Editing Skills and Implants (section)

==Skills==

In no particular order, but at least grouped by category, here are the skills of the explorer's trade. Learn them well! 

===Scanning Skills===

Scanning skills are the sweethearts of Signal Cartel pilots. They are the bread and butter of our trade. We take screenshots of our character sheets to show each other when we get all of the scanning skills to level 5. Sometimes we frame the screenshots and hang them on the wall with the family photos. OK, maybe not, but scanning skills are very important, and training them properly will up your game as an explorer.

The single most important scanning skill is Astrometrics, which forms the core of what we might call the Astrometrics Family. Each skill in the Astrometrics Family increases a certain aspect of your scanning, with a higher bonus for each level trained. But, even better, each level trained in Mama Astrometrics gives you the same benefits as one level in each Baby Astrometrics skill, all at the same time. We'll go through the benefits of each Baby Astrometrics skill individually, but don't forget that each level of Mama Astrometrics is equivalent to three levels of Baby Astrometrics.

Astrometric Rangefinding increases your scanning probe strength by 5% per level. The benefit here is fairly straightforward: stronger probes can pick up weak signals better, so you're less likely to get down to your maximum scan resolution and still not be able to get the signature to 100%. If you're down to 0.25 AU scan radius, and your probes are centered just right, and you still can't get it to scan down fully, you're usually out of options... high scanning strength will help you to avoid that situation. 

Astrometric Pinpointing decreases your maximum scan deviation by 5% per level trained. This is a little more abstract than the probe strength, but it also makes sense. When you're scanning down a signature, the approximate location of the signature moves around as you reposition and focus your probes. Reduced scan deviation means that the approximate locations of the signature are going to be closer to the actual location of the signature. The net effect is that you will find the actual location of the signature in fewer scans when your deviation is reduced. 

Astrometric Acquisition is probably the least useful of the Baby Astrometrics skills. It reduces the time needed for each scan to be completed by 5% per level trained. This isn't exceptionally useful, though, because the scans don't take very long to begin with, so making them faster isn't much of a priority. Your training time is probably better spent on one of the other Baby Astrometrics, or on Mama Astrometrics. 

If Mama Astrometrics and her Babies make up a happy Astrometrics Family, then the Survey skill is that strange cousin who nobody really likes. Survey is good for using scanners that look at ships and cargo, which is not much of a priority for exploration. The Survey skill doesn't actually make those scans more powerful, either, just a bit faster. If you like to use a cargo scanner to check out your cans before hacking them, the Survey skill will speed up the process, but otherwise it doesn't have a lot of application for explorers.

Also worth training for improved scanning are the Jury Rigging and Electronic Superiority Rigging skills. This includes both rigs to improve scanning strength and rigs to improve virus coherence for data and relic hacking.

===Hacking Skills===

"Hacking skills" refers collectively to the Archaeology and Hacking skills, which allow the use of Relic and Data Analyzers to open the various loot containers (commonly called "cans") found in relic and data sites. Even though the Hacking skill applies just to data sites, the process is usually called "hacking the cans" for both relic and data sites. 

Developing your Hacking and Archaeology skills is critical for success in obtaining loot from your explorations. Every level you gain in these skills grants you an additional 10 points to your virus coherence while hacking cans. The hacking mini-game is covered more fully in [[Hacking |this part of the guide]], but suffice it to say here that virus coherence is essentially your virus "health points" and the more you have, the more success you will have in opening and looting cans. 

The best loot is found in nullsec and wormhole sites, which tend to have much larger mini-game maps, as well as stronger cores to be defeated to succeed at the hack. Training your Archaeology and Hacking skills will enable you to survive the hazards of the mini-game with enough coherence to defeat the core when you find it.

Training your Archaeology and Hacking skills to Level 5 will increase your coherence by 50 points, and will allow you to use Tech 2 relic and data analyzers. Using a Tech 2 analyzer instead of the Tech 1 version will increase your virus coherence by 20 points and your virus strength by 10 points, which is a significant improvement. Integrated analyzers (which are beyond the scope of this section) also require minimum skill levels in Archaeology and Hacking.

===Cloaking Skills===

Having a cloaking device isn't truly necessary for successful exploration, but most explorers will have more enjoyable and productive experiences when they have a way to reliably vanish. Being able to conduct your probe scans without having to worry as much about a hunter swooping down to destroy your ship is useful, especially for newer explorers who are still getting the knack for the trade.

The Cloaking skill requires an Omega clone to train, and whether the ability to cloak is worth the monthly expense is yours to decide. Cloaking also requires training CPU Management to Level 4 as a prerequisite. Once you start training the Cloaking skill itself, there are 3 basic milestones.

Cloaking Level 1 will allow you to use the Tech 1 variant cloak, "Prototype Cloaking Device I", which provides basic cloaking functionality. If you engage the prototype cloak, you will be undetectable in most circumstances (as with anything, there will be exceptions). For basic exploration, this will usually be plenty of capability: you can stay hidden while you scan for signatures, keep an eye on your d-scan, or shuffle your bookmarks.

Cloaking Level 3 will let you use the Tech 2 cloak, called "Improved Cloaking Device II". The basic utility for explorers is about the same as the Tech 1 device, but the extra skill training and more expensive module will give you the ability to do the famous "MWD Cloak Trick". There are plenty of YouTube videos on how to do the trick; [https://youtu.be/BHkgZWaWdlo here's a nice short one]. If you are planning on going through jump gates in possibly hostile circumstances (including in hisec when Signal Cartel has a war declared against us) this can be useful, but if you're mostly planning to sit still while cloaked, it might not be worth the extra expense.

Cloaking Level 4 allows you to use the pinnacle of cloaking tech, the "Covert Ops Cloaking Device II". This version will allow you to warp while cloaked, but it can only be fit to certain ships, and most of those ships have extensive training requirements of their own.

There is, of course, a Level 5 of the Cloaking skill, but at the present time it doesn't provide any useful benefits for Signaleers (beyond checking another box for our completionists), as it just reduces the time needed to lock targets after dropping the cloak. This might be good for those who use their cloak to sneak up on their victims, but we don't do that sort of thing.

===Spaceship Command Skills===

Spaceship Command Skills allow you to pilot additional classes of ships, and more advanced ships within a certain class. Different ships will also gain benefits from each level of the relevant skill. This section of the guide will discuss the skills needed for the most commonly used exploration ships. Please note that the "Spaceship Command" skill is covered in the section on Navigation skills, as the bonuses provided affect ship agility and are more pertinent to navigation.

====T1 Exploration Frigates====

Tech 1 exploration frigates are the first and most common ships used for exploration. There are four racial versions, each of which has slightly different fitting configurations. You'll need the Racial Frigate 1 skill to fly them: Caldari Frigate 1 for the Heron, Amarr Frigate 1 for the Magnate, and so forth. Each level of the appropriate racial frigate skill trained will also increase the strength of your scanning probes. 

====T2 Exploration Frigates====

Tech 2 exploration frigates, called Covert Ops Frigates, are upgrades of the four T1 racial frigates. There are two spaceship command skills needed to fly these ships. 

The first requirement is Racial Frigate 5. You should be well on your way to this skill level already, as it's already important for increasing your scanning in your T1 frigate. Each level of your racial frigate skill will still provide bonuses to your covert ops frigate, but these bonuses do not relate specifically to exploration. 

The second requirement is Covert Ops 1, which has some prerequisites. You'll need to train Spaceship Command 3, as well as Electronics Upgrades 5, in order to start training Covert Ops. As with the T1 ships, each level of Covert Ops will increase your scanning strength, and will also decrease your CPU requirement for cloaking devices. 

Also, it's worth pointing out here that you should absolutely have Cloaking 4 trained and a covops cloak fitted to your T2 frigate before undocking.

====Sisters of Eve Faction Exploration Ships====

There are two Sisters of Eve faction ships that have bonuses for exploration: the Astero (frigate) and the Stratios (cruiser). These ships require a combination of Amarr and Gallente spaceship command skills to fly. 

The Astero, for example, requires both Amarr Frigate 3 and Gallente Frigate 3 to fly; as with any ship that can fit a covops cloak, you'll definitely want to have Cloaking 4 as well. Unlike the racial frigates, the Astero's exploration bonuses don't increase with additional levels of frigate skill. Instead, Amarr Frigate levels increase armor resistance, and Gallente Frigate levels increase drone hit points. 

The Stratios requires both Amarr Cruiser 2 and Gallente Cruiser 2, which in turn have Amarr and Gallente Destroyer 3 as well as Spaceship Command 2 as prerequisites. As with the Astero, additional levels of Amarr and Gallente Cruiser grant bonuses to armor and drones. 

The third SoE faction ship worth mentioning is the Nestor battleship. While it does provide scanning bonuses (and has the classic ring-and-spindle styling as the other SoE ships), it can't fit the covops cloak, and also can't pass through certain types of wormholes due to its size. For those reasons, the Nestor is not recommended for general exploration.

====T3 Strategic Cruisers====

Tech 3 Strategic Cruisers are arguably the apex of exploration ships, and as such require high levels of training in many skills. While a thorough discussion of these is beyond the scope of this section, it is worth noting that the specific spaceship command skills for a T3C can usually be left until last when training to fly strategic cruisers. The Racial Destroyer and Racial Cruiser skills provide no benefits to flying exploration frigates, and aren't a priority as you work up to the T3C requirements. 

If you do have your sights on a T3C, you're much better off training the prerequisites that will help you in the present: training Navigation 5 or Mechanics 5 benefits any ship, so you're using your training time more efficiently. Of course, this only applies to pilots focused just on exploration; if you plan to fly destroyers or cruisers for other activities, your priorities could be different.

====Caveat On Spaceship Command Skills====

Just because you meet the spaceship command requirements to fly a particular ship doesn't mean you are ready to undock one and take off into the nearest wormhole. Successfully flying any ship requires proficiency in a number of skills: being able to fly the ship around is pointless if you can't operate the fitted modules that are needed to actually do the work. A full treatment of the skills needed to be adequately prepared to fly each available ship isn't the point of this section, but a warning is in order. ''Spaceship command skills alone will not make you a competent pilot of any ship. 
''

===Navigation Skills===

Training up your Navigation Skills will have you moving through space quickly and efficiently.  This section will discuss the Navigation skills that have direct benefits for moving around space, as well as some other skills that augment the basic navigation skills. But first, we'll cover the very important topic of ship agility. 

====Navigation Skills For Agility====

Your ship agility is a general measure of how quickly your ship will turn, but for exploration there's a particular agility measure that is exceptionally important... align time. If you look around, you'll find loads of discussion, debate, and even flat-out arguments about what's a good align time and how best to get it. 

In short, your align time is how long your ship will take to enter warp when you set a destination and engage. Shorter align times are better, especially for explorers: our best bet when threatened is usually to run away, and a fast align time gets us into warp and hopefully away to safety before we lose the opportunity. So-called "insta-warp" ships are deliberately fitted to align fast enough for it to be impossible for an enemy to stop them from warping, but fast align times are still important even without taking it to that extreme. 

Ship fitting for quick align times will be covered elsewhere in this guide, but here there are two Navigation skills which are absolutely essential: Evasive Maneuvering and Spaceship Command. Evasive Maneuvering will increase your ship agility by 5% per level for all ships, and Spaceship Command will increase agility by 2% per level. Ships only have a certain number of slots and other resources available for fitting, and training your agility skills will mean that you need to use fewer agility modules, leaving more slots open for other things.

A quick note: there is an Advanced Spaceship Command skill, which also increases agility... but only for ships that require Advanced Spaceship Command to fly in the first place. Training that skill won't be helpful for exploration ships. 

====Navigation Skills For Getting Around====

The first navigation skill to cover is... Navigation! Many other skills have a certain number of levels of Navigation as a prerequisite, and as an added benefit each level of Navigation increases the sub-warp speed of your ship. There's not a lot of call for moving at sub-warp speeds, often called "slow-boating", but it will get you to a jump point, docking perimeter, or cargo opening range a little faster. 

To discuss the use of navigation skills to get around, it's important to have a basic grasp of "capacitor cost". The bank of energy available for you to use to operate your ship in EVE is called "capacitor", and is displayed as orange spokes in the center portion of the round ship information HUD element, right in the middle bottom of the screen. As you use modules that require energy, the available capacitor will reduce, and it will recharge when you turn those modules off. If you run out of capacitor, your modules will shut down on their own. With that basic understanding, we can discuss the benefits of many of the navigation skills. 

Explorers frequently use afterburners and microwarpdrives ("AB's" and "MWD's" for short) to get around nearby locations quickly. The Afterburner and Fuel Conservation skills will increase your AB speed, and lower the capacitor cost of using the AB. The Acceleration Control skill will increase the speed boost of both AB's and MWD's. Finally, High Speed Maneuvering will reduce the capacitor cost of operating your MWD. In short, these skills will give you more speed for a longer time when you use an AB or MWD. Most exploration ships can only fit either an AB or an MWD, but not both, so consider training the first couple of levels of each of these skills, and then training the higher levels depending on whether you prefer the AB or the MWD. You can always go back and train the others later. 

Finally, there's Warp Drive Operation, which lowers the amount of capacitor strength needed to go to warp speed. To understand why this is useful, it helps to understand how your warp drive uses your available capacitor. When you set a destination and go to warp, you will immediately use a certain amount of capacitor as the cost of getting into warp in the first place. Then, the EVE system will calculate the amount of additional capacitor that needs to be used to travel to the destination, based on your ship, fitted equipment, and relevant skills. That amount of capacitor is also removed, at which point the ship goes into warp and heads toward the chosen destination. 

There are a couple of ways in which this can go wrong, though. If the chosen destination is too far away, the ship will use all of the available capacitor to travel as far as possible towards the destination, and then stop midway. This isn't usually a major problem, because your capacitor will recharge while you are warping, and after you stop you can then start another warp to your chosen destination and complete the trip. 

It's also possible, though, that you might not have enough capacitor available to even start warping in the first place, perhaps because you've been using your limited amount of capacitor for other things... and when you tell your ship to warp away, it just sits there, which is usually a major problem. The Warp Drive Operation skill helps to avoid that eventuality, and also leaves more of your capacitor available for long trips after you enter warp.

====Other Skills That Support Navigation====

Considering that successful navigation relies on more factors than just those covered by direct navigation skills, here are a few skills from other areas that can help you get to the places you want to be. 

From the Engineering skills, training Power Grid Management will open up the ability to train Capacitor Management and Capacitor Systems Operation. Capacitor Management will increase your total capacitor by 5% per level trained, and Capacitor Systems Operation will reduce your time to recharge  by 5% per level. More capacitor means longer warps, and more other things that you can use your capacitor for and still be able to enter warp when you need to. Training these skills also opens up options to equip modules that will increase your capacitor performance. 

The Jury Rigging skill requires a few levels of Mechanics as a prerequisite, but will open up the possibility to equip modules to your ship that can greatly increase your agility, speed, and capacitor economy. Following up with the Astronautics Rigging skill will make even more rigs available, as well as decreasing some of the drawbacks for using rigs. 

Finally, a few levels of Thermodynamics can be very useful. This skill allows you to deliberately overheat a module in order to force extra performance out of it. There's a risk of heat damage to other modules, and of burning out an overheated module completely, but sometimes losing a module is better than the alternatives (such as losing your entire ship and all of your modules). Many types of modules can be overheated, but for this section of the guide it's worth noting that overheating an AB or MWD can provide up to 50% extra output.

===Other Important Skills===

There are many resources to help you figure out what general skills are important to train ([https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/The_Magic_14 EVE University's Magic 14] is well regarded), so the focus here will be on skills outside the usual exploration choices that are often useful for explorers. 

====Drones====

There are two basic types of drones that are often used by explorers: light scout drones, and ECM drones. T1 frigates typically have a drone bay large enough to house a flight of light drones, and the Astero has a fairly large drone bay as well. Drones aren't much of an option for T2 frigates, though, because only the Helios has a drone bay, and it can only hold a single drone. 

Light scout drones basically provide a way to deal some damage in a pinch, especially for exploration ships that don't have an actual weapon fitted. Fitting a weapon requires a high slot, and exploration ships can plan to take up one high slot with a probe launcher and a second one with a cloak... and some ships only have two high slots in the first place. With Drones 1 and Light Drone Operation 1, you can add a little firepower. 

ECM drones can be used to break an enemy target lock and allow you to warp away to safety. There's no guarantee that it will work, but drones are fairly inexpensive and don't take up any fitting resources, so using them as a possibility of escape at least gives you a chance. These drones are a longer training commitment, requiring Drones 5 and Electronic Warfare 4 before you can train Advanced Drone Avionics 1, which will let you launch ECM drones. If you plan on sticking with a T1 frigate or moving to an Astero, it's worth considering.

====Infomorph Skills====

Jump clones are extremely useful, especially if you want to participate in different activities within Signal Cartel. When you activate a jump clone, you essentially teleport your consciousness into another body in another place. Each level of the Infomorph Psychology skill will give you one additional jump clone to place at a station with a clone bay. You can switch between jump clones every 24 hours, and the Infomorph Synchronizing skill can reduce that interval by one hour per level. 

The first major benefit of jump clones is that you can transport to almost anywhere in New Eden instantaneously, without having to worry about how many jumps are between your destinations, or the dangers of traveling through possibly hostile areas. If you want to range far and wide exploring, but still be able to get to Zoohen to take part in an event, using a jump clone will let you quickly get to the station, and then go back to where you left off afterwards.

The second reason to use a jump clone is to change the implants you are currently using. When you jump to a new clone, you bring your skills with you, but you leave your implants behind. Because you can't remove implants without destroying them, this is the only way to have different implants for different situations, or even to keep a "clean clone" with no implants at all. For example, if you wanted to be part of a hugs fleet, where getting both your ship and your capsule destroyed is almost a certainty, you won't want to bring your expensive implants along to be lost. Jumping into a clean clone, particularly one near where the fleet is forming, will keep your implants safely elsewhere. You might also want to keep clones with different skill hardwiring implants in the locations where you need those skills enhanced.

====Cybernetics====

The Cybernetics skill will allow you to use more powerful implants, for both attribute increases and skill hardwiring. Most lower-level implants can be used with just Cybernetics 1, including attribute enhancements up to +3. Cybernetics 3 is commonly required for mid-level skill hardwirings. Cybernetics 4 is required for most of the upper-level implants, such as +4 attribute implants, and some of the most effective hardwirings. The really elite implants will require Cybernetics 5, such as +5 attribute implants and skill hardwirings like the Blackglass hacking implant. 

====Miscellaneous Skills====

There are several skills that can be very useful without much training time at all. These are generally either specific to a certain task, or just used to make your life in New Eden a little easier. 

Any Signaleer who plans on working with the [[ESR:EvE-Scout Rescue Cache (ESRC)|EvE-Scout Rescue Cache]] program should train Anchoring 1. This only takes a few minutes, and will allow you to sow a cache if you find yourself in a j-space system without one. You don't need the Anchoring skill to tend a cache. 

The Marketing skill will make it much easier to sell your exploration loot, because each level of the skill will allow you to sell your items at a greater distance from your currently docked station. Training to Marketing 2 will allow you to sell your items in systems within 5 jumps from your current location, and Marketing 3 extends that to 10 jumps. If you don't want to haul your loot back to a SC home station for hauling to a main market hub, some Marketing skill will help you to get better prices without having to visit stations in every system you visit in order to check prices. Another advantage to the Marketing skill is being able to sell your items in a major hub without the risk of flying in a system like Jita, where expensive ships and cargo are often attacked in spite of hisec CONCORD presence. You can dock a few jumps away from the hub, and sell your loot at hub prices from a safer distance. 

Salvaging can be worth training, as explorers often have opportunities to salvage wrecks during the course of regular exploration activities. If you plan to fit a salvager module, then some levels in the Salvaging skill might serve you well.