Failing to ISK

The goal of making ISK yesterday didn't quite go according to plan. By which I mean we ended up losing another half-a-billion or so. Still, keep our chins up, what? We can have another crack at making some ISK tonight, preferably with better results. And it's a better start at least, with no extra signatures in the home system. It's just me and the wormhole.

Good point. It's just me. And the wormhole. But the 'just me' bit is important. Whilst it's possible to chew through Sleepers by myself it's kinda like folding sheets. It's so much quicker and less frustrating with someone to help. But I can make myself useful for now, because even though our static wormhole may be closed it also may not be, so it's best to scan for it and collapse it to be sure.

I resolve the wormhole, warp to it, and as I'm planning to throw massive ships through at some point I may as well see what I'm letting myself in for first. I jump through in my cloaky Loki strategic cruiser, appearing in the neighbouring class 3 w-space system to see a tower and no ships when updating my directional scanner. That's all pretty standard.

Checking my notes sees that this is my sixth visit to the system, the fifth having my popping a couple of stealth bombers as they shot an off-line tower. I don't care to see if the off-line tower is still there, not without any bombers around it, but I warp to where the on-line tower was previously and see that it remains. Another feature of the system last time was the number of wormholes coming in and out. Let's see how that compares with today.

A blanket scan reveals sixteen anomalies and twelve signatures, the latter comprising mostly gas pockets, along with a couple of data sites, one relic site, and the single wormhole. That will be the static exit to low-sec, probably unopened, making this C3 a good system for ISK generation too. Well, were it not for the armour-boosting Wolf-Rayet phenomenon making the Sleepers look like beefcakes, and the continuing lack of a companion to help.

C3 anomalies wouldn't take quite so long as C4 anomalies to clear, but I've tried it solo before and it is pretty tedious. Of course, floating idly doing nothing is going to make pretty much no ISK, but it requires less of my attention. Doing nothing is preferable to tedious and repetitive combat. And so, still with the plan to collapse our wormhole when the time comes, I exit C3a to low-sec.

Aridia. I knew it before I jumped through the wormhole, and not because of some innate sense of foreboding, but because I recognised the region's nebula from the other side of the connection. An apparent side effect of learning all the wormhole colours is that I can be disappointed in my destination region just by approaching a wormhole. I mean, prepared.

A few pilots are in the system with me in Aridia, along with four additional signatures. I launch probes to scan, and, as the local population drops to be just me, I warp to a rock field to find a rat to pop. At least these rats will explode relatively easily and give me a boost to my security status, and with the transparent local communication channel I don't have to fear getting unexpectedly interrupted.

Resolving the signatures in the low-sec system gives me data and relics, relics and gas. It's pretty boring. I won't explore further afield, though. I would say it's time to head home, crash our wormhole, and get ready for Sleeper combat. So that's what I do. The first pair of round trips doesn't destabilise the wormhole noticeably, making the second pair of trips straightforward. It takes a little time, but the wormhole collapses on schedule.

I get back in to my Loki, launch probes, and scan and resolve the replacement wormhole that pops up. It's close to the previous wormhole, but not on top of it. Sleeper technology gets lazy sometimes too, it seems. I don't visit the wormhole, though, not this time. Now I wait, and as soon as someone turns up we can rake through the anomalies to make some juicy ISK. But no one comes. Poor Penny.

Number of days without losing a ship: 1

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