Waiting for nothing
21st December 2012 – 5.36 pmNew gas at home replaces the old. Maybe it just drifted half-way across the system, as we have been a bit slack with our industrialism recently and not really harvested any of the resources to be found in w-space. And because we've been lackadaisical, I activate the new ladar site almost as a reflex action, in order to keep the system clean and easy to scan. That just leaves our static wormhole, which takes me to today's neighbouring class 3 system.
My directional scanner is clear from the K162 in C3a, and launching probes and performing a blanket scan of the system shows a mere two anomalies and three signatures. The lack of clutter is a fairly good sign of occupation, so the two ships also picked up by my combat probes, and looking to be at a far planet, are probably at a tower. Yep, the Typhoon Fleet Issue battleship and Eos command ship may both be piloted, but they are also safely nestled inside a tower's force field.
The pair of unidentified signatures are out of d-scan range of the tower, letting me resolve some rocks and the system's static exit to low-sec covertly, but I don't suppose that will help me beyond giving me a system in empire space to look for opportunity. But warping away from the tower, to exit to low-sec, has me pause before the wormhole as I now see core scanning probes on d-scan. That's interesting. It's possible the scout has come from low-sec, when I wasn't watching, or that there's a new wormhole just connected to the system.
I didn't perform a final blanket scan of C3a before recalling my probes, which I sometimes do in a big enough system, or one with plenty of signatures, as a check to see I've missed nothing. But even my limited counting skills could keep track of three signatures. Even so, it's worth taking another look, in case I can find a connection to some obviously active pilots. I launch probes, blanket the system, and get a blank result. Nope, no new wormholes.
The scout is either local or from low-sec. His obvious directions are back to low-sec, or through the K162 to our home system. And as he's scanning I'm inclined to believe he'll want to take a look through the only other wormhole in the system, so warp back to our K162 and loiter with intent. And I loiter, and loiter, and give a newly arrived Aii a sitrep, and loiter some more. There are only three signatures, the scout almost certainly came through one of them, so what's taking him so long?
Finally the probes disappear. I wait to see if anyone will come my way, but after a couple of minutes have to concede that I've simply wasted my time. I warp across to the local tower to see if a scout has parked inside the force field, but it's still just the two ships. The low-sec tourist just wanted a look around, I suppose. Maybe I'll see what his low-sec system has to offer. I leave w-space to appear in The Citadel, and specifically in the den of piracy that is Tama.
I don't think I'll scan, or do anything in Tama. One active scout has probably already alerted residents of any other w-space systems that connect here, which will make my visit pointless. And watching the two ships in C3a proves less interesting when they both go off-line. So, with Aii, we collapse our static connection to look for a better constellation. A couple of paired round trips with massive ships kills the wormhole, and we're back in scanning ships to start again.
The new class 3 neighbour has only one planet in d-scan range from the K162. Others are pretty close, but not close enough. My notes from eighteen months ago suggest two towers are in the system, and there are, but only one is in the same place as before. I find the persisting tower, Aii locates a new one in the inner system, but both are shipless. It looks a bit dull again, but we won't know for sure until we scan.
Scanning confirms dullness. The only wormhole resolved from the three anomalies and eight signatures is the standard static exit to low-sec, which this time takes me to a system in the Kor-Azor region. Six hops to Amarr would be convenient if I could ever remember what I wanted to buy, and a single additional signature turns out to be a magnetometric site. It's another quiet night, but one that's partly my fault. After all, if I wanted something to do, we did connect to Tama.
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