Archive:LSC Exploration

This guide is intend to establish practical guidelines and to offer a repository of information for exploration around the LSC. If you enjoy scanning down data and relic sites, sleeper caches, combat signatures, or even wormhole day-tripping, please use this guide to ensure that your activities benefit your fellow LSCers and the broader E-Uni community.

If you are just starting to learn about exploration, you might find our pages about Exploration 101, Exploration Skills and Cosmic Signatures useful.

Using our Corporate Bookmarks

Always bookmark every site while you are out exploring around the LSC. Save the bookmarks in the LSC Exploration folder under Corporation Bookmarks so that other unistas can use them even if you don't.

• Please be kind and take the time to fully scan down the system and to add proper bookmarks to LSC Exploration. This not only will help your fellow LSC explorers, but will also help you notice new cosmic signatures should you return to the system.
• Please only put proper bookmarks related to scanned-down cosmic signatures into the LSC Exploration folder. All other bookmarks (tacticals/undocks/safes) belong in your personal bookmark folder.
• There is no need to add a bookmark to LSC Exploration if you are planning to immediately run the site that you've just found. Place the bookmark in your personal folder.
• If you are scanning in the Syndicate NPC nullsec region, consider using the "NSC Exploration" folder instead, as it's more likely to be useful to other unistas.
• CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF!
  • The entire Corporation is limited to 500 Bookmarks. it is your job to clean up the OLD bookmarks!
  • If you have a freshman title, you unfortunately cannot remove from the LSC Exploration folder any bookmarks that you haven't personally made. However, you can (and should) remove any bookmarks that you made that are no longer valid.
  • Sophomores and higher can cleanup the 'LSC Exploration bookmark folder, but please do not clean up chain-mapping bookmarks (ones that start with "." or "*") until you understand the mapping system below.

Basic Signature Bookmarking

Bookmarking sites that you will not run provides others in the LSC with the opportunity to run them, and also makes it easier for everyone to know if a new signature has appeared. In an attempt to have one E-Uni standard, the LSC will defer to the WHC and adopt a slight variation on the WHC Bookmarking Scheme.

• Bookmarks can be made from the scanning results list. Right-click on a fully-scanned result and select "save."
• Standard format is <sigtype> [sig id] <additional info>, where:
  • <sigtype> = a one letter designation of the signature type; G for gas, R for relic, D for Data, C for combat, W for wormhole
  • [sig id] = [ABC], [BCD], [EFG], etc.; the first three letters of the signature id
  • <additional info> = the name of the site from the scanner; this is the default name that appears when you select save
• Example bookmarks:
  • R [ABC] Decayed Serpentis Mass Grave
  • C [DEF] Serpentis Hideout
  • G [GHI] Sparkling Nebula
  • W [LMN] Unstable Wormhole (Only use this if you are not going to warp to it and provide more details)

Bookmarking Wormholes

• Take the time to warp to it at 100km. From your overview, right-click on the wormhole and select "show info" to see what you have. The text description of the wormhole will tell you whether it is to High, Low, Null, or W-space of various levels. After a bit of experience, you might also be able to use the colour of the wormhole.
• Example bookmarks:
  • W [XYZ] C4+ Text will read: This wormhole seems to lead into Dangerous Unknown parts of space.
  • W [ABC] C1-C3 Text will read: This wormhole seems to lead into Unknown parts of space.
  • W [DEF] High/Low/Null
• If you jump through the wormhole, please read the below section on "chain mapping".
• If you are warping to a wormhole bookmarked as "Unstable Wormhole" (or not yet bookmarked), please delete and remake the bookmark from the overview/space rather than editing the scanner result bookmark into this form. The Scan Result bookmark can be up to ~10km away from the actual wormhole.

Chain Mapping/Diving into Wormholes

If you plan to explore the wormholes you find around the LSC, there is a more advanced naming scheme that has been adopted from the WHC. There are two related systems for wormhole diving, the system naming convention and the bookmarking system.

Wormhole Chain Naming System

We use a variation on the WHC Mapping Scheme, recording the system information on the LSC Wormhole Mapper. You can sign up for the mapper using the usual E-UNI channel password as the registration code. The WHC forum has a thread for discussing its features.

This naming scheme serves partly for comms clarity, but primarily it works in support of the bookmarking scheme described below.

• System Names: We name each chain A-Z (excluding C) and a number indicating the #th member of the A-Z chain. There is no particular meaning to the letters chosen. When you need a name, you just pick a letter that's open.
  • If Uphallant has two wormholes, the system through the first is A1, the other system is B1.
  • Inside of A1, there is another wormhole, so the next wormhole "down the chain" is named A2.
• If/When the chain branches, we prefix everything with the earlier wormhole codes, plus "/"
  • So let's say another WH opens up in the A1 system, when we explore it we call it "A/D1" (remember that we skip 'C')
  • If we go into A/D1 and fine another wormhole, that next system down the D-chain will be A/D2. (always add the full prefix)
  • If D1 has yet another wormhole, that next system would be called AD/E1. (prefixes combine)
• If a particular system is Highsec/Lowsec/Nullsec, we tack "H"/"L"/"N" onto the system name.
  • Going back to our example, imagine that B1 is actually in highsec. In that case it would be named "B1H".

The WHC has a larger example available on the mapper. (In their case, they label B1 as "BACON" for reasons)

Wormhole Bookmark Naming System

The bookmarking system is designed to reflect the system mapping system, and be relatively easy to "clean" old/defunct wormhole chains.

• Bookmarks for 'outgoing' wormhole chains are prefixed with "." to make them easy to find.
  • In Uphallant, the ".A1 [ABC]" bookmark is the entrance to A1, the ".B1H [DEF]" leads to B1H, although usually we would add the highsec/lowsec system name onto the bookmark to make it easier on people, as in ".B1H [DEF] Aldrat"
  • In A1, the ".A2 [GHI]" bookmark leads to A2 from A1, and ".A/D1 [LMN]" leads from A1->D1.
  • In A/D1, the ".A/D2 [OPQ]" bookmark leads to D2, and ".AD/E1 [RST]" leads to E1.
• Bookmarks to help you return home are prefixed with "*" followed by the name of the current system.
  • In A1, "*A1 [LMN]" is the wormhole leading from A1->Uphallant. In A2, "*A2 [OPQ]" leads back to A1. In Aldrat, "*B2H [***]" leads you back to Uphallant. In E1, "*AD/E1 [RST]" does the trick.
  • "The Stars Lead You Home"
  • When you come through a wormhole, immediately turn and mark the wormhole you just passed through as "*<system codename> [***]", use the literaly "***" because you don't yet know which scan-code corresponds to the wormhole. Fix this if you do scan the system.

Cleanup Notes

This system has been designed so that when the "Uphallant->A1" connection collapses, cleaning up the bookmarks is as simple as selecting anything that start with either ".A" or "*A" and deleting it, no matter how convoluted the chain has become. The one complication about this is non-wormhole sites that are bookmarked. A reasonable tactic is to look through the Gas/Relic/Data/Combat sites to look for any system-names in common with the selected "*" bookmarks, and delete them all at once. Don't forget to also update the mapper by selecting the system you are no longer connected to and "Delete"ing it.