Ships & Modules

Cheetahs are pretty solid.
Force Recon ships aren't suited to be used for a scanning alt imo.

Never used Cov Ops to tackle though, so it would be interesting to see if there's a viable fit that can accomplish all you're looking for.

Whats the matter with a recon ship using probes?

No probing bonus on the hull.

A rigged ship with sister's gear should be fine, though some of the professional sites will probably not be scannable (grav sites and such).

Consider a Manticore with 2X sensor damps. It uncloaks, grabs tackle almost instantly then hits the victim with scan res loaded into both of its Sensor Damps. That gives you about 20ish seconds for the gang to arrive (assuming target is a Drake or the like) and someone else grabs tackle. The Manti can then move out of range, swapping the script to Targeting range. Of course, this goes in the crapper if there are swarms of sleepers at hand, but no plan is perfect.

Arazu actually works quite well, but you probably want a faction scram on it so you can damp the target down and hold a scram at good range, kiting him with mwd. You see the problem? It's quite expensive then and really squishy.
You could use a Helios, too. Tech 2 Disruptor, 3 sensor damps. Excellent probe strength, hard to catch. Only downside is the 5 seconds locking delay you will face, some targets might actually burn off - or blow you up by that time. But once your damps are hitting him, he has to be in a Recon or T3 to be able to lock you at or above 20km.

The problem I have with a Proteus is that it is extremely expensive for a ship that I'm going to be using on my alt. If we fall into a trap it is much better to lose an arazu or cheetah over a Proteus.

They are also complete bricks with the scanning bonus's of a helios.

That being said there are three real ways to set them up. Each with its own problem.

The first is the straight up brick method. You get around +200K ehp that works with no cap left, so decloaking in a site with sleepers turns into a "no fks given" scenario. Problem with these is their damage is terrible. Like seriously, you might as well smartbomb fit the thing its that bad.

Second is scout fit, not very tanky by proteus standards but if you have help it will work fine. Again, all the bonus's you need to scanning and proper scout setups use the interdiciton nullifier. So you can qq out and leave through bubbles instead of simply slow boating out and jumping. Problem here is you loose a low slot to get the nullifier so your tank is the most lacking of the thre methods but your GTFO abilities are high. I personally never use nullifiers on any of my 6 t3's but to each their own.

Third is a balance of the two, about 90k ehp in game (168k in eft) with about 500 dps and the benefit of drones. No nullifier but you can easily sit in a site and wail on someones face with 500 dps for 30 seconds no problem while "help" comes. Still retains its cloak and scanning abilities so bubble camps remain a bit of a joke unless you are terrible or unlucky. Problem comes from it not being the tankiest or gtfo worthy as the other two.

As a side note I fly version #3 on a daily basis throughout w-space and aside from it being slow as bawls when cloaked(and uncloaked) its a great ship.

I'm also looking for an ideal sidekick ship, and while a T3 would be best on paper, I'm not excited about the idea of dual-boxing T3s in solo/small gang wormhole PVP.

The five second decloaking delay is a big thing. W-space is full of cloaky ships piloted by guys who actually have a clue, I've lost countless of kills due to delay... I've even considered rigging some of my ships to reduce it.

Recons and T3s have other traits to make that endurable, but a covops is really only good for suicide tacking when nothing else is available. Scanning bonus is a comfort feature, but it's not mandatory in w-space, so a scanning recon is definitely an option I will explore. Which recon would be best depends on the ship you fly on your main, they are all really good ships.

So I'm currently testing a probing stealth bomber. I won't post the fit as it's still in beta, but it has grav cap rigs, expanded launcher, tackle, some tank and bomb launcher with Void bombs and a pair of meta torp launchers- perverse enough? :)