Missions & Complexes

MUST NOT LET THIS THREAD DIE....

A question, to those lucky enough to be out with their Ishtar, exploring already.

How are you actually scanning down the sites? An unbonused ship like the Ishtar is going to be getting <=70 points
from their probes, even with Sisters probes/launcher...so how successful have you been at scanning down radar and mag sites in 0.0?

Rangefinding 5, Sisters gear, and scan strength bonus implant you don't even need to add rigs (maybe one). With close to 77 probe strength i can scan down all sites. Needs some fiddling with 7 probes on the hardest sigs, but it works.

Hi ppl,

Recently i got into the game of high sec exploring.
Would you happen to have a fit for a Tengu that can do it all?
The analyzer / salvager might be left off, as i never had anything worth while from a radar before :)

About getting equipment in and out. If you have an alt (noticed that you suggested using one for scouting) and can train that alt up to cov ops/ cov ops cyno then you can use Black Ops for moving equipment and secure cans into locations that are within 4,5 ly of the empire. Or deeper, if you have multiple cyno alts.

Downside is - you need at least 2 cyno alts - one for getting in - one for getting out. Ofc you CAN co it with regular cynos as well - just you will lose cynos rather often if someone happens upon them and they dont work in cyno jammed systems (not that it would be an issue - no one is jamming all of their systems nowadays. Perhaps station systems, but station systems are not for ninjas).

In the end its questionable if its easier to juggle with cyno alts or get through a the gates with a scout and blocade runner. In my opinion Black Ops is more "risk free". Jumping around is the one good thing this ship does.

Proably a bit too expensive for running complexes in one. At that pricetag T3 would be better for that.

Are there any ships other than an Ishtar that you could use? I'm considering giving this a try, but it would be using my alt with a Buzzard to probe and my main in a Drake (fitted with a prototype cloak so I can hide) to do the killing. Probably not as effective but very low-cost.

I've already sort of done it with a Drake/Buzzard combo. I'd use the covert ops to scout gates and avoid camps. Once I got into a fairly quiet part of null-sec I could rat fairly effectively although I didn't try any real exploration. When people showed up in local I'd warp both ships to a safe spot and cloak them up. Flying back home required care but it was doable. I do want to give what you're suggesting with an Ishtar a try,

I agree the ishtar is without question the best solo explorer. Outside of highsec the tengu has absolutely nothing on it unless you spend 10x the isk.

Kinda hard to fit a tank on it with analyzer and codebreaker in the mids.

Looks like it's time to replace the LSE's with breaker and analyser and see if a good tank can still fit.

Use all low slots for shields and use defender missles as needed?

So far I've eft warriored you fit v.s. gila and it's still a real toss up.
Using all the same exploration mods.
The one thing I like on the ishtar is the extra cargo room.

I think gila is the best shield version no matter how you cut it.

Further testing ingame will be needed to say anything more then that.

i already tested it, and it's no toss-up at all. i wrote this guide to save people time. the Gila takes way more damage from BS rats than the fast, low-sig, active armor Ishtar. the way these plexes work: you can either tank them easily, or you cant by a long shot. Ishtar can tank everything up to an 8/10 easily, and anything beyond that is not doable with the armor setup (and for the most part because you wouldnt have the dps anyway). also, Sentar does significantly more DPS because it can fit 2 sentry dmg rigs, and blasters.

in conclusion, while a ninja-fit Gila could probably tank a 6/10, it probably couldnt tank an 8/10. passive shield setups are not ninja fits. ninja setup - you have everything on one ship, which means you need 3 mids for dual prop and codebreaker (4 if you wanna fit analyzer). you cant fit a sufficient shield tank with all those mids missing