Wormholes

I'm planning on adding solo wormhole gas harvest to my list of things to do...

I know that a fully equipped Prospect can probe down sites - I got that part...

But does it make sense to drop into the WH in a 'scout' ship to do the dirty work of setting up safe spots and finding sites - then pop back 'out' and 'in' with my Prospect?

My fear/flawed logic is if someone is camped outside a WH entry point and see my cloaky Prospect materialize (does this even happen?) - they'll easily see 'why' I'm in the system and just go sit outside the system's LADAR site and squash me like a tick. Or am I just over thinking this?

Gratitude.

Yup. It's a risk.

They could just as easily be sitting on the WH cloaked watching your scout go in, go out, then watch your Prospect go in. They warp to the Gas site you're in (cause they already scanned the whole system down before), then their alt or buddy in a Sabre warps right to them, bubbles up and pops you.

Welcome to WH space. Everything is a risk, that's what makes it fun! :)

Fit a probe launcher to a prospect, carry the second gas harvester and a mobile depot with you. Use the prospect to scout/scan, then when you feel comfortable that you're alone, refit to your gas harvesters in the hole (at a safe more than 14au away from any towers/WHs/etc). That way no one has to see multiple WH activations if they are watching the entrance.

Regardless, you need a probe launcher and depot in your prospect's cargohold anyway for when you inevitably get trapped in a WH.

I would say if I saw a proper scanning ship pop up in system, scan everything, and then leave. Then that same pilot come back in a huffing ship it's obvious you are going for gas. The prospect itself is a very fast and slippery ship (if fit that way) so just do both the scanning and huffing with it. When I first see a Prospect in system (from a WH jump) I never assume they are just going to warp directly to a gas site unless I have seen the pilot in system before (assuming the system has gas sites in it).

But, always imagine someone is watching and saw you enter. Take your time and scout the system. Check rosters, add to watchlist, all the paranoia ensues.

I recently had a bunch of Prospects/ventures do that on MY c72 cloud. Dropped a stop bubble on their exit, scared them into warp and ganked them on the stop bubble. In case you get ganked, I'd suggest you warp off to some planet/POCO first instead of bailing in the obvious direction.

Else, orbiting something in the cloud within the cloud is a very smart move.

Gas harvesting is a VERY overpowered way to make isk in wormhole space. CCP please nerf, i am abusing the living hell out of this and making huge isk with (just short of) ZERO risks.

Here is how I do it, maybe this will help you.

First of all... forget the prospect, it isnt helping you. It does not mine any faster and the idea behind this method is to be so worthless that it doesnt matter if you die. the only thing the prospect is really good for is this super weird sig tank method where u can mine a whole instrumental site solo afk and tank the sleepers.

step 1: get in ur scanner, proc and mark down all your gas sites. I generally set up roughly 10 at a time.
step 2: clear them all, the blue loot is worth something i guess. You can clear all but the highest 2 gas sites with a well fit drake, the 2 core sites pretty much require a marauder.
step 3: afk your gas miners orbiting 500 around the cloud with MWD on. The only thing that can catch you is a ceptor or Sabre.
step 4: go afk, and this isnt even afktaring this is ACTUALLY afk. I go take a shower, make dinner, build furniture (i moved to a new apt recently), have sex with my gf, go shopping for groceries... whatever

Because if you die it DOESN'T MATTER. your venture is worth zero. the gas is worth a lot. completely afk im making billions of isk.

Now.... i have a lot of toons. I generally use 7 ventures with 1 miasmos and sometimes i use a t3 for mining links. With this many you dont even need to clear the gas sites. You can mine them so fast you are done before the rats get there. This is true for all except instrumental, vital and vast.

So if i were solo id maybe use a prospect for some sick sig tank core gas site thing. but beyond that, id just make afk isk in a venture until i died while you go do something else. oh btw when u die just go buy a new venture and get back to it. Oddly enough i almost never get ganked doing this. I run c5 sites and i got the whole village after me. 7 ventures.... nobody really cares.

what

That's just bad piloting.
I don't know how often somebody tried to catch me in my Venture. Yes, singular, because the didn't catched me in the past and I am not paying attention to DS a lot when gas huffing.
Nowadays in my prospect it will be even more difficult.

Somebody just needs to know how to do it. Just warpin, approach the Gas Cloud and mine is definetly the wrong way.

What Tim said: No, don't forget the Prospect, well only if you are really doing afk, but I doubt having sex with his gf is really counting as afk, isn't it?

Proespect is well worth the ISK, because CovOps Cloak and a bigger ore hangar! Well worth the skill and for sure the ISK!

Ok to start off by saying that the prospect is pointless is just stupid in it's self. Prospect has to be one of the single hardest ships to catch if the pilot is paying attention and knows what they are doing.

I bait with a prospect all the time and donot even warp off when the bubbles drop. It is super fast and agil. tanky as hell, and it can warp cloaked. Thats just hard to beat.

As far as "sig" tanking instrumentals what you said is far from true. you cannot do it afk. I know i do it all the time to bait in ppl.

To do this you speed tank the guns, sig tank and speed tank the missiels and you fit for a exp / kin resist with pure passive and non active mods. You absolutlly have to pilot manually.

You have to lead the BS around the cloud keeping them at a certain distance. This method also requires a deadspace afterburner.

As for just solo exp gas hunting your best with just a prospect if you do not live in w space and have the ability to roll you static.

Just the fact alone that a prospect has both cov ops and a huge as bay makes it more time efficent and safer.

You should always orbit you cloud with mwd and speed set as fast as you can without loosing range on the cloud. I like to duel prop mine.

I also never use warp core stabs or much tank other then resist amps. I keep mine fit for fast and nimble.

If you have little w space experience and are learning to navigate and stay alive i recomend starting out just doing relic hunting and scanning before trying to ninja huff. If you are super risk adverse and such you can fly ventures sure and they are profitable but no one can say prospect is pointless unless they are afk botting the gas in large fleets of alts.( that will be fun when i find that and put it in a bubble). Prospect would just be pointless for what you do, but not for others.

Personally I like to use my dedicated scanning ship first. I scan down multiple wormhole systems, bookmarking everything. If it seems inhabited I ignore the system and keep looking for a system that appears quiet. Things I check include, activity on dscan, presence of POS, size of the corporations that own structures like customs offices, etc. Later I'll come back and methodically work the quieter systems. Doesn't eliminate risk, but it reduces it.