Like a Phoenix From the Ashes…

The ship decelerated from warp with a soft whump sound. Urd Voiddaughter had just arrived at an ancient Angel mining facility. He glanced over the instruments in his cockpit nervously. The system was becoming active but it didn’t seem that anyone knew his little gem was here. He was convinced to make the most of his discovery. Scanning probes were blanketing the system, but there were over a dozen signatures in they system. It would take a significant amount of time for anyone to scan this particular one down. Still, he would have to work quickly to analyze the relics hidden within the complex before him. He targeted the nearest object that looked to be of value and moved in for a closer look. 

*Whump*

I looked up from my comms at that all too alluring sound. The sound of a carefully laid trap springing. The frigate-class ship that had just entered the area sat approximately 25 km away from my cloaked Nemesis stealth bomber. I double checked my cloaking device to ensure it was still functioning properly keeping me off of anyone’s scanners. I have a nasty habit of bumping into stray debris fields at the most inopportune times. The Probe began moving towards something that had caught its eye. He had no idea I was there. No idea that he was quickly closing on my exact position. I moved my hand over my console, and hovered the slightly shaking appendage over the target lock button.  It’s been too long, I thought too myself. Too long to be this worked up over a single Probe.

Urd locked onto a storage facility’s computer console and began decrypting the security systems contained within. One last check of the scanner. Still blank. He had run into another explorer about an hour ago. An experience that left him frazzled but not deterred. Most exploration ships in these parts were of little to no real threat. Their ships were calibrated to scan and hack valuable computer banks and focused little on offensive modules. Still, even a single turret, missile launcher, or drone would be a problem for his ship’s weak defenses. Speed was of the essence, time to break this mainframe’s…

My ship decloaked in a shimmering of light. The computer locked onto the Probe’s hull almost instantly. An array of rocket launchers were unsheathed from my hull as the warp disruptors immobilized the Probe’s engines. I hesitated a moment. My finger over the trigger button. I paused in a second of regret for the poor helpless ship caught in my cross-hairs. A quick smirk stitches its way across my face and I hammer the trigger button. “He should know better” I say to myself. “Too many people looking for easy money these days.”

I had just cleaned up the mess from the careless Probe’s demise when a second ship exits warp a few clicks from my position. “This is a popular stop tonight!” In an instant of intense deja vu the Helios rockets towards my position. “God, it’s like these guys have never flown in lo-sec before!” I chuckle to myself as rockets spill from my ship’s hull and obliterate the enemy’s frigate. “25 million isk in 15 minutes. I’ll take that.”

I re-engage my ship’s cloaking device. The ship phases out of existence as I point the bow towards home.

Hey all! So I’ve been on jury duty for the past month which has given me a good deal of downtime from work. And since the girlfriend was away for the holidays and all, well…I honestly didn’t have any excuses not to play. It’s been fun getting back into things in Eve. I haven’t played in a long time and a lot has changed. A LOT. But it seems to all be for the better. See y’all in the sandbox!

A Lesson In Vigilance

I log onto Eve to find the home system quiet again. A ladar has presented itself and I decide to test out one of those new mining frigates. Snow has managed to harvest one cloud already and I’m left with a simple 5,000 unit C-28 for myself. The frigate performs marvelously. I just have enough time to restring my guitar before the cloud is put to bed and I begin searching for new ways to get into trouble.

I’m not too excited about our static. We’re in Caldari faction warfare and these systems are hot. Especially during the weekend peak hours. There are large roaming gangs of ships and they have no problem making a pit stop to pop you’re ship if they think you have anything even remotely valuable on you. I decide to use my Oracle and try to pop a few rats for some security gain.

I roam from system to system looking for rats while also trying to avoid gates. In order to use a gate you need to get close, and the Oracle likes to stay far away from everything. A well setup gate camp on and this ship is toast. I’m starting to get nervous with all the activity and decide to jump to a non-contested system in the hopes that it’s less busy. Of course as I emerge on the other side of the gate, I’m greeted by a Tornado 155 km off the gate with a Helios pumping up it’s scan resolution.

This is a pickle, two sniper ships separated by 155 km of empty space. I’m not confident enough in my damage output to want to engage him. The gate guns are also tantalizingly close and I’m not familiar enough with how they decide who to shoot when two ships are in combat. The sniper Oracle is fit specifically to have high agility to get out of situations like this. I bank on my fit, and align to warp as quickly as possible. The Tornado locks me and lets loose a volley which vaporizes my shields and takes a quarter of my armor with them. It feels like ages, but the Oracle finally enters the warp bubble and I reach the safety of a local station.

After a quick repair I’m back in the home system and thinking of how I can grab myself a sniping Tornado. I decide the Purif-i-core is the perfect ship. The cloak will allow me to get through his blockade while also sneaking up on his position. Assuming that is he’s still sitting in the same spot. I make my way back there and sure enough he’s there. I warp around a little to get myself as close as possible. I set my orbit distance and begin a slow stealthy approach. The whole while I’m still very worried about the gate guns. My Purifier hull won’t last long against those guns and I’m not sure if engaging him will bring about their wrath. He has a red background and white skull, whatever that means. The fucker shot my ship, I don’t see why the police would mind if I return the favor.

Just then a fucking shit storm arrives. At least 30-50 ships jump through the gate. They warp off in quick succession but surprisingly the Tornado fires off a couple shots. I can’t believe he’s engaging anything with this many potential hostiles in system. Why are you not running away!? Surely he’s at his keyboard. I can see the howitzers launching projectiles down range. I don’t know what this guy is doing but I know what is about to happen. I reverse thrusters and put as much distance between me and the Tornado as I can before the whole roaming fleet warps into his position.

Sure enough all hell rains down on the Tornado. It’s far from a fair fight, and farther still from one the Tornado should have been in. I’m not sure what his screen was showing him, but as soon as more than two ships came through that gate I would have been out of there. A lesson in vigilance and thinking ahead. Especially while camping a gate, you have all the time in the world to develop a plan for scenarios like a blob coming through your gate. Oh well. I didn’t get a kill but I saw some hilarious shit go down.

On top of that kudos to the ‘Help’ channel in Eve. I spoke with a few very helpful guys from that channel while I was getting ready to attack the sniper. The information they gave me on kill rights in lo-sec and how gate guns work was very helpful. I’m going to attempt to summarize what I learned at the bottom of the post here:

• Lo-sec Gate Guns will not engage you unless you attack a pod (I don’t know if this is true. I know I’ve definitely been shot when I attacked someone’s ship before, maybe this was changed in recent updates).
• Anyone can attack someone who has a suspect flag on them. I’m not entirely sure what the flag looks like. I was told it was a blinking yellow background with skull or a red skull with solid red background. I have to look into this further.

• Suspect Flag

  “Only applicable in Empire space, the Suspect Flag allows any other player to attack you without penalty for the duration of the timer. CONCORD will not spawn to defend you, gate guns will not defend you, and the attacker will not receive a reduction in Security Status. The Suspect flag lasts for 15 minutes, and actions that will activate the flag differ depending on the Security Status of the star-system.

  In high security space, you can acquire a suspect flag by stealing from a container or wreck, and by assisting (either by weapons, remote repair or drones) other players in possession of a Suspect or Criminal Flag, or players who have Outlaw status (-5 Security Status or lower). You can also be given a Suspect flag if a player activates a kill-right on you (see page about kill rights).

  In low security space, targeting a player’s ship (not their capsule) with any offensive module, including Smartbombs and other non-targeted weapons, will provoke a Suspect flag. Stealing from a container will also provoke the flag, though assisting outlaw players in low security space will not.”

   

Sleepers, Sleepers, Everywhere…

I log on after a really long day at work. I’m exhausted but I’ve managed to carve a few hours out of real life obligations to get to work in Eve. I see Snow and Kap are online and from the sound of it, Snow is trying to teach Kap the intricacies of planetary interactions.

Ah I remember being in his shoes like it was yesterday. I attend to my own planet’s needs. While moving my resources around I realize a large processing array I had constructed for POS fuel production a long time ago more or less remains dormant from day to day. I hit the books and find a new product I’m interesting in producing. A mere 20 minutes later has the infrastructure in place for my new industrial textiles factory. They don’t sell for much, but there was extra room on the grid, and the demand from my research shows some real potential.

New enterprises raised, I decided to check in on our neighboring C3 system. My Purifier enters the warp bubble and accelerates towards the bookmarked worm hole. The other side is tame to say the least. No ships, no probes, a derelict tower. Not much going on here. I see a few of the easier anomalies are in this system and decide to give those a go with my Harbringer. I figure why use up our system’s anomalies when I can easily steal it from the uninhabited neighbors?

I just about get through the second wave when I notice a probe pop up on scan. Time to leave! I’m lucky this pilot isn’t very intelligent. He should have seen both my ship and the wrecks on his scanner and run a blanket scan with his onboard scanner to find the anomaly I was in. I assume he launched his probes from further out and moved them into my d-scan range.

Either way I’m long gone before he finishes scanning. In fact I’m back in the system in my bomber. Kap is on our side of the wormhole in his Taranis just in case he decides to show himself in the home system. A Helios briefly shows up on scan. We wait around for another 10 minutes or so before deciding he isn’t interested in playing and we get back to what we were doing.

I finish up my anomaly and run one in our home system before calling it a night. The Sleepers continue to mangle my Harbringer every time those battleships show up. I can’t wait to get into my new strategic cruiser, but Oz won’t let me bring it into w-space until the super expensive armor repair module is fitted properly. Sigh, oh well. Nothing to do but log off and get some sleep. Hopefully tomorrow will be more exciting.