Discouraging action

Wormholes are opened, bookmarks available, let's take my stealth bomber out to see what's happening today. Our neighbouring class 3 w-space system seems immediately active, even if only implicitly by the presence of scanning probes on my directional scanner. A quick adjustment of d-scan's range gate puts them nowhere near our K162, giving me no immediate incentive to plant an interceptor on the other side as an ambush, and I move away from the wormhole and cloak to take a look around.

The tower in this C3 has already been found and noted, and I can warp directly to its position. I move some distance away from where I land and make my own bookmark, so that my colleagues and I won't bump in to each other if warping here independently, whilst noting a piloted Loki strategic cruiser sits inside the tower's shields. He's not staying there, though, but neither is he accelerating to warp. Instead the Loki crawls out of the shields and launches his own probes. Normally I'd say that sitting just outside of the tower to launch probes is a little careless, and even though a strategic cruiser is probably safe from a bomb or two it is still a poor habit to get in to.

The Loki adds his probes to those already in the system, making two scouts here, and neither of them looking to be in much of a hurry. Thankfully, along with an exit to null-sec k-space, there is a K162 coming in from class 5 w-space, giving me more to explore. I warp away from the tower in the C3 and jump in to the C5, seeing on d-scan a Chimera carrier and two Orca industrial command ships, along with a tower. Mick lets me know that those ships were sitting unpiloted at the tower when he scanned earlier, and my own visit to the tower shows that nothing has changed. The C5 is a vast system, though, d-scan barely covering a quarter of it, but even warping around to take a good look finds no activity.

In this system there is a further K162, heading to deeper C5 w-space, but my exploration is curtailed when I find the connection to be reaching the end of its natural lifetime. Despite it supposedly having over an hour of life left I'd rather not take the chance in my probe-less Manticore, and simply turn around to jump back to the C3. The first scout has been spotted briefly, a Buzzard covert operations boat looking at one of the two wormholes, but he does nothing that would let us catch him and is soon found inside the shields of the tower in the C3. The Loki is a more alluring target, too, perhaps having a buffer tank, if only we can catch him outside of the tower. We may even get our chance, as he warps with the Buzzard to what looks like one of the wormholes.

Mick warps his Arazu recon ship towards the Loki's position. He is confident his ship can disrupt both the Loki's warp engines and targeting systems enough for both of us to remain unaffected, whilst I throw torpedoes at the cruiser. It's not the best plan we've ever concocted, but it sounds reaonable enough to try, at least, and I confirm that I am warping to Mick's position for the attempt. Just as Mick decloaks to engage the Loki the strategic cruiser aligns and warps out, foiling our ambush before it even begins.

We've tipped our hand, although only Mick has been seen. He wonders whether the pilots will try to counter his appearance in the Arazu or if they'll just log off. I think they'll log off. They may have only seen Mick's ship, but an Arazu would not be attacking a Loki alone, so even though they don't know we were only and perhaps foolishly planning to attack with a Manticore the two pilots must suspect a bigger force is behind that single spotted ship. And although I'm not entirely right, as they don't log off, the Loki and Buzzard sit stationary at the tower, showing no sign of life. I have better things to do than wait for nothing to happen, so I head home for an early night.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: arazu, buzzard, chimera, eve online, loki, manticore, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, w-space