Cool your boots
20th December 2010 – 5.27 pmA little over a day's worth of coolant won't last long. A little over day, I'd estimate. And without coolant the tower's force field will de-activate, which won't be good for anyone, except passing pirates. The sinking inevitability of finding an exit to low-sec space in our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, whilst rarely allowing much opportunity to explore, at least offers me hope that refuelling will be easy. Resolving wormholes that instead connect to null-sec k-space for the past couple of days is quite amusing but, much like losing an arm in an industrial accident, it's always funnier when it happens to someone else.
I can't really give up, though, not without abandoning the tower and life in w-space. I start another desperate lunge towards empire space, resolving the home system's static connection and jumping in to the class 3 system beyond to see what I can find today. For a start, a tower and some ships appear on my directional scanner, which I shall investigate before even launching scanning probes. A Megathron battleship, two Drake battlecruisers, and a Badger hauler are all inside the probably well-fuelled tower's force field, the pilots in the Megathron and one of the Drakes no doubt content to sit in comfort knowing that their protective barrier will remain up for longer than thirty hours.
I warp out of d-scan range of the tower to launch probes, which is easy to do in this big system, and start to scan the outer planets first, to try to avoid alerting the local pilots to my presence. And I'm in luck, finding a wormhole on the edge of the system. And it's good luck, being an exit to high-sec empire space! None of the low-sec, or even null-sec chicanery today, I can jump right out to the welcoming banality of Concord-protected space. And I do, just making sure that I am not in a bizarre high-sec island on the edge of the rim. My luck only gets better, though, w-space spitting me out only two jumps from Jita, the core of New Eden's thriving market. I could barely ask for a more convenient exit at such a necessary time.
I jump back to w-space and warp homewards, happy even that the locals will barely be able to notice my movements through their system, with the wormhole so far from their tower. At our own tower I swap the Buzzard covert operations boat for my Crane transport ship, choosing its stealth over the capacity of its sister ship, the Bustard, as I don't need to buy too much at the moment. I load up with Sleeper loot and salvage to sell, and head out to empire space. Jita is the place to buy, and I order coolant and oxygen for the tower, along with some more concussion bombs for ambushing salvagers, but I need to find an agent happy to buy Sleeper loot for the right price, taking me on a small diversion. But with the loot sold I am soon in Jita and filling my Crane's hold.
It hasn't escaped my attention that the exit system from w-space is a dead end, which makes it likely to be an academy system. I take advantage of being in empire space and close to an academy to pick up some more skill books, getting the Amarr Industrial book a day too late to collect the Bestower hauler left in yesterday's neighbouring C3, along with Minmatar Industrials—just in case—and the range of books covering basic large gun skills, for future consideration. And whilst I am here and considering skills I update my clone, as I am nearing yet another boundary. The clone is cheap for what it offers, but even if it weren't I am happy to throw iskies at clones, books, and fittings, now that selling this most recent batch of Sleeper loot has returned my wallet to being over the five billion mark.
Shopping done, I point my Crane back towards the system holding the wormhole home, and return to w-space and our pulsar system without hassle. I even remember to put the coolant in the fuel bay of the tower. And with the tower safe for a few weeks more, I ditch my ship and join friends for some Dark Heresy.
2 Responses to “Cool your boots”
Firstly, your posts are excellent - I have spent the past two weeks reading every post (up to this one) and it has been an inspiration. I scanned down and went through my first wormhole yesterday!
However, I have one question on fuel - is it possible to park an industrial, full of POS fuel in the hold, within the POS shields as insurance against not being able to resupply?
It is possible, yes, as well as keeping tower overflow in a corporate hangar array, which can be moved across when necessary. Hauling all the fuel in to w-space is more the logistic problem, because ships are either safe and low-volume, like the Crane, or high-volume and fat targets, like the Orca. And making multiple trips even in a Crane can become risky.
We make Orca trips when the connection is convenient, and have an Orca pilot available, or Crane trips when one of us forgets to check the tower for a month and we need fuel desperately. I think we'll be trying to bring in oversupply more often from now on.