Geek Weekend Part 1 - Adventures In W-Space

I logged in Friday evening and checked out what was going on. Turns out some of my corp mates grabbed a wormhole from home and were lost in space. Well, not really; they had found a new exit but it was 21 jumps from where I was. I decided against the travel to where they were and opted instead to have Derranna look for a wormhole of my own to inhabit.

After one jump I found one and unlike the one from last week this one actually went to regular unknown wormhole space. Score! I grabbed Kirith and a Dominix and went jumped into the unknown.

Wormhole #1
After securing a safespot I set Kirith out to find some cosmic anomalies and see what could be done. I found one with some frigs and cruisers and I went to work... only to realize I grabbed the wrong Dominix. In my haste, I jumped into Brooklynn, my PvP ship with a bit armour hitpoint tank but no self repair. I was able to kill the first wave and start into the second, but I had to warp out with a battleship remaining and wasn't able to go back since my armour was low and not going back up by itself.

Annoyed, I jumped back into k-space, went to base, and got in Hudson with his Large Armour Repairer. Back to the wormhole, saw it was still up, and back into w-space. I sought out a new site and went to work. Hudson did less damage than Brooklynn did since it only fit four Electron Blaster IIs instead of 6 but the damage repair was handy and being able to salvage on the fly was nice. No drone problems as I managed to keep the aggro on my ship. I warped out after the first wave was done as I had other plans to attend to. I warped my characters to the wormhole and wisely jumped the non-probe ship out first; good thing as it collapsed the wormhole behind it.

Kirith docked up but Derranna logged out in wormhole space.

Later on Friday evening I logged in and decided to get Derranna out of w-space. My corpmates from eariler in the afternoon were lost in w-space looking for an exit. I was worried I would suffer the same fate.

Trying out Deep Space probes I found I was able to narrow down a signature to a wormhole pretty quickly. Although Deep Space Probes can't get to the 40 points of strength that Core Probes have at 0.25 AU, they have higher strength at equal ranges and thus allowed me to identify the Unknown signature sooner.

Derranna came out in High Sec in Khanid Kingdom space, a 17 jumps away from where she started.

Wormhole #2
Saturday evening I decided to look for another wormhole so I could try out my Cerberus instead of the Dominix. A few systems later Derranna had a hit and scanned it down. There was a neutral Cerberus sitting on the wormhole, and I debated holding off on jumping through. As Kirith arrived I decided to throw caution to the wind and send Derranna through to investigate. There was a drake on the other side but nothing else on the scan so I got cocky and drove Kirith and his Cerberus heavy assault ship into the wormhole as well.

On the other side the Drake did not lock and I warped off safely. A few minutes later the drake disappeared from scan allowing me to get to work.

I was quite surprised to find only one cosmic anomaly in the system. I figure the rest had been cleared out, or maybe this system was shortchanged in the random distribution. Whatever.

I warped in and found two sentry guns accompanied by a frigate and a cruiser. As the heavy assault missile went to work I carefully monitored my shields and managed my tranvseral to limit incoming damage as much as possible. Soon the enemy was gone and the second wave spawned, this time 3 frigates and 2 cruisers. Again the HAC held up under the onslaught. Finally the last wave spawned and I was faced with what appeared to be two battlecruisers and two cruisers. My shields never dropped below 50% and my heavy assault missiles tore them up.

The Cerberus passed inspection at this site. The only downside is that is had no tractor and salvager so I had to send Derranna in afterwards to clean up the mess.

Of course, the good times couldn't last. While I was salvaging the wrecks I picked up a hit on the combat probe and I immediately safe spotted while I determined what was out there. One battlecruiser. Hmmm, as I launched more probes to narrow down his position he talks in local.

"Hello, anyone out there?"

Ah, the plaintive cry of the fearful.

I checked his corp info and his age; he is a 2009 character so is probably not a big threat to my Cerberus even in his Drake (I've narrowed him down to 75+% so I can see the ship type) but I worry he might be bait for a trap instead of just a foolhardy noob. I debate the options as I warp in on him cloaked; attack, or carry on as I was, or hide?

Deciding not to chance it, and it was getting late, I decided that discretion was the better part of survival and logged. If I had the Dominix with warp scram I might have risked the attack, but the Drake could too easily escape from my PvE Cerb.

* * * * *
I logged in a bit Sunday to look for an exit out. A scan revealed several ships in the system so I launched the probes to narrow them down and see what was up. I eventually nailed down a Hurricane battlecruiser and warped in at 100 to see what he was doing... and as the warp bubble collapsed I found myself pulled to within a few thousand meters!

CRAP! WARP BUBBLE!

Thank the eve gods I wasn't unlcoaked by the bubble, wormhole, or Hurricane. I turned around as fast as my ass could carry me and got out of the bubble's range, warping off to safety.

"Maybe I'll wait until the weekend is over," I say to myself with nervous sweat still on my brow.

Next up: Dawn of War II