EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hey,
So I read a bit into the game and a lot of people say ninja salvaging is a easy way to make a bit start money (I completed the agent missions yesterday and got my ship the combat probes).
I watched 2 tutorials so far but I have huge problems actually finding a mission ongoing. According to the agent finder the system im in has quite a few L4 agents (Stacmon) and there are normally around 40 players there.
My problem is that my probes can't "focus" on the ship. I track them down till I got a red dot, but then everytime I make the probes radius a level smaller, it cant track the red dot anymore. I thought that would be to the ship moving around, but when I make my radius as big as before the ship is still there (probably on a mission...) and haven't moved much, yet when I make the radius smaller again it disappears again.
Am I doing something wrong or overseeing something?
Thanks for help in advance! :)
Lg

You might also be scanning the through traffic,
try scanning a miner in a belt when you know they're static,
if you're still struggling then it's either your skills need working on or your understanding of the feedback from the probes which can be tricky.

Ships with bonuses to probing halp aswell.

Sounds like this is your issue. It was a big problem for me when I first started out years ago as well.

It's a tricky concept, so while Feyd was totally correct i'll try and explain it a different way:

What you have to understand is that your probe scanner essentially operates with 2 different signal types. The first type of signal is just a generic signal that indicates that "Yes, there is something there, but we haven't identified it's type yet." This is the red dot you get between 0 and ~28% signal strength and will show up without fail, regardless of what your filter settings are.

The second type of signal is the one that kicks in after you've gotten the signal past ~28% strength, and it indicates that "Yup, there's something there and the signal is strong enough that we know what type of ship it is." This is when the red dot becomes a yellow box, and also when the filter kicks in. If you have the filter set only for Battleships and previously had a red dot up until ~28% signal strength, but then all of a sudden lost the signal, it's basically the probe scanner saying "Well, he told us to look for Battleships. Now that we have a strong enough signal to Identify the ship type, is what we're looking at here a Battleship?" If the answer to that question is "No," then the signal is basically thrown away, and you're left sitting there dazed and confused as to why you apparently suck at scanning.

That may or may not have helped you understand, but the solution to the problem is to just include every single ship type in your scanning filter, so that regardless of what type of ship the sig turns out to be, it won't be hidden from you.

As an alternative, if your goal is to simply get salvage to sell for ISK you can always ask to fleet up with the L4 missioners and they'll usually gladly have you along to salvage for them for a fair cut, plus you'd get other rewards shared. They like it when they can get the added value of having someone salvage for them, for that fair cut.

If you're in Stacmon, yeah Eve Uni hangs around there and a lot of them will gladly have you join in. You can get on their comms and such and even learn as you earn.

The only reason to ninjasalvage now is to look for fights. It used to be an OK source of income for new players, but the Odyssey expansion changes crashed the salvage market. You are no longer stealing something of even modest value.

If you are only salvaging you are not, and never were, stealing anything.

Seem to me with the value of salvage these days it might be easier to ask for mission runners for a salvage bookmark. Most salvage outside of armor plates isn't worth much. On the rare occasion I run a high sec mission, and the even rarer occasion someone shows up in my mission I simply blue my wrecks. There are easier ways to make isk like factionwelfare or exploration.


PS- Real ninja salvagers salvage in Null Sec. Seriously salvaging wrecks from gates and belts is a lot of fun and surprisingly profitable. You think you **** off mission runners when you steal their wrecks wait until you see the tears of gatecampers when you loot a wreck filled with T2 modules....

Thanks Moonlit Raid but I already got it going.
I moved to Apanake and changed my filter settings to just normal ships, now I pretty much find a mission runner everytime. Ninja salvaging is really fun altough the risk/reward is kinda bad. If youre lucky you get 5mil+ out of it, if you dont have luck youre dead.

Ninja salvaging is a good profession for learning probing and getting a handle on aggression mechanics. What it isn't, in my opinion, is a good way to make money.

There was a time long ago (before the rig changes) that it was pretty lucrative. But that day is long past. Most salvage now sells for a couple of hundred ISKies per unit. You need to be really dedicated to make any scratch these days.

Once you get a few more SP under your belt, you can certainly make a living playing the 'Looting Lottery' by thiefing the mission runners wrecks in the hopes that he takes a shot at you. Then a quick reship and you go find out how many of his primo modules drop when you blow him to smithereens.

Mr Epeen

This is definitely viable but at least with CODE. freighter suppression fleets you will find it difficult. We make mistakes but we aren't clueless and usually we have looting pretty down pat, as it is how we fund the alliance these days.

One option that hasn't been mentioned is scanning down Mobile Tractor Units and shooting them. They are fairly easy to probe (IIRC sigrad:scanres ratio, which governs how hard you are to scan, is 6:1, which is on par with a battlecruiser and quite probable at low skills with 0.50 AU probe placement).

Shooting an MTU will take a short while and will make you suspect flagged (so you forfeit CONCORD protection from the time of your first shot on the MTU until 15 minutes after your last shot). Still, it will get you small amounts of loot, some killmails, and (rarely) someone will shoot you back, which is a fight you may win and may lose but either way you should hopefully enjoy it.