Less of an odyssey

Moving a literally unexaggerated thousand bookmarks of wormholes from my active folders to the 'old' folder, I undo in seconds all the effort of yesterday to start today's exploration. It's nice and easy in the home system again, with a known site to ignore and the replacement static connection to resolve, and I'm soon jumping to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system to see a typical sight on my directional scanner: a tower and no ships. But there will be signatures. There are always signatures.

I launch probes and perform a blanket scan, to look for K162s, or at least get the exit and go from there, to see that the well-known rule 'there are always signatures' is more of a guideline. C3a holds only one anomaly and four signatures, which is hardly worth scanning, less so when all I come up with is a pair of gas sites and an exit to low-sec empire space. But after yesterday's mammoth scanning session I could probably use a change of pace. Maybe I can have an adventure in three paragraphs.

Out I go to low-sec, appearing in a system mostly in Genesis. I'm as close to Aridia as I can get without actually being there, and again I think I should be grateful for small mercies. I see one other pilot in the system who, judging by his quick exit, looks like he is fleeing from Aridia, and I warp to a rock field to find a rat as I launch probes to resolve the one additional signature in the system. It's a wormhole. I can continue.

The K162 from class 3 w-space may be a dead end, but if so it will be a dead end in w-space, where I am most comfortable. But I leave low-sec only to appear eight kilometres from the wormhole in C3b, making the tower and lack of ships visible on d-scan even less surprising than normal. The inactive state of this system implies nothing about other possibly connected systems, though, so I warp away to launch probes and look again for K162s.

I find a second tower before getting probes in to space, and a third, but still no ships. I suppose a change of occupation was inevitable after my previous visit, when we happened on some ships sieging a tower. Now the one tower has been replaced by three and a bunch of silos. Whatever ISK they're making whilst asleep doesn't help me, so I start sifting through the eleven anomalies and five signatures.

Nope, no K162s here. Gas, gas, data, and data. It's too late to think about collapsing our wormhole, and so with little option of where to go I may as well hop a stargate to another low-sec system. And although I have little option of where to go, I'm not heading towards Aridia, so pick a system still in Genesis and take a look around. Six signatures, what a bounty! They resolve to provide three wormholes too, with a K162 from class 3 w-space, one from class 1 w-space, and a wormhole kept unknown as I watch a Helios decloak and jump to C1a. My goodness, another pilot.

No one comes out after the covert operations boat, which could make the pilot local to the C1 and checking his exit. I give him a minute and follow behind, updating d-scan once in w-space to see a Tayra hauler, Ferox battlecruiser, and tower on d-scan. There's no Helios to be seen, and even though they are covert my notes from ten weeks ago point me directly to the tower, where I see that not only are both ships empty but the cov-ops pilot isn't local. To prove my point, the Helios blips on d-scan, either jumping back to low-sec or heading backwards through another wormhole.

I launch probes to find out where the Helios went. Four anomalies and four signatures are whittled down quickly to gas sites and one more wormhole, a K162 from class 5 w-space. Hoping the Helios didn't see me, what with his delay from moving through the C1, I jump through the K162 to explore deeper w-space. No one is waiting for me, but a Drake battlecruiser, Venture mining frigate, and three towers are on d-scan, and a black hole lurks ominously in space.

The Drake appears on the wormhole as I orbit it lazily deciding what to do and jumps to C1a. That's interesting. Will he engage Sleepers in the class 1 system, or, seeing how a Loki strategic cruiser follows him to the wormhole but cloaks instead of jumping, is he waiting to ambush me? If I've been drawn in to a trap I will have to escape it the hard way, as a single signature in the system doesn't give me an alternative route out of here. But the wormhole crackles, the Drake returns, and he warps back to one of the towers.

I dunno what the pilot was up to. His Drake turns in to a second Venture, and although I now wonder if I wasn't spotted and he was clearing a C1 gas pocket of Sleepers I can't help but remind myself of the cloaky Loki somewhere and if this is still bait. It probably isn't, not with the two Ventures floating passively inside a tower's force field. And as much as I tend to watch ships doing nothing, my time is running low and I should probably head back. I leave the Ventures doing nothing, return and cross C1a without seeing the Loki, and exit w-space for low-sec again.

The unknown wormhole I scanned turns out to be empty space. An echo, dying wormhole now dead, or scanner malfunction, I don't know, but it gives me time to poke in to C3c through the other known K162 in the system. D-scan is clear from the wormhole in the class 3 system, and warping around the planets out of range doesn't change that result. Nothing, no one, and no time to scan for further wormholes. At least I saw other pilots, there are capsuleers out here still. But tonight ends with my warping across empty systems to get home.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: drake, eve online, ferox, helios, loki, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, tayra, venture, w-space