Turning it up to eleven

We've killed all our sites again. The home system is dry of signatures beyond anomalies and the static wormhole, giving me an easy route to exploration. Jumping to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system has an off-line tower within directional scanner range of the K162, and a single planet out of range of d-scan that holds a tower but no ships. Scanning the seven anomalies and nine signatures finds rocks first and a chubby wormhole second, which turns out to be a K162 from null-sec k-space. I hope it's not going to be another one of those nights, with only exits to resolve.

More scanning gets more rocks, even more rocks, gas, more gas, a radar site, and the static exit to null-sec, the wormhole at the end of its life just to crush any hopes of continued exploration. I have the K162 to jump through and the null-sec system beyond to scan for more wormholes, but as that connection already originates in the null-sec system I'm not confident at finding any more. Even so, it's my only route out of here, so I warp to the healthy K162 and exit w-space to appear in a system in Immensea.

The one pilot in the system doesn't actually deter me from ratting whilst I scan, as d-scan is clear, so I find a rock site, line up a battleship, and launch probes as I approach the rat. Cor, that's a lot of everything under my probes, which is quite unusual for any k-space system. I ignore the anomalies without bookmarking or counting them, as they are mostly irrelevant, and focus on the single ship amongst the nineteen signatures first. Pop goes the rat as my probes tell me the ship is a Nyx supercarrier. Pop goes a second rat and I enter warp to take a look at a class of ship I rarely see in w-space.

The Nyx is nestled inside a tower's force field, and is piloted by the other capsuleer in this system. I would say it's safe to ignore him, which lets me start looking for wormholes. And, my goodness, do I find wormholes. I think I'm lucky by resolving one so soon, warping to it whilst I continue scanning because there is little benefit in keeping wormholes closed outside of w-space, but I've resolved a second by the time I've identified the first as an EOL K162 from class 5 w-space. I warp to the second wormhole, an outbound connection to class 5 w-space, as I ignore a couple of standard sites and resolve a third wormhole.

The S199 outbound connection to null-sec is a good find, as it adds to my table of wormhole types, even if it's EOL and doesn't offer an interesting destination. And still more wormholes appear under my probes. A fourth, fifth, and sixth are all outbound connections to class 5 w-space, two EOL, and surely the last I'll resolve. It's not known how many wormholes a single system can hold, but I've heard general murmurings and agreement that it's seven, so with our own K162 I've hit that limit. But I find another, the eighth feeling rather special, until I hit nine, then ten, and finally eleven.

Those last wormholes all connect to class 3 w-space, two of which are EOL, and provide me with the richest system of exploration I have ever heard about, let alone encountered personally. I'm almost glad that most of them are dying of old age, because I don't have time to investigate them all, particularly after having spent time scanning. And one of the healthy C3 wormholes is made less navigable soon after finding it. I am warping away from the tenth wormhole and towards the eleventh as the connection flares, bringing two pilots in to null-sec too late for me to cancel my warp. The pilots are gone by the time I get back, and all I get to see is a Raven battleship make a second trip to destabilise the wormhole to critical mass.

That leaves three wormholes suitable for exploration, a K162 from class 5 w-space, and outbound connections to class 5 and class 3 w-space. But before I exit this system I make one last loop and bounce off every wormhole, making sure that none have collapsed whilst I was scanning, just to confirm that there are eleven simultaneous wormholes. And there are. Curiosity satisfied, I choose the healthy outbound connection to C3c and jump through, only to appear over six kilometres from the wormhole. I won't get my hopes up for any activity.

D-scan is clear but warping to investigate the two planets out of range finds a tower with a couple of ships. The Tengu strategic cruiser and Rokh battleship are actually piloted, and by capsuleers red to us. These look like pilots I'd like to shoot, but almost before my passive scan completes, showing me sixteen anomalies, both ships blink off-line to leave me in an empty system. Get bent, reds. My notes for this C3 show it to hold a static exit to high-sec, which I don't care to scan for, not with connections to class 5 w-space waiting for me, so I leave this system behind and return to null-sec.

The healthy outbound C5 wormhole spits me over eight kilometres from the K162, and despite the echoes I saw in the previous system I continue to be pessimistic about finding activity. D-scan shows me nothing, and warping to the lonely planet out of range doesn't change that. My last visit to the system just over a year ago perhaps explains why this C5 remains unoccupied, as the static wormhole connects to deadly class 6 w-space. That doesn't sound particularly appealing to my explorer self either. Screw it, I'm going home. Finding a system with eleven wormholes was interesting enough that I don't need to continue scanning. But, space, do you think you could maybe abandon this 'all or nothing' approach you've got going?

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: eve online, mmorpg, null-sec, nyx, penny ibramovic, raven, rokh, scanning, tengu, w-space