EVE New Citizens Q&A

You can explore in just about any ship - just slap a core probe launcher on and away you go.

That said, every ship in Eve has certain bonuses which make it better suited to certain tasks.

The manticore is actually a stealth bomber: It can fit battlship-sized torpedo launchers, a bomb launcher, and a covert ops cloak that allows it to warp around unseen.

While the cloak would be useful for exploration, it doesn't have a bonus to scanner probe strength or hacking modules, so it's far from ideal.

A covert ops ship, such as the Buzzard, would be a better choice. There are also some other good options, such as the Astero, Stratios, or strategic cruisers in certain configurations.

Adopt this mentality when you are going about your business in EVE (note: this is an adaptation from a famous quote on EVE I can't find anymore):

You, a golden haired child, are released into a nature preserve full of rapacious pedophiles. Your skills and strength will develop in time. But right now all you have is a map and your cunning.
Your objective is to survive and thrive. How you make this happen is up to you.

Godspeed.

Magnate is the Tech 1 version of the Anathema.

Magnate, Astero are pretty, IMO.

Manticore is a covert bomber; designed to operate in packs, for surprise AoE attacks against tightly-grouped formations of ships. It won't have the probe strength bonuses; you can explore in it, but you'll have a harder time probing down things.

Exploration Guide.

Exploration in EvE is not 'bout romantic and wandering - it's, sad to say, is more 'bout money making: you're going into dangerous areas, gettin' your stuff, going back and sell it.

You'll need some ship with bonuses for exploration: Tech-1 Exploration Frigate, Astero, Tech-2 Covert Ops Frigate, Stratios, T3-Cruiser - that's your choice. Ships in EvE are mostly ugly (someone should say it already), so if you want a good look - it's possibly Astero, Stratios and T3c (still ugly, but not as others).

Your targets are Data and Relic signatures, GHOST sites and Sleeper Caches.

Your enemies are just everyone you see.

He's addicted a bit.

Welcome to Eve - you are in for a ride :)

Exploration can be a fun career that can lead on to lots of other things (the corp I am in are peaceful explorers who run a service that helps other people get into a special wormhole system called Thera for example) and can be quite easy to get started in while you work out what you want to end up doing.

The manticore that you mention is a stealth bomber - more of a hunter than an explorer. In eve though, you can make different ships do the same job in a slightly different way. For example, some people use Interceptors (a ship that is normally used for tackling other ships) for exploration as they are fast and are immune to warp disruption bubbles that can stop you warping in Nullsec and wormholes. It may be a worse scanner but with good skills the speed and abilities can make up for it.

With regards to defence, if you are an explorer you generally don't want to get into a shooting match - your best chance of survival is to fly smart and be hard to catch. There are ships you can fly that can defend themselves and still be a decent explorer though so running away is not the only option.

The first bit of advice I can really give (that you have already started to do) is to find a corp that specialises in where you want to start or go for one of the big newbie-friendly corps. There are a lot of "do anything" corps out there, especially in Highsec, but you will find that they don't know the ins-and-outs of everything and are not a supportive environment.

You have said you are looking for a UK-based corp but I would suggest that you don't restrict yourself - some corps have a strong presence in multiple timezones and they can be just as good or better for activity as a timezone-specific corp. Also, one thing to point out is that exploration can be a solitary, nomadic career depending on how you do it.

Astero is the best bet for a new explorer due to it's low skill requirements and high combat capabilities. On the other side - it got lower scan abitilies than covert ops T2-frigates and high price on market.