Day 6 - Not much to report

A day spent pottering around

A short entry today. Real life was more important. Makes me feel old to say that.

It was business as usual though really. I ended up with 30 million from a couple of hours of high sec exploration and put in a few buy orders in the region of 20 million. Some of the other items I'd previously had on buy orders that had filled ended up selling while I was flying around looking for juicy relic and data sites leaving me with 20 million profit in liquid form for the day.

All in all, not a bad turnaround for the amount of effort I'd put in and I should be able to flip the buy orders from today for around 35 million thanks to good margins. I'll be doing a post focussing more on trading as a supplement to income soon so keep an eye out for that.

Day 6 total: 180 million ISK

Day 5 - Low sec hurts

Good thing I had insurance.

Well after yesterday's good fortune I thought I'd try my hand at low sec exploration as I started playing just as it was getting to peak time and I didn't feel inclined to risk being caught in null just as everyone logs on. My buy orders from the previous day had almost all filled apart from a couple that had just been outbid. So before leaving I listed up a bunch of sell orders in Amarr and went on my merry way. 

The first low sec system I jumped into was populated so I hopped over to the next to find it empty of people but full of anomalies, just how I like it. I warped to 100km of a random planet and started scanning. Suddenly my shields are gone followed shortly by my ship. Err... Oops. Turns out there was a player owned station 250km away from me and apparently the guns CAN shoot that far. Luckily there was nothing of value other than a 700,000 ISK ship (including fittings.) It was mostly my pride that was hurt. Another lesson learned - stay away from player owned structures in low and null unless you're supposed to be there. 

A few jumps later and I'm back in Amarr. This was a good opportunity to try out the new idea I'd been playing around with. Magnates are great, I like the look of them and they do the job they're supposed to very well. However, after my time in null yesterday I couldn't help but feel a cargo scanner would be a massive help. 

Sometimes you'll scan down a site only to find 2 or 3 of the containers have been emptied out already leaving only the ones with worthless items or those that are empty and uncracked. It's hugely frustrating to enter these kind of sites but it's a lot better when you're the one doing the cherry picking. A cargo scanner will tell you with 100% accuracy what is inside the relic or data cache. Some people will say otherwise but I've cracked open containers the scanner has said is empty and it's been empty. In fact, every time I scan a container, the contents are always the same as the scan result. Every. Time. 

Now unfortunately the Magnate only has 3 mid slots and those mid slots are always going to be used on a Relic Analyzer, Data Analyzer and Micro Warp Drive (or an afterburner, but lets face it - MWD's are more fun.) Typical to Amarr ships the Magnate is also loaded up on low slots which are also useful but probably not quite as necessary as mids on an explorer. 

Lucky for me I'd already learned Gallente Frigates and trained up to level 3 in preparation for this change so for the time being I'll be flying an Imicus. More specifically this is the fitting I'll be using. Less Nanofiber in the lows but you in theory spend less time in the cosmic site because you're cherry picking the good cans, and less time in the site means less chance of being scanned down by people intent on ganking poor beginner explorers which means a lower chance of that extra agility actually coming into play. 

I ended up doing a few high sec rounds for the rest of the day. This isn't as lucrative as low or null but it's much safer because who's going to risk the wrath of CONCORD over a ship worth less than a million which may or may not have a decent amount of cargo. You can get about 10-12 million ISK per hour and while it's not guaranteed, it's a VERY achievable goal. Low and null are more like 20-40 million and 40-80 million per hour respectively but you do have to be very watchful of what's happening around you. Along with the high sec exploration I had my sell orders supplementing my income and by the time I logged off I was happy with where I was at. 

*One tip with the ship fitting - if you're only doing high sec exploration you can take the warp stabilizer either offline or just replace them with more Nanofiber, it'll only slow down your scan time in high sec and won't benefit you*

Day 5 total: 160 million 

Day 4 - Lets try some null sec

Null sec - it's not as scary as its reputation

After the frustration of wormholes yesterday I thought I'd take a more direct route to null. Using this ship I entered null sec for the first time. My first pvp encounter came at the first gate. I didn't see what ship it was that tried to warp disrupt me as I whizzed past but I do know they were a complete failure. 700k Magnate 1 - 20+ million ganker 0. 

The next couple of systems had one or 2 players in so I skipped them and carried on deeper into the unknown. 3 or 4 jumps later and I hit an empty system with no fewer than 8 anomalies. Fun. Out came the probes and I began scanning. A wild relic site appears! I warp to it and begin hacking the containers. In theory it should be "excavate" for relic sites but it just doesn't fit, so hack will do. It's then I realise just how much harder null cans are than high sec. High sec I can do the mini game in 8-10 seconds, hit every anti virus and still have enough coherence to crack the system core. Null sec containers on the other hand are fairly brutal. I won't lie, I blew up a few cans and lost what I'm sure were potential fortunes. Others that I did crack had nothing or, even worse, that eternal raspberry towards all explorers; carbon. 

That's not to say I didn't get anything worth while. Far from it in fact. For every blown up can I was still managing to loot 2 or 3 non-exploded ones which amounted to a fair sum. My problem with some of the cans was however not necessarily the difficulty of the mini game at my skill level but also the distraction of other players entering local chat. Every time that happened I was so intently checking my overview and d-scan I was making mistakes. From the classic "clicking one too many nodes after you've already found the system core" to "I really should have cleared that anti-virus that was next to the most likely place the system core would be before clearing out other nodes and hitting a restoration node." 

In the end the trip turned out to be fairly uneventful. I came out of a couple of gates into unmanned disruption bubbles but then again it was a Tuesday morning by this point so I doubt many people were online. In total my trip was 15-20 systems long, I had one attempt on my life which I successfully escaped and I ended up 80 million worth of loot in my cargo hold. Not bad for an hour and a half on a 4 day old character. 

The rest of my play time today was spent figuring out where to sell. The prices in Jita were quite a bit higher than anywhere else so I made the trip up there. I also set up some buy orders for equipment I knew I'd be using on my ships. This would be my "in" for trading which I'd be using as a more passive form of income to supplement the exploration I'm doing. I decided if I'd be making at least one trip a day to Jita to sell, I may as well buy stuff cheap there too and transport it down to Amarr so I browsed the market for likely items using eve-central to check against Amarr prices. I came across a couple of high volume items with a decent margin (around 45% so more than decent) and placed orders.

Time to wait for the orders to fill! I logged off to get some sleep, feeling very pleased with myself. All was going well in the quest for a PLEX!

Day 4 total: 130 million 

Day 3 - Wormholes take 2

Wormholes aren't all that bad... just a waste of time as a 2 day old character.

Lessons learned from yesterday and in my new shiny Magnate I decided to try again with getting to null sec space via a wormhole. It was easy enough to scan one down about 8 jumps from Amarr in 0.7 space. 

Bookmark. Jump. Bookmark. I'm in and check D-scan which shows a few sleeper npcs and not much else so I begin scanning down another exit. Find one and with a quick check of the info see it leads to wormhole space. Bookmark. Jump. Bookmark. Find another exit, more wormhole space. Rinse and repeat. Sometimes I was scanning down more than one exit in any particular area in an effort to get... well... somewhere. 3 more wormholes and I was getting frustrated. Almost to the point of just giving up and jumping back the way I came to at least go and do something productive. I scanned down "one last site" - that mantra you quietly say to yourself as you feel this next one will be it - and amazing! It goes back into K-space. Granted it's still high sec but I'm happy with anything at this point. It could take me to the other side of the galaxy, to a pocket of high sec surrounded by low/null sec but no. I jump through and end up 4 jumps from my point of origin -.- 2 hours wasted. 

At least I know wormholes are a waste of time at this stage of the game. You need to have more of a plan that "I hope this high sec wormhole leads to null eventually" I won't be messing with wormholes again, at least for a long while. They're too time consuming and with little reward other than the possibility of "safe" passage to null. 

I went off and did some standard exploration from here, checking out some systems in the area the wormhole had pooped me out in. I set up a route which took me through a couple of low sec systems as well. It was late night and not too many people were online so I thought I should give it a go. A couple of systems in I entered a low sec system sandwiched between 2 high sec. Those being the only way in or out. There was one person in local but I thought I'd try and scan down some of the 8 or so anomalies that were showing. I launched probes, warped to 100km or a planet and began scanning, the usual ritual. Before the probes even finish their first scan there's that noise again and someone's attempting to warp scramble me as they move closer to begin the attack. I Just warped out to the next system, collecting my probes along the way. So far a 50% gank survival rate!

I have no idea how they scanned me down so quick. The only plausible way I can think is if they were cloaked at the gate and saw which way I was headed and followed a few seconds later. Either way, I survived and finished the rest of the route without incident. 

If I hadn't spent so much time in the wormhole I think my profits would have been higher today but as it is I finished the day on 40 million. Not too bad for a 2 1/2 day old character but I was looking for more. I did a couple of security mission in my destroyer as a change of pace and then logged off to get some sleep. Big plans for tomorrow... big plans.

Day 3 Total: 40 million ISK

Day 2 - How not to wormhole

Let the scanning begin...

Refreshed from sleep and ready to go, I logged in to find several skills relevant to scanning had finished training over night. However I continued with the Sisters of Eve epic arc up to mission 46 - Chasing Shadows. I actually lost my Coercer as I attempted the mission because I managed to get it stuck inside the star base while orbiting my target and couldn't warp out before exploding. Frustrating but amusing at the same time. More lessons learned. 

A trip back to Amarr later and I flew out in a new Coercer and cleared out a few combat sites and salvaging the wrecks just to make a bit more ISK while I waited for Hacking to finish. An hour or so later I was back in the station fitting out a Magnate, my current ship of choice for exploration. A Data and Relic Analyzer I, Core Probe Launcher I and an Experimental 1mn Afterburner were all I was using but it was enough to begin with. I did a bit of research into what low slot equipment I could use and began training some more skills so I could eventually create a fitting I was completely happy with.

A few jumps away from Amarr I began scanning. Still with fairly low skills and no real scanning upgrades on my ship a few some were difficult to pinpoint including a couple that weren't possible with any amount of tweaking. If you're just getting started with scanning and wan't to know more check out my Scanning Guide. Still I continued for a while and ended up with a few million in loot.

By now I was fairly confident in my skills but EVE has a way of building you up to smack you back down. I kept coming across wormholes while looking for the juicy Data and Relic sites and I couldn't help but be curious. I'd read bits and pieces about them; that some players spend their entire game life in wormhole space and that you can traverse great distances of normal space by finding wormhole entrances that take you far far away. Sounds fun right? Well I though, "why not." Found a random wormhole, jumped through. 

In hindsight I probably should have done more research but more learning from more mistakes. Seeing no one in local chat (first mistake - you don't show up in wormhole local chat unless you actually talk - but I didn't know that at the time) I began scanning. I found another wormhole entrance/exit and bookmarked the one I'd entered from. You should always bookmark wormhole exit locations when you're inside them otherwise if you need to make a hasty retreat you're pretty much screwed. Jumping through the new portal I again see no one in local and happily launch my probes and begin scanning. Just as I'm readjusting the probes for a second scan there's a noise and my shields and most of my armour is gone. Two seconds later and I'm in my pod. I had just about enough wits to jump through the wormhole I was next to but I'm closely followed by my assailant flying a Proteus. Luckily I'd bookmarked my way in so warped away and back into normal space. 

Back to Amarr I go, tail between my legs. At least my skills were finished training for all the low slot equipment I planned to fit. So out comes the wallet and I buy 2 Warp Core Stabilizer I's and Beta Hull Mod Nanofiber Structure

I hit a few more high sec Data and Relic sites before going to bed with mixed results. Some of them were a let down with empty cans abound or merely a unit of carbon or two. Others were fairly awesome, for high sec at least, with several million ISK worth of loot in one can. I logged for the day after flogging my wares in Amarr several million better off, a multitude of lessons learned and the desire to improve on what I was doing.

Day 2 total: 21 million ISK

Spaktula's Scanning Guide

A lot of information on scanning on the various eve wiki sites is outdated at time of writing so I thought I'd put together a quick guide on how to scan down cosmic anomalies. Some of the methods I use might not be the most efficient but once you've been scanning for a while you get to know where the anomalies will likely be so I take a lot of shortcuts. This guide is written primarily for someone just starting out so I've left the shortcuts out :)

Firstly you'll need a ship with at least a Core Probe Launcher I or better and some Core Scanner Probes or better. A ship with bonuses to scanning strength might also be useful such as a T1 frigate (Imicus, Magnate, Heron or Probe) but if you're scanning for combat sites those ships won't last long.

In your ship, open up the Probe Scanner window:

If you're in a system with scannable anomalies you should end up with a window that looks like this:

Next, get in the habit of flying safe. If you end up scanning in low or nul sec space you're generally an easy target in an exploration ship as you have paper thin defences and are likely too preoccupied with scanning down sites or hacking cans to notice other ships flying in.

There's a process I go through when I enter any system in my exploration ship. I always have the probe scanner window open so I know if there are any worthwhile sites to scan for a start. If there are, I pick a spot in the solar system, usually a planet or the sun and hit "warp to 100km."

As my warp drive kicks in which disables the "recently jumped through stargate" cloak I launch my probes. This is just a time saver and it helps in high sec as well as nul or low where time efficiency is your best friend (that and warp stabilizers.) In low and nul, once I've hit the scan button (most left hand of the buttons in the picture above) I close the map quickly and choose a planet, asteroid belt or stargate directly away from where I just warped to and hit "align to" and then activate my micro warp drive (or afterburner if you don't have a MWD) to put some distance between me and where I warped so anyone warping to the same spot will end up several hundred km away.

Of course you can skip that step if you have a cloaking device but still, launching your probes as soon as you arrive in the system and warping to another location means you won't get decloaked by your own probes getting too close.


Onto the actual scanning. I use the pinpoint formation almost exclusively. I find it's just the easiest to use for me although I'm sure there are other ways to do it. Your probes have already been launched by now so open up the solar system map (button on the far right of the previous picture.) With pinpoint formation up it should look something like this:

The process changes somewhat as your skills increase as you can take more shortcuts and still scan down a site. Things like Astrometrics, Astrometric Rangefinding and Scanning Rigs for when you've learned Jury Rigging help immensely.

Essentially you need to centre the cluster of probes inside the red sphere you're aiming at (this can be difficult if there's a lot on top of one another) and enlarge or occasionally decrease the radius of the scan by clicking and dragging the side of one of the blue spheres which should change the scan size of all of them. The best way to centre the probes is to level out the camera horizontally and move the cluster up or down until it's on the correct plane as the middle of the red sphere. Next move the camera directly above the probes and slide them across until perfectly centred.

*pro-tip* double click on the white box to centre the camera on the probes or, once you've gotten to the "red dot" phase, double click the anomaly to centre the camera on it. I honestly didn't figure that out for 3 days and it would have saved a lot of hassle.

Hit the "Analyze" button and something like this should appear:

Centre on the red dot, decrease the scan radius by one size by clicking and dragging the blue spheres. Scan again and the signal should increase, hopefully even high enough to show what kind of anomaly it is.

Obviously ignore any sites that aren't of the type your specifically looking for and move on to the next anomaly.

Sometimes you'll get 2 red dots for one anomaly. This means only 3 of your probes are in the right place and so it gives you 2 possible locations. Generally speaking, the one closest to the orbital bodies is going to the be the right one to scan, but sometimes the game likes to confuse you. Just use the above method on your dot of choice and scan, if there's no signal then move to the other one with the same size scan radius. Either way you'll pinpoint it eventually.

Red rings on the other hand are bad in all senses of the phrase. Getting a red ring on a scan means 2 of your probes picked up the signal and you'll have to move the probes over, usually with the same size radius, and scan again until you get a red dot.

Occasionally you'll come across a site that seems impossible to scan down. For this you'll need to move each probe manually. To do this, from the pinpoint formation zoom in a bit and hold down the shift key. This lets you manipulate each probe individually. You need to, for want of a better word, "squish" the pinpoint formation. There has to be some slight overlapping otherwise the scan just wont work but aim for something that looks like this:

You can save this formation as you'll need it more than once even at higher skill levels. In low and nul sec space there are some pretty difficult sites to scan.


Well I hope this helped any budding explorers, and don't forget to check out my other blog posts.

Day 1 - How to grow a Spaktula

Character creation... oh the joys of too much customisation. 

I always have an idea of what I want my character to look like in any game with this level of customisation but it always turns out completely different as I get sidetracked by amusing moustaches....

After a little while of playing around Spaktula Gargantuan was birthed from a vat of goo, a suitably intense portrait was captured (as seen on the right side of this post) and I was ready to begin my journey to riches!

Last year I went with Caldari because after all the reading you do about the game, the name Jita IV gets bandied about a lot so I thought at the time it would be best to play as the race that starts in that area. However I ended up spending most of my time in Amarr as it's frankly a MUCH more accessible station in which to station trade. I use the word accessible in the sense that you don't get undercut every 30 seconds when placing buy and sell orders so you don't have to spend time babysitting your investments too much. Also I find the profit margins are higher in Amarr although granted the volume of sales is lower but it all evens out in the end I think.

For this character I went with Amarr, not that it really matters as in EVE you can choose any race and still go to any of the other race's territories as long as your standing (reputation) is high enough for them not to take pot shots at you as you fly past.

The tutorial and then career missions took me most of the evening. I started at around 9pm local time so 7pm EVE time. If you're just starting out or thinking of starting the game I'd really recommend doing all of the career missions as it gives you valuable experience in several areas of the game which can help you choose what to do and it also gives you a bunch of free skill books and quite a bit of ISK with which you can buy and fit out a decent ship.

After the career missions I flew off in my new shiny Coercer destroyer which was honestly terribly fitted but with half a day worth of skills I couldn't do much better. I was basically running 5 guns and 3 salvager I's. I did a few level 1 security missions which I breezed through and then started the Sisters of Eve Epic arc.

Why aren't you exploring? I thought this was all about exploring? I hear you cry. Well I needed to train the relevant skills as I couldn't use some of the ship equipment I needed and shooting stuff was more fun than mining in the interim.

Top of the list of things to learn was Archaeology and Hacking. I'd say these are the most important skills as you can't crack open the any containers you may find in scanned down sites if you can't fit either a Relic Analyzer I or Data Analyzer I which require Archaeology and Hacking respectively. I trained Science and Survey up to 3 so I could learn Archaeology but I then had to wait for Electronics Upgrades to be trained before I could use my Hacking skill book. 

After finishing Archaeology level 1 but before I'd learned Hacking I went on my forst foray into the big wide world of exploration. I scanned down a couple of high sec sites just to test the water so to say. I met with some success but came across more Data sites, that I obviously wouldn't enter, than Relic sites. There were also a couple of Relic sites I just couldn't scan down and no amount of tweaking the probes would get me above 80% scan strength. The joys of having low skills :)

Never mind. Tomorrow is a new day and there's plenty of scanning to be done and ISK to be made!

Day 1 Total:

6 million ISK