Scouting Like a Pro III

This is the third in a series of posts about scouting in wormhole space. The first covers the necessary preparation and infiltration while the second covers POS recon.

It's about time to drop those probes, but before you do take note. If at all possible drop them outside the dscan range of all enemy pilots and keep them outside the dscan range of all enemy pilots for as long as possible, but finish the scanning job quickly. The goal here is to resolve the system without spooking your target. You achieve this by minimizing the time your probes are visible to the enemy.

Using probes is covered in all sorts of other "Nub Scouting" videos and blogs so I'll skip all that crap. What you need to know is that All signatures will be within 8 AU of a planet. I don't know why that's the case, but it is. With that knowledge you can save yourself a lot of time by narrowing your probes down to a size of 8 AU and centering them on planets before you activate the scan sequence.

Because you have the proper ship and equipment that was prescribed in part 1 of this series you can go directly from 8 AU to 2 AU when you've re-centered  on a signature. Sometimes you'll have to go down to .5 AU in order to pin down a sig, but most of time can get it at 1 AU. If you've got maxed out skills and are using the right implants you can get pretty much everything at 2 AU, but I don't use the implants. If I ever do I'll make a part 4 of the series and name it "Scouting Like a Fat Kid in a Candy Store."

Now that covers the tips for scanning down sigs, but what about ships?

For ships you need Combat Scanner probes. Yes, these probes can also find regular signatures. No, you should not just use Combat probes.

"Why's that, Malception?"I

Because Combat probes are only half as powerful as Core probes. In effect, if you use combats to scan normal signatures it's going to take you twice as long to do it. You will suck at scouting and die an inglorious, ignominious  death. If you're in Cold Moon Destruction you'll likely be killed by your own people for such incompetence.

So... when you see a ship on dscan, but know it's not in a POS then you simply use the Dscan to get a general direction of the ship from your position. Once you've pinned down the direction to as narrow a degree as possible you want to play with the range on your dscanner to determine about how far away the ship is from you. Once you've got a direction and range you launch probes outside his dscan range and prepare to scan him down.

The diameter of the scan range for your probes is dictated by how closely you've pinned down his position and also the size of the ship. An Orca is a hell of a lot easier to scan down than a pod. When in doubt use 4 AU on your combats. You will get a hit and if you're lucky you'll get 100% on the first pass, but you will probably have to make a second pass in order to pin him down.

Scanning down ships is very tricky. For one thing, ships move so you'll have to move quickly and accurately on your dscan in order to get a good position to target your combat probes. Another thing that makes it difficult is the fact that ship sizes, their signature radii, are so different that it's hard to say what range you need on your probes.

In all probability you will fail the first few times you try this. Having a second set of eyes in the system to help with dscan while you do the combat probes is very helpful, but it can be done solo. Just keep at it. Remember, slow and smooth and smooth is fast.

Once you get the target ship pinned down pull those probes and warp to 0. If they're paying attention to dscan they'll have seen your probes and if it's a small ship they'll likely have escaped. If not then you've got a shot, but that's about it. Nothing is guaranteed.

Last, but not least: remember to tag your dscan even while you're probing. Most people don't do this and they get tunnel vision while using the probe interface, thereby denying themselves one of the most powerful scouting tools in the game.

That's it. Do these things consistently and you're scouting like a pro.

Final Thoughts (aka things momma said before dropping you off at school)

Use the right gear for the task at hand. Don't rush. Take your time. Watch dscan at all times. Provide accurate information. Ask questions if you don't know or are unsure about anything.