What's happening in New Eden?

I like to lurk around in eve subreddit, read news and various blogs. It's quite true that you don't need to play the game to be a part of it. I don't normally write about EvE politics and drama, but time to time there are few things I want to say. So here it goes.

Goons doxxing

An article popped up on eve reddit about goons doxxing their own members. For those who are not familiar with terminology, doxxing, according wikipedia, is the Internet-based practice of researching and broadcasting personally identifiable information about an individual.

Story is related to recent CFC purge of one of their SMA directorates, alleged BL spy, who then later turned out to be innocent after all. Reddit post is written by someone who claims to be from SMA leadership. He basically explains CFC leadership levels and brief security measures for each group. Goons are quite well known for their 3rd party custom programs to make life easier, so I was not surprised to read about things like jabber auto IP checker to cross reference IPs of known spies.

What surprised me was when article went in further detail on what is being done for security at higher level leadership. Stuff like gathering info about real life, including email, living address, work and so on.  Trying to hack email to gain access to personal information, which then is used to find out any potential threats in game, including any additional info for possible threats in case person does something against "the policy". You know, standard KGB stuff.

Now all this seems far fetched and I am not the one to jump to conclusions after reading anonymous posts revealing big secrets and lies. However, if any of what has been posted is true, then I am baffled. I know games can be taken quite seriously and the fact that loss can hurt in eve, makes it even more intense, but in the end, it is only a game. I really hope story is not representing the reality. On the other hand, it only takes one whistle blower and CCP banning your characters would be the least of your worries.

A hit for ISBoxer users

If you have been following latest buzz on EvE, you most likely heard, that CCP revisited some of the rules on multiboxing policy. In short, starting next year, you will not be able to use any program that lets you control more than 1 account with single click. In other words, you won't be able to multibox with isboxer as some people have been doing up till now.

Positive change

I believe this is a step to the right direction. Some people have been single-handedly controlling whole fleet, be it a bomber fleet, apoc fleet or similar. Having such possibility, you could do some of eve end games by yourself, such as running incursions, bombing enemy fleet out of existence or just simply "roflstomp" small/medium gangs by having many ships that locks and shoots at the target as one. Broadcasting command to multiple accounts and executing it in near perfect timely manner gave a player huge advantage.

I myself was planning on using ISBoxer. I had few things in my mind I wanted to try . Such as smartbombing battleships to kill cloaky haulers or just ganking stuff. Fortunately, I couldn't bring myself to train additional pilots. And my usual spider tank setup to gank people is not a very viable option to do via ISBoxer. Nevertheless, as someone with multiple accounts, I envied those who could do massive damage and cause chaos just by themselves. But those days are over and I am happy.

Well done CCP. +1 internets for you.

Hunting down 2 Marauders and a blingu

"Our armor is dropping, Sir!"
"Distribute all reps on Dominix 1 and Dominix 2. Do we have a tackle on that Golem?"
"Negative, Golem has bastion module still active"
"Sir, 2 sleeper battleship class vessels just switched fire to us. We are also getting aggro from both Marauders"

Armor alert goes off.

"We are at 30% armor. Sir, we need to align and warp out."
"Negative! Overheat and set all reps on Dominix 3. Keep focus fire and neutralizers on the Golem"
"We are holding! Positive point on Golem"

Capacitor alerts go off through the board.

"We are low on capacitor and we are getting split aggro again. All ships are heavily damaged"
"Keep injecting those cap charges. Turn off overheat and split repairs again. Get secondary tackle on Vargur"

2 hours ago

It's been several days since I have been stalking a c4 that was inhabited by small Russian corp. I never see more than few anomalies at a time and no other sigs apart from wormholes for the last 3 days. Guys that I am watching log in and do absolutely nothing, which is quite annoying. I did a quick check-in in the morning before leaving to work. I saw tengu at the tower. Since I can't wait for him to start farming, I warped off d-scan range and logged. Later, in evening, I log in to find same tengu at the same pos. Same number of sites indicate I didn't miss any farming activities, but by now I don't expect to kill anything anymore in this system, so if I get an opportunity to move out, I will take it.

I stop giving shit about my cover and start scanning around. 2 statics and k162 to c3 is resolved. I start with k162. Empty. Just some signatures with one empty tower in the system. I jump back and head to a c3 static. Once I'm in, d-scan shows promising results. Some ships on scan sitting at the tower, few other cloaky ships quickly disappear. I do not know if they logged or activity is ongoing. After waiting for a couple of minutes, I decide to jump back and check out c4, just so I would be aware of my neighbors and not try a gank with potential big fleet next door.

Spotting an opportunity

A tower and 2 tengus on 360 degree scan with no wrecks. A little promising sight. Then I realize tengus are not on tower. A more promising sight. Then I realize tengus are at the anomaly. A very promising sight! I quickly initiate warp to the destination. When I land I see a beautiful sight of 2 tengus starting their farming activities. Is today going to be a lucky day? Not that I complain, as I had quite few kills lately, but timing is just perfect. I also seem not to be spotted when cloaking up as tengus continue shooting sleepers. Perhaps I moved once they were locking the targets. Doesn't matter. As long as my internet does not crash and I get a positive tackle I will be happy.

2 tengus doing a c4 site. Something feels a bit off. Site is not for your average tengu. Taking a closer look, orbiting speed looks very high - above 1kms. I've seen this behavior before. Those must be 100mn afterburner tengus and those tend to have some shiny mods fitted. To catch, hold and kill 100mn afteburner tengu is no easy task. Especially if you have only 1 webifier fitted. Not only you must get good position to 1000ms+ moving tengu while cloaked, which is within 15km range, but also to hold it enough time for back up to arrive, which normally, by the time Battleships exit warp, you are so far away that you can't get remote reps on tackle ship and can't catch it, since speed is almost the same as of that webbed tengu. But I'm not the one to give up before trying. Wormhole is 5AU from the site, so it's not too bad for warp time.

I get into position, burn to intercept tengu's orbit and wait for the right moment. As soon as tengu enters 15km I decloak and move to him at full speed. Possitive lock, scram/web landed on primary, point on the second tengu. I initiate warp of my domi fleet. It probably took some time for tengu pilot to realize what is happening, as when my dominixes landed it was only within 20km range trying to lose proteus. I overheated mwd, clicked approach tengu and unleashed heavy neutralizer with drones on him. Being greedy, I set 2nd domi to follow other tengu and by the time I clicked on my 3rd, target was already 40km away, which turned out to be a big problem, since my proteus was at 20% armor and first dominix was still not within scram or rep range, not to mention running out of cap. Eventually tengu was capped out and focus fire of 3 ogre sets got the job done and tengu exploded.

Cha-Ching! Isn't it beautiful? 1.2bil tengu went up in smokes. Loot fairy was generous as ever. Have you ever seen picture as per below?

Yes, those are mid slots that all dropped. Though I can't help but not notice t2 mod in the low slot. I guess he couldn't afford last Ballistic Control System to be faction, what a cheapskate! I loot the wreck, carefully selecting shiny stuff, due to limited capacity in my ship. When you leave on long wormhole trip, you pack as much as you can, with no cargo space to spare.

There's a good rule in EvE, that nothing belongs to you, until it's in the station. My first priority is to export all the stuff to empire asap. That first c3 I scanned out with low sec static few jumps out from highsec will do nicely. In a few minutes I am at the station, creating contract to red-frog all while chatting with my corp mates, discussing how will they not play poker with me anymore due to my luck. They said that all shiny mid slots dropping equals to straight flush. However, there was something that kept bothering me. When value of my drop is brought in the discussion, it seems not to add up to what I just contracted to red frog freight. After double checking, value i looted was 530mil, while drop was 700. It's too big of a difference for t2 loot to make, did I miss something? Well, yes I did. Turns out I didn't pick Caldari Navy BCU mod. "God damn it", I thought. I decided to go back and check the wreck if it's still there and if it hasn't been looted yet. I'm pretty sure locals will have tried to scoop remaining parts, but it doesn't hurt to try.

When you think everything is over

I jump back to c4. I click d-scan and get Golem and Vargur as a result. Interesting, but I don't make a big deal out of it. I mean, this is the same system where tengu was ganked in less than just an hour ago. Half finished site, sleepers wrecks, tengu wreck, surely anyone who has a little bit of common sense won't be farming anytime soon. Right? Well, d-scan says otherwise. Both Marauders are sitting in an anomaly. What is even more strange, they are in the exact same anomaly where tengu was killed. This does not make any sense. If I didn't know any better, I would say bait is written all over it, but after checking corp's background that looks unlikely. Ship of choice doesn't strike to be a bait either, but you never know. Can it be that those are legit targets? I sit and watch for couple of minutes, while getting my domi fleet ready.

I give another thought about this and decide that opportunity like this is why I play EvE. 2 Marauders dish out a lot of pain and they are 35km apart. This will be hard. Plus, as a rule of thumb, sleepers always focus fire on me, so I always take that into consideration. Regardless how this will play out, I am going in. I wait for 2nd wave to be almost cleared, with 2 BS present. I chose to attack and not wait for only 1 BS to be left in case they shoot it and I get last wave spawn on my ass. Here it goes. Domi fleet jumps in and warps. I decloak proteus and set close orbit on the Golem. Due to range between both targets, I do not expect to kill them both. I set my goal on Golem and fully expect Vargur to flee.

Most stressful gank ever

I don't remember last time having to work so much for my gank. Proteus receives a lot of punishment. When dominixes land, suddenly marauders and sleepers focus fire on them. Just as when I finish to launch drones, focus neutralizers on Golem, set up cap chain, I already hear armor warning go off. Jesus. I keep juggling between reps, trying to keep everyone alive. Overheat everything and pray that Golem's tank breaks soon. Low cap warnings keep going off. I'm almost to my last cap charges, thanks to chasing 100mn tengu. Keep toggling repairs, trying to land a scram just in case Bastion Module is off. It would really suck if target just warped out in the middle of a battle.

Things start looking up when Golem enters armor. Looks like I'm going to come out as a winner here and they must have same conclusions as me. Vargur is still on sight. I overheat point and burn at full speed to maximize my situation and get both Marauder kills. Golem pops and domi fleet soon follows proteus. Sleepers and Vargur still dish out  a lot of dps, so I can't relax. Bloody auto cannons don't use any cap, which means dps won't stop until he is killed. Once I start grinding down the shield, I see a smartbomb go off - a nightmare to drone users. All my Ogres are in red. At this point I am so stressed in keeping my ships intact, that the thought of burning outside smartbomb range, while keeping spider tank range (~10km), really depresses me. I am all-in here. I decide not to care about drones. I will need to visit k-space to resupply anyways. I keep pressure with heavy neuts. I am pretty sure he will run out of cap and tank before I run out of drones.

Tank starts to drop and Vargur is no more. I get commended by locals, admitting I caught them "nicely", to which I promptly reply with a gf. Without wasting more time, I quickly finish off MTU, collect the loot and warp to safety. This really stressed out my ships, with half mods almost burnt, no cap chargers and no nanite paste left. I head straight back to low sec. Once I'm at the station, I log in my closest trading alt to bring in supplies. Now it's time to reflect on what I have accomplished.

The point of my pilgrimage, where I go to the unknown with just a handful of ships, isolated from my corp and anyone else, is to have a soul-fulfilling hunt and a kill. Sometimes you get nothing, sometimes you score big, sometimes you end up back in medical bay with a new clone. This time, I am happy to go home not empty handed, but with a trophy that I can show off.

A by the book tengu gank

In my early days, as an EvE noob, I wanted to be an explorer. Finding unknown things, clearing all the obstacles and getting a reward was my thing. When scanning and doing Data/Relic with some combat sites, I eventually came across this strange signature called Wormhole. I remember to this day how I was sitting on it and asking in various channels of what it is. Should I go in? What awaits me on the other side? Will I be attacked? I had no clue. One answer I got was, "Jump in and find out", so I did. At the time, I didn't know almost anything about EvE, except how to scan and cycle data/relic analyzers.  My introduction to W-space began when I jumped in and started scanning. I found a lot of Data and Relic sites.

It felt like a jackpot. I did not know what will be different, but I knew that I need to go in, shoot NPC, analyze containers and collect loot. I did not know what was blue loot, sleeper salvage, how strong sleepers were, or worst of all - what a directional scan was. Being excited, I went, shot sleepers with my trusty Myrmidon, which I'm sure was a fail fit and poorly skilled since it took me an eternity to clear the sites. However, after clearing and collecting loot, I was overwhelmed. For a noob like me, I could get 100mil or more per site. That was a lot. I did continue running wormhole data and relic sites without using d-scan whatsoever. Even today, I am surprised that I hadn't been ganked even once. Wormholes by that time have been around for more than a year. I must have been extremely lucky. Since then, I always felt special connection to "Anoikis".

Growing as a hunter

Eventually I moved to low sec with my friends. I slowly learned the way of life of a pirate. I was getting good at using d-scan and hunting. Since I resented missions, exploration remained as my main income source. It was a combined hobby of scanning, doing plex and other sites, when occasionally finding pvp opportunity and killing target on my turf. I also haven't ignored wormholes. I always poked around to see what's up. If I saw activity, I was stalking them, waiting for the right moment with my corp sitting on the other side, eagerly waiting for my signal to jump in.

D-scan was essential. It's not always you will find your target comfortably in anomaly. You need to be fast. If you need to map more than few towers in the system, you have to be efficient. If you find targets sitting on wormhole or doing data/relic sites, you need a whole new level of d-scan skills. I was getting good at it. I could scan with one try small t3 ships that were 2-4 AU outside closest celestial. My corp was very eager to join when ping went out. They knew that if there are targets in wormhole, I'm the bast man for the job to catch them. And I rarely failed to deliver.

Damn those mobile depots

Here we are today. I jump to a c3 static of my local wormhole. A tengu on scan appears. I initiate my standard protocols. While still holding session change cloak, I quickly confirm tengu is not in tower and review for potential anomalies. Tengu appears to be in one of the anomalies. No wrecks must indicate he just started. I initiate warp and cloak up.

I make 200km position bookmark from the Tengu. Fact that he is still shooting sleepers means I haven't been spotted. He even makes things easier by dropping MTU and setting close orbit around it. Now I have a perfect warp in spot which I use without a second thought. I decloak, turn on my sensor booster and lock tengu before he notices I'm even here. Of course when scram and disrutpor lands he starts to realize what's happening. I convo for ransom when suddenly I see a mobile depot go up. Shit. That can mean only one thing - he is refitting for warp core stabilizers to bail. I have 3 point scram and a single point disruptor on him. If he has 4 low slots he could very well escape my gank. To make matters worse, I am pure tackle proteus. All my dps is just few smartbombs which is not enough to disable the depot. Timer is at 30 seconds and counting. It's a race against time.

Soon domi fleet lands. I lock tengu and cycle additional scram as soon as possible. Mobile depot is already deployed and I guess he is in the middle of refitting. Once additional scram lands I start to breathe normally again. I land an extra point just because I can. That little shit is not going anywhere anymore. I quickly make a short work of his ship, which turns out to be a standard t2 fitted tengu with a dead space shield booster. 

Gank executed by the book and with a little luck involved netted me a solid t3 kill. After checking the killmail, I notice that he had only 3 WCS fitted. I do not know if he swapped for DCU last minute or perhaps he did not expect my proteus to have more than 3 point strength. Nevertheless, it was a close call. I almost lost my target, despite perfectly executed gank. After this encounter I started to wonder if I should replace long range point to a second short range scram. Both modules have advantages in different situations. Unfortunately you don't always have a luxury of choosing and have to adapt based on different circumstances. I decide to keep point until I get my first target escape with mobile depot deployed and refitted to WCS.

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.