EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hi, so I've been playing for a few days now (well, a little more than that, but still probably less than a couple weeks) and I'm starting to get a hold of how deep eve is (even if I feel I've only grazed the surface)

anyway, so I took it upon myself to go explore, fit a ship with the good stuff, train some skills and go out there. I've watched many videos about exploration and I'm somewhat getting a little better at it. But I'm nowhere near that guy on YT running data sites in hisec and making millions of isks.

Well, he got a couple more things than I have, skills and fitting wise, but not by that much, and I've been to relatively lowsec systems as well as hisec ones (from 0.2 up to 1.0 and the fiasco in WH space at -1.0, that was fun in a new way)

So now I got a few questions

- I can do data and relic sites, but I missed the part about combat sites, what exactly are they? my ship isn't fitted for combat at all (a couple missile launchers that's it, but no shield for example) can I still run them?

- is there some sort of way to know where are the "good systems"? or the name of the game is to find the good sites rather randomly (well, I use that evemaps website that has lots of info about jumps and whatnot) ?

- occasionally, I run into a site that, no matter how I try, I can't get to 100%, I could get it to high 70s% but no further, what's the deal with those?

- can I (I haven't tried, but I figured someone may have so I'd rather ask) somehow "save" the locations of the sites and go back there later without scanning them ? (I'm guessing I can't but figured I'd ask anyway) or is there a way or a meaning to "bookmark" at least the "good systems" ? or the sites spawn is totally random?

- what am I missing?



PS: those are in no way complains, I'm having a blast exploring, but it doesn't seem to me yet that this is where the money is. Although, good, knowledgeable vets claim that there's money to be made there, even for the newer players.


thanks for reading and, eventually, replying

much love <3

- I will send you some mails with info you need to get started in combat exploration, they're full of details so do read them carefully

- yes there is, to an extend anyway, with proper understanding and experience you can sortof predict systems that will be good (on average, this is exploration after all). Many people will tell you sites spawn randomly, they don't. There's hints on that in the mail

- there is a data (?) site in high sec that's really difficult to scan, requiring really good skills, ship and fitting to get it to 100%. After a while you'll learn to recognise it (it tends to start out at 2% or so) and thus ignore it. Combat sites are far easier to find

- when you get a site scanned to 100% you can rightclick it from the scanning window and save its location (a good habit of gathering data, to learn which the good systems are). Thing is of course that the longer you wait the bigger the chance that someone else finds this site and completes it. Sites spawn at random places in a system so a new site will not be at that same location, no point in saving it for that reason.

- lots of stuff about how to optimise and improve your knowledge and completion speed. Most of it is in that mail.

combat sites go by a number called a threat level, the lower security space you go to the harder the sites will be 10/10 being the hardest and you dont go in them with anything less than a marauder (t2 battleship), however the reward for the combat sites can be anything from 100mil to 1bil+

you also have unrated sites (1/10-10/10 DED as they are called will pop up a notification when you try to warp) these have no notifications and can escalate to ded sites, again you really need combat ships for these types of sites

the other combat sites are normal combat sites "Anomolies" but you really need a combat ship for these as they can get heavy at times. Highsec sites should be relatively easy in smaller ships but if you see one, google the name and there should be a write up about the site to see what people advise to run them in.

generally speaking the best sites are in nullsec and lowsec but you have major risks there. but worth it if you know how to navigate null/lowsec

yes once youve scanned the signature, rightclick on the sig in your scanner box and "save location"

In theory there are some sites that require all level 5 skills and faction / T2 equipment to scan down. I don't think I've ever come across one of those and I don't have all level 5 skills for scanning or for the T2 exploration frig. However I have had sites that I could not at first scan down but up fitting rigs or faction launcher or faction probes was able to get.

So outside of your skills as far as I know the best that you can do for a scanning ship is the tech 2 covert ops scanning frigate with a sister's launcher and sister's probes as well as gravity capacitor rigs and you can also get implants or hardwirings that increase probe strength reduce scan deviation and scan time. There are also rigs and implants to help with the hacking modules.

a few other things

During the weekends there are much more competition, not the mention the increased number of gatecamps, so I found that I can get more good sites and stuff during the less populated hours of the weekdays.

Recently I also stopped to do data sites, I focus only to relics simply because my experience is that they give more valuable loots. After 350 sites I found that a usual relic site gives 3-7 times bigger loot then data sites. I also found that lower security systems mean a bit harder hacking but rarely better loot, meaning in nulll sec naturally. But of course the whole exploration is random. You can never tell how many sites you'll find, luck can kick in during hacking also, you can find the core in 3 steps as well as 25, and the value of the loot is also random. And it happens a lot of times that an "easier" green core gives you more valuable loot then the hardest red core. Same goes to security rating of the system. At the beggining I thought - 1.0 systems would give me much better loot than -0.0 or - 0.1 but it turned out to be random also, though in a lower rated system the hacking is harder.

With one of the recent patches came the possibility to find "normal" exploration sites in wormholes not just the usual sleeper sites. Since I already use the wormholes to get around and specially to get back to safety after a week of exploring it's very convenient to do the relic sites that I found there along the way.

I never found anything valuable in null sec data sites. So if I do exploration nowadays I just do relics and ignore the data sites.

In theory faction tower BPCs can be found in relics too, but didn't find one so far. I tried combat exploration in highsec with an Ishtar, but I'm not hooked yet ... instead still doing relic sites in nullsec for ISK. Though I think sites appear randomly (except for upgraded systems), they are not completed by players randomly. Some constellations are farmed continuously, in other systems you hardly see a jump in the last hour, leading to system with stacked anomalies. I know a couple of null systems which are safe bets. Also I know a region in highsec, where you can almost certainly find a ghost site. So the general rule, go to the quiet border areas of busy regions.