What lies beyond?
Day 2
Location: Elonaya - Lonetrek
So Cloud Ring had been rather quiet, not that I was after lots of attention from those with offensive capabilities you understand. It's just that this is supposed to be null-sec where things get dangerous. Today I was in the Outer Ring region and I had higher hopes since this is the only place you can get certain blueprints which makes it a source for high-value cargo departures.
With that hope I set off towards 4C-B7X which contains an Outer Ring Excavations (ORE) station, actually there are two of them there. As I made the first jump of the day into NP6-38 a cluster of wrecks was presented to me, on the lookout for anything different I spotted that one of them belonged to a member of the Serpentis command. A Shadow Serpentis. Not only that but there was stuff in it! As it was a little way off of the gate I bookmarked the location and bounced off of the closest planet. Whilst it would be too much to hope that there was still anything particularly valuable in the way of loot remaining it is always worth a look.
Landing next to the wreck I quickly opened it and scanned the contents list. If anything good had been in there whoever destroyed them had already taken it so I grabbed the 1,000 rounds of faction Iridium charges and started to orbit at about 4km. The theory being that if anyone warped in I would be far enough away from the wreck to instantly cloak up and be on my way. I activated the salvager and crossed my fingers for some T2 salvage. The cycles passed and failed three, four then five times. Surely it shouldn't be taking this long? I know I've only got salvaging at level 4 but still. In the end the salvager succeeded but found nothing. I hoped this wasn't an indicator of the way things were going to go today.
The cloud ring nebula was definitely more defined from here although still looming large across the majority of my vision. As you can see from the image to the right the reason for the name is obvious: It forms an almost complete ring. I say "almost" because the two legs that have been cropped by the camera don't actually connect. Instead they kind of peter out in a misty blob. It is possible, of course, that the reason I cannot see it as a complete ring is that I am simply still too close to that part of the nebula. This sight-seeing lark is turning out all right and simply looking at the images afterwards and thinking about what is in them is proving to be quite fun. In a weird sort of way, perhaps I've just finally caught the tourist bug?
Being a tourist isn't just about the things you see and do it's also about the mementoes and other knick-knacks you pick up that remind you of your trip. I already had some images from the previous day and I knew that I would add more to this collection but I was after something a little more tangible. As I progressed through the systems on my route I started to think about what I could pick up since there are no gift shops in stations. Seriously, if establishments ever happen and we can do something like t-shirt printing I think I'm going to set some up in places like this. Even if I can't think of anything better to put on them than "I went to the Outer Ring and all I got was this lousy T-shirt" or "I survived the gate-camp in EC-P8R".
Where was I? Oh, what to pick up from the ORE station. Well the obvious thing would be something that isn't seeded anywhere outside of the region. This would mean either a skillbook such as the Mining Director one or one of the mining barge blueprints. There were two problems that I saw with this. The first is that although they aren't seeded anywhere else you can certainly buy them on the open market so their value as a "I was there and got..." items is pretty low. The second reason was that since this was only region 2 of 41 on this tour it meant that I would be carrying them with me through not only a large number of null-sec regions I would be passing through some of the heaviest fighting currently going on. It wasn't the possible loss of isk, a Procurer blueprint is only a couple hundred million, but that I wouldn't have anything when I got back home.
Then I had a brainwave! There's got to be agents for ORE covering all levels and since they are after all a mining corporation they're bound to have a level 1 mining agent. I could get some loyalty points. They'll stay with me regardless of what happens (so long as I don't spend them), they cannot be transferred between characters so the only way you can have them is to go there and run a mission. Perfect! A record that clearly states "I was there".
I quickly loaded up a second client and popped open the agent finder and ran a quick search. Yes. There was a level 1 mining agent, although only one. I made a note of which station they were in and closed the client. Now for some more preparation, I'll need something to mine with. My Buzzard is lovely, kitted out for analysing, code-breaking, salvaging and probing but it does not have a mining laser and I didn't think to bring one with me. Ah well, to the markets! This didn't go quite so well. The only mining lasers available anywhere in the Outer Ring were a stack of 10 XCEL drilling beams at a little under 2M a pop. I only had about 400k on me having left all my isk in my other trousers (character). I could log another character in and transfer the funds across but blow that. There had to be another way open to the inventive capsuleer.
As I closed in on 4C-B7X I realised with a sinking stomach what that other way was. If you dock at a station in your pod and you do not have any ships available there you get a courtesy rookie ship from Pend Insurance. That rookie ship has a civilian mining laser on it and unlike the civilian salvager/codebreaker/analyser it works on anything a normal mining laser works on. Just much less efficiently. Ah well, I could live with a little inefficiency it was getting the rookie ship in the first place I was less happy with.
I said above that I expected to encounter a heavier presence in the ORE station systems because of the lure of the blueprints on sale. Whilst I have some experience of flying pods around in null-sec it has never been something that I've done voluntarily. It was going to depend on how busy the system was since there are only three station systems in the whole of the Outer Ring.
Jumping into 4C I was surprised to see only a few others in local. Things were looking up especially as there were 5 stations present and there were only two people in the same alliance present. I followed the normal plan and scanned the station for bubbles, HICs and DICs, the results came back negative so I warped in and docked at the ORE station with the level 1 mining agent.
 |
| The ORE mining station in 4C-B7X |
Typically, though, everyone was docked in the same station. Ah well, there was nothing for it but to get the pod out and see if anyone undocked with me. Thankfully all was quiet and I quickly warped off and docked at another station to get my rookie ship. As I returned an Imicus undocked but I didn't pay it too much attention as it was someone that had recently entered system. Back inside I stripped the salvager off and off-lined the probe launcher so I could fit the civilian mining laser.
The agent had decided that for my first assignment I would be tasked with obtaining just over 1,000m3 of ore. Right. I get 30m3 per cycle which lasts a minute. That sounds like fun. I quickly declined that mission and asked for another. The agent obviously had a pressing need for this ore as the next mission was the same one. Gargh! There's a reason I just declined that one you know? In a carebear state of mind and not wanting to lose standing I accepted the mission and started to mentally prepare myself for about 45 minutes of mining. In a cov ops. In null.
Undocking presented me with not just the Imicus but a Thanatos that was sensor-boosted to buggery. An Imicus being used as a cyno-frig? Who'd 'ave thunk it? I waited off the session change timer, selected the station I had just emerged from and then initiated warp to the mission site on the assumption that if I was locked and pointed I could instantly redock. The Thanatos ignored me and I was on my way.
Now the thing with mining missions is that they don't tend to follow the same rules as combat missions when it comes to spawns. Something I had forgotten. I had set off thinking that even if there were some rats about they'd only be a couple of frigs at best and they'd be hitting my highest resists anyway. Nuh-uh. After a single cycle I got a spawn. 5 NPCs split between cruisers and battlecruisers. For those unaware most mining missions just spawn a group of normal belt rats relative to the security status of the system that you are in.
Returning to station with somewhat fewer shields than I had set out with I was being grumpy about the apparent end to my quest to get some ORE loyalty points. Spending 45 minutes warping backwards and forwards to deposit a full cargo is one thing. Spending I know not how long warping in and out, getting off maybe half a cycle before the NPCs lock me and start shooting is something altogether different.
Then I remembered the agent change. No matter how low your standing to the faction or corp involved you will always have access to level 1 agents. Whilst this was always the case for level 1 quality -20 agents the removal of agent quality meant that I didn't have to worry about anything. That agent would always talk to me. No prizes for guessing what I did when I got docked up. "Yeah, I've changed my mind about that. Wanna give me something else to do?" This time the agent played ball and required only 100m3 of ore, even if it was from a different system. This worked out much better and there were no NPCs at all. Mission accomplished I admired my proof in the journal.
So I had not only pictures this time but a little something else to remember my trip by. With no other points of interest on the list it was time to head on out towards Syndicate. I stopped off at the other ORE station in system since it is a little more photogenic and headed on down the pipe to E9G-MT.
Jumping into E9G-MT gave me my first gate encounter. As I entered a Sabre decloacked 61km off and a Manticore appeared about 20km off my position. I picked a planet at random and warped activating my cloak as soon as the capacitor was drained in preparation for the warp. At this point RL intervened and I had to pop to the kitchen to put the veg on for dinner. Not to worry I'm cloaked and heading in a random direction from the planet I had warped to.
Returning a few minutes later I found myself alone in the system. Figuring that they had obviously moved on I continued on my way. Now, if you read yesterdays blog you may recall that at the bottom I said "Things have been surprisingly easy thus far and I cannot allow myself to become complacent." that is some advice that I should have heeded. If you look on the map at the system I was in you will notice that although there are three gates one of them leads to a closed pocket within Syndicate which effectively makes it a pipe. Thinking would reveal that those I encountered would most likely have gone to UO9-YG and at best they had split up with the Sabre taking UO9 and the Manticore heading to VSIG-K. Why? Well, since VSIG-K is the start of a dead-end pocket there isn't really any need for a point since I'd have to come back past them. Not only that but what was it I said at the beginning of this about the lure of the ORE blueprints? Right, the shortest route back to high-sec takes you through 3KNK-A and out into Orvolle via PF-346 which always used to be heavily camped. I should know that. We used to pop up there regularly from KFR-ZE just to mess with them.
Anyway, I discovered the consequences of my actions when I jumped into UO9-YG to find the Sabre sitting on gate with a bubble out, launched as soon as I appeared in local no doubt, not only that but a Stilleto as well. Damn. Two fast ships. I checked my position and found I wasn't actually too far from the edge of the bubble. At this point I made my second and final mistake.
What I normally do when appearing in a bubble is to drop gate cloak and head towards the nearest edge and pop my cloak on. It's what you would expect and it will be the direction people will go to try and decloak you. At this point you turn 90 degrees and head for the next nearest edge hoping to through your pursuers off. This has worked in the past to the point where I had managed to evade a 20 strong gate camp with HICs and anchored warp bubbles in a Probe with a prototype cloak. I think my max velocity was something like 70m/s.
Unfortunately the second closest edge happened to be in the direction of almost all the celestials in system. What I should have done was head away from those. I didn't. I did what I laid out above and the Sabre, rather than the Stilleto as I was expecting, overloaded his MWD and burned straight across me dropping a second bubble. It may have been luck that he decloaked me and the primary aim was to simply enlarge the bubbled area to give them longer to find me. It may simply have been some damned good piloting. There is a trick for this, or at least there used to be.
I haven't checked this since Crucible launched but if you had your tactical overview displayed then when you selected something you would get a line connecting you to that object with. The trick was that should the object leave and you didn't select anything else the line would remain. So, if you could select the ship before the cloak came up you got an exact positioning of them. You then quickly rotate the camera so that the line is almost a dot and you double click that dot. This sends you hurtling towards the last known location and if you are quick enough you will decloak them.
Needless to say my pod was destroyed as well. Unfortunately for my attackers the RNG was somewhat unkind and nothing of any value dropped. It would have been nice to have left them the Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher for teaching me a lesson for my carelessness. Anyway, as I sit here back in Elonaya writing this I'll give them the GF they deserve. Naurill and bertturk I salute you o7.
 |
| The new EVE really does look pretty. |
