A night of logistics

The wormhole I've resolved seems awfully fat as a signature. I suspect it to be a K162, as wormhole exits tend to be easier to detect than entrances, but I can't see any other connections in our home w-space system. As I scan Fin turns up, which lets me warp us both to what turns out to be our static connection to class 3 w-space after all, and we jump through to explore.

My directional scanner is clear at our K162 in the C3, but with only one planet in range it's possible there is more to find. I launch combat scanning probes, move them out of the system, and perform a blanket scan. My probes return five anomalies, only two signatures, and four ships, one of which looks to be at a different location to the other three, even if it's difficult to tell when using scanning probes at maximum range. Actually, there are only three unknown ships in the system. The fourth ship picked up by my probes, and the one distant from the others, is Fin's Buzzard covert operations boat, which is next to the wormhole with me. At least I'm not going to waste time looking for it once she cloaks.

We find the local tower easily enough, seeing a Nidhoggur carrier, Tengu strategic cruiser, and shuttle all inside its shields and piloted. Despite the two impressive combat ships the corporation is almost entirely industrial, Fin's detective work showing that they have lost far more ISK in ships than they've destroyed themselves. We should be safe here, even if we can't contribute to their losses by catching them mining, because of the complete lack of signatures. The two that are present are the K162 home and the system's static connection. And by the positioning of the other signature it looks like I can resolve the wormhole without my probes coming in d-scan range of the tower, which is handy.

I position my probes and start resolving the wormhole, warping across the system myself to ensure no one turns up there to see my activity. Fin monitors the ships at the tower, and confirms that my probes are not in range of d-scan, as I resolve what turns out to be the rather splendid sight of an exit to high-sec empire space that is in pristine condition, not having started its cycle of decay. It looks like we can sell Sleeper loot and buy fuel with ease, only needing to warp through an unthreatening class 3 w-space system to jump directly to high-sec.

I pop out to check the destination system and find we are only four hops from Dodixie, which should make buying really convenient, and a single hop from a region boundary, across which lives an NPC looking to take Sleeper loot off our hands. It's a beautiful day indeed. The only downside is that the new ship I am hoping to buy, now that I feel better about spending the ISK, is expensive in these two regions. Go to Jita, Fin tells me, and the sixteen-hop journey doesn't look quite so bad considering what I'll be coming back in. Okay, I'll go to Jita!

Before I even get to jump back to the C3 my plans change slightly. A Heron warps to the wormhole, but not directly, suggesting he's a high-sec tourist having just scanned the wormhole and warped to its signature. It looks like he's going to jump in to take a look, and his frigate looks like a nice snack before I get in to the meat of the evening. I hold my cloak, sitting within jumping distance of the wormhole, and Fin warps to sit on the other side. The Heron moves closer and jumps, my Buzzard following closely behind. Despite hoping that the pilot is young enough to panic and break his session change cloak early, he keeps his cool and waits until he can jump right back out to empire space. At least we scared him a little.

I head home, stow my Buzzard, and grab a shuttle for my journey to Jita, knowing I can bring it back with me. I warp across the C3 as Fin packs a Crane transport ship with all our Sleeper loot, and jump out to see the same Heron sitting twenty kilometres from the wormhole, perhaps wondering what to do next. I merely note his presence and warp off, adjusting my autopilot to avoid low-sec systems for a change and adding two hops to my route as a result. It takes a little while to get to Jita, but I arrive and hit the market. I still can't believe I am spending so much ISK on a ship, but I am keen to see if I can pilot a ship better equipped to take on C3 anomalies solo, after being reminded how long it takes a single Tengu to destroy Sleeper battleships.

A billion or so ISK later and I am putting my newly bought modules on to the assembled ship, seeing it all take shape from my tentative plans. I am quite excited, even if I don't really know how well the ship will fare, or if my choice of fittings is adequate. I know it's not an optimal fitting, as I am scrimping on the modules a little, if you can call a complete Tech II fitting 'scrimping'. I may replace some of the modules with more expensive faction fittings later, but I don't want to faint when I look at the total bill right now. I'm just glad Fin has been able to sell our Sleeper loot without issue, giving us the one-and-a-half billion ISK that I've all but spent already.

All is fitted, I've remembered to buy and load ammunition, my Golem marauder is ready to take back to w-space. I make sure my route doesn't take me through low-sec and start heading home, only pausing at a couple of service stations when I realise that I forgot to buy drones. Travelling through high-sec is easy, all I have to worry about is getting past that Heron at the wormhole. But he's not there any more, and the C3 itself remains quiet, letting me get my new ship home and stowed safely. I suppose this is only my third battleship, and considering the other two are both Widow black ops ships I think it's fair to say I have expensive tastes.

The evening's not over yet. We have a decent connection to high-sec, a quiet intermediate system, and fuel to buy. Fin and I both take our Cranes out to stock up on supplies, collecting all required fuels as well as more ammunition for the culling of Sleepers, ending up making half-a-dozen trips each. I know that I often say that capsuleers shouldn't be predictable, and I know that we're being predictable, but we aren't being complacent. I swing past the tower in the C3 a couple of times, seeing all the pilots have gone to sleep, and even make a secondary scan of the system to check no more connections have opened up.

We travel almost entirely in our cloaked transport ships, and the exit to high-sec gives us an excellent escape route should we need it, Concord protection one jump away. And when it's prudent to take a Bustard transport ship out, to cut the required number of trips by four or more, Fin makes the journey as I fly escort in a cloaked ECM ship, not relying on chance to get our assets home unmolested. Mick turns up and offers to help too, letting us recover a nearby Scorpion battleship from empire space back to our tower, giving us ever more combat options. After so many return trips we are rewarded with having a tower stocked with thirty days' worth of fuel, and thirty more stored in our hangar. That will keep us going for a while.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: buzzard, crane, eve online, golem, heron, jita, mmorpg, nidhoggur, penny ibramovic, scorpion, tengu, w-space