Scan and rat and scan again

Empty space is good space, at least in the home system. Scanning holds no unexpected surprises or opportunities, leaving me with a static wormhole to class 3 w-space to jump through. Empty space is less desirable space when roaming, and a mere four bubbles appearing on my directional scanner in C3a doesn't bode well for adventure this evening. A blanket scan reveals thirteen signatures, six anomalies, and no ships, which isn't a bad result for a system that remains unoccupied since ten months ago. Maybe the static exit to null-sec k-space accounts for no one moving in.

Scanning for an exit to null-sec in class 3 w-space can be frustrating, if only because the signature is weak enough to be easily mistaken for radar and magnetometric sites. I can still discard most of the rocks and gas easily enough, but it takes two or three scans of each weak signature before I even know what I'm looking at. As it turns out, I just needed to look above me. Maybe 5·5 AU above me, but I've got good eyesight. And, somehow, I also miss a fat K162 signature during my initial scanning, picking it up only after I've resolved everything else.

The K162 comes from class 5 w-space, which seems a better system to visit that exiting to null-sec, so I jump through and update d-scan. I see nothing, and only one planet is out of range. There could be occupation, but probably not activity. Warping to the distant planet finds three towers, in fact, with a piloted Oracle at one of them. I doubt the battlecruiser will be active in this system, or indeed C3a, and even a Cynabal cruiser appearing at a second tower doesn't increase the odds of the pilots doing anything, so I leave them for now and head out to scan null-sec.

I appear in a system in the Malpais region by myself, which will let me rat whilst I scan. The region's full of drones, which used to make ratting pointless, but now drones have bounties and so, presumably, will increase my security status. I launch probes and see only one extra signature in the system as I hop around rock fields, which luckily resolves to be a wormhole. One rat battleship is popped and I'm warping to the wormhole, which turns out to be an outbound connection to more class 5 w-space. I don't fear scanning, not tonight. In I go.

C5b turns out to be an unoccupied system, and one with a more typical accumulation of signatures than the C3 behind me. My probes pick up a wormhole within the first handful of the thirty-one signatures in the system, but it turns out to be a K162 from low-sec empire space. I may not be an expert, but I suspect that isn't the system's static connection, so I keep looking. Another wormhole is another K162, this one from even more class 5 w-space, and scanning continues to the depths of the signature strengths. This third wormhole must be the static connection, or at least lead outwards. Either way, I'm recalling my probes before I reach it, as I'm not staying in this system any longer.

The last wormhole I resolve in the system probably is the static connection, as it leads to class 4 w-space. On the other side of the wormhole is an occupied system holding a tower with two sadly unpiloted Iteron haulers, and a rather scant number of signatures. It's worth a poke through the five of them to see where they lead, which turns out to be to class 3 w-space. Maybe I can finally find some action there. But no, all C3b has to offer is a system with a tower and no ships visible, and I don't care to scan for the exit to low-sec I know will be here from a visit six weeks earlier. It's time to head back.

I divert from my homewards course in C5b to peek in to C5c, where occupation is obvious from an anchored territorial control unit. The Rorqual capital industrial ship, and Revelation and Moros dreadnoughts are not particularly interesting to me at the moment, not with the tower on d-scan too, and even less so when my notes tell me that the system is occupied by blues. Then again, my notes also say that there were twenty-one towers a month ago, and I can see only one now. That's almost, but not quite, worth investigating. Back, back, back.

I pause in null-sec to rat again, popping another battleship, before returning to C3a and taking a last look in C5a. The Oracle and Cynabal have been joined by a Helios covert operations boat and a second Oracle, but this is hardly exciting when all the ships remain planted in the towers. I'm glad I didn't hang around to watch this dazzling transformation of two pilots in to four, as there is still nothing happened despite a 100% increase in capsuleers. I'm going home. And I'm going home with the same security status as I left home with. What the hell, drones, what's your problem?

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: cynabal, eve online, helios, iteron, mmorpg, moros, null-sec, oracle, penny ibramovic, revelation, rorqual, scanning, w-space