How I Hunt Explorers

I would really like to be getting this blog rolling and posting more, but unfortunately real life has sucked away my time for the past couple weeks.  Haven't even logged in to Eve, but will be soon to update my skill training.  Anyway, I have some time now, so will talk about how I hunt explorers.

This may be old news to some, as I am by no means the first one to hunt explorers in this manner.  In fact I stole the initial idea from someone else.  My method can also have a lot of down time, so can be boring for some of you wanting to engage in this type of PvP.  But, its always nice when you do get a kill, and I have gotten kills within 15 minutes of each other before.  The patience can pay off.

I use an unorthodox stealth bomber fit, specifically the Manticore.  I haven't played with the other bombers to see if the fit would work with them also, but Nemesis would probably work to due to the same slot layout.  Any other type of bomber solo PvP(orthodox with torps) you should be using Hound or Purifier though. 

As an aside, Manticore and Nemesis are also great for clone tag ratting, depending on which rats you shoot at.  I personally use a Nemesis to rat in Blood Raider space.  Its not optimal damage type but thermal is 2nd best for those rats, and Nemesis has much better slot layout for PvE than Purifier:  4 mids for prop mod, 2 target painters, and shield booster should you need it.

I say unorthodox fit, because I fit the Manticore with rockets, not torpedoes.  The sole purpose of this ship is to take down untanked and mostly weaponless astrometric and covops frigates.  Rockets are great for this, and you don't need a damage bonus since your targets are squishy.  Rockets in conjunction with the bomber suffering no targeting delay upon de-cloaking means you will catch them completely by surprise.

Use whatever damage type you want, the stealth bomber bonus only applies to torpedoes.  I use thermal, but it really doesn't matter.

If you wanted, and your skills are better suited, you could use blasters instead.  The Manticore has 2 turret slots to fit blasters, and you should have no issues keeping in range.  Or a combo of 2 blasters, 1 rocket launcher, whatever you can/want to fit will work.  Its not super important, these guys blow up pretty quick.

I'm not going to give an exact fitting, but you will also want two warp scramblers, to prevent their escape in case they have warp core stabs fitted.  Most of these frigates only have up to 3 low slots(other than the Magnate, which has 4), so even if all lows have warp core stabs they still won't get away.

You also need a core probe launcher to find data/relic/gas sites.  Don't fit a Sisters of Eve one unless your scan skills are real shit, and honestly if they are you might want to train them up first before doing this.  If you do happen to screw up and lose this ship, you don't want the +40 mil added to your loss mail, especially when the rest of the fit is worth less than that one module.  Do use the Sisters probes though, they are worth their price tag in my opinion, and not a huge loss if you fuck up.  For me, I also explore, so my scan skills are mostly maxed, and I generally have scanning implants fitted in the clone I do this with.  I use a Tech 2 launcher and can scan sites down very quickly.

You may notice I mentioned gas sites, yes those can be good too, but much more rarely.  I scan them anyway just in case, you never know when someone might undock a Venture to try to mine some gas.  I haven't caught one yet, but hopefully soon.  Two warp scrams should be sufficient in keeping them from escaping also.  Now that I think about it, this fit could also be good for trying to catch Ventures in wormholes also, ninjaing the gas there.  Not the most profitable, but something different to try.

Now, I have two different strategies on finding targets, depending on what I am doing.  This may piss some of you off, as one of my strategies is for semi-afk play.  I'm currently a college student, so often I am busy doing school work.  I do my school work in front of my computer.  Before I start working on my school work, I will start scanning for sites.  As soon as I find a data or relic site in a system, I warp to that site at 100km from a safe spot.  I then bookmark that spot, and warp back to the safe spot.  I then warp to this spot at 100km.  This will put you at roughly 200km give or take 50km from the cans for the site.

Then I wait, cloaked at my spot, and start my school work.  I will occasionally look up to see if there is any new faces in local, or do a D-scan to see what's up.  If there are probes and/or an exploration frigate on scan, I wait for their imminent warp in to the site. 

When I see them finally warp in, I make my best estimate as to which can they are going to first based on the distance of their ship and the cans.  The can icon will change once the player has started the hacking game on it.  This is the best time to strike, as they are distracted by the game.  I warp in once I see that icon change.  Once the warp in finishes, decloak, lock player, activate scrams and rockets, and watch them blow up.  Too easy.

Preferably, you blow them up before they finish hacking the can.  That way its a clean site for another player to warp in and use without suspicion.  After you loot the explorer wreck, always blow it up afterwards, to cover your tracks.  That way you can keep using the site, and not make any other explorers who warp in to the site suspicious.

The other strategy I use, when I am actively playing and doing nothing else, is a roaming strategy.  I will set up a route of systems, and scan sites in every single one, only stopping if I happen to see an explorer on D-scan at the time of my scanning.  Once I've gone through the route, I will backtrack, running D-scan on sites to see if people are doing the ones I scanned earlier.  Most of my kills come from this strategy, as I tend to warp in to system and pounce on people who are running the sites that I had already bookmarked previously.

Now, if you are an explorer yourself, how do you prevent yourself from becoming a victim of an explorer hunter?  There are a few things you can do.  For one, never run sites in systems that have other players in local, and leave or cloak up when someone does pop in local.  Low sec, especially deep low sec, is pretty empty, so this is feasible.  I personally only run sites in null sec now, which is especially easy to find empty systems that may stay empty for hours.  If you stick to a particular area, you will learn over time what the locals are doing and will better know if certain players are a threat or not.

If you insist on running sites with others in local, check up on them.  Look at their Bio, their current corp's description, titles, and other clues that they might be after explorers.  A negative sec status may indicate a pirate or low sec pvper, but does not necessarily mean they hunt explorers.  A positive sec status also does not mean they are not a threat, but you can be fairly certain they aren't if it is 5.0.  Google the player's killboard stats and look at recent kills.  Anyone who googles me will see almost all of my recent kills being astrometric frigs or covops, which should be a red flag for any explorer, and why my semi-afk camping probably doesn't work as well for me.

Also, always be checking D-scan.  But you should know this already anyway, right?  Make sure you have probes on your overview settings so they show up on D-scan.  D-scan won't let you see a stealth bomber fitted to kill you, but you will see his probes.  If someone else is probing while you are running a site, its time to go.  Even if its not a stealth bomber, other pirate gangs use scanning frigs to find targets also.

There are other ways to avoid people like me, but I don't want to give them all away.  In the next post, I will talk more about my current exploration habits and ship fitting, although I am pretty sure my current method of exploration may become obsolete after Rubicon comes out and I get my hands on that sweet new Sisters of Eve cruiser.