Slow night ends with Sleepers

All the myriad connections from yesterday are no doubt gone, leaving me to see what we're left with today. Surprisingly, it looks like we still have all our anomalies, although that may have more to do with Fin's one-sided flirting in the local channel with a pilot from the connecting class 6 w-space system than a lack of desire for the anomalies to be pillaged. As alluring as Fin is, you don't want her in a strategic cruiser looking over your shoulder as you try to make some easy profit. And even though all of yesterday's wormholes are dead there is again a second one to find in the home system, our static connection to class 3 w-space joined by a K162 coming from more class 4 w-space. I'll look for activity through the K162 first.

Jumping in to the C4 has nothing show up on my directional scanner beyond celestial bodies, and opening the system map shows it to be too compact to hide anything. On the assumption that I have another K162 to find I warp away from the wormhole to launch probes and scan. I may only be looking for wormholes but I find only rocks and gas. Whoever came through this way turned around again, probably disgusted at the chain of class 4 systems they found, and collapsed their originating wormhole. That makes this C4 somewhat benign, although it remains another system in the constellation where an expected wormhole can appear and cannot be completely ignored as safe.

I jump home, warp across the system, and head in to the neighbouring class 3 system to explore. Hullo, that's a lot of ships, from a carrier and dreadnought, through strategic cruisers and battlecruisers, down to a lowly Ibis frigate. There are, however, no Sleeper wrecks on d-scan, and as there is only the one tower it should make the ships easy to find. A previous but unnotable visit to this system has a tower position, although it has apparently been moved one moon across at some point during the previous six months. Maybe the view is better from the other moon, I can't really tell through all the warp bubbles anchored around the tower. I can tell that none of the ships are piloted, though.

Warping clear lets me launch probes and scan, blanketing the system revealing only the fifteen ships in the tower. I also note that the owning corporation is only seventeen pilots strong, which makes their display of ships an aggressive posture more than a necessity. They are also not terribly active, and not just today, as the thirteen anomalies and twenty-four signatures attest. I start sifting through them, plucking out a chubby wormhole on my first hit, that turns out to be the static exit to low-sec empire space. Now I ignore rocks and gas in clumps, such are the signatures clustered together, and that's all I find. Only rocks and gas, no other wormholes appear.

I head out to low-sec to continue my exploration, noting that the exit wormhole is now nearing the end of its natural lifetime. Either that, or I didn't notice how wobbly it was on my first visit. I'll assume I was paying attention before and that the wormhole has a good three hours of useful life left, and I jump out to find myself in, of course, Aridia. There's no one in the system with me—why would there be?—and scanning reveals only one extra signature that turns out to be a radar site. There are a bunch of anomalies, though, and although they are mostly drones there are a couple of Blood Raider sites. I raid through them to pass a little time, barely getting my shields scratched and being a little too cosy only having to watch the local channel for signs of danger.

There looked to be some promise this evening, with a K162 at home and loads of ships in the C3, but nothing's come of it. Even my glorious leader Fin turning up doesn't change much. The C4 behind us is a passive threat and the many ships in the C3 would make running anomalies awkward, but I don't want to get in the habit of waiting for the perfect conditions. We should shoot some Sleepers. As much as I want to collapse the K162 at home I have to acknowledge that our home system is just as likely to spawn a new connection, and although that risk almost doubles with the extra system in the constellation I am happy to leave the unoccupied and empty system alone, certainly after Fin reconnoitres it to confirm a lack of change. I think it's time to get our Tengu strategic cruisers out and plunder our neighbouring C3.

It is a little awkward looking for a change in activity in the C3 with so many ships parked at the local tower. However, it is possible to watch d-scan for changes rather than absolute readings, and I end up refreshing my scanner regularly looking for additional contacts, only occasionally checking that the same ships are present as before. And I am watching diligently, as I want my recent loss to be a mistake, which can only be the case if I learn from it. A repeated mistake, particularly an expensive mistake, borders on incompetence. But it all goes well.

It almost feels like wasted effort to check d-scan so often when no ships turn up to introduce our fleshy bodies to the hard vacuum of space, but that's like saying it's not worth looking for traffic when crossing a road unless a car's coming. You don't know unless you look. All that's left to do now is swap to our Noctis salvagers back at home and sweep the loot from four anomalies in to our holds. As long as we are as careful doing this as we were in our combat all should be well.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: eve online, ibis, low-sec, mmorpg, noctis, penny ibramovic, scanning, sleepers, tengu, w-space