Sunday, August 25, 2013

A Clash Nearby as I Blunder About

 It's the weekend, mid morning for me.  I sit down for a look at EVE.  What's happening during daylight, EVE universe?  I last logged out in my exploration Buzzard, in a safespot I made in between planets.  This spot is outside of dscan range of almost all locations where anyone might be in my system.  So I expect to see literally nothing on scan.  Instead, I see one combat probe.  Are any corpmates on?  No.

Uh oh. 

I warp to the inner system, and sure enough, I see a long list of sleeper wrecks.  Also two Lokis and a Noctis.  Someone is running sites in my system.

I quickly get the probe scanner up and bookmark the two anomalies that show.  With anoms bookmarked, it no longer matters if they clear them: I will be able to warp to the site.  Now I start with dscan: I'll figure out which anom they are in and... well, what?  I don't have the right ship.  I'll have to risk them seeing me on dscan to change ships.  But, I'll find them first and make a perch.  So, dscan.  I point at anom #1, and not there.  OK, anom #2?  Not there either.  Er... where then?

They are in the direction of our eastern planet.  There's nothing out there I have not already checked.  So, for now at least I cannot get at the enemy.  I start to think about getting out Artemis, which has combat probes.  Or I might not switch, and try to get the site first from my Buzzard.  But first I want to find out which wormholes from last night are still alive.  And also, I figure that after salvaging the site they are in, they'll keep going.  So if I just wait, I'll get a shot at them.

I warp out to check on wormholes.  Most of them are gone.  There's a C2 from last night that I know about; it is now EOL.  Two others are gone.  The static has moved, so I don't know where it is, other than in the inner system somewhere.  I cannot search it down without revealing my presence in the system.

Well, I am going to have to swap some time, and it will be in dscan range of the enemy.  So I might as well do it now.  I swoop into our tower, swap into my Manticore, and warp out as fast as I can.  Of course, all this takes time.  If the enemy has any clue, they should have seen that.  Let's see what they do.  I start watching dscan.

There's only one Loki, and no Noctis.  Where did the other Loki go?  And what is that?  A heavy assault cruiser, but with different "tag" in its name.  That probably means a different corp.  Which means it's a fight -- and I have no idea where it is!

On a hunch I warp to the C2.  Nope, nothing is here.  I warp back to a perch midway in the inner system. 

Evidently a Loki has gotten killed -- there is a Minmatar Advanced Cruiser Wreck on scan.  As I am pondering this, I see a Reaper on scan.  What's a Reaper?  Oh, it's the Minmatar rookie ship.  What?  And then a pod.  What is happening?  Oh, there's the Reaper's wreck.  I guess it got killed too.  But.. what could it possibly have been doing?

Things settle. The pod disappears.  I am left starting at an unchanging tableau.  After a few minutes of watching this, I figure it's time to deploy probes and find the static.  Maybe they will try to come back to salvage wrecks.  So I warp to a perch just off my POS, and what do I see but a wreck.  The reaper wreck, conveniently 156km from where I am.  (Here's the kill.)  Did it warp to my moon out of all the moons, and get killed by my tower?  Seems unlikely.  I warp over to loot the wreck: I get a Prototype Cloak.  Ah.  They must have been using it to keep an eye on my tower.  So, there's a use for a rookie ship I had not thought of.  I fire probes, and quickly move off and hide again.

I search down our static's new position, and fly there to sit and watch.  But nothing happens.  Nobody exits or enters, and dscan does not change.

After a while, I believe that nobody is coming back.  I look at the dscan longingly.  A cargo container, very likely blue loot from a salvaged wreck.  The Loki wreck.  Two large intermediate sleeper wrecks -- 7.5m each in blue loot, and another 0-48m each in salvage.  I'd sure like to get that.  In theory, one can get to any point in space if one can get to points that define the corners of volume containing it.  You just have to warp back and forth a lot, making bookmarks and checking the direction on dscan.  I've got nothing to do for a while. This seems like a good time to see about that.

A little work with the dscan shows the range is such that the wreck site must be near our eastern planet.  I warp out there, and start by getting a range from my new location: almost exactly 2 AU.  Now I use dscan to halve and quarter space near me.  I narrow down the position to a small area about 45 degrees down, and in towards the sun.

This is too bad.  Theoretically it is possible for me to get there, but only if I had bookmarks in my system that would bracket the location in all dimensions, X/Y/Z.  But I don't have such bookmarks.  As such, the site is entirely beyond my reach.  Sigh.

In future, I'll be making those bookmarks.

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