EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hello EVE Players.

I'm a rather new player in the EVE universe. I've been doing lots of research online for guides and informations regarding the explorer career and after the tutorials and some solo explorations I must say it's my bread and butter.

Unfortunately most of the guides I've found were old - and by old i mean a-few-patches-back old.

Then I thought to myself that if some explore missions involve PvE combat (sometimes PvP if I stumble on an agressive capsuleer),
then I should at least salvage what's left from the wrecks to maximise my ISK / exploration values.

So I came to this specific question: Is it profitable, cost-worthy and 'not-a-bad-idea' to go for a explorer/salvager hybrid ?

If so, what ships, skills, fitting etc. would you recommend ?

I'm still searching the web for more info and reading several blogs, guides, the evewiki etc. to get my own opinion.
But there are often things I can't understand due to my low EvE experience.

Much apprieciated.

I honestly can't see much of a reason to salvage a scanned combat site, you do them primarily for the chance of dropping valuble loot from the key faction npc or structure spawns. The more time you spend running/salvaging ect just means you are giving your competition more time to stumble onto the site themselves. Imo you are best of just running the combat sites with speed in mind.

As for needing to change ship or flying a sub par fit I say to you... use a mobile depot so you can swap fits in space. There's no need to reship or use an alt, just take all the modules you need for both the exploration and travel as well as the combat. If you want more help aimed at exploring there are some in game channels, the only one that I can remember of the top of my head is Explore-EVE.

Salvaging profit has been diminished by CCP since the days when it was suggested as a starter career for new players. You may find it's worth it if you have an interest in Industry as the salvage is used to manufacture rigs.

Try it if you're interested, just don't sink a lot of SP into it. With an Astero or Stratios its easy to carry a set of salvage drones along with a mobile tractor unit to clear the field. Salvage Drones III will do the job, Salavge Drones IV a little faster. A Noctis with a set of salvage modules is probably not worth it these days.

Note that with DED 4 sites in high sec you probably don't want to take the time to salvage during the run or someone may jump into your site and try to poach any faction loot at the end.

Salvaging t2 wrecks in nullsec used to be very profitable. When I started out, I used to pay for all my PvP by salvaging the wrecks of ships I destroyed. Sadly, the days of 25m isk Armor Plates is gone, as exploration sites flood the market with t2 salvage. Luckily, t2 rigs are now becoming popular, which is helping to keep salvage at a reasonable level.

In short, you can make a little extra isk salvaging wrecks, but think of it as a nice to have additional feature of your ship. If you have three highs, put on the salvager.

Hello and welcome to Eve.

For a new player just starting out in exploration, just remember you'll be competing with a lot of other explorers in high security so be prepared to do some traveling.

As soon as possible invest into Sisters Probe Launcher / Sisters Core Probes and train up your exploration skills at least to level 4.

Scanning Skills

Astrometrics
Astrometric Acquisition
Astrometric Rangefinding
Astrometric Pinpointing

As a new player you should have received a T1 scanning Frigate from one of the Career Agents. For starting out use that to find and run the various Data and Relic sites (Hacking skill & Archaeology skill). There's no NPC's in those sites so you don't have to worry too much about fitting up a lot of Offensive and Defensive modules on your ship. Those sites will earn you ISK by selling the loot gained from those sites.

While scanning down those Cosmic Signature sites, bookmark the Combat sites as well. After running the Data and Relic sites, switch to your T1 Combat Frigate specifically fitted for combat and run the lower level Cosmic Signature combat sites before switching back into your scanning Frigate and moving on to another system.

For Cosmic Signature combat sites, look for Hideout and Lookout sites as well as DED Rated 1/10 and DED Rated 2/10 sites. Those are basically entry level exploration sites that Combat Frigates can easily complete.

Also don't forget to check out Cosmic Anomaly combat sites - Hideaway and Burrow. Specifically the regular types, not the Forlorn or Forsaken types. Those sites don't need to be probed and can be easily and quickly completed in Combat Frigates. Not to mention they'll sometimes spawn a Commander NPC that's hopefully holding Faction loot.

Later after training up skills and moving into Cruisers / Battlecruisers you can start running the larger combat sites such as Watch and Vigil sites as well as DED Rated 3/10 and DED Rated 4/10 sites. By then you should be able to fit up a Probe Launcher onto your Combat ship and just look for those specific sites.

For actually finding systems with exploration sites available, check out the Starmap stats for systems with low amount of population, low amount of NPC kills, etc. Look in areas that are away from the main Trade / Mission hubs.

Information about the various exploration sites are listed in the Evelopedia which can be accessed with the in-game browser.

Salvaging - NPC's in Cosmic Signatures don't really drop a lot of salvage so probably a good idea not to waste time doing that. However definitely salvage the Commander NPC's since they usually give T2 salvage. Now if you really want salvage, the NPC wreck's in Cosmic Anomaly sites will drop more salvage. As with the other skills it's best to train Salvaging skill at least to level 4.

Don't get discouraged, exploration is hit and miss. Just remember the more you invest into it the better chance you'll have of getting good loot.


DMC

Go to Apanake & Sheroo systems. Fit Expanded Probe Launcher and look for mobile tractor units. There can be tons of BS wrecks next to them, just do not loot wrecks - salvage them. This will not make you criminal.

As I tryed to point out, you should look for systems with lots of players, that do L4 missions. That would be best for explorer/salvager carier, IMHO.

But anyway, use dotlan to get an overview of what is going on where, as you can see on example: south and west of Devoid are low activity areas

Oog: Dotlan offers the same functions and can be easier to read.

http://evemaps.dotlan.net

These things are not like each other! Sisters probes are pretty cheap, at 4 million a stack; the Sisters launcher is not.