Early scanning for an exit

17th April 2010 – 3.03 pm

I get an early start today. I move out of the tower's shields in my Buzzard and start scanning in the hopes of finding an exit that will make amends for my incompetence of yesterday, which indirectly led to colleagues getting stuck outside of w-space. Our home system's static wormhole is in a new location, and thus leads to a different system and will be stable for hours, which is good. I resolve its position, warp and jump through.

Looking only for an exit, I use my modified method of scanning for wormholes. The wormhole home is bookmarked, so I know its position, then I make a rough scan of the wormhole using probes, noting the wormhole's identifying signature but not resolving it to 100%. Then, when I make my first rough scan of the whole system, I can find the wormhole's signature and relative signal strength. The known wormhole signature's scan strength can be compared directly to the unresolved signatures in the system, on the assumption that all wormholes will have similar return signals.

Although I can get similar results by noting general signal strengths for wormholes found against scan probe ranges, being able to compare a known wormhole directly against other signatures is more convenient and relies less on intuition. That ladar and occasional gravimetric sites have similar signal strengths to wormholes is no greater a hindrance than relying on other methods to find wormholes. In this case, I find a gravimetric site first, then my second choice results in finding a wormhole. There is another likely wormhole signature in the system, and I resolve that for reference, finding more rocks in space, before moving on.

The next system across shows a tower on the directional scanner but no force field, which is curious. I drop probes and begin scanning whilst I investigate this tower. My search finds a ladar site, then gravimetric, then a wormhole, whilst warping around reveals the off-line but anchored tower sitting lonely in orbit around a moon. There is nothing I can do with this tower, and no signs of activity on d-scan, so I leave it alone and warp to the wormhole. What a lovely sight the wormhole is, an exit leading out to high-sec space. I jump through and find myself in Gallente space, which doesn't seem particularly inviting to me, but a high-sec exit that passes through two unoccupied systems is an excellent route home. I hope it redeems me slightly.

I visit a local station and contract the bookmarks to a stranded colleague, before heading back to the tower and copying the bookmarks in to our can for general use. The still-early hour and convenient exit tempts me in to my Crane and I head out to hit the market, not entirely sure what I want to buy but confident I'll find something. I manage to pick up a few skill books, some new warfare links for once the skills are trained, a few modules and ammunition, and even a new ship. I can't quite fly the ship yet, but it seems like a good opportunity to buy it. I pilot my Crane a few systems around to pick up everything I buy and head back home to w-space safely. It has been a quiet morning, but productive.

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