Scout in the wrong system

Day Three

When I log in I discover that I got a incoming C4. Not surprising if you consider the amount of C4/C4 out there, they need to connect somewhere, right? I jump in and get a glimpse of some combat scanner probes. But there's nothing interesting in the system, and I plan on doing the sites I got in Alpha (my C4/C4 home), so I decide to close this and roll my static to get a safe work-environment for my Rattlers to carebear in.

I log on a scout to make the closing a bit safer. As I routinely do a scan just after logon I see a Retriver on scan! Wth!?! somebody mining in my system! How dare they!? What blatant behavior! And how come I did not see him before? Oh, wait.. I'm not home. I'm in a foreign system. But a system that's remarkably familiar... It's the system from yesterday, I simply forgot to jump my scout back home before logging off, and now the connection is gone. I must say that juggling four chars on three accounts is something I'm not that accustom to, and I'm making silly mistakes. Like forgetting where to hang my hat.

Now I need to both scan my scout out, as well as scan a route out from Alpha if I want to get him back home. And I would like that. Even if I can scan with all my other chars in Alpha I like to keep a backup scanner there at all times, if I somehow would get locked out. I even have a fourth alt just logged in the system as a backup to the backup. In case of someone making a serious attempt at killing my POS I'm going to need as many scan alts as I can muster to get friends in for defense.

Anyhow, I start to scan my scout out at the same time as I check out the static C3 in my incoming C4. C3s are good if you want to find empire since they always have a k-space static. This one is a low sec; Pout.

In the meantime my lost scout have manged to find his way out through a C4a-C4b-C4c-C3a-LS-route. See? the C3s as gateways between C4 and k-space once again. The low sec is Usi, which is 42j from Pout. Well, I guess I can't complain, the autopilot will take care of most of the mundane work. In a frig it's really not that slow.

My old friend, the Tengu

Day Two

Today I need to get the POS finished (still got some defences left to anchor) and get my two Rattlers in. I also named my new home "Alpha" since its the first I inhabit by myself. A bit of bad imagination there, but it will do. Usually its a good idea to also name your static since it makes bookmarking and referring to chains a lot simpler, but I will just call mine C4s I think. 'S' as in "static" of course.

I'm starting to check out my static and what it holds in store for me. It's a C4/C3 which is good news, at least I don't have to scan down a endless C4/C4 chain to find empire. The low sec however, is leading to Dead End. Not a dead end, Dead End, the system. That pretty far out into low sec, and it's a ton of jumps to do for two battleships, so i need a plan B.

I could roll my C4, but the I risk ending up with a C4/C4 or a C4/C5, so I will check out the low sec systems for wormholes that would take me closer to the Rattlers. Many people don't think to scan high and low sec systems for short cuts. A chain do not need to end at the first k-space system you find. Null sec folks have realized this, shallow w-space dwellers are often to lazy as they are spoiled by their static HS or static, roll-able, access to a system that have one.

I'm not going to log of before I done what I can to get my little babies in, so off scanning the low sec route we go!

Of course, it's not always possible to find that slick route, no matter how much scanning. I scanned as far as Alpha - C4s - C3b - Dead End -2j- Gateway - Tamo - C5a - C3d, but no good route to Amarr, so I guess I will fix the tower instead of bringing rattlers in :)

I have a few gas sites in Alpha that might be worth doing. I had the space over in the Orca to bring a Venture, so I happily start gassing away until the sleepers spawn. Darn it. I realize I don't have a single thing to shoot with. Ironically the only dps and tank I have is on the Orca, but It's hull-tanked and I don't want to have to rep it afterwards. Besides, its drones would get eaten by the sleepers. I really need those Rattlers!

For one reason or another I had been using an old Falcon I had lying around to scout the Orca in, why don't I use my Tengu that Ashi flew when she still lived in w-space? For sure, the day I get the Orca tackled by a T3 I rather be in a Falcon then a cloaky Tengu, but for everything else the Tengu is more fun. And it can be PVE-refit to deal with the occasional gas-guarding sleeper. I go to Empire and exchange the Falcon for my trusty old friend the cloaky Tengu.

Tengu, w-space scout

High power
1x Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
5x Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II
1x Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher

Medium power
1x Gistum C-Type 10MN Afterburner
1x Stasis Webifier II
1x Shadow Serpentis Warp Scrambler
1x Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
1x Republic Fleet Large Shield Extender
1x Sensor Booster II

Low power
1x Damage Control II
1x Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System

Rig Slot
1x Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II
1x Medium Core Defense Field Extender II
1x Medium Warhead Rigor Catalyst I

Sub System
1x Tengu Defensive - Adaptive Shielding
1x Tengu Propulsion - Interdiction Nullifier
1x Tengu Electronics - Emergent Locus Analyzer
1x Tengu Engineering - Augmented Capacitor Reservoir
1x Tengu Offensive - Covert Reconfiguration

Charges
Nova Javelin Heavy Assault Missile
Nova Rage Heavy Assault Missile
Mjolnir Rage Heavy Assault Missile
Scourge Javelin Heavy Assault Missile
Scourge Rage Heavy Assault Missile
16x Sisters Combat Scanner Probe

This is a good scout, it lands where I warp, can travel bubbled nullsec, warps quickly and packs enough punch to kill targets of opportunity that I happen come across solo roaming. I like it a lot.

When I got back with the Tengu, I found a very quiet C2 - HS route through which I took both Rattlers in. Step two complete!

Tomorrow I plan on killing off the sites I have in my own system.

Getting an Orca through lowsec

Day One

I have my system. It's a C4/C4 without any effects and it is not inhabited. Well, sort of. There was a POS in here, and I talked to the people that's running it. I simply explained what I wanted to do, and asked if I could possibly live in their system for a week or two. It turns out that they are in the process of moving. So they did not care one bit about what I did in their system. Now they have abandon their tower and let the fuel run out, so it's just a dead stick. I don't care.

I'm starting to prepare to move my stuff in. Warp around to all the gas-sites in the system to make them despawn. It saves a lot of time if you don't have to scan down a bunch of extra sigs each day.

I got an Orca in high sec, packed and ready, waiting for me. First mission is to find a route in for that. When I scan out my static C4 I find it to be a C4/C3 which suits me perfect. A C3 always have a k-space static, so I knew I would find empire that way. If I got unlucky it would be a C3/Null and then I just would have to roll my static C4.

Luckily it's a low sec static and it puts me quite close to Amarr, where I have my Orca. It's also just two low sec systems before I hit the relative safety of high sec. Surly I could scout the Orca in that way?

Normally, I think that a ship should be fitted and rigged towards its strong points, but since I don't really have use for all the cargo-capacity an Orca can get, mine is fitted a tad differently. The thinking is speed (it warps in 10s, doing over 300 m/s) and stealth. The tackle and tank are remains from the time we used it as bait in R-NAT. I did not change it because I thought having some pvp capabilities might come in handy sometime and could potentially make a cool kill mail.

Orca, WH workhorse

High power
1x Dark Blood Small Energy Neutralizer
1x Improved Cloaking Device II
1x Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher

Medium power
1x Prototype 100MN Microwarpdrive I
1x Warp Scrambler II
1x Warp Disruptor II
1x Shadow Serpentis Stasis Webifier

Low power
1x Damage Control II
1x Reinforced Bulkheads II

Rig Slot
1x Large Ancillary Current Router I
2x Large Polycarbon Engine Housing I

Drones
5x Hammerhead II
5x Hornet EC-300

I'm starting to jump the Orca towards the low sec while scouting out the C3. There's funny things going on at one of the POS'es. A dude (assuming it's one dude with two alts based on how he moves ships around) is piloting a Chimera and a Dominix, aligning them both at the wormhole to low sec. I'm watching as he starting to come close to the POS shield. Sure enough, when the Chimmy is through, it pops some fighters. Whats going on? Is he going to camp the LS with the Dominix and some assigned fighters? Why? Does he know about me? Possibly. He don't know about the inbound Orca thou, and that's the important thing.

Maybe he is just waiting for it to die? It is EOL after all. Anyhow, I have not seen anything cloaky or with tackle around the wormhole back to my static C4, so the chances he would be able to catch my Orca is minimal. And I don't smell a trap since he don't know whats coming. As far as he knows, there's simply not anything to trap.

When arriving at the first lowsec, I use my third character (don't want to show myself by leaving the C3) to scout that in the two gates. All gates clear. Orca in warp to the C3. The jump into the C3 might be the most risky one. If he (or someone else) have a cloaky there it would get a chance of pointing the Orca. Had it been a high sec I could just have aborted and jumped back out, not so now though.

On the other hand, the low sec plays to my advantage in that it's highly unlikely that anything would come in that way, in particular anything as juicy as an Orca. The risk that someone would be camping the WH is pretty low. And even if they are, they would need to be pretty fast on the uncloak to catch the Orca before it's in warp.

As expected, nothing de-cloaks, nothing happens. I jump the Orca in, warp it through the C3 and the C4, getting it safely into whats going to be my home for the next few weeks. Step one complete!

I log for a few hours and when back I briefly see a Hound on scan. I check the sigs and discover that I have no less than two new incoming WH's. I scout them, but don't find anything dangerous or interesting in any of them. I watch the Hound jump back into one of them. I check his corp. Not the same as the inhabitants in that system, which is a C2 so I assume he just came from the HS they have in there. I decide to take a small risk setting up the POS with the holes still open. With some scouts, it would be safer than to close them I recon.

The erecting of the POS goes well as expected, nothing bad happens. I'm home!

New beginnings...

Day Zero

Lets say you had decided to try your hand at living alone in a C4/C4 with the intent of making ISK from plexing. What would you bring, and how would you do it? I decided early I wanted to go as light as possible. I did not want to have anything with me that I did not absolutely needed for the task at hand - farming some C4's.

I had two characters that could both fly Rattlesnakes and one of them could pilot an Orca. That would be the basic fleet. The rattlers to kill the sleepers and the Orca to haul my tower in, and of course to roll wormholes with, something I was planing on doing a lot.

Another "must have" was a cov ops for each character to do scanning and scouting in, as well as a Noctis to bring in the salvage and loot the wrecks.

That's really the minimum of ships I needed for my quest; Orca, Rattler x 2, Buzzard/Helios, Noctis.

But since I already had passed the line where I couldn't move everything at once (and put any un-piloted ships into the Orca) I could just as well bring a few extra ships that I knew I would need to make life easier, in particular the closing of wormholes.

Now, I would need to close and roll a lot of 2B wormholes during my stay. I needed to close any incoming K162 to safely plex my ownl, as well as the static, system. But I also would need to roll the static when I wanted to find something better. Wormholes in C4s are closed by jumping an Orca "heavy" (100MN propulsion on) six times and a single battleship heavy twice. I could do that with my Orca and one of the Rattlers if i fitted an afterburner to it, but it would not have been optimal.

For starters, the rattler would need to be refitted each time, and running around 1B each, I figure they are a bit to expensive to risk for a job that a 100M ship can do just as well. Or even better.

Secondly, you sometimes end up with critical holes you want to deal with. The six orca-jumps + the battleships is not enough to close the biggest holes (the actual mass on wormholes varies with 10%) and then you end up just critting it instead of closing it. Other times somebody else leave a WH critical. For these times what you want is a Heavy Interdictor. Thats right, a HIC. The thing with the HICs is that they can be fitted to be really, really light one way (into the critical WH you want to close) but quite heavy on their way back, thus closing the hole with you on the right side. Two bubbles reduces the mass of a HIC to half that of a shuttle, while on the the other hand a 100MN AB makes it more then half as heavy as a battleship. So: Bubbles up on the way in, AB on on the way back.

This made me bring two additional ships; a closing Scorpion and a Onyx for closing critical wormholes.

The covert ops, the Onyx and the Noctis got to ride in the Orca when moving the Rattlers around. That kept the number of roundtrips just to get ships in to a minimum.