Stopping short for data sites

Taking a look at what's in w-space today resolves just gas and the static wormhole in our home system. That's good, as no one has come our way, but bad because the dick of a discovery scanner is probably alerting whatever neighbours we may have of my imminent arrival. But that's only if anyone's home, and jumping through our wormhole to the class 3 system beyond sees no ships on my directional scanner, just a tower. Maybe I'll only be scanning again tonight.

Trying to warp away from the tower, the position of which looks to be correct in my notes from a previous visit, has my bumping in to a second tower. This one has ships. Big ships, too. A Vargur marauder and Nighthawk command ship are both piloted and nestled safely inside the second tower's force field, which may make me curse the discovery scanner a second time in as many paragraphs of internal monologue, but as there are no wrecks anywhere in the system—and, indeed, no anomalies—that may be a bit churlish. Besides, as I sit and ponder what the ships may get up to an Iteron hauler warps in to the tower to join them.

Where did the Iteron come from? His vector in to the tower brought the ship from empty space, and quite steeply, the direction consistent either with just coming on-line or warping from a wormhole. But more important than where it came from is the question of what the hauler will do now. A bit of nothing, apparently, as the Vargur is swapped for a Buzzard covert operations boat, strongly suggesting that the bastard discovery scanner really has alerted the locals to my implied presence.

But what's this? The Iteron is moving, aligning perhaps, and seemingly towards the nearest customs office. His recent arrival may well have him unaware that a new wormhole has opened in to the system, his colleagues assuming he knows as much as they, and I watch in expectation as the Iteron accelerates. I can't quite believe that I would get so lucky, and for good reason this time. I warp as the Iteron warps, but as I warp towards the customs office the hauler flies slight over and far past the planet. That will be a warp towards a wormhole.

I suppose I'm scanning. I may as well, as the Buzzard is too. I resolve the wormhole the Iteron used first, having seen its direction of travel, and land next to the system's dying static exit to low-sec. I loiter for a bit, and as the Iteron doesn't return before the Buzzard and Nighthawk go off-line I poke all of the other signatures in the system, finding mostly gas but one more wormhole. Still no Iteron has my warping across to the second wormhole, which is a healthy K162 from low-sec, hopefully leading to more wormholes. I'll take a look.

Exiting w-space puts me in a system in Tash-Murkon, but there are no other wormholes because there are no other signatures. What to do, what to do. I could collapse our static wormhole and start again, or hop a stargate and scan in a different system. That second one, I think. It's quicker. And getting thrown by a stargate to an adjacent system gives me three signatures to play with. If only they were wormholes. But, no, I simply resolve three data sites. At least I find a security status-boosting rat in a rock field.

Okay, space, I'll mine tonight. Data mine, that is. I'm not quite so space crazy as to shoot at rocks. I dock in the low-sec station, swap my fitting around, and head out to the first site. I could return home to get my analysing Buzzard, but I'm going to break open all these cans anyway, there seems little point in scanning their contents first. Particularly not if the cans are going to explode. One of them is a bit tough to crack, or I'm a little too cavalier about my skills, and self-destructs after my second attempt. Judging by what I'm looting from the others it's no big loss, and I just move on.

The first site is cleared, and in a fit of sense I check various databases to see what kind of order I should be attempting to collect the jetsam. In data sites, it should be parts, data, then materials, apparently. I'll do that from now on. The second site bags me some decryptors, which may sell for some ISK, and the third site gets me more decryptors as well as some data interfaces. It also shows me how fond the Sansha are of their spikes. They put them everywhere. And I think that's it for me tonight. Scanning, a healthily short amount of stalking, and a diversion in to low-sec. It's been almost relaxing.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: buzzard, eve online, iteron, low-sec, mmorpg, nighthawk, penny ibramovic, scanning, vargur, w-space