Scanning and you

I won’t lie; I’m a work-shy freeloader when it comes to scanning. Usually, by the time I sleep through my alarm, eat breakfast, take a shower and get around to logging on, there’s either a grav to hit or a WH to haul ore through for the next paycheck. Unfortunately, I can get dedicated to the tiniest things, and my brain won’t shut off till the task is complete.

This is why it’s currently… four in the morning and I’m still trying to scan a highsec exit. So, scan tips.

An important think to remember in wormholes is that there are two types of wormholes: incoming and outgoing. Or, as I like to call them, “someone’s found us” and “we found another empty neighbor”. Most WHs will have a static type, which means that at any given time if you start scanning that WH you will always find a WH of the given type, for example, a c6. Since the WH we currently reside in has a static C6, this makes scanning a route to highsec all kinds of fun and laughs, when you consider that C6s are the deepest you will go into WH space and are therefore have the lowest chance of a nice highsec to cart 400,000 m3 of ore out of.

Anyway, here’s the process I’ve developed that works for me:

1. Go through the WH/warp to empty space

2. Don’t forget to BM the WH before you do anything else.

3. Open your scanner, go to the directional tab.Turn off active overview settings and press scan. If you don’t see scan probes, PoSes, pos guns, ships, or anything that looks threatening, proceed to step 4. If not, inform your corp mates, and proceed to step four carefully.

4. Launch four probes, then move 15km away from the WH.

5. Cloak.

6. Set one of the probes to 32 AU and move it to the center of the system. If the probe does not encompass the entire system, set all the probes to 32 AU and do the best you can.

7. Press “Scan”, wait 5-10 seconds, then look at the signatures that result. Whine to your corp about how many signatures there are (if over 15) or how unlikely a highsec exit is (if lower than 15).

8. Choose a signature at random.

9. Set your probes to one size bigger than the sig..sphere. If the sig is a red dot, set the probes to 8 AU.

10. Move your probes into a 2D diamond shape, and move as group (shift-click) so that the four circles form some sort of weird shape covering the circle completely. Hit scan again.

11. If the signature disapeared, and there are no other signatures, make your probes one size bigger and scan again. If there are other signatures, go back to step 9 for that sig.

12. If there are now two signatures of the same name, curse quietly to yourself. Move your group of probes slightly up or down so that only one sig is encompassed. Rescan. if the sig vanished, move the group over where the other sig used to be. If that sig vanished as well, curse a bit louder, increase probes by a size and scan again, going back to step 9.

13. If the sig formed a 2d circle: Curse again. Make the probes one size bigger, encompass the circle, and scan again. Go to step 9.

14. If the sig formed a red dot: Silently cheer to yourself. Go to step 17.

15: If the sig turned yellow: look at it in the scanner menu. If it’s the type you want, cheer and go to step 17. If not, angrily right click and select ignore this signeture. Go back to step 6

16. If the sig turned green: Yay! You just found something! Make sure your ship is cloaked and warp to 20km of it. Bookmark some object with an informative name:

“Bitchin Crokite” is not informative. “Excep. core Crokite” is. “I hate scanning” is not informative. “Static C6” is.

17. Reduce your probes by one size and adjust them to keep forming the diamond around the dot. Press scan again and go to step 9.

18. Fake a disconnect so you don’t have to help scan another damn c6 w/ 30 sigs in it.

In flowchart form: