Random access
2nd May 2014 – 5.29 pmA glorious leader and some bookmarks is a good combination to come on-line to. Fin's now busy hauling between w-space and high-sec, as we have an exit conveniently close to Amarr. I hope she remembers that we're currently at war. 'Always', she says, and points me towards an unexplored class 2 w-space system, connected via a K162 in the home system from a first class 2 system. I'm on my way!
Jumping first to C2a and updating my directional scanner sees three towers and one ship, a Claymore command ship. 'Yes, piloted but very idle.' It's a tiny system, so I can't help but locate the towers and confirm that the Claymore remains both piloted and idle, which is straightforward enough. That done, I head to the wormhole to C2b and, well, pause. The wormhole is at the end of its life.
The wormhole may be EOL but the bookmark doesn't note this fact. That should give me ample time to explore through it. Or it could give me an adventure if I get isolated, but let's hope not. I jump through. Checking d-scan sees a tower, plus an Ishtar heavy assault cruiser, Loki strategic cruiser, and Cheetah covert operations boat. There are no wrecks, so it's a fair assumption that the ships are all at the tower. I just need to check them for pilots.
Locating the tower sees the two cruiser hulls having pilots, the cov-ops empty. They are also curiously orange, given the unexplored nature of this system, explained by Fin having seen them jump this way when in C2a and tagged them appropriately. At least we know their origin system. But the pilots aren't moving and the wormhole is moving a bit too much. I leave C2b alone to look elsewhere for opportunity.
Back to and through C2a to the home system, and through our static wormhole to the class 3 system beyond. D-scan shows me towers and ships, one a Dominix battleship, three of them haulers, and a rookie frigate. 'Is there an Iteron V?' Nope. 'The rest are empty.' Aww. She's not wrong, of course, and it seems the Iteron may have gone back out to high-sec. There's not much I can do about that, but I do see a ghost site amongst the amazing thirty-six anomalies.
Is the ghost site worth the risk, given the occupation and potential activity? 'Yes', says the devil on my shoulder. I can't argue with that. At least we can watch wormholes whilst I haphazardly hack at containers in system without any other obvious pilots. I jump home, refit my Loki, and jump back. It's the second time in consecutive days that I've found a w-space ghost site, and as yesterday's effort worked so well—except for the silly randomness that is hacking—I see no point in changing.
Move from the wormhole and cloak. Align to the ghost site. Warp cloaked to the ghost site. As I decelerate I decloak, and as I stop I lock all four containers and scan their contents in turn. Well, this looks like a potentially good haul to have explode next to my Loki. One Wetu BPC, one Packrat BPC, and one container with both BPCs. I pick that one first.
Hack, hack, hack. Success? I'm almost uncertain what to do next, but I get my wits about myself and open the container, nabbing the two BPCs plus the ghostly goo. I still have time, probably, so head towards the can with other Wetu BPC. Hack, hack, explosion. That's more what I'm used to. It's time to bug out. There's no point getting greedy, not with a pretty good result sitting in my hold. I cloak and warp to our K162.
Getting back to our tower has my restoring my Loki's fitting, but rather than let the two mobile depot BPCs gather dust in our hangar I keep hold of them. We have a good connection to Amarr, we may as well continue to use it. I head through C2a to the high-sec exit, and turn around again when I realise I'm staring at the wrong colours. That's not Domain. I've come the wrong way. At least I see that the Claymore is now a Buzzard cov-ops. 'From mildly boring to more boring.'
Home again, and C3a again, warping to the right high-sec exit, and this time it's myself I have to remind we're at war and to watch out for war targets. Two oranges are in the exit system, Fin recognising both as being local to C3a, and although it is difficult to monitor the over eight-hundred pilots in Amarr I do manage to see that Noel Edmunds is a red. Damn right he is, bastard.
I dock, contract the BPCs for hopefully reasonable prices, and undock, warping to my safe spot directly below the station. I don't think I'm in danger, but now I'm definitely not in danger, cloaked and far from the undock point. I turn my Loki around and make the two stargate-hops that take me back to the wormhole, and return to w-space. And that will do for me for tonight, not that there is much left to do anyway.
2 Responses to “Random access”
They are also curiously orange... explained by Fin having seen them jump this way when in C2a and tagged them appropriately.
Do you have a post explaining your corp's use of tagging pilots? I don't do anything like that and I wonder if I am missing something useful.
Separate question: what is a wormhole corp doing with war targets?
Nothing formal explaining how we tag. We just use the -5·0 'orange' tag on corporations occupying the systems in the day's w-space constellation, wiping the contacts every day, so that we can easily identify known and unknown organisations. If they're orange, we've encountered their system and can maybe track them better. It also helps when we hit an exit and have local available.
I dunno about being at war. Either one of our arms annoyed some corporation with ISK to waste, or it's a speculative war declaration. Either way, I'm not sure they know how wormholes work.