Bug? Exploit? My stupidity? T5 Abyss in 3 minutes?

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Edit: It was stupidity lol

As you might tell I’m not a miner so I don’t really know how Abyssal traces work in detail. However, I did stumble upon something very interesting just now.

I often hunt for Abyssal traces in highsec and this is something I’ve never seen before. I’m not sure if it was a bug or an exploit or maybe I’m seeing things. I hope someone can provide some answers or bring attention to the game devs in case something really is wrong.

Let’s retrace my steps here:

  • I jumped into the target system
  • Saw a trace, started to scan it down
  • While scanning the trace hit ctrl+a on local to select all the members (see if anyone new appears)
  • As I was done scanning the trace I noticed +1 in local (the target) and now next to the abyssal trace was a Gila
  • “Ah ■■■■ unlucky he probably saw me, time to go next”
  • I opened up zkill, searched for the name and surely it was an Abyss runner so I was sure that he would have noticed me.
  • While warping to the next system during the jumps I saw the target leaving local again (maybe entered another trace?)
  • I jumped back into the target system and already had my probes on 0.5 on the same location - so I scanned there
  • Surely a new trace was there - let’s warp the scanner and wait for the dps to jump.
  • Scanner lands, I check the trace (T5 Gamma)
  • As my dps enter back into target system I warp them straight to my scanner that’s sitting on the trace.
  • As my dps land the target is already coming out of the trace. (It was about 3 minutes)
  • Sure enough it was the same guy. I was surprised,
  • Pew Pew & loot secured
  • I had my doubts - maybe it was his alt or a similar name or something so I hit refresh on Zkill. Sure enough my kill appeared on the refresh under his name.
  • Bottom line - New guy appeared in local - disappeared - 3 minutes later he was already coming out of a T5 abyssal trace.

A quick screenshot I took during my confusion:

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image871×277 68.9 KB

The kill in question:

Maybe someone can explain how this could have happened? He didn’t have a lot of loot on him either so maybe he’s looting only some specific parts of the rooms, but as far as I know you have to clear all NPCS in a room to proceed, right?

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If he is running T5, he may have just ended up in one of the occasional “Shipyard” or “Leshak Rooms” where you can exit right in the first pocket without killing anything. You just have to fly like 30km to the already open Origin Gate.

Many runners skip this room because the fewest fits are able to deal with the like 20 Leshaks in there.

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Interesting! I guess that pretty much solves it. Never knew there is an abyss room where you can just leave. Always thought that abyss was meant to be like all or nothing kind of deal. Is it often that you can leave from the first room (if you wanted to)?

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No, that specific encounter can only happen in T5 and maybe 1 out of 20 filaments on average…