Shopping in Amarr

22nd June 2010 – 5.22 pm

Scan man is out scanning, but I think I'll sit this one out. He's much better than me at scanning and I generally end up following him around, so I'll instead take it easy at the tower and read his updates. It turns out we have another quiet neighbourhood, heading through the static connection to the normal class 4 system, which leads to a class 3 system with a low-sec exit to empire space. None of the systems are occupied, although the C3 apparently used to have a tower in it and now it doesn't. I think this is the first time I can note a change of w-space system occupancy. The low-sec exit is checked, finding it to be adjacent to high-sec and only five jumps to Amarr. It looks like a good day to go shopping, if only I knew what to buy.

I head out in my Crane to visit Amarr, hopefully to spend some iskies. I haven't been blown up recently so I have nothing to replace, but my months of skill training must surely give me access to some new and exciting products. Maybe I could buy a heavy assault ship, an Asbolution command ship, or a recon ship that my colleagues are so fond of. But the Cerberus HAC seems to favour long range engagements and would be useless for our skirmishes, I still need much more training in gunnery to fit the Absolution adequately, once I even work out how to fit it, and my training in the recon ship skill itself is days away from being useful. But what my skill training lets me buy is more skill books.

I manage to find a few books that I don't already have sitting waiting for that magical time when they can finally be injected, and make the jump to an adjacent system to collect them. Although these new skills books may not put me in to a new ship they should expand my skills enough to give me more options. It's a bit of a waste of my Crane's cargo hold but it is fun to fly the transport ship again. I also remember that our stock of light armour maintenance drones has disappeared, even the ones in the Guardian logistic ships' drone bays, and I buy a new batch to take back, along with some other drones that I hope will come in useful. With nothing else to buy coming to mind I jump to low-sec and get sucked through the wormhole back in to w-space.

Whilst travelling home I investigate the abandoned tower spotted in the C4 system. It is simply abandoned, with no modules or defences around it. However, there is also a giant secure container floating nearby. The directional scanner remains clear and the tower certainly looks abandoned so I decloak and check the contents of the container. It is empty, but it remains a container so I scoop it in to my Crane's hold and take it back with me to our tower, dropping it off with the rest of my cargo. All systems are quiet and we don't have enough Guardian pilots to form a fleet. I am about to rest for the night when I realise there is a ship I can buy.

I am still dependent on other capsuleers' salvager ships in w-space and could probably use my own, particularly as I am training to use the Tech II salvager modules, partly owing to looting a bunch of them from salvager ships we have popped recently. A destroyer would fit in my Crane's hold so I take the transport ship back out to Amarr. I am unsure what ship to buy, though. I check the destroyers for each race and all of them have different benefits, whether it is increased cargo space, a better base speed, or more convenient fitting slots for cargo or capacitor recharge. I find other capsuleers recommend a Hurricane battlecruiser for salvaging, which looks decent but my Minmatar ship skills are a little lacking.

In the end I stick to my heritage and buy a Cormorant, picking up salvaging rigs at the same time but relying on our corporate hangar in w-space for the other fittings. Back at the tower, it looks like we could use some more capacitor rechargers, though, and micro-warp drives are always in demand. But I manage to assemble and fit my new Cormorant, christening it Marxian Principles, with all but the salvager II modules which I instead leave in its hold until my skill training completes. It won't be long until I will be even more startlingly efficient at salvaging wrecks.

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