Wombles of w-space
27th March 2013 – 5.41 pmTransmission Lost have collapsed their connection to our home system. Now what to do. 'We could mine the gas', suggests my glorious leader, seeing how we stopped TL from grabbing it. Thankfully, her added laughter indicates how likely she thinks I'd want to do that. Through our static wormhole it is, although even that doesn't hold hope for much opportunity.
I poked through to the neighbouring class 3 w-space system earlier, finding it empty and unoccupied, and with an exit to null-sec. Scanning revealed little more, and even the static wormhole was useless, being at the end of its life. That was a few hours ago, though, so the wormhole will definitely have died by now, at least giving us a null-sec system to explore. And that's it, it seems, as a blanket scan shows no change to the overall number of signatures, just the wormhole having refreshed.
Exiting C3a puts me in a system in the Detorid region. The local channel shows no other pilots, so I pick an asteroid field at random and warp to it so that I can rat whilst I scan. I chip away at rat battleships as my probes pick up oh so many anomalies, and a single extra signature. 'Should we make an adventure of the anomalies?', says Fin, reading my mind about taking a break from w-space drones to see what null-sec rats can do. It's a good idea, except for the other signature resolving to also be a wormhole. That, and there are now four other pilots in the system.
I really should have been paying more attention, but knowing that local would show me changes so that I wouldn't have to constantly update my directional scanner kinda made me relax a little too much. Luckily, I pop the rat and am in warp to the wormhole before any of the pilots manages to find or catch me, but I still reprimand myself for being a little too casual about my safety.
I drop out of warp next to an N432 outbound connection to class 5 w-space. As I bookmark the wormhole's location the other pilots in the system leave, and not through the wormhole, so it seems I won't be followed. I jump in to C5a. A single bubble appears on d-scan from the K162, so I launch probes, perform a blanket scan of the system, and warp to one of the planets out of range. As my probes show me ships I am already switching to d-scan, where d-scan lets me see the interesting sight of a tower lacking a force field. Oh, except there isn't a tower.
Finding the four Venture mining frigates, five shuttles, and corporate hangar array is easy enough, but why they are in space when they are lacking a tower is a little odd. Normally, the flotsam is created from a tower running out of fuel and going off-line. But not having a tower means that either the owner went to the trouble of packing it up and removing it, or a fleet went to the effort of destroying it without then taking a moment to complete their carnage. Perhaps the owner didn't have room for the inexpensive ships and abandoned them instead of making another risky trip through w-space.
Whatever has caused the ships to be abandoned they are still worth something, either some easy ISK on the market or useful as disposable ships. Fin prepares an Orca industrial command ship back in the home system, as I start shooting the CHA. There may be more to steal inside the CHA, and if whatever operation has caused this mess isn't quite finished I would rather call attention to myself before our Orca gets here. But the CHA explodes and no one comes, and nothing else gets thrown in to space. It's just the Ventures and shuttles, then. Oh, and the defences. Without a tower, the defences are all ready to be scooped too.
I stand watch as Fin brings the Orca in to C5a and chomps the ships, then bounces off the planet to get close to the defences quickly and chomps them too, making the most of my time by scanning the three anomalies and seven signatures. The Orca warps back to null-sec, Fin reckoning we've nabbed about sixty million ISK of assets, and I warp around the three wormholes I resolved. A K162 from null-sec isn't terribly exciting, and neither is a Z142 outbound connection to null-sec, but hello static connection to class 1 w-space!
It can't be much fun living in a C5, which can have dreadnoughts brought in through the right wormholes, but have a static wormhole that doesn't allow even battleships through. Maybe that's why the locals moved out, and no one followed. I'm okay with it, though, as there may be soft targets to find. But jumping to C1a puts me in an empty if occupied system, where the nine anomalies and six signatures resolve to hold a single wormhole, the system's static exit to high-sec empire space. That's game over for today. But with hunting, exploring, ambushes, and a little ransacking, it's been a good day.
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