Wormholes

I like the exploration and have done it loads in highsec.

The rewards are decent, though not as good or stable as mining and industry, but it's a nice break from the daily "work" and the treasure hunting style where you never really know what's in a box is quite appealing.

So I figured I'd move a step further into wormholes since I find alot of those when scanning in k-space.

I kitted out a Heron with a cloak, salvager, probe launcher, analyzers and all the gimmicks to do probing and I jumped into a wormhole. After using the D-scan on the first one I jumped into I found two POS's, multiple ships and a Hawk that immediately warped to the wormhole I entered from. So I left it...

Then I found an empty wormhole. Noone around (seemingly) so I started probing out sites. I found a data site and warped to 100km and cloaked up. But unlike the highsec sites, these data sites had rats in them. Now, Heron has 3 drones but I'm not interested in suiciding my heron on 2 cruiser/BC's rats.

Seemed to me most of these sites have rats in them. So to do anything at all in the wormholes, at least solo with limited skills, it means I need to field a combat ship of some type, or dual box (which isn't really interesting for my part since that means alot of alt-tabbing).

Most of the threads I've searched for all come up with T3 fits (Tengu most often) or different guides on how to set up POS and run a whole fleet or even corp within a wormhole. Also, for the most part it seems it's always a discussion around C3 wormholes.

TL;dr - does anyone have any pointers on what ship to bring, or train for, in order to do exploration in the more simple (C1 and C2) wormholes ? I'm mostly trained with Caldari ships, missiles and shields. I have no idea how tough the rats are in C1 and C2 though since I've never done either. I just don't want to end up being annihilated on the first encounters.

However, if it means a massive faction fitted ship then I think I'll just pass on it altogether.

Anyways, thanks for reading, sorry for the extended intro, and any help would be appreciated.

I'm not really interested in the ore/gas or the combat sites.

I just want the data / relic sites anyways, and I don't think the loot from those takes too much cargospace, at least the highsec loot, primarily datacores, salvage parts etc doesn't take too much.

Speaking of the ore / gas sites though, do those also have rats in them?

I didn't bother checking those on my trip out there since I just wanted the data/relics, but after finding rats in all of those I was a bit miffed and just left.

Yeah I suppose 'daytripping' is an accurate term for what I'm doing. At least for now.

So basically a standard Drake fit with normal (i.e. meta / T2 modules) should be enough for C1/C2?

I've heard many suggest a POS in a WH, but that seems like a bit of a chore if you are alone. It's expensive to run and it requires logistics. So I guess that would be more suitable for a small corp if anything.

I'll try that site you suggested and see what's there too, thanks for that.

Unless you're going to use the stuff from the data/relic sites from a WH, you're better off dipping your toes into low sec instead. At least there you've got the advantage of local, and the loot from the sites actually makes you isk.

I wouldn't even bother with wormhole data / relic. The loot is pitiful.

(Up to a c3 anyway... )

The real money in wormholes comes from blue loot (which is dropped by NPC sleepers and can be sold to NPCs in empire, kinda like a bounty) and sleeper salvage from the NPC sleeper wrecks. Mags and Radars in WHs have rats that are quite difficult to solo and the loot you get from the cans isn't very good at all.

As many people above said, for daytripping a Drake works very well, however if you really want to get your moneys worth you need a salvager of some kind (salvage drones can't salvage sleeper BS wrecks even with level V skill so that's not really an option). So you either need another character to salvage, or you need to find an empty wormhole, run the sites, and then come back in a different ship to loot/salvage. Some Battlecruisers like the Cyclone have 2 utility highs so you can squeeze on a probe launcher + a salvager without losing any missiles so that's another option. Or you could scan down the WHs with your Heron and use a Drake with a salvager to run the sites but I personally hate going into WHs solo without a probe launcher.

Finally, a cool option to go daytripping in is assault frigs, the Hawk, Harpy, Vengeance, Wolf and Ishkur can handle all C2 sites with little trouble and pack a utility high (the Ishkur can also pack a flight of salvage drones allowing you to salvage most things except BS wrecks).

Thanks for all the advice guys.

I think I'll look into setting up the drake for this then, since it has an extra hislot and everything for the probe launcher.

Wormholes sound like a lot of fun, but since I've never really messed about in them with a solo probe/site running ship I have no idea how tough the rats are and such. I just know (heard) they are much tougher than normal rats.

Anyways, appreciate the feedback!

Don't bother with data/relic cans in C1s and C2s--the loot is nearly worthless. You'll get a lot more from looting/salvaging the sleepers you kill.