Bubblicious

Yesterday started as a pretty quiet friday night in Chaos Central, as no new sites had spawned and the only signatures to be seen were the static wormholes. So we decided to pay a visit to the neighboring Class 1 system that was chock-full of combat sites and signatures, but it was also inhabited. the amount of sites tells us the people haven't logged in in a while though. But the system also contained another special feature. Bubbles. Lots of bubbles. We first laughed at what must be a severe case of paranoia but a quick survey of the system told us how crazy these guys are: about 98% of all the system's planets and moons had a Mobile Small Warp Disruptor I sitting on the warp-in point. Because no one seemed to be home and because we wanted to make a point that this was one of the most stupid ways you could spend 50 million ISK, we decided to go on a clean-up spree. So armed with two high-DPS PvP ships (in case someone wakes up) we started to methodically pop one bubble after another, until there were only two left, both located too near to the enemy POS for us to do anything about without risking our ships. Still, the owners should feel slightly less secure the next time they log on!

But as we were busy killing the bubbles, we did get to see some action, only not at all expected. Around the mid-point of our bubble killing spree we spotted a bunch of core scanner probes. Right away we thought "Awesome, the owners are waking up!", and we were ready to deal with some The PvP that might be thrown at us. This lasted a good 20 minutes and still, no sign of any defence force. I decided that when there would be less than 10 bubbles left I would pipe up in Local to tell the system owners about the error of their ways. This I did, but then the only answer that came was from a month-old noob and the more I was smacking, the more confused he was getting. After a bit of local convo, we found out that this guy had nothing to do with the system owners; he had become stuck in the system after entering it and having the wormhole collapse and not being able to find another hole because not only was the system too full of signatures, but his exploration skills were those of a month-old noob. In short, he was stranded. Oh, and he had also made the mistake of fitting too expensive a frigate; the words "10m ISK Heron" and "I put all my money into this ship" still give me goosebumps. At least he told me he had a battlecruiser waiting at home.

So after all this talk of W-space life and EVE lessons, I decided to be a good guy for once and not pod him straight home. I had him quit the fleet he was in (with his corp CEO, who was somewhere in New Eden trying to find him I guess) and had him join my fleet. I then had him warp to me at the C1/Chaos hole, and finally I warped the fleet to the Chaos/Hi-Sec hole, where Mr Daniel Opper was finally able to see civilization again in the form of Amarr space. I have no idea how far this is from his HQ but he was quite happy to be back in Empire space. So happy in fact that I received a notication saying he had added me to his contacts with excellent standing :)

In the words of animal rescuer Diego, rescue complete! I'm sure Daniel learned a thing or three about EVE in that short span of time. I don't know how active his current corporation is, but Daniel, if you feel like learning more about the ins and outs of W-space life, ChaosStorm will be opening up recruitment in the near future. Feel free to drop an application if you feel like it. We may not give free battlecruisers like your current corporation, but we have something just as good to offer: sleeper droppings !!!

Fly smart, cheap, and deadly

o7

A new padawan

As of yesterday, the cat is out of the bag and pretty much the entire EVE blogging community now knows that Treenara Mazouk, more commonly known as Crazy Kinux, will now be flying for ChaosStorm Corporation. Apparently CK was looking for a new challenge after spending so much time as a pure carebear, and while W-space life is not the same as living in contested space in 0.0, or with a pure PvP-only corp, CK had a good example of the W-space lingo flying left and right as he got acquainted with what we're up to in Chaos Central. To quote him, we were speaking a special dialect of Chinese!

This leads me to the point of this post: what do you need to learn to have a comfortable life in W-space, i.e. "what the frak is CK getting himself into?!" :)


Astrometric skills

In a universe where the "gates" are constantly changing places, having good astrometric skills is a no-brainer, and it's been documented enough by various W-space bloggers like Letrange, the Planet Risk crew, etc. The general idea is 4/4/4/4 in Astrometrics, Astrometric Acquisition, Astrometric Pinpointing and Astrometric Rangefinding. Once you have that finding wormholes and exploration sites will never be an issue again. As I've said before the mechanics of scanning have been well documented before so a quick search on Google should allow anyone to find a good guide.


PvE tanking skills

Sleepers are not your usual belt or mission rats. If a ship isn't tanked properly these guys will chew it up and laugh at it; I wish they would also smack in Local but that's just me! With proper skills the normal combat sites (the ones at 100% on the first scan and/or that can be found using the on-board scanner) are doable in a battlecruiser or tanked HAC in C1 and C2 systems, and maybe a command ship or with a buddy for Radar and Mag sites. Gallente pilots like Treenara have to know that Sleepers love to snack on drones. Direct fire weapons or missiles is the way to go about dealing damage. A newcomer also has to know that Sleepers deal all kinds of damage, and usually lots of it, so active tanks with omni-resists are de rigueur. When you start going into C3 and C4 systems, this is battleship, command ship and strategic cruiser territory, in gang with remote repairs if possible, and C5-C6 is capital ship territory. So yes, my own Sleipnir is a bit overkill for C1 and C2 sites, although there's is no such thing as overkill, but sites die really fast and I switch to my salvager faster, thus more ISKies.


POS operations

No, I'm not talking about the dreary bashing of towers and defences, though that can happen from time to time. W-space has no stations and the only place to live out there is the corp POS. Because there are no personnal hangars W-space life is pretty much communism to the extreme. Of course everyone makes his own ISK by looting and salvaging Sleeper wrecks but this gets put into cans named after the pilots and the contents get hauled to Hi-sec markets on a regular basis. Stuff we leave in the corp hangar can be considered common to everyone depending on roles given out by the directors. The ship maintenance array is nothing but a corp garage. Trust is VERY important and the rule of thumb is to log out in your most valuable ship; If you have an Orca that can hold multiple ships, log out in that.

Another part of POS life that I haven't yet experienced much is the use of the research and manufacture labs; I'll need to sit down with Let and a good glass of Scotch for that one! Basically, when you have a POS that has more labs and defences than a regular Hi-sec station, you just cannot have everything online at the same time. So stuff gets turned on and off depending on need. And last but far from least, my favorite part...


The PvP

Let there be no mistake or misconception: W-space is 0.0. You have no idea how often people forget this little fact, even yours truly when he's tired! So as with 0.0 in K-space, The PvP will happen. Trespassers who may or may not be noob alt scouts for bigger gangs have to be snuffed out. When a bigger gang does "settle in" and harasses, it must be dealt with by a serious gang with a serious FC. When you find a mining or PvE ship "minding his own business" in a neighboring system, it must be taught a lesson. So to do all this you have to get familiar with PvP lingo and the tools of the trade like tackler frigates, interceptors, Cov Ops ships with combat probes, interdictors and mobile warp disruption bubbles, and most importantly comm discipline. OK, killing a lone T1 probing frigate may not sound very complex but when more than 2 people get involved in a fight a leader has to take the reins. And when going up against more than 2 ships primary targets have to be called and fire must be concentrated, and jams must be called.

Another aspect of W-space PvP is called Wormhole Control, or Wormhole-Fu. This is the act of closing unwanted wormholes on purpose, especially when you think that flying around in the neighboring system can be the equivalent of poking a hornet's nest. It takes a good knowledge of wormholes to make sure you do it just right and not become trapped in with the hornets. WH-Fu is also very useful when dealing with an intruder gang as it can not only deprive the gang of possible reinforcements, but it can also trap someone into an ambush with no way out if done right. This tactic is still theoretical so far but I would give good money to have the opportunity to try it. Any volunteers? >:)

Of course like anything in EVE, the best way to learn is by practice and trial and error. Living in a 0.0 environment does help because you can try all sorts of tactics and have a good idea if they work or not. The main important thing about living in W-space is to have the hability to switch from Carebear to Kodiak in the blink of an eye.


Conclusion

To me, W-space is one of the best places to live in EVE. It's calm enough for one to be able to do his own thing, but you have to be on high alert the majority of the time if you don't want to lose, say, a 300 million ISK ship! There are no massive blobfests because the wormholes just can't let anything that big through, but once in a while you do have gang action, and even people who put up their own POSes in your backyard. There is usually sites to run but if not there is always neighboring systems to visit, which may or may not be occupied. Yep, W-space is a fun place :))

All that said, welcome aboard CK, and may your stay in LCSC be a good one!

o7