Having done a handful of these sites, I have a hard time believing they’re working as intended. I believe the way these are meant to be run is in a covert ops frigate utilizing stealth, and doing a decloak-wait 5 seconds-cloak-MWD sequence to move around the site without running out of time. Any other method simply does not seem feasible, and the site design seems to actively encourage this approach.
Here are the biggest issues I’ve had:
Sites are sometimes literally impossible to do without triggering a mine. It seems the placement of the mines is somewhat random, and sometimes sites will generate that simply do not have any gaps in the mines to safely reach the can.
The red bubble of the mine’s explosion radius is only displayed when the camera is close to the mine. This makes it irritating to find a path through them.
The enemy fleet will sometimes lock you before the 5-second cloak reactivation delay is up, which means you effectively fail the site. This is really annoying because it seems totally inconsistent and random, meaning you can execute the cloak trick perfectly and still fail.
I think these sites should be looked at because they’re one of the few sources of Electro-Neural Signallers, which are needed for capital production.
Interesting the price of those makes the sites worth running. What you describe is the way I think it’s meant to be run or slowboat cloaked. Can’t you warp out and back if the NPC lock you?
I haven’t run one myself only the other one (combat) site, but gave up due to bad risk/reward ratio. Looks like a new challenge …
… in future in a fully corrupted system you may be able to use a bomb to clear the mines
The 2nd pocket requires a key to get through, and the key is site-specific, consumed on warp and there is only one per site, so warping out will effectively end the site.
The site also has a 30 minute time limit and you will spend 5-10 minutes of that in the first pocket because you have to burn 200-250 km to an acceleration gate while webbed by a turret that cannot be avoided. Slowboating while cloaked in the second pocket will likely cause you to run out of time. Perhaps a specialized fit with overdrive injectors and maybe speed rigs could be fast enough, but it will still be tight because you usually have to travel a good 100-150 km (if not more) in the second pocket.
Everything about the site’s design points to it being designed to be run this way in a covops. The decloaking towers indicate that it’s supposed to be run in a cloaky ship with a short recloak delay. The stasis tower in the first room is problematic for bigger (and thus slower) ships. Bigger ships are also targeted faster by the rats which means they won’t be able to do the decloak trick in the second room.
Wasn’t there also a phalanx of heavy gunstars obliterating everything not cloaked? Which means that a jump destroyer or battlecruiser using a MJD for short cut would likely not be feasible.
Somewhat impossible to go through some mine fields. Yes, can that happen. Same as hacking puzzle, you cannot guarantee 100% success rate. Pure RNG. Not a bug.
This one is just skill issue. I have no problems with that. Not a bug.
I made that site around 100 times and this was my problem only once. Idk try maybe not turning MWD on while you uncloaked or also try keeping yourself away from enemy fleet so enemy frigates which have probably more scan resolution than BS but less lock range wont lock you. Not a bug, I guess.
Also if you check market, there is no shortage of ENS there what can tell you that site is fine as it is.
A puzzle site being literally impossible to complete is definitely a bug.
What skill can I train to make the visual effect of the mines show up from further away? That’s a rhetorical question, don’t answer. The visual effect only appearing when near by is most definitely a bug, because it’s not a problem with other spherical AoEs like warp disruption bubbles.
What ship are you using? I have done all of mine in a Buzzard which has the largest signature radius of the covops frigates (the smallest, discounting the Pacifier, is the Probe with 46 m, as opposed to the Buzzard’s 50 m), so perhaps that can play a part. I’ve had the frigates lock me from over 100 km away so I don’t think it’s practically possible to outrange them.
