Scanning, scouting, and Sleepers
9th February 2012 – 5.43 pmHere is clear, what's there like? I'm off to find out, jumping through our static wormhole to a class 3 w-space system. My directional scanner only reaches out far enough to show me the ninth planet in the system, which has two moons, a customs office, and little more of interest. My last visit here, some twenty-one months ago, noted 'seven towers!' in the system. Ah, how inexperienced I was then to think the exclamation mark was needed.
I launch probes and blanket the system, revealing four ships somewhere, as well as three anomalies and four signatures. Warping to the centre of the system finds two towers, one with no ships and the other with a Nidhoggur carrier, Probe frigate, and Hoarder hauler, all unpiloted. The fourth ship remains elusive, and indeed has disappeared from my combat scanning probes too. It's best to ignore it for now, so I scan the scant signatures here.
I resolve wormhole, wormhole, wormhole. Neato. Warping between them shows me a K162 from class 5 w-space, the static exit to low-sec empire space, and a K162 from null-sec k-space. I jump to low-sec to get the exit system, appearing in the Heimatar region next to the notorious Amamake system, before heading in to the C5 to explore deeper in w-space. There is a tower visible on d-scan from the wormhole but no ships, so I warp out, launch probes, and scan. There are more anomalies than can be counted—twenty-seven of them—and five signatures, which turn out to be rocks, gas, gas, and a wormhole. I warp to the connection to find it to be a second K162 from class 5 w-space. If I keep going maybe I'll find the disappeared ship.
This could be the missing ship, a Loki strategic cruiser visible on d-scan from the wormhole. I also see nine towers with plenty of silos attached to them, but thankfully the towers are dotted around the system and not clustered to the moons of one planet, making the Loki relatively easy to find. The cruiser is piloted but inactive, potentially a sign of a scout returned home, and without wanting to locate all the towers here, or scan for another potential K162, I leave him alone and head back towards C3a. I travel across our neighbouring system only to leave it again by jumping to null-sec. I find myself in the Impass region with a bunch of pilots who look to be ratting. I'd like to join in but I doubt I'd get a warm reception, so head back through C3a to low-sec.
Scanning the low-sec system shows it to hold only one extra signature. Crossing my fingers doesn't help with my luck in finding a wormhole, instead the signature resolving to be a radar site. It's looking quiet tonight. But a radar site is still some simple ratting, so I head home, swap my scouting boat for a Drake battlecruiser fitted with a codebreaker, and return to low-sec. My glorious leader turns up as I'm on my way back out and kindly offers to provide some cloaked ECM protection in case of trouble.
There is no trouble in the low-sec radar site. I pop some rats, hack some cans, and bring back a slight increase in my security status and around fifteen Miskies in profit. Now we collapse our static wormhole to start the evening again, looking for more opportunity than a suspiciously empty w-space constellation connecting to a couple of potentially dangerous C5s. Fin's an expert at over-stressing our C247, and a couple of Orca industrial command ships make light work of the task.
Scanning again, the only new signature in the home system is the new static wormhole, taking us to a properly empty C3, this one without any occupation. It is also almost without anomalies, there being only two along with a dozen signatures that will probably only be boring rocks and gas. We sift through the signatures, finding a magnetometric site hiding away in a corner of the system, and an exit to low-sec that is near death's door. That suits us, as we generally only manage a couple of anomalies and a magnetometric site before running out of steam anyway.
We go home, swap in to our Sleeper Tengu strategic cruisers, and storm through the C3 sites. One anomaly is our favoured type but the other not, which gives us a nice change of pace. All stays sleepy whilst we shoot Sleepers, and once cleared we return with boats to salvage, analyse, and generally sweep loot in to our holds for later sale. By my reckoning, we bring back a healthy 150 Miskies, plus the average artefact haul, making it a fair evening playing with the Sleepers.
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