Saturday, March 30, 2013

Popping a wormhole

After killing the Legion and Drake (see previous post), we pull back and leave scouts on the C5 connection and resolve the high sec connection to see where it goes. Heimatar, how uninspiring. It is a mere 27 jumps from our static high sec and nowhere remotely close to anything anyone needs.

It may still provide some traffic though as we find another K162 from a class 1 wormhole. Everything is quite for a bit. Then our scout reports activation on the C5. A pilot jumps through with a Vigilant and warps to high sec. Followed by a viator. Now that could be interesting. The Vigilant is scouting for the covert hauler. LOL!

I move my Phobos onto the C5 wormhole and bubble up with a small fleet of cloaky T3 lurking nearby. It is kind of creepy knowing they are out there but not being able to see them. The wormhole flares and it appears that my FC skills need some work as one of our battlecruisers was hanging out at the high sec. Of course, they engage the Vigilant who flees back to high sec. DRAT!

I get the non-cloaky ship back to where I want him and then we continue waiting. It doesn't take long and the C5 wormhole flares. A Brutix appears, sees us and then immediately jumps back. The wormhole is crit so I only send 3 people in after the Brutix. Making sure at least one of them has probes.

The Brutix goes down quickly and even without the HIC, they manage to snag the pod as well. I have them pull back into the C2 in a very specific order and as the pilot with probes jumps, the wormhole dies to mass.

The Vigilant pokes his head back in, but does not warp to the wormhole. He was most likely warned about our fleet by his friend who is now back in high sec.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Baiting the Baiters

After killing the Noctis, we decide to push farther down the chain. I jump my scout into the connecting C2 and find 2 complete sets of Sisters Core probes on d-scan. There is also a tower but no visible ships and wrecks. Curious. The only wrecks I see are sleepers so maybe someone was interrupted and is now scanning for the source of the threat.

With two sets of probes on d-scan, we decide 1 more set can't hurt anything. I send a scout to the outer planet to drop probes. He is still in warp when a Drake appears on d-scan at what can only be a wormhole.

I report is general area and the scout probes out the position and finds the expected wormhole. Since the wormhole has a static high sec, we are expecting the signature to be a B274. Today must be our day for the unexpected. The wormhole is a K162 from a class 5. Bait Drake!

Since it is no fun to put out bait which is never taken, we form up a small fleet. C5 corporations can be unpredictable about fleet sizes so we are rolling the dice with little to no information on what we might be up against.

Evidently, the bait doesn't have enough patience to deal with us. He jumps back into the C5 and disappears coming back almost immediately in an Interceptor. He jumps through the wormhole and warps to the sun where he sits motionless. Trying a different kind of worm.

Since we know it is bait, we decide to jump our scout into their system to let them know we are active and get some intel. They have a Revelation, Moros, Orca, Devoter, Brutix and Legion visible on d-scan in the wormhole.

The dreads cannnot be jumped into the C2 so there is little concern about them. We do not have sufficient numbers to take a dread and carrier so we need to make sure we do not get polarized in the C5. While we are gathering our intel, the Interceptor goes back to his tower but a cloaky Tengu and the Legion jump into the C2 and disappear.

Time to see what they will do, I warp back to the wormhole in the C5 in my Proteus and sit their uncloaked for a minute before jumping into the C2. I burn away from the wormhole and they take the bait. Both the Tengu and Legion decloak and I lock the Legion.

The cloaky portion of our fleet decloaks and I have one of them jump through to the C5 while everyone else piles on the Legion. They land a Drake and the Brutix and our pilot on the other side of the wormhole engages them. The Tengu pilot sees the incoming fleet and jumps back through the wormhole. A couple of pilots follow, but are unable to lock him before he cloaks.

In the meantime, we have managed to push the Legion nearly 10k off the wormhole. Our webs have him down to less than 15 m/s so he has no chance to getting back. The Legion goes down and the Drake who came to help goes down with him. I like the fact that the Drake pilot jumped into the fight knowing they were outmanned and stayed to the end instead of trying to escape like the Tengu and Brutix pilot.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Stalking a Proteus

The time has come to roll the static looking for something new. People are still moving into the new wormhole so we do not want to unduly stress the high sec. Fortunately, since we live in a C2, there is always another direction to take. We push a few ships through the wormhole and a few minutes later it is gone. Leaving us with a new opportunity.

Our scout jumps in and reports 1 Venture, no towers on d-scan. Two planets are out of d-scan range of the wormhole. We send a second scout into the wormhole and they report a single tower with no other visible ships. The scout is zeroing in on the location with d-scan when the Venture disappears and the second scout reports the Venture is back at the tower.

Our first scout drops probes and quickly resolves the site while the Venture pilot swaps to a Proteus. Suprisingly, the site is Gravimetric instead of the expected Ladar. Well, the Venture can fit mining lasers so maybe we shouldn't be totally shocked.

The Proteus returns and starts killing the 3 small sleepers while our scout tries to work his way into position. Unfortunately for us and fortunately for him, the process doesn't take too long and he warps off before our scout gets into position for the tackle.

All is not lost as the pilot swaps to a Noctis and returns to salvage the wrecks. Our scout tackles the Noctis and we send a single pilot in a Prophecy to engage the Noctis. The pilot renames his ship so that it appears to be 1 person dual boxing with a covert ops scout and a battlecruiser. We are hoping the pilot will reship and come back with the Proteus.

The Noctis explodes rather quickly but it appears the pilot has no interest in round 2. Either he had a sixth sense or he was a complete carebear. Either way, he disappears without giving us another target.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Baiting Battlecruisers

I am sitting on the high sec, working on a blog article when I hear an activation. Then a second and yet a third. The ships are holding cloak and I am waiting to see what unfolds. The first ship to appear is an Incursus, followed by a Drake and a Brutix.

The Incursus burns away from the high sec wormhole and I am not going to catch him in my cloaked Proteus. However, I decide to uncloak and drive the other two ships off to see what he does. I uncloak my Proteus and engage the Brutix, I get him into armor pretty quickly and both he and the drake jump back to high sec.

By this time, the Incursus is nearly 130 km away and still going. A corp mate has now arrived in a drake and he lands on the wormhole also watching the Incursus. The Incursus drops a can at 250 km but destroys it before I am able to bookmark it. He then jumps back to the high and jumps.

In the meantime, another corp mate has arrived in the high sec system and jumps to the wormhole in his Buzzard. The Drake pilot and the Brutix pilot are still on the wormhole so our Drake pilot decides to jump into a Prophecy and I put my alt into a Exequror and we warp both of them to a safe out of d-scan range of the wormhole.

Soon the Incursus pilot returns in a Drake and all 3 ships jump into our wormhole and immediately warp to their safe. Once they land, one of the pilots drops and can and I am fast enough this time to grab the bookmark and immediately warp to them.

I decloak in warp and call in the Prophecy. The Buzzard pilot jumps in and quickly reships to another Exequror as well. I lock and point Zedek Drako in the Brutix and start shooting while putting a second point on Enki Cluk'Tak in a Drake.

Once my alt lands and starts repping my Proteus, the hostile pilots realize that they are not making any progess on the Proteus and swap DPS to the Prophecy. This was a good move since the Prophecy had less than 1/4 the tank of the Proteus. However, by this time, our third corp mate has arrived in another Exequror and both repping ships swap the DPS.

The Brutix goes down and I swap the point from him to the second Drake pilot, Cosmin Soava. Enki is the second primary and both Drakes swap their drones to the my alt's Exequror but this is going to be too little, way too late. The first Drake goes down, following rather quickly by the third Drake.

All three pilots are sitting on the high sec in pods while we loot and exchange good fights in local. This was a fun engagement and the difference in the fight was made by 2 logisitics cruisers. Thanks for the fight guys!

Monday, March 4, 2013

Site running Domi's

Jumping into the new C4 has me double checking my overview settings. There are ships showing on this thing. Something must be wrong. I have 2 Dominix Navy ships, a Megathron, a Guardian and a whole lot of sleeper wrecks along with the expected small fleet of drones.

First, I check anomolies to see if they are running combat sites but no such luck. Evidently, they must be in a Mag or Radar. One planet sits well outside d-scan range so our scout warps out and deploys probes. A wide range scan shows that two Mag sites.

I have narrowed down their location and we are just about ready to scan for them, when they disappear from my narrow band d-scan and return to their tower. They are only there for a couple of minutes when they warp out again. More wrecks start appearing so we now believe they are in the second Mag site.

We narrow in their position and since they are now out of d-scan range of our wormhole, we jump an additional heavy tackle into the system. Once we have a good idea of where they are, we scan for them. Our scout gets a positive lock and warps the tackle squad to the site. However, we arrive to find nothing but sleepers. It seems our quarry was watching d-scan.

One of them reships to an Anathema and they begin searching for our wormhole. We have the fleet disappear and it doesn't take long for the Anathema to find and jump our wormhole. Probes are deployed in our home and they start scanning it. In a few minutes, one of the characters in the C4 reships to a Prowler and warps to our static connection. We let him go hoping to get something better later.

Nearly 40 minutes later, everyone but the Anathema pilot and the Prowler pilot have logged. When the Prowler jumps back into our home system, we decloak our fleet in their C4 home. When he jumps we have a surprise party for him. Even more surprising, I manage to get a positive lock with my Loki.

The rest of the fleet warps to the C4 connection, but the Prowler jumps back into our home system and warps away before anyone can lock him. He returns to hi-sec and we pop his wormhole. The night had such promise, but the suspects were paying attention and evaded our clutches.