A Target Rich Environment

You ever hear that expression my eyes were bigger than my mouth? It refers to a moment when you think you’re a lot more hungry than you are and order a lot more food than you can actually consume in a sitting. It was a saying that ran through my head more than once a few nights ago…

The corp was on hand for some good ole’ site bashing. We had a couple of profitable sites in the home system and we hand nothing better to do with our time than make some money. Spirits were high and we were feeling pretty safe. Nothing but us and our static to a FW lo-sec chain. We probably wouldn’t be receiving any visitors anytime soon. Of course as soon as I think that, Azx calls out that he saw a probes on scan for a split second. SON OF A BITCH! I swear every time we start to make some decent money, some asshat with a probe launcher needs to show up. The command goes out to get back to the POS and our scout gets out his own set of probes.

Everything goes strangely quiet. The probes haven’t shown back up on scan and no ship has made an appearance yet. Azx scans down a new wormhole and we immediately head out to setup the blockade. Oz has a Devoter parked on the hole ready to trap anything that comes through. Myself and H5 are in sniper Oracles ready to pop any frigate that thinks his speed will save his life, and Snow has her Pilgrim waiting a few kilometers from the hole as a nice surprise addition if we do get engaged by an enemy fleet.

I feel pretty good about our setup. We are operating under the assumption that we have a single cloaked scout in our system with the potential for a fleet to come through the hole. We decide we want eyes on the other side of the hole right about the same time the wormhole flashes. My weapons immediately go hot and I lock the Devoter that appears on my overview. His shields are gone before he has time to finish locking his first ship, but I know the armor will take a lot longer to get through.

A covert ops uncloaks on top of me and starts to scramble my warp drive. That’s annoying, but he doesn’t seem to have any guns fitted so I’m content to let me keep me pinned down. I have no intention of leaving yet anyway. The wormhole starts flashing away. It’s not surprising considering they have a HIC with them, but what comes through that hole is the stuff of nightmares. A Guardian appears next and H5 and myself immediately switch targets to the logi. Poor Oz is on the front line taking the brunt of the fighting, but our Oracles are spitting out a pretty impressive amount of damage. I’m still happy to fight it out. H5 pops my little harasser which boosts my confidence even more.

Well that was short lived as the following start appearing on the overview:

• Proteus
• Proteus
• Legion
• Machariel
• Scorpion
• Legion

“OK I get the point!” I yelled at my computer as I align back to our POS. We do our best to flee, but Oz and Snow are caught in the Devoter’s bubble and are both going to lose their ships and pods. H5 and myself make it out unscathed but for our pride. It was a good fight, there was nothing we could have done. It does make the day hard though. Life in w-space can get you down. You never feel like the odds are even, though I guess that’s true for life anywhere in Eve. We spend so much of our time training skills and buying ships and modules to defend our system, but it seems like every time we encounter a hostile group they are light years beyond us. Oh well. Gfs are exchanged in local. I ask for a screenshot but it doesn’t sound like anyone was in a picture taking mood that battle. I decide to log off for a while to let the system cool down and grab some dinner. Hopefully exploration will go a little smoother once that C4 connection is closed.

Boredom, The Anti-Blockade

Logged into Eve after a super cold refreshing shower. Six hours of beach and volleyball has taken it’s toll and I’m anxious to sit in one place and not move for a while. It’s a tough life isn’t it?

The corpmates are on and buzzing about, running PI and setting up industrial…things. I am still rather ignorant of the whole operation. Anyway our lo-sec static connection is to a useless system in Gallente space. It is a lo-sec island surrounded by hi security space that is less than appealing to me. We decide to collapse it, which is a new trick for me. I understand the mechanics behind it, but have never been confident enough to put it into action.

Oz and Mel get to work while I rat out the static. My security status has plummeted these last few weeks, I need to make a serious effort to get it back up. We finish off the wormhole and I grab my Anathema to scan out the new one. Just as I jump back into the HQ system after scouting our new connection we spot a Manticore blip on the direction scanner in the HQ system. Oz was sitting on the new static wormhole so he must have come from a new one. I launch my probes again and quickly scan down a new K162 connection to a class 4 system.

As I jump through to the C4, I’m greeted with a less than friendly welcome. An Armageddon is parked on the wormhole. Luckily I’m far enough away from him and the wormhole to be able to activate my cloak and burn away from them. Just as I’m reaching a safe 30km from the hole and battleship, a Devoter and Jaguar show up. This isn’t looking good. The Devoter jumps through the hole, and my isolation in a hostile C4 begins.

After the initial shock of seeing the hostile ships wears off it occurs to me to have a look at the d-scanner. Hmm, This doesn’t look very promising at all. Dominix, Armageddon, Velator, Orca, Archon, Ibis, Scorpion, Revelation, Bestower, Oracle, Dominix, Dramiel, Hurrican, Jaguar, and a Scimitar. That’s quite a fleet. No, this is a fucking dread fleet. This is going to be a serious problem. Our only saving grace is that the capital ships won’t be able to pass through our small wormhole, which is really all that is stopping them from obliterating our towers and ships if they wanted to.  The corp gets eyes on the HQ side of the wormhole and as I suspected the Devoter is parked on the hole with his warp disruption bubble up.

I decide to be as productive as possible while in a covert ops ship in someone else’s wormhole. I find a remote spot in the system and launch probes to start scanning down the dozen or so signatures that are present. I also locate their tower and park my ship a good 200km away from it to watch what is going on. I’m a little less frightened now. The hostiles only have about 4 or 5 pilots online from what I can tell. Only the Dramiel, Scimitar, Devoter, Jaguar, and Hurricane are actually being piloted.

I scan down an absurd amount of ladar sites in the C4 but there are no other wormholes present. The only way out is heavily guarded. This isn’t going to be pretty. Scanning all of those anomalies has eaten up quite a bit of time however, and luckily for me the blockade is lifted. Boredom is my ally in this one. I notice the Devoter and Dramiel that were previously in the HQ system back in the C4. It’s now or never! I rocket to the wormhole and dive through. Success! Glad to be home! The last thing our killboard needs is another loss this month.

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Apparently I had been complaining about not having enough action in the home system a little too loudly…

I logged in today to find Oz and Azx online in the POS, not getting anything done, as usual. But something is different. Azx has a strangely more intimidating aura about him, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. I think it has something to do with the little red box with a skull next to his comm channel portrait. Apparently I had just missed some fun.

Between the giggles and joking I came to find that the pair had happened upon a capsule in the home system earlier today. They gave chase, and found a Rifter on the lo-sec side of our static worm hole. Oz immediately engaged and obliterated the ill-fated ship with little trouble, managing to snag and destroy the pod as well. It was later discovered the frigate actually had nothing to do with the capsule seen previously. The poor pilot was literally less than 24 hours old, but Oz’s bloodlust didn’t seem to mind, as another corpsicle was added to our collection.

The system was however quite again, so we decided to run some anomalies and be productive for a while. At least until a Cheetah shows up on our d-scan. We race back to the tower and hop into our combat appropriate ships. I choose my Devoter anxious to put her bubble to good use. I warp to the static and set the bubble up orbiting the wormhole while Oz scans the system suspecting a new signature to be found. Sure enough another wormhole has appeared in our system, and this one leads to Gallentean hi-sec empire space. The blockade is moved to this new wormhole. A few minutes go by and then the local comm channel springs to life.

Apparently our visitor does not like his chances against the ships buzzing about his exit out of w-space. We had been monitoring d-scan thoroughly and knew he hadn’t put any probes out, and thus was unable to find the lo-sec static so far. His diplomatic intentions were worth a try, but we were in no rush to accommodate him.

 

 

I tried extending an olive branch, but it was refused. Twice to be exact. The blockade continued for another 20 minutes or so. The stealth ship not making an attempt at the wormhole, and us refusing to just let him go. But our patience began to falter and we offered to remove the blockade. Unfortunately for him, he took his sweet time getting to the wormhole. His staling allowed Oz and I to get the idea of parking bombers 30km off the hole, and blasting it as soon as we saw the Cheetah decloak to activate the hole.

Enter blockade stand off number 2. The Cheetah pilot was watching his scanner closely and saw Oz and I hop into our bombers. This new tactic put the brakes on him moving anywhere near the hole. Another 15 minutes goes by and Oz decides to move an alt into the hi-sec system to make sure no enemy fleet is preparing to ambush us.

Not five minutes goes by before Oz yells into the comm that a fleet of 10 Legions is warping into our system. Our forces pulls back to the tower, clearly outgunned for the time being. Trash talking begins on both sides and real life duties are beckoning, so I go afk in the hopes that the rabble is dealt with by the time I get back.

It’s about 3 hours later and the home system appears quite. I scan down our new static and make sure to keep an eye on my watchlist to see if our visitors from before are online. Two are, but I’m confident that I can warp into k-space in my pod without getting caught. I fly to Amarr to grab my new Pilgrim and navigate it safely back to our home system and tower.

As I’m fitting the last module on the ship, a Broadsword and Buzzard appear on my directional scanner. I had been planning on running a few anomalies before calling it a night, but the arrival of more ships has ruined the mood. I’m content in knowing we at least got to fool around with a few hostiles and the encounter was fun even if not particularly violent, and log off for the evening.