Missions & Complexes

Since about 4 weeks our constellation is signature wise like dead. My whole corp is working on exploration and a good percentage of our monthly income was coming from exploration. I can tell you, this time is over.

We have a lot of data about signatures in our constellation, are in contact with almost all explorers (we are hosting a channel for our region) and we have gathered a lot of information from many outside of our corp sources. From what we have experiened and gathered:

Highsec systems in our constellation and neighbourhood:
minus 70% on appearance of data or relic
minus 75% on appearance of valuable combat sites (Watch, Vigil, Occupied Mining Colony)
minus 50 % on appearance of low value combat sites (drones, frig and destroyer sites)

Percent values are measured to the last 3 month (June, July, August, September) on a weekly base.

Loot found in those sites over the last 21 days is even worse. Most of the sites relic sites have lost over 50% in value, allthough prices are slowly raising. Data is not that bad, but prices are stagnant. Faction and plex stuff is like 75% lower, most of our income has broken away.

Lowsec systems in our constellation and neighbourhood:
minus 87% on appearance of data and relic. Most of the sites contain values that im used to in highsec and many many empty cans or carbon only.
High value combat sites have vanished almost completely (ded5/6). The data we gathered are devastating, i dont want to publish them, else you think im just a complainer who wants to make things look worse than they actually are.
Low value combat sites are also like minus 50%.

Loot found is not even worth the effort anymore. Mostly resist platings, seldom something of use like nano membranes.

Appearance of anomalies in highsec and lowsec seem to be slightly increased. We always had many anos, but lately it looks like we flooded with those sites. On the flipside the appearnace of faction spawns in them is lower than before and triggered expeditions of anomalies have almost vanished. While before our corp was on about 1:25 expeditions from anomalies its now more like 1:60 or worse.

Expeditions from signatures are now an ultra rare event. Mind that we have 7 full time explorers and several doing it beside their mining and production: 5 of 7 did not have a single expedition out of the anyway rare signatures in the last 3 weeks. And the few expeditions we found were not rewarding at all: tags and ammo.

Further signs hardening this data:
We are hosting a channel for explorers. Many left our constellation, the community in the channel is more or less dieing. As we are sharing information about signatures and Whs and pirate activity in this channel we are also receiving data about signatures. Most of the explorers in our channel have told about 50% or more of income is gone.

We changed from exploration activity to mostly mining. Not because it is bad or so, but to keep stable on income. And for the few signatures you dont need 7 explorers, 2 can handle it easily now. Many more miners appear now in our constellation, which lets assume, that we arent the only experiencing this phenomena.

Prices of many exploration things are going up. Prices of plex are embarrassing high.

We simply adapt to the data we have gathered now, or more precisely we have to adapt: We are changing to mining and are producing ships. Not very exciting, not very amusing.

How is it in your constellation, fellow explorers?

Have you made same or similar experience? Or do we just have an insane amount of bad luck or just a constellation based issue here? If it is just our constealltion we would change to somewhere else. But i dont want to shut down the complete infrastructure and build up elsewhere before having information about situation there.

We are aware of that and are covering over 35 systems in and around our constellation, mostly you can say we cover the full region, that is highsec and lowsec. We also frequently travel over WHs to nullsec or other lowsec areas. But as we dont have continously data collections from those systems it is impossible to say if you just have bad luck, or being in the footsteps of a fellow explorer that just made everything before you or it is the same like in our systems.

But as we dint find anything there like in our constellation im having doubts on the "string of bad luck" theory. Though i have to admit, still its possible.

Are you sure someone on another timezone isn't just sneaking in and running them?

We considered that, too. But as our members are spread from russia over germany to usa and canada, also counting in those in our hosted channel i tend to say it is a windows of like 2 hours we dont cover completely. And 2 hours is too few for all the systems involved. It is possible to maybe fly in and scan. But assuming that those also have to clear the sites would afford a corp that couldnt have been undetected for such a long time. Also the sites usually respawn pretty quick, so we should have gotten at least one of the following respawns. In fact we considered this possibility for now like 3 weeks, but it slowly creeps up our minds, that this cant be the case all the time, which lead me to ask here.

Almost correct - we are in the border region to minmatar space in Ammatar Mandate.

Activity will be sinking again. Saw already a lot of them leaving yesterday and the impact to exploration was also quite seeable in bay. Still fewer spawns but a better day on profit compared to the last 3 weeks. From what our recon says we hear out the tensions in the aggressors war party lead to some of their members leave the party and so it will just a mater of time until they all are gone to somewhere else.

Data gathered from yesterday: number of spawns - same but loot was a bit better.

Let's see how it turns out.

This can't be intented...I was roaming in about 50 Systems from 0.9-0.5 in Gallente, Minmatar and Amarr Space, and all i found was WHs and some comabt sites, not a single data or relic. This is no fun at all, justa waste of time. The Systems were med to low populated. Will try in 0.0 eventually...

fix it CCP

I've noticed far fewer Data & Relic sites recently, but that's just my anecdotal experience, I haven't been systematic about this. Could it be that the spawn rate & loot drop will be fixed in after the Phoebe release? Just saying, a little patience may be warranted before quitting the game.

A little update.

We have been shutting down most exploration over the weekend and just kept mapping and and bookmarking the sigs while doing other stuff.

We had most frigsize and low value sigs of combat over the most time being untouched and living for so long that they sometimes despawned while only one of us was in system and nobody else. The only sigs that had a lof disappearing and respawning were wormholes, and only when they were to WHspace, the ones leading directly to null, low and highsecs were up for mostly like 14 hours.

Without us doing anything the regions sigs were more or less stagnant. Even vigils and watchs lived often enough over more than 4 hours, and all less value sites were simply left untouched. So much about "bad luck".

Lets go mining and produce ships, still the only stable and good rewarding activity - but boring. Even the pirates in our region are bored to death as very few are even looking in the lowsecs. Amusing was the trial on monday to do some relics and data in lowsec. we found like 10 sigs and the best of them was 5 cans of which 4 empty and 1 had 1 carbon and 2 contaminated nanite compounds. Overall not bad, 3,000 ISK value. so just like 300 more of that and we can make a 1 million ISK when we sell the carbon also.

Average value of sigs was like 500K to 800K in all sigs. Thats lowsec. Hows nullsec?

you've dried up your area, you either need to leave home to find those sites, or wait for someone else to go out and run those sites and hope they come back to you.

I can tell you I'm having no issues with the number of sites I can run and the loot I get in them. However I will sometimes do 20-30 jumps a night running through systems, scanning, doing sites and moving on.

edit: also, it sounds as if someone is doing those sites before you guys are if you're seeing empty cans/carbon. Either find out who it is and forcibly remove them or move.