Nothing in null-sec
23rd December 2013 – 5.56 pmIt's just me on-line at the moment. What can I do? I can start by scanning the home w-space system. Oh yeah, getting the party started. There's just gas and the static wormhole, and I jump to our neighbouring class 3 system to look for a dance partner. Nothing to see here. My directional scanner is clear from the K162, but opening the system map sees only one planet in range. There's probably more out there, so I launch probes and perform a blanket scan of the system as I warp off to explore.
My probes reveal fourteen anomalies, six signatures, and no ships, and exploring finds a tower holding that lack of ships. I'll look for the static exit to low-sec, I suppose. The first signature I resolve could be it. It's a wormhole, at least. Now gas, more gas, a second wormhole, and some relics. Hoping for more w-space to explore has my being disappointed by the other wormhole, warping to see a K162 from null-sec. It comes from the Feythabolis region, judging by the winged sprite representation of the Immensea nebula, and that's enough to send me towards the first wormhole.
The exit from C3a leads to Everyshore, where one pilot shares the system with me and there are no other signatures to scan for wormholes. Fine, I'll go to Feythabolis, see if I care. A different pilot is in the null-sec system, probably in the Navy Raven battleship visible on d-scan, but with no wrecks to be seen I'll focus on scanning the extra signatures. Opening the system map to launch probes shows that the system is tiny, which will make scanning efficient. Signatures clump closer together in small systems, putting more of them in the spheres of multiple probes at the same time.
Data, relics, relics, data. Nice symmetry, crappy result. I think today calls for a stargate hop, to take me to a new null-sec system and new opportunity. I'm alone this time, with five signatures to scan whilst I rat, giving me two data sites, a chubby wormhole, and two skinny wormholes. The skinny ones are going to be outbound connections and subject to the inherent lack of surprise that the discovery scanner forces on any scout or explorer, so I warp to the chubby wormhole first. K162s are also almost always known to exist by the inhabitants of a system, but at least they don't announce your arrival anywhere near as obviously as a newly spawned wormhole.
Sadly, the K162 from class 5 w-space is at the end of its life, and I don't fancy taking the risk of it collapsing behind me, not with the only route home being through null-sec. I'm stuck with the outbound connections. One is an X702, leading to class 3 w-space, the other a Z791. The class 1 system is probably the better place to start, so in I go. D-scan is clear, launching probes and blanketing the system reveals—ah, well, the system is again tiny. On the K162, I'm almost further from the nearest planet than that planet is from the furthest planet from it. There's nothing to see here. But maybe there are wormholes.
Poking the four anomalies and sixteen signatures for K162s is again quick, for the system being small, and eight gas sites are ignored in the first scan. Four more are ignored on the second, and the only wormhole that appears leads to low-sec Placid. That doesn't interest me, so I jump back to Feythabolis and try my luck through the X702 and in to C3b, where I find myself staring in to a black hole. But d-scan looks interesting, with a Machariel battleship, Drake battlecruiser, and Bestower hauler in the system, along with a tower. So, of course, this is the time my ship decides to become unresponsive.
It's actually the third time my ship has failed in almost as many minutes, only this time it's in a system with ships, and where notes from a recent visit could have got me outside the tower quickly. But, no, I first have to suffer a forced decloaking and my ship being obvious on d-scan for over a minute. Still, when I get everything working again and my Loki strategic cruiser to the tower I see that all three ships lack pilots, so I suppose that's something. There's naturally nothing happening, instead of nothing happening because technical issues caused it to stop.
I'm not going to scan further, neither in C3b or back in another null-sec system. I'm not feeling terribly positive at the moment, both with the discovery scanner still ruining w-space and instabilities in my ship systems. I doubt the first will ever be fixed, much as I'd like to hope, but the second is likely ephemeral and may be gone tomorrow. For now, I'll just head back home for some downtime.
2 Responses to “Nothing in null-sec”
Have you worked out why you are getting system lock-ups?
I have recently been suffering the same when cloaked off a pos with lots of modules or when running sleepers sites. I have updated my graphics drivers but believe it is more to do with DX11
Thinking of dropping back to DX9 if possible to see if more stable
It's probably attributable to running the Mac Client.
I have no idea about any specifics, although I've recently also seen lag specific to being in Sleeper anomalies, as well as throwing big ships through wormholes when trying to collapse them.