Ships & Modules

TL;DR: What equipment would be recommended for Low-Sec and lower on an exploration ship that is intended to avoid a confrontation?

I'm not exactly going for full fittings, though I wouldn't mind seeing them,. Just what should I consider fitting for this mentallity beyond the usual cloaking device. I'm going to put together an Astero for romping around High Sec sites since they're much more pricier than your more run of the mill frigates which I would rather take to Low sec.

Searching hasn't yielded anything fruitful in this regard so I'll pre-emptively say thank you to all who respond. I stoppes playing Eve about the time that exploration and wormholes were introduced so I'm a little out of the loop.

C3 and down wormholes can now spawn null sec relic and data sites, exactly as they are in null complete with zero rats. Low sec sites are really not that much more valuable than high sec, particularly data sites barring extremely lucky drops.

Low sec ghost sites are definitely worth the time (although they are rare) and if you don't know, ghost sites all have 4 cans exactly as difficult to hack as a normal can for the type of space you are in and are all the same distance away from you but upon landing you have only about 90 - 120 seconds to get as much out of the site as you can. After that rats show up and although they won't necessarily instapop a ship, they do quite heavy damage and the type of ship you are talking about will not tank them. The cans will also explode and damage any ships near them and you can lose your pod that way. However hacking the single can named differently from the other 3 can be worth ~40 - 60 mil, not bad for the time it takes.

As for the ship a lot of people use T1 probing frigates, I tend to use cov ops frigs because I'm less concerned about the cost of the ship than I am with getting a cargohold worth of stuff out safely. When you find a good wormhole and are carrying about 250 mil worth of stuff plus blueprints it would really suck to lose it because you cheaped out on the hull. A single good can from a null sec site can replace that hull.

It never hurts to use warp core stabilizers if you want to avoid everything since you have to be close to the cans anyway and lock time is a non-issue but they are no substitute for being properly aware of your d-scan. Using some of the "newer" (as in newer than 2009) passive probe boosting mids will help reduce how long it takes to probe out 20 signatures in some wormholes as well. Some wormholes might dump you out into deep null as well, it never hurts to pop out of the wormhole see where you are and check the map, hopefully the area won't be too busy and will have signatures.

You'll still lose any ship you use for this eventually if you leave high sec. As I said though it is quite easy and fast to make a lot more money than you spend on the ships themselves. Losing ships is simply the cost of doing business out of high sec.

I get most of my scanning done in a Buzzard. Pretty easy to avoid confrontation with a covops cloak and I fit it for agility so I can align and warp out quick if I have company.

Heron works too if you want something cheap, I'd suggest fitting a MWD so you can use the MWD+cloak trick to avoid gate camps and make some safe spot bookmarks where you can warp to and cloak up to scan.

Lowsec isn't the best place for exploration, the only time I scan in lowsec is usually to find a wormhole to somewhere where I can make more isk like an empty patch of nullsec or a low class wormhole system.

Astero. If something scary like an Interceptor shows up, launch 5 very angry drones and make it go poof. Fit a covert ops cloak and warp to the next or go to another system / hole.

Or warp to a safe-spot with the cloak on and wait until the grim looking parties leave. Make bazzillions.