Less of a camp, more a passing-by

I come on-line wondering if w-space will at least pretend to be active this evening, and have my scanning probes show me a new signature in the home system that stinks like a K162. I resolve the wormhole and warp to a connection from class 5 w-space, making me think that perhaps I'm already being watched. I suppose that was kinda what I asked for, but it goes to show you need to be more specific about your desires. I didn't really want to be activity for other capsuleers, and rather find some activity for myself. But, at the moment, it's all speculation. I jump to C5a in order to clarify circumstances.

A Sabre and Rifter appear on my directional scanner, along with a tower, but I doubt an interdictor and frigate are active in C5 w-space, or that they offer much credible threat to my cloaky Loki strategic cruiser. Locating them confirms my suspicions, if only because not many ships are threatening when sitting empty inside a tower's force field. More curious is that the tower is planted on the outermost planet, which offers a blind spot to d-scan for visiting pilots like myself on the other side of the system, whereas anchoring it a more central planet would give full d-scan coverage. Maybe they have reasons.

As I ponder tower positioning, a Drake blips on d-scan. The battlecruiser disappears as quickly as he appeared, and although he could be in that blind spot I suspect he's jumped through a wormhole, as he didn't come from or visit the tower. I warp out, launch probes, and perform a blanket scan. A wormhole is obvious amongst the thirteen anomalies and fourteen signatures, and is another K162 from class 5 w-space. My probes pick up a second wormhole too, but as it is out of d-scan range of the tower I discount it as the Drake's origin. It is also a C5 K162, but one at the end of its life, so I think my hunch is correct. I check for life through the healthy K162.

D-scan is clear from the other side of the wormhole, in C5b, and only one planet with moons is out of range. Warping there finds towers, though, and ships. Judging by the naming standards, this is the origin system of the Drake I saw. Four towers hold five ships, and a couple of ship changes indicates activity, and a Vagabond cruiser turning in to a Falcon recon ship doesn't look healthy for me. Even so, despite the ships being piloted and some swapping occurring it doesn't look like anything will happen, so it's probably best to ignore them for now and head home, where I can poke through our static wormhole. And, as usual, my plan goes awry immediately.

I warp to the wormhole with a Crow interceptor on d-scan, out of range of the towers. He's warping behind me, coincidentally, I hope, and lands on the wormhole as I drop short. This is another good reason for not warping point-to-point when scouting in a cloaked ship. I move off the direct line between the tower and wormhole, and watch and wait. The Crow jumps to C5a, shortly followed by a Drake warping from the tower to join the interceptor in the next system. I have to wonder what they are up to, and give them a minute to decide before jumping through the wormhole myself. Okay, they've worked it out. They're waiting for me.

The Crow has planted himself right in the centre of the wormhole, the Drake in a neutral position nearby. And the wormhole flares behind me, as I hold my session change cloak considering my options. The Crow is a minor threat, depending on how well my guns can track him. I could probably pop him pretty easily, as long as I can hit, and the Drake can easily be ignored until the Crow is down. Then I can either engage the Drake or back out gracefully from the battlecruiser. But the new ship entering the system is an unknown, and I would rather not be forced back through the wormhole, polarised, to have just the one chance to flee. I should probably make a run for it.

I move away from the wormhole and cloak, pulsing my micro warp drive. I don't think the Crow was quite ready for that, despite the warning he must have got from what turned out to be his buddy following through the wormhole in the Falcon, as the interceptor barely budges. I'm safe. That was easy. But now the Crow moves, and in to warp towards what will be the wormhole heading to our home system, with the other ships in pursuit. I could try to evade them again—evasion being the only option with the ECM of the Falcon almost guaranteed to render my ship a chunk of expensive metal scraps—but tonight I'll just bore them in to submission. I stay where I am and wait.

The ships drop off d-scan, no doubt having jumped to the home system, but I stay where I am. I try to poke various communication channels to keep myself entertained, and catch up on reading, but it turns out to be mostly unnecessary. A Buzzard covert operations boat appears on d-scan in C5a, warps to the K162 I'm sitting on, and jumps to C5b. That would be the scout that very probably has been monitoring me almost since I came on-line. I was being watched after all, and explains how the pilots scrambled to get to their static wormhole to wait for me. Why he's going home now is curious, until the Falcon, Drake, and Crow also warp back to the K162 and jump to C5b a few seconds later. That didn't take long.

Six minutes it took to bore the ambushers in to giving up. I've waited longer for ships to align and warp across a medium-sized system. I suppose they expected me to make a dash for the route home and didn't account for me not caring to jump from ambush to ambush. Even so, six minutes is barely the blink of an eye in w-space, and I was hunkering down to distract myself for an hour or more. My gain, I suppose, and as the ships jump through the K162 I spur my Loki in to warp, this time warping to zero and jumping immediately in case they are trying to fake me out. But they don't care that much about catching me. I hold near our wormhole for a while, cloaked at a safe distance, to see if they come back, but no one does.

I still have time to check the constellation ahead of me, so warp to our static wormhole and jump to the neighbouring class 3 system. I suppose I won't find anything, though, if the C5ers have already scouted this way, although there is a chance that a newly on-line hauler will want to collect planet goo. No such luck tonight, and even though I find a tower with three piloted ships there is nothing happening and little to see. Three anomalies and three signatures go untouched by the pilots, and normally an outbound connection to class 4 w-space and a static exit to low-sec empire space would offer more opportunity, but I find them both in their end-of-life state.

I'm stuck in a C3 with dying wormholes and inactive pilots. But not for long, I suppose, as the C3 pilots go off-line in short order. That doesn't really change my options, however. I don't want to collapse our static wormhole with ECM-toting dickwads behind me, and I don't care to wait for the EOL exit to low-sec to die for a vague possibility of scanning more wormholes in empire space. It's probably best that I just call it a night, so I head home, hide in a corner, and get some rest.

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Tags: buzzard, crow, drake, eve online, falcon, loki, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pvp, rifter, sabre, scanning, vagabond, w-space

Using stargates to find wormholes

Let's see what's changed with the constellation, such as it was. Our static connection to class 3 w-space led to three wormholes to and from high-sec empire space, and a K162 from class 5 w-space that was stressed to critical levels before I took a break. I would hope that C3a has woken up, but even if they have I suppose they may not be too keen to engage in risky endeavours with so many connections, so I already suspect I'll be hitting high-sec to scan for more wormholes. First, a quick check of the home system, which shows no new connections, letting me head out to roam.

No ships are visible in C3a, but some combat probes light up my directional scanner. I consider waiting for the scout to come my way, but there's no guarantee he will, and if he's in a covert operations boat then I doubt I will do much but have my targeting system flail wildly in his direction for the split-second it takes for the ship to cloak again. And knowing from earlier that there are seventeen signatures in the system means the scanner may be a while. I'll swing past the C5 K162 to see if it's still there, then hit high-sec to scan.

The probes disappear as I make a pre-warp d-scan check. A Buzzard decloaks somewhere in the system, and I stop to look for him. The cov-ops looks to be coincident with the bookmark I made to the C5 K162, so I suppose the wormhole is still there, and head over there with my cloaky Loki strategic cruiser. I'm not really expecting to catch the Buzzard, but I can still look. I land near the tiny wormhole, looking like it could barely even take the Buzzard through it, but with no other ship in sight. The cov-ops persists on d-scan for a while, although nowhere I can pin down, and disappears. I think I can ignore him.

Heading through one of the K162s to high-sec puts me in Aridia. High-sec Aridia, that's funny. But it's probably good to scan, as no one else is out here, and it looks like no one comes out here either. Sixteen anomalies and nine signatures is a bounty in empire space, particularly high-sec empire space, and if only one of those signatures was a wormhole I'd be happy. The best I can manage is to resolve two identical 3/10 DED sites. The sites may offer a little distraction, perhaps with a small reward, so I aim my Loki towards the first and see what awaits.

Frigates. Frigates with tracking disrupters. But nothing serious, and my autocannons pop, pop, pop the rats with little fuss, letting me activate the acceleration gate to move to the next volume of deadspace. 'Expect more frigates', warns my computer, and she's right. Fifteen frigates in this wave, and twenty-eight in the next, and still my shields don't get plinked to below 93% integrity. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, in that case, that getting to the final wave and popping the Dark Blood target, I only loot a meta 3 webifier module. You win some, you lose some. I don't think I'll bother with the second site.

At least I'm in high-sec, where stargates pose no risk to law-abiding capsuleers like myself. Making sure I am not about to make a jump to low-sec, I hop one system across and scan again. Out of habit I warp to a rock field to launch probes, as I tend to look for rats when scanning in unpopulated systems, but this is high-sec and I bump in to some Hulk exhumers. I suppose the miners are taking advantage of the isolated Aridia existence in this high-sec island, and I resist the urge to play with them a bit. Instead, I just warp away, launch probes, and scan. And recall my probes on resolving just the same site as before, hop one more system across, and try again.

Five signatures greet me, but I'm not expecting much any more. A magnetometric site, radar site, drones, drones, and, thank goodness, a wormhole. The sight of a K162 from class 2 w-space is lovely, even more so considering it will hold another w-space connection inside. I jump in to take a look around. D-scan shows me two Orca industrial command ships, two shuttles, and two towers, which doesn't look positive, but my notes tell of a static connection to class 4 w-space, which again will guarantee another w-space connection, so the constellation is opening up. I scan through the eleven anomalies and thirteen signatures, ignoring a critically destabilised K162 from class 5 w-space to look for the weak second static wormhole, and continue through this inactive system to C4a.

The class 4 w-space system doesn't look much better than C2a. A tower shows occupation, a lack of ships means no activity, and I'm again left scanning the eleven anomalies and sixteen signatures for wormholes. I feel lucky in resolving a weak wormhole on the third signature, leading to the inevitable static connection to class 5 w-space, but less lucky when warping to it shows it to be at the end of its life. I'm not getting stuck in a chain of C5 space this late in the evening, so don't touch the wormhole and continue scanning, looking for K162s. I don't expect much, but get lucky. A K162 from class 3 w-space pops up just as I'm thinking I'll be heading home.

Pushing deeper in to the constellation puts me in a system where, according to my notes from eighteen months ago, three of our Manticore stealth bombers engaged a Drake battlecruiser, and although we don't get the kill we end up looting a site whilst a fleet is elsewhere. That sounds like fun times. Not so much today, where a tower sits empty of ships and pilots, and the fifteen anomalies and twenty-five signatures makes me feel tired of scanning. But I press on, performing a coarse search for K162s, and finding two wormholes.

The first wormhole is a K162 from null-sec k-space, and not really that enticing right now, and a second chubby wormhole that turns out to be the static exit to low-sec. Okay, that's it for me for tonight. I've scanned my way through enough systems and found pretty much nothing, with the only signs of activity being critically destabilised wormholes. On other occasions I may risk poking through to perhaps catch capsuleers unawares, but the evening has drawn on and I'm not going to dig my way through w-space this late at night to get home should I suffer some bad luck. I simply head home, get some rest, and hope for better connections tomorrow.

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Tags: buzzard, eve online, hulk, loki, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space

Early reconnaissance

It's early. I'm going to see if anyone else is active at this time of day. Maybe a sleepy industrialist wants to check on his planet goo, or a solo battlecruiser pilot wants to make some lazy ISK in an anomaly. Or everyone's having a lie-in. It feels that way in the home system, so I resolve the static wormhole and jump to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system to look for other pilots. I won't find them in an unoccupied system, though. My directional scanner is clear from the wormhole, warping around finds no towers or ships, and a blanket scan returns twelve anomalies and seventeen signatures, one of which is a static connection to null-sec. I suppose I'm looking for wormholes.

There doesn't seem to be anything worth finding for a while, until I hit a signature that's too chubby for a null-sec connection and too skinny for a K162. I'd say that's interesting. And, lucky days, it's a V301 wormhole to class 1 w-space. Soft targets, here I come! Or, rather, unoccupied C1 with three anomalies and forty-one signatures, here I come. I try to keep my spirits up, knowing that K162s will appear readily, but when the first wormhole I find is a half-mass static exit to high-sec I feel I am wasting my time. How the wormhole has been opened and destabilised when there are no K162s in the system I'm not sure, but with no occupation or activity I don't care for the current constellation.

I head home, prepare some massive ships, and throw them through our static wormhole. Not literally, of course, as I'm piloting them and sending them out and bringing them back in a controlled manner, and before long I'm back in my cloaky Loki strategic cruiser with a fresh connection to resolve. The replacement wormhole sends me to a new C3a, where d-scan shows me occupation but no activity. It's a step up from the previous neighbour, at least. I launch probes and blanket the system, revealing a manageable but untidy six anomalies and seventeen signatures, and even though I know I'll find a static exit to high-sec empire space there may be more worth uncovering.

Despite ostensibly on early reconnaissance, I can't bring myself to fully resolve all seventeen signatures, so they can be bookmarked, as the last time that resolving a site ahead of a later roam has proven worthwhile has dropped out of my memory. It's a better use of my time to find wormholes to look through more systems for targets, and hunt them directly. I've got good enough with d-scan and my probes for this tactic to work, too. As such, I discard rocks and gas, knowing I could find them later if necessary, and concentrate on resolving the connections.

There's a wormhole, the one with an assault ship sitting on top of it. I don't see what hull the ship is, as the wormhole is out of d-scan range, but now I see a pod flying through the system. And it is through the system, as it disappears from d-scan without warping in to one of the two towers I am trying to monitor as best I can, so I assume the wormhole is active with more than one pilot. It would probably be best to watch that than sit outside the tower, so I warp across to sit besides what turns out to be a K162 from class 5 w-space that's already destabilised to half-mass.

The K162 is missing the assault ship, and unsurprisingly the pod, but as I continue scanning—one wormhole feels like the high-sec static connection, a second and third both like other K162s—the wormhole flares and a Proteus enters C3a. The strategic cruiser cloaks with little delay, which shows me the wormhole is probably monitored and protected, although that doesn't mean I can't try my luck should a hauler appear. If a hauler appears, which it doesn't look like one will. Checking the other wormholes in the system finds the static exit at the end of its life, and maybe not in use, considering the other two are both K162s from high-sec space.

A Legion strategic cruiser blips on d-scan, perhaps another cloaky escort, and this whilst I am reconnoitring one of the K162s, which means I still have no idea which wormhole the C5ers are using. And I probably won't. Warping back to the C5 K162 has it flare not long after I get there, and an Abaddon battleship appears, turns, and jumps back to C5a, destabilising the wormhole to critical levels. The only question now is whether another ship will finish the job. Well, that, and if it will get isolated. And, I suppose, if that potentially isolated ship could be engaged successfully by my Loki. Three questions, then.

I wait and consider the options. I'm not sure how ambushing an isolated ship would work. On the one hand, it should be fit for collapsing a wormhole, and probably prepared to be isolated and running for empire space. On the other hand, if the engagement started to go wrong, for whatever reason, I'd have no wormhole to flee through. But I don't have to worry about that today, as waiting at the wormhole sees no more ships come through, even after any polarisation effects have dissipated, so it seems the C5ers are content with leaving their wormhole in a critical state.

That's fair enough. I think I am content with the state of the constellation. I have an occupied C3 with plenty of sites, and two K162s and perhaps a fresh static connection to high-sec to feed me new scanning opportunities at some point. Just not right now. I'll take a break, grab some food, and come back to see what else I can find.

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Tags: abaddon, eve online, legion, loki, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, proteus, scanning, w-space

Making a target of myself

There's nothing much to do at home. Some anomalies, two signatures. Rocks and the static wormhole. I'll see if our neighbouring class 3 w-space system holds some entertainment. A Loki strategic cruiser, Hound stealth bomber, and Cheetah covert operations boat is an interesting mix of ships, and any of them being active could offer some opportunity. Two towers are also visible on my directional scanner from the K162, though, so there's no guarantee of any pilots, let alone activity, and a lack of wrecks makes me think that the Loki at least isn't up to anything. Let me find the towers.

One tower has no ships, the other no pilots. It looks like I remain alone in space. I launch probes and scan, revealing one anomaly and six signatures, which hopefully will hold more wormholes than only the static exit to null-sec I found here fifteen months ago. But, no, the other signatures are rocks, gas, gas, and rocks. A Buzzard cov-ops appears and disappears at the tower as I resolve the static wormhole, and although it looks like he only appeared to update his skill queue, I wasn't paying as much attention as I could have. He's gone now, anyway.

Checking the null-sec connection takes me to an empty system in the Tenal region, where ratting and scanning bags me a cruiser and resolves merely a radar site, although there are plenty of anomalies full of Gurista rats and drones. I want to head home and collapse our static wormhole, but the null-sec radar site tempts me to bring a Drake back to see what loot I can recover. I pause jumping back to C3a, as core probes are on d-scan, but decide to ignore them and continue. And the answer to my query is no loot, as my sub-optimally fit battlecruiser doesn't quite hold up against three waves of rats at once, when I pop the wrong ships to start with.

Never mind, as none of the rats are preventing my ship's warping, and I return to C3a and head home, registering the core scanning probes still visible on d-scan in our neighbouring system. Rather than collapse our wormhole I think I'll see what happens with those probes. I won't wait in an interceptor, partly because that almost guarantees no one will jump through our wormhole, and partly because scanning in strategic cruisers has become prevalent, and my little Malediction would only have to flee as fast as its micro warp drive could take it. Which is pretty fast. Instead, I loiter by our static wormhole, in the home system, in my cloaky Loki.

It takes a little while, but the scout finishes scanning and jumps to our system. The wormhole flares, I wait for the pilot to shed his session change cloak, and the Buzzard from C3a appears. Well, a Buzzard, as I have no idea if its the same one, but still a Buzzard. The cov-ops moves and cloaks, and I think it's just fine if he wants to take a look around our system. He can even scan, as there's not much to find, and I think I have enough time to hit our tower, swap to my Malediction, and return to the wormhole to wait for the Buzzard to go home.

I jump to C3a in my interceptor and position myself in the middle of the wormhole. There's no point waiting for the pilot in the home system, as he would jump through and I'd have to give chase. And by waiting in C3a, if the Buzzard takes time to scan, I will be able to engage on this side and give chase back through the wormhole without polarising myself, whereas my target will become polarised if he has to jump back to flee. I also know that he will be coming back this way, instead of guessing that maybe a pilot will explore through a wormhole. The only trouble now is having to intercept a cov-ops, which is tricky, even in an interceptor.

I don't have long to wait before the Buzzard returns to his home system, the wormhole flare alerting me to the fact. I get my systems hot, micro warp drive active, and watch for the ship. There he is. I go for a target lock and fail, the Buzzard cloaking, but I have my Malediction pointed his way and accelerating hard. I have a good feeling about this, but one that dissipates as quickly as I hit the ten kilometre mark away from the wormhole. I somehow managed to miss bumping the Buzzard and disrupting his cloak. Oh well, it happens.

Rather than jump home immediately I reset my position and keep watch on d-scan. I am in no immediate trouble, the ships at the tower remain the unpiloted three from earlier, and I am in no danger of becoming polarised. I can wait. I keep d-scan updated, and after a couple of minutes see a Manticore new to the system. I didn't see the Buzzard appear, which I would expect from it returning to the tower to re-ship, but maybe I have just been a bit lazy in keeping d-scan current. And, you know what, I quite fancy making my interceptor a target for a stealth bomber.

I hold on the wormhole and wait. The Manticore doesn't hide itself, not even when warping to greet me, which I consider a mistake. I can see the direction it comes, its range, and aim myself appropriately long before it launches its bomb. Even so, I don't make best use of this information, instead waiting for the bomb to be launched and land on top of me before moving. I am cautious about lighting my micro warp drive and flaring my signature radius significantly, which would increase the bomb's damage. But I am not in a normal fast ship. The Malediction can hit close to 5 km/s, which is easily enough to burn out of the fifteen kilometre blast radius of the bomb before its ten second fuse runs down. But, like I say, I'm being cautious.

I watch the bomb approach, but don't sit still and do nothing. I move to engage the Manticore, which even under normal speed closes the gap to be within warp disruption range before the detonation. And it's a big blast. The Manticore locks on and target-paints my tiny ship, making the explosion more impressive, and it takes out my Malediction's shields and most of the armour. If only he hadn't used an electron bomb but the kinetic version that the Manticore gets a bonus for using, I may have popped. I'm glad I don't, and not just because of the obvious reason. Sad Panda, my Malediction, has been with me for a long time. I wouldn't want to lose her to a silly mistake.

My reactions are a little slow. The bomb's hit distracts me a little, and it takes a couple of volleys of torpedoes to wake me up. I activate my micro warp drive and get to top speed, closing with the Manticore in the blink of an eye, its torpedoes now spending their entire flight time trying to catch up with me, and failing. I get my launchers spewing rockets at the stealth bomber as I buzz around it, inflicting significant damage and receiving none. And then I run away. Or, at least, that's what it looks like.

I will blame sticky keys, as for some reason my targeting systems lock on to the wormhole and my command to orbit the Manticore is instead interpreted to mean for my interceptor to orbit the wormhole. It must look like I'm running away to the other pilot, because I dash away from him at full speed, sitting at 30% armour. A mistake like this in any other ship would have been imperceptible, but moving at top speed in an interceptor has minor mistakes amplified to be very noticeable indeed. I quickly try to cancel the commands and revert to orbiting the bomber.

I get my Malediction turned around, though, and am easily back in range of the Manticore before it could even think about warping clear. Once more I am orbiting the bomber, its torpedoes still unable to catch up with me, as my rockets shred shields, armour, and hull. The Manticore explodes. Somehow, even in my interceptor, I miss catching the pilot's ejected pod, and I watch as it warps back to the local tower. That's cool, as this was a good fight, if quick, and in this case I am glad I missed the Buzzard first.

I loot and shoot the wreck, returning afterwards to sit on the wormhole, although feeling a little more vulnerable than before. My shields are recovering after the bombing, and have been since I turned on my MWD, as I really didn't take another hit from the chasing torpedoes, but my armour is depleted. Watching d-scan has a Tengu appear in the system, the strategic cruiser sitting alongside the escaped pod, which makes him a new contact. It's time to make a tactical withdrawal. I return home, repair the Malediction, and swap back to my Loki. I loiter on our static connection, not really expecting to do any more and just winding down after the fight. No one jumps through to see what I'm up to, so after a while I hide and go off-line, no doubt leaving the C3 pilots with the fear of Penny in them.

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Tags: buzzard, cheetah, drake, eve online, hound, loki, malediction, manticore, mmorpg, null-sec, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, tengu, w-space

Getting close to a gasser

It's just me and the static connection. And a curious absence of most of our anomalies. Dammit, that was our ISK! Just because we couldn't be bothered to take it from the Sleepers doesn't give other fleets the right to steal it from us. Someone is going to pay for this. Just not today, because their wormhole no longer connects to our system. But one day, mark my words. Maybe I can take out some frustration on our w-space neighbours for now, so I warp to our static wormhole and jump to the class 3 system beyond.

All looks clear in C3a from the K162. I launch probes and perform a blanket scan, as I check my notes. I was last here three months ago, when a tower was anchored nearby and I found a static wormhole to low-sec empire space. The tower's gone, and my blanket scan reveals one anomaly, five signatures, and ten drones. No wrecks, no ships, and not even an off-line tower litter the system, so the presence of the drones is curious, particularly as they are in two clumps, but okay. I can ignore them safely enough.

Scanning is straightforward, with the static wormhole, two magnetometric sites, and one radar site. And the drones, of course. I pause before jumping to low-sec to gather the drones for myself, not wanting them to spend another cold night in w-space, and exit to Aunenen in Lonetrek. The system name rings a bell, maybe for the wrong reasons, but I doubt I'll be pinged on a wormhole. I launch probes and scan again.

The first of the two additional signatures is a weak wormhole, which makes it outbound, this one leading to class 2 w-space. Sadly, the connection is reaching the end of its life, making it unattractive as an immediate option. The second signature is also a wormhole, and being chubbier is likely a K162, but it's lack of appearance in space also makes it phantom. I suppose it was EOLer than the first wormhole. With little other option available, I risk isolation and poke in to C2a. But it really is a poke. A tower with no ships appears on my directional scanner, and I appear over eight kilometres from the wormhole. I'm going to call this system inactive, and the constellation a waste of time.

I return home, get the big ships out, and smoothly collapse our static wormhole—even demonstrating how the cosmic signature no longer breaks a ship's cloak in the process—in the hopes of getting better w-space to explore. And jumping to the new C3a looks like I have got my wish, as a Cormorant destroyer, jet-can, and two Sleeper wrecks appear on d-scan. A gasser.

A Prowler transport appears on d-scan as I confirm what I'm seeing, which disappears back out of the site after presumably collecting some of the sucked-up gas. I move from the wormhole and cloak—part cursing that the wormhole spits me out so close to the gasser in such a big system, but part happy that it also means I know of his presence immediately on my entrance—and the Cormorant stays. It looks like I have a ship to hunt. I warp away, making a bookmark in a dark spot in the system, and bump in to a tower on the distant planet. The Prowler is here, along with an unpiloted Cyclone battlecruiser. The location of the tower is good to know, as well as the number of pilots, and as I made a safe spot on my way out here I haven't really lost any time in getting this information.

I warp to the newly made safe spot, launch probes, and return to hunt the Cormorant. He's still in the site, still sucking the gas. I get a good bearing on his position, determine a rough range of just over 2 AU, and arrange my probes around where he used to be. The rogue has warped away moments before I'm ready to scan for him. I know gas doesn't take as long to collect as rocks, but I was hoping the destroyer would linger a little longer. I check the tower, where I see the Prowler now sitting with a Buzzard covert operations boat. I suppose that's the finished Cormorant pilot. That's a shame. For me.

The site is far from the tower, so I call in my probes for a scan anyway, just in case the pilots are only taking a short break, and get the perfect scan. Reconnoitring the ladar site lets me set up a monitoring point and bookmark the second cloud, the first hoovered up by the Cormorant, and keep my probes active in a blanket scan configuration. But nothing changes. The pilots have all they need with the first cloud and don't care to come back for the second. The don't even care to salvage the two Sleeper wrecks.

Both pilots go off-line within a few minutes, dashing any hopes I have for executing an ambush this evening. At least I got a hunt, I suppose. With no one active in the C3 I resolve the rest of the signatures, finding two more gas sites, and one skinny and one chubby wormhole. The fat one is a K162 from null-sec, so the thin one will be the static exit to null-sec. The non-result bores me, so I turn around, somewhat deflated, and head home to get some rest for the night.

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Tags: buzzard, cormorant, cyclone, eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, prowler, scanning, w-space

Fracturing a frigate

Leaving the class 3 w-space system for high-sec takes me to a system in Metropolis, and puts me close to nothing. The Mammoth hauler that returned to C3a must have had a long trip, or paid over the odds for the silos he brought home. But that capsuleer's gone off-line, and I am here to look for more connections to explore through. I launch probes and scan, resolving all three extra signatures to be wormholes. The outbound connection to class 2 w-space would be more attractive if it weren't close to death, a K162 from more high-sec empire space is as interesting as a stargate, but the stable K162 from class 2 w-space offers promise.

From the wormhole inside C2b, a tower and Guardian logistics ship are visible on my directional scanner, and plenty of space stretches out of range to the other side of the system. As I am orientating myself an Anathema decloaks on the wormhole, the covert operations boat jumping to high-sec a moment later. Did he see me? I can't say, but the more important question is whether he is local. I locate the tower with the Guardian nearby, and see that the Anathema pilot is not associated with the owner corporation. But exploring the system finds a second tower, this one with a piloted Condor frigate inside its force field, which the Anathema is affiliated with. He's local.

There's not much I can do about a cov-ops, and particularly not one in high-sec, so I get back to scouting. A blanket scan of the system reveals twenty-two anomalies, ten signatures, and three ships. Three ships? The Guardian, Condor, and... what? The system is vast and d-scan barely stretches beyond each planet, so I am more relying on the ship to come to me than getting me to it. A subsequent blanket scan shows the ship persists but it doesn't look like it's coming to this tower. I warp across to the first tower, where remains just the unpiloted Guardian, and another scan now shows four ships. Returning to the second tower still has just the Condor, and a new scan has returned the system to holding two ships. I suspect a wormhole.

I scan through the signatures to resolve a K162 from class 4 w-space, which I suspect is where the ships came from, or went to. Others are just rocks, gas, radar and magnetometric sites, plus the second static connection leading to class 3 w-space. I approach the K162 to see what activity there is to find, when the wormhole flares. It seems the ship is coming to me after all. A Probe frigate appears, aligns, warps. It headed almost directly downwards, which would have it aiming for the wormhole to class 3 w-space, so I flip my cloaky Loki strategic cruiser around and warp behind the frigate.

Engaging a cov-ops on a high-sec wormhole is an exercise in futility. A scanning frigate, on the other hand, whilst able to cloak cannot then warp, making it possible to catch. And one transiting between w-space systems won't involve Concord should I find myself getting aggressive. Even better if the Probe doesn't even leave the system to provoke a chase. I drop out of warp short of the wormhole to see the Probe in a similar position, but diametrically opposite the connection to my own ship. I approach slowly, cloaked, to gauge when to follow the frigate to class 3 w-space, but it seems he is distracted. I note that my Loki is now almost on top of the wormhole and about to get decloaked by physical proximity, and decide to take my shot.

I reveal my strategic cruiser, get its sensor booster active, and light my micro warp drive to surge my Loki towards the Probe. My targeting systems get a positive lock as I burn at the frigate, letting my autocannons open fire. The first hit glances off the shields, barely registering, but the second lands after I give the Probe an almighty shunt. The bump must have aligned our ships, as the tiny ship is ripped apart, discarding the now useless pod in to space. I grab the pod for myself, crack open the hard shell to get at the meat inside, and scoop, loot, and shoot.

Oops, it seems the pilot was only a month in space. I counted the rings. I'm sure he won't mind that I callously podded him. It happens to all of us occasionally. Speaking of which, I should check C4a to see what could be waiting for me now, and jumping to his home it seems that I may have poked a wasps' nest. Ships galore appear on d-scan, and a Tengu strategic cruiser looks to be flitting here and there, dropping from d-scan before reappearing a minute later. Locating the two towers shows that all the ships are piloted but for a Cyclone battlecruiser, and although I silently urge a Bestower hauler to collect planet goo I suppose I should be more concerned about the movements of the Tengu and now Pilgrim recon ship, particularly if the Probe's new clone is feeling communicative.

There is enough space to let me launch probes covertly, and a blanket scan shows me there is little to find, with five anomalies and three signatures, and even fewer ships than I counted a minute ago. The two unknown signatures become a radar site and K162 from class 3 w-space with little effort, the wormhole tempting me despite the late hour and potential for hostile ships on the other side. Or perhaps because of that potential. I poke my prow through to C3c, where only a tower and Heron frigate light up d-scan, which is boring enough to send me back to C4a and on my way home without further inspection.

I cross C4a and return to C2b without bother, where I realise the connection to C3b, where the Probe was heading, remains unexplored. I take a look through that wormhole too, to sate my curiosity, and enter a system that is quite familiar to me. My seventh visit to the system is rather less interesting than the last, three months ago, as three towers have been reduced to one, and in that one is a dull Ibis frigate. An unpiloted Ibis frigate. A blue, unpiloted Ibis frigate. Dull indeed. I turn around again, jumping to C2b and warping to the high-sec connection heading homewards, where I see a fresh warp bubble anchored.

The bubble is not covering the wormhole, not that my interdiction-nullified Loki would notice if it were, but is anchored in line with the tower holding the Guardian. I am not sure who planted the bubble, and for what purpose. Any ship coming from high-sec would see the bubble and could easily route around it, and the only ship in the nearby tower is the unpiloted Guardian, which I don't imagine will come this way any time soon. Whatever its origin and purpose, I find that I don't care, particularly not at this late hour. I'm going home with a corpse in my hold.

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Tags: anathema, bestower, condor, cyclone, eve online, guardian, heron, ibis, loki, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, pilgrim, probe, scanning, tengu, w-space

From too much to too little

I'm needed! I feel like Mrs Peel. But, sadly, I'm needed in our sister class 5 w-space system, where a visiting fleet is foolishly engaging Sleepers with not enough ship, as proved when one of their Tengu strategic cruisers explodes. Of course, it would be better if our corporation could do the killing, but it seems the one pilot on-line can't rouse others, and he has to content himself with watching. Me, I'm not wanted anywhere else, as usual, and so I scan the home system to see nothing's changed, resolve our static wormhole, and jump to the neighbouring class 3 system.

A tower, some bubbles, and no ships grace my directional scanner when I update it in C3a, and the system is small enough that nothing obvious is hiding from me. But, I suppose, if it were obvious it wouldn't be hiding. What is more important is that I can't hide from anyone here, so I launch scanning probes from the wormhole and perform a blanket scan of the system. My notes from eighteen months ago show the tower is different, but the static exit to null-sec will be the same, somewhere amongst the fifty-nine anomalies and twenty-four signatures my scan reveals.

That sounds like a lot of effort scanning for results of dubious utility. Screw it, you messy bastards, I'll just go home and collapse our wormhole. I would suggest keeping an untidy system is a fair deterrent, but it really isn't. I'd still watch for planet gooers, or hunt gassers, and all it does is make everyday scanning a chore for yourself. An inactive system is a good deterrent, but that means you're off-line, so what's the point? But, anyway, I go home, grab some big ships, and start stressing our connection.

Collapsing the wormhole is feeling like standard procedure now, like I know what I'm doing. And I should hope so, not because of my experience but because I am trying to kill a wormhole that leads to a w-space system with twenty-four unscanned signatures whose only guaranteed connection exits to null-sec k-space. If I don't fancy scanning that in a dedicated ship, doing so in an Orca industrial command ship will be painful. Fortunately, I make the final Orca trip without the wormhole collapsing ahead of schedule. Unfortunately, neither does it collapse on schedule.

In fact, the wormhole doesn't even destabilise to critical levels when I bring the Orca home. I know I messed up one of the jumps, forgetting to activate the propulsion module for extra mass, but it shouldn't have affected the calculations this much. Then again, not going critical makes a final push simple. I don't need to rely on a dedicated crasher of a heavy interdictor, as the wormhole will withstand another jump from the Widow black ops trip without collapsing. Coming home should then kill it. Which it does, without drama, leaving me in the home system with a new static wormhole to find.

I scan again, resolve the new connection, and jump to another C3. D-scan showing me a tower and no ships is no improvement on the previous C3, but a passive scan only throwing up one anomaly is. The lack of anomalies suggests regular activity, and the likelihood that there aren't many signatures to wade through. Warping away from the wormhole and the tower to launch probes actually locates two more towers, as well as a piloted Helios covert operations boat at one of them. A blanket scan of the system shows how few signatures there are too, with just two in the whole system, which will be our K162 and the static exit to high-sec empire space.

It looks like I'll be heading to empire space to look for adventure tonight. At least, it does until a Mammoth appears on d-scan moments before I initiate warp to the resolved wormhole. I cancel the warp command and try to find the hauler using d-scan. It's not at one of the other two towers, as I am currently lurking outside the one with the Helios, but pointing d-scan at the high-sec wormhole shows the Mammoth to be in that direction. I imagine he's coming home, and hasn't just come on-line. That's a little disappointing, as he's not likely to perform his morning constitutional of collecting planet goo, and as the wormhole links to high-sec space I have little chance of catching him if he makes a second trip that way. But I can hope.

The Mammoth appears at the same tower as the Helios, letting me watch the pair of them at the same time. The hauler saunters across to anchor a polymer reactor array, and four biochemical silos, and starts to bring them on-line. That's not very interesting. The Helios being swapped for a Dominix battleship is, making me hope that the return of the second pilot will prompt the pair to clear the perhaps newly spawned anomaly, but the ship change is shortly followed by the pilot going off-line. Now I'm merely watching a Mammoth do nothing inside the force field of a tower. But not for long! Because the Mammoth goes off-line too within a minute or so. I would say it's time to hit high-sec.

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Tags: dominix, eve online, helios, mammoth, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space, widow

Bump and nuzzle

I'm kinda hoping the static connection in our neighbouring system is dead. It started wobbling earlier, putting it in the last stage of its life, but I don't know exactly when. The wormhole's collapse will kill the promising constellation I have already scanned, but at least it will offer a new one that I can explore, instead of simply the risk of getting isolated from home. After a quick check of the home system, seeing no new signatures spawned, I jump to our class 3 w-space neighbour and warp to the U210. It's still there, still wobbly. I don't fancy passing through it, nor waiting for its demise. But what I can do is force our own static wormhole to collapse, giving me a new constellation from the stump.

I return home, wait for polarisation effects to end, and throw an Orca industrial command ship through the wormhole and back. A second trip in a Widow black ops ship sees core scanning probes on my directional scanner in C3a, which is typical, I suppose. But at least my return halves our static wormhole's mass allowance, which may deter a casual scout. I stay in the Widow for the next trip, as it lets me sit cloaked near the wormhole to see if anyone comes this way, which they don't, and I need a second trip in the Widow anyway. Core probes are still visible on d-scan in C3a when my five minutes of polarisation ends, which only makes me wonder who's scanning. There are three signatures in the system, and it can't take that long to resolve them all.

A final round trip in the Orca through our static connection kills the wormhole, with no obvious transit by a scout, and I'm back to scanning with my covert Loki strategic cruiser. Now a new signature appears in the home system, and although I wonder how close I came to being ambushed when in the Orca the new signature is not another wormhole but more Sleepers moving in. I ignore them for now, resolving our replacement static wormhole and jumping to the new C3a. A tower, Orca, and Badger hauler are all visible on d-scan from the K162, and a territorial control unit is anchored somewhere in the system.

That very TCU caught me out the last time I was here, as I warped there expecting it to be outside a tower and ended in empty space. I won't make the same mistake today, as consulting my notes points me directly to the tower, where I find the Badger piloted, and by reds! Well, a red, but it doesn't sound as sinister in the singular. Reds! And a customs office ambush looks to be on the cards, as my last visit caught a Hoarder hauler making its rounds, after completely failing to spot my combat scanning probes whizzing around the system.

It's a different pilot today, so I wait and watch to see if he also partakes in the planet goo. Yes, yes he does. The Badger turns, aligns to the closest customs office, and accelerates. I point my Loki in the same direction and wait for the hauler to enter warp, at which point I follow at best speed. Dropping out of warp has me drop my cloak, activate my sensor booster, and burn towards the Badger, now only several kilometres away. I gain a positive target lock, disrupt its warp engines, and start shooting, giving the Badger a massive shunt as my Loki's course slams the two ships together.

Knocking the Badger out of alignment will prevent it warping clear in case it has warp core stabilisers fitted, and it could probably use another bump. The hauler recovers its attitude within a few seconds and begins accelerating, as my guns knock down its shields and work quickly through the Badger's armour. It looks like the hauler will pop soon enough, and I want to make sure of the kill. I set a second collision course, aiming to shunt the Badger again, but my Loki thinks we're already close enough, thank you, and gently nuzzles the woodland creature instead. And, with that, the Badger gains enough momentum and warps clear.

So close. The hauler was taking hull damage, and was surely only a couple more volleys away from exploding. I need to work on my bump and grind, and make it more of a bump and bigger bump. I warp back to the tower to watch the Badger, but now sitting with no armour and some structure scratches I imagine he's been startled in to inactivity, so get my Loki out of d-scan where I launch probes to scan. Blanketing the system reveals two anomalies, eight signatures, and three ships. Three ships? The Orca, Badger, and...? The third ship looks to be on the farthest planet, so I warp out there to take a look.

A second tower appears on d-scan, along with what turns out to be a piloted Buzzard covert operations boat inside its force field. It's good to know there is another tower out here, and thankfully it isn't full of vindictive pilots in pointy ships. I have to wonder if this tower was on-line during my last visit too, and I missed scouting it out of carelessness. It wouldn't be the first time. Anyway, the Buzzard looks inert, the Badger has gone off-line, and scanning resolves rocks, gas, and the static exit to high-sec as the only other wormhole beyond our K162.

Exiting C3a puts me in Aliette, gentille Aliette. And, yes, I will continue making the same pun whenever w-space spits me to the system in the Sinq Laison region. I need to keep myself amused in this way, because scanning only finds one extra signature, and that resolves to be rocks. I can't do anything with rocks. But I think that'll do for tonight. Collapsing a wormhole, chasing a planet gooer, and a bit of scanning makes for a satisfying enough evening. I head home, crawl in to a quiet corner, and contemplate the complexities of bumping Badgers.

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Tags: badger, buzzard, eve online, loki, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, pvp, scanning, w-space, widow

Getting a jump ahead of a hauler

I'm off for a cruise, see who I bump in to. Resolving the static wormhole and jumping to the neighbouring class 3 w-space system puts me in directional scanner range of a drone, a few cans, but no towers, ships, wrecks. A blanket scan reveals little else, with five anomalies and three signatures to sort through, and the sole ship turns out to be an unpiloted Archon carrier inside a tower across the other side of the system. It's a different tower from six months ago or so, when I popped a salvaging Noctis trying to shoo my strategic cruiser with ECM, but I suppose sticking a carrier in it means this one's here to stay.

Resolving the two unknown signatures gets me gas and the static exit to low-sec, which I use to reach a system in Genesis populated by one other pilot. I launch probes again and scan, bookmarking one anomaly and sifting through the seven signatures, when an industrial ship appears under the signature I'm resolving, and at the same time a new pilot enters the system. Ships generally appear in empire systems at stargates or near planets, where there are stations, so it's no surprise to see the signature resolve to be a wormhole.

Updating d-scan shows a Bestower crossing my cosmic path, so putting two-and-two together I flag the pilot as a w-space inhabitant, warp to where he came from, and loiter with intent. The wormhole is a half-mass K162 from class 3 w-space, which indicates it is being well used, and loitering here is probably a productive use of my time as I continue to scan. I resolve a second wormhole as I sit next to the pulsating K162, at which point the same pilot as before returns to the system. That's considerate of him to come back so soon. I recall my probes, keep d-scan updated, and when the Bestower comes in range, but before he gets on-grid, I jump to C3b.

The wormhole is clear in C3b, even if d-scan shows me some ships and a hundred or more shuttles, and I hold motionless. I'm hoping the Bestower pilot will see nothing untoward about pilot movement in low-sec, jump through the clear wormhole, and initiate warp as normal. Which he does. The wormhole flares and, with barely a pause, the hauler appears and starts to align probably to a local tower. Now my cunning comes to bear. I shed the session change cloak which, unlike a cloaking device, causes no sensor recalibration delay, allowing me to target the Bestower immediately. Within the blink of an eye the hauler is being shredded by my autocannons.

Perhaps disorientated by what's happening the hauler doesn't return to low-sec, and gets ripped apart by my assault, throwing giant secure containers everywhere in the explosion. The pilot's pod is ejected too, at which point he's in a better frame of mind to warp away before I can stop him. I am left with all the juicy loot he tried to carry back to his tower, which consists of, well, some GSCs. I think I caught him the wrong way on his journey, as the GSCs are all empty, leaving me with just a couple of expanded cargoholds to scoop, before shooting the wreck. Now what?

I locate the tower, which almost interestingly doesn't have the thousand shuttles littered around it. I take a moment to remove the Caldari shuttle from my overview, to make d-scan update without having a fit, and to simplify the results for my feeble mind, and watch as the escaped pilot boards another hauler, this time a Sigil, and start to move out of the tower. His colleagues in an Iteron hauler and Manticore stealth bomber don't seem to care that he just lost a ship to an intruder, remaining stationary. The Sigil leaves the tower under standard drive, cloaks, then reappears to warp to... somewhere.

The pilot doesn't return to the wormhole, to recover the GSCs, at least not directly. He disappears to a point in space, at which point I decide to see if it is a specific point. I launch probes and, seeing eight anomalies and ten signatures, concentrate scanning around the region where the Sigil warped. Sure enough, a wormhole appears, an outbound connection to class 2 w-space, which will have its own empire space connection. This presents a problem, as the Sigil could exit through one way and return through the other route, or the same route, but I'd have to guess. It's still a fifty-fifty chance, and seems kinda risky to me, but that's because I'm just guessing. In fact, the Sigil reappears on d-scan and warps to be a hundred kilometres from the static exit to low-sec, where he cloaks.

I still don't know what the second hauler is doing, and when I see a Buzzard covert operations boat appear on d-scan, which launches probes, followed by a Purifier stealth bomber, I think that maybe I don't care what the Sigil is planning. I could see if I could catch the Buzzard or Purifier, but that seems like more hassle than it's worth, and even though the C2 connection is alluring, I have to assume it is known and probably explored. I will probably have better luck seeing what the other wormhole holds from low-sec.

I leave C3b behind, already happy with the ambush on the Bestower, and warp across low-sec to see a disappointing outbound connection to another low-sec system. But I haven't scanned everything. A third wormhole appears, but again it joins k-space with k-space, linking to null-sec. At least the S199 identifier fills in another gap in my table of wormhole types. Still, as those are the only wormholes in the low-sec system, and they aren't stargates, I continue through the constellation, checking the null-sec link first. I jump through the S199 wormhole to a system in the Pure Blind region, where scanning reveals nothing. Okay, back to low-sec, and onwards through the other wormhole to stay in low-sec.

Now in a faction warfare system in Heimatar I scan again. One extra signature resolves to be a K162 from class 2 w-space, which looks rather lovely, but entering and exploring finds it to be blue-occupied, which seems like a waste of a system. There is a w-space connection to find, though, so I scan, ignoring most of the nineteen signatures to end with a K162 from high-sec, coming from the Placid region, and a static wormhole to more class 2 w-space. C2c holds a tower but no ships, and the three anomalies and six signatures take little time to sweep through to find the static connections to class 4 w-space and high-sec. A quick peek in C4a takes me back to a system last visited a year ago, which is now occupied but inactive, holding a static wormhole to more class 4 w-space.

It's time for food. I have gone down the rabbit hole far enough for now, and I will come back later to explore further. Another C4 gives me more guaranteed w-space to find down the chain, giving me the incentive to come back this way. At least, that's the plan. But travelling back through quiet systems, across low-sec, and to C3a's K162 in the first low-sec system sees the wormhole to be wobbling away at the end of its natural life. I don't know how long it's been like this, as it was stable when I exited, and although it should be fine for a couple of hours I am not going to rush a meal just so I can explore a bit more. I wouldn't say all this scanning has been for nothing, but I'm now not confident that I'll have more to do in this constellation later.

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Tags: archon, bestower, buzzard, eve online, iteron, manticore, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, purifier, pvp, scanning, sigil, w-space

Scanning in triplicate

Okay, I realise my mathematical error from earlier. It's not that the fuel blocks would not fit in the Orca's corporate hangars, but that the industrial command ship must have had something hiding in one of its enclosures, reducing the amount of available space. I am embarrassed not to have come to this conclusion earlier, like when buying fuel in Amarr, and a quick poke around the hangars indeed finds a mining foreman link module in the Orca. But, to be honest, I still find the univentory confusing and cluttered. Anyway, back to roaming the w-space constellation.

Fin's here, but in-Amarr here, getting more parts for the Revelation dreadnought that will be assembled one day. 'Seventy-seven more trips to go!' she announces when she returns to the tower, procrastinating about whether to make another trip. I was scanning C4b through an outbound connection in C3a before Fin asked for me to see if her w-space route home was clear, so I get home and jump through the K162 to class 2 w-space and confirm that the wormholes look fine. Now that I'm here, I see that C2a looks quiet, and poke my nose in to C4a, through a K162, where two Badger haulers from earlier remain at the tower.

I suppose if they haven't moved in the time I've been away they are unlikely to spring in to action just as I arrive. I leave them to their nothing, and C2a to its passivity, and head back through C3a to C4b to resume my scanning. Right, thirty-one signatures. I remember that now, and my earlier self left this scanning effort for my later self, which is me. Earlier me can be a douche sometimes. Only, this time, a Buzzard covert operations boat is visible on my directional scanner, as are two sets of scanning probes. The Buzzard adds a third set, but doesn't disappear, getting the 'covert' part a bit wrong. Maybe I can find him.

The Buzzard is moving away from his probes he launched around one of the planets in the system. Although I can't get to him without being spotted, as my Loki strategic cruiser's micro warp drive cannot be engaged when cloaked, I can maybe scan his position and warp on top of the Buzzard. But by the time I've travelled out of d-scan range, launched probes, and returned to the inner system the Buzzard has found the switch to activate his cloak. Never mind, I need my own probes out to scan anyway. I'd like to find where these scouts have come from too.

One strong wormhole presents itself amongst the morass of signatures, but I doubt the K162 from class 2 w-space spat out the scouts, as it is reaching the end of its life. Then again, the only other wormhole is the static connection to more class 4 w-space. I'll leave the scouts' origin unknown and press on. Jumping in to C4c puts me in an unoccupied system that is bursting with signatures, with twenty anomalies and forty-four other signatures to sift through. But my notes give me incentive to scan like a crazy person, as I see that I resolved a static connection to class 1 w-space the last time I was here.

As I get started with scanning I sit on the K162 leading back to C4b. There is no occupation, so no towers to monitor for activity, so my best option is to see who follows in behind me. A Cheetah cov-ops does first, and then the Buzzard I briefly saw. I wonder how predictable he will be, and warp off to find out. Very, is the answer. The Buzzard warps to the same planet as in the previous system to launch probes, and if only I'd paid attention to the distance too I imagine I could have caught him. As it is, I made a guess and got it wrong, appearing fifty kilometres from the cov-ops ships. But his predictable nature is going to get him killed.

I return my focus to my scanning probes, and ignore plenty of boring sites with rocks, gas, and assorted Sleepers, until a weak wormhole is resolved. The outbound connection is blue-green in appearance, and even though I'm looking for a wormhole to class 1 w-space I could swear this leads to a C2. In fact, I'm sure it does. It's possible I mis-identified the wormhole on my last visit, but as I was only here six months ago, and not as green as a C1 wormhole, I doubt I would make such a mistake. Even so, a C2 is a C2, and if I jump ahead then maybe I have another chance of catching the Buzzard. In I go.

A tower and lack of ships appear on d-scan from the K162 in C2c, and a blanket scan shows one anomaly and twenty-five signatures. Sitting on the K162 as I scan, resolving a wormhole is as easy as XYZ, or WYZ, which is just as good an expression that I'm sure will catch on. No scouts follow behind me, and maybe they are taking their merry time with all the signatures in the previous system, allowing me to warp to the wormholes to see another connection to class 2 w-space and an exit to low-sec empire space. I keep going forwards, looking for activity, but stall in C2d at the wormhole. Seven towers on d-scan with no ships in sight looks like too much grind at this time in the evening. My notes, which just list occupation as 'yes', there is some, indicate that I thought much the same way seven months ago. I shall leave this system unexplored.

I head back to C2c, and C4c, where the two scouts appear still to be scanning. I rejoin them, keen to uncover that static connection to class 1 w-space, but finding nothing resembling another wormhole. A misidentification or error in transcription, I correct my notes to reflect the actual wormhole found in this system and call it a night. I make my way back through unoccupied, empty, or inactive systems until I am home. There has been plenty of scanning this evening, but with little to show for it. I had best draw a map to make me feel accomplished.

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Tags: buzzard, cheetah, eve online, loki, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, scanning, w-space