Same system, same sites

After recent unspectacular outings through w-space I am keen to do some legwork today. I am out and about relatively early, looking to perform some thorough reconnaissance for later ambushes. An extra signature in the home system could be initially promising too, but it turns out only to be some gas, which I activate upon resolving the site so it will soon be gone. Resolving and jumping through our static wormhole has me falter, as the connection is stabilising. Normally this would be disheartening, as a stabilising connection means no pilots are in the other system, but is actually rather good for initial scouting. I jump through the wormhole fine on the second attempt and, knowing there is no one home, launch probes immediately on appearing on the K162.

Uh-oh, this all looks familiar. A bit too familiar. My directional scanner shows a medium container in the system but is otherwise empty, and that system number is ringing a bell. Normally I see a pleasant string of numbers and assume I must have seen it before, but today is different. The reason the system number looks so familiar is because it is the same neighbouring class 3 w-space system as we had yesterday, the new static wormhole spewing me in here in almost the same place as well. I kick myself for deleting my previous set of bookmarks before jumping in, a little unfairly, as the odds of returning to the same system through subsequent wormholes are rather large. Then again, finding the same system through different wormholes has happened to us recently too, so maybe Sleeper wormhole technology is beginning to malfunction.

At least my notes from yesterday are intact and relevant, even if my bookmarks are gone, and I warp directly to the local tower as I arrange my probes to perform a blanket scan. Nothing has changed. The Orca industrial command ship, Maelstrom battleship, and shuttle all sit unpiloted in the tower, and although there are a surprising five extra anomalies here today—the Sleepers going at it like rabbits—the nine signatures remain the same. Well, the same when considering the extra K162 from low-sec empire space has probably collapsed. I scan, and can pretty much guarantee I won't find any extra wormholes. My recon mission has me aiming to be thorough, though, so rather than ignore the voluminous gas clouds here I resolve each site and bookmark it, in case the locals wake up. When the locals wake up. I want to think positively here.

Seven ladar sites, one gravimetric site, one wormhole. Scanning is complete here. My exploration can continue through the low-sec wormhole, or could, if the wormhole weren't the same connection that I opened myself yesterday, which is now reaching the end of its natural lifetime. I jump out to confirm that it leads to the same system and is therefore the same wormhole, then return to w-space instead of scanning the low-sec system. The EOL connection probably has a couple of hours left before collapsing, which is enough time to scan now but won't be around when I come back later to roam. I may as well be content with a mapped neighbouring system and the potential for more exploration later, once the EOL wormhole is gone, which after all is what I planned to accomplish in the first place. I head home and go off-line, feeling prepared for a second visit.

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