EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hi all,

Not sure if i'll get into trouble for this as it not really a question. Just wanted to post a little something on how, as a new player, I've found exploration :)

When I first started I though the most fun part of exploration would be finding cool sites and making loads of ISK. In fact i've had a few people message me ingame to say how do I not get bored scanning and hacking. Well to be honest, the part i find the most exciting is the possibility that I could be killed at any moment and that there are other players actively scanning me down. Love the cat and mouse game I have to play everytime I enter a new system.

Because of this i'm always looking for new ways to make the journey of exploration safer for myself. I'm currently trying out the Magnate from the Heron and using a different fitting.

I get a nice rush when I enter a data/relic sight in a low sec area. I want to get in and out as quick as I can and always looking over my shoulder as soon as I enter. I even found a weird site last night where i had to hack as much as possible before the NPC rats came out to kill me. Managed to leg it (barely) with 35mill isk.

I haven't even began to look at Nullsec or wormholes yet. Really looking forward to them. busy planning out the best way to do it :D

Your not just flying around each system trying to find the best sites. Your also taking notes of the people you see out and about. I already have a list of people to avoid who have tried killing me (only 1 has succeeded so far).

I'm only 3 weeks old in Eve. Never played before so wanted to give my perspective on exploration for any other brand new player :)

Kind regards,
Teium

Another thing to keep in mind is that there is more to exploration than just the scripted PvE gameplay, especially in wormholes. Sometimes people loose access to their wormhole systems. Sometimes people have to leave the game for what ever reason or corps fall apart et cetera.

So once you enter a wormhole system one of the things that you can do is look around and see who is or was living there. Sometimes you'll find towers with PoS mods floating around them that are out of fuel and offline. If you blow up the PoS mods you get a 50% chance for everything in them to drop. If you blow up the tower you get to take the PoS mods but they will be empty iirc. Also sometimes you can sell bookmarks to the entrance back to the corp that has lost access. I would recommend doing so through an alt so that they can't run a locator agent on the character in case you jump in and out of the entrance hole.

My main point is that unlike other MMOs in this game you can come up with your own content.

That would be a Ghost Site - they can be fun!

Exploration really is a good career for newer players as it is much more engaging than mining and teaches you piloting teqniques that can help i nthe future.

If you haven't already, looking for a good corp can still be useful, even though exploration can be a solitary affair.

For taking notes, the info tab on a character's profile is beautiful. I'm constantly dropping the ships they fly and writing comments about people. When you live in an area full of people, you'll eventually have a rather interesting profile for them.

In the buddy list you can add them as a contact and people you don't like can be set to red or orange, and blue for those you like.
I've set light blue to people I like but who will likely shoot me, and dark blue for mutual friendships. The little star can give you an instant read on a player when they appear in local.

As long as it's a good post (aka following forum rules) you won't get into trouble.

And judging from the post and posting behaviour, you likely won't ever get into trouble for this thread.

I think there are better exploration ships than the Magnate, when I fitted it for exploration, it was kind of milk-toast to me. It is a good looking little flying skull beak-face though. The Amarr have the best paint jobs in the game besides the SOE ships to my taste.

You might try an Astero, or if you can skill into it, a Stratios. Those are the SOE ships and are pretty much the best ships for exploration and looks (again, my tastes) in the game.

My latest ship craziness is an Exporation Nereus. It's not made for data/relic sites, it's made for hit and run salvage clean up. I have no clue if it will work of if I'll be sucking space. I agree with your take, it is exciting to play cat and mouse and be the mouse sometimes. Occasionally, you get to bite a bad kitty!

True, it's not optimal, but it's a little more survivable than the Astero. As King Ralph pointed out, there isn't much left after getting it fitted out for the role, other than your drones.

Part of the balance of exploration is getting away with the loot. How you choose to do that is a function of play style, I would think.

I can post up my Nereus fit out someplace, I'm not an expert at all at fit outs and my skills generally aren't high enough to let me get away with the really good gear, but it might work. It might fail spectacularly though... !

border systems where null meets low or high sec are you most dangerous systems to travel through. You are far safer deeper into null.

Sometimes you can find a wormhole that leads to null and you can wander around several systems and never see another player.

Sounds like you are on the right track to me OP.



Yeah that's what I would suggest. The payouts are bigger in null/w-space but the stakes are higher too. I would suggest training up to a covert ops cloak and covops frigate before you take that plunge, but it's not totally necessary if you are alert and aware of your surroundings and remain cloaked while scanning.

Others often suggest the Astero for exploration and while it's a fine ship I still prefer t2 covops frigates, they get just as good a bonus for the hacking mini-game and their bonus to scan probe strength is actually better than the Astero when you hit covert ops frigate IV. Plus the loss mails aren't as big .

When it comes to wormholes there's a lot of information you will have to research, wormhole types, wormhole system classes, the various wormhole effects, etc. and your d-scan skills will have to be on point. You'll also need to learn to differentiate between the guarded Sleeper relic/data sites and the unguarded pirate faction ones. Joining a corp of seasoned explorers can help here with learning the ropes, but exploration works fine as a solo career as long as you're willing to do the research and learn from your mistakes.

I intend to go solo. A few people have said this is silly, but I really have my heart set on it.

I don't really want to go Astero. It's too expensive. I fully intend to go T2 covert-ops frig. Only 6 more days till I get to fly one i believe from last time I checked my queue.

From reading a guide, i think that the sites which have the pirate names in them are abandoned, but I could be wrong.

I really need to spend time researching wormholes. Haven't really looked into them at all. Busy saving ISK from LowSec sytems at the moment and waiting for my covert-op frig. Not long now though :)