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Guide to Exploration in Eve Online-By Joerd Toastius, in association with DNightmare Productions
EDIT by Zuraludne: After Apocrypha patch, the mechanics of scanning has been changed. The modified guide is written below.
For the purposes of this guide I'm just going to cover the practical aspects as they relate to exploration, and skip as much of the theory as possible.
Introduction
The Revelations expansion (codename Kali) introduces proper exploration to Eve. Over 250 individual exploration sites have been created and added to the game, offering a wide variety of content. Each site is unique, but there are four broad categories they fall into - combat sites, profession sites, mining sites and gas cloud sites.
Sites are distributed randomly all over the Eve cluster, in all security statuses and regions. They appear in planetary gravity wells, stick around for a while and then disappear again. As such sites are not permanent enough to be documented, you have to track them down yourself using the exploration tools if you want to make use of them, and it's these tools that will be explained in this guide, along with some notes on how to deal with the sites themselves.
Cliff Notes mechanics
Exploration is done using scan probes. Changes to probes in Revelations make them all chance-based, and that applies to exploration too. You'll need to get your equipment and skills together, and load up with the appropriate probes. New changes in Apocrypha made the scanning much more easier for wannabe explorers.
Some things to note:
1) Exploration is chance-based. You will often need to run a lot of analysis cycles before you find anything
2) Exploration uses a fair number of new skills. It's worth training up and getting prepped first
3) Exploration rewards people who know what they're doing. So read the guide careful!
The Walkthrough
Each section will start with a bullet list of the steps you need to take, and then will explain each step
Skills
You will NEED:
- Astrometrics IV
- Astrometrics Acquisition I
You will WANT:
- Covert Ops
- Astrometric Rangefinding
- Astrometric Pinpointing
- Astrometric Acquisition
As high as possible
Astrometrics gives you +1 on the number of probes you can control, starting with 4 on level 1.
Astrometric Acquisition I (or some other bonus that has the same effect, see discussion on ships and rigs shortly) is needed to prevent your probes from expiring before you finish analyzing them.
Covert Ops ships give the same bonus as the Signal Acquisition skill, and is therefore by far and away the best ship type for exploration. The bonus increases per level of Covert Ops, so the higher your level, the better.
Astrometric Rangefinding increases the strength of your probes, making them more likely to find something in the first place
Astrometric Pinpointing reduces the scan deviation of your probes, making them more accurate
Astrometric Acquisition reduces the amount of time it takes to analyze a result, and thus the amount of time it takes to find a site
Additionally, you will need the skills to make use of the sites you're looking for. If you're after combat, have a good combat skills, and ideally some friends. If you're after mining, look up the mining guide here. Profession sites require either Archeology and Salvaging, or Hacking. The higher these skills are, the faster you'll be able to loot the site of valuables. Gas Cloud sites are a special case that will be discussed later.
Equipment
You will NEED:
- Core/Expanded Launcher,
- A ship that can fit said Launcher (does not require a launcher hardpoint, but does need to be able to handle the CPU load)
- Some probes (see later for exactly which ones you'll want)
You will WANT:
- A Covert Ops ship - the one with the Astrometrics bonus, not the Stealth Bomber variant
- Failing that, a T1 Frigate with the Astrometrics bonus (none for Amarr, sorry)
- A Covert Ops Cloaking Device II for your Covert Ops (for safety in low-sec/0.0)
- A pair of Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I rigs
- Ships and equipment to deal with the sites you find
There are 2 types of launchers: The Core launcher, uses 15 CPU and only launches exploration-type probes, and the Expanded launcher, uses the full 220 CPU of the current launchers and can launch probes which can scan for ships, drones and structures.
As Expanded Launcher uses 220tF of CPU, you'll need a ship that can cope with this
Probes will be discussed in the next section
Covert Ops ships are excellent for exploration. They have the Astrometrics duration bonus that you also get on the Signal Acquisition skill, which is extremely important for exploration. These bonuses multiply one after the other - if you have Astrometric Acquisition V and Covert Ops V (and you're flying a Covert Ops ship), you'll get a 0.25x multiplier on your analysis time. Astrometric Acquisition V gives you a 0.5x multiplier, and then Covert Ops V gives another 0.5x, and 0.5 x 0.5 = 0.25, making you four times faster than the base speed.
Three of the four races have a T1 frigate with the same bonus as Covert Ops ships, but at 5% per level rather than 10%. This isn't ideal, but it's much easier to train Frigate V than Covert Ops V. There is no Amarr ship in this role though (due to the lack of a 6th frigate), so if you're Amarr, it's either Covert Ops or crosstrain to another race for this bonus. Bear in mind that you need Covert Ops III before your Covert Ops ship becomes better than the base T1 frigate (you need Frigate V to use the Covert Ops in the first place).
The cloaking device is optional, but very useful. If you're working in 0.0, it's almost a necessity to keep you safe, but in high-sec you can ignore it if you're not at war with anyone. As you can't warp while analyzing, the Prototype or Improved cloaks will do the job ok, and cost a lot less to boot.
The Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I rigs do another -10% duration each, for a further 0.8x multiplier on your scan time with two. This takes you down to 0.2x total modifier with max skills, which is not to be sniffed at
You will, obviously, need the ships and kit to deal with the sites you find. Combat sites need combat ships, mining sites work great with barges, while profession sites need a ship with the appropriate modules fitted - Analyzer and Salvager for Archeology/Salvage sites, Codebreaker for Hacking sites. You can fit these on your Covert Ops, but this will usually mean someone else coming along in a combat ship to clear the place out first. Generally I put my profession modules on my combat ship, because I prefer not to risk the Covert Ops unless absolutely necessary
Probes
You will NEED:
- At least four Core Probes for finding exploration sites
- Or At least 4 Combat Probes (fits only in Expanded launcher), finds everything
- Or at least 4 Deep space probes (fits only in Expanded launcher), finds everything but has great range (and less accurate)
You can now destroy or recover some or all of your probes, depending on which button you press. You can also reconnect to probes if you disconnect, jump out or whatever, provided they haven't expired.
Well.. starting out seams pretty easy now: Hop to a nearest planet and call your scanner interface.
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First, you will do a general overview of the system, so pop out your probe, set it to maximal distance (32AU). You can set it to warp to a more appropriate location if current one is not ideal.
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So, hit analyze and wait until probe settles in a new location (if you moved it) and do a quick scan of the system.
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This gets you a weak little signal right close in by the probe, with a nice tight little sphere plotted out to the range where the probe thinks it might be.
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So it is time to reduce the range of the probe.. At the example location, it is set on 8AU and hit analyze again. This has returned much better result.
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At this point you pop out a two more probes. If you wanna find stuff in space, you gotta use geometry (triangulation). Probes only know how far away they think the thing is (and the bigger you set them, the worse they are at guessing distances), so you need several to figure out where the actual thing is.
So out they go two and three, and you set them up in a nice triangle to start with and let them run.
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If you get a circular result, then one probe is missing the spot (so one probe gives you a sphere where the spot might be, 2 probes will give you an ellipse). So, shift move the probes to a more closer location, reduce the range and hit analyze again.
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This time all 3 probes hit the spot and it gets back two point results. That's because three probes don't know if what they're seeing is above them or below them. Geometry, right? Probe four goes out to solve the problem.
Sticking number 4 up above still gives two hits, so you move it down underneath instead.
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There it goes, single point hit. Now all you gotta do is get in close to pump that signal return right up and get a properly accurate result. Because you still got a result at around 20% strength, that dot's near where the site is but not quite there - the probes still don't know exactly where the thing is yet.
So you have to work them in - step down a size, move in, step down, move in - until I gets a perfect hit. Be weary on the expiration time of the probes.. you might loose them if you are doing this too slow or your skills are not quite high enough. If you need, call them back to hangar, then send them off again (you might need to repeat some of the steps if you do that).
So after you reach a 100% hit, you should get something like this:
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(you might want to bookmark it before warping to it)
Warp to it... Look there, it doesn't look like anything I've seen before!
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You might consider warping to a direct hit with better equipped ship.
Checking Out The Site
- Warp to the result in a ship which either won't die or which you don't mind losing
- Don't leave your Covert Ops ship at a nearby result
Sites don't spawn until you enter their grid. Once you land in the grid and the site spawns, the deadspace warp inhibition effect kicks in. This means two things:
1) If you bookmark your current location (say 400km away from the actual site), warp out and warp back in, you'll land right in the middle of the site
2) You can't warp to any point within the Deadspace zone (I'm not sure exactly how big this is)
Point 1) means that it's often dangerous to scout sites with a Covert Ops, as there's usually something near the warp-in that will decloak you and get you killed. Point 2) means that if you park you Covert Ops nearby and scout in your pod, you probably won't be able to warp back to it due to the deadspace effect. I always park at least 1AU away, just to be safe.
Once you're at the site, remember to bookmark it. Also, if you zoom back out to the System Map, it will flag up a little box telling you the name of the site. For profession sites, this is usually fairly informative - it'll tell you what type of site it is, how hard it is to find (the "Base" level, ranging from 1-4), what faction owns it and so on. For Mining sites, it usually tells you what ore types are present and how big the field is. For Combat sites it'll often just give you a cryptic name.
The names are useful both because they may tell you something about the site, and also because if you have problems with a site, knowing the name will let other people help you out much easier.
Types Of Site
As mentioned earlier, there are various different types of site. It should be noted that content in exploration sites (NPCs, asteroids etc) do not respawn. The sites themselves seem to respawn at random after completion (and not just at downtime), but the exact mechanism is unknown.
COMBAT: These tend to involve lots of shooting. Currently there's very little reward in the initial sites you find, and the 0.0 ones in particular are REALLY hard. However, each combat site has a chance of escalating, which will give you a time-limited bookmark in your journal to the next site in the "escalation chain" - the journal entries are stored in the "Expeditions" tab. This site will in turn have another chance of escalating you to the next site, and so on. If you reach the "final" site in each chain, you may be rewarded with some faction loot. Also, a word of warning - leaving an expedition site before completing it may result in your expedition being terminated there and then.
MINING: These generally have roids better than you'd expect in whatever security status (high, low, 0.0) you're in. Some sites are better than others. Often they'll be guarded by Rogue Drones or other pirates, and normal belt rats may spawn too. Asteroids in these sites do not respawn - once they're gone, they're gone
HACKING: These will have a bunch of Hacking structures in. Hacking targets look like cans in your overview, but have models that look like structures. If you try to open one, it will tell you you need proper tools. Target it and activate a Codebreaker module on it and your ship will try to hack it. If it succeeds, you can open the can and loot it. This is chance-based, so it may take several cycles to succeed. Hacking sites drop Datacores, Data Interface BPCs, Decryptors and other invention gubbins
ARCH/SAL: Short for "Archaeology/Salvage", these generally contain some Archaeology cans and some Salvage cans. Again, they look like cans on the overview but have other modules, and tell you you need tools to open them. Generally, anything that sounds like a broken ship (eg, Derelict) needs to be salvaged, while anything that sounds like wreckage (eg, Ruins) needs to be Analyzed (archaeology). Doing a "Show Info" on a can should tell you what tools you need to access it. These sites drop lots of rig parts, the occasional T2 rig BPC and Invention skillbooks
GAS CLOUDS: These are used for Booster-related stuff, and will be discussed later.
WORMHOLES: Grants you travel to any location within EVE space, and to an uncharted space where dangerous beasts called Sleepers lurk in shadows, defending technology what righteously belongs to them (and we will take to our own benefit bwahahahaha).
Completing The Site
- Do whatever's necessary to finish the site
Each site has a "completion" trigger. This may happen when you attack something, or open a can, or mine out a belt, or kill the last NPC, or whatever. Once a site is completed, it will despawn once everyone leaves it; some profession sites complete as soon as you kill an NPC, so you need to finish them off in one go. In Combat sites, the Escalation trigger is tied to the completion trigger, so it will not complete until you've either got an escalation or hit a dead end - it should notify you in either case. If a combat site isn't going away, it's because you haven't completed it yet (or it's bugged, of course)
Boosters
Boosters are specialist drugs that you can take to improve your performance in combat. There are eight 0.0 COSMOS constellations scattered around the map, and each has a particular Booster associated with it
I'm still polishing out the details, but here's roughly what you need to make a Booster
Cytocerin of the right kind
- Needs to be harvested from Gas Clouds using a Gas Cloud Harvester I (or named version) module; found through exploration/COSMOS missions
-- Needs the Gas Cloud Harvesting skill; found through exploration/COSMOS missions and seeded in pirate stations The appropriate reaction
- Needs to be recovered from COSMOS exploration sites
A Biochemical Reactor POS module Some silos
- Still establishing exactly what kinds for what, but you need a silo for each input and one for the output A Booster BPC
- Needs to be recovered from COSMOS exploration sites Either a Drug Lab or an Outpost
- (Probably) needs the Drug Manufacturing skill; found through exploration/COSMOS missions and seeded in pirate stations
Harvest the cytocerin, stick it in a Biochemical reactor hooked up to the correct silos along with the necessary reaction, react it, throw the resulting stuff along with the right BPC into either a Drug Lab or an Outpost, build the Booster. More info as I find it.
MORE INFO
Join the "EXPLORATION" channel ingame
This is full of explorers, who will be only to happy to help you out with questions that aren't covered in this guide. Please do read the guide first though - we're not a helpdesk, and we're not going to make the effort to explain everything from scratch because you're too lazy to read it yourself. I realise this comes across as a little harsh, but it is becoming something of a problem, and there's only so many times you can answer "What probe type do I need for 'Unknown'?" before you snap...
Check out DNightmare's site in the IGB (in-game browser) >
http://www.d-nightmare.de/exploration/This has a whole bunch of cool stuff, including diagrams, videos and even a database of sites that people have found. It's very useful, I recommend checking it out
- The "Trusted Site" thing is needed to make the DB work. If you don't want to trust him, that's fine, just don't visit the site
Summary
You will NEED:
- Astrometrics IV
- Astrometric Acquisition I
You will WANT:
- Covert Ops
- Astrometric Rangefinding
- Astrometric Pinpointing
- Astrometric Acquisition
As high as possible
You will NEED:
- Expanded Launcher I
- A ship that can fit said Launcher (does not require a launcher hardpoint, but does need to be able to handle the CPU load)
- Some probes (see later for exactly which ones you'll want)
You will WANT:
- A Covert Ops ship - the one with the Astrometrics bonus, not the Stealth Bomber variant
- Failing that, a T1 Frigate with the Astrometrics bonus (none for Amarr, sorry)
- A Covert Ops Cloaking Device II for your Covert Ops (for safety in low-sec/0.0)
- A pair of Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I rigs
- Ships and equipment to deal with the sites you find
You will NEED:
- Most likely Combat probes, at least 4 of them
- HAVE FUN!
Credits
Special thanks to the following people:
Joerd Toastius, owner of the original exploration guide
DNightmare, setting up the exploration website and channel, and generally knowing his stuff.
CCP Greyscale, for the updated info about scanning in Apocrypha patch.
CCP, for being under appreciated and giving us these toys to play with
MMM Publishing, for being great guys and putting my picture in print