Scanning a silo system

Three of us make an early start. Two of them are earlier than me and have thoughtfully dropped the bookmark to our system's static wormhole in our shared can before venturing through to the next system. I copy the bookmark and follow. The directional scanner shows the wreck of an industrial ship and a corpse, but otherwise only celestial bodies. I assume from the corpse that an ambush occurred earlier on a wormhole, suggesting that we will find a K162 in this system as well as its static connection. Indeed a K162 connection is found, coming from a class 2 w-space system, but there is no corpse floating around it. Neither is there a corpse on the system's static wormhole and perhaps the ambush caught a miner collecting ore. There is little specific interest in finding the victim, though, and we head off through different wormholes to explore our environment further.

One scout goes in to the C2 system through the K162, finding two towers but no activity. I head through the C4's static connection in to another C2 system, which looks remarkably like yesterday's C2 connection from the C4. It is another silo system, with half-a-dozen towers anchored to moons around a couple of planets, all with multiple silos running reactions. The large number of silos and associated towers, force fields, and defences makes sifting through the directional scanner more awkward. It is when in silo systems that I occasionally select the option to scan using the active overview settings, because although I cannot filter d-scan for probes it can be useful to see quickly if there are uncloaked ships in the system. No activity is registered and I launch probes to start scanning.

A static wormhole to a class 1 w-space system is found along with a second wormhole coming in from null-sec empire space. Fin and our other companion go to null-sec to look for entertainment as I continue my scanning in w-space in the class 1 system. D-scan shows the presence of a tower, which I easily trace to be orbiting around the sixth planet in the system but then I get confused. Warping to the planet and trying to locate the tower gives me a return signal of the tower and its modules but no moons. A tower must be anchored to a moon, which I also expect to see as part of the d-scan result, hence my confusion. I check my settings but they seem normal. The only situation I can think that would cause this is if I am close enough to the moon that the angular separation between the moon and tower is enough to isolate the two on a particularly precise d-scan. I shift my scanning angle a little and get a second return, one with the tower and a single moon, much as I normally expect to see. It is the planet's first moon too, so it is the closest and d-scan must have been able to resolve the moon and the tower separately.

I start scanning the system. There is initially no activity and I am simply looking for more wormholes, or to bookmark likely sites of later activity for ambushes, when a Magnate returns to the system. The ship's pilot belongs to the corporation owning the tower in this system and says hello apparently to me in the local channel. He claims to 'see' me, but he only sees my probes and is only bluffing. I have no urge to enter a conversation and remain quiet. There is a high-sec exit to empire space in this class 1 system, which may be useful, and I opportunistically bookmark a couple of gravimetric sites. There is nothing else to explore here. I travel back along my bookmarked route, popping in to the null-sec system to gain another red dot of exploration on my star map, and noting that the wreck and corpse in the C4 are now gone. I doubt anyone collected them, which suggests that the ambush occurred over two hours ago, as that is how long wrecks last in the harshness of space. I return home to rest, preliminary information gathered that will hopefully prove useful later.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: buzzard, eve online, magnate, mmorpg, null-sec, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space