Late to the party

Fin's in her Legion and is pleased to see me. 'Oh, sure, now you get here.' I can sense her pleasure in other ways than mere language conveys. It seems Fin has been in a little dust-up with our current neighbours, engaging a Drake battlecruiser on our K162 in the class 3 w-space system next door, before a Pilgrim recon ship and Tengu strategic cruiser turned up to effectively chase her home. At least Fin still is in her Legion, not losing the strategic cruiser so soon after buying it, even if she doesn't get a kill herself either. If the ships had all turned up together, though, I imagine the Pilgrim would have been the primary target, and quite likely to pop.

Maybe our neighbours are still near the wormhole, and now that I am here we have more firepower to surprise them with. I have to admit that I'm not comfortable jumping through a wormhole to fight on someone else's terms, though. They could have different ships, or more pilots arrived themselves, and if our only escape is to get back through the wormhole it puts us at a disadvantage. If they can hold us on one side, they can hold us on the other. But curiously enough both sides are at a disadvantage in our respective home systems. Our pulsar phenomenon doesn't help our Legions' armour, and the cataclysmic variable in the C3 doesn't help their ships' shields. Neither side wants to jump through the wormhole, even if doing so boosts our systems or hinders the opponents'.

I say 'neither side', but Fin is keen to go back and provoke a response, now that she has her secret weapon that is me. I remain unconvinced of my status as 'protector' but board my own Legion and follow Fin to our static wormhole, leading to the C3. If Fin can lure the ships to engage again then we will have some advantage by adding my Legion to the fight. I will hold on our wormhole to start with, waiting to see what Fin finds on the other side, rather than showing our hand early.

As is often the case, nothing waits for us on the other side of the wormhole. Rather than wait for a surprise the pilots have wisely left, probably happy to have ousted the Legion from their system. I don't think they were really after a serious engagement as much as perhaps a lucky kill, or just to try to rescue their colleague in the Drake. Our wormhole isn't forgotten, though, as a little bit of loitering has a Dramiel frigate drop out of warp at long range from Fin, to orbit the wormhole. He's just keeping an eye on the situation, and Fin isn't silly enough to try to be pulled away from the wormhole to engage the fast frigate.

It looks like an impasse. The neighbours are happy to merely monitor what we do, no doubt to strike should we be stupid. We're not happy to be stupid, and it doesn't look like we can provoke our neighbours to be stupid in return. One remaining option is to collapse our wormhole and start again with new neighbours, but Fin sensibly decides against trying to push an Orca back-and-forth through the wormhole with a Dramiel around. We simply have to leave the situation at a stalemate. A promising start to the evening ends with us spinning our Legions back at our tower.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: drake, dramiel, eve online, legion, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, pilgrim, tengu, w-space