EVE New Citizens Q&A

You should be able to scan down most lowsec sites, but there are some sites that are very hard to scan down and you may need better scanning skills (although i will note, I dont believe that those are the best sites anyways)

I've pretty much condensed them until there all scanning the same sphere. By the way condensing them is holding ctrl and dragging right?

I'm ashamed to say that I was just using a bantam and the scanner probes I got for free from the exploration mission. I didn't want to risk too much on my first ever trek. But about the signature I was told it was a data site

Or use keyboard shortcuts.

I use Page Up to increase, Page Down to decrease.

Nothing to be ashamed of. With low skills you are going to need everything that you can get.

Fly a Heron for exploring for now. You are going to want to only scan in a ship with a scanning bonus until your scanning skills are very high. As long as you are alpha you are going to want to use the Heron.

So for scanning you'll want to get your racial frigate skill up as well as getting your scanning skills as high as they will let you go on an alpha.

If you are still having issues then start looking for your cheapest options for increasing probe strength or scan deviation. Scan time is nice to have but it only makes things go faster. It won't help when you have a site that you can't get to 100%

Items that will help you:
- SoE probes are 10% stronger
- Gravity Capacitor I gives you +10% scan strength
-The AR-802 implant only gives you +2%. They have 6% and 10% version but they are expensive.

I gave some bad advice on my last post. It appears that the modules for boosting scan strength and deviation appear to require Omega skills.

So let's just say that you have Caldari Frigate at level 3 currently. That would be 22.5% increase in scan strength just from using the right ship. Add some SoE probes and a Gravity Capacitor and you are now up to 42.5% higher scan strength. That should make a huge difference.

Ok thanks for the replies. I'll try again later.

As people have said, use the racial scan T1 frigate, which is the Heron for Caldari. The next best bang for your buck is 2 x Gavity Capacitor Upgrade I rigs. They are dirt cheap at about 50K each and are almost 'must haves' for exploration. Other upgrades start costing serious Isk and can be left for when you have more money.

Some of the advice above doesn't add up to me and I consider myself a good prober, but I set my system up a while ago and all my patterns are now saved under the custom pattern drop down. I believe it is the ALT key not the CTRL key that does the magic, but I'm not in game at the moment to check. Here is how I remember doing it.

When you open up the scanning window there are 3 scan pattern buttons which are set by default to the following:

1. Close scan pattern, set to 4.0 AU, with the scan balls overlapping.
2. Wide System scan pattern, set to 16.0 AU, with the scan balls barely touching one another
3. Custom scan pattern, empty.

I rarely use 2. Nearly all my patterns are based on 1. just at different distances.

. Launch probes and click button 1. to get the Close scan pattern shape, with all the balls overlapping. Zoom in on the main screen as necessary.
. Highlight all 8 probes in the top of the scan window (drag the windows height to see them all at the same time).
. Right click on one of the probes in the scan window (while all 8 probes are still selected) and select scan range, setting it to say 8.0 AU. This causes the scan balls to expand, but doesn't reposition the probes.
. Zoom out a bit and then hold ALT down (this causes the single probe icon on the main screen to become 8 seperate icons), then while holding ALT down, drag one of the probe icons on the main screen, this moves all 8 probes in or out while maintaining the pattern. I aim to end up with the same percentage of overlap as the original 4.0 AU pattern, so I drag it outwards to achieve this. Then save it under the custom pattern drop down as "8.0"
. I rinse and repeat for 64.0, 32.0, 16.0, 2.0, 1.0, 0.5 and 0.25 (note you need to use different probes (Combat and Core) to get both 64.0 and 0.25 as one is missing from each set.
. I also copy the 2. Wide scan pattern for 32.0 range using the same method, naming it "32.0 (W)".

So when I'm scanning for exploration sites and first jump into a system, I typically start with the 8.0 pattern placed over a cosmic signature ball (which is typically 4 or 5 AU wide), hit scan, get one red dot. Reposition the group by simply dragging on the probe icon on the main screen, until the red dot is in the centre again. Change to the 2.0 saved pattern and rescan (missing out 4.0), rinse and repeat with the 0.5 saved pattern if necessary and usually I get the full resolution on the 2nd or 3rd scan. That is with pretty perfect scan skills and sisters launcher / probes. Initially you may need to use the intermediate ranges too (4.0 and 1.0).

Note: Double clicking on the probe icon on the main screen will centre the screen around your probe cluster - for cases when swinging from the X-Y axis to the Z-Y axis causes the whole block of scan probes to rotate out of the screen. Annoyed me to hell before I found out about this feature.

If you get multiple red dots from multiple signatures, click on a signature text row in the scan window and scroll up and down until you see a signature in the main window with only a single red dot before moving to the next scan range. Because a signature that only got three (of eight) probe hits will appears as two red dots and you can really confuse yourself if you chase a random dot, when it isn't the only dot for that signature.

After you have scanned out a signature and bookmarked it. Right click on that signature text row in the scan window and click "Ignore this signature"

Good luck. Set up safespots when scanning:
- First off you warp somewhere far away.
- When you're halfway there: Bookmark the spot under people and places.
- When you land at your destination, warp back to your bookmark.
- There you can probe scan in peace.
- People with combat scanner probes can still scan you down and warp to you, but I very rarely see them in use in ganking situations. Also people probably wont bother the effort for killing a cheap ship, but you can never say never in EVE.
- When you are hacking, be ready to warp out to the bookmark if another player lands on your overview. Always keep an eye on the overview.
- You should also set up a D-scan filter to only show player ships, and constantly check 5 AU scan. If you see a ship on 5 AU scan that could mean a ship is landing with you in less than 2-3 seconds so warp to your bookmark.
- Also I can recommend fitting 2 Warp Core Stabilizer in the low slots. I always use them when hacking in lowsec or nullsec. 1 of these modules makes you immune to 1 warp disruptor (20-25km range). 2 of these modules makes you immune to 1 warp scrambler (8-9km range) or 2 warp disruptors. It will also help you get through some gatecamps with insta-locking ships. You might take some damage, even get killed if you're slow. But the chance of getting warp disrupted and unable to warp away is much smaller. Beware however: These modules will not let you warp out of a warp bubble which can be frequently found in nullsec - but never in lowsec as bubbles cant be launched in lowsec.

o7 is a salute.
the o is the head, and the 7 is the arm saluting.

you also have the wave "emoticon" in EVE which is commonly used: o/

or the cheer "emoticon": \o/