Almost finding activity
27th August 2014 – 5.51 pmIt's time to investigate some wormholes. Having successfully ignored a tower trap, my Proteus strategic cruiser is still in one piece and able to reconnoitre through one of two K162s in this class 5 w-space system. One leads to more class 5 space, the other to deadly class 6 w-space. Purely arbitrarily, flipping-a-coin randomness, I head to C5b first.
Jumping through the wormhole sends me in to the middle of three bubbles. That the wormhole is encumbered to prevent easy travel out of the system, and away from the wormhole inside the system, I immediately suspect activity is occurring. Updating my directional scanner suggests otherwise. I see ships, but only a Phoenix dreadnought accompanied by two pods, and there are also two towers and a distinct lack of Sleeper wrecks.
Maybe the activity happened earlier and the bubbles remain on the wormhole because it's easier to do that than collect them. I can understand that. I move from the wormhole and cloak, guiding my Proteus along the shortest path out of the bubbles, happy to see nothing and no one decloaking to catch me. I also see a Nereus hauler now appeared on d-scan, sharing space with the Phoenix and pods. I should find that.
Sweeping d-scan around on a tight beam locates the tower with the ships, including the Nereus, and warping to the tower sees the Phoenix empty. The pods have capsuleers in them, naturally, and although I suspect the Nereus does too I cannot confirm this, as the hauler is no longer at this tower. That is, if he even was here. I doubt the hauler is being used for collecting planet goo, but he may have other reasons for warping around the system. I don't know, I don't understand haulers too well.
Opening the system map sees an ore site out of d-scan range, which makes me wonder if the Nereus is used for ore, and if he's hauling it to and from a mining operation. That would explain the bubbles too, and I warp to the ore site looking for activity. Nothing here, though, just some Sleepers ambling around. Not real people, or Gallente capsuleers. I head out further, towards the edge of the system, which brings another tower in to range, as well as the Nereus.
Locating the third tower finds an Orca industrial command ship and Helios covert operations boat, both empty, and the piloted Nereus. But not for long. The hauler warps moments after I reach the tower, as I am still orientating myself, although I think I catch the ship's vector as heading back to the other tower. That seems probable, but I warp my Proteus to that planet's customs office, just in case.
Of course, the Nereus isn't gooing and back for more, he did indeed warp to the tower again. Whatever he's hauling, it's between the safety of two active towers. I could watch for longer, if I had a weird fetish for industrial ships warping between towers, but time is short and nothing of interest is happening. I warp back to the wormhole, navigate the unmonitored bubbles, and jump to C5a.
I have one more system ready to explore, and jumping in to C6a puts me on a clear wormhole. That's about all that is clear in this system, though. D-scan shows me a tower with no ships, and the discovery scanner is making a merry mess of my system map again. Nineteen anomalies and twelve signatures doesn't sound like much, but it's plenty this late in the evening.
Given that I locate the tower from the wormhole—it's at a planet with a single moon—I'm happy to call it a night. I don't need to confirm the lack of ships or tag the corporation to track pilots that aren't here. There is more to see and scan, and had I started earlier I would commit to doing more. You never can tell what waits for you in w-space until you start looking. Never mind, tomorrow is another day.
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