Three towers, one force field

15th April 2010 – 7.46 pm

It doesn't look like there will be an Azerothian adventure tonight. The two of us available remove our leather britches and don thrilling space trousers and head in to New Eden. Or, at least, some region of w-space possibly connected tenuously with New Eden. We arrive at the corporation tower to find a can full of current bookmarks and no one else around. It seems like a good opportunity to roam through our neighbouring systems looking for activity.

The neighbouring system is empty, with no ships showing on the directional scanner and no towers installed, so we jump onwards to the next system. Oh, this is more promising, with two Retriever mining barges on d-scan, particularly with three jet-cans also visible. An active mining operation looks to be in progress, but I have no bookmarks for gravimetric sites in this system. I need to head back to our tower to pick up my Buzzard scanning boat to find the miners. But, like a complete newbie, in my excitement I mis-judge the session change timer and bump off the wormhole in my Manticore for several seconds. Those several seconds could make all the difference, my stealth bomber appearing on the miner's d-scan until I jump through.

I warp back and change to my Buzzard, returning to the system where the miners were spotted. Jumping in to the system I hit d-scan again, and the Retrievers are gone. The jet-cans are still visible, and I start using d-scan to get a directional fix on their location. A Viator and Iteron are alternately seen on d-scan, and as the number of jet-cans whittle down and disappear they must be collecting the mined ore. I manage to get a good bearing on their location before they completely disappear, which lets me resolve the signature for the gravimetric site quickly once I drop probes, but it looks like the operation has finished. It is possible that the brief glimpse of my Manticore on d-scan earlier spooked the miners in to finishing, but that would make them quite intrepid to go back to pick up the ore.

I bookmark a few of the rocks just in case the miners decide to get active again, then go searching for the tower in the system. In fact, I see three towers on d-scan but only one force field, which intrigues me. I find out why, as two towers are anchored but not on-line, with only a handful of off-line defences around them and no storage arrays. There is not much that can be done about these towers without destroying them, and blowing up a tower with minimal force takes far too long to be practical. The active tower has a Hulk, Retriever, and Iteron Mk V in its shields, and no activity otherwise. Whether spooked or simply finished, it doesn't look like they'll be mining again soon. There is another wormhole to jump through and system to check, so I move on.

The next system across is empty apart from a couple of mobile warp disruptors, which I don't care to find. I wonder how so many warp disruptors seem to be discarded, but think that perhaps they are anchored on the K162 side of wormholes and then lost when the wormhole collapses. Either way, there is no activity in here. I go back to help my colleague monitor the tower in the previous system for a while, but there is no movement at all. Eventually heading home, it ends up being a peaceful night in w-space.

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