A picture's worth a few repping cycles

It's time to plunder more Sleeper sites. Our neighbouring w-space system is unoccupied, and full of cosmic signatures ready to be raided. We even have a solid fleet, with twin Guardians, three battleships and a heavy assault ship, to make combat quick and efficient. We warp as a fleet to the wormhole, jump through to the neighbouring system, and navigate to the first site. The fleet drops out of warp in the midst of what look like broken moons, but it doesn't hamper the start of our rampage through the system. I can already smell the profit.

There is a bit of trouble in the second site, but incidental to combat itself. With the fleet dropping out of warp near the Sleeper structures, and the waves of Sleepers approaching from further afield, there are opportunities to capture some excellent images. Although the lack of overview brackets can make spotting ships difficult, the best images are normally with the interface turned off, so that's what I do. I casually mention that I had plenty of time to turn the interface back on to repair the damaged Scorpion, and people get a little defensive.

I take care when a new wave of Sleepers arrives, because the incoming damage can move between ships a few times in the early stages of a wave, so I like to think that I am not being irresponsible. Besides, I get some fabulous images, even if they are mostly variations on a theme. It's difficult to capture different views from the same site, particularly as the Sleepers and fleet don't tend to be particularly mobile. But it's worth taking a little time, to capture the right balance of laser and missile fire, as long as my repairing duties are not shirked.

The problem with flying smaller hulled vessels alongside battleships is that we tend to enter and exit warp first during a fleet movement. Approaching the third site of the evening sees me and Fin alone for a few seconds, except for a couple of Sleeper battleships. We bounce off another structure, but there isn't time to navigate around it yet, as the Sleeper ships blast down our shields. The benefit of flying logistic ships is that instead of panicking about this, we simply lock on to each other and start our energy transfers and remote repair modules, repairing through everything the Sleepers fire at us. Our own battleships arrive soon enough, their damage distracting the Sleepers away from us, and the Scorpion's ECM jamming the Sleepers' systems.

We need to work on better warp-in bookmarks. The Zephyr has been used reconnoitre the sites we want to clear, the scanning ship ignored by Sleepers. The aim is to provide better warp-in locations, generally to place us within good range of any stationary Argos guns. But the limitation of only being able to warp a fleet to zero point means that bookmarking a nearby structure causes more problems than it solves, as we drop out of warp and bounce in different directions off the structure, our ships' emergency collision avoidance systems activating. It only provides a short distraction, though, as we can navigate around the structure. However, in the fifth site I forget that I am moving away from the structure until I am out of range of everyone. I move back towards the fleet again as quickly as I can, thanking the huge range bonuses the Guardian gets to its systems.

A sixth site is also cleared of Sleeper presence. We have no panics and only a couple of minor distractions. Although we don't clear the system of Sleeper sites, we come fairly close to doing so. All of the salvage and loot we swipe from the wrecks makes this a thoroughly successful night.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: eve online, guardian, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scorpion, sleepers, w-space, zephyr