Hey all. I'm a noob, trying to de-carebear myself a bit now. For that I'm going for data/relic sites in lowsec. So far I like it, the feeling of constant, looming threat in lowsec adds a lot to the fun---and, perhaps perversely, I like the tactical position I'm in: tiny ship without tank or weapons, strictly fitted to do exploration and to escape, only tanked by speed and cheapness (is cheapness-tanking a thing?) I know I can't fight, but I'm in the position of the prey: I need to be as quick, smart, and careful as I can just to survive. The prey can be victorious, too, no?

But some questions arose for me, and Id be grateful if I could get some bits of information from you:

---Not being so quick, smart, or anything I got myself killed the other night in a 0.1 system. I was impressed: I used my current routine of doing the trick to avoid being killed at entry, went to the sun, deployed my probes, and then cloaked. To my surprise, I was de-cloaked and killed no 15 seconds later. I tried to convo my killer, but he didn't reply, so perhaps someone here can enlighten me some: When I warp to a celestial to 0 km: will I end at a spot that depends from where I started, or is there just one spot at that celestial where everyone who sets 0 km lands regardless from what direction they are coming? I can't imagine any other way how he could come so close to de-cloak my ship. If that is so: should one, after arriving, just fly for some 50 km or so to be safe of this?

---When Im deactivating my cloak, two things are not in sync: the cloak button will almost immediately show it has stopped working, while my ship only becomes visible *to me* on the screen after about 6 seconds or so. What do potential enemies see? The immediate de-cloaking, or do they only see me after these few seconds when I can see my ship myself?

---Just a tiny annoyance, but a constant one: I have 16 probes, and auto-reload on---but most of the time it doesn't reload. Tiny bug, or is there a way to fix that for me?

---The mini-game: is there any tactics to it, or is the outcome strictly a combination of virus-strength and luck? And: does it matter how fast you are doing it (apart from generally wanting to do stuff quick and move on)?

---Far as I understand, asteroids are respawned during the server downtime---same for relic and data sites? Better chances if you explore soon after downtime?

---Finally: Do people in lowsec never speak at all, or do they just not speak in local? In all the time I've so far spent in lowsec I have never seen a word in any local chat apart from my own. Is everyone strictly only speaking in corp channels?


Lots of questions---Id be thankful for any answer.

(is cheapness-tanking a thing?)

First question - anything within 2500 m of you will decloak your ship, that includes your own probes.

- I know for one that if someone said in local "I'm just exploring, please don't kill me" I would put more effort into finding them than if they just passed through quietly..

He saw where you warped to and warped after you at 0 because that is what newbies and noobs usually choose as distance.

. I move along the edges.

While everyone shares the same "location" at 0km, warping at range to that point DOES depend on the direction you came from. So if you warp to a customs office at 70 km, someone would have to warp at the same range, from the same direction, to land right on top of you..

[ Talking in local is a great way to paint a target on your back.t.

3) control-space drops you out of warp, so if you have lots of others with you in system, you don't have to do the entire "bookmark en route then warp back" thing. This is the most useful command I have learned (this week).

3) control-space drops you out of warp

"Relic/Data/Combat anomalies all respawn when completed. They respawn somewhere else though" vs "Sites respawn after DT" Which is it? Perhaps someone else can weight in?

I run combat sites exclusively and can say for certain that downtime has no effect on Relic/Data/Combat respawns. I've been in systems scanning and had new signatures show up during the scan.

I'm doing some exploration in null, and have found a few tricks that might help you.

1) Make your own safes, multiple perches over gates and varying distances and directions. Between these and bouncing off celestials, it makes a cat and mouse game with hunters grand fun

2) don't set your safes in line between two gates

3) control-space drops you out of warp, so if you have lots of others with you in system, you don't have to do the entire "bookmark en route then warp back" thing. This is the most useful command I have learned (this week).

Planets, moons, and the sun all have a common warp-in point. Anyone warping to 0 on one of these objects will arrive in the same location (give or take like a kilometer) regardless of what direction they came from. Don't warp to 0.


No it doesn't. If you press that while warping it will tell you that you can't do that because you're in a warp.

Ctrl-space while warping is still useful, if for example you pressed the "jump" button for a stargate or "dock" button for a station, and decide while in warp that you don't want to jump or dock immediately. Pressing ctrl-space there will cancel the jump or dock command but you will still finish warping to the destination.

The only way you can stop a warp before reaching the destination is if you didn't have enough capacitor energy to make the full warp. This is a trick you can use to your advantage, if you have a way of draining your own cap, but it requires setup, and isn't something you can do on the fly. Once you're in warp, your warp exit point is set and cannot be changed.

---Finally: Do people in lowsec never speak at all, or do they just not speak in local? In all the time I've so far spent in lowsec I have never seen a word in any local chat apart from my own. Is everyone strictly only speaking in corp channels?

... talking with you on local or even private convo doesn't mean they won't try to get you simultaneously.

Talk all you want, making friends is fun. Not everyone will reply, but those who will can be fun. Yes they may also kill you, but they would anyway. :)

Thanks for the ongoing interesting replies!

...from the majority of opinions uttered, I conclude that the respawning of signatures has nothing to do with downtime. Good!

---For the social aspect: I think I would enjoy getting a bit of contact with other players in lowsec, but from what Im hearing so far it seems there are only two ways: Enter a lowsec corp (not practical for me atm), or be killed and hope the killer will talk a bit to me, and naturally I wouldnt willingly sacrifice a ship for that.

Hey all. I'm a noob, trying to de-carebear myself a bit now. For that I'm going for data/relic sites in lowsec.

I was impressed: I used my current routine of doing the trick to avoid being killed at entry, went to the sun, deployed my probes, and then cloaked.

---The mini-game: is there any tactics to it, or is the outcome strictly a combination of virus-strength and luck?

And: does it matter how fast you are doing it (apart from generally wanting to do stuff quick and move on)?

---Finally: Do people in lowsec never speak at all, or do they just not speak in local? In all the time I've so far spent in lowsec I have never seen a word in any local chat apart from my own. Is everyone strictly only speaking in corp channels?

Edited to add a question: is it worth carrying a stack of ECM drones? Will it significantly affect the odds of getting away intact if caught?

Next question: what about boosting sensor strength to make it harder for miscreants to scan me down? Is this likely to be worthwhile, please?

Apropos miscreants scanning down signatures instead of you. A nice potential wrench in the wheels of their sneaky approach is to jettison a can with a single round of ammo or some assorted trash at warp in - as soon as you exit warp when you go to a signature.

Apropos miscreants scanning down signatures instead of you.

Actually, I was puzzling over what the methodology is here. After all, the intended victim might be some distance from the signature warp-in point.

1) Warp to signature uncloaked, with weapons that can attack at very long range. Blast victim. This seems like the quickest approach, such that even if they hit the panic button and are already aligned you should connect with a salvo or two.
2) Warp to signature cloaked, with similar weapons. Uncloak. This seems clearly worse in that it provides more warning.
3) Warp to signature cloaked, slowboat over to target, blast them at point-blank range. That could take forever, and the target still gets an uncloak + lockon time to run away.
4) Warp to target uncloaked and blast them at point-blank range. Like #1 except with higher-damage guns, but does need target scanned down.

Apparently it's not #4, but I'm curious as to which of #1 #2 #3 it is, please?

I've been careful to keep analysis targets out of decloak range except when actually slurping up the contents, and to align the ship to a safe spot while analysing, intending that if someone turns up on overview I'll either cloak or warp depending on the range to them. Is this sensible, please?

Note: only stealth bombers have zero targeting delay after decloaking. All other cloakies have a minimum of 5 seconds iirc.

Seems like that would be sufficient time to warp out, even after being bumped, so I guess it's down to the usual business of trying to watch the rest of the screen while running analysis. Thanks.

(Although yesterday's discovery was, if you scan down a POS in lowsec don't go and take a look at it, it can blow you up from quite a long way away. Still, Magnates are cheap...)

Well, sometimes there is only 1 data/relic site in system and I can just go there and wait for you. And if there are 2 sites my alt will have to undock :)

But more often then not people react too slow to run away from my slasher or even thrasher. There has to be something magical in flashy red on overview that keeps them from hitting warp the moment I land at beacon :)

1) Warp to signature uncloaked, with weapons that can attack at very long range. Blast victim. This seems like the quickest approach, such that even if they hit the panic button and are already aligned you should connect with a salvo or two.
2) Warp to signature cloaked, with similar weapons. Uncloak. This seems clearly worse in that it provides more warning.
3) Warp to signature cloaked, slowboat over to target, blast them at point-blank range. That could take forever, and the target still gets an uncloak + lockon time to run away.
4) Warp to target uncloaked and blast them at point-blank range. Like #1 except with higher-damage guns, but does need target scanned down.

Well, sometimes there is only 1 data/relic site in system and I can just go there and wait for you. And if there are 2 sites my alt will have to undock :)

But more often then not people react too slow to run away from my slasher or even thrasher. There has to be something magical in flashy red on overview that keeps them from hitting warp the moment I land at beacon :)

They are probably very new at PvP, get an adrenaline rush, freeze up and get slow. Don't you remember what it was like when you first got pointed by an evil pirate? I sure do, I forgot which buttons fire up my weapons. :p

Mmm. I've run into one bubble so far (through sheer stupidity) and total paralysis ensued. First podding of my career. :-)

After looking at your loss: where is your ship? Killboard didn't update yet or you really are flying around null in your pod?

After looking at your loss: where is your ship? Killboard didn't update yet or you really are flying around null in your pod?

I checked zkillboard.com and there is only pod lost in null.

Normally:

5) Warp to signature at range cloaked. Bookmark hacking can next to explorer. Bounce to closest celestial and back to can cloaked. Uncloak and shoot.

^^What Cara said (not what I said).

Damn, this chick knows everything!

Anyway, if you are explorer your priority is get loot from sites and survive long enough to make ISK from it. Losing ships is natural part of this process so no need to be shy about it just try to learn and be better next time.

Oh, I realise that; it's all about odds. I don't set my eyes on a covops, because a Magnate - even with a cloak, etc - is dirt cheap, and I can afford to lose a lot of those. I went into lowsec a couple of times without the cloak because no Cloaking skill, and it turned out all right, but if I had been blown up, why would I care?

It's not about wormhole but about J system it leads to. So you would have to jump through wormhole and look around: what class it is, what kind of effects it has if any, how many planets/moons are there, are there any towers at moons and if yes, are they active and who is the owner, etc. Wormhole itself won't last long so buying it wouldn't make much sense although I guess that would make for hilarious story to tell around camp fire :)

That makes more sense, but since indeed the wormhole itself won't last long, what good does it do the buyer to know that at one point I could get to system J-such-and-such via this wormhole?

If the J-whatever system is valuable to a buyer, you sit in there until you sell it.
Then you find a convenent path to highsec and show it to the buyer, who then occupies the hole himself.

Here's another question, hijacking the OP's thread. I've seen mention of selling wormholes. This seems an obvious thing for an explorer to do, but I can't see that the wormhole location itself has much value. Presumably one has to scan down some of the stuff beyond... so, please, what makes a saleable package?

First question - anything within 2500 m of you will decloak your ship, that includes your own probes.
Second question - dunno, sorry :)
Third question - if you activate your cloak it stops any reloads that are in progress including the probes.
Fourth Question - Virus strength and luck
Fifth question - Relic/Data/Combat anomalies all respawn when completed. They respawn somewhere else though, probably in the same constellation.
Sixth question - most don't talk