High Sec Stratios exploration

[Mr.Person]

Do people still shoot Stratios in High Sec because its a "shiny ship" like the wiki seems to suggest? it keeps saying to never undock without being able to cloak, and I was wondering if it was still that dangerous, are people still actively looking for Stratios to blow up? I know "your never safe" in EVE but is flying a Stratios making myself a target?

If the answer is yes, is there a ship fit I can do as an alpha that will let me run Highsec combat and relic/data sites? I used to play a ton years ago so I have ALL alpha skills researched, I just don't feel like paying a sub fee atm lol

[Sadpan]

Not really, but the Stratios is a very specific kind of ship for specific situations. You're better off flying a T3 cruiser for a similar price with way better survivability and combat ability, or a T2 covert ops frigate with maximum covops and maneuverability skills to enable instawarp and slightly better hacking and scanning than the Astero.

For alphas, you're kinda stuck with T1 frigates because you can't use covops cloaks as an alpha, so you shouldn't fly anything outside of your race's T1 exploration frigate.

[ZumZoom]

No ship is "shiny" until it's fitted with shiny modules. If you fit it with tech 2 modules (where alpha skills allow) and maybe with some cheaper faction/deadspace modules, then you will likely be safe from suicide gankers (unless you use autopilot travel - that's who they automatically target). I'd say if your Stratios is under 500kk worth with it's equipment, then it's pretty safe.

[Sadpan]

Originally posted by ZumZoom:

No ship is "shiny" until it's fitted with shiny modules. If you fit it with tech 2 modules (where alpha skills allow) and maybe with some cheaper faction/deadspace modules, then you will likely be safe from suicide gankers (unless you use autopilot travel - that's who they automatically target). I'd say if your Stratios is under 500kk worth with it's equipment, then it's pretty safe.

The stratios doesn't have any benefit over an Astero, and as an alpha both are still too "shiny" to use without a covops cloak.

To OP, high-sec exploration is worthless, you should go look into wormhole exploration, it pays a lot better.

[Mr.Person]

Is there no military or pirate variant of something that can fit both the scanners/probes as well as tank enough to do smaller combat sites? Right now I'm having to find the sites with my imicus and then go get my Vexor after I find a bunch of them, but it cant do the harder ones.

[Sadpan]

Originally posted by Mr.Person:

Is there no military or pirate variant of something that can fit both the scanners/probes as well as tank enough to do smaller combat sites? Right now I'm having to find the sites with my imicus and then go get my Vexor after I find a bunch of them, but it cant do the harder ones.

Oh, you're running combat sites? That's an entirely different thing from exploration.

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Guide_to_combat_sites

You pretty much are required to use two ships until your skills are sufficient to scan in the one combat ship.

[Mr.Person]

I was kinda doing both, which was why I was looking into a ship that could do both, just to at least give some variance to what I was doing, as I had never done either until I started researching it the other day.

[Sadpan]

Originally posted by Mr.Person:

I was kinda doing both, which was why I was looking into a ship that could do both, just to at least give some variance to what I was doing, as I had never done either until I started researching it the other day.

I suppose the Stratios could do that the best, but it's a cost vs risk thing especially as an alpha. But you should be generally ok in high-sec with that.

[Mr.Person]

Cool, any good fits you recommend? Or should I just use the ones on the EVEuniwiki? I got 1.2bil to throw around a bit, so its not like it would be too big a loss, plus with it I may actually try going through one of the many wormholes I find but never touch.

[Shotgun]

Generally-speaking, a combat ship will not be touched by suicide-gankers in high-sec unless it shows some bling. You shouldn't have any issues running a standard T2 fit, with one or two faction modules tops.

[Mr.Person]

Guess I'll have to do some more googling to find a proper fit I can use, then take a trip to the local trade hub to buy everything I need.

Would it be smart to take the little imicus through a wormhole just to see how it works in WH space? Never been there myself and I don't really care if I lose it.

[Sadpan]

Originally posted by Mr.Person:

Guess I'll have to do some more googling to find a proper fit I can use, then take a trip to the local trade hub to buy everything I need.

Would it be smart to take the little imicus through a wormhole just to see how it works in WH space? Never been there myself and I don't really care if I lose it.

I highly recommend using T1 frigates like the Imicus for wormhole exploration until you buy PLEX for omega time, which is when you should immediately start training to use the covops cloak which is a necessity for the astero and later covops frigates if you want to train to the "end-game" ships for exploration.

[Mr.Person]

Its probably because I have all possible alpha skills trained but I can scan and do data/relic sites easily with just the imicus that I have, I just started the thread to see what people thought about a certain ship that can run combat sites as well as scan down data/relic sites.

I think someone in my area is running around before I login and sniping all the data/relic sites because all the cosmic anomalies in my area are all just wormholes and left behind combat sites that I do in my Vexor.

I haven't actually D-scanned at all yet but I know I really need to get used to doing that if I'm flying an expensive ship or in a dangerous area.

[Sadpan]

Originally posted by Mr.Person:

Its probably because I have all possible alpha skills trained but I can scan and do data/relic sites easily with just the imicus that I have, I just started the thread to see what people thought about a certain ship that can run combat sites as well as scan down data/relic sites.

I think someone in my area is running around before I login and sniping all the data/relic sites because all the cosmic anomalies in my area are all just wormholes and left behind combat sites that I do in my Vexor.

I haven't actually D-scanned at all yet but I know I really need to get used to doing that if I'm flying an expensive ship or in a dangerous area.

No, it's that highsec just sucks for exploration, I never see any sites there.

[Mr.Person]

Possibly. I spent a couple hours yesterday and managed to find 2 or 3 relic sites and maybe 4 data sites but many many more wormholes and combat sites than that. I did even stumble across a tier 4 difficulty data site but I could only get it to 94% sadly so I couldn't get to it.

Today I couldn't find any, but there were a ton of combat sites around.

[ZynXao]

some strange answers here imo, but maybe its me that gets it wrong?
you are doing combat exploration, right? so you run stuff like DED's, unrated complexes and escalations. that's what I do all the time. and yes, you can use the stratios for that. you basically just need a cruiser with a spare utility high slot for the probe launcher. the most common ship used for this is the Gila. I use it myself too. just fit rapid light missiles in the highs + probe scanner (invest in Sisters Core Probes, I know they are expensive but its worth it), 10mn ab + 2x large shield extender + 2x multispectrum shield hardener + passive em shield resist in the mids. if you are unsure about your tank go 2x drone damage amplifier + damage control in the lows. after you learned each site and how to do them quickly just drop the DCU for a third DDA to get more dps. for the rigs I recommend throwing 3 Core Defense Field Purger I's in there. as you are an alpha I also recommend investing in faction medium drones. they are a bit expensive but with the Gila bonus these guys are pretty tanky and you should be able to safe them should they get targeted by rats. its a passive fit so dont worry unless your shield goes below 25%. I know it might look scary, and if in doubt, just warp off. with this Gila I run every site you can find in high sec no matter against which rats. you can't enter 1/10 and 2/10 DEDs though as these sites dont allow cruisers. you wont have a data/relic analyzer but lets be honest, data/relic sites in high sec are really bad if you dont come along a ghost site or sleeper cache. for a nice overview of combats sites and what to expect check out: https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Combat_sites I can also recommend https://www.youtube.com/user/MetalLunar to check out specific sites and how to do them. the competition in high sec is really high though so try to find a quiet place of space to roam around.