Story Time

Let me tell you a story that has been overdue for quite some time. Sit back, relax, grab a drink and enjoy the ride.

From time to time when I visit high-sec I like to check the killboard for Mobile Tractor Unit (MTU) kills. There are always people around the high-sec who engage in MTU pvp. There are roughly 2 types of pilots that you will frequently see on the killboard with MTU kills. Pilots that only destroy MTUs and do nothing else, for whatever reason. And pilots that shoot MTUs to bait mission runners into shooting them, otherwise known as ninja salvaging. When I look at the killboard, I am first and foremost interested in the first type of pilots. Sometimes those pilots fly unreasonably expensive ships to shoot a deployed structure that doesn't shoot back. So once I am in high-sec I scan through the killboard to identify potential opportunities for a hunt outside w-space. While there are a lot of MTU kills happening in high-sec it is actually quite difficult to find someone using an expensive ship with consistent and frequent kills in an area that is not some ridiculous 50 jumps out.

After browsing through the killboard history a few days back, I do not manage to find any potential targets that would excite me. However, there were a couple of notable pilots that always kept catching my eye when looking at MTU kills. Those pilots were Captain544 and Burntime. Both pilots operated in different regions and were very active. However, there is one caveat: they belong to a ninja salvaging category of pilots that shoot MTU to bait the aggression from the mission runners. As someone who dabbles in ninja salvaging myself, I am not particularly excited about shooting my own kind. Nevertheless, I feel "ninja salvagers don't shoot each other" is more a code of a past than the present. Maybe it was never a code, to begin with, but all I know we used to have quite an active community that helped each other, shared stories, and laughs. Now, myself and maybe 1 or 2 other pilots are the most you will see sitting in the Ninja Dojo channel. I decided to bend my self-imposed rules and mark everyone not a part of the channel as a fair game.

The hunt, part 1

Now that I have the targets, it's time to begin the hunt. There is a lot you can tell about a pilot looking at his killboard. You can often read between the lines and build a profile. I realize that this will not be a simple matter of deploying an MTU, parking the cloaked Proteus, and killing the target once inevitably my MTU gets scanned at shot at. No. For one thing, both pilots like to fly Nergal as the main baiting ship, which is a frigate, and highly unlikely I will catch any of them unaware, lock and tackle in time. Furthermore, pilots are more interested in baiting mission runners than shooting unattended MTUs, which means I will actually have to do some roleplay and do missions as bait. Third, both pilots do have an active pvp history outside high-sec and are very likely to do a killboard check on me. While I have mostly wormhole kills, it might smell suspicious of me doing high-sec missions, which is one pve activity I have never done. No, for this I will need to be a little bit creative. Instead of using my main accounts, I decided to put my trader alts to work. I have been slowly training some pvp skills on them on the off chance I will need some additional utility beyond selling and buying items in trade hubs. And it seems the time has come.

As a Gallente fan to the end, my ship of choice. of course, is a Dominix. A frequently used battleship in mission runner circles. The fact that I don't even have skills for t2 drones will add an additional level of charm. As a ninja salvager myself, I would dive in without much thought to a clean killboard character with t1 drones shooting mission rats. I set up 2 traders to bait both pilots in their respective regions simultaneously. While pilots are operating in an area, their pattern is a little bit unpredictable so I need to cover as much ground as I can. I move to the mission hub of the area, add red standings to my targets and keep an eye on a local with the intention of starting my mission as soon as I see any of them. As watchlist no longer shows if the pilot is logged in or not (lol, ancient history) I have to keep an eye on killboard, local, and locator agents for the best chance of "accidentally meeting" them in the system.

It all starts with Burntime. I spot him in local first and immediately accept the first mission and get to work.

Ah, high-sec local, it's always lovely to see friendly social banters or scams. Some things will never change. It doesn't take very long and my Dominix catches the attention of "someone" as I spot combat probes on the short-range scanner.

Alright, here we go. I wait and wait, but nobody warps to me. Finally I see a Nergal pop on scan, just outside the accelerator gate.

Everything is going according to the plan so far. Now all I need is for him to warp in and shoot my MTU. I impatiently wait for the Nergal to show on the overview, but instead, he disappears from the d-scan altogether. It confuses me. Soon after a Vexor shows up, all flashy up in my face.

How disappointing. I am not about to waste my clean character and all that setup just to get a Vexor kill. Nergal is a ship I am after as it often tends to be pimped in order to kill more tanked mission runners. A Vexor, probably fully t2 fit doesn't excite me as much. I decide to warp off and try again in another mission. After all, not all is lost. I know he is using Nergal as the primary baiting ship, but he must be cautious of using it against drone battleships.

Unexpected guest

While on another mission I get an uninvited guest. A Praxis warps in.

What's the big idea here? Certainly can't be a ninja baiting with a battleship. That would be the first. He doesn't get flagged and just sits there. I finish killing the rats and continue to chill. He sits, I sit, we both sit. After quite a bit of sitting involved, I decided to finally break the silence.

I get an immediately obnoxious response. Clearly, the guy is in the system for the same reason I am, probably even the same target. I do my best not to break the act. I don't need anyone to be aware of my business. Despite obnoxious attitude, the guy doesn't seem to be able to put 2 and 2 together and come to the conclusion why would I be also sitting in the same, empty mission as if I was waiting for someone. Then again, I've seen a lot of strange mission runners so anything is possible. Logic doesn't always have its place in mission hubs.

After few more tries and still getting the Vexor visit me instead of a Nergal, I let my hands down and did not have many expectations from mr. Burntime. Perhaps I need to revisit in a somewhat smaller ship, but not in the mood now as my other target just became active.

The hunt, part 2

Captain544 is in the house.

He starts about his day and off goes to terrorize the surrounding systems while I warp to my first mission. I must say, it is not going as straightforward as I'd hoped. While I do see him flash in local, I can't seem to get mr. Captain544 give me a visit. Checking killboard I even see MTU kills, ship kills, yet I have to meet him in my mission. I would see probes in the system, but suddenly he would just warp to another system. While he did operate in the area, he would often be 3 jumps one system or another, away from the mission hub. Frantically using locators and warping around the systems I did my best to wiggle my tail in front of his face. Otherwise, what is the point of me doing a mission if Captain544 is not there to find me in it? I stick with my pattern and do some most serious mission running since I joined this game. I also avoid staying still in an empty mission to look more legit. Back and forth I work, as a slave in a mine digging in hopes of finding that precious diamond. My diamond being Captain544 flashy in my overview.

One thing my blog readers know about me is that I am patient. Once I set my eyes on something or someone I'll spend a lot of effort in trying my best to get it. It's the thrill of the hunt, there's nothing like it for me. Finally, my d-scan fills with promising results.

Here we go. Let's see if the story will take a different path than the one with Burntime. I will be damned, it does! Captain544 is straight to business kind of guy. He warps straight in and gets to work without delay, all flashy orbiting my Dominix.

I take my time to lock him and unleash everything I have. I have only one chance and I came prepared. I used my unallocated sp to finish t2 drone training, use drones to match his resist hole, added a heavy stasis grappler, heavy neutralizer, and small blasters as a cherry on the cake. The pain train, the anti-frigate killing machine was ready.

The fight was swift. Under heavy neut pressure and heavy tackle, Nergal did not have many options and soon gave in, despite putting up a reasonable fight, all things considered. I did one fitting mistake as I used MWD which was disabled and Nergal was slowly making distance with the risk of getting outside webifier range. However, drones did manage to do their work. I loot and shoot the wreck and the only thing that is left on the overview is Captain544's link Tengu alt angrily staring at me.

I was also happy with the killmail. While from value perspective zkillboard estimates 600mil, with few abyssal mods I believe it's not unreasonable to expect it to be closer to 800 or even 1bil. 

Regardless, it's not about the value of the kill, but the kill itself and, of course, the hunt. What makes this special to me is that Captain544 has an insane 95% killboard efficiency. His losses for 2021 you can count on your hands' fingers and unlike myself, he is a much more active pilot. Almost 3 months have passed and my alt is still a proud owner of his last loss and the only "expensive" loss for 2021, more so when it comes to high-sec. Honestly, this was one of the main drivers behind this hunt. It's mostly about the sentimental value.

The aftermath

After the dust has settled we exchanged a few words.

To tell the truth, the outcome where I just threw my hands and went on my own merry way was very close. I was struggling in getting Captain544 to visit me in my mission. And while a story may look like all was quick, it took me almost a week to set everything up, stalk, wait and strike both for Burntime and Captain544. Of course, since I used my trader alts, I was free to use my main accounts for stalking wormholes as usual, but that is still an extra effort spent.

Captain544 mentioned his Tengu does have a ship scanner and I was lucky enough to have my fit concealed. Clean toon with no pvp history was the key aspect that made this bait successful. As anticipated in the beginning, my bet paid off of not using the main account.

Also, stars have aligned to me this fight. I realized I did not train thermodynamics and because I was MWD fit, if Captain544 kept scram and pulsed afterburner he could have escaped, especially when his Tengu with links landed shortly after. We exchange few extra words and part ways in a friendly manner.

Since our parting, it seems Captain544 continues to have tremendous success in high-sec with a replaced Nergal as also destroying ships in low-sec. I wish him well and to continue to be an inspiration for ninja salvagers around. Burntime has since also moved to low-sec and is enjoying active and successful pvp. As for me, due to my new parental responsibilities, I find myself a very limited time available to focus on EVE. In addition, with cloaking and interdiction nullification nerfs it looks like afk cloaky style of Cloaky Bastard might have come to an end. I have yet to decide what impact that will have on me. The future will tell.

Can always count on wormhole community

I have been stalking a Russian corp. After killing their Noctis and Dominix the plan was to move on. Only problem was I did not have where to move. I was staying relatively stealthy and haven't scanned surrounding systems. Now that the jig is up, I launch my sister probes and do the unglamorous part of wormhole stalking - scanning.

Home system has c2 and c4 statics and since c2 is end of life I go to the c4. It has a lot of signatures. It takes me a good while to scan them out. Quite few of those signatures are wormholes. After finishing scanning I warp to 10 to the first connection on my list. Daily tip from Cloaky Bastard: never warp to 0. I land at the wormhole and as I approach within jump range I do one final check of  the d-scan. Procurer appears as a result. What the hell? He was not in the system before. I have been probing for a long time and haven't been clicking d-scan all that often so I am quite sure he has been enough time to see my probes. Something doesn't smell right here. Random miner decides to mine with probes in the system? I warp to ore site to investigate.

I make position bookmark and start doing background research of the pilot and his corp. Miner checks out. He really looks legit. Nothing suspicious on the killboard history. Bunch of high-sec mining ship losses. Corp has various activity, but no procurer baits that I could see. Could this guy be for real?

Corp sticker says BAIT. It would be hilarious if I went for it, but I don't buy it. It doesn't have that legit feel. I do a bit more research of the corp and it's fleets composition. I see mostly 7 people in fleets on average, flying quite squishy ships. I think I could take them on, assuming I get my spider tank up and running in time. Question is, do they bait me or my ship? Did they see my name when I jumped to the system or only Proteus on scan? I haven't jumped anywhere since I came here, so it would be quite a coincidence if they saw me come in. Then again, if they bait unknown Proteus, that also feels like a big gamble. But Procurer is not really a ship I feel using my effort of moving three Navy Dominixes. Ore site will spawn some sleepers at some point and if this miner guy is actually mining, he will have to bring something to kill them. If he is baiting, he will have to bring more shiny bait.

It takes around 20 minutes for sleepers to spawn, but they finally do. I watch Procurer leave and warp to the next Ore site. Well, I guess it's all clear. Second site spawns sleepers and he warps to a third. If that was not enough, I also see Helios, piloted by the Russian corp I've ganked few hours ago, land right on top of him.

Zero reaction from Procurer. I watch and wait for this baiting to end. I am very interested of which out of these 4 present connections he came from. Soon I see him warp back to one of c2s. I follow and set orbit. Procurer is followed by a cloaky Stratios from the same corp. I guess baiting is over. Without much happening afterwards,  I poke around in surrounding systems only to find emptiness. I decide to move back to my dear Russians and stay for the night. I'm sure they won't mind.

Strange things were happening back in the "home" system. Tower was absent of at least 2/3 of ships. Now bunch of Ospreys are left floating.

There are still a lot of pilots logged in. At least 14, but all I see is few at the tower and few at the customs office. Where the hell did just disappear half of my watch list? I run a locator, but get message that they are all unreachable in w-space.  I watch Tempest warp off to a customs office and find him together with Hyperion and Gila. Sleeper wrecks are still on scan which means that not even two hours have passed since my gank and they are shooting the poco now? And what happened to most of the pilots? So many questions without answers. It's either an elaborate bait or I don't know what it is. In case it's a bait, I get an idea and convo Disciples of Aphrodite, my baiters.

Turns out they came across The Dark Space Initiative corp from Scary Wormhole People alliance and my baiting fleet got decimated. I invite them to ambush the poco bashing party and they in turn invite scary wormhole people. Now with bunch of Frenemies ready, sitting two jumps out, it was a moment of truth. I would go in and tackle Hyperion with Tempest and invite everyone to come. If it's a bait, they are in for some surprise. If not, I just hope I do not become the target for blood thirsty pilots.

To be honest, I had some second thoughts about warping my Proteus in. Let alone my full fleet with Dominixes. But I was in the wormhole space, dealing with wormhole people. Reputation in w-space carries a big weight. I would never do it with low-sec or null-sec residents. But with wormhole corps, I go in YOLO and send my whole fleet in hopes to escalate the fight.

The fight went very anticlimactically.  Hyperion gets killed and Tempest warps out. It soon becomes clear why.

I guess in the end it was just a petty customs office bash with warpcore stabilizers fitted. Had it not been for my faction scrambler, Hyperion would have warped away too. I don't extend my stay too long and as soon Hyperion is dead, I warp away.

Big shout out to The Dark Space Initiative and Disciples of Aphrodite for forming a fleet and joining me on the op. And especially thanks for not blowing me up for content.

It's just not meant to be

After scoring a free kill of a guy who thought was cloaked, but was not - one of my biggest fears I might add, it was time to move on. I knew I will be moving out of the wormhole that I have been stalking in for almost a week. I now needed to find a good connection and since I didn't have any, I parked my ships cloaked for the day and went to watch some TV.

Before logging out, I do a routine sweep of surrounding systems. I visit the system where I scored Stratios kill. Almost six hours have passed so it was already an ancient history. Well, maybe not, but certainly a long time for a random gank. D-scan reveals a battleship somewhere in the system.

I resolve it at the tower and find him warping to high-sec. I see him jump in and jump out. A rolling battleship! Connection still looks healthy so I guess he just started. I get my Domi fleet positioned on the neighboring wormhole. He goes in again and goes out, only this time he is greeted with "innocent" Proteus and his friends. With active sensor booster I lock him instantly.

Another rolling Megathron goes down. I'm so happy to see full lows of bulkheads and not warpcore stabilizers, even if it takes hella long time to kill it. If you roll the wormhole you should roll it like a man. I 100% approve of this.

Next day I find a c2. When viewing killboard history, one particular element stands out. Can you guess what it is?

After recent failure to get smartbombing Proteus it almost felt like Bob wanted to give me a second chance. A lot of scanning frigate kills have dictor on it, but some indeed have Proteus. I already have a bait Astero fitted for the purpose, so why not give it a shot? I call my friend.

After watching locals for awhile I got to know how they operate. During quiet periods they stay cloaked on wormhole and/or data/relic sites. I manage to get a snapshot of d-scan just after one logs out. I narrow the guy at one of the relic sites.

Once he logs back in, I instruct my friend to come to the system and warp to the site where Proteus presumably is sitting cloaked. I am making it easy as I can. I have system scanned and there are some connecting wormholes and I have spotted Adhocracy scout earlier. Adhocracy is a well known, active wormhole pvp corp. I do not scout the neighboring wormholes as I do not want to be seen. I will gamble and hope that I don't get stomped by a big fleet. Since Adhocracy operates mostly in US timezone, I don't feel too worried, but still concerned.

Since my friend does not have the bookmarks I tell him to bounce of my scout at the site, which then I realize what a bad idea it is, especially with Proteus watching. If he hears warp exit sound and checks EVE client and sees Astero warp at 300 and then to a can, that won't look suspicious at all. No sir.

Astero starts hacking the site and I wait 10km off him. He hacks one can, then another, but nothing happens. I start to get worried. I saw these guys kill a tourist minute from him entering the wormhole. I just know they see Astero, but Proteus not making his move gets me worried. It's quite possible they see through the bait. These guys know their way around and I was careless to suggest my scout as a warp in. I tell my friend to have preselected celestial or even the sun and be ready to warp on moments notice. I expect them to come in a dictor. If Proteus did not make his move by now, I doubt he will. As expected, I see Eris on scan. My friend doesn't manage to warp out, despite me yelling as soon as I see him on d-scan. He gets tackled and I watch him being murdered.

Astero is tanked so I am in no rush to reveal myself and still hope for that Proteus to show up. He does not and so I decloak and try to save my friend. I grab Eris and proceed killing him very slowly.

I am in no rush to reveal all my cards. Perhaps his teammates will come to help. Maybe not Proteus, but something still interesting enough. Eris pilot gets quite confused. Looks like he expected bait, but did not expect me.

I guess there really is Adhocracy somewhere nearby and he has been expecting them. Perhaps if timing was different and without "dangerous" neighbors, they would have risked Proteus. But I do not care, I was not in the mood for another elaborate trap. I simply used the opportunity. At least this time I did not come out completely empty handed.

The killing was slow and took time. The guy tells me he unplugged all his inplants to deny good kill. It's quite funny, because he kept shooting bubbles up and managed to trap himself. I did not expect to get his pod anyways. Perhaps he was hoping for Adhocracy to jump in on us any moment.

As for my friend, I did not instruct him not to use scram on anything else than Proteus. Since he did scram Eris he now is on the killmail and is now a quite obvious bait. At least until this particular kill is pushed back far in the history.

I don't rush to leave the system. Adhocracy gets active, more parties join in and local gets lively. Some interesting dialogues pop out in local.

Of course I keep my mouth shut.

Hunting Bex - when your heart is not enough, Part 3

Bex logged in. I was keeping a close eye on him. I was patiently stalking in the shadows, following his every move without him realizing.

There's no way he knows I'm here. I even went as far as to add Valtyr Farshield on watch list. Valtyr is the guy that tried to bait his Proteus few days ago. I did not know if he was still up to something inside the same wormhole, but I did not take any chances. Few characters from Sudden Burgery in connection to Bex were also added. Everyone was offline when I moved and scouted. I was as stealthy as I have ever been. There was only one problem. My friend has not finished yet fitting the bait Astero. I watch as Bex scouts connecting wormholes and logs out shortly after, presumably going off to work. That was a very short window. I am committed to this hunt, but not committed enough to wake up at 6 in the morning, which would be most suitable time to get him. The gank is put off for another day.

Next day Bex logs in in a similar time. My friend is sitting in one of high-sec stations, waiting for my signal. I call him right away and give instructions to which site to go first and which container to hack. I have 200km positions on every data/relic site. Meanwhile I watch Bex on d-scan, but not directly on tower. My precaution in case connection drops. If he does not see me on the overview I could still have a chance.

Bait Astero starts working on the site. Just as he starts hacking the first can I see Bex swap to Rokh and warp to the center of the system. Is he warping on my Astero in a smartbombing Rokh? No, that does not make any sense. It's not low-sec. I narrow down Rokh at Operation Frostline site. Now I have Bex and our bait on d-scan. Damn it. 

Bait Astero does not have a cloak fitted and it was too little time to warp back out to high-sec. Well, there are plenty of explorers who don't check d-scan all that often, so perhaps we can play along. As a fellow wormholer, I know the suspicion will be up due to Astero not warping away.

Bex takes his time to finish Frostline site. He did not warp out right away as I would have hoped for, but his alt logs in. His alt is Appex Bex and is the actual character that we are baiting. Now what will be his weapon of choice? I keep eyes on the tower and spam d-scan to see if he swaps for Proteus. I instruct my friend to use ecm and not to use scrambler if he gets attacked by anything other than smartbombing Proteus. Click...click...click...

The weapon of choice is Proteus! This is it, I scream to my friend on comms and warp to position bookmark. He is slowboating to the next can and I tell him to approach to 0 and stay put. Cycle analyzer and wait for Proteus to show up, with me sitting 10km off. I move out of tower line of sight to make sure I do not get decloaked if Bex appears at 10km. With Astero not leaving the site while his Rokh was visible on d-scan I guarantee he will be aligned. But that's ok. It's why Astero is so heavily tanked against EMP smartbombs. Once he tackles Proteus I will make my move.

Seconds were passing and they felt like minutes. I am in the zone. My heart is racing and I have full attention on the overview. Proteus decloaks!

I ask my friend to lock and scram him. I hear smartbombs go off. Will the tank hold off? How long has it been? I don't get any positive confirmation that Proteus is scrambled, but it has been so long. My eyes can't see anything. There is some blurry grey column in my overview. How long has it been already? Can I make my move? No I should wait for confirmation. My hand is moving. Why my hand is moving? Mouse pointer moves on the cloaking device. Why my mouse is pointing on cloaking device? Why my left hand is holding left control key and finger keeps left clicking on grey column? Why nothing is happening? Why distance bracket is insanely large and increase by the second?

Shock wears off and I start to realize what just happened. I was not able to keep a cool head and my body moved on it's own. I did not check if he was aligned, though I saw speed was up, but unconsciously ignored that fact. I did not wait for my friend to confirm positive tackle. I took for granted that frigate should have locked the strategic cruiser, but ignored distracting hacking mini-game on screen and that my friend is back to eve only for a few days. I see Proteus warp off, but it takes a moment for my mind to accept this as a fact. Following realization I am soon overwhelmed by the feeling of regret.

Click me for dire situations

I was dumbstruck. Everything was going so perfectly and according the plan, only for me to make such a rookie mistake in the last crucial seconds. For Bex it was the "usual" hit and run, but for me, it was a carefully planned and prepared hunt. I can honestly say I gave my best. Despite all my hunting experience, preparation and putting my heart into, it was still not enough. And it was 100% my mistake, which I'm not sure if it makes me feel better or worse. Big props to Bex for taking the shot and risking his shiny Proteus on a suspicious target. Hit and warp out was executed flawlessly. I hope Bob will allow our paths to cross again at some point in the future.

Edit: You can read Bex's side of the story at http://bexfire.blogspot.com.au/2016/01/that-cloaky-bastard.html

Hunting Bex - when your heart is not enough, Part 2

The second phase of my plan was to think of a way to create an opportunity. I know Bex is smart. Especially after some people trying to bait him he will now be vigilant as ever. A no name, no history character in a t1 frigate won't do. I shuffle through my alts, but can't find a good candidate. Either they don't have history or have obvious connections to my corp through employment history.

While I'm with my thoughts, my RL friend chats me up. He just recently re-subbed to EVE and was telling how he keeps dying in Faction Warfare. Holy shit, this is my answer. I offer him to be a bait and he agrees. Perfect, now I have a completely unrelated character to do baiting. What now I need is a ship. T1 frigate won't do. There is also one general problem with frigates - they die to large smartbombs. But at the same time, it must be a frigate as I am baiting a smartbombing Proteus. I settle down on Astero and start theory crafting. After some tinkering, I come up with anti-Bex frigate. Behold (warning, napkin math ahead!).

Anti-em shield and armor tanked Astero. If Bex is using 5 EMP faction smartbombs, which do 592 EM damage each (wormhole effects + 58% damage) would do 2962 total damage (977 after resists). He would need 2.2 cycles to just enter armor. To armor it would do 508 damage after resists, that's another 4 cycles and it's not even considering overheating. Numbers could be off, but bottom line is, Astero will live long enough for my Proteus to decloak and get a tackle on him. If, by chance, it gets attacked by a non Proteus, it has 3 sets of ecm drones as a backup.

I was ready. I instructed my friend to fit the ship and head to static high-sec system and be on call. Once I see Bex on-line we would start our baiting.

Of course while waiting I had to defend system from bloody tourists. If they hacked all the sites, there would be nothing to bait in.

I grab the tourist Astero this time and convo the pilot to ask for a ransom.

This one was not very trustful. I wonder since when a word from a random stranger is not good enough? I know I won't kill him, but he doesn't know that. I am willing to be very flexible with payment terms. Seeing as he is not willing to trust me with full amount, I offer to pay half ahead and half after he is released.

After tough negotiations he agrees. I get 30mil transfered to my walled and cycle off my scrambler. Here's the question. Will I get my 40 mil?

Well, I'll be damned. He actually paid up. I am now up 120 mil. Just by stalking, I already paid for my Astero bait. Maybe ransoming is not so dead as others say it is? You just need the right approach and the right attitude.

Finally, the man we all have been waiting for, logs in.

To be continued...

Hunting Bex - when your heart is not enough, Part 1

There is a lot of randomness when I choose my targets. I trust myself to Bob's guidance. I roam the w-space and try to find potential system or a target. Bob works in mysterious ways. Sometimes you barely avoid death, sometimes you are rewarded. This time, Bob sends me to a very special place. A place where I would meet one of my biggest challenges. I do a standard killboard check of one system I visit when I see the sight below.

It has a lot of kills by a pilot named Apex Bex, or just Bex, who runs a blog called Disciple of Bob. I like to read various blogs and I am especially interested in blogs about wormholes. I know Bex well. And I know he knows me. There's nothing worse than to hunt someone who knows you, your strengths, your weaknesses and how you operate. It would be so much easier to just pass this wormhole by, but I couldn't. Bob sent me here. It was a sign, especially after reading numerous failed attempts of baiting his faction smart-bombing Proteus. It was a challenge, of which I had no choice but to accept.

My first order of business was to add his whole corp and related characters to watch list. If he is on-line and watching wormhole, this hunt is over before it started. Thankfully everyone was off. I know I only have one shot at this so everything has to be perfect. I can't be seen and there has to be no trace of me. Even if I'm in space, my Dominixes absolutely can't be detected. My priority was to make a good safe spot, which proved to be difficult. Bex's tower was at the only outer planet and making safe in the middle of the system is never good idea as that's where most anoms and sites spawn. After some tries, I squeezed my safe to, what I think, was the best place. Just outside his tower and on the edge to closest planet, but still out of active high-sec connection at the time.

My second priority is to stay completely stealthy. Which means I can't kill anyone in the system as it will appear in the killboard with my name written all over it. Which is a problem, because, of course, you will have random tourists visiting your wormhole from high-sec.

How I can resist not trying to grab this Helios? That's right, I can't.

I am with dilemma. I either take opportunity kills in the system and get my cover blown or I ignore all potential targets and wait for Bex to log in, which might be a very long time. First of all, our timezones do not mach. Then I might never get an opportunity to gank his ship as it takes him split second to kill frigates and warp away. I would have to baby sit EVE full day, which I won't do. One thing is clear though, if that Helios dies, my cover is gone. I try something I haven't done for a very long time in wormholes - ransom.

I go for it. What do I have to lose?

The conversation was going slowly. It seems I always run into non-english speaking Russians. I try to be as clear as possible with my demands. Surprisingly...

I get my wallet flash and see a 50mil deposit. Well, that went better than expected. Of course, I let him go.

50 mil richer I start second phase of my plan.

To be continued...

Getting cyno baited

I really don't like null-sec. While others have a lot of fun ganking anomaly farmers, I have this fear that every ship has a cyno and that swarm of ships will jump in on me at any given time. That's why when I found, and my guess opened, a direct null connection to one farming system owned by Solar Citizens alliance, I was keeping a tight orbit of 5km.

There were some Ishtars and Tengus doing anomalies, but of course they all warped to the safety of the station. My idea was to stick around and perhaps nail a freighter or other ship. High-sec was 5 jumps out from Jita. A direct connection to a farming system. That happens ever so rarely, so there's bound to be a some sort of opportunity. I also like that with such "high class" connection, you get dropped 7km+ off the wormhole. Enough time to tackle and bump a target.

Wormhole got scanned and I had one guy using the opportunity and evacuating assets. He was mostly coming back in pod, so there was not much I could do about it. Good thing was that wormhole is scanned and word will spread around. Of course there's one neutral hanging in the system for the last 15 minutes. I have been in a Russian alliance when I was flying in low-sec. I know how risk averse they are and how they will use their overwhelming power to crush their opponent. I will have to be on my toes on this one.

After camping for about 30 minutes I was starting to consider if I should move on. Imagine my surprise when I suddenly see a Tengu land out of warp 25km off me.

He was just sitting there for a good minute, then moves, then stands still again. Don't know what's the big idea here. I'm pretty sure that after this time a background research of me has been done and I play EVE long enough to know that random Tengus don't just land on wormholes at range and stand still. You know what this is.

I watch Tengu. A good coincidence is that I happened to be on the same side of the wormhole where Tengu came from, which means I  am between the wormhole and the strategic cruiser. I could point him and still be in range to jump out, but I couldn't keep him in range. By the time I jumped my Domis in and tried to lock him, he would be long gone.

I could just ignore him, but I'm the mood for some gamble. If I play this smart, I should be relatively ok. Tengu starts slowly approaching. Once he is within 14km I will make my move. He will still be 20km off the wormhole and I will have him pointed and webbed. Maybe even scrammed if he gets within 10km. I also can move out of jumping range a little bit. I can always slow-boat back to wormhole with my Domis repping me. Unless there's an overwhelming force of course, but it's a risk I am willing to take.

I decloak a bit prematurely. He was 18km off when I decloaked. I was a bit too impatient and hoped he will be in webifier range before my sensor recalibration timer is over. Tengu's pilot was paying attention. He changed his trajectory off the wormhole and while I had him webbed for a few moments, he was putting distance. Meanwhile, I was jumping in my Domis and set drones after him before he went out of range for that too.

It was tough. I was trying not to go too far off the wormhole and still keep Tengu pointed. Ship was in armor. His defenses were breaking, but now I had an interceptor with me on grid.

This is not good. Once I saw Tengu drop at 40% armor, my instincts were telling me he should explode soon as I am so used to them being shield tanked. In the heat of a battle my mind completely disregarded the fact that his armor was holding far longer than his shields did and so, like an idiot, I burned at full speed at him with my Proteus.

I was 23km off the wormhole. Once I got webbed it was like I just took a cold shower. It all became clear. I set full speed back to wormhole, but once scrambler landed on me I realized: this is what they have been waiting for. It's baiting 101 to let your opponent lose his vigilance by letting him break your defenses. If it was any other armor ship, I might not have fallen for it, but I expected Tengu to pop any minute.

Cyno goes up and ships starts pouring in. And by ships I mean a couple of Archons. All while this was happening, my drones and sentries were working on the strategic cruiser. He was going down. Ares for some reason, was pointing one of my Dominixes, which sat at 0km off the high-sec wormhole. This is when I realized I still have a chance.

The second Tengu exploded, I hit my cloak. I did not have any positive locks on me. My Proteus just cloaks up in the middle of the battle. Sweet baby Bob, I can't believe this worked. I am really slowboating back to wormhole cloaked.

I manage to get back and jump my ships out safely to high-sec. I left my Faction Navy Ogres, but I didn't really feel bad about it. And who would in this situation?

I was heading back to Jita. It was time to relax, let my heart rate drop and buy new drones. Guess who else was on his way to buy a new ship.

Boy, what an encounter. Bob is watching over me even in k-space.