It's referred to as the scanner overlay and not the 'discovery' scanner for good reason
25th August 2014 – 5.22 pmAnother day absent, even more anomalies brazenly stolen from us. This is an outrage! The perpetrators really ought to have dumped a container with 30% of their plunder at our tower, just as a basic nicety for taking advantage of our system. I normally do, or try to, or maybe I sometimes consider it whilst trying to keep a straight face, and I don't see why other w-space denizens wandering in to our home system don't offer the same courtesy.
Beyond the lack of anomalies also lies a lack of signatures, just our static wormhole to resolve. I do that, warp to it, and jump to the neighbouring class 3 system to see if anything's happening. I think there may be, if the Tengu strategic cruiser and pair of Drake battlecruisers are any indication. Of course, there's also a couple of towers visible on my directional scanner, but I'm thinking positively, particularly with a silly mobile tractor unit in my d-scan results.
I bookmark all the anomalies in the system, immediately revealed to me no thanks to the silly discovery scanner, and move away from the wormhole and cloak, trying not to curse the still silly discovery scanner for also showing me a mere two signatures in the system. Of course, there was one less than a minute ago, and if the combat ships are piloted and active then those capsuleers will be as aware as I am of our K162 at any moment.
Switching overview tabs and refreshing d-scan sees wrecks, Sleeper wrecks, a whole bunch of them, but sweeping d-scan around the highlighted anomalies doesn't find them. The site has gone already, it must have, as the only other signature in the system will be the static wormhole, not a data or relic site. If I'm lucky, the active pilots will be oblivious to the discovery scanner's glaring utility and move on to another site. That I'm seeing a Cormorant on d-scan now indicates that I won't be that lucky.
The destroyer is sweeping up the Sleeper wrecks, and probably just salvaging a ball of them, what with the mobile tractor unit taking away the fun and once-necessary activity of actually salvaging a field of wrecks in a Noctis salvager. The Drake and Tengu, the second Drake no doubt replaced by the Cormorant, have not moved to a different site.
I may still have a minor window of opportunity against the Cormorant, and I find, by warping across to both edges of the fairly compact system, that I can drop out of d-scan range of the ships. From this position I launch probes and throw them out of the system, performing a blanket scan that is rather disappointing. I can see only two ships under my probes, the Drake and Cormorant, immediately swapped to be Buzzard and Cormorant. Yep, I've been thwarted by the discovery scanner.
I suppose I shouldn't be upset by the annoyance of the discovery scanner any more, but it still does get to me that opening wormholes to unknown systems is such an unthreatening activity nowadays. Whatever, that Cormorant looks to be in space still, I can assume the locals believe someone is around, I may as well quickly scan the destroyer's location. I call in my probes, take a couple of scans, and resolve the ship under my combat probes. The Cormorant appears to be at a moon. Is he now bait? I warp across to find out.
No, the Cormorant is not bait. The Cormorant is inside the force field of a tower, which d-scan wasn't showing me as I hadn't swapped my overview back to the standard tab. Thankfully, warping to the destroyer's position drops me healthily short of the force field and I am not revealed or in danger of having the tower shoot me. It also lets me see the Cormorant blink off-line.
That was quick and frustrating. Never mind, I can scan the system's static wormhole, my notes telling me it leads to high-sec, and go looking for more wormholes. Or I could, if the damned exit weren't at the end of its natural life. It's a little curious how the locals were happy engaging Sleepers with an open wormhole. Even if on the edge of collapsing, there are enough pilots out there who would happily use a dying connection to look for such activity. They got away with it this time.
I poke out through the dying wormhole, expecting from the colours seeping through to appear in The Forge, and indeed appearing in The Forge. The system is only four hops from Jita, and has three extra signatures that look enticing. I can't rely on this wormhole to get me home, though, so I will neither go shopping or scan the other signatures. I am too deflated to consider collapsing our wormhole for a new connection either. I'll just go home and collapse myself.
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