secs, looking for new systems to stalk in, when I was surprised by local:


It's nice to meet someone who enjoys the stories I post, but it's also quite concerning. Concerning as in I'm an open book for anyone who reads my blog. By knowing how I operate it is very easy to send me back with pod-express. But that is a part of the excitement. It just reminds me to always be on my toes.

Daily life of Cloaky Bastard


So how does life look like between the ganks? Well, it's been pretty slow. You can feel the summer period, when people don't spend much in EVE. In summers, player online numbers are usually lower than in other seasons. I also noticed I haven't really had much heart in my play lately. Take for instance Magnate, strangely sitting in an empty space, doing absolutely nothing.


Surely full of billions of loot, left there for the lucky guy that will scan him out. Or maybe not. When I finish killing it with my two small smartbombs and a single neutron blaster, I get 4mil drop. It's nice to let my imagination run wild, but reality always hits it with a bat.

Besides me getting a petty kill, there have been some missed opportunities. I got excited when I jumped to one of C2s from high-sec.


It was the last of when I saw this Myrmidon. Probes were not mine and I'm pretty sure not his either, as he was gone in just a matter seconds. I wonder who was after him? I guess we will never know.

I decided to give a try to find targets in wormholes connecting to high-sec. While I am usually rolled deep down the chain, high-sec connections can be quite active. There are people using the opportunity to do a logistics run, day trippers having a shot at the riches of w-space loot and me, watching my targets cloaked up.


Other days Bob just likes to have fun with you.


Don't remember last time I had so many connections. It is quite hilarious having in mind it is a high-sec wormhole. Naturally, there won't be anyone with a little sense doing any pve activity with so many incoming wormholes, but pretty good chance of someone doing a logistics run from one of them. I parked my Proteus and waited.

Finally, I hear a jump sound. An Epithal goes to high-sec. I assume he is on his way to Jita as it was only several jumps out. I quickly log in my Jita alt and wait for him. Once he undocks I quickly cargo scan him to see what he is carrying.


Oh goody. A quick value lookup gives me an estimate of few hundred mil. I get my Proteus and Domi in position. I also have scanned his fittings. I am very demotivated to see WCS fitted. Inaccurate scan results did not let me see if warp core stabilizers are fully fitted in all low slots or just partly. Regardless, I'm taking a shot.

In just a couple of minutes transport ship is at the wormhole. With him now there's a Caracal cruiser. I don't care about the cruiser. Epithal jumps. I get my weapons hot. My tackle has 4 warp strenght, so if he has more than 3 warp core stabilizers, I am out of luck. I see him decloak and warp away like I was not even there. Damn. Caracal, on the other hand, is still holding cloak. Not sure if I can keep him from jumping back, but what do I have to lose? Cruiser decloaks and I get a tackle on him.


I manage to get a good bump with my Proteus. Once my fat potato, I mean Dominix, comes in, it bumps and sends Caracal flying opposite to the wormhole. When he is just about to explode, I see him jettison a can.


Cruiser was no more and all was quiet in the wormhole once again. A pretty normal, low value cruiser kill, but the mystery still remained. What is in the can? Well, it turns out he was carrying something more than just a pair of warp core stabilizers.


Guess he was doing a logistics run with his friend. If only he had fitted WCS in his lows and not carried in the cargo, he would have gotten away with it. I thank Bob for granting me this opportunity and not spewing cruiser out within 5km range of the wormhole. May Bob's name be praised now and forevermore.