Exploration & Hacking

Fixed an issue with relic and data sites appearing empty or despawning prematurely.
Site signatures no longer disappear after the sites have been partially completed.
Now all cans that contain loot have to be hacked or exploded for the site to despawn.



I'm not even... Best fix CCP, you got to the core of what is the problem here and fixed it in flawless way!

It's not even in their interest to leave the cans open. So they'll blow it up. The easiest way to blow them up is: turn on analyzer and close the game. Do that twice in a row and the can is destroyed.

I think you are misunderstanding the change. Before today's patch, when you completed one can, the Signature disappeared, i.e. you needed combat probes to find the ship doing the site. They have not changed the Site despawning when at least one can got completed and you warp out and stay off-grid for X minutes.

I think you are misunderstanding the change. Before today's patch, when you completed one can, the Signature disappeared, i.e. you needed combat probes to find the ship doing the site. They have not changed the Site despawning when at least one can got completed and you warp out and stay off-grid for X minutes.

You're misunderstanding the change. If you open one can, the site will not de-spawn. All containers have to be opened or destroyed in order for site to de-spawn.

What a bad solution to the cherry picking problem. Just blocking scanning of the cargo and it goes back to random, the way it should be.

without cargo scanning you could completely remove data sites, because 98% of all cans in find in those sites dont contain anything but worthless stuff. From 10 data sites I cargo scan, there are maybe 1-2 cans worth hacking at all - if I couldnt cargo scan I wouldnt even bother showing up there at all.

But tell me how a solo explorer would ever get a bpc from a relic site with no cargo scanner? Who would collect data cans and miss out on the t2 loot for this slim chance?

Yes well maybe you just have to miss out on it then.

Maybe this is the solution for the low skill point entry levels. Now the main entry barrier will be the player's capacity for tediously sifting through worthless sites instead of the character's skill investment. But if we're using tedium as the solution, aren't we right back to where exploration was pre-Odyssey?

I am confused on the comments regarding downtime. Downtime really doesn't effect anything most of the time. The unfinished sites are still going to presist through downtime and since sites are no longer gaurnteed to be generated after downtime that begs the question as to how does downtime matter at all? The only time downtime is going to come into play is when a site is going to despawn naturually due to age.

Anyone leaving sites half-finished is just being rude and slightly dumb.

Anyone leaving sites half-finished is just being rude and slightly dumb.

At least destroy the ****** can(s) by hacking and then closing the hacking interface twice before you leave. That way no one runs into a mostly empty site and a new one will spawn somewhere.

I would suggest:
Despawn the site after every can has been hacked at least once (whether it was successful or not) or destroyed.

It could be interesting to prevent the site from despawning until all ships have warped out of the signature.

This would allow someone to complete a site and sit in it cloaked until some hapless newbie comes by to run it and then, Interaction In SpaceGäó

PS the visual hint on data cans (spinning rings) is very useful, what is the corresponding hint on relic cans?

Rude yes.

Dumb ? Not so much. They are wasting their competitors' time, which should decrease competition for them.
Also everyone who's giving up exploration because he has been running into cherrypicked sites a few times in a row is a profit for the cherrypickers.

I've made more money because of the "competition" going up personally. Sites are far easier to find because of it.

how is that?

Its quite easy really, more sittes getting popped, more sites spawning. Higher chance of a respawn if you are doing things in a limited area. It also increases your chances of finding new sites if you are roaming.. if you are really lucky, they might even pop up in the system while you are scanning for them.

Found a system once with two relic sites, by the time I finished them, a data site has also appeared. :)

Bottomline: clearing out sites benefits everone (including you).. cherry picking and advocating cherry picking reduces your own chances of finding new sites just as much as it does for your competition.

BTW: Recent patch seems to have helped the problems to an extent, or its just me being luckier, but I've found a decent amount of sites today.. the same cannot be said about yesterday.

but if one site is done, another one spawns. this doesnt increase the overall number of sites, they just move from one system to a different one, right? IF people properly finish them at all, most probably just cherrypick. Dont think your theory works.

If any site despawns when you are in it is very immersion breaking so we wouldn't want to do that.

but people dont finish them, they cherrypick. if you finish you allow competition in your area farm "your" sites.
theory is still flawed IMO.

If you have an area you work that is 6 systems, and there are 80 systems total that the sigs you are working apply to, then there is a 6/80 chance that any sig you cherry picked would have immediately respawned in your reach. Obviously if you just lap your area once, then later in your sweep the odds of you seeing the respawn reduce.

sigs dont respawn when cherrypicked, they stay there undone until miracle happens or some dumbass cleans them out.
This is why I dont understand how more cherrypickers (its what most explorers do) help you finding more sites, what was the original statement which is wrong IMO.

sigs dont respawn when cherrypicked, they stay there undone until miracle happens or some dumbass cleans them out.
This is why I dont understand how more cherrypickers (its what most explorers do) help you finding more sites, what was the original statement which is wrong IMO.

I didn't say more cherrypickers, I said more competition, ie. more explorers. Particularly ones that aren't idiots and leave sites that have been run still there.

you didnt say but you implied by referring to "more explorers" because cherrypicking is what explorers actually do, everything else is waste of time and supporting local competition.

I'm saying it's a bad idea because local competition is actually good for your wallet provided everyone (or most) finish the sites.

Let's say I'm running sites around Harbleblarg and someone else is running sites near Hurfledurf. If we both just cherry pick, both of us only end up with cherry picked sites. If we both finish our sites, new sites will be spawning for both of us, thus increasing our income.

It works just fine.

edit: I think this is a great example of the Prisoner's Dilemma playing out in a game. Everyone finishing all the sites and making sure they respawn is like the prisoners refusing to testifiy. You give up on the best result for yourself (cherry picking/testifying and going free) for a fairly acceptable result for everyone. But you can't trust the other people to not be greedy so you decide to beat them to it instead of being the sacrificial lamb, but then everyone ends up in a bad spot (worthless sites littering space/both prisoners in jail for the longer sentence term). But in EVE it's a decision that is made with every site you run, so most people probably try to average out their decisions depending on what's in the site and how many fresh sites they've been finding.

CCP Prime just submitted a fix for this problem. Sites will despawn a reasonable amount of time after the first can is hacked.

The unintentional "prisoners dilemma" in this case is interesting but the despawning mechanic is not easy to understand from within the game so it doesn't really work.

CCP Prime just submitted a fix for this problem. Sites will despawn a reasonable amount of time after the first can is hacked.

The unintentional "prisoners dilemma" in this case is interesting but the despawning mechanic is not easy to understand from within the game so it doesn't really work.

Hi all,

We are looking into this issue where players are encountering half finished/cherry picked sites.

This has occurred due to the original despawning mechanics of the sites pre-Odyssey and the vast increase in general exploration, so we have made a temporary fix to this which results in the sites remaining until all containers are opened or destroyed.

Obviously we feel that this is detrimental to the overall Exploration feature and are currently in talks about how to best alleviate this issue.

But for now, rest assured that we will be looking into resolving this to give you the best exploration experience we can before larger iterations occur further down the line.

CCP RedDawn

CCP Prime just submitted a fix for this problem. Sites will despawn a reasonable amount of time after the first can is hacked.

The unintentional "prisoners dilemma" in this case is interesting but the despawning mechanic is not easy to understand from within the game so it doesn't really work.

Any update on when we can expect the fix?
The whole experience is utterly broken as it is now.

Still no fix even after today's patch.
I don't understand you CCP.

Unless you're trying to deter people from exploring....

Yes I do find it odd as well that it has taken more than 4 days for the fix to be implemented. However, I can say I am enjoying my break away from expo.

I hope this is not so that sites get cleaned up and fresh sites spawn after downtime. That would be a massive advantage for some players, disadvantage to the rest. Wasn't it like that in the past and it sucked?
I'm not against the change per se. Unfinished sites will help ease the market situation a bit. Smart explorers who know where to look will still find fresh sites. But the eventual despawn has to be consistent with when the first container was hacked. Perhaps after 4, 6, 12 hours or whatever would be adequate.



I've seen a couple voices against the cargo scan. But tell me how a solo explorer would ever get a bpc from a relic site with no cargo scanner? Who would collect data cans and miss out on the t2 loot for this slim chance?
Cargo scan isn't the issue. The issue is a spew mechanic designed for group activity that is impossible to balance for serving its purpose while not being unfair to solo explorers. The cherry picking wasn't an issue with the old system.

I also find the cargo scan gives at least a bit of depth to running the sites. Otherwise the loot spew would be completely dull. I get excited when i see i valuable bpc on the scan and then pray that nobody disturbs me and the minigame fairy is good to me.

Another thing during Sisi test the cans were completely random and as a result the loot was abysmal for solo, whereas a group would always get all the goodies. Not fair, not balanced.

I stay by my opinion that the main issue with the new sites is the low entry barrier.

I got to say, spending hours finding a site and then realizing it's mostly empty is very disheartening. I'm not asking for rewards to be handed to me for free or with little effort, but traveling system-to-system with zero results to only be teased with a half-empty site is pretty bad. I know that's not your intention as the developer, but I just wanted to express my feelings on the whole ordeal.

What really kicked me off the other day was not the empty sites per se, but the fact a corp mate of mine landed a load of faction tower BPC's in high security while I was shooting blanks in the most dangerous space. According to your marketing team and your trailers, we are supposed to be discovering the deep treasures of the darkest and secluded spots in the EVE Galaxy. Yet, it seems at least from a reward standpoint, my corp mate was AFK hacking while I was sweating bullets and dodging Goonswarm gate camps.

Reference --> TwitchTv.com/TehFamine

P.S

Thanks for the fix to kill sites after first can has been hacked.

I spent most of my play time tonight finding half-empty sites and with no real value. It was a bit upsetting for me and my viewers (TwitchTv Stream). I think even if they did implement this change, there is still only 2 cosmic signatures popping in null-sec for most regions. That leaves maybe a small percentage chance of them being a relic/data site to be hacked (i.e.: not enough sites to go around).

Put the rats back in. Exploration is too easy, nearly risk free.

You want to fly into low or null for isk? Then you need a ship that can handle the rats before you get to your tasty loot. And the kind of ship that can handle the rats that should be found there aren't going to be killed by some weak interdiction nullified T3 cloaky no risk taking ship.

Would make the whole use of covert op frigates for hacking void. I don't think they want to do that.

It would also mean that no one flew to null-sec for these sites. There is no way I'm bringing a cruiser size hull or above into hostile space. It's almost suicide because of the warp out times from gate-to-gate. That leaves only recon ships able to hack. Which again, means no risk.

Think before you post.

Hello again,

With today's Tranquility update we have released the fix for the sites not despawning correctly.
Now, after any container within a site has been successfully hacked, a site despawn timer initiates.

There will still be the possibility that you encounter a site that has been 'cherry picked' but it should be a lot rarer than before.
(You've just been unlucky enough to find a site that has just recently been run by another player)

As usual, please submit in-game bug reports if you find anything unusual about this side of exploration.

All the best,
CCP RedDawn

So now sites will respawn as aggresivly as after expansion thus making market tank even more.

I like it , you should reap what you sow.

Thanks for the much needed fix.
Out of curiosity... how long is the timer?
I tested it out but stopped counting after an hour.
Doesn't that seem a bit excessive?

I mean who takes that long to hack a site!?

The timer initiates on the first successful hack of a container and only counts down when the site is empty.
So if you are sitting in the site, it will not despawn.
If another player warps into the site before it has despawned the timer is paused and initiates again when they leave.
As for the length of the timer itself, I'm not telling.

The timer initiates on the first successful hack of a container and only counts down when the site is empty.
So if you are sitting in the site, it will not despawn.
If another player warps into the site before it has despawned the timer is paused and initiates again when they leave.
As for the length of the timer itself, I'm not telling.

So if you are sitting in the site, it will not despawn.

Is this the same for cloaked ships sitting in the site?

Thanks for the update RedDawn.

Any ETA on something relating to the market issues? Another developer commented on that ETA, but just wondering if anything has changed from the time he posted and today.

Hello again,

With today's Tranquility update we have released the fix for the sites not despawning correctly.
Now, after any container within a site has been successfully hacked, a site despawn timer initiates.

There will still be the possibility that you encounter a site that has been 'cherry picked' but it should be a lot rarer than before.
(You've just been unlucky enough to find a site that has just recently been run by another player)

As usual, please submit in-game bug reports if you find anything unusual about this side of exploration.

All the best,
CCP RedDawn

probably.. because I was cloaked while waiting and the site wouldn't despawn.

Wait, does this mean the method of locking up sites by sitting in them cloaked is once again viable?