Late-night movements
2nd November 2011 – 5.43 pmI am about to warp homewards when I spot core scanning probes on my directional scanner. I've missed getting a good shot at a replacement salvager being brought back from empire space, because of a lapse of reasoning perhaps because of tiredness, but my curiosity remains. I hold on the U210 wormhole in our neighbouring class 3 w-space system and wait to see what happens. It's not long before an Anathema covert operations boat appears on the wormhole and loiters, just long enough to suggest the pilot is making a bookmark of the wormhole's precise position, before jumping to low-sec.
I doubt I can catch a cov-ops boat in my stealth bomber—particularly as I have a hard enough time in a more-capable interceptor—and settle to let the Anathema think he's found a safe route that takes him close to Dodixie, one that would be perfect to ship Sleeper loot along. He comes back and warps away, which I presume must be towards a new wormhole connecting in to this C3 but which instead looks suspiciously like he's going to our own K162. I follow behind and, sure enough, the Anathema jumps to the home system. We must have a new wormhole ourselves.
I jump back home and hold on the wormhole, curious to see if anything is happening here and hoping to get an advance look at whatever ships will follow the cov-ops boat. Sadly, the first ship to pass me is a shuttle, which I ignore as a possible target, much as I ignored the shuttle earlier in the C3, it being a bit too agile to guarantee capture. The next ship is at the other end of the scale, a Loki strategic cruiser being a little too much ship for my stealth bomber to engage, both in firepower and tank. But the Loki could be travelling to the C3 to pop Sleepers, with maybe a Noctis following behind. I'm curious to see if that's the case.
I'm not going to jump in to the C3 to check if the Loki is shooting Sleepers, because if he isn't I may end up jumping in to his path and blowing my cover. And if he is in combat then he is looting and salvaging by himself, as no salvager comes past me. Indeed, the next ship that comes my way returns from the C3, and I need to identify the class quickly to decide if I engage or not. Damn, what is it with capsuleers taking shuttles out and swapping them for Devoters tonight? That's the second of the heavy interdictors brought back from empire space, and the second I'll be ignoring.
No other ships come through our system to join the Loki, wherever he is, or to pick up more Devoters. Maybe Dodixie has run out of them. Neither does our home system show signs of activity, which gives some small hope that whichever system connects to our won't be stealing all the Sleeper loot from our anomalies this time, as I'd like to realise that profit myself, and soon. But with nothing happening it really is time to get some sleep. I swap back to my scanning strategic cruiser, park in a quiet corner of the system, and go off-line.
3 Responses to “Late-night movements”
On the Devoter topic:
There is a 50:50 chance the ship is buffer tanked, though sporting massive 153k EHP when it does. It has no drones, and it's weapons do low damage due to that not being part of the role it was designed for.
Whenever I undock my Devoter I'm scared of being pointed by something small and agile, as an orbiting Stealthbomber would only receive 0 to 10dps at 20km.
If I were in a bomber, I would engage.
If he points you and turns out to be active tanked, you can always MWD away from the slower cruiser hull and then warp, as even his mighty point cannot disrupt that.
Quiet your side of WH space as well it seems :).
Thought you might be interested in a new blog that we've just started up over here at RIFTW: http://throughthek162.blogspot.com/
Simular kinda of exploits to yourselves.
Keep up the stories! (And the gig reviews, seems you frequent the same kinda places in London as I used to :P )
T
Thanks, Talonaer, I'll be checking out your adventures.
As for the Devoter, Panthe, I would say your analysis is right, and I could have engaged, my Caldari heritage causing my reluctance. I was expecting a buffer tank but, being used to flying Caldari ships myself, naturally also expected it to be a shield buffer and subject to a decent recharge rate, and in this case boosted significantly by our pulsar phenomenon. Had I realised it would be an armour buffer tank and completely ablative then maybe I would have been encouraged to take a shot. I'll have to remember that for the next time.