Looking for unescorted haulers
12th July 2013 – 5.47 pmThe fleet I was playing with has gone, and they've left me with a dirty wormhole. Are you just going to leave it like this, class 5 w-space pilots? Ah, no. The wormhole flares and a battleship makes a round trip, destabilising the connection to critical levels. That's reassuring, but will they finish it? It looks that way, as a second flare brings in to the system a... Rupture? Okay, the cruiser isn't the ship I was expecting, but on its return it pulls the rest of the wormhole with it, so the Rupture did the job.
That still leaves all of the canisters scattered around what is now empty space, but I honestly don't care about them. They are simply a bit of jetsam, and as they aren't anchored the cans will disintegrate within a couple of hours. Even if they don't, for whatever, reason, I will keep the bookmark to this position so that I can tidy up if needs be. My main concern is how dull our neighbouring class 3 w-space system must be if the C5ers were happy to send basic haulers through it unescorted. Then again, their escorts weren't exactly looking much beyond their prows. Let me take a look.
All looks clear from our K162 in C3a, my directional scanner showing me nothing. Warping out, launching probes, and blanketing the system reveals a healthy twenty-two anomalies and thirteen signatures, and a bit of exploring locates a single tower with no one home. My notes indicate the static wormhole will lead to high-sec, hence, perhaps, the C5ers using the opportunity to haul goods one way or the other. I think it's worth a brief scan over the signatures for further opportunity.
Some rocks and gas are ignored, and a wormhole looks interesting until I warp to it and land in empty space. The signature identifier started with 'XAB', which, according to the auto-complete function of bookmarking, is the same as at least one other dead-on-arrival wormhole. Coincidence, or correlation? I dunno, but there are more rocks and gas pockets to ignore, and a weak wormhole that must be outbound. It is, and leads to class 2 w-space. That'll do nicely. I recall my probes and jump through.
A Drake battlecruiser, Navy Hookbill frigate, and pod appear on d-scan from the wormhole, along with four towers. All the towers are around a single planet, which is convenient for me, particularly as it lets me warp out of d-scan range in such a small system to launch probes. Returning to look for the towers sees the Drake unpiloted at one planet, two empty towers, and it seems that the Hookbill and pod are curiously somewhere in space until Picard reminds me that there are four towers. Right, thanks. There they are, two pilots floating in a force field.
My blanket scan reveals no anomalies, eight signatures, and the three ships, and as it looks like the locals aren't doing anything I may as well look for wormholes. The signatures resolve to be mostly gas, the second static wormhole is obviously present, but the third, weak wormhole could be a nice find. I warp to see a connection to more class 2 w-space and, well, I stop caring about the second static wormhole. I'm going to C2b.
A tower is on d-scan, as is a Wreathe hauler, Iteron hauler, and Magnate frigate, all ships eminently poppable, so I make it my priority to locate the tower. It's straightforward enough, even without my notes to guide me, and a pilot check has a capsuleer in the Iteron but not the other two ships. I think that will do just fine, as long as the one pilot decides to collect planet goo.
As I prepare for a possible chase, I note that the Iteron is orientated directly away from a distant customs office. It's likely that the pilot's been out and come back already, with all the planet goo he wants for today. If that's the case, he really should have the decency to go off-line, frankly. Dumb pilots wasting everyone's time. And as I probably am wasting my time here, and the hour's late, I should head home.
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