Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Iidoken system
16 December YC 126
Today, instead of asking Purkkoken for a mission, I decided to do another Okela constellation patrol. I started in a Buzzard and jumped from star to star scanning the signatures. In Jouvulen (again!) I found a Lesser Guristas Covert Research Facility and nearly lost my ship there. I hacked a Lab container which yielded less than 3,000,000 ISK, and was considering hacking another one when guards appeared! Luckily, my reflexes and align time were good enough to escape unscathed.
I then proceeded through other systems in the constellation until I reached Iidoken. There were two cosmic signatures, one of which appeared to be a Limited Sleeper Cache. The second one was extremely hard to scan down. I had to manually joggle the probes into a tighter formation, and when the signal strength finally reached 100% I discovered that it was a Superior Sleeper Cache!
I looked at Aura, “I think I’ll start with the Limited version, but let’s do it properly now.”
My previous attempt to explore a Limited Sleeper Cache was done spontaneously, without a proper fit. Eve University recommended running the site in a shield-tanked Heron. I thought that I could probably fit my Buzzard in a similar manner but found that the resulting configuration was not cap-stable and did not achieve the recommended level of shield regeneration. After some experimentation I gave up and flew to Saisio to pick up my Heron called Haikarat from the storage. On the way back to Iidoken I visited Jita and fitted out the frigate as per the Uni’s specification.
When I finally returned to Iidoken and warped to the Limited Cache, I discovered that the Hyperfluct Generator had already been hacked and the spatial rift was opened.
Aura looked at me cautiously and said, “Someone is already there. What if they triggered an alarm and activated the toxic clouds?”
I smiled, “This is exactly why we equipped an active shield tank, darling. Let’s jump and see if there is anything left of the goodies or, for that matter, of the brave capsuleer who so conveniently opened the door for us.”
With these words, I spurred Haikarat and went through the rift. When I arrived to the site, it was completely deserted. One of the Mangled Storage Depots was emptied and Remote Pressure Control was hacked, but other containers were intact. I was happy that I decided to fit the tank because, now that the Pressure Control had been activated, there was no safe way to hack the depot in the gas cloud.
“Since the pioneer is nowhere to be found, I consider this site fair game,” declared I, and deployed a mobile depot.
While the depot was activating, I scanned the remaining containers and confirmed that each of them held valuable loot. Then, using the mobile depot, I replaced the cargo scanner and the data analyzer with shield modules.
“Time to test our tank,” I winked at Aura and started approaching the Dented Storage Depot located in the middle of the gas cloud.
Aura wrinkled her nose disapprovingly. Soon enough I got the first damage reports which showed that the incoming damage was 36 DPS. I turned on Shield Booster II and was pleased to see that my shield repair rate comfortably exceeded the damage level.
“Nice,” I said with satisfaction, “At last, I can hack this can at my leisure.”
And that was an important consideration, since by switching from an exploration-optimised Buzzard to a shield-tanked Heron, my virus lost some of its strength and coherence. That meant that the hacks had to be done with extra care which, in turn, needed time. And time I took. The can was the highest difficulty, but slowly I led my virus through the maze of defensive subsystems and reached the red core. When I finally destroyed the core my virus coherence was just five points. I looted the can and unhurriedly approached the next Mangled Storage Depot, making sure I stayed away from Plasma Chambers. There were other gas clouds in the area, but my Shield Booster was up to the task, and my shield level never went below 80%.
When all Mangled Depots were hacked, there was only one Dented Storage Depot remaining, and that one was protected by a force field generator. The force field would be activated if I came too close to the Depot. The generator could be disabled by hacking Remote Defense Grid Unit, but Eve Uni academics discovered another method which I was keen to try. Having returned to my mobile depot, I replaced Medium Azeotropic Restrained Shield Extender with a microwarpdrive. Then I flew on a tangent relative to the Dented Depot, until the direct path between the depot and me did not take me too close to the nearby Plasma Chamber. Finally, I willed Haikarat to approach the Dented Depot and turned on the MWD. You see, the trick was to fly fast enough so that when the force field activated, the frigate was already within it. And it really worked! I was surrounded by a shimmering force veil which did not prevent me from approaching the can. What it also meant was that with a tank and a microwarpdrive, the data analyzer was needed only to hack Hyperfluct Generator to open the rift, and was not required within the site at all.
When all containers were hacked, Neocom told me that the total value of the loot was 30,000,000 ISK, and Aura found in contracts that the two Polarized Torpedo Launcher Blueprints were worth an equivalent sum of money! Satisfied with the results of my patrol, I returned to the Assembly Plant station in Tsuguwa.