Early scanning again

23rd June 2010 – 5.30 pm

No fleet, no bookmarks, it's time to scan. My preliminary sweep with the directional scanner finds a lone mining drone somewhere in our home system, but we've had a few people out mining recently and it probably just got left behind. There are few signals now left in our system. Despite resolving the static wormhole on my first choice I scan the other two signals for completeness, getting a ladar and gravimetric site. I collect the drone, sitting alone under the corporation colours, and warp to the wormhole to start exploring further.

The neighbouring class 4 system is fairly compact, d-scan showing me everything without needing to move around, including a lack of occupancy. Launching probes and scanning reveals no anomalies at all, although there are many signatures to sift through to find any wormholes. I guess that a single jettisoned canister on d-scan is full of reinforced metal scraps, a product of salvaging Sleeper wrecks, probably left behind from all the cleared anomalies because of its bulk. Scanning finds a wealth of rocks and gas to mine, but I'm not interested. The search for a wormhole begins to get tedious and I once again pick on purpose the weakest signal to resolve. This finds me the wormhole, a static connection to a C2. But I also realise that by that point there were only two signatures left in the system. I resolve the final signature to be thorough, and thinking that perhaps a second wormhole has opened in to this system recently for it to be empty of anomalies, but I find only more gas. I jump through to the C2.

D-scan shows me lots of containers floating somewhere, but no tower. However, there is a planet out of range of d-scan and warping there reveals a tower around one of its moons. There are no ships around. Trying to find the cans leads me to think they are placed in safe-spots and I quickly stop looking for them. I begin scanning and the strongest signature turns out to be the system's wormhole, which makes a nice change. Warping to the wormhole shows it to be a static connection to high-sec empire space, which is convenient. This low-class, occupied system could promise later activity and I take a couple of minutes to bookmark a whole bunch of sites just in case, in the course of which I find another wormhole, leading in to a C4. I jump through to investigate.

There are lots of ships and two towers on d-scan. A lucky guess finds the first tower, with an Orca industrial command ship, two Iteron industrial ships, and a Probe frigate inside its shields. The second tower is easily found where, despite it having three ship hangar arrays, sixteen ships are floating inactive in its shields. None of the ships I have seen are piloted, though. I launch probes and scan the system, thinking it best to do this when no one is around, and find a wormhole leading to another class 4 system. Jumping through reveals this C4 to be unoccupied and containing three anomalies and two further signatures. After launching probes and cloaking a shuttle belonging to the previous C4 system appears at the K162 behind me. I ignore it for now and find the system's wormhole, a connection to a C2.

The class 2 system is quiet, so I launch probes and cloak to begin scanning. Moments after I cloak the wormhole behind me flares and the previous shuttle pilot reappears in a Flycatcher interdictor before warping off. I pay him little mind, but note his presence in case I run in to him again. I find a tower in this system, but no ships, and resolve a wormhole to a C1. Jumping through the connection ejects me in to another quiet but occupied system. The tower on the outer planet has two combat ships, two haulers, and a cruiser sitting unpiloted in its shields. The system itself holds another high-sec exit to empire space, giving us a choice of exits today. But there is nothing else.

I check the destinations of the high-sec exits, bookmarking the wormholes on the other side and noting their systems, and scout the w-space systems for activity on my journey back to our tower. All is quiet. But I have plenty of bookmarks that may come in handy later and any one of these systems could wake up and become active. For now, I take a break.

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