Returning to the fold

Still on hiatus from our class 4 w-space home, glorious leader Fin and I may have opportunity to base ourselves out of w-space again. A second arm of our corporation, operating out of a class 5 system, have an exit to high-sec empire space that is close to our current mission base. In my early days in New Eden a dozen jumps seemed like light years away, particularly when it meant moving from Caldari to Amarr space, but now that same distance is a mere stroll in the park. I undock my scanning Tengu and make my way to the high-sec system containing the appropriate wormhole.

Most of our ships are still sitting in dock many jumps away. Actually, I suppose most of our ships are still in our w-space hangar, but most of our expensive and useful ships are elsewhere, leaving me only Pengu and MCP locally, my Sleeper combat and scanning strategic cruisers. I take MCP because it will be immediately useful in w-space, as well as being rather more defensive in nature, thanks to its covert configuration. It also helps me scan for the wormhole coming from class 1 w-space to start me on my expedition to join our splinter faction.

There are three carriers and a dreadnought in this class 1 w-space system! Other ships sit unpiloted in the tower with these massive ships, and I wonder just how much use they get in here as I scan the mere three signatures present. The K162 leading to class 4 w-space is trivial to find and I jump onwards, one step closer to my target. The C4 also only has three signatures, but the tower here is off-line and the system inactive. What's interesting, though, is the presence of a large ship assembly array, because if the tower is off-line then the array could still contain a bunch of ships we could claim.

Even more interestingly, when I sweep my directional scanner around on a tight beam to look for the off-line tower and ship array I find the array to be separate from the tower. Indeed, it's all alone. I quickly locate the array floating like a monolith around one of the system's moons, unanchored and empty of ships. But it being unanchored means it can be scooped and claimed itself, it just needs a ship with a big enough cargo hold to do so. Mick tells me there is a Bustard transport ship in the hangar at our C5 tower, which would do the job.

Mick flies out to guide me the last couple of jumps home and to reconnoitre the C4 whilst I swap my Tengu for the Bustard and head back to claim my find. There is apparently a Legion strategic cruiser flying around scanning in our constellation, and despite seeing him pop up on d-scan occasionally I don't bump in to him. I am able to warp directly to the unanchored ship array, scoop it to the Bustard's mighty hold, and head back to drop it as loot at the C5 tower. I swap back to my Tengu and try to settle down in this bivouac, not entirely sure about what to expect from this change of system.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: bustard, eve online, legion, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, tengu, w-space