WTF is with newbies these days?!?

Ok, you're a newbie, you've joined a "decent" corp in high sec. Do you not listen to the veteran pilot explain about how w-space works. It's 0.0. People shoot first and ask questions later. Which has occasionally lead to some amusing blue on blue incidents that did not result in dead ships - "Why were you shooting at blues" - "Because you were"...). The d-scan is your friend. How to tell the difference between a Russian tower and a North American tower... All things that lead to good situational awareness. I can distinctly remember receiving lectures on the above back when I was a newbie.

So. I log on last night. Note that there's a bit of time left before the 40 P4's I'm currently cooking are ready. So I remember that Dark Ochre rock I had not finished off the previous evening. Quick scout of the system. Looks empty. So switch to my Covetor and head out to the rock. Note that in wormhole space we tend to bookmark individual rocks, not belts.... There's a reason for that.

Slap the two warp core stabilizers in my alt's hauler, now that he has the skill. Half a jet can, tanky and 2 warp core stabs - no guarantee but has a chance to get away if there's no bubble.

So I start mining away. Get a few hauler runs in when I spot a core probe on scan. Quickly start the Covetor warping towards the POS, then while the run up starts, I check the rest of the d-scan (you will note - react first - then ask questions). Vexor.... Vexor on scan...

Ooooookaaaaaay. So my alt makes a last pickup and warp while I'm traveling to the POS. I did mention that my alt's fit has 2 Inertia Stabilizers right? Once I'm at the POS I get in my cloaky Loki and take a wild guess and warp to the HS wormhole at 100.

Yep dead on the isk. One neutral Vexor on the wormhole... scanning away in one of our settled systems... I watch him for a sec and he does not seem to be with anyone. I then warp to a safespot and back to 20 on the hole. I uncloak in transit so as not to have the un-cloaking delay - trusting on his not noticing me on d-scan since he's probing. Start locking - then establish a nice stable orbit at 18 (comfortably inside optimal of my 5 x 720mm's and inside the warp disruptor range) and when lock arrives - point and let loose. 1st volley - shields gone and armor at 95%. 2nd volley (10 seconds later) armor at 10%. And he jumps out.

So I cloak back up and start orbiting the wormhole at 18. And in a few minutes he pops back in... And he pops drones... You're kidding me right? So I wait a bit then uncloak, target, and point and open fire. Sure enough I have the same effect on him... He sticks around a little longer and I find out he was smart enough to put in a DC at least since his structure seems more resistant than his armor was. His 5 Warrior 1's are tickling my shields (oooo the danger). Admittedly I was paying more attention to any wormhole wobble than the rest of the fight. And he jumps out again.

So I pick up his drones, cloak up. So I figure melting him twice in a row should have taught him a lesson (mind you as newbies go, at least he was smart enough to jump out. Not all would have been). So I jump out and sure enough not in local. A quick convo later and he explains that he tought I was an NPC...

/me facepalms

So I explain the facts of wormhole life to the newbie and drop off his drones at the high sec side of the wormhole (what can I say, It was feeling like stealing candy from a baby) and set the can to blue.

Then figure it's time to do a high sec run to the main base to drop of another ship (less to deal with come shutdown day). You will note I've decided to let the system cool down before getting back to mining. I'm crazy not stupid. So I fill my DST with some ore and various goodies that I need to move to high sec anyways (Dread Guristas ammo - I forgot to mention that I also ran two high sec combat sites yesterday as well). Autopilot. An hour later I melt the ore, shove the rest of the stuff into appropriate bins in the hangar and pop out in my pod. Autopilot back to the wormhole.

An other hour later I'm back in the WH. Get into my cloaky Loki and decide to sit on the high sec wormhole (cloaked at a classified distance away from it) while I chow down on some soup. I'm just finishing up when...

WTF is a neutral Covetor doing inside my wormhole???. Has someone removed all the inteligent pod pilots and replaced them with lemmings? You're kidding right?

Nope warps off in the direction of empty space. But since I have eyeball mk 1 on him I note the direction. Warp to the older grav sig. Nope, wrong direction. Check warp and warp to the newer one. Yep. Land 5km from the Covetor. Who is obvioulsy going to try and Ninja my soon to be Ore. Can't have this now can we?

Uncloak, start orbit (which boosts me away from him). Target. Lock. Say hello to mr. Alpha strike. One wreck later, and the pod escapes to the wormhole. So I head to the POS, grab a salver and clean up my grav site. Then after posting the kill mail, I note that the guy was from the same corporation as the previous guy from 2h ago... A conversation ensues where the first words out of my mouth are "Don't you guys talk to each other???".

Apparently not. Oh and a cargo expanded Covetor?... Brain hurt.

The rest of the evening is much calmer - unfortunately for Cozmik who missed all the fun. I did finally manage to nail that Dark Ochre rock (and a Veldspar rock next to it). And did some PI and went to bed. This morning saw the completion of he last of the P4 I was building.

Ah well at least this means my cloaky Loki is formally blooded.