Ratting's no substitute for adventure
29th March 2013 – 5.50 pmWhat am I going to find today? Bookmarks for both sides of our static wormhole, for a start, but let's hope it gets better than that. A quick scan of the home system sees no changes in the hour since the bookmarks were made, by colleague unknown, so I jump to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system to look abroad for activity.
This is my fifth visit to the system, the last being the best part of a year ago. My notes point me towards a tower, and indicate the static wormhole will exit to low-sec empire space. So far, so nothing special. A measly canister appearing on my directional scanner hardly sets my pulse racing either, and opening the system map shows that the tower I have listed should be in range, so that occupation has gone. I launch combat scanning probes to take a better look around.
Thirteen anomalies, nine signatures, no occupation. The signatures get whittled down to a magnetometric site, rocks, gas, and a single wormhole. A second wormhole almost gets me excited for a moment, until I realise it's our K162, leaving me with nonsense sites and an exit to low-sec. In fact, an exit to low-sec that's at the end of its natural life. I'm not about to risk the wormhole dying just so that I can find myself in some crappy Gallente faction warfare system, so take myself home instead.
My night's not over yet. Pausing for polarisation effects, I throw an Orca industrial command ship through the wormhole and back, followed by a Widow black ops ship. The wormhole isn't fazed by my massive ships, not even shrinking to a half-mass state. This is good, as the wormhole is now guaranteed to survive an Orca going out, back, and out again. The final jump coming back should then collapse it. A bit of tedious waiting for polarisation to dissipate proves my maths, and I warp the Orca away from space now lacking in a wormhole.
A new wormhole awaits. I resolve its position, warp to it, and jump through to a different C3a. This new system doesn't look much better than the previous one, with d-scan clear from the K162 and a passive scan throwing up eighteen anomalies. That doesn't look like a positive sign for occupation, although my notes from a year ago indicate a tower out of range. A blue tower, mind you, so that doesn't really help me out. But warping across finds that tower gone and a new one elsewhere, and even though the new occupants aren't allied to us this doesn't magic ships in to space. The system is occupied but inactive.
Scanning the new collection of eleven signatures again gives me just the one wormhole, without the false excitement of nearly resolving our K162, this one leading to high-sec empire space and healthy. Exiting w-space puts me in The Citadel, equally close to both Jita and Amarr, and again I can't think of a single item I want to buy from either market. It's weird. I know there are items I want to buy, but whenever I hit empire space my mind draws a blank. I'll fall back to scanning.
My probes are spread thinly in this vast system, but a single extra signature is picked up, which resolves to be merely some Gurista rats. There are more rats in a pair of anomalies too, and, for some reason, I'm tempted to pop a few of them instead of hopping to an adjacent system to scan again. The 3/10 DED site is my first choice, in case a special rat ship appears with better-than-usual loot. But wading through frigate after frigate, in deadspace where my micro warp drive is ineffective, in a ship fit for close-range combat, drives me slowly mad.
Hitting the third deadspace pocket, with twenty frigates in small waves spread all over the place, after having already dealt with two similar pockets, has me questioning my decision to come here in the first place. Quite rightly, too. I see no benefit in spending minutes crawling between non-threatening rats to insta-pop most of them, on the off-chance that I'll loot a module that may actually pay for the ammunition I'm using. I turn my ship around and, finally accepting the quiet nature of space tonight, head home to go off-line.
5 Responses to “Ratting's no substitute for adventure”
You know, if you pull the "People & Places" window out to the right, it provides all kinds of info about the bookmarks (including who created it).
Ah, so it does. Thank you.
If only I'd known that for a later, as-yet unpublished adventure.
Hi penny Still enjoying your adventures i have read a few times that you have scanned and ignore 3/10 or 4/10 sites in hs the 3/10 have an average payout of 40 mil but could be as much as 200 and the 4/10 can pay silly isk average is about 200 mil but i have pulled over 500 from a 4/10 only a week ago so they can be very worthwhile but yeah the travelling from gate to gate can be boring i have a proteus fit with deadspace ab that i use and with rails but it would still be worth you finishing the sites when you have nothing else to hunt like in this post :-) fly dangerous and happy hunting i look forward to reading about your adventures for years to come. Smokey
Jesus Christ, smokey. Punctuation.
3/10's aren't always worth much, but you really shouldn't be ignoring 4/10s, Penny. Even if you're in a not-quite combat-fit Loki, as long as you can tank stuff you can probably clear the rooms, then in the last room just rush the faction rat, loot it, and gtfo.
I made 900m from the loot on a single 4/10 in Min space before, so...
Thanks for the tips on the DED sites. I tend to poke them occasionally when I run out of wormholes, but they don't really hold my interest. It's good to know some of them can hold good profit, but I honestly am not that motivated by iskies. They are more of a means to an end than an end themselves. To paraphrase a certain weirdo, I wouldn't know what to do with ISK if I ever earned it.
I looted some good modules from a high-sec site a while back, and haven't yet got around to either selling it or fitting it to a ship. Fitting it would probably lead to an expensive and potentially embarrassing kill mail, and selling it, well, just gives us some ISK. Maybe if we get hard up.
And don't worry about pesky punctuation in a simple blog comment. The message came across nicely.