Home Spotlight EVE Online Exploration Guide: Billions and Billions (of ISK)

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From the minute I started playing EVE Online, I wanted to get away with something.

It didn’t have to be an elaborate plan for backstabbing, or a huge pyramind scheme. No, I just wanted to reach out into the dangerous sectors of New Eden and somehow eke out a handsome reward for making it back alive. I wanted to ignore the established conventions that I should slowly graduate from high security space, then low sec, then null sec, then wormhole areas. I wanted to boldly go where the money was.

So right from the get-go, I chose exploration as my initial career in EVE.

There was a lot to learn: fitting, flying, scanning, hacking, and (certainly not least) diplomacy. I very quickly jumped into the most terrifying sections of the galaxy, searching for increasing expensive loot against increasingly hostile enemy players. And while I certainly made my mistakes (as my many destroyed frigates can attest), all my gambles were paying off. Within the first month of playing, I had already earned over three billion ISK – enough to pay for more than four months of my EVE subscription. That may not sound like a lot to a veteran, but for someone just starting out at exploration (or EVE in general), it’s many thousands times more than you’d earn performing typically grueling beginner tasks.

I’ve looked for EVE Online exploration guides, and while they’re out there, many are woefully outdated. Even the ones that cover the most recent ships and UI changes sound like they were written by cowards who are simply too afraid of taking a risk for making some ISK. What’s the point of playing in such a huge, open world if you’re never going to see most of it?

So in my infinite wisdom and generosity, I’ve decided to compile my own exploration handbook to outline how I’ve made my millions, so you can follow in my, uh… hyperdrive wake? This is going to be an ongoing series, with new chapters coming out once or twice a week, but you can check back here for links to the latest parts. And if you have any advice for newbie explorers yourself, definitely share it in the comments!

EVE Online Exploration Guide Index

  1. Choosing Your Ship
  2. Fitting Your Vessel
  3. Skills and Implants
  4. Moving Around Space
  5. Core & Combat Probe Scanning
  6. Performing the Hack
  7. Making More ISK

NOTE: These chapters are subject to change during and after writing, so check back for updates!

 

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26 replies to this post

  2. Looking at latest prices, one plex costs 800 million ISK. That’s a massive increase in such a short time… did they cost 50 million at one point, or is the market crashing?

  3. Excellent guide. Well written well put together and easy to navigate. Been a veteran of eve since early on took a 3-4 year hiatus. I developed my scanning skills ages ago on the original system and never really tried the new system. Using your guide I was able to pull in around 90million on my first outing.

    I would add that instead of running the bottle necks into null sec I grabbed a wormhole and ran in that that way. Its random but safer. I also used wormholes to exit back to low sec.

  4. This guide is incredibly useful! I don’t know what I’d do without it! Seriously, there isn’t a single resource of this quality on EVE exploration anywhere else on the internet. Job well done m8.

  5. I am struggling to do this guide. I am a newbie, just started few days ago. I went into a Wormhole and found a few data/relic sites 100% but they all had sleepers so I got out as fast as possible. What is the normal progression and the money earned that you are supposed to go through before you can do WH space safely, i.e. take out sleepers to actually get the sites.

    You mentioned that we should skip high-sec but that is the only place we can actually go exploring.. bit confused…

    • I found the same problem but then learned to avoid anything with the word Perimeter or Frontier in it and also google any site names you don’t recognize. A good portion of the sites are hostile, but you can still find sites that aren’t and turn a quick profit.

  6. If you are in a wh then there will always be sleepers. You need to be in null sec for quality loot. Use the wh to gain access to null sec without having to go through the null sec choke points.

    • Not entirely true. You can find null sec sites in C1-C3 wormholes. If the name is of a pirate faction, no sleepers. If the name includes “forgotten” or “unsecured” then it’s a sleeper site.

  14. It would be nice to see a fluxograma of the development of skills trough each path of the ships a player can choose, from frigates to cruiser, black ops, covert op, etc.
    Its hard work but could make it a lot easier to visualize and plan without having to revisit each chapter.

    GG

  17. You should cover the cloak warp trick and explain what “pulsing” means in there respective sections. Otherwise, great guide. Can always be improved with visual reference, especially in the probing area. :) o7. See you in new eden!

  18. Nice guide man! However, as this was published in 2015, surely some parts of it could be updated / added with new content from the game now in 2017? EVE has had A LOT of updates since then.

    Either way, great guide and looking forward to a hopeful revision of it!

  21. Wow! Thank you for the guide, I have been looking for something like this for quite a while now. Sadly your page shows up far on google ranks, but I am glad to ventured deep in there :)

  24. Wow, great guide! So many useful information in depth introduced that could help so many people if only this would be more visible on google.
    I think that you should share this article on social media and similar themed pages.

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