Missions & Complexes

As a new player (only little bit over 3M skill points trained) I have been a little confused about exploration based on articles, post and blogs I have found so far. Most of them are pretty old (2007-2010) and I have been wonder are those relevant anymore. So decided to make a post here.

Latest blog I found out was this one which tries to proof that even a new char can make 350M in a 10 days or so...I don't know is that true or not if you really running solo and without start money for a gear and skills
http://explorationalmanac.blogspot.com/2010/07/day-11-next-goal-achived-some-isk-made.html

So my question is: Is exploration worth of time to spend for a new char in hi-sec space if you most likely run without helpers (alts or real players)? I know it is luck based and sometimes you get lucky and sometimes not but after some research on forums and internet it seems it is nowdays either nerfed OR it is so popular that it is hard to find even sites to explore. I have been tested this also a little without luck (not enough to take a sides) so far altough my equipments and skills should be good enough for this job.

And if we talking about ISK/hour I want to give you some perspective. I have been playing now only a few months and most of my time so far I have been mining or doing mining missions. Have lost a few newbie ships but mostly tried to play pretty much risk free on hi-sec space. Currently have only about 20M on my wallet and playing randomly hour or two sometimes. A quite a big portion of my money has been spent to fit a basic miner and other ships. Money of course spend to skill books.

So I'm not looking for a billions or even 10M per a run. For me even 5M would be a good and 1M would be better what I getting currently. So obviously I'm doing something wrong if someone can do with a trial account in a 10 days 350M worth of ISK or even a near and is is repeatable.

And I know ISK is not everything...but it seems to help on this game also.

First off, I love that blog, really great stuff.

Secondly, yes you COULD make 350M in one day with a 10 day character, but this all depends on random loot.

Highsec Radars should net you have netted me on average 8 to 10M per site (taking into account sites with all the cans empty and ones with above average drops)
Highsec combats will net you anything from a sour taste of disappointment to hundreds of millions per site.

All in all while it's possible to get 350M in a single highsec site, I caution you to never ever count on being able to do it, or even expect it to drop that much. You have a random chance of their being sites in your system, then a random chance of them being good, then a random chance of being able to get loot, then the random chance that the loot is even good... which is why it's addictive like gambling :)

tl;dr: Try it, it's fun

PS: Keep a look out for static DED plexes (ones that appear on your overview) like Old Meanie Cultivation something, Sansha Military Outpost etc. The 1/10 rated ones respawn every hour and are designed to be done in a frigate. Problem is finding one that isn't constantly being "attended" to by someone else :P

i've made a plex on a 2 week trial twice now, 1 year ago when plexes were 300 mil and now, end of july, i had alot time on my hands though, so should you if you want to do it, it's definetly worth it, it's most money you can make being new really, but it all depends on how much time you have and if you're completely new to the game, i was new to exploration alone when i made for a plex with the first account, it's nothing like being new to the whole game

again, if you want to make enough for a plex, it's going to take time or luck, overall it's still good money, alot better if you're not a trial

Thanks everyone! Keep posting for ideas/comments though.

Any suggestions for ships and fits for newbie (Gallente/Caldari) for this career? For scanning I'll use Imicus for now and I'll have Osprey because of my mining career and collected this kind of fitting for exploring and for mining missions allready. Is it enough for lower level sites?


[Osprey, Mission Fighter]

Shield Power Relay II
Damage Control II
Ballistic Control System I

Medium Capacitor Battery II
Small Shield Booster I
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II

Small Nosferatu II
Small Remote Armor Repair System I
'Malkuth' Assault Missile Launcher I, Sabretooth Light Missile
'Malkuth' Assault Missile Launcher I, Sabretooth Light Missile

Medium Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I

Valkyrie I x1
Warrior I x1
Warrior I x1

I'm sure you'll see some Vexor ideas here, but I'd go with something more like this:



Swap to T1/meta level stuff if you can't fit it all. Adjust hardeners based on the rats you're up against. I suggest probing with this versus having another ship to do it for you as this means you can go straight to the site. With level 3 skills, the 2 scanning rigs and eventually a sisters launcher (and maybe probes) you'll be able to scan in high sec just fine. You may want to look into a pph-0 implant as well. They are pretty cheap and add 3% to scan strength.

It would be nice to know indeed. Start with a fresh toon less than 1M ISK, no corp support, no alts. Also would like to know how many hours spent during test for playing. Test period could be for example five to ten days. You have to gather your equipments and skill books from open market.

It would be great to know what can be done with real life skills and knowledge.

Yes, it is very possible. Once I made about 1.5B in the space of two weeks exploring in highsec (I will admit that it was with a fairly experienced character in an Assault Frig, but only a couple hundred M was made in sites that would have been really hard to run in a T1 frig/destroyer/cruiser instead).

Exploration takes dedication, patience, and some decent RL skills, but it can pay off big time if you stick with it. I know a fairly new character that liked the sound of exploring from me talking about it so he took a Heron out looking for sites. He made nothing for the first week and then about 50-100M over the course of a couple days, there's lots of hit or miss luck.

And if you're starting off with low skills, it might be easiest to stick to Radars, they provide the most consistent income (average of 10-15M per site) with the least effort (never more than 10 rats in frigs in highsec).

Hmm..not a bad idea. I'll think about that.

I'll anyway going to give a try for exploring so I could documented that also for awhile. Exploring was one of my initial career plans along with mining when started this game.



Okay. It was just an idea that NOS could help with cap but that idea was not tested yet. Remote armour rep was for drones yes. I thought I could repair those during the fight by calling them back and send back to the fight after repair. It was just a theory and not tested yet.

I think my base setup what I currently own is something like this. Small changes can be done based a sites I'll going to do...if I find something.

Setup with my current skills gives effective hp 17 881 and total dps 53,5 according EFT.

---

[Osprey]
Shield Power Relay II
Damage Control II
Ballistic Control System II

Analyzer I
Small Shield Booster I
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II

Small Remote Armor Repair System I
Salvager I
'Malkuth' Assault Missile Launcher I, Sabretooth Light Missile
'Malkuth' Assault Missile Launcher I, Sabretooth Light Missile

Medium Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I


Valkyrie I x1
Warrior I x1
Warrior I x1

Forget about magneto sites in hi sec. It is waist of time compare to radars. Ofc you can get t2 salvage here and there eventually, but it is more like fun, rather than profitable venture.

Low sec is a bit different story, but still nothing close to other opportunities low sec offer for explorers.

I decided to start exploration with my main 2 weeks ago. My skills are not brilliant for scanning but i manage ok for now, managed to scan down multiple combat sites - although they all (upto now) have been really poor sites with only frigs, 1 mag site and a single radar site. Managed to grab 15m of loot from 3 of the 5 cans at the radar before a cheetah appeared on grid and grabbed the remaining 2 cans contents, the mag site gave about about 6m.

Not sure if he'd scanned the site down himself like me, or if he'd scanned me down, but anyway, upto now its not been a big pay off, but judging by the comments from everyone, its all random so im not throwing in the towel just yet.

Actually i have a question, of the guides ive read, it stated radars are gaurded by NPC's, but the one i found was not, so, do NPC's only gaurd low/null radars?