Unspectacular scanning and sitting in a new ship

All looks quiet at home, just an ordinary day. I know it's not going to be, but first I will scan and look for trouble, to keep me amused during this last short period of waiting. My folder of old bookmarks remains from yesterday, which I still refuse to discard just in case the wormhole-generating technology in our system is malfunctioning, but I hope I don't need them. Scanning looks simple again, just the magnetometric site and our static wormhole to be found amongst the normal anomalies. But, no, those aren't the normal anomalies, they are greatly diminished from yesterday. We've had visitors, and they've stolen most of our loot!

It's my fault our anomalies are gone. Well, maybe not that they are gone, but that we don't have the profits from them safely stored in our hangar. The peaceful nature of yesterday and plentiful easy anomalies made me think that we should take advantage of the situation and spend the evening shooting Sleepers, but I wasn't in the mood for it. Instead we went abroad and found no one to shoot, twice in the same system, ending up achieving nothing for the evening. Then again, you never can know what's waiting on the other side of a wormhole and our wallet was healthy, so looking for activity seemed rational enough. And the Sleepers will soon be back, and in greater numbers. Or is that Sand People?

The availability of anomalies doesn't mean much when I'm alone at home anyway, leaving me free to explore the w-space constellation. I resolve our static wormhole and jump in to our neighbouring class 3 system. It's not yesterday's, that's a relief, and I delete my old bookmarks with some delight. But isn't that a lot of small secure containers I see on my directional scanner. I would say there is either a bubble trap waiting for me at that tower, or the locals are scrupulous about personal inventory. I warp out of d-scan range to launch probes only to find a second tower instead, one without all the cans floating around. I try again, this time finding a place out of d-scan range of structures and am able to launch probes.

A blanket scan of this system reveals one anomaly, three signatures, and two ships. The two ships aren't that much of a surprise, d-scan having picked them up at the same time as the second tower, so I know they are a Buzzard covert operations boat and Abaddon battleship, but I am yet to ascertain whether they have pilots. I do that now, locating the tower and seeing both ships piloted. I make a bookmark to this tower's position and warp off to find the first tower, avoiding what turns out indeed to be a bubble trap well-stocked with cloak-interfering canisters floating in it. I make a safe bookmark to this tower too and go back to monitor the two pilots.

An Anathema cov-ops boat warps in as a new contact at the tower before thinking better of spending the night in space, shortly replaced by a different pilot in a Dominix battleship. Despite their presence, it doesn't look like the pilots plan to do anything this evening, which is perhaps not surprising given almost a complete lack of sites in which anything can be done. I don't want their inactivity to stop me, though, and as the system is big it looks like I can resolve the two additional signatures here without being spotted, so I do. I find the static exit to low-sec empire space, which is sadly reaching the end of its natural lifetime and not worth travelling through, and a second wormhole, which is a K162 from low-sec. I was hoping for more w-space, but low-sec space will have to do if I want to complete exploring. I jump through the K162.

Naturally, I find myself in the comforting bosom of despair that is Aridia. There are a few lost pilots in the system with me, none from the C3 corporation, and it's maybe one of these that opened the connection to w-space. As the wormhole was opened from low-sec I create a safe spot in the system before decloaking to launch probes, even as I doubt I'll be lucky enough to find a second wormhole here. I loiter near the entrance to the C3 as I scan, to monitor jumps, but none occur as I resolve the only other signature in the system. And, as a pleasant surprise, it turns out to be another wormhole. My interest is piqued, but it occurs to me that whoever scanned the wormhole to the C3 probably also resolved this second wormhole, and that they may have set up a camp to catch other scouts. After all, it's happened before.

I'm not being entirely rational in fearing a camp inside the other system, if only because I met no resistance on the K162 in the C3, nor on the wormhole in low-sec. And warping to the new wormhole sees no ships again, although it's not quite a new wormhole, the K162 from class 1 w-space being quite wobbly and near to collapsing from old age. I don't think I'll explore that system. I risked an EOL wormhole recently, popping an Iteron for my efforts, but the situation was different. I certainly have a way home should the wormhole collapsed, but my entrance to w-space is in the heart of Aridia and not contiguous high-sec, as it was before, and I don't rather fancy making my way through however many low-sec stargates to return here. My exploration for tonight is ending.

But the wormhole is so tempting! Maybe the wobbling is hypnotic, but I can't help but poke my nose through to take a quick look. I jump in to the class 1 system and punch d-scan, seeing nothing at all. All that is in range is a bunch of planets and some moons, no structures, no ships, nothing capsuleer-made at all. It is also my first visit to the system, giving me no notes on what may be there. Okay, that's good enough for me, I jump back to low-sec, the wormhole persisting all of the twenty seconds my nervous look took me. I wasted more time procrastinating about going in in the first place.

Exploration is complete for the evening. I return to the C3 to find no change at the occupied tower, the same ships in the same positions as before, making it time to call it a night. But there is one more item on the agenda before I hit the sack, which is what will make today more than ordinary. I jump home, warp to our tower, and swap ships. I have endured a few weeks of otherwise useless training so I can have Orca piloting skills. Fin assures me that being able to plant my pod in an industrial command ship will come in handy, and I suppose it will let me collapse wormholes more efficiently on my own. Not tonight, though. I'm happy enough simply to sit in one for briefly, before switching back to my scouting ship and going off-line.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: abaddon, anathema, buzzard, dominix, eve online, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space