Finders Keepers

In a previous post I discussed the side-activity of scanning-down and scooping abandoned drones, today I would like to expand on that activity a little more, and also tell you about some of the other things I typically find lying abandoned in highsec.

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Abandoned Drones

There are so many of these things out there, that, from my experience, I estimate that there are multiple billions of ISK worth of them abandoned in highsec alone, at any given time. The amount of money you can make from scanning these things down and scooping them completely eclipses the amount of money you can make through mission running and mining as a new player, the only trade-off is that you have to spend skill points on scanning skills rather than pumping them all into the usual combat/mining skills.

Fellow MTU Hunter Alexis Thunderkunt, who until recently was new to the world of MTU Hunting, and highsec scavenging in general, informed me of just how profitable it was compared to the more established professions in EVE.

Shortly after this conversation, Alexis got very lucky indeed, finding an abandoned Gecko which netted him just over 100m ISK.

Speaking of big finds, one of the most expensive drone finds I’ve had over the last couple of years would be when I found 5x ‘Augmented’ Ogre in Kor-Azor Prime. At the time, those Ogres were worth 30m each, netting me a whopping 150m ISK jackpot; today those drones sell for around 80m ISK each at market hubs, so if you see those on D-Scan it’s worth checking them out, as that could be 400m just sat there waiting to be scooped by you.

Protip: Sometimes, when you warp-in on a mission runner, you can spook them and cause them to warp off quickly without recalling their drones. Therefore it’s always a good idea to warp to that Gecko, even when a Rattlesnake is sat on top of it.

Another notable find is the time I found 2x Gecko just sat 100km off the undock of an Astrahaus in Sacalan, and to this day I have no idea why someone would leave them there.

Recently, I had a very good night, netting myself 240m ISK after finding a single Gecko in Olo (which is right next to a level 4 SoE hub, so you tend to find nice things around there, just FYI) and an ‘Augmented’ Ice Harvesting Drone shortly afterwards in the more remote system of Aderkan.

I find that the best time to go hunting for abandoned drones is when CCP is running an event that features sites, such as the recent Guristas event. Myself, and many other fellow hunters noticed a disturbing amount of Vespas abandoned at these sites during the last event, both T2 and faction variants. They were always abandoned in twos, and almost certainly left behind by players flying Gilas. Due to the sheer volume of them, we suspect that mass-botting using a flawed macro which forgets to scoop the drones after using them could be to blame for this.

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Abandoned POS Modules

These are actually something I don’t find very often, and soon enough will never find again, as the old POS system is being phased-out to be replaced by the new Upwell Structures.

Whilst travelling through the system of Zehru recently, I was keeping an eye out for POS structures to bash (an activity I do with my corp) when I spotted a Ship Maintenance Array and a Corporate Hangar Array on D-Scan. Unusally, there was no Control Tower to accompany them, so I probed them down and took a look.

Click on image for full size.

Finding these structures unanchored, and knowing that unanchored POS structures don’t contain any loot (all loot inside is destroyed upon unanchoring) I decided that I would remove them from space another way. These things have a lot of mass, too much to carry in my little Hecate, so I bought a Tayra a couple of systems away, and returned to scoop them. Understandably, these things aren’t worth a lot of ISK these days, so they now sit in my hangar as trophies. I do wonder if CCP will offer some kind of recompense when they finally remove these structures from the game. If I get anything for holding onto these POS mods, I’ll be sure to let you know.

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Abandoned Ships

Yes, people leave ships lying around in space for anyone to just take, although it is quite rare to find abandoned ships that are actually worth anything.

One night, whilst hunting MTUs in a region of space that was being invaded by Sansha’s Nation, I spotted 2 Thrashers on D-Scan. Nothing unusual there, you might think, except that I was the only pilot in local, and these ships were nowhere near any POS structures, therefore not parked behind a big blue shield. I had spotted a rather large Incursion fleet a couple of systems back, so I assumed that these ships might have belonged to them. After looking-up the corp ticker displayed by the ships on my overview, [Y0-H0], it appears that these ships were owned by a corporation called Sub–Zero.

After probing them down (they were right next to each other on grid) I bookmarked their location and docked-up in the neighbouring system, Aghesi, as there were no stations in Fabin, the system where the Thrashers were located. After docking-up, I left my Hecate and headed back to Fabin in my pod to board one of the Thrashers and take it back to station, then repeated the process for the second one. Expecting the ships to be empty, I was pleasantly surprised to find that these ships were fully T2 fitted, worth around 15m ISK each.

Click on image for full size.

I decided to hold onto those ships, and still have them to this day, the ganker in me appreciates having a couple of extra destroyers lying around, just in case. Aside from an empty, abandoned Occator that I found in my early MTU Hunting days, I haven’t had too much luck with finding abandoned ships. I did find a cheap Vigil recently, and I find shuttles quite often too, I’m always happy to remove them from space to clear-up D-Scan, no matter what they’re worth.

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If you’re wondering, no, you don’t go suspect or criminal for scooping-up other pilot’s drones, ships, or POS modules, so doing these things is as risk-free as activities get in EVE Online. If you’ve ever needed an excuse to learn how to scan in EVE, think of all that free money just lying around highsec, and all of it can be yours.