Missions & Complexes

I understand that Signatures need to be scanned down, but Cosmic Anomalies appear immediately in the scanner.

But are the sites they lead to similar in difficulty and reward?

Are anomalies the same as a complex? Do they all have a chance of giving faction items?

Cheers

There are two types of special loot ( not counting officers here ) :
Faction ( green ) - you get those from faction rats, overseer rats/structures ( rarely )
Deadspace ( blue ) - you get those from rated complexes and final expedition site from unrated complexes

Both rated and unrated sites are cosmic signatures.

Lowsec/nullsec anomalies are better for bounties. You can get faction rat or rated complex expedition from time to time ( very low chance ).
Hisec anomalies are better for faction rats/expeditions because you can do them very quickly and that means your chances of getting factions/expeditions are higher ( you do more sites ).
Complexes ( signatures ) are better for loot ( very random, usually you get nothing but from time to time you can score multi billion drops ).



Actually it's the other way around.
You have better chances of obtaining faction loot from unrated plexes ( up to 5 faction rats and each can drop faction loot ).
Chances of getting faction loot in rated sites is very low ( you will get deadspace loot much more often ). It is different in some nullsec sites because you can get several faction spawns even in rated sites ( as addition to deadspace overseer ).
I did similar amount of rated and unrated sites and the proportions of faction drops for me was :
95% - unrated
5% - rated

I'll just add some more stuff here regarding complexes (aka "plexes") in highsec.

Yes, they have to be scanned down using a probe launcher & scanner probes.

When you've scanned any complex to 100% and warped to the signature, you will find yourself landing at an acceleration gate. These gates have limits to the size of player ships allowed. Some only allow frigates, some allow Battle Cruisers such as the Drake.

In highsec, there are two types of complex: "unrated" and "DED rated".

Unrated complexes are identified by their names. In highsec, the four types of unrated plex (easy to hard) are:
(Angel/Sansha/Serpentis/Gurista) Hideout, Lookout, Watch, Vigil

eg. 'Angel Vigil', or 'Gurista Hideout'

Read more about unrated complexes here.

Unrated complexes mostly have at least two 'pockets', similar to missions. In the final pocket, most unrated plexes have a RANDOM chance of spawning a faction rat (eg. "Shadow Serpentis", "Domination" etc) depending on the region you're in. The faction spawn MAY contain faction loot, and the wreck is usually also worth salvaging for occasional T2 salvage.

However in the harder Vigil complex, there is ALWAYS either a faction cruiser spawn OR a structure that, once killed, drops a crate that MAY contain faction loot.

The unique aspect of unrated complexes is that they sometimes 'escalate'. Once you've killed the final trigger, you might find a popup screen appears telling you that there's another site to go and investigate - usually a few jumps away. You'll find an entry in the Exploration tab of your Journal, and once you've jumped into the right system you'll be able to use that entry to warp to the new site.

Escalations mostly involve warping to another gate and killing the ships guarding it, or jumping the gate and killing what's inside. One of those ships WILL be a faction rat. That's the nice thing about escalations - they guarantee a faction rat every time (even though the wreck may not drop any faction loot).

Escalations have a maximum of four stages. You may reach a dead end after the first stage, or you may get lucky and escalate right through to the final stage - which is ALWAYS situated in lowsec so beware. The final stage MAY drop some really decent faction loot.

You'll notice I've put a lot of may's, might's, somtetimes's etc. in capitals. That's just to reinforce the real randomness of running these complexes. Nothing is guaranteed. You might run an Angel Vigil and all four escalations from it, and end up with a few bits of crud. Or you might run a Serpentis Lookout and have a 250mill isk implant drop. "RNG working as intended" is often quoted by pro explorers.

* * *

DED rated complexes are a little different. They also have identifiable, longer names (eg. "Angel Cartel Occupied Mining Colony").

When you warp to one of these sites, you'll get a popup screen with a "DED rating" from 1/10 to 10/10 at the bottom. In highsec, you can find 1/10 to 4/10. They are also accessed via acceleration gates, and are also limited to certain ship types. Read this to get some background and more info about what ships can run what plexes.

The two main differences from unrated complexes are:

1) There is ALWAYS a faction spawn which MAY drop DED loot (eg. Pith, Gistum, Corelum). This type of loot is generally more valuable than faction loot.
2) There are no escalations. However, DED complexes are more common in highsec than their unrated counterparts. In the case of 1/10 and 2/10 complexes, these are in fact permanent spots in space which you can see on your Overview without ever having to scan at all. But they are often heavily "farmed" by knowledgeable toss-pots players.

The most profitable DED complexes in highsec are the 3/10 and 4/10-rated. A good drop from a certain 4/10 complex can net you 500-700m isk. But again, you may just get 2m from the "Overseer's Personal Effects", which always drop from the faction spawn.

To sum up:
Unrated complexes have a chance of dropping Faction loot such as a Shadow Serpentis 10MN Microwarpdrive. They may escalate, giving you more chances for more faction loot.
DED rated complexes always spawn a faction rat with the chance of more valuable DED loot eg. Gistum C-Type 10MN Microwarpdrive. They do not escalate.

Just one minor correction here.

Rated sites won't always contain deadspace overseer. Sometimes instead of rat you have overseer structure, which drops the loot.

That is true for sites like ( in hisec ) :
DED3 Serpentis Narcotic Warehouse ( Supply Stronghold is the overseer structure )

DED4 Guristas Scout Outpost ( Radiating Telescope )
DED4 Mul-Zatah Monastery ( Inner Sanctum )

Other DED3s and 4s have overseer rat spawns.

Yeah, i think i have had it happen once. It's not in any of the cans - sometimes there is in the harder to scan 'combat' ladar in lowsec a certain named rat (Lieutennant something), and this one i believe can have (apart from the usual ladar stuff and some very hard to come by notes) faction items. It's not very often that you see those Lieutennants, tho and even more rare for them to have something else than meta modules or so.

I won't believe you without a colourful chart