Tuesday, December 10, 2013

I Steal from a Siphon

I've been out ghostbusting a lot recently.  When I do, I don't always dscan systems I enter.  But sometimes I do.  I almost always do a dscan in the system our wormhole comes down in, as well as searching it down.  Partly that is because I am in my exploration Buzzard.  Partly it is because I like doing small amounts of exploration, even though I have been doing more ghostbusting.

slurp
The other day I found the first siphon I have seen.  This was in Mafra, in Amarr lowsec.  There was nobody in local, so I knew I could check it out safely.  Still, there might be POS guns.  So I cautiously flew to thing at 10 km, just in case.  In fast the POS had no guns at all, just a bunch of hardeners.  So I gleefully grabbed a full Buzzard-load of moo goo.  (This did not get all of it.)  Then I headed back in to wspace.

Returning in my ghostbusting Tengu, I grabbed the rest of what the thing had stolen.  Then I went on my way, said Hi to Sugar, and eventually out into null for serious ghostbusting.  Eventually it was getting late and I returned.  There were people in system, but I threw caution to the winds and warped straight to the siphon.  One of them was there -- in a rookie ship.  I uncloaked and started locking, but this was not fast enough.  He warped.  Then I stole one more small portion of moon goo and headed back into wspace.

That's my complete story of interacting with siphons.  I have looked on many dscans in nullsec and never seen one.  As well as many other scans in lowsec.  Since I cannot stick to any given bit of kspace for long, I cannot really deploy them effectively myself.  But I can see what others are doing.  And on that count, I have to say that much of the debate before Rubicon on them seems to have missed the point.  They are not economical in most situations.  And people just don't want to grief when it does not cause tangible grief.  So they are not being used much.

4 comments:

  1. The main issue I have with siphons is that they are "throw away" items. Once deployed you can't take it back into your cargo hold. Last time I checked prices a siphon was ~10M ISK. Do you remember how much ISK you have stolen?

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  2. I think it was about 8m worth of Neodymium.

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  3. Guess that pretty much sums up why you don't see many of them out there. They are 12.5M in Rens, 13.2M in Jita and up to 20M in Amarr right now. As you can't scoop them back you have to WAIT and DEFEND every siphon until it has collected > 12M ISK to break even. You need to stay in dscan range to every siphon to prevent others from stealing your loot... terrible, terrible game design (imho). Too much luck needed. If the POS owner logs in, you lose. If there are explorers like you, you lose. Droping the siphon and checking it 24hours later isn't an option. Ninja salvaging a level4 missionrunner is much more rewarding.
    Maybe siphons will become a weapon of SOV war, but I don't think so.
    I'll wait and see how CCP will act.

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  4. They either need to allow them to be scooped or allow them to siphon at a faster rate.

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