Editing Directional Scanner and Overview (section)

==D-Scan==
The D-Scanner or D-Scan is an integral part of every ship, including your pod.  It's on everything you fly for a good reason.  It is an essential tool to look for possible incoming threats and a wide variety of other objects.  It can be linked to the active tab on your Overview window, a specific Overview tab preset, an Overview tab preset that you may not use for a tab (more on that later) and return an almost overwhelming list of "what is out there".  The distance can be adjusted to as far as 14.3 AU and the directionality can be either a sphere surrounding your ship or a directional narrow cone.  Since you will use it frequently, it is convenient to have the scan button mapped to a convenient hot key.

While you cannot scan down cosmic signatures such as wormholes, gas and relic/data sites, it will (with some practice) allow you to determine approximate distance and direction to ships, drones, celestial objects and player-based structures.  For explorers that rely heavily on stealth, it helps to protect you by giving you advance warning of nearby (uncloaked) ships.  If you are looking to salvage a few abandoned drones or wrecks from a system, it allows you to pre-determine an approximate location so that the time needed to deploy and use combat probes is kept to a minimum.

You can filter the findings on the D-Scanner by using the dropdown box in the upper right-hand corner.  From this dropdown, you can select any of the EVE default or personal tab presets.  It is useful to keep a separate Overview tab preset that shows only probes and ships and link that preset to the D-Scanner.  How often you use the D-Scan is your personal preference.  In general, the riskier your location, the more frequent you should D-Scan.  A ship seen on D-Scan is worth keeping in mind.  Is it just passing by in the system going from one place to the other or is it hunting explorers?  Why scan for probes?  If you see more than the probes that you have launched (or a different type), then someone else is around.

Always be mindful of your surroundings.  EVE is not a game that forgives mistakes easily or without cost.

=== D-Scan Results Window ===

Pressing Alt-D will open the D-Scanner "Scan Results" window and the map.  If these are separate, the F9 key opens up the map that is used for both probing and D-scanning.

On the bottom right, the Scan button (or your mapped key) will perform the scan.  This can be done approximately every 2 seconds.  In the scan results window on the upper right side, there is a dropdown list of presets that can be chosen to tell the scanner what to look for.  Since D-Scan can be integrated with your overview, you can elect to scan everything, the things that are active in your overview, any other of your overview settings, or even a completely different selection that is not active on your overview.

Immediately to the left of the dropdown is a button that will toggle the map on and off.  To the left of that is the button that will toggle the sphere or cone showing the area that is being scanned.  Finally, to the left of that is the button that controls the ship camera.  With one setting, you are looking out of your ship down the length of the cone and the other is more of a third person view that allows you to position the cone of directionality.  Double clicking on the map will flip it 90 degrees.  Clicking and dragging outside of the map will move your cone of detection.  Both settings are useful and the best way to get used to them is to play with them a bit.

At the bottom of the "Scan Results" window, there is a slider that can be used to adjust the range and angle of the cone.  The maximum range is 14.3 AU and scans either a sphere surrounding the ship for that distance or a cone ranging from 180 degrees all the way down to a narrow 5 degrees.  With a little practice, you can use the combination of the dropdown selection list of objects you are searching for, the distance that you are able to detect them, and the directional cone to identify with a pretty good approximation where an object is located.

On the map in the upper left corner are two buttons.  The one on the left allows you to change what your map displays.  Immediately to the right of that button, a click will center your ship and the D-Scan view to the center of the map.

<gallery mode=packed-hover heights=250px>
dscan1.jpg|The D-Scan window and scan button
dscan2.jpg|Dropdown select list
dscan3.jpg|Toggle Map
dscan4.jpg|Show/Hide scan cone
dscan5.jpg|Ship camera toggle with distance and angle sliders
map1.jpg|Map item selections
map2.jpg|Centering the map on the ship
</gallery>

When first starting, control of the cone and map may seem awkward.  It will take some practice with both camera alignment on and off to become comfortable.

For defensive purposes in high or low security areas, setting the distance to 5 AU and the angle to 360 degrees will give you some advance warning of an incoming ship.  In null security or wormhole space, you may want to change the distance setting to 14.3 AU for even more advance warning.

===Practice Exercises===
==== Defensive Scanning ====
As an explorer, this will likely be the primary use of your D-Scan.  You want to be aware of any approaching ships or if someone is using core scanner or combat scanner probes in the area.  To view only ships and probes, you will need to create your personal tab preset.  In your Overview window, click on the menu (upper left corner - three horizontal lines) and select Open Overview Settings.  Clear all selection settings except for Ships (select all of them) and Charge (scanner probe).  Save it and name it something like ShipsAndProbes. Now open your D-Scan dropdown and select ShipsAndProbes.  Now your D-Scan will show ONLY ships and probes.  Pressing the scan button or the keyboard shortcut will let you know if anything is within the range you set.  You can re-scan every two seconds.  Since you are looking only for ships and probes, you can often see any change in the listing even out of the corner of your eye.

Park your ship between two gates and start using the D-Scan.  Watch as ships appear and disappear.  Start with 360 degrees and try using different distances in your settings.  Experiment with the frequency of scanning and imagine what you might do if you were busy cracking a relic site with lots of valuable containers.  Do you abandon it or do you keep on the D-Scan and risk your ship and its contents?   Focus on the central part of the screen and see if you can notice the changes in the D-Scanner out of the corner of your eye.  If not, you may need to arrange your windows a bit.

==== Location Scanning ==== 
A bit trickier and will require a bit of practice.  Try the following:
# Load an expanded probe launcher and some combat probes.  These must be combat probes, not the core scanner probes.  You will also need an expanded probe launcher since the combat probes are ten times larger than the core scanner probes.
# If you don't have a selection in your D-Scan dropdown called Drones, then create one as mentioned above in the defensive scanning section.  Clear everything and choose the type of drones you want to look for.  This can be combat drones or just select all of them.  Load Drones from the D-Scan dropdown.
# Go to a system where new players start.  It's not uncommon for them to lose drones as they warp away and forget to recall them.  Alternatively, grab a drone yourself and take it to someplace in a high security system and leave it behind.  Bookmark the location (just in case) so that you can pick it up if you need to.  Now warp somewhere in the system and go looking for lost drones or the one that you dropped off.
# Open the map, choose the distance of 14.3 AU and 360 degrees and hit scan.  You should see the drone in your sphere of detection.  
# Align with the camera and decrease to 180 degrees and scan.  If you are not detecting the drone, move the hemisphere of detection and re-scan until you do.
# Decrease to 90 degrees, scan and if needed repeat the process to detect the drone.  Keep repeating the process until you are at 30 degrees or less.
# Now stop aligning with the camera and double click on the map.  You should see a cone extending from your ship.
# Decrease the distance from 14.3 to 10 and scan again.  If you still see the drone, decrease the distance to 5.  Once you stop seeing the drone when you scan, you've got an approximate distance.  Now use the up and down buttons next to the distance number to fine tune the value where the drone appears/disappears.
# In your probe launcher window, be sure you have Drones and Charges selected.
# Launch your combat probes.
# Center the combat probes over the base of the cone to cover the entire base.
# Scan with your combat probes and you should get a hit.  If you need to, reposition your combat probes and scan again until you get a good location.
# Recall your combat probes.  The less time they are out, the less chance that someone else will see them.
# Warp to the location and retrieve the drone.

As with everything in EVE (and in real life) practice until you feel comfortable, then practice some more.