By Karak Soon

(NOTE: Dear Readers, do not take this as a tuitorial on how to explore wormholes.  It is merely a hint of what may be found within.  It is intended to inspire you to seek instruction from a corpmate who has already figured out the details of wormhole exploration)

24 April, after a LOREX Mining Op, one of the more adventurous corpies, took me into my first wormhole with an Imicus.  The Imicus is a sturdy little frigate with the ability to fit a mid-level cloaking device.  The corpie, who remains nameless so he will not be inundated by convos,  scanned down the wormhole and gave complete instructions on how to know where you’re at after jumping.

Imicus approaching wormhole 24 April

Imicus approaching wormhole 24 April

As with any system you jump into, the HUD shows the name of where you are.

Not Quite Unknown - 24 April

Using the neocon you can use the Locus Signature to access the information resources of those who have gone before, like the wormhole database at Da Opa’s Static Corp for what is known about the system you’ve found.

Wormhole Database

Due to my corpie’s excellent instruction, the trip was uneventful.  A pirate was encountered almost immediately, he had convo’d my corpie.  By staying cloaked and keeping our heads we got back out unscathed.

Wormhole system details

Ironically, during this first tentative walk through a wormhole, I got a message on the Neocon saying that I had indeed passed the exam to use the Covert Ops Cloak II.   This led to the purchase of two Helios, the tech II version of the Imicus, which were fitted out identically in anticipation of losing one.  Although the cloak on the Imicus allowed some limited movement, the Covert Ops Cloak II allows full warp to be engaged while cloaked.  Time was spent flying the Helios to get used to using the cloak.

14 May.  Decided today that it was time to finally make use of my rudimentary scanning skills and a Helios to visit a wormhole on my own.  Little did I know what wonders I’d see!   After several false starts where I could not get the signal strength of a signature above 30%, and a review of the tutorial videos, I started scanning in ernest.   After an hour or so of only getting to 99% and not being able to warp to a signature, I asked advice of another wormhole-savvy corpie.  His recommendation was to fit the “Gravity” rigs.  It turned out that these are relatively cheap and for not much more, you can get the blueprint for them and build them yourself out of some of that salvage that keeps building up in your hangar.  Being sure to keep the fit identical between the two ships, Heliocentric and The Invisible Boat,  each was soon sporting two gravity rigs.  Scanning now became much easier and soon yielded results of 100% on a signature.  It was bookmarked immediately.

My first wormhole found

Once safely cloaked, the jump through the wormhole was made, similar to any jumpgate, except you can jump within 5Km instead of the usual 2.5Km.    On the other side, still cloaked, I immediately bookmarked the wormhole, so that it could easily be found again.  No reason to test my rudimentary scanning skills again so soon, especially since I had no idea how many exit wormholes this pocket of W-space may have and where they might lead.

After making sure the cloak was operating properly, I warped to a nearby planet, being careful not to get too close.   At first the normal system information is limited to planets, etc.  So once I thought there might not be anyone else around, I uncloaked just long enough to send out a single probe, set to maximum range.

scanning inside the wormhole

The probe was then immediately withdrawn.  My caution was fed by the memory of finding other capsuleers in my previous wormhole jaunt and knowing how most capsuleers treat uninvited guests.  I decided to warp to one of these locations, The Oruze Construct.  The Neocon again provided what information it had.

The Oruze Construct

There I found both the construct and the legendary Sleepers!

Sleepers!

The rush of adrenalin was immediate and demanded immediate action.  First – make sure the cloak is still working.  It was.  Next – wait…  see if they act differently over time… have they seen me?  Tense minutes passed while I observed their movements.  Nothing happened.  This emboldened me to the point where I decided to send a camera drone.  With the exit wormhole selected and my hand over the warp button, I sent a single camera drone…

I had to wonder if legends of this ancient sleeper ship had somehow inspired the design of the Dominix class battleship.  After several minutes of observing the sleepers and their habits, I decided to check out another site, and again the Neocon provided what information it could.

Fortification Frontier Stronghold

A short warp later revealed an ancient structure, damaged by enemies unknown or simply time, it appeared to be encased in a nebula which was old enough to begin birthing proto-stars.

Fortification Frontier Stronghold

This site too had it’s ancient guardians…

Sleeper Ship

The designs were strange and they might be ships or drones, it was hard to tell.  Could anything so ancient still be slave to its biology?

Ancient guardian

Again, the Dominix-like configuration was seen.  Could this be a common type?  I will definitely learn more about these sleepers, should I return to normal space unscathed.

Ancient Dominix

I even now wondered if I was risking detection.  The camera drone was recalled and remembering the words of my mentor, I wapred to the exit wormhole at zero km, thanks to my bookmark, and “spammed the warp button, and, I mean, SPAM!”  After a successful jump back through the wormhole, there was only one thing left to do…

Go home and go to bed.

By Karak Soon

Corporations are funny things, a bit like galaxies.  They form and swirl around and coalesce into a cohesive whole.   That is when corp life is good.  When all the little corpies are happy with what the corp is doing and they have a shared vision of where they are and where they’re going.   This can be a difficult state to maintain.  Corpies are people too and sometimes they have all the gifts and foibles that people are so fond of.  They laugh, they cry, etc.  Corpies usually like to know what the corp is doing and like to feel that they are contributing to a whole which knows them and what they are doing for the corp.  Keeping the lines of communication open can be difficult and it is often hard to know what information to share and what to hold back.

Group Mining

Loentzian Expeditonaries is a pretty free and open corp, but as with all corps it is sometimes difficult to see what the goals are and what is being done to achieve them.  This is especially true if the leadership forgets that only they have access to all the information about how the corp is doing and how far along to the stated goals they may be.

Sometimes corporations, like galaxies, pop and sizzle and throw off pieces of themselves.  In recent weeks this has happened at LOREX and it led to a period of inactivity that is best illustrated by, guess what?  An illustration.

This chart shows the number of corpies attending LOREX mining operations over the past few weeks.  As the pop and sizzle in LOREX occurred at the topmost levels, it has taken a few weeks for things to settle down.  Those who parted ways with LOREX are still on good terms with the corp, just no longer part of its leadership.   As in most corps when such things happen, the little corpies hung together, not without some trepidation, and tried to keep things going during the reformation.  You can see by the chart, that this effort has been successful and attendance at LOREX mining ops are back up.

Respen Calhoun is our new CEO and is making an effort to add some structure to our formerly loose coalition by assigning ranks with access rights and defined methods for advancement through the ranks:

It is hoped that the new leadership can find ways to share information with the little corpies and that the direction and path to our goals becomes more clear as we try to avoid problems like this in the future.  Time will tell.

CCP President Helmar announced a project to allow players to use ISK to buy Pilot Extension (PLEX) cards to be turned into real life cash for Haiti.  Proudly I was able to make the following announcement:

PLEX for Haiti

Lorex Expeditionaries (LOREX) proudly concludes their PLEX for Haiti campaign with the donation of 3 PLEX for Haiti. Two were donated by very generous individuals (you know who you are) and the third was donated by a coalition of seven of LOREX corpies!

The monies were collected by Karak Soon or directly transferred to Mantral Kroth (another
character of Karak’s used to keep the money straight).

Summary
Amount raised ISK 272,227,529.64
Cost of PLEX ISK 270,000,001.00
Broker’s Fee ISK 10,000.00
Mantral Start ISK 1,230,479.65
===================
Balance ISK 987,048.99

The balance will be distributed proportionally to each contributiong character in accordance with
the monies donated.

Fly Safe,
Karak Soon

By Karak Soon

In a day of many surprises, one was the way that one pilot confronted and persevered over one of the most hated operations ever assigned by the Sisters of EVE.  The Sisters in their mysterious ways decided it was time to take the battle to the Angel Cartel Pirate Scum.  Thus, all over New Eden, the call went out to Capsuleers near and far to take on the fight.  This was the day we learned that The Sisters, though long on thought were sometimes short on practicality.  The three of us, Eleanor Azuranai, Ryko Tolsen and I,  showed up in Gicodel  with thoughts of taking on a mission for this worthy charity.  We did not know that they were handing out one of the toughest and least profitable missions we would ever see.  We all enjoyed a good fight, but this mission was nasty and none of us expected a buzz kill.

El showed up with an Abaddon Battleship, I had a Myrmadon Battlecruiser and Ryko, our youngest showed up in a Rifter Frigate.  The Abaddon is a mighty Amarr battle wagon with a long history of taking huge amounts of damage and handing it right back out again with lasers blazing.

El Opens Up

The Myrmadon is a solid battlecruiser with an ability to take a respectable amount of damage and swarms of drones that take the battle into the enemy’s face and make the point that you’re displeased with them using small caliber quick firing cannons.

The Rifter is a fine little gun boat that can go in and take care of business on the small scale.  For it’s size it hands out lots of damage and is so fast that it avoids being hit by not being around when the enemy rounds arrive.

Ryko's Rifter

The Rifter is best used for small ops or in packs against isolated targets.  The Rifter isn’t the ship for a large fleet battle.  Ryko knew this and he stepped up anyway.

The strategy was for El to go in first and start tanking damage.  Ryko and I would then jump in and start taking out frigates  and working our way up to bigger ships as they arrived.  When new groups arrived they had the bad habit of concentrating on Ryko and me instead of the big juicy battleship that El provided.  When Ryko or I got too much attention, we’d align to a far off target, like a station or a moon and warp out so that the enemy would again concentrate on the Abaddon.

El Takes A Hit

The battle raged on with El taking the hits and Ryko and I scraping the frigates off of him then working on the larger ships.  This went on for far too long as wave after wave of enemies arrived.  Somehow El instinctively knew when to have us change targets so that the Angels never had quite enough on the field to knock us out of it.  Then the battleships arrived.

This is usually when the smaller ships think twice about their futures, or lack thereof.  I’m sure Ryko had these thoughts too, but then he steeled his resolve and joined the fight.

El and I marveled at the sheer bravery exhibited by this scrappy little Rifter and kept firing, our rounds narrowly missing Ryko on several occasions. One of the battleships must have taken a hit in her armory as she exploded unexpectedly. I had noticed Ryko diving toward the ship as it exploded and I seriously feared for the Rifter and her captain. My fears were removed as the debris cleared, I was happy to see Ryko’s scrappy little Rifter emerging from the cloud.

Target Destroyed

Slowly we wore down the gristled veterans of the Angel Cartel. Until, finally, victory was ours.

The fight was long and and the rewards were few, but we all learned something about having good equipment and the skill to use it effectively in the toughest of situations.

For this, Ryko Tolsen, we salute you.

By Karak Soon

It started out as a day like any other…

Brutix leaving station

Karak had spent long months training and advancing through ships to reach this point.  “The Bruce” is a Gallente Battle Cruiser.  Quite suitable for soloing missions from the Level 3 agents he’d started working for.  These guys worked for Quafe.  Yeah, the beverage company.  Lot s of courier missions, but some combat too.  They occasionally asked him to go to low-sec, something that he was not yet prepared to do on a regular basis.  He was not quite ready for the wilds.

Running missions with the corp had become a regular occurrence.  Generally one of the senior corp members would lead the assault and take most of the agro.

Multiple hits

The newer members would then be free to move in and take out the smaller targets which sometimes included EW frigates that would give the assault team fits by damping their speed and disrupting their tracking.  In this manner each would do his part to meet the mission goals.

Tactical Situation

Karak had learned a lot about active armor tanking and using hardeners and reppers.  Capacitor management is the key.

Lorex is a good corp and isn’t run like a lot of corps with the top people making the plans and everyone else following along without really knowing what goes on.  The Lorex Cantina channel is where all business is conducted.  The corp channel lays unused.  This open structure has been insisted upon by Markus Reese our CEO.  He has had bad experiences in corps where you never knew what was going on until it was way too late for you to help out – or survive.  Because of this we conduct all business in the Cantina.  When one of us invites a non-corp member into the Cantina they are treated as an equal with unique gifts.  It is understood that those who have not been long in the pod will have lesser skills, but it is recognized that they nonetheless, do have skills.  Those skills are encouraged and nurtured.

Karak takes aggro

Thus it is not unusual for non-corpies to join in our missions with us.  One such is Eleanor.  She’d been flying with us a few weeks as her corp had pretty much dissolved around her.  She hadn’t quit It yet because she now had sole possession of some of the corporate assets and felt a responsibility to keep the corp going.  At least for now.  Eleanor, though fairly new to the pod, had become shrewd and quickly picked up the lessons provided.  She saw our generosity and often returned it.

Karak had been training up to fly a battleship and finally had the skills.  He went the extra mile so that he could bypass the normal first battleship, the Dominix and go right for the cream of the crop.  The Hyperion.  The corp sometimes helped pilots out, but most of us wanted to earn our way into things.  Karak made sure he had the other skills to effectively use the ship too, like being able to use the Tech II armor hardeners and armor repairer.  There’s no sense in flying a ship that you can’t defend.  Karak had everything he needed for the Hyperion, except the ISK to buy it.

During a grueling level 4 mission taken on by several corp members and Eleanor, Nano, a corp officer, asked what we hoped to find among the wrecks as loot.  Karak threw out a comment about his birthday coming up and if they happened to find 25 million ISK he could buy himself something nice for his birthday.  The Hyperion.  The mission was completed and loot was handed out.  Karak was happy to get some modules that might be useful on the battleship.  He docked and looked at his wallet to see what kind of bounties this mission had brought.  He was dumbfounded to find out that Eleanor had given him 25 million ISK.  He stammered out a thank you and asked why.  Eleanor said simply that she wanted him to have a happy birthday.

Another mission was set up and Nano asked if Karak was coming.  Karak asked that the mission be delayed a bit while he made some decisions.  He bought the Hyperion.

It was a fine ship.  Nano and Alomar helped him fit the ship with modules by taking what he had collected in recent weeks and threw in some additional birthday presents.  Karak was overwhelmed at their generosity.

Soon, the Hyperion, which Karak named the “Hyperbabble” due to his inability to talk at times, was fully fit and ready for action.  The next mission was afoot!

Hyperion in warp

The battle raged and afterward Nano said, that Karak and the Hyperion made the battle much easier as he was able to take on the opposing battleships head on and allow the Myrmadons to pick them apart.  Nano and Alomar had their armor rep drones playfully splash their unneeded beams on the Hyperion’s shields making a light show for all to enjoy.

Hyperion with armor rep drones

Karak swore he would pay them all back one day.  Perhaps tomorrow, 16 November 111, his real birthday, when they were planning to take on their first level five mission.

By Karak Soon

Today I was mining to cans and filled enough to fill my Bestower.  I docked the Hulk, and got my Bestower full of cans and headed out to pick up ore.   When I arrived in the belt I noticed there were two Serpentis Agents about 42Km from the can I was emptying.  I decided to leave them alone – for now.  I knew that my 150mm Carbide Rail Gun would take care of them if they got interested.  They will get interested, I thought, as the cans I was intending to empty were in a line directly toward them.  Seven cans at about 5Km distance each, would put me right in their laps before I was done.  I was alone but unconcerned as I had taken out 0.6 belt rats before with my Bestower.  I emptied cans and they got closer and closer. 40km,  35km, 20Km.  No lock, they started to move away.

How curious.  I had never seen a belt rat behave this way before.  I finished picking up my cans and wondered how close I could get.  I could get very close.

I got within 5K and decided to orbit one of them.  He didn’t seem to care.  I started getting dizzy from the motion, so I selected “Keep at 5Km”.  Hmm there’s a 2K setting….  Dang, engines are off, gotta travel toward it, but not too close.  I fired the engines and moved closer.

223 meters.  Drifting.  I cut the engines and waited.

So close the scanner error kicked in.  It reported 0 meters.  Damn! Drifting.  Industrial ships are very handy to have around, but they are not graceful or svelte.  I bumped into him and the fun was over.  They both attacked me, their strange behavior forgotten.  No worries. They’re now salvage in my hangar.

LOREX Mining Op 03 October 111

By Karak Soon

Today the Lorentzian Expeditionaries mounted a mining op like no other in their history together.  We were able to put two Orca mining support vessels, four miners and a hauler on the field of battle against the asteroids.  I do not use the term battle lightly as the day would prove significant for the internal battle which each of us faced and the external battle we so proudly avoided.

Orca and Miners

Experience level in the Op today is wide ranging from Markus, with his years of experience and recently returned from his encounter with slavers, to OtoBnAggie who brought a Catalyst destroyer to the field and contributed the best he could.    Tismon hauled with his rigged Mammoth.   Markus and Sniklif flew the Orcas and boosted everyone’s productivity.  Alomar, Nano, Niatra and I all mounted Hulks, the mightiest of mining vessels.

Oto in the Catalyst

The Op proceeded normally for about ¾ of the allotted time with the usual chatter on the LOREX Cantina channel, then things got interesting.  Injected in the middle of a conversation about Tismon’s Mammoth came a chilling announcement from Markus.

[LOREX] Markus Reese > possible flipper, pull cans

Followed by some confused chatter, but strong leadership won out.

[LOREX] Markus Reese > got a flip

[LOREX] Markus Reese > don’t touch your can oto

[LOREX] Karak Soon > with a rifter he can’t steal much.  2 year pirate.

Combusting Llama – Can Flipper.

[LOREX] Alomar82 > yeah leave him alone

[LOREX] Markus Reese > he is a flipper

[LOREX] nanophite2345 > but he placed a can and is making trips

[LOREX] Markus Reese > somebody shoots, come and kills all

I felt the channel needed some levity to ease the tension, so I used my most potent weapon on the can flipper: Humor.

[LOREX] Karak Soon > Somebody give him a wedgie

Followed by confusion.

[LOREX] Alomar82 > k got your can karak

[LOREX] Karak Soon > Hey my can disappeared.

[LOREX] Karak Soon > ok

Oto asked a question and we didn’t understand he was talking about a yellow can…

[LOREX] OtoBnAggie > can i drop in this can ?

Oto wisely did nothing and waited for a chance to ask again.

[LOREX] Niatra > mine too (disappeared)

[LOREX] Tismon > he attacking them?

[LOREX] Markus Reese > yup, I hauled them in case of flip

[LOREX] Markus Reese > he flagged himself to us if you notice

[LOREX] Karak Soon > we could bump him…

Alomar, a long time friend among capsuleers has about the same time in a pod as I do and joined Lorentzian Expeditionaries shortly after I did.  He, however, has more combat experience than I do and has observed more can flipping than I have.

[LOREX] Alomar82 > leave him

[LOREX] Alomar82 > oto dont drop any cans

Markus realized that we needed to protect the ore we’d mined and do it in such a way as to not provoke the can flipper and any buddies he may have in the area.

[LOREX] Markus Reese > alo, if you can haul for a bit so tis can unload me

Then it happened, a moment I’d dreaded, but fortunately my training told me that the can flipper has many tools to provoke.

[LOREX] Karak Soon > locked me

The flippin’ Rifter.

Fortunately I remembered Markus’ many discussions about “Ninjas” in missions, kept my discipline and did nothing.  I was soon followed by Niatra who also kept her cool and Markus explained to the newer capsuleers.

[LOREX] Niatra > targeted me

[LOREX] Karak Soon > unlocked

My breathing resumed.

[LOREX] Markus Reese > He’s trying to get an autotarget

[LOREX] Alomar82 > kk

[LOREX] Karak Soon > he’s trying to pick a fight

Oto kept his discipline and had done nothing for several minutes.  He took this chance to make his dilemma known.

[LOREX] OtoBnAggie > i am confused.

[LOREX] Karak Soon > don’t do anything

[LOREX] OtoBnAggie > can I drop into a can or not..the one by me is yellow and says wor

WOR was the can flipper’s corp, Wings of Redemption.  Markus provided the explanation, Alomar and I provided encouragement.

[LOREX] Markus Reese > He stole from your can hoping you will take it back so he can kill you.

[LOREX] Alomar82 > just dock if your not sure

[LOREX] Karak Soon > could be spearhead for a group.

[LOREX] Markus Reese > yup

The clock kept ticking and we all kept mining…  Markus had a plan..

[LOREX] Niatra > well I am full so just wait???

[LOREX] Markus Reese > so what we do now is gather closer to an orca, form up by snik then you can unload directly to him. I am going to dump then warp to you niatra.

Then, apologetically, he realized his time away had blunted his leadership a bit.

[LOREX] Markus Reese > sorry, I forgot this backup plan… two hulks with snik, two with me.

[LOREX] Niatra > I am close to snik go to him or wait for you?

[LOREX] Karak Soon > heading for snick

Intertwined with the movement orders, a question and an answer.

[LOREX] OtoBnAggie > if he stoll from me then shouldt i get a flag saying aggression or something?

[LOREX] Markus Reese > he will be red to you if you have it set for such he wants you to not pay atention and take your can back.  Goto snik and unload.

[LOREX] Markus Reese > K, alo and karak with snik

[LOREX] Markus Reese > nano and niatra, I will be warping to niatra

I was so pleased with everyone’s discipline that I felt I had to say something to encourage everyone for their inaction.  Strange as it sounds, this was a time when the best policy was to do nothing.

[LOREX] Karak Soon > Good discipline people!

[LOREX] Markus Reese > ye sorry guys, a month off made my brain rusty

[LOREX] Karak Soon > oto if he’s bugging you just dock

[LOREX] OtoBnAggie > he isnt doing anything

Markus injected his own form or humor.

[LOREX] Markus Reese > yup, don’t let a piece of balogne spoil your day

This can flipper wasn’t done trying to provoke us.

[LOREX] Karak Soon > bumpped me

[LOREX] Markus Reese > lol, trying to annoy us, but we are too pro for that

Time marches on…

[LOREX] Karak Soon > Funny he hasn’t gotten bored yet

And the business of mining continued…

[LOREX] Markus Reese > tismon, you can just alternate warping between us for full loads

[LOREX]] Tismon > kk

Oto, remaining calm on the outside, asked another question.

[LOREX] OtoBnAggie > is it the fleet that is pulling me so far out?

[LOREX] Karak Soon > no he’s bumping you

Alomar had to ask the question, but kept his professional head about him.

[LOREX] Alomar82 > should i get my enyo out and have some fun with him?  Not shooting.

[LOREX] Markus Reese > they are looking for people wanting a fight

[LOREX] Alomar82 > k.  I’ll stand down :)

[LOREX] Karak Soon > He probs picked otto out as the newest player.

[LOREX]] Alomar82 > i have enyo on the orca just in case

Markus had also taken time to check out our adversary.

[LOREX] Markus Reese > should be fine, and this corp/alliance we don’t want a fight

I wanted to make sure Oto understood the tactics and that we were all looking out for him.

[LOREX] Karak Soon > Oto don’t take anything he puts out.

[LOREX] OtoBnAggie > nope

[LOREX] OtoBnAggie > can I get a secure container or something?

[LOREX] Markus Reese > oh, easier way. Fly to me, unload direct to orca

Finally it seemed like the nightmare was over…

[LOREX] Karak Soon > YAY, He warped off.   (I assume it’s good)

Then something you don’t want to hear on a battlefield.

[LOREX] Markus Reese > where did nano go?

While waiting for an explanation, Markus shared more of his experience.  And Oto voiced his concerns.

[LOREX] See, many peeps look for groups just to alt kamikaze, is why the tractor and cans from spaced out formations are used for mining.

[LOREX] OtoBnAggie > while i wont ever want to be that type of guy, i wish we had something we could do to guys like that

[LOREX] Markus Reese > ^.^

[LOREX] Alomar82 > I’ve made some frigates just for that purpose :)

[LOREX] Karak Soon > He couldn’t steal enough to hurt us.

[LOREX] OtoBnAggie > is true….i just would like to be able to make him rethink his lifestyle choice

[LOREX] Alomar82 > if you can :)

As usual our sense of humor prevailed.

[LOREX] Niatra > Sorry probably dumped it in the wrong place but I was getting nervous with him still here

[LOREX] Alomar82 > lol you turned my orca around for me.

Unfortunately Combustible Llama wasn’t done with us.

[LOREX] Markus Reese > ahh, see?  He popped in and cloaked up

[LOREX] Alomar82 > yup

[LOREX] Markus Reese > rapier

[LOREX] Karak Soon > Did you get a name/corp?

[LOREX] Markus Reese > is combustion llama

[LOREX] Karak Soon > Keep up the discipline.  Same guy different ship?

[LOREX] Markus Reese > yup. Swapped to a force recon.  He is sitting in the belt cloaked hoping we take back the can

[LOREX] Karak Soon > Must be really desperate

[LOREX] Markus Reese > with two orca’s this setup works well cause if somebody warps in, I can scoop the two hulks to ship bay before they can be popped.  A smartbomber will take out a miner’s pod, but might as well save 100 mil. (on the Hulk).

[LOREX] Alomar82 > ive got a fighting ship here too which can give us time to get out of dodge

[LOREX] Markus Reese > Oh, that won’t help

[LOREX] Karak Soon > can’t run from a wardek

[LOREX] Markus Reese > they come in, armageddon, fitted with smart bombs, concord kills them, but not before they take out all hulks in bomb range. Like this with the few hulks and two orcas, if a smartbomber warps in, we can just scoop ships to bay before they pop

[LOREX] Alomar82 > I just wanna play with my toy Chet II:)

[LOREX] Markus Reese > Seems like nano wants to play too, instead of mine.

Nano’s Navy Megathron

[LOREX] Markus Reese > note nano, if you shoot, you will end up losing that ship

[LOREX] nanophite2345 > yea, I know

[LOREX] Markus Reese > okie dokie. Just for image effect, eh?

[LOREX] nanophite2345 > yuppers

[LOREX] Karak Soon > too dark here for good pictures.

Mining continued… and I missed a message.

[LOREX] Alomar82 > ill warp everyone right on top of the station so you can make a bookmark

[LOREX] Karak Soon > cool

[LOREX] Markus Reese > one rat

[LOREX] Karak Soon > recalling drones

[LOREX] Karak Soon > what blew up?

Having missed the mention of a rat, my blood ran cold when Markus responded.

[LOREX] Markus Reese > nano

But Nano replied… and I missed that too.

[LOREX] nanophite2345 > heehee

[LOREX] Markus Reese > one frig vs navy mega

[LOREX] Alomar82 > lol

[LOREX] Markus Reese > did the bounty even pay for the ammo?

[LOREX] Karak Soon > so we’re wardekked now?

[LOREX] nanophite2345 > Well at least I got to shoot SOMETHING

[LOREX] nanophite2345 > no, it was a rat

[LOREX] Karak Soon > ok

[LOREX] Karak Soon > Thought I missed something in the rules of engagement.

[LOREX] Niatra > so are we done?

[LOREX] Karak Soon > whenever

[LOREX] Alomar82 > shall i warp everyone to station point

[LOREX] Markus Reese > if you wish to be

[LOREX] Karak Soon > kk

So the op ended without incident.  We all grew a bit that day.  Markus proved his steadfast leadership and the rest of us earned a lot of pride, knowing that we could stay the course against a determined threat.

Lesson learned: The best way to deal with a can flipper is to ignore them.

But, what about next time?

By Karak Soon (and his player)

Out Of Game.

One of the great challenges in EVE-Online is its world-wide scope.  I’m talking time zones, people.  I’m also talking Real Life (RL).  In Lorentzian Expeditionaries I’ve been concerned about Synica Jones and her RL player.

He (big surprise) goes to work very early in the day and thus goes to bed relatively early in the evening.  That means that Synica was having trouble with the Corp’s Wednesday mining op.  It was scheduled to start around the time that her “player” had to go to bed.  Today a solution presented itself in the form of our long time friend Alomar82.

He finally decided to join a corp.  My Corp.  Lorentzian Expeditionaries [LOREX].  I say “My Corp” because Synica hasn’t officially joined LOREX yet.  She’s having too much fun watching her current Corp dissolve around her.  When that’s done, she’ll probably join us.  In the intervening time, she’s welcome to participate in LOREX activities.  That’s one thing I really like about LOREX.  Good people get the chance they deserve.

Alomar and Karak have hung out together for many months and long debated the merits and risks (WARDEC!) of joining any player run corporation.  The name of this Blog, “Sooner or Later” is both a pun on Karak’s last name and a description of how things happen in EVE.  You have a chance to do everything in New Eden, sooner or later.  I knew Karak would eventually join a Corp, I just didn’t know when.  For Karak the gestation period was just about nine months.  For Alomar it took a little longer.

Alomar’s player lives about 4 hours east of Synica’s Player and me (we often lunch together).  Thus, Alomar had a problem with the Wednesday mining op, similar to Synica’s.

In convo (conversation) today Alomar mentioned his “problem” which prompted me to mention Synica’s problem.  He immediately said that they could mine together before the op and offered his bonuses to anyone who wanted to start mining a little early.  A perfect solution.

That’s our Corp.

Lorentzian Expeditionaries,

Good people working together for a better universe.