right now we only have tech 1 frigates for exploration.
t1 exploration destroyers-> can actually put some weapon to defend itself?
t1 exploration cruisers-> large enough cargo hold to store all the loot?
also it is very sad how magnate only has 3 mid slots, so I can’t even fit a data scanner. a exploration cruiser with something like 3/4/5 or something for amarr, and 4/6/2 for caldari or something would be good.
also since we don’t even have any comparable ship(stratios doesn’t count because its faction and very expensive)
11 million isk and no bonus to virus coherence and strength? sunesis is very unspecialised and costs too much. plus its faction? not like each 4 empires have their own.
11 million ISK is peanuts. If you find one good relic site you can buy multiple.
It’s not a faction ship, just a special ship that is handed out for free every now and then, which is why it’s much cheaper than faction ships.
Indeed, it has no bonus to hacking, but it does have room for guns, which you wanted. You can have one or the other.
If you want it all, be prepared to pay a lot more ISK for one of the T3Cs.
Anyway, try to stick with one of the T1 frigates - they’re good for the job of non-combat exploration. Why would you bring a bigger, slower more expensive ship when you can do it in a fast agile frigate? And those frigates have the biggest cargo hold of all frigates, at 400m3.
And if you want more mid slots than the Magnate, maybe try the Probe, Imicus or Heron?
There are T2 Covert Operations ships that are optimised for exploration - and they meet most of your objections: The Anathema, for example has a 3/4/4 layout so you can fit a prop-mod, a pair of T2 analysers and a “whatever floats your boat” in the remaining spare. A Helios has a 3/5/3 layout if you need the mid-space.
The T1 ships are modest “mildly specialised” hulls, if you are specialising then the T2 hulls are where you may want to be - though the advantages of the Magnate is “it is very cheap” and for many use cases that can out weigh the advantages of the Anathema (cloaked warping and a slightly better set of bonuses).
What it sounds as if you are looking for is a cheap hull that is good at everything all at the same time - that isn’t a realistic ask: if there was such a thing everyone would fly it and Eve would be a lot more boring. Eve is about choices and the consequences of those choices - if you want to fly a ship optimised for exploration, then that is a choice: the consequence is that the same ship isn’t combat capable, or isn’t a bulk hauler. If you want to trade a bit of armour for cargo capacity you can: your choice, but it has consequences.
I choose to fly an exploration optimised Anathema: it is a wet paper bag in a fight - I am fitted to actively avoid fights and run away effectively. All choices I have to make when deciding that I want to explore.
The Imicus and Probe have 4 mid slots, Heron even 5.
That said, I never fit cargo scanners on my explorers. I’m going to hack all cans no matter the content, that way the site respawns somewhere else in the region immediately, which means I’m finding more sites while exploring. Instead of a cargo scanner I use scan upgrades for more scan strength or speed.
One rig for relic analysers, one for data. No rig that improves both. +10 for the T1 rig (about 50k ISK), +20 for the T2 (about 1m ISK). They take a lot of rig calibration.
I suspect a virus strength rig would be a bit overpowered. I fly an Anathema with T2 analysers and it doesn’t struggle with much as it is - virus strength is at 40 already, coherence is well over 100.
The hardest sites do take s little thought and if the defensive nodes fall badly it can defeat me. Knowledge and experience helps s lot.
Scan strength rigs help a lot for scanning speed indeed (identifying the useful signatures with fewer scans and scanning them to 100% sooner) but also may allow you to scan signatures to 100% that you could not reach with less strength.
I can one shot the firewalls in the “Very Easy” sites, and one shot the anti-virus in the “Very Easy” and “Easy” sites. The harder sites, typically those in Wormholes - I prefer there rather than the whole “get in and out of null” problem, have tougher and more varied defences. That’s where specialisation really helps!
There are no sites that are “impossible” for an alpha to hack - they are difficult, yes, but care and knowledge is great help. Learn the Rule of Six and get a feel for what the area around the Core Node looks like. Remember: you don’t have to defeat everything - just that which blocks the way to the Core.
so the wiki says red cores are extremely difficult but I managed to hack 3 of them in a single trip? is it just my luck is very good? I basically found the core without seeing a single advanced defensive subsystems.
That’s good luck - it happens.
Trust me, find three virus suppressors in one hack and life ain’t going your way.
Not particularly, training Hacking and Archaeology does help a fair bit in giving you more coherence. A lot of the ability comes from practice: getting a feel for where to go and understanding the underlying “not entirely randomness” of the hacking grid.
I think there should be more exploration options especially for the cruiser/battheship classes, but they should be tech 2
In reality though, tech 3 already kind of fulfills the needs for higher class exploration ships, as well as the SOE line, though I wish there was a caldari-minmatar alternative that focused on shields
And the whole metagame of data/relic sites doesn’t really need a ship hull bigger then a t2 exploration ship, though I wish they would return rats to higher end pirate sites, then maybe the justifcation for more combat oriented t1 exploraion ships might make sense, but right now with the exception of sleeper caches and wormhole relic/data sites, there really isn’t a need for bigger combat ships, its why I find the Nestor to be one of the most pointless role bonuses in the game right now.