A C2 for ambitious pilots
29th September 2010 – 5.16 pmDamnation, I choose you! Turning up fashionably late to Sleeper combat means the corporation fleet already has two Guardian logistic ships and I can pilot my cuddly command ship instead. I'm not just in it for the aesthetics, the warfare links will provide the Guardians with more spare capacitor energy for the greedy, greedy Abaddons, as well as reinforce the compromised armour of the two battleships. I can also configure the ship to be Hack Hackz Maru, fitting codebreakers to hack the databanks in the radar site in our home system. Indeed, that's where we go first.
There's something missing in this Sleeper radar site. I think it's Sleepers. There are no red crosses floating in my view and the Abaddon pilots get confused, needing to be talked down by the Guardians in to not shooting ships in our fleet. With little else to do I perform what is my primary task here anyway and start hacking at the first databank. A couple of successes starts to fill my ship's belly with lots of lovely loot but still no Sleepers come. The fleet understandably gets bored watching me have all the fun and decides to warp to an anomaly, and 'hope that Penny screams in agony when the Sleepers ambush her'. Hope all you want, but I'm more stoic than that. Maybe I'll simply clear my throat and wait for a break in the conversation.
The Sleepers don't come and I hack all their databanks without interruption. I then risk all of the juicy loot by warping to join the fleet for some action in the anomaly. It's all over rather quickly, but there are a couple more anomalies in our neighbouring w-space system. The Guardians and battleships are abandoned for strategic cruisers, the Loki, Legion, and three Tengus putting less of a strain on our static wormhole, and a salvager flying behind increases our efficiency. There is no drama in the two frontier barracks we visit and we all get home and receive forty-five million ISK in profit for our brief operation.
Now it's time to explore. I board my Buzzard covert operations boat and head out, across the now-cleared class 4 system to its static connection to a C2. A class 2 w-space system always sounds promising for targets but the wormhole was kept inactive by the earlier scout so that we would remain isolated during Sleeper combat. Iskies are good too and now we've made our profit we can hunt for activity. I jump in to the C2 to start the search, finding nothing but a directional scanner empty of all but celestial bodies. I launch probes and begin to scan, locating a tower around an outer planet. There is an unpiloted Thrasher destroyer inside the tower's shields and no activity in the system. Scanning reveals first one then two wormholes, both static, one leading to another C2 and the other to low-sec empire space.
I jump through to low-sec, coming out in the Bleak Lands region, pragmatically to bookmark the empire side of the wormhole in case I get podded and need to find my way back. It doesn't do much good to have the whole of w-space mapped if you have no way to get in. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of threat at the moment but it is a detail that has been niggling at me in recent encounters. Security considered, I warp to the wormhole leading to the next class 2 system and jump through. D-scan is clear again, and probes return loads of anomalies in the system and a handful of signatures to resolve. The first wormhole I find is an enticing K162, having been opened from the system on the other end, but as it only enters from low-sec empire space the connection becomes less interesting.
More scanning has me ignoring radar and magnetometric sites until only two signatures remain, which must be the two static wormholes that are typical of class 2 w-space systems. Atypically, this C2 has connections leading to null-sec space and deadly class 6 w-space. It's perhaps no wonder this particular system remains unoccupied. One scout pops out to null-sec space and declares it empty, so I head to the C6, where I find some occupation. A faction tower holds a Damnation command ship, Pheonix dreadnought, and Tempest Fleet Issue battleship, but they are all unpiloted. The lack of capsuleers is probably good, because checking the details of the corporation shows them to be Quebecois, the fakity French even the French don't understand!
I leave the tower to check the rest of the system, finding no other occupation, and begin to scan. So many signatures, this isn't going to be quick. An early hit of a wormhole is no relief, the K162 from a C5 being unstable and on the verge of collapse, and only when I have ignored all but one signature do I feel like I am closing in on the system's static connection. The wormhole leads to a class 5 system, but the evening draws on and I am getting farther from home. I poke my Buzzard's nose in to the C5 only to take a quick look and, finding it unoccupied and inactive, start heading home. I take a quick diversion in to the null-sec system of 504Z-V in the Great Wildlands region for a red dot of exploration on my star map, then return to the tower to sleep.
2 Responses to “A C2 for ambitious pilots”
I still find it somewhat strange the disproportionate number of Quebecois we come across in both wormholes and known space. Is there something about them naturally drawn to… getting in our way?
Maybe they are simply more likely to display their nationality, as a matter of pride or camaraderie. Plus it lets us set them all to red without having to encounter them directly.