Just another day in w-space
22nd September 2010 – 5.33 pmI need to warm a ship up, but I don't know which one. A couple of scouts are out exploring today's w-space constellation and have so far passed through our neighbouring class 4 system in to a class 5, before spotting on the directional scanner a Cyclone battlecruiser and Harpy assault ship in a class 1 system. As the two ships disappear from d-scan no one knows if I need to prepare a combat ship or add to the scanning efforts. I have some time to decide, one of the scouts returning with the current bookmarks to drop off, and rather than thinking too hard I use the time to clean my pod goo of peanut butter that some wag added whilst I was sleeping.
As the second scout returns the first wonders if the ships left through the static exit to null-sec space found in the system, before resolving another potential exit in a K162 from a class 2 system, then a third wormhole entering in from high-sec empire space. It's the fourth wormhole in the system that provokes the scout to tell me to forget a combat ship and bring my Buzzard covert operations boat out to help scan. Excellent, and now I have the bookmarks leading in to the class 1 system, so out I go.
From the C1 I choose to jump through the K162 to the C2. I immediately see the Cyclone on d-scan, no doubt the same one seen earlier. There is a tower in the system which I start to locate, my notes not being any help today as they show the system being unoccupied two months ago when I last found my way here. I find the tower, surrounded by warp bubbles, but no Cyclone. The battlecruiser is no longer on d-scan either. But there is activity seen in another C2, connected to the C1. I jump back and across to find Sleeper wrecks somewhere in the system and an active capsuleer.
I launch probes, move them out of d-scan range, and start to get a bearing on the Sleeper wrecks in preparation for the capsuleer's return. The anomaly has already despawned, a simple scan turning up nothing, so I'll need to find the ship itself. A Coercer destroyer appears, no doubt intending to loot and salvage the wrecks, and I have almost found his location. I move my probes in to position and begin a scan, as continued checks of d-scan show the wrecks quickly disappearing. And the Coercer pilot is too quick, clearing the last of the wrecks and warping out of the site before I can scan his ship's signature fully. But there are three Hammerhead II drones left in the site, according to my probes, and when the Coercer disappears I warp in and scoop them in to my cargo hold to claim them for the corporation.
Nothing more is happening in any of the systems, the C1 crossroads only leading to empty w-space in each direction. There is a null-sec system to visit, though, and I pop out to get another red dot of exploration in 3G-LHB in the Tribute region. I check my atlas and see that I am one hop from a dead-end system, and the white noise from the local channel has cleared to show I am alone here. I make the one jump to the dead-end to add to my map of explored space before turning right around. All is still quiet in null-sec and the other direction holds a second spur of otherwise unconnected systems. Whilst I'm here and no one else is I may as well take the opportunity to visit more null-sec space, but the nineteen other capsuleers in the next system along scupper the part of the plan where no one else is around and I turn tail to return to w-space.
I make one last journey this evening, helping a new recruit enter w-space from one of the five high-sec entrances currently available to us. I pilot my Sacrilege heavy assault ship to the wormhole, mostly to look suitably threatening an escort to the recruit's Iteron and partly because it has a web fitted. I use the web to speed the bulky Iteron industrial ship in to warp, making the pilot's first trip through w-space quicker and hopefully less stressful. The journey back to the tower is uneventful, and I set my ship in to a lazy orbit around the hangar and get some sleep, leaving the induction and orientation of the recruit to others.
Sorry, comments for this entry are closed.