Guide – Exploration in Eve Online
2010 - 1 - 29In the old probing system it was fairly easy to take a group out in a gang; show them how to use the scanner, and how/where to place probes then walk them through the process of finding a site.
That kind of hands on instruction going to be a lot more difficult with this new system. The base scan time is now 10 seconds, and the same type of probes are now able to find any type of exploration site, but you must guide each individual probe to the site manually and use multiple probes to quadlaterate a result.
As a result, some aspects of the system require you to actually see how things are done on the screen, so it takes a certain degree of skill for the player, not just the character to get probing to work.
The following is a basic primer for the new probing system, I have included screen shots and other visual aids where possible because this system is very visually oriented. This is a work in progress, and I hope to include feed back given to me to improve it over time.
In order to get started with exploration it is handy to have these basic skills:
Astrometrics (rank 3) 4-5: I for Core Probe Launcher and all Scan Probes, II for Expanded Probe Launcher, III for Quest (40 min Moon survey) and Discovery Probes (10 min Moon survey), IV is the prerequisite for the supporting skills, and should be the baseline. V for Deep Space Probes and Gaze Discovery Probes (5 min Moon survey).
Astrometric Pinpointing (rank 5) 2-4: Reduces maximum scan deviation by 10% per level — This skill s useful especially in the early phase of finding a signal, my method of probing tries very hard to alleviate the issue of deviation by getting to 100% signal strength before trying to pinpoint the location. Technically you could get away with having none of this skill, but since it only takes a trivial amount of time to train to 3 or even 4, you may as well do it to make
your life easier.
Astrometric Rangefinding (rank 8 ) 3-4: Increases 10% scan probe strength per level — Increases 10% scan probe strength per level which makes it the most important of these skills, but it is also the hardest to train because it is rank 8. For example the training time for V is going to be in the neighborhood of 25-30 days. For that reason alone think that level 4 is sufficient.
Astrometric Acquisition (rank 5) 0-3: 10% reduction in scan time per level — Given that the base scan time is now 10 seconds, this skill is close to useless. As a rank 5 skill it would take in the neighborhood of 3 days to train it to IV, which is just not worth it to shave another second off of your scan time, even spending the roughly 15 hours to bring it to up to level III is iffy in my opinion, so that is were I would set the cap for that skill.
Related ship skills:
Racial Frigate II: Magnate (Amarr), Heron (Caldari), Imicus (Gallente), Probe (Minmatar)
Covert Ops: Anathema (Amarr), Buzzard (Caldari), Helios (Gallente), Cheetah (Minmatar)
Cloaking: To use a covert Ops cloaking device
Jury Rigging: To fit Gravity Capacitors to help with scanning.
High Speed Maneuvering: To fit a MWD
Other recommended skills: (someone in your gang should have these)
Archaeology: Minimal level III to be useful, V to use the new T2 module
Hacking: Minimal level III to be useful, V to use the new T2 module
Salvage: Minimal level III to be useful, V to use the new T2 module
Equipment:
The first and most important piece of equipment you need for exploration is a probe launcher, and of course probes to launch from it. Any ship can be used for exploration, but the frigates mentioned above offer a bonus and a covert ops frigate is optimal.
