Before I go on I'll just quickly check how many kills I managed to snag on my 3 hour + roam. Ah yes, I didn't get any. Zero, zilcho, nada. Still, I found the experience useful, making lots of bookmarks along relatively quiet space-lanes that I will be able to use on future roams.
On the main pipe through Etherium Reach I stumbled across a gang of Cynabals and Vagabonds, approximate count of seven or eight cruisers. I didn't fancy tangling with these guys so I immediately slammed the Wolf into reverse and went back in the direction I'd just come from. They gave chase and eventually I managed to lose them but my new path had taken me away from the main hot-spots and I spent the next part of the roam in relative solitude, tip-toeing through vast unclaimed solar systems with the only life present being Rogue Drones.
Rogue Drones are hi-tech drones that have the ability to manufacture themselves. Rogue drone hives can be found throughout the universe of Eve and are a constant menace to space travellers.
These things make my skin crawl, the noise these rogues make on the stargates is haunting and it is no wonder that trainee jumpgate crew are kept awake at night in their bunks with horrific tales of the rogue drones that can eat a man and his ship alive with no effort. Describing the noise is difficult, imagine a haunted soul, a mechanical monster, no purpose, just mechanical chatter and the odd blood curdling frozen scream echoing across the dark backdrop. Something like that anyway, enough to drive a man to madness.
Moving on I eventually made my way through more emptiness as I quickly made my way through The Kalevala Expanse.
"When man’s creations rebel, it is no great surprise. It is simply God's reminder that mankind is not Him."
- The Forbidden Science of AI.
Yeah no idea what that means either but that's what was on the regional brochure that I had picked up. Doesn't exactly jump up and grab the attention of the space tourist like it maybe could. Or perhaps that's the intention? Or maybe it was a reference to the drones?
As I moved into Geminate I found some life at last. Although finding a battleship gang on your out-gate isn't really much use when you're in a fast frigate. I was expecting more hostiles after that little scare but Geminate was mainly quiet from here on in. Infrastructure hubs were ticking down their timers and wrecks and abandoned drones littered the skies. The whole place gave off an awkward silence and an odd-feeling as I waded through a dozen or so frozen corpses from a previous battle, perhaps left there as a warning to the next invaders. I got the impression that what I was experiencing was a calm before the storm type of moment as fleets regrouped in far off systems and battered hulls were repaired ready for the next great fight.
Two Drakes were on my d-scan aligned to an asteroid belt, there were only two pilots in local and they looked relatively young. I quickly checked their combat credentials and the results that came back were surprising, these guys knew how to fit a Drake and I wasn't going to break even one of them let alone two at the same time. I decided not to aggravate a hornets nest and moved onto the next system.
I then came across an odd few systems, the sovereignty indicated that the systems were home to a renting alliance. As I warped across the main station system I quickly checked the pilots in local, all renters, all probably docked.
I warped across the system, nothing on scan and then ......
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| Happily warping along ..... |
Suddenly Bubbles!
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| Crew brace for impact! Impact imminent! |
I counted 17 bubbles anchored around the stargate. I hoped that in the time it took me to burn through them all that some of the locals would come out of their station and have a look. But they didn't. So I went back and warped into them again so I could take some touristy pictures.
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| Null-sec bubbles are dangerous. However, they can also be used as a gigantic spaceship bouncy castle. |
It was now late so I set my navigation systems to BWF-ZZ where according to my starmap there was quite a gathering of pilots. Unfortunately when I arrived there was little happening. I tried to snag the odd pilot jumping in from low-sec but the size of the regional stargate meant they always had just enough time to warp off.
I decided to end my null-sec roam here and jump on into The Forge, where I then made my way back the 16 or so jumps to Molden Heath, I chased a few Dramiels and other assorted possible targets but nothing came to fruition. Upon my return I played around in a triple sensor boosting Hurricane, insta-popped one frigate that landed 50 clicks off of me in a belt and then died to a Malediction and another Hurricane when I got a little sloppy at the Sun. Still, in tradition with the theme of this blog post I will not post any of the mails.
:)
MB.
If more nullsec alliances advertised gigantic spaceship bouncy castles for everyone, I think they'd have a better public image.
ReplyDeleteAfter hours of careful route-planning, flying without any mistakes, D-scan awareness while piloting your perfectly EFT-tweaked ship, and you don't get any fights whatsoever ... it still happens always when you get sloppy for 5 mins that the enemy catches up on you.
ReplyDeleteYou could call that "Point Break" and write a nifty article about it :)