Barely fazing a Falcon

29th June 2014 – 3.47 pm

New signatures in the home system today are a touch of gas and a bit of data. Nothing to get excited about, and no other wormholes to go with our static connection. Maybe I can still get a good route to empire space, as I'd like to pimp my new Proteus strategic cruiser a bit more, making it harder to lose. Or, you know, find someone to shoot.

Jumping to the neighbouring class 3 system and updating my directional scanner sees a tower, no ships, and some core scanning probes. I'll just be moving from the wormhole, cloaking, and loitering for the moment, in that case. I have time to check my notes, where I see that my last visit was fifteen months ago, when there were two towers. Examining the system map shows nothing is out of d-scan range, so there have been changes.

Plenty of anomalies, few signatures

The system map also shows me plenty of anomalies and few signatures, twenty and four respectively, so whoever is scanning may be aware that our K162 is new, and hopefully won't take long in finding it. Curiously, a Falcon recon ship blips on d-scan, which could be annoying, but as it doesn't stay visible for long there's not much I can do about it.

As I wait, I poke each planet with d-scan in the system map, looking for the new tower. It's not difficult to find. There are seven planets and seven moons, not evenly split, and the tower is around a planet with just the one moon. I'd say I've found it. I'm still waiting on the probes too. How long does it take to scan four signatures?

Damn, a ship appears on-grid with me, but all I see in my distracted state is it greying-out on my overview. I should perhaps pay more attention, but it's difficult when a whole lot of nothing is happening. The Falcon blips on d-scan again too, again too quickly for me to see if he's at the tower. I suppose if it's just a blip, though, it's not at the tower. The recon ship is probably just hopping wormholes.

Falcon jumps past me to our home system

There's the Falcon again. Or, rather, here's the Falcon, in front of me, on our K162. The recon ship jumps to our home system. Well, this is probably not a smart move, but I prime myself for his return. It's soon, so he's polarised, but he's also covert and able to evade my Proteus easily enough when I decloak and have to wait for my targeting systems to recalibrate.

Okay, time to scout, although I ought to keep the Falcon's presence in mind. I warp to the tower, bookmark a perch, note the corporation. Warp out, launch probes, scan. Data site, wormhole, wormhole. That's an unsurprising result, I suppose, and the static exit to low-sec, obviously to Aridia by the brown stain seeping through, is joined by a K162 from class 4 w-space.

I exit to low-sec. There's no good option for getting to a decent market, not being in Aridia, but maybe there is a route to be found through more wormholes. Two other signatures in the system look promising, and although one is a wormhole it is a dying K162 from class 3 w-space. Back to C3a and, well, maybe I won't poke through to C4a. The locals know I'm here, assuming that's where the Falcon came from, and will either squirrel themselves away or be prepared with a force that could handle me. Either way, there will be nothing I want to bother with. I'll head home for an early night instead.

Sorry, comments for this entry are closed.