You can have a low barrier to proficiency with **** drops or a high barrier with good drops, you can't have both.

The barrier is the same for the Relic sites and the Sleeper sites take a lot of training. The barrier for LvL 4 mission running is also low and the ISK is much better, not to mention, much lower risk.

"You can become proficient at scanning in a matter of days where as time to proficiency for level 4s (not being "able" but being proficient) is measured in months. "

Being able to scan down and hack sleeper sites take a long time- t2 relic/data- plus scanning skills, not to mention training up a T3 for the tough ones and keep from losing ships in well run bubble camps. I could easily do level 4's with all my skills at level IV with a sentry Domi- though I made 10 million less per hour or so, than I had once everything was trained up.

Other things like station trading take 21 days to train up and can bring in far more money. So your argument doesn't really hold water.


I have explored all over Eve. All the decent areas are pretty much the same, though you do get lucky from time to time and find systems with sites. It still does not address that basic issue that Data sites are so bad, most explorers ignore them.

Make a new loot table for scanned down DEDs vs the escalation versions. Plenty of mods do not have deadspace versions yet.

I just finished about 6 hours worth of null sec exploration. All I found were data sites, which nobody seems to do anymore, except for the sleeper sites. I have run into fellow explorers that don't even have a data analyzer, because the Data sites are so worthless.

On a whim, I decided to see how much ISK I could pull out for 4 of them, all in the same system. My grand total? Under 20 million. My total for 6-8 hours of exploration? Under 80 million. This is terrible. I could easily have farmed over 400 million doing level 4 missions, which is boring as hell. Somebody running incursions would have had over 1 billion.

It is extremely depressing to log that much time and run into 1 relic site and not a single sleeper site. It makes exploration seem like a complete waste of time to anybody with a reasonable number of skill points. I have seen this all over EVE- since I travel everywhere.

People who can play off peak hours, which I have done, do far better, but for those of us forced to play at peak times the ISK to time ratio is terrible.

Please look at boosting the base rewards for data sites so that they are worth doing, or increase the spawn rate so that those of us stuck playing at these times can have the opportunity to find more sleeper/relic sites.

Though I have a trading alt to make real ISK, I like exploration- especially during wars with station camping corps, but it is just not worth it with nobody doing the data sites.

I decided to see how much ISK I could pull out for 4 of them, all in the same system. My grand total? Under 20 million. My total for 6-8 hours of exploration? Under 80 million. This is terrible.

"Level 4s done properly are every bit as much as incursions. Factor in time spent moving and sitting on a waitlist to do an incursion and level 4s pull ahead. As for incursions a billion isk in 8 hours is overly optimistic."

I would generally agree with you, except I don't run the solo burner missions, which really impact my ISK per hour. I have to train up a couple things before I can blitz them all.

I agree that running incursions may not make that kind of ISK if you are running only a couple hours at a time, but people who do long sessions with a good group do very very well from what I have been told. I don't usually have 5-6 hours to play, often just an hour or two a night- so for me, missions are better for exactly the reasons you stated.

6 hours.I could easily have farmed over 400 million doing level 4 missions

"Please explain Op how long those four sites took you"

Roughly half hour or so- including scanning them down, but his doesn't really matter, the ISK per site is so low that even if I found 10 sites in two hours, I would only make about 30 million unless I got really lucky and it would take you at least 3 hours to find 10 sites. You can't work in systems with people, you have to fly from system to system, you end up scanning down a thinks like WH's, which is a waste of time when you are not looking for them and often when you find a couple sites, somebody else shows up and want them as well, which becomes a waiting game with two cloaked ships.

The fact that you asked this question makes me think you don't do a lot of null sec exploration, while I have been doing it for a long time.

[quote=Ellatte Silversong]
Data sites aren't that lucrative sure, but when all you need is a Cov Ops frigate with a cloak and probe launcher, it's not exactly much risk either.

If it's so low risk why even bother with the cloak?

Like a cloaky Tengu who has already scanned down the sites waiting for you to uncloak in your frigate never happens...never

Such a simple thread quickly derailed by "hurr durr Highsec lvl 4s make so much *money*". LP rewards payout as much as you nullsec crabs are willing to pay, because all the liquid ISK available for trading comes from anoms and incursions. Stop paying mission runners as much as you are and their income will drop. Or start doing regular BLOPs to churn out all the expensive sh*t from NS renters.

The point of the thread is that Data sites suck. Really, really suck. Primary commodities from Data sites were decriptors, and racial decriptors were quite valuable. But now, they are generalized and except some of the top tier ones, they don't sell for much. Getting carbon from data site is hilarious tho. And all the PI mats as well. Or things like trade goods (weapons and stuff).

CCP needs to go through which items are shared between Data sites and other parts of the game and readjust - Data sites need some unique items to sell, perhaps based on emergent events (antikioashdas elements/drifter parts depending on drifter activity, for example), in order to motivate people to start farming them again and start data site BPCs source again.

Another explorer whine thread? Since the introduction of mini-game exploration, this is the only real fit you need so to win at exploration. I miss the old explorer threads.

How about a Proteus? Will that do?

You can have a low barrier to proficiency with **** drops or a high barrier with good drops, you can't have both.

This is terrible. I could easily have farmed over 400 million doing level 4 missions, which is boring as hell.

I guess, removing Data Cores from LP stores should fix the problem.

Gudd idea! So next time you'll go to your next tradehub that stealth bomber or recon ship only cost 10 times more than ever. What could go wrong?

Gudd idea! So next time you'll go to your next tradehub that stealth bomber or recon ship only cost 10 times more than ever. What could go wrong?

We already know this won't happen because prices didn't vary that much in the downward direction when they were added to FW LP stores. If the proposition involves removing R&D agents then maybe we'll see a significant change in price depending on drop rates. If not then that's a big buff to R&D agent income, however you may feel about that.

Isk per hour isn't always the most important thing ever.

It came to my mind recently that Relic sites should never again drop skill books. Skill books, especially the 10M science books, are very valuable and add significantly to the overall reward of a site. Skill books are also basically data and code that is implanted into our brains. It would be only natural to remove them from relic sites and have them drop exclusively in Data sites, making data sites more unique and actually worth running or at least give something for cherrypickers.

Furthermore, the mini games should be different from each other. It has been suggested many times and also agreed on by CCP that the grid should not consist of only one final node, but many treasure caches. Reduce the number of cans in the sites and have only a couple with larger grids that you need to explore fully to get to the good stuff. This could be applied only to relic sites as it makes more sense in my opinion to search through lots of different rooms/corners/caches in a ruin or rubble to uncover hidden treasures than in a databank where the good stuff is basically stored in one secure vault protected by counter measures.

Lastly, I would very much like to see CCP pick up the dropped project they demonstrated in the 2012 (or was it 2013) player gathering in Berlin. They demonstrated a rough prototype of actually entering a ruins (either in person or via a drone) and maneuver through a maze grid with counter measures and obstacles towards the treasure chest.