Plenty of empty space
3rd September 2011 – 3.34 pmAll is quiet on the home front, let's see what it's like abroad. I scan the home system and like what I see. Having seven known sites bookmarked and only eight signatures will make plucking the new static wormhole out of the cluster easy, particularly as the strength of the wormhole's signature will be greater than that of the radar sites littered around. But finding two wormholes isn't part of the plan, and is only explained when I realise I was looking at the wrong bookmark folder. I have six known sites bookmarked, not seven, so this extra signature actually makes sense. It's good that the two wormholes are almost on top of each other, or I may have missed one.
Both wormholes today connect to class 3 w-space. I first jump through the K162, to what I'll dub C3b because of its secondary nature to our static wormhole, in the hopes of finding activity. And I seem to, with two Rifters and a Cheetah visible on my directional scanner, and with no tower in sight. But in a blink of d-scan one frigate goes, then the second disappears too. A few seconds later and not even the Cheetah remains to be seen. They could still be in the system, just not close to the wormhole, so I warp off and launch probes, blanketing the system to see what's here. My probes show me thirteen signatures, six anomalies, but no ships.
No ships means no activity, and with a second system available to explore I head back home and across to our static wormhole. I would prefer to see if anything is happening in the other class 3 w-space system before bothering to invest time in scanning anywhere. A Helios cov-ops boat and a tower are visible on d-scan in C3a, and warping away to launch probes and peform a blanket scan of the system reveals a second ship to be here. I reconnoitre the outskirts of the C3, where the ship looks to be, and find a second Helios sitting in a second tower. I drop out of warp outside the tower, letting me see this Helios piloted, but not for long. The pilot falls asleep and disappears, a second scan having the first Helios vanish too. I killed the system just by turning up.
I'm here, I may as well scan this C3 first. I resolve the system's static exit to low-sec empire space, a second wormhole, two ladar sites, and a gravimetric site. The second wormhole is not as exciting as it could be, as it is only a K162 coming from low-sec. I check the exit system to find myself in the Black Rise region, relatively close to some assets but with too much low-sec space in the way to be convenient, and head back to the C3. I briefly stop at one of the towers to investigate a new contact in a Buzzard, but I'm in no mood to wait for a cov-ops boat to perhaps warp somewhere stealthily, and head across to check the second exit. This one is better, being only one hop from high-sec and a mere six jumps from the bulk of our remaining ships. But the low-sec system is busy, despite being in a dead-end island, and a possible scout sitting on the entry stargate makes me think it isn't safe to bring ships in. Besides, what we really need are our Sleeper ships, and those are many more jumps away.
Glorious leader Fin suggests collapsing the wormhole to get a better neighbouring system, one with an exit to high-sec a couple of hops from our ships, and jumps in to her Orca industrial command ship to start destabilising the wormholes. She bounces between the C247 and K162 to collapse both simultaneously, and I head home to swap to my Widow black ops ship to help. With Fin's calculations and a couple of cooperating connections the two wormholes are collapsed smoothly, and we can start the evening again.
Scanning finds the new static wormhole easily enough, just the one wormhole this time, and jumping through to the neighbouring class 3 system shows promise. Fin initially reports no ships visible on d-scan and I jump in behind her, but scouting the outer planets reveals a Tempest battleship, Noctis salvager, and Crane transport ship present, along with a tower. I warp in the opposite direction to the ships and launch probes, a blanket scan showing no other ships and only a few signatures present. There are, however, over twenty anomalies in the system, which hold an awful lot of unrealised profit. And when the two pilots, in the Tempest and Crane, log off within a couple of minutes of our entry those anomalies look even more like missed opportunity.
Sadly, despite hoping for a decent connection to empire space, this C3 also leads out to low-sec. As Fin checks the exit, finding it to lead to Metropolis and far from everything, the final signature in the C3 resolves to be a second wormhole. The piqued hope wanes quickly when the connection turns out to be a K162 from null-sec k-space, and bound to be even less convenient than a link to low-sec. A quick scan of the null-sec system in Querious shows a lot of Blood Raider anomalies but only the one signature, which is the X703 to the C3. I'm finished with scanning for today, leaving us nowhere to go and little to do. I really need to get my Sleeper ship in here as a matter of priority, so that I can make good use of my time in quiet periods like this.
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