Leaving w-space again
14th August 2011 – 3.14 pmI need a new clone. Or maybe I don't, I'm not entirely sure how it works. I'm reaching another skill point boundary and need to ensure I retain them all on the likely event of my death, which means upgrading my clone. But I suppose it doesn't matter whether the medical centre will flush out the existing lump of admittedly gorgeous flesh and replace it with a better model, or just plug in a memory upgrade to the existing clone. Either way, I need to get to empire space to make the arrangements. That sounds like an excuse to go scanning to me!
I can piggy-back my way to our static connection, which saves a bit of time, and then we are tag-team scanning our way through w-space from there. Or maybe we are stopping in the neighbouring class 4 system, it being unoccupied and empty making it ripe for making iskies. Scanning finds no extra wormholes and plenty of anomalies, and ISK always comes in handy, so we head home and, well, look for some boats to pilot. Stripping down the tower and exporting anything not already stolen by scumbag thieves has surprisingly limited our options. We scrape together a fleet composed of a refitted scanning Tengu, a second Tengu strategic cruiser fit-for-purpose, and a Raven battleship, and head out to obliterate some Sleepers.
Maybe it isn't a night for making iskies after all. Our compromised fleet is compromised, who could have predicted that? Despite clearing one anomaly without loss it is not smooth sailing, and continuing looks like more trouble than it is worth. We turn around, get a salvager out here to grab what we have already earned, and continue with the original plan of exploring deeper in to our w-space constellation. I take my covert Tengu through the static wormhole in this C4 to a second class 4 system, my directional scanner showing me more hangars than would suggest a mere two on-line towers to be present. But I locate the towers and indeed find a couple of dozen hangars stacked like lego in one of them.
I suppose with all those hangars available it's no surprise that there aren't any ships floating unpiloted at the tower, and launching combat probes confirms a lack of ships in the system. Five signatures take no time to sort through, even though the static wormhole is the weakest signature here and the last I resolve, and I am soon jumping in to a class 2 w-space system. A Thanatos carrier, Tengu, and tower all appear on d-scan from the K162, along with a single combat scanning probe. It's possible the probe is being used by a pilot engaging Sleepers to detect new signatures or ships as an early warning monitor, or it could be the only one of a set of probes that is in d-scan range and the pilot is scanning the whole system. If the latter, and there are plenty of signatures, I may have been lucky and entered the system covertly. If the former, I doubt I'll see any action here.
It turns out that it doesn't matter what the probe was being used for, as locating the tower reveals the occupants to be blue and allied to our corporation. Although it means we have no targets, it also allows us to scan quickly and travel safely through here, and a more diplomatic member of the fleet opens a conservation to ensure that we are not mistaken as a hostile presence. Scanning is indeed simple, again only five signatures to resolve, and this C2 is a junction. All five signatures are wormholes. There is the K162 we came through, an outbound connection to class 4 w-space, a second but dying outbound connection to class 2 w-space, a K162 from high-sec empire space, and an exit to high-sec.
I am keen to see if there is any activity in the connected w-space, poking my nose in to the class 2 system, but on seeing no ships at all I realise that the hour is getting late and we have a choice of connection to high-sec. Considering that the tower is torn down, and we can't even form a fleet to shoot Sleepers with what remains, it seems like a good time to leave the bivouac and operate from empire space again. Despite us all thinking more-or-less the same way I manage to blithely jump to high-sec and get half-way to Jita before realising that my colleagues are taking time to export the last of our loot, and I could be acting as escort. I need to pay more attention. At least I remember to get to a clone vat and pay for the upgrade I was after before I hit the sack, which should keep my mind safe for a little longer.
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