The Explorer's Handbook
Page adopted by Vega Blazar till 2024-04 
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Currently, The Explorer's Handbook is a rough outline - but eventually, it will become your trusted exploration guide to New Eden, Anoikis, and beyond. However, we need your help to make this a reality. Please participate in our Exploration Adopt-A-Page Initiative! Your contributions are greatly appreciated. :)
Overview of Exploration[edit]
Exploration in EVE is a multi-faceted endeavor. Whether your interests lie with the sheer thrill of discovery; seeking out forgotten sites and retrieving long lost relics and secret data caches; finding and mining rare and valuable resources; or battling with strange and deadly foes in the night between the stars - you can find it in exploration.
The Basic Loop[edit]
That's all well and good you say, but what is the minute to minute experience of exploration? The basic gameplay loop when you're exploring looks like the following:
- Ensure your safety through smart habits.
- Navigate to a system to explore in.
- Locate Signatures and/or Landmarks. This is primarily done via scanning probes, but also can be done via Bookmarks.
- Interact with your chosen Signature/Landmark. This may include hacking, gas huffing, combat or simply enjoying the view.
- Collect the reward (and eventually sell it).
A player can start their exploration career on their very first day. Exploration is an activity that grows with you. As you get more skilled, as you get more resources and experience, you will find your horizons expanding in new, more dangerous, and potentially more profitable ways.
EVE provides a wealth of diverse geography, locations, landmarks, and loot for you to find. Combined with the unique navigation and Player vs. Player elements inherent in both normal space (K-Space) and wormhole space (J-Space) this basic loop provides an incredible amount of depth.
Additionally, exploration is a uniquely personal activity in New Eden. You do not have to be in a small gang or a large fleet to get things done and be effective. While there are times where you may be venturing out into the unknown with friends, much of the time you simply do your own thing with all the freedom and peril that entails.
Sites[edit]
There are five kinds of exploration sites one might encounter while participating in exploration activities, these being mining sites, gas sites, combat sites, relic sites, and data sites. Mining and combat sites will often appear as anomalies without having to scan them down with a core probe launcher, and work very much like mining and combat anomalies in other aspects of the game. Gas sites operate like mining anomalies, save for that instead of ore or ice to mine, they have gas deposits that one can collect with gas scoops or gas harvesters.
Relic and data sites are unique in that they require specialized analyzers fitted to your ship in order to interact with them. Both of them contain different cannisters one must access with the relevant analyzer module, which opens the hacking minigame. Once the minigame is complete, one can open the cannister to take the contents, which may be anything from an empty cache to tens of millions of ISK worth of scavenged materials.
The sixth 'site' you may encounter, wormholes, are not really a site at all, but more akin to a doorway. They can lead anywhere, from high sec space, to null sec, to the unknown depths of wormhole space. Be careful with these, they won't automatically be marked on your scanner on the other side, so we recommend bookmarking your exits so you can get back if need be.
Treating ships like ammo[edit]
Exploration is a high risk/reward activity, every time you undock a ship have the mindset that you already lost it. Signal Cartel provides free fitted T1 Exploration frigates in most of our stations, use them to learn and explore all corners of EVE Universe. A good rule of thumb is to seldom undock something you can not replace twice (there are always exceptions to the rule).
Exploded Explorer SRP[edit]
... but you'll live
Skills and Implants[edit]
This article discusses the skills and implants that make up the core of the exploration trade, as well as additional useful skills, and information on skill planning resources. If you're looking to up your game as an explorer, upgrade to the next level of gear, or just want to decide what skill to train next, step inside!
Directional Scanner and Overview[edit]
short overview
Exploration Ships[edit]
An overview of the various Pros and Cons of commonly used exploration ships.
Exploration Ship Fitting Guide[edit]
Once you have decided on which ship to fly, you will need to think about how to equip it for exploring New Eden.
[edit]
Navigation is the art of finding your way and safly travel.
It consists of knowing and assesing where you are, finding an optimal route and to fly safe regardless of the dangers in New Eden.
How to Probe and Scan Cosmic Signatures[edit]
Scanning is one of the core abilities of a successful explorer, it´s the ability to find and pinpoint those elusive cosmic signatures and turn them into identified sites.
Site Types[edit]
short overview
How to Perform the Hack[edit]
This article covers how to play the Hacking Minigame, which sites contain hackable containers, and lists the tools of the trade (skills, ships, modules and implants) needed to make a successful hack. In basic terms, the goal of this minigame is to find and defeat the system core without losing coherence to the defensive subsystems that protect the core. This is done by following the various routes through the system, paying attention to the numbers presented. The number indicates how many nodes away a utility system, data cache, or system core is. One can use utility systems as 'power ups' to defeat the defensive subsystems, while data caches my hide either a defensive subsystem or a utility subsystem. This video guide, as well as this follow up, contain a multitude of tips and tricks to make it through the hacking minigame most effectively.
Making ISK as an Explorer[edit]
We all need ISK to buy and equip ships in EVE Online. The objective of this article is to discuss strategies for extracting more ISK from exploration activities. It covers three main topics:
- What exploration sites and loot yield the best ISK.
- How to haul your loot back to locations where it can be converted to ISK.
- What methods are available to sell or to generate ISK from your loot.
Exploration Tips and Tricks[edit]
Some useful tips that cover most of exploration topics right HERE
Exploration Quotes[edit]
Quotes that speak to the nature and highest ideals of exploration and being an explorer.
To find your own inspiration, please click here.
Need a Short Sabbatical?[edit]
Exploration is hard work! New Eden is filled with interesting things to do for a change of pace. Click here to learn more.
The Explorer's Addendum[edit]
Further reading and resources for the resourceful explorer. Contains a curated list of high-yield links from outside the friendly confines of Signal Cartel.
To assess, please click here.
