High sec exploration (advanced)

High sec exploration – basics

You will need the following to start:

• +50% scan strength obtained through skills/implants or sister probes/launcher
• the right ship for good rats (more on that later)
• investing lots of money to the ships
• and use the maps http://evemaps.dotlan.net/

There are 5 types of sites:

• Gravimetric (asteroids): skip them
• Ladar (gas): skip them
• Magnetometric (arch/salvage): if it's in Gurista or Gallente space skip it, in other spaces do if you are bored
• Radar(hacking): You should always do it. With the 50% extra strength you will scan down all but one radar site, but that's enough
• Unknown (combat sites and WHs): if it's a drone site or Wormhole skip it, more details about the others later

There are 5 zones: Gurista, Serpentis, Angel, Blood Raider and Sansha. Each zone requires different ships. If you want to be effective use the ship for that specific zone. More details about that later.

The ground rules you should follow:

• It's high sec, so you can not shoot competition
• You need to be faster then the competition so you have higher chances with better ships
• If someone is already on that combat site and you see that you can be faster, go for it
• Always do the expeditions
• Anomalies can spawn faction rats and/or escalate to DED site, only do it if you are really bored, since the payoff at those sites are insignificant
• You will often find nothing, but be persistent

Combat sites

Combat sites can be DED site or a standard combat site. DED site offers deadspace loot (Pith C-type Medium Shield booster for example), while the combat site can give faction loot or maybe even a faction ship BPC.

Combat sites that spawn in high sec are pretty much the same types in every zones except for DED ones, which are different at each pirates. In high sec you can find DED3 and DED4.

Regular combat sites are separated into 4 categories (I'll talk about loot in pirate specific zones):

• Hideout: the smallest site and it's escalation goes through high sec till the end. Does not have overseer.
• Lookout: small site, often can yield good rewards if it escalate till the end, last part can be in low sec. Does not have overseer.
• Watch: medium site, read the description window when you warp there, to find out about what will unlock the 1st gate and what is the trigger in the last room to spawn overseer.
• Vigil: the big site, read the pop up window when you warp to site, for info about the 1st gate unlock mechanism and overseer trigger in the last room. When this site escalates it has cruiser sized faction spawns unlike other sites. That means it has a chance to drop faction cruiser BPC.

Gurista space

I use the following ship:

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Image:Tengu_-_Gurista_fit.jpg

A Cerberus can also be used instead of the Tengu. As you can see this fit has quite a heavy tank. I do it with this ship, since you can hit the trigger to get to the last room quickly. For example: in Watch you need to hit the communication officer to spawn the next wave, hit it again until you get the commander and then destroy him to unlock the gate. If that commander has loot, BM the wreck and come back later to pick up the loot. I do not bother with salvage. Its a waste of time.

Good thing about the guristas is that the faction spawn can drop implants which are worth decent amount of money (up to 200 mill for omega). With this ship you will be able to do all the sites except the Lookout. It's worth of doing it because of the escalations that usually have faction spawn at each step. In regular combat sites the best money comes from the escalations. Gurista Lookout is worth doing too, since the people are exploring Gurista zone in cruiser sized ships, so they skip Lookout which has frigate sized restrictions. Just bookmark the lookouts until you find a few or finish scanning and come back later and do them in frigate. Reason for this is that escalation from the Lookout can lead you to Pithi A-type small shield booster at the end which is worth 500-550 mill.

Guristas have a DED4 site. This is a very popular site, since it gives instant loot which can be worth 350 mill (shield booster). Now here comes the “be faster then others” part. If someone is already there, be faster then him and get the loot before he can outdamage you on the loot structure so the can is yours. In first room you will see the commander spawn which drops overseer effects aka box. It has a chance for higher meta items drop, so its good to loot it on the way to the next gate. While flying there first kill the jammer frigates and then rest. When all is cleared the gate is unlocked. In the second room you will see some satelite structure. This one contains loot and not the commander spawn. So basically rush to the building while tanking everything and keep shooting it. Blow it up fast and loot it.

Serpentis space

For this zone I use this ship:

Cynabal:

4x 425mm AC II

Sisters Core Probe Launcher

3x Large Shield Extender

1x Corelum C-Type 10MN Afterburner

Codebreaker II

2x Tracking Enhancer II

3x Gyrostabilizer II

3x Medium Core Defence Field Extender I

5x Hammerhead II

Cynabal is a very fast and agile ship with great dmg output. I use a buffer tank and it works nice. Serpentis are similar to the Guristas when it comes to implants that they can drop and their worthless salvage. So the combat sites are still all about expeditions and faction spawns. Unlike Guristas, Serpentis Lookout allows cruiser sized ships but Hideout does not. It's a worthless site so you do not miss much skipping it.

Serpentis have a DED3 and a DED4. DED3 has many rooms and lots of frigates and some cruisers, nothing hard to do in a Cynabal. As for loot: it drops a-type small sized items. Good drops are worth around 40-50 mill, but there are 4 different good drops so overall its a good site.

DED4 is a bit tricky. The first room is empty and when you warp in to the second there is a single BS overseer and then lots of cruisers and frigates spawn 2 sec later. Now you need to take out the frigates 1st and then cruisers and BCs from a range while speed tanking. They mainly have blasters, so getting close means getting more damage. You can swap codebreaker for 4th extender, if you are not confident enough. The trick is to go around them, try to not bumping into things and maintain full speed. A bit of practice and it'll be fine. After you taken out enough ships, go after the BS in low orbit. He won't be able to hit you. This BS has high tank, so you will need to send drones on him too. After it blows up, loot it and BM if you want to salvage it later. It's a T2 ship after all. You can get nice C-type loot here. The good pieces are worth 100-150mill and there are AB, MWD and adaptive plate, so if you are lucky you can get all the 3 in the same wreck, netting profit up to 350 mill.

Angel space

The Angels are a bit specific. They do not have DED sites at all and actually one of the best sites they have is Lookout, due to its expedition and great loot. Lookout is limited to frigates, so I am using the following ship:

Dramiel:

2x 200mm AC II

Sisters Core Probe Launcher

Shield Boost Amplifier I

Codebreaker II

Gistii A-Type 1MN Afterburner

Gistii C-Type SMall Shield Booster

2x Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Tracking Enhancer

Small Projectile Ambit Extension I

Small Auxiliary Thrusters I

Small Projectile Metastasis Adjuster I

Dramiels have a very high speed tank. Make sure you buy Angel Silver tags in Jita (50k a piece), and carry them in the cargo. This ship can do all the Angel except Vigil, since Vigil has 2 stasis towers. Watch is a medium sized site, so here is where tags come into play. When you get to first room use the gate which will consume the tag and go to the last room. Shoot the Gallente design building there, which will trigger the overseer at 100km range, go and kill it, then keep fingers crossed for an expedition. The angels are all about expeditions. Last parts of the expeditions yields profit, since domination stuff and implants are not worth much at all. Last part of expeditions, except Hideout, can give small a-type loot (AB – 70mill, MWD 60 mill, Shield Booster 250-300mill). Even the hideout can drop c-type loot which is worth 20-30mill a piece. Since all of this is in high sec it's good.

(I don't want to edit Sekki's words, however Lookouts allow cruisers and battlecruisers, only the Guristas one doesn't. -Larton)

Sansha space

For Sanshas I use the following ship:

[Wolf, Exploration]

Centii C-Type Small Armor Repairer

Armor EM Hardener II

Armor Thermic Hardener II

Capacitor Power Relay II

1MN Afterburner II

Cap Recharger II

250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S

250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S

250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S

250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S

[empty high slot]

Small Capacitor Control Circuit I

Small Capacitor Control Circuit I

This has an insane tank against Sansha and can be also used for Bloods. The Artillery is for in The Sansha Vigil, You'll get webbed and some frigates orbit outside Autocannon Range. Sansha can put out some impressive dps in the higher-level exploration sites. The above Wolf fit can run every site in high-sec. When running the Sansha Vigil the key is to blitz the first room while keeping your speed up. In the second room, go straight for the Web tower and bring it down, then snipe off the Webber drones. After that just keep your speed up and bring down the overseer, loot and repeat. Sansha Radars are worth less then others, and mags can surprise you with intact plates (18 mill a piece).

Blood Raiders space

Blood Raiders are similar to Sanshas loot wise. Main difference is that they have DED4 instead of DED3 like Sanshas and DED4s are good money. Sansha do high damage at close range, while Raiders do less dmg, but they drain cap that can be really deadly. I use the following ship for them:

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Image:Legion_-_Current_scan.jpg

Overcapping is necessary for Bloods, in order to avoid sniping and keeping ships at range, which slows down sites. As you can see my ship is heavily overcapped. That removes the need to snipe targets and makes you pretty much immune to cap drains. This is all for DED4 sites which are the best you can find there. Blood DED4 is different from the others. First room is easy, it has some ships and turrets. Just kill the ships, loot the commander like always, and proceed to next room. Now you will see tons of turrets, 6 stasis towers and lots of cruisers. Loot is in the building in the middle. If you are not careful things can turn deadly really fast. What I do here is target the nearest stasis tower and shoot it. This agroes most of the cruisers and 1 group of turrets. At that point I stop and shoot the incoming cruisers with Scorch crystals. They come inside 15km range quite fast and drain your cap. All of the cruisers drain cap, so if you are not overcapped it can turn nasty. At that point I switch to imperial multies and finish them off fast. Then switch back to Scorch and start moving toward the building and destroy the stasis towers on they way, destroy the building and loot it, while taking heavy beating. It can drop Corpum C-type medium loot. There can be a repper and an energized adaptive plate that both are good. Each are worth 100-140 mill.

Final notes

• All those fits are with my skills, which are not maxed

• You can use cheaper mods then mine, it should work fine. These fits are there, just to give you an idea how to do it and what you need.

• Use maps (http://evemaps.dotlan.net/ ), explore systems that are off the trade routes. If you only find wormholes and gravs in several systems, switch to other regions, since most likely someone has already scanned that part.

• Use eveeye IPS (http://eveeye.com/ ) to determine sites and loot possible in the solarsystem you are in (example).

• Do the Radars. While scanning for big payoff sites, the Radars will earn you 50-100 mill in the meantime without you noticing it.

• Leave the scanning ship where you stopped scanning. Buy a T1 frigate in the system and use it to return to the base with the loot. Do not use the scanning ship for that. Using a shuttle on autopilot to get back to the scanning ship is a good idea

• Switch regions and zones often. Scanning the same space every day will bring you much less profit.

• Be persistent, you will often get very little from the sites.

• Try to get trough the site fast, hit the trigger and proceed to kill overseer. If you want salvage, better go do missions.

• Use frigate for the last part of the Lookout expedition in low sec, its fast and hard to scan down.

• Use a passive shield drake for the last part of the Watch/Vigil expeditions in low sec. Make sure you insure it. Also make sure that it is fully passive for Bloods (cap drain) and it has specific tank for the site.

--Sekki Shin 13:26, 22 April 2010 (UTC)