Taking on a Tengu

There's been some churn at home, with some new signatures coming in to the system from wherever. I launch probes and scan to determine what we've got, resolving a couple of gas sites and some relics, which suits me fine. Out to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system I go. Or do I? We've got an isolated system and a new anomaly that I could pillage for ISK. Okay, let's keep the iskies flowing.

I warp to the tower, swap to the Golem marauder and check its ammunition stores, and warp out to the anomaly. Why does Jack Harper swap from the flyer to a motorbike? He abandons the vehicle that is armed, armoured, and can see far and wide from the sky, for a slower, more vulnerable bike that restricts his field-of-view, precisely when he is trying to track a lost unit.

Not only that, but he leaves the flyer apparently unguarded and far out of visual range, when he knows that there is hostile interest in it. And why? Because he wants to ride a bike, apparently. There isn't even an automated function for the flyer to follow him, so he has to ride—or walk, as it turns out—all the way back to the flyer afterwards. It's almost as egregious a use of superfluous technology as Picard wanting to ride the dune buggy.

I get the Golem back to the tower, sweep up the last of the wrecks in a destroyer, and pull in around ninety million ISK in loot. That's not too shabby. Now to open the wormhole. Back in my Proteus strategic cruiser, warp to our wormhole, and jump to C3a. Updating my directional scanner sees nothing interesting, although timers in space indicate the customs offices have come under assault recently. They still have hours before dropping out of reinforced mode, though, and I'll be long gone by the time anyone comes back for them.

Launching probes and performing a blanket scan of the system reveals seven anomalies, seven signatures, and two ships. Two ships! I'd better find them. My notes from under three months ago don't help, as the tower listed should already be in range, but I can get close to the ships by following their signatures under my probes. I get to the right planet and see an Anathema covert operations boat, Tengu strategic cruiser, and a tower that, given the lack of wrecks, probably holds them.

I locate the tower expecting to see both ships and instead only see the Anathema. The Tengu is gone, and properly gone, as it no longer shows up under my probes. That gives me a minute to appreciate just how bare this tower is. I could probably break it by casually bumping my ship in to the force field a few times. I won't, though, not with a Helios cov-ops appearing whilst I daydream. It's swapped for a Tengu, maybe the Tengu, which is interesting.

I'm curious to see if the Tengu will do anything. I try to take a closer look at the ship but am not able to. I know why that is, the ship is accelerating for warp. I see which way he goes, which isn't too surprising, seeing as we're on the edge of the system, and I open the system map to match his vector to a definite point. I am almost expecting the Tengu to be on its way to our K162 that the pilot scanned in his Helios, thanks to the discovery scanner, but it seems not. The strategic cruiser's vector has it headed directly for an anomaly.

It's possible the blip in the pilot's continuity in space has made him oblivious to the new signature in the discovery scanner. Let's see what I can do about that. I warp to the anomaly, dropping short to try to make a perch, and see the Tengu engaging the first wave of Sleepers. He's moving a little, but not much and not quickly. A couple of Sleepers are popped to make wrecks I can use as beacons, but how do I proceed?

I could go home and swap for our ship-killing Legion strategic cruiser, but the wormhole is within d-scan range of this anomaly. Even though the pilot hasn't spotted our K162's signature popping up, I can't rely on him not watching d-scan. My other option is to engage directly in my covert Proteus. Well, I suppose this is why I bought it, and even if I don't have enough firepower to break the Tengu I should be able to disengage safely. Let's do it.

I warp in to the site and start approaching the Tengu under cloak. Only a couple of Sleeper frigates remain in the site, which is probably better than having many. Sure, they're shooting the Tengu now, helping me, but they'll turn on my Proteus soon enough and I'd rather not have that added pressure. I'm in range, it's time to reveal myself. I decloak, get a positive lock, and engage the Tengu.

I disrupt the Tengu's warp drives, web him to a crawl, and start shooting, launching a flight of drones to increase my damage. The Tengu's shields are already dropped to about 70% and my blaster fire is helping to keep them dropping steadily. I don't try anything fancy to mitigate the incoming damage when the Tengu returns fire, as I am trusting my chunky armour to do all the work. I need to concentrate on inflicting maximum damage.

I add a bit of overheat to my guns just to speed up the damage a bit, nothing too much, and keep d-scan updated in case help comes. I ping my probes occasionally too, with their greater reach. All looks fine for now. My drones start taking damage, which I first take to be the Tengu weirdly targeting them instead of me, but realise that the Sleepers don't like them. That's fine, I recall that flight and launch another to keep up the damage.

I apply a touch more overheated damage to the Tengu at its shields' peak recharge point, and drop him to low shields without much fuss. Now I'm hitting the Tengu's armour, which, being Caldari technology, generally means the ship is going down. This is when d-scan shows me a Navy Vexor cruiser in the system, no doubt on its way to this anomaly. Not wanting to be here when it lands, I overheat my guns again, blasting chunks off the Tengu's armour.

Here comes the Navy Vexor. It's in the site but not on top of us. I ought to find out where it is, increase my situational awareness, and focus my attention on finding it. There he is, some distance away, launching drones. I'm not sure I want to hang around for this. I turn my attention back to the Tengu only to see a pod instead. I didn't see the explosion, but I bet it was good, and I can see the wreck. I have destroyed the Tengu. Now to split.

I initiate warp back to our K162, my perch not being far enough away, and recall my drones. The Vexor is too far to stop me, if he even can, and my drones are fast enough to make it back before I enter warp. One dead Tengu, no losses. That was rather exciting.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: anathema, eve online, golem, helios, mmorpg, oblivion, penny ibramovic, proteus, pvp, scanning, sleepers, tengu, vexor, w-space