EVE New Citizens Q&A

It all depends where you want to look for those exploration sites.

Looking at your skills I'd suggest getting that Gallente cruiser to 5 for and ishtar, as it's a nice sentry drone boat, and has enought slots for all the exploration gear (codebreaker, analyzer, salvager, probe launcher).

Since you don't really use the turret slots on an ishtar you can fit a cloak to help you when you need to hide.

Other good option for low sec exploration sites would be a myrmidon, which has simmilar advantages as the ishtar, just with a bit less drones. It's also a bit heavier, so it's easier to catch in gate camps.

As for the skills I'd suggest gettiong the astrometric branch to at least 4.

Bah, don't let the "I can't do anything because I'm training skills" thinking get to you, you can always do stuff while you're training.

And as to what to use in highsec while training Cruiser 5, if you have Gal Frig 5, the Ishkur (Ishtar's baby brother) is excellent at exploring, it's my main ship at the moment. If you don't have Gal Frig 5, the Worm might be a good substitute. Both of those should be great in highsec.

Also, if you want something even closer to the Ishtar, the Gila is extremely similar to the Ishtar (the differences are that the Gila only shield tanks instead of being able to armor tank too and the Gila uses missiles as a secondary weapon instead of hybrids).

About exloration in general, outside highsec your exploration ship has to be able to do combat. Even in highsec you can only do salvage/hacking sites without decent combat capability. In other areas even those sites can spawn a significant number of combat ships, so some combat capability is a must for the ship doing the actual sites. Having a dedicated scanning ship isn't a bad idea, since it will make exploring and scanning sites much easier, but it isn't a must. You can also carry two or more fits with your exploration ship. This way you can just dock at a station and change fits as you need and it will help if you can't fit all you think you need at the same time.

As for skills, you just need to be able to scan well and do the combat in the sites. A good scanning ship would help here and it should preferably be one with an in built bonus for scan strength with some scan strength rigs(gravity capacitor upgrade) fitted. Covops ships(Helios for gallente) are really good for this, but a normal ship will also do. Scanning will be harder though and you might not be able to scan the hard sites down at all without good scanning skills in a normal ship, but those sites aren't ones you want to do in a weak ship anyway.

Highsec exploration can be a bit more complex that lowsec exploration and the competition is much more fierce. The reason it's more complex is, that in highsec you have heavy limitations on what ships can access the sites available. Smallest sites accept only frigates, while largest sites can require BC level firepower or tank to easily complete. The thing is that you can't just ignore the smaller sites, since the loot drops and escalations can be just as valuable there as in the larger sites. A cruiser size vessel is propably the best though and a T3 ship is the optimal choice in hichsec. I would favor one over an ishtar, since they are faster at completing the sites and speed is everything in highsec exploration, although Ishtar is a great exploration ship too.

As you are a gallente pilot, I would recommed starting with a vexor at first or even an imicus, if you've just started playing. A vexor is a decent exploration ship and can do almost all sites without an issue, if you are a competent pilot. It might struggle with the harder sites, since it has a weak tank and not that much firepower, but it's a decent starter ship and you can earn the initial investment cost back from a single hacking site. An assault ship or a faction frigate is also a good option in highsec, since they can speedrun most sites and nab all the tasty loot right infront of other people's noses. I wouldn't recommend them for a new explorer though, since you really need to know what you're doing before you get the most out of them and you need to know what sites they simply can't do. On the other hand they are great at doing the easier sites and can easily escape when you find a site that is too hard for them, so they might not be a bad option to start with.

right now im docked in jita, i am realizing i probably over did it on the skills as seeing i didnt need everything i started learning.

i have some shield skills but my prior abilities revolved around armor tanking. Should i pack up and move to a different space to begin based on my skillset?

would it be wise to fit a vexor, imicus, ishkur and fit them all to see? i can also fit a few combat ships like my thorax , domi etc. for the combat missions. If i leave the exploration site though will i be able to bookmark it and come back with a combat ship?

train one toon to run the sites (tengu or loki) train the alt for an iteron 5

the iteron will be your prober/spare ammo holder/ and nice loot collector

That's not a bad guide. Most of what exploring is is:
Look at map and find some systems you hope will have some stuff
Scan said systems
Run any sites you find

That's about it.

Also, I'd suggest you join the 'Exploration' channel, there are lots of experienced explorers on there that are more than willing to answer questions, it's handy to be able to ask questions in real-time too.

The simple answer is the Vexor. Many people like to fly much more expensive ships for exploration be it a HAC, Recon, faction cruiser, or T3 strategic cruiser. These are much much more then you require, especially as a rookie.

Make your mistakes on something cheap. You will likely lose ships to pirates, sites, fitting mistakes, mechanics you did not understand... and so on. Why would you want to make these cheap lessons expensive?

1. Fly only what you can afford to replace.
2. Practice and make mistakes on cheaper versions of a ship.
3. Use the cheapest ship that can EFFECTIVELY do a task, to minimize loss potential.

(People do not use Machariels or Nightmares for suicide ganks in highsec.)

I vote for either the vexor or the arbitrator if you want to get into lowsec exploration right away (which you can do easily).

For long term goals, I have been using a Pilgrim and haven't looked back (this is for Ladar combat, Mag, and Radar sites only, maybe some low level complexes if you are careful).

However, this fit needs a lot of skills (cloaking to 5, recon to 5, max support skills, etc). Doing this from memory at work so bear with me:

Highs:
Covert Cloak
Tractor
Salvager II
Core probe launcher

Mids:
10mn AB II
Codebreaker II
Analyzer II
Cap rechargers

Lows:
1600mm Meta 4 plate
EANM II's
DCU II
Medium Armor Repper II

Rigs:
Medium Scan Rigs

Use whatever drones are good for your region. The Ishtar would be just as effective (more so with expanded drone bay) but the warp while cloaked fits my style. The downside is that with this fit you can't use DSP's (since you need an expanded probe launcher) but the benefit is you can stay out for as long as you want before having to dock up again*.

Some advice for the new explorer: If you are looking to stay out in space without having to dock up, use small cargo containers in your cargo hold to expand your carrying capacity as much as possible. For the Pilgrim, you can get an extra 60m3 of space, which is a lot of salvage and invention materials.

*This is dependent upon what type of loot you pick up from sites. If you steer clear of large volume items, weeks out in space is easy to do.

In my opinion, the Ishkur is one of the better exploration frigs. With the Ishkur vs the Imicus it comes down to tank/gank vs probing bonus. The Imicus might be better when you're inexperienced at probing, due to the bonus, but it will have serious problems with the combat sites in both tank and gank. Once you're skilled enough (RL and SP) not to need the Imicus' probing bonus, the Ishkur will work extremely well because you can run many more sites in it.

And don't get discouraged if it takes you a bit of time to find stuff. Exploration is like that, you either wander around getting nothing, get a trickle of ISK, or find a massive jackpot. Personally, that's part of the attraction to me, the "who knows what I'm getting today".