A Ghost Site Disappoints

Two nights ago, I went ghostbusting in Stain.  Skunked.  Last night, I did it again in lowsec, out to the EVE gate.  Very few people around, but no ghosts.  Skunked again.

Tonight I fly again.  (I need to think of a name for my exploration Tengu.  Nosey, perhaps.)  Tonight our static C3 has a lowsec, and it comes down in Harner, which is in a corner of Solitude.  I scan down the local system.  Nobody is here but me.  There's a data site, which I run, to modest gain.  And there are two lowsec gas sites.  One has a low-value gas.  But the other... Celadon Cytoserocin.  Currently second most valuable gas in the game.  I think about it a while, then log out to bring in my farming alt.  (He has better gas skills than Von does.)

I mine on and off for a while, twice interrupted by people entering the system.  I mine the gas orbiting at 1000, so it is easy to move off and cloak.  Jayne shows up later and brings down two characters; we suck it dry quickly.  Now back into wspace, dump gas, and change characters.

Back to my original plan.  Ghostbusting.  Where?  Well, let's see if highsec Solitude is well populated.  I would not mind finding a site there first to run, so I could get the feel of it.  But that's unlikely unless it is pretty abandoned, and I just don't know how populous the place is.  So I set course for Gererique.  All of the systems I go through have people in them, lowsec and highsec.  So, I guess this is not the place to bust.  OK, plan adaptation: I am heading for nullsec.  Fortunately, Solitude borders nullsec.  So I can get into Syndicate in just a few jumps.  OK, off I go.

I am a little bit scared of a camp at the border, but I have been this way before and there was none.  (There was a camp going the other direction coming from contiguous empire, but I am not going there.)  And today there is none.  Also no ghost site, but now I am into null and there is nobody here.  So things are looking good.  I am planning to hit the local cluster here, since I don't have a lot of time.

Angry Concord Guy never sleeps.

When I enter Iggy (as I think of I-YGGI), there is a ghost site!  It shows up on my scanner as a normal combat anom, named "Improved Serpentis Covert Research...".  But there's also another player.  Hmm.  I order a warp to the site anyway, and cloak immediately.

Before I leave grid, I see the other player on grid.  He's leaving.  Nice!  It's all mine!  Except... it isn't.  I get a popup for the ghost site when I warped to it, but when I land, there is no ghost site.  And it has disappeared from my list of anoms.  Hmm.  My guess is, the guy I saw leaving just ran the site and left.  It despawned between when I warped and landed. 

A minimalist site -- very un-CCP-like

That's a disappointment.  Nothing to do but keep looking.  I set course north.  Two hops later, in A-ZLHX, I get lucky again!  Another ghost site.  And also another player.  I warp to the site, cloaked.  Here is what it looks like: there are four cans in a square, with about 20km between cans.  You warp into the center of it, I think.  (I warped to 10, being cautious, and ended up near the lower-left can.)  Above each can is a flavor object (bunker, small tower).

I sit for a second gathering my thoughts.  I do not really want to run the site with anyone in local.   On the other hand, if she is in local in a frigate maybe I can kill her when she comes to the site.  So I look at dscan for her: no ship appears.  I check out the system: it's all in range.  This makes me suspect she is cloaked.  But then I notice there is a station.  OK, she's probably there.  No way for me to check, though.  And it's been long enough that I doubt she is going to come in a frig.

Well, Nosey is designed to run away pretty well.  And I can't just sit here.  So, I mentally formulate and rehearse my escape plan, and then uncloak and start scanning cans.  I will want to get the can with the best stuff first, since it may be all I have time for.  First can: some minerals and some junk.  Second can: junk.  Third can: junk.  Fourth can: minerals and junk.

BOOM

Hmm.  Should I hack for basically nothing?  I would if alone, but it's not a good risk:reward proposition.  So I don't.  Still, I am curious to see what will happen.  So I back off from all four cans, and wait.

It all goes down as I have read on the forums. After about a minute and a half, Serpentis pirates appears.  I am cloaked so they are no problem.  Shortly, they blow up all the cans, and then they warp off in all directions.  (I don't think I have ever seen NPCs do this; it's kind of cool.)

I have a look at the rest of the small area I am in.  No more ghost sites.  And that is about it for my play time tonight.  Then I decide to log off here, so I can try again tomorrow.