Lesser loot in low-sec
12th October 2012 – 5.31 pmI turn up after Fin turns up. 'Just the two signatures, resolving the static.' That saves me the bother of launching probes in our home w-space system, as our static wormhole is accompanied only by an expected ladar site. I merely create a fleet of the two of us for convenience, pause as Fin warps to the now-resolved wormhole, and follow her trail as she jumps to our neighbouring class 3 system.
An Orca industrial command ship and a tower are visible on our directional scanners from the K162 in C3a. This is my fifth recorded visit to the system, and the last from five months ago has a tower listed. A spin of my view and tightening d-scan's beam all but confirms the tower to be the same one, unless it's been moved one moon across, so I warp in the opposite direction to disappear and launch probes.
Warping to the tower naturally shows the Orca to be unpiloted, and a blanket scan of C3a reveals eight anomalies and five signatures. 'I'm crossing my fingers for a C2 wormhole with active pilots', says Fin, aiming high as always. I sift through the signatures, resolving the static exit to low-sec first, which Fin confirms, exiting to the Kador region and deciding to scan whilst she's there. Then I get gas, gas, a second wormhole that's just our own K162, and a third wormhole that isn't. I warp to what looks to be Fin's desired C2 K162.
Jumping in to C2a even has potential activity. An Armageddon battleship and Drake battlecruiser are on d-scan along with a pod, which almost always have a capsuleer stuffed in them. A tower is present on d-scan too, which along with a lack of wrecks takes some of the expectation out of finding the ships, but as the tower is around a planet with just one moon it doesn't take long to see that the two ships are just as piloted as the pod. I warp away, launch probes, and return, hoping that the pilots will fulfil the rest of Fin's prophecy.
I blanket C2a with my probes as I wait for the pilots to become active, finding ten anomalies and nine signatures, but I don't bother resolving any yet. There could be some out of d-scan range of the tower that I could feasibly resolve covertly, but I would prefer to see the locals move. 'Go and run an anomaly, you lubbers', says Fin, urging them on from low-sec, but they continue to sit motionless in their tower for long enough to bore me.
Fin's scanning in the low-sec system hasn't found much more opportunity for adventure. There are no wormholes to be found, but a 6/10 DED site, the Crimson Hand Supply, sounds tempting, particularly after my recent luck in a site in high-sec. As C2a and C3a remain inert, we head home, swap ships to Sleeper Tengu strategic cruisers, and take ourselves to an empty low-sec system in Kador to pop some puny rats.
The first deadspace pocket is cleaned pretty easily, and even though the second has a structure that replenishes its shields at an alarming rate we tediously chew through its armour and hull. All we really have to watch out for is a new pilot appearing in the system. I interrogate the local communication channel to see how much of a threat he is, and we're pretty safe regardless. We're in a deadspace pocket that will need scanning, and living in w-space has us used to updating d-scan. And even if he's cloaked, the acceleration gates can't be used covertly, so we should see someone coming.
The pilot passes through and leaves us alone to clear the second pocket of deadspace. We enter the third as one, and then two new pilots enter the low-sec system. They don't seem to be allies, but a third pilot gets my paranoia raised enough to suggest that we kill the Lord, loot, and run. 'Can we do that?' Apparently we can. I hear rumours of other capsuleers having loot stolen from them this way, so I thought we'd be able to steal from ourselves, and we get a fairly decent Dark Blood faction module from the wreckage, even if it pales compared to what I snagged from the frigate-populated 3/10 DED site in high-sec that I cleared in my cloaky Loki strategic cruiser. Empire space is weird.
We bug out of the site, leaving the other, less interesting battleships intact, only to see two of the three pilots in the system leave whilst we're in warp. 'I bet they've gone to C3a and are waiting for us on the wormhole.' Thankfully, my paranoia is just that tonight, and we warp across C3a and get back to our tower without interference. We drop the loot we got, get back to our covert scout boats, and I take one last look in C2a. The pilot who was in the pod is now in a second Drake, but none of the three have apparently gone anywhere yet. At this rate, they may warp out of the tower by the end of the week. I'm not waiting that long, so turn around, cross the unchanged class 3 system, and go off-line in a quiet corner of home.
Sorry, comments for this entry are closed.