Sleeper magnet
22nd April 2011 – 5.13 pmThe constellation has been scanned, bookmarks are in the can, and Fin's heading out to sell Sleeper loot. Our neighbouring class 3 w-space system has two exits to low-sec empire space, one the outbound static wormhole and another inbound K162, giving us little to explore today. The C3 is apparently quiet too, even with an on-line tower in the system, but I think I'll take my stealth bomber out to take a look for myself.
Belay that roaming, cadet! New information continues to come, and I find out that one of the exits to empire space is close to Amarr. That's handy, as it means I can go out to collect my Widow, the black ops ship only being docked and abandoned yesterday after collapsing our wormhole got a little ahead of schedule. I strip down to my pod and make the two jumps to get to low-sec, another two jumps to high-sec, and six more to reunite me with the Widow. It's a simple matter to get my ship back home to w-space, no low-sec pirates waiting to ambush me and the C3 occupants remaining absent.
Safely home, I swap to my Manticore stealth bomber and lurk by the tower in the class 3 system, willing the locals to wake up and dozily collect planet goo, but it stays quiet. That's okay, there are a couple of radar and magnetometric sites waiting to be plundered, and Mak turns up as Fin returns from empire space herself. We cobble together a basic fleet of a Tengu and Loki strategic cruiser, and my Golem marauder to head out to shoot Sleepers up the exhaust pipe.
The magnetometric sites are rather more involved than the simple anomalies we have tended to prefer, with more Sleeper ships, warp-disrupting frigates, and easily confused wave sequences. It's nothing we can't handle, though. At least, I think it isn't. I concentrate on target painting and salvaging the wrecks of the smaller ships to start with, giving my colleagues a helping hand without accidentally shooting them, although I manage to blow up a wreck before I can salvage it.
When the battleships arrive I am a little frustrated that they loiter just out of range, preventing my torpedoes from doing their huge damage against these more massive targets. More importantly, Fin's Tengu starts to take heavy damage, ripping through her active shield tank. Her armour drops, and she even starts taking hull damage before finally warping out. The remaining frigate was scrambling Fin's warp engines, preventing her escaping sooner, and it is only with 28% structure left that she gets clear, which is a relief to us all.
Fin wisely decides to head home and repair all the damage to her ship before returning, leaving Mak and me to take care of the rest of the Sleepers. Luckily, I can get the battleships in range and start launching my own devastating attacks, and there are no more warp-disrupting ships to worry about. I also am glad I bought the Gist B-type x-large shield booster, as it is now saving my Golem from destruction. The impressive boost it gives to my shields, and for longer than even a puny large shield booster, easily withstands the Sleeper assault, so that Mak's Loki and my Golem end up being the only ships left in this first magnetometric site.
One site is cleared, Fin's Tengu is back to full health. We move on to the second site where there thankfully are no scramming ships to concern us. I am again reduced to target painting and salvaging for the most part, as the smaller frigates and cruisers pop pretty quickly with two strategic cruisers shooting them, although I add my Golem's weight to the destruction of the Sleeper battleships. My salvaging can't keep up with the explosions, though, and whilst I continue to sweep up Fin goes home, swaps ships, and returns to claim the Sleeper artefacts as our own.
My salvaging is soon complete, and I take the Golem back to our tower to drop the loot and swap in to a second analysing boat. Opening the Sleeper artefacts doesn't take long, Fin in the second site by the time I get back to help, and we're all home again and counting our profit in good time. We get about a hundred and fifty million ISK in loot and salvage, and over two hundred and fifty million from artefacts, giving us a rather splendid four hundred million ISK in profit for the two sites. This convinces us to attempt other magnetometric sites in the future, although if we want to realise the profits we probably need to be more wary of flaming Tengus.
2 Responses to “Sleeper magnet”
Bit of adrenaline for Fin eh?
There's no more sickening sound than the structure warning klaxons in a Strategic Cruiser when you're scrammed.
It was bad enough seeing her structure drop on the watch list. Losing a T3 to Sleepers would have been rough.