Dying wormholes

30th April 2014 – 5.50 pm

It's been a while since my last mid-afternoon excursion. Do many people come out to play this early? There's no one obvious in the home system, not with the only signature churn being our static wormhole, leaving me the new connection to resolve and jump through to the neighbouring class 3 w-space system. A tower and Probe are both visible on my directional scanner from the K162, but without scanning probes visible I doubt the frigate is up to much.

I check my notes. It's my fourth visit to this system, the last being nine months ago, with the occupation looking to be the same as before and a static exit to low-sec waiting to be found. I warp across to confirm both that the tower is in the same place and the Probe is empty, and having done so warp to the edge of the system to launch probes and perform a blanket scan of the system.

Nine anomalies don't hold a ghost site, and five signatures won't take long to sift through. Wormhole, gas, wormhole, relics, and our K162. The U210 leads to a system in Khanid, where there are no pilots and no signatures to tempt me to stay, and checking the other wormhole in C3a only finds a K162 from null-sec. Oh well, no continued connection to w-space, but maybe I can find more wormholes in null-sec.

Exiting w-space through the K162 lands me in Wicked Creek, where being alone has my sending my Loki strategic cruiser to a nearby rock field looking for rats to pop, launching scanning probes as I align and accelerate. Two extra signatures are worth looking at, until I identify them as both combat sites. At least I find some rats, even if they are only cruisers. I'm sure they all count towards increasing my security status in their own little way.

Popping a rat in null-sec

Today I'll hop a stargate, given the obvious lack of activity in the null-sec system and my starmap showing me a decent circular route I can take. Through the first stargate and I'm still alone, with one signature to scan. I find some rats and pop them, and move on when the signature resolves to be another combat site. Through the second stargate, still no other pilots, and this time I have four signatures to poke with probes. Maybe I'll have some luck in finding wormholes

Hey, here's a wormhole, and on resolving the first signature too. But, aww, it's a dying wormhole leading out to class 5 w-space. C5 chains can take a bit of time to navigate, so despite the promise it could offer the threat of imminent collapse is enough to put me off exploring through it. That's a shame, because the second signature is a second wormhole, a dying connection to class 3 w-space. A third wormhole perks me up, right until I drop out of warp next to a link from null-sec to low-sec. Who cares if it's healthy?

Four out of four. A fourth wormhole. I'm no longer too excited, given the other results, and good job too. I land next to a second EOL N342 outbound connection to class 5 w-space. There's nothing to see here. Still, class 5 w-space chains can be daunting, but class 3 systems will terminate to k-space. I poke my prow through to C3b, but only to see the standard d-scan result of a tower and no ships. I suppose there could be K162s to find, leading backwards, but I'm not looking for them with a dying wormhole being my route home. Not even a Cheetah covert operations boat blipping on d-scan will keep me here.

Back to null-sec, through a third stargate to take me back to the exit system from C3a. I could pop another rat or two, but without scanning as a distraction I don't think I'll bother. I warp to the wormhole to C3a, return to w-space, and see no change in either local activity or cosmic signatures. I know there are pilots awake somewhere, as Mick has found some to play with, just not here. But that's okay. I've had a little jaunt around null-sec, gained some security status, and made it home in one piece.

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