Live Events Discussion

Odds are the timers are similar to ghost site timers. When you arrive, the timer begins. If you arrive cloaked and decloak on the beacon, that will give you your best odds as the timer won't start until you are decloaking. That said, be careful! Standard covert ops frigates or T1 scanning frigates can't handle the blast without having some sort of tank set up.

Seeing as the transponders explode, I've been using my ghost site format for hunting/hacking. It doesn't scan as quickly, but I won't lose a ship to them, as ghost site damage is tankable. It does solely explosive damage. If you stick a 400mm plate and an active explosive hardener on a frigate along with a DCU or EANM, that should do you. The following ship is likely too shiny for a new player, but it's extremely effective.

My preferred Astero fit:

High:
Covert cloak
Probe launcher

Mid:
Analyzer
Microwarp drive
Scrambler
Cargo scanner

Low:
400mm plate
Explosive hardener
Energized adaptive nanomembrane
Auxiliary power core

Rigs:
Explosive hardening rig
Trimark armor plating
Trimark armor plating

The idea is that this ship, care of its drones, can fend off casual harassment, tank ghost site damage, and do the usual hacking of your preferred type. I usually keep a mobile depot in the hold, alongside the other type of analyzer and an armor repair module. If I do take damage from a site, I make a quick guess as to whether I could tank a second, or whether I've got time to repair my armor before getting back to scouting/hunting.

If you're gutsy or more for hunting or think your skills/tank can handle it, swapping the explosive hardener for a drone damage amp will make you pretty fangy.

So. I've been hunting today, and have found three contested sites so far. Is it intended that some be empty?

One of the ones I'd found had existed before downtime, as evidenced by having its ident string share a pattern with the system's-- and it was empty. Alternatively, I'm wondering if persisting over downtime possibly scrubs the site's loot somehow.

Edit; Four sites now. The two that had persisted through downtime had no sequences. The two that were fresh spawns had sequences. While this is still a very small sample, I suspect it'll persist.

Edit; Seven. Three that persisted through downtime have been hacked. The first two were empty, the last had a sequence. All post-downtime ones had sequences. When I warped off from one, I noticed that it didn't despawn in a timely fashion. My only assumption is that if you warp off after a successful hack, it stops the self-destruct timer the same as if you warp off before a hack...? Combined with downtime 'lock status' resets, and there you have it.

Edit; General update from later review. It appears despawn is a liiiiittle wonky, but not universally or predictably so. I've also encountered a regular ghost site with hacked cans but no spawns or explosions for several minutes after warp-in; someone had already triggered the timer, though, I assume. I've now encountered pre-downtime sites with sequences, and post-downtime sites without. Unfortunately, this means I'm not 100% sure on what causes the sites to persist beyond normal despawn timers, or whether sites are occasionally intended to be sans sequence. I assume so, unfortunately. :x

Might be interesting to take cruiser into one with explosive resists, and see how much damage is taken so that we can calibrate the amount of damage dished out. How many EHP v. explosive damage did your Heron have? And what did you fit? I ask because I've heard ~900 to ~1000 bounced around as the explosive damage yield of the transponder sites, though that may have been actual damage instead of pre-resist damage. The Astero listed above has somewhere in the area of 17k EHP v. explosive damage, and is very tanky. Depending on your Heron fit and skill level, it'd be fairly easy to get your EHP v. explosive to as high as 13k.

Looks like the Besieged sites are showing up now (since yesterday?). Have to battle two spawns of 'mordus battleships' (which amusingly are both BS and Cruisers) to access the can and loot pirate faction paintjob bpcs, low-grade implants and other stuff.

It's good change to the 'be able to do sites in frigates' tendency - i have personally seen player wrecks in those sites, up to cruiser. And like the belt variant they web and point you, so you actually have to battle through the site in danger of sudden PvP from outside parties.

According to my reactive hardener they were doing a mix of kinetic and explosive damage.

I thought this would be the spread, yeah. Maybe i mislooked what my RAH had adapted to.

Unfortunately, yes. They are spawning left and right. When we first found one we were out in a little fleet and thought 'whoo these things are supposed to be pretty rare, right?' - then we found one in the next system, and one in the next after that, and so on. Them being anomalies doesnt make it any better.

Has anyone discovered any correlation to the when and where of the Mordu's Legion patrol appearances?

I know they appear in the LoSec belts, but is it completely random or is there some relationship to the "Besieged" or "Covert" sites?