Day 10 – No sugar and no spice

I’ve done enough hauling, Hi-Sec exploration and mining of late, so I clone jumped back to my Loki. It was time to traipse through wormholes again.

 

I’m in Hirizan, Genesis, not far from where I have a cache of assets. I ignore them and scan down the two signatures in system. Both are K162 Wormholes, both look like C1 or C2. I pick one.

 

J151348 – C2

I exit the wormhole in a shimmering bubble. There are lots more Warp Disruption bubbles on scan, along with a Velator, Drake, and 9 Signatures.

I make a safe and launch probes. While I work a Stratios appeared on scan and stays there. With no probes launched and a lack of cloaking, I presume it is a local and is sitting at a POS. After a while the Velator dropped off scan. I probe down 2 new wormholes out of the 8 signatures. A C1, and a C4 or C5.

The Stratios goes off scan as I go to check out the C1.

 

J113434 – C1

There are five Haulers, a Thrasher, Loki and Hurricane on scan – along with some 14 POS and 2 Force Fields. I use D-Scan to find the ships in the two active POS, all unmanned. I checked the remaining POS for anything of value anchored around them, but find nothing. There are three new wormholes in amongst the 9 signatures, A C1 (End of life) and two Null.

 

JPL-RA, Greater Wildlands

The first Null connection drops me not far from the infamous E01-IK. Someone passes through the system while I am there, but it is otherwise quiet enough for me to shot some rats, just because I can. There is only one wormhole in this system – the one I came through. I return.

 

1TG7-W, Insmother

Pretty sure I’ve never been in this region before. It looks quiet. I shoot more rats while checking for other wormholes. I find one to a C5, but I don’t feel like visiting. Given the statistics suggest not many people are about, I decide to jump through a few systems. I find no one else.

 

R959-U – Insmother
4 signatures, no wormholes

 

6BJH-3 – Insmother
0 signatures

 

5-2PQU – Insmother
2 signatures, no wormholes

 

7-JT09 – Insmother
1 Signature, no wormholes

 

2JT-3Q – Insmother
2 Signatures, one C3 wormhole, which I take

 

J110121 – C3
A less than detailed check finds 8 POS, 3 Force Fields, 2 Mobile Depots, 2 Imicus and 1 Noctis. It looks like yet another quiet system, but thoughts of further exploration are put aside as Real Life calls.

I return after a long break, finding an extra Buzzard on scan, but otherwise still no life. There’s only 1 Wormhole when I scanned down the 5 signatures, leading to somewhere in Minmatar space.

 

Heild – Molden Heath

I scan down an extra C3 wormhole, but I’ve got a niggling headache so I decide I might make a run for Hi-Sec and dock up. I jump to the next system.

 

Bosena – Molden Heath

The infamous home of Sugar Kyle’s Low Sec Market ( http://www.lowseclifestyle.com/ ). I wave quietly from the cockpit of my Loki, but it doesn’t appear that she is home. I note there are a lot of people moving about this area – a few obvious pirates, but mostly explorers. I jump out of Low Sec.

 

Teonusude – Molden Heath

The system is oddly full of pilots. I dock up and rest my head.

The last couple forays into the unknown have been sedate. So much so I forgot to be anxious when moving between systems. I am certainly getting to see systems I would not otherwise have probably ever visited. The ratting did highlight the DPS on this ship is still a bit substandard. I might revisit the fitting again.  I did not remark – but I did spend a bit of time in each system looking for offline POS and where each ship was.

 

Latest Trip Count – 11 sessions, 40 Empire Systems, 74 Wormholes, 13 Null Systems, 8 Low Sec System, 1 kill

Day 9 – No one home

(This particular session happened some time ago.)

It is the last day of my holidays and I am planning to leave my main logged in all day to help EVE break out of its plateaued average user count. (I’m ignoring the fact there were already 48K online.)

My Loki was still in the Low Sec system of New Eden. There’s another young Capsuleer in system with me but he appears to be cloaked. Then I remember to change D-Scan from 5 to 360 degrees and see he is actually in a shuttle.

I launch probes to look for the single signature in system. A couple sweeps later and I am sitting off a Wormhole to unknown space. It seems unnecessary but I check the local pilot’s killboard for any Wormhole history, but there is none. I suspect the shuttle is probably not a scout. I suspect I probably didn’t really need to check. I step through the hole.

 

J125903

There are three towers and one force field on scan. I am in warp to a Customs Office when my daughter arrives. It is going to be a long day of interruptions. I slow boat off the POCO in a random direction and walk away from EVE for 20 minutes.

The system is a C1 with a Low Sec Static. There has been no recent activity and no ships are on scan. The two offline POS in range have lots of modules around them, but nothing you would loot. The other POS is at a Planet III, which has 11 moons. D-Scan shows it up on Moon 10. I started my D-Scan check at Moon 1. I must remember to start from the highest moon instead. I bounce off another moon before warping to the POS. It is called ATLANTIS. Unique.

There are another 2 Planets outside of D-Scan range. The first – Planet V, has two more POS without force fields – or modules. Planet VI has no moons, but I bounce off it to make a safe.

Back at the safe I launch probes – only to realise there is a mobile deport on scan. I swap my core probes for combat probes and 3 sweeps later I have its location. It has 24 days left of life, and is for a pilot not apparently associated with the hole. For interest sake I see how long it takes to put it into reinforce mode. 6 volleys of my 220mm it seems. I don’t envision being back in 48 hours to finish off the job – it was just for the amusement value.

I return to my safe to scan, but am interrupted by my 4 year old daughter (gee this was an old post, she is now 5), asking me to draw the crafting layout for a breastplate in Minecraft, because she had forgotten. Drawing done I start scanning. I find the inbound wormhole and 3 gas sites.

Ok – nowhere further to go. This was a short trip.

I return back to New Eden and jump across to the system of Promised Land.

 

Promised Land, Genesis

There are 3 signatures with two wormholes. Using http://www.tigerears.org/2011/04/24/wormhole-colours/, Penny suggests one is to a C2, and the other a C3. I check out the C2.

 

J110413

There is nothing on scan and no recent activity. Warping around I find a POS with 20+ warp disruption bubbles anchored around it and a piloted Astero within its shield. It is in a lazy orbit.

I then go AFK for almost an hour to (my notes say) chat to my wife and have a shower. When I return the Astero is still piloted and still circling the control tower.

I move off and scan down the 5 signatures in system, two Gas sites I ignore, the inbound hole, a C2, and a C3. Not wanting to change my pattern, I go check out the C2.

 

J173213

There is no activity in the system as I warp around to find one online POS on Planet III Moon 1, and an offline POS around Planet IX. (I don’t pin point it as there are no modules in space worth looting.)

I scan down the 7 signatures. Two gas and one data site are ignored, which leaves the inbound, what looks like an end of life C6, a C1 and Hi-Sec (looks like Domain) holes. I check out the Hi-Sec hole first.

 

Horir, Domain

There is only one signature in this system, so I return back the way I came. Next I try the C1.

 

J152257

There is a POS to search out and 10 signatures to scan. The POS is on a planet with 21 moons. I start searching from Moon 1 and don’t find it until Moon 21. That’s what happens when you fail to take your own advice. The POS is packed full of resistance mods and no weaponry at all. A form of Dickstar. The owning Corp has 28 members, but none appear to be around.

Probing flushes out four gas sites, 2 data, and 4 wormholes. The inbound from the C2, one that looks to be a C1, and two to Hi-Sec, one I expect Minmatar space, the other Lonetreck.

 

Vorsk, Metroplois

I was right with the first Hi-Sec hole being to Minmatar space. There is only the one signature in this very busy system, and I just stepped through it. I return after waiting a bit of time for polarisation to clear and check out the second Hi-Sec hole.

 

Isseras, Loneteck

Again I was right with the location. I’m only 4 jumps from Jita but have nothing I need to buy. There is again only one signature in this, again, very busy system. I return after allowing polarisation to clear and go check out the C1 hole.

 

J144203

There are several online POS in system with a couple of ships around them. The Ship name formats look familiar, and when I look closer I realise I have a safe spot bookmarked in the system. I’ve been here before, back in 2012. While Dotlan reports recent activity, I don’t notice anyone sitting in a ship or flying about. This has been a particularly quiet run through Wormhole space.

There are only two signatures, the inbound and an outbound to Hi-Sec, which I step through.

 

Rayeret, Kador

This system is actually on the border with Genesis, and close to my low sec home. I want to rest up, but there are no stations here. I use a gate.

 

Hirizan, Genesis

I dock up and go offline.

 

With interruptions this session took several hours.  The actual scanning part of these trips is relatively swift, but checking out POS and for piloted ships really adds to the time you spend in each system.

 

Latest Trip Count – 10 sessions, Visited 39 Empire Systems, 71 Wormholes, 4 Null Systems,6 Low Sec System; 1 kill

Day 8 – Sightseeing

I am not a true Wormhole Day tripper in the sense most people use the term. I am not running sites, sucking gas or ore, or focused on hunting others. I am just quietly slipping from one system to another, seeing where my travels might take me. I’m a tourist without an itinerary.

The concept is still to end up losing my Ship, but I am enjoying the randomness of the sessions. I am also finding that I am improving my piloting. Never underestimate the value of spending time in dangerous space to hone your skills. My probing is quite literally twice as fast (turned out I was nowhere near aggressive enough), my bookmark management far more streamlined, and I am using D-Scan with far more finesse. Adequate is ok for Empire space, not so much elsewhere.

[Kor-Azor]
Mora – 1 (WH)

It is a couple days later and I am back. I undock and in two scans I have bookmarked the only signature in the system, which turns out to be a wormhole into unknown space. With barely a thought I jump through, forgetting that I should be feeling some trepidation.

It doesn’t look scary at all

J100211 – 2 + 1 + 1 (WH to C3, WH to unknown, Gas)

D-Scan takes on a familiar look – Russian ships with graphics in their name. I notice no POS on scan, so I change my overview to the correct tab.

I make use of http://www.staticmapper.com/index.php and see this is a C1 with a static to Hi-Sec. I spend a few minutes finding the online and offline POS, although have a heart attack when I pull up just 3,100m from a battery when warping into the last POS at VI M6. It holds all the ships, which are all unpiloted. I slink away still cloaked.

As I start to scan the interface blips with the arrival of a new signature. This sees me revisiting an area in space with my probes. After 8 scans I have 2 unexplored wormholes (one which just turned up) and a pocket of Gas. I also have someone else’s Probes on scan. I figure they have come in from the fresh hole,  I bounce around the system working out what the probes are focused on, and figure they are actually on the new hole.  Playing with D-Scan shows they are spread about, so maybe the user didn’t come this way.

By varying D-Scan further I come to the conclusion the probes are not moving – and they stay that way over the new hole for an inordinate amount of time. Finally, long past the point where I have grown bored, they disappear.

I ponder if the other play was playing mind games, leaving said observer second guessing what was going on.  More likely they were just distracted, or maybe they were just not that good at scanning.  An Imicus frigate warps in at 100km from the hole and immediately cloaks.  Thanks to the ships name I know it is a local.

After a while the frigate de-cloaks and warps away.  I take the opportunity to warp down from my perch and go look at what was on the other side of the wormhole.

J101048 – 1 + 1 (WH to Low Sec)

This is a large system with a probable Low Sec Static. There are 3 areas where POS could be. I warp around to find lots of POS weapons in the first area but no POS, nothing in the second area, and an online POS with Ares, Helios and Noctis in the third.

There were an annoying 26 moons around the planet, and it takes a few minutes on D-Scan to narrow the location down to VI M21. I warp to Moon 17 and then in on Moon 21 to change my approach angle. Unexpectedly all the ships are piloted.

I watch for a short while, but given how empty the system is I decide to scan down the second Signature. I have a vague recollection that I could do this outside of scan range of the POS. 3 Scans later (should have done that in two) I am sitting off a Wormhole that I am guessing leads to Domain.

[Genesis]
Anara – 2 + 1 (Combat, Combat)

My guess is wrong. I’m in Genesis, although not near the Low Sec area I Operate around. I notice the system has a gate to Sharza. Why does that name sound familiar? I’m pretty sure there is a system with a similar name I used to spend time in, possibly in low sec.

There is a Pirate in system flying a Curse, but after a short while I am left alone. 5 scans later I find 2 combat sites, one which was quite tough to find. The Pirate returns and warps around, and with no Wormholes to explore I take the opportunity when the gate is clear to move over to the next system.

Sharza – 3 (WH to unknown, Relic, WH to Null)

There are two in system, both pirates, neither near the gate. I launch probes and in 5 scans have two wormholes (Unknown and Null) and a Relic Site. I also notice a Navy Slicer and Tengu on D-Scan at various points in time.

[Cache]
TPG-DD – 1

I check out the Null Sec hole first.  It is more Russian space, and with only the inbound signature, I step back into Sharza.

Sharza

The Pirate from Anara is now in system with his Curse. Busy little bees these guys are. I warp over and check out the second wormhole.

J124654 – 5+1 (WH to C5, WH to Low, Gas, Gas, Relic)

This wormhole has a possible Low Sec Static – which seems to make sense. I can see a Capsule on scan, so there is life, plus a venture, 3 towers and 2 force fields. I identify all the POS, plus another one out of initial D-Scan range. The POS holding the Capsule and manned Venture was on a planet with 19 moons. I started at 19 and worked my way down with D-Scan (since most POS seem to be parked at the higher numbers). The POS was at moon 4. I think I need to halve and then quarter space with D-Scan to cut the number of moons to focus scan on.

I bookmark both Ore sites in system and watch points over the POS, but the pilots do nothing of interest while I watch. I have spent a whole lot of time preparing for and then watching people not doing anything in wormholes.

After a while I notice on D-Scan that the venture has gone, then the POD, replaced by a Prowler. I warp back to the POS to check up on what is happening.

I then get a phone call from the Computer Maintenance Department wanting to talk to the Computer user. I say I don’t own a computer and just use a Smartphone. They sound confused and then hang up.

I look back at EVE to see the Prowler has continued to do nothing.

Then I have a short SMS conversation with my wife, who is down visiting her sister with our kids. (The reason I am able to be in WH space today).

I look back at EVE afterwards to see the Prowler has continued to do nothing.

Wormhole dwellers seem to do a whole lot of sitting around doing nothing.

Finally I give up and probe instead. It takes 13 scans due to how spread out the sites were and one very hard to find Relic site. I have a choice of a C5 Wormhole, or a Low Sec Wormhole.  I don’t much fancy the C5, so I head to the new Low Sec hole.

[Metropolis]
Uisper – 6+1 (Combat, WH to Low, WH to Unknown, Combat, Combat, Combat)

The wormhole looks very red – I presume it goes to Minmatar space. There are two other pilots in system when I step into Uisper, although one leaves shortly after. I waste no time and in 9 scans have 2 Wormholes and 4 combat sites.

I’ve just about had enough so want to find some place safe to dock up if possible. I check out the new Low Sec Link.

[Genesis]
New Eden – 3 + 1 (WH to unknown, Combat, Combat)

I’m back in Genesis low sec again.  It takes me a couple minutes to realise where I am – it is the system where man first arrived from Earth. Ok – that is cool, and is the exact reason I am doing the Wormhole tourist thing. You never know where you are going to end up.

The EVE Gate

I scan down a Wormhole to unknown and 2 combat sites, but decide I am just going to log off here at a safe.

Latest Trip Count – 9 sessions, 34 Empire Systems, 66 Wormholes, 4 Null Systems,5 Low Sec System, 1 kill

Day 7 – Empty C1

(I’ve been back at work for a week and my time off feels long forgotten. It has been surprisingly busy. Here’s the next installment of my wormhole stumbling’s, which happened a while back.)

I often use the Asset List whenever I am setting the Navigation computer to point me towards home. When I do this I tend to notice Palas in the list, and am reminded that my Wormhole Loki is sitting there. This happened again while I was flying the Astero to my Low Sec Base, and I remembered my original goal to do some Wormhole day tripping while on holidays.

[Khanid]
Palas – 0

I’m back in the long, rough edged hull of the Loki.  I have not spent much time in Khanid – but as I undock it looks like I will spent a little longer than expected as there are no Signatures to scan down.  I gate across to the next system.

 

Reteka – 4 (WH C5, WH, Data, WH)

There are combat probes out already in this system. It takes 11 scans and two interruptions from my son, but I end up with 3 Wormholes to Unknown space and one Data site.  The last of Wormholes was difficult to find, so I assume it might be to one of the tougher ones and arbitrarily pick one of the others.

 

J154906 – Who cares?

It is a C5, with two Archon, a Moros and a Cheetah on Scan. My thoughts on lower strength holes being to tougher holes might need some investigation. I warp to an outer planet and finding the area clear, launch probes and move them high above the system.

The system has reduced targeting, slower tracking, extra damage effects and other things I can’t understand my notes on. I notice on D-Scan that there are actually 5 distinct areas which are out of D-Scan range of each other, which seems unusual.

I see probes out on scan and decide I don’t much care to start my day in an active C5, so I return to High Sec.

 

Reteka

The combat probes are still on scan. I pick the second high strength hole to check out next. It is wobbling and looking unwell.

 

J130125 – 4+1+1 (Gas, Data, WH unknown, WH C1, WH Hi-Sec)

The new hole is a C2 with lots of ships on scan.

That certainly makes it more difficult to keep a track of hulls appearing and disappearing. I take a screen capture of the D-Scan list for my reference.  I warp around using D-Scan and find the ships, all unpiloted, at a POS on V M3. There are two other planets out of D-Scan range but one has no moons, and the other has no POS. It is at this time that I notice my inbound Wormhole has gone. I guess that means I am trapped.

A pigsty of a POS

Since things seem quiet I launch probes.  12 scans later and I have a Gas, Data, and 3 Wormhole signatures.  I keep an eye on D-Scan but the ship types do not change.  I go check the C1 first.

 

J105443 – 4+1 (Gas, Gas, WH Null, Data)

I sniff around and find the system empty, with 5 POS up without Force fields. (Nothing to loot.)  I am keeping an eye out for an empty C1 or C2 – and my mind races for a few moments as I consider the possibilities of this hole.  I launch probes and 8 scans later I have my inbound hole, 2 Gas sites, a Data site, and a wormhole to Null.

Ahhh – a static Null connection, that is why it is empty.  I check out what part of Null it is currently attached to.

 

[Catch]
Not Recorded – 1 (inbound)

I failed to record the system I jumped into, but it was AAA-Citizens Sov with no other signatures and plenty of active pilots. Since my entrance point was too easily scanned down and blocked, and I could hear the family making noises that indicated my EVE time was fast coming to an end, I return back through the empty C1, to the C2, and check out what part of High Sec it connected to.

 

[Kor-Azor]
Mora

The name of this system seems familiar. Maybe it is a training system? There is a 15 day old pilot sitting on the inbound wormhole in a catalyst, and plenty of pilots flying around on D-Scan. I simply pick a station and dock up.

Latest Trip Count –8 sessions, 34 Empire Systems, 63 Wormholes, 3 Null Systems, 1 Low Sec System, 1 kill

She’s hitting me and kicking me and..

It’s not clear how my leave is going to play out.

Separately my 4 and 8 year old are reasonably easy kids to take care of. Together it is a whole different ball game. It tends to be a constant (and aggravating) effort to keep them from killing each other. It is not conducive to relaxing or playing EVE.

The first 6 days of my leave have been taken up with visiting my Parents in the country, shopping, finalising the Christmas preparations, and the previously mentioned keeping the kids separated. In what little downtime I have had I’ve been concentrating on getting my new Scanning Alt prepared.

The catalyst for training a new character was the 60 day game time card in the Collectors Box. I’ve been thinking about having a presence in Wormhole space for quite a while now, but I needed an extra character with scanning skills that I could leave logged off in one for extended periods of time.

The process…

. Creating the new account with the Collector’s Edition time code was painless, you just follow the instructions and you are up and running within minutes.

. Since this was a support character, I followed my tradition of making the Toon female. While it has no impact in game, I gave some thought to what sort of background and mindset the character might have to allow them to sit, cloaked and hiding, in a wormhole for months. I do have a Roleplaying background..

. It can take quite a while to sculpture the look of a new Toon. Not something you want to do when pressed for time.

. I ran all the Career training missions. This was not necessary, but it gave the Toon a very basic level of training.

. I moved the Character to my home system and joined my secondary Corp

. I created API keys for EVEMon and EFT to allow me to plan and track the development of the Toon

. I set up three skill plans – the first to be able to fly a T1 scanning frigate with appropriate fittings for Wormhole space, the second to up that to a T2 fit Covert Ops Frigate, and the third to flesh out the basic flying skills

. I updated the Clone

. I purchased any skill books I was missing from the skill plans

. I purchased basic Implants

. I purchased and fitted out one example each of the T1 and T2 ships she will fly

. I moved my EveHermit alt into Rens to act as a Price check Alt.

. I Bio-massed my original Rens Price check Alt. That leaves room to move this Toon across later.

. I purchased two PLEX – 1 to cover the transfer of the Toon to one of my other accounts once the 60 days is almost up, and the other to pay for dual training as my skill plan is a bit longer than the 60 days available.

. Now I just have to log in and update her skill queue as required. When the skill plans are complete I’ll have a useful resource.

As with all things EVE, the effort required to execute this idea required was surprising large.  All told it will have cost me around 50M ISK and $30 of PLEX for a ~3+M SP Scanning Alt. Arguably I saved only 1 PLEX by doing it this way – but I also ended up with an extra set of Christmas gifts which offset the ISK cost.

Speaking of Christmas, I loved the shuttle. That’s exactly the sort of EVE ship which works well as a gift. I don’t mind the concept of the Advent Calendar, but mostly found they were uninspiring.

Now this is done, I need to return to my EVE regular gaming.

Listening

I told my wife I had set up my fourth EVE Online Account.

Her response – a few words, half shrug, slight smile, can be summed up as “That’s nice dear; did you want a cup of Tea?”

Not – how much did that cost? Or – does that mean you are going to spend even more time on that game!?

I know I should be thankful, but I am left wondering if maybe she isn’t paying quite enough attention to what I say. That was underlined when she made me a cup of Tea after I had said no thanks.

🙂

I’ve created a 60 day account with the code that came with the EVE Second Decade Collector’s edition box. I’m going to train up a Basic Scanning Alt that I can leave in Wormholes. In two months I will move it onto one of my other accounts. Meanwhile I am doing some of the Tutorial for the interest of it.

Wormholes and known space

I had the Stratios out again across a number of sessions running Hi-Sec exploration sites. Towards the end of my last session I ran Sansha Vigil – which triggered the True Power Shipyards escalation. I crisscrossed Hi-Sec until I was given the final site in Low Sec.

I grabbed my Pilgrim again – this time making the effort to fix up the fit. I ended up with a Mobile Deport and supplies to allow me to Scan, Rat, PVP, run lesser combat sites and escalations, and repair drones out in Low or Null Sec.

Before I set out to Low Sec I also had to set up a new cheap Jump Clone as my others were being used elsewhere.

Finally – after well over an hour of preparation I was ready to run the final site of the escalation. Now where was it – 8 jumps away and in… oh, that’s no good. I recognized the area and the stats confirmed my suspicions. It was very active and it would be highly unlikely I could get the site done without being scanned down.

All dressed up and with nowhere to go I remembered I had found a Wormhole to Null Sec earlier in the day. I decided to go check that out. I found myself all alone in a system in Tenerifis with SBU’s onlining. There were no sites to run, so I went through the belts to confirm the fit had no issue with ratting and killing Battleships. As a consolation price I earnt 15M ISK for not much work.

I returned to Empire and docked up for Downtime.

A little later I returned again via the same wormhole. The SBU’s had onlined but the system was still empty. (Aside a visitor from Empire who came via the same wormhole – who stayed for a minute in a Kestrel then left.) There were two new signatures, which the Pilgrim comfortably scanned down as a Data and a Relic site. I’ve never run these mini-game versions in Null Sec before, so I figured I would give them a shot.

It obviously required a lot more effort than in Empire, starting with setting up bookmark perches above each site so I could hide without it despawning, and warp out and back in to each container instead of slow boating. I managed to access all 9 cans across both sites – although failed on 5 of them the first time through. So that was 14 mini games. It requires a lot more thought and frankly – luck. On several occasions I found the system core but would have to go looking for utilities to be able to tackle it. Other times I just kept finding too many Restoration nodes or Virus Suppressors.

Given the hull does not have exploration bonuses, and I haven’t fit rigs to help in the mini game, I am pleased overall with how it all went.  I came away with 41M ISK in loot from the second visit to the system.

I have found that the wormholes to known space have really added interest to my game – from getting to trade hubs quicker, resupplying distant bases, doing a partial datacore run, making use of a cache of exploration sites, or visiting Low and Null sec areas I would never have got to see otherwise.  I like the randomness to them – how they can shape and totally change the direction of your EVE session. Even if you only spend a couple minutes on the other side and gape at the nebula before returning, I think they have really added something to the game.

Meanwhile I almost always ignore the ready access to wormhole space. I guess this comes down to being a solo player – but there are far less resource gathering options to be had. It would be interesting to have some lesser relic or data sites that don’t spawn sleepers. They don’t have to be particularly profitable, just something different enough to encourage more day tripping.  If not that – something else that isn’t worth the while of the locals, but feed them visitors from Empire.

Day 6

I’m back in Junsen.

[The Bleak Lands]
Junsen – 6 (2 WH to Unknown)

I don’t have the house to myself, but the kids are distracted by tablets and laptops, so I take the risk and undock. I find two Wormholes in the system, both to unknown space.  A good start.

The first has two Augoror cruisers sitting on it. One jumps in after a while, but the other one stays put. I think I’ll ignore that hole and check the second one out instead.

J152737 – 7+1 (WH to Hi Sec, WH to Unknown, …)

This has a Spatial anomaly which impacts (from memory) locking range and missiles. There is activity on D-Scan and I find it at an Online Tower, where two pilots are swapping ships around, including a Drake, Catalyst, Probe and Ferox. I watch them a while but they don’t do anything more of interest, and some noise from the kids remind me that my time is limited.

Two of the signatures in the system are out of range of this tower, so I warp away and start by scanning those down.  Both resolve to Wormholes. While I find them quickly a Capsule blips on scan just as I click “recall” on my probes. Damn – someone likely knows I am here.

I check the first wormhole out, which links to Hi-Sec.

[Essence]
Allebin – 2+1

The system is miles from anywhere. I don’t bother scanning; just let my polerisation timer clear before returning to J152737. I then go check out the second Wormhole.

J210458 0+1
This C4 also has a spatial anomaly, but it is rather nasty with 27% off resists to shields. I can see one active tower, no ships, and no other signatures but the one I came in by. This is a dead end. I don’t bother hanging around and step back into J152737 again.

There are still 5 more signatures to scan down, but given I didn’t know where the Capsule came or went to, I decide to head back to Allebin and continue my scanning from there.

[Essence]
Allebin – 2+1 (WH to Unknown, Data)

I quickly identify the two signatures, finding one leading back to Unknown space.  It’s been a good day for finding wormholes.

J113919 – 4+1 (WH, Gas, Gas, Relic)

This is a C1. I note the Custom Offices are owned by a 2 person Corp, which seems brave of them. The two closest Towers are online and have drug labs. Warping around I find further online towers with Reactions running. (Run by larger Corps.)  A busy little hole, but with no obvious pilot activity it is back to scanning.  That highlights one more wormhole to check out.

J135245 – 11+1 (Relic, Gas, Gas, Gas, Gas, WH to unknown, WH to Low Sec, WH to C2, WH to C2, Relic, Relic)

This looks interesting – I see wrecks on scan, along with 3 POS and no force fields. I bookmark the hole and warp off feeling a touch of excitement.  I keep a close eye on D-Scan, where I watch as the wrecks disappear one by one. There are no ships visible, so obviously they are expiring.  When does that happened, after 2 hours?  So the hole is not so interesting after all.

I find the POS just for practice – very pleased that my 5% scan calibrations have worked a treat. That greatly speeds up things.  I then set about scanning through the 11 signatures.  Unlike Penny, I don’t get any sort of spidery sense of what they might be before they are labelled in my overview.  Although having said that, some of the Relic sites seem to take more effort than normal to find.  Again another good system for Wormholes, with 4 to explore.

[Genesis]
Shapisin – 5+1

The first hole I check leads to Genesis. I’m by myself in the system. With more interesting things to explore, I return to J135245.

J124526 – 5+1

This hole is a C2. There is a Domi on scan when I first step into the system, with 3 online towers. I warp across to a far planet and find 3 more online towers, and another offline. There is also a Harbinger. The 5% D-Scan makes it relatively quick to find the Tower the piloted Harb is in, and the Tower without a Force Field. I might revisit, but for now I return to J135245 and try the next wormhole.

J162159 – 5+1 (Relic, Gas, Gas, WH to Hi-Sec, Relic)

A C2 this time which is also active – it seems to pay to do these trips on the weekends. I see an Iteron V on scan, then a Crusader, then ship swapping continues with a Catalyst, and an Anathema, and then – nothing. I warp around the system and find two online towers, but no ships and no further activity. I scan down the sites, finding one wormhole to Empire.

I still have plenty to explore and some signs of activity, but my kids have lost interest in their screens at this point and are starting to make noise.  Time to look for a place to dock, so I use the Wormhole to High Sec.

[Khanid]
Reteka – 1+1

My fourth Region for the session and I am in Khanid, not far from Amarr. There are no stations here however so I look up the map and then step across one system.

Palas – 0

Where I dock.

Latest Trip Count –7 sessions, 32 Empire Systems, 23 Wormholes, 2 Null Systems, 1 Low Sec System, 1 kill

It might not be obvious – but I am actually finding value from this process.

When I started it took me a couple minutes to scan down each signature – now they are done in a quarter of the time. I am able to use D-Scan to quickly paint a picture in my mind of what activity is going on around me, and pin point the location of things of interest. I’ve crisscrossed the Map of EVE, visiting systems I’ve never been in before. I’ve hunted other players, and been hunted by them. I’ve also grown more comfortable moving around in dangerous space.

It might not be riveting reading, but what I like about this is it is available to solo players. I just clone jump to my Loki once a month or so for a change of scenery, and get the chance to work on improving my piloting skills. When my Loki meets its demise I think I will continue this journey, although I might just go in a Covert Ops Frigate. The checking / hunting other player part slows things down lots!

Day 5

The good news is my wife has to attend a Funeral.

No – that didn’t sound right. The bad news is my wife has to attend a Funeral; the good news is it is a couple of hours away and she is taking our daughter. Even better news, my Son is spending the day at one of his mate’s place.

That means an uninterrupted Wormhole exploring session!

This might be the last trip for a bit (it was, this is an old entry), so let’s get into it.

[The Bleak Lands]
Junsen – 1

I undock to see only 1 Signature. In 2 scans I pin point a wormhole.

(If you are wondering why I am mentioning how many scans I am taking to find signatures, it is reflecting that I am concentrating on being braver with my scanning. Instead of more gradually stepping down my probe sizes, I am being far more aggressive. It is paying dividends, and makes me wonder why I didn’t do this earlier.)

 

J144153 8+1 (Gas, Data, Data, Data, Gas, WH to C3, Data, Data)

I jump through in to my first wormhole of the session. There is nothing on scan and no apparent recent activity. I warp off to the distant planet and pick up 1 tower on Scan. I am soon sitting cloaked looking at it. It has an Extra Large Ship Maintenance Array anchored, which just looks very silly. I don’t tend to see many of those in my travels.

I move to a quiet corner of the system and launch probes. The 9 Signatures are in 3 separate clusters.

Scan
1 – Inbound Wormhole
2 – Gas ignored
3
4 – Data ignored
5
6 – Data ignored
7
8 – Data ignored
9
10 – Gas ignored
11
12 – Wormhole Identified
13
14 – Wormhole to C3 Bookmarked
15
16 – Data ignored
17 – Data ignored

There is still no activity on scan, and only one path to follow, so I step through into the C3.

 

J114010 10+1 (Gas, WH to Unknown, Data, Data, Gas, Relic, WH to 0.0, Relic, Gas, Gas)

There are no ships on scan and the Wormhole has no recent activity. I find 4 towers in system, none with force fields. Two have incapacitated modules suggesting a violent end to this occupation. There is nothing of worth to scrounge.

With everything still looking clear it is time to Scan. The Signatures are all over the place, which slows the process down.

Scan
1 – Inbound Wormhole
2
3 – Gas ignored
4
5 – Wormhole to unknown Bookmarked
6
7 – Data ignored
8 – Data ignored
9
10 – Gas ignored
11 – Relic ignored
12
13
14 – Wormhole to Null Bookmarked
15
16
17 – Relic ignored
18 – Gas ignored

I’ve noticed nothing new on scan, and I have two paths to check out. I start with the Null Sec hole.

 

[Cobalt Edge]
M-VACR– 0+1

There is only the inbound wormhole in system, so that ends my travel unless I use a gate. I see a Thanatos on scan with fighters out and wrecks. A ratting carrier in an anomaly. I should be able to work out which one he is in quickly, warp in and point him to give him a heart attack, then warp out. But I don’t. Instead I step back through into the Wormhole.

 

J114010

I warp across to the second wormhole to explore. I look away while in warp and am not paying attention when I land. I hear the distinct sound of a wormhole being activated. I scurry back to find myself decloaked and sitting on a wormhole. So much for warping to 30km.  Did I do something foolish like jumping on contact? No – I am still in the same wormhole. So someone has just either jumped out as I landed, or is in a session change cloak with me. I turn on the damage control and sensor booster, but no one appears.

Arrggg – not paying close enough attention and I miss something again. I warp out, wait a short period, then warp back and jump through, half expecting an ambush.

 

J144135 10+1

This is a C4 with no recent activity and 30+ Anomalies.

I warp around and identify 2 POS with no Force fields. They have some anchored weaponry but nothing of value. A Badger then appears on scan – and from the direction I am guessing it is on the Wormhole. I warp in at distance to see it sitting there.

As I watch it goes through. Maybe that is what jumped past me before? Maybe it is going through to Hi-Sec, although it seems a silly path to follow?  As I ponder this, the Badger jumps back through into this system again, polarised, and sits unmoving on the hole. I am too far away to do anything about it, plus it smacks of being a trap.

 

I ignore it and warp off to identify the location of the extra 2 POS with no Force Fields. Again there is nothing of value to loot, but it seems to be worth paying attention to.

The Badger disappears and reappears on scan, and I get one blip of a Proteus.

I return to the wormhole to see the Badger sitting a couple hundred K off the hole, moving slowly away. It has been renamed “Loki Destroyer”.

After a while a Tengu appears, and then the badger warps off, followed by the Tengu. They disappear from scan, then a Falcon blips on one cycle.

That wouldn’t have been a fair fight. It also isn’t something I want to run into – so I give scanning down this system a miss.

I return the way I came without incident, and park in the same Station I started out from.

 

Latest Trip Count – 6 sessions, 29 Empire Systems, 17 Wormholes, 2 Null System, 1 kill

Day 4 B

Tea completed I sit down to continue my wormhole session.

[Khanid Kingdom]
Agil – 1

There is still only 1 signature in the system when I undock, with the same ID. I figure it will be a WH. It only takes a minute to confirm that. I am soon siting cloaked 10km off it, looking at a K162 to unknown space. In I go.

 

J144326 1+1 (WH to C1)

It is another quiet system from the look of it, this time a C2. I check the system over with D-Scan, seeing one Online POS near Planet V (with 19 Moons), and another Online POS on the outer Planet VI with 4 hulls near it.

I warp to the outer most planet first and quickly pick the POS up on D-Scan at Moon 1. I warp in but realise I’ve got it wrong. There is a POS with lots of modules, but this one is Offline.

Another quick look at D-Scan shows up the active POS on VI M2. As I drop out of warp I see the Hurricane, Ibis, Orca and Anathema all floating empty within the shields.

I warp to Planet V to search for the POS I noticed earlier – and pick up there are actually two POS near the planet, the Online one I noticed earlier, and an offline one. I am forced to use 30% angles on D-Scan, but find the Active POS on V M5, and the Inactive POS on V M11.

I’m not pleased to have missed 2 of 4 POS on my initial sweep. I really have to pay closer attention – it is those sorts of mistakes that will get me killed.

Oddly all four POS are from different Corporations / Alliances, and the Customs Office I warped in on earlier was a different Corporation again.

There is no recent activity in the hole and no Anomalies, so I launch probes to search out the second Signature. I get my inbound on one scan, and a second WH on the 3rd scan. It connects to a C1 – and with still no signs of activity here, I step through.

 

J165901 5+1 (WH to Hi-Sec, Gas, Gas, Gas, Relic)

I see a Catalyst on scan with 3 Online POS, a Bubble, and lots of Secure Containers. There is one planet out of range – so I warp out to it but find the area empty.

Warping back towards the inner cluster of planets and a Drake now comes up on scan. I am not sure if I missed that earlier or if it is a new arrival. Then I count the number of POS again, and there are now 4. One must have just been out of D-Scan range from the wormhole entrance.

I’d just been telling myself I had to pay more attention. Obviously in those first rushed seconds as you step into a hole for the first time, mistakes can be made. (The process is to check your overview, hit D-Scan, bookmark the wormhole, look for something to warp to, check D-Scan again, warp away and re-cloak, making sure you don’t drop cloak by warping through the hole, bookmark a safe spot while in warp, hit D-Scan a few times, and finally ready yourself for whatever you might encounter as you drop out of warp)

I find the new / 4th POS fairly quickly, with an unpiloted Drake.

D-Scan tells me a second POS is near Planet VI, and I find it on Moon 1.

The third and fourth POS are near Planets – I, II, III, IV or V. Scratch that, Planet I and II don’t have any moons. I still need to narrow that down more, but I am still wrestling with being accurate enough with D-Scan. I move to another planet and try again, this time Planet V shines as the clear winner.

Moon 2 has the third POS, the Catalyst, and the anchored bubble. The destroyer is unpiloted. The bubble is in a strange spot, and I am not sure from what direction it would catch anyone – maybe the sun?

Anyway the catalyst is empty, and there is no sign of any activity, so I don’t feel the need to find the last POS.  Time to scan.

I resolve my inbound on the 1st scan, another wormhole on the 4th, exclude 2 Gas sites on the 6th, exclude another Gas site on the 7th, and exclude a Relic site on the 8th scan.

The only Wormhole I have to check goes back to Hi-Sec. With no apparent activity here, I step through into what I am guessing will be Verge Vendor again from the appearance of the hole.

 

[Sing Laison]
Dodixie – 0+1

Nope – but the backdrop is kind of the same. I did find it odd coming into a trading hub from a wormhole. I know it is one of the smaller trade hubs, but I didn’t think sites were spawned in them. Maybe that is only with Jita?

I can see Core Probes on scan. Since this Wormhole is the only thing to find in system, maybe I should go back through the hole and wait to see what arrives? Or maybe I won’t. I stay in Dodixie cloaked and watch the probes. They take a long time to get close before finally disappearing. No ship however arrives. Combat Probes then appear – but the same scenario plays out. They take a long time to all cluster around the hole, then disappear – along with whoever was controlling them.

Time to make a move I think. I check the regional map, see a chunk of 0.5 systems nearby, and head in that direction.

 

Vylade – 1 (WH to Unknown)

The next system over has 1 signature. I drop probes and after two scans I have a Wormhole. That was quick. It leads to unknown space.

I check D-Scan and see Sisters Core Probes. I double check and I had indeed recalled mine – so someone else should soon find this hole. I jump in, keeping that in mind.

 

J105632 5+1 (Gas, WH to Hi-Sec, Gas, Data, Gas)

Inside the wormhole there are Sisters Core probes, a Heron, two towers and one force field on scan.

I try to pin point the Heron and it appears to be near Planet V and an Offline POS. I warp to the planet and short range D-Scan. The tower turns up at V M9, surrounded by anchored offensive modules. The Heron however seems to be actively warping around. I’m not going to catch that.

Now to find the second POS – while keeping in mind there is a 3rd planet out of range. The POS is near Planet VII – and as I warp in I get in range of a third POS, this also offline. The second POS is on Moon 3, and the third POS ends up being near Planet 9.

I have noticed that quite a lot of the POS I am finding are poorly configured, and offer no real deterrent to anyone thinking about attacking them.

At this time the night time routine was in full swing with the family, and I was interrupted again for a couple of hours.

When I return I decide to scan down the 6 sites still in system. Soon after I launch probes I see an extra 8 probes and a Helios on d-scan. I find my inbound hole on the first cycle, drop two Gas sites on my 3rd scan, drop a Data on the 6th and Gas on the 7th, and pin point the last site, a second wormhole, on my 8th scan.

In the middle of my scan someone pipes up in local – “Your back again? Lol”. Since I hadn’t dropped probes in this hole before, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t talking to me.

 

[The Bleak Lands]
Junsen – 3+1

My only option is a Wormhole to Hi-Sec, which drops me out in the Bleak Lands.  I don’t bother scanning the 3 unknown signatures, and instead dock up. My gaming is done.  I had managed to half salvage my day after all.

Latest Trip Count – 5 sessions, 29 Empire Systems, 14 Wormholes, 1 Null System, 1 kill

Day 4 A

I’m on holidays and have an entire day scheduled to play EVE. My daughter will be at childcare, my son at a football clinic, and my wife will be busy and out of the house, leaving me in peace. Boy had I been looking forward to it.

Then the day before my Daughter gets up with a bit of a cough, which gets progressively worse by the hour until she ends up bent over coughing up lung every five minutes. I feel my shoulders slumping.

Sure enough on the morning of my great EVE adventure she wakes up with a croaky voice and deep hacking cough. I point out that she seems cheerful enough to my wife, but she just shrugs and says “sorry, she has to stay at home with you”.

*sigh*

So dreams of 6 or 7 hours of uninterrupted wormhole roaming are dashed, and instead I spend the day watching over my daughter.

At around 3:30 my wife arrives home with my Son, and I decide to retreat to my study, close the door, and ignore all and sundry to try and salvage a bit of time for EVE.

 

[Verge Vendor]
Scolluzer – 2 (WH to unknown, WH to C2)

I clone jump back to my Loki, undock, and admire the scenery of Verge Vendor again. There are two signatures in system, both leading to unknown space. I arbitrarily pick one and jump through.

 

J142306 – 3+1 (WH to unknown, WH to Hi Sec, WH to C3)

The first hole for the session is a C2. There are three unknown signatures in system, plus an Executioner, Shuttle, 5 towers and 3 force fields on scan. I bookmark the wormhole and warp off, deciding to check out the towers. They are all clustered close together, and I struggle to accurately find them on D-Scan.

I turn tracking on, select a moon and do a 5% scan. The moon doesn’t appear. I use the 15% scan – and still no moon. At 30% I finally see the moon I am tracking on, but also every moon near it. I am not sure if this is a game feature, or the result of having my ship off center on my screen. The end result is it takes me an annoyingly long time to find all 5 towers and to confirm the hulls are empty.

Warping to the other side of the hole finds 3 more active towers which I leave unfound – there are no ships on scan anyway.

The 3 signatures scan down to 3 wormholes – one to unknown space, one to Hi-Sec, and one to a C3. Odd how sometimes it takes me half a dozen systems to find one wormhole, and today I am only finding wormholes. I check out the High Sec one first.

 

[Devoid]
Palpis – 0+1

I find myself in an empty system in a Hi-Sec pocket in Devoid. I’ve never visited here before. I wait out my polarisation time and jump back into the Wormhole.

 

J142306

I’m back into the C2. Next I warp to the WH to an unknown, but find it has collapsed. I really need to start paying closer attention to the description and appearance of the wormholes. Strike that one off the list. There is still no sign of activity in the hole, so I pop my head through the last of the wormholes into a C3.

 

J164729 – 2+1 (WH to Hi Sec, WH to Null)

This C3 has a horrible effect on Shields, so I remind myself not to initiate combat here. A quick scout finds two online towers and no signs of activity. I pin-point these a little easier as the planets and moons are not clustered as closely together. I then scan down the 3 signatures, starting (as I am making a habit of) with my inbound wormhole. Again all I do is find wormholes – one being to Null Sec, the other to High Sec.

 

[Khanid Kingdom]
Bukah – 2+1

The Hi-Sec hole drops me out into Khanid Kingdom, which is not an area I have frequently much over the last 7 years. I note it is near Keberz and the notorious HED-GP. I hear –A- are back in control. I feel comfortable enough (or is that foolish) to polarise myself and step immediately back through the wormhole.

 

J164729

I’m back into the C3 with its horrible effect on my shields. I then warp across to the Null Sec wormhole – but actually find myself at the inbound from the C2. I messed up my bookmarking. I warp away, re-launch probes, and re-scan the Null Link down. I step through.

 

[Catch]
J6QB-P – 0+1

I find myself in Catch with two –A– Pilots and one of their stations. I guess that confirms they are back. Good for them. I am not that far from HED-GP, and have 3 entrances to Providence within 6 jumps. Any interest in looking around is squashed by a croaky interruption from my 4 year old daughter – Tea is ready. I return to the C3, then back to Bukah in Empire Space, and finally take one gate further so I can dock for a while.

[Khanid Kingdom]
Bukah – 2+1
Agil – 1

 

Latest Trip Count – 4 sessions, 26 Empire Systems, 11 Wormholes, 1 Null System, 1 kill

Day 3 and BOOM

The wife leaves with the kids, and will be out for 2 hours. It is one of my rare opportunities to play EVE without fear of interruption. Well, aside from possible orders via SMS.

I put down the haulers I have been playing with, pause the skill training, and jump clone back to the Loki. The training is restarted, and I toggle the Character sheet a couple of times so the icon stops flashing. It is nice to see the next clone jump availability sitting under 22 hours.

I slide into the Loki and give it a quick once over to ensure everything is online and supplies are stocked. I then clean up my bookmarks, which are a mess from my previous outing. Finally I undock, and wow, what stunning views.

Ekuenbiron in Verge Vendor

Let the scanning begin.

[Verge Vendor]

Ekuenbiron – 2 (Data, Combat)
Raneilles – 2 (Combat, Combat)
Vay – 0
Scheenins – 0
Jufvitte – 0
Amygnon – 1 (combat)
Back through Jufvitte
Ansalle – 1 (data)

Maybe I need to move closer to Jita to find Wormholes? I check and it is currently 17 jumps away.

 

Gisleres – 2 (Combat, WH to C2)

In my 8th empire system I finally find a wormhole, which I use.

 

Classified WH – 9 + Entry

I appear near an outer planet. I bookmark my entry point and hit D-Scan. 2 Towers, 2 Forcefields, an Archon, Orca, Thanatos, Archon, Retriever and Megathron. As I warp away re-cloaking I check for recent activity, finding a ship death and some NPC kills about 6 hours earlier. That doesn’t bode well.

My ship falls out of warp near a Customs Office. As I am looking at Dotlan I suddenly notice I have an Epithal on Grid – 64km away from me. He is off in short order and there is nothing I can do about it. At least someone is active.

I hunt down the two POS I saw on scan. The first is on Moon 2, with a piloted Mega, piloted Retriever, floating retriever and floating orca. I find the second POS on Moon 1 with a piloted Iteron V, piloted Epithal (a different one), and floating Achron (x2) and a Thanatos.

So there are at least 5 active pilots in system.

I warp to the Planets around the Sun, but find no further POS. As I am snooping around one or two Epithal keep appearing and disappearing off scan.

I make a halfhearted attempt to chase them, but it’s obviously futile.

I warp back to the POS on Moon 1 to watch. As I am busy writing down some Intel I just catch an Epithal warping out to a Customs Office, but I am not quick enough to see which one it goes to. Why do these things happen when I am not paying full attention?

Then a Shuttle joins the pilots in the POS shield and swaps into another Epithal. I’m ready now to watch this one closely. And I wait. And I wait. And just when I am thinking I might go do something else he starts moving. I watch where he flies off too and am confident I have the right Customs Office. Warp seems to take an inordinate amount of time to enter, and I am already thinking I might be too far behind. I narrow the D-Scan field down to a sliver, and keep refreshing. The Epithal is on Scan, on scan, on scan, on scan, on scan, damn. It disappears before I reach the Customs Office. I suspect I got the wrong one.

He returns to the POS at the same time I do, and swaps back into his Shuttle.

*Sigh*

Then a Tengu warps in.

Ok – I am sort of getting some things right, but I just don’t seem to be quick enough. I can’t decide if I am unlucky not to have picked the right Customs Office, or lucky to have had the opportunities I’ve had. I know my time in EVE is limited and I can’t sit around all day watching people. Normally when I find an active hole I tend to quietly slink out the way I came. This time however I decided to warp back towards the center of the system and scan some of the 9 sites down to look for another wormhole. That should at least wake people up.

As I land at a previously made safe I can see an Epithal on scan again – oh, and some Sleeper wrecks. Ooohhh, and that piloted Retriever. I noticed there was on Ore Anomaly earlier, so I used D-Scan to verify that the wrecks and Retriever were in it. I presume the Tengu had cleared the Sleepers, so the Retriever might be settling in for a mining session.

I still hadn’t launched probes or uncloaked, so I figured I’d warp into the Ore Site and see.

I arrive to find I have the place to myself.

*Sigh*

I’m looking at my watch and calculating when the family will be home, and trying to work out how long I should wait. Oh hello – the Retriever drops back on grid. He must have bookmarked an asteroid and warped out and back in again to move to it. I pull up my mining overview (which I had hidden the previous foray into WH space), bookmark an Asteroid near the Barge, and do the same.

 

As I warped back in I felt nervous and have a mild case of the shakes – but not as bad as I have done in the past.

I land 23km away, but then had to carefully pilot around several asteroids to avoid being de-cloaked on them.

This could end up being embarrassing.

I get to 9km away, give one last check of D-Scan, hit approach, de-cloak, turn on the MWD, Sensor Booster, Damage Control, and target, target, target, target – locked. Scram on and the guns firing I select Orbit, watch for drones, and check D-Scan again.

The damage application appeared to be a bit slow, and I realise I am orbiting outside of optimal. I probably shouldn’t be orbiting at all. I turn off the MWD and overheat the guns. In what seems an eternity but was probably fairly quick the Barge finally explodes. The pod escapes but only just. I don’t even bother looting – I just target and destroy the wreck and warp away.

I watch D-Scan and see a flurry of ship changes being made – Hurricane Fleet Issue, Dominix, Falcon, and extra Tengu. I wait 5 minutes, warp to the entrance Wormhole, and quietly make my escape.

I move over one system, dock and repair the slight damage from the over heat, and contemplate the situation.

Scolluzer – Docked.

My wife gets home with the kids just as the repairs are finished, and I have to call an end to the session.

 

Latest Trip Count – 3 sessions, 23 Empire Systems, 9 Wormholes, 1 kill

To the poor Retriever Pilot it might have looked like I knew what I was doing. In reality it was a bit bumbling and instead of an intuitive or honed hunter, it was more like I was just following a checklist off in my head.

It was my first kill in 11 months, and the very first Mining Barge.

No – I didn’t come away feeling like I have been bitten by the PVP bug, or felt anything inspiring about the situation. I know it sounds pitiful to say – but I have been involved in more than 50 kills previously, and I know I don’t get a lot of satisfaction out of it. My main thought was that it was like I had broken some sort of Carebear rule by killing a Mining Barge! Still – mission accomplished in a fashion.

Day 2 – Singing in Sinq, and a need for overview tuning

I had planned on returning to my Loki at 12 noon, but it was 4pm by the time I actually managed to log in. My quiet and uninterrupted run was not to be.

I started Firefox and open up Dotlan, a list of wormhole types and a wormhole database. I also open up my notepad. Prepared, I undock the Loki.

Ainaille – 1 (WH to Hi-Sec)

Ainaille is relatively quiet, and there is just the one Signature in system. It quickly scans down to a Wormhole leading to Hi-Sec. I step through, wondering where I’ll end up this time.

 

Konola (The Citadel) – Entry WH

There is only the entrance Wormhole in system. I check and Jita is only 6 jumps away. Funny how often I’ve ended up near Jita recently.  I check the map and pick a direction where I will be able to scan lots of systems in a row without the need to backtrack.

 

Isaziwa – 1 (Data)

 

Oiniken – 2 (Combat, WH to C2)

A C2 sounds like a good start, so I blindly step through.

 

J140308 – 11 + Entry WH

Dotlan suggests a ship kill here a couple of hours ago, and NPC kills within the last hour. A handful of sleeper wrecks on scan confirm that. This might be more interesting.

I can also see 2 active Towers, a Brutix, Buzzard, Chimera, Orca and Probe on scan.

I use the tracking camera and directional scanner to work out what moons the POS are on. The first tower is on Planet 8, Moon 3. A Chimera sits within the Forcefield unpiloted.

I warp over to Moon 4 to check out the second tower, but there isn’t one there. Seems my directional scanning needs some work. I try again, and Moon 1 comes up as the candidate this time.

As I drop out of warp I see a Buzzard outside of the shields, a Probe, an Orca, an Epithal, a Brutix, a – hold on, that’s a PI hauler. And it’s piloted. I am pretty sure I am meant to be excited about that. The Buzzard is also piloted, but safely tucked up amongst the POS weaponry. It is also probably controlling the combat probes I can now see moving about on scan.

I would normally have thought they were aware someone was in system with them, but in recent blog reading people seem to use combat probes for signature scanning in wormholes, so they pick up on ships as well. I am yet to try it out myself – mostly as I don’t think to load them. I know in EFT my Sensor Strength is 119 with Core probes, and only 59 with Combat. (I dropped the Sisters Launcher, hence lower figure.) It will be interesting to see how much slower that makes scanning.

As I contemplate the scene the Epithal actually starts moving. I scramble to select the right overview and with tracking on I watch where he warps off into space. Only my overview settings are not right, and the customs offices are not shown in my view. I hazard a quick guess and warp to one of 3 Custom Offices he was in rough line with. I arrive 10km off to find myself alone. I check a second Custom Office quickly, but he drops off close scan before I come out of warp. I return to the tower to find him there.

He swaps to the Probe, and the Buzzard finally warps off and cloaks. His combat probes are still out, and moving in and out of scan range. I presume he is scanning down the 12 sites.

I am fiddling with overview settings when the pilot hops back into his Epithal and warps off. This time I have the custom office showing up in space, but there are two of them together in the direction he warped towards. I follow quickly behind with a 50/50 chance of getting the right one. I don’t.

We arrive back at the POS at about the same time.

I wonder what the pilot would think if he realised he had an inept, bumbling Empire Carebear lamely and ineffectually trying to hunt him. Doesn’t matter, I remained cloaked, so no one will ever know about it…

At this point I hear a loud crash from upstairs and then my daughter start crying. I want to ignore it – I’m sure it was self-inflicted and the cry is of the “I need a hug” kind, and not “I’m in pain.” The crying perseveres so I walk away from EVE.

It turns out she was rocking the chair back – like I’ve told her not too previously, and it tipped over on her. I did the “I told you so” speech, but I can see she had already gone back to focusing on her tablet after getting her hug, and had stopped acknowledging my existence.

I get side tracked and return to EVE after a short break.  I decide to spend some time making changes to my overview to make it more useful in wormhole space.

The combat probes are out for a mighty long time, but when they disappear I return to the tower to see what the locals are up to. They are now both in Epithal. I have everything set up right – and I follow as they warp off into – nothingness. A quick glance at the map and I suspect they just went to Empire WH I came through – with PI goods to sell in Jita.

I wait on the hole for a little bit in case they return – but then my Daughter arrives insisting I install some game for her tablet, and while I am trying to fend her off, my wife arrives to say dinner is on the table.  I hop back through to Empire space and park.

 

Ahynada – 2 (Combat, WH to C5)

After eating I return, but my ego won’t take re-visiting the C2. I step across one Empire system and scan down a WH to a C5. Rightly or wrongly I get the impression people who live in C5’s tend to fly in gangs and will likely be able to outsmart my inexperienced Loki – so I ignore that for the moment.  I need to be able to up skill a bit against the C1-3’ers first.  Funny enough while sitting in system my two Epithal’s from the C2 pass through, coming back from Jita. I give them a silent wave.

Real Life then calls me away yet again.  Yep – this is why I play the game solo.

 

Kausaaja – 2 (WH to C2, WH to C1)

I look at the C1

 

J112250 – 5 + inbound (WH to Unknown, Gas, Gas, WH to Hi-Sec, Relic)

I practice my POS finding again, using the sun as a base to find the first 2 active towers, and then hunt down an offline one on an outer planet. I was more effective this time around. There is no sign of life and no recent API activity, so I drop probes and scan.

It is easier to be more accurate with the direction scanner now

My time and brownie points with the wife however have run out again, so I just step through the Hi-Sec hole and look to dock up. I need to jump clone back to my main base for a day, in part to redeem some items from CCP.

 

Ekuenbiron (Verge Vendor) – 2 + Entry WH

No scanning, I just park and jump clone.

 

I’m not sure I am covering much distance so far – but I am focusing on the educational value of these early days.

 

Latest Trip Count – 2 sessions, 15 Empire Systems, 8 Wormholes

Day 1 – Map

For my own interest I threw together this awkward and unprofessional map of my first day’s travels.

Any suggestions on a free or cheap tool to map out wormhole travel?  Must be quick and easy to use.

Day 1 – Refresher and shake down

I am taking rough notes as I travel with my Loki. I will flag what systems I visit here, except for the first Empire systems which were in the same region as my home. The system will be noted, along with the number of Signatures on scan.

Empire 1 – 0
Empire 2 – 1 (Relic)
Empire 3 – 0
Empire 4 – 6 (Combat, Combat, Relic, Data, Relic, Data)
Empire 5 – 1 (Relic)
Empire 6 – 3 (WH to Unknown)

I crossed into a second region during the trip above.

I find it odd how many systems you can scan through in Empire without finding a wormhole. On the weekend I visited 8 before finding one, then 9 of the next 10 systems had at least one. On this trip it took 6 systems.

After a quick check of the locals and what corps / alliances they were in, I jumped through the Wormhole, ignoring the remaining two signatures. I just wanted to get started on this journey already.

J135910 – 8 + Entry

This was a C2 with no recent activity, 11 moons, 11 control towers, and a load of anchored bubbles on scan. There were however no ships. With relative efficiency I scanned down Gas, Relic, Wormhole, Data, Relic, Relic, Relic and Data. With still no signs of life here, I jumped through the new Wormhole.

Hello J135910

J130330 – 13 + Entry

A C4 this time, also with no recent activity reported and no ships on scan. There were 35 moons and 1 tower nearby. I started the process of scanning the system, getting Gas, Gas, Gas, Gas and a Wormhole to a C5. I was then interrupted for an hour to do the school run.

After my son was collected, fed and occupied with his laptop, I logged back in. I looked at my notes and the 14 Signatures, and realised I hadn’t kept proper account of what six digit codes I had already scanned down. On principle I refused to rescan them, and not feeling ready to traverse a C5 just yet, I returned to the C2, Empire 6, Empire 4, and on to a fresh system to scan.

Empire 7 – 8 (Combat, WH to unknown)

Again I stopped scanning at the first Wormhole hit, and after the obligatory check of locals, I jumped back into Unknown Space.

J114308 – 3 + Entry

Another C2, no recent activity, 47 moons, and 3 towers and 2 force fields on scan. Again – no ship hulls. I scanned down Gas, Gas, and a Wormhole to a C1.

J114308 was attractive looking

J105013 – 5 + Entry

The C1 had a slightly odd layout. There was just 1 planet with 19 moons off it. Like all the other systems so far, there was no movement. The sites scanned down to Wormhole (Hi-Sec), Wormhole (C2), Gas, Wormhole (Unknown) and Data. I poked my nose through the Hi-Sec hole.

Ghesis (Kador) – 1 + Entry

Ghesis is actually an old stomping ground, but given there were plenty more options to investigate in the C1 I decided not to hang around. Actually – hold on – I almost forgot. I do have to stay put. If you jump through a wormhole, you can only use it one more time within the next 5 minutes. Further jump attempts fail. It’s called Polarization. If I immediately jumped back into the C1 and found a gang waiting for me, I’d be stuck in there with them. As such I pottered about Ghesis for 4 minutes, checking what the second signature was. (I didn’t note it down. As I said, my note keeping really needs some work.)

While in Ghesis a Heron popped up on scan with T1 probes out. When my timer was up I jumped back into the C1, but stayed just off the hole cloaked in case the Heron decided to jump in. It seemed unlikely, but what the hell.

At that point however my wife asked for my attention, and I had to step away. The heron could have sat on the hole for 10 minutes and I wouldn’t have seen it. Next is the C2.

J122635

Again my notes fail me. I know it was a C2, and what I saw on scan were a ton of ships, a couple Orca, a Rorqual, an Onyx, Tengu’s, Oracle, Sabre, and on and on, most with Russian names. I can hear my wife pottering around in the kitchen and I knew my game time was very limited. I back out of this system. Next from the C1 was an unknown.

Either no ships, or too many on scan.  Never just right.

J105123 – 4 + Entry

Another C2 with no apparent activity. I had just enough time to bookmark a safe when I had to log off. Tea and my Son’s swimming followed.

A couple hours later I logged back in. I looked about the place and found an Iteron V at a POS, piloted. As I watched he swapped to a Nemesis, and warped off cloaking. The first confirmed life – and I had no idea if he was active or not. I should have added the pilot to my contact list so that I could at least pick up if he had logged out or not.

After waiting a while I end up dropping probes and scanning. Relic, Wormhole to Hi-Sec, Wormhole to Hi-Sec, Data. The kids night time routine is in full swing in RL, so I check the closest Hi-Sec out.

Ainaille (Sing Laison) – 1 + Entry

I launch probes, and a 3rd Signature opens up immediately under them – a Relic site. I also find another Wormhole to Unknown space, but the only thing I can do is dock up and log off.

Always found the Sing Laison background rather stunning

9 Empire systems across 4 regions, and six wormholes. Actually – it was 7 wormholes – I documented what I found (nothing), but I failed to note its name down. Again, my note taking.

I was reminded about just how often I am interrupted by RL. This is certainly only something I could do solo. The process was less of a hassle with just the one Toon – but it means when someone actually pins me down I’m likely a goner, as, by their nature, Wormholers are generally not working alone.

Normally I can get a bit nervy when I put myself into danger in EVE, but I was surprisingly relaxed so far about this journey. I still felt much like the hunted instead of the hunter though.

Any bets on how many systems I travel through before dying?

Must restart that Travel Blog

The Odyssey 1.1 patch was annoying.  The Launcher and its P2P approach to downloading is noticeably slower.  When it finally completed the download, the patching process froze on 0% (which seemed to be a common problem).  I had to restart the launcher, which then downloaded the full patch a second time before working.  It was late, but I remember frowning and muttering a FFS towards CCP.

One of the things I was referring to the other day, when I mentioned not being effective at following through on plans, was the goal to lose my Loki in Wormhole space.

I’ve had the hull for well over a year – or is it coming up to two now? It has been on half a dozen voyages through unknown space, some of which I have commented on here, but the process has never really captured my imagination.

I sat down the other day to see why it felt like a chore. I still like the idea of roaming wormhole space, popping in and out of known space, and exploring until I happen upon my own death. It just wasn’t working out as envisioned.

The first annoyance was the effort of moving my Main and Main Alt around together. It was useful having a support Falcon along, both for extra supplies, the force multiplier effect and for watching holes, but it required a lot more concentration, bookmarking and clicking. Solution – my Main Alt can stay at home.

The second annoyance was the effort to scout and map out each system. I was going into this with the view of hunting for targets, but it just seemed to take far too long to sniff out and bookmark each tower and take in each system fully. Solution – I am going to concentrate on finding travel paths, not targets.

With this change in approach, I adjusted my fit. I swapped in an Interdiction Nullifier, which dropped my DPS by about 10%, but made the ship a lot more slippery. I also swapped out one of the Shield Extenders for a Large Ancillary Shield Booster. On paper I would have more EHP with the second Extender than what 9 cycles of the Booster would restore. I have to admit it is just for the mental comfort of being able to overheat and self rep while running for a hole or gate. That’s my excuse, and I am sticking to it.

I then practiced my scanning and note taking again (hence my last post), and read lots of posts on http://www.tigerears.org/.

Feeling ready, I then clone jumped to my Loki and embarked on an interrupted afternoon, visiting 9 empire systems across 4 regions connected through 7 wormholes.

Lessons learnt or reminded about so far – I really need a polished way of notating and bookmarking as I travel; my time zone (AU) seems very quiet in Wormhole space; the new scanning Interface makes the process less of an effort; and not dragging an Alt along behind me speeds things up dramatically.

Not sure why, but the trip had a distinct lack of trepidation as I moved about

Garage Sale

My industry Alt was at a trade hub, in the earlier stages of selling off all that collected junk. The EVE client suggests I had 8B ISK worth. It will be interesting to see where reality lies. The whole process is going to take a while, particularly as I started mid-week while the market is slower. Still, I am relatively pleased so far:

2.0B Sold / In the Bank
1.3B On the Market
1.8B Waiting to be put on Market
3.1B Waiting to be transported to Market
—–
8.2B New estimated worth

At least we are tracking in the right direction. One last round of the 0.01 ISK game, throwing up an extra dozen lots, and I then steer the Alt back towards her home system.

A short update of her local trade orders, and then I run her full PI Cycle.

I then swap to the PI Alt and complete her PI Cycle.

I find if I concentrate, I can generally complete each planet’s update in between the time I hit warp to the customs office, and the time I actually land next to it. This means I spend very little time sitting around.

PI done and a bit over 20M of final profits made, I swap back to my Industry Alt. I load up her Orca with more stuff to sell and head back to the Trade hub. Downtime then interrupts me, and I notice the news box mention it will be an extra-long one. Damn you CCP, I was on a roll and had plans today. Plans!!

..

After DT I log in my main and his Alt, and do the last jump clone swap / implant plug-in. This is for the Wormhole roaming ships. It is getting too late to do much, but I again practice scanning. 3 Combat sites, 2 Magnetometric, and 2 wormholes. Each one takes around 2 minutes to find, which I am relatively pleased with.

While probing a Heavy Interdictor appears on scan, with a hull name and pilot Corp that suggests they are from a Wormhole. As my probes close in on one of the holes the ship leaves local. I am guessing he is waiting on the other side hoping I jump through. (Although frankly I have no proof of that, and am just overly paranoid.)

It is getting late, so I just run two of the Mag Sites. Just, well, because. They only take a couple minutes each, and I come away with 15M of loot.  (High Sec Exploration isn’t normally this rewarding.)

Of course that is not the role of these ships, so I drop the loot off and decide to explore the wormholes in the morning.

..

I wake with another headache, which makes something like 7 from the last 9 days. Damn allergies. I’m not in the best of shape, but when the wife and kids head out to visit friends, I take the opportunity to undock the Loki and supporting Falcon and go visit one of the Wormhole’s I found last night, in to a C3.

Scouting the system shows up one POS on the furthest planet with large bubbles, lots of containers and small weaponry. I don’t both warping to it. A low number of anomalies and quiet dotlan stats for the last 12 hours suggest no one is home, so I launch probes.

4 Signatures turn out to be a Grav, Ladar and 2 Wormholes. The new hole leads out to Cache in Null. I potter around out there but find no Signatures, and with my head screaming, I return back through the C3 and back to Empire to dock up.

It has been good to be so active in game over the last week.

That’s not PVP

I came to the conclusion that bringing my Main Alt along on my Wormhole Exploration has more Pros than Cons.  The main negative is that by running both, I split my attention which may cost me a ship.  The benefits however are the Gang boost, extra pair of scouting eyes, and it opens a lot more options for aggression.

So that decided, the next step was to work out what ship to pilot.  I thought about a Gank DPS ship, like a Sleipnir, but concluded being able to warp while cloaked was too important in a Wormhole.  I looked at the T3 Cruisers, but by the time the Covert Ops Subsystem and a Core Probe launcher were fit, the DPS was not worth the price of the Hull.  Stealth Bombers are too paper-thin for dual boxing and a Covert Ops Frigate not necessary since that was in effect what my main is flying.  So that left Recons.

I looked at them all – but it was obvious that the Hull which gave me the most options with the least need for micro management was a Falcon.

I once lost an Arazu to a Rapier.  (Stick with me here…) I jumped into him and was Warp Disrupted before the slow as crap Arazu could cloak and warp off.  I knew he had friends the other side of the gate so I tried to burn away, overloading the Warp Scrambler to keep his MWD drive offline, and overloading my MWD in the hope of maybe getting out of Disruptor range.  While I got 22km out a couple of times, the scram would then drop and he could pulse his MWD to cut the gap down again.

Meanwhile our tanks were dropping at around the same rate, so there was still hope – until the gate flashed, a Falcon uncloaked, and I was jammed.  I was soon warping away in my Pod.  In local I got a rather embarrassed apology from the Rapier Pilot for being forced to use his Falcon alt.  He remarked our dual was looking too close to call otherwise.  I told him not to worry about it, and that I would have used one if I had it available.  (I might have already told that story.)

There seems to be a stigma to piloting a Caldari ECM boat.  Hot drop a Dominix with 6 Supercarriers and people roll their eyes and call it overkill.  Uncloak a Falcon in a close battle, and you get disgust and cries of sacrilege.

Still – I can not think of a better option.  I adjusted my normal fit to carry a Core Probe Launcher and a bit more tank (dual boxing means it has to take care of itself a little more).  I then clone jumped my Main Alt back to his cheap empire capsule, Auto Piloted a shuttle to Jita, and set up the following:

[Falcon, Wormhole]
Damage Control II
Signal Distortion Amplifier II
Signal Distortion Amplifier II

Experimental 10MN MicroWarpdrive I
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
BZ-5 Neutralizing Spatial Destabilizer ECM
Enfeebling Phase Inversion ECM I
Dread Guristas ECM Multispectral Jammer
Dread Guristas ECM Multispectral Jammer

Salvager II
Salvager II
Sisters Core Probe Launcher, Sisters Core Scanner Probe I
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II

Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I

Hobgoblin II x2

Given I am not used to dual boxing in PVP it will probably all go pear-shaped, but I do now feel I have a lot more options to get up to mischief.

Empty holes

Meanwhile I have actually been playing the game..

I’m back in the Loki and sitting in Black Rise.  It’s another region I’ve never spent any time in.  My initial impressions are that its nebula is somewhat uninspiring, and there seem to be a great many people and POS in every system.

I bring up DOTLAN to get my bearings, undock and jump into a nearby system with no Stations.  There are only two people here, with wrecks, yet more POS, a Golem and Raven Navy Issue on scan.  I launch probes and find two signatures.  I’m rusty, and it takes me more time than I am willing to admit to pinpoint a combat site and a Wormhole.

I recheck d-scan in local to ensure nothing has changed, and then jump into the unknown.

It’s a C1. D-scan is clear and the stats show the last NPC activity was more than 6 hours ago.  There are two POS in system, the first offline, the second online and owned by a small Russian Corp in a Small Russian Alliance.  War Dec and killboard history suggest they don’t go out of their way to be hostile.

With nothing still on D-scan I launch probes and find 5 signatures.  Grav, Radar, a Wormhole, another Grav site, and the Hi-Sec Wormhole.   It takes me 3 or 4 minutes to find each one, which starts to add up.  I warp to the new Wormhole to find… nothing.  I deploy probes and re-scan.  Appears it has died in the last 5 to 10 minutes.  I couldn’t find a new wormhole signature to replace it, so I was forced to return to Hi Sec the way I came in.

I move next door.  19 people in local, lots and lots of POS, but no Probes on scan.  I find 4 unknown signatures, which resolve to a combat site, a Grav, another combat, and a Radar.  I find these quicker, but it still takes an annoying amount of time.

The sheer number of people in all these systems bugs me, so make a few jumps over to Lonetrek and ferret out a quiet system.  I deploy probes and find 2 Anomalies which I ignore, and 2 Unknowns.  The first is a Mag site, the second is a Wormhole.

I jump back into the unknown.  There are 2 towers on the initial scan, and what seem to be some 100 moons.  There are two further planets in distant orbit well out of D-Scan range.  I warp to both but strangely find no POS on either.  I warp back towards the sun and quickly find the first POS.  It is offline, has lots of guns anchored, and is owned by a 3 man corp.  The other POS has a stack of modules and weaponry anchored, and sits in a huge cluster of moons.  Given no ships come up on scan, and the last NPC activity was more than 9 hours ago, I don’t bother hunting it down and instead just drop probes.

1 anomaly and 4 unknown signatures.  I start to scan but tiredness gets the better of me.  I recall the probes and park at a safe outside of 15AU of the POS and log off.

A day later I log back in again.  I warp across the system checking d-scan, but everything looks quiet.  There have still been no new NPC kills, so the hole owners don’t appear to have been back.

It’s odd – I know I am in effect in a hunting role, and aside transitioning between wormholes, I am relatively safe as I can warp cloaked.  Yet still I feel uneasy.

I warp to the wormhole bookmark, but as expected it has collapsed.  D-scan remains quiet, so I set about probing.  There are 4 signatures on my side of the rather wide system.  I get lucky and find a wormhole on the first one I hunt down.

It leads into a C3.  I check the other signatures – a Ladar, Gravimetric, and a second Wormhole that leads back to Empire.  I find these all relatively quickly (for me), but it still takes 8 or 9 minutes in total.  I decide to check the Hi Sec entry first, so warp to it and jump through.  In to the C3.  Damn, must have got my bookmarks around the wrong way.  I see probes on scan, so bookmark the entrance and jump back into the C1.  I go to warp to the Hi Sec entrance to find it comes up as Approach.  Argh… I’ve bookmarked the C3 entrance twice.

I sit cloaked off that entrance and re-scan down the Hi Sec entrance, mumbling and cursing.  What far off region will I find?  The Citadel.  *sigh*

I return through the C1 to the C3.  The probes have gone and it appears quiet.  I safe up as RL calls.

I return later and things still seem quiet.  I check around but there isn’t even a POS in here. It does have a black hole effect, so maybe that’s a no-no.  (I look it up later.  It doesn’t appear to be that horrendous, assuming you don’t rely on missiles.)

Unsurprisingly there are a dozen anomalies and almost as many signatures.  I start scanning these down, this time taking note of the signature id’s.  Ladar, my inbound wormhole, then another outbound wormhole.  That goes into another C3, which I jump into.

Nothing on scan in this new hole aside 2 POS.  I find the first on an outer planet.  It is for a known NRDS alliance (who for historical reasons I won’t attack).  It is rather foolishly setup with a dogs body of Torps, Rail, and single EW modules online, and has various unpiloted haulers floating within the shield.

The second POS is run by a 8 man Corp, not affiliated I would guess with the other guys.  As I slow boat away cloaked to make a watch bookmark, a cyclone warps in.  As I was checking d-scan regularly, I am guessing they probably logged in.  I wait and watch for a while, but they don’t move.  Frankly I’d be hard pressed to take that on with my fittings, but the pilot is somewhat new, so it would be worth the chance.  In the end the approaching downtime wins out.

I jump back to the C3, then the C1, and back into Hi Sec to park.  Turns out Jita is close so I might take the opportunity to review my fitting again.

I can’t say I am finding this especially fun.  I was getting a little quicker with my scan times towards the end – down to just under 3 minutes each signature, but it still adds up when you have half a dozen to investigate in each hole.  I’m also aware I’m reliant on a lot of luck to actually kill anything if I do find active players.  I am contemplating bringing my Alt along with me.  I’ll have to think on that.

More fool me

We are at war again – a different variation of the same group behind more than half our Dec’s.  I had to get my Industry Toon out to do some shopping for Alt 1, but otherwise I don’t expect any impact.

The shopping required was for skillbooks.  With a view towards the proposed racial changes to the Battlecruiser skill, I have just finished up training Amarr and Caldari Frigate and Cruiser V skills on Alt 1.  That gives him the complete set.  I picked up the various Energy Turret and Strategic Cruiser skills that he was missing, which I am now training.

I am mindful of how underutilised that Alt is.  His 91M SP is rarely used for anything but the occasional scout or boosting role.  I’m not sure if that is a sign of CCP’s genius that I have felt that I had to spend so much time on an almost unused account, or my own foolishness.

My Industry Alt finished off Interplanetary Consolidation V and was able to setup a new planet for the last ingredient needed for my PI production goals.  I need to adjust extraction rates however on a couple raw ingredients as I am coming up too short on a couple of the shared ones.  I’ve also ran 10 invention jobs for the following modules, getting:

T2 Damage Control, getting 7 successes
T2 Adaptive Invulnerability Field, getting 3 successes
T2 Cap Recharger I, getting 5 successes
T2 Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane, getting 7 successes
T2 Micro Auxiliary Power Core, getting 4 successes
T2 Power Diagnostic, getting 7 successes
T2 Survey Scanner, getting 4 successes

I haven’t started producing any of these yet – I first need to re-do my entire T2 production spreadsheet to make it easier to keep track of costs.

Last of all my Main Toon ventured back into Wormhole space.  This time it was quiet and I saw no sign of active pilots, aside a single frigate wreck.  I was a little rustywith scanning, made worse by some of the systems having an excess of sites, so I didn’t get as far as I had hoped.  I also had an “oops” moment when I used d-scan to pin-point the location of a POS but got it wrong.  Not what you want when warping around a POS with bubbles on scan.  I am parked in Black Rise now, waiting for the next time I have a couple hours spare.