Mirror constellation
8th April 2014 – 5.46 pmWe need to get rid of some of these sites. The home w-space system is getting awfully cluttered with gas, rocks, Sleepers. What must visitors think? Maybe I can ask them, all I have to do is pop through this K162 from class 4 w-space. But jumping to C4a sees a tower with no one home, my directional scanner detecting no ships. I may as well be in class 3 w-space.
If anyone were home I bet they'd be berating me for our system. This one is much neater, a blanket scan revealing only four anomalies and four signatures. I'm frankly a little surprised that the locals aren't in our system tidying Sleepers away. That is, of course, assuming the locals were the ones who opened the connection to our system. It's just as likely there rabbit hole goes further back.
I'm not convinced there's a wormhole to be found, though. None of the signatures look strong enough to be a K162, not that this stops me from poking them anyway. Besides, I spot that one of the signatures is split under my probes, which means both that it is stronger than it appears, and that it is a fair distance from the centre of my probe cluster. Only the signatures of wormholes tend to loiter so far from planets, and this one turns out to be no different than the rest.
I drop out of warp next to a K162 from class 3 w-space, giving me a weird mirror sensation of going both backwards and forwards at the same time. Jumping to C3b—saving C3a for the system through our static wormhole—adds to the weirdness, with ships appearing on d-scan as well as a tower. Okay, but I bet I find no pilots in them, and I don't. The Nereus hauler, Merlin and Heron frigate, and pair of shuttles are all empty inside the force field.
Back to scanning. My first impression is that the system is a bit messy, but the sixteen anomalies and sixteen signatures only look bad compared to the previous system. It's not much for w-space, not really. From the signatures come three wormholes, as well as a second Heron that comes and goes before I realise what d-scan shows me. It's probably from a wormhole, it probably won't sit up waiting to be caught like the one from the other day.
The Heron launches probes somewhere in the system and settles down to scan. In that case, I'll reconnoitre the wormholes. The first is the system's static exit to low-sec, Khanid by the looks of it. The second wormhole is a K162 from class 3 w-space, and, hello, the Heron is decloaked again, a quick update of d-scan in the system map putting him on the U210. Back I go, naturally nowhere near in time to actually see the Heron, but as his probes have gone I think it's safe to assume he jumped out. I wonder if he'll come back again.
I decloak, activate my sensor booster, and get cosy with the exit wormhole to low-sec, waiting for the Heron's return. He should be back by now, if he was just taking a look at the exit. Or now, if he is cautious enough to wait for polarisation effects to expire. Nothing. Well, I'm here, I may as well poke out to low-sec myself and see what's there. One pilot, young, not obviously in space. No Heron, no probes. Never mind, back to w-space.
The third wormhole in C3b is a K162 from class 5 w-space. That's mildly interesting, but the C3 K162 is more likely to terminate sooner, so I head there first. D-scan is clear in C3c, a blanket scan only being used to look for ships. The discovery scanner is already showing me one other signature. But I suppose I was right that this arm of the constellation would terminate quickly. My probes show no ships, exploring finds a tower, and scanning the static wormhole sees it exiting to Aridia. I can't say I mind, not when the wormhole is almost dead.
Back I go, C3b and in to C5a for a quick peek. A lone drone on scan looks a bit depressing, without even a friend to talk to, but a blanket scan reveals nine ships that could come to pick it up at some point. There are also five anomalies and six signatures, one of the anomalies being a ghost site that looks rather less tempting with the occupation and ships in the system. Locating the tower and seeing no pilots in the mix of scout and combat ships doesn't put me sufficiently at ease to consider the easily found ghost site either.
Maybe if I scanned C5a and found this system to be a dead end I could risk the riches of the ghost site. A couple of wormholes pop up, one is just a K162 from null-sec Fountain, but the other comes from deeper class 5 w-space. Checking C5b for occupation and activity finds neither, which probably means more K162s wait to be discovered, but I think I've had my fill of exploring empty w-space. And assuming it's empty doesn't make the ghost site a better prospect. I'm going home.
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