EVE General Discussion

They changed it so that only really good probers can get an "unprobe-able" setup.

So the stealth ship is still going to be hard to probe, and not just any monkey with an expanded probe launcher gets a warpable hit, but it can be probed out.

You cant.

Basically, boosting your sensorstrenght will have an effect up to the value of your sigradius, but beyond that it doesnt have any effect anymore.

This means that a really good prober, with a maxed out setup, and 2 billions in implants, will find your previosly unprobable ship. Eventually. That leaves out about 99% of probers in the game btw.

I believe they capped the ratio at 1.14 or something so working below that would be a waste. That, however, implies that your formula is wrong or my memory is bad.

You still only need 4 probes to probe someone out, but after incarna you now gain an additional benefit from all probes scanning the same sig. So now all 8 probes contribute.

While they nerfed probes individually to a minor extent (4 probes pre incarna were stronger than 4 probes post incarna) the maximum scan strength for a prober with Astrometrics 5 (8 probes) is significantly higher then a scanner with 4 probes pre-incarna. So you can now lock onto weaker sigs or lock onto stronger sigs from a larger distance.

What this means is that you do need a full virtue set, max skills, and a scanning ship if you intend to catch an "Un-probable" ship using only 4 probes.

However, If you have Astrometrics 5, remaining support skills to 4, a scan bonusd ship (T3/covops), and use ALL 8 probes you do NOT need a virtue set to probe out a ship that is at the sensor strength cap.

The change they made was they added a minimum value to the ratio of sig radius/sensor strength.

So now instead of having to be under 1.08, in order to hit the minimum value you have to be below 1.12. Basically just keep your old setup.

It's virtually impossible to probe somebody down who is running unscannable. From first hand experience, if you have perfect probing skills, a full virtue set and the 5% hardwiring, but have only 7 probes, it will take you roughly 5 minutes to probe down somebody (you have to set all of your probes right on top of them, and scan like 10-15 times to finally get a 100%).

If you have 8 probes, it takes less time, but it's a giant pain in the ass because there is no easy way to setup 8 probes quickly in an optimal scanning pattern. I use a cube, but it takes longer to setup than the normal 5,6, or 7 probe setup.

Basically you can't be scanned down if you see that either:

A: They aren't using sister's combat probes (using normal combats that is)
B: You know they're probing in a non-scanning bonused ship
C: They have less than 7 probes.

I generally assume anybody with 7-8 probes out has a virtue set since it's pointless to train for 7-8 probes unless you get a virtue set as well. Once you see 8 probes out, you probably have about 5 minutes to warp off before they land on grid, not hard.

Ahem, you DO need implants and sisters gear, even with a maxed prober.

I tested it on sisi with various combinations of probes formations and implants. The target ship was a merlin with 4 ECCM mods, which gives a sensor strength/sig radius ratio well above the hardcoded cap (iirc 1.18).

Most efficient probe formation was a simple cube with the target in the middle.
Minimum probe sensor strength needed to probe it down was 78.4

I disagree as I've probed out ECCM T3's in the field w/o using a virtue set. I may have had a cheap hardwiring gypsy implant at the time but those are under 10 mil. What ship/modules did you use to scan? Can't speak on probing eccm merlins though, as I never really tried.

Shame it completely killed sniping as a viable tactic but otherwise it absolutely needed to go.

I used a maxed prober, buzzard, sisters probe launcher/probes and a variety of implants. Probing down "unprobeable" ships cannot be done without implants.

I don't know what ships you may have scanned down, but it was certainly not a triple eccm+loki boost T3.
You can always log on SISI and test it yourself. And btw, none of the gypsy implants give bonuses to probing.

Three people had different values on the cap. Sig radius, 1.14 and 1.18. Any way we could get a more solid number? Mostly curious, but who knows...might affect a loadout or two.

Edit: Oh, and a 1.12