The Submarine Game

EVE Online is well known as a "spreadsheets in space" game, but what about its physics engine?  Some will argue the engine doesn't truly represent space but is more attuned to a submarine simulation.  That's okay because I've realized I'm flying around New Eden like I'm in a World War II era diesel boat.

I've posted about my bookmark efforts before.  If stealth is the equivalent of sailing submerged, then I only surface when absolutely necessary (after a gate jump or undocking from a station) or when I want to make best speed (traveling to the spot I want to make a bookmark).  When traveling on the surface I'm constantly on the lookout for other ships and aircraft (probes) looking to hunt me down.  Some areas even have a lot of activity that force me to change my actions.

Over the weekend scouting my new area of operations and making bookmarks I came across one system under the effective control of an Australian PvP corp.  I think I found their headquarters because I needed three attempts to make an instant undocking bookmark at one station.  In my first attempt at making the bookmark I was too slow to stealth my Cheetah when two ships landed on grid at the station.  I wanted to keep going and finish the bookmark but the Aussies had other ideas.  One of them jumped 180 km in front of me and then turned around and started backtracking to the station.  At the rate of closure I could tell he wasn't using a prop mod.  That told me he was hunting me as he didn't want to zoom past me and let me recloak before he could get a lock on my Cheetah.  When the range closed to 120 km I decided he was serious and warped off to one of my other bookmarks.  I hung around in system for a few minutes, then decided I didn't want to play anymore and left the system.

The second attempt was interesting.  I landed on grid and saw a noob ship parked outside the station that lit a cyno.  I decided that the Aussies would probably concentrate on that station and quickly created my instadock bookmarks at the other two stations in system.  I went back to the station and saw the noob ship still in front of the station.  Normally a cyno alt wouldn't bother me, but in an unarmed Cheetah with no instant undocking bookmark created I decided to leave the station for the next day.  I succeeded the next day because I revisited the system during the off-hours for the Australian time zone.

So far I've just scouted around.  I guess if this really was a World War II game my activities would consist of scouting beaches ahead of an amphibious invasion.  If I really wanted to take the analogy further I could start flying my Hound and torpedo an industrial or two.  I had a couple of chances to get a kill mail if I was in a ship with weapons.  I've always wondered how a force recon ship like a Rapier would do in a raiding situation. 

Then I thought about Rubicon and the Stratios.  That ship has the potential to fill a hunter-killer role.  The scarier thought is that I like to mine in low sec.  Usually I can get my Procurer away from a single ship with the timely intervention of Rosewalker uncloaking in a Hound and firing a few torpedoes.  Will that strategy work against the Stratios?  Or will the Stratios have enough tank to brush the firepower of a Hound aside.  If not, will players mistakenly think the Stratios has that much tank?  Either way Rubicon will make low sec mining just a little more dangerous.