There is always a cloaky Proteus

I decide to take a break and take it easy for awhile. After stalking the c4, I find a nice quiet c2 with c3 and high-sec statics. My new home does not have any active towers and is uninhabited, but I do like c3 and hs connections. One of the reasons I choose this system is because I am too lazy to find a proper wormhole and my heart is just not into it. I park my cloaky Proteus on high-sec exit and go play some other games like Dota and XCOM. I have already played XCOM Enemy Unknown, but I was told Enemy Within expansion brings quite few changes. Game has huge replay value anyway. Once I'm done, perhaps I will try Long War mod too!

Sometimes I think I spend too much time focused on just EVE. Even though I afk stalk and claim to have minimum effort invested, I still pay attention when there is an active jump through the wormhole I have been watching or there is activity at the tower. Willingly or unwillingly I end up scanning some chains, trying to poke more than few jumps away and it all ads up. I also resumed my evening school to learn Swedish after work, so time goes by faster than I would like to and I know it's not going to get any better, so it was time to take it down a notch.

Good thing about system with high-sec static, you are bound to have some tourists. I am fine with that. I see nothing wrong in nabbing an occasional scanning frigate. But if you stay in the system for long enough, you can see many "interesting" things. Like a guy from null-sec bringing freshly bought Redeemer.

Or a surprise Megathron fleet trying to roll me out from the neighboring wormhole.

It would be really nice to have an extra hand. Unfortunately, my search for Partner was not that successful. I guess the play I do us very niche focused and most people desire a full functioning corp instead. People that joined me so far either had wrong timezone or haven't logged in awhile. Apparently, taking afk part all too literally.

I keep watching high-sec when a wild Astero drops in.

I don't think much of him at first and was waiting for him to start doing data/relic site, but something was off the way he acted. He  jumps to high-sec and then jumps back in. Goes in and out for a few times. Then out of nowhere Iteron, a transport ship, jumps in.

His corp appears to be the same as Astero pilot's. I watch him warp to a random planet and I follow. I watch it land and then approach the customs office. I don't know what's this guy's deal is. Don't you need to setup your space colonies first? I doubt he is collecting PI. I then watch him warp to another planet, then back to wormhole and then back to a planet, where I find him and Astero sitting close to each other.

I watch their every move in my cloaky Proteus. I don't know what's going on yet. Perhaps he wants to setup a tower, but does not know it has to be done at the moon? I am very interested in Astero. Perhaps I can have a shot at catching him. They are too far for me to make my move now, but I see they like to warp at 100 to every destination. I closely watch them align and warp to the next planet and I immediately follow. Luck would have it, I land 10k off them.

This is it. I set on collision course, but do not rush to decloak just yet. Astero likes to go invisible and he does just that. Only Iteron is left on the overview, but I have a feeling the frigate is still there. I patiently keep flying and decloak once I feel I moved around 7km. If Astero doesn't appear, I can still try my luck with Iteron. Bob smiles upon me today as I see Astero appear right on the spot.

I get a positive lock and put a scram on him. In addition, I disrupt Iteron, but he warps out without a hassle. Damn those warp core stabilizers. Well, at least faction frigate is without any wcs and meets a slow death.

Who knows what riches were inside that Iteron, but I am happy with the outcome nevertheless.

Blog Banter 71: When too many is too many?

Welcome to the continuing monthly EVE Blog Banters and our 71st edition! For more details about what the blog banters are please visit the Blog Banter page.

Too Many Ships Spoil the Sandpit?

We all like important internet spaceships right? The more spaceships the better right? Or are we getting too many to be easily to remember them all. A Mastodon on scan? That the hell is that and what does it do? Oh! Never mind!

Are we getting too many ships. Is it too complicated to remember them all and what their traits are? Do FC's these days need an encyclopedic knowledge of ship types unless they want their fleet to DIAF. With more and more ships being released each year will we ever reach "too many" or do you think there can never be too many important internet spaceship types?

Banter on!

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You can often hear people say that it's all about spaceships in EVE. When Incarna expansion, that introduced captain's quarters, was deployed back in 2011 there was a huge "storm" from player base. A lot of players were upset that they were being forced to use this feature which opened up a lot more wounds such as lack of focus on actual spaceships and gameplay surrounding them. Not to get too much into history, but CCP got the message and since then, spaceships were going to be one of their main focus. Even in the very next expansion Crucible they have introduced at the time so called t3 battlecruisers: Talos, Tornado, Oracle and Naga.

Since then we have seen a lot of new ships introduced to our universe and a lot of changes related to gameplay. Before going any further I must come out and say that I haven't flown any of the new ships since 2012. One of the reasons is that I simply haven't had a need for them. For my wormhole stalking Stratios is too weak to initiate tackle, though certainly beats Proteus on solo hunt. I haven't done any cosmic sites to use Astero and I haven't flown a ship without cloak for awhile so no new destroyers or cruisers. I considered to adopt Nestor for my doctrine, but that with that price tag it did not make much sense. But it's highly likely I will do a break from wormhole hunting and join some k-space corp at some point to fully engage in experience. It will probably feel like a new game to me.

In general, I think new ships are great, but CCP must be cautions. More ships means harder to balance. This problem existed since the beginning. Nerf hammer was going around, hitting different ships. When I started in 2010 Gallente was considered EVE on hard mode. After rebalancing blasters, drones and nerfing other races it became EVE on easy mode. With more ships in the pot it will only be harder to achieve harmony.

But if there's at least some harmony, having many different tools (ships) will make game more exciting. It certainly makes it harder for FCs to manage the field and raises the knowledge bar, but that's not a bad thing.

The only time I think adding ships spoils the sandpit is when CCP tries hard to make dangerous spaces accessible for new players. Take for instance Venture. A gas mining ship that is hard to catch, costs peanuts, and is used by everyone regardless of their age. Same ship mines most cheap and most lucrative gases. I know a lot of people will disagree and that's fine. It's just my personal opinion. If there are cheap and expensive options to mine ore, why gas sites are treated differently?

Other than that, I think it's a great time to play EVE. Reading stories about command destroyers using micro jump drive on enemies makes me really excited. Things like these add a lot of value to the game. The more unpredictable the fight is the better. I just wish they looked at battleships a bit. With so many cruisers, frigates and destroyers, I feel battlecruisers and especially battleships might be left out of all the fun. I think it's the perfect time to settle down with new ship introduction and do some cleanup and organizing in our sandbox.

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.

Waiting for the right moment

Some corps like to leave their ships out of hangars. I understand the need of saving space and all, but there are times when I wonder if those ship hangars are even used.

Note the scrollbar on the right. Meet Russian Power Group 7. A corp that keeps all their ships in the pos forcefield for everyone to see. List is so long that it's a pain to track on d-scan of any changes. In other words, I can't easily spot activity with only d-scan and I am not a fan to stay afk at the tower due to random connection drops or EVE not responding when I connect my PC to a TV. Anyways, I settle in a random safespot and wait for my opportunity. The corp had a Marauder loss in their killboard. System was clean and I was eager to see what PVE tools do they use. Besides that, system also had pocos reinforced. Something was definitely up.

When first poco came out of reinforcement, I kept a close eye. It probably will be too much for me to handle a structure bashing fleet, but you never know. I have 12 members online and half of them I find at the customs office.

I think for awhile if I should attack. I probably could take them on, unless they are all pvp fit. I am solo handling multiple ships and all of them have a cloak fitted. I am more worried about people online. Since they have all their ships in space, I can see logistics and jamming ships. It could be a very bad news if they came to help. I shake my head and remember that my primary is a farming ship. I should not get very excited about t1 battleships or even Gila if I can have a shot at killing Golem. I decide to wait.

Finally farming time. I see wrecks on d-scan. I warp to take a look.

Talk about disappointing sight. Not only that there's no shiny ship to gank, but it's pve setup that I probably couldn't break. Three Dominixes are spider tanking, of course, and Ospreys are spewing shield reps too. Upon closer look I see it's a mix of armor/shield tank.

Since I don't see a Marauder at the pos, I am not sure if it's even there. Perhaps locals did some math and realized it's better to use cheap stuff to run c4 sites. I do not know if I can take this little farming fleet on my own. Problem would be Ospreys as they are orbiting at range. I'm afraid this fight could drag on if I tried to break them and with at least 8 more people online at the tower, I definitely want to avoid that.

I wait. I do not want to stay too long in this system, but at the same time, I do not want to leave too early. Site is getting finished. Someone will have to salvage those wrecks and it may be Noctis, seeing as there is no MTU and wrecks are all scattered up. Let's see what they will do.

Once site gets finished, I see Ospreys warp off. Dominixes start approaching and looting random wrecks with Noctis landing at the same time. Interesting. Maybe this is the moment I've been waiting for. With battleships all scattered around I can strike and probably kill something. Too bad they are too far away from each other, which means I can't hold two ships at the same time. I wait until only few wrecks are left on the field and grab Noctis.

While holding the salvager with Proteus I order my Domi fleet in warp. I see pilot eject and warp off. Smart move. Dominixes are 160km away and while I wait for my fleet to land, one of enemy battleships warps and lands near me. I don't know if it is an attempt to save Noctis, but it felt more like a"warp to help a friend" instinct more than anything.  I promptly tackle it and now I hold two ships instead of one. Seeing he is not going anywhere, Dominix pilot ejects and warps his pod clear. I finish off both ships, loot and shoot the wrecks and disappear in an empty space. Quick and dirty, just the way I like it.

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.