Getting diverted
25th July 2011 – 5.16 pmMaybe I can spend a few more minutes here. 'Here' being the class 4 w-space system where a Tengu strategic cruiser and Orca industrial command ship have appeared on d-scan, previously unseen when I scanned my way through the system earlier. And now two Hulk exhumers and an Iteron hauler can be seen too. I like the look of this. I warp to the undefended tower to see them all safely nestled inside, and am now thankful I didn't loose a couple of volleys at it, as it would have created notification that may have discouraged the pilots from activity. As it is, I can see a jet-can labelled with a time on d-scan, strongly suggesting a mining operation is in progress. I assume the arrival of Sleepers has temporarily halted rock shooting, Sleepers that aren't quite as aggressive as in a C6.
I warp in to the gravimetric site that I resolved earlier and, sure enough, Sleepers are there. I bookmark the position of the jet-can and warp back to the tower to see what will happen next. The Tengu warps out, and I follow behind to see him despatch the Sleeper frigates, rather too efficiently. I don't have time to get in to decent range and coordinate with a recently arrived colleague to conspire to ambush the strategic cruiser, but that's okay, because I imagine we'll get a shot at some Hulks soon enough. And here they come, using a warp-in point to let them reach any rock in the site conveniently, but they all go to the same one.
A new can is jettisoned, which I bookmark, and I warp out and back in to get close without decloaking. My colleague is now in the system with me, out of d-scan range at the distant wormhole, and we are ready to strike. I get closer, closer, until I am well within warp disruption range, and I call in my colleague to warp directly to me. I refresh d-scan continually until I see his Tempest battleship appear, give it another couple of seconds, and then spring in to action myself. I decloak my Tengu, burn towards the oblivious miners, and start targeting.
I aim first for the Iteron. It's a lower-value prize but also a much softer target. My plan is to pop it quickly and move on to a Hulk, with my colleague hopefully catching another so we can get more ships than we have warp disruption modules. The Iteron is crushed under my missile fire, helped by the system's magnetar phenomenon, but I pause to see if I can catch the ejected pod. I can, and I brutally slaughter the sluggish capsuleer, even though it means other ships warping clear. The two of us are still able to prevent one of the Hulks from fleeing, though, and that one doesn't last long under our combined fire, and again I am able to stop the pilot's pod from escaping his burning wreckage.
Out of all the ships in the site we only get the Iteron and Hulk, and although we also get their pods I am not sure which result is preferable. Forcing pilots in to new clones seems like a good result to me, but ISK loss seems to be a primary aim for most other organisations. Either way, I could also have been clearer about calling separate targets for me and my Tempest-flying chum, which may have snagged us a second Hulk. But we get two ship kills and two pod kills, which is a rather splended end to a fair bit of scanning, and I scoop, loot, and shoot the wrecks to leave nothing left for the locals to recover. I cloak and we wait, but there is no retaliation from the Tengu seen earlier. The pilots simply sit in the tower, sending out only a lone Helios cov-ops boat, either to scan or to keep an eye on us.
The two of us warp homewards, and I finally reach our class 5 w-space system again. But before I finally take a break I fancy having a quick look at what's happening in the class 6 systems behind us. C6a is still empty and quiet, and warping to the next K162 puts me only in empty space. It seems that the occupants of C6b collapsed their static connection to isolate themselves, probably after I tried to assault their scanning Buzzard. I suppose they didn't want to perform logistics through actively hostile systems, but surely they have to expect that when living in a C6. At least we don't have to worry about them either, and I turn around, jump back to the C5 bivouac, and take a break for food.
2 Responses to “Getting diverted”
Could have pointed a Hulk while shooting the Itty, hoping to kill him before he could align out. If it worked, great. If not, you'd still probably have gotten both Hulks.
Alternately, from the pilot names it looks like the Itty was the dead Hulk's alt, so if you could have seen which one was actively doing something you could have gone for him first, figuring the other was alt-tabbed out, giving you some time to switch once the first went down. That may have freed one of you up to nail the other Hulk as well.
That's a good point about the alts, I'll have to remember that.
I could have got at least one more Hulk had I not concentrated on the pods, I'm sure. I like having new guests for my corpse tea parties.