Better Scouting

The other day I was scouting in my Helios. I don't remember if I was scanning down a chain or just patrolling an existing one, but I noticed a couple of industrial ships in the open on DSCAN. It was an Iteron V and some sort of rock-chewing ship.

As expected they were at an ore site doing their thing. The Iteron had a flight of T1 hobgoblins out. I don't know if it was out of boredom or if it was supposed to be some sort of deterrent, but either way it was pretty useless.

I wormed my way through the asteroid field toward the two ships to get into warp scrambler range and called for our fleet. While they formed up in another system I continued to relay intel, which was pretty boring: "No movement and they're still shooting rocks."

As the fleet traversed the wormhole I decloaked for a bump and point on the Iteron. The fleet landed and the carebears were issued tickets for the HS Express. I made sure to get on the kills with my point.

So, here's what I learned from that experience. I need to switch out my scrambler for a disruptor. The extra range on a disruptor would've been very useful here and I think is better suited for light/scout tackle.

The second issue I have with my performance during that engagement was sticking around to get on the kill mails like a whore. In most cases it doesn't matter and I don't think it really mattered in this instance, but we are creatures of habit and it's better to do the right thing all the time, not just only "when it matters."

I should've held my point and bumps only as long as it took for the Hictor to arrive and as soon as the bubble went up I should've disengaged and cloaked. The reason I say  this is because as a scout my role is to provide intelligence and support, not charge in with the heavy cavalry when it arrives.

That may be debate-worthy to some people, but if you think of it in terms of roles and then translate those roles to the real world you get something like a recon unit relaying SITREPS, calling fire missions and only when necessary do they engage targets themselves.

Frigid Satellite Disassembly Company

After about a month or so of being on my own, diving into wormholes from hi-sec I've returned to Cold Moon Destruction and found them in nearly the same condition I found them the first time: living in a class 5 system with a static to class 4 wormhole space. They've also rid themselves of a lot of dead weight by abandoning a necrotic alliance.

At any rate, I've been busy since returning to my true internet spaceship home and I look forward to the greatness I'm sure we'll be accomplishing on our own in the near future.

As for the rest of you hole-probing internet spaceship nerds, please fill your hulls with PLEX and exotic dancers before re-entering Bob's holy space.

Welcome to class!

So after creating this new corporation of my, Tenebrous Effect, for those of you that may be interested in joining in on the ground floor of a scrub corp like this (or not), I decided to do a bit of hi-sec diving. Odyssey has just recently been released after all and there would be plenty of poor nubs eager to learn their first lessons in w-space.

It didn't take long to find an incoming K162 from a class 2 wormhole. I jumped in and saw that someone was already scanning. In the process of creating a safespot I noticed a lone Caracal on dscan toward the outer planet. Naturally, I abandoned the prudent course of action in favor of a more aggressive tactic.

The Caracal was sitting about 100 kilometers off of the customs office and with his probes still out I figured there was little chance of him keeping an eye on the directional scanner so I decloaked and engaged.

First kill of the evening: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=18135021

Once dispatched I sent him the obligatory "gf" and went on about my business: setting up a safe and observation point near the local POS. It looked like they ran sites fairly regularly and I wouldn't turn down an easy kill.

It didn't take long for the next new explorer to roll in from hi-sec. He was sporting a brand new Caldari faction Heron and like his predecessor figured that no one would see him at the outer planet even if he was uncloaked.

I found this poor soul chilling out at a site near the outer planet. A bump gave me all the time I needed.

Second kill:

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=18136841

I was somewhat disappointed with the loot drops so far, but to be honest I wasn't expecting all that much. These were simple nubs after all. But still, how is it that everyone else always finds those morons who carry PLEX?

I had left both of these wrecks untouched. I'm still not sure if that's such a great move or not. It does act as a bit of bait, but I'm thinking it might give away more information than it's worth. In hindsight, now that I think about it, leaving the wrecks was probably a stupid move. People can look up the kill on killboards and figure out what I'm flying.

Yep. Definitely stupid.

After this I went back to observing the locals. There was one or two logged in, but as far as I could tell they were perma-afk. I kept an eagle on them though. You never know when someone's going to do something incredibly stupid.

After a few more minutes of watching the locals though there was another newcomer from hi-sec. A Moa this time. That was good. I was getting tired of blowing up pitiably defenseless frigates.

Amazingly I found the Moa at the outer planet. Whether he was attracted there by the wrecks or by ignorance of the threats lurking in Anoikis I can't say. Yet there he was at that same site I'd made my last kill.

I have to give him credit though. He was aligned, but nothing that a simple bump couldn't take care of. Once engaged this guy quickly turned to the offense and opened up, but he just didn't have the firepower to break through my Proteus's elite shield buffer? What?

Third and fourth kills from that chap:

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=18137855

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=18137854

New Digs

There've been a few changes since the last post: I left my homosexual brothers-in-arms, Cold Moon Destruction. Those guys are probably the closest thing I've encountered in EVE to what the personal relationships are like in the Marine Corps: total debauchery!

At any rate, I've struck out on my own for the time being. Without a home in w-space I've pretty much been stalking other people and preying on those who don't know any better. Just today I've killed three people who were out exploring from Amarr and though they thought enough to fit the probe launcher none of them bothered with cloaking devices.

A few old friends have invited me to join up with them so far. I'll probably play it stubborn for a few weeks and see what I can't make happen in this scrub corp I've got going right now.

Countertrap on Hisec

I love combat in w-space. In my opinion it's the best in the game. There are some instances though when people generally avoid combat in w-space, such as on a wormhole that leads to high security space, but it does happen from time to time.

One such opportunity presented itself yesterday. A Transmission Lost pilot, Draconic, was utilizing a hi-sec wormhole that was at the other end of a chain which opened up as a K162 into our system; he was moving in some ships and supplies and had garnered the attention of a small Wayward 7 gang.

On his way out Draconic, our resident pedo-bait by the way, spotted a Harbinger and Drake sitting on the hi-sec side of the wormhole. I decided to go sit on the w-space side of that wormhole and keep an eye on things. Not long after I arrived in my covert Proteus a Phobos landed on the wormhole and bubbled up.

Now I'm not sure what these guys were thinking would happen. It's possible that they were waiting for Draconic to get back and try to kill him when he jumped back into the wormhole, but were they under the impression that he would jump in with a Harby and Drake chilling out at the hole? If so he would be able to jump right back out. Maybe they were hoping some other ships would be coming to access hi-sec and the ships in k-space would jump in, but why leave them in k-space? It's not like someone watching d-scan would jump to the wormhole with a Phobos on it, but not with the two battle-cruisers. Like I said, I don't know what they were thinking.

Nevertheless, I did intend on killing them. Draconic was on his way back with a heavily-tanked bait-Abaddon and while I was waiting I'd also seen a Tengu arrive and cloak up on the hole. It was obvious these guys had no idea I was there, which was perfectly fine with me. They were under the impression that they were going to net some easy kills in this "tarp" of theirs.

Guys from Loveshack, our home system, were already shipped up and sitting on the other side of the wormhole one system back.

A few minutes later Draconic jumped through the wormhole. Remaining cloaked I moved toward the wormhole, but kept my distance. We could never kill the Phobos since he could jump the wormhole as soon as he got in trouble. I waited for the Tengu to decloak then dropped my own cloak and immediately engaged him. Draconic's Abaddon drew the Harbinger and Drake in behind him.

At this point a hostile Proteus decloaked and engaged us, but our own gang was coming onto grid and the enemy began to flee through the wormhole to hi-sec. Unfortunately, their Harby had followed the Abaddon too far off of the wormhole and could not make it back before his ship and pod were destroyed.

While we looted the field a Wayward 7 Hound decloaked and launched a bomb. Bravo, sir! Once again I have no clue what you were thinking, but who am I to judge?

Late Nights

Writing the title to this post I immediately started thinking of a song from Aladdin: Arabian Nights. I can't stand that movie, but I really like that song. Anyway...

I've managed to work out a less-than-ideal solution to my recent lack of play-time on the home front (ie with the wife). Due to my work schedule I can't really stay up late and night during the week, which really forces me to get in all my gaming on the weekends. Since that is the case I've gotten the clear to stay up all night on Friday's and I won't be bothered Saturday. I can sleep in until mid-afternoon.

Now, while I can play all night and into the morning on Friday night/Saturday morning, that's not really how I like to do things. I'd much rather have a few hours on several days throughout the week, so let this be a lesson to you younger gentlemen who probably have never seen a women naked without paying for it: just don't get married! If you don't want to take my word for it then at least take the advice of the great and powerful Sam, possibly one of the wisest cocaine sages of the 1980's.

Existential Blue Balls

Last night was interesting in a fail kind of way. I logged into to find that we had a possible fight with Existential Anxiety (EA), a group that has become something of a pet project for Transmission Lost over the last few months. I'm not sure what lead up to this possible fight, but they knew we were there and we knew they were there and everything looked pretty good, so I hopped into my Proteus and headed down the chain.

I had to travel through two systems in k-space, which should be renamed suck-space, but when there are fights to be had suck-space is of no consequence. After those two systems I dived back into the beloved unknown and we gathered the fleet in EA's home system.

For a while there we thought they were actually going to fight us. I had about an hour before I needed to log which was plenty of time to blow some people up and get back to Loveshack. In the end they simply wasted about an hour of our lives. First their excuse was that we had too many people.

Are you serious?! You and two thirds of wormhole space, outnumbering us 6-to-1, invade our home and burn it to the ground and now you don't want to fight outnumbered yourselves?

Then they said they would fight a 10v10. While we mulled this over they took ten ships and moved them to the hi-sec wormhole. EA, why would you do this? Do you think we would come and fight you on the hi-sec wormhole? I think this got me pissed off more than anything else.

But it's okay. It's all fine. You don't like to fight unless victory is assured. When victory isn't assured you'll fight on a hi-sec wormhole so you can just jump to safety. Good. Insidious Design played these stupid Mickey Mouse games. They ran their mouths and made a lot of talk and hid inside POS's, wouldn't fight outnumbered and all that.

I would like to introduce EVE to the new punks of wormhole space: Existential Design! I hope everyone gets a good look because they won't be around much longer.