Simple scanning and scaring the neighbours
10th April 2012 – 5.27 pmI'm not feeling up to much this evening, but I can at least take a look around. There's nothing to see at home, and not much more in our neighbouring class 3 w-space system. A tower is visible on my directional scanner but no ships, and as there's nowhere out of range of d-scan I suppose there's nowhere to explore. There's also nowhere to launch probes covertly, so I'll just do it at the wormhole, like an animal.
A blanket scan of this C3 reveals one anomaly and thirteen signatures, and I know from three months ago that I'll find a static connection to low-sec empire space amongst those thirteen. Sure enough, I resolve the static wormhole and, and, yes! There's a second wormhole, a nifty K162 from more class 3 w-space. Maybe more is happening there than here. I jump in to see that nothing could be further from the truth, as again there is a tower and no sign of ships in a system holding a static exit to low-sec. I'm back to looking for more wormholes.
Scanning is simpler in C3b, with only seven signatures to resolve. My first choice turns out to be the static connection—a one-in-seven chance, what are the odds of that happening?—but the wormhole is reaching the end of its lifetime. As in C3a, I find a second wormhole here too, but it's only a dull K162 from high-sec empire space. A third wormhole pops up, and even though it is a K162 from null-sec and still terminates the w-space constellation it could give me an opportunity to gain a fragment of my security status back.
I jump to null-sec, where I'm thankfully alone in a system in Curse. I scour the rock fields for a rat battleship and, good show, find one in the first. A quick exchange of fire later and I gain a small bounty and smaller effect on my security status. I could check to see if there are other systems around here where I could rat, but honestly that's pretty tedious and not how I want to spend my time. I just turn around and head back to w-space, across C3b to C3a, where an Occator transport ship has appeared on d-scan.
The increased warp strength of the Occator saddens my single point of disruption. Let me get my scrambler too, I won't be a minute! No, more like three, as I warp across C3a, jump home, warp to the tower, open the fitting bay, grab a warp scrambler, plug it in to my ship, and turn back towards the wormhole to C3a. Well, the Occator is still on d-scan. Let's hope he's slow in waking up and hasn't completed his planet goo rounds yet. Oh, he's disappeared from d-scan. That may be okay, he could have headed to low-sec. I'll head there myself to take a look.
There's no sign of the Occator or the pilot in the low-sec system. And appearing in the Metropolis region puts me many jumps from anywhere interesting, so if the transport came out this way I could be waiting a while for his return. That is, if I'm dumb enough to wait for him. No, I think I'll—hullo, I hear a ship decloaking. A Nemesis stealth bomber has appeared near the wormhole, shortly followed by a Viator transport ship. That's interesting. They both jump in to C3a, and I think I'll join the party.
I decloak and get ready for whichever ship I think I'll be least likely to miss, as both are cloaky and agile, and watch as the Viator jumps directly back to low-sec. The Nemesis is kind enough to pause in w-space long enough for me to launch a couple of volleys at him before he too returns to low-sec, and although I give chase back through the wormhole both ships evade me easily enough. At least my security status remains on its upwards trend for now, even if I don't get a kill.
Cloaking on the wormhole again, now that any targets are themselves cloaked or warped away, I notice that the Nemesis and Viator pilots are from different corporations. It's possible I just ambushed an ambush. That still doesn't explain why the Viator ran away, as the transport should have been able to run rings about both my covert Tengu strategic cruiser and the Nemesis, the bloody fool. He certainly shouldn't need to call on his colleague to help him, which he seems to do.
I return to w-space, heading home to collapse, to see a Drake battlecruiser on d-scan, the Occator pilot called back on-line and repurposed to be an escort for a ship that is designed to run bigger and scarier blockades than two opportunists. But maybe the Drake's appearance is a coincidence, and the Viator pilot turned around because he left something back at a station. It's possible. Either way, nothing else will happen here that I can disrupt. I leave C3a behind me as I jump home and hide, settling down after a relaxing night of simple scanning and scaring the neighbours.
3 Responses to “Simple scanning and scaring the neighbours”
Hey Penny, you keep mentioning the class of WH for the K162s before you jump through in the story. Is this because you jump through them later and report the class or ??? How can you deduce the class from the K162 (without just jumping and looking)?
@tnankie
If you carefully look at wormholes, you'll see different colors. A C5 will always be red, while a C4 green, C3 white and C1-2 blueish.
It's all in the colours, man.
There is even a guide to wormhole colours out there, which can help you identify w-space class by the colour of the wormhole, but it's on a pretty obscure website. That's probably why you haven't seen it.