Tackling a tourist in a Tengu

Home has been raided again. It's our own fault really. We shouldn't store our Sleeper loot in the Sleepers, as they aren't that secure. And how secure does the home system currently look? Not great, with a second wormhole connecting in to us. Maybe the K162 leads to the class 2 w-space system of the raiders, but whether they stay awake or active, or if it's even the same system, remains to be seen. I jump through the wormhole to find out.

I see a tower but no ships on my directional scanner. What else is around? A messy system, that's what, with twenty-five anomalies and twelve signatures. I guess their anomalies are honey pots, if the locals stole our loot, and I can't really blame them. Class 2 Sleepers offer poor levels of plunder, certainly when compared to class 3 w-space systems and above. Actually, yes, I do blame them, and I want to shoot one as an act of revenge.

There's no one around to shoot at the moment, so I scan, both in the hopes of finding more wormholes and to pass the time, in case a local shows his face. No one turns up, but I find more wormholes. Four more, in fact, amongst the wealth of gas. The static exit to high-sec is expected, a K162 from class 4 w-space looks promising, and a pair of Z647 outbound connections to class 1 w-space could give me a soft target or two. I land by the wormhole to what I designate C1b, so head that way first.

D-scan shows me a Tengu and a tower, plus a whole load of Sleeper wrecks. How lovely! The strategic cruiser is hardly a soft target, but it looks to be a target all the same. Still, there is only one anomaly in the system, and it's an ore site, so if I am to find the Tengu I'll need to hunt it in probably a data or relic site. Or, because I am unlikely to be able to punch a hole through the Tengu's defences in my cloaky Loki strategic cruiser, I'll need to hunt the following salvager.

Well, the assumed following salvager, as I don't see one yet. I'll also need to launch probes, and although I think I manage to sneak out of d-scan range of the Tengu, once my probes are launched and have performed a blanket scan of the system it seems that the ship has left. Maybe that's a good sign, and the pilot will come back in a salvager. On this assumption, I start hunting a site full of wrecks. And I keep hunting the wrecks, once managing to warp further away from the site when meaning to get closer, and then having quite a time fiddling with d-scan to get a decent bearing.

Whilst I am busy the Tengu returns, along with some scanning probes. Did he see the wormhole open from C2a? I hope not, as I seriously dislike the dumb discovery scanner announcing my entrance, but I must continue with a positive attitude for now. There goes the Tengu and probes, and there are the wrecks. They are sitting in a narrow d-scan beam, range determined, and my probes neatly arranged around them. All I need now is the salvager to appear and I can grab him.

I wait and watch d-scan, and watch d-scan as I wait. I relocate to sit on the K162 back to C2a, in case the Tengu comes this way, or returns from going that way, but still I wait and watch. No salvager appears in the system, no ship comes or goes through the wormhole, and my probes are close to running out of time in space. With still no sign of a salvager I take a punt and scan where the wrecks are, but it must have been a basic anomaly, as I find no trace of a site. Damn.

The jig is up here, but there are more w-space systems to explore. I head back to C2a, and, before I warp across to C1a, update d-scan to see the Tengu in the system. Is he local? If he is, he's not at the tower. In fact, he's in an anomaly, one that's easily found. What's he doing? Shooting Sleepers, obviously, which I find out by warping in to take a look. I also see that he's a tourist from empire space, and it seems that his scanning found the wormhole and a new system to engage Sleepers in. Now, what can I do about it?

The tourist Tengu is moving at quite a clip, so I can't rely on dropping out of warp on top of him and will need to be stealthy. He will almost certainly have an active shield booster too, which means, as I'm flying solo, I'll be relying on energy neutralisers to get through his defences. That's a bit tricky, I think, as our two ship-killer Legion strategic cruisers are kinda paired. One does the damage and a bit of neuting, the other does the neuting and little damage. I head home and to our tower to see just how little it does.

A couple of small guns are going to take too long to kill a Tengu, even if it has no capacitor juice. We have some bigger guns, but the power requirements to fit them are too high. Still, I've never been known to fly a properly fit ship. I strip one of the armour plates off to reduce power requirements and let me fit a power diagnostic system, and take out the small guns and a small energy neutraliser to squeeze three bigger guns on. That seems to work, and the two heavy neutralisers should still suck the Tengu's juice well enough. If he's still there.

I jump back to C2a to see the Tengu still on d-scan, and warp to my perch in the anomaly where I saw him to see him again, only now without any Sleepers. That works even better for me. The Tengu is even near a wreck, making it trivial to warp closer. But the time I spend in warp has the pilot loot the wreck and burn towards the next, which explains a lot. He isn't planning on salvaging the wrecks, only looting them, hence my long wait for nothing in C1b. Someone should tell him that Sleeper salvage will be worth significantly more ISK than the loot from C1 and C2 Sleepers.

The Tengu is moving fast, certainly much faster than I can creep cloaked. But all is not lost. He loots the wreck and turns back to cross my path for the next. I plot an intercept course, wait until he's almost close enough, and decloak to spring the ambush. But he really is moving fast, and although I get a positive lock on the Tengu I am not close enough to engage my warp scrambler. Even burning my own micro warp drive has the Tengu move further away, as my engines take precious seconds getting up to speed. Even so, the pilot doesn't warp clear, instead moving to the next wreck to loot it. That seems like a mistake to me.

As the Tengu slows my Legion catches up, and finally my target's warp drives are disrupted. His micro warp drive is shut down too, which along with my stasis webifier slows the Tengu to a crawl. I've got him, can I kill him? I bring all my offensive systems on-line, and start sucking juice from the Tengu's capacitor as I plink away at its shields. He shoots back, naturally, and I am initially concerned at the damage I'm taking until I realise I'm in an armour boat. I don't need no stinkin' shields.

I can probably slow down a bit. Literally. I have kept my micro warp drive on, thinking that the increased speed will mitigate some missile damage, but it is also making my guns work harder trying to track the Tengu as I orbit it, and I think my armour will be okay for now. I also need my own capacitor juice to power the heavy neuts. I turn off the MWD and slow down to a steady orbit, which lets my guns land solid blows on the Tengu. They still don't do any real damage, not until the neuts work their magic and stop the Tengu from powering its defences.

His capacitor must be dry, as now the Tengu's shields are dropping. D-scan stays clear, so it really does look like this tourist is out here alone and it's just a matter of time before his expensive ship explodes. The discovery scanner brings in new pilots to w-space, so other capsuleers have argued, which gives more targets. It seems so, in this case. The pilot perhaps didn't understand the significance of the new signature appearing in C1b, otherwise he would have gone back to empire space. But I question the legitimacy of the claim, because I doubt this chap will be coming back to w-space again.

As I chew away at his armour, the Tengu jettisons a container. I don't know what's in it, and I don't really care right now. I'm still watching d-scan, checking that I'm still not in trouble—my armour and capacitor are still healthy—and waiting for the Tengu to explode. There he goes, with a beautiful loss of skill points to accompany the flames. I try to catch the pod, but without a sensor booster fitted I'm not surprised that it gets clear. In this case, the pod doesn't really matter. I just killed me a strategic cruiser.

It's a good kill, too. A Caldari Navy shield boost amplifier sits in the wreckage, but more impressively so does a Pithum C-type shield booster. That's an expensive piece of kit, thanks very much for surviving the explosion. And the poor tourist lost his 750 M ISK ship for the sake of maybe fifty million ISK in low-quality Sleeper loot. That's giving a generous estimate too, certainly without the accompanying salvage. I really doubt he's going to come back any time soon, not when he loses an order of magnitude more ISK than he takes, or he'll learn to bug out when seeing a new wormhole appear.

No, I don't think the discovery scanner is really helping bring pilots to w-space. I think it would be much better if the discovery scanner helped show wormholes to empire space pilots, and then refused to show them anything in w-space. The emptiness the pilot would see, the lack of reliance on the scanner to show the pilot what's out there, must surely help delineate the different regions of space and warn the pilot that they are entering deeply unknown territory. I'll take my 350 M ISK of loot back to our tower, thank you, but I won't expect many more kills like this.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: eve online, legion, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space