Missions & Complexes

Well pre-Odyssey you had to have the wherewithal to actually get your probeboat and go out and check to see if there was anything to be found. Nowdays the game grabs your face and rubs your nose in the site screaming "HERE!!! SCAN HERE!!!". So there is that. Otherwise, the new system does require a bit more thought and effort than the old click-n-wait.

That is not a deep mechanic nor does it require skill.

Went through about 40 low sec systems yesterday and found 8 Data/Relic sites.
7 of them are already visited by other explorers who cargo scan, pick valuable stuffs, and then leave the site.
The only unvisited Data site yield like 20 mil isk. Well, that's 4 hours of low sec scan for 20 mil isk - 5 mil/hour.

I hope I simply had a bad luck.
Otherwise I really have to switch my career.
I really like exploration but 5 mil/hour is simply pathetic.

Nice.
I cleared 6/10 Crimson Hand Supply Depot couple days ago and got 500 mil worth drops. Some complexes are definitely worth if you are lucky to find them. Data/Relic sites, however, aren't worth trying anymore.

The biggest objection I have to the new scanning system is the placement of scanable objects into the scanning window when you jump into the system.

I like the changes to probe formations, skills, probe deployment, single click adjustment of the probe formations ... but it seems to me that the initial signatures should be found by scanning with probes and not displayed on the system scanner when you jump in - though the new system is much faster - it just feels like the skill required to do it well has dropped significantly.

errr.... So that people who have never done "exploration" before will be inspired to give it a shot? It seems pretty friggin' obvious. I'm not a particularly big fan of it either, but I understand why CCP did it.

The changes are good. Most the of the making it easier was just fixing UI issues not the actual scanning (it's not like the shape to put the probes in was any great secret). Also the red blobs are great, it's a way to tell people who didn't know about exploration that there's stuff out there.

The worst thing about exploration still remains and has been compounded by more people now doing exploration - if you are not an experienced player with a ton of SP then you will almost certainly be overtaken and have the site that you've been patiently clearly ninja'd by someone in a FOTM ship blitzing the site. They need to change the system in two ways:

1) The loot and escalation should be based on overall participation in the site (ie no last second ninjas).
2) The number of sites needs to scale with the number of people on the server. It's almost not worth bothering with exploration when there's 40k+ people online and there's no reason why exploration shouldn't be scalable with the number of players.

Ehhh, it happens.

I spent 1.2m sp on Planetary management back in the day.

Then that went to suck and stayed there forever.

Probably the same with scanning. :(

As a long time Pirate - Explorer who made over 40 Bil ISK in lowsec exploration in last 2 years I have to say I don't like new Exploration system.

CCP changed all things in the subject:

- spawning system,
- type of sites that spawn,
- spawn rates.

Now how new system works?

- New sites spawn in realtime, not after 2 hours like before.

There is total max ammount of sites that can spawn in constellation. How big is this number?
I dont know, but once site is done by player, new one spawn immediately in random system in same constelation, so you can probe the whole system and have a few new sites a few minutes later cuz someone did a few sites elseware.

- type of sites.

Here is a big nerf CCP did on purpose:

Before Odyssey lowsec was a gold mine when it comes to ISK making from Exploration.
System was fair. If you had balls to risk your pimped ship you were able to make 1-2 Bills every week with relatively small effort by running 4/10 and 5/10 DED plexes and Radar sites when there was nothing better. Average radar were worth 20 - 30 mil ISK each after all.
DED plexes were common thing I did 2-3 every week just in my area.

Exploration after Odyssey.

Now there is plenty of Data and Relic sites in each lowsec system. When I say plenty I mean 3 to 5 sites of that type in every system you will pass through. Might sounds good but it isn't. Really.
Data sites are crappy. Running them takes alot more time and rewards are joke. Maybe 3 to 5m ISK each.
Relic sites seems to be better. They have far better rewards, but are a bit harder to scan too. 10 - 30m ISK on average.

DED plexes becomes very rare now in general with some exeptions.

3/10 - they quite common, but only in Drone version. Thing is Drone version of this plex has NO REWARDS AT ALL. At least i never found anything faction on them.

4/10 seems to spawn very rarely in lowsec but quite offten in hisec. Best plex ever. If you found one - its like 300m ISK will land in your wallet in next 10 minutes - at least, more often is 500-600m as the drop rate was very good!
After Odyssey this plex is like Yeti on Sahara. If you found one you dang lucky guy.

5/10 - I always called them BIg Lottery plex. Its has 3 or more pockets, Heavy DPS and webs. Its time consuming to run and can be hard but rewards can be also huge. Most I have found were faction loot worth ~1.6 Bill ISK on a single site.
Drop ratios are terribad on it. You can run 6 plexes in a row and find nothing or it can make you a billionare in 30 minutes.

- spawn rates

All changed in this compared to pre Odyssey.

- Data, Relics are very common. There is at least a few of them in every lowsec system. rewards are poor, not worth the time IMO. I use them only to hunt ppl who come to run them.

- DED plexes became very rare.
Before Odyssey I was doing at least 3 of 4/10 or 5/10 plexes per week.
After Odyssey Im able to find 1 plex in 2 weeks...


Summary.

New Exploration system is designed for new players. However low skills entry point translates directly to low rewards that can be gained from it.
While it can be OK for Hisec exploration - low risk, low ISK, it's definitly not right for lowec exploration where risk is always high.
For now Odyssey is a big nerf for lowsec inhabitants IMO. While there is alot more opportunities to find a fight, ISK making is dead.

Clarification:
All above is written from my point of view. Like I said on start exploration in lowsec made me a multi billionare in relatively short time. While you can think 20m ISK is a good profit for you for 20 minutes of work, for me its 100m+ or I wont touch it even with a stick.

I must admit when I looked at the new scanning interface it just seemed to me to be more of a hassle to scan now.
I used to be able to scan down using 4 or 8 probes quite quickly now its all over the place and seems to take me ages just to line the bloody things up correctly.

I heard sometime ago that you could preset formations in it but that doesn;t seem to be the case or did I imagine this whilst drunk one night?