Posted - 2011.07.03 10:06:00 - [2]

 

Edited by: Loraine Gess on 03/07/2011 10:06:15

Originally by: Wilfred Black

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Having realised that exploration in high sec is rather boring and not very rewarding I have decided to give low sec exploration a go. I did my first little foray last night and completed 1 site and netted a few million isk. Not an amazing start but I made it out alive. So I have a few questions about low sec exploration.

1) Everyone recommends fitting a cloaking device, does using my cloak stop people from tracking me down with probes if I am hiding in my 'safe spot'?

2) People also recommend using the directional scanner regularly. What exactly am I looking for here? I am right in thinking that I should be worried about combat scanner probes becasue they can track me down in my safe spot even if I am cloaked (see q1) Or is this only a problem once I have found a site and am uncloaked?

3) Can people use warp disruption bubbles in low sec at a gate? I have been warping to within 100km of the gate to check its safe before warping to 0km and jumping do I need to do this in low sec or is this wasting my time.

4) As I have so little experience of PvP and am not really that interested in it. I would prefer to avoid fights so should I be fitting warp core stabs or anything else to increase my survivability or are these not worth it?

5) At the moment I am doing exploration in my ishkur what level system should I aim for to get complexes of the right sort of level. When I feel a bit more confident about my survival I will use my ishtar but I dont want to risk it at the moment.

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1) Yes, so long as it's activated.
EDIT: I don't really recommend a cloak though.

2) Yes, look for combat probes. An interesting trick is to scan down sites with regular probes, then check via directional if anyone's in there. So in essence, just be careful of probes!

3) No bubbles in lowsec. You can warp to 0 freely. Familiarize yourself with aggression rules so you don't do something stupid like "avoid" a gatecamp only for them to come through and murder you.

4) No no no no NO
Warp core stabs are for MORONS and COWARDS. Besides, they'll destroy your scan resolution.

5) Any low-sec will spawn any plexes that appear in low-sec. Security status has nothing to do with what spawns (except in sov 0.0 but that's complicated), just security bands (i.e. high/low/null/WH)

Posted - 2011.07.05 18:53:00 - [4]

 

Back when I did exploration I found Gonditsa is a good place to do it, it's deserted, 1 jump from high-sec and seems to spawn 6/10's often, and blood raider 6/10's are easy and always drop a-type corpum stuff.

Posted - 2011.07.06 01:21:00 - [6]

 

Fit a cloak, it will make your life so much easier.

1. You can use MWD-Cloak to bypass pretty much any gatecamp. Look it up if you don't know what I'm talking about.

2. You can safe up and afk anytime, especially handy in systems without stations.

If you're using a drone boat, there is no reason not to fit a cloak, so fit that and an mwd and you will be 99% safe as long as you pay attention to dscan to watch for probes.

Posted - 2011.07.06 16:35:00 - [8]

 

Alright, a few answers that might help.

1) Cloaking makes you invisible to probes as well, for low sec exploration this would allow you to hide more easily, but you can avoid people relatively well if you like by bouncing between safes and smart use of the d-scanner. Cloaking while probing for sites allows you to relax a bit. Cloaks also make the process of travelling through hostile territory easier by allowing some tricks with warping and using the cloak to prevent being locked.

2) You're looking for indications that someone is looking for you actively, or are close to you. If you see probes on scan, it's time to leave. D-Scan is also used to check gates as you pass through systems. See below.

3) Warp disruption probes, un-scripted HIC bubbles, and anchor-able bubbles are not allowed in Low Sec, however it is still a good idea to check gates before going straight to them if the system is active. If you ever DO go to 0.0, know that warping to 100km on a gate will not save you from a bubble, as they suck you toward them if you warped from a spot inline with the bubble (which you always do if the bubble is *on* a gate). I wont go into specifics of how it works, but bubbles are able to pull people to them, even very far from the gate if setup properly. Warp to a nearby planet and D-Scan the gate to detect any activity. Getting into this habit early helps. Also note a well setup tackler in a proper gang potentially has the ability to warp disrupt you from an extremely long range, upwards of 70Km. Most do not/will not have this capability, but it is always something to keep in mind.

4) No warp core stabs. With an AF your best defense is your speed and getting away as fast as possible. When you jump to an Ishtar, a set of disposable ECM drones might help a bit, but vigilance and caution will keep you safer than EC-300's anyway.

Posted - 2011.07.08 11:22:00 - [10]

 

Thanks for all the replies they have been really helpful, I have now successfully completed some ded 4/10s and got some nice deadspace items as well as invention and salvage stuff and have got about 500M of loot so far.

One more question:

I read somewhere that if I am in a complex then I am much hard to track down with combat probes, is this true and if so what counts as a complex? Anything with a acceleration gate? A DED rating?

Thanks.

Posted - 2011.07.08 11:37:00 - [12]

 

Originally by: Wilfred Black

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I read somewhere that if I am in a complex then I am much hard to track down with combat probes,

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What you read is an obsolete guide, based on pre-apochrypha scan system. Back then it used to be such a bonus. During the overhaul of scan system that came with apochrypha it was decided to remove this bonus since scanning complexes has become very easy.