Missions & Complexes

there is a certain amount of signatures in every constellation that will respawn if its completed. Yes there are magneto and radars in high sec, tought they will not give loot as good as the ones in low sec or null sec. For example in high sec if you make 20-40 mill from a magneto, thats very nice and rare. For null sec magneto if you get 50-100 mill thats crap. The most money i got from a sansha magneto was 540 mill isk in intact armors and power circuits. Other then this, go and type "ISK the guide" in google, you gonna find everything written in that.

As others have said, yes you can make a living from exploration, and a really good one too BUT it's chanced based and not as steady as running missions or mining. If you only do it for the isk you may be up for some frustrating days.

That said, you can safely ignore Magnometric sites in highsec, they're usually just not worth the time running them. Decent drops just occur too seldomly. Radars pay quite well.

The most profit can be made from DED Combat Sites and escaltions from unrated plexes (Watch,Vigil, Lookout, Hideout). The latter may drop faction loot in the initial site and in every concescutive stage though you have to get very lucky for that.

Prepare for a lot of competition across the board in highsec, in lowsec not so much but you get the risk of being shot at as a trade off, so in the end it's up to you. I recommend starting in highsec until you are proficient enough to not spend more than 10 minutes on 5-6 signatures per system. Being able to find and run the sites fast is key in both high- and lowsec.

For that you may want to get all relevant astrometric skills to at least 4, 5 recommended. Start off in a cruiser to familiarize yourself with running radars and lower end plexes and see if exploration is for you. Also, with the old static plexes added to the scanning system, find out what ships goes in what site. If you end up liking it, move into HACs or T3s, Vexors, Ishtars and Pilgrims have worked nice too but prepare to fit a TP now to keep your drones alive.

When in lowsec, be careful of your surroundings, watch DScan for combat probes and drop a can at the warp-in point of sites to uncloak anything coming into your site. Smart pirates pre-scan systems and just wait until you start running the sites.

Also, you don't need Deep Space Probes really, use this

DSP Guide

and get your Probe Strength to fill in at the top from your ingame charge info. It's not as accurate as using DSPs but it's good enough to guesstimate what signatures could be what. Use Sisters Core Scanner Probes.

Lastly, join one of the exploration channels for some live help and enjoy. You will find exploration fun and less mind numbing than missions if you can let go of the "what if x item dropped". Work with what you get.

Lot's of good info and replies in this thread.

Just wanted to add - look in areas that don't get a lot of travel action, systems that have low population count and are far from trade/mission hubs. Be prepared to be a Gypsy and do a lot of traveling.

Don't forget to check info on the sites (Goggle, Evelopedia, etc.) before warping into it. A new explorer can easily lose ships by warping into the higher level / class combat sites.


DMC