Wormholers Guide to the Regions - Aridia

A wormhole popped me out here last weekend and for the record here are a few of the impressions that I got.

1. It is far away from ANYWHERE! I calculated routes to Dodixie (30 something jumps), Tash Murkon (27 jumps) and Jita (44 jumps). Unfortunately my covert ops fell prey to a gang in my way back home so I had to fly the route from my clone bay (Tash Murkon) to Aridia.

2. It is low sec with a tiny island of high sec.

3. It is busy enough, I saw 2 gangs but they chose not to engage my shuttle.

4. It serves as a connection from Empire to Delve (0,0 space)

Minding Fort

Well minding the fort is not the most engaging of activites. Most of the corp had taken off for a bit of piracy in another wormhole. Those of left behind were tasked with staying alive. Something I failed to do over the weekend as my trusty Helios, Slay’s Wayfinder, died a tragic death caught at a hole by dictor. Fortunately we had already found a low sec exit in Aridia that allowed me back in a shuttle.

So come Sunday we found another way back in just as another corp found our WH and set up camp on the WH out. We ran through the ambush, re-shipped and headed for the WH they had come through. Rubico was first on scene, Slay following in an Ishkur, Slay’s Way. Draconica landed in grid with a Myrmidon and after that I was too busy trying to keep Slay alive to notice anyone. The Phobos we jumped was naturally bait. Seems to be the only type of ship we run into these days. Recons and Stealth bombers uncloaked and the fight was on.

First order of the day, strategic withdrawal. Rubico and Draconica got out as Slay aligned to planet 3 and home. The Arazu on Slay was tenacious and the Falcon locking down the targeting wouldn’t let go, fortunately the trusty Warrior II’s don’t need much encouragement to beat up ships! The home system has armour rep advantages and this must have kept Slay’s ship together, flames pouring from the engines as it strained to escape. It felt like an eternity, but the Arazu must have capped out and his Scram failed, and the Ishkur disappeared into warp and home.
Having taken a beating our fearless leader mocked them in local as people re-shipped again. Slay spent 5 minutes with a hull repairer going flat out before it was decided to try again.

Again the Ishkur, hastily refitted with a capacitor booster (thanks for the suggestion Mono) warped into battle. This time with the rest of the corp positioned round the hole in stealth bombers. An Onyx heavy interdictor appeared and locked before spewing out heavy precision missiles. His mate in an Arazu was next, the bait was well taken but the Ishkur’s armour is strong! The Arazu found himself lit up with target painters and torpedoes rained down on him from the stealth bombers, Aelius not quite fast enough to get out got popped with the Arazu as Slay entered close orbit round the Onyx. The Onyx’s guns couldn’t track Slay and Slay’s drones and blasters couldn’t break his tank, he retreated through the WH.

Soon after he was followed by a stealth bomber and covert ops. The system was once again ours. Casualties were light on both sides, one stealth bomber exchanged for a Arazu recon but the excitement and adrenaline was good.

Being a quiet Sunday evening Slay went out to see real space with Drifnir. I am pleased to report that it is still there and they havent all migrated back through the Eve hole without telling us. Like yesterday our connection was to Goonie 0,0 space, deep in Querios or Delve where there is plenty of big bounty battleships waiting for my Ogre II's. I took a nice dead-end system and ratted till a Goonie came calling, I safe spotted and went to bathe the baby. Hope they had a productive time scanning for me.

When I came back I was booted from the server when the connection closed. I hope my ship is still there when I get back in !

Locator Agents and Wormhole Space

This question of trying to find someone in wormhole space came up last night so I thought I would try it out. Slayfoe's Bull was offline at the POS in the wormhole system when Carraig asked this nice Duvolle Labs agent where he might be, this was her answer.

For those too lazy to click:

"I'm sorry but I just can't help you with that one, I'm pretty sure Slayfoe's Bull's well out of my zone of influence"

Getting beaten up

Last night we had a good online presence, the Euro-zone players were busy mining next door when the Americans started to logon. I believe the encounter started with Drifnir getting jumped by a Legion while in a Mammoth hauling gas home to the POS. Everyone made for the POS and jumped into a hodgepodge of PVP and not so PVP ships. A little while later someone had a point on a Loki at the sun.

In retrospect I should have got suspicious right there, but I thought that maybe someone had called out the wrong name of a ship in the excitement and into a C5b Domi jumped Slay and warped in on top of Mono. I am not used to PVP and it takes a little while to be able to discern what is happening in the chaos of a fight but the ships rapidly filling up the sky were not purple.

We had fallen for bait.

They were called Black-Wing, there were 12 of them in a mix of tech 2 cruisers, battle cruisers and tech 3 ships. They focused fire, knew what they were doing and had us blown up and podded before we even understood the depth of our mistake. We lost 3? Dominix, Mono’s Pilgrim, Drif’s Mammoth and our capsules. I wasn’t even able to align and warp out before I was in a new clone in TashMurkon. Link to killboard.

Bought myself 2x +3implants (all I had the ISK left for), picked up a Myrmidon left in high-sec after the last move and flew back to the POS.

A New Direction: a passive shield Myrmidon

Continuing on my series on passive shield tanking Gallente ships I come to the current pinnacle of my ambition, the passive shield Myrmidon (See here for the passive shield Tristan and here for the Celestis).

A quick flick through Battleclinic shows a very highly rated passive shield Myrmidon that the commentators claim can solo most L4 missions. Now I am neither rich enough nor confident enough to leave my drones shooting rats while I change the baby’s nappy but in the long term the idea is to have Carraig missioning while Slay participates in the MNEE Wormhole operation.

So without any further ado, my passive shield Myrmidon:

[Myrmidon, Passive Shield]

Damage Control II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II

Invulnerability Field I
Invulnerability Field I
Large Shield Extender I
Large Shield Extender I
Large Shield Extender I

250mm Railgun I, Lead Charge M
Drone Link Augmentor I
Small Tractor Beam I
Small Tractor Beam I
Salvager I
Medium Nosferatu I

Core Defence Field Purger I
Core Defence Field Purger I
Core Defence Field Extender I

Hammerhead II x5
Hobgoblin II x5
Ogre I x3

With Carriag's currents skills she has 57.5k effective hit points and can tank 438dps. Until Carraig's drone skills improve, missions will be painfully slow and certain rats might well be able to tank the drone damage. Where she differs from the standard passive shield Myrmidon in BC is that her high slots are full of utility, after all I plan to aggro everything then walk away and come back when it is time to salvage.

Now all I need is some time to get my drones skills up and some money with which to buy her!