Things are not always as they seem

It's a sad thing when you find a juicy target, but know it's out of your reach. This is the reason I multibox 3 Nestors, but it doesn't mean I can take on anything I find. The locals in a c4 undocked a surprising ship - an Archon. Accompanied by two Rattlesnakes it warped to a site.

Trey is off for holidays so I am all alone. Even if he was here, I doubt we could take on an Archon with 2 Rattles. I will confess, I know jack shit about capitals anymore. I heard horror stories of fighters being able to track mere frigates now. Perhaps we could take it, but the fact remains, I will be alone for at least a week and there's no point in sitting here, watching without being able to do anything. I tease the locals by dropping combat probes, but in the end decide to leave.

It didn't take long to find another c4. Upon entering I spot a Rattlesnake on d-scan, which shortly disappears. I warp to station, but nobody's there. After waiting a good several minutes and doing blanket combat scans of the system I decide it was time to resolve the signatures. There are only a couple of them anyways, both c3 and c5 statics. Using my judgment, I check out the lower class wormhole first. This Rattlesnake clearly disappeared in space and I bet my left testicle he went to a c3 rather than a c5. And there he was, appeared with all glory on d-scan and sleeper wrecks. Not at an anomaly though. I pinpoint his position and scan him out in one quick sweep.

It was time to make my move. His home system is rather small, but the station is outside the wormhole range, so I should be able to park my Nestors without being noticed. Moreover, the Rattlesnake is over 30 AU away, so most likely I will pre-warp my fleet before engaging anyway. Especially with that bloody mobile depot on grid. But first, I will pre-warp my Proteus to a 200km position. In the old days, when grids were small, you couldn't use camera or see a ship at all if you were too far away. Now there is no reason to make 200km perch, but I decide to do it anyway. Old habits die hard. I warp at 100 to mobile depot to bounce, only to have sleepers aggro me. I instantly realize my cloak is off and I have no idea why. I'm sitting at 100 from the Rattlesnake, uncloaked. Should I bounce anyway and pretend I was never there? Nah, that won't work. I rather sit and wait for the Rattlesnake to make a move. As I thought, he aligns and warps back to his wormhole. I follow while at the same time warp the Nestor fleet from the other side. The Rattlesnake jumps and gets tackled.

The ship soon gets converted to a wreck.

Not too shabby. I'm not sure if this guy panic refitted to two warp core stabilizers or he was actually farming with them. In any case, it was not enough to avoid my Proteus. Once the deed is done, I warp back to safe. I'm in no rush to move. Later that day, locals assemble a wormhole rolling fleet, clearly prepared for the unwelcomed Proteus.

I watch the guys roll multiple static connections. I don't know what's the intention. Do they look for a pvp or for a new farming ground? Whatever they were looking for, after watching them roll wormholes for a few hours, I assume they haven't found it.

For the next several days, I stay put. I believe I am forgotten and things are back to normal. System is kept clean, but locals are willing to go next door for that juicy sleeper loot. Once again I spot a Rattlesnake leave the system. Once again I scan him out without getting noticed.

Once again I forget to cloak or get decloaked when warping at 100. And once again the Rattlesnake warps back home, gets followed by me and is met by Nestors on the other side, gets tackled and killed.

No warp core stabilizers this time, but with a few extract faction mods. I scoop the loot and take my leave. No reason to stay here longer than I have to. I move next door and just park my ships without expecting much to happen. But no, just barely after two hours pass, a Gila warps to an anomaly, completely oblivious to a present mtu and a mobile depot in the system.

The pilot is from the same alliance, but different corp. He is also a CEO. So I gank 2 Rattlesnakes from the same alliance and now I've got a Gila doing sites? Yea, right. I watch him casually orbit his mtu and shoot sleepers. I'm not gonna go for it. What are the odds this is not a bait? Just to be sure, I drop combat probes. If he is legit farming, he will warp back to the wormhole right away. If he is baiting, he will pretend like those probes don't exist. I warp out, launch probes and go back to observing. Nothing. No reaction whatsoever. This is an obvious bait or the guy is as ignorant as he can be. I decide to chat the guy up.

The Gila pilot seemed genuinely surprised. He closed my convo and warped to a planet, while disappearing from d-scan and combat probes. I was a bit puzzled on what was going on. System was big so I just assumed the guy bounced and went back to wormhole. However, in some minutes, he lands out of nowhere and jumps back out to his home system. I can't help but feel this guy was actually legit. Especially after checking corp's killboard, it didn't seem they could mount a decent enough fleet to kill me. Oh well, I still choose to live by philosophy: if it's too good to be true, it probably is. Might cost a kill or two, but I'm pretty sure more than not it will prevent expensive losses down the road.

Reflections of the wormhole stalking

It's been several days since I try to create a new post, but keep staring at a blank sheet. A huge respect goes to the bloggers like Talvorian Dex from Target Caller and writers in general that keep pumping out quality posts ever so frequently. I'm lucky if I have an interesting encounter to write about, but if it's a simple gank, it's really tough to pick up a pen. I often have to remind myself that I started blogging because of a wish to speak my mind and write about my adventures. I'm very happy to hear that some people enjoy reading about my encounters along the way, but once you feel the pressure to stick to the schedule, from a hobby it can become a chore real fast.

Sometimes I like to reflect on the progress I've done. I've been stalking wormholes for awhile now. 1.5 year ago my corp disbanded and I tried getting back to low-sec, though unsuccessfully. I then decided to play at my own pace and create a corp where I would focus purely in hunting wormhole site runners. I used to do those trips while being in corps, but now it had my full attention and "unlimited" time to do what I want and not worry about not being there for the corp. Fast forward to now and it's a good time to reflect on my journey.

As of the moment of writing, I have done 97 bil of damage. That's less than what a null pilot can do in one day in an escalated cap fight. Furthermore, that's almost all exclusively wormhole pve gank targets.

But more than total damage done, I like to view the ship kill count, which is - 312. The special thing about this number is that most of these ships were hunted, stalked and killed only by me. If we take out solo and pod kills, probably around 200 pilots had a pleasure of meeting my Dominix/Nestor fleet while doing sites at the wormhole.

So what's my take on the wormhole stalking experience so far? Well, I would not recommend to anyone apart old, bitter vets. I would recommend only to people that can play EVE in the background and can multibox as they probably have a real chance to fully enjoy this play style. If you fly a solo Stratios, you might need to miss out on some juicy targets. I always recommend playing with a corp. To be honest, that's about the only way to play EVE in an engaging way regardless of what space you are in. Even for a guy like me, that has been playing on his own for over a year, a partner joining my corp has improved playing experience, which brings us to the following story.

When things come around

There was a lack of action in our current system so me and my partner decided it's a good time to find a new home. Trey went ahead to scan the chain. Few jumps out he ended up in the wormhole that had an active connection with The Last Chancers home system. It's one of the most active pvp corps in w-space. When I usually see one of their pilots around, I try to be as invisible as possible and not do much scouting. Trey flies a cloaky nulified Legion, but in just a few minutes, d-scan reported activity. He was clearly spotted and The Last Chancers were quick to camp all the active connections. On the way back a Sabre with a few other ships were patiently awaiting for Legion's return. While it has a covert cloak, it's not exactly a fast aligning ship. If Sabre pilot is good, he can decloak and tackle before you can enter warp. My advice was to wait it out. It's better to be patient than risk a loss against a corp that can field fleets we have little chance beating.

As expected, the, eager to kill, enemies got bored and warped back home. I suggested to stick around for a little while longer to avoid any unexpected surprises. Neither of us were in rush. While chilling and occasionally checking d-scan, Trey reported a Megathron. He quickly found that our aggressive friends were rolling the wormhole. Unfortunately for them, calculus mistakes were made and the battleship ended up on the wrong side when wormhole collapsed. It caught us both by surprise. For sure these guys could roll a wormhole in their sleep. Luckily, huge grid allowed Trey to see where our lost friend warped. He was warmly greeted mid-way in our scanned chain by our Nestor fleet.

We killed his ship and sent back to the empire via pod express. The name carries a big weight in EVE. Since we knew who we were ambushing, we kept spamming d-scan until very end, expecting a large fleet land on us at any moment, but the space stayed empty as it almost always is.

Deceived by appearance

I was sitting on the wormhole when I heard an activation sound and saw a wild Scorpion appear.

Of course at the time I did not realize that. I saw a ship with a strange tail and automatically assumed it was a Rattlesnake. That damn ship has been burned to my retina by now and I completely forgot a ship like a Scorpion exists.

I watch it burn back to the wormhole and jump out. It's quite obvious the wormhole is being rolled. I set a close orbit with the Proteus, uncloak and align the Nestors and watch the clock. I patiently wait for 5 minute timer to pass. It's a very small time window to grab a rolling battleship. He must spawn far away from the wormhole and I must get a good bump if I want to prevent it from jumping back.  5 minutes passes, then 6 and then 7. I am getting nervous. I don't like to keep my Nestors exposed like that. You never know who else might be passing by, but my gut says I should soon see that Scorpion again. Finally, I hear a sound. Without waiting for the battleship to decloak, I warp in the fleet. Once the Scorpion decloaks, I tackle him and aim for a bump, but it isn't enough and the ship jumps back.

While I was waiting, I did the background check of the corp. It's fairly active, but it rarely has more than 5 people in a fleet. And even then, mostly it's cruiser sized fights. I am confident that my fleet was a big surprise and they won't have any fleet assembled capable to fight it. I decide to go after the Scorpion.

I lock the ship before it manages to warp. Scorpion being Scorpion, jams my Proteus, but not before I get the positive locks with the Nestors. I can really feel the experience in multiboxing paying off. As long it's a gank of 1-2 ships, it usually goes flawlessly. The Scorpion explodes and a pod warps away.

Besides just being a t1 battleship, it's a nice addition to my collection. Not sure if I have even killed one before since I started stalking.

Squeeze me baby one more time

Recently I gave my girlfriend a cocktail book as a gift. I told her to choose any cocktail and I would make it for her. She chose margarita. One of the ingredients of margarita is a fresh lemon juice. I squeeze the lemons, but to make sure I get all the juice, I squeeze it at least few more times. In my previous post I wrote how I've encountered 3 marauders and managed to gank 2 of them. Now one would think that's the end of the story, but like with the lemons, I saw a potential for a one more squeeze.

I tell Trey we should move to this c4. It's a small wormhole, occupied by a small Russian corp that just lost two expensive ships. Now I know they have at least one Golem in station. I also know, that these guys like to farm, like clockwork. I couldn't help but sense an opportunity here. Ganking two out of three Golems felt as a job half done. The stealth would have to be a top priority. If you gank someone, they won't blink twice, but if the same people saw us the very next day, the jig would be up.

The tower is at the outer planet, so we are forced to make bookmark near the center of the system, which isn't a good thing. Mostly anoms spawn in the middle, so if we happen to log in when our targets are doing anomalies, there's a big risk we will be noticed. Same thing applies if we log in near the station and they happen to undock or check the d-scan. Preferably we will be already in the system cloaked up by the time our targets come. And that's exactly what we do when we log in early. It's time to play a waiting game. I wonder if these guys will feel like farming after yesterday. As someone who have been in a Russian alliance, my gut says they won't tolerate these two anomalies present in the system.

Time goes by. I check the EVE client and spot probes on the overview. I did not manage to see who launched them, but it's quite obvious as they are exactly on the station. I wait for the locals to finish scanning the system. Probes disappear, but scanning ship is nowhere to be seen. We have all exits covered. I bet they put the scout on the wormhole again, which is great news. That usually means the farming is about to take place.

Well I'll be damned. A Golem appears on the overview. It's the lucky pilot that managed to get away yesterday. I knew they still have a Golem docked. I keep my eyes on where he will go. This time we have the whole system scanned out.

Another Golem undocks! I guess they had a spare one. There's still one pilot docked at the station. Will there be a third ship? I watch both Golems warp to an anomaly. I guess they only have 2 Marauders left. Me and Trey observe as the ships do the site. We don't want to engage too soon when there are still a lot of sleepers on grid. Our hearts are racing, hands are sweating. We pray Bob that neither of us gets disconnected. Finally only one sleeper of the third wave is left and we make our move.

This time gank goes by the book. We tackle both Marauders, bubble up and focus on an mtu first. The Golems seem to be taken by surprise as barely any of our ships are taking damage. Our targets go down one after another. To make sure the job is finished this time, we also send both pilots back to the empire via pod express.

It warms my heart to have a successful op. The gank was executed in an optimal way and both, me and my partner, each bring home 800mil isk. We go back to high-sec, get the loot safely to Jita and decide to chat up our victims, to see if there's any isk left that we could squeeze out with a ransom in order for us to leave the system alone.

Neither of the pilots are online. Don't know if it was a rage quit or they simply thought that was enough of EVE for one day, but one thing was clear - this system is dry.

Hitting the jackpot

I remember my trip to Las Vegas which happened almost 10 years ago. I was amazed by all the slot machines. Put in the coin, pull the lever, watch the reel spin and hope for some kind of combo. I spent few pennies on those, but moved straight for the poker tables instead, where after a couple of hands I went three-way all in and took the pot. There were a lot of angry looks when I stood up and left the table with all the winnings. Stalking wormholes can be a lot like a casino where checking d-scan is like pulling a lever at the slot machine. It returns mostly nothing, but once in a while you get something. Of course you try to increase your odds, by picking the right system in the first place.

I log in and get pleasantly surprised to see the chain scanned out few jumps out. Though my messenger staying quiet, I assume there hasn't been anything interesting. Trey is sitting in corp chat, but seems to be afk. Well, no biggie. Since I just logged, I might do a quick scouting of the neighboring systems. I jump to a c4 static. It's a pulsar. My attention gets caught by the fact that there are no anomalies. These guys keep the place tidy. I start thinking if this system would be a suitable new home. I haven't seen any activity in our c4 for a couple of days. Even if the wormhole is pulsar, which is not very suitable for my armor fleet, we should still manage to kill some shitty Rattlesnake that, I am convinced, farms this system. And indeed, upon checking the killboard of the locals, I find 6 Rattlesnake losses in June. The wormhole is inhabited by a small Russian corp and looks like their timezone matches my prime time.

While I'm busy doing the background check, I notice a Buzzard undock from an Astrahus and warp to a c4. Not our c4, but theirs static. I don't pay much attention as I am confident the guy does exactly the same thing I did - checking active connections. I keep eyes on the station and slowly burn away to make enough distance for a perch. I expect the Buzzard to come back anytime, swap for a Rattlesnake and go clear the only Ore site in the system or something. But the Buzzard never returns. Instead, a Golem appears on the overview.

Holy shit. An actual marauder just appeared on my overview. I get excited like a little girl. Surely there's a reason for this ship to undock. Even if it just docks back up, my mind is already made up. This is our new home. I start pinging my partner.

Zosius: golem at station, in our c4 static
Zosius: no anoms. i think we found our new home

Unfortunately Trey seems to be afk. I carefully watch the Golem. What will he do? Where will he warp? There are no anomalies in the system. There are several signatures, but I don't have them scanned out. Suddenly...

A second Golem appears. One Marauder is enough to get me excited, but two can make me wet. I start pinging like crazy.

Zosius: 2 golems. holy crap

I need my partner. Ganking two Golems in a pulsar system can be a challenge. If they focus fire on one of the Nestors I could have trouble tanking, but with "neutgeddon" on my side, I still feel confident I can take them on without too big of a risk. While I draw a battleplan in my head, one more ship appears on the overview.

A third Golem undocks. I don't think I have ever seen more than two Marauders in one spot. I just couldn't believe this is happening. Is Bob playing tricks on me?

Zosius: holy fuck. 3 golems sitting at the station

No life signs from Trey. My camera loses tracking and I watch the ships warp to the direction of some signature. I'm not sure what to do. 3 Golems can dish out a lot of pain on a battleship with the reduced resists. I need my partner, but no matter how much I ping, I just can't get an answer. I decide that I will scan the Marauders out. Even if they bail, this is hands down our new home. We will take the shot. If not today, then tomorrow.

The scanning goes without a hitch. System is rather small, but I manage to launch the probes outside the d-scan range and get a warpable result in one try.

Jesus, just look at that overview. I kinda don't expect I can take them on without losses alone. There are, of course, people eager to help me, but there are no active connections to the empire and there's no way to find one in time and unnoticed. No, this is a sign from Bob. It's the ultimate gift. I must take it or die trying. In the worst case, they carry a point and I will lose my fleet. In the shit case, I will be forced out of grid, but still manage to warp out ships that enter structure. In the good case, I will tackle two Marauders and the third will warp away. Best case, they will tank and fight until one of them dies and then I will kill the whole three. I decide to go in. No way I'm letting this opportunity go.

As expected, once I make my move and get a positive tackle on two of  the Marauders, the third one warps away. The fight for the right to live starts.

I manage to keep the Armageddon alive through the focus fire while putting neuting pressure on the Golems. Managing reps and constantly cycling scrambler to test if ships have not yet exited the bastion mode takes its toll. I mess up the locking sequence and split neuts and dps on both Marauders. Luckily, it's enough and soon I see a first explosion.

And then another.

There it goes. Over 5 bil in smoke. This time the loot fairy is in especially bad mood. While I get a modest 600mil drop out of first Golem, I get a meager 100mil out of the second one. And if that wasn't enough, here's the saddest part of the story:

Almost 1 billion loot drops in total, but gets scooped by an mtu. Sometimes you just don't have the luxury to focus an mtu first. I force it open. In the end, out of all the faction and deadspace modules, I end up with only one a-type medium shield booster. RIP the shinies. But as I always say - it's never about the money. It's about the journey. While it might not be a jackpot when it comes to isk, it sure is in the essence of the hunt.