EVE New Citizens Q&A

The answer to your question is drones....Imicus will carry 3 scout drones.

It's a bad idea to save the sites for very long after finding them, due to the chance of someone else finding and running the site. It's also a bad idea to close to weps range of a rat, because your scanship is made of tinfoil.

You should also know that each time you warp away from a site after it is first visited, it has a chance of despawning. While sometimes you might have to leave to restock drones, it's not something you should /plan/ on doing. You lose a lot of sites, and isk, that way.

FYI, you can bookmark a site from the scanner menu, without visiting it, once it is at 100%.

So, if i wanted to use drones, they should be sufficient enough to handle npc combat i run into? If so recommend any kind of drones?

Drones can depend on what region you are in. Sometimes a mix is good as well. In Amarr, you run up against the Sansha rats, and Acolyte drones do well against them.

If you want a single do-all ship, there are some options, however the ships themselves do not have any scanning bonsues, so yoru scanning skills will need to be a bit better.

With Astrometrics V, Astrometric Pinpointing IV, Astrometric Rangefinding IV, and Astrometric Aquisition III, I was able to scan down most high-sec sites using the following:

Arbitrator.
highs: two medium beam lasers, 1 salvager, 1 probe launcher
When you can afford it, invest in Sisters Core Scanner probes (+10% to scan probe strength)
Beam lasers can be replaced with Pulse lasers depending on the range you want.

Mids: 1 10mn afterburner, 1 codebreaker, 1 analyzer, and 1 free mid for module of your choice

Lows: Damage Controll II, 3 free for what you want. I'd suggest armor hardeners or similar. Unless you plan to do a lot of exploring between docking up, you won't need a ton of cargo space, so no need for cargo hold expanders.

Rigs: two medium Gravity Capacitor rigs (+10% each to probe scan strength)

The Arbitrator has a very nicely sized drone bay, so you can carry a number of drones. Which allows for back up.

With that set up, I didn't run into any high-sec sites that I had to run from. The biggest issue is the skills because, again, the Arbitrator doesn't have any bonuses related to scanning.

Outside of that, if you want to use a ship that has the bonuses, you're best off having more than one ship. The problem there comes around when you want to scan more systems than the one you are in or the ones 1jump away.

Two scout drones on a Magnate (with no weapons fitted) will handle any highsec site other than Shipyards, which have cruisers, if you have good enough drone skills. The trick is to close range until one group of rats have /all/ targeted you (which they will do a far beyond their effective weapons range), /then/ send in the drones while kiting the rats. This works quite well, as in you should be able to do it while taking /no/ damage to either your ship or drones.

That being said, the spawn is randomized. I've /once/ come across two Battleships at a highsec Virus Test Site. For that one I was able to beg help in local for a 50% split, and still made over 10M isk.

I usually run with a probe launcher and salvager fitted in the 2 high slots, and either a codebreaker or analyzer in my measly 1 mid, docking to swap as needed.

IMO having to swap ships /drastically/ lowers your IPH. To make good isk this way you need to be able to quickly check dozens of systems, and run the sites /immediately/ when found. There is too much competition for sites in highsec to futz around that way, when it is perfectly plausible to do it with at least twice the efficiency with one ship.

As far as what type of drones, use the ones that do the appropriate damage type for your brand of rat.

And /please/ never leave the worthless cruft (Positron Cords), etc. in the cans. If nothing else, loot and then jetcan it. Leaving items in the cans will prevent the site from despawning.