The Drip Feed

Like all good Trinkets Friend Effects, it begins with a mistake. In this case, it was consciously made: a K162 to null from a C3 which was EONL.

Lacking sec status (I like to stay positive so I don't appear yellow on overviews in w-space in case my Cheetah of Doom gets uncloaked by crap) I take opportunities to go blow up rats in nullsec so I can continue blowing up idiots in lowsec. So, I thought "Fuck it. I'll find my way home if it collapses."

Which it did. So, deploy the probes and scan while ratting, dodging bubble camps and work my way the 35 jumps through nullsec towards lowsec.

Two systems in to my Odyssey, the TF Effect came up with an offline POS in the middle of a besieged system with an I-hub imminently due to come out of RF. So i farmed a few POS mods, sadly no Machariels this time. Onwards.

Eventually, I found an N432 to C5 (empty) and a R943 to C2. Retriever, Loki, Anathema on scan. Two minutes later with the D-scan and I'm at their POS, and the Retriever isn't. The battlechubby begins to get engorged.

Way back in the formative months of wormholes, though i won't say we invnted ninja scanning the proper way, we certainly became extremely adept at ninja scanning. I've never had to resort to Virtues to get people, nor Sisters launchers, and I'm one of the better practitioners of the art. But in the majority of cases, however you learn to do it (and there's a few style differences between my method and the shit on youtube), you want to launch your probes off-scan from anyone who may be likely to see them. Otherwise, well, you've usually got buckleys chance against someone who is doing the proper thing and mashing the d-scan. Which, today, the way people can read w-space guides, is everyone.

However, there is a way I call the Drip Feed. You set your upper rack of modules up like this: cloak - prop - probe. You then go into the solar system map view, press F1, F2, F3, move the probe immediately way outside the solar system. Press F1 again (you will be >2000m from the probe by now) while hitting scan. If you get this down pat, you can have a probe launched and out of d-scan range inside 5 seconds. Not enough to slip it past a real d-scan masher, but enough to slip it past a casual and mildly inattentive miner.

When you have 6 probes launched, you ninja scan as per usual. This time, it worked because the AFK Retriever was off d-scan from the POS, and the POS was off-scan from the launch position.

The moral of the story? Well, aside from d-scanning like a ferret on meth, even if you see a single probe for a single scan, you have to make the decision to get back to POS or take the risk. You can't think you are safe in a small system where "Oh, I will spot someone launching 6 probes".