Safe to slay Sleepers
4th May 2011 – 5.52 pmAll our anomalies are gone, courtesy of some recent visitors. And with this being my first time in a while scanning our home system there are quite a few more changes to the bookmarked sites. Despite resolving a wormhole relatively early I keep scanning, needing to update my system map to more accurately reflect what Sleeper infestations are around. It takes a little while, and I don't check every site, but eventually I am satisfied that I vaguely know what's happening here. My thorough scan also makes me confident that there are no other wormholes connecting to us, and I warp to our static connection to explore today's constellation.
The neighbouring class 3 w-space system has ships and drones visible on d-scan from the wormhole, along with a tower, but there are no wrecks. I must investigate. I am able to launch probes discreetly at a distant planet, blanketing the system to confirm only three ships and eight drones are out in the system, along with sixteen anomalies and nine other signatures. A bit of warping around locates the tower and ships together, the Oneiros logistics ship, Noctis salvager, and Iteron hauler all unpiloted, but the drones are elsewhere. It seems likely that combat was interrupted earlier and the drones were left behind, the site now disappeared. Whatever happened, the system is quiet now.
I scan the C3, recovering the drones for our own use and resolving some uninteresting mining sites, a couple of radar sites, and two wormholes. The second wormhole could lead to the source of the earlier attack, if one actually occurred, which could lead to current activity, although I would more imagine that the victors would be plundering this system of its Sleeper profit if they were still around. I visit both wormholes, the first turning out to be the C3's static exit to low-sec empire space, which sends me out to the Solitude region. There are nine capsuleers in the system, d-scan showing me drones and some combat ships, but the ships quickly disappear to leave the drones behind. It looks like I just missed some more combat.
Jumping back to the C3 and warping to the other wormhole brings me to a K162 from high-sec empire space. I exit w-space again to find myself in Derelik. I take another look around, noting the presence of some pilots and perhaps some activity, but stop trying to locate a Hurricane battlecruiser apparently in a safe-spot when glorious leader Fin reminds me that I am in high-sec, and probably shouldn't be looking to engage other pilots unprovoked. W-space has clearly conditioned me. There's nothing much to do at the moment, and I head home to grab a bite to eat.
When I get back our loot has been exported to empire space, scrap metal has been refined, and there is still no activity in the class 3 w-space system. We may as well take advantage of the anomalies there. The corporation wallet is looking healthy, but it's only really back to where it was before I splashed out on the Golem marauder. There are six good anomalies to run through, so Golem and Tengu strategic cruiser are boarded, and off we head! The evening's looking profitable when I rip five melted nanoribbons from the first Sleeper battleship, and I even suggest that we should stop there. I don't think we'll see a better ratio of profit to time, but there is always hope, even if only two more ribbons are salvaged in the rest of this first anomaly.
I'm still not always noticing when I start to take damage from the Sleepers. They like shooting Fin's Tengu, that's for sure, but they occasionally switch to me. And as I can't run my booster permanently, and am generally quite focussed on painting and shooting, looting and salvaging, even having half my shields turn red doesn't grab my attention as effectively as I would hope. But it shows that the outrageous expense of the Gist B-type booster is worth the cost, its massive repair amount saving us ISK by not having to buy replacement Golems, pulling my shields back to full within a few cycles, even under continuing fire.
All six anomalies are cleared of Sleepers and their wrecks in good time, the C3 remaining sleepy the whole time. We bring back a decent three hundred and twenty Miskies in loot, although over a quarter of all ribbons recovered were from that first battleship. Salvaging can be such a capricious enterprise. Now we collapse our static wormhole and start again, hoping for some squishy targets in the next class 3 system. The added mass when taking the Golem out to shoot Sleepers helps with collapsing the connection, and it goes smoothly with just a few trips in Fin's Orca industrial command ship. I have time to make a pre-emptive scan of the home system, letting me ignore all current signatures and have the new wormhole light up like a beacon.
Jumping in to the C3 smacks of deja vu. I see drones and a ship, along with a tower but no wrecks. It's a little easier to tell not much is happening this time, as I doubt a Prophecy cruiser is using mining drones, and again I find the ship unpiloted at the local tower. I launch combat scanning probes, locate and collect the drones to crush in to minerals, and sift through the seven signatures that are keeping the lone anomaly company. I resolve a radar, ladar, magnetometric, and another ladar site before finding a wormhole—which is the static exit to high-sec, and in pristine condition—continuing my scan to... hold on, that looks like a new signature. It is, and a wormhole too.
Fin comes to our wormhole in an interceptor as I resolve the newly appeared connection. A wormhole being opened is generally followed by a scout jumping through, and we'd like to be ready to welcome him. I find the K162, which comes from low-sec, and Fin jumps in and warps to my position. At least if the scout flees we can give chase back in to empire space without fear of Concord poking their prissy noses in to our business. No one jumps in to the C3, though, and instead I jump out to see what's occurring. I even decloak and look stupid on the wormhole, but attract no attention. Whoever scanned the wormhole perhaps wasn't intentionally looking for it. It looks like nothing is going to happen, so Fin and I simply head home to hit the sack.
2 Responses to “Safe to slay Sleepers”
Set your shield alert to warn you when it's time to turn your shield booster on (50% maybe? Or even 95% if you just want an alert that you're under attack)
Yeah, now that I've been shown how I will be setting that alarm whenever I take the Golem out to play with Sleepers to alert me when the shields hit 50%.