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Is exploration broken?
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Xython
Merch Industrial
Goonswarm Federation
#21 - 2012-05-12 07:11:43 UTC
The problem isn't that it's random. The problem is that sites are too sparsely populated. Even if you do find a site, it's most likely one of the useless ones (mining, gas, or wormhole).

Of course, the "too sparsely populated" thing applies to a lot of stuff CCP does -- for example, when's the last time you saw a faction spawn? Ok, now when's the last time you saw a faction spawn -- and it wasn't useless ammo and tags?


The real annoyance, though is that if I do the probe thing in Deklein, it takes a good chunk of time to launch the 7 probes (since I have to do them 1 at a time, waiting just long enough each cycle to be annoyed), then fiddle with the rather icky Probe UI (protip: alt-drag and shift-drag are your friends) and maybe, maybe I'll find 1 or 2 sites, of which neither will be of any use -- one will be a mining site (and no one mines in nullsec), the other will be like a gas cloud for booster production (and no one makes boosters).

And it's like that every single gate one goes through. There just are too many little annoyances when dealing with probing to make doing it worthwhile.

Now, what I wouldn't mind seeing is some "T2 Anoms" be added someday. Like, "Forsaken Sanctums" or whatnot. Not full on Complex level, something in between that still have to be probed down, but you are more or less guaranteed to find 2-3 each sector.
Miilla
Hulkageddon Orphanage
#22 - 2012-05-12 07:22:04 UTC
Exploration isn't broken, I am exploring W-space and many regions off it, you can have all the sites you want in here.

They are getting in the way of my scanning for WH's.
Tomcio FromFarAway
Singularity's Edge
#23 - 2012-05-12 08:18:27 UTC
Do it right then exploration is one of the best sources of income.Smile
Do it wrong and it is a waste of time ( isk wise ).Sad

Either way it is much more fun and engaging than any other pve activity.

Exploration is my only source of income. I don't have any specific numbers but I can say this :
- I plex all of my 3 accounts each month
- I can buy any shiny ship that I want
- I can buy any expensive mod that I want
- loosing pimped T3's is not a problem for me ( and I have lost a lot of those mainly because I'm careless as far as internet spaceships goes Lol)


So yeah it is very profitable. Much more than other activities that I tried. You can't look at isk/hour bullshit because of randomness involved here.
You just need to do some research and gain some experience. It is all about :
IdeaWhere to do it
IdeaHow to blitz it
IdeaHow/When/Where to sell it
Vlodovich
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#24 - 2012-05-12 09:36:17 UTC
I would agree with the above poster, I made 1.6 bil last night playing for about 4 hours. Some days I make nothing, but once it balances out I probably get about 2-3 bil a week, as I pvp mostly and only do exploration when I start to run out of money.

You say you scanned 5 systems, this is far too few to find sites of value.

For a beginner you probably want to find radar and magnetometric sites to run. Later you'll end up ignoring all of these in favour of 4/10, 5/10, 6/10 etc...

Right after DT is the best time to scan but Im never online at this time and do just fine.

Avoid exploration in high sec at all costs, total waste of time.

I try to scan around 10-15 systems then pick what sites Im going to run, for this to not take a lifetime you will need good scanning skills/equipment. Good scanning skills means Astrometric rangefinding to level IV or V, and Astrometric pinpointing to level IV or V.

Equipment wise you want a full set of Sisters Core Scanner Probes, and if you got the isk the Sisters core or expanded probe launcher is well worth it. You will also want a covert ops frigate with Cov Ops skill to level IV or V and 2 gravity capacitor rigs.

Ive done nothing for income except exploration for about 2 years now so Ive gone all out on my scanning with Cov Ops V, rangefinding V, full virtue implant set, and the rangefinding AR810 or whatever the last implant is. Allows me to scan a solar system every 5-8 mins depending how many sigs are there.
Takseen
Federal Defense Union
Gallente Federation
#25 - 2012-05-12 09:45:16 UTC
Roime wrote:
There is no such thing as too many wormholes <3

Maybe jump in one, and come out with a billion? Might change the attitude Cool



From a wormhole? Hardly. Unless the RNG likes you and you get a Nanoribbon from every single sleeper wreck. There's very little else of value in there that makes the logistics worthwhile.
Whereas with highsec sites you can get a few hundred million from a good overseer or faction spawn drop.
Takseen
Federal Defense Union
Gallente Federation
#26 - 2012-05-12 09:48:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Takseen
Miilla wrote:
Exploration isn't broken, I am exploring W-space and many regions off it, you can have all the sites you want in here.

They are getting in the way of my scanning for WH's.


Last time I did wormholes, the mag and radar sites weren't really worth anything beyond what the sleepers dropped. The cans itself were barely worth looting. Has this changed since?

Edit : I dug up an exploration journal from a while back. I scanned the same constellation once a day for six days. Took an hour or two, depending on how many sigs and sites I found. The income

Day 1 : 15 million
Day 2 : 0 million
Day 3 : 35 million
Day 4 : 41 million
Day 5 : 247 million
Day 6 : 20 million

So its very very random.
Simi Kusoni
HelloKittyFanclub
#27 - 2012-05-12 10:16:37 UTC
The issue a lot of people have with exploration is that they limit themselves on the area they scan, typically I prefer to cover as much of a region as possible. When I was in sov null sec I was covering 90% of querious several times a day, repeatedly running the 7-10/10s. My record for a single day was six bhaalgorn BPCs.

You need to cover a wide area, run only the valuable sites and keep a record of the bad signatures so when you double back you don't scan them down twice and only go for new sites. Or, if you're only playing for a short time just keep scanning until you find a rated sited.

Just remember, the time you waste running some crappy escalation site is time you could have spent finding a rated site.

[center]"I don't troll, I just give overly blunt responses that annoy people who are wrong but don't want to admit it. It's not my fault that people have sensitive feelings"  -MXZF[/center]
Tomcio FromFarAway
Singularity's Edge
#28 - 2012-05-12 10:24:13 UTC
Takseen wrote:

From a wormhole? Hardly. Unless the RNG likes you and you get a Nanoribbon from every single sleeper wreck. There's very little else of value in there that makes the logistics worthwhile.


Date : 2012-05-10
Wh : C3
Number of anoms : 3
Number of mags : 3
Number of radars : 3
Profit : ~750mil
Time taken : ~2hours (including scanning/logistics)
RNG liked me that day? It usually likes me when I'm doing wormholesLol

Takseen wrote:
Whereas with highsec sites you can get a few hundred million from a good overseer or faction spawn drop.

IF you find the good site and IF you get the good drop ( happens rarely ).
As far as faction spawns goes - good drops ( aka implants ) are even rarer than deadspace drops.

Takseen wrote:

Last time I did wormholes, the mag and radar sites weren't really worth anything beyond what the sleepers dropped. The cans itself were barely worth looting. Has this changed since?

I usually make around 50-100mil from those in c3 ( unless RNG really hates me that day ). The best I got from mag site was 200mil in c3 and 700mil in c5 ( yummy "Intact Weapon Subroutines" ).
Takseen
Federal Defense Union
Gallente Federation
#29 - 2012-05-12 10:26:24 UTC
Simi Kusoni wrote:
The issue a lot of people have with exploration is that they limit themselves on the area they scan, typically I prefer to cover as much of a region as possible. When I was in sov null sec I was covering 90% of querious several times a day, repeatedly running the 7-10/10s. My record for a single day was six bhaalgorn BPCs.

You need to cover a wide area, run only the valuable sites and keep a record of the bad signatures so when you double back you don't scan them down twice and only go for new sites. Or, if you're only playing for a short time just keep scanning until you find a rated sited.

Just remember, the time you waste running some crappy escalation site is time you could have spent finding a rated site.


Well that's purely a time issue. I used to have all day to scan an entire region, now a single constellation is pushing it. Atleast if you keep to the same constellation, you can skip the wormholes and gravsites you've previously identified for the next few days.
Takseen
Federal Defense Union
Gallente Federation
#30 - 2012-05-12 10:31:23 UTC
Tomcio FromFarAway wrote:


I usually make around 50-100mil from those in c3 ( unless RNG really hates me that day ). The best I got from mag site was 200mil in c3 and 700mil in c5 ( yummy "Intact Weapon Subroutines" ).


Oh, I thought c5s weren't soloable?
Well its interesting that c3s pay that well. Tbh I'd never moved beyond c2. By the time I could fly a ship powerful enough to do c3 sites, I didn't feel inclined to risk losing said ship.
Tomcio FromFarAway
Singularity's Edge
#31 - 2012-05-12 10:42:43 UTC
Takseen wrote:

Oh, I thought c5s weren't soloable?


1. They aren't ( I used an alt )
2. You don't have to kill sleeper drones to open the cansIdea

Takseen wrote:

Well its interesting that c3s pay that well. Tbh I'd never moved beyond c2. By the time I could fly a ship powerful enough to do c3 sites, I didn't feel inclined to risk losing said ship.


It is especially about mag sites. In c1-c2 you can only get "Wrecked" relics ( worthless ) but in c3-c4 you start getting "Malfunctioning" relics and those are worth more ( Weapon Subroutines is the best ~30mil per piece ). In c5-c6 you can also get "Intact" relics ( Weapon Subroutines ~120mil per piece ).
JitaPriceChecker2
Doomheim
#32 - 2012-05-12 10:53:01 UTC
Tomcio FromFarAway wrote:
Takseen wrote:

Oh, I thought c5s weren't soloable?


1. They aren't ( I used an alt )
2. You don't have to kill sleeper drones to open the cansIdea

Takseen wrote:

Well its interesting that c3s pay that well. Tbh I'd never moved beyond c2. By the time I could fly a ship powerful enough to do c3 sites, I didn't feel inclined to risk losing said ship.


It is especially about mag sites. In c1-c2 you can only get "Wrecked" relics ( worthless ) but in c3-c4 you start getting "Malfunctioning" relics and those are worth more ( Weapon Subroutines is the best ~30mil per piece ). In c5-c6 you can also get "Intact" relics ( Weapon Subroutines ~120mil per piece ).



Stop being creative ...

Start whining that not everything is given to you on silver platter ...

Comfort to crowd ...
J3ssica Alba
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#33 - 2012-05-12 11:05:37 UTC
In before St Mio

Big smile
This is my signature. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.  Without me, my signature is useless. Without my signature, I am useless
Takseen
Federal Defense Union
Gallente Federation
#34 - 2012-05-12 11:08:05 UTC
Tomcio FromFarAway wrote:
Takseen wrote:

Oh, I thought c5s weren't soloable?


1. They aren't ( I used an alt )
2. You don't have to kill sleeper drones to open the cansIdea



Aha, a hit and run job. I kinda guessed as much about using an alt aswell, they seem very very worthwhile for exploration in particular. I just make do with a hybrid explorer/combat ship.
Selinate
#35 - 2012-05-12 14:39:07 UTC
<----------------- still vexed that one of the CCP devs nerfed scanning.
St Mio
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#36 - 2012-05-13 08:34:22 UTC
Exploration is always broken unless I'm personally getting valuable drops.
Ocih
Space Mermaids
Somethin Awfull Forums
#37 - 2012-05-13 08:45:27 UTC
Roime wrote:
Prince Kobol wrote:
I did exploration for a couple of months and found it to be the biggest waste of time in Eve.

I mostly scanned low sec systems as well as a couple of system in null sec.

When you consider the time + risk v reward, exploration has to be the worst profession in Eve by a long long long way.



I like it because it's fun Cool


Both are true.
If you are after an ISK/hr 'career' in EVE, exploration is the last place you want to look. If ISK isn't on your front line, you just want to mess around, it has more immediate diversity. I watch people scan systems that I have already scanned and many will scan to type and just leave. They want the radar and Mag sites, treating it like an income. Best of luck to them. I scan down all signatures to where I can bookmark them. Most I won't exploit but I will explore them. High sec to High Sec wormholes are one of my favorite finds. They don't make me ISK per say, I just jump through to see where I come out.
Lin-Young Borovskova
Doomheim
#38 - 2012-05-13 12:16:58 UTC
Prince Kobol wrote:
I did exploration for a couple of months and found it to be the biggest waste of time in Eve.

I mostly scanned low sec systems as well as a couple of system in null sec.

When you consider the time + risk v reward, exploration has to be the worst profession in Eve by a long long long way.



Add the huge amounts of RL spare time you need for this activity.
It's definitively not an activity for someone playing just a few hours per week with all the risk involved once you undock.

brb
Bootleg Jack
ACME Mineral and Gas
#39 - 2012-05-13 15:03:19 UTC
Vulix wrote:
I've been scouring both high sec and low sec systems that have little traffic, and have just been finding no exploration sites, specifically radar. About all I run into is wormholes and an occassional complex to fight rats in. I've hheard I have to explore immediately after downtime to get the most out of it, but that's unrealistic because downtime happens at 3 A.M. for me. Is exploration a bit off or am I just doing it wrong?


Or you could enter the wormhole and scan inside for sites.

I'm an American, English is my second language...
Orlacc
#40 - 2012-05-13 15:06:54 UTC
It is not broken. I pay two subs with minimal effort. Some types of sites are just not worth doing however.

"Measure Twice, Cut Once."
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