User:K950/3P38 Sleeper Nexus: Difference between revisions

== General Exploration Ramblings ==

When a newcomer to the harsh, brutal world of EVE Online enters the door, he often finds himself in the Exploration avenue of job descriptions. Everybody has to do it to a certain capacity, whether it's hunting deadspace modules, running Sleeper Caches, running wormholes, it's pretty much the same core concept. In this post I'll chronicle some of my findings and knowledge: I'm not going to be an expert, but I've done a little bit of it.  

=== SCANNING ===

I could elaborate on all the specifics I know about scanning, but instead I will talk about matters that I have not seen in other guides.  

Besides the pinpoint formation, the cube formation is one that I use a lot for Sleeper caches and when scanning harder signatures with unbonused ships, such as bombers in wormholes. The cube formation gets its name from its basic foundation block, a cube, with one probe on each corner of an imaginary 3D cube. Make one that is pre-fixed at 4 AU probe size, another at 0.5 AU (for combat probes) probe size and finally another one for maximum scan strength. The cube formation is the easiest custom formation to make that can extract the maximum possible strength from any one given set of probes: to make a 0.25 maximum scan strength probe formation for Sleeper caches, just find a Sleeper cache first. (If your skills are very high, downgrade the probes or even the ship until the maximum probe strength is at the minimum or close to it. Limited: 85.8-ish. Standard: 92. Superior: 104.) Start with the 0.5 AU probe size, reduce the probe size to 0.25 AU, then fine tune the formation until the cube shape is perfect and equidistant between all the probes. Using the signature of the Sleeper cache as a reference, center the new 0.25 AU cube formation exactly in the middle of the signature dot. Reduce the probe distances with the ALT key (new mapper uses a different key. I don't use the new mapper, as it is unusable for my purposes) just a small amount, then scan again. Repeat the distance reduction and scan procedure, taking your time and using small increments each time until the probe scanner shows the maximum possible strength you can get out of it. Save the formation.  

Other formations include blanket formations (used for stealthy combat probing stuff), the Dual Triangle Formation (too difficult to make for the value, especially compared to the cube formation) and specialized combat probe formations meant for specific systems so that the probes are positioned in a specific way to cover the whole system without actually having a probe show upon the directional scanner. That's about all I know about formations: pro scanners are usually very tight-lipped about their secrets. Even I have to refrain from too much elaboration on the technique of scanning a ship down with just one scan run. That technique has gotten a little bit easier with the new directional scanner cone feature of the new probe scanner, but the old-fashioned way does work faster because the old probe scanner interface is easier to use when combat probing, particularly under heavy pressure. It can also be more accurate, but that is mostly a factor of distance. (Gee that was cryptic enough)

The second is that pilots will be able to find out what an outbound link is before opening it. Currently you need to be on grid with a wormhole to verify where it leads - but being on grid with it means that you have warped to it, which means it is activated. After the Hyperion release, if you find that it is not a link you want to have active, for instance a wandering wormhole to higher-class space, you can just not jump through it, and the far end of the link will never spawn. This has the ability to significantly reduce the interconnectedness of wormhole space and counterbalance the increased number of wandering / random wormhole links. }}

=== GAS MINING ===

In the Instrumental and Vital Core Reservoirs, which is where the money is at (lesser gas is not really worth going after unless you need it for manufacture), there is a smaller gas cloud and a larger one. Assuming a proper gas fleet of a dozen members or so (the new Command Destroyers make excellent boosters, since there is only one link that works with gas miners, namely the Laser Optimization link to reduce the cycle time), just congregate all members on the smallest cloud. The squad commander, or wing commander, then bookmarks the larger gas cloud, and positions himself so he is just about 151-152km away from the cloud (right click on the bookmark pin and move away slowly until it registers Warp to Location within 0m). Have all members anchor up on the commander. When the smaller gas cloud is finished, just warp all members directly to the next cloud.  

Most folk like to sit very close to the middle of the gas cloud, near the icon of it. This makes the cloaked ships who must creep very close to your ship have to work harder (the gas cloud's object size changes as the gas is mined, apparently) to do their business. Corpses can also work to orbit at, as they are not the same thing as a jetcan, which can be directly warped to.  

Running combat sites on an alternate NPC corporation character is the best for highsec and some lowsec operations, as it allows freedom to navigate around areas without fear of war targets. When contesting a site, it's better to not engage the contestant who has gone suspect: he is doing so because he has a good idea what he's doing, and is most likely more than capable of destroying your ship. You may use an MTU to pull the wreck of the faction rat in the last room (if that's the way the site is laid out), but keep in mind that he will not be CONCORD'd for shooting your MTU. One option is to counter-bait him (works best with friends of your own) to kill him instead: a neuting Vexor can work nicely.

== The End ==

That is all. I have more to say and discuss, but for now, I'm finished.

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