Bubbles Bubbles Everywhere

After the success of the my previous outing I log out for the night and most of the next day before logging in back in to check on the locals.  To my surprise (but not really given how much ISK C5 esclations can generate) I found another Noctis parked in the same POS forcefield.  I considered staying for a little while to see if I could repeat the treatment, but ended up trying to jump that pesky Badger doing PI at one of the POCOs.  This time I landed at zero on the POCO, but was still over 10km from the Badger, who was already aligning out.  I managed to get one volley of torps away and was perilously close to getting a bump which may have sent the second volley on it's way when the Badger warps back to the POS.  So close - I believe the second round of torps would have popped the little transport - WCS saved the day.  I figure I've messed enough with the locals so I'll move on.  They may have the willie's for a few days yet wondering if I'm still there - glad to be of service.

I wonder if that guy is gone?

I transit the C5A static and end up in C5B which appears to be devoid of occupation - there is around 20 signatures and it takes several rolls of the mousewheel to scroll all of the anomalies.  I'm not too interested in resolving every sig, I'm really just after any wormholes and resolve and jump through the C3 static.

Wrecks on scan.  I quickly work out which combat anomaly the wrecks are at and warp over, but to my disappointment there are no ships present, just wrecks, and looted ones at that.  There is a Talos and a Navy Vexor on scan which then becomes a Talos and Maelstrom sitting inside their POS shield at the local tower when I warp over to it.  I figure I'll hang around and see if they will look to salvage those wrecks, but to my disappointment the both log.

I have a look around the system properly prior to scanning and find some drones on dscan which i find at the outer planet POCO.  3 Hobgoblin II's close by to the POCO - looks like an attempted gank went down here.  It's interesting though, the drones belong to the corp that owns the tower I just scoped out, so it almost looks like the locals ambushed someone at the POCO, but I can't find anything on Zkillboard that is suggestive of a gank.  Oh well, it's interesting trying to figure out what happened and just goes to show that player actions have a definite repercussion on the game world inside Eve.

Back to scanning, I quickly resolve all four signatures in the system, 3 wormholes, a Frigate sized nullsec connection, the lowsec static and the K162 back to the C5.  I'll poke the null sec first and see if I can't catch some AFK miners or something.  I materialise out in Cobalt's Edge and local only has a couple of pilots in system, which rapidly becomes just one additional pilot.  I look around, find a tower and finally the other pilot at an outer planet close by to a stargate.  I also see Warp Disruption Bubbles on Dscan, so I carefully work my way around to an adjacent moon so I can get on grid without being dragged out of warp.  I think that the bubble effect is amongst the coolest looking effects in Eve, and it is doubly impressive with 5 bubbles being patrolled by a 3km/second interceptor.  Pretty cool looking gate camp, but I don't have a target here and I don't particularly feel like traversing star gates in null.

Bubbles!!!  

I make my way back to the C3 and decide to have a look at the losec connection.  I jump through and there isn't a lot of much doing.  I check dotlan and the market screens and decide to head to a high sec island 3 or four gates away to re-equip.  I've been meaning to get a pair of warp scramblers for my cargo hold for venture hunting refits via the mobile depot, and I noticed when I logged in that I have a couple of redeemable items I can claim as well that require you to be in station.  I log and redeem everything and pretty much sell everything straight away for a nice little money spinner.  I consider keeping the implants but figured I'd just be diamond encrusting my pod for next time it was popped.

After all that I try and find myself back into J space, I decide to not bother with the old chain, it was pretty much dead.  So I traverse 3 or 4 systems looking for a wormhole and finally find one in a losec system.  Finally, J space here I come - having local was starting to trip me out a bit.  I quickly check what the hole actually is before jumping, oh man it's only a nullsec connection.  Oh well, I'll see what I can find in null, maybe a nice C5 connection or something.

Uh Oh

At this point I would like to invite my esteemed expert commentator Hindsight to offer a few explanatory notes on what happened next.

Havlac Agalder:  Ok don't panic.  I'm a bit over 1.2km from the activation zone to go back through the wormhole.  But if I go back through the hole, they just jump through and bubble the hole again, and I'm stuffed.  Ok, I'm going to try and make my way out of the bubble and avoid all those ships.

Hindsight: Hmmnn... Could you point me to the dev blog where they changed it so bubbles can be used in losec?  Must have missed that one.  You do know that you could just burn back to the hole with your MWD, jump the hole and then try and warp off?  They'd need to jump the hole and then have something with nearly instalocking to get you.  Maybe that might be a better option?  No?  Ok, just don't forget the MWD/cloak trick.  Good luck.

Havlac Agalder:  Ok move towards the edge of the bubble, cloak.  Quick change of direction, I'm going to go perpendicular upwards to my initial movement to hopefully throw these guys off.

Hindsight: Ummm - MWD/Cloak trick, MWD/Cloak Trick???

Havlac Agalder; Oh shit, they are getting close.  Ah crap, I'm decloaked, shit.  Target something and start shooting.

Hindsight:  You're screwed.  Get back to the hole, overheat your MWD, do it now!!!

Havlac Agalder: Ah crap, scrammed.  I'm stuffed.  I'll type "Good job boys" in local

Hindsight:

To be honest I've only ever been caught in a camp once before, and that didn't end well at all either.

So I lost my my ship and the pod.  Really glad I didn't plug in those implants.