Friday 1 January 2010

On Holiday in Vale of the Silent, p3

Well, p1 & p2 were the most hair raising, and most fun bits of the escapade. I did eventually manage to get into a backwater system of Majesta Empire, and spent the 31st and the 1st doing anomalies. My corp, however, really wanted me back in high sec with them, as they were PVP'ing in WH space, so I started to make my way back via Geminate. I enjoyed the chase ME gave me, they even camped me out a bit in that backwater system, although nothing really serious as I simply cloaked up every time anyone showed up.

I will say that my scout didn't fare so well... I think he got podded back to empire about 8 different times, trying to make it back to me. Hehe.

On Holiday in Vale of the Silent, p2

A quick inspection of IPAY reveals no-one in system, now. Not knowing how much time he has before the Tengu can jump in behind him, Ael immediately uncloaks from the gate, and cloaks up using his prototype cloaking device. While allowing him to be stealthy, and undetectable by any ships, it limits his speed to a lowly 15 m/s. Ael waits to see what will happen next.

The Tengu jumps in seconds later, followed close behind by an Majestic Empire Crusader. Then the rest of the ME gang jumps in. Amazingly enough, they simply uncloak for a minute, then most of the gang begins to travel back to the stargate and jump back through. Ael starts to chuckle. He might just get out of this alive.

All that is left is the Tengu and the Crusader now. Ael's heart is pounding as he watches his consoles. The crusader is moving away, not orbiting, so not really being a threat. Then the Tengu starts moving.

Ael quickly realizes the Tengu pilot is a smart one, as the Tengu begins an orbit of about 10km.. and the computer starts sending alarm signals to Ael that he is on a collision course. No chance to fight this time, it must be flight. Ael aligns to an asteroid belt, and the Tengu closes withing 3500 meters. Disengaging his cloak, Ael mashes the warp button for the asteroid field. The seconds tick by as the Warp Drive climbs.. Ael's computers haven't registered any targeting locks from the ME's? Targeting Locks start going up just as Ael's ship hits Warp Drive. With no time to lose, Ael immediately re-aligns to the P3e gate upon exiting warp at the field, and selects his scan point at the P3e gate as the destination. Again, the Warp Drive builds.

Local spikes, the Tengu and Crusader come on grid, and once again, Ael's Warp Drive engages just as the Locking targets come up on his console. Upon exiting warp, Ael immediately engages his cloak once more. Safe, for the time being. All was not without incident though, as Ael attempts to contact his scout. Nothing but static for a few moments, then the grave news his scout is back in empire, ugrading his clone and fitting out another ship.

On Holiday in Vale of the Silent p1

31st of Dec..

Got bored of Hi-sec empire space, and had some spare cash lying around. I don't typically like changing out my ship fits, I prefer just buying another ship and doing a second fit.

That being said, I had one drake fitted out with a HAM PVP setup in my hanger, and didn't want to break it. So, I bought another drake, and fitted it up with Heavy missiles and a PVE tank fit (with a cloak). Now I am a PVP'er at heart, but I've found that Caldari ships fail at solo PVP vs other race equivelant classes ... (exception being the MOA). So I decided I was going to brave null space and do some anomaly ratting there.

0930 Eve time, I set off with my scout, and moved towards P3en-E, my end destination being somewhere in Geminate, near 7-K5. I chose this route primarily because I had spent an exhaustive amount of time doing bookmarks for safes and gate scanning points all the way from P3en to BWF. This mitigated the risks I took for traveling in system, with the only weak point being that as I jumped from system to system, I couldn't see what lay on the other side. Hence, the scout.

Okay.. so back to P3en.. my scout jumps in, finds 2 warp bubbles up but no one manning them. Several Majesta Empire in local. He signals for Ael Kronos to jump, and proceeds to the planet nearest the IPAY gate. Ael jumps in, and immediately warps to a scan spot near the IPAY g8. The onboard computer identifies several warp bubbles, but no one manning them. The Scout jumps through, and warps to Eidi. As he warps, Ael jumps in system, and immediately warps into his scan bm for Eidi aswell. At this point, several local ME's jump into the system. Alarms have been raised.

The scout hits the gate, and jumps through.. 1 in local in EIDI and none on the g8. He warps to a planet to get a safe, and during that time Ael warps to the Eidi gate, and jumps through also. Unlucky for Ael, a dramiel lands on the gate just at that instant. Flight or Fight? Ael had to make the decision quickly, for he knew the locals in the last system were being alerted to his presence. Fight it is... he immediately uncloaked from the gate, and aligned to his next destination, knowing the dramiel was going to point him. And so it did. His only hope was to do enough damage to it so it would disengage prior to any other locals arriving. He engaged the dramiel with his heavy missiles, knowing full well they wouldn't do very much damage.

For a few tense seconds, it seemed things might actually go his way. The dramiel started taking damage to his shields, and Ael's shields were barely scratched of course. Then local started filling. Next to arrive was a hurricane, and that became Ael's primary. Then a couple more smaller ships arrived, then Ael watched, horrified, as a Tengu warped in. Choosing tactical retreat over certain death, Ael pulled in his drones, de-agressed the hurri, and hit his afterburner for the IPAY gate. Shields down to 80%.. 70%... 60%... COME ON GATE, let me jump! "You have been denied access to the stargate for your recent acts of aggression."

50% shields... Ael notices the Tengu has de-agressed himself, and moved into jumprange. 40% shields.... SUCCESS! The gate accepts his jump request..