We all need ISK to buy and equip ships in EVE Online. Exploration can generate significant ISK , albeit with a high degree of randomness. In-depth knowledge of the game can help to limit that variability in ISK generation and increase success.
The objective of this page 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.
While exploration, hauling, manufacturing and trading are all key activities touched on here, this page is not a basic guide for any of these. For the basics (and more!) of exploration, consider other pages here in the Explorer's Handbook. Also, you will find in the Eve University Wiki, solid overviews of transport, manufacturing and trading.
What are the most valuable sites and loot items?[edit]
Exploration for ISK, as opposed to exploration for game mapping or sightseeing, involves scanning down cosmic signatures and hacking (via the hacking minigame) the cans in the sites at those signatures. So for ISK generation, what are the critical factors?
Most of the ISK value in valuable cans is dominated by one or two types of loot. In most cases, the actual value of the loot item depends on the in-game market price, which of course depends on player supply of that item and the player demand for it.
Availability a given high-value site type is also important. This depends on the spawn rate and the level of competition from other players. For example, the first weekend after the start of in-game events can be a frustrating experience due to high competition from other players, for a limited number of event exploration sites.
Beware of accepting at face value conventional wisdom (including that given on this page!). Because of the complexity of the factors listed above, poking around in unlikely star systems and investigating neglected exploration sites can yield unexpected results. An exploration mindset in EVE Online can give occasional, even pleasant, surprises.
For most players, a boring game-play loop is not sustainable. So tailor your pattern of exploration around what you enjoy. And then the ISK will follow...
The rest of this section will look at how the above factors (key loot types, their value, their drop rates, site spawn rates and other player competition) play out in each of the main spaces in New Eden.
Relic sites in high-sec space have little value except as training opportunities for players new to exploration. Typically the value of such sites rarely exceeds 2M ISK and can often be much lower than that.
Data sites, on the other hand, can be surprisingly lucrative:
One high-value can from a Superior Sleep Cache. Credit: Kenric Proudneck, Signal Cartel
Cans in vanilla pirate sites have a 5 to 10% chance, depending on which empire space you are in, of dropping relatively valuable Composite Molecular Condensers. The best opportunities are in Gallante high-sec space where the combination of a 10% drop rate and the frequent occurrence of the more valuable CV variant of Composite Molecular Condensers, gives an average site value in the order of 2M to 4M ISK.
Covert Research Facilities (also known as "ghost" sites) are high-risk, high-reward level-3 sites. Many high-sec explorers avoid these due to the high risk of ship loss. However, even the lower-risk approach of cargo scanning each can and just hacking the one can with highest value (often the Secure Lab can) can yield >5M ISK in Shattered Villard Wheels and Covert Research Tools. Sites often have one can with a Mid-grade Ascendancy blueprint copy, but the value may vary from nothing to a few million ISK.
Sleeper Caches spawn rarely, but are often not run due to the difficulty in scanning down their level-4 or -5 signatures and in running the sites themselves. Site value varies greatly from about 10M ISK for a low-end Limited Sleeper Cache to >200M ISK for a very good Superior Sleeper Cache. Successfully running these takes preparation (choice of ship and fit is critical) and knowledge of the site mechanics. See the Eve University Wiki for guidance. One key loot type is that of Sleeper Components (also known as "blue loot") which can be sold to NPC buyers at fixed prices at specific NPC stations (not Jita!).
Relic sites are more valuable than in high-sec space, typically yielding between 1M and 10M ISK. Not terribly exciting, but worth checking quickly with a cargo scanner.
A wide variety of data sites occur in low-sec space, with the ghost sites being the most rewarding for non-combat explorers:
Vanilla pirate data sites without Composite Molecular Condensers are marginally more valuable than their high-sec equivalents -- just like relic sites. However, the percentage drop rate for the most valuable cans with Composite Molecular Condensers is signficantly less than in high-sec space, perhaps less than half. As a result, the average ISK per site is actually not much better than in many high sec regions.
Covert Research Facilities (also known as "ghost" sites) have a slightly harder "green 70" hack than their equivalents in high-sec space. However, potential loot drops can also include High-grade Ascendency blueprint copies and valuable advanced manufacturing components such as the Electro-Neural Signaller, with values in the 50 to 100M range.
Sleeper Caches can be found in low-sec space, with similar loot drops to those in high-sec.
AEGIS Secure Transfer Facility is a site frequently seen in low-sec space. While appearing as a level-3 data site, it is actually a high-end combat site with some data-can hacking. It is recommended to run these with a fleet of battleships. The rewards are regarded as disappointing with respect to the value of the fleet that needs to be put in the field for these.
Faction Operation Centers are data sites only hackable by capsuleers signed up to a faction opposing the owning faction of a given Operation Center. For example, an Amarr Operation Center can only be hacked by a Minmatar faction warfare pilot. Only one can contains anything of real value, namely Encoder Splices or Decoder Packages (with buy orders for about 10M ISK). Hostile NPCs spawn in when cans are successfuly hacked. (Note: Taking part in faction warfare is not Credo-compliant for Signal Cartel alts. Read our faction warfare policy here.)
With the right choice of region, null-sec can yield the best returns on exploration in the game.
Loot from three null-sec sites: two Sansha relic sites and one Covert Research Facilities site. Credit: ILL WIND, Signal-Cartel
The main income generator are the vanilla pirate relic sites.
Different regions have different resident pirate factions. The loot table for relic sites greatly depends on which pirate faction "owns" the site. So the choice of region has a big impact on the value of relic sites. For example: Stain is claimed by the Sansha faction. For Sansha relic sites, Intact Armor Plates are the high-value item dropped and at 7M ISK each, these make such regions the most lucrative for explorers in EVE Online. Of course, this leads to a busy ecosystem of explorers farming relic sites and hunters then trying to catch the explorers...
See Table 1 for a list of the key drops for different pirate factions and their market value at the time of writing. Also examine Shado Step's intensive study for further insights. Their work confirmed the high value of Sansha space, with Guristas the next more valuable for explorers.
Data sites are less lucrative, especially since they lack the Composite Molecular Condenser drops of high- and low-sec. However, they are worth checking for occasional valuable drops (example: Sleeper Profound Research Notes, with an 80M ISK Jita buy value).
Sleeper Caches can be found in null-sec space, with similar loot drops to those in high- and low-sec.
Drone regions such as Etherium Reach and Perrigen Falls do not have pirate relic or pirate data sites. Instead, they do have Research Complex data sites with a mix of drone parts and blueprint copies (BPCs). The blueprint copies are for 'Integrated' and 'Augmented' drones, with values for the latter BPC types running up to roughly 20M ISK. Note that a few, relatively weak frigate drones spawn in after an unsuccessful hack.
A final excellent opportunity that only presents itself in null-sec is that of Electrical Storms. There are two of these slowly roving weather phenomena where the spawn rate of relic sites is greatly enhanced and cloaking is disabled. See Arachnis's excellent guide to these for an in-depth explainer.
Data and relic sites in J-space fall into two major categories: (a) standard pirate data and relic sites, similar to those in K-space and (b) combat exploration sites beginning with "Unsecured" for data sites and "Forgotten" for relic sites:
The standard pirate data and relic sites are to be found only in C1, C2 and C3 wormhole systems. C4, C5, and C6 systems do not have these. Unlike null-sec space, a given C1, C2, or C3 wormhole system will have a mix of sites from different pirate factions, from the low value Serpentis to the high-value Sansha sites. Hacks are, on average, somewhat easier than null-sec sites. The average value of a wormhole data site is roughly 8M ISK, while the average value for a wormhole relic site is roughly 18M ISK. It should be noted that investigations indicate that for relic sites, it is better to prioritize by site type (e.g. Crystal Quarry v. Monument) then by faction. See this posting for more detail.
"Unsecured" data sites and "Forgotten" relic sites are very much not unsecured nor forgotten, with non-trivial Sleeper NPCs guarding these combat data and relic sites sites. Most of the value is in the so-called "blue" loot that the Sleepers drop when destroyed. The value in the data and relic cans is generally low and therefore these sites are mostly of little interest to those flying frigate-level explorer ships. However, there is an exception worth considering and that is when one of the cans is a Talocan ship wreck. See this link for detail on the scenario, including how to hack the Talocan can in an exploration or covert ops frigate.
Shattered wormhole systems have one additional rare data site called the Silent Battleground. This is a hard-to-scan level V site with about 40 data and relic cans, with more than 200M ISK worth of loot requiring 500 m3 or more of hold space. Bring a cargo scanner...
There are no hackable date or relic sites in Pochven. The only signatures that appear as data sites are the Overmind Drone Nursery sites, with large swarms of drones and two structures that can be destroyed and salvaged for moderate-value loot.
Exploration sites for specific, limit-limited, in-game events can provide some the best loot in-game, outside of high-end PVE sites. Some dedicated explorers make several billion ISK during events like the Crimson Harvest (during Halloween) and the Winter Nexus (during the Christmas vacation period).
Site design is very particular to a given event, but there are usually only one or two site types per event. Since competition with other explorers to locate and hack a site can be intense, explorers should optimise their choice of ship and fit, to efficiently locate and run the sites.
Loot varies from space to space, and even from region to region, but guidance is usually provided by CCP as to the best locations. For example, for the 2022/2023 Winter Nexus event, the best sites were in low-sec systems with volatile ice storms.
This table lists the critical loot types for various site types. It also provides a means to assess changes in the value of various sites and types of space.
Modifications by CCP in the input materials needed for key blueprints can change massively the demand for some loot types in-game - and hence the value of the corresponding data and relic sites. Similarly, increased player awareness of low-hanging fruit in the EVE Online universe can lead to increased farming and reductions in price due to the resulting increased supply.
Table 1: Drop source and Jita-buy prices for high-value loot items in exploration sites. Jita-buy prices obtained March 2023 and August 2023.
(Feel free to update the August 2023 prices for the table and the date given here in the caption, but please do so for all items at the same time.)
Key loot item
Where to find it
Jita buy value as of March 2023 (ISK)
Jita buy value as of August 2023 (ISK)
CV-Composite Molecular Condenser
Gallante and Minmatar high- and low-sec data sites
4.0M
1.3M
LM-Composite Molecular Condenser
Amarr high- and low-sec data sites
2.4M
1.0M
AG-Composite Molecular Condenser
Caldari high- and low-sec data sites
1.9M
1.1M
AV-Composite Molecular Condenser
Amarr, Gallante and Minmatar high- and low-sec data sites
500k
770k
Covert Research Tools
Covert Research Facilities
460k
460k
Shattered Villard Wheel
Covert Research Facilities in high- and low-sec
140k
290k
Electro-Neural Signaller
Covert Research Facilities in low-sec
86M
160M
Nano Regulation Gate
Covert Research Facilities in null-sec
24M
34M
Meta-Molecular Combiner
Covert Research Facilities in null-sec
92M
162M
Intact Armor Plates
Sansha relic sites in null-sec and wormhole space
7.3M
7.1M
Enhanced Ward Console
Guristas relic sites in null-sec and wormhole space
4.4M
3.8M
Capacitor Console
Blood Raider relic sites in null-sec and wormhole space
1.0M
890k
Trigger Unit
Angel relic sites in null-sec and wormhole space
1.1M
1.3M
Single-crystal Superalloy I-beam
Angel relic sites in null-sec and wormhole space
1.1M
980k
Contaminated Lorentz Fluid
Serpentis relic sites in null-sec and wormhole space
Your cargo hold is beginning to reach capacity with all the loot you have recovered from various sites and you are thinking it’s time to cash in before that Pacifier that has been tailing you through the last three systems catches up with your paper-thin explorer frigate.
First task, however, is to get the loot to market…
This section doesn’t cover the challenge of evading that pesky Pacifier or the camps that are also looking to ruin your day, before you reach the relative safety of a low-sec, high-sec or Thera NPC station. Hints and tips are available here.
Instead, the focus here is on the more mundane task of getting it from that NPC station to wherever your market is. Options include hauling the loot yourself or contracting the task out to others – both are considered below.
On many exploration runs with ships like the T1 explorer frigates or larger, cargo space is not a major constraint. However, T2 covert ops ships have much less cargo space which can easily become full.
You can quickly make rough decisions by sorting your inventory view by item value. However, decisions on what loot yields the best ISK per m3 are greatly aided by a tool called Cargo Sorter from Mzsbi Haev. Cut and paste your cargo contents (Ctrl-A, Ctrl-V in-game works) into the tool and it returns the estimated ISK value per cubic meter occupied by that item. This enables quick decisions in what to jettison.
The process of jettisoning generates a cargo container that can be bookmarked for later retrevial, but only within the two-hour lifetime of an unanchored container in space.
The most ISK-efficient method to haul through low-sec or high-sec is to do it yourself – assuming you can do this without getting blown up! This does have the downside of the necessary investment in hauling ships, skills and your time spent hauling. The usual techniques for safe hauling apply:
For a Signal Cartel alt, war-decs are a particular hazard. The corporation has a deliberate policy of not avoiding war declarations and maintains a player-owned structure to enable that policy. If another corporation has a war dec on Signal Cartel, their ships can engage Signal Cartel anywhere in high-sec space without intervention by Concord.
In practice, during war decs, most of the risk is concentrated on the key high-sec hubs and the usual approach routes to those hubs. So hauling to these hubs with a Signal Cartel alt while under a war dec needs to be done with particular care. Please read our Guide to Surviving War for more information.
A viable alternative is to use an out-of-corp alt to haul through low- and high-sec. Loot can be easily transferred at an NPC station using a contract. The hauling alt can use an appropriate ship and fit:
For example, an alpha alt with good shield tanking and navigation skills can use a sub-2s-align Sunesis with enough tank to survive the vast majority of smart-bomb gate camps.
An omega alt with appropriate skills can utilize more sophisticated methods such as a blockade runner with a covert ops cloak, with even more survivability.
The main downside of using a non-Signal-Cartel alt is the need to avoid Credo issues. Assuming the Signal-Cartel alt and the out-of-corp alt are never logged in at the same time, the main issue is the flow of intel. While intel flows from the out-of-corp alt to the Signal Cartel alt are not a problem, the opposite is not true. Practically, this means one should not use the Signal Cartel alt as a scout for the out-of-corp alt. More information regarding alts and the Credo is found here.
Hauling loot is an activity that many players find tedious. And for many others, time spent hauling goods would be more profitably spent doing further exploration, even after you pay somebody else for their time to take your loot to market.
There are three major alternatives for contracting other players to do the hauling for you:
Crikey Freight is a separate corporation run by Signal Cartel alts. Crikey Freight It is not subject to war declarations. Among other activities, it provides hauling services for Signal Cartel members at special rates. Further details are provided here.
Public courier contracts can be posted from the contract creation dialog box. So long as you set a collateral value bigger than the worth of your loot then this is a relatively safe option. Should the contracting courier fail to make the delivery, you receive the collatoral as compensation. In setting up the contract, you need to name the fee you are willing to pay and competitively priced contracts will be accepted quickly and delivered upon. Public courier prices will, in general, be lower than those with third-party services (see below).
There are a number of third-party efforts running brokerage-type services between a closed list of haulers in their employ and players in EVE. The two best known are Red-Frog and Push X. Their fees will be higher than those of public courier contracts, but reliability and timeliness will be higher. So for example, in March 2023, Push-X was quoting a fee of 18.3M ISK for a 1000m3 load with collateral up to 1.5B ISK hauled from Turnur (in low-sec) to Dodixie.
For all options, the fees for hauling loot works out as most economical for larger shipments. Shipping the loot from several explorer runs in one hauling shipment can push the hauling fees down to a few percentage points of the total loot value.
Finally, you've got your loot safely to market, now to sell for ISK.
There are a number of different strategies for realizing ISK, each with different levels of effort, different market places, and different ISK returns. The strategy you use will also depend on the type of loot: for example, you will treat blueprint copies very differently from loot items with NPC buy orders. The mix of strategies you use depends on what you are interested in spending time and effort on and on what skills or (industry) facilities you have access to.
Selling to existing buy orders is the simplest method in-game. Place you item in your in-station item hanger, right-click and select "Sell this item". Where you sell, however, is vitally important. The best buy prices in the game are with the biggest trade hubs:
For high-volume goods, the buy prices don't differ hugely between these hubs, usually by less than 10%. For rarer, high-value items, e.g. rare manufacturing components found in some Covert Research Sites, Jita will have significantly better prices. Because volumes for these are extermely low in the other trade hubs, any buy orders are usually speculative in nature and could be as low as 10% of Jita buy prices.
One challenge the game throws up for explorers far from Jita is that one cannot see in-game what the Jita buy prices are. The "Regional Market" interface only gives the buy orders for the region the player is currently in. A player can use third-party tools that access the EVE external API to get visibility into orders from across all regions:
The low-risk selling strategy -- choosen by perhaps a majority of explorers in the game -- is to simply transport everything to Jita and sell there.
The major exception to the above are those goods that have NPC buy orders associated with them. These NPC buy orders are at specific stations, generally not trade hubs, and the player buy orders at the trade hubs are nearly always lower:
For regular exploration sites, the main examples are the "blue loot" Sleeper components from Sleeper Caches. Exceptionally, one trade hub with the relevant NPC buy orders is Amarr. For other regions, look for buy orders with expiry times in excess of 364 days - these cannot be made by players and must be NPC orders.
Some event exploration sites will yield Overseer's Personal Effects. These can be sold at CONCORD stations.
Some events will also have tokens that need to be turned in at specific NPC stations -- see CCP's event information on the Agency tool for details.
One easy method for quickly realizing ISK from loot is to use what is known as a buy-back service:
Loot is appraised on the service's external website, using various back-end third-party tools plugged into EVE's external API. The appraisals are generally some percentage below Jita's highest buy bids. Some loot may get special treatment in their appraisal.
The appraisal is then used as the basis of an in-game contract, where the service provider's alts purchase the loot from the player for the appraisal price, at an agreed location.
It is then up to the third party to haul and sell the goods as they see fit.
The different third-party buyback services differ in who they serve, from where they will do pickup and what percentage of Jita buy prices they pay:
Signal Cartel has a corporate buy-back service Carrier Logistics, exlusively for corporation members. It does buy-back, most of the time, at 90% of Jita buy prices from any of the Signal Cartel bases in high sec and, unusually since it is a wormhole system, at 80% of Jita buy from Thera XII - The Sanctuary Institute of Paleocybernetics, Signal Cartel's base in Thera.
The best-known third-party service available to all players is that of Highsec Buyback. It, as the name suggests, will buy from all NPC stations in high-security space and has what it terms a "base rate" of 90% of Jita buy orders. For how the service operates see this YouTube video from Rushlock.
Note that you are not guaranteed to be quoted the normal percentage of Jita buy prices, but the appraisal screens should give you enough information to assess the value of the offer.
From a player perspective, these services dramatically reduce the level of effort to realize a significant portion of the ISK available from their loot and are likely to be the most time-efficient means of doing so. However, other strategies can yield significnatly more ISK.
Why sell using a sell order? Outside of Jita, many standard loot items have significant price differences between the cheapest sell orders and the highest buy orders. Even in Jita, slower-moving items (due to high expense or a fragmented market) will also have such a premium for sell orders. So placing selected lines of loot on the market using sell orders can provide the explorer with much additional ISK.
The best prospects for sell orders can be spotted while selling to buy orders. Simplly check the market details for any item where the quoted buy price is well below the market average. For example, an item with a buy order that offers 20% below market average will have sell orders at about 50% (=1.20/0.80) above the offered price. (This assumes equal volumes of transactions on the sell orders versus the buy orders.)
The challenge is making the sale with a sell order. Two things need to happen:
A buyer needs to make a purchase request for the loot item in question and
The explorer's sell order needs to be the one with the most competitive price at that time.
Buyers tend to prefer to purchase from one of the main trade hubs -- so most sales are made there and players should ship their goods to these. For some items, e.g. ship skins and rare faction drops, only Jita has the sales volume to make it viable to sell these items. The disadvantage of busy trade hubs is that other players with sell orders for the same item will repeatedly modify their orders to undercut your price, ensuring that they, and not you, get the sale. The main counter is to respond in-kind and relist at a lower price or wait for the market to clear their stock out, bringing your sell order back to the top of the list.
The above consideration means that the player need to be able to log in a character relatively frequently at a location within the range specified by their Daytrading skill, from where their sell orders are. The usual strategy is to dedicate one alt to this trading activity, tranferring exploration loot from the exploration alt to the trading alt by means of private contracts. (One region is the maximum range for order re-listing, i.e. with an alt with Daytrading V trained up.)
Strategy 4: Using loot to manufacture high-value items[edit]
The basic idea here is to use exploration loot as the input materials in blueprints, manufacture the blueprint item and sell it on the market. Since the alternative (for using the blueprint) is to buy the input materials on the open market from sell orders, this is equivalent to selling the same loot using a sell order. If the blueprint output is easier to sell (as is often the case for higher value items that blueprints create) then this method is, with one caveate, a good way to realize ISK.
The caveat? Manufacturing with that blueprint has to be profitable if used with input materials sourced from the open market. Many blueprints are not profitable and using a loss-making blueprint here is worse than selling the loot more directly using a sell order.
Examples:
T1 rig blueprints use lower-value salvage materials commonly found in relic sites.
T2 rig blueprints use higher tier salvage materials, again from relic sites, and R.A.M. components from Sleeper caches.
Before deciding on what to do with your blueprint copies (BPCs), you first need to put a value on them. Since they are not listed on the regional markets, it is difficult to assess the value of BPCs. Some techniques to do so include:
Right-click on the BPC and select "View in Contracts". The resulting contract search window will show the currently active contracts with that BPC. Typcially, you will focus on those contracts where the BPC is not bundled in with other items and where the contract is a straight sale rather than auction. The lowest value contracts will be a reasonable indicator of value, especially if they are fairly new contract offers. Older contract offers, languishing in the contract market, may well be severely overpriced. Also double-check that the number of copies in the BPCs on offer match that of yours.
Right-click on the BPC and select "Use blueprint". Set the number of manufactured copies to the maximum allowed by the BPC. With the mouse, hover over the "/" sign to the left of the big BPC icon in the middle -- this will give an estimate of the total cost of the materials needed. Hover over the icon of the BPC result to see the estimate of the value of the output from the BPC. The difference between these two values less the manufacturing cost (also listed on the Industry window) is an indicator of the profit and the maximum value that can be extracted from the BPC.
If you are at a trade hub with the required BPC materials, you can right-click on the "/" and select "Buy All Materials" to see what it would cost at that trade hub to obtain them. Right click on the icon of the BPC result and select "Market Details" to see what the Sell and Buy orders are set at for the local market. The profits indiciated by the previous method can differ greatly from this, more realistic method.
Fuzzwork's Blueprint Calculator is a third-party tool for evaluating the profit achievable with a BPC.
The last three methods will indicate what profit you may be able to make from manufacturing the goods in the BPC, assuming you have the right manufacturing skills. If you are able to source the materials more competitively or find a manufacturing facility with lower build costs you may be able to improve your margins. Don't forget to account for brokerage and sales taxes if you are to use the local market to sell your resulting manufactured items.
One alternative is to put the BPC up for sale in a contract. Ideally, this would be done in Jita, to maximise the number of interested buyers. The BPC market outside Jita is relatively small and fragmented. Bear in mind that the buyer will wish to make some profit when they manufacture using the BPC. For a high-demand BPC requiring only Industry Level 1 to manufacture, expect to succeed with a contract offer with a price of no more than 50% of profits obtainable with a Jita sell order and minimum sales and brokerage taxes. For BPCs that require specialized industry skills to manufacture and produce slowly moving items, expect to realize through the contract system much less than 50% of the manufacturing profits.
A final approach is to use our corporate blueprint buy-back service SCRUBS. As well as working with a base rate of 50% of Fuzzwork appraisals, flat-rate offers are made for some common exploration BPCs like those for Zeugma Analyzers.
Signal Cartel graciously thanks Gatide Huren for their foundational contribution to this wiki page that will assist future Signaleers as they explore the stars.
