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EVE New Citizens Q&A

 
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Can I make lots of money from exploration?

Author
Edward Lan
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#1 - 2016-06-04 15:30:23 UTC
I have been in this game for less than 2 weeks. But I am able to get nearly 10 million Isk in 3 hrs. I find that exploration especially in wormhole makes money much faster than missions. Is that a good idea to be a explorer? What ship should I use to explore?
Oliver Delorean
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#2 - 2016-06-04 16:15:32 UTC  |  Edited by: Oliver Delorean
Yes, wormholes are very good place to run exploration sites.
Roam around high sec and find class1 - Class2 - class3 wormholes, higher class wormholes spawn only combat sites.
All the sites named by known space NPC pirate factions are without rats so you only need hacking ship.
Gallente - Imicus
Minmatar - Probe
Caldari - Heron
Amarr - Magnate
If your skills allow then go with T2 versions.

*Remember! In wormholes... D-Scan is your best friend!
Tipa Riot
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2016-06-04 21:15:51 UTC  |  Edited by: Tipa Riot
Exploration (hacking sites) in nullsec or low class wormhole space is among the best solo income sources in the game. You want to look especially for Gurista and Sansha relic sites, and train for T2 analyzer. Be prepared to lose your ship to hunters like me. Twisted

I'm my own NPC alt.

HillAnt
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#4 - 2016-06-04 23:27:49 UTC  |  Edited by: HillAnt
WH exploration for relic sites is best in done T1 frigates and up. In my opinion nullsec sansha/gurista is best in covops frigates (including the Astero). In covops frigates, you can avoid most nullsec gate camps. Exploration is by far the easiest and cheapest to get into and can make much more money than miners do once you know what you are doing.

To prepare to not get ganked while analyzing relic cans, set up your overview so it shows only cans, the sun, and ALL ships. Make sure hostile/neutral backgrounds are set to BLINKY so you will notice hostiles right away. Make sure your analyzing window doesn't cover the overview. This way, if someone shows up you will instantly see the blinky hostile on your overview, notice it and be able to GTFO within 5 seconds!

When someone shows up, drop the site and warp to the sun ASAP and cloak up while you start warping. Also, set your default "keep at range" distance to 2,250m. This is enough distance to be able to cloak if someone shows up, but not so much that you cant instantly loot the can when you finish it.
practically ANY ship can kill you if you don't know how to warp away within 10 seconds of someone showing up on grid (ie. within 10k km).
Covops cruisers are more rare, but they can kill almost any ship that is dedicated to exploring. Their major downside however is that they MUST wait about 8-10 seconds to lock on to you, so if you know how to get out within 8-10 seconds of seeing a hostile, you will be fine.
Remember, the default d-scan key is V, press it often while hacking and while moving around, if you see another person's set of probes, the likelihood of getting a hostile in your site is a hundredfold bigger.

The most problematic hostiles in null-sec are gate campers, and exploration hunters (as well as armed explorers in nullsec, especially Astero pilots).

Exploration hunters usually fly stealth bombers or covops frigates/cruisers.
Stealth bombers are the most problematic because they can lock you before you can reasonably warp away. Asteros however are the natural enemy of the stealth bomber (where solo exploration and hunting is concerned), their flight of 5 light drones can destroy practically every solo stealth bomber before they can kill you.

In nullsec, always use dscan to check a gate before you warp to it (unless you are the only pilot in local). If there are interdictors or bubbles on the gate, tread carefully.
Gate campers usually come in the heavy interdictor or light interdictor variety, both use warp disruption bubbles. Everything that doesn't launch disruption bubbles you can warp away from easily. When you see them, decide on a direction to go that is SIDEWAYS to them, not PERPENDICULAR (relative to the gate). When you've decided (before you lose gate cloak) double click in that direction, cloak and activate MWD. If you want to be even faster, overheat your MWD first by shift-clicking it and then activating.
This way, even interceptors will have a hard time rushing over to your last known location to decloak you. If they can't decloak you within 10 seconds, they're almost guaranteed to not be able to find you as long as you keep slowboating to the nearest edge of the bubble to continue your journey.
Edward Lan
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#5 - 2016-06-05 04:40:34 UTC
Oliver Delorean wrote:
Yes, wormholes are very good place to run exploration sites.
Roam around high sec and find class1 - Class2 - class3 wormholes, higher class wormholes spawn only combat sites.
All the sites named by known space NPC pirate factions are without rats so you only need hacking ship.
Gallente - Imicus
Minmatar - Probe
Caldari - Heron
Amarr - Magnate
If your skills allow then go with T2 versions.

*Remember! In wormholes... D-Scan is your best friend!

What is D-scan? Directional Scan?
Tsukino Stareine
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#6 - 2016-06-05 04:43:38 UTC
I would actually recommend sticking with T1 exploration ships until you can get in the astero. T1 exploration ships all have drone capabilities and are much tougher than their T2 covert ops counterparts.

You can run off or even kill a T2 covert ops ship in a T1 exploration ship without issues.

The astero is the golden standard of the exploration profession and something you want to jump into as soon as you can comfortably afford to replace it.
Edward Lan
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#7 - 2016-06-05 05:07:11 UTC
HillAnt wrote:
WH exploration for relic sites is best in done T1 frigates and up. In my opinion nullsec sansha/gurista is best in covops frigates (including the Astero). In covops frigates, you can avoid most nullsec gate camps. Exploration is by far the easiest and cheapest to get into and can make much more money than miners do once you know what you are doing.

To prepare to not get ganked while analyzing relic cans, set up your overview so it shows only cans, the sun, and ALL ships. Make sure hostile/neutral backgrounds are set to BLINKY so you will notice hostiles right away. Make sure your analyzing window doesn't cover the overview. This way, if someone shows up you will instantly see the blinky hostile on your overview, notice it and be able to GTFO within 5 seconds!

When someone shows up, drop the site and warp to the sun ASAP and cloak up while you start warping. Also, set your default "keep at range" distance to 2,250m. This is enough distance to be able to cloak if someone shows up, but not so much that you cant instantly loot the can when you finish it.
practically ANY ship can kill you if you don't know how to warp away within 10 seconds of someone showing up on grid (ie. within 10k km).
Covops cruisers are more rare, but they can kill almost any ship that is dedicated to exploring. Their major downside however is that they MUST wait about 8-10 seconds to lock on to you, so if you know how to get out within 8-10 seconds of seeing a hostile, you will be fine.
Remember, the default d-scan key is V, press it often while hacking and while moving around, if you see another person's set of probes, the likelihood of getting a hostile in your site is a hundredfold bigger.

The most problematic hostiles in null-sec are gate campers, and exploration hunters (as well as armed explorers in nullsec, especially Astero pilots).

Exploration hunters usually fly stealth bombers or covops frigates/cruisers.
Stealth bombers are the most problematic because they can lock you before you can reasonably warp away. Asteros however are the natural enemy of the stealth bomber (where solo exploration and hunting is concerned), their flight of 5 light drones can destroy practically every solo stealth bomber before they can kill you.

In nullsec, always use dscan to check a gate before you warp to it (unless you are the only pilot in local). If there are interdictors or bubbles on the gate, tread carefully.
Gate campers usually come in the heavy interdictor or light interdictor variety, both use warp disruption bubbles. Everything that doesn't launch disruption bubbles you can warp away from easily. When you see them, decide on a direction to go that is SIDEWAYS to them, not PERPENDICULAR (relative to the gate). When you've decided (before you lose gate cloak) double click in that direction, cloak and activate MWD. If you want to be even faster, overheat your MWD first by shift-clicking it and then activating.
This way, even interceptors will have a hard time rushing over to your last known location to decloak you. If they can't decloak you within 10 seconds, they're almost guaranteed to not be able to find you as long as you keep slowboating to the nearest edge of the bubble to continue your journey.

Thanks!
Oliver Delorean
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#8 - 2016-06-05 05:27:26 UTC
Edward Lan wrote:
Oliver Delorean wrote:
Yes, wormholes are very good place to run exploration sites.
Roam around high sec and find class1 - Class2 - class3 wormholes, higher class wormholes spawn only combat sites.
All the sites named by known space NPC pirate factions are without rats so you only need hacking ship.
Gallente - Imicus
Minmatar - Probe
Caldari - Heron
Amarr - Magnate
If your skills allow then go with T2 versions.

*Remember! In wormholes... D-Scan is your best friend!

What is D-scan? Directional Scan?


Directional scan yes.
In wormholes you cant see local so you never know how many people in the system with you or whats the traffic while you in there.
Best way is to hit D-Scan after every 5-10 seconds.
Even with that you cant detect cloaked ships and that risky moment is always there.
Edward Lan
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#9 - 2016-06-05 11:02:10 UTC
Tipa Riot wrote:
Exploration (hacking sites) in nullsec or low class wormhole space is among the best solo income sources in the game. You want to look especially for Gurista and Sansha relic sites, and train for T2 analyzer. Be prepared to lose your ship to hunters like me. Twisted

How can I find low class WH? In high sec?
Oliver Delorean
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#10 - 2016-06-06 12:23:24 UTC  |  Edited by: Oliver Delorean
Scan down signatures and identify the hole, if it is K162 then you need to jump in to know what it is.
There is a lot more tools you can use, google and find your favorite.
Roci Nantes
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#11 - 2016-06-06 16:11:15 UTC
I got stuck in my first WH because I didn't know anything about them. I'd use the below to give you an idea of how long you have in there and what kind of ships that you might see in there. (Size wise)


http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Wormhole
Leon Hunt
Doomheim
#12 - 2016-06-07 13:35:21 UTC
For what it's worth, Wormhole exploration can be difficult for new players due to the difficulty the high-value cans have. You can do exploration in lowsec for rewards that are significantly higher than those in highsec, while still being able to train yourself to learn the critical skills necessary to survive in a wormhole (DScan being the most important).
Iria Ahrens
Space Perverts and Forum Pirates
#13 - 2016-06-07 14:22:58 UTC
I just want to clear up the misconception that exploration is better than missioning necessarily. Missioning can can make good isk, but it takes a longer period of investment to get there, since most of the isk is in level 4 or 5 missions, To run level 4 or 5 missions it takes a bit of time skill training and the ships generally cost more as well.

Compare to exploration where a new player can grow their income much faster with a lower up-front investment.

Missioning will generally be safer esp. in HS, where most of the isk in exploration is made in LS or NULL. So the explorer will have more losses to balance their income. Some of those losses will be after looting sites which will often cause tears.

Then there is the matter of consistency. Missioning is very consistent income. where exploration can often be boom or bust. So some people will prefer a consistent, relatively safe income over an inconsistent risky income.

My choice of pronouns is based on your avatar. Even if I know what is behind the avatar.

Tipa Riot
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#14 - 2016-06-07 20:10:54 UTC
Edward Lan wrote:
Tipa Riot wrote:
Exploration (hacking sites) in nullsec or low class wormhole space is among the best solo income sources in the game. You want to look especially for Gurista and Sansha relic sites, and train for T2 analyzer. Be prepared to lose your ship to hunters like me. Twisted

How can I find low class WH? In high sec?

Wormhole entrances can be found everywhere, most frequently in lowsec. Wormholes in higher sec space tend to lead to lower classes. Once in front of the entrance "show info" and check the text. If it does not contain the words "dangerous" or "deadly" accompanying the "unknown space", then it's what you are looking for. Also read carefully the rest of the text about the entrance condition. Indications of end of life or verge of collapse are usually big stop signs if you are not prepared for a much longer trip home ...

I'm my own NPC alt.

HillAnt
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#15 - 2016-06-08 05:56:31 UTC  |  Edited by: HillAnt
It is possible to identify what wh-system a K162 goes to
C1 if the hole accepts medium ships and below (does not apply to wormholes going out of C1s)
C2-3 if the hole goes to unkown space and accepts large ships
C3 if the bauble of the previous hole has a red blotch in it anywhere.
C4-5 if it goes to dangerous space.
C5 if the bauble is very dark and has no clear white patches. (the brightest spot in the bauble is pretty faint)
C6 if the bauble is nearly black (also the wh-info will say that it goes to deadly space).

By the bauble I mean the thing in the very center, and not the aura. Alt+click the wormhole to focus on it and pan around a bit so you won't miss any of the identifying features. Every bauble going to the same type of wormhole is identical.
Just stick to identifying the distinquishing features of wormholes, and you'll be fine. Within a short while, you won't need any crutches to resolve K162 holes without splashing them.

K162s going to kspace generally go to Amarr, Caldari, Minmatar and Gallente space if the baubles are Yellow, Grey, Red or Green respectively.
Edward Lan
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#16 - 2016-06-08 06:14:09 UTC
Really thanks guys. What you said help me a lot