Simple Sleeper slaying

Glorious leader Fin is in our connecting class 3 w-space system. 'Occupied, no one home, low-sec.' Situation normal, then. We form a fleet and I am guided to the wormhole leading out to low-sec, able to find the static wormhole in our home system as Fin copied the bookmark to our shared can before jumping out. She's rather better at doing that than me, I tend to get excited by the prospect of a new day's exploration and head straight through the wormhole. Whilst warping across the C3 to the wormhole a check of my notes reveals I've been in this system before, the last visit eight months ago having the exit lead out directly to the New Eden system. As Fin continues scanning I check today's exit, which again is in the Genesis region but not New Eden itself this time.

I jump back and locate the tower, different from the one the last time I was here, and bookmark its position, before scanning to help resolve the last few signatures. My effort is minor today, though, Fin scouring the system for any signatures of interest. All we have are a few mining sites, and a magnetometric and radar site, no further wormholes. There are also seven anomalies ready to be plundered of Sleeper loot, and we suit up to run them, returning home to swap our scanning ships for Tengu strategic cruisers. We are both running HAM configurations today, but the reliance on heavy assault missiles shouldn't be a problem for two of us. Alone, HAMs can run foul of webbing Sleeper cruisers able to keep their distance from the short-range missiles, but when one of us gets webbed the other can burn in to range and continue to attack the Sleepers.

The first anomaly goes just as I imagine it. One Tengu is webbed heavily and cannot close with the Sleeper cruisers, allowing the unaffected second Tengu to get close and destroy the cruisers. It makes combat a little less interesting for Fin, being webbed, but at least we don't need to reconfigure our ships for longer-range heavy missiles just for two annoying Sleepers. Moving in to the second anomaly also puts our directional scanners in range of the local tower. We are given more warning should a capsuleer wake up, but it also makes our presence more obvious. I think I prefer seeing others appear, rather than let them warp cloaked out of the tower to find us covertly.

The second anomaly also makes me realise that there is only one Sleeper battleship across all of the three waves. Battleships provide the best Sleeper loot, if not necessarily salvage, and only having one in each anomaly reduces our potential profits significantly. Once the last ship here is destroyed I warp our little squad to the next anomaly, choosing a different type for our third. Two battleships is better, granting over five million extra ISK in guaranteed loot, but only if we recover it, and a briefly seen Cheetah covert operations boat on d-scan gives us pause for thought. We continue to take down the final ship, the second battleship, knowing that the presence of Sleeper Argos guns protects us a little, but bugging out immediately afterwards.

We warp home, Fin swapping in to a Noctis salvager, and I a Pilgrim recon ship to protect her. Jumping back to the C3, I check the local tower for activity, still finding it sleepy, before Fin starts salvaging the wrecks in the first anomaly. There are also no probes visible, so it is possible that the Cheetah came in from low-sec, saw two Tengus, and went back to low-sec straight away. There is no guarantee that this is the case, though, and when Fin successfully brings home three anomalies' worth of loot I take my own cov-ops in to the C3 to look for new signatures. A blanket scan reveals no new signatures, reinforcing the idea of a low-sec tourist simply taking a look around.

I jump back home and warp to our tower, where Fin waits in her Tengu. I have to advise you, I tell her, of the risk in going back when an unknown ship has been spotted but not identified. 'Oh? I am immortal.' There's not much I can say in reply to that, particularly as she is in a relatively new clone, so I too board my Tengu again. As we warp back to the wormhole to the class 3 system Fin lets me know that, 'by the way, it could be dangerous'. Okay then.

As it turns out, we complete three more anomalies before my tummy starts rumbling for food, no further unknown or hostile ships seen. I ask whether we should run one Noctis with protection again, but the desire to get food is clear. We run with two Noctises, 'get done and get out' being the philosophy of the moment. And we certainly do get done quickly, the Noctis salvager still managing to impress me with its sheer levels of efficiency. I fear training the ORE industrial skill to level four, as my head may explode in astonishment. All the wrecks are salvaged, the loot is returned home, and we are almost a quarter-of-a-billion ISK richer for our time.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: cheetah, eve online, mmorpg, noctis, penny ibramovic, pilgrim, scanning, sleepers, tengu, w-space