Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Tsuguwa system – Planet VI
Caldari Navy Assembly Plant Station
11 September YC 128
Although I agreed to play Aura’s little tarot game, I was not in a rush to act on it. I spent two weeks continuing my leisurely lifestyle, all the while coming to terms with the necessity to undock and do something capsuleer-y. I had a lingering suspicion that Aura rigged the game and invented the easiest possible task just to get me out of the station. On the other hand, she had told me that cups meant high-sec before I drew the card. Hmm…
It happened on Friday evening. I was about to go to my favourite Voidwatcher bar when the monotony of my vegetable existence finally caught up with me. I looked at the club suit that I was going to wear, put it back into the wardrobe and reached for my black and teal jumpsuit. It was designed specifically for capsuleers and was easy to get in and out of between dives into the pod goo. I put it on, went to the docks and boarded Nosuri.
Aura, woken up by my activity, looked at me in mock surprise, “Captain, it’s such a pleasure to have you on board. To what do I owe the honour of your gracious presence?”
I waved my hand at her, feigning irritation, “Oh, you know what — it’s your tarot reading. It was all nice and fun talking about predicting future, but now it’s on me to make that future happen.”
“So you are going after that data site, eh? You’ll probably find it in Tsuguwa as soon as you undock,” she grumbled, but I could tell she was happy to be back in space.
When we undocked, I checked the probe scanner and found two cosmic signatures in the system. Maybe Aura was right.
“Hey, what are you waiting for?” I asked. “Take us to the safe spot.”
“Aye-aye, Captain,” replied Aura. “Warp drive active.”
I felt a pressure of acceleration spread over my body by the pod goo and cried, “Woo-hoo!”
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” said Aura, smiling.
It did. The fact was that before my hiatus I had spent a lot of time in a destroyer which was somewhat more ponderous than the frigate. The acceleration that I experienced in the Buzzard was like pushing the pedal to the metal in a sports car after driving a family sedan — it was exhilarating!
Lonetrek region — Kainokai constellation
Autama system
My luck ran out — the two signatures in Tsuguwa turned out to be wormholes — so I had to jump. After a brief discussion, we decided to skirt the region along its southern edge. That way we would be moving away from Jita, increasing our chances of finding undisturbed data sites.
Iidoken and Kirras had cosmic signatures but they were either wormholes or guarded pirate bases which I had neither intention nor equipment to attack. I jumped to Autama, and my probe scanner showed a long list of anomalies that were pirate bases and five signatures.
“With such a pirate presence,” I said, “some of those signatures simply must be their data sites.”
I was right — the very first signature I scanned revealed itself as Local Guristas Data Processing Centre.
“Aha,” I rubbed my hands. “Gotcha!”
Without delay I warped to the Data Processing Centre. It was untouched and contained one Com Tower and three Info Shards. Hacking a high-sec data site in a Buzzard equipped with a Tech II Data Analyzer was a breeze. I didn’t expect much in terms of loot but I was surprised by the price estimate of the items found in one of the Info Shards — it was more than 5,000,000 ISK. After a closer inspection, I discovered that it contained five AG-Composite Molecular Condensers, each worth a million kredits.
“What’s that stuff?” I asked curiously.
Aura put on glasses, extracted a sheet of paper from a manila folder and read the following.
The AG-Composite Molecular Condenser is a molecular-forging tool used with a specific combination of chemicals obtained from stellar gas clouds. The processes using this tool can produce some of the most complex and potent pharmaceutical chemicals available.
“Um,” I said, bewildered. “What does it mean in practice? Can I use it to produce, say, boosters?”
“No,” said Aura, throwing away the folder, “not boosters. There are only two things that you can manufacture with these condensers: Axosomatic Neurolink Enhancers and Reaction-Orienting Neurolink Stabilizers.”
“Aura,” I said sternly, “you are not helping. What, in the Void, are those enhancers and stabilizers good for?”
“Oh, you can use the enhancers to produce R-O Trigger Neurolink Conduits…” Aura started saying and then, seeing my expression, checked herself. “Okay, ultimately you can use this stuff to manufacture some cool ships like Komodo.”
I goggled at Aura, “A pirate Titan?”
She nodded enthusiastically.
I looked at the cargo manifest and asked suspiciously, “Are these condensers even legal?”
“Oh yeah, totally. It’s not just pirate stuff. For example, you’ll need condensers to produce parts for a Charon freighter. But in any case, building a ship using a pirate blueprint is not illegal. It’s what you do with that ship that matters.”
“Hehe, true,” I chuckled. “Now, getting back to my task — is it completed?”
Aura inspected the Overview window which showed four empty containers, and nodded, “Yep. Done and dusted.”
“So I can go back to Tsuguwa without being threatened with a billion-kredit penalty?”
Aura shrugged, “You can, unless…”
She didn’t finish the sentence, and instead put the Probe Scanner window on the HUD. It still showed four more cosmic signatures.
“Yeah,” I rubbed my chin, “it would be a shame to leave those unhacked, assuming there is something to hack.”
I deployed my probes and started scanning the sigs. There were sites galore! Although the first of the remaining signatures was generated by a wormhole, the next two were emitted by a Local Gurstas Production Installation and Crumbling Guristas Explosive Debris. They were not as lucrative as the Data Processing Centre and yielded around 2,000,000 ISK worth of loot.
The last signature was the hardest. I went all the way down to 0.25 AU probe constellation size before it was identified as Lesser Guristas Covert Research Facility.
“It’s like all the Union Days have come at once,” I exclaimed.
Covert Research Facilities were very rewarding. My largest single haul out of them was Z26,000,000.
“Don’t forget to strip the fitting,” Aura warned.
Ah, yes, I forgot to mention that they were also extremely dangerous. One had time to hack one or, at most, two containers before the pirate quick reaction force arrived and started shooting. The fact that they shot the containers and not the hackers made things only worse — if a frigate was caught in the blast from the exploding container, it was instant death. That is why I took time to dock at Echelon Entertainment Development Studio and remove all unnecessary modules and cargo. When I undocked I had only two modules equipped — a Tech II Data Analyzer and a microwarpdrive. The former was to hack the can, and the latter to reach that can as soon as possible.
Having warped to the Covert Research Facility, I selected the can which was named differently from the others and burned to it on my MWD. The trick was to get into the range of the Data Analyzer as soon as possible, but not overshoot the can. As I learned the hard way, if the Analyzer starts the hack and then gets disconnected because you move out of its range, then the can explodes. That lesson cost me a Buzzard.
But today was a good day — Nosuri went into a stable 2,200-metre orbit around the can straight away and I started the hack. In contrast to the scanning difficulty, hacking was easy. The defensive nodes were at most 50-point-strong, and my virus went through them like a Spike charge through a shuttle. As soon as the hack was completed, I grabbed the contents of the can and warped to a random celestial that I hastily selected on the Overview. Or at least I tried to warp to it. The problem was that the path to the celestial was blocked by the bloody can! Before I could reach the warping velocity, Nosuri bumped into the container and stopped. I panicked and, instead of selecting a different warp-out destination, switched to manual piloting and navigated the ship around the can until the path was clear. Luckily, I managed to get away before the pirates arrived.
(A note to my future self: next time, warp to the facility from a safe spot and keep the window with the local bookmarks on the screen. Then, instead of orbiting, command the ship to approach the can and remain stationary. When it is time to scat, select the safe spot bookmark in the window and warp to it. This way the warp-out direction will always be clear.)
When I was out of danger, I inspected the loot. Compared to what I typically got out of the Covert Research Facilities, it was disappointing: two Covert Research Tools and nine Shattered Villard Wheels, totalling just under 5,000,000 ISK.
I scowled at the estimate, “If I knew there were only puny five million kredits in it, I wouldn’t risk the Buzzard. I got a better haul from the Data Processing Centre, and in complete safety, to boot.” Then an idea occurred to me, “Aura, if the Covert Research Facility was the first site I found, and I hacked just one container, would it count as a completed task?”
“Nope,” replied Aura.
“Why not? It’s (a) Gurstas, (b) high-sec and (c) data.”
“True, but you have to hack the whole site.”
I glowered at Aura, “But that’s impossible! There are five cans but I could hack just one or two before the remaining ones are blown up by the pirates.”
“It is possible if you get help from other capsuleers. A fleet of five ships could have hacked all containers, one each, and get away safely.”
“Hey! I didn’t know it was allowed. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Aura shrugged, “Because there was no need. But generally, you can get help from other capsuleers as long as you make a meaningful contribution to the task. And by ‘meaningful contribution’ I do not mean paying someone to do your job. If, for example, you lacked skills to scan down the site but was able to hack the containers, you could have enlisted another capsuleer to do the scanning.”
“Hmm… I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “Now, can we get back to Tsuguwa?”
“We can, unless you want to continue the exploration. You seem to be on a roll — it’s not every day that we extract 14 million in an hour from a high-sec system.”
“Nah,” I said, “I’ve had enough excitement for one day.”
“As you say, Cap. Warp drive active.”