Thursday, October 6, 2016

The invisible neighbours

I sometimes feel like a bogey man from the closet when watching someone in w-space. We moved to a new c4, waiting for locals to make a move and clear some sites. I warp to the tower and see a Buzzard on scan. Not exactly a rare sight. All that means is that someone is in the system. I keep refreshing d-scan, but the Buzzard never disappears. It doesn't look to be at any of the sigs. He is way too close to a celestial. Feels more like a safe spot of some sorts. I decide it's time to launch the combat probes and see what this little bugger is doing. I warp off range, launch probes, get the position of the Buzzard and scan him out. I warp to 30 because I am very confused and don't know what to expect.


Here he is. Just sitting there, in the middle of nowhere. I take my time to slowboat and once in range I unleash the wrath of the tackle Proteus with two small smartbombs and a light neutron blaster. Guy must be afk as he shows no life signs whatsoever . Pilot is one of the locals too, but I'm sure they won't think about me twice. Just a random tourist passing by.

While waiting for targets, sometimes other opportunities present themselves.  After all, a wormhole can be a transit system too. Locals had too some interesting ships at the tower.


Being a c4 class wormhole, I doubt these battleships are up for a task. I watch Hyperion warp to an empty space. It could be a signature. I warp to a closest celestial and pinpoint him with d-scan.


He launches a mobile warp disruptor. My interested goes up. They must bubble up their connections to be safe from ganks. A tactic I've seen at least several times. It won't help them against me though, as I am already inside. I eagerly wait for the locals to finish preparations and start farming. Time goes by, but Hyperion just stays at the same spot. Do they bubble and then role the wormhole? Makes no sense. Now a Dominix is also here. I have no idea what they are doing as I don't have the wormhole scanned. I patiently wait while all of a sudden an Orca appears on d-scan. 


Now this sign I can't ignore. If in some twisted way they anchored a bubble and started rolling the wormhole, this Orca must have landed in it, which means, I have time to make my move. Luckily, I am well prepared having probes already out. I take a snap decision to scan the Orca. No messing around. I get a positive result and warp to 0.


I land just in time to tackle the Orca. Bubble is here, but it's not anchored. The Orca gets within 5km and jumps out while Dominix and Hyperion jumps back in. I follow the Orca with my Proteus while the Nestor fleet stays behind and picks up a fight with the returning battleships. Meanwhile, the Orca on the other side cloaks ups. I guess I will have to manage this gank on both sides. I burn with the Proteus to the direction of the Orca in hopes of decloaking it. When I fail, I try not to go too far away and remain at a similar position. Once the Nestors finish off the Dominix and the Hyperion, I will use the swarm of drones to find that Orca. But doesn't come to that as the industrial ship tries to make a run for it. Failing to do so, pod ejects and warps off. 


Holy crap, a free Orca. But it's not like I can do anything about it. I don't have the chain scanned and as far as I can tell, an empire might be at least few jumps out. I finish the job. Ejecting from a ship might save a pod, but won't prevent a loss.


I thought wormhole rolling Orcas have been extinct. I haven't seen one since the old days when you always ended up 2.5km off the wormhole after jumping and such thing as higgs rigs did not exist. Back then, wormhole rolling Orcas were an actual thing. Having done the deed, I get a convo request.


Wonder what will it be. I'm always excited to hear what my gank victims have to say.


Alprazolam was quite surprised and confused about the whole situation. He wanted some answers.


He would check the killboard of his home system and see my name on several kills, but wormhole was absent of any foreign towers and stations. How could this be? I try to clear up all the mystery thing. I offer to leave the system alone for 500mil, but end up dropping it to 200mil. To my surprise I get paid and as a man of my word, I leave the system. It's nice to see players take upon the challenge and live in wormholes, however, I kindly suggest him to find a proper corp to learn the ropes first. As much as I enjoy juicy kills, going solo into a c4 wormhole while being new to the concept is just not the way to go.

1 comment :

  1. Great work, and great post as always. Glad to see you giving some advice as well - keep WHs occupied, and dangerous! Keep it up!

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