Newest part of the "How can I get some ISK?" series: exploration.
Advantages:
- it's random. I mean it is not boring. No AFK mining, no repeating the same ten missions again and again.
- it can generate a lot of ISK. Since the randomness you won't be able to plan the income as you can by missionrunning or mining.
Disadvantage:
- it's random. It is highly possible that after reading this guide you will fit an explorer ship, do some scanning and the income will be only 100.000 ISKs. And you will think: "It sucks!" Yes. Some may think, fishing sucks. But if you catch the fish...
Needed hardware
- T1 scanning frigate.
- Expanded Probe Launcher I
- Salvager I. For Magneto sites.
- Codebreaker I. For Radar sites.
- Analyzer I. For Magneto sites.
- Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I. Must have and cheap rigs. Helps faster scanning.
- Drones. To kill NPCs.
What to do?
- warp to sun. You can start right at the station but its better to drop the first probe right on the center of a system. And the sun is the center.
- drop one probe, open scanning menu, set scanning distance to 32 AUs. Click on scan.
- open map. There is an Open Map button on scanning interface.
- you will get a result like this:
Cosmic anomalies
With Cosmic anomalies you don't need to scan more, bookmark them and come back with your combat ship to kick ass then loot (found a 142,000,000 ISK implant in one of those wrecks) and salvage. After each bookmarked put them on the ignore list so they will be removed from the seen list.
Cosmic signatures
You have to drop more probes to make the signal strength 100%. 5 probes. 4 is not enough. So Astrometrics lvl2 is a must.
You can move the probes using the arrows. You can move all drones at the same time holding down the Shift key.
Position the drones this way:
The central probe should be right on the point you need to locate. If it is not a point but a sphere or circle make sure the whole speher or circle is in the central probe radius.
As you can see on the image the scanning radius of the additional probes is the double of the central radius.
After scanning the signature will change position. Reposition the probes then reduce the scanning radii to the half.
Repeat until you get a 100% signal strength.
Bookmark the signature then put it into ignore list.
If it is a Magnetometric or Radar site you should warp to there immediately. You could handle them easily with the above fitted scanner frigate. And since there can be other explorers in the system, you should hurry.
Your only weapons are the drones (since the high slots for probe launcher and salvager) so the slave-holders... amarrians have disadvantage. T2 drones easily rip apart the NPCs.
Magneto sites usual drop: blueprint copies, salvage goods, including Intact Armor Plates 40.000.000 ISK... It is said that in the wrecks you can find guardian drones or traps.
Radar sites usual drop: manufacturing related stuff. A few million ISKs each... Don't forget to loot and salvage the defender NPCs.
Four other Signatures can be scanned:
- Gravimetric: hidden asteroid belt. I don't like mining so I just ignore those.
- Ladar: gas cloud, never seen one so I am not an authentic source about this kind. It's an another kind of mining.
- Unknown-Combat site: complex. Bounty, loot and salvage. In high sec it is possible the acceleration gates have ship restriction so you have to have a smaller ship capable to fight. In my opinion those are not worth the time to get in. But maybe I did not have luck yet.
- Unknown-Wormhole: obvious. Wormhole to an another system. Maybe with deadly Sleeper sites. When I am working on ISK-making (always) I just ignore wormholes.
One important part: choosing the system.
The less people are on local the best. Nobody likes concurrency. If you are the one and only explorer in the system, then all site is yours.
There is an another important parameter of the system: the pirate NPCs you find in. Every system has specific pirate presence. Use this site.
I prefer systems where Sanshas are the local pirate faction since salvagng them gives Armor plates (200,000+ ISK each).
It happens that during a combat encounter you catch a signal which "leads to another complex in another system". You will be able to find this new site in your Journal, under the Expeditions tab. Doing this "missions" is highly recommended since they often drop faction items. I found one of this kind and it dropped me a useless (and unsellable) piece of shit faction item.
Advantages:
- it's random. I mean it is not boring. No AFK mining, no repeating the same ten missions again and again.
- it can generate a lot of ISK. Since the randomness you won't be able to plan the income as you can by missionrunning or mining.
Disadvantage:
- it's random. It is highly possible that after reading this guide you will fit an explorer ship, do some scanning and the income will be only 100.000 ISKs. And you will think: "It sucks!" Yes. Some may think, fishing sucks. But if you catch the fish...
Needed hardware
- T1 scanning frigate.
- Expanded Probe Launcher I
- Salvager I. For Magneto sites.
- Codebreaker I. For Radar sites.
- Analyzer I. For Magneto sites.
- Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I. Must have and cheap rigs. Helps faster scanning.
- Drones. To kill NPCs.
What to do?
- warp to sun. You can start right at the station but its better to drop the first probe right on the center of a system. And the sun is the center.
- drop one probe, open scanning menu, set scanning distance to 32 AUs. Click on scan.
- open map. There is an Open Map button on scanning interface.
- you will get a result like this:
Cosmic anomalies
With Cosmic anomalies you don't need to scan more, bookmark them and come back with your combat ship to kick ass then loot (found a 142,000,000 ISK implant in one of those wrecks) and salvage. After each bookmarked put them on the ignore list so they will be removed from the seen list.
Cosmic signatures
You have to drop more probes to make the signal strength 100%. 5 probes. 4 is not enough. So Astrometrics lvl2 is a must.
You can move the probes using the arrows. You can move all drones at the same time holding down the Shift key.
Position the drones this way:
The central probe should be right on the point you need to locate. If it is not a point but a sphere or circle make sure the whole speher or circle is in the central probe radius.
As you can see on the image the scanning radius of the additional probes is the double of the central radius.
After scanning the signature will change position. Reposition the probes then reduce the scanning radii to the half.
Repeat until you get a 100% signal strength.
Bookmark the signature then put it into ignore list.
If it is a Magnetometric or Radar site you should warp to there immediately. You could handle them easily with the above fitted scanner frigate. And since there can be other explorers in the system, you should hurry.
Your only weapons are the drones (since the high slots for probe launcher and salvager) so the slave-holders... amarrians have disadvantage. T2 drones easily rip apart the NPCs.
Magneto sites usual drop: blueprint copies, salvage goods, including Intact Armor Plates 40.000.000 ISK... It is said that in the wrecks you can find guardian drones or traps.
Radar sites usual drop: manufacturing related stuff. A few million ISKs each... Don't forget to loot and salvage the defender NPCs.
Four other Signatures can be scanned:
- Gravimetric: hidden asteroid belt. I don't like mining so I just ignore those.
- Ladar: gas cloud, never seen one so I am not an authentic source about this kind. It's an another kind of mining.
- Unknown-Combat site: complex. Bounty, loot and salvage. In high sec it is possible the acceleration gates have ship restriction so you have to have a smaller ship capable to fight. In my opinion those are not worth the time to get in. But maybe I did not have luck yet.
- Unknown-Wormhole: obvious. Wormhole to an another system. Maybe with deadly Sleeper sites. When I am working on ISK-making (always) I just ignore wormholes.
One important part: choosing the system.
The less people are on local the best. Nobody likes concurrency. If you are the one and only explorer in the system, then all site is yours.
There is an another important parameter of the system: the pirate NPCs you find in. Every system has specific pirate presence. Use this site.
I prefer systems where Sanshas are the local pirate faction since salvagng them gives Armor plates (200,000+ ISK each).
It happens that during a combat encounter you catch a signal which "leads to another complex in another system". You will be able to find this new site in your Journal, under the Expeditions tab. Doing this "missions" is highly recommended since they often drop faction items. I found one of this kind and it dropped me a useless (and unsellable) piece of shit faction item.
