School of Exploration
| New Players | PVE | PVP | Exploration | Industry |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Newbee Survival School | PVE School | PVP School | School of Exploration | Industry School |
How to Scan
Launch your probes, it is worth noting that after launching you can cloak up if your ship has a cloak fitted - but bare in mind your probes will still appear on DScan You need to discount your own fleet (not needed if you’re alone), click “center formation on current ship” and set scan distance to 0.5AU - then scan and ignore all ships that appear on the results. (make sure the filter is set to ships only)
Launch the spread formation at 16AU and scan from the centre of the solar system, you can reduce or increase the size based on the solar system, but 16AU will cover most.
When you have a signature, click on it to show the sphere or a circle. The ship is somewhere within the sphere. Drag your cube onto the X in the centre, making sure you two this on both the x and y axis.
- A red sphere means that only a single probe has the target within its range. As such the ship is somewhere on the SURFACE of where the target is.
- A red circle means that two probes have the target within their range. The ship is somewhere on the line.
- A red dot is where atleast three probes have detected the target, the ship will be within several AU of this red dot.
Your goal now is to get a red dot, if you haven’t already. Change to a pinpoint formation and set the distance so that the entire sphere or circle is within it, and scan again.You should now have a red dot.
You should now have your target, if you don’t then your skills might be lacking, you can make up for this by manually moving your probes, you can do this by holding shift and getting your probes as on top of each other as possible - you should save this custom formation, as it will come in handy in the future.
- If you still can’t get the target, then your skills and/or ship just need improving first. Smaller targets are harder to probe down than larger ones and will take longer / will need better skills.
- The ease or difficulty in probing down a ship depends on two factors. It’s Sensor Strength and it’s Signature Radius - Remember, you won’t catch everything and this is ok.
Sites
Relic and data sites are types of cosmic signatures that can be found with probing. It should be noted that relic and data sites are categorized into 5 differnt types and 5 different levels of difficulty, ranging from I to V. While a ship that is not bonus-ed to scanning can scan down a level I cosmic signature, even exploration-focused ships and fittings may struggle with level V sites.
Pirate Relic and Data Sites
Pirate relic and data sites can be found in all normal space regions, in C1, C2 and C3 class wormhole systems, as well as in shattered wormhole systems. There are pockets of space populated with a variety of cosmic structures (i.e., wrecked stations, abandoned machines) and several containers that need to be hacked before the contents can be accessed. The sites do not have any triggers or NPC defenders. Pirate relic sites contain T1 and T2 salvage materials, skill books and blueprint copies. Pirate data sites contain decryptors, data cores, skill books, blueprint copies and manufacturing materials. The contents may vary by faction.
Drone data sites
Drone data sites spawn only in drone regions: Cobalt Edge, Perrigen Falls, Malpais, Oasa, Kalevala Expanse, Outer Passage, Etherium Reach, and The Spire. Drone data sites contain three hackable containers: Two "High-Security Containment Facility" and one "Research and Development Laboratories". Most of the time the lone research container is empty but leaving it unhacked misses possibility for data site escalation.
Drone data sites contain drone components and blueprint copies for ' Integrated' and 'Augmented' drones. Each drone region drop blueprint copies for different racial drones: Kalevala Expanse and The Spire for Minmatar, Malpais and Oasa for Caldari, Etherium Reach and Perrigen Falls for Gallente and finally Outer Passage and Cobalt Edge for Amarr.
Drone data sites have two main differences from pirate data sites:
- Failing the hack twice in drone data site will not destroy the container. Instead, there is a chance that failure spawns hostile frigates. These rogue drones can be easily handled by the drones of T1 explorer and do not pose a serious threat. These frigates need to be destroyed before you can hack again.
- Drone data sites can escalate into another drone data site.
Ghost sites
Ghost sites are data sites with limited time and riskier failures. They can be identified from "Covert Research Facility" on their name.
The sites have an invisible time limit after which strong NPC force will arrive, blow up remaining containers and attack the pilot on-site. The hacks are also riskier as single failure will cause the container to explode dealing 4000–6000 raw explosive damage to 10 km radius.
Ghost sites contain Covert Research Tools, Villard Wheels, blueprint copies for 'Packrat' and 'Magpie' Mobile Tractor Units, ‘Wetu’ and ‘Yurt’ Mobile Depots and Ascendancy implants.
Sleeper caches
Sleeper caches are gated deadspace pockets with size limits for entry. Each sleeper cache has its own set of dangers. They contain a mixture of containers with damaging explosions on a failed hack, timed triggers, hazardous clouds, proximity explosions and sentry guns. For details see the page for individual sleeper cache.
Sleeper caches contain sleeper components, manufacturing materials, skill books and blueprint copies for polarized weapons.
Sleeper caches are data sites with various triggers and dangers. They are significantly more difficult than pirate data sites. Sleeper caches spawn in normal space and do not spawn in wormholes even though the sleeper connection would imply the opposite; they are not to be confused with the Forgotten Sleeper sites, which function more like combat sites.
The Sleeper Caches from easiest to hardest are:
- Limited Sleeper Cache Level IV scanning difficulty
- Standard Sleeper Cache Level IV scanning difficulty
- Superior Sleeper Cache Level V scanning difficulty
Sleeper sites
Sleeper relic and data sites are found in wormholes. They are not empty, instead, they have strong sleepers defending the site that need to be defeated before hacking.
Sleeper relic and data sites can be identified from "Forgotten" and "Unsecured" at the beginning of their names. The combat in them is harder than in combat anomalies of same wormhole class and the rats drop sleeper components as they do in combat sites. They can be run as combat sites only looting the wrecks and ignoring the hacking part.
