Officer Involved Shootings

"Alright, scouts are plus one.  Free burn to the desto, best speed," the FC called.

I was one of the scouts, and I aligned for the next gate and entered warp.  Another empty Null system... and another empty one... and an- wait!  There is a pilot not in our fleet.

"POLICE RAID!" I blared over the local com channels, even as I aligned for the next gate.  I giggled.  "Bring your ship to the 3F gate with your weapons OFFLINED and prepare to be searched!!"

---

It was Sunday, and I had poked one of the wormholer open fleet FC's into organizing a Police Pursuit Comet roam.  We ended up setting out with almost fifty pilots from w-space in our fleet: a half dozen armor logi frigates, a few Kitsunes packing jams, and forty rail-fit Comets backed up by flashy lights and pilots ready to shout 'Pull over!' and 'Jettison the contraband!' in local.

We scared the crap out of the first couple of people we tried jumping in low sec - spiking the system by fifty pilots tends to do that, so Minus Dronus called for scouts/bait.  I've never had problems with being shot at or taking one for the team, so I volunteered; we ended up with three comets going ahead of the fleet, finding Faction Warfare people in plexes or getting targets to aggress us on gates and stations.

The scouts took down a couple of T1 frigates in plexes, and a Noctis jumped through the gate the fleet was sitting on; he was quickly pointed and scrammed and ordered to surrender his contraband.  When he didn't comply, of course the fleet blew him up for resisting arrest.

We had a few other criminals we snagged as we scouted through the warzone, and then finally caught something good: a fleet of a half-dozen yellow and red flashies camping a gate into high sec.  One of the scouts landed on grid and was attacked by a tornado; I and the other scout quickly came to assist, spreading points and engaging the tornado, while the rest of the fleet quickly entered warp to join the fray.  "OFFLINE YOUR HARDENERS, CRIMINALS!" we demanded, although we didn't seem to need to - the tornado went down /fast/, popping before the majority of the fleet had landed.  The Hurricane had a heavier tank, but once it had forty Comets chewing on it it went down quickly, too.  The third ship we had pointed had apparently not aggressed yet, though, and snuck out the gate; the rest of the gate camp scattered.

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=22579049
http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=22579430

We spent a few moments congratulating each other on putting an end to the criminal activities, and a Maller jumped through our gate; it cloaked up, though, and entered warp as it decloaked.  "Your license plate has been noted!" I called after him in local.  "We'll send you a citation in the mail!"

We took a detour through null sec, but as usual Null was pretty empty; when we got back into Low, though, the fleet jumped a gate and landed on a flashy yellow destroyer gang.  There were easily a dozen to eighteen ships, mostly Algos' (Algosi?) and a few Navitases.  They were already on the move as we entered system, warping off as we held cloak on the gate; the scouts gave chase!

The three of us followed them to a station in Vey, in the Placid region, and began ordering them to turn themselves in for questioning, to let us search their ships, and so on.  They didn't respond, other than to acquire target locks; they held their fire, though, and the FC held the fleet out of the system as we waited for them to aggress.  For whatever reason, they decided to start shooting me first; I informed the fleet, and the logi landed on grid as I was entering structure.  They didn't save my comet in time (I exploded, to cries of 'Officer down!' echoed through coms), but because the destroyer gang was locked out of the station the rest of the fleet had a nice battle:

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=22579365

We took out half a dozen of them before they got away, and I headed back to Dodixie to grab one of the spare Comets I had in stock.  The roam ended shortly afterwards, though, and we dispersed back to our uncharted systems... until next time.

Of special note was the following conversation I had with a Null Sec resident. :D

[ 2014.03.23 19:29:56 ] Karen Galeo > o/
[ 2014.03.23 19:30:06 ] [redacted] > are you the police?
[ 2014.03.23 19:30:16 ] Karen Galeo > Yes.
[ 2014.03.23 19:30:24 ] [redacted] > omg
[ 2014.03.23 19:30:45 ] Karen Galeo > Are there any crimes you need to report, citizen?
[ 2014.03.23 19:30:45 ] [redacted] > so
[ 2014.03.23 19:30:54 ] [redacted] > yeah
[ 2014.03.23 19:31:09 ] [redacted] > i drink and i`m russian
[ 2014.03.23 19:31:18 ] [redacted] > it is crime?
[ 2014.03.23 19:31:32 ] Karen Galeo > No.
[ 2014.03.23 19:31:43 ] Karen Galeo > But you could go shoot someone.
[ 2014.03.23 19:33:01 ] [redacted] > nope
[ 2014.03.23 19:33:10 ] [redacted] > noobi-ship
[ 2014.03.23 19:33:21 ] Karen Galeo > o7
[ 2014.03.23 19:33:59 ] [redacted] > I just nearly killed
[ 2014.03.23 19:34:24 ] [redacted] > this wicked world
[ 2014.03.23 19:34:35 ] [redacted] > this wicked Galaxy
[ 2014.03.23 19:35:14 ] [redacted] > where were the police?
[ 2014.03.23 19:35:35 ] Karen Galeo > Probably confiscating valuable contraband.
[ 2014.03.23 19:35:55 ] [redacted] > no no
[ 2014.03.23 19:36:49 ] [redacted] > whiskey with cola is not contraband
[ 2014.03.23 19:37:24 ] Karen Galeo > >.>
[ 2014.03.23 19:37:26 ] Karen Galeo > :D
[ 2014.03.23 19:37:35 ] [redacted] > =)
[ 2014.03.23 19:43:12 ] [redacted] > how are you? how was your day?
[ 2014.03.23 19:43:35 ] Karen Galeo > It's going well. :D
[ 2014.03.23 19:43:54 ] Karen Galeo > Still roamng.
[ 2014.03.23 19:44:25 ] [redacted] > roaming?
[ 2014.03.23 19:44:34 ] [redacted] > sorry not understand
[ 2014.03.23 19:44:37 ] Karen Galeo > *patrolling*
[ 2014.03.23 19:44:39 ] Karen Galeo > ^^
[ 2014.03.23 19:44:42 ] [redacted] > ohh
[ 2014.03.23 19:45:57 ] [redacted] > probably hard to serve and protect Sunday
[ 2014.03.23 19:46:09 ] Karen Galeo > /emote snickers.
[ 2014.03.23 19:46:16 ] Karen Galeo > The criminals are keeping their heads down.
[ 2014.03.23 19:48:27 ] [redacted] > where are you from?
[ 2014.03.23 19:48:32 ] [redacted] > valiant police
[ 2014.03.23 19:49:09 ] Karen Galeo > Wormholes. :D
[ 2014.03.23 19:49:57 ] [redacted] > wh not have a police)
[ 2014.03.23 19:50:18 ] [redacted] > wh is anarhy
[ 2014.03.23 19:52:08 ] Karen Galeo > That's why we come out here to enforce the law. :D
[ 2014.03.23 20:10:22 ] [redacted] > are you usa-police?
[ 2014.03.23 20:10:31 ] [redacted] > or european
[ 2014.03.23 20:11:57 ] Karen Galeo > Nope. ^^
[ 2014.03.23 20:12:03 ] Karen Galeo > Just Wormhole police. :D
[ 2014.03.23 20:13:25 ] [redacted] > then you can not appear in zero systems
[ 2014.03.23 20:13:50 ] Karen Galeo > Yea, we just show up wherever.  Wormholes are fun like that. :D
[ 2014.03.23 20:14:05 ] [redacted] > it is contrary to the statute
[ 2014.03.23 20:14:10 ] Karen Galeo > We're cruising Lowsec at the moment killing, erm, 'detaining' criminals.
[ 2014.03.23 20:14:24 ] Karen Galeo > And meh.  We're wormholers.  We go where we want. :D
[ 2014.03.23 20:14:57 ] [redacted] > anarchists!
[ 2014.03.23 20:14:59 ] [redacted] > !!!!
[ 2014.03.23 20:15:24 ] [redacted] > I would complain
[ 2014.03.23 20:15:30 ] [redacted] > :D
[ 2014.03.23 20:16:30 ] Karen Galeo > Heeee~
[ 2014.03.23 20:16:48 ] Karen Galeo > All complaints can be referred to Captain Minus Dronus in the 'bobisgreat' channel.

Slow Week

I haven't had a lot of action this weekend; I haven't been feeling that great, and when I have been on, things have been slow.  Still, I need to post - I don't want to get out of the habit now.

We've rolled through more than a few C4's this week, and I think only two or three of them were empty and unused.  One night we opened onto a C4 being farmed by the Knights of Nii, a corp of wormholers in a C2 (with C4 static) and I spent a while watching them at work - they had four battleships and a pair of Basilisks,  plus a Proteus floating around the chain that had made some recent kills, while I had a pair of bombers, a Loki, a Tengu, and my Stratios.  The call went out for backup, but we still had hours to go until our prime time; they finished their sites before I got more pilots logged in.

I dropped into their corp's chat channel to say hi, and they had spotted my Stratios coming through the wormhole.  We talked for a bit and I hit them up with the CSM campaign stuff - asking about what they were doing and how they were enjoying w-space, reminding them that, yea, even if w-space is doing pretty well right now we should still vote for wormholers to make sure we don't get rolled over by a bad change, that kind of thing.  They were some cool guys with a lot of experience, and they liked the experience of living in a C2.

I bring this up because, for many people, they aren't in w-space for the "progression" but for the specific hole they moved in to.  Some people decide they will move their corp into a specific class of wormhole, for specific reasons, and would be happy staying there for the foreseeable future without having plans for moving deeper into w-space.

Another night we opened onto a C4 with about eight or nine ships on d-scan; a mixed group of Drakes and Myrmidons.  We were excited, thought we had caught another site fleet, but these were all floating in a POS.  I think that was also the night we went on a joint roam with some of the guys from EOL - the roam was interesting, and it was cool having them in our coms, but it was hard finding action that late at night.  I did have one C2 that I jumped into to scout out where I was greeted, and recognized, by the hole's sentry; that was interesting. :D

All in all, though, a quiet weekend of industrial POS planning, POS management, bitching about the POS roles (really?  You have to give a corp member the role to access everything at every POS if you want them to be able to adjust the type of material going into a reaction silo?), and talking with wormholers.

There are plans for tomorrow, though... I'll try to take plenty of pictures.  No spoilers, though, opsec.

o7

My Player Experience Part 2: Actually, I Prefer 'Puckish Rogue'

So far this month, I have destroyed some 13 billionish Isk worth of stuff.  Most of it, though, has been abandoned structures.

One small POS (that was active, that one we did with the defender in system at their other POS), plus fifty seven POS modules from large towers scattered about throughout w-space.

The newer players in the corp treat it like business as usual.  Six abandoned POS' in the last three weeks.  Plus the one that failed the stront check.  The veterans of the corp think it's pretty unusual... were the missing corps all null sec alts, heading back now that the war is more or less over?  Have people just been really awful at keeping their junk fueled?  Or are we basking in the favor of Bob, being showered with all of the loots?

It did give me a slight pause, as I mulled things over at the end of the latest night of raiding.  IRL I am very touchy about messing with people's stuff.  I thought, for a moment, about logging in to find my POS "appropriated" and what I would feel.  It was, however, a fleeting moment: there are rules in w-space.  Don't jump something into a wormhole if you don't want to lose it.  If you find something abandoned and undefended, it's yours.  That's how it works out here.

The other day I was chilling out in a system in low sec, watching the hole into our C5 while some people ran to grab gear.  I saw a tengu land on our wormhole and jump in.  My first reaction was to pounce; to dive in after it and immediately give chase.  Most of the corp was out, though, and although I could hold it for a while I didn't think I could break the tank alone.

So, I opened up a convo and started chatting the pilot up, asking if she was a wormholer and how she liked it.  I am, after all, running for CSM.  She jumped back out shortly after, apologizing for having the wrong wormhole - her corp was in a C2, and her CEO had just told her to GTFO from our C5.  Scary wormhole PvPers lived in C5's.  We blew people up.

I was a little skeptical - after all, she was in a tengu.  On the other hand... we did live in a C5.  We were wormhole pvpers.  Even discounting the numerous pos modules I have liberated this month, my killboard is green, with HACs and a HIC and a tengu.  And pods.  We do blow people up, whenever we can catch them, and even when we can't we often still ask for a fight.

A little less than five months ago, I was logging into Eve for the first time, unsure what exactly to expect... and now I am a stalker, a hunter.  A killer.  Firing my guns at people is fun.  Blowing their ships up is an addictive rush, and there have been times when I've jumped on things I shouldn't, when I tried to go in without proper scouting and intel, out of an eagerness for the brawl.

I certainly might be ruining people's days... but that is not what I am in it for.  The vast majority of the other pilots I have ran into in Eve have been decent enough, taking every advantage they can over other pilots in game but respecting other players as players, and keeping in mind that we're all just out to have some fun.  There have been nights where I have cloaked along behind targets running sites so our gank fleet could get the jump, and there have been nights when I've hung out in the help channels, answering questions.  When I find I've taken out a genuine newbie, I try to offer help so they can at least learn from the experience and come back a little better off next time.  We even had one guy that we scammed, and ganked, and when we ran into him in another hole further down the road we opened up a convo and ended up recruiting him into our corp.

Wormholes are a place for scary, vicious killers, yes.  But they are also a place for people who can pick themselves back up after they get knocked down, who can brush of the setbacks and learn and then go back to having a fun time.  In the end, all any of us are after is some fun and a good time.  My good time might look like chaos and destruction... it might involve a "and don't do that again" lesson, or it might just be for the sake of making things explode, but it's all in the name of fun.  Sometimes I have fun and my target doesn't, sometimes I get jumped and someone else is having their fun at my expense.  Just don't take it personally - that's how the game works.

That is the key information that the tutorial is missing, to wrap this rambling post up.  Any time you are in space, you are fair game.  Any time there are other players in the same system as you, they might swing by and include you in their fun.  If it doesn't go your way, though, don't take it personally - pick up what you can and get back to finding your own fun.  If people weren't expecting to be perfectly safe in high sec, if they weren't expecting every player to treat them 'like a bro', the inevitable losses will be much less jarring and less likely to drive them off.

o7

A Day Full of Pews

I have no idea why I hadn't gotten into the Federation Navy Comet before.  I like fast frigates, I like blasters... it is a great little ship for me to play around in, and much cheaper than that Daredevil I lost earlier this month (although, granted, the Comet doesn't have 90% webs).  When the latest Rubicon patch landed and CCP re-introduced the Police Pursuit Comet, I thought the ship was so cute I had to have one - and, since I tend to make my ships blow up, I bought three.

Players who fly a Comet are encouraged to pull people over and make up reasons to fine them anything from 100 isk for 'Operating a Spacecraft With an Obscured Headlight' to several billion for excessive speeding in asthetically displeasing hulls.  Of course, this being Eve, suspects are free to open fire.

I was undocking one of my Comets, 'Officer Friendly', to move it into our C5 on Friday when I received a challenge to a duel.  I had a few other modules in my Comet for other ships still in w-space, buuuut... it had been a while since I had a good fight.  I checked my erstwhile opponent - another Comet.  I checked the local grid - nothing that looked suspicious, no logi floating nearby.  I accepted the duel.  Pews were to be had.

The fight went more or less perfectly for me, with Officer Friendly meeting all performance expectations.  Right at the start I floundered for a moment, launching drones but forgetting to set them to attack, trying to orbit at 10k without webbing, that kind of thing.  I regained my composure, though, and began operating how I was supposed to - I stuck my drones on the other Comet, changed my flight profile to 'keep at range', and began kiting the enemy Comet while my railguns and drones chewed through his armor.  We ended up flying in a straight line, about 8km apart: right in my optimal range, but based on the number of glancing hits, I was at the extreme end of his range.  I blew him up, and although I took damage I didn't have to kick on my armor repper.

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=22459986

Later that night, we began rolling our static for a high sec route - we had a pair of pilots that were moving into our C5, and we didn't want to escort them through low sec.  We went through a few C4's, rolling our static until we got a C4-C4-C2 chain.  C4a was an empty, unoccupied system, and C4b was inhabited but the pilots appeared to be AFK.  There were a few pilots from Neko Neko Honpo, but when my co-scout accidentally warped to an ESS that had been planted at the sun (that then announced to the entire system that he was there) we didn't get a response.  After stalking for a bit to make sure they weren't about to become active, we continued scouting - C4b turned out to have two C2's attached to it and we each took one.

My C2 was quiet, and had a high sec connection.  Talene's C2, though, had an open connection to an active C4 - occupied by Pegasus Unity.  The C2 also had a POS in it that looked like it had run out of fuel - anchored but offline, with a pair of SMA's and a corporate hangar array.  I finished scanning my system down and went to the other system to keep an eye on things, while the rest of the corp slowly mobilized a PvP fleet - hopefully the SMA's would be full of loot, and hopefully Pegasus Unity would fight us for them.

With everyone shipped up, we began moving.  A couple of us were coming down the chain, while another was bringing big guns in from high sec.

We got a fight - as the crew from Neko Neko Honpo jumped part of our fleet as it was exiting their system.  We lost a Harbinger, the rest of us made it through and gathered up for a counter assault, and Neko Neko retreated back to their system.  The dropped warp bubbles on the C4-C4 connection, retreated to their POS, and proceeded to not move for the rest of the night.  We spent a few hours trying to bait a fight out of them (or Pegasus, since we knew Pegasus was watching: we had seen their covops ships), including things like running my Stratios around in both holes uncloaked, flying two Tengus (including mine) into Neko's system and blowing up their ESS and all of the warp bubbles, and sending an orca through to the high sec hole.

No takers.

So, with about twenty minutes left before down time, we popped the SMA's, scooped the loot, and started getting settled for the night.  Pegasus Unity did show up at the end, popping the last of our Iteron's with a stealth bomber, but that night was a bit of a let down.

The next day, after my interview with Legacy of a Capsuleer, I saw the MOTD on the Bobisgreat channel flip.  Open fleet roam, amarr-themed ships, in half an hour.  Sold!  We were joining up with RvB's Ganked, and we had about two hundred pilots in fleet when we moved out.

We were a blob.  We had a big kitchen sink of a fleet, but it was effective and we scored a pile of kills.  We ran into a gang from RAZOR in Doril and stomped them (http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=22473255, their fleet looks smaller because we took no losses - some of their guys got caught in their own bubble and didn't get in to the fight in time) caught a few T3's from the locals as they bounced about, hopped back and forth through some lowsec and null sec systems.  At one point the Goons mobilized a sniper tengu fleet, and we ran from that; they landed at extreme range and began volleying us one by one, so we fell back to a station to let people reship.  While we were there Provibloc moved in with a fleet of Harbingers and Guardians, and began skirmishing with the Goons; when Provi pulled back, we undocked and followed them through the gate to engage.  THAT turned into one heck of a giant brawl, and it was awesome.  Goons, Black Legion, Provi, Brave, the RvB+Wormholers fleet... there were many pew pews, and much destruction.  So many sides in the fight that the battlerep page is a mess, but it still shows the k-space pilots we sacrificed to Bob: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=22470369

I lost my Dragoon, went back to Sendaya and reshipped into an Atron, lost that, and began flying my cpasule back to Minmatar space to grab my nearest cruiser, a Caracal.  We had heard reports of tackled capitals, and a guy the FC knew was bringing a Titan in to bridge our fleet to the fight.  On my way back, though, one of our scouts in the C5 reported that he had been scanning down the new chain and had jumped into a C5/2 that looked like it was getting ready to fleet up for escalations, but that they had spotted him and he took off.  He linked a few pilots, and I recognized the Wormbros.

I hopped into the Wormbro's public chat channel and said hi.  We chatted a little, and they offered to fight a T1 cruiser brawl in the adjoining C2.  In addition to myself, I had two other active pilots on; a bit of poking and scrounging got us up to a strength of five, and we met for honorable combat at the sun.  We had four caracals and a shield thorax, up against a scythe, stabber, vexor, and two caracals.

Big shout out to Kast for agreeing to take over as FC; I kinda flubbed on the fleet comp for not insisting on getting us a pair of Osprey logis, but we had fun and the Wormbros were great.  Their Vexor warped in ahead of the rest of them and we tore it up pretty quickly, then the rest of their gang landed; instead of moving straight for the scythe we tried to chew through its reps and take out a caracal, then switched DPS to the stabber when we couldn't break it.  We were dropping steadily, and Kast made a dive for the Scythe (that had been sitting at 70k range).  His thorax evaporated it and he followed up by finishing off another Caracal before going down.  http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=22472790

So, a great couple of days in Eve. o7

The 100mn Ferox is Totally a Thing!

This is a quick bit of story time while I finish up and edit some thoughts on my experiences with the player community, and a splurge on the CSM thing.

It is a story about rolling a wormhole - many 'funny' stories involving horrible fits in w-space start off with "So I was trying to roll this wormhole..."

For those who do not live in w-space, wormholes are the connections we use to get from system to system.  They offer a dynamic environment and an ever-changing map of how to get from one place to another, and that happens because each intra system connection is only open for a limited duration.  Each wormhole expires after a set length of time, or after a given number of ships have jumped through it.

Since it can only handle a limited number of ships, it is also possible to force a hole to close early by making extra jumps back and forth.  As a wormhole gets close to the timer limit, it enters the 'end of natural life' stage (EoNL) - meaning it will close at some point in the next four hours.  A wormhole that takes a significant amount of mass through it becomes mass reduced (stage 2, at 50% capacity remaining) and critical/on the verge of collapse (stage 3, at 10% or less capacity remaining).

I spell this out because, as I logged into our C5 to begin my operations for the day, I found that our static wormhole was both EoNL and at stage three mass.  A quick scan of the other signatures revealed that the static was the only current hole in our system, but it was rather unusable for my purposes - I didn't want to be worrying about the hole closing behind me as I scanned down the chain, but with the mass on the hole that low already it made closing the hole difficult.  At stage 3, the hole could take at most 200,000,000 kg before closing - an orca, the usual hole-roller, weighed 250,000,000 kg.  Most battleships clock in at around 100,000,000 kg, but if someone else had been using the hole there was a good chance it had less that much left, so I wasn't about to jump one of those out either.  The next step down, battle cruisers, range much lighter - usually around 15,000,000 kg or so, so if I wanted to use one of those to pop the hole it might take several jumps, increasing the chance that an out jump would lock me out.  On the other hand, the hole might have just entered EoNL, and if I wanted to wait it out it might take a full four hours before the old one died and the new one spawned, and like hell was I going to float around in the POS or harvest gas for four hours when I had logged in to explore and hunt.

I began digging around in my hangar to see what I could slap together.  I had a 100mn Microwarp Drive; those are very convenient for hole closing, since turning one on added 50,000,000 kg to the mass of your ship - but only while it was running.  So I could jump out in something skinny, bloom my mass, and come back in weighing several times what I went out at.  A 100mn Afterburner will also have the same effect on your ship's mass, and take 625 power grid - half the space of the MWD, making it much easier to fit on undersized ships.  Unfortunately, I didn't have one of those, and a Caracal only has a 630 powergrid.  My Stratios could just barely squeeze one on, with a couple fitting mods, but that was still out in a station in high sec at the time (with the only mobile depot I own).

The only ship I had that could fit my 100mn MWD, then, was my Ferox.  And to fit the MWD, I had to offline all of the guns.  Still... I wasn't going to be shooting anyone, right?  Just out the hole, back in, then I could get to the fun of chain-hunting.

So I offlined all but one of my Ferox's blasters, swapped the 10mn MWD for the 100, and stuck a probe launcher in the utility high slot.  Just in case.  With my awesome new Ferox fit in the can, I warped to the wormhole, pulled my alt's scout heron back in from the other side, and took a moment to contemplate the growling, pulsing wormhole.  It had been abused, and looked angry, and as I jumped through I tried thinking skinny thoughts - I had heard that helped.

I landed on the other side.  The hole snarled and wubbed in protest behind me, shaking violently... and then instead of stabilizing so I could jump back through, it winked out and closed up.

I floated there, still cloaked from the system jump, and stared at the empty space where the *only* way to get into my home system had just been.  Whoops!  On a hole that could have had anywhere from 1kg to 199,000,000 kg of mass left on it my Ferox, at a whopping 13,500,000 kg, had finished it off.

I had already made sure that the surrounding area was clear thanks to my scout-alt, so I figured I may as well see how fast this ship could go.  I double clicked in a random direction, let the Ferox get up to it's blinding top speed of 175m/s, then kicked on the 100mn MDW.  I giggled.  I ran out of capacitor before I even hit 2/3rds of my new top speed, in three MWD cycles.  As I coasted back to my regular slowboat speed, I offlined the now-useless MWD and dropped scanner probes.

The C4's static was another C4, so I jumped to it and went on it.  D-scan was clear; two signatures in system; wormhol.es reported that I was in a C4>3 now, so the other signature was a C3 hole.  My probes went out, I scanned it down, and before jumping I onlined a second blaster.

The C3, though, was littered with signatures.  Littered with them.  D-scan was still clear, although several planets were out of range; I decided I'd rather play safe than warp into d-scan range of someone at a POS, so I picked a planet I could see was uninhabited and warped to a random moon there.  Still nothing on d-scan, so I set a course in a random direction, dropped probes, and started scanning.

A half dozen gas sites, a few data, and a relic site were all ignored, and two more guns came online before I finally found a wormhole other than the one I came in through.  I warped to it, and it was the C3's static C2.

I jumped through, d-scanned, and spotted a POS.  There were no ships, though, and I was in a C2 with a high sec exit; I warped around and made a couple of safe spots, then started scanning.

This C2 was full of other holes.  The first hole I scanned (after filtering out the one I came in through) was a K162 from Dangerous Unknown Space.  Nope.  The second wormhole I found was a K162 from Unknown space.  Nope.  The third K162 I landed on was OMG Cheetah Buzzard Tengu, NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE.  The cheetah vanished, either back through their hole or into its cloak, and the buzzard warped off.  I only had four of my seven blasters online, and Tengus are known for having pretty hefty tanks; I might have tested the Tengu's shields if I had a full rack, but as it was I immediately began aligning to one of my safe spots.

The tengu locked me up and fired missiles; I obliged it by returning fire with just over half of my guns.  It scratched my shields without doing too much damage, and I was in warp before the third volley hit me.

And I still hadn't found the HS static.

I began bouncing back and forth between the three safe spots I had made in the system, watching their combat probes hop around behind me through the system.  I wanted to spend the least amount of time possible sitting in one spot, so I only kept scanning in between warps; this was a huge system, and I had a couple of 40-ish AU jumps in my route.

I got three more wormholes to 100%, and landed at the first one 100km from... the high sec static and the buzzard.  It was alright, though, I could warp to a spot then back to the hole at 0, and as long as they didn't have a bubble I'd be fine.  For giggles, I warped to the next hole down the list on my scanner... and it was a K162 from high sec.

I had been saved!  Praise Bob! \o/

I jumped out into high sec, docked up and onlined the rest of my guns (in case they chased me down in high sec, right?  Habits.) then started making my way to Dodixie.

For giggles, I EFT'd my 100mn Ferox.  It does 80 DPS from the one blaster and 80 drone DPS, which is actually a bit higher than the DPS from the first drake I ever brought into w-space. o.o  It also has a capacitor life of 30 seconds (which I had observed).  The top speed (which you would never reach without a cap booster) is 2,800 m/s (4,000 m/s overheated), and it has a stunning align time of 39.6 seconds.  81 DPS tank and 54k EHP.

o7

My New Player Experience, 1: I Am Not A Spy

One of the first blogs I discovered while getting into Eve Online was Reppard Teg's 'Jester's Trek', over at http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/.  I still follow it today - the guy has a perspective of Eve Online that I enjoy, and I am glad he is part of CSM8.  Reading his updates and getting more information about what goes into the CSM process is part of what inspired me to step up when someone pointed out the dearth of wormholer candidates for CSM9.

One of his latest posts, and his upcoming post series, looks to be about the culture of Eve Online, the toxicity  and griefing found in the player base and, well, to quote:

So over the next few weeks I'm going to do some writing about what I think got us here...

In an earlier post, and in the follow up, he outright points the finger of shame at a few scammers and trolls, calling them horrible people and asking how they can live with themselves.  Clearly, this is an issue that has caught hold of Reppard's passion and I agree that it is something especially important for new player recruitment and retention.

I suppose at this point it would be prudent to illustrate my perspective of Eve Online, and it's culture, so that people have an idea where I am coming from.

I started playing Eve on Halloween, 2013.  As you might imagine, this was unfortunate timing for a newbie to hop into the game: I have lost track of the number of times people have accused me of being a nullsec spy or some bittervet's alt.  I also know that it isn't going to help when I say that I started playing Eve because of The Mittani, but that's part of the story and sometimes I just can't resist teasing people like that. ;)

For the past half year or so one of my MMO's of choice was MechWarrior Online.  I have always been a fan of the Battletech universe, had a company of mechs in my younger years, and enjoyed stomping around in forests and hills firing lasers and missiles at people and making things explode.  There was, however, a rather acute lack of decent MWO fan sites with decent, useful content.  In my quest for metagame content, I ran into a series of articles by Fil5000, TankBoyKen, and MintFrog over at themittani.com and began following the website; there was even one nice one by some person called The Mittani, and I wondered why the site was named after this guy if he wrote so little.

The Eve articles rolled pas as well, and I ignored them for the most part: ALOD's, battle reports, null sec updates and stories about big things with lasers and missiles blowing up.  Eventually, I started reading the Eve articles.

Eve Online came out back while I was in college.  I knew about it - I was a savvy gamer girl who liked her starships.  I was also extremely broke, so I couldn't get into any of the subscription based games.  News about Eve, and stories from people who played Eve, popped up now ad then over the years: eventually, I had a picture of my mind of what Eve Online was, formed through rumor and hearsay.  Eve was a game about space ships.  Eve was a game with drunk miners.  Eve was a game where people enjoyed griefing and collecting tears.  Eve was a game where anything went, and I would never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

In short, it sounded like a nice premise that appealed to my libertarian values of freedom, choice, and personal responsibility... but that was marred by a toxic culture, and unless I enjoyed trolling and griefing (and being trolled and griefed) I probably wouldn't have fun.

The articles at themittani.com changed that.  There was plenty of gloating over the Awful Losses, and enough garbage in the comments that I quickly stopped reading them entirely, but there was enough interesting content in the articles that on Halloween night when I was sitting at home bored, alone, and not feeling up to dealing with any lame crappy Halloween parties, I made an account and installed Eve.

I am one of those gamers that is obsessed with... well, not precisely optimization and min/maxing, but I want to get a decent return of 'fun' for my effort invested.  While Eve downloaded and installed and I began putzing about with making a character and flying the career missions, I was on the 'net on my second screen doing research.  I browsed the E-Uni wiki, I dug up blogs on Eve, I looked up guides and tutorials and how-to's.  By the time I jumped through my first stargate out of the newbie system I knew that Jita was the closest major trade hub (I had rolled Caldari because I liked the way the Rohk looked and was infatuated with the idea of a railgun battleship - although today I have a rail fit Navy Megathron to indulge myself with), I knew the importance of planning out my skill training, not to pack everything I owned into that one badger and the general idea of cargo+mod value v. EHP.  I also still expected to be greifed just because for the luls, and I knew that if I took that candy from that space-stranger, it would be drugged.  And that I would end up in a dirt pit in someone's basement, with them screaming "IT PUTS THE NANITE PASTE ON ITS SKIN OR IT GETS THE HOSE AGAIN!!"

As they say, though, forewarned is forearmed - by expecting everything to be a scam, and everyone to be out to get me, I've managed to defend my self from those players quite well.  When I was tooling around Hek and helping other newbies in the help channel and a random player opened a conversation with me, I happily chatted away but waited to hear the scam hook; when Smex proved to be a chill guy and invited me to join Sin Factory, I still took a moment to inventory my assets and made a mental note to not fly anything expensive around people in my new corp before I got to know them.

For players like me who self-educate, and for players who know people in game who will provide them with those basics and initial expectations, the new player experience isn't that bad at all.  The tutorials and career missions do a fine job of teaching players how those basic functions work, and I have been having fun from the first time I hopped in an Ibis.  I have met a lot of cool, fun people that I enjoy knowing and working with, both in my corp and outside of it - even if the people outside of my corp are going to shoot me if they catch me somewhere. :)

For a new player who doesn't expect every person she meets to try to stab her in the back (or in the face if the stabber is just bored and doesn't want to put in the time to be sneaky), I can see how it's frustrating, and I can see why the negative impression of Eve as a game full of horrible people spreads so easily.  There is nothing in game that warns a person about other players running scams.  There is nothing in game that explains how suicide ganks turn a profit, how suspect flags work, or, really, anything else like that to put a new, impressionable, gullible pilot on their guard.  Many of them expect a game like WoW where the worst scam they might run into is the gold farmers trying to sell them money, and they never have to worry about another player mugging them for their gear.  This expectation is a weak spot, and their biggest danger.

New players are given very little guidance on what risks they are taking, and losing assets to previously unfathomable risks is frustrating.  Frustrated players are not having fun, and might not remain players.

I do not think high sec needs to be made safer.  One of the best things about Eve is that players are free to do what they want.

I do not think Eve needs more hand holding.  Players have choices in what they do, and those choices have consequences.  The first time I jumped a stargate into low sec, I clicked away a warning about not having Concord and landed right in the middle of a gate camp.  Whoops.

I do think that the game needs to do a better job of explaining those consequences and managing the new player expectations.

This post has turned into a monster-sized piece, so I am going to end it here for now; part 2 is on the way.

You are a pirate!

I trigger my voice coms, ready to report my find, when the CEO's voice cuts in.  "Hey, Karen!  Find anything out there?"  I can't blame him; it's been a night of hunting, of scanning, of feinting and trying to draw out fights that, sadly, had not presented any actual fights yet.

"Yea.  I have... hyperion, drake, drake, ishtar, drake, drake, basilisk basilisk."

It takes only a moment for Nate to ask if they are active and at a site - I was already narrowing down my scan range and seeing if I could find them.  "Ehyea.  Fleet is active, at combat site ITT.  Warping in to get a look."

"Oooh shit," is the gleeful answer.  "Come on, guys, fleet up."

I kick in my Stratios' thrusters and burn away from the wormhole in order to engage my cloaking device, hoping that luck is with me and nobody glances my way on their directional scanner during those precious few seconds where my ship is visible.  I grin as I enter warp and listen to the fleet assembling, and then land on grid and begin providing further intel.

I had landed a little over eighty kilometers from the basilisks; I could see their cap chain running, and the blue glow of a shield transfer centered on one of the drakes.  The other ships were down in the thick of things, swarmed by drones, both theirs and the Sleepers that reside in w-space.  After a moment to make sure I am not about to drift too close to anything, I relay further intel: a few pilot names from ship IFF transponders, their corporations, and then I see it: these aren't the people that live in this system.

They're from nullsec space.  All of the pilots are members of the Mordus Angels alliance.

Us wormholers are a destructive sort of people.  I will gladly spend a few hours chatting with a fellow capsuleer, getting to know them, making friends, and then cheerfully try to turn their ships into joyous explosions for the sake of the Pews.  It is, for me at least, a friendly competition and I would expect to be shot down and podded if any of my fellow wormholers caught me as well, unless we had made prior arrangements.  Many wormholers are blue to nobody, and feel as though they must shoot anyone that isn't blue.

With nullsec, the rivalry is a little more... sour.  To them, we are either the backwoods holebillies with suboptimal lolfits an unproven tactics, or the elitist rich kids with a dozen strategic cruisers each and so much money that we throw it away out of boredom.  To many of us, nullsec pilots are too chicken to fight without a hundred fleet members backing them up, trained monkies and programmed drones that do exactly what they are told and are lost without a strict corporate structure.  I realize that things are not so starkly divided, but that is the background I have picked up on.

And here I was, getting a better perch to watch a small gang of nullsec pilots operating in our turf.  However, they were nearly done, and my backup was just now leaving our home system.  It was a long chain - two C5 systems and a few C4's.  The one I was in was designated 'C4d' on my map.  I eyed the status lights of the pilots in our fleet, listened to the FC quickly going over tactics.  We didn't have a blob; that wasn't how we rolled.  We had one less pilot, their logi ships were stronger than ours, and that hyperion could put out a lot of damage.  If we executed properly, though, we would win handily - the advantage I presented, giving the fleet the optimal place on the field to engage from.

"Alright, jump through the wormhole, warp to C4d, C4d."  The fleet was only a few jumps away.

"Uh, guys?  Shit.  They killed the last sleeper, no more spawns.  They've finished the site.  It looks like... yea, they're warping out."  I tracked the location they were leaving to, but it was a deadzone in space - nothing near by I could use to keep eyes on them.

"Well, where did they go?  Find them."  "I'm looking, I'm looking."

They dropped off of my scanner, and I had to widen angel to the fleet again; they had warped to a new location.  I began zeroing in on it, when half of the fleet vanished, and then the other half.  Crap.  "They're gone, guys."

I was already in warp to the other side of the system before the FC's command came down; no luck.  The fleet had exited the system, with one combat site still available.  Speculation ran through the fleet - why retreat so quickly, with one more site left to check out?  Had they caught wind of something?  They hadn't collected their loot yet - a quick scan of the system sans filters revealed a staggering number of sleeper wrecks, including about twenty from the sleeper battleships.  And the wrecks of a caldari battleship, and a caldari elite frigate.  Maybe they had taken enough losses that they decided to call it, maybe a CTA came down.  "Hey, guys!  I have their noctis on scan."  They still sent someone back for the wrecks, though, praise Bob.  I had caught them at the last site, which meant a long wait, but we were patient.  A plan was devised.  When the noctis landed, I would pounce on it.  Bump it.  Jam its warp drive.  Toy with it a little, see if the pilot would call for help, and hopefully we would get a fleet escalation out of it - it would be a sad night if we didn't get to cycle our guns.

It took the noctis what felt like hours to finally show up at the site I was prowling around.  The encounter was over in seconds.  I marked the spot of the first wreck the salvager tractored in next to himself, warped out, warped back in on top of the noctis, and rammed it with full power going to my microwarp drive.  The collision sent the noctis spinning, although it kept trying to get back on approach to another wreck.

I resisted the urge to shout "STAND AND DELIVER!", and instead I quickly establish a target lock on the ship, pointed it, and kicked out my drones; a Mordus Angels falcon decloaked a short distance away from me and began locking my Stratios.

I got one salvo of fire off from my guns into the noctis' shield before the falcon's jam broke my lock; I tried to get my drones to attack the falcon, but I fumbled a little and didn't hit it fast enough.  Trying to provoke a further escalation, two of our fleet members jumped into the system with me and warped onto grid; they locked up the falcon and began firing, but instead of hanging around or calling for help, the falcon warped off.
"Uh, why is there a capsule on... oh hell, he ejected?" one of my fleet buddies said.

I had automatically regained my target lock and point on the noctis when the jams dropped, and was still trying to assign my drones to assist the fleet guys in case of another jam and hadn't noticed the pod.  Sure enough, the pilot of the noctis had ejected.  And since I had his ship locked, he couldn't get back in.  The pod warped off, and the three of us sat there surrounded by wrecks and an unpiloted salvager scratching our heads.  One of our corp mates came in to grab the prize ship and fly it back to our station while I scanned down the hole the Angels had used to get into system - maybe if we chased after them, we could get them to fight.  I mean, we couldn't be that scary, right?

Unfortunately, the pilot taking the noctis back reported that one of the holes enroute was in its death throes and would be collapsing soon; I began working faster, and had just pinpointed the only other hole in the system when another fleet member added that it looked like the noctis passing through had also put that hole on the verge of collapse.  The FC didn't want to strand anyone in unknown space, so he ordered us all back home.

Next time, Angels... next time.
========================================================================

Although I am somewhat disappointed that the Angels didn't come back for the fight, I can't blame them; they had no idea if they were dealing with three pilots or thirty, while we knew how many of them there were and what ships they were in.  I definitely want to give them props for having the balls to bring a fleet into w-space, and for being crafty with their loot - they anchored a cargo container at a safe spot, and the noctis was depositing loot at their safe spot between sites.  That's what was taking it so long, and so when we caught it it barely had anything in it.  Their falcon hung around on d-scan for a little after it left the field, probably grabbing the rest of the salvage.

I do feel like a pirate, having actually captured my first ship. :D  Of course, without my corp mates to back me up things may have gone differently, so I can't just claim the ship as mine outright.  I think I'll go ask Nate what he wants to do with it, though, just in case.

Yar, har, fiddle de dee,

Being a pirate is alright with me,

Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free, you are a pirate!

Yo ho, ahoy and avast!

Hang the black flag at the end of the mast!!

o7

A Special Planet

Today has been a fairly slow day in Eve; we finally got a decent high sec connection, so most of my evening has consisted of selling my PI junk, the loot I've collected from hacking sites in null sec, and gas in order to replenish my wallet, so that I can go and buy more nice ships to get blown up.

As a side note, I have been playing for about four, four and a half months and I have already lost over two billion isk in ship and pod kills. >.>  I was wondering why, since I lived in a wormhole, I was so poor... and there we go. :D  Sacrificed to Bob in the name of Pew Pews.

So anyway, I shipped in a few nicer things again, and of course reclaimed my Stratios, and I went out exploring.  There was a K162 connected to our C5, from a Deadly Unknown; Talene had been in it earlier, and had mentioned something that made me curious.  He said that one of the planets in this hole was named after some volcano or something.

I went in to check it out, and sure enough... 

o.o

What the heck?

I dug around a little, and found out that this is the most elusive planet in Eve Online.  It is named after the volcano that erupted in Iceland back in 2012 that grounded most of Europe's air flights.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/1xxpqp/eyjafjallaj%C3%B6kull_the_hardest_planet_to_find_deep/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyjafjallaj%C3%B6kull

Here are a couple of other screen shots I took:

It looks pretty normal for a lava planet, but still... wow.  That is something really cool, and it reminds me why I love exploration so much - going out and poking around and just seeing what kind of cool things I can find.  I love this game. :D

And one other thing. >.>

Have fun out there!

o7

Daredevil? Whoops, what Daredevil?

So this was a busy weekend, with multiple deaths on my part and only one (sort of) kill!  Still, I had a lot of fun, and I accomplished one of my major life goals in Eve.

Saturday overall was a pretty nice day; I sat in on the CSM Townhall Meeting, where we had five of the current CSMs drop in, as well as CCP Fozzie.  I was even solicited for my input at one point, which really made my day; although I know that everyone else out there in w-space is out to kill me, I love the community and I want to contribute and help things improve.  Bronya Boga has a recording of the meeting up on DTP's site: http://downthepipe-wh.com/csm-wh-townhall-meeting/

While chatting with some of the guys in the weird post-meeting-but-it's-not-actually-over section, I was also convinced that I need to run for CSM9.  I will get another post up about that one later, for now you should go bump my thread on the eve-o forums. :)

The static in my C5 was EoNL, so I put up my CSM forum post and did some more gladhanding on various w-space com channels, then went off to dinner.  When I got back, we had a short new chain that a corp member had just scanned down before he logged for the night.  It didn't look too promising: a C4>5 leading to a C5>6, with a k162 in C5a from a C5>5.  The C6 had been left alone, since it was full of active pilots.

Still, it was something, and I'm not the kind of girl that will sit around in her POS doing her nails until a guy shows up.  I shipped my alt up into my Buzzard and headed down chain to see what I could find to play with in that C6, or maybe just slip past the guys into whatever static they might have - I had a Ferox and a Stratios both stranded in high sec that I needed to get back into the C5, and the Ferox was probably too slow to sneak in but the Stratios could do it.

I jumped into the C6, made sure the hole was bookmarked behind me, turned on my cloak, and warped off to get a look at things.  Enroute, I was checking d-scan... no kidding, ships and towers everywhere.  I pulled up wormhol.es, and OMGWTF, C6>2 probably occupied by The Honeybadgers.  Bob had truly given me his blessings that day.

For those of you who do not listen to Down The Pipe, YOU ARE HORRIBLE PEOPLE AND SHOULD SELF DESTRUCT YOUR PODS.  I mean.  It is a great wormhole podcast, hosted by Bronya Boga and Longinus Spear.  Until recently, they were both members of Semper Ubi Sub Ubi, a PvP wormhole corp, with an open challenge: come find us, fight in our hole, kill or be killed.  Ever since I started listening to them, I had wanted to go shoot them.  In a friendly manner, of course!

[Insert picture here: woman in a Victorian-era dress, talking to a man in a tophat and a monocole.  Caption: "Excuse me, my dear gentleman!  I happen to be in possession of some find navy antimatter charges that, sadly, need a new home.  Would you be a darling and volunteer your ship's armor?  Oh!  Splendid!  Pew pew!"]

Anyway, SUSU has since closed down, with many of the players moving in with The Honeybadgers... and here they were, on my chain and in front of my guns at last.  While my alt began working d-scan to see if I could find any decent targets, I took an inventory of my ships at the POS and immediately regretted it.  My Stratios was out in high sec, so no cloaky gank.  The Ferox would have been my second choice, but that was out as well.  I didn't have the cash on hand to replace the daredevil (since I knew that, even if I succeeded at my gank, I would keep fighting until they blew me up).  That left me with the only other ship I had... a Tristan.  Sorry, Badgers. :/  I hopped in, checked my fit and my ammo, and moved out.

Back in the C6, I had found a pair of hulks that were not at a POS.  A pair of hulks, accompanied with cargo containers.  I was surprised - jetcan mining, in an open hole?  I noted the sig, jumped my Tristan into the system, and pounced.

And landed a good 110 KM away from the hulks.  Whoops. -.-  So I bookmarked a can, warped off, then warped back, thinking they had to have people on the way by now to blow me up.  I landed on grid with the Hulks right at optimal range, locked one up, scrammed and webbed it, overheated my blasters and launched the drones, kicked on the afterburner... and facedesked.  I know I am a pretty crappy pilot in a lame T1 frigate, but holy crap those Hulks have a bunch of shields, at least compared to the amount of damage I could do.  I thought I might run out of ammo before I chewed through those shields... and then the hulks' drones began locking me.  And firing.  And my poor frigate almost melted before I could get the AAR up and cycling and warp off.

If either Hulk would have had a point on it, they would have killed me.  How bad is that?  I jetted around a bit, repped up my armor and the overheat damage on my mods, and watched.  The Hulks took off, and came back in a pair of Masimos ore haulers.  I *knew* those ones had less of a tank, so I warped back to the can bookmark, locked one up, and cackled gleefully as I began gnawing on it.

Then a vagabond landed on grid. >.>  I went for it, and then I exploded.  I was still cackling though as I warped my pod back home.  <3

Sunday morning/afternoon, we had a low sec hole open up into our C5, and shortly afterwards we spotted a Proteus sneaking in and out.  They were from another wormhole corp, and we quickly mobilized to try and catch them if they came back in.  I took my Daredevil to our static C4 (along with some fighters from the CEO's carrier) to watch it there, while the CEO parked his Saber at the LS hole, along with another corp member in a frigate and another flight of fighters.  We chilled out, then, watching d-scan and waiting to see what else might come in.  After a couple of minutes comes the announcement "I have a Curse in my bubble."

I warp off to the LS, ready to tag it with the fighters, and promptly land in Nate's bubble.  Without any fighters.  I am sure that, at this point, the Curse pilot was wondering what the hell we were doing; it didn't take long for all three of us to be entirely neuted out, and since I was in Nate's bubble I couldn't warp myself back out.  Whoops.  His drones made short work of my Daredevil and the other corpmate's Tristan, Nate jumped out to LS to get a little cap back, then came back in; I warped back to the POS and grabbed the heavy tackle drake I had brought in, while another corp member warped to the LS hole with a pair of Caracals.  We landed on grid, I got the Curse pointed and webbed, and started killing his drones with mine.

At that point, though, the Proteus showed back up.  With a pair of Lokis.  And the Curse had just finished off our Saber.  We decided that Drake/Caracal/Caracal was no match for Curse/Loki/Loki/Proteus and left the field.  Shots were fired, things blew up, and it was a Learning Experience.

And, finally, the kill!  It was late night Sunday, after midnight.  Definitely time that I should have been asleep.  I couldn't quite call it a night though, and was putzing about with community stuff and working on my PI.  Talene had been scouting down chain before he logged for the night, and told us he spotted a Cyclone and a Drake in a C2 running sites; still, he was going to bed, and that left just me and one other corp guy logged in.  I still had my tackle drake, but a drake v drake fight sounded anything BUT exciting; Tak had a cloaky loki, but even with that we didn't think it sounded fun.

He went down there to watch the hole, though; we had a pilot in a pod coming in, and he wanted to make sure it didn't get jumped.  I came down as well, to watch the hole out of the C2 back into the rest of the chain; while we were sitting there chilling out, the drake and the cyclone kept running sites and eventually a Heron showed up on d-scan as well.

Now, for those of you who are not as familiar with the way w-space and wormholes work, d-scan is really the only tool that will tell you when someone else is in system with you.  There is no local, no alarm, just your scanner and what you can see.  When you have open holes in your system (both of the C2's statics in this case, a low sec and a C4) *anyone* can come into your system and sit there and watch you do stuff.  And, you can see them come in through the system if you are on top of things - even a loki or a buzzard will be visible for a few seconds after they drop the jump cloak and before they can activate their own covops module.  Plus, you know, seeing a capsule *fly across the system* should tip you off that, hey, there's activity that isn't our corp.  We should watch out for stuff.

But, no.  The drake and cyclone kept blowing things up, and now that our capsule pilot was safe, we went to find the heron.  It was following along behind the two battlecruisers.  Salvaging.

I quickly grabbed a Condor I had picked up (and, earlier, FLOWN THROUGH THEIR SYSTEM UNCLOAKED) and sat on our side of the C4 hole, while Tak and my buzzard alt watched the drake nad cyclone finishing up another site.  The heron warped to it, and began salvaging.  The drake warped off.  I jumped the gun, dropping my condor into their system.  Whoops. >.>  I held cloak as long as I could, then sat on their static C4, uncloaked, for another thirty seconds trying to decide if I should go back and be polarized, or warp to LS.  I decided they just weren't paying attention, warped ACROSS THE WHOLE SYSTEM, and jumped out to LS.

The Cyclone warped off.  The Heron got to the last wreck.  I jumped back into the C2, entered warp, and right as I dropped out and started locking... the Loki popped the heron in two gun cycles. -.-   Ah, well.  Made a couple million off of the pilot's bounty, had some practice stalking, and had fun.

o7