Profiting from unoccupied w-space

5th May 2011 – 5.12 pm

No one's around, there are no bookmarks in our can, I suppose I have nothing to do but scan. I soon find the static wormhole, with the number of signatures in our system remaining manageably low, and am jumping in to a class 3 w-space system I only visited a week ago. The C3 remains unoccupied, which isn't a surprise for the short time involved and for a system with an exit to null-sec k-space, and is littered with anomalies. Twenty-three sites of specific Sleeper interest are here in total, sixteen of them being the efficient, profitable ones that we prefer. If only I wanted to shoot Sleepers, there is plenty of profit available to me.

A mere seven signatures wait to be resolved in the C3, and I make quick work sifting through them. I see little point in resolving ladar and gravimetric mining sites in unoccupied systems, and ignoring them lets me move on to the more interesting signatures, like wormholes. The first wormhole I resolve has a pretty chubby signature, particularly as I know I'm looking for a null-sec connection, and I suspect it to be a K162. I keep scanning without visiting it but, sure enough, a second wormhole lets itself be known, and the weaker strength signature is more appropriate for this system's static link.

Checking the fat signature first indeed puts me next to a K162, but only one that comes in from high-sec empire space. So much for extra w-space exploration, but maybe it will give me a convenient exit to collect the new Legion strategic cruiser subsystems that have been delivered. I jump out to find myself in, um, Aridia? DOES NOT COMPUTE. As part of a cosmic joke, I am in a two-system high-sec island in a deep low-sec region. But in an effort to make the best of the situation, and remembering our popping the cocky Retribution previously, I hop one system across to see if there is any action occurring.

Empire systems tend to be bigger than their w-space counterparts, which whilst giving me ample choice for where to launch probes discreetly also makes the directional scanner less useful. It's difficult to gauge the whereabouts of ships using a 14 AU scanner when the planets are generally 20 AU or more apart. But my combat scanning probes show three ships in the system, and there are two pilots in the freakishly convenient local channel, and I go looking for them. I don't find much, though. A Kestrel frigate is at a tower, as is an Ibis rookie ship, and although the Catalyst destroyer sitting outside a station looks vaguely like a target the cynosural beacon it has lit suggests otherwise. And moments after I land to recon the beacon an Archon carrier jumps in. I think I'll leave them alone.

I don't have much to do, so I take myself home and dump my current bookmark collection in to our can for my colleagues, and take a break. When I return it seems that my bookmarks have been ignored, if only because they scanned our system and part of the C3 before me, without leaving the breadcrumbs for me to follow. Never mind, the exploration was interesting, and now we have the numbers to clear some of the anomalies next door quickly and efficiently. We form a fleet with dual-Tengu strategic cruisers and a Golem marauder, warping off to start the slaughter.

The first anomaly is cleared without a hitch, even if I forget to turn my tank on until we're warping to the second, but the next presents us with an unusual initial configuration. Two Sleeper battleships and a lack of Argos guns suggests we are finishing what other capsuleers started, which is confirmed when destroying the two ships brings no more waves. I fling my colleagues towards the third earmarked anomaly as I finish salvaging the wrecks, following soon behind, the one-tractor, two-salvager configuration for my marauder more efficient than the reverse, if requiring a little extra management of modules.

Eight-and-a-bit anomalies are blitzed in good time, the only trace left behind us being a jet-can with a handful of reinforced metal scraps. The Golem's hold is capacious, designed for looting as it's shooting, but it can't quite cope with the bulky scraps recovered from so many Sleeper ships. Even without the scraps, I bring back a little under half-a-billion ISK in loot and salvage, which is a good score for the evening. And, with the wallet potentially plumped up and everyone home safely, I think I'll get some rest.

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