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So, I happened across a Limited Sleeper Cache yesterday in losec. Here's my thoughts on the site.

Scanning the site required a well-skilled pilot in a Helios covops using T2 launcher, sisters core probes, 1x deviation module, DCII, EANM, RAH, and 2x gravity cap rigs. I initially tried scanning the site with a T1 launcher, probes, and no rigs. It was not possible. I did get it to 95%. No implants were required.

Upon entry to the site, I found the accel gate. Interesting. Go through the gate. Find several containers with attendant hazardous gas clouds. Cargo scanning worked as normal. Of the several containers, 3 had good stuff; story-line BPCS or sleeper blue loot. Rest was random meta modules (800mm repeating cannons as loot?), junk, or nothing.

So I started hacking a can. Then I get a message "ZOMG You gonna die!" My tank starts to vanish at an alarming rate and some visually attractive AoE effects go off. Pretty! Oh, wait. Imma die! GTFO.

Getting too close to the source of the gas clouds (LCS in the middle) may trigger them to explode. If that happens, you better run. They do a crap ton of AoE thermal damage. Got out in about 25% armor. From then on I was more careful to keep distance from the source of the blue clouds.

The central white cloud had a good container in it. But getting within 15km of the can promptly resulted in a constant stream of AoE thermal damage that was completely beyond the ability of my covops pilot to tank in her current configuration. Fortunately, using the RAH allowed me to see what kind of damage to tank. But it would also cap me out in less than a minute. So I went back to hisec a few jumps away and bought a set of hideously overpriced T2 armor hardeners.

Was still completely unable to tank the damage. It blew through my frigate buffer far too quickly to even begin thinking about hacking the can. Got out in structure.

Considering that most frigates don't have very many low slots, and I definitely didn't have the PG for plates, I decided to switch to an active tank. So I went back to hisec again and got a meta 4 small armor repper and a full set of hardeners.

This is when I realized that you cannot warp inside the site. Had a feeling that might be the case. But was worth testing. So I had to anchor my depot twice.

My first attempt was more of a tank test to see how well I could tank the damage. Didn't bother trying to hack. Slow boating through the cloud took so long that I had to leave almost immediately upon getting within hacking range. Even then, I was too low on cap to run my repper long enough to hack. I could have gone back to base yet again to get another thermal hardener in place of the DCII. But after some consideration, I decided to pulse the MWD once, coast in, and run the hardener overheated.

This proved just sufficient to allow me to tank the damage long enough to hack the container and get out with an empty cap and lots of heat damage. I did not have to run the repper constantly. Was able to pulse it.

I would recommend a double Thermal hardener setup with an active repper. An AAR would probably work better if you can fit it, and if it will last long enough. If there is a covops with 4 lows, that would probably be better. Could then fit a mAPC. I had to offline 3 different modules before I could online the repper. Yes, I have Engineering 5 (or whatever its called now) on that character. A PG implant might help. And if you can squeeze in some cap recharge, that would be good, too. CPU wasn't an issue.

So, the site was difficult and required a pretty specialized fit. It took some planning and some playing with the fit. But I was able to do it in a covops with a well-skilled exploration character that also has crappy combat skills.

The rewards were... meh. Couple storyline BPCs and a couple million in sleeper blue loot. But with only the one losec site as an example, I could have been unlucky.

CCP, I enjoyed the challenge. thx

The ones that have nothing? They're probably the ones you want to hack so that you aren't screaming "ZOMG You gonna die!"

Ok, I hopped on SISI and had some fun trying to find these sites. Some observations:

1) I found only some limited sleeper caches. From what I understand from the feedback thread on the test server the new sites are not on sisi yet, so no surprise here.
2) The signature size of the limited sleeper cache is most likely 1.125, so more difficult to find than the most difficult site (as the dev blog correctly says), but not really difficult. I am waiting to see how difficult are the other caches.
3) polarized weapon loot is rare, so it probably won't be much used as a gank weapon. However if it doesn't find another niche it probably won't make them pricey enough to justify the effort and the risk. Low offer but also low demand.

That's all for now. We'll see more when the other caches hit sisi.