Exploration in EVE
Exploration is a huge part of EVE in which many are not even aware of, to start with lets break down exploration.
There are 5 types of exploration sites in EVE all of which move around the solar systems they are designated to, these 5 types are:
- Unknown - These are more often than not combat sites - Can use any of the below probe types to find.
- Gravimetric - Asteroid sites - Use Gravimetric Probes.
- Ladar - Gas Cloud sites - Use Ladar Probes.
- Magnetometric - Archaeology/Salvage sites - Use Magnetometric Probes.
- Radar - Hacking Sites - Use Radar Probes.
Click on the above links to see more details on different exploration types.
Exploration/Probing Skills
| Skill | Description | Pre-requsites |
| Astrometrics | Skill at operating long range scanners. Adds one scan group per level | Science L3 |
| Astrometric Pinpointing | Greater accuracy in hunting down targets found through scanning. Reduces maximum scan deviation by 10% per level. | Astrometrics 4 Science 3 |
| Astrometric Triangulation | Skill at the advanced operation of long range scanners. 5% scan strength bonus per level of skill. | Astrometrics 3 Science 3 |
| Signal Acquisition | Skill for the advanced operation of long range scanners. 10% faster scanning with scan probes per level. | Science 3 |
The higher the above skills then the better you will be at exploration and probing in general.
Ships for Exploration
The best ship by far for exploration is a covert ops ship, the higher you have the covert ops skill trained the easier exploration will be (because of the ship bonuses).
10% reduction to duration/activation time of modules requiring Astrometrics per level is the typical Covert Ops ship bonus, so train Covert Ops skill to at least L4.
Fitting your Covert Ops ship for Exploration
Fit a scan probe launcher 1 (don't fit a recon probe launcher they are for scanning ships).
Fit a covert ops cloak II for safety (not really necessary for high sec).
And the rest is up to you, I wouldn't bother fitting anything offensive when doing exploration.
Probes you will need
Multispectral Frequency Probe - This is used to scan the entire solar system.
A quantity of Comb, Pursuit, Sift and Quest probes - can be seen in this list
Initial Scanning
Multispectral probes will find all the different types of sites available in a solarsystem, they are 100% accurate and if they find nothing then there is nothing at that time present in the solarsystem.
To start a scan
- Load Multispectral probes in your launcher
- Get to a safe spot (if in low sec or 0.0) and launch the probe
- Move away from your probe (at least 2,000m so you can cloak)
- Click the scanner button and select Cosmic Signature and your multispectral probe
- Click Analyse and wait for it to finish
- Whilst your waiting you CAN cloak but do not warp off as it will stop the scan eventually
- Repeat in each solarsystem until you find something
Oooh I found something!!11!
Nice one, depending on what site you find drop an appropriate QUEST probe at all planets, remember for Unknown types you can use any probe. Why planets I hear you ask, well according to the majority all exploration sites are within 4AU from planets. Makes sense since the highest available scan probe is the Quest at 4AU. Before you can drop Quest probes you will need to destroy your Multispectral probe - right click on it in the scanner window and select destroy probe. You will find that you will need to destroy probes as you get to a smaller and smaller area.
You will need to look at the distance between planets because if they are closer than 4AU to each other then you wont be able to drop a probe at each planet, as probes cannot cross over another probes area. So work out what's best coverage, now unlike the multispectral the next set of scans may fail and return no results. If you have covered all planets then keep hitting scan until you get a result.
Now eventually you will get a result and you can warp to the outcome, depending on how close to the result you are determines which probe you use next. Obviously if you are within 1AU you can switch to Combs, if your within 2AU then use Pursuits.
Eventually you will get close enough to use the Sift probes (0.5AU) which will sooner or later take you directly to the exploration site.
On my first scan attempt I went from a Quest probe to a 0.2 deviation of the site so I switched direct to Sift probes from Quest ones :)
When you find the acceleration gate or site, bookmark it, if is NOT a gate get the hell out after bookmarking.
If it's an acceleration gate you will probably find you cannot enter the site with your covert ops ship and a list of specific ships will be listed, this more often than not happens on Unknown/Combat sites.
