During the course of this campaign if have sought to evolve my tactics. Historically I would nervously hop from system to system and then belt to belt looking for unsuspecting targets. Traversing 9 systems without any targets of opportunity would be defeating. Often sadly parking at a Safe location and logging off for the evening.
Lately I've been experimenting with spending a bit more time in a single system. Watching the system ebb and flow with the potential of flora and fauna passing through. Some visitors making targets of opportunity and others outside of my engagement profile. Spending a bit of time on a gate, noting the direction of travel and how the visitor conducts themselves. Similar to wormholes, the visitors and residents of Pochven can behave erratically, unexpectedly, even odd.
In learning more about the habits and behaviors of my targets I have developed greater patience. I will watch my prey get setup on a rock only to immediately warp away. I've seen them get spooked and cloaking up near the rock, then feeling safe they decloak and return to work. They do need to periodically offload their ore cargo to a station, a logical explanation. But, ideally they will return to the ore belt to continue mining.
The other day, while patiently hunting for targets of opportunity, I found a Venture. Not surprisingly when I landed at the ore belt and started creeping toward the target they warped off. Hoping they would just be offloading cargo to a station I waited. To my delight they returned, but seemed to pick a rock in the exact opposite direction I was traveling. No problem, I'll reset my position. Then, to my dismay, they again immediately warped off. Patience. I figured I would reset once again and sit just off the warp in location in hopes of their return. They did.
It's worth pointing out at this time that there is a 15 minute cloak stabilization timer that exists in Pochven. This means that you have 15 minutes that you can remain cloaked before there is a chance(most likely you will) that you will decloak. This just involves a bit of management for the stabilization timer, how long it will take to stalk your prey, and a strategic use of a safe location to reset your cloak. Hunters take note.
As my cloak stabilization timer was almost done I needed to warp to a safe to reset my stabilization timer before being able to stalk my prey on grid. When I returned the Venture was gone. F--k. I figured I would wait a bit and hope for a return. It paid off.
Unfortunately I did not acquire the trophy pod kill. But, my patience did yield the desired result. As did my stealth and minding the various factors that play against the cloaky camper. This is what the cloaky hunter lives for, a successful capture and kill. Thank you Marlon Houston for your content.
For now,
Be Well New Eden
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