Exploration Improvements, Escalations, Buffs, New Probes

So apart from where you stated it and I quoted you, you didnt say it. Ok.

You havent explained at all how the sites are not “viable” or what this even means.

You have just decided that personal attacks are better than providing any data at all to back up your claims.

And now apparantly WH exploring is too hard.

Yeah you shouldnt probably talk to me, as your fantasy is far more entertaining than any reality we can enlighten you to.

BTW this thread in in the wrong section of the forums.

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Flagging your post as inappropriate. Your being combative in this thread versus contributing to it. You never once discussed my suggestions in any detail and determined that I was here just to have something changed, that benefited my financial situation. Good bye. (lol, did you really just claim the victim after being aggressive, oh lord… I can’t even.)

Truth hurts I guess.
Ta-rah

Good, so what is needed to make data sites less worthless? First two sentences of your post are basically an answer.

That is my suggestion above to help make the sites better, however I did clearly state I was open to hear from others. Just not others who think they know what’s best for me personally.

Storyline tech is old tech. It makes no sense to buff any of this stuff beyond t2. And it wouldn’t be a smart thing to do either. They have their uses, but there is no mass appeal. If this stuff got a buff, it would not only make no sense from a technical perspective, the prices would drop, because more people would want to get, buy and sell that stuff.

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I’m not sure how prices could drop from 2-5m to anything lower. The reason why they items are not selling for decent isk is two fold, the number of items required to make the item, and the effectiveness of the item.

Storyline items are old, but not sold old that when CCP introduced Sleeper Cache that they thew them in there as the best BPC’s you could get.

It does make sense buffing them, they are worse then Meta 4 items. When you consider the risk involved in Exploration versus Combat, Explorers take more risks and should be supplemented with decent items.

you need same items in data sites as in relic sites, that will be in regular use which create demand. Data sites items, most of them, are optional came from antoher sources. That why prices for them are so low. Player driven market (to some degree).

I think there are a few points mixed up here.

First, not all data sites are bad. E.g. sleeper caches. It is worth the effort of scanning these down, even if you only complete the first few risk-free cans because of the probability of bagging blue loot. This should balance out the relic/data imbalance.

Second, improving data sites does not require changing story line BPCs / components. It’s certainly one way to do it, but an easier way would be to include sleeper data or some other vital component (as per earlier post) in the loot tables.

Thirdly, escalations off already low-value sites are pointless.

Fourth, a deep space probe for j-space… makes it a bit too easy.

However, I would agree that story line modules could do with a balance pass. Some are very useful - allowing for completely different fitting options (e.g. ‘Underhand’ Neutron Blasters). Some are no better than meta 1 (e.g Balefire rocket launchers), or worse if you factor in the price of the components. It just needs a bit of work to make all the modules serve a purpose - better PG/CPU is one option, but there are other traits that they could give these modules to give a bit more variety to fitting choices.

The idea of a deep space probe to show you the type of signatures in a wormhole does make it easier, which is the point of them. However you can’t tell what type of data or relic site it is, or combat so it still forces you to scan it down with other probes. I’m trying to think of ideas to bridge the time gap from null sec to wh space when it comes to exploration. With signatures being all over the place in wormhole space, wh exploration could be stream lined.

OP is writing about pre caches and covert data sites. No reason to buff caches and especially wh covert sites when we can loot bilions of ISK from them.

@Circumstantial_Evidence I agree, that would be the best place for this thread.

Moved to #technology-research:player-features-ideas so the right people have a chance of seeing it.

The fact that you “Can” loot “billions” from them well is not exactly accurate, even if you COULD it doesn’t mean you will, an overwhelming majority of the time. The best you can get is 1b not multiple billions and that’s if you get lucky enough to get a High Grade Omega BPC with multiple runs, I’ve been doing exploration for about 9 1/2 years now close to 10, and I’ve never made BILLIONS from a single site.

I don’t really care for how long you are doing exploration. Omega high grade from superior covert sites are around 5 bilions Jita prices. The very holy grail of exploration. You have no idea how market supply-demand works, you spamming exploration subject threads all over the forums with solutions that will be best for you. Exploration since Odyssey is too easy. Your ideas don’t make it better imo.

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Nothing that I’ve presented would be bias towards me specifically. I would not naturally suggest something that would that would be detrimental to me in my specific career, unless I truly thought that I was benefiting from something that was Over Powered and needed to be toned down a bit. I have now and is self evident in my initial post on this thread suggested new Ideas that would encompass all explorers and bring new content into the game as well as a new item for exploring wormholes.

This default, It benefits only you or CCP doesn’t need to change something just because you want them to, is a bit dreary and over played to be quite honest. You can have your opinion on my ideas which is fine, but the moment you assume that I am making threads to some how benefit me and only me personally is absurd, naturally I’d benefit to some degree of having more content to play with the improvements to data sites. I would also be able to scan through wormholes a few minutes faster with the new probe idea.

You don’t care for how long I’ve been an explorer with my experience and how long I’ve been playing eve, simply because it doesn’t suit you. However I guarantee you never tell a scientist I don’t care how long you’ve been a professional in your field, your theories and suggestions to improve medical science are garbage, because well we already have antibiotics!

You’re right exploration is easier, however exploration has always been a RnD work in progress to find what fits, and feels right for the playerbase. Out with the old, in with the new. CCP is a company, Companies don’t exist just to make games for fun they are there to make games enjoyable.

I’d like to know which omega high grade you’re speaking about, specifically. No doubt a BPC, which if I have never seen it is a testament to it’s rarity. You can’t take a marginal case, and subject the sum of the project to it, as to why exploration is “Fine” as it is.

It’s not fine, data sites are a mess, wormholes have too many signatures to scan down, and the storyline bpc’s dropped from Standard Sleeper caches are outdated and need revamped, along with the number of runs on the Tech 2 BPC’s that we obtain.

Suits me? Why should I bother? When I read a sentence like “I have 10 years of experience in exploration thus my experience is better that you” and in the same time you sites to be “safe”, it makes me laugh. Barba non facit philosophum (Beard doesn’t make you a philosopher).

You not the first one that want data sites to be worthwile, but your ideas won’t solve it. Exploration is fine, very lucrative, and very easy. Just because you don’t use data sites materials for R&D doesn’t make the sites worthless.

When you start talking about adding new probes to make it easier to scan signatures, you aren’t affecting just exploration anymore. Those probes OP suggested would make W-space too easy to get around and map. As a long-time wormhole-resident, I do not find it being too time consuming currently to scan scan down signatures. You just have to be a good scanner.

Given the focus on easily resolving signatures, I rather got the impression the OP was writing about anomalies that register as data sites.

Caches register as data sites. If you ignore data sites on principle then you lose out. (I agree that they don’t need buffing.)

My point was that if we factor them into the data vs relic site value equation then it should average

I never mentioned making data sites safe, the escalations of the data sites would be a circumstance that allows explorers to have that one data site to themselves if they are lucky enough to even get an escalation to being with. Drone data sites already do this, so to say absent evidence that my ideas wouldn’t work. I have to say through participation evidence, word of mouth, and 10 YEARS of experience with exploration and eve online, that people properly enjoy those data sites because they can escalate to a better site for them to make more isk, and it’s their own site with out competition. What I am asking for is not revolutionary or is it so far outside the box. It’s ALREADY in the game.

Exploration compared to any other serious full time null sec career, doesn’t even come close, a VNI ratting will make the same isk as an explorer with far less risk because they get their isk instantly on the next server tick, while an explorer may make the same isk in the same span of 3-4 hours. It’s fraught with far more dangers, has to survive possibly multiple site camps, and actually make it back to a null hub, or a high sec hub in order to sell their wares, all the while they can die and get nothing of it. Hell maybe the change to data sites we need is to have a bounty value added on top of the loot in the cans, this way it doesn’t upset the market, and explorers can make a guaranteed amount of money per data site, set by CCP. Even if it was 500-750k upwards of 1m a can on bounty it would be a push in the right direction.

I disagree with your notion that some how you shouldn’t take advice from me, due to your stupid philosophical quote. If you’re not willing to listen to tenure, then who are you willing to listen to? Your bias friends, searching for appeasement? People like a lot of your comments, to boost your ego? Bottom line here is if you’re not willing to listen to the comments and suggestions of the people who do this day in and day out for years on end, then you’re comments are valueless.

No, I was suggesting a new probe type that would show all the cosmic signatures “Type” in a wormhole, If you spot 20 gas sites and you see 3 or 4 data sites, you still need to get the appropriate probe reloaded and launched and scan the sites down to with in 25% to see the name of the site, and determine if that’s something you want to work with. Not everything has to stay the same in eve as a long arguous task simply because it was in the past, and people are afraid to change the status quo. When CCP introduced Data/Relic/Sleeper and Ghost sites into the C1-C3 wormholes, I am not 100% sure they factored in how much time it would actually take an explorer. If I had 22 sites, and I was a computer program that did everything perfectly even at 6 seconds, per scan at a minimum of 3 to 4 scans per site you’re looking at 18-24 seconds per signature, x sometimes upwards of 20-28 signatures in a system. 11.2 minutes on the high end if you had a computer program aligning probes and pressing scan with in in 0.5 seconds, scanning with in 0.5 seconds and completing the scan with the high average of 6 seconds per scan.

That’s a computer running it perfectly, now an actual person is going to take about 10 seconds to move probes align it properly and scan. Sometimes you can get lucky and get multiple hits and ignore them like gas sites etc, but the average WH with 20+ sites takes well over 30 minutes to scan down all the signatures.

This is not acceptable in 2018.

p.s I spend a great deal of time in twitch chats with the explorers that are live streaming their content, and one question I’m always sure to ask them is why aren’t you going after data sites. And do you run wh sites. Every time not even save one, the answer is no data sites are not worth scanning down, compared to relic sites and time is money. And that wormholes are good but they have far too many signatures to scan down to make it time efficient.

I have literally heard this hundreds of times since the introduction pirate faction data sites in c1-c3 wormholes, but at that time data sites were still worth running, because if you hit a jackpot data site with a small ancillary armor repairer with 50 runs on it, you made 500m on the market, when they were 10m a pop, even a few months later when they dropped down to 5m a pop, it was still a 250m haul. CCP ruined that by interjecting themselves into the market "because they wanted that particular price lower’ Which I still find to of been the crappiest thing I’ve ever seen them do.

Back then everyone did data sites, due to that BPC and that meant prices were cheaper for the salvage and over all the market was better for it, due to producing more items and people could buy things cheaper and that means in the long run more purchases. Believe it or not, making data sites great again will have a massively positive impact on the market. It’s better to Sell 150 1 million isk item, than 1 100 million isk item, over the long haul even if it takes longer to sell the 150 items.

Data sites need help, regardless if you think they do or not. I’ve offered suggestions, and many on this thread have not made other suggestions, just insults on how my suggestions won’t fix anything.

How do you know? You don’t know.

ISD if you will, please lock this thread at my request if you’ve time. I’ve flagged it for locking, I would appreciate it. I’ve said my peace and I can only hope that it got to deserving ears of CCP. Thank you.