How to avoid exploration site cloaker?

New Citizens Q&A
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I got a bit demotivated last night losing 2 ships to exploration. The first one could have been avoided as I was too busy reading/researching a site I just picked up to notice a player sneak up really quick on grid and pod me. Fair enough, I just need to multitask better or fly back to read in HiSec lol.

But at the second site I was dscanning all the time and tried to play it safe only to notice someone suddenly appear on grid within 10km of me (no sign on dscan) as I started hacking and one shot kill me (He had a T3 ship IIRC) before I could even react - I assume he might have been cloaked and just waiting at that site all day? If that’s the case, I’m somewhat surprised at that level of patience.

So that was hours of effort wasted without any return lol, and now the drudgery of going to market and rebuilding the ship again and doing all the scanning again. I have yet to make anything significant in exploration but still early days I suppose.

Just as a newbie, how can this sort of engagement be countered or isn’t there a way? I feel there’s nothing I can do or learn from that situation but better to ask the vets what I might be missing :slight_smile:

One idea I had was to use an alt as bait, but that seems very tedious to login/logout just to move about. Valid strategy?

I guess another way to look at it is just to assess the ROI of losses vs earning on exploration if it’s unavoidable :slight_smile:

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You can’t do much. Set up and keep an eye at the overwiew. Quick ships may get out of scramble/point range before he’s able to lock you after decloak, but some ships are built just for that purpose.

Normally the guys living in a WH know their surroundings, so they already bookmarked all sites in advance, and if they see an exploration ship on dscan, they can easily guess and check where you are heading to. So he warps cloaked to the site, approaches (still cloaked) a container you didn’t finish yet and just waits for you.
And just the moment you start the decryption, you are likely not to look too close to the overview, so the attacker can decloak next to you and hopes you don’t notice him the few seconds of his locking cooldown. As soon you are locked, you must try to burn out of point range and jump away, but your chances are quite low.

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Ah that makes sense thanks! Will try a bit of exploration again tonight in the hopes that the same doesn’t occur :slight_smile: I suppose it just boils down to a bit of luck then.

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I tend to only do relic and data sites in areas that have a local chat so you can know for sure if you’re alone or not. Wormholes can be pretty much harsher. Their residents sometimes leave certain sigs alone just in case someone is interested in running it. They’re not necessarily camping all day

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A T3 has a 5s locking delay after decloak, so this means plenty of time for GTFO. Always have a warpable target selected on the overview, so you can warp with a single click when you see someone decloaking. Also you should fit for minimum align time (ideally <2s) and have your MWD disabled before starting to hack. it also helps if you color player ships background in the overview configuration, so you can spot them more easily.

Against a bomber with 0 locking delay, only good reflexes and <2 align time helps if you want to GTFO. But as a bomber has no tank, you may kill him before help arrives (assume you are combat ready).

If you are stuck in a bubble (cloaked interdictor in site), your only chance is the MWD …

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It seemed way faster than 5s but then again it’s in a moment of realization and panic so I can’t say for sure haha. Wonder if latency is any significant factor as I do notice quite a bit of a delay in commanding my ship sometimes, from button push to anything happening as well as cooldown timers being a little out of sync. Thanks for the tips :slight_smile:

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Also take note.

Some ships like combat recon ships do not show up on dscan at all. So they can sit in the site and you will just blindly warp into it. :slight_smile:

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React faster,be smarter

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What I do when I find a WH system I am interested in exploiting is:

http://anoik.is/

https://evewho.com/

On the system itself, and any recent occupants, kills, or losses.

What Im looking for is a repeating pattern indicating who is active in said location.

Next is to assess their character, alts, play habits, fits, play times, possible tz or location - language, any information that will assist me in dicerning threat level and recent activity or even location, if possible.

Next would be to decide what to do about it…

You can ask for help, Some orgs I won’t mention, charge quite a bit to assist with trapping and killing a single, or with alts, character. Talking about 5-10 billion isk here for an hours or days work depending… Which to me in my opinion, is ■■■■■■■ insane. I would NEVER pay someone, that much isk just to remove a brown stain from my underwear.

Best advice is to, if you REALLY want the guy gone, is to research who he is, what he flies, how he flies it, where he flies it, when he flies it, and with whom he flies with, and get yourself some help ie friends, or alts, and gank the fucker.

Set a trap. You NEED good intel to do it correctly, more than guns or skills or isk.

Maybe you will see a pattern in his killmails or lossmails, and you can adapt your setup, doctrine or fit, to provide you a beneift, advantage, of some kind. If he uses em and themal weapons, theory craft on EFT a brick tank for that dmg type… and yse that one char as your dmg sink, while an alt decloaks, out of his range, uses high dmg missiles, and take him out. Bait him, make him fight on YOUR terms, while giving him the OBVIOUS taste of noob stupid in his mouth, making it irresistable to engage without thinking.

This is part of Eve. I can search for a week for a target or specific system, only to have an hours work to do there after. Like with my trade in real life, we speand 75% of the work and time for preparation, and the remaining efforts are really easy to distribute.

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Brother @Josh_Elize be patient, learn, and keep trying if you love what you’re doing. Also always ask for advice (as you did), the learning and practicing can be tedious, but with experience you will come to enjoy the outcome and make decent Isk, and who knows maybe try to shoot back at the aggressors.

As a rule of thumb in the future, if you want pin-point accuracy advice (from those who also have same passion as you, or those experienced), link your killmail (go to zkill > find your loss > link in the forum, as done below). I wish you well and have fun. o7


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You don’t. That’s the point of it.

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Statistically I can’t tell you the last time I saw a recon ship in space.

Stop telling porkies.

Flagged as disapproved.

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Reported for trolling you twaat.

You will see more if you did not try to troll in new citizens. And maybe undock more.

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There are several things you can do before, and while hacking to reduce your risk.

While scanning:

  1. Check d-scan, look for
  • probes
  • wrecks (both player and sleeper)
  • ships
  1. Warp to citadels, if anyone is docked it’ll have a little number indicating how many people are docked.
  2. Check zkillboard, look up
  • system name
  • owners of the citadels
  1. Check neighbouring wormholes, repeat steps 1 to 3 above.
  2. Keep on d-scanning while scanning, check for
  • ships enterring system (cloaked ships will show up for a few seconds)
  • probes
  1. Scan quickly, the less time you spend scanning, the less opportunity there is for someone to spot your probes.

While hacking:

  1. Keep on eye on overview, if a covert ops (non bomber) decloaks you have 5 seconds + lock time to get out.
  2. Keep on d-scanning (I keep on d-scanning once every second)
  3. Keep an eye on the signatures window, if a new sig shows up this may be a new wormhole opening up.
  4. When I hunt I typically decloak and give a little bump, to compensate for the targeting decloak delay. Even a frigate to frigate bump can delay alignment for a second or two, which is usually enough to get a lock on most ships that aren’t align fit. If you orbit the can you are hacking, you become a lot harder to bump.
  5. Keep the can between 2000 and 2500m. This way you are close enough to immediately loot, but far enough to cloak. Even if you immediately get decloaked, your brief cloak might fumble someone trying to lock you.
  6. Hack with drones out if you have them.
  • drones may decloak someone trying to sneak up on you
  • drones will completely lay waste to a stealth bomber, they may discourage him from engaging in the first place, if not it’s one less thing for you to do if he does decloak and you have to fight
  1. Don’t rely on warp core stabs. Many hunters will fit multiple scrams, fit for fast align
  2. Hack fast, the quicker your clear a site, the less time they have to sneak up on you.
  3. If you are hacking multiple sites in one system, drop a mobile depot in a safe spot and drop your loot in that in-between sites. That way you lose max one site’s worth.

Even so, sometimes you will lose your ships. Dying is part of the game.

  1. Save your pod. Pods instawarp, if you start spamming the ‘warp to’ button just before you die you’ll be in warp before your pod even shows up on someone’s overview.
  2. Fit cheap ships to mitigate your losses.
  3. Don’t be mad
  • to them you are a foreign invader stealing their sites
  • to them you are a potential threat to their ratting and hauling operations (even a 2 day player in a t1 exploration ship could be a scout for a bigger group)

Some of the above steps take some time, and you may eventually decide that skipping precautions and just hacking, gives you higher net profits even though you lose more ships.

It can also help to learn how to think like the hunter. Try sneaking up and killing a few explorers for yourself, this will give you a better sense of what is needed to sneak up on one and what you can do against it.

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