Drakes hiding Covetors

Corporation changes are afoot. The wormhole engineers are separating from DGSE, which means careful manoeuvring of assets out in w-space as the transition to our new corporation is made. The opportunity is also taken to change from running a racial tower to a faction tower, which may cost more initially but uses less fuel, and less fuel means fewer logistic trips back to k-space. The faction tower also looks a lot cooler.

Our normal activites may be suspended during the changes, but general scanning and surveillance is not neglected. Some Drake battlecruisers are spotted on a wormhole in the neighbouring system, and I start wondering what we can do about them. I get in my Onyx heavy interdictor, and colleagues in a battleship and heavy assault cruiser join me in a fleet. Before we do anything, one pilot swaps for a covert operations boat and pokes her nose next door. There are apparently two warp disruption bubbles 'poorly placed' on the wormhole and no ships. But there may be some Covetor mining barges out and about, as well as a jet-can and a Bestower industrial hauler.

It is also noticed that the system holds a pulsar, which boosts ship shields significantly. As Drakes have a formidable shield tank, it is unlikely that a fight with them in the pulsar system will be quick. Besides, going out to look for a fight is probably not a good idea whilst trying to move towers in w-space, so we disband our hostile fleet and concentrate on the task at hand. For me, this seems to entail letting others sort out the details, although watching Orcas swoop back-and-forth is quite a majestic sight. And when scanner probes appear in the system, as noted on the directional scanner, then disappear again I swap in to a Buzzard cov-ops and head to the neighbouring system to see what's occurring.

Jumping through the wormhole I find that the two bubbles are indeed placed quite poorly, as I am engulfed by neither of them on my arrival, allowing me to warp off unmolested. I find the occupants' tower and see two Drakes and two Covetors there. There are two more of each ship elsewhere in the system, according to d-scan. A quick scan reveals one gravimetric site and one radar. The Covetor mining barges are not in the gravimetric site and wouldn't be in the radar combat site, so I don't know what's happening. I get a message that there are now Drakes sitting on the wormhole back to our home system. It's possible that the occupants have a couple of Covetors hidden in a safe-spot as a lure, hoping to snare capsuleers looking for easy miner kills. As the wormhole home is also now reaching the end of its natural lifetime I may as well head back.

I'll warp back to the wormhole via an inner planet or the star, in a bid to avoid the bubbles. But then my common sense gets thrown out the airlock as I warp to the wormhole at a range close enough for the bubbles to drag me in to them. I forget they can do that. Even so, their ineffectiveness becomes more apparent when they trap me because I am now within five kilometres of the wormhole and can jump immediately. None of the Drakes sitting on the wormhole even react before I'm back in my own system. There is not much else that I can do for the evening. I prepare to leave the corporation, so soon after celebrating my first year with DGSE but in a way that preserves continuity with the wormhole engineers. I log off in my cov-ops scanning boat in case of an emergency.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: bestower, buzzard, covetor, drake, eve online, mmorpg, onyx, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space