Scanning but not counting

Gas, anomalies, one other signature. Ah, w-space life. That signature will be our static wormhole to class 3 w-space, and I'll do what I usually do and ignore the gas in favour of the wormhole. Someone else can suck it, I'm sure. It's almost as if I'm keen to go out exploring again, like I've learnt from my mistakes. Well, we'll see.

Jumping to today's neighbouring system doesn't see much beyond the K162, my directional scanner returning blank. Launching probes and performing a blanket scan adds six anomalies and six signatures to my information, with no ships appearing under my combat probes. No ships doesn't mean no occupation, though, and the low number of signatures implies someone is active in this system. I warp away from the wormhole to see what that one planet out of d-scan range holds, and here's the tower. Good to know.

Occupied, inactive, and with a static exit to low-sec. I infer the destination of the static wormhole by all six signatures being relatively strong on the blanket scan, meaning there can't be an exit to either null-sec or high-sec, and call in my probes to actually find it. Scanning is fast when all the signatures are chubby, and I soon have two gas sites ignored and three wormholes resolved.

A K162 from class 2 w-space looks attractive; a K162 from null-sec wobbling away at the end of its life less so, although I can tell from the A-shaped Malpais nebula that it comes from Perrigen Falls; and the static exit to low-sec looks like it leads to the Derelik region, if I'm judging the colours right. Exiting w-space for low-sec indeed lands me in a system in Derelik, where a lone pilot is ratting in a Cyclone battlecruiser and some extra signatures wait for me if I need them.

Back to C3a and across to further w-space, jumping through the K162 to C2a. Two mobile depots appear on d-scan but nothing else, and the discovery scanner blinks one anomaly and a lack of mystery that are the two standard signatures in class 2 w-space. I'm sitting on one, the system's first static connection to class 3 w-space, making the other the system's second static connection, which in this case will be an exit to high-sec.

C2 is pretty bare, but the mobile depots could be an indication of activity. The system's sole anomaly sits out of d-scan range, so with some level of optimism I warp to the anomaly to see if any pilots are there, having launched probes to try to give myself some early warning. Four ships are in the system! But not in the anomaly, where there are only Sleepers quietly milling around, waiting for their masters to rise.

The four ships in the system are all visible on d-scan, along with two towers that were also out of range from the wormhole. The towers are even listed in my notes from twelve months ago, and as there are now five ships on d-scan I hurry my Loki strategic cruiser to the towers to see if I can catch some activity. Not really, not when I apparently can't interpret simple scanning results. There... are... five... ships! Five empty ships, floating inside one of the towers' force fields.

I'll scan the high-sec wormhole. Done. The wormhole is pulsating a little, sitting below half mass but otherwise healthy, and exiting takes me to a system in Kador where it's just me and a miner in his Mackinaw exhumer. Okay, Penny, remember that this is high-sec. Rather than look for the miner I'll just poke in to one of the handful of anomalies and pop a few minor rats. It'll pass some time.

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