Life in my Hole

Just wanted to put up a quick update that, despite rumors of a tragic demise, I am indeed still alive.

Real Life has been going really well for me recently and I need to refocus my attention on keeping that momentum going. This means I am taking a sabbatical from Eve for an undetermined amount of time. My account is still active and training but with no time spent playing, I no long have epic tales of pew pew to share.

Keep an eye on this space though as I am sure I will return at some point as I very much enjoy the wonderful universe of internet spaceships in wormholes.

Welcome to the eighteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by none other than me, CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

On May 6th 2010, EVE Online celebrated its 7th Anniversary. Quite a milestone in MMO history, especially considering that it is one of the few virtual worlds out there to see its population continually grow year after year. For some of you who’ve been here since the very beginning, EVE has evolved quite a lot since its creation. With the expansion rolling out roughly twice a year, New Eden gets renewed and improved regularly. But, how about you the player? How has you gaming style evolved through the years or months since you’ve started playing? Have you always been a carebear, or roleplayer? Have you only focused on PvP or have you given other aspects of the game a chance – say manufacturing. Let’s hear your story!

My first introduction to Eve was through a two week trial. I have alway been a huge science fiction fan. I started my MMO career with Star Wars: Galaxies followed by Anarchy Online. After my two weeks were over I signed up and dived head first into an industrial corp. I was bored out of my mind within a few weeks. My corp mates seemed to never be on and every time I flew around the universe I hardly ever ran into anyone. I quickly lost interest.

For me an MMO is a primarily a social experience. I love playing with and against other people. It has gotten to the point where I don’t even buy single player only games anymore because they just lack the social aspect that I have come to expect out of video games. Needless to say, if you end up in a very small and hardly active corp in a not so busy part of the universe the social aspect of Eve is virtually non-existent. I then proceeded to go play the game which shall not be named for four years. I had a blast the first couple of years but after that almost all my friends left the game. I stuck around for two dull years just because it was what I was used to doing, it had become a habit rather than an enjoyable experience.

Back in October of last year I decided to give Eve another go and give up on that other game. I had been periodically reading about Eve. The complex political conflicts and spectacular cons were fascinating to me. This time I had done my research and as soon as I created a character I applied to join Eve University, determined to find a very active environment in which to get a grasp on Eve. I served three months in the Uni, primarily focusing my time on learning how to pvp before graduating. I stuck around for another month while trying to figure out which direction to head into. I knew it was time to leave the Uni. Too many rules for a freedom lover like myself. The ILN (Eve Uni’s combat wing) also had a nasty set of inflated egos at the top that I couldn’t stand anymore. I was ready to take my PvP to the next level in a less restrictive environment.

I initially looked at two corporation, The Graduates of Morsus Mihi and the (in)famous Star Fraction. I was drawn to The Graduates by the prospects of intricate and constant nullsec PvP in large fleets. On the other hand I was drawn to Star Fraction by their Voluntaryist/Anarcho-Capitalist philosophy which I strongly adhere to in the real world. After several discussions with people in both corporations, I just didn’t feel comfortable heading to either. I kept browsing the Uni’s “Work Fair” forums when I fell upon the long thread for Adhocracy Incorporated. The initial post blew me away. A corporation with hardly any rules, no bureaucracy, that operates in an environment that is basically nullsec on crack for PvP and that loves to pew pew? I quickly started talking to an ADHC recruiter named Klokvarg and hanging out in the ADHC public channel. Thanks Klok!

Within a few days I knew this was where I should go. With extremely limited knowledge I took the dive into wormhole life headfirst. Thanks to my awesome and very patient fellow Adhocrats I learned the ropes of living out of a PoS, wormhole PvP and sleeper combat. Each and every day is a completely different experience as our wormhole always leads to somewhere new. Joining ADHC has propelled my fascination with Eve to new levels. I have greatly enjoyed reading both of the Eve novels and I have been progressively sucked into the realm of Eve blogs.

I must say that Adhocracy Incorporated is one of the most fun and enjoyable player groups I have been a part of. Wormholes present a nice variety of challenges to tackle each day. I can’t imagine myself being anywhere else in New Eden or flying with any other group of capsuleers. ADHC is not perfect but it is structured in such a way that I have no doubt that I can help the corp continually improve and try to overcome its weaknesses.

Cheers to CCP for creating a sandbox game that lets the players fashion the story of New Eden and cheers to my awesome corpmates who do a hell of a job making it an epic journey.

Check out my fellow Adhocrat’s Blog Banter response: Learning to Fly

Well I typed out a thousand word post for this but the blog editor I use on my Macbook Pro just wiped out the entire thing when I switched from plain text to html view. I have it set to auto-save every minute which it apparently did not do. Thanks a lot Ecto for wasting so much of my time and effort.

So this will be a brief version of what I had previously elaborated on. I finally got a Proteus this past Saturday after training for it for months. I set it up as a cloaked scout/tackler with a lot of tank. Several other ADHC members have fit their T3s like this and it has worked very well for them.
After bringing it back into H we crashed our dull T. Our new T led to two other wormholes, WH1 & WH2. I logged for a while after checking these systems out.

When I came back Nivir had scouted out a C6 wormhole off of WH2 which we labeled WH4. Seeing a great opportunity to test out my Proteus I quickly scurried off to go help him scout the system. It was a small system which was all on directional from the entrance.

Nivir had seen several ships flying around. He guided me to their PoS. I was pulled in by a warp bubble but was not uncloaked when I landed. Fortunately there was nothing there to uncloak me. I approached the PoS and found their fleet sitting in it. One of them was flying an Onyx which was not a good sign. We were afraid they had spotted one of us jumping in.

While I was watching their PoS our gank fleet was forming up in H. WH2 > WH4 was already stage 2 sot that ruled out using battleships. Our fleet jumped mostly in T2 cruisers and battlecruisers. We waited a long time but the hostiles finally started moving. They were getting into PvE ships to hopefully run one of the many anoms in their C6. Soon four Ravens, two Basiliks and a Drake warped off to a planet.

Nivir and I followed them there. We saw which direction they warped off into. Using directional we narrowed down a few likely anoms and started checking them out.
Nivir found them and I soon followed him. Around 80 km from the hostiles I started slow boating towards them cloaked. As I got closer I had to dodge sleepers, drones, the hostiles, wrecks and the huge sleeper structure to avoid getting decloaked. While this was just an anom we were in a C6 which meant the sleepers could alpha most of the people in our fleet. Our ECM had fit for Caldari and sleepers.

When I got within 15km of the hostiles I held position. We waited for them to whittle down the sleeper fleet to two battleships before our fleet jumped in. Our FC had done an excellent job of preassigning targets to our tacklers and ecm. He gang warped the fleet to me. Fearing that I would lose my shiny new T3, I waited until the first fleet member landed before uncloaking and tackling two of the Ravens. The Drake warped out but a few seconds later our HiC bubble went up and they were trapped. Our ECM jammed the two Basiliks and the Sleepers as we tore into the Ravens one by one.

Fortunately one of our members frapsed the encounter and made a great video out of it. Check it out below:

Living in a C4 is becoming somewhat frustrating as a PvPer. Since most of the wormholes we find are C3s and lower, our pvp tends to be very easy. People living in lower level wormholes tend to be more carebear oriented and are usually flat out terrible at PvP. As much fun as it is to gank a few drakes in an anom, the lack of challenge has started getting to several of ADHCs more hardcore pvpers, myself included.

Fortunately the other day we had ourselves a real brawl on our hands. I logged on to a fight about to start. I think I have a sixth sense that detects eminent explosions because I frequently log on right as the action is about to start. This is why I always log off on an interceptor. Tackling tends to be a problem for us so I can fill that hole while at the same time making sure I get to fights pronto to ensure proper killmail whoring. So I log onto comms and rush for the bookmarks.

Ships have been spotted several wormholes away. One of our intrepid scouts has found hostiles that look to be on the hunt as well. I jump H > T > WH1 > WH3 > WH4 and join our small fleet at a C6 wormhole entrance. Our scout has reported a carrier and several BS on the other side. Not quite sure what had happened before I logged on but things were mildly chaotic. I plop myself at the hole and turn on my sensor booster. Nothing like catching a scout that thinks a cloak will save them.

We are getting more people out to our fleet when all of a sudden we hear an activation. I tense up and soon see a Kronos on my overview. I lock him nearly instantly and point him. I like have expensive ships on my killboard history. A few seconds later a Scorpion decloaks. We call him primary so I stick my drones and guns on him and keep the Kronos pointed. A few seconds pass before a Thanatos appears! Those bastards just jumped a carrier through the hole to try to gank us. They have us outgunned by a huge margin but none of us care, there is yet again the potential for a carrier kill and that is worth losing a ship for.

The carrier unleashes his drones on us. Our ecm is doing a great job on the Scorpion and Kronos but those drones are vicious. Several people in our fleet focus on the Ogre II drones well the rest of us stay on the Scorpion that is starting to fail. A few seconds later a pod appears on my overview. The carrier’s drones got one of our blackbirds. The pilot jumps out but we stay focused. Drones are getting blown up left and right and the Scorpion is in very low shields. At this point I start wishing that I had come in our crasher Dominix. Their next move is entirely predictable but sadly unpreventable.

I notice a yellow box on my overview coming from the carrier. Things are not going well for them so they want to take out our lower ehp ships. I stick on the Kronos but I soon notice a swarm of drones headed my way. I quickly smash my warp out button as my shield and armor alarms scream out. There are unconfirmed rumors that I might have let out a squeal.

Fortunately, Bob the wormhole god decided to spare me and I manage to warp off. My ship is in bad shape but as soon as I land at the planet, I warp right back to the fight. I land just in time to see the Scorpion explode and the Kronos jump back into their wormhole. The inevitable happens and the Thanatos soon follows him, crashing the hole behind him. In the end we killed a Scorpion and a ton of drones in return for our Blackbird loss. Not too shabby.

Scorpion Kill

The best part though was that someone tried to g ank us and they ended up running away from the fight. Our fleet worked performed exceptionally well. It made me very proud to fly with ADHC where we take wormhole PvP to a whole new level (most of the time). It was also nice to finally have a real fight on our hands were there was a serious possibility we might all get blown up. Hats off to our targets for coming to get some rather than being typical wormhole newbies who just sit like idiots in a site, not checking directional. Still no carrier on our killboard but we are encountering them more frequently. I have a feeling there will be one there in the near future…

Another boring T, another trip out for Cindy the crasher Dominix. We crash the hole and go exploring into our new T. A few PoS and a couple of active ships hiding in them. We wait a while to see if they will come out but they leave us disappointed. Our scout probes out K which proves to be a nice high sec system.

I am not sure why but quite often the Ks we come out into have other wormholes in them. So our scout goes into K and starts probing. Pretty soon he finds another hole. I am flying a Nemesis so I volunteer to go check it out. I hop into WH1. 350km off of me is an Imicus. Interesting. It’s pretty rare to find someone actively watching a hole we jump into. I quickly uncloak, pulse my MWD and recloak my Nemesis. The Imicus doesn’t budge. I hope that means he was AFK or not paying attention.

I quickly check directional. Looks like 2 PoS with a bunch of mods and a few ships. I am scrolling through the long list on my directional scanner when I realize there are no Force Fields listed! Not confident in my scanner, I narrow down the first PoS on directional and warp to check it out. Sure enough, a PoS is anchored but offline. The same is true for all its guns. There are no ships or hangars here. Realizing that this might mean free loot, I scurry off to find the other PoS. A couple minutes of using directional and warping around I find it. Sure enough, the Gallente tower is sitting there with a dozen ships just floating around in space, unpiloted. I relay the information on Mumble and get a bunch of people to start heading over.

There are a dozen cans, a half dozen shuttles, a Myrmidon, Iteron V, Iteron IV, Retriever, Caracal sitting there. I work with another fleet member in a Proteus to get a warp in on that Imicus. He still hasn’t moved at all. We get a couple ships near him, uncloak and pop the Imicus very quickly.

Imicus Kill

We proceed to jack their ships and empty their cans. Nothing too amazing there but free ships are always awesome. While we are ferrying these ships from WH1 > K > T > H a couple of people in T notice some activity from the locals. We finish moving the ships back and form a second fleet. Soon enough the T residents warp a Harbinger and a Guardian to the T > H hole. Our second fleet engages them. I rush back from WH1 in my Nemesis and land on the hole. Being the only one there with a point I tackle the Harbinger while our members rush to the hole. The Harbinger locks me really fast and pops me.

Nemesis Loss

I bounce to a planet in a pod, and wait a few seconds for my timer. I then warp back to the hole with the fight and jump through to H. I warp to our PoS and grab my Megathron because we need DPS. On my way back to the hole I hear that the Harbinger just jumped through. Most of our fleet stays on the other side to fight the Guardian. I land shortly before the Harbinger uncloaks and I tackle him. Unfortunately, one of our members in another Nemesis gets almost instalocked by the Harbinger and popped but this sucker is stuck and he isn’t going anywhere. We pour DPS into him and his armor fades away quickly. A bright explosion avenges my Nemesis.

Harbinger Kill

The bastard was fit with dual sensor boosters. That makes it pretty much perfect for blowing up stealth bombers. For good measure we annihilate his pod and send his clone back to K Space – Pod Kill

On the other side, our fleet is having trouble breaking the Guardian’s tank. We jump in to join them in the hunt. Right as we get through, a HiC in our fleet puts up a bubble on the Guardian who is now over 150km away from the hole. I try to warp to my corpmates but I can’t get my ship to initiate warp. Turns out that you can’t warp to someone in your fleet that is inside a HiC bubble. Good to know.

Our fleet eventually manages to break the Guardian’s tank and nail his pod too.

Guardian Kill

Overall not too bad of an engagement. We lost 2 Nemesis to kill a Harbinger and a Guardian. I have decided I am not even going to bother replacing the Nemesis. Every time I fly one in combat I get popped. Their tanks are just too thin. I am much happier in a ship with more tank like my Megathron or more speed like my Ares.

So after this resounding victory we head back into H. After a while my client bugs so I log out. I come back into system and see my Megathron at a safespot in H. By force of habit I hit my directional scanner. 4 Sisters core probes with names in Cyrillic. Ruh roh! Using my astounding powers of deduction I venture in corp chat that we have an incoming C5 or C6 connection in H and that that system is occupied by Russians. I have no idea why but C5 and C6 systems tend to most often by populated by Russians. This is dangerous because Russians are as hardcore about their pvp as we are and they always fly really nice ships.

We soon establish that there is indeed an incoming C6 and it does have a Russian PoS. There are no ships on directional though. I suggest we crash that hole but I am accused of being too excited and paranoid so we leave it be. We have some ships scouted out that are currently sitting on K > T so our fleet forms up on H > T to see if they will come in.

While we are sitting there all of a sudden an Armageddon appears next to us. Shit! The Russians from the C6 (T2) are trying to gank us. Our fleet engages the Armageddon. I jump my Megathron to the other side of the hole to catch him if he tries to jump through. Things get a little hectic. I hear on coms that more ships are landing but I can’t get specifics on what is there. We start losing ships. I call out for them to warp to our PoS. The survivors bug out and the Russians jump through the hole after me. I engage them, supported by a HiC. The Russians have two Armageddons, a Curse, a Falcon, a Blackbird and a Rifter. They plow through my shields and my armor isn’t faring much better. When I get to quarter armor I jump back into H. I instantly spam warp to PoS and pray that I can get it off before being tackled. Some of the Russians follow me but I make it off.

I land at the PoS and hop into my RRBS Megathron that I use for running sites in H. I instruct the rest of the fleet to do the same. The Russians are engaging our HiC that stayed behind on T > H. He is jumping back and forth through the hole when his timer is up. His tank is holding up surprisingly well. Once our fleet are all in RRBS, our HiC jumps back into H. The Russians follow him and I squad warp the fleet to the hole. We engage the Russians who immediately start to bug out. Since most of us are in PvE ships we are seriously lacking in tackle. They all manage to escape. With them on the run I squad warp our fleet to H > T2 in hot pursuit.

We jump into their hole smelling blood. Most of them have already run away but we do catch a Russian Curse. We pound him while he tries to flee. I switch to long range ammo and we finish him off.

Our losses to the Russian Gank (Curse, Harbinger)

Our Retribution on the Russians (Curse)

We quickly head back to H figuring that the Russians are about to do to us what we just did to them. I grab Cindy and get to work on crashing T2. On my last jump a Russian fleet warps to me on the T2 > H side. I frantically jump back with my MWD on and in a blaze of triumph the hole crashes behind me.

Lesson learned, if you have an incoming hole with active Russians, either actively keep eyes on it or crash it. We don’t screw around with our PvP and neither do the Russians. Serious PvP seems to begin in C4s and up so we tend to get a little complacent when most of our victims are easy prey. It’s exciting to be on the other side of a gank for once. All of this craziness made for a very interesting night. It was a ton of fun, I don’t think I could ever leave wormhole space when adventures like these happen often.

In our next episode we will see our ADHC heroes face off against a Carrier and friends. Stay tuned…

With the recent election of the new CSM I did some research to see which candidate would best address wormhole issues. I was surprised to find that none of the candidates were active wormhole dwellers! Some of the CSM candidates had spent time in wormholes but it wasn’t the daily home for any of them.

At first I was surprised by this and then I was a little angry. Thousands of players live in wormholes and it represents fully 1/4 of the types of Eve Space. We have people from High, Low and Nullsec running for the CSM but no wormhole dwellers? Each type of space comes with a separate set of rules and tools that create different kinds of problems. I really don’t think a lowsec pirate would care much about wormhole issues nor would he likely understand many of them. I know I sure as hell would have no clue where to start in dealing with issues of living in lowsec.

When I mentioned this to the Tweetfleet, I was asked what I thought the issues were in wormhole space. Excellent question and I think that most Eve players don’t understand many of the problems that come with living in unknown space. Let’s see what we can do to rectify that.

Now many difficulties are inherent to the way wormholes were designed. Things like mass limits on wormholes are very restrictive but this was an intentional design element from CCP. I may or may not agree with some of them but I want to focus on design elements that are simply broken or haven’t been developed fully. Here is my list of broken wormhole elements that I hope CCP will address:

• Bookmarks - This is number one for a reason. For the love of Bob the wormhole god, please make an easier way for people to share bookmarks. I think the creation of corporation bookmarks would be ideal. We spend so much time flying back and forth dropping bookmarks off at holes or at our PoS for every single thing we scan down (which is a ton of sigs every day). Then we have to put them all in a can or hangar and they can only be copied by one person at a time. Inevitably some bookmarks get deleted or someone fails to copy some of them back. This is a huge headache for wormhole dwellers that people in known space don’t really have to deal with on the same scale.
• Subsystem Changing - We can change modules at our PoS (thank the heavens) but we can’t change subsystems on our T3 ships. Since T3 ships come from wormholes and are heavily used by wormhole dwellers for both PvP and PvE this is a huge oversight. Being able to refit subsystems on T3 cruisers would allow us to bring a lot fewer ships into our PoS because we could simply refit our strategic cruisers for the many different purposes they can fill.
• Randomness of Static Connections - Our static C3 and static K end up in the same systems way too often. Our static K very frequently leads to a particular low sec region that is close to nothing and is filled with gate camps. Wormhole connections are just not random enough. With thousands of systems why do we keep seeing the same few pop up over and over? We also frequently end up in C3s that we have been to before. I would really like to see some concrete information on the numbers of wormholes broken down by class.
• Information on Wormholes - CCP really hasn’t given players much information about wormholes and their mechanics. Players have figured a lot of things out themselves but in all honesty, wormhole dwellers are terrible about sharing information with each other. This is mainly a result of our paranoid nature and the often cutthroat environment in unknown space. If we could get numbers on wormholes like CCP gives out for the Eve economy it would be very helpful in our planning.
• Capital Ships - So this issue is debatable because it was an intentional design element. However, the inability to get capital ships out of most wormholes is very frustrating. Building capital ships in a wormhole is a major endeavor and a bit of a logistical nightmare. To then go and forever seal a capital ship in its hole is just too harsh. I think this restricts wormhole exploration severely. If you have spent billions of isk and months building up a capital fleet in a C2, C3 or C4 system you are going to be very reluctant to leave them behind to move up to a higher class of hole.
• C5 and C6 Population - In all honesty the vast majority of C5 and C6 wormholes are empty. A large part of this is simply due to their difficulty. You need a lot of experienced and high skill point characters to run a C5 or C6 site. Especially once you get into using capital ships to escalate and complete sites you are talking about a very small percentage of the Eve player base. Another big issue is related to the Capital Ships problem I just covered. Players that want to learn wormhole mechanics in a lower class wormhole often fill victim to sunk costs and are therefore very reluctant to move up. I also really want to know the numbers on the types of systems. I think most people agree that C1 wormholes are the most prevalent type of holes and C6 systems are much fewer in number. Without numbers from CCP though this is impossible to get a firm grasp on. In unknown space, everything flows down hill. C6 systems get static connections to C5 and C4 systems who in turn get connections to C4 and C3 systems and starting in C3 holes you start seeing static connections to K space. This means that if you live in a C5 or C4 system you will see a lot fewer K162 holes show up than if you live in a C2 or C3. Some might say this is an advantage of living in a higher level hole but personally I wish we had more people opening holes into our C4. It can get a little lonely in there sometimes.
• Logistics - For the love of isk, let us bring Jump Freighters between connecting Wormhole systems. This would make our lives so much easier.

There are other issues with wormholes that I will explore on an ongoing basis. I feel that these are some of the biggest ones and I worry that no one is really bringing these to the attention of CCP. The answer to this is obviously to have a wormhole dweller make a serious run for the CSM a year from now. I hope someone steps up and does this. They would have my vote.

So what problems do you see with wormhole space design? If you could get the CSM to address one issue of living in a wormhole, what would it be?

With a large amount of free time on my hands and at the request of a few people I decided to throw together a video on how to Station Trade. I have perviously focused on my wormhole adventures but trading is also a strong interest of mine that I pursue on my 2nd account. I still have a lot to learn but I feel I have a pretty good grasp on the basics at this point.

Below you will find links to both parts of my video guide. Please hit me any thoughts and feedback you have on the guides and how I could make them better.

Part 1:

Part 2:

In this installment of Adventures in Wormhole Gankage we find  ourselves in a Nemesis in H. Our T is boring so we have a couple scouts checking out systems in K space. One of them finds a wormhole off of K with some activity. I hear a report of an impressive sounding fleet, T3s, Marauders, Battleships and all that jazz. Sadly we don’t have the numbers for a proper gank on a fleet that well equipped.

So we decided to try something new. We all hoped in stealth bombers and chose to try out a bomb run. This was a first for us. While we love cloaked ships, the majority of people in the corp prefer to fly recon and T3 cloaky ships for the extra tank. Looking at my Killboard profile that has more Nemesis losses than anything else I understand why. We all load up with bombs and head over to this new wormhole. While we are traveling the hostile fleet jumps into an adjacent wormhole and starts running sites.

Our scout narrows them down and gives us a warp in. We wait until the site is done and they bring a Catalyst in to salvage. We let him go through most of the wrecks. When he is down to two wrecks we warp in cloaked and motor towards him. Aligning towards the wreck we start counting and on the count of 3 we drop 2 bombs on him.

Boom!

A 100M Catalyst kill is not too shabby. In retrospect, we should have had another person around to launch a bomb a few seconds later and nail his pod. Oh well, lesson learned. The crazy thing about this gank is that they knew we were there. They had spotted our scout jumping into that wormhole and had made fun of him in local. They also had a ship stationed at the wormhole entrance (always a smart move, HiCs are perfect for this) when we jumped our stealth bombers in. I guess they got cocky due to the power of their fleet. They should have gotten that Catalyst out of there pronto as soon as they saw our ships in system.

So we jump out of that wormhole and into their hub wormhole. A Legion is sitting on the hole but he can’t do anything to us. High off our gank we decide to try a bombing run on the Legion for the lulz. We know we can’t kill him but we can probably annoy him. We all align towards him, 3..2..1.. Fire! We launch a wave of bombs at the Legion. I instantly notice yellow brackets on my overview. Ruh roh. I smash my cloak but of course it’s on cool-down from uncloaking. Option B, I double click in space away from the Legion and hit my MWD. That was a bad decision. The yellow brackets soon turn red. I frantically try to warp to a celestial but it’s taking me forever to get up to speed. The first shot hits me and takes me to half armor. I smash on the warp button faster as the low armor alarm screeches.

Fail

I get the half second of lag when your ship has blown up but you don’t see your pod yet. I am still smashing on the warp button. I make it out in my pod and quickly head home to our Hub. Another stealth bomber lost but in the end it was a great learning experience. I participated in my first bombing run and we came out far ahead in the encounter isk wise which is always the idea. Next time I know to only use the MWD to approach a target, not to run away from them. It’s also better to put your bombing target between you and a celestial so you can go to warp even faster. There is a 10km sweet spot between the max range of a bomb and the range of a warp disruptor. Hitting it correctly should ensure safety but its not alway easy.

Now, here’s to hoping that Tyrannis will give me more careless wormhole carebears to gank….

One of the WH niches that I have specialized in is wormhole crashing. I stumbled into this role a while back but it’s something I enjoy doing and it is a useful addition to the corporation. We have a corporation owned Dominix that is fitted with 7 plates to maximize its mass. Whenever we are tired of our current T, I will jump the crasher Domi through several times to collapse the hole and get us a new T.

Generally this is a safe activity. It is possible to approximate the remaining mass allowance of a wormhole. You also just get a feel over time for what you need to jump through the hole to collapse it. The main issue with collapsing a wormhole is ensuring that the ship that is crashing it is jumping into H when it collapses and not jumping into T. Before that day I had only ever gotten stuck in T once and I was able to make it back to high sec K without any trouble. Good luck only lasts so long though.

So I went to crash the T link with a few corpmates. We jump our battleships in and out and get the wormhole into stage 2. At this point I should have just waited on the T side until they got it into critical. I was too impatient though and I kept jumping back and forth. Then a battleship jumped back into H and the wormhole went critical with me in H as well. This is a bad sign as when this happens the incoming battleship usually clips too much mass for me to be able to jump out and back in. Overconfident in my good fortune, I offline all my plates and jumped into T. Tragedy! The wormhole collapse message springs up on my screen, I am locked out.

I head to the K link in our T which of course leads to nullsec Providence, possibly the worst place to be in all of Eve for a single slow Dominix. I set my map to take me to the nearest high sec and off I go. 15 nullsec jumps to go. The first few are uneventful but soon I start noticing people in local. Fortunately the Dominix is fitted with a cloak. I pull on all my experience to keep moving without getting ganked. I know the two key factors are to warp to a celestial first before warping to a gate to avoid drag bubbles and to move as fast as possible to reduce the time that the locals have to react. I am eventually spotted on a gate. I know this means that everyone in the region just read about me on their intel channel.

I keep moving forward when my stomach sinks. At the top left of my screen I read “Sovereignty: Agony Empire”. Oh shit. The last time I ran into Agony I was leading an Eve Uni fleet through nullsec. Needless to say my entire fleet was slaughtered. I am getting closer to salvation though. Only a few jumps to high sec and freedom. The number of bubbles I run into is increasing. Agony has bubbles up at all the gates and all the celestials. Fortunately they mostly appear to be unguarded. I get stuck in a few of them but each time I am able to pop my cloak and slow boat out of them.

Soon I notice a couple of Agony pilots tailing me. I warp to a safe spot and cloak up. A few seconds later I notice several series of combat probes on directional. There is no doubt they are on to me. I stay cloaked for a long time and keep onlining my plates when I get enough cap. I know for sure they are waiting for me in the next system which just happens to be the last nullsec system before reaching safety. I wait about 30 minutes in system with a couple Agony popping in every now and then to make sure I am still in local. This is one of the many reasons why having local in nullsec is completely retarded. I check the map but I am stuck in a pipeline, there is nowhere else to go but forwards.

I continue to wait them out until I run out of patience. I jump into the next system and see an Agony Phobos and Harpy sitting on the gate near me. I hold cloak and figure out which way to go. Once I have found a good celestial I uncloak, pulse my MWD and cloak up. They of course see me and up goes the HiC bubble. I do the only thing I can do and just keep slow boating away. Soon I see more Agony jump into the system. They are forming a search grid around the gate to try to uncloak me. There are more and more ships flying by me with drones deployed. The great tragedy was that this is the one ship I fly that is slow as hell when cloaked. I was going 10 m/s thanks to the Domi’s ghetto cloak. I figure my odds of survival are about as low as Congress’ approval ratings.

As the number of Agony pilots grows, so does my distance from the gate. Every few seconds I squeal on comms as a ship passes 3-5km away from me but my cloak holds. After 15 terrifying minutes, I am finally getting close to the edge of the bubble. I might just make it out of this. I know I am going to have to get a ways from the bubble because several of the Agony ships are Dramiels and those ships will catch me really fast. Right as I get outside of the bubble I see a ship that appears to be headed straight for me. My hand hovers over the warp button. Sure enough he goes right past me and I get uncloaked. I immediately slam the warp button. No dice. As my ship accelerates I am almost instantly pointed by a half dozen ships. I launch drones and start targeting as many of the bastards as I can. At least I will go down swinging.

Sadly, I soon lose all the targets that I had thanks to ecm. Pointed, webbed, neuted and and jammed it’s good game for me. The Phobos speeds to me as I sit spamming the warp button, hoping to at least save my pod. Sadly by the time my ship blows up the HiC bubble is on me. I plead in local for my pod but Agony couldn’t care less and I get the pod express home.

Death of the WH crasher Domi Killmail (this looks a lot like most of ADHC’s killmails)

This was my first ship loss in 36 days. Disgruntled I reported my demise and logged off for the night. It was a solid gank on Agony’s part. I don’t really think there is much else I could have done other than log off but even then they probably would have nailed me when I came back on. Fear not though, I have already brought a new WH crasher Dominix back to our hub. Hopefully, this one won’t come to such a tragic fate.

Another day, another epic gank. So I logged on a few days ago to hear that we were stalking people in T. We had been stalking them in their PoS for a long time now but they hadn’t come out yet. There was a Paladin and a Proteus. They were jumping in and out of ships and kept moving around their PoS. Hoping for a gank we had a fleet assembled at H > T. I arrived quickly in my Ares which is the ship I always log off in so that I am able to quickly respond if I log into a gank in progress.

We sit around the hole for another hour while our scout keeps an eye on their PoS. We grow tired of waiting so we send a bait Hurricane at a planet in T. He chills there for about twenty minutes but they don’t come out to play. To ensure a catch if they did bite, we had a cloaked Phobos sitting 15km away from our Hurricane. Talking on comms it seems like this is going nowhere. I made the assumption that nothing was going to happen so I ran back to the PoS to grab my beloved corp WH crasher Domi. It was time to find a new T and hopefully new targets.

I hop in the lumbering Dominix and call out that I am going to crash the hole. Our bait Hurricane warps back to T > H. Fortunately, our Phobos stuck around for a few more seconds. Moments after our Hurricane leaves the Proteus lands right where he had been. Our Phobos pilot immediately uncloaks and puts up his bubble. He calls out on comms that he has point and the fleet jumps into T. This was terrible timing for me as I had just landed on T > H in the crasher Dominix. I took about a second to decide that our fleet would pop the Proteus before I had a chance to reship and get out there so I hopped into T.

I warp to our Phobos pilot and try to figure out how the hell I am going to killmail whore in the crasher Domi. This ship has no point, no TP, no web, no guns. Not a single mod I could use to get on a killmail. Fortunately, I looked down in the corner of my screen and saw that a brilliant person had left some sentry drones in the drone bay! I lock the Proteus and set those Garde I sentries to work.

But wait! What do we have here? A Paladin shows up on directional next to the Proteus. His buddy came to try to save the T3 ship with a Marauder. Never one to question stupidity when it can lead to great killmails, I lock the Paladin and set my drones on him. Fortunately, we had another HiC that had jumped in. Our Onyx hugged the Paladin while our Phobos stayed on the Proteus. We tried to primary the Paladin but we didn’t have near enough DPS to break his tank. They did the smart thing and started motoring away from each other, splitting our fleet up in two. We had them trapped but didn’t have the DPS to kill them.

This chase continued for a while before fate smiled on us. One of our pilots logged on in H. We quickly told him the situation and he brought his Bhaalgorn to the fight. He went after the Paladin with a passion and it exploded quickly. By this point the two targets were over 100km apart from each other. We held the Proteus down to give time for all the people shooting at the Paladin to get over and killmail whore. A few seconds later the shiny T3 ship went boom.

Killboard link to the gank

Total damage inflicted – 1.8 Billion isk. Not bad at all. This was also the corp’s second Marauder kill, only a few days after our first one. Not sure why the sudden spike in Marauders in wormhole space but I’ll gladly take it. We looted and salvaged their wrecks and headed back to H. I then proceeded to put the crasher Domi to it’s proper use and crashed the T link.

After this gank, I am even more determined to get myself into a Phobos. I recently started the 21 day long sludge to Gallente Cruiser V. I definitely think that HiCs and T3 ships are the quintessential wormhole PvP ships. If you could fit a cov ops cloak to a HiC they would be the best ships in wormhole pvp by a long stretch. Now I just need to earn a billion isk to pay for these new toys in the next month.