Finding bored pilots
2nd December 2013 – 5.29 pmNo more relic sites for me for a while. I would say I've had my fill of them in the past few days. If I must do one, it will be because I've scanned a stupidly expensive blueprint in one of the containers. Then again, knowing me, if I have gone to the trouble of taking a hacking ship to a site and scanned the containers I'll just go ahead and hack them anyway. I suppose that's what I'm hoping to avoid in the first place.
There are no relic sites in the home system, not that w-space relic sites are equivalent to those elsewhere, just a couple of gas clouds and our static wormhole. I resolve the connection and jump through to see what the neighbouring system has to offer me today. A tower and a ship is better than usual, the Drake appearing when I update my directional scanner from our K162. But an adjustment to d-scan sees no wrecks suggestive of the battlecruiser's being active, so I won't get my hopes up just yet.
I have no notes to this system. It's a rarity nowadays to enter a w-space system for the first time, but it still happens occasionally. I regularly have to locate new or moved towers anyway, so a lack of notes is neither frustrating or time-consuming. I sweep d-scan around to find the tower with a planet, then warp to the planet to repeat the process for its moons. With a single moon and the tower visible on the same d-scan result I warp in, where I see the Drake is unpiloted. Okay, it's time to scan.
Eight anomalies and six signatures first give me a weak-ish wormhole that feels like a static exit to high-sec. If that were the only wormhole I'd be sure, but a second, chubbier signature also resolves to be a wormhole. That could be a low-sec exit and the first a random outbound connection. I won't know for sure until I warp to them, and I'll only do that after I finish scanning. Two data sites still have my avoiding relics, and a pocket of gas rounds out the results.
Now I can see what the wormholes are. My first instinct was right, as the second wormhole is a K162 from null-sec, which will make the first an exit to high-sec. I head there first, to get the exit, and on seeing three additional signatures to scan in the system in Everyshore I can't help but see what they are. Three signatures, three wormholes. That's a nice result, giving me two K162s from class 2 w-space and an outbound connection to class 3 w-space. That last one will be Plan C, given that outbound wormholes paradoxically and disappointingly pose the least chance of surprising pilots. When will the discovery scanner disappear from w-space?
I leave high-sec for class 2 w-space, through the first K162. This looks promising, with a tower on d-scan accompanied by two Tengu and two Legion strategic cruisers, a Brutix battlecruiser, Noctis salvager, and Retriever mining barge. I flip to my scanning interface and deflate when all I see are two anomalies of ore, the Retriever in neither of them, and two signatures, both the static wormholes of this system. I doubt anything is happening after all.
I sweep d-scan around to look for the tower, I'm not entirely sure why, only to see a Legion is missing. It appears to be in empty space, but before I can get too excited by that one of the Tengus warps on to the wormhole where I'm loitering and anchors a bubble over me. That's okay, I can take it. Now there are ship changes on d-scan, which really isn't that interesting, given the lack of sites in the system, until most of them start dropping on top of the wormhole as well.
The bubble anchored by the Tengu finally inflates, and the strategic cruiser burns out of its influence. I have moved away too, as a safety measure, so when a Drake battlecruiser warps to the wormhole and launches drones I am nowhere near being decloaked by them. Which, presumably, is why he's come here and done that, otherwise the behaviour is just a little bit weird. Did they see me enter? And, if they did, don't they know that the wormhole leads to high-sec? You'd think they would, given that this is their home system.
I can jump to safety whenever I want, and even with a Vigil frigate, the Brutix, and a Harbinger battlecruiser all joining the fun at the wormhole there really isn't much chance of them collectively stopping me from getting in to jump distance of the wormhole. If they know I'm here, they must know I can cloak, and they simply can't cover enough of the volume around the wormhole to stop me leaving. But that does make me wonder what else they would be doing here.
The fleet doesn't even try to push ships through the wormhole to stress it to collapse. There is no threat forcing me to try to leave, and even if I did I could do so safely. I only stick around because I can't quite believe they are really here looking for me but perhaps hoping to catch someone else expected through the wormhole. But when they send a ship burning away from the wormhole towards the system's star, an effort no doubt to flush out a careless pilot, I have to assume they really are looking for someone already in their system. And I think that can only be me.
Whatever, weirdoes. I may as well leave. There's little point looking for their second static wormhole, just as there is little point in my being subtle in leaving. Why weave through the couple of ships that aren't really in my way when I can bounce off a planet and return to the wormhole at zero distance, straight through the bubble, ready to jump? They can have no response for that. Well, none except to bug out at pretty much the same time I decide to.
I warp to a planet, update d-scan, and see a new lack of drones. A tighter d-scan beam pointed towards the wormhole has most ships gone, only the Drake and Tengu there. Now just the Tengu. Now no one. Weirdness indeed. I decide against leaving immediately, instead warping to the tower to see all the ships and pilots there, curiously having decided to abandon their wait for—presumably—me moments after I warp away from the wormhole. Even so, I'm still doing nothing, as are they now, so I am actually getting out of here. That the wormhole is clear makes no difference.
6 Responses to “Finding bored pilots”
Completely unrelated but since I know you keep track of small details, wanted to report that for first time in almost a year of actively scouting, appeared 8342 meters off of a wormhole. Never been that far off of one before..
That's a good distance you managed there!
If only the cosmic signature were easier to find these days, you could have seen if your ship was plonked right on top of it, as I suspect it was.
Maybe they just wanted to score some easy kills going for some exploration from hi-sec, bubble to prevent warping, drones to decloak. Gate camp on wormhole entry.
That's probably what they were doing, yeah.
That's what we we're doing ;)
Good to know! Thanks for stopping by.