Sticking it to a Skiff
4th October 2011 – 5.25 pmAlone again. Maybe I should be hibernating. Or socialising! Yes, probably hibernating. I'm already kinda sleepy, but until I drop off I may as well scan my way out of the home w-space system. Hello there! Seven sites, all rocks and gas, have finally dispersed in to the ether, leaving only one bookmarked site for me to overlook. Even I can count as high as one reliably, and that final site should also be gone by tomorrow. Scanning the home system is now quick and efficient, the two signatures being the expected site and our static wormhole. It's simple to see we don't have errant visitors.
Jumping in to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system looks rather more dreary, with only a tower appearing on my directional scanner. Well, I suppose it looks just as dreary as the home system, but there's an asymmetrical expectation at work here. I'd rather have an empty home system and a bustling hive of activity through the static wormhole than vice versa. Launching probes and blanketing the C3 doesn't make the system look much better, with only four signatures, and although the nine anomalies look full of profit none of it can be realised by me without help.
Checking my notes puts me in this system around fifteen months ago, which is a long time in space years, and not even the husk of a tower is where I have one listed. Finding the new position of this system's tower is trivial and I sit there as I begin to think about scanning. I only think about scanning because an Anathema covert operations boat warps in to the force field as I start shuffling my still-distant probes around. Oh ho ho, and immediately the pilot swaps to a Skiff exhumer, baby sister to the more popular Hulk. Aww, it's so cute, I feel like I should insert a coin somewhere to start it rocking backwards and forwards to keep the pilot amused whilst the grownups take care of the real work.
A couple of the signatures are out of d-scan range of the tower, and I quickly start resolving them before the pilot in the Skiff heads out to mine some rocks. Naturally, the distant signatures are the system's static wormhole and a magnetometric site, neither suitable for the exhumer. The final signature is too close to the tower for me to resolve it covertly, so I leave it for now, even without the Skiff showing any more signs of life. I make a quick flyby of the static wormhole, finding it to lead out to low-sec empire space and being super-stable, probably because the local pilot is reluctant to open it when he plans to mine. Assuming he plans to mine, that is, which he'd better after jumping in to the Skiff, the little tease.
There is still no movement at the tower. The Skiff pilot is perhaps getting himself a stiff drink before he goes out shooting rocks, so I risk resolving the final signature in the system. After all, if it's not a gravimetric site I can be confident the Skiff won't be moving anywhere soon and I can be more productive elsewhere. But it is a gravimetric site, and I have it resolved and probes recalled before the Skiff moves. Of course, he may have accidentally slumped on to his d-scan button and seen my probes in the minute or so they were in range, making up his mind just to get drunker for the rest of the evening. The only way I'll know is by his actions.
Come on, Mr Skiff, do something! No, going off-line wasn't quite what I was hoping for, particularly as a newly arrived colleague had just warped to our static wormhole in an interceptor, ready to jump in and catch the pod flung from a burning Skiff. Oh well, the C3 is empty, except for Sleepers. We reconfigure our fleet to comprise a couple of Tengu strategic cruisers and return to the C3 to engage the Sleepers, starting with an easy anomaly to make sure all systems are working nominally. The site is cleared easily enough with no problems, and with a bookmark to the magnetometric site I think it's time to maximise our potential profit. I send our small squad in that direction.
The magnetometric site is cleared straightforwardly too, little confusion about which Sleepers trigger reinforcements and which cause additional drains on our systems above simple damage. Now we split our attention between salvaging and analysing, me collecting the Sleeper artefacts as my colleague, also with excellent skills, borrows a Noctis salvager to sweep up the wrecks, first in the despawned anomaly and then the magnetometric site. We aren't disturbed, and bring back over a hundred-and-fifty Miskies in Sleeper loot and salvage, as well as a bunch of artefacts that I still can't appraise. One last look for the return of the Skiff finds nothing and no one, so we head home for the night, happy instead of shooting his ship to steal a nice chunk of loot from his system. Take that, you stupid Skiff.
One Response to “Sticking it to a Skiff”
Nobody likes skiffs anyways.