EVE General Discussion

I'm sorry if this has been discussed before, but I couldn't find any useful information.
I need advice for exploration as alpha player. I started to learn the scanning basics a few days ago, and I think I got the hang of it, but still it takes me hours to find a relic or data site to try to scan, and I can't actually scan them to 100%. Maybe someone else already took all the easy sites, but it feels very frustrating to roam for a few hours and not being able to find anything useful. Is there any way to tell which site is harder to scan and which one is easier? Are there any high sec places to go as new player to practice? Are there any missions that could be used for training exploration / scanning / hacking (besides the career missions)?
I'm flying Imicus (obviously) with basic core probe launcher and probes. I can't make enough ISK to buy faction probes, but even if I did have the ISK I don't feel ready to lose them when I try my luck in a wormhole :). I have fitted small gravity capacitor upgrades and scan rangefinding array, but it doesn't feel like they are helping.
Thanks in advance for all the (constructive) feedback

Best advice IMHO, is to get in contact with Signal Cartel via their public channel Eve-Scout. Also eve-scout.com

this!


highsec is very busy, with many explores running sites.
WHs and null sec is way better.

join a corp focused on explo, let them teach you the basis! fleet up with someone and go togheter to explore Null and WHs.
best and fastest way to learn is letting vets teach you all the tricks
it's a multiplayer game! use this feature and find a sugar daddy KappaPride

You can sell your services as Explorer.
Find Wormholes for travel of Relics and Data (sites) valuable items , war, mapping, WH systems etc.
You can post on the EVE Gameplay Center > Wormholes subforum
or , perhaps, EVE Marketplace > Sell Orders although this is more for items themselves than services for info or other similar thing.

Howdy

Been exploring for some time now.

Frankly its superfrustrating without enough skills and especially
being an Alpha.
Still, its doable. Since you cant get cloaking as Alpha its important
to quickly learn how to set up 3-4 safe-bookmarks in WH or Losec.
Constantly jump between them while scanning, remember you can
adjust the probes closer with Alt and/or Shift while moving them.

A cargoscanner saves time and effort when hacking. Took a long time
until my hacking successrate became good.

I usually start all my travels from highsec and travel 2-3 WHs before I
settle down and scan. As soon as I get a good site (5-50 million ISK)
I find a wormhole to Hisec and sell it.

You will get jumped every now and then but overall you will steadily make
some good ISK.

Good exploration practice in Rancer I hear.

Are you getting down to .25au?

Generally 90% of signatures will be oriented around orbit rings. If you have a big red ball it means thw signature can be anywhere in that sphere. But generally it will be close to the flat plane that all the orbit rings a are on and it will be close to the ring. Not counting vertical and diagonal orbits. Obviously those go up and down so it could up or down just like those.

Usually the 4au pinpoint formation is sufficient for many easy sites. However with limited alpha skills you should get sisters core probes. You can pick them up cheap for like 300-400k a piece so 2-3m for 8 and they will be a small bit stronger than regular probes. (You do not need the 30m sisters probe launcher to use them but it will provide a bonus as well but it's expensive when starting out) same for the exploration ships. A magnate or other scanning frigate gets a bonus to scans. Soct ships get scan bonuses also. A gnosis gets 37.5% scan strength. That's a full level 5 equivalent bonus for 40m. But again it's an expensive investment but will let you cut corners.

You generally want to get the probes centered over the red x or red dot.
If it's a sphere you want to cover as much as the sphere with your proves. If it's a dot you can narrow the scan range and scan again to hone in on it.

Once you're down to .25au that's about as good as you get but can continue to zoom in and reposition your proves directly on top of tge dot once you're zoomed all they way in. At that point you can hold ctrl down and you can drag the probes closer together and instead of a bunch of overlapping bubbles they will resemble almost a perfect sphere. (Not too close but you can bring them in pretty far to get a few more percent out of a scan. Make sure to check you view so they're linked up correct from too down and on the side.

Also depending on who you ask people will say the pinpoint formation is as accurate as you can get. And if they have all 5 skills that's probably true and with a fancy dedicated scanning fit it's probably sufficient to scan down all signatures in the game.

But for an alpha with limited skills I have personally confirmed that
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_antiprism

A square anti prism formation will offer a bit more precision and so will the spread formation of you tweak the top and bottom probes. (I have scanned down a standard sleeper cache to 91ish% for a few scans with pinpoint, and with antiprism i could get to 93.3% under the same conditions.

So pinpoint is not the best if you're stuck on the last percent of something.
(In thus case I was able to get to 100% by adding a few rangefinding modules, they're affected by stacking penalties but they're irrelevant because you can switch them out right after no problem. Just bookmark the scan when it's finished.)
From what I can tell short of rigs and a scanning implant the only high sec site I can't scan down is a superior sleeper cache. But I can get it above 75-80% with rigs and a implant it may be possible to get that too.
But for all other high sec sites I've encountered they're scannable. And the antiprism formation generally saves me 1-2 scans because it's more precise. However for starting out woth a large red sphere that's at least 8aus. I use pinpoint because it narrows down the initial scan easier. Anti prism works better once you get it down to around 4au and below in my experience.

Hi

These 2 sites I can recommend:

http://www.toptiertactics.com/21341/eve-online-exploration-guide-billions-and-billions-of-isk/#axzz3UC5pyC10

http://wiki.whitestagexitbag.org/doku.php/start

It sounds like it's more your technique than your skills or equipment. No site should ever take more than 5 mins at the most. And sites pop up in every system at least 20 times a day it seams like. If you can't get it too 100 percent, it might just be better hidden and beyond your capabilities like Sleeper or DED sites to run the site.No you can't really tell they will be too hard for you till you get to the .25 AU.

Are you able to launch all 8 probes?
Are you using the the right shape on the probes? There is 5 buttons on the scanner window, SCAN, wide angle(worthless to me) formation, and the proper scan formation. Just stretch to cover the red ball with the innermost of all the probe balls. That will give u a red dot, center the middle probe...square thing over the red dot, THEN shrink(hover over the edge of of one of the probe circles, not holding shift or control or nothing)yourprobe circles till it highlights then click and drag the edge., don't shrink them beyond the next step and repeat all the way down to 100 percent. If I don't do them in that order I usally end up resizing it 2 times and loosing my red dot

If you need pratice, get a expanded probe launcher and some combat probes and try to scan down stations or other ships. Knowing that they could be gone any min helps you keep from getting frustated. If it disappears then go to the bext on the list.

I'm an alpha too, and have my scanning skills as high as they will go. Which isn't much.
Astrometric Acquisition
Astrometric Pinpointing
Astrometric Rangefinding
Astrometric

I do a lot of my my scanning while I'm mining in a venture named AdVenture Captal, I added a couple rigs to help me along. If I'm only doing scanning and not mining I have my Imicus named Pervert setup the same way.
Core Probe Launcher I
Core Probes I x8
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I x2(one T2 isn't as good as two T1)

I've never had a problem with scanning ANYTHING down until last week when I had 3 Sleeper relic sites(FRIGGING SLEEPERS, how cool)spawn in high sec. I couldn't scan them past 89 percent. Now in saying that sleeper sight are "more" suited to advanced players but that's not to say I couldn't attempt run that site and come out alive...fingers crossed.

I will describe how I do the scanning, so someone can tell me what I do wrong:
1. launch my probes in pin point formation
2. ignore all the combat sites
3. move the probes to the desired signature
4. start scanning and getting the probes closer and closer
5. get to a point when the signature starts jumping around (usually around 50-60%) but doesn't increase the %
6. move the probes a bit furhter from the signature and start again
7. get frustrated after 5-6 more minutes with no visible improvement and move to the next signature
8. repeat that for an hour or two and go to sleep
9. repeat that for a week and start thinking if exploration as alpha is even possible (though I am sure it is, which is even more frustrating)
I have watched some youtube videos explaining the scanning process and have been able to scan some wormholes, but that's it. No success with data or relic sites. I am playing around one of the starting systems for the gallente characters, and move only in high sec, though I try to go to 0.5 - 0.6 systems when possible.
Thanks again for all the advice