Everything happens for a reason

It was a successful hunt lately. As successful as ideas of some dads.

The most exciting thing I've been able to see on d-scan in a week was a t1 frigate and t1 transport ship.

Wormhole space started feeling like a desert. Where the hell is everyone? Perhaps busy fighting Goons? The news and propaganda was all over r/Eve, hard to miss. But earthly empire politics excite me little. While it's fun to read all the drama, I belong to wormholes. My interaction with empire space ends with me checking which system wormhole exit leads to. I'm becoming a hermit of w-space. All I need now is a beard. Oh wait...

I casually orbit an exit when I hear an activation sound. I see a frigate decloak and then jump right back in. I manage to grab the name and proceed checking out the corp. Knowledge is key and I like to know who is poking around. This time it's a pilot from The Enclave Frontiers. A rather active corp that has done way more killing than dying. I resume my activities, when I hear an activation sound once more. This time a Legion appears! Without wasting much time he warps to an anomaly and I follow. He barely manages to create two small sleeper wrecks and I already got my eyes on him.

I get excited. It's only a Legion, but holy crap does it generate sparkles and joy in my eyes. I setup my Nestor fleet and align to the anomaly. Preparations are done. I get a good warp-in on the Legion and decloak. Once target is locked and tackled I bring in the fleet. Everything goes by the book.

I unleash my Faction Navy Ogres and neut the strategic cruiser into oblivion. Of course he is active tanked and after few repair cycles he goes dead quiet and quickly pops soon after. I'm happy for once not to have to kill an MTU on the field. I scoop the faction adaptive membrane and warp out. I salute the pilot with gf in local, but get no response. Coincidence or not, I also have locals awake. I spot a familiar Nemesis on d-scan for a few seconds, no doubt checking out the anomaly with Legion wreck in it. I won't waste my time here anymore and so I pack my things and move to the next wormhole.

Few days later I log-in to find my email notification flash. That's strange. Who would be writing to an old wormhole hermit?

An email from a true believer. There are probably few things in EVE brings people together. One is sharing the ammo and the other is faith in Bob. I now I see that my and nightmarefiend's paths were destined to cross. It's a subtle reminder from Bob that he has plans for each of us.

Catching red handed

Time sure flies. It's been awhile since my last post. Truth to be told there hasn't really been that much to write about. I've been cutting down on my gaming and engaging in some other things, like learning to play golf. That shit is hard, no matter how easy it looks on a TV. In my first attempts I hit a good chunk of ground together with the golf ball and it flew further than the ball. Spring time arrived and here in Sweden we got some really nice days.

While I still log in daily, I haven't been doing any scanning or scouting. Every time I choose a system in which I hope to find some activity, I end up with no targets. Instead of visiting c4's and waiting for that shiny, I tried to stalk a c3 for a few days. Lucky me, I would soon find a Rattlesnake starting his farming activities. I get quite annoyed when I see him anchor a mobile tractor unit together with a mobile depot. Seriously.  I know it's a smart thing to do, but I despise that. I look forward to a soon to come patch, that will at least prevent you refitting if you shot your weapons in the last minute.

Since I don't want this Rattlesnake to warp away  after refitting to warp core stabilizers, I align my Nestor fleet, send them in warp and only decloak once they are on d-scan for a few seconds. I also decloak 10km off and aim for a good bump. My Proteus has 4 warp core strength in tackle. It will buy me some time before he refits his low slots. Everything goes well. Nestors land and soon I have Rattlesnake scrambled with 4 ships. He is not going anywhere now.

I am please to see his shields dropping fast. He quickly pops and pod warps away.

As I expected, he was refitting to warp core stabilizers. He still had one wcs left in his cargo. I'm not sure if he got bumped out of mobile depot range or he just died that fast. Either way, that extra wcs would not have saved him. While it's not an expensive kill, there's something mildly satisfying killing a ship full of warp core stabilizers.

He who looks, finds

While being a hunter, more often than not, I feel like a god damn prey. When I think the system is empty, I will have a random fleet out of nowhere land on the wormhole I watch.

Or stalk a nice "quiet" c4 in hopes to catch a ratting ship, only to encounter a fleet that would suck my capacitor dry before I could turn on first repair cycle.

Wormhole is full of dangers. I got two big fears when hunting. One - getting ganked by one of such random fleets while traveling, and two - getting ganked while ganking a ratter. Sitting afk on the wormholes you can see all kinds of things. I would watch fleets traveling and returning back in pods. Some would never come back. I won't lie, it can get stressful. Especially when I put 4 billion on the line, I can't be just replacing my fleet left and right. I decide it's time to take it down a notch.

Class 5 and 6 are where the big boys are playing. I never go to those wormholes as it's a small chance I will encounter anything I can kill. Class 4 is hit or miss. Can be occupied by a pvp corp or by farmers. Class 3 and 2 are just right. It might not have such lucrative targets, but the corps that usually live there are less dangerous. I settle-in in one of c2s. I am very interested in the Tengu sitting at the tower.

If I ever saw a name that deserved to be shot in the face, that would be it. Unfortunately, the Tengu does not do much. No matter, I got time.

While stalking the system for a few days, I did not see any action, despite system being kept tidy. I finally manage to nab a Brutix and was ready to call it quits, but Bob sent me a sign. The very next day I saw a ship that would change everything.

A Golem! In a class 2 wormhole. That is certainly a sight you won't see every day. It's not totally unexpected though. This particular c2 has a c4 static and that's exactly where I see the marauder warp. I warp after him at range. He jumps. I give him a head start. I don't want to try and get him on the wormhole. I prefer the anomaly, less room for error that way. Without waiting too long I jump in. The marauder is nowhere in sight. System is large so I warp around and finally spot him on d-scan.

I spin around my screen, but struggle in getting his position. Naturally, I expect to see him at one of the anomalies, but his position is not even close to any of them. Is he at a signature? Perhaps he is at some random wormhole? Fear start settling in as this might not be as straightforward gank as I'd have hoped for. Finally I start seeing some wrecks on d-scan.

I pinpoint Golem's position and without moving my screen warp out of range, launch combat probes, send them far away and warp back to position. I now see 6 small sleeper wrecks. I get a bad feeling about this. I've seen these guys mine gas as if they were addicts. Could it be that this marauder is actually clearing a gas site and not a data or relic site? No time to waste. I align my Proteus, scan the marauder in one try and warp at 10. Something I rarely do, but as I feared, it was a gas site and I might not have enough time to make a perch. Within seconds I land on grid. The Golem is just sitting there, doing nothing. No more sleepers on the field, but his velocity is a round zero. I make an instant decision and decloak.

I spam that lock, but nothing happens. Seriously, how long can that sensor re-calibration timer last? Suddenly ship disappears. What the...?  Did he warp? No, that's not possible. Did he... did he actually cloak? Thanks to my good habit of approaching my targets, I set max speed to the last direction my Proteus was going and sure enough, the Golem decloaks. It's play time!

I set the Nestor fleet in warp and keep a close eye on that Golem. The marauder goes into bastion mode, but that does not help him much. Reason I swapped out my Dominixes to Nestors was to double the neuting power. Triple, if you count refitting to extra neut instead of cloaking device, which I can do without a mobile depot. The marauder, with his dying breath, does a few shield boost cycles, then goes dead silent and quickly pops.

To be honest I expected more. While I am extremely happy with the Golem kill, I did feel disappointment not to see any faction or deadspace modules. It's a poor man's marauder. I'm not even sure how well he could deal with class 4 wormhole anomalies, but it certainly was overkill for the gas site.

Poking death with a stick, Part 2

In a previous post I have scored my first kill with the new Nestor doctrine. The very next day, just as I was hoping to get a second kill, all of a sudden I had a Vargur and two Rattlesnakes land and start shooting the defenseless tower with Phobos patrolling the high-sec exit.

Since Phobos has high-sec sealed off, I can't check the empire system name without getting noticed. I could just watch and do nothing, but where's fun in that? I convo the locals at the tower to see if they need help.

I talk with Orion Kirimitsu and invite him to my fleet. He tells me the name of the high-sec system and I try to get reinforcements from the Wormhole PVP channel. Unfortunately location was not ideal and I got not much interest. Locals also did not have any pvp ships available. The only thing they had were pve Gilas. They shoot missiles so it's still better then nothing. Going back and forth, making position bookmarks, I noticed that Phobos was not sitting on the wormhole anymore, but moved towards the tower which made wormhole to be on the edge of the bubble if warped from the right angle. It so happened that the outer planet and my safe spot was in perfect alignment. I had an idea!

The plan was to warp Nestors to the high-sec exit and land within close range. Set drone assist and tackle with my Proteus the Phobos and any other ships that warp to "save" him, hopefully landing in a bubble. In such case I could unleash pain while being relatively safe, sitting on the wormhole. Everything seemed perfect, except I somehow managed to decloak my Proteus. Thankfully I noticed being targeted and approached by the dictor in time and managed to warp away since I was at range. While I did avoid the embarrassing strategic cruiser loss, the surprise attack has been compromised. I still have no idea how the hell did that happen. As expected, just before I enter warp, I see enemy fleet land on the bubble. It was interesting to see what they will do. Will they bail or will they continue with the tower bash? Did they get my name or do they think I'm just one of the locals? I watch the Vargur and the Rattlesnakes go back to the tower as if nothing happened. I guess they don't feel very threatened. Except now I have many more ships shooting the tower, but I decide to continue with my original plan regardless.

This can get very dangerous, but as I mentioned earlier, I felt in a gambling mood. I will decloak with Proteus first, get the aggro from Phobos, land with Nestors, approach the wormhole, setup the spider tank and assists and wait for ships to land at the edge of the bubble. Surprisingly, plan goes almost as I anticipated. Proteus gets the aggro, Nestors land just shortly after, chain gets setup and Phobos was breaking.

I say almost, because none of the hostile ships were landing. Phobos slowboated back to the wormhole and jumped out. D-scan was clear so others,  presumably, warped back to their home system. Now any sane person would just call it a day. Plan was good and perhaps would have worked if I did not mess up my cloak earlier and/or not warped in my Nestor fleet so early. I knew locals were bored enough to shoot the tower and I was bored too. I was hugging that high-sec exit like my life depended on it. And it did.

I was waiting for the enemy fleet to start making moves. Maybe they will make a mistake. My hope was to catch the Phobos trying to make a run for it or another ship trying to bait me leaving the safety of the wormhole. And bait they did. At first I had a lone Proteus appear at 70km and then at 30km. When that did not work it was quiet for a moment. "I should be ok, unless they bring in a bumping ship", - I thought to myself. Soon I hear an activation sound and Phobos appears.

I tackle him and three sets of Ogres immediately follow the Proteus lead. In just a matter of seconds, a huge fleet lands on grid. I see Guardians, t3s, battleships. A scary fleet, but I ignore it. Phobos was breaking down and maybe I will just be able to kill it and jump out. While I was busy locking with each Nestor to setup neuts, something strange happened. I couldn't lock Phobos anymore. He was 90km away. Did he MJD away? How? No, that's not it. My Proteus and main Nestor still has him scrambled. So why the fuck two of my Nestors are almost 100km away? Ohhhhh.

The command destroyers. I just got my ass handed. I completely forgot about them. Shutting myself off in wormholes, I barely follow with the changes in EVE anymore. I knew about the new ships, but completely took them out of equation when evaluation the "worst case" scenarios. By multiboxing 4 accounts I was losing concentration and mind was getting chaotic. The Nestor's tank was breaking, overview full of hostile ships, broken cap chain, it was time to go into damage control mode and see what I can salvage of this situation.

I jump out my Proteus and Nestor to high-sec in case I get micro jumped out again or bumped. I swap to remaining two Nestors 100km off the wormhole and notice one of them does not have any disruptor on him. Without thinking much, I initiate warp to the best positioned celestial for a quick bounce. Second Nestor I write off and eject to save the pod. It does not have any expensive implants, but having full overview of hostiles, my instincts were telling me there is no way out with my ship intact so no reason to lose the pod too. I completely ignore the fact that I am tackled only by a destroyer with Guardians sitting 100km away. Two sets of Ogres and 4 heavy neuts could have probably popped that ship in no time, leaving me a clear way to run. But my mind was not clear anymore due to encountering something unexpected. I let my primal instincts take over and ran for my life.

In the end, I manage to evacuate two Nestors, leaving one as a reward for the hostiles. Great job on bringing command destroyers. I would say the fleet that they brought was over the top, but I do not believe in overkill. If I was in their shoes, I would have done the same. That doesn't mean I can't tease about it.

Big problem with multiboxing is that you just can't pay attention to detail. No matter how experienced you are. I was too focused on locking ships with each of my Nestor to set the cap neutralizers. I did not recognize a command destroyer with a quick glimpse at the overview. It's first time I saw that ship on grid and my eye did not distinguish Magus from Magnus. Nevertheless, I was happy to get off so easy. The longer I waited, the more I knew there will be less and less chance I come out as a winner. Enemy had time to evaluate, organize and adapt to current situation and they did exactly that. So the bright side of the story? I had quite a lot of excitement and didn't lose all of my fleet. Furthermore, Nestor got taken and not destroyed. Hopefully it will get a chance to participate in a pvp fleet and not get sold in Jita.

Poking death with a stick, Part 1

First blood

It was getting annoying. Since I've bought Nestors to replace my triple Domi setup, I did not have any chances to properly test them. I've been living in one of c4s, hoping to catch a farming Marauder or some other shiny ship, capable of clearing c4 anomalies. Of course system would be empty for the most part and when it wouldn't, I would see locals bring Guardians and Armageddons with other ships, basically a normal pvp fleet, to a fight somewhere. So I either have to sit out fleet fights or watch d-scan in a totally empty system. I was really puzzled why during my stalking there would not be any "calm" days, when corp does not yet have full fleet logged in, but only a few guys, who would run those anomalies for a quick ISK. I know they like to run them as I came to an empty system several days ago and since then only had few anomalies present. Oh well, I guess you can't always have things go the way you want. I decide to scout and search for a new home. Being a witness of how current corp I stalk can field a proper fleet, I might end up dead even if I get a shot at a Marauder in an anomaly. Last thing I want is to die before actually killing anything.

Luck would have it I get a connection to a promising c3 static. At first it looks like an abandoned wormhole, but I manage to find a lone tower sitting, with no defenses. Inside the tower there is a single pilot. I watch him swap a Rattlesnake to an Occator and do so some errands. While he is not yet doing sites, I am happy to see some activity.

Even if I don't get him today, I am confident I found my new home. This Rattlesnake will go down sooner or later. And it turns out it will be sooner rather than later as I watch him accelerate and warp to an anomaly. I follow him and with shaky hands align my Nestor fleet. This is it, the moment I've been so eagerly waiting for. I pre-warp Nestor fleet, grab the faction battleship, turn on neuts  with secondary points and get ready for some killing. I even manage to lock and focus MTU first, just in case that Rattlesnake has some goodies inside.

Operation goes very smoothly. Big advantage of my Nestors is that I got twice the number of heavy neutralizers now. Each Nestor carries 2 heavy neuts, with possibility to refit to a third. In this case it's not needed as Rattlesnake gets sucked dry and explodes in a short manner.

My first kill with the new doctrine and it couldn't have went any better. I was surprised how fast it went down as it was mostly passive shield fit. Last time I had such Rattlesnake I couldn't break it, but I guess leaving no cap to run those shield resist modules made all the difference. Since everything went so well, I decide to stick around and stay for another few days. Maybe I will get lucky enough and score a second Rattlesnake kill. C3 is with high-sec static, so it should be very easy to replace it.

Calling it quits is not in the dictionary

Next day I log in. As usual I check if there are any active ships on d-scan and proceed scanning the system for unresolved sigs if there aren't any. Without the watch-list this is the best I can do. I rely a lot on luck right now to stay unnoticed. This time it looks like I just missed the farming. I find two Gilas at the tower. Oh boy. Things are finally looking up after long ganking hiatus.

But something did not feel right. Gilas were just sitting at the tower and doing nothing. No salvager, no resuming to farming another site or anything. Constant check of d-scan reveals something interesting.

An unidentified Stratios in the area! He disappears before I can even get an approximate position. Suddenly situation became much more clear why locals ceased their farming activities. And since there are hostiles, I might as well map the new signatures in the system. Nobody will give a shit about scanner probes now.

The things were getting more interesting as time was passing by. All of a sudden I have a Vargur with two Rattlesnakes land and start shooting the defenseless tower! Holy crap.

I do a backgound research of the corp and get some doubts if it's something I should take on. Two Rattles and a Vargur I should be able to kill, but if there are more ships around, I could be warping to my death. Since this wormhole have a high-sec static I decide to see where the connection leads and maybe get reinforcements from the Wormhole PVP channel. However, upon landing I am greeted by a heavy interdictor sitting in a bubble.

To be continued...