Empty systems or empty ships
5th September 2014 – 5.48 pmBack in my scouting Proteus after diverting to high-sec, I can reconnoitre that second K162 wormhole in our home system. It leads to class 3 w-space, like our static wormhole, and hopefully there is activity somewhere behind it. I warp my strategic cruiser across to the K162, jump to C3b, and update my directional scanner. Just a bubble appears on d-scan, and not much sits out of range. I've got more scanning to do, I suppose.
I launch probes and perform a blanket scan of the system, adding two ships to the fourteen anomalies and seven signatures. They are both chubby signatures for the ships, making them relatively large, and I'm already guessing they are industrial ships. The lack of ore sites, all fourteen anomalies being combat sites, reinforces my intuition, which is then dashed as I cross the system and bump in to a Typhoon battleship and Tornado battlecruiser.
I don't literally bump in to the two ships, nor do I even see them in space immediately, despite warping directly to a moon with a tower anchored to it. There is a second tower around a different moon, which is where I find the two ships floating unpiloted. It's not terribly exciting, much like scanning this C3 system. There's more than the static wormhole to find, itself an exit to low-sec Genesis, but only a K162 from low-sec Metropolis and K162 from null-sec Stain. No more w-space. I'll try through our static wormhole instead.
Leaving C3b behind me for C3a once more finds occupation but no activity. The tower visible from our K162 is the only one in the system, and a blanket scan shows me the seven anomalies and five signatures I'll be sifting through in the absence of any ships to watch. It's gas, mostly. Of course, there's one wormhole, there always is, and in this case it will be the static exit to low-sec. The static exit to low-sec that's at the end of its life.
I'm glad I made myself productive in the other direction earlier in the evening, although this conclusion to the constellation is rather anti-climactic. I suppose it doesn't have to be, as I didn't explore through the k-space connections in C3b, and I have a bit of spare time to try to spice up this evening. I'll take a look.
The null-sec K162 takes me to a system in Stain with no other signatures present. I don't care to try ratting, what with wanting to end the night positively, so return to C3b and hit one of the low-sec exits. The static wormhole will do, and I jump to a system in Genesis. Central Point, in fact, which may have some historical significance. I dunno, but I launch probes to scan the six extra signatures.
Three combat sites and three wormholes is a decent result from low-sec. One wormhole is a K162 from class 3 w-space, the other two are K162s from class 2 w-space. They've got to be worth a quick look for activity, and as I end up near the K162 to C2c I jump through that one first. Two towers and a lack of ships is not what I'm looking for on d-scan, and no signatures or anomalies lie outside of d-scan's range from the wormhole. I'll try a different system.
From one class 2 w-space system to another, via low-sec, and updating d-scan sees nothing this time. One ore site and two planets sit out of range, leaving the possibility of miners or a planet gooer being active somewhere. It's not likely, admittedly, but a blanket scan of the system with combat probes reveals a couple of ships somewhere. That somewhere isn't the ore site, though, with the ships on the other side of the system to the anomaly, so I warp towards what I suspect is, and indeed find as, a tower. Neither the Thrasher destroyer or Mammoth hauler that my probes detected is piloted. Let's look at that C3 instead.
Out to Central Point, across the C3 K162, and in to the last system of the night. A tower and no ships on d-scan, a puny three signatures on the silly discovery scanner. At least that implies frequent activity, and encourages me to warp across to check the anomalies lying outside of d-scan range. Nope, nothing and no one. Not only that, but one of the signatures has disappeared, silly discovery scanner, which I assume to be a wormhole imploding. It's late enough that I take my assumption to be true, and turn my Proteus around to head home.
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