Continuing with a Catalyst

Our neighbours are alerted to our presence. Podding their salvager in their home system will do that, I suppose. Our hopes to simultaneously strike an analysing boat in a magnetometric site don't quite go according to plan, at least for us, when a Vagabond cruiser interferes with the coordinated bombing runs across that site and the anomaly where the Noctis salvager is popped. Both Fin's and my Manticore stealth bomber get away safely, though, and we are pondering our next move.

The assault against their analsyer caused it to warp out of the magnetometric site and a Crow to come in, the interceptor suitably effective at deterring further action from us at the moment. The Crow and Vagabond pick the wrecks of the Sleepers for loot, although neither is fitted to salvage them, and once this is complete all the ships warp out of the site. With this, Fin and I warp out too, forced now to monitor activity using our directional scanners so that we don't prevent the site from despawning.

Fin keeps an eye on the site, I warp to the outer planet where an active tower sits out of d-scan range. All the ships from the site are at the distant tower, and remain inactive until after the site despawns, at which point the Tengu strategic cruiser, Vagabond, and Crow all warp out. The Vagabond and Crow enter the despawned site, where Fin is now watching and waiting from a suitable distance, the Tengu pilot swapping his ship at a second tower for a Catalyst destroyer before warping to the site too.

I check that it is safe to warp close to Fin's position in the site from my location—to avoid being unintentionally decloaked—which she confirms, and I join the other ships. Despite our previous two-pronged attack, and the obvious presence of the Crow and Vagabond, our situation looks favourable for another attack. The Crow is inexplicably distant from the ship it is presumably meant to be guarding, and although the Vagabond is closer to other wrecks it is moving away from us. Our Manticores, on the other hand, are outside the cluster of wrecks but within bombing range of the salvager. We both agree that this is too good an opportunity to ignore.

We manoeuvre to maintain a suitable range of around forty kilometres—close enough for a bomb's explosion to hit the target whilst maximising our distance from the threats—and align towards the Catalyst. We hold for a few seconds to let the Vagabond crawl a little further away, and decloak and launch. We have both chosen a planet to warp to, and align and warp out of the site cleanly a few seconds after the bomb launches. It all looks good, but neither of us gets any damage notification, even though I see my bomb detonate just as I enter warp.

It all seems anticlimactic. We warp out as a precaution against losing our own ships, but we don't even get to witness the results. We're not even sure that we hit the Catalyst, or if our ships need to be on-grid for the detonation to be effective. But a cursory check of d-scan, to see the repercussions of our continued assault against this corporation, reveals the implicit destruction of the salvager, as now I see the Catalyst pilot's pod and no sign of the ship. And, indeed, the details of the kill are reported to our corporation's interface.

Excellent! Another successful bombing run, and under the noses of aware capsuleers and an active interceptor. On top of that, although perhaps not to be celebrated, we have negated pretty much all of the combat the capsuleers have done this evening. The destruction of the Noctis saw all the loot from the anomaly either destroyed or transferred in to my hold, and now the salvage from the magnetometric site is gone. At least their analyser wasn't blown up, and they recovered the Sleeper loot separate from the salvage in that second site.

'We probably should think about getting out with our two kills', Fin suggests. Yes, let's cheese it. It seems like a good idea even before a Purifier stealth bomber appears on d-scan before disappearing, no doubt cloaked and roaming itself. We both jump home, dump our ill-gained loot, and reload the bombers ready for a future ambush. Fin also points out that, with our third strike against this corporation, we have perhaps turned in to Pod Patrol.

I don't know if that's interesting or worrying. We occasionally encountered Pod Patrol in our previous class 4 w-space home, and each time they were rather more experienced and skilled, leaving us in pods or new clones after the engagement. But without Pod Patrol we would unlikely be the pilots we are today. We may not have appreciated it at the time but getting hit like that made us harden up. Maybe in time this corporation will feel the same way.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: catalyst, crow, eve online, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, purifier, pvp, tengu, vagabond, w-space