Not dead

[It would have been nice if my 1,500th post to be tagged with EVE Online detailed our excellent 3·4 B ISK Tengu kill. Or just wasn't being published in the middle of the tenth anniversary Fanfest, when no one will be paying attention to anything else. But it appears I didn't have a particularly robust five-year plan. Either way, here it is, a landmark Tiger Ears post. Enjoy!]

It's a new day, and a new w-space constellation. At least, I hope it's a new constellation. My scanning probes are converging on a signature of unknown type that is sharing space with a bookmark, and that bookmark points to yesterday's static connection. It is not unheard of for wormholes to spawn in identical locations on subsequent days, so I warp to the bookmark before I finish scanning, ostensibly to save me a bit of time, only to see a decidedly unhealthy looking wormhole in front of me. It's not quite dead yet.

I remember now. I collapsed our first static wormhole yesterday, which takes a little time, and opened a new one relatively late in the evening. My enthusiasm to scan for targets has brought me on-line somewhat earlier than is practical. Circumstances give me a bit of time to poke through the dying wormhole to check our neighbouring system, and find it just as quiet as yesterday, and so I return home and wait for the connection to collapse of natural causes.

It takes a while, during which time I get some reading done, but the wormhole eventually implodes. I scan for its replacement, warp across the system, and jump to the new class 3 w-space system beyond. My directional scanner is clear from the K162, letting me launch probes and perform a blanket scan without being seen. But it's not looking good. My fifth visit to the system a month earlier had the system unoccupied, and this sixth visit shows that a corporation has yet to move in. Still, there are only eight anomalies and ten signatures, so enough visitors come this way to keep the Sleepers at bay.

In an unoccupied system I restrict my scanning to look only for wormholes, and although I end up with two the K162 from low-sec empire space that accompanies the static exit to low-sec is disappointing. More so, exiting through the static wormhole takes me to Aridia, the region that apparently can't get enough of me. I can of it, trust me. Naturally, I'm alone in the system, so I launch probes to scan and warp to a rock field to punch a rat on the nose.

Three extra signatures resolve to be a wormhole, rocks, and drones, and the only interesting signature merely connects to more low-sec space. It's not Aridia, though, as both my curiosity for wormholes and instinct to leave this region takes me through the wormhole and in to a system in The Forge. That's much more civilised. And is that a ratting Retribution I see on d-scan? Why, yes it is. The assault frigate has found and is manly taking on a rat battleship. I consider cowardly taking on the Retribution in my rather more powerful Loki strategic cruiser, but warping to the rock field finds rocks, lots of them, all around me, and the pilot of the frigate flees.

The frigate flees, and leaves the battleship for me to finish off and, hopefully, I don't know how this works, gain security status from. Now I scan again, and three more signatures become three more wormholes. The half-mass K162 from class 6 w-space at the end of its life doesn't look good, neither does the EOL C3 K162, but the K162 from class 2 w-space is healthy and welcoming. But, aww, jumping in puts me over eight kilometres from the wormhole which, this early in the afternoon, is not a good indicator of activity.

D-scan is clear from the wormhole, but there is plenty of space out of range. I launch probes, blanket the system, and explore, finding a tower and Legion on d-scan, and soon after on my overview, at which point the strategic cruiser has been replaced by a pod. That gives me a pilot, now I just need him to be more active than doing simple ship checks. Which he doesn't. At least, not for a while, but eventually the pod almost becomes active, warping away from the tower shipless. I supposed I can scan in the direction he warped.

There are no signatures in the volume of space the pod disappeared to, which is curious, but the pod comes back as I continue scanning other sections of space, my probes clearly visible to d-scan. That's bad timing. So even though a new contact appears, in a lovely Badger hauler, perhaps ready to collect planet goo, I suppose it's no surprise if the pod warns the hauler that the system may not be safe. I watch the Badger only to see it go off-line a minute later, having done nothing and gone nowhere. Well, if nothing's happening, I may as well go home and have myself a sammich.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: badger, eve online, legion, loki, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, retribution, scanning, w-space