Finding exits and entrances
7th May 2014 – 5.48 pmSites have despawned in the home system, yet there are signatures dotted around. What manner of wizardry is this?! I shall investigate. Oh, and I need to bring my glorious leader home too. The signatures are new, or shifted, gas clouds, and a second wormhole. The connection is a K162 from class 2 w-space, which is nifty, because a C2 system with a static wormhole to C4 w-space will have its second static wormhole exit to high-sec. Let's find it.
Jumping to C2a and updating my directional scanner sees a tower but no ships, and although I align away from the wormhole in preparation for warp, opening the system map shows a puny three signatures in a tiny system. Sod it, I launch probes at the wormhole and, because scanning will be quick, scan quickly. The two unknown signatures resolve to be two wormholes, the high-sec exit and a K162 from more class 2 w-space.
System scanned, I locate the tower. This task is even easier than scanning, as the territorial control unit anchored nearby guides me right to the local occupation, my Loki strategic cruiser's interdiction nullifier subsystem preventing me from being pulled in to the almost-inevitable bubble trap surrounding the TCU. Of course, no one's home, I'm just here to tag the corporation. That done, I warp to the high-sec wormhole, exit w-space, and relay the system in Devoid to Fin. Nineteen hops. She's on her way.
Back to w-space and across C2a to jump to C2b, where d-scan is clear and a blanket scan reveals eight anomalies and seven signatures, still no ships. Notes from eleven weeks ago say 'yes' to occupation, but exploring finds none. Silly notes. Someone must have opened the wormhole to C2a, though, so I launch probes and scan for K162s. I resolve one, plus the static exit to low-sec—obviously Aridia, the nebula being quite distinctive. The K162 comes from class 5 w-space.
Out to low-sec first, in case, by some weird circumstance, the route to Fin is more convenient, and I indeed appear in a system in Aridia. There are signatures and pilots, the route is naturally poor, and I ignore them all to go back to see what C5a holds for me. Three towers, an Archon carrier, Venture frigate, and a shuttle. That's a Sleeper escalation fleet if ever I saw one.
There is a single ore site in the system, which I vigorously encourage d-scan to show me a few times, but each time the Venture doesn't appear to be there. Fair enough, and I locate the tower holding the three ships to see they all lack pilots, whilst bringing a fourth tower in to d-scan range. Whatever, there are no other ships and a lack of activity takes me away from finding towers and back to scanning.
Sifting through fourteen signatures could be time-consuming, but ignoring the skinny ones makes the process much quicker, and quite successful. One wormhole, a Z142 connection to null-sec. A second, a C2 K162. Third, another Z142. Fourth, a K162 from null-sec. And the fifth and final chubby signature is also a wormhole, a C142 exit to low-sec. I suppose I should check the exits first.
The C142 takes me to an uninteresting system in Solitude, the first Z142 to Insmother where I look for, find, and pop a rat, but don't scan because I don't want to. That, and there aren't any signatures. The second null-sec connection spits me in to Syndicate, where there are pilots, probes, and an interceptor somewhere. Back to C5a, out to null-sec the third, appearing in Fountain, again with pilots. That'll do, now for more w-space, through the K162—now at the end of its life after that faffing around—and in to C2c.
D-scan is clear, no ships appear on a blanket scan, and it's late. I'll assume a lack of occupation in this C2, partly because I can't see any from where I am, partly because the two static connections lead to class 5 w-space and null-sec. I turn around to head home, through C5a where a Helios covert operations boat appears on d-scan launching probes. His ship name makes him local, so there are no new connections, he's in a hard-to-catch cov-ops, and I'm tired. Back to C2b, C2a, and home, avoiding the weirdly abandoned probes on the wormhole to warp to a quiet corner and go off-line.
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