Hi-sec exploration is not very profitable. Since it's so safe and you can use pretty much any ship, lots of people are all competing for the sites. Even to the point where you will be clearing a site and someone else will warp in and steal all the good loot while you're busy shooting/tanking rats.

Also, exploration is much more simple with two pilots.

Cov-ops frigates (not stealth bombers, but the other ones) are the best for scanning down sites and can easily survive in low/null. Combat ships depend on the difficulty of the site, but a well fit battlecruiser can run pretty much anything as well as dip into c1/c2 wormholes.


Solo exploration is a bit trickier as you have to fit everything or at least carry everything on one ship. Tengus are generally the top choice but the pilgrim and ishtar are also up there. Pilgrims kill slowly but can run any site + warp cloaked. Ishtars can only fit prototype cloaks (no warping) but they can do combat sites more easily.

The T3 ships were built almost entirely for the purpose of exploration. It's not the only thing they're good for, but it's one of the things they're best for. Train (race) cruiser to 5, train all the subsystems to 4 or 5, burn a few hundred million isk on assembling the thing, go. Tengu is the most popular, but any are more than sufficient to flatten any high-sec site you can find (that allows cruisers, anyhow).

Two ships is better for low-sec, 0.0, or w-space exploration, because you'll find something within a few jumps so keeping track of the second boat and moving it around isn't a big deal. For high sec you may have to run through 40 or 50 systems before you see a site on a bad day, so you either need an alt account or an all-in-one ship. Of the two options, dropping a couple plex on a T3 is cheaper than maintaining an alt scanner account (in real money, at least) given that no one's going to blow your **** up in high.

As for skills, anything with "astrometrics" in the name helps. You also need salvaging, hacking, and analysis to at least 1 to open exploration containers. Anything else depends on whether you want to use your exploration loot (look up invention) or just sell it (no additional skills).

(Note, you _can_ build an all-in-one ship that's not a T3, scanning sites down unbonused will take long enough that you'll be at the "**** this, I quit" point within a couple weeks, though.)

Hi-sec exploration is not very profitable.

Dont think its been mentioned - but skills and equipment make a difference here.

The Astrometrics skills are pretty important (strength, deviation and range skills). Getting some sisters' launchers and probes will also be a very very good investment.

yeah, they are not needed at all.
Just i found when i tried a newbie, after a few days I was consistently getting to 90% 95% on site and couldn't get to 100% until I trained up a few levels of astrometrics - but they were in 0.5-0.3 systems..

There are a couple highsec exploration sites that you do NEED more than the absolute minimum skillset to get. At least, there used to be...

Is the money there though? Keep in mind I am currently running a domi in 4s that can do all of them near AFK. I can fly a proteus with not much effort but it really just needs to be profitable in high sec since I can run 4s in high sec. I know this sounds carebearish but oh well.

So assuming I built a proteus for exploration (300m ish) would I be getting a decent rate of isk with a bit of luck? I currently live in a pretty slow area of high sec as well (0.5)

Well I currently need enough isk to plex 2 accounts if I want to continue playing the way I am looking to play. I currently run level 4s in a domi but the payout just isn't enough. What are my other options currently for isk at a decent rate outside of 4s.

You also need salvaging, hacking, and analysis to at least 1 to open exploration containers.

Keep in mind exploration CAN be profitable, but it CAN also suck.

If you need more isk then you can probably fill the other 2 slots on your account and train basic PI skills(~2 days training on each toon), every little helps.

Exploration is like gambling really :), pays off well or it doesn't, not much in between. I do lots of hisec exploration when i get tired of L4s. I do them in all-in-one legion fit(it was a hurricane before that), some days i can make like 10 mil while on the next day i make my plex from 2 drops.

Does PI make a decent amount of ISK? I have actually been curios about that.

You also need salvaging, hacking, and analysis to at least 1 to open exploration containers.

The only skills I know of with 'analysis' in their name are Signature Analysis and Trajectory Analysis, neither of which seems to me to be relevant to opening exploration cans.

What am I missing?

He means analyzer module which requires archeology skill.