Tips to do Exploration and probing Kali also introduces proper exploration, in the form of various hidden encounters. These can be
any number of things - there are over 250 being introduced in Kali 1, which get more interesting
and much harder as you move from Empire to Lowsec to 0.0. I've been playing around in a COSMOS
constellation in 0.0 and I've found gas clouds (for booster manufacturing), straight-up complexes,
archaeological sites full of rig parts and T2 rig BPCs, hidden databanks loaded with invention
material, rogue drone outposts, hidden roid fields full of ark and bistot... There's plenty of
riches to be found, but you need to use scan probes to do it
Basic mechanics Exploration probes use exactly the same mechanics as ship scanning probes - same skills, same
equations etc. You need to use a Scan Probe Launcher rather than a Recon Probe Launcher, simply
because (as Hoshi says) you can't fit an exploration probe in a Recon Launcher because the probes
are too big. Other than that, the basics all work the same way.
Exploration sites themselves seem to spawn within 1 and 4 AU of planets in system. There may be
multiple sites in one system, or there may be none at all.
Finding an exploration site Tools Exploration sites cannot be found using the system scanner - you have to probe them down using
the exploration probes. These come in four flavours and four ranges:
[Type] Quest Probe - 4 au range, 250 points primary sensor strength, 50 points other sensor
strength, 2.088 au max scan deviation, 4000 sec flight time.
[Type] Pursuit Probe - 2 au range, 500 points primary sensor strength, 100 points other sensor
strength, 6,250,000 km max scan deviation, 2000 sec flight time.
[Type] Comb Probe - 1 au range, 1000 points primary sensor strength, 200 points other sensor
strength, 125,000 km max scan deviation, 1000 sec flight time.
[Type] Sift Probe - 0.5au range, 2000 points primary sensor strength, 400 points other sensor
strength, 2,500km max scan deviation, 500 sec flight time.
The four types available are Gravimetric, Magnetometric, RADAR and LADAR. A Gravimetric Quest
Probe will have 250 points of gravimetric sensor strength and 50 points each of Magnetometric, RADAR and LADAR.
There is also one final, very important probe:
Multispectral Frequency Probe - 999 au range, 1,000,000 points sensor strength (all types), 600 sec flight time
This probe has no deviation, as it doesn't return location-based results. Instead, it will simply tell you
if there are any cosmic signatures within its range, and if so what sensor type they are.
Technique Firstly, you need to confirm there's anything worth looking for. Drop a Multispec probe anywhere in the
system and do a scan. If it returns no results, the system's empty, so move on. If it returns one or more
results, decide which sensor type you're going to look for, destroy the Multispec probe (right-click in the
scanner interface and "destroy", otherwise you can't deploy more probes) and start probing. "Unknown" results
work equally well with all probe types.
It is believed that the different sensor types correspond to different types of site, but there isn't enough
data to confirm which are which yet.
In order to run down the site, you need to get it in range of a probe. The easiest way to do this is to drop
Quest probes of the correct sensor type so they cover every planet in the system. This is easy with outer
planets, but with the inner ones you need to think about exactly where you're going to drop for maximum coverage.
This may require some bookmarks, and sometimes you just have to compromise and hope you don't get unlucky and
have the site in a blindspot. The system map is highly recommended at this stage.
Once your probes are down, select them all (ctrl-click) and start analyzing. Each site seems to have a set value
for the "sig radius/sensor strength" ratio, generally between 0.1 and 0.2. If you do some calculations for
ships you'll see that this is a pretty low number, equivalent to an interceptor with 200 or so sensor strength.
With quests you'll be looking for a signal strength between 0.1 and 0.4 on the right probe type. This means
it can take ten or fifteen tries to get a result, but the probes last for an hour and a bit so you can afford
to sit around and keep trying until you get something.
Once you get your initial contact life gets a lot easier. It'll show up on the system map, so figure out where
it is and try to see how close you can get. The rest is fairly obvious - drop the shortest-range probe you
can that'll still scan it, and keep analysing until you get a good result, warp to that, analyse again if
necessary... you get the picture. You'll often be able to go from a Quest straight to a Sift, and when you
can't a comb will usually work - pursuit probes are generally not that useful.
You really need a result with under 100km or so deviation before you can be confident you've found anything.
Many sites won't spawn unless you warp into the grid they're in, and as you can't use the directional scanner
to find them, if you land in a different grid 400km away you need to reprobe.
Once you have your 0m result, be very careful with it. Some sites drop you at an empty deadspace gate,
some drop you at a gate with passive hostiles near it, and some drop you straight into the line of fire.
If you go in with a covops, go cloaked, bookmark quickly and run away again - I've lost I think two covops
on SiSi to enemy fire in this way. Also, if you do decide to park your ship and go in with a pod, make sure
not to leave your ship too close - once the deadspace pocket spawns, the usual deadspace rules apply and if
your ship is too close you won't be able to warp to it until the site expires
Once you've got the bookmark you're basically done with the exploration aspect. Gas clouds aside, the
stuff I've found in 0.0 is not suitable for covops ships. Some of the plexes are supposed to be 10/10
equivalent difficulty.
Gravimetric -> Hidden Asteroid Belts
Magnetrometric -> Profession Sites, mostly mixed ones Like ArcSal = Archeology & Salvaging for example.
LADAR -> Complexes
RADAR -> Profession Sites, mostly only of one single Profession Type
Unknown: We are a bit curious about them, so far 40% of them seem be be the type with which you pinpointed
them down (for example, scanning with Gravimetric for an unknow will bring you to a belt) but don't quote
me on that one, cause in the other 60% it's indeed "unknown" and totally random. So could be luck with
finding the ones related to the Probetype.
Another interesting thing is, that the Multi-Speccs don't report how MANY sigs of each types are found
in the active System.
For example, my Multi-Specc reported Magnetrometric this morning, but after getting no results for around
40minutes with the quests, suddenly there where TWO positive ones, around 9AU apart from eachother, checked
again with Multi-Specc -> only 1 entry Magnetrometric!
Both where ArcSalv (those type seems quite common in 0.1->0.4)
This post has been edited by Yumi Horyu: Jan 11 2007, 05:46 PM Attached image(s)