As such, both this blog and my EVE twitter will be going inactive till my real life gives me the time and cash to get a decent enough internet connection to return to the game.

To cover the loss of my simply amazing writing skills* I’ve compiled a small list of other blogs and sites you should be keeping an eye on.

• For wormhole shenanigans written far better and more often than my own, check out Penny’s blog “Tiger Ears” here
• For Ganked Night times and battle reports, keep an eye on both this forum and Mangala’s own blog.
• For stuff from Sisi, I’d suggest keeping an eye on the EVE SubReddit.
• For everything else, try the #tweetfleet and EVE blog pack.

I could be back within the month, or not for a year. We’ll see how it goes but I do plan to return when I can.

Thanks to all those both in-game and out who I’ve flown with and fought with over the last year and a half.

Thanks for reading. Fly safe.

P.S. I don’t have the time to write a post on the Ganked roam last night, so here’s a brief summary – left with 200 in fleet, first fight was a clusterfuck of comms but we got some decent kills, got a lot easier as our numbers wound down, culminating in this fight (which we waited 40 minutes for). Flew a bubbler for the first time, loved it.

Didn't even lose this Eris

Jumping in first finds a lone Thanatos on scan with wrecks and no tower. Before I can pinpoint him, he’s gone. Boo. Further scouting puts him at a POS with another Thanatos.

There’s some other people in system, along with a station. The Tengu on scan, however, is not at this POS and appears to be moving. I drop probes, and scan him to a… belt?

I warp at 100 to have a quick scout, and he’s sat at 0 ratting.

Welp.

One of our newer members is about and prepares a bomber as Mick prepares a Typhoon Battleship – the neuts being a key factor in ambushing this Tengu.

I rewarp, land at 0 and engage as Mick and Ren jump through and initiate their own warps.

"That's a funny shaped rat"

The Tengu’s active tank shrugs off my meagre DPS, but that’s ok, because then Mick and Ren land.

"Didn't want that tank anyway"

I deactivate my point for the pod as the Tengu explodes, zapping some subsystem skillpoints, but the pilot instawarps his pod away and logs off. Nothing shiny, unfortunately.

We return home and begin scouting our constellation, finding nothing. Before we roll, I poke my Tengu back out into the nullsec to see the Thanatos ratting again! I scan him to an anom before he warps, bookmarking it and returning to set our trap.

The plan is thus: myself and an Arazu will warp in in about 20 minutes once the Thanatos resumes ratting (we hope) to establish tackle and then an shield-fit neuting apoc and 2 Basilisks will land as I reship for a curse and the Arazu for a Moros Dreadnought. Simple.

We roll the static while waiting and re-assemble on the wormhole to the Null, when a Helios jumps into us from the same corp. Foiled.

We decide he’s not going to rat now they have scouted us, so we jump our own caps through the nullsec to close the wormhole.

Onto our static, our scout reports 5 Tengus, wrecks and no towers. Further investigation reveales that they are Remote Repair fit Tengus.

This time we assemble a Falcon, Curse, Geddon and Onyx with a Proteus as initial tackle. However, the Tengus warp off as we land. Leaving a Noctis, which we promtply kersplode, the pod warping before the Onyx even lands. A nice 220 million ISK kill there, with a decent drop. A bomber decloaks after a while, bombing our remaining Falcon as he waits cloaked, but doing insignificant damage.

I log whilst others scout the constellation, returning some hours later to a load of bookmarks and noone around.

There’s a lowsec near high a couple of jumps through the wormholes, and I need a chance to move a couple of my expensive ships out for when I leave, so I move my Sleeper Tengu and Basilisk out, the 2 wormhole systems of C4a and C2a empty of ships.

However, on my return a Tengu is now on scan in the C2 with the tower. My shuttle is a bit useless at scouting, and as I return home for the Scangu Mick logs on. We both head to the C2, now helpfully close to the end of its’ life, and I jump in first. My d-scan greets me with a Tengu and 4 wrecks now on scan.

Mick reships for his Typhoon as I d-scan the Tengu to an anomaly and establish a 250km bookmark whilst I wait on Mick.

Eventually Mick is on the C2, so I warp down to a wreck and engage the Tengu.

Cloaky TG strikes again!

Again, the Tengu laughs at my missiles. It doesn’t laugh so hard at my reinforcements.

A little backup can go far

This Tengu too explodes in a fireball, knocking off some skillpoints. The pod instawarps away, the pilot logging at his tower soon after.

Mick returns home as I head out to highsec. Ganked is tomorrow, and I have a really interesting fit that Captain Hurrdurr has sent me.

It’s this.

You may swoon now

Details here as usual. I hear EVE Radio is covering it. Might be fun to show

Vagawolf is a go

We set out, only to find our first nullsec system in the process of a sov takeover. A CVA fleet is about, as well as a DarksideDOT fleet. We warp around a few times, the Darkside fleet following us a couple of times, till we warp to a gate and land in a bubble with the Darkside fleet at optimals.

Whoops.

We lose about a third of the fleet to only a Sabre kill, the hostile reps too much. We retreat, reship and strike out somewhere else in nullsec.

We progress along, achieving a few kills but nothing major, till one of our scouts ahead of us reports a cyno in space, and warps to it.

It’s a Rorqual. At a Customs office.

This scout doesn’t have a point (!) so we leeroy the whole fleet in in a desperate attempt to grab it. Fortunately…

Your ship name needs to be changed bro :/

The Rorqual melts within a minute to our guns, the pod escaping. GOOD FIGHT BRO.

Ganked is now a success. Anything else is just icing on the cake.

A daredevil tries to escape us but is snagged after a jump, and we head to a nearby lowsec entrance for a quick break, with most the fleet holding in an already-bubbled system next door. A Tornado and Vagabond both run into the second bubble set after evading our initial camo and both die as a result.

Next up, we find us a TEST system and say hi to the few locals there, killing a Drake on the gate too.

A cyno is reported ahead, with a Rorqual and Falcon on scan. Sadly, the Rorqual is in a POS 190km away, but we warp the fleet onto the Falcon, despite POS guns, and kill it and run away.

A small gang is ahead, and our scouts hero tackle as our fleet jumps in, and we catch an Astarte, Tornado and Ishkur.

Finally, we hit a TEST owned system and there’s quite a lot of them in local. The lowsec gate here is bubbled to hell, and there’s quite a few TEST around it. We land and engage everything.

BUBBLES EVERYWHERE

TEST are engaging and/or landing in the bubbles, so we obtain kill after kill, with our faster frigs (<3 my Keres) burning and snagging ships that land in the far sides of the bubbles.

Eventually, no more TEST decide to warp in, and so the smacking in local begins.

We get bored before long, and it’s been a long night, so Mangala warps us to the TEST station where TEST have brought out 2 carriers and a host of other ships. WELP.

We engage, but I explode to an Oracle (wut) within minutes, only to hear that a lot more TEST have warped in/undocked. It’s a hopeless fight, but they gave us a good brawl!

It isn’t long before we’re all in the bubble camp slowboating our pods. It was a slaughter.

OH GOD RUN

I slowboat 45km, only to be popped 5km from the gate. Nooooo

TEST fight Battle Report

Good fight TEST, we know where to go if we want a decent brawl after a Ganked roam.

Video of the night:

However, if I had one go-to ship to fly, it would be the Myrmidon.

Isn't it a lovely hull?

Sporting a large drone bay of 150m3 and a versatile slot layout of 6/5/6, the Myrm is one of the most unpredictable Battlecruisers I’ve come across. If you’re fighting a Drake, you know it’s going to have a buffer tank with missiles. The Hurricane is slightly more unpredictable, often sporting shield fits or even artillery instead of the usual Autocannons. The Harbinger is laser fit, but it too can field a shield gank fit. Despite minor variations though, these 3 ships are usually seen with the same fit types.

The Myrm? Not so much. At least from what I’ve seen.

The ships’ bonus focuses on Drones and Armour repair effectiveness, compared to the other Battlecruisers which boast bonuses to guns or missiles. This gives the Myrm it’s greatest tool – it can fit whatever the hell it wants in the highs. Drones, whilst not amazing for DPS, do give good support and frigate protection and normally provide most of the Myrm’s firepower. This means the Myrm can get away with, say, filling the highs with a full rack of Energy Neuts. With 5 med slots for tackle, propulsion and even dual cap boosters, this is often seen.

On the other hand, the Myrmidon pilot may choose to mount Medium Autocannons, the lower fitting requirements allowing him to field a strong armour buffer or even an active armour tank, particularly if the pilot has Battlecruiser V and therefore a hefty 37.5% boost to armour repair amount. Another choice are Medium blasters, though the higher fitting requirements can cause the pilot to sacrifice elsewhere. The high amount of medslots, however, means the Myrm can also fit dual webs, allowing it to keep its target within blaster range whilst the Drones also attack with ease. Small guns are a popular choice too, especially when combined with the aforementioned dual webs. This allows the Myrm to shred frigates with relative ease whilst maintaining a strong tank.

In terms of Active tank, the Myrm can be seen with 1, 2 or 3 repair modules. The Triple Rep Myrm is vulnerable to neuting, but will also be fielding two cap boosters in return. The  tank potential on such a fit is quite high and is a personal favourite. Dual reps are often combined with a 1600mm plate for extra buffer, and can also be a tough nut to crack.

Buffer tank Myrms can choose to field either a strong Armour tank or even a Shield tank, using shield relays to give it a very high shield recharge rate. Both are equally viable, though the shield tank offers no tackle or propulsion mods and can usually be ignored in a larger fight (assuming you know the Myrm is tanked as such!)

A result of this versatility means that people often struggle to figure out how to counter the Myrm. It could be a low-dps shield fit boat or a highly dangerous neuting battlecruiser. It could be a brick buffer tank or a high-repping triple repair fit. It could spout ECM drones everywhere or a mix of Ogres and Hammerheads. It could be fit to kill cruisers or fit to shred frigates.

And that’s why I choose the Myrm over other Battlecruisers. Plus, it’s fricking vertical.

Wrath complies, shoving 2 Orcas at the wormhole alongside my Apocalypse, and the hole collapses. Easy enough.

The new C4 is empty, and boasts a C4 static. Jumping into that reveals a Pulsar wormhole, with two towers. Both are Blue to us. Hrm.

This wormhole has a further C4 static, so I scan that and jump in, revealing a Tengu on scan with wrecks. AWW YEAH. Or not, it appears, as I’m quickly convo’d by a member of the alliance whose WH I just departed. It’s their Tengu. They havn’t opened the next C4 static yet, so there’s nothing for me to do here. I return home, let Wrath know what’s up and log for dinner.

Returning has Wrath yelling at me in chat. Something is afoot! A new wormhole has appeared into our static – it’s a C2 belonging to an alliance rather hostile to us – Transmission Lost. It’s game time – Wrath has scouted them moving haulers and we’ve notified our nearby Blue allies (all 2 of them, right now) and we mobilize a HIC with bombers into the C2 and plonk them all on the C2′s highsec static. 2 pilots from Chained Reactions heard the batphone too, and are en route with 2 bombers via the highsec to help. That makes 2 pilots from us (4 with alts), 2 from BRABODEN (3 with alts) and 2 from Chained Reactions. My my.

The bombers reach us, and an Enyo is on scan. Whilst the C4/High wormholes are within d-scan, the Transmission Lost POS is not. I warp my own Manticore to the planet cluster, revealing the Enyo swapping to a Dominix. That’s it. Nothing else on d-scan in the system. The Domi warps towards the sun cluster, and disappears from all of our scans.

That is, until 2 Dominixes, a Geddon, Tempest and Loki all land on our camp.

Our Onyx jumps out to high with everything else cloaking instantly. Hrm. Where the heck did that come from?

I jump to the C4 to see if any TL pilots are here, when the Chained Reactions pilots call for a warp to it – they don’t want to be stuck in the C2! I can hardly blame them – the Transmission Lost lot bug me. I jump back, polarising myself, and give both pilots a warp-in.

No sooner are the two pilots out, when some rather less friendly ships arrive in front of me.

Sorry chaps, no easy kills here right now

Our trapped-in-high Onyx pilot is reshipping to a Buzzard to come back, but he has the bookmarks, so I wait a moment to de-polarise and slowboat to the Wormhole – jumping in once I reach it.

No flare behind me means the Broadsword hasn’t followed. Probably doesn’t want to jump into a system where at least 2 bombers have fled. Neither do all the Battleships, it seems.

We get everyone back, our Buzzard sneaking past the now unguarded highsec hole. A Myrm jumps into us, and orbits the wormhole with Drones deployed, shortly followed by a Buzzard. I chase it to a planet, but land too far off to lock before he can cloak and run away again.

We weigh our options. TL have a BS heavy fleet, and that Myrm is screaming bait. The 2 Chained Reactions pilots only have their bombers, but the rest of us are not so easily constrained. The Myrm is getting desperate to attract kills now, moving further and further off the wormhole. Our scout puts a Broadsword, Harbinger and Brutix on the far side of the wormhole now. No battleships, TL? Of course, you might lose them on a C4 WH after all.

Right, we have a plan. I’ll grab a Falcon, Wrath will grab an Arazu with faction scram. One of the BRABODEN pilots will also grab a Tengu, whilst the rest field bombers.

We wait till the Myrm is about 30km off  the wormhole on another pass and engage. With me still in warp.

FALCON Y U WARP SLOW

WH flares as the Broadsword, Brutix and Harb jump in, the Broadsword bubbling up.

30km away. Missing all of us and bubbling his own guys.

Awesome.

The Myrm explodes before I can even lock it, and his pod, now ensnared in a bubble, soon follows. I jam out the Harb and Brutix, allowing everyone else to cloak, and cloak myself.

We’re tempted to engage, but they could jump a whole fleet in! Well, you’d think they’d have done it by now?

The Brutix and Harb seem to read our minds and burn 30km off the wormhole to the Myrm wreck. DING DING ROUND 2 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.

Our Tengu warps in at 50km from the wreck and opens fire early. This would usually mean trouble, but the 2 Transmission Lost BCs burn for the Tengu. The Brutix turns round after a few KM but the Harb keeps going.

We decloak and attack the Harb while I’m searching for my screenshot key

I too bubble everything except the enemy

The Brutix and Broadsword jump out as the Harb explodes, but the pod eludes us. Oh well.

We sit back and wait for the counter attack. And wait. And then wait more. Then we get bored, so we bid farewell to our allies and return home for now. A fun tussel, and nice to chat to some friendly allies!

- – - – - – -

Logging on after some Battlefield has Mick online. We roll the C4 again, revealing another empty C4 static. This is becoming a common theme. The C4 has a C5 static though, and this particular C5 has a Narwhal POS.

The defences are minimal and a piloted Anathema and Cheetah sit inside the shields, alongside an empty Hurricane. There’s core probes up and, surely enough, the Anathema warps off. Mick reports it landing on our C4 inbound, and it jumps in.

Not a minute later, Mick reports it returning and holding cloak. And holding cloak some more. And a bit more. And decloaked on the wormhole. Stationary. Polarised. Deploying probes.

Ok.

The pod escapes, landing at the tower. In the meantime, Mick has scanned the static C6, scouting it as empty. An Archon has logged on at the POS, but he has a very similar name to the pilot we just shot. The Archon ejects an Anathema and logs off again.

Huh.

The capsule boards the new covert-ops ship, and burns out of their POS shields to drop more probes. Mick has anchored a bubble in the C4 now, and is reshipping to a Sabre Interdictor to sit with said bubble.

However, I point out to Mick that the Anathema wouldn’t be scanning for the C4 – he’s kind of been there. He’ll be looking for a less hostile route, namely the C6. Mick responds by jumping his Sabre into the C6 instead.

Before long, the Anathema warps towards the C6. Wrath has logged on too, and is bringing a Manticore to help snag this scout.

The Anathema jumps to Mick, holds cloak, and jumps back. Mick follows as myself and Wrath decloak. Mick deploys a bubble, but the Anathema cloaks! But not for long, as Mick has charged his Sabre at the spot, decloaking the hapless Anathema. Pop goes the second one.

The pod is now ensared in the bubble!

Getthepodgetthepod

That pops nicely too, revealing Low Grade Halos. Oooooh. Contrary to EVE-Kills prices, those rack up to 410 mill for the Halo set and almost 80 for the Mindlink. Couple that with 2 Anathema losses, both fit with Sister’s launchers, and that poor Narwhal. pilot is 720mill out of pocket.

The Cheetah logs off, so we head home. Time to call it a night.

When I left RvB, I had a little over 800 Million ISK. I’d achieved this through some Incursioning and Mission Running on the side during my time there.  I was then gifted with an extra 1 Billion ISK from Kurzick, presumably for my time in RvB. I’m still grateful to this day.

Following this, I hit incursions till I hit 2 Bill ISK. I then bought a lot of stuff – mostly ships for WH space as I joined Wormhole Engineers. This dropped me to 1.6 Bill.

Over the next month I bought my first Tech 3 ship, dropping me to 1.1 Billion. Wormhole ISK propped me back up to 1.4 by November.

More Wormhole ISK in early November put me up to 1.7 again. Then the CCP Dev fleet hit, and I scored 3 PLEX and other loot. This put me up to 3.2 Billion. Easily my record in EVE to date.

Iskies nom nom

So I did what any normal man would. I bought things. Namely, the HMS Cloakstorm – a second Tengu fitted for WH scouting. Down to 2.6 Bill now. Hrm.

But then luck strikes, as we have a lucky day, finding an offline POS in Nullsec and getting a free Orca in a C4. Between this and some more WH Anoms, I’m up to 3.1 Billion.

Which is where I find myself today, setting up sell orders and contracts for yesterday’s haul. At current prices, we’re looking at about 2.5bill between myself and Konici, which should leave me at over 4 Billion.

Not bad for a 25 Million SP PvP pilot, I think.

It’s patch day! Along with many other changes, today brings the POS Fuel switchover. As such, we have a plan. It’s an amazing plan. It’s called “Find the POS that didn’t add the new fuel and are now offline”

We were actually kidding when we created the amazing plan, but hey who knows, right?

I’m on right as the server goes up from the patch downtime, finding myself alone. After messing with the new Neocom for some minutes, I decide to scan down our C4 static. It’s the only sig in system, so I’m jumping in within minutes.

D-scan shows a lone tower, with a Chimera, Cheetah and Dominix accompanying it. I modify my d-scan to show tower modules and Force Fields, and hit scan again. There’s no Force Field. This means the tower is probably offline.

Oh my.

Quick, TG, locate the tower! D-scan honing puts it at a moon, and it isn’t long before I’m in warp.

Oh my.

There's a distinct lack of a forcefield

OH GOD WHAT DO I DO IN THIS SITUATION. Brag about it on twitter of course, but that’s another story. I can’t fly a Chimera, but I can fly the Dominix. I yoink that first and move it home.

I do not appear to be able to use T2 large projectiles

I return in my Scangu, desperately messaging the two alliance mates who are also on twitter. I need some help with all this!

As I re-enter the C4, there’s a pod on scan! CURSES. FOILED. I warp to the tower at 10km, remaining cloaked, and see the pod board the Cheetah. WELP. I decloak and engage, shredding both ship and pod.

OH GOD HE'S LOCKING ME

"OH GOD WHY IS THERE A TENGU IN OUR POS"

Konici joins me on Vent having heard my plea for help and logs in his characters as I explain the current situation. They sure as hell know I’m here now, so we kinda have to move.

I start shooting the Corporate Hanger as Kon warps an Oracle and Manticore in. It melts under the combined firepower of all 3 ships, revealing a lot of cans…

This is can 1 of the 6 cans that dropped...

Whilst I’m browsing the new cans, Kon has just finished blowing up the Ship Maintenance array, revealing MOAR SHIPS

MOAR

Neither of us can fly an Orca, dilemma! Kon has a bright idea though – he’s moving 2 alts with industrial ships to loot the cans. Excellent.

Next up is the X-Large Assembly. It too melts within seconds, dropping 3 cans – all of which contain captial construction parts. whoops.

Subsystem Assembly Array is next, dropping some subsystem BPCs in one can and some sleeper loot in anothe- OH MY GOD.

AHAHAHA ISKIES

It’s like I’m 5 on Christmas morning all over again. This is amazing.

A pilot from the Tower’s corp has just convo’d me. It’s not the pilot I killed, either.

WELP THE JIG IS UP BEST LOG OUT

Er, ok. No. *Close window*

Another POS mod drops some datacores. Or maybe it was the subsystem array. I DON’T KNOW KONICI IS BLOWING THEM UP TOO FAST.

I have no idea what these do

Re-examining some earlier cans reveals some faction mods kicking about.

Another can from the hanger

Mick has logged on, but he’s in highsec. Bugger. He can’t help us out with the Orca yet.

But OH GOD. There’s a new ship with us. A Tengu has logged on at the tower!

Myself and Kon engage, both of our haulers warping home.

Curse Pulsar wormholes!

Neither of us are fit to slay a Tengu, but he has neither of us pointed. We both warp home.

Right. Reship time.

He’s logged on in the Tengu, and it wasn’t covert fit and didn’t point any of us. PvE fit – probably active tanked. I have the perfect ship for this.

I swap for a Curse whilst Kon swaps for a Geddon and Buffer Tengu. We jump back into the C4, warp to the tower and he’s still there.

Comeatmebro

The Tengu explodes, dropping a very shiny faction booster for us. YAY. We get the pod too, because why not.

Ok, we have DPS ships here now. We can’t exactly steal the Chimera. None of us can fly one and it won’t fit through the Wormhole home anyway. Time to shoot it!

The Chimera explodes, not leaving us a lot to loot. Oh well.

Kon has brought a hauler back again, and our glorious CEO Riyu has logged on for a few minutes. He comes in, jumps in the Orca, scoops all the ships bar the Iterons, the Drake and the Ferox and takes it home. I swap to a pod and grab the Drake (which is unfitted) and the Ferox, which is fitted for Gas. We’re done. Time to go home. We leave one of the Iterons, but that’s it.

We gather all the module loot together. Here’s the lot:

The Loot container is actually ours, so it’s empty.

On top of this, we also nabbed -

• Orca
• Griffon
• Buzzard x2
• Daredevil
• Drake
• Ferox
• Iteron Mk 5

Total estimated haul: Just over 1bill for Nano-ribbons alone. 2 bill+ easy for the lot.

Not bad at all.

OH GOD RATS

Next up, we have a few ships hiding in a fairly undefended POS. So we attack it.

Die POS die

Sadly, because luck isn’t with us all the time, the POS smacks into reinforced. The locals seem pretty mad. We’re getting in the way of their ratting, after all.

[ 2012.01.21 22:37:32 ] entroncas > just because u gather 115 man fleet doens’t mean ur ally still pathetic as it is

[ 2012.01.21 22:37:38 ] tgl3 > umadbro

Rolling onwards, someone reports a fleet behind us!

“Hey guys, there’s a big fleet behind us” ”

What ships?”

“Fuck if I know they’re all red and shit”

We do have the best intel.

More scouts tells us it’s a CVA + friends gang. Mostly Abaddons, with 8 Guardians and other assorted ships.

We camp the gate, waiting and hoping. Their scout jumps in and explodes in his interceptor, which means their gang won’t be far behind. We’ve lost eyes on them though, so we ball up and re-approach the gate when the other side is suddenly reported as hostile and LOCAL SPIKE.

We align towards the Sun as the CVA gang decloaks.

Our FC is primaried in his Tengu, as are the two other Tengus we had. Sadface. Fortunately, some guys step up to the target calling plate and the battle is ON.

We hit the CVA guardians first, our missile barrages tearing through them, killing 5 and forcing the rest off field or back through the gate. They have a lot of BS, but without logi we should score some good kills.

EAT MY TARGET PAINTER. EAT IT.

The battle rages back and forth with ships falling on both sides – most of our kills being shinies, but more CVA guardians have jumped in. I rewarp to our interceptors a couple of times to break target locks, but as we fight on it’s clear we’re losing but we’re giving them a damn good fight for it.

I'll start overheating when they let me shift-click to do it...

Finally, my own Drake explodes in a horrible fire, and I run away with my pod to join the rest!

POD TRAIN!

The battle is over, but some random bombers bomb the CVA gang for us, killing off a few pods. Thanks gents! The battle report is all kinds of broken, but here it is anyway. Good fight CVA and co. I’m too tired for a second roam, so It’s off to bed for me.

Jumping in puts us in the arse end of nullsec – a system in Esoteria, a Region I have never even heard of before. A lone pilot is in local, though d-scan shows no ships to accompany the wrecks there. He cloaked up as we entered it seems, so the system seems boring.

But wait! Mick has spotted something odd about the lone Small Amarr tower on scan – there’s no forcefield. There’s also a Hanger array and Ship Maintenance array. Possible goodies are to be had, so we quickly locate it.

Look, stuff!

Ray can fly an Iteron V, so he heads out to join us as Wrath brings an alt in with a Talos to shoot these POS mods. The SMA doesn’t drop any ships for us, but the Hanger drops a can with some shinies. Ray arrives, grabs the Iteron and loots the can as Wrath pops the remaining ships, save the Anathema which we take home with us.

Ray uploads us a screenshot for us to see what we’ve managed to nab.

:D

The haul is not bad by any means, and it’s happy faces all round. Talk about luck!

We drop a Moros and some ships into the null to finish the tower off. There’s some ratters next door too, but they hide in their own POS when we enter, refusing to come out. Spoilsports.

Jumping all the ships home criticals the WH, so we leave that be. We have a new static to explore!

And what a boring static it is. Unoccupied with a C5 static. Out own wormhole is waking up nicely now, with our leader Riyu logged on, along with Valon. We find no inbounds in C4a, and are gearing up to run some Capital escalations in our home. Riyu kindly pays us for the loot we snagged from the POS, the corp going on to sell them later.

Wrath jumps 2 Tengus into the C4 to run some sites when he reports an Orca on scan.

Tengus jump back, and forward goes my cloaky Tengu and Wrath’s cloaky Proteus. The Orca has warped somewhere. Wrath warps to drop probes and I warp to the outer planet at 100km. Landing 20km from an Orca.

It’s a Narwhal. pilot – an alliance famous among WH corps for their efficiency as a Wormhole mercenary force. Wrath lands with me and we both engage. We merely point, however, when the pilot ejects. Said pilot then doesn’t warp, so we pod him. We now have an empty Orca.

Cheers bro

Riyu can fly one, so he runs over, jumps in and warps it home. Meanwhile, another pilot is talking in local.

[ 2012.01.21 16:07:02 ] Klurgsenator > the fuck just happened O.o??
[ 2012.01.21 16:07:15 ] Klurgsenator > got yourselves some free orca?

Wrath talks to him in a private convo. Turns out, this pilot was selling the wormhole – leaving an alt in to get their buyer a route in. He had logged in cloaked as we had landed on the Orca 30km away from him.

We scan again, revealing no inbounds. It’s a mystery how this Orca got here, but we need to be safe to run our Cap escalations! We roll the C4 and begin making ISK, running one site to a quad cap escalation. My own payout is lower than the Caps, but ISK is ISK!

The anom payout, with the POS loot payout underneath

The wallet is now looking extremely healthy. Maybe I can splash out on something shiny.

But Ganked beckons, so we roll wormholes till myself and Zerund get a k-space route. We do eventually, and it’s off we go!

But the luck is not over for those who stayed behind. Oh no. They rolled again, and scanned their way to a C5 Pulsar where 2 Moros and a Chimera sat at a POS. One of the Moros warped into the site with a Noctis, and my allies took their chance. Snagging the Noctis (200m), the Noctis’ pod (104m) and finally the Moros itself. The Pulsar wormhole effect giving it a hefty shield tank, but no amount of shiny mods could save this Dreadnaught (3,200m). One hell of a kill.

The Moros pilot escapes with his pod, but returns in a Naga. It’s caught, and this time his pod is too.

It’s been a lucky day for us all. Were we lucky on Ganked too? Next post will tell

My hopes of a small constellation to scan today are dashed when our C4 static turns out to have a C6 static as well as an inbound C4. Best get to work.

I work my way through many systems, encountering a lone Buzzard in a C6 at a POS and then 2 Bombers at a POS in a C2. I say hi by accidentally warping straight into the forcefield while locating the POS, decloaking my Tengu and causing many bricks to be dropped. I pulse my MWD as I burn away and recloak, but one of the bombers heads over to where I was to try and reveal me again. Obviously, I’m long gone by that point.

I scan a few more systems before logging off, with no decent ships about to shoot. I haven’t even scanned the whole constellation. There’s too many systems!

Logging on later has Mick online as well, and he’s spotted a new inbound to our static C4a. However, the new arrivals decide they do not want this C4, and roll it as we watch. None of them get trapped, much to our dissapointment.

We resolve most of the rest of the constellation before noticing there’s now a Drake out and about in the C6.

There’s a lot of systems, and my bookmark folder is giving me evil looks, but this drake is the first viable target we’ve seen.

He can’t be running anomalies alone in the C6, especially thanks to the Cataclysmic Variable wormhole effect which reduces local tank capabilities while massively augmenting remote repair, so he’s probably in a Ladar or Grav site. Sadly, the whole system is on scan from him, so Mick and I puzzle over the best course to take. An Exequorororororor is at their tower, and warps towards the Drake’s location once 5 small wrecks are on scan. The Exequrororor has a cargo bay bonus, so he could be utilizing it as a cheap miner, though to do so in a C6 is a bit foolish – this holds especially true when a glance at recent system activity indicates both AHARM and Transmission Lost have been here within the last 48 hours.

Oh well, we have no choice but to risk probes if we want any hope of catching the two ships, both now sat in space. I deploy combat probes as fast as my Tengu will allow and recloak, whilst Mick gives me a location to set them up. The Drake should be an easy probe hit, requiring less accuracy. Our amazing foolproof plan is, sadly, hampered by the Drake warping back to the tower and then sitting in a pod there.

The Exequrorororororororororor is still in the site though, and the disappearance of 3 of the wrecks indicate he’s salvaging. I hit the scan button and get a 92% hit. I reposition and try again, recalling my probes as soon as I get it to 100%. Fleetwarping myself and Mick at 100 reveals the Exequrorororororor harvesting gas whilst moving to the remaining 2 wrecks. We bookmark the wreck, warp out and back at a longer range, allowing us to make a 250km bounce spot if we need a good spot to warp in from.

The Cruiser salvages one of the last two wrecks, and then sits still at the cloud, mining away. AFK, perhaps? Sheer idiocy in a wormhole, but gives us a good chance to strike.

We warp in, mindful of the gas cloud possibly decloaking us early. We slowboat at the cruiser, planning to hit our MWDs to bump him as soon as the cloud decloaks us, in order to stop him warping as our sensors re-calibrate from the cloaking devices. Mick decloaks first and burns his Proteus the remaining 5km at the gas miner, with my own Tengu following. The cruiser is shredded, and my sensor boosted Tengu snags the pod easily. Expensive pod for such dangerous and low profit work.

The tower pilot hasn’t shifted, but one of our own has logged on! Wrathhammer appears on Vent, and soon appears in game. He scouts the earlier systems as myself and Mick head to the far end of the constellation to scout further. No sooner are we there when Wrath reports targets in the C4b. CURSES. A Noctis is seen on scan with a scant few wrecks, followed by 2 Orcas. The system was unoccupied, and Wrath confirms a new inbound on scan. By the time we reach it, it’s collapsed – the newcomers running anoms, salvaging and collapsing the wormhole. Damn damn damn. A smaller WH constellation and we’d have scouted them earlier, but with so many wormholes we can hardly keep tabs on all of them.

Oh well. We got a kill at least, but the constellation is getting stupidly huge and any further scanning is moot, since it’d take half an hour just to cross it at this rate.

We have another fly through, revealing no ships. The now-slain Exequror pilot logs off then back on, perhaps hoping relogging will fix the “bug” that his afk gas miner is now docked in k-space? Who knows?

We roll the C4, letting several hours of scanning disappear in seconds. On to the new constellation!