Scanning to nowhere in particular

What excitement can I get involved with tonight? Hopefully not too much, or I might explode. Thankfully, it's a quiet start to the evening, as only a data site appears as a new signature in the home system, leaving me jumping through our static wormhole to explore. A tower with no ships is a pretty normal directional scanner result, and although warping away to launch probes bumps me in to a second tower that's not exactly out of the ordinary either. There are still no ships to be seen.

My last visit to this class 3 w-space system had me losing my Loki strategic cruiser to an obvious bait Procurer mining barge that I simply couldn't resist. There's no opportunity for a similar loss today—revenge, I mean—as the corporation wasn't local to this system. My notes also tell me that the system holds a static exit to high-sec. I don't know if that's worth anything yet.

Along with the slender high-sec wormhole, scanning finds a second, chubbier wormhole, which turns out to be a K162 from low-sec. I suppose it's a second option. I head to the high-sec exit first, as you never know when a route home could be useful, to find the wormhole wobbling at the end of its life. I poke out anyway, bookmarking the other side of the wormhole in Tash-Murkon, returning immediately to C3a to investigate that low-sec connection that's already looking better.

The low-sec system in Kor-Azor has one pilot in the system and five extra signatures. My combat scanning probes reveal one ship and four drones, and my interest is piqued when the pilot disappears from the system but his ship doesn't. Maybe he has been flagged for some reason, presenting me with an opportune if morally dubious kill. Luckily, I don't have to rationalise anything, as the ship is gone from space before I drop out of warp where it was. I'd better scan those signatures.

One data site, four wormholes. I've come to learn not to trust such results without reconnoitring the connections, and tonight's no exception. A K162 from null-sec, an outbound connection to low-sec, a K162 from class 3 w-space, and a dying K162 from null-sec is a motley collection of wormholes, rescued by the sole w-space connection. But what's worse than jumping in to a w-space system and seeing a tower with no ships on d-scan? Also having a black hole lurking in the background, that's what.

Well, the black hole, plus the idiot discovery scanner disappointing me immediately by showing just one other signature in the system. And four anomalies, but who cares. I launch probes, locate the tower, and resolve the other signature. It's not the K162 I'm expecting but a gas site. How boring. Back to low-sec with me and, well, I dunno. The dying K162 from null-sec is dying, the healthy K162 from null-sec has pilots on the other side, and although the K162 from low-sec has faction warfare pilots doing their faction warfare, there are three extra signatures in the system in Metropolis. I'll scan them.

One wormhole accompanies the two combat sites, a K162 from class 3 w-space working for me. Hmm, d-scan in C3c shows me a tower, no ships, and there's a black hole trying to suck me in to it. Didn't I just leave this system? No, not with nothing out of d-scan range, clumping eight anomalies and twenty-one signatures in to a graphical mess on the dumbscovery scanner. All it takes is some good old-fashioned probing to reduce the uncertain red spheres of annoyance in to precise dots of inaccuracy, and I can start poking them for K162s.

Three wormholes. A K162 from class 2 w-space looks good right now, the K162 from class 5 w-space is a nice second place, and I think I can ignore the K162 from low-sec. Believing in C2a doesn't get me anywhere, though. D-scan is clear from the wormhole and a blanket scan reveals anomalies, signatures, but no ships. That's dull. So dull I think I'm going home. There's not much point in continuing to scan to nowhere. A quick look in C5a as I turn around doesn't change my mind either, not with just a tower visible on d-scan. At least I checked.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space