Early scouting

10th December 2012 – 5.42 pm

What am I going to do today? A second signature resolving to be a second wormhole offers the potential for some mayhem, right up to the point where I drop out of warp in empty space. The wormhole dies before I even reach it, which puts paid to the promise of mayhem. And if this wormhole has collapsed, what does that mean for our static connection? Nothing, apparently. The connection to class 3 w-space is stable and healthy. I won't complain about that.

Jumping to C3a has a tower visible on my directional scanner, but no ships. My last visit was six months ago, when, according to my notes, I pop a high-sec Noctis salvager with my Tengu strategic cruiser. That sounds bafflingly intriguing, but I'll check my records later. A tower was noted during my last visit, but one that should be out of range of d-scan, so there has been some change. That tower has gone, and finding the new one, although straightforward, gives me a start as I warp directly through it's force field. Thankfully, my cloak holds and I'm not in trouble. I'll settle down to scan.

Nine anomalies and eight signatures are whittled down to be two ladar sites, two gravimetric sites, two wormholes, and one magnetometric site, plus the K162 leading home. The static exit to low-sec is known, but reaching the end of its life, so I instead head out through the second wormhole, a mere K162 from high-sec, to see what else I can find. I'm ejected to a system in the Derelik region, where scanning reveals one additional signature, a radar site. That's not much fun. Do I move on, or collapse?

High-sec stargates are as safe as you can get, but there's a guarantee in finding a new w-space system by collapsing our static wormhole than hopping between high-sec systems, so I head home to kill the wormhole. Orca, Widow, Widow, Orca. Done, smooth. I get back in to my cloaky Loki strategic cruiser to scan once more, this time with just the one signature in the home system. That dead wormhole is definitely gone now. A replacement static wormhole takes me to a replacement class 3 system, and it looks much the same as the previous one.

D-scan is clear from the wormhole, where I launch probes and perform a blanket scan, and exploring finds a tower with no ships floating piloted or otherwise inside the force field. Two anomalies and eight signatures are scanned looking only for wormholes this time, ignoring any sites as being currently irrelevant, and again I resolve two connections. One is the static exit to low-sec, the other a K162 from high-sec. That sounds familiar. The link from high-sec even comes from Derelik again, six hops from the previous exit. It's like I never left.

The high-sec system is currently undergoing an Incursion, which deters me from spending any time there, even to scan. I ignore it as much as I can, given the mandatory communication channel demanding immediate focus, and return to C3a to see what waits beyond its static exit to low-sec. A faction warfare system in the Essence region is better than the Incursion system, but not by much. And, like before, the single additional signature resolves to be a radar site. No more wormholes.

I could collapse our static wormhole a second time, but I am ostensibly only on a scouting excursion, mapping the constellation for a later roam, and I would say I have managed that. C3a remains quiet when I return from low-sec, all of five minutes later, but it may get busy later, either with local activity or with new wormholes connecting in to it. With my initial scouting complete, I am content to head home and go off-line for a break and food. I'll see what more I can find later.

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