Stupid mistakes

Got on last night to learn there were 'unknown' probes in the home wormhole. I didn't bother logging in, later I learned the neighbors lost an indy to a stealth bomber. Colour me surprised.

Newbie mistake, bookmark the sig and not the exit static (hole). I have watched them do that simple mistake two in person, being a teacher isn't in me. Destroying ships and burning towers, now that is me.

Ge has started a secret project, pretty sure he is about to derp hard. Last time he went off the deep-end he cancelled his acocunt for three months.

Newbies?

Ge talked to everyone this morning, he stayed up late last night and got a new group to move into the old c2. They seemed cool with the idea that the pocos were up for sale, the hole was free.

As a group, we have never paid for a wormhole. I have harassed people into leaving, we have moved into an alliance controlled hole, we have even helped kick people out then took the hole for ourselves. The fact is, we ( as a community ) need more people who actively use wormhole-space.

Getting a decent price on the PoCos would be nice, the corp made a bundle on the Nanite Paste and PoS fuel from the PI. Our new home is about the same for resources, we just get bigger sleepers and no extra static. Having 'allied' neighbors in the same hole makes it a bit more secure... I will be watching to see if they keep their PoS fueled.

To early for calls

Sa recieved a frantic call from Ge beore we were out of bed, he had eyes on a russian closing a connection and could we get online. Well, duh! We dutifully logged in and waited with baited breath, staying at the character screen until we were given the go.

Sa grabbed a Scorpion, I grabbed my Hictor. Ge was already scouted in the ajoining hole, Ze grabbed a Falcon, we immediately warped to the k162 with orders to jump immediately. Sa was a little slow, and the target spotted him jumping in. The target didn't hesitate to jump right back in and polarize himself.

Soon as my session timer dropped, I popped the warp feild generators and got warmed up. The target didn't disapoint, and lost his cloak before he should have. Scorpion and Falcon pointed and ECM, Loki point and web, me, bubble and double web. Everyone started firing, drones went out and the Raven was quickly scrap, followed by a fresh corpesikle.

We dutifully closed the exit, and Sa posted the kills in Alliance chat. Discussion surrounded the idea that the Raven wasn't safe, even with 5 Warp Core Stablizers. He didn't even discuss the woefully inadequate heavy missile launchers and lack of drones.

Everyone was up way to early, so we each logged off and got ready for the real world. Me, I got to luxuriate in the warmth of a good morning kill.

Watching the fire

This weekend my little group made leaps and bounds towards our neighbors. We ( I mean the CEO ) applied to the alliance they are part of... A short chat was handled, and the application went in. Protesting they are incompetent landed on deaf ears.

So, I went about my normal routine killed sleepers, mined ore and shot up a Scimitar in highsec. All in a good days work. The Scimitar had a 'kill right' available, took me two tries to kill them... with the help of two semi-hostile/helpful Scythes who kept repairing the shields on the Scimitar. Go go mighty drones!

After a few hours I came back to the same system, with blasters rather than rails (d'oh). No one was available to kill, so back to mining.

After nearly two boring days of rain, the sun finally came out of the clouds as six former Talocan pilots dropped on the neighbors and sacrificed them to Bob. The miner(s) were afk at a grav site, and yes, they were podded. The loss of the ships is nothing, the implants were nearly 120mil for each pod. Incompetent I say, as I watch the fires burn.

The alliance has another C3, the leader stated they were bulding Caps. Sa and Ge argued that the Caps would never leave the C3... EVER! I almost wanted to cry.

Infiltration alt has hooked up in a solid target Corp, time will bear me out. Now to find the Towers and Hangers.

Fiction:beginnings

Every day looks the same from the bottom of a coal mine. Every day starts in darkness and ends in darkness. Why do I think so? I am drifting in space, with no com, no radar, and no engine. I only have an old paper notebook and a piece of carbon. My name is Theo, this is my story.

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I started out young, fresh from college, reveling in life and new found glories. Being a cartographic technician I have a good understanding of placing extractor heads for mineral extraction. A much sought after skill, and I was proud!

My first contract was rather poor, in comparison to later contracts. A Pod pilot by the name of JJ Jones wanted assistance in placing a new extractor head on a plasma planet, in a nearby system. The ISK was enough to pay for my brother’s college and my parents a nice new home. It also paid for more than a few nights on the town.

Each contract brought in more than the last, and I partied and spent money like it was water. All good things must end. My third year of contracts took me two jumps from Jita, the trade capital of the known universe. It was heaven.

What I didn’t know, was my contracted pilot was WarDec’ed. We were shot out of the sky before anyone recovered from the jump. The pilot was so drunk, his Pod was also shot and his clone was activated. The rest of us mortals had to make due in a rapidly decompressing cargo container.

The two dancers were rescued almost immediately, never to be saw again. Being a scientist, and a mortal, I didn’t expect to survive. Praying to Gods that I had ignored for years, eventually I passed out from oxygen deprivation.

Waking up was difficult, the person doing it was yelling, screaming and slapping. I was alive, and then I was shackled. Shadows passed me by, and found myself again in a small poorly lit cargo pod. Apparently I was cargo, loaded with a stinking herd of cattle and bales of browning leaves.

....

Watching the bait.

Double Retriever kill, and a Pod. Yup, neighbors got nailed while mining. The story is “they were waiting for me.” The Pod was a loss of 120mil, +4 implants in a wormhole. While chatting them up, I watch a NOHO shuttle drop into the hole and leave… yup, bait. While they are busy re-buying the lost ships and implants, someone is waiting for them at the entrance.

Fiction Friday, a few of my favourite blog authors write fiction on Fridays. I am going to work on it, perhaps publish it after some review.

Stuck with the Tards.

Well, things are not going as smoothly as expected. I was priced a Large PoS take-down crew at 5Bil! Talocan United is being disolved for reasons I do not know. And I finally got a good hard look at my undesired neighbors.

Their PoS has one each hardener... which is active. Mixed Lasars and ACs, with no ECM, but does mount Damps at the poles. I did not have time to look for Webs and Scram, that will be for tonight.

Destroying another PoCo last night, while the neighbors busily munched ore. They don't get they should hold onto the ore until after the June 4th patch, for maximum results. They have an Intensive and Medium grinder anchored and active... stupid is as stupid does.

Neighbors have brought in a lowsec pirate alliance to fight for them, against the evil highsec greifer/merc corp. I am almost blinded by the stupidity of it all. So, PlanB is scrapped, time to evaluate PlanC.

igni ferroque

Also known as Scorched Earth tactics. We are removing all profitable sites from the wormhole, preventing the neighbors from profitting from thier PoS.

Combined with the Mercenaries in Highsec, I am hoping they will lose interest in a non-profitable PoS and leave. The rest of the crew is happy with clearing anoms, and making a profit. Ge is content reacting gasses, and making compoenents. GK is more than happy to handle the markets and moving material to meet our needs, his cut isn't to hefty.

The Merc's contract is up in a few days, and I am considering giving the neighbors a short respite... only to start up a new Merc contract before the long weekend. Should I also take a new contract with the old Mercs or bring in new ones? Perhaps I should be devious and find a smaller, more targettable Merc group?

Sa still hasn't asked where the funds are going, and I am not about to let him in on the secret.

Breaking the will to fight (back)

I read the Mitanni, and I follow his advice on destroying opponents. Yes, My name is Soo, and I am an addict.

The number one way to destroy your enemy is to destroy his will to log in. Not killing his ships, oh no, not that. Removing targets or blue-balling an opponent, to let them move on due to boredom, not that either. Slowly driving the average pilot to stop logging in, in effect have them do 'something-anything' else than log in (today).

Sun Tzu is a man out of time, his guide on waging war is true now, as it was true then. Win the war, then go fight. Plan before, not during a war.

"Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The Mercenaries are slowly breaking my oppenents will to log in. This weekend alone, two thirds did not log onto their mains. No roaming fleet logged in to ferret out their opponents, few left their station. Those merry few were secretive, or died.

I do not expect my contracted killers to really get enough kills to cover my expenses, that is not the goal.

Morning downtime.

This morning, the servers were having a terriffic time loading... or starting... or something. Once I got on, I did a quick sweep of the C3 and saw we still had the static and K162 available. Two quick warps, and the static is 'has not yet begun...' wtf?

Yup, the morning downtime reset the static's timer. A check of the K162 shows it is fresh as well... a 16hour timer, and it isnt eol. The K162 still leads to the same system, the static's K-space location has moved 20j away.... yet, it is still in the same location of the home system. Wierdness abounds!

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Last night, the neighbors lost two space-potatoes to a well formed gang. They were tackled with a Proteus, and then DPS and long tackle arrived. Followed by falcon. And to add insult to injury, an Onyx. Yep, they lost two potatoes and two pods. The net destruction 556m isk in potatoes and implants.

I sent the Proteus pilot a gift of 10mil, and a thank you note. Who says Wormholers are not polite?

Since I didn't see any sleeper salvage on the KM, I can only conclude they had a third pilot cleaning up the sites. I have not seen a Noctis or destroyer flying thier colours. Which also means they have a scout still parked in the hole.

Speaking to three small-time merc corps has not had the desired results. Next step, resource denial in highsec through griefers. I still have contact with a few groups of highsec gankers, never expected it to come in handy. Wardec in Highsec will keep them occupied, loading up a 'retired' account to start harrassing them is next.

Hiring Mercs, and History.

I have decided to look for Mercenaries to clear out the C3. Simple enough, we do not have the time or firepower to remove the neighbors. Recent discussions around sharing resources is not an issue, operation security is.

Keeping the barn door closed and rolling incoming K162s has always been a priority... the last few 'shared' holes, keeping the static closed was nearly impossible. We have watched a German Corp build and lose a Rorqual is less than two weeks. I have seen a seeming nice Italian Corp suddenly become dangerous, after being ganked from an incoming k162 (they blamed us on that one).

When we started out, we joined a nice little German Industrial Corp. Things went well, we made isk and learned the ropes. When thier alliance moved in a new German Corp, things went south quickly. Using bubbles around the static, keeping scouts posted while mining or sleeper harvesting. Miscommunications abound!

Our first solo wormhole, we set up in a C2 with a lowsec static. It was a pirates haven, and we frequently had to abandond the field when pirates came through. I began my descent into Pirate-dom, and drove my sec status below -8.

We joined an alliance, and set up business with the Italians. As soon as we firgured out they were an Alt-corp from NS, we bailed from that hole and set up in another. We left the alliance after nearly a year, it was good and lots of learning happened.

We left that hole and began a summer of war decs, which was fun but not really profitable. Sa saw a group of our old allaince hanging out in highsec, and followed them into a recently assaulted C2. Which we dropped scouts, and began a month long harrasment of the local population. We set up a PoS as soon as they left, killed PoCos and began to rebuilt our wallets.

This new C3 is fantastic, minus the corp that moved in over Mother's Day weekend. Out history with shared holes, and dangerous neighbors, I do not believe we will have long. Taking a pre-emptive strike against the neighbors I feel is our only choice.

Now to hire some Mercs.

Grinding Isk

Our happy family is in the C3, refits have happened, isk is being ground? Ground; the act of grinding? Either way, we have set up our PvE/P ships for the C3 and have begun our reign of terror upon the local sleeper populace. Yup, PvE/P ships! Having a mixed fleet of nearly identical ships to confound our attackers, and just in case, we have points and webs to really pound them into the dirt.

The alts are closing the shop in the C2, minus the fact they cannot unanchor some of the modules. Curse you Anchoring III, and your 10 hours to train! Tomorrow, more of those silly modules will be down and shipped out. Half the remaining ships are shipped, the rest will be used for hole control and tear-down.

Already the C3 has outstripped the C2! Three sites in the C3 have netted us 90m isk in bloot, and plenty of sleeper salvage to reinvigorate production. The C2 wouuld net around 40m isk in bloot and about two thirds the slavage.

The light blue neighbors filtered out and one or two of them are mining. I am fairly confident they will lose interest in the hole in a few months, or will fail to do somthing simple... like fuel thier tower, get stuck out in highsec, get totally ganked while mining.

The awox alt is nearing his skill completion, and will begin his reign of terror... which will be short lived.

Happy Mothers Day.

We had a ride to the eastern side of Washington, over 20 and through the beautiful northern forest-scape. Visited with family, and had an early dinner with Mom. Sunday we rode back through the mountains... raining all the way through, past the snow and down into the lowlands. Barely caught the ass-end of the ferry. We made it, the return trip sucked.

When we got home, we found the intruding PoS semi-fit and active pilots flying around. After a brief discussion we asked thier intentions and got a 'light' blue standing between us. Serious, a neutral standing would have gotten them dead. We have a full PoS killing crew on standby, and mercs for hire are always liking a good pos bash. ( as long as you have the cash )

The alts are back in the home hole, and the mains are set up in the new hole. Refitting all the ships from travel, and starting the process of tearing down the old PoS. Skill queues are running down for the summer expansion, and two new scout alts are being readied for long-term placement.

LT;DR We rode motorcycles, we now ride our ships into space.

Being Baited

I lost my Proteus not so long ago, the technique that was used was bait. Not your obvious bait, but ship changing bait.

The trick is, someone drops into your hole and scans it down. Then they come back with another toon and scan it... or what appears to be a person scanning. The reality is, they have it scanned and are making an appearance.

Next, someone brings in a ship, someone leaves in a ship. They try and time it, so the hole-fire is near instantaneous. This toon flies to a known hole ( k162, etc ), loiters and jumps in and out, polarizing themselves. They then fly back out the original hole. Do this a few times gives the appearance of someone scouting, or moving ships... looking like a target.

I foolishly took the bait last time, this time my corp-mate saw the same thing happening. Also, the same alliance, a.k.a. Sleeper Social Club. Surely Your Joking has done the same thing in the past... it looks like a decent target and appears to be alone!

Appearances are decieving, the bait is dual propped or over tanked with long and short points. As soon as you take the bait, the rest of the gang piles through a hole and warps directly to you. Often lead by a dictor or hictor, to make sure they get the pod.

I would love to give them a good fight, since this is Akonois ( Wormhole space ) there are no fair fights. If you are both on grid, someone is about to die.

The end of the story is, Bob was not sacrified to and Ze logged out for the night.

Balancing the load

Closing/Rolling holes is vital to our continued success in Ankois space ( a.k.a. Wormhole Space ). During our stay in the C2, we mastered the roll with un-plated Scorpions. The newest build with plated Scorpion has had two incidents in two weeks of stranding our Hictor on the wrong side.

We stranded Ze out in a NS-C3, thirty minutes later the only exit was deep in the ass end of null. Lucky the static is EOL, so we will get a second chance after work. If that fails we will wait for the weekend and hope for a K162 into an adjoining hole.

The C3's static is HUGE! 5Bil in mass to close it, which compared to the C2's statics of 3Bil doesn't seem like much... until you count that we do not have our fully fuctioning team in the C3. The C3 team is slightly smaller than our C2's original team, so that means more blind jumps into and out of the static.

The ISK in the C3 is twice as good as the C2. However, we give up our hunting static. We can just hope for foolish people openning up K162's into our new blind. BPO's are being turned into copies in HS again, to reseed Ge's production facilies and fuel production.

I feel that bringing in just the copies is a bit paranoid, Sa doesn't agree and he holds the wallet, I hold the bed! For now, the BPOs stay safe in highsec. For now...

Anchor down!

We managed to secure the neighbor's hole and make it our own. One long weekend we have managed to get the full PoS set up, fueled, stronted and ammunition loaded. Yup, we are hunting from our new blind!

Bringing over alts and mains, we have begun the scout seeding program again. There should be two to four more scout/newbie accounts logged into the hole by the end of the week. Only to be activated it they are needed! Ya, good going CCP, you have provided another wonderful service to your player-base.

Finally Sunday night, we started clearing Anoms and making isk. Total investment around 2bil in PoS and Ships, making a return on our investment is already at 150mil. At this rate, we should have it paided off in two weeks.

The C2 PoS managed to get a kill on a scout, who then left his pod at a safe... we probed it down and everyone available got on the kill. Smart scout, no implants. Was he our spai? No idea.

The 10th anniversary of Eve was awesome! IT WAS AWESOME! No really, I like the Gnosis. Not enough to buy the 150EU box for the 5BPC of the Gnosis. I was rather tired and travelling through Amarr, and saw a great contract for 100mil and a Gneiss... ya, scammers almost got me. Greed isn't good.

Sa and I fit up the Gnossis months ago, so we have moved that little tid-bit somewhere safe. Maybe sell them for a juicy profit much later. I would LOVE if I could buy a BPC/BPO, on a regular basis. It would become my ship-de'jure for everything WH related!

Eris who?

WE got a great exit out of the C2, and started dropping material out. Ships removed, arrays stripped and isk secured in HS. Took an hour to get better than 50% out, we attracted some attention from the locals. Pretty sure our 'spai' drummed up some business in local too.

We immediately put it on hold, and put up more defenses in the Neighbor's hole. Then logged for the night!!!

Next morning, Sa and I drove out more ships and material. And then we spotted an Eris flickering on our hole. Immediately we put our overwatch on an orbit far from the exit and bounced our incoming indys to the PoS.

Good thing we did, as we watched a 'indiction probe' appeared on DScan... talk about a close call. We never got eyes on the spai or the Eris. But, we know he is out there... watching us.

Squatters

Taking over someone's home in RL is vastly different from taking over a wormhole.

My neighbor was 'selling' his house to a 'friend', who bailed on the project... leaving unpaid utilities, and a woman with three kids in the house. As I have learned, she then put a restraining order against this 'friend', and began running up even more utilites, cable bills, dish tv, etc... My neighbor had to go to court to get her out. It was ugly, it wasn't an eviction, not sure what it was.

So the neighbors house is being repaired by a nice old guy from his church, and he has found a new tenant from the same church. I really hope this person and thier family is nice (and without drama). I have met the repair guy, and played with his dogs. Seems a very nice guy, I am pretty sure he is doing a good deed. The woman and kids... the mess they left, the furniture, the large screen TV, the rotting food and broken water pipes, I hope she gets help.

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So the neighbor hole that I was camping, has become our new home. Lucky for Sa I managed to get back in before the exit despawned, it was EOL and I was 20j out from being podded.

We have brought in an entire PoS, ECM, Guns, Ammo, Hanger and Storage. Next is tearing down our former home and shipping it into the neighbor's old hole. Pretty sure we can do it piece-meal, now that we have a secure PoS in place. Ge is frantically processing minerals and reacting gasses to reduce our shipping.

Once the home hole is empty, we will put it on the forums. The PI is decent, all the PoS PI fuel, etc. The spawn rates are slow, dont ask me why. And the statics are HS, C3 and weekly LS. Now, back to work!