Exploration

Exploration Guide by Kismeteer

tldr - Exploration can allow a new player to make as much as 60 mil/hour (circa Q1'23).  This involves travelling around dangerous parts of space, such as C1-C3 wormholes and Null sec to find Relic And/Or Data Sites (low and high don't pay). It is recommended you watch some youtube videos on how to position probes, learn the rule of six, and generally learn how people move around space.  Filaments can assist in this migration, with noise filaments being helpful to move to null sec, and Pochven filaments to move back to high sec.  A Heron is the best ship to get started in, but there are other more advanced ships like the sunesis, the Covert Ops ships, and even T3 Cruisers that increase your likelihood of success.

Note, if you were following my Newbie guide, your next step after that is to Join a Corporation 

To prepare

Note, you must complete ALL the career agents before starting this path! :D A new bro will make near 0 when they start exploration but can ramp up quickly as they learn.

Exploration is a REALLY strong way to learn how to play eve and make some isk. What this involves is flying around in a couple exploration specific ships, doing either relic or data sites. You need a couple key skills:

• The ship skills - The Heron has the best combo of mid slots.  The covert ops is usually your next upgrade.   https://www.eveworkbench.com/fitting/heron/f8620a21-1b6a-46d8-ac35-08db27d83d22  

• Scanning skills - Increasing your scanning skills and using a Scan Rangefinding Array I can help you.

• Analyzer - You can use both Data Analyzer (for data sites) or Relic Analyzer (for relic sites). 

• Extra modules - The cargo scanner can help you scan what's inside a wreck before you open it.  Just make sure that cans with garbage, just fail the hack twice to blow the cans before you leave.

Note, you want to consider this life cycle of choices, you should be able to afford at least 4 of one of these, you will die your first couple times:

1. cheap heron.  Same as fit above, but minus the cloak.  Alphas cannot use a cloak!  These cost 2.17 mil (2023 Q1).

2. cheap heron + cloak.   These cost 4.71 mil (2023 Q1).

3. cheap heron + cloak + sisters probes.  These cost 10 mil (2023 Q1).  This gives a huge scan increase.

4. Consider moving to covert ops at that point.  Do not use Sisters Probe Launchers for exploration.

Starting out chars and alphas start out with #1.  and can use a fewer number filaments if you want when you start.  Then you start to use better gear as you move up.

Alphas do have lower skills than omega as well.  These max out at Hacking (Data) 3, Archaeology (Relic) 3, astrometric acquiring/range to 2, astrometrics to 3, caldari frig to 4, spaceship command 4, and evasive 3, navigation 4. none of the rest of your skills matter to exploration really. 

Note, the Astero is a non-starter because of cost, they are REALLY expensive.  And do not rely on getting into a covert ops as a solution, as they can die too.  Especially if they don't fit a interdiction nullifier because they didn't research enough!

Make sure to modify your UI as well.   by hitting 'alt-P' while in space, it brings up the probe scanner and the map.  You can undock the probe scanner results from the map by clicking the box next to the X in the top right corner.  You can also undock the map from the whole screen and shrink it down a smaller amount.  There are buttons at the bottom to view straight down or from the side, or you can just double click on it.   You can do the same thing with the dscan window.  Take a minute making these the correct size!

It's important to have fixed your Overview as well along with your dscan filter appropriately.  Some of the space you enter has a large amount of clutter.  Going in with a default overview can be dangerous, as evidences from the video below.

You have to set safety to 'yellow', it's in the top left of your capacitor.  Note, this can get you to aggress in empire accidently, so be careful with it!

If you plan to use the 'exit' wormholes in pochven, it's a great idea to get positive standings with both triglivian and edencomm beforehand.  In the video below, if I had done this, I would have been fine and 20 jumps from jita. :D  My Null sec ratting guide has an algos fit that can complete this easily and is cheap, but any SOE destroyer will work.

I *HIGHLY* recommend you read the document rather than the video though.  I missed these steps, and you can see the result below.

Why Exploration?

The reason I think it is the strongest way to learn eve is that it teaches you, in a trial by fire, how to do VERY useful things in eve.

1. You learn to transverse hostile or unknown space. You generally fly through null sec or wormholes, looking for sites to do. You have to go through gates that are VERY hot from time to time. Learning how to transverse wormholes makes it easier to move around space. I cannot recommend enough learning how to learn drfiter holes to help with this, as mentioned in a previous tip of the day.

2. You learn when it's safe to do a site. Safe is sometimes dangerous with someone in local but guessing when is important.

3. You accomplish something complicated, quickly, to minimize risk.

4. Get the loot home safe. 😄

There are a lot of good youtube videos out there, though some might be a bit out of date. There are constantly changes to the loot tables as well, and the values of those things. But finding a gila blueprint is a good find, for instance. 😄

To Hack, it's simple: it's minesweeper.  You see a 1?  you have a 'good node' near there, you want to find it.  It can be a subsystem that improves your chances or breaks a node or shields you.   If it's a white node, that's 50/50 good/bad so never use them unless you're hosed.   If you see a 5, that means a good node is very far from you.

Scanning rules

Watch the tutorials in Neocomm (E in the upper right) / Agency / Help Section / Exploration.  This explains most of this in a visual form.

1. Launch probes when you decloak while warping off to a safe/planet/moon.  Cannot launch while gate cloak, cloaked in space, or in warp.

2. Hit alt-p to open probe window, make sure it is separated and shrunk down from your map.  See box in top right corner.  See videos on this.

3. Once your map is shrunk, Double click on a sig to center your map on that sig.  Scan in a big cluster if there are a lot.  All signatures will be 4 AU (some 8) from a planet/moon/sun.  I usually start at 4 to 8 AU.  Note: Most relic/data sites 4 AU red bubble rather than an 8 AU red bubble, easy to filter out possible sites.

4. Double click in the map to focus straight up/down.   Center probes on a sig by grabbing the side of the box directly.

5. Double click again to focus to the side. Move probes again by grabbing side of the box.

6. Double click one last time to make sure you're centered. Move if necessary.

7. Hit B to scan.  Wait.  (Hit V to dscan while waiting.)

8. Alt-scroll wheel to move the range down a notch (or two or three if your ship is good).

9. Go back to Step 3, repeat.

Thanks to xy for these:

Red dot with no sphere around : 4+ probes hit giving you a definitive location of the sig. Be aggressive on your shrinking. Shrink at least one tick, or two ticks if you are confident. 

Two dots connected with a line: 3 probes hit, sig is at either one of the dots. The one further away is usually the true result. Do not however shrink aggressively on this one. Your probes, when centered, should cover half or more (not less) of the connecting line.

Red dot with 2D circle: 2 probes hit, sig is somewhere along the dotted circle. Center probe, probe range should **completely** cover the circle. Usually comes down to 4au or 8au

Red sphere: 1 probe hit. Sig is somewhere within the sphere. Do not shrink. Center probe and scan again.

Where to go and what to do

To use these, you have three options:

• High sec/low sec. This is just training on how to run them with almost no risk. These don't pay very well, more like 3 mil an hour vs 60 mil an hour in null/wh.

• Wormholes. Class 1 through Class 3 (look for Regions starting at A through C) in wormholes have a higher chance of good sites spawning for you.

• Null sec. Using a noise filament to throw you into random null sec space. Empty null sec is VERY empty. Some space is much stronger than another, or might be more or less busy.  START IN NULLSEC

You can EASILY identify C1-C3 wormholes through this message on the 'show info':  "This wormhole seems to lead into Unknown parts of space."  

So the usual cycle is to use a noise filament, look on the agency in game for sites. You learn which space is good and which is bad, for instance rogue drone space doesn't have relic sites.  While you explore, you find wormholes that could lead to null or low sec. Dumping your loot to low or high is a good idea, and just plan to pick it up later.  Offloading your loot prevents you from having a major loss.  You also want to make sure you have local open in a separate long window so you can see when systems fill up with people.

Once you get out into Null sec, go to Agency | Navigation | Cosmic Signatures and it shows you all nearby systems with a bunch of Cosmic Signatures.  All have potential to be data/relic sites.

See below for which sites you can run, considered 'safe'.  You can later take on the 'unsafe' spots.  Just search for the site name in google.

A low end ship costs you a mil or two, and the career agents give you starting ships for this journey.  The modules don't cost very much.  You then want to get your loot exfiltrated to a Trade hub to sell for best price, I recommend Jita (And possibly Amarr.)

Note, NEVER autopilot, you will get ganked in empire, killed in low sec, it's WAY too easy to track you to another gate and try again too.  Any ship with more than 10 mil it's hold will die.

Bookmarks are your friends

When in doubt, get to a safe spot, wait out your aggression timer, a red spinning wheel in the top left corner.  You cannot use a filament unless you have no aggression.

You can wait out this timer at a 'safe spot'.   To make a safe spot, you warp to a moon mining spot, and while in warp, you hit control-B to start making a bookmark, give it a name, and then hit enter when you want it to be 'saved'.  You can have your same probe window open to see where you have bookmarks in system.  You can also use these mechanisms to scout gates on the inside, and if someone tries to catch you on the far side of the gate, just burn back to gate as quick as possible. Using d-scan aimed at a gate after warping to a nearby moon works well to check it.

When you're in a bookmarked safe, you CAN be scanned down.  But you can see combat probes by hitting 'v' which shows you the dscan of all ships and objects around you.   If you see combat probes, you have to be bouncing safes, warping to new things and hitting control-b and hitting enter several times.

To manage your bookmarks, Hit 'L' in game and it will open locations.  There is a button to 'pop out' the locations as well, making it easier to see what you have bookmarked in system.  Hitting enter picks a default name, I recommend renaming everything ASAP.   I use the following naming:

• XX MJ-5 300k UP  - This is a bookmark 300 km above the MJ-5 gate in your current system.

• ss MJ-5  - This is a safe NEAR MJ-5, so you'll be in dscan

• UD Station VII-5 - This is the insta undock from Station at planet 7, moon 5

• DOCK Station VII-5 - This is a bookmark right on top of the station.

• WH AJI to low (LS)- This is wormhole signature AJI to low sec that can take large ships (That you have not scouted yet)

• WH AJI to Uemon (LS) - Same wormhole after you find out it goes to Uemon system.

• WH JIM to C5 (VLS) - Wormhole signature JIM-512 to a class 5 (Dangerous Unknown) with a size of Very Large Ships

• WH JIM to C5 (EOL) - End of life wormhole that shouldn't be used because it can collapse.  EOL means 0 to 4 hours left in it.

Always always always bookmark your position when you first come into a system with a wormhole.  So you don't lose it. Control-b and hitting enter is easy.

Using Filaments

To use a filament, you need to have

• No aggression.  It will be ticking down in the top right corner if a player attacked you or you used one.  It takes 15 minutes to lose aggression.

• It needs to be in your cargohold, unstacked with other filaments.

• You need to form a fleet of just who is going with you, ie just yourself.   Neocom | Social | Fleet, and drag that fleet button onto the bar on the left.

• Everyone in the fleet needs to have safety set to yellow.  It's just to the top left of the capacitor.

• You need to be 1,000 km away from a structure.  Warp to a planet at range, hit control-b and hit enter mid warp, and warp back to make a safe spot.

• Each jump gives you 15 minute aggression, so 15 minutes till your next filament.

• To use, you right click on the filament in your cargo, activate it.

Then you need to figure out where you are going.  There are a lot of filaments and they go different places.

• Abyssal Filaments - These don't take you anywhere, these are for doing Abyssals space PVE content.  5 weather types and intensities

• Jump Filaments - aka Needlejacks.  Goes to Null sec. Comes in 5, 15, 25 fleet members varients. Exploration uses 5's.

  • Noise - Random null sec location.  Great for finding a nice quiet spot of eve. Might take a few to find someplace good to do exploration.

  • Signal - 'space with players' null sec location.  Usually seems to focus on ratters, takes you to two jumps for someone ratting.  Good for large groups to get back to your ansi network.

• Pochven filaments inbound - used for entering pochven, comes in 5,15 fleet sizes.  Takes you inside the 'Triangle' of pochven.

  • Border - Takes you to the borders of the triangles, good for exfil to jita.

  • Home - Takes you to home of the focus of the triangles, CAN be hard to exit the gates due to standings!

  • Claidistic - Takes you near the edges of the triangle, 3 variations depending on the home.

  • Internal - Along the edges of triangle.

• Pochven filaments outbound - Used for leaving pochven back to high sec.  Comes in 1, 5, 15 fleet sizes.

  • Glorification 'Devana' - Used for exiting at a random system near the old pochven gates, very random, but the -1 is super cheap.

  • Proximity 'Extraction' - Used for going to very specific systems, math below here.

So the usual route that explorers take:

Noise-5 filament  -> explore -> find loot -> find a wormhole to high sec!

Noise-5 filament -> explore -> find loot -> Pochven inbound (internal) -> Pochven outbound (Glorification-1)

Noise-5 filament -> BAD REGION -> Noise-5 filament -> Null sec block home! -> dead

Noise-5 filament -> Explore -> find loot -> signal-5 filament -> travel jump gates home!

Note, some people don't care for drone regions because there are no relic sites, but the data sites can more than make up for it.  https://evemaps.dotlan.net/region has what region has what rats.  If you're not finding anything, just filament to another region that is less busy/hostile.

Asset Safety

At any point, you feel 'oh god I'm going to die here', you can asset safety your stuff.  This will evac your stuff to low sec.

You find a hostile citadel, astra, fortizar, etc.   You warp to it.  Open up cargo hold.  Dump stuff in.  Congrats, it is now safe.

It will then take 5 days to work it's way through asset safety freeze.  Then 20 days to move to the nearest low sec site.

If you use sister probes, make SURE to unload your launcher and dump it as well. heh

Can read more about evacing it under my Asset Safety 

Exploration ships

The heron is the best for the low end ships.  It has 5 mids, so it's why it is used.  But any exploration ship can be used, can fit yours similar to these, maybe adjust the mids.  

The next upgrade would be the buzzard or other covops ships.  These are cheap.

There are other options to do exploration, but most are too expensive to risk.

The Astero is good for hunting other exploration ships and exploring.  Sadly, very expensive.

The T3Cs like the tengu, loki, legion, proteus are good for hunting other explorers as well.  Dropping in price but not great at doing exploration.

The sunesis can be good but isn't much better than the heron other than the tank and cargo space.  More expensive at 21 mil Q3 2024  https://janice.e-351.com/a/ZNVhwE 

The Metamorpsis could be worth it, but can be very variable priced. 53 mil Q3 2024 https://janice.e-351.com/a/BYPalp 

Once you hit around 85 scan strength, you can find like 90% of sigs, and at 104, you can find nearly everything.   114 or so is I think the top end you need, and past that, it doesn't matter that much, other than doing 3 clicks down instead of 2.

Do not overbling your heron, or you end up with very silly loss mails like this: https://zkillboard.com/kill/108656303/

I've listed my recommended fits below, thanks to the EveO community for these ideas.

Cheap Heron

You can copy this fit, from the heron to the Noise line, and there is an import button in the fitting window to buy this fit exactly.   I recommend finding the cheapest pochven filament as well, any of them work.

You cannot use civilian data and relic analyzers, you must use at least a T1 one.

Note, you can upgrade any of the modules on these to match your budget and skills.   Can drop an expanded probe launcher to a core one.  Ship fitting can help you.  If you run out of CPU, move to a Meta Modules.   You can change the cargo scanner to a Scan Acquiring Array I for faster probing instead of cherry picking cans.

[Heron, Eveo Heron 1.0]

Type-D Restrained Nanofiber Structure

Type-D Restrained Nanofiber Structure

Data Analyzer I

Relic Analyzer I

Scan Rangefinding Array I

Type-E Enduring Cargo Scanner

5MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive

Core Probe Launcher I

Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I

Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I

Hobgoblin I x6

Core Scanner Probe I x16

Cladistic-5 'Krai Perun' Filament x1

Glorification-1 'Devana' Filament x1

Noise-5 'Needlejack' Filament x5

Needlejack gets you out to null, the Pochven filament gets you into pochven to evac your loot, and the devana gets you to regular space.

Note, Alpha's cannot use the cloak, so removed it from this one.

Pandemic Horde exploration

I decided to do a Pandemic Horde specific section.

Horde characters operate SLIGHTLY differently.   They have complicated maps to know where they can and cannot rat.  https://www.pandemic-horde.org/forum/index.php?threads/horde-isk-making-rules-areas-and-industry-areas-v-2-0.3738/ has those maps, and there is a more simple version google sheet available as well on requrest in channel.  You can only rat/explore in your designated areas, cannot use friendly space, etc.   So you have to go further afield.

Pandemic Horde Inc is 'non-gated', meaning you cannot do activities in 'gated' space or allied or rental space.  This gate is if someone has checked your ESIs, saying "We don't think he's a spy".  It's 64 systems for non-gated and 163 systems gated, so a bit of space.  But the exploration options might be heavily picked over.  You cannot do exploration in our renter or allied space though, which is like 6 regions that are blocked off for you.

So you use filaments, might get thrown to horde space.  You can find easy wormholes added to standing fleet to find a push towards an area.  You can easily just burn using the jump bridge networks beyond our space towards insmother and venal.   You can use thera holes.

I cannot overstate how helpful the jump bridge network is to move VERY quickly.   What was 25 jumps can be 6 jumps.

So, being in horde, you have a major advantage in evacing loot.  If you are carrying 3 Signal-5 'Needlejack' Filament filaments, you will have a GREAT chance to being our 'radar cup' of our jump bridges if you're done for the day.  I have landed 3 off MJ-5 regularly using these. Didn't work? wait the fifteen minutes and do another.

Have questions about this further, ask in #newbeans.  We almost always have bitter vets with yellow names answering questions.

Caretaking class on exploration

@everyone Come learn Exploration!  This is the best money in the game for any low skill point character, around 60 mil an hour for alpha characters.

Exploration 101 is starting now!

FC: Kismeteer

Formup:  MJ-5F9 - B E A N S T A R (Pandemic Horde Hld.) 

Fleet Name: Exploration 101

Comms: Newbeans -> NBI - Classroom 1

Copy this URL and paste to a browser if you're new to Mumble. mumble://mumble.pandemic-horde.org:41001/Newbeans/NBI%20-%20Classroom%201?title=Horde%20Mumble%20Server&version=1.2.0

Can ask questions in game under Newbeans if you're struggling to join

https://www.wckg.net/PVE/exploration If you can't join

---

find system with wormholes

System map

agency window

heron fittings

1. Hacking on athanor

2. Hacking on Fortizar

3. Hacking on keepstar

4. Probing an anomoly

5.  Data site vs relic versus gas

6. safe siters

7. filaments

8. getting home

The Rewards

I will just give some ideas on this.   We regularly have newbies make their first 20-30 mil on their first run, nearly tripling their wallet.  If you have success stories, please give me them. :D

Azur Sklor — Today at 2:32 PM

A two week old player:

Fayawizard: yeah i just did a 1 hour null sec run and got 180 mil

Exploration is such an easy way to get isk it took me like 5-6 runs to get 500 mil

After the first few you learn how to avoid other players and from there it’s relatively smooth sailing

Josh Prior Prior: bruh, I just got one of these (https://everef.net/type/33548) from a data site can, it only costs 250 mil to produce and sells in jita for 4.5 billion hahahaha

sample low sec relic site: 8 mil https://janice.e-351.com/a/bkAu4K (Genesis space)

sample low sec data site: 17.6 mil https://janice.e-351.com/a/f3aJCh (Genesis, same system) 

Null sec can have more valuable stuff.