An Unexpected Salvager

I am out late in real life, but I always come back to EVE, like a dog to... nevermind.  Anyway, let's see what wspace has for me tonight.  Oh.  Gotta update the client.  Ho, hum.  Twiddle, twiddle.

All right.  My system is quiet.  There's just two sigs, one of them a gas site already known.  So, nothing much to do at home.  I'll mine gas as a last resort or while waiting for others to show, but I don't expect anyone else on tonight.  What's our static wormhole have?  I jump in Artemis, my cloaky Tengu, and scan it down -- probing interface is acting funny.  CCP.

OK, into C3a I go.  Dscan first thing, and I see sleeper wrecks!  Nothing else though, not even an active tower.  Well, where there are wrecks there are salvagers.  Unless...  So, let's see if we can find those wrecks.  I dscan a narrow beam at every anom in range.  Nothing.  I also try to look at sigs just in case, but I cannot tell anything.  Sigs seem to have been changed in a patch and are not showing the way they did when Odyssey was first released.  Well, those wrecks are out of reach.  Unless a salvager shows up; then I might be able to scan him.

I warp to a random celestial and fire combat probes, and throw them out of the system.  OK, they are ready in case I need them.

It's a large system.  A salvager might be near the outer planet.  Or might be nearby somewhere refitting.  Let's check the outer system first.  I look at bookmarks, and I have a tower bookmarked out there from some time in the past when I visited this system.  OK, that looks good.  I warp to the bookmark at 100... and the tower is still there.  Also a few ships.  And some manned!  Looks good.  I dscan... and see two Tengus, and sleeper wrecks.  Ah, Tengus, the universal ship of sleeper-killing.  Where are they?  I cast about the dscanner, and sure enough, they are in a local anom.  I quickly bookmark it, and then all the other anoms just in case.  Then I warp to the site at 100.  I'll see what they are up to. 

The Tengus are there killing sleepers as I expected.  I did not expect them to be collecting blue loot, but that is what they are doing.  Could this explain the other site?  These guys don't know about melted nanoribbons?  Or else they just think it is too dangerous?  Well, it's dangerous to run sites too, but I am not going to try to kill the Tengus.  Artemis does maybe 300 DPS, which is not really enough to challenge two Tengus.  I figure a salvager will come.  I start making a perch.  Or maybe someone else will jump them -- that would be exciting.

Eventually the Tengus finish the site.  Then one warps as the other painfully slowboats to the last wreck and loots it.  Then it also warps off.  They don't go off dscan, which means they are probably at the tower.  I warp over, and sure enough.  There they are.  What are they doing?  Just sitting there.   I watch.  Surely one will get a Noctis?

No.  One of them finally gets in a Buzzard, and warps off towards the inner system.  I think they must have finally noticed the new signature in their system (made by my wormhole).  So this seems reasonable, if very much belated.  Probes are launched, and I settle in for some boredom.  I don't know what they will do when they discover the new connection, but it probably is not bring out their Noctis.  On the other hand, who knows?  People do some crazy stuff.

10 minutes pass.  The Buzzard reappears in the tower.  OK.  Then, strangely, it warps out again.  Huh?  I watch on dscan, expecting it to disappear.  But it does not disappear.  It stays appeared.  After a little while, I wonder if maybe it is out at the old anom site.  I point dscan there and sure enough: there it is.  What is going on?

I warp out to my perch to look.  I am too far to zoom in, but the Buzzard is very close to a wreck.  Is this guy salvaging in a Buzzard?  Looks like it... OK, his wreck is too close for me to warp to, but there is another close to the same direction which is at 150+, so I warp to that one at 20.  This brings me within 10 of the Buzzard.  Yes he is definitely salvaging.

Just as I determine that, and then resolve to head for him and kill him, he succeeds in salvage.  I wait to let him move to the next wreck.  But he does not.  He fires probes and cloaks.  OK, what to do?  I could move at the probes... but then he recalls them.  (Or maybe scans far from me, anyway, they disappear from dscan.)  Now I am not sure exactly where he was.  I could try to uncloak him... but no, that's stupid.  If he wants wrecks, he wants wrecks, and will eventually uncloak and take another bite of the apple.

I wait.

Then, yes, he shows up near another wreck, and starts salvaging it.  Go time.  I head straight at him, figuring to bump him and perhaps slow his time into warp a second or whatever.  At about 3000m, I uncloak, and wait out the timer, and start locking.  I get my warp disruptor ready.  And my assault missiles.  Will he warp in time?  He does not.  I lock, he's disrupted, and my missiles start hitting.

A Falcon uncloaks 50km off.  Uh oh... but too late.  Blam, the Buzzard blows up.  I try to lock the pod but it warps clear.  Then the Falcon's jammers hit and I am jammed.  I consider fleeing, but decide to keep dscan going and go for the loot.  I loot, then casually turn -- still jammed -- and warp out.  Back to the tower, of course.

I arrive at the tower, or 70 km off, to watch.  What will they do?  Send another ship?  No, they don't.  The pod is there and it just sits for a while.  Then it turns into a Tengu and logs off.  The other ships do likewise.