Going the long way home
26th May 2013 – 3.36 pmI have the actual intention of scanning, exploring, and roaming this evening. Hopefully that's enough for me to find a target. The new signatures in the home system give me some rocks, gas, and a spare wormhole if our static connection should disappoint. It's a K162 from class 4 w-space, and rather than bypass a home-away-from-home, I head to C4a first. And it is just like home, with a tower empty of ships and a system bereft of activity. Mind you, that's pretty much like most w-space systems.
Four anomalies and four signatures. What are the odds of finding a K162? Pretty slim, when the signatures resolve to be a radar site, rocks, and gas. I wasn't to know that, though. Okay, back home, and through the static wormhole to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, where a tower, no ships, and some salvage drones appear on my directional scanner. There are no wrecks to accompany the drones, and the drones also aren't in any of the four anomalies a passive scan reveals, so I suppose they are long abandoned.
The local tower could use a few more defences. I can see through to space on the other side. Maybe I'll drop the director a note, but before that I'll scan. The first wormhole from the fourteen signatures is pretty weak, but is that an exit to high-sec or an outbound link to more w-space? The second wormhole is chubbier, but does that make this one a static exit to low-sec or a K162? Neither, it seems, as the chubby wormhole is an N968. The other must lead to high-sec after all.
I drop out of warp at the first wormhole to see the grey colours of Caldari space bleed through to w-space, as I resolve a third wormhole, also weak, also an outbound connection. That gives me options. First, I pop out to high-sec, bookmarking the wormhole in the system in Lonetrek, three hops to Jita, before heading towards the N968. The class 3 system is likely to be a dead end, making it a good early option.
D-scan is clear from the K162 in C3b, with one planet just out of range and one very much out of range. A blanket scan reveals seven anomalies, twenty-one signatures, and a distinct lack of ships, although I locate a tower at the distant planet. A coarse scan for K162s almost does its job, as one from null-sec crops up in my result, but so does the static exit to low-sec and another N968. Once more to class 3 w-space I go, and this time with ships in the system.
I'm not expecting much from the Archon and Thanatos carriers, and the Phobos heavy interdictor isn't going to be up to much by itself. It's no surprise to find all three empty inside the force field of the tower also on d-scan, leaving me wondering only about whose core scanning probes are in the system. As they are core probes and not combats they won't detect my ship, so I decloak, launch my combat scanning probes, and scan too. The two magnetometric sites and single radar site may keep the other scout busy for a while, so I investigate the two wormholes I resolve. The static exit to low-sec I know about. The T405 to class 4 w-space is a nice surprise though. So much of C3s being dead ends.
Leaving the other scout behind, I jump in to a system I recognise immediately. Home, sweet home. Our old home, but a home all the same. Someone else has moved in now, and a Buzzard covert operations boat is on d-scan, but I still have some deep safe spots that I use to launch probes covertly. It matters not, as it turns out, with the cov-ops empty inside the tower, but it's just good to be back. If only there were some one on-line not so wet behind the ears that I could share this reminiscing with. Instead, I'm left to scan the single anomaly and ten signatures, already knowing I'm looking for an X844. I find it, naturally, along with a K162 from more class 4 w-space. Backwards first, I would say.
C4d still has no sign of piloted ships, and not even a tower this time. That's a change from three months ago. I scan, expecting to find the inevitable K162, and there it is. I am almost happy to see that the connection from class 2 w-space is at the end of its life, as it is the first termination of the constellation and gives me hope that I can get some sleep tonight. But there are still more systems. Back through C4b and in to C4c, to a clear d-scan result and far more anomalies than is humanly possible to count, all twenty of them.
I'm expecting a lack of occupation with so many anomalies, and maybe a static connection to high-class w-space. I'm a little taken aback, then, to find a tower in the system, and more so when a blanket scan reveals fifteen signatures. What do the capsuleers get up to here? They don't have anything to do with Sleepers, it seems, or with gathering resources. Whatever, the second signature I resolve is a wormhole, and an outbound connection to class 1 w-space. That'll do, pig. Onwards!
A ship! The Hurricane battlecruiser is on d-scan without a tower in sight. But there are no wrecks, and indeed no anomalies, so is he gassing or loitering on a wormhole? I warp away to launch probes to find out, but before I've even entered warp the Hurricane is gone from d-scan. I suppose I had little chance hunting him with probes if he was able to spot my moving away from the wormhole, but it's still a little disappointing, having spooked the first actual piloted ship I've encountered so far down a chain of mostly outbound connections.
Two towers are in C1a, one with an empty hauler, the other the battlecruiser. I see the Hurricane has guns fitted, not gas suckers, so I'm not sure what he was up to. It doesn't matter though, not now that he's become as inert as argon. I'm going home. Back in to C4c, through C4b and bye bye old home, as I, uh... I... Oh. I'm sure I left the wormhole to C3c at this bookmarked location. Who could have collapsed it? That core-probed scout? What a dick. Now I have to go the long way around. At least I got the exit from C3a, the one in Lonetrek, and C1a should hold an exit itself, so I don't have much more to scan.
I go back the way I came before trying to go back the way I came, and return to C1a, this time launching probes and scanning. The first signature is a wormhole and I think I've got lucky, but the K162 from class 5 w-space is just too much. No more new systems, I just want to go home! My bookmark folder is barely fitting on my screen any more. Ignoring some gas resolves a lovely static exit to high-sec, taking me out to Metropolis and leaving me fifteen hops that will lead through Rancer or twenty-three hips exclusively through high-sec. You know, it's late, I'm tired: I'll go the high-sec route. There's less thought required.
2 Responses to “Going the long way home”
Hey, it's the example map. I will upload and comment about the iterations too, when I remember.