Recently I've been quite taken with the idea of hopping in a Venture and doing some gas mining. I've always liked the expedition frigates since they were introduced, though I'd never really done much with them aside from one stint of low-sec gas harvesting. However, that was a good while ago (circa 2016, I think) and gas harvesting wasn't particularly profitable back then.
Since coming back I'd heard a little bit about ninja gas huffing in wormholes - basically this is hopping into a wormhole, scanning down a gas site and harvesting it for 15-20 minutes before the Sleepers arrive and crack open your pod to feed on the squishy goo inside. At least, I assume that's what they do.
I hopped into a nearby wormhole in my Buzzard and scanned down a couple of gas sites. The hole seemed quiet - nothing on d-scan, no structures etc. It was just a Class 1 wormhole, so I assumed it was probably unlikely to have someone living in it, as the sites tend to be less valuable and often not worth the risk of losing a ship to a cloaky T3 cruiser.
I jumped back to my home system to grab my Venture, and off we went. Once back in the hole I sat at a safe spot for a while and did some d-scanning - I also popped to a few different spots in the system and did some more d-scanning, but all seemed quiet.
The first site just had a small gas cloud - perhaps someone had been here before? Still, it didn't take long to get through it - I was probably out of there in 10 minutes - well before the Sleepers would arrive. The second site had two fairly large clouds so I was keeping an extra close eye on the timer, along with d-scanning every few seconds to look out for signs that someone else may be in the system - scanner probes, ships etc.
Unfortunately, even the most vigilant d-scanning isn't always enough. About halfway through the second site a Tengu uncloaked and made pretty short work of my poor Venture. I managed to get my pod out, thankfully, and quickly ran back to the security of high-sec space with my tail firmly between my legs.
https://zkillboard.com/kill/92453866/
I spotted the Tengu pilot on the other side of the wormhole and we had a bit of a chat. I always like to do this after someone has killed me - it's usually a good learning experience. Turns out that he'd been in the wormhole and scanned down all the signatures while I was out switching to my Venture. So he knew exactly where to find me when I was gas harvesting, and didn't need to give away his presence by dropping probes etc. I was probably only gone from the hole for about 30 minutes in total, but that was enough. This was quite comforting for me as there was little else I could have done, really - it's all just part of the risk of going into a wormhole in the first place - you never know who will be lying in wait, or how long they've been there.
Still, my assailant was very polite in our conversation, and I got my first WiNGSPAN delivery notification, so that was a new experience!
In terms of loss, a Venture isn't too pricey, and I've built up a bit of an ISK buffer over the years, so a ~30 million loss isn't the end of the world. I'm not sure I'll jump straight back into wormholes right away, but there's more I want to try with this plucky little mining frigate yet.
