Local
In all normal space systems, every pilot who is inside a system or who enters a system will appear in Local channel with their character pictures and names. This happens in real time. If your overview settings are correct, more icons will appear beside their names showing standing toward you. These standings are the same in the overview.
Watching local is always prudent. If you live in PVP territory or if your corp or alliance is under a war declaration, glue at least one of your eyeballs directly to that part of your screen. Local should be pinned to your interface and visible at all times. It’s one of the most critical sources of intel you have.
In Wormhole space, this changes. Local is always empty until someone types a comment into the local channel. If the pilot types something and leaves, their name and picture won’t disappear right away. Incidentally, this dynamic exists because in the game’s early history, local functioned this way in null-sec. When the developers changed null-sec to show all occupants in local as soon as they entered the system (in the name of game balancing), the forums erupted. Later when W-space was introduced, the “old” way was made new again.
Scanners
Obviously using scanners will provide way more information than glancing (or staring in abject horror) at Local. You can pop open your scanner quickly with ctrl+F11, or push the button on the interface. Two different scanner options are presented: the System Scanner and the Directional Scanner.
Directional Scanner
It doesn’t matter what ship you are piloting, this Scanner type is part of every ship, even the pods, and it’s usable with the same efficiency. There are not too much settings in it, and those are not too important either: it’s designed for getting fast, precise (or at least approximately) pieces of information of the objects in space.
Every ship has a directional scanner – even your pod. Its efficiency is based on your skills, not the ship. There aren’t a lot of settings, and you’ll normally just use your directional scanner for finding the approximate direction and distance of your targets.
However, with practice you can turn this simple tool into a powerful one. Take the time to read the following closely and then practice by jumping into a safe(ish) system and start scanning things down. Start by setting up your scan options.
Directional Scanner Options
„Use active overview settings”
If you choose this option, your scanner will only show the objects that are set on your overview settings. Be careful to make sure you’ve selected the proper overview (as opposed to a lightweight traveling overview, as an example). If you leave this option unticked, you’ll see all objects out to 14.5AU. This should be obvious, but to clarify, the scanner can find things ‘off grid’ … that is, out of the range of your overview.
"Range"
This sets your range in kilometers. There are no other units of measurement available. The max scanning range is 2147483647 km, which works out to 14.355 AU (Astronomical Unit). An AU is the average distance between the Earth and the Sun, or 149597870 km. You should memorize 150KM and 14.5 AU; they’ll be important later.
TIP: If you’ve set your scan range shorter and you need to quickly expand your range to max, don’t type 2147483647 into the box. Just hold the number 9 down for a second or two and let the box fill up. Hit enter and the game will substitute the max range.
TIP: If you have a smart mouse or keyboard with macro keys, it can be useful (and compliant with the EULA) to assign a few of them to paste various ranges directly into the range box.
"Angle" (visible angle)
On the bar below the text field, you can set the Scan Angle for each scale: 5, 15, 30, 60, 90, 180 and 360. Visualize these scan angles as “cones” not “pizza slices” because you are scanning within a sphere, not a plane.
Using the Directional Scanner
Although it’s dependent upon the situation, you generally use the directional scanner to scan ships, POS modules, wrecks, complexes, etc. You can get 3 types of results.
- Name – the name of the object (e.g. Ship’s name, given by the pilot). Note! You’ll often see lame attempts by pilots to fool you by naming their ship “Large Container” or something similar.
- Type – type of the object (e.g. Avatar, Merlin, Ibis, Amarr Control Tower, etc.)
- Dist. (Distance) The actual distance will appear only if the object is a celestial object, or the ship, POS, or other object is on-grid (meaning, really close to you). Otherwise, you’ll just see the name and a dash (-).
If you jump in a system that’s full of enemies, but they aren’t at the gate you’ve just entered, then cloak or get to a safe spot. Next, do a 360 scan with maximum range. Ignore celestials. If the enemy is within 14.5 AU, you’ll know they’re out there, but you won’t know exactly where. Let’s assume your scan registers 7 ships. If these guys are grouped together, they could be at a POS, they could be running a mission or a plex, they could be ratting at a belt, or they could be gate-camping.
Let’s say you suspect a gate camp, so you need to look for a nearby stargate. Click the stargate in the overview and then point your camera at it in space. (Your ship scans in the direction of your camera, not where the nose of the ship is pointing.) Decrease the scan angle from 360 to 5. If you still see the ships, that means they’re likely waiting for you at that stargate.
Tip : With object tracking set on your camera, clicking on an object on your overview will swing the camera AND the d-scanner to the perfect angle for scanning. Remember, there’s no connection between the direction your ship is traveling/pointing and your scanning; it’s dependent on where your camera is facing. You can find anything, even if it’s at a stargate, asteroid belt, planet, station, moon, etc., very quickly with this technique.
If the scan brings no result, meaning the stargate’s visible but the ship’s aren’t there, just turn the camera toward another stargate and hit the scan again.
If you want to scan objects near planets (in asteroid belts, at moons) from relatively far, decreasing the scale won’t work. The distance among these celestials is only a few hundred thousand kilometres, so, their angle in your viewpoint is less than 5 degrees in scale. In this case, get closer by warping to an asteroid belt or whatever and scan from there with decreased angle.
Don’t forget that if you can see someone, they can see you too. The exception is cloaked ships, which won’t appear on the scanner. In lowsec, and especially in 0.0, using this scanner is clearly essential. If you travel alone, you need to scan all the stargates before you warp to them. In a Fleet operation, scouts do this job. If you jump blind to a gate without scanning, you run the risk of landing in the middle of a hostile gate camp.
The mobile scan inhibitor can confuse your d-scanning results. This small deployable creates a bubble 30km in diameter. It’s easy to scan and is viewable on d-scan, but anything within its field is hidden from both d-scan and probes. Note that as the field disables sensors, anything hidden within it will not be able to see out either.
If you use the directional scanner, and your target is not very close to a warpable object, then either your overview settings are not showing all celestials and you missed something like a small moon (which is a common mistake the Ewoks took advantage of). If there still is nothing on scan near your target then he’s at a “safe spot.” At this point you’ll need to use combat probes to prove he’s not as safe as he thinks.
System scanner
The System Scanner is also used extensively for PVP. Given enough time, you can find the exact position of a ship, object, even a drone – and with a 100% result, you can warp directly to it.
Whereas the Directional Scanner relies on your own skill, the System Scanner requires in-game skills plus a suitable ship that’s properly fitted.
Now that’s not entirely true; you *can* use the System Scanner in any ship, but the only result that will pop up are cosmic anomalies. You’ll be able to warp to them if they’re out there. These can be quite lucrative plexes, especially in losec, so if you like PVE, knock yourself out.
When you’re roaming in 0.0 enemy territory, sometimes your enemies or neutrals in local may think they’re safe in these anomalies, but they’re wrong. If your target is at a cosmic anomaly you can find them quickly and warp there instantly and hopefully catch them unawares (buahaha). You won’t be spraying probes all over the system, so your prey may not recognize that you’re looking for him. He may think you’re just traveling through the system. Note that in larger systems, you might miss something because the system scanner only covers 14.5 AU from your ship.
If the target is at a safe spot or running a mission or inside a complex, you won’t be able to find them using the d-scanner. You’ll need specialized equipment on your ship to use in conjunction with the system scanner.
Probe Launchers and the System Scanner
To find hidden ships, you’ll need to launch probes, which means you’ll need to equip your ship with a probe launcher. There are two main types of launchers (along with their factional equivalents). The first is the core probe launcher which can be used to detect most types of complexes and wormholes. It won’t directly find ships or mission areas.
The Expanded probe launcher is able to use both core probes and combat probes. The combat probes have the very useful ability to search for common targets like sites, ships, drones, and structures.
Scanning using probes requires multiple steps and takes a fair amount of practice to become proficient. You will be in high demand in any fleet if you’re accurate and fast at scanning. The basic steps are:
•Launch your probes
•Within the system scanner, move the probes over the target area
•Narrow the target’s location by moving the probes and lowering their scan ranges until you get a 100% scanresult
•Cloak, warp near the target, and tell your fleet to come claim their prize.
Some ships have a scanning bonus. Use one of these ships if you can –even tenths of a second can count! The minute you launch probes,they’ll appear on the d-scanner and your target may become aware that you are looking for him.
Before you start to scan out targets you need to set up your ship, like the overview the scanning system can be used with filters, by using these you will improve your scanning speed significantly. Take the time now to set up several filters, one for ships, maybe one with POS & forcefields, one with data/relic sites and one with everything. If you are after a specific type of ship you can even set one with just Battleships or capital ships on.
Before you launch into space and start trying to scan down targets, you might wish to consider setting up your scanning filters. They’re like the overview filters. Setting these filters up can speed up your scans significantly. Take time to set up a filter for specific ships you might be hunting (or avoiding), and maybe one with POS and forcefields. Create one for data/relic sites so you can hunt players trying to run those sites. If you’re tracking a specific type of ship like a big crunchy-on-the-outside, juicy-on-the-inside Battleship, set one up.
Probes have several ranges, and when they deploy to their assigned position, the larger area they cover the less accurate the result. In most scanning ships, assuming you have excellent skills, you’ll have to reduce the range of the probes to within 2AU of the target. Some ships will require you to have probes within 0.25AU or less to be able to warp to it.
Scanning for ships is the same as finding Cosmic Signatures. The difference is the ship’s size: a smaller ship has a weak sign, and bigger ones have stronger signs. Thus, finding a crunchy, juicy Battleship is relatively easy, whilst an Interceptor can be very difficult to locate. Ok we’ll stop that crunchy-juicy bit now.
Before launching probes make sure you can see the target on the d-scanner and take time to get an idea of where he is in space. This will help you when you launch probes. Obviously to speed up your scanning, you ideally want to know roughly where the target is in space, that way you can start with a much smaller probe formation.
In space, press Ctrl+D. This activates the tactical overlay, and you’ll notice that there are now range rings around your ship and distance markers leading off into four cardinal directions.
Now press F10 to enter the map mode. Notice the same ranges and cardinal lines as before? What you might not know is that they are in exactly the same directions as the ones in the normal space view. You can use this to orientate your map with your directional scanner. With practice you’ll soon learn to be able to d-scan your targets direction, then by reducing the range of the d-scanner you will know exactly what range and direction to set up your first probe sweep. So rather than having to start at 32AU’s and working down, you can quickly start with a 2 or 4 AU probe range, often finding your target on the first sweep!
Try to find a place to launch your probes off d-scanner from your target. This gives you time to move the probes into position above him. Your probes won’t be visible until they’re on top of the target.
If you are following this fast technique you will want to pull your probes in the moment you hit 100%. With practice and a little bit of luck your target will never even see your probes on d-scan.
Probes are also useful when you’re gate-camping with your corpies, or you’re just waiting for something to come along, or you expect an enemy in Local. Position your corpies off-grid or at a nearby safespot. Somewhere away from the gate. Launch probes and place them with minimum range around the stargate. Align the edge of each probe’s “globe” on the stargate. Hit scan! You’ll get signs of the friendly ships.
Next, mark all, right click and then “ignore result.” With this setting, any ship arriving at the stargate is a potential target. Just hit the scan again, and you’ll get the 100% result immediately. Chances are your enemy won’t be looking for this little tactic and you can warp in for the kill.
Let’s talk a little more about filters. You can create specialized filters, for example, if you’d like to see nothing but Battlecruisers. This is useful, but the problem is that unless you know for sure that the scanned ship is really a Battlecruiser, you’ll see every ship within the range. This could end badly because you might scan a Frigate, thinking it’s a Battlecruiser. Once the sign is strong enough to know it’s NOT a Battlecruiser, the sign will disappear from the results. If that happens, you won’t know whether the filter made it disappeared or the target just warped away. Having multiple filters can solve this, as you can quickly switch back to the all-scan and see if your target is still there.
Covert ops frigates have a bonus to scanning, but they’re not always the best option for tackling hostile ships. In fact, you probably are pretty desperate if you try to be the primary tackler with a covops. Like really desperate. Or you have balls the size of small moons…then yeah, try that. In any case, if you’re flying a covops you’ll likely need a second pilot in system to warp in and tackle the target, and the presence of that other ship might spook your prey. The alternative is to use a heavier ship such as recon ships and tech 3 cruisers come into their own. They often have bonuses to probe launchers and are heavy enough to either kill the target themselves, or hold it down long enough for your backup to arrive.
Expect heavy use of probes by everyone, everywhere in Low Sec and 0.0.
In highsec one of the common ways to use probes aggressively is to find a pilot running missions. Once you find your target, warp into the mission space and start stealing from wrecks. You’ll draw a “suspect” flag and ideally your mission-loving prey will engage you…which is of course exactly what you want. Now you can complete your “limited engagement” and scoop up those expensive officer mods. Yay for carebears!
And just for yucks, sometimes suicide ganking squads will probe targets down and warp directly to the target ship. Then there’s suicide, explosions, and someone gets to hoover up the loot.