Pengu and the Sleepers
1st August 2010 – 3.03 pmOnly one bookmark sits lonely in the can. It must point to our system's static wormhole but warping to its location puts me next to the cosmic signature and not the big sucky centre of the wormhole. It wasn't active, I have fresh systems to explore. I jump through to our neighbouring class 4 w-space system to find it devoid of capsuleer presence. Launching probes detects a suspiciously strong signature that I would normally dismiss as a mining site but turns out to be a fat connection to a class 3 system. Jumping through brings me to another unoccupied system, one that intelligence suggests holds a wormhole that connects to low-sec empire space.
With eight anomalies in the class 3 system I don't scan for the wormhole but instead keep it closed, deciding to bring Pengu out to shoot some Sleepers. There is a wolf rayet phenomenon in the system, which boosts armour resistances and reduces shield resistances—good for Sleepers, bad for a Tengu—but a strategic cruiser should still have little trouble overcoming Sleeper ships in a C3. I can at least try. I have no colleagues available to help so it will be Pengu versus the Sleepers.
I warp back to the tower, copying my newly made bookmarks to our shared can, and swap my Buzzard covert operations boat for the Tengu. I make sure my hold has plenty of missiles and head back to the C3. I check my shield resistances and they don't look great, but my tank should be able to cope. After all, Pengu has survived the firepower of Sleepers in a C4 anomaly. I warp in to the the first wave of Sleepers and even though I am webbed by the frigates, slowing my speed down considerably and thus making me more susceptible to damage, I barely have to run my shield booster to replenish my shields. Of course, I could run the booster permanently if necessary but I like getting a sense of what I can withstand.
The first wave of Sleepers is cleared easily enough but the second wave becomes embarrassing. I am left with two Sleeper cruisers both webbing me. My top speed has been reduced so much that the cruisers can maintain their optimum range, which is beyond the range of my heavy assault missiles. It's a stalemate. I have to warp out and try something different. I fit an overdrive module to boost my top speed but the cruisers only mock me further, showing how they have engine power in reserve to maintain their distance from my missiles. Maybe they can stay out of range of heavy assault missiles but ordinary heavy missiles fly for much further.
I refit Pengu with heavy launchers and head back to the anomaly where the two taunting Sleeper cruisers wait. This time their stupid insectoid systems get obliterated by the longer-range heavy missiles, my Tengu not even needing to move to rain fiery doom on both ships. The third wave of Sleeper ships appears and I keep my heavy missile fitting, destroying the webbing ships first out of spite. I target all the cruisers to leave the single battleship for last. With the wolf rayet phenomenon boosting the Sleeper's armour I am expecting the fight with the battleship to take a while by myself. I put Pengu in to a lazy orbit around the Sleeper ship and start shooting.
Eventually the Sleeper battleship explodes and I am left alone with a bunch of wrecks. It is possible to engage Sleepers solo in a wolf rayet C3 system but it is too slow to remain interesting for me. Instead of moving to a second anomaly I warp back to the tower to get my salvaging Cormorant to collect all the loot. I return with just shy of thirty million ISK in profit. But I also have a colleague arrive, who has his own strategic cruiser. With a second ship the anomalies can be cleared much more efficiently, which makes the investment in time more worthwhile. I am tempted back to shoot more Sleepers in my Tengu, now joined by a Legion.
The Sleeper ships are destroyed more quickly with two strategic cruisers. Being slowed down by webs is not as much of a problem either, as the Sleepers cannot web and keep out of range of both of us at the same time, so we don't have any of the problems I had earlier. Three anomalies are cleared quickly but I find I am running out of missiles at a faster rate than I expected. A rough calculation shows that Pengu can fire approximately six thousand missiles an hour. I need to buy some more. As it happens, the exit to low-sec space was found and opened earlier by my colleague, who needed to get another capsuleer back in to w-space, and the bookmark is available back at the tower.
As my colleague salvages the anomalies that we cleared I board my Crane transport ship and head to low-sec space, looking to buy missiles. The system the exit wormhole leads to is nowhere near any major market hub and it is too late in the evening to travel far, but I am able to buy and collect about fifteen hours worth of missiles for my Tengu. Getting back to the tower in w-space is a doddle in the Crane and I drop off the missiles before heading to bed.
2 Responses to “Pengu and the Sleepers”
Appears you need to frequently buy missiles and have to head to empire space to do so. Not all that familiar with all the various missiles on the market or what a Tengu uses for missiles but how hard would it be to actually manufacture the missiles there in the WH or any other frequently used ammo so don't have to make frequent ammo trips to empire?
It's surprising how many missiles you can cram in to the back of a Crane transport ship. I can probably get a couple of months' worth of ammunition and supplies from a single visit to k-space, so I don't need to visit too often.
The corporation has set up an ammunition and drone assembly array at our tower which, along with ore mined from local gravimetric sites, lets us manufacture most of the consumables used when fighting Sleepers. We can't be entirely self-sufficient but we can reduce our reliance on finding good exits to k-space.