Mourning the mystery of w-space

There may be no one home, but one new signature is here to keep me company. Hello, new signature, would you like to do something? Oh, you're a pocket of gas. You know, I just remembered I need to be somewhere else. Our neighbouring class 3 system, in fact. I'll just be through this wormhole if you need me, okay?

That was a close shave. But I don't think I've come to a more happening system, not judging by the three Orcas, three towers, and out-of-place Buzzard visible on my directional scanner. I wouldn't suppose the industrial command ships are doing anything by themselves, not being real Orcas and so unlikely to be using pack tactics to hunt seals in ice fields, and a single covert operations boat with no scanning probes to be seen doesn't get me much excited.

My last visit to this class 3 w-space system was seven months ago, when I found and listed three towers. Hey, those numbers match the d-scan result! That should save me some time. I know that locating towers isn't exactly a difficult task, but it can take a little time and, quite frankly, when there's nothing to find at them doing so can feel more like busywork. There's always the chance of something turning up later, of course, but those opportunities seem rarer these days. Please make your own criticism of the discovery scanner now.

Opening the system map shows that there has been at least one obvious change. Nothing is out of d-scan range, making it simple to see one of the previous three towers not at the planet it should be, all three now around the same planet. At least the planet has only four moons, making it almost trivial to confirm and update the locations of the towers, just the way I like it.

I would normally warp away from the wormhole to launch probes, but as nothing is out of range, and the idiot scanner is showing just two signatures, I think any attempt at remaining covert is doomed to failure. Clearly our K162 is blinking like a Belisha beacon to the Buzzard pilot, announcing my arrival. Stupid, stupid discovery scanner. I bet soon our technology will be upgraded again so that all wormholes in a system are automatically detected and added to the overview, regardless of range.

Well, I may as well scan that other signature, even finding the Buzzard piloted at one of the towers. I'm doing nothing here, so it makes sense to resolve the exit and look elsewhere for activity. Or it would, if the wormhole to low-sec weren't in its death throes. That's probably why the Buzzard isn't moving. I poke out anyway, if only to get a safety entrance, and see no other signatures in the low-sec system. How dreary.

It's time to collapse our wormhole and start again. And what good timing. As if by magic Aii appears, as I prepare for the first round trip in a big ship. He grabs an Orca, I pilot a Widow black ops ship, and although we don't stress the wormhole in to its half-mass state that's actually good. Two more fat Orcas will finish the operation definitely and safely. A few minutes of being polarised pass, and the second set of paired trips is done. The wormhole collapses.

That was nice and easy, if somewhat unproductive in a way. But we can turn the situation around. We have plenty of gas in the home system and an Aii to suck it all up for profit. Rather than open a new wormhole and hope to find something to do, I suggest we keep it closed and let Aii have his fun. There is a moment of concern when a new signature blinks at me in space, but it's just the idiot discovery scanner getting unduly excited about seeing the new static wormhole. Yes, I know it's there, you can shut up about it. But, no, it can't. I really hate the discovery scanner.

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