Missions & Complexes

There are a LOT of people running sites in highsec. You're probably not going to find them before someone else does.

Yeah, I understand others are doing the whole exploration thing too, especially in high sec.

I look at it like this - exploration is meant to be a profession. If, say, mining was your profession of choice, but you could only find asteroid belts in 10% (10 out of 100 systems) of the systems you visited, you'd start to think something is amiss. That's why I'm starting to think something is a little wonky.

If it's just me, then I'd think I'm just having a bit of bad luck.

So far I've gotten a reply from one person who thinks this is normal considering the amount of people participating in high sec, and one reply agreeing with me thinking it's wonky. So far, it's 50/50. Hopefully more people will reply with their opinions so we can get a better consensus.

Waaaay too many people doing highsec explo. Those SP just accumulate man. Back in apocrypha days, when TQ had its never again seen peak of population, it was much less competition. Last year and a half its just crazy. Hundreds of people clean sweeping regions.

Just roam around and be persistent, eventually you'll find system someone missed or just (and more likely) run into a respawned plex.

Low jump per hour systems are not worth it, because every explorer figures that out first so every single one of those jumps is a prober. Highsec islands, well you have to get there first. And if its a larger area again 10000 explorers got the same idea before you.

Best luck I've ever had is getting to tiny one to three system highsec islands trough highsec-to-highsec wormholes. And still a passing lowsec prober could have cleaned those 5 min before you got there.

Your result can only imply that you set some sort of obviously "efficient" circle route with no double backs through "main" highsec just like every other explorer does and managed to follow faster explorers who locking down the sigs and completing the content ahead of you without catching them. But bad days are also part of exploration too.

There is a finite body of sigs, enough to fill each system to 2 - 3 sigs + k162s, and they respawn when done at random into their applicable areas, which effectively means sigs get swept out of repeatedly scanned systems into systems which are not scanned as frequently. I'm not sure if there is a timer, and there is the time taken to find the sigs and despawn the content, but the more the content is done, the more it respawns, so its somewhat robust to more people exploring.

If you perversely take on systems that are less "efficient", you'll find more sigs per system. That is the nature of the sweeping action of highsec explorers.

Lowsec IMO is different. No system is swept as often, and all "out of the way" systems are prized and swept (if nothing else because they are away from typical roaming gang routes), so the sig population is flatter. I do know some places where I would expect 7+ sigs when I scan them, but they've taken more effort to find, and the favoured sigs still don't show up in them often (ie I just don't think there as many of the desirable pirate ded sigs on rotation in low as there is in high), and there is inevitably someone else who prizes those systems (which winds up in shooty aggression rather than racey passive aggression as highsec has).

Even though I'm not an explorer, well...
Profession sites in lowsec are usually guarded and I don't think covops will handle that. If you surf through suggested fittings for lowsec explo, you'll see people use T1 cruisers mostly, and older players may use something like Pilgrim.

That said, all-in-one lowsec profession exploration boats probably won't handle lowsec combat sites and DED complexes, so people sometimes use different ships for scanning and running them, sometimes piloted by alts to double scanning ships as scouts or pickets.

See, here's the thing - if it's a corp clearing out asteroids, you may well look at a system that has no valuable asteroids anymore and you're left with scraps. Look in Caldari space and it'll seem as if there are no good asteroids left at all.

It's the same with exploration - High sec has a huge amount of explorers, who all track down radar and combat sites. This means you'll have to be lucky to find something and when you do, it'll likely end up giving you a few millions at most.

There are ways to improve your odds. For instance, Caldari space tends to be the most populated, so if you move someplace else, you'll improve your odds. On the other hand, Amarr space is huge, so you'll see less sites per system and since it has a number of high sec pockets, exploration sites tend to be pushed out there. Many explorers know that, so expect competition there as well. At the end of the month, you'll make at most what you'd get with level 4 missions, but with less reliable income.

Does that make exporation suck? Not really - when Columbus wanted to do something new, he didn't go off to explore the farms of France, he boarded a ship and traveled where no contemporary man has traveled before. He could well have lost his ship, his crew, his life - instead, he discovered a whole continent with riches that literally gave rise to entire empires. Exploration isn't about sitting in cozy safety of Concord regulated space, it's about daring to go where few do.

You know what? Take a ship you can afford to lose and run straight into null sec. Fly until you get blown up. Go see EvE Gate, travel into the heart of Delve, whatever. Dare to be bold. Do not return until someone somewhere blows you up. And when he does and when you get podded, realize that you're back in the station, ready to try again. Then - only then - will you be free of the shackles of mortal life. Only then will you realize what it is to be a capsuleer, a god amongst men. And you will realize that all that time spent exploring high sec was a waste of time, when untold riches await you in dangerous lands beyond safety.

Then, let me be the first to say: Welcome to EvE :)

Wow, you really got into that. :)

The weekend is possibly the worst time for exploration roams. Here's my results from last night:

Highsec: 2 mags, 2 wormholes, 3 combats (not counting 1/10 and 2/10), 1 radar, 6 systems total.
Lowsec: 1 mag, 2 radars, ~ 3 unknowns (didn't scan past 25%), 5 systems total.

Dotlan can be helpful in identifying low-population systems. You might also try repeatedly scanning a handful of systems, jotting down signature ids as you discover them, and using Deep Space Probes or Core Probes at max distance to look for new signatures as they pop up. You can also use d-scan to identify if a system is being explored by someone else.

/hugs

More seriously about site spawning, we can prove nothing atm (it would a lot of work and data to really prove something) and ccp isnt telling us exactly how sites spawn.

The best definitive answer we can give is 'its random', and most of us explorers like it that way. If you want consitency, there's always missions and mining.

i can confirm that sig spawn in lowsec has dropped since last patch, i need to cver way more system to run the same monthly amount of sig.

also, while still running the same amount, the income has dropped by a marely 50%, in the form of way less deadspace( almost non in fact)mods in ded, way less valuable items in ladar / mag/ radar (no more skillbooks in combat ladar for ex.), and regarding combat sig, and belts, the faction still pops but they NEVER drop anything but the poor lazer lens for the sanshas (and if you ae very lucky, a wothless tag)