Tag: Exploration

A week ago, I made a Reddit post asking explorers at what point they usually drop off their loot. Since a few people had questions about the loot I posted in general and drug sites AKA chemical labs specifically, I’m making this brief guide. This’ll cover nullsec drug production facilities, such as H-PA Crew Crash Production Facility. The lowsec versions are pretty lousy and LS exploration isn’t good in general. Specifically, I’ll cover how to cheese run these sites in a frigate.

The Basics

There are 8 null COSMOS regions in the game: Catch, Cloud Ring, Delve, Feythabolis, Fountain, Tenal, Vale of the Silent, and Wicked Creek. Predictably, these regions have null COSMOS agents, with each region’s agents being concentrated in a specific constellation with lore significance. Each null COSMOS region also has unique gas and other sites, such as combat relic sites. This guide will focus on drug production facilities.

That’s right! These exist now. As of the Revenant expansion in November 2024, there are now rogue drone relic sites in addition to the existing drone data sites and dronelands ghost sites. While a nice addition to the drone regions, the sites are unfortunately fairly disappointing.

The Basics

Rogue drone relic sites can spawn in the 8 nullsec drone regions (Cobalt Edge, Etherium Reach, Malpais, Outer Passage, Perrigen Falls, The Kalevala Expanse, and The Spire) and in the kinds of wormhole systems that normally have pirate data/relic sites (C1, C2, C3, C13, and shattered C4). They follow the exact same naming scheme as nullsec/wormhole pirate relic sites:

Ever come across a weird signature in a wormhole that you couldn’t quite manage to scan down? It’s probably a Silent Battleground.

Overview

Silent Battlegrounds are very rare cosmic signatures that only appear in shattered wormholes, including Thera. However, they still spawn often enough that you can usually find one in a long roam. If you get really lucky, you can even find multiple Silent Battlegrounds in the same system.

Silent Battlegrounds are one of the very few sites in the game that show as level 5 signatures in the probe scanner, specifically level 5 data sites. The only other level 5 sigs are Superior Sleeper Caches (also level 5 data) and the Space Oddity (level 5 combat). This makes them one of the hardest sites to scan down: aim for at least 104 probe strength. All the usual strategies for increasing your probe strength apply here.

Come on, ghost sites aren’t that scary. Why yes, that’s a screenshot of a ghost site explosion. Why do you ask?

The Basics

Ghost sites are unique exploration sites found in every part of New Eden: hisec, lowsec, nullsec, and wormholes. They always appear in the probe scanner as level 3 data signatures, except in the null drone regions (Cobalt Edge, Etherium Reach, Malpais, Outer Passage, Perrigen Falls, The Kalevala Expanse, and The Spire), where they show as level 1 combat signatures. For some reason. And with their drops skyrocketing in price, it’s never been a better time to run them.

All ghost sites are named [Prefix] [Faction] Covert Research Facility. For example, “Improved Sansha Covert Research Facility.” That’s not to be confused with Beseiged Covert Research Facilities, which are proper lowsec combat sites.

There are 8 nullsec regions known as the drone regions or “dronelands”: Cobalt Edge, Etherium Reach, Malpais, Outer Passage, Perrigen Falls, The Kalevala Expanse, and The Spire. These regions are unique in that they don’t have any regular pirate data or relic sites outside of temporary content like metaliminal storms, though they do have the recently added rogue drone relic sites, which are pretty similar to pirate ones. They also don’t have Sleeper Caches. Instead, they have special drone data sites.

The Basics

Instead of decryptors and such like regular data sites, drone data sites drop 2 kinds of loot: drone blueprint copies (BPCs) and assorted junk. Most of the junk is “drone poop” such as Drone Capillary Fluid. They can also drop filaments. 2 types of drone BPCs drop depending on the site: ‘Integrated’ drone BPCs and ‘Augmented’ drone BPCs. These BPCs drop in 10-run, 60-run, and 120-run variants. The drone poop’s used for manufacturing the drones, and isn’t very valuable. The blueprints, however, can be extremely valuable. We’re talking potentially billions of ISK.

In 2020, CCP introduced Metaliminal Storms: multi-system weather effects that roam nullsec and affect the stats of all player ships within them. These storms are considered annoying by many null residents, but they can also be immensely valuable with some understanding of how they work. How valuable? Over the course of 2 evenings, I yanked over 3 billion ISK out of an electrical storm in Insmother. I haven’t seen this kind of ISK/hr with non-combat exploration outside of getting lucky with quiet Sansha systems, drone data escalations, or wormhole Ghost Sites. And none of those are nearly as consistent or predictable.

To find a storm, just go to your ingame map and toggle the Metaliminal Storms filter. The map won’t tell you which storm is which, but Signal Cartel runs a public storm tracking service.

Basics

There are currently 4 types of metaliminal storms: Electrical, Exotic, Gamma, and Plasma. With 2 of each type existing simultaneously, that makes for 8 storms at a given time. Each storm’s effects are divided among “strong” and “weak” systems, with some additional hidden effects. Eve Uni has a wiki page covering the weather effects of each storm. There’s also a good visual guide in this Reddit post.