Not seeing red

There are reds in the constellation, and they may be a little upset. I've just turned one of their scouts in to a corpse. Of course, they may alternatively be pleased that I taught him the importance of not being seen, in a suitably harsh manner, but even if that's the case it won't stop them from teaching me the same lesson. I'd best keep my eyes open, and it probably would do me good to find the source of the red pilot.

My first guess for the red home system is the class 5 w-space system connecting in to us, making that the obvious next destination for me to scout. Having dropped the loot from the popped scout at our tower, I take my Proteus strategic cruiser to the K162 and jump through. Updating my directional scanner in C5a sees a tower, Tristan frigate, and Dominix battleship. Nothing too threatening, I suppose, if those are actually the reds. I should find out.

Before I can warp away from the wormhole to launch probes and locate the tower, a Devoter appears on d-scan. The heavy interdictor isn't at the tower and doesn't drop on to this wormhole before disappearing again, which is curious. There could be a second tower or, more likely, another couple of wormholes in the system, maybe an exit to empire space. Now that the HIC has gone, I can take a look around.

Performing a blanket scan of C5a reveals seven anomalies, seven signatures, and the two ships I originally saw. Locating the tower finds no pilots, and no red corporation. I'd best loiter by the wormhole to our home system whilst I scan. It's a big system too, requiring a planet-by-planet sweep with my probes, which may mean the Prowler transport that decloaks on the wormhole and jumps to our home maybe didn't see them.

There's little point in pursuing the covert, agile transport, and I keep scanning. I note that he, too, is not red, though, so I could be scanning in the wrong direction. Never mind, I resolve a wormhole anyway, a K162 from class 4 w-space. A second wormhole appears under my probes, a K162 from further class 5 w-space. Finally, a third wormhole, probably the source of the Devoter, given that it appears on the scan results. Warping across sees another C5 K162, if not the HIC.

I also find the source of the red pilot: our home system. I get a mail from the capsuleer's new clone and realise that he contacted our corporation a week or so ago about the possibility of sharing our system. I politely declined, setting his standing to red purely for identification purposes, and, having forgotten all this already, apparently have now appended a rather firmer full stop to the exchange. He sees it as normal w-space behaviour, I know there aren't reds stalking me. It's all good.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: devoter, dominix, eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, proteus, prowler, scanning, tristan, w-space