Retriever in d-scan

Another day in wormhole space... our chain was gone and we had to start to scan it again. I had already scanned our C4 static two hours ago, but did not continue further because I had to leave to solve a few things, kids stuff, they always have priority over EVE.

When I came back, Raul is in the C4 scanning the rest of the chain, I join him. A few gas sites and a C4 inbound and a C3. Raul jumps to C3 and I do to C4z.

In C4z there is an unmanned retriever in a tower, and it looks it has been there for some time, nothing else of interest in the system. We had two bookmarks in siggy for two towers but they were gone, so I update siggy, removing previous towers and adding the new tower that Elder found quicker than me.

Meanwhile, we were having a good discussion how he knew it was a C4 site without jumping in, and Raul gave me a good lesson about finding the wormhole class based on its colors. To be honest, I had read about that in the past, but I never have been aware of it, or never tried to identify it. I remembered reading about it at Penny's blog, and with some googling I found the post: http://www.tigerears.org/2011/04/24/wormhole-colours.

                Raul Itinen > c4 - very orange + Green
                Raul Itinen > our c5, black + red
                Raul Itinen > srsly try it

Indeed, Raul was right (as often happens), I went to both and I felt good, because I was able to see it clearly. It's kinda embarrassing, because I have been watching wormholes for more than one year, and till today I didn't figure it out so clearly. Probably, my new computer, and playing with full specs was helping a lot to make it more clear.

I return again to the C4z to continue probing the system. Just entering the system, d-scan shows a new retriever. I knew there was an Ore site in the system, because that was the first place I checked when I came here the first time and saw the previous retriever in scan. So I quickly warp my cloaky loki to the ore site and bingo! There is a retriever crunching some asteroids and with mining drones.

Cloaked loki slowing getting closer to retriever

Comms, fleet and we prepare to give the fellow a surprise. Meanwhile I continue getting closer, Mick Straih logs in and gets into a sabre and Elder switches to a hound. I am not still in scrambling range when I see the drones returning and I think our prey is going to leave the site, but relieved I see those mining drones were just returning their extracted ore to the retriever and coming back to their job.

Mick is concerned it could be a bait, because indeed it was looking too easy.... he proposes me to come back in a cheaper ship, but I don't want to spoil the opportunity jumping out, so I take the risk. At the end of the day... it's just ISK at the cost of fun.

Once I am in range, I give the go signal and Mick and Elder jump into C4z and warp to me. Thanks to my sensor booster I quickly lock the retriever and scramble it engines. In a matter of seconds Mick has bubbled the place.

Retriever goes down pretty quickly and also the pod. No surprises, so this time, it wasn't a trap.

Pod being target painted.

I can't say it was an epic battle, neither a big challenge, but sometimes it's already a challenge to find anybody in w-space and engage it. Most of the w-space fellows are alert and spam d-scan often enough to warp away before you can attack.