Missions & Complexes

Hi guys. I did my share of exploration pre-Odyssey (both data/relic and combat up to lowsec 6/10), but haven't been online much since then and honestly don't have a slightest idea about current state of exploration (hi/low sec). Is it good now, compared to, say, running hisec lvl4s in your average 10mil SP pve battleship?

As for high sec exploration, expect a lot of competition from other players. Basically it's a race to find and complete the sites asap.

The days of having an 'All In One' exploration ship are pretty much gone now. In my opinion it's better to specialize your ship fit to find and run a specific type of exploration site asap, for example fit and run only Hacking sites or as in my case, fit and run only Combat sites.

Course having high scanning skills makes a big difference which will help increase your chances of finding and completing exploration sites before other players.

Good luck,


DMC

Im leading an exploration corp in Derelik, Ammatar Mandate. We do Exploration of all kind in Highsec, lowsec and nullsec.

Highsec: Overall with one word: BORING. Since about 4 weeks there are very few spawns - some think it was a hidden nerf, some think its bad luck, some think its too much competition - anyway it is making even a 2 week old toon fall asleep.

Combat sigs, hisec: still the most profitable. The highest plexes are blitzed in less than 3 minutes, loot is random, mostly platings, seldom nanos, even more seldom implants. If lucky an average dayquote of 200 million is 30 mins, if bad luck you cant find anything of value over days.

Combat sigs, lowsec: depends on luck and what spawns you can find. DED5 are rare, DED6 even more rare.
Workaround: As those sites are so rare it is better to run the dozens of combat anos in hisec. Often enough you can get expeditions like "Sansha Neural Paralytic Complex" which is nothing but the DED5 sig, just that it isnt scanable. Just keep an eye on D-scan and those combat probers cant find you at all, plexes dont despawn, and can be repeated if you know how and even escalated, if you know how. In fact you get the expedition more often than sites spawn in lowsec.

Combat sigs, nullsec: well, enough of them, not very hard if you know them. Most easy and often enough rewarding are the drone combat sigs (radiation for example). You can fly them in cruisers, and if lucky BPC for Astero/stratios and vey rare if heard nestor.

Data sigs:
Highsec: quick and easy cash.
Lowsec: mostly the same like in highsec, more often low value BPCs
Nullsec: a bit better than low, but not very exciting
Workaround for a bit more fun: rare data sites in drone regions. They can even trigger expeditions, worth a lot if you can follow, only nullsec though.

Relic sigs:
Highsec: forget them. mostly crap, mostly empty cans, and as usual in highsec, many many cherry pickers, just doing the valuable cans, blocking respawn and not understanding they are cutting their own purse.
Lowsec: amazingly intersting that lowsec relics can give a lot and are very rewarding (20 mio per sig is not seldom)
Nullsec: Only interesting in NPC sov, as there are usually more and of higher value. Had sites with values over 100 mio, average is around 25.

Anos: still the best way to beat dead time while waiting on sig respawn or while scanning (spit out drones and let them **** the ano while you go afk or scan or whatever). Give faction items which have a high chance to be of higher value than most highsec/lowsec plex stuff and can trigger ded5 expeditions in lowsec which arent scanable.

Expeditions: from anos very frequently, from sigs rather rare. Just if you know how to trigger it sometimes helps - blitzing and only faction rat killing are low chance mostly for expeditions (like 1 in 10-15), with purposedly triggering its like 1 in 3.
Escalation: if you manage - or more precisely have the luck - to play one expedition to the end or are lucky enough to recognize/know the alternate solution trigger, if it is required, they are fairly rewarding.

Ghosts:
Covert Research (lesser, standard, improved) even when blitzed fastst ISK in game.
Besieged Covert: well, bring tank. Rewarding? .. if you produce and sell, yes, if only BPC selling, no. Only thing that always comes from them are paint jobs to color ships. They dont bring anything but a mostly odd colour change to a ship. Our corp mostly paints and sells ships for same price like the normal ones, as we already have like dozens of them rotting in hangars and nobody buys them except for some bucks in trade hubs.

Just spent last night and this morning running relic and data sites in High Sec. Prior to the Phobe patch the sites were interesting and the time spent equated to some interesting loot. Post Phobe patch its smurfberries.
Now the loot dropped from Data Towers and shards are old game items that are of no use in the current environment. I suggest that they spew Quafe cans !

I'm sure I read that the Exploration side was getting a increase in something , should of guessed it was tears.