Missions & Complexes

Im not complaining about the new system at all, I just want to point out here that the number of hacking attempts does not at all directly correlate with the number of people doing sites.

With the sharply decreased valuable T2 salvage available, explorers are forced to hack the less valuable cans for stuff like Armor Plates or Tripped Power Circuits to still get some profit off the sites. Pre-Patch most explorers only cherry picked one or two cans and left the sites be, while now there are a great many who do the sites completely.

Honestly, Im surprised that hacking attempts are not even double the previous number. I was expecting them to skyrocket. You could just as easily argue that the number of hacking attempts suggests that even less people are doing exploration now.

I just did a few sites to test, all in gurista 0.0 space. 1 monument, 1 science outpost, 2 temples and 1 CQ.

The monument dropped 34.5mil.
The temples dropped 35.5mil and 43.5mil.
The science outpost dropped 13.8mil.
The CQ dropped 11mil.

The sites took 5-7 minutes each in a tengu with Arch V and a T2 analyzer. This could be a lucky day, but the big drops are still there evidently if you look for them. In a covops, in somewhere like the sansha regions that drops armor plates, the income would be even better and sites done faster. Also POS mods and towers are a nice payday when they come and have to be factored in.

In my opinion the mini professions are now done, and enough time has been spent on them. Short of pushing costs onto other professions like industry, or putting rats back in, I don't see what else can be done. I remember there were stories about people earning 100mil+ from a CQ coming bragging onto the forum about it being easy money for a few minutes work and how they earned billions a week, well take a reality check, obviously that was never going to last. Time to move on to the other parts of exploration that are crying out for iteration, specifically low level unrateds, and drone combat sites. These take a much more expensive ship, with more risk, and spawn less frequently than the mini profession sites and certainly have lower isk/hr potential.

Hacking V seems to be a long train wasted for the current data sites so my suggestion is to put hacking cans into the drones sites with nexus chip drops, and bring up the isk per hour of these sites on par with the faction sites.

There's also the possibility of making hacking missions to go in with the current security/mining/hauling missions, and can be like the old mag/rad sites for people who enjoyed that thing. Seems like something for sisters agents or 0.0 agents to offer. You could scan the find the actual mission rather than just having the bookmark. When odyssey came out there was some talk about "tying in hacking with the universe" but we haven't seen much of that, besides ghost sites which are literally as rare as actual ghosts, probably because of all this focus on loot.

Sounds similar to what I tend to find in the same space. Surprised the Crystal Quarry was so low, but that's just part of the average. Most of the sites I find are 20-30m average with the rare 40-60m and the occasional 10m (but I think this might be due to cherry picking).


Sometimes I do miss the days when I was in Querious pulling 120m in armor plates from a site after killing two battleships. It was a bit more exciting to know I needed to warp-off/cloak my hacking toon between cans too. Finding the sites was similar to today, hit or miss, but a good string of sites would have competitive isk/hr as those who were ratting. I've never done exploration for isk/hr, but it was nice to know I was still being "efficient" while having fun. That said, I agree the rewards were well above the risk (especially now with the ability to just use frigs and/or covert/nullified T3).

I think you mention several examples of things that can be done. I agree fully that the loot value of sites needs to be tied to their difficulty (either combat or hacking) and that it shouldn't directly effect production/industry (in a negative way). Personally, I like the current system of data/relic sites. I just wish CCP would elaborated on them with a scale of increasing difficulties and rewards, but following a similar trend of requiring probing and hacking.


This was the only reason I did data sites prior to loot spew being removed... my invention/industry friends loved all the stuff I’d bring/sell them. While I’m often annoyed that I can’t fit all the larger items in my cargo (like I can with the salvage material from relic sites), I think this aspect of things gives the advantage to those who are farming sites close to home, rather than roaming. With some of the upcoming production changes, this could be a nice dynamic... larger loot = more localized sales/production for residents and more risk (larger ships) for the roaming explorer.


I think the difficult thing is that ratting, especially anon running in null, is essentially what you describe... CCP injecting ISK into the wallets. There is no market dynamic to the bounties (unlike what happened to salvage/datacore prices after Odyssey), they constantly respawn (unlike needing to be scanned down), essentially it’s a stream of income. If it wasn’t so easy (oh yeah, you can just afk-ishtar them), no one would do it. If shooting crosses wasn't so boring, I might give it another try... it would easily be better isk/hr than exploration.

This sounds a lot like "my minerals are free".

actually it is a case of my minerals are free. the only isk you are making is the isk/time you would have spent on shipping those cores from jita to whetever you are doing your invention.

that said if you live in the ass end of null then its a decent savings.

It is true that Invention is tricky process but if you calculate everything properly and you are happy with the profit you make it is pretty much worth your while. And yes i have access to copy/invention or any other manufacturing line i want. I run 11 manufacturing and 11 research jobs as a constant (i know i know i have way to many carebear skills :D ).

As for the rig BPC some are better then others, but it is always better to have something in Eve than not having it. Who know how CCP will change the game at some point and what will swap value :)

Relics are fine. I think people complaing about value imbalance beetwen data and relics.

Why tengu? SB is better for the job. No targeting delay. Lost one of my Buzzards in lowsec that way. I was abushed by SB while on my tengu he other day, RLML eat him really fast (i was lucky, his friends was one jump away). Covops are agile and fast but defensless, i prefer T3 for the job (+nullifier).

Let's get more of that content at data sites

100-120 from 3-4 data sites? What region? You were incredibly lucky i presume. I'm exploring south, best site droped 22 mil. Items volume are insane sometimes.



Do you have any data what happens with blueprints? (manufactured, trashed, not looted, etc.).
Even if i used them i won't be able to compensate the value difference between datas and relics.



This stat shows nothing. Cherry picking single can included? 100000/24h=4167 per h. 4167/5(average cans per site)=833,4 site per hour (assuming all cans are hacked). What is total amount of sites in new eden? How this stat looks now, after few weeks?



Yep. Horrible move. From one extreme to the other. You made exploration easier, lots of people start to doing it. Its hard to manage loot values with players driven market that way.
Items from exploration are used in manufacturing so:
low frequency of drops/explorers = good for explorers, bad for manufacturers,
high frequency = vice versa.

So maybe add some items not connected to building items, like in those new mordus sites, with an option to sell them to the market or exchange them in loyality stores.

Maximum i got from 1 relic site was 80 kk. Normally around 10-20. Maxiumum from 1 container 30kk. Not counting blueprints.
When i started i earned not much. But now when i studied region, time etc i earn uo to 100kk per hour. Just playing in the morning before dt, and couple hours after dt. When sites exists there is plenty of them(met up to 4 in 1 system) and plenty of isks.If you don't meet sites at least 1 in 2-3 systems thats mean somebody running in front of you and better to find another occupation.