Tip Of The DAY: Stay focused.

Many people complain that they can't find anything but worm holes. Why to scan something what you can't run (combat plex for example) or not worth the time?

If you are on radars roaming, only radars should be your top priority.

Scanning process of every signature has 3 key points.

25% - tells you Group of the signature. Radar, Ladar, Gravimetric or Unknown. Unknown can be WH or combat plex, including DED rated plex.

75% - tells the Type of signature. It actually name of site. For example it can show up as Group: "Radar", Type: "Local Guristas Shattered Life-Support Unit". It is up to you if you want to scan it to 100%. Personally, I do not do it if I don't have ship or friend or nobody in local I may ask for help . It is nice to scan Unknown to 75% to see it is Guristas Scout Outpost. But what next? It rather disappointing fact than good result if you cant run it.

100% - you can bookmark this signature and warp to the location. You can get it only with 4 probes. Even you put probe perfectly on top of signature, u will get only 99,99%.

Note: Anomalies, in difference, can be scanned with 1 probe and givers 100% on the first scan.

So, exclude signatures not interested to you from the scanner list as soon as you can determinate the Group.





Once you "Ignore Result", but want to get back to this signature again, u need to doc, or reenter system via gate, or log off/log in to clear ignore list.

Sometimes you never notice or find things floating at surface, but eventually someone shows you how obvious it is:


Nathan said... " Once you "Ignore Result", but want to get back to this signature again, u need to doc, or reenter system via gate, or log off/log in to clear ignore list. "

Not completely true, you are able to click the arrow next to where your filter says "Signatures" then either clear all ignored, or select one from the drop down list

Astrometrics @ lvl 4 finally

The next skills would be as follow:

Astrometric Pinpointing to lvl 2.
Astometric Rangefinding lvl3
Astrometric Acquisition lvl 2
Astrometric Pinpointing to lvl 3.

Once it done, drones skills will be next priority.

I prefer train this skills even I am comfortable now simply because less scanning process takes, more ISK can be earned. It is quiet obvious of course.

It took more than an hour to figure out which signatures worth our time, scan them to 100% and bookmark.

Day 5: Is it teleportation to Wormhole?

I haven't managed to fly to Jita and sell stuff I got yesterday yet. I decided to go to one of ded end systems before DT instead. 4 probes around planets scanned too many signatures, so I was a bit confused. Looks like wh to me :-)

So, I used 1 probe with 32 AU range to cover whole system and check what is inside of this system:




31 signature in total. Interesting what I can get from such a number...




I made bookmarks to all radars. There are 2 Guristas Watch plexes but I am not going to run them, neither Life-Support radar.

After approx an hour after DT I logged in. All bookmarked radars still there.
Had some nice drops.

here is yesterday and today's loot:



Selling it in Jita for about 60 mils made my wallet 150 mils or 1/2 of funds I need to purchase PLEX.

Tip of the day

Here is the link to CCP guide on youtube. It is great introduction to scanning mechanics.

If you want drastically decrease time of scanning Cosmic Signatures here is the the tip:

All cosmic signatures located near moons and can be detected with 8AU probe.
Most of them within 4AU range. I have read some were that all of them within 5 AU and it related to old probes before new Apocrypha scanning mechanics.

Drop 1 probe for each moon and place it on top of the planet. Make probe range 8 AU and scan. You will get list of all signatures.

Screen shots bellow illustrated this in large system (about 60 AU).
All bookmarks are real plexes (mostly GSO) or radars.

I was EFT warior for the most part of the day

I had 2 quick sessions online, scan here and there for a bit. I spent most available time with EFT tho. I will write about it a bit later.

here are my sigs and lot:





I didn't sell it yet. Will be posted as it goes.

How do I check my probes sensor strength?

Open your fitting windows. Load Prob launcher with probes. Check info on ammo of launcher.

Important! If you check info on probes in cargo, all bonuses will not be applied and you will get only basic figures.




Click on (I) icon of charges and you get probes attributes window:



So, my probes Strength is 73 points. Higher this figure, weaker signals you can scan.

Base Maximum Deviation is 0,125. Less is better. Signatures "jumps" not so often with next cycle with reducing range of probes.

We also can check out the same information with EFT:




Basically saying, probes strength around 70 is good enough for scanning.

EFT is great tool for estimating thing. You can change your skills level on the fly and see what you get. In our case we can check out Vexor for example, and see what skills and gear we need to get probes strength around 70.

Here is an example with Vexor fitting:



We lost 15% of bonus from frigate.

But we compensated it with using Sisters Core Probe Launcher (can be purchased with contract for about 35-40 mils ISK.) and training Rangefinding 1 lvl up to 3.

In long run, Covert OPS frigate is the ship of any serious explorer. But it can't be trained on trial account, so more carebear business ahead to get PLEX asap :-)

Day 4: Time to look into probing skills again

Here is the link to NP Crusader skills.

As you may see, many skills not relevant directly to scanning were trained to lvl 3 or even 4.
For example Electronics at lvl 4 already and Cloaking at lvl 1 in preparation to the first flight to low sec.

Astrometrics is currently in training queue to lvl 4.

I am pretty comfortable with current Astro skills, but it is good idea to revise them and see if any further training would be worth time and skill points.

Skills relevant to scanning listed below.



So far so good. The frigate skill lvl 3 gives 15% bonus ( 5% per level) to probes sensor strength and Astrometric Rangefinding 20% (10% per level). 2 rigs gives extra 20%.

Sisters Core Scanner Probes have base strength 44 points and with all bonuses together it comes to 74 points.

It enough for almost any signature to be nailed down to 100% in hi sec, excluding few really weak.

Therefore, better sensor strength, faster we scan. and It would be essential for using in future for all-in-one exploration ships like Vexor, Arbitrator, Caracal, Drake, etc.. without bonuses on scanning.

So, Rangefinding to lvl 3 or even 4 considered as a must in mid terms plan.

Why Astrometrics is training to lvl 4. For 2 reasons. First of all it gives 1 extra probe to launch, so it will be 7 in total, and what more important it allow to train Astrometric Pinpointing.

This skill reduces maximum deviation of scanning result, and signature's coordinate will be determined more accurate. it is not obliged skill, because u can get similar result with using 5th probe places right on top of signature before next scan cycle.

Personally, I prefer scan only with 4 probes. It is simply faster.

I consider to train this skill up to level lvl 2 straight away and to lvl 3 or even 4 eventually.

Day 3: Still making some ISKs

My 3rd day happened to be quiet exiting. First of all, Germans won vs England in WC football and it knocked me out of EvE for a while sine we had a lot of beer with my buddies (I live in Germany).
I have spent about an hour flying around, picked couple radars, and went to watch the game.

After a while I decided it would be good idea to get some skills books and went to Onnamon Solar System in Black Rise Region.

I always scan on the go, so did I this time too. I got one radar, and Guristas Scout Outpost in next system.

Ok, here is the list of signatures I have found and drops from radars:




I got 20,3 mil ISks for it and wallet balance is 107 mil so far.

My second account is still not ready for action, so I used Tengu again, and got Pithum C-Type Medium Shield Booster.

Guristas shattered life-support

Along with getting a bit of ISKs from dozen radars this one was kinda fun.
I know what this radar is about, and I had Tengu nearby but I decided not to use it.
Instead I have asked in local if anybody can help me. The only one person was in local and he eventually replied and agreed to help me.

Why did I nee the help. Simply because this radar not possible to run in Imicus, since there are 2 BS minimum. 3 or even 4 pretty common. I don't even count few frigate class npcs.

It is possible to tank with Imicus, and I did it, but to blow them with 3 noobs drones? No way.

So, the guy who was so kind to help have brought Cormorant. Not much dps, but better than 3 drones anyway.

here is how the site looks like:







Frigs were easy targets, but Cormorant dealt too long even with 1 st BS. I had orbit like 140 km and was pretty safe till Cormorant dragged away 1 BS, he rewarped back to can and I had to get full agro again. it wasn't as easy as first time. So after struggling for about 30 mins, I just flew in with Daredevil, tanked this 3 bs, and we finished it up within couple of minutes. Just wanted to test Daredevil on this difficult radar site instead to use Tengu.

Why Daredevil? Because it would be our damage dealer ship used by the second char.
It delivers insane amount dps/required skill points.

The whole thing took something about 1,5 hours, with dozen rewarps. But I had fun and this is what counts. :-)

how about reward? Normally this site drops decent loot. I got 45 mils once.

But today:




2 User Manuals. I gave 1 to guy who was helping me. So, do not afraid to ask people for help.
Sometimes you get get help, sometimes just grief. It is EvE :-)

Note: As you may see, this site has 4 cans, and they are spreaded. It can be annoying to keep track which one you already opened. It would be good idea to train targeting for 1 more level, so we get 4 targets for Imicus. Target all 4 cans and travel from left to right, or from right to left.

Day 2: less ISKs but more fun

According to the plan, I was going to spend 3 hours for roaming around and my wallet looks more exiting. But I have spend on radars business may be maximum for an hour and a half. Due to the fact I have found 2 Guristas Scout Oputposts again (in one system at the same time), 1 Guristas Vigil and 2 Guristas Watch. Still had 9 Radars done. and got some loot once been sold netted for around 38 mils ISKs. It doesn't include stuff I got from plexes, but I will report them also.

I also crossed finally and it was a big deal of fun to completed it, even it ate most of my roaming time.

So here is the list of sites scanned down tonight:




and here is the loot from radars:






Here is also loot from Vigil, 2 Watches and 2 GSOs bellow just FYI.

1st Watch was waist of time, no escalation and drop was only tag. The vigil as well.

The 2nd Watch was more profitable escalation and implantant:




2 GSOs dropped only Amplifiers, but is is still good loot:






I have 91 mil ISk on my books at the end of the second day.

What we get for the first day?

At this point after about 3 hours flying around and been “interrupted” (lol) by 3 GSOs I decided stop for tonight, go to Jita, sell all this radars stuff, see what is net profit and write this small report for the day.

Buy the way, I bought “trade” skill book and trained it to lvl 1 just to be able sell stuff with orders in case the buy/sell difference too significant to be ignored.

This is the result of my first radars hunting roam (except probes ofc). I cashed out 52,75 mil in selling all in Jita.
After purchasing 5 sisters core scanner probes it is just about 50 mils or 25 mils per hour, give or take. It is not bad for less then 1 day old char, isn’t it?

It’s getting even more exiting.

One more jump. And what is it?





Another GSO. Tengu still in 2 jumps away. I cant resist again, sorry..

10 minutes later:

No Complex loot this time. A bit disappointing, but is ok. It is fun to burn in curiosity what you’ll get, even if it is almost nothing.


I have spent another half an hour jumping from system to system, founded another Vigil, I desided to skip, 3 more radars with rats on one of them. I don’t think I have to post screenshots again since you already have good idea what they may drop and how this sites looks like.


But what happened next made me bringing Tengu again:

A bit later:

It is not tremendous drop only with around 10 mils in value, but what is interesting this Dread Guristas 200mm gun very unusual and rare loot for GSO. So, is it unusual luck that I have found 3 GSOs within less than an hour? Sort of. I just bumped into respawning chain and there were not many people looking for plexes around.

From another hand I didn’t have any luck with super loot. Enough about SGO at the moment, it was fun and entertaining, but more like side effect for our current radars business. Funny enough, but for most explorers it is versa vise. They are looking for plexes and run radars as side business. Therefore this 3 plexes and couple of Vigils made me considering create second account and start plexes part of this guide early then I have planned originally

The first surprise

Guristas Scout Outpost – is 4/10 DED rated combat site. It doesn’t escalate but drops ded space loot straight away on completion. This site is most desirable for any hi sec explorer, because it can drop such nice loot as “Pithum C-Type Medium Shield Booster” with current market price tag around 350 millions ISK. This site is a cream of all exploration sites in hi sec. It also can be founded in low sec in regions with Guristas rats. Guristas Scout Outpost (GSO) is not very difficult to run, but may be time consuming without decent DPS and good tank.

And it is very lucrative because it is a dream of all explorers. You will see a lot of explorers in Tengu, including me as well, who can complete it in 5-6 minutes. But with double boxing approach we will not wait till the moment when Tengu, Drake, Gila, Cerberus, Navy Caracal or any other ship you can fly. I will explain and show how to run it only with 2 chars and one week of training. But not right now.

Right now I bring my 5nipe’s Tengu and run it. I simply can’t resist, sorry.

15 minutes later:

Well, it is hit and miss. No booster. But still something. May be next time…

Keep going.

Warp to next system. No radars in next two system but one more in the third one.

This radar has 3 cans and 5 frigate class rats we need to deal with before get to cans. It is possible that new wave will arrive, and perma cap AB should bring us far enough not to be destroyed but close enough to be able operate our only 2 Hobgoblins with drones skills only at minimum level.

Here is my little plan. Turn on AB, fly around for a bit, get full agro from all 5 rats. Launch 2 drones, set orbit 25 km and orbit around one of cans. Target rats and assign drones. They will do the job. Not super fast, but job would be done. Why we need full agro in first place? Simply to “protect” our drones. Those rats are not slippers, they will not retarget to another threat once they got lock on our spinning around Imicus. And our fragile drones are safe while shooting theirs targets. It may sound obvious for most of you, but these basics may not be well known for beginners. Managing agro along with speed/signature/distance tank are the first skills any explorer must be comfortable with, especially with just couple hundred thousands skill points. And these skills are vital when we go to low sec, or may be even to 0.0 to find and run plexes in “ninja” style. And it going to happen very, very soon. There are 2 cans on this particular radar site. First can guarded with 2 frigs, second with 3. With our minimalist setup and skills would be good idea to agro 2 frigs first, kill them and then agro second group. This rats agro upon proximity. So, approach first group from the opposite direction to second group. Once we get agro align to gate or station opposite way, set “keep at range” for about 25 km and don’t turn off AB. The same with the second group. Or just try orbit can as I mention before. Find out what works better for you. If you get shield under 40-50% shield, recover drones and warp out. Warp in again. Try one more time. And one more time if necessary.

This is how it works. I am not good with fraps and making videos for youtube, but I will try to make something shortly. Once site is cleared and no new waves, I opened all 3 cans and got some nice loot.

Next system had radar with only one can and no rats and dropped nice loot again:

Next system had 2 radars again and also combats site or “plex” as it usually referred.
It is “Guristas Vigil”. It is pretty hard for beginners but doable with right approach. It is kind of plexes which can “escalate” or/and drop decent loot, including pirates implantants. I am not going to run it, since I want to spend time to be able estimate our efficiency.

Therefore, it is very important sign. It means I am able to scan down not only plex with lowest signature in hi sec. And it also means our probes sensor strength high enough to scan almost everything we are after. It takes a bit longer than with maximized scanning skills, but most signatures can be scanned.

Another interesting thing with “Vigil” – it’s signature has the same signal strength as combat DED rated 6/10 plex in low sec: Guristas Troop Reinvigoration Camp. So what? Nothing actually, except the fact, that we can go to low sec and find plex which can drop loot with market value more than billion ISK. How to run this plex is a different story. But one of the final goals of this guide is to go to low sec once upon a time and run this 6/10 plex, even if we don’t became billionaires from the first try.

In any event, I scanned down two more systems before I bumped in something attractive enough to break my “radars venture” for half an hour.

First Loot in cargo!

It took about 10 minutes to fly on autopilot from Jita to my area of interest. 4 core probes dropped and ANALYZE button on system scanner clicked. It took about 15 minutes to scan all signatures and exclude one worm hole and two magnetometrics from signatures list. Here we go: 3 identical radar sites in the first system!

After all 3 bookmarked, just in case I got disconnect, I warp to the first one. +30km is good idea to look around and see if any rats around.








Here we go. One can, no rats. Let’s crack it.






Hmm… it is empty. Lets try second radar site from signatures list.

This site has 2 can. And it is the same type as the first one. It looks a bit more promising. No rants again. Codebraker again…



Oh yes! It took about 13 hours from the creating char to actually get first loot. It costs about 2,5 mil in Jita and I am super happy that everything works as been planned so far. Second can is empty. Warp to third radar.



2 cans, no rats.




The first can has loot, and second doesn’t.

Undoc

I am ready to go. All required skills trained and everything fitted.

You may notice that targeting range is 36750m instead of 35000. Also maximum targets is 3 instead of 2. Targeting and Long Range Targeting skills been trained to lvl 1. This fit is not cap stable, but AB and afterburner will not be used together.

Speed with AB on is 825 m/c and hopefully be enough to run away from rats and tank with orbit about 30km. Drone bay loaded with 3 drones but only 2 can be operated atm due Drones skill at lvl 2 yet.

[Imicus, Pink Floyd - "Money"]

Nanofiber Internal Structure I

Nanofiber Internal Structure I


Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters

Codebreaker I


Core Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I


[empty rig slot]

Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I

Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I


Hobgoblin I x3

I will go to one of the hi-sec regions of Cardari space which is not crawled too much.
It is Friday evening, I have got couple of beers, no WC football matches tonight, so I am going to spend 2-3 hours flying back and forth, see what sensor strength of probes allow to scan and hopefully make some ISK.

Run Forest, run....

Speed is the king. As simple as it is.

Even with using distance tank approach we need to run away from rats in first place before they destroy our ship. Rradars sites let you warp to any distance up to 100 km and manage initial safe orbit distance. Therefore to approach cans or run away from rats eventually popped up nearby while tampering or opening cans basic speed of frigate may simply not be enough.

Possible tactic is warp out and get back to safe distance again. But you need back to site within 2 minutes. Once cans been tampered with codebreaker, the site get marked as “completed” and disappear within 2 minutes unless no ships left on grid. Please notice, drones are not counted as ships for this matter. The same rule applied to combat plexes as well once certain trigger been destroyed.

There are few ways to improve ship speed. Afterburner (AB) is the first propulsion upgrade we should fit on our Imicus. The next one would be Overdrive Injector or Nanofiber Internal Structure (Nano). Overdrive delivers better boost to basic ship speed than Nano, but Nano also improves agility of the ship, so aligning will be faster. It may be very useful for emergency warps out and jumps between gates, especially in low sec. With improved agility, it is also much easy maintain small orbits and keep speed high. Since both Overdrive and Nano require the same skills we put them both on our propulsions upgrades plan list anyway.

Finally - Micro Warp Drive (MWD). MWD has its own cons and pros. MWD boosts ship speed by 500%. Cons? MWD drain a lot of cap while active so to make your ship cap stable or be able run full throttle for even couple minutes may be difficult. Another big issue with MWD is that it blow up ship signature radius drastically and makes it easy to hit. Despite those drawbacks MWD is the absolute must to be able exercise speed/distance tanking tactics.

Once again, we work on very basic setup right now and once we have done with other skills on our list like Astrometrics and Drones we get back to skills related to speed.





While we train drones and navigation skills it is good time to roam around and and search for some radars. Even have 2 drones in our dron’s bay may be enough to kill small rats and get some loot.

And it is also good moment to talk about how to find radars faster.

stay tuned for next chapters

Drones as weapon of choice

Drones are the utility weapon of EVE. Almost every ship in EVE has drone bay and can use drones. Some of ships, especially the ones with bonuses on drones operation, use drones as primary weapon system and may deliver significant damage, comparable to guns or missiles.

Our lovely Imicus has 15m3 drone bay and it can accommodate 3 small drones like hobgoblin. Even with minimum drone skills they can deliver enough dps for most our needs. Imicus also has 5% bonus on drones operation range per level of Gallente frigate skill. It doesn’t looks like huge bonus but if we have frigate at level III it gives extra 3 km range, bringing it to 23 km. EVE is the game where every little thing counts, so this 3 km may be just all you need sometimes.

To improve drones range drastically we need to train Scout Drones Operation skill. It gives extra 5km range per level and at lvl IV we can use drone from about 45 km. It would be more than enough in most cases for distance tank. Lvl IV also opens for use Drone Link Augmentor with extra 20 km drones range. With such range even some entry level Imicus will be capable to run some entry level combat plexes successfully.

Therefore, we start with absolute minimum for drones skills to deal with our main objective atm: radars.