Nothing but a single Sleeper wreck
8th June 2012 – 5.36 pmWill exploration today give me a meandering map or compact constellation? I get my covert Tengu strategic cruiser on-line earlier than usual to find out. An extra signature at home turns out to be just gas, so I resolve our static wormhole and jump to the neighbouring class 3 w-space system. My directional scanner looks entirely clear when I enter the system, and only shows me anything when I fiddle with its settings and two off-line towers and their associated defences appear. I launch probes and blanket the system, the fourteen signatures and twenty anomalies making this C3 certainly look unoccupied.
Warping around finds no active towers to replace those now off-line. My notes put me in this system three weeks ago, which let me now I'm looking for a static exit to null-sec k-space, and would perhaps explain the turnover in occupation. I'm more interested in finding any other wormholes, even though the prevalence of anomalies would make this a great system to shoot Sleepers and strip them of iskies. I won't tackle the indigenous drones by myself, though, so finding no wormholes but the static connection leaves me little option but to head out to null-sec and continue scanning.
In fact, I'll indulge myself in scanning with a touch of ratting, as I find myself in a system in the Venal region with no other pilots around. Three extra signatures sound promising, and although one resolves to a wormhole the N432 connection not only doesn't lead to w-space but also is reaching the end of its life and probably not worth risking. The other two are just stuffed with Guristas, and I won't visit as I don't think they'll be making me any specialty coffee. Before I head back the way I came, I check my atlas of the region to see I'm in a cul-de-sac, at the end of a chain of half-a-dozen null-sec systems. If this dead-end is empty, maybe the others are and I can scan and rat along the chain.
As with many of my plans, I'm pulled up short at the first step. I make one hop through a stargate to be confronted by a bunch of pilots. Thankfully not on the stargate itself, just in the system, so whereas I won't feel safe ratting I can still scan. Well, I can scan in as much as I can launch probes and move them around a bit, but a lack of signatures sends me scuttling back to the home w-space system. I would say it's a good time to collapse our static wormhole, so I swap to an Orca industrial command ship, wait for my polarisation effect to end, and start stressing the connection.
I'm more comfortable collapsing wormholes now, switching to a Widow black ops ship mid-way through the process to finesse the numbers a little. But it is only on the last scheduled pair of jumps when I realise quite what I'm doing. There is some risk involved with the possibility of being isolated from the home system, and perhaps having to navigate a couple of low-sec systems to get to the safety of high-sec empire space, but if this collapse goes wrong I'll be deep in null-sec with an expensive brick of a ship. It's probably best not to dwell on failure here.
The collapse goes to plan. I return to the home system through a critically unstable wormhole, crashing it as I do, and I am left warping away from empty space with a new static connection to find. I get back in my Tengu and do just that, resolving the wormhole and jumping to what is hopefully a more interesting class 3 system. And it certainly looks that way. There is a bubble on d-scan, with an adjustment bringing up a single Sleeper wreck too. I wonder what's happening. Or, I suppose, what has happened.
I activate my on-board scanner to ping all the anomalies, placing the wreck in one of them, before warping out to look for occupation at the one planet out of range. But there's no one here. The wreck abandoned in the anomaly is from the second wave of Sleepers too, and warping in to reconnoitre shows that the third wave appeared, so some time was spent here, not just testing shots. However curious the situation, I won't find anything by thinking about it, so I get my scanning probes to work. Eight signatures accompany the five anomalies, and I sift through them whilst keeping an eye on the wreck.
Apart from the static wormhole, which I know from a previous visit leads to high-sec space, there are no connections to find. It's just gas, which makes it a little perplexing as to how the wreck came to be here, as well as a little disappointing that I have no more w-space to explore. Even more disappointing, the static wormhole is reaching the end of its life, ending exploration for now. That's okay. I can go home, grab a sammich, and come back when there is a fresh connection to high-sec, at which point I can decide what I want to do with it.
4 Responses to “Nothing but a single Sleeper wreck”
We, my corp, are looking for a C3 to call home... would you mebbe consider lettin us know if you find a C3?
Looking for: empty C3/stat Lo or Hi w/ PI able to produce all fuel components (except ice prods) and w/ no live POSes (no POSes at all preferably)...
We will glady pay well for a decent C3 etherestate...
Thanx in advance and read yer blog daily... =]
You probably already know this but you can add pilots to your watchlist by showing info on the wreck, lets you know if the pilot is still active.
I didn't know you could do that from a wreck. Thanks for the information, kryn.
I'll keep an eye out for a system, TurAmarth, but it seems that C3 w-space not yet occupied only has exits to null-sec. And I'd have no idea what planets you'd want for your goo. That's not my scene.
pj, thanx and yea, we would prefer a C3/Lo or Hi if ya one... as for PI, just pop me the J# if ya find one and I'll let ya know if it's worth some ISKies to us... and thanx!