New ship and a dead Badger

I finally found some free time to log into EVE again. My real life has been quite busy in the past two weeks. Even the friendly game launcher greets me with a fresh expansion - how lovely! I also got some offers to check out different wormhole corporations and have a chat with them. While I really appreciate the kind offers I am unfortunately going to delay joining a corporation for a few weeks longer (until things at university calm down - still a few exams to go).

I have decided to use my scanning alt along with my main character so that I will have a bit more flexibility (and a scanning alt will be useful when I join a corporation anyway). The new ship in my fleet is a Buzzard covert ops vessel. I wasn't sure what to do with the abundance of middle slots on the ship so I ended up adding a pair of shield extenders and a web with a scrambler just in case.

[Buzzard, Scanner]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Experimental 1MN Afterburner I
'Langour' Drive Disruptor I
Initiated Harmonic Warp Scrambler I
Small F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Small F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction

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

Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I

I have spent a total of 90.172.962,88 ISK on the Buzzard (including 16 sister's combat and core probes). I also grabbed some scanning implants. I hope this shiny vessel won't have an unfortunate accident any time soon. After some testing I noticed that scanning with Buzzard is roughly two times faster than with my stealth bomber and I am able to resolve signatures with great accuracy.

My day started in Jita where I bought the covert ops ship, after which I headed out towards a random system in Lonetrek region. When I was some 6 jumps away from the trade hub I began scanning each system on the way. I quickly find a C2 wormhole but it appeared very empty, I was tempted to scan for the probable C3 static connection but didn't want to sift through some 20 signatures. I moved back to high-sec and continued.

I found the next signature in Hogimo system, a C2 wormhole, J111038 with high-sec static. As I warp to within 10km of the entrance I immediately stumble upon a Badger Mark II hauler exiting the wormhole. Luckily my cloak was active so my presence wasn't detected. As the ship warps off towards a station I jump into the wormhole with my stealth bomber and leave my Buzzard observing the entrance. On the inside I detect a pod and a POS tower. I narrow down it's location to a moon orbiting the fourth planet. I jump to the tower to investigate and land some 10km away from a mobile warp disruptor bubble! I nearly got myself decloaked but luckily I managed to escape the field intact, phew! I head out to EVE wiki page to learn more about this dangerous device. I knew it can be deployed and it prevents ships from warping away but I certainly didn't know it acts like a drag bubble. How does one safely approach a bubbled POS tower? I am assuming I should warp from some other planet but I didn't want to test mobile warp disruptor mechanics right there.

Nearly getting myself decloacked (click to enlarge)

I slowboat to a safe distance some 250km away from the force field and observe the inhabitants. On the other side of the wormhole my alt is sitting in high-sec and proving to be an incredible intel asset. It seems that two pilots are active and they are moving stuff out of the wormhole. The Badger pilot continued to warp from the POS tower, out of the wormhole and towards a station. He made the same run every few minutes. The other pilot seemed to be moving ships out of the wormhole and always returning in a pod. I kind of understand the Badger pilot moving goods out but I sure couldn't make sense why his corpmate was moving so many vessels out - first a Drake, then a second Drake, followed by a Manticore and a Buzzard.

Since they were warping directly to a POS tower I knew my only chance would be to engage at the wormhole exit. But I could only attack them on their way from high-sec to their POS tower (because when you enter the wormhole you end up around 10km away from it). Badger seemed the ideal target but I knew I would need some luck on my side. Depending on my DPS the hauler could simply run back to the wormhole exit and escape to back to high-sec. I also knew that the hauler would most likely be empty on it's way back - but I just didn't see any other option to catch him on his way out of the tower.

I warp my stealth bomber within 10km of the the wormhole exit and patiently wait for the Badger pilot to make another predictable run to high-sec. It takes a few minutes and I see him on scan. He jumps to high-sec and I switch my attention to my scanner alt on the other side. When I see the hauler returning I pay close attention to my overview and quickly target the Badger Mark II when he decloaks and aligns to his tower. I activate my disruptor and overload torpedoes. The Badger attempts to burn back to wormhole exit but he is just a bit too slow and his ship explodes before he could reach the safety of high-sec.

Attacking the Badger (click to enlarge)

I target his pod and almost kill him as well. But he managed to jump on the other side while he was in armor. One more volley and he would have woken up in new pod!

Lucky pod - he escaped! (click to enlarge)

I loot the wreck and find two cargohold expanders and a shield extender. I investigate the killmail and as suspected find that the hauler was indeed empty.

Time to upgrade

Although my faithful Hound stealth bomber is performing admirably I am beginning to realize that I will have to change something in order to make probing faster. Just to think about it, I am spending practically 90% of my time in wormholes just probing down signatures in order resolve them and locate new wormhole connections. When you are in high-sec and there are only a few signatures to resolve everything is peachy - but inside wormholes I sometimes encounter up to 50 in a single system. While the Hound is more than capable of resolving every signature (and my scanning skills are not that bad at all) it is just way too inefficient for this type of play style. The ship doesn't have any bonuses to scan strength and it takes quite a few attempts and adjustments to probe range in order to get the warp-ins.

Even though I am using Sister's probes now, such a minor bonus is almost unnoticeable and scanning down countless signatures each day definitely gets tiresome. Unfortunately I don't really have a lot of options and I have narrowed down my choices to these:

Option A - Use my scanning alt in a Buzzard (and dual-box)

The first choice is to fly together with my alt. I have very good scanning skills on it (Astrometric Rangefinding V among others). I would also fit the Buzzard with Sister's expanded probe launcher which would allow me to use combat probes as well. Combining that with a pair of gravity capacitors upgrade rigs and scanning implants I would end up with near perfect probing capabilities. Another advantage of this option is that I could free up a high slot on the Hound and could potentially add a bomb launcher. Making my ship even more formidable.

The drawback of course is that I would have to dual-box. While I don't have any moral objections of using my alt for such purpose it's of course inconvenient to jump around with two ships instead of one.

Option B - Get myself a different ship (T3) 

If I were to upgrade my Hound I would like to have the following requirements on my new vessel; the ability to fit covert ops cloak, probe launcher and a ship that has better scanning strength than my current Hound. Unfortunately the only ships capable of that are T3 strategic cruisers. Proteus would be perhaps the best choice of the bunch but sadly I haven't been training Gallente oriented skills. I would also like to avoid the Tengu because my missile skills are not that hot (apart from torpedoes). This leaves only a Loki or a Legion as my ship of choice. Luckily I do have near perfect skills for both ships which is always a nice thing. On first glance the Legion seems nice, but as soon as you add a cloak the DPS output is laughable (as much as three times less damage than my Hound!). Loki seems much better and I managed to come up with a setup that gives roughly ~550 overheated DPS (with +4% damage implants) and has some 65k EHP. This Loki fit would also be able to fit a covert ops cloak, an expanded Sister's probe launcher and subsystem that gives bonus to probes.


But it seems that CCP has balanced strategic cruisers quite well! By making a cloaky prober you are forced to sacrifice a lot of DPS and a T3 of this nature is definitely not a 'solopwnmobile'. In fact you end up with an expensive scanner that does less DPS than my frigate-hull stealth bomber. Although getting a T3 would mean that the ship would have somewhat better survivability and EHP. And perhaps a tiny bit larger selection of targets than my Hound - I still wouldn't be able to engage people running C3 sites for example. There is probably no way a cloaky Loki can break a decent Tengu or even Drake's shields.

Currently I am leaning towards using my scanner alt which would really speed up things in the probing department. And I would probably be able to explore at least twice as many wormholes in the same amount of time as I would scanning with the Hound alone.

I am also considering the idea of joining an existing wormhole corporation. Although I like being independent it would be nice to have a home in w-space and I bet flying with others in wormholes would be fun! Not to mention a range of new possibilities and tactics that can't be achieved as a solo pilot.

Me + 2 Drakes = 1 Drake

Ah the lovely w-space. I am beginning to feel at home in wormholes. If one month ago someone would say to me that I was going to PVP in wormholes in a few weeks I would just laugh at them and reply that I don't engage in such barbaric activities and that I most certainly don't visit wormholes in my free time!

But here I am, practically living in wormholes now. Over the course of the past few days I have refined my method of searching and exploring. Since I am flying solo (and in a stealth bomber) I have limited myself to staying in low class wormholes (mainly C1, C2 and C3). Although I do peek into the occasional C4 and C5 connection, I don't really venture further into w-space. I also prefer to look for wormholes off the beaten path in less populated areas and if luck is on my side I can find unsuspecting wormhole dwellers clearing Sleeper sites.

 

On this particular day I started somewhere in Amarr controlled territory. It's so so weird not having a home or a base. But on the other hand I have probably visited more systems (w-space and k-space) in the last week than I have in my whole 5 years of playing EVE. As usual I launch my probes in search for unstable wormholes - it didn't take long and I find myself in J110316. It's a C2 wormhole with high-sec and C4 static. My d-scan immediately reveals two Drakes and Probe frigate I also notice some combat scanner probes and a whole bunch of Sleeper wrecks along with a POS tower.

I being to warp towards the star and immediately cloak. After I am in the middle of the system I run the anomaly scanner which reveals 7 anomalies. I use my d-scan and attempt to locate the Drakes. Sure enough I pinpoint them to one of the anomalies. I warp to 100km to investigate.

Drakes clearing the site (click to enlarge)

As I arrive to my destination I see a pair of Drakes clearing the Sleepers. The Probe frigate and combat probes still on my d-scan. After examining the ship names I come to the conclusion that the Probe is a scanner alt from one of the Drake pilots (the Drake and Probe had the exact same naming pattern). I assume the Probe was there to scan for intruders and alert the Drakes of any danger. A smile appears on my face and I make an imaginary high-five gesture towards my covert ops cloaking device.

Although finding the Drakes was easy I find myself in a difficult position and unsure how to proceed. My first thought was to wait for the salvager ship to arrive - but to my dismay I notice one of the Drakes using a tractor beam and looting the wrecks. It's still possible that they would return in a salvager but it was a gamble (and with empty wrecks nicely piled together it's quite possible only a cheap destroyer would arrive for the clean-up job).

I check the age of the pilots and discover I am dealing with two ~4 year old veterans. Judging by the distance they were shooting the Sleepers from I was pretty sure both were equipped with heavy missile launchers. I didn't see any drones so they were either already dead or the two pilots didn't even need to deploy them. After a while a Sleeper battleship appears with a sizeable escort. Drakes still didn't deploy any drones and the seasoned pilots took care of the Sleepers in no time - even the battleship didn't cause them any problems whatsoever.

The Drakes were also some 60km apart from each other. One of them slightly away from the site and the tractor beam Drake right in the middle. Even if I engage one of the Drakes I would be in missile range of both and there was a good chance these guys had dangerous drones in their ships. I took a gamble and I slowly approached the tractor beam Drake, hoping that the other Drake would warp away first and leave the tractor beam Drake to loot the remaining wrecks.

My instincts were spot on and the other pilot warped away after a few moments. Only one Drake remained on the site and he had some 3-4 wrecks left to loot. Still I was hesitant to engage him. I did manage to destroy a Hurricane a few days ago but this Drake would no doubt have considerably better tank (and he was able to tank the Sleeper battleship with such ease).

Attacking the Drake (click to enlarge)

Still I had to at least try! I get to 20km of him, de-cloak and begin my attack. I was prepared to warp away at any sign of danger. My overloaded torpedoes did considerable damage but the Drake had a strong tank and I knew it was going to be a difficult fight. He starts shooting at me and my shields are slowly but surely taking damage. My afterburner and speed-tanking helped a lot but I wasn't sure if I would have enough time to kill the battlecruiser.

Luck was on my side this time and the Drake didn't deploy any drones. Nor did his friend came to help. My shields were half gone when the battlecruiser finally got into armor. But I knew that my explosive torpedoes would melt the soft armor and structure in no time. An explosion followed and I almost caught his pod as well (if he were just a few milliseconds slower he wouldn't have made it out alive).

 

I approach the wreck and take around 15M worth of loot. After examining the killmail I also notice that the Drake had a full squadron of T1 Hobgoblin drones. Although I was orbiting the vessel at 20km the drones would quickly catch up to me and I am not sure how the encounter would have ended in such scenario.

I be hunting Hulks

In the spirit of Hulkageddon it's only proper to engage in this activity that involves hunting down evil miners. And I am not talking about some small mining vessels but the real thing! Hulks!

I start my evening somewhere in Gallente space and after exploring a few uninteresting wormholes I find myself back in high-sec, 6 jumps from Jita. I have decided to visit the trade hub and unload my Hound's cargo since it was full due to killing a faction rat and a Hurricane and looting them both last night. I was tempted to pimp out my Hound a bit with a faction probe launcher but in the end I decided against it. Better to stick with regular fittings until I get more confident in my abilities. I did however grab 16 Sister scanner probes and an implant that boosts my scanning strength by 2%. Won't make much of a difference though I'm afraid.

As I head out of Jita I set my destination some 25 jumps away in a random remote high-sec system and go make myself something to eat. I have learned that wormholes that spawn close to trading hubs tend to be quiet. People don't just go out clearing Sleeper sites when Jita is a few jumps away!

Just as I return from a delicious meal I arrive at my destination and start scanning the system and immediately find two wormholes. I jump into the first one and find myself in a C2 system. Nothing interesting on the d-scan, just two POS towers and an Orca. I scan down the signatures and find a C1 connection where I discover almost identical situation. I go back to high-sec and check out the other wormhole. This time it's a C3 - J220832. I look up the wormhole and it turns out it's a C3 with probable low-sec static. My d-scan shows absolutely nothing! Not even a POS tower. Could it be that I have found a completely empty wormhole? I do notice that there are two planets quite some distance away and outside of my scanner range (which I believe is around 14 AU).

I warp to the outermost plant and my d-scan reveals a POS tower with force fields and a big mining operation - an Iteron Mark V and three Hulks! I also see a bunch of mining drones and some cargo containers. While periodically hitting my d-scan I notice that the cargo containers are disappearing and reappearing from scan. Oh yes, I have found a full scale mining operation in this backwater C3 wormhole! But there is a big problem, how do I get a warp-in on them?

I analyze the anomalies and find only three. But they are in the wrong direction and besides, Hulks are probably in a gravimetric site. Unfortunately the only way to get to them is to deploy my probes. Before doing that I jump around a bit between the outer most two planets and I attempt to approximate their location using d-scan. Of course I can't get a warp-in on them with this method, but at least I will know exactly in which area to put my probes. I narrow their location to a pretty accurate spot in space and make a mental note of it. I then jump on the other side of the system (outside their d-scan range) and deploy my brand new Sister probes. I warp back and begin arranging the probes. I was also pretty confident in their probable location and I actually set the probe range to merely 4 AU. Sure enough I was almost spot on! And after a second scan with 1 AU range and some minor adjustment to probes I get a 100% signal. I quickly recover my probes and jump to the site at 50km. Even though my probes were in space for only around 40 seconds they did notice them (diligent bunch of miners, props to them)! While in warp I already saw drones disappearing from scan and Hulks warping away. As I arrive on the site I only catch a Crane transport looting the last container and warping away. One Hulk also forgot his drones in space. Poor things!

Only Crane left when I arrive (click to enlarge)

Well they know I was in their wormhole now... But I was absolutely confident that they don't know what ship I was in (which is exactly why I took care to warp far away to deploy my probes). So from their perspective they only saw some Sister probes. I was hoping that they would resume their mining activities after a while - thinking that I was just a passing explorer. Since their POS tower and gravimetric site were also out of d-scan range they probably weren't even sure if I noticed their Hulks. I was quietly sitting some 200km from their POS and observing them for several long minutes. They changed ships a bit, to an Orca and a Buzzard - which also deployed combat probes and scanned the system. Luckily he couldn't detect my presence since I was safely cloacked.

After a while they did bring back the Hulks and one of them jumps back to their gravimetric site. Of course they will be extra careful now and I wasn't sure what to do. I warp to the Hulk and quietly observe him for a few minutes. He reconnected with his drones and started mining. After a while a second Hulk joins him and starts mining as well. I was toying with the idea of just waiting a while and let them think that their mining operation was unnoticed. But I also saw that the first Hulk wasn't even aligned to their tower and he wasn't moving at all - just sitting still! The second Hulk was aligned to the tower and he had some speed, so I decided that my best course of action would be to engage the first Hulk that wasn't moving.

I slowboat to the Hulk and now I am like 15km away from the vessel. A perfect position! I think to myself that this Hulk is as good as dead. I drop my cloak, lock the ship and warp disrupt him. I then overload my launchers and fire torpedoes. I was expecting to see a big explosion (thinking that the Hulk can't be much more sturdy that something like a Noctis) - but I was very wrong. Hulk seemed to have quite powerful shields and it took me a while to chew through them. The other Hulk warped away and at this point I was just hoping that I could kill his companion in time. Judging by my DPS I was expecting I will need at least around 20 seconds more to kill him. More than enough time! But then all of a sudden the Hulk warps away to his POS, his armor half gone. I sat there for a few moments in shock and unable to understand how did he manage to escape?? I know I had my warp disruptor on! And I was in a very close orbit! I warp away, reload and repair my modules and still trying to understand how did the ship warp away?

Attacking the Hulk (click to enlarge)

Then I realize that he must have had warp core stabilizers in his Hulk. Surely that's the only explanation? I see them changing ships again and re-logging to different characters. When they bring out a Proteus I realize that it's time to go. 

On my way out of their home I began thinking about the whole situation. What could I have done differently? I was obviously oblivious to the fact that Hulks would fit warp core stabilizers. Maybe I should have attacked the other Hulk instead? It's quite obvious that the first Hulk who warped at the site was testing the waters and waited a few minutes before he began to mine again. Or perhaps I should wait for the third Hulk to return? In fact I should probably try to bump the Hulk I attacked in the first place! Why didn't I think of that during the attack?

Still, I learned a few important lessons today. In wormholes patience is a virtue. And I now know that Hulks are much sturdier ships than the Noctis salvagers. If I find myself in a similar situation again I will definitely adjust my tactics.

Hurricanes have two lives

So here I am, exploring wormholes again. The evening starts slowly - much like the last time. After jumping through a few wormholes I find myself in J233839. A normal C2 with high-sec static, nothing special about it at first glance. After scanning down the signatures I do notice three more wormhole connections (in addition to already discovered high-sec connection from which I came). I peek through all of them and find a bunch of new wormholes. I return to J233839 and decide that this will be my home for today. I will explore in each direction as far as it goes and return to this wormhole and continue through a different connection.

The first connections leads to a C1 and C2 system. I only find POS towers as usual. I return to my temporary home and use the next path. This time I again explore two wormholes - the last one leading to 0.0. I take a look and find myself in a AGCP-I system in Insmother region apparently home to Solar Citizens or so the map tells me. I see only one person in local (besides me) and I check out what the scanner says. I see a bunch of angel wrecks and a Tempest battleship. In theory this should be an acceptable target for a stealth bomber. But due to my inexperience I remind myself to be careful. I check the scanner and it appeared that the battleship was lurking at one of the asteroid belts. I narrow it down to a single planet but I wasn't sure which belt it could be so I just jump to the first one at 50km. During the warp I notice that the pilot dropped out of local. Possibly because I entered local, but then again he could have just warped to a safe spot?

Anyway, as I arrive on the belt I only find rats. I align back to my wormhole from which I came when I notice that there is a faction battleship lurking in the belt with two companions (also battleships). I was hesitant to engage the three battleships but I have decided to try anyway. Had there been some NPC frigates there I would just warp away. It probably wouldn't end well for me if I got webbed and scrammed. To my surprise the bomber was chewing through the battleships like hot knife through butter. Needles to say the angry ships didn't even scratch my shields. The loot wasn't anything special, just a Domination Thermic Hardener, a tag and some ammo. I suspect that the tourist I had in my cargo wasn't too happy with this turn of events as it was getting pretty crowded in my ship (with 1k torpedoes already there among other things).

Killing a faction battleship (click to enlarge)

I jump back to w-space and return to J233839. only one connection left unexplored. I jump into the neighbouring wormhole system and find a whole bunch of towers and some people too. I scan down signatures and find a high-sec connection and a C1 connection. It appeared that the corp living in here was quite active and they seemed to be moving stuff through high sec with battlecruisers (or possibly collapsing the exit). They were jumping to POS tower and I didn't want to engage them at the wormhole. They could just jump to high-sec or more likely destroy much ship.

I jumped to C1 wormhole next door - J123828, and found it very empty. A few signatures and a POS tower with Orca parked inside. I also noticed an Imicus on my D-scan briefly. I scanned down the signatures and as I resolve the last one I find another wormhole connection. I warp to it and notice that it's a connection to high-sec. At this point I was gonna call it a day since I explored quite a bit and I also didn't really want to go back to the wormhole next door with the very active corp inside.

But then I see a Hurricane jump into the wormhole from high-sec. What is this? I check him out and see that he not a member of the corp next door. Nor did he belong to the corp living inside this wormhole with the POS tower and an Orca. He immediately warps away, I wasn't in the best vantage point to observe where he warped but it was obvious that there were no planets there. He must have jumped to an anomaly or a signature. Could he be in a fleet with that Imicus that I noticed earlier? Luckily I already scanned everything in the system and my probes were already safely hidden in my ship.

I use my d-scan and narrow him down to a magnetometric site. As I warp there to investigate I also see 5 warrior drones. I wasn't too sure if I can take on a Hurricane but the pilot was barely half a year old and the drones he used were only tech one. He also appeared to be struggling with the site and he warped out and back multiple times. His warrior drones were killed but he didn't seem to mind. Now that he had no drones I was beginning to get really confident. By observing him I also noticed that he was warping away to the star in the middle of the system to repair. At one point the Imicus also joined him on the site but then warping away. This confirmed my suspicions that they are either friends or he is dual boxing. No doubt that the frigate was there to scan and salvage the site.

I was getting worried though that the Hurricane will just give up because Sleepers were causing him a lot of problems. And there was always a chance that the active corp next door will come to investigate. So I came up with a cunning plan, as I was cloacked on the site, watching him, I aligned to the star. And after a while he did the same, no doubt to warp away again and repair. We warp away almost at the same time and I catch him at the star. I was around 25km away and I immediately decloacked and engaged him. He had no drones and his shields were partly gone due to Sleepers. However for some reason I decided to orbit him at 20km. I was afraid that he would web me if I got closer (though I didn't recall seeing him web the Sleepers). I got him down to armor when I see my shields getting dangerously low. I have decided to warp away. Why did I orbit him at such a distance?? Why didn't I overload my afterburner? I probably should have burned to him and orbit extremely close! Surely he couldn't hit me?

Hurricane winning the first engagement (click to enlarge)

I repair my overheated modules and reload while keeping an eye on the scanner. Hurricane was still there. I de-cloak and use my d-scan to locate him again. To my surprise I find him back at the Sleeper site happily shooting them like nothing happened. What the hell?? I go and investigate him again. He probably thinks that I can't hurt him... Surely I could destroy him if I could get in a close orbit? But will I get another chance? I wasn't going to engage him on site, with Sleepers alive, that's for sure.

After a while he warped away in the direction of the wormhole to high-sec and disappeared from scan. I knew that he was either giving up on the Sleeper site or he was getting himself some new drones and would come back. I was pretty sure he wasn't afraid of me either way. I waited around 15 mins at the wormhole connection for him to come back from high-sec but finally he did return! And he jumped back to the site. I follow him and again see him struggling and warping away at the star. Deja vu??? I align to the star myself and wait for the right moment again. Luckily for me he forgot four of his drones at the site this time around and as I warp with him to the star I engage him for the second time. On this attempt I got really close to him and set the orbit at 1000 meters. As suspected this worked very well and he wasn't able to hit me. His warrior drone did munch away at my shields but the poor drone was all alone and I was able to survive the encounter almost intact. The hurricane on the other hand ran out of luck. Looking at the killmail it also appears that he switched to artillery when he was getting new drones.

Me winning the second time (click to enlarge)

I tried to loot his wreck but my cargo hold was practically full. I have decided to jettison my tourist companion and his beverages and took in some autocannons from the wreck. I also left the poor warrior drone alone. He wasn't moving around any more with his master gone.

I have decided to camp the wreck for a few minutes to see if the Imicus would try to salvage it. After a few minutes I see a Hound, Anathema and a Manticore on my d-scan. Although they cloaked soon I recognized the ship names from the wormhole next door. Had the active corp came to investigate earlier they would probably get the Hurricane themselves. I was still at the wreck when I see Manticore warp to it. But he cloaked some 30km away and did nothing. Are they doing the same thing as me? Camping a wreck in an empty system? I then see a Noctis on my scan and I had to make a hard decision. I know from experience that it takes like four volleys of torpedoes to kill a Noctis so I was 100% sure I could get the kill. There is no way that two stealth bombers can kill me faster - with my small signature radius and afterburner. But I wasn't sure I would have survived the following engagement with a Hound and Manticore, or if I would be able to escape or would they have kept me from warping away and eventually destroyed my ship. I decided to warp away and live another day and not be a kamikaze pilot. What would you guys do in a similar situation?

Lifeless w-space

The last two days of my adventures were surprisingly uneventful. I moved out of J130045 - the wormhole in which I destroyed the Noctis. I am pretty sure that the corp will have me on watchlist and I bet they will be paranoid for a few days whenever they will see me online (or at least extra careful).

I scanned a new exit and I was back in high-sec. Over the course of the next couple of hours I went exploring w-space further. I must have visited like 15 different wormholes. They were mostly C1, C2 and C3 systems, but I did jump deeper into the unknown and ended up in a C5 at one point. I even discovered a wormhole exit leading to null-sec. I peeked out and found myself in an empty system in Delve region.

I am beginning to see a familiar pattern of wormholes. They are pretty much all occupied - meaning that there is at least one POS tower online. But there are no pilots. Or if they are, I find them chilling inside their protective tower fields. I am assuming that quite a few of these C1/C2 wormhole dwellers just farm PI materials in their systems. Ever since CCP increased PI taxes the cost of importing / exporting materials from planets became enormous. And with 0% tax rate wormholes are potential gold mines. Especially if you have multiple characters exploiting planet resources. Of course PI can be managed from within the safety of a POS and one only needs to collect the materials from POCOs every few days.

There are of course more active inhabitants that do clear Sleeper sites and even mine gas and ore. But they are difficult to find and even more difficult to catch online at the moment they are clearing sites, mining or salvaging.

I ended my day in an interesting wormhole. A very, very empty C4 with C4 static. No ships, no force fields, no towers at all. Just a bazillion of signatures and 5 mining drones in somewhere in space. How did those drones get there is a question we may never find the answer to.

As I am writing this blog I realized that I forgot to bookmark the wormhole exit from this C4. The horror! Just have a look at what I will need to scan to get out of this deserted wormhole! At least it will be a good scanning practice. I am getting good at it too - it takes mere moments now to scan down a signature.

While exploring w-space I listened to Bringing solo back podcast - a wonderful resource suggested by a kind forum poster. I am tempted to go out of wormholes and try to find some PVP in low-sec and 0.0.

But at the same time I discovered a very interesting blog today! It's called Tiger Ears and the author writes about her wormhole adventures. The blog also has a very informative guide section and I have spent a good portion of the day browsing through the blog. It's so interesting and I feel like I have learned a lot just by reading it. The blog also makes me want to just move in a wormhole and live there.