Warfare & Tactics

Just wondering about the best way of tracking down a corps structures? I need the information purely as a mental exercise....

Assume we are talking empire space here?

1. Locator on pilot locations.
This is a difficult for large corps, since they have lots of toons and the ones that do industry at the POS are not as likely to be on the KBs, so you may not even know what names to look for. Our mains avoid our POS like the plague to keep locators from tying us to the location.

2. Corp spy.
At the most basic level, once you get in the corp, you don't even have to act nosy. Just look to see where all their office locations are. It is a very high percent chance that one of those offices will be in the same system as their POS.

Locator agents are exactly like regular agents (they give out normal missions, require standings, etc) except that that have an additional ability to find where people are located (for a fee). Use this site to find locator agents:
http://eve-agents.com/

Check the locator option to yes (along with whatever other criteria you may have - location, faction, etc.).

I would guess about 1 in 10 agents is a locator? Maybe less, dunno.

In any case, the agent costs money for the service, and the fee is based on the distance from the agent. Also, the lower level agents are limited to small search areas, so it is pretty much better to go with a level 4 most of the time.
Cost - Distance
50k - Same constellation
100k - Same Region
250k - All regions

If the pilot is in w-space, the agent will tell you that they are beyond their range, or something like that. With < Lvl 4, that might be that they are just out of your region, so there is one advantage of level 4s right off - you know if they are in w-space or not. After doing a search, there is a cool-down period before you can use the agent again. The level 4s have a 20-30 minute cool-down (not sure on the exact number), while the lower levels are much quicker.

To save money - and avoid the cool-down - you can request a location of a pilot, and the agent will quote you a price. You can then chose not to accept the price. Just from the price, you will know how far the pilot is or whether they are in k-space or not.

Locators work for players online or offline, and will even tell you which station they are in (or not list a station, meaning they are in space).

The empire vs 0.0 space - in null sec, the towers are less likely to have an office in system, so checking on their corp office list with a spy is much less useful; however, locator agents are more effective, because people tend to be closer to their tower in null sec.

Once you know or suspect a system, you can find the tower in one of two ways - in high sec, fly to every moon in rapid succession, looking for the tower. Completely safe as long as you are not at war and doesn't really require much effort. For null sec or low sec, it is easier to fly to the middle of the system (in cov ops, etc) and use D-scan to narrow down to planet, then fly to planet and narrow down to moon.

I have absolutely no interest in the goons. I am interested in this as it seems to be a fun challenge and a lucrative skill.

Plus you can just look in the Science & Industry, Installations window and find out where your corp has in-space assets. Pretty sure that just requires membership in the corporation, no special roles at all.

The most effective method, time-wise, if you can't plant a corp spy is to find out who their haulers are. Especially haulers who get blown up while hauling POS stuff (like fuel). Look at the loss board, figure out who loses orcas, industrials, freighters and where. Combine that with locator agents and you can quickly get a feel for roughly where they hang their hats.

Or look at see whether the corporation ever issues public courier contracts to/from a particular area. Also look for public contracts by the CEO and founder.

Once you have it narrowed down to a constellation or three, start docking at every single station with an alt and look through the lists of corporations with offices. Which is a lot faster the compiling a POS map. As Salcon says, 95% of all corps will maintain an office in the same system as their POS tower.

Then there are the corps who name their towers / arrays with the corp/alliance name or tag. Which makes it easy to find them, so check d-scan as you comb the constellation.