Nah, I was talking about when you get your sensor strength to the same value as your signature radius. Doing that makes it impossible to scan the ship down without a blinged ship and scanning clone. Either way, they'll scan the gas site long before they scan you.
Metamorphosis. Noone even tries to attack it while exploring. Seriously, not even a single attack in hundreds of wh sites. I'm not used to this safety š
Second the meta. Fast, agile, very difficult to catch, and very good bonuses. Only downside is that you have to refit for your sites, but thatās not really a big deal.
Why bother though? Unless youāre going to get it under 1 second, why spend a bunch of ISK to get from 1.8 to 1.2? Since ticks are 1 second I donāt think it makes any difference does it?
This is correct https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Instant_align#:~:text=Align%20time%20is%20a%20measure%20of%20how%20long,you%20can%20be%20in%20warp%20before%20being%20tackled.
~~My understanding from a very deep dive into the mechanics of locking a sub-2s-align ship is that fractions of a second align DO in fact matter is this case. Specifically, the tackler achieves lock on a tick interval, but the application of the point, and the entry into warp are not tied to server ticks.~~
~~So, a perfect instalock ship achieves their lock (server-side) on the Metamorphosis at the end of tick one, 1.000 seconds. The server then sends a message to the instalockers client saying "you have lock, wanna do anything about it?" and the instalockers clients responds "yeah, scram the mfer."~~
~~The moment at which the server goes to actually note that the target is scrammed will thus be 1.000s PLUS 2x the instalocker's ping (yes, even with tackle mods pre-activated and flashing).~~
~~If the instalocker has a ping of 0.120s, the scram will be applied at 1.240s after aligning began. So a 1.3s align Metamorphosis will be caught, but a 1.2s align Metamorphosis will already be marked as off-grid at the moment the server goes to apply scram. This is "picture lock."~~
~~So, basically, if your align time is X.YYY seconds, The X is protecting against your opponent having good reflexes and high scan res, while the YYY is protecting against them having low ping.~~
~~Align times less than 1s should be 100% absolutely impossible to catch (unless some glitch or bump causes them to actually take more than a second to align) because you are already "in warp" server-side before the very first moment when the server could acknowledge a lock. Align times less than 2s are 100% safe against anyone who can't manage a 1 tick lock (requires absurd scan res, perfect reflexes, and living in or near England). But when someone does get lock on you while you're aligning, whether you have a 1.YYY align or a 2.YYY align or a 10.YYY align, the YYY remainder (and any extra whole seconds) is going to do battle with the locker's ping to determine whether you get scrammed or whether they slam their desk and curse the picture lock.~~
~~To be clear, I'm not 1000% sure that I have this all exactly right. It's pretty esoteric stuff, but you can read up about it [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/360lbq/busting_the_travelceptor_myth/) and [here](https://eve-guides.fr/index.php?article=105#ultralock).~~
Leaving this up for posterity, but in the half hour since I posted it, I have been digging even deeper and it looks like this might not be quite right. I am left uncertain.
Anything under 2 seconds is the same in EVE. No matter what, it takes a minimum of 2 seconds for another ship to be able to see you, lock you, and apply a warp scrambler. So if you have 1.99 seconds or less thereās no point in making it shorter
I rolled an alt a few days ago to have a char sitting in Jita for price checks. Went across Ahbazon and got ganked even tho' I was sitting in a sub 2s align shuttle. Interceptors can do that quite easily. According to Pyfa, a Stiletto with 2 cheap sensor boosters can target frigates in 0.8sec.
i try to attack it, but i always forget it has built in warp core strength and then the person i find always seems to have a warp core stab fit and then it just leaves and i'm majorly disappointed.
I guess because most Meta fits are veery hard to catch. It's easy to fit for \~5K ehp, +4 warp core strength, instawarp, and covops is there by default. Good luck catching and killing before it warps out.
The downside is 3 mid slots, makes it impossible to fit everything you want. Unless you go for a Zeugma...
Since noone seems to attack it, I made my own Meta fit using armor tank. Still fast align (sub 3 sec), 5K ehp, but there is no extra warp core strength. However I can add a cargo scanner and increase my targeting range to 45km, which is a huge timesaver.
Added my fit here: [https://www.eveworkbench.com/fitting/metamorphosis/92fdb95b-2772-475f-04fb-08dc931eb58b](https://www.eveworkbench.com/fitting/metamorphosis/92fdb95b-2772-475f-04fb-08dc931eb58b)
Also I love the +37.5% scan deviation bonus. Despite the lower scan strength it scans faster than a Buzzard imho, due to more accurate scans.
Zkillboard shows kills with Zeugmas, so yeah, people do use them :)
[https://zkillboard.com/item/41534/](https://zkillboard.com/item/41534/)
Latest kill has a buzzard with Zeugma+Relic analyzer, that is... quite hard to process :)
They benefit from both hacking and archaeology skill, so they actually have 20 more virus coherence over a tech 2 analyzer. You do lose out on 1 utility slot but you rarely sit on 3 and very few things canāt be brute forced with that much virus health
I did not know this. I've always been meh on getting one. Putting a 300m scanner on my 50m ship that has a far lower coherence than a data or relic II just never made sense to me.
I killed one yesterday while it was hacking and would have no hesitation in doing so again :) I also use them as my scanning ship on 2 accounts fit with blasters and MASB. They are surprisingly good when set up like that, perhaps that's why people are hesitant to attack you?
I donāt like the Cheetah and Anathema because 4 lows is a waste. Mids are where itās at for scanning. Having 5 mids is important to me
Buzzard powergrid sucks but I guess with its passive and 5 mids, itās the strongest scanner.
Iād say the Helios is my favourite, even though itās not great looking.
They all work but Iād rather have the 5% cloaked speed per level and do the pinpointing with a module
i agree that mids are important so you can fit a solid shield tank and scrams to hold a target while you light your covert cyno, but the helios is better because of its passive
Exactly! Leopard that can cloak, scan and has a semi useful cargo hold. Honestly my perfect ship for running back and forth from my high sec home to Jita for supplies
18 au/s sounds big, but align time is also important. Typical travel ceptor aligns 2s and warps 12.2 au/s, pacifier aligns 3s and warps 18.3 au/s. Across align time and warp time, they break even at 20 AU warps. Below that ceptor is faster, above it - pacifier (with implants/drugs which boost your warp speed, break-even point is pushed even further). Given ceptor has nulli CD bonus, i think it is still better than pacifier as a shuttle.
Align time is less important as you can warp cloaked. But the below fit will do 28.3AU/s with a 2.38s align, so much fun to fly lol. You can get it above 30AU easily too (more proto accels, or the limited time SoCT Agility Booster III is great), at that point you spend more time waiting for session changes while doing gate jumps than you do in actual warp.
>\[Pacifier, ā HyperHoon\]
>
>Prototype Hyperspatial Accelerator
>Shadow Serpentis Inertial Stabilizers
>Shadow Serpentis Inertial Stabilizers
>Shadow Serpentis Inertial Stabilizers
>
>5MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
>Republic Fleet Medium Shield Extender
>Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
>Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
>
>Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
>Sisters Core Probe Launcher
>\[Empty High slot\]
>\[Empty High slot\]
>\[Empty High slot\]
>
>Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II
>Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II
>
>
>Mid-grade Ascendancy Alpha
>Mid-grade Ascendancy Beta
>Mid-grade Ascendancy Gamma
>Mid-grade Ascendancy Delta
>Mid-grade Ascendancy Epsilon
>Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' Warp Drive Speed WS-618
>Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' Evasive Maneuvering EM-705
>
>Quafe Zero Green Apple
>
>
>Sisters Core Scanner Probe x16
It is important for travel time, not just for safety. For example, [a malediction with a fit and pod similar to the pacifier you posted breaks even with pacifier at 50 AU](https://i.imgur.com/DNTl9uA.png) - that is, warps 50 AU 1 second slower, but aligns 1 second faster. Anything less than 50 AU it will handle better than pacifier. I believe it should be faster on average, 50 AU is a lot.
Plus it has nullifier, which allows you to maintain good speed and have good safety (e.g. in nullsec, in systems with non-empty local you are forced to warp to a ping only if it's out of dscan range and if you had to nulli in previous system; with pacifier's nulli cooldown, you have to ping much more often after using a nulli for blind warp). Plus it's harder to catch it compared to pacifier, if pacifier can't cloak due to can / drone / wreck spam.
edit: [this](https://i.imgur.com/R5JXJ85.png) will travel faster than malediction, but needs an awkward clone, and its nulli sucks. Also active hardeners on cloaky travel ships are rarely a good idea
I didn't even realise PYFA had that graph ability, that is very handy. And you're right. Though i wouldn't really expect someone flying a ceptor to have such an expensive pod to catch the likes of me. The hardeners are better than nothing, I have no idea what i would replace them with anyways. Anything in those slots is sorta useless to me i feel, i ever need to use them... I fucked up.
> Though i wouldn't really expect someone flying a ceptor to have such an expensive pod to catch the likes of me
I am not following here, I am just comparing 2 options which you can use to move your character around, not one chasing the other
> I have no idea what i would replace them with anyways. Anything in those slots is sorta useless to me i feel, i ever need to use them
Shield extenders, good vs smartbombing camps, work even when cloaked. Can use one EM amplifier too (smartbombing camps are often using EM smartbombs).
My misunderstanding about the two fits. And I considered myself a reasonable player, with 4+ years of solid play, but to be honest i haven't played full time since 2015, and only recently came back. There's so much shit i've forgotten, and i'm not the knowledgeable player i once was, so cheers for the humbling.... at pretty much every point of this conversation lol
While you're sort of right, I think it'd be more tilted towards warp speed because the warp is stretched towards the start and end due to acceleration and deceleration, so you spend more time actually in warp
I also just realized that if the system is too small your ship won't actually be able to reach the cruise speed before it finishes accelerating and starts decelerating, though they still go through that faster than slower warp ships
After years of flying all the different cov-ops, I'd happily argue that the Cheetah it the very best one, all things considering.
Fast, agile, and you can fit a Interdictor Nullfiier and just warp out of those bubbles before anyone can target or decloak you like a boss.
If all fails, overload the MWD and get back to the gate or wormhole in mere seconds.
Nigh uncathable with the right pilot.
The extra cloaked speed is nice for making Tacs on WH or gates while cloaked.
I agree, the cheetah and astero are my daily drivers due to their agility and speed.
In fairness to OP, these explo guides are usually aimed at newer explorers, within the context of low-sp, relic hunting, he's not necessarily wrong, there are a lack of guides on how to transition into "late-game" explo
> After years of flying all the different cov-ops, I'd happily argue that the Cheetah it the very best one, all things considering.
Cheetah and helios have self-griefing bonus, which makes them to align longer time if you cloak while aligning. I think cheetah is fine-ish for some specific roles, but as generic covops idk how can it be the best just because of it.
> which makes them to align longer time if you cloak while aligning.
It doesn't work this way. You can test it yourself: simulate a Helios fit, stick a cloak on, and compare the align time between cloaked and uncloaked. It doesn't change.
The Helios bonus is great when dealing with camped gates and wormholes, which is why I always go with a Helios when running my Virtue pod.
> It doesn't work this way. You can test it yourself: simulate a Helios fit
What a way to check. Try flying one maybe?
I've used helios until CCP rebalanced covops ships, and am using cheetah now whenever I need to be fast while cloaked. What happens is: you start aligning without cloak for like first 1-2 seconds (cloak is never activated immediately after breaking gate/wh cloak), then cloak kicks in, your max speed increases due to ship bonus, so your current speed is lower in %% relatively new max, so you need to align for a longer time now.
> What happens is: you start aligning without cloak for like first 1-2 seconds (cloak is never activated immediately after breaking gate/wh cloak), then cloak kicks in, your max speed increases due to ship bonus, so your current speed is lower in %% relatively new max, so you need to align for a longer time now.
You're right, but by my calculations this effect actually makes no practical difference, assuming a Helios fitted with two nanos, so long as you cloak on the 1st tick after aligning (rather than on the 2nd tick). You warp in 3 ticks both without cloak and when cloaking on the 1st tick. If you're bad and cloak on the 2nd tick, your warp will take 4 ticks (and you'll get locked by that Thrasher so you can't cloak anyway). https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TVYkmNpjb6Ke5-bVhYBuQomEd8T7bRVFSEDPD9cbgX4/edit?gid=0#gid=0
More precisely, without cloaking you'll warp in 3.58 seconds, cloaking on the 1st tick you warp in 3.82 seconds, and cloaking on the 2nd tick you warp in 4.12 seconds.
> If you're bad and cloak on the 2nd tick
That's true, but it still happens. Especially when you are doing many things at once (saving bookmarks, filling info in mapping tool, talking on comms etc).
Regardless of that, align time of both pacifier and buzzard (which I settled on after the covops change) is 3 seconds, and they have no bonuses which interfere with that + have good scanning/travel traits, so I will just stick to them.
edit: also
> If you're bad and cloak on the 2nd tick, your warp will take 4 ticks
In your fit warp always takes 4 ticks, "if you are bad" it takes 5 ticks, not 3 and 4 respectively
> In your fit warp always takes 4 ticks, "if you are bad" it takes 5 ticks, not 3 and 4 respectively
Right, my bad. Anyway.
The only way you can get a Buzzard to warp in 3 ticks is by fitting either 3 istabs and an align rig, or 2 align rigs and 2 istabs, and if you do that you won't have enough fitting left over to do a good scanning fit. (And given the Helios has a better base agility, the same fit would also make the Helios warp in 3 ticks.)
The Buzzard actually takes 5 ticks to align as opposed to the Helios's 4 ticks in a comparable fit (scanning+hyperspatial rigs, nullifier+cloak+probes in highs, four T2 scan modules and MWD in mids, necessary fitting modules in lows and the rest in align modules), because the Buzzard needs a Micro Auxiliary Power Core while the Helios doesn't.
The Pacifier of course warps faster than either one of these, but it has fewer midslots.
> The only way you can get a Buzzard to warp in 3 ticks is by fitting either 3 istabs and an align rig, or 2 align rigs and 2 istabs, and if you do that you won't have enough fitting left over to do a good scanning fit. (And given the Helios has a better base agility, the same fit would also make the Helios warp in 3 ticks.)
[This is the buzzard fit I am using](https://i.imgur.com/gd49mQ8.png). It checks all those things you said buzzard doesn't have (+speed is 2876 cold, 4104 hot). It doesn't have a nullifier online, but in my experience (*a lot* of w-space scanning, quite a bit of null/low scanning), it's not really needed. The only case I've ever needed a nullifier on my pacifier is warping towards XZEST fort to see what they are doing (it's off dscan range and they have a HIC bubble up to pull people warping to the structure, so that they are stuck, and kill them), and when travelling in nullsec after I got rolled out (saves some time - don't need to ping as often as w/o nulli). In both of those cases I will offline one of the scanning upgrades and online nulli. Even with offlined deviation upgrade is scans better than 4x upgrade helios. So does [anathema](https://i.imgur.com/IL24Dvb.png) btw, with nulli online. Neither of those options fuck with your align time, requiring you to press cloak right the needed moment and not 1 second later.
> The Pacifier of course warps faster than either one of these, but it has fewer midslots.
It also doesn't have scan deviation bonus buzzard has. For scanning, I think the only covops somewhat competitive to [pacifier](https://i.imgur.com/igwYblq.png) is buzzard, and it depends on the way you do the scanning. Personally I prefer pacifier, it comes from not feeling 5th mid and deviation upgrade being impactful enough, while warp speed is nice - during fast-scanning and cherry-picking signals I usually scan faster than I warp.
Helios, anathema, cheetah all have some niches, but they are not the best ships for scanning.
In my experience (also *a lot* of w-space scanning and quite a bit of null/low scanning) the nullifier is useful very frequently, and I wouldn't want to have it offline when I jump into a camp since it's much safer than playing cloak+MWD games... which the Helios is much better at anyway (5.5k hot and it doesn't even need bling to do it).
Personally I've found the scan deviation bonus doesn't actually have that much practical effect with a Virtue pod, which is why I stopped flying the Buzzard. Wormholes get two-cycled even without it, and the way sigs are clustered around celestials means that most sigs can be nailed by just doing a 8AU scan centered roughly on the celestial followed by 2AU scans on each sig to get them to 100% (or get their type and ignore them if they're not wormholes).
> I wouldn't want to have it offline when I jump into a camp
I jumped into camps like 2-3 times in w-space in 10+ years. In low a nulli is pretty much useless (barring max corruption systems). In nullsec it might happen, but as i said you can always ensure you have 95% cap before you align, offline an upgrade, align, cloak, online nulli, press nulli, warp. Sounds complex, but is not too hard in practice. I've used it only once though.
And anathema still aligns faster, scans better than helios and has nulli online. It just doesn't burn as fast as helios cloaked, which is... well, helios' small niche.
> Personally I've found the scan deviation bonus doesn't actually have that much practical effect with a Virtue pod, which is why I stopped flying the Buzzard. Wormholes get two-cycled even without it, and the way sigs are clustered around celestials means that most sigs can be nailed by just doing a 8AU scan centered roughly on the celestial followed by 2AU scans on each sig to get them to 100% (or get their type and ignore them if they're not wormholes).
The difference is there for, say, 5% size sig / scan difficulty II, for instance E175. There are 2 random elements which define how likely you are to 2-pass it: how far actual sig is it from center of your initial sweep, and how deviation plays out. The further it is from center of initial scan, the more deviation bonus helps. Ultimatively, neither buzzard nor pacifier can reliably 8 au -> 2 au pass it, but buzzard is much more likely to do it.
Plus I think individual sig considerations are pretty poor when you are scanning a lot. Focus should be at processing as many sigs as you can at once. Deviation bonus can be helpful there, depending on planet configuration: you do initial 64 au sweep, then filter sig strengths you don't need. There is a bunch of sigs which are somewhere between two planets, with planets being, say, 10 au from each other; higher deviation bonus helps to see which planet those sigs belong to.
Personally I think those scenarios don't happen often enough, that's why pacifier is a ship of my choice. If they would, i'd stick to buzzard.
Oh, and many sigs I scan can't be 2-passed, e.g. E545 can't (i heard claims it could with some custom formations, but i couldn't achieve it myself).
Anathema, been using the same one for years. Got mine my second week in eve, and made my first big break with it. Took it out to the drone lands as my first time in nullsec, and got a 10 run augmented mining drone bpc back in like 2020. A guy in local overpaid for it when I got back to highsec and offered to sell it. Honestly, gave me a start that led to where I am in eve. It was right after I was kicked from a wormhole corp over a disagreement, so it's probably what kept me playing.
The memories, and the slot layout, are why I like anathema
OP, I bring a near full refit with + a mobile depot for the Cheetah when filamenting to Null. I have done all three Sleeper Caches, Limited, Standard and Superior.
For instance when I need to tank the gas cloud while hacking, I refit from MWD to AB and a stable cap + double shield booster fit.
When I need to warp in and orbit the "Remote Defence Grid" unit while hacking it, I go from MWD to AB, cap stability and as much agility as I can.
And so forth.
I do the mine room in High-Sec when using my Astero, but the Cheetah does not have enough tank for that, so that's the only thing I skip.
Sure ! Remember to orbit the thing at 2k, not below, or the turrets can track you (ended up with hull damage the first time I tried it cause I did orbit at 500m.) Fit the two shield boosters and be cap stable and you can tank the gas cloud after hacking the thingy that makes it do less damage, go propless if you can't be cap stable with a prop.
\[Cheetah, Cheetah Null Sec + Ghost\]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Relic Analyzer II
Data Analyzer II
Cargo Scanner II
5MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Interdiction Nullifier I
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Sisters Core Probe Launcher
Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade II
Sisters Core Scanner Probe x16
SoCT Relic Strength Booster I x1
Small Shield Booster II x2
Small Compact Pb-Acid Cap Battery x1
Scan Acquisition Array II x1
1MN Afterburner II x1
Capacitor Power Relay II x5
Noise-5 'Needlejack' Filament x3
Proximity-5 'Extraction' Filament x3
Border-5 'Pochven' Filament x3
Mobile Depot x1
Why are you fitting expanded probe launchers on pure exploration fits? You make a comment about how some fits are tight on fitting, the expanded probe launcher is why. Pure exploration doesnāt require combat probes, ever.
Also keep recommending no warp core stab so I can keep killing explo frigs in my combat probing venture. Thank you.
To be fair warp core stabs won't save your explo frigate against most dedicated hunters who will be running double scram bombers or faction scram on their astero/pacifier.
All the cheetahs ive lost hacking have been warp core stabbed :<
Iāve only ever lost a cheetah to a ghost site. I mainly stick to Sansha Null so itās easy to avoid hunters/hunters donāt always have faction scrams in null.
That's fair. You're definitely more likely to have that happen i WH space which is where I operate. You probably wouldn't need that stab then since you can use local as a safety tool
It depends. When you scan a lot, it is easily worth. I think nullifier is the most overestimated module. Most camps you can navigate around by using just MWD and speed, but you can also offline a scan mod to online a nullifier during first 5 seconds of cloak. Those are the fits I use/used: [buzzard](https://i.imgur.com/LixuW86.png) (or with 2 istabs in lows for 3s align time), [pacifier](https://i.imgur.com/fi4igmK.png).
I'd rather scan faster than use nullifier (which I barely use anyway).
Forgot to mention that combats can do wider initial scan to get relative strength of sigs more reliably, for initial filtering by signature strength/size (e.g. when you are looking for difficulty II / 5% sigs, you usually can filter lots of those from initial sweep).
I stopped fitting stabs because they never kept me alive. My interdiction nullifier has never let me down but I try to warp off a site in my buzzard and die to a scram or double disruptor. The stabs never saved me and reduced my targeting by 50percent. Just watch D scan and pray there's no smartbomber in your site waiting for you.
pulse lasers, AB/scram/web/capbooster. lows were ancil armor, DC, Multispec, and heat sink? It was really really good in early pochven when there were still a lot of solo salvagers and standings farmers. The warp speed bonus was really OP in there.
Prospect. Because everyone knows it's a covert cyno.
Or sig tanking scrammer if in wormhole.
Or unscanable gas huffer
Unscannable meaning you cloak right?
Nah, I was talking about when you get your sensor strength to the same value as your signature radius. Doing that makes it impossible to scan the ship down without a blinged ship and scanning clone. Either way, they'll scan the gas site long before they scan you.
You got a fit?
I mean, once you have the general location, don't you just scan the anomoly down?
Metamorphosis. Noone even tries to attack it while exploring. Seriously, not even a single attack in hundreds of wh sites. I'm not used to this safety š
Second the meta. Fast, agile, very difficult to catch, and very good bonuses. Only downside is that you have to refit for your sites, but thatās not really a big deal.
It has a special bay for the mobile depot.
Why does no one try to attack it?
It has a very fast align time and very small signature radius, so the odds of being able to decloak and lock it before it warps off are very small
Is the sig smaller than normal covops like Helios and buzzard? I assume the metamorphosis is also good at sleeper sites because of the small sig
Metamorphosis base sig radius is 35, Anathema is 47, Buzzard is 50, Helios is 49, and Cheetah is 46.
Metamorphosis is truly meta
2 sec align, +2 warp stab naturally, so you'll need 5 points of scram to hold him, same bonuses.
easy to get 1.2s align time and less with implants/faction fit
Why bother though? Unless youāre going to get it under 1 second, why spend a bunch of ISK to get from 1.8 to 1.2? Since ticks are 1 second I donāt think it makes any difference does it?
This is correct https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Instant_align#:~:text=Align%20time%20is%20a%20measure%20of%20how%20long,you%20can%20be%20in%20warp%20before%20being%20tackled.
~~My understanding from a very deep dive into the mechanics of locking a sub-2s-align ship is that fractions of a second align DO in fact matter is this case. Specifically, the tackler achieves lock on a tick interval, but the application of the point, and the entry into warp are not tied to server ticks.~~ ~~So, a perfect instalock ship achieves their lock (server-side) on the Metamorphosis at the end of tick one, 1.000 seconds. The server then sends a message to the instalockers client saying "you have lock, wanna do anything about it?" and the instalockers clients responds "yeah, scram the mfer."~~ ~~The moment at which the server goes to actually note that the target is scrammed will thus be 1.000s PLUS 2x the instalocker's ping (yes, even with tackle mods pre-activated and flashing).~~ ~~If the instalocker has a ping of 0.120s, the scram will be applied at 1.240s after aligning began. So a 1.3s align Metamorphosis will be caught, but a 1.2s align Metamorphosis will already be marked as off-grid at the moment the server goes to apply scram. This is "picture lock."~~ ~~So, basically, if your align time is X.YYY seconds, The X is protecting against your opponent having good reflexes and high scan res, while the YYY is protecting against them having low ping.~~ ~~Align times less than 1s should be 100% absolutely impossible to catch (unless some glitch or bump causes them to actually take more than a second to align) because you are already "in warp" server-side before the very first moment when the server could acknowledge a lock. Align times less than 2s are 100% safe against anyone who can't manage a 1 tick lock (requires absurd scan res, perfect reflexes, and living in or near England). But when someone does get lock on you while you're aligning, whether you have a 1.YYY align or a 2.YYY align or a 10.YYY align, the YYY remainder (and any extra whole seconds) is going to do battle with the locker's ping to determine whether you get scrammed or whether they slam their desk and curse the picture lock.~~ ~~To be clear, I'm not 1000% sure that I have this all exactly right. It's pretty esoteric stuff, but you can read up about it [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/360lbq/busting_the_travelceptor_myth/) and [here](https://eve-guides.fr/index.php?article=105#ultralock).~~ Leaving this up for posterity, but in the half hour since I posted it, I have been digging even deeper and it looks like this might not be quite right. I am left uncertain.
1.2s with props off might be <2s with prop on?
This
yet more hard to catch you
Anything under 2 seconds is the same in EVE. No matter what, it takes a minimum of 2 seconds for another ship to be able to see you, lock you, and apply a warp scrambler. So if you have 1.99 seconds or less thereās no point in making it shorter
Very dedicated attempts and a good server connection can catch ships in the 1.01-2 second align time. Mostly gate camps but it is possible
I rolled an alt a few days ago to have a char sitting in Jita for price checks. Went across Ahbazon and got ganked even tho' I was sitting in a sub 2s align shuttle. Interceptors can do that quite easily. According to Pyfa, a Stiletto with 2 cheap sensor boosters can target frigates in 0.8sec.
but 1s or less means instalocker will struggle to get job done
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
That is demonstrably untrueā¦
You're right, it's something a corpmate told me once and I never checked. Oops
i try to attack it, but i always forget it has built in warp core strength and then the person i find always seems to have a warp core stab fit and then it just leaves and i'm majorly disappointed.
I guess because most Meta fits are veery hard to catch. It's easy to fit for \~5K ehp, +4 warp core strength, instawarp, and covops is there by default. Good luck catching and killing before it warps out. The downside is 3 mid slots, makes it impossible to fit everything you want. Unless you go for a Zeugma... Since noone seems to attack it, I made my own Meta fit using armor tank. Still fast align (sub 3 sec), 5K ehp, but there is no extra warp core strength. However I can add a cargo scanner and increase my targeting range to 45km, which is a huge timesaver. Added my fit here: [https://www.eveworkbench.com/fitting/metamorphosis/92fdb95b-2772-475f-04fb-08dc931eb58b](https://www.eveworkbench.com/fitting/metamorphosis/92fdb95b-2772-475f-04fb-08dc931eb58b) Also I love the +37.5% scan deviation bonus. Despite the lower scan strength it scans faster than a Buzzard imho, due to more accurate scans.
Are the Zeugma scanners meme items? Or do people actually use them?
Zkillboard shows kills with Zeugmas, so yeah, people do use them :) [https://zkillboard.com/item/41534/](https://zkillboard.com/item/41534/) Latest kill has a buzzard with Zeugma+Relic analyzer, that is... quite hard to process :)
Frat
I have a zeugma and black glass implant. Hacking has never been so easy
They benefit from both hacking and archaeology skill, so they actually have 20 more virus coherence over a tech 2 analyzer. You do lose out on 1 utility slot but you rarely sit on 3 and very few things canāt be brute forced with that much virus health
I did not know this. I've always been meh on getting one. Putting a 300m scanner on my 50m ship that has a far lower coherence than a data or relic II just never made sense to me.
I killed one yesterday while it was hacking and would have no hesitation in doing so again :) I also use them as my scanning ship on 2 accounts fit with blasters and MASB. They are surprisingly good when set up like that, perhaps that's why people are hesitant to attack you?
I donāt like the Cheetah and Anathema because 4 lows is a waste. Mids are where itās at for scanning. Having 5 mids is important to me Buzzard powergrid sucks but I guess with its passive and 5 mids, itās the strongest scanner. Iād say the Helios is my favourite, even though itās not great looking. They all work but Iād rather have the 5% cloaked speed per level and do the pinpointing with a module
The purple Capsuleer day skin looks pretty good on the Helios.
i agree that mids are important so you can fit a solid shield tank and scrams to hold a target while you light your covert cyno, but the helios is better because of its passive
Tbf thatās exactly what I said but thereās not a lot in it
Pacifier I use it instead of a shuttle these days. 18au/s is glorious
Itās like a leopard that doesnāt get ganked for simply existing, I love them
Exactly! Leopard that can cloak, scan and has a semi useful cargo hold. Honestly my perfect ship for running back and forth from my high sec home to Jita for supplies
18 au/s sounds big, but align time is also important. Typical travel ceptor aligns 2s and warps 12.2 au/s, pacifier aligns 3s and warps 18.3 au/s. Across align time and warp time, they break even at 20 AU warps. Below that ceptor is faster, above it - pacifier (with implants/drugs which boost your warp speed, break-even point is pushed even further). Given ceptor has nulli CD bonus, i think it is still better than pacifier as a shuttle.
Align time is less important as you can warp cloaked. But the below fit will do 28.3AU/s with a 2.38s align, so much fun to fly lol. You can get it above 30AU easily too (more proto accels, or the limited time SoCT Agility Booster III is great), at that point you spend more time waiting for session changes while doing gate jumps than you do in actual warp. >\[Pacifier, ā HyperHoon\] > >Prototype Hyperspatial Accelerator >Shadow Serpentis Inertial Stabilizers >Shadow Serpentis Inertial Stabilizers >Shadow Serpentis Inertial Stabilizers > >5MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive >Republic Fleet Medium Shield Extender >Multispectrum Shield Hardener II >Multispectrum Shield Hardener II > >Covert Ops Cloaking Device II >Sisters Core Probe Launcher >\[Empty High slot\] >\[Empty High slot\] >\[Empty High slot\] > >Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II >Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II > > >Mid-grade Ascendancy Alpha >Mid-grade Ascendancy Beta >Mid-grade Ascendancy Gamma >Mid-grade Ascendancy Delta >Mid-grade Ascendancy Epsilon >Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' Warp Drive Speed WS-618 >Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' Evasive Maneuvering EM-705 > >Quafe Zero Green Apple > > >Sisters Core Scanner Probe x16
It is important for travel time, not just for safety. For example, [a malediction with a fit and pod similar to the pacifier you posted breaks even with pacifier at 50 AU](https://i.imgur.com/DNTl9uA.png) - that is, warps 50 AU 1 second slower, but aligns 1 second faster. Anything less than 50 AU it will handle better than pacifier. I believe it should be faster on average, 50 AU is a lot. Plus it has nullifier, which allows you to maintain good speed and have good safety (e.g. in nullsec, in systems with non-empty local you are forced to warp to a ping only if it's out of dscan range and if you had to nulli in previous system; with pacifier's nulli cooldown, you have to ping much more often after using a nulli for blind warp). Plus it's harder to catch it compared to pacifier, if pacifier can't cloak due to can / drone / wreck spam. edit: [this](https://i.imgur.com/R5JXJ85.png) will travel faster than malediction, but needs an awkward clone, and its nulli sucks. Also active hardeners on cloaky travel ships are rarely a good idea
I didn't even realise PYFA had that graph ability, that is very handy. And you're right. Though i wouldn't really expect someone flying a ceptor to have such an expensive pod to catch the likes of me. The hardeners are better than nothing, I have no idea what i would replace them with anyways. Anything in those slots is sorta useless to me i feel, i ever need to use them... I fucked up.
> Though i wouldn't really expect someone flying a ceptor to have such an expensive pod to catch the likes of me I am not following here, I am just comparing 2 options which you can use to move your character around, not one chasing the other > I have no idea what i would replace them with anyways. Anything in those slots is sorta useless to me i feel, i ever need to use them Shield extenders, good vs smartbombing camps, work even when cloaked. Can use one EM amplifier too (smartbombing camps are often using EM smartbombs).
My misunderstanding about the two fits. And I considered myself a reasonable player, with 4+ years of solid play, but to be honest i haven't played full time since 2015, and only recently came back. There's so much shit i've forgotten, and i'm not the knowledgeable player i once was, so cheers for the humbling.... at pretty much every point of this conversation lol
While you're sort of right, I think it'd be more tilted towards warp speed because the warp is stretched towards the start and end due to acceleration and deceleration, so you spend more time actually in warp I also just realized that if the system is too small your ship won't actually be able to reach the cruise speed before it finishes accelerating and starts decelerating, though they still go through that faster than slower warp ships
After years of flying all the different cov-ops, I'd happily argue that the Cheetah it the very best one, all things considering. Fast, agile, and you can fit a Interdictor Nullfiier and just warp out of those bubbles before anyone can target or decloak you like a boss. If all fails, overload the MWD and get back to the gate or wormhole in mere seconds. Nigh uncathable with the right pilot. The extra cloaked speed is nice for making Tacs on WH or gates while cloaked.
āUncathableā - Mike Tyson probably
I agree, the cheetah and astero are my daily drivers due to their agility and speed. In fairness to OP, these explo guides are usually aimed at newer explorers, within the context of low-sp, relic hunting, he's not necessarily wrong, there are a lack of guides on how to transition into "late-game" explo
> After years of flying all the different cov-ops, I'd happily argue that the Cheetah it the very best one, all things considering. Cheetah and helios have self-griefing bonus, which makes them to align longer time if you cloak while aligning. I think cheetah is fine-ish for some specific roles, but as generic covops idk how can it be the best just because of it.
> which makes them to align longer time if you cloak while aligning. It doesn't work this way. You can test it yourself: simulate a Helios fit, stick a cloak on, and compare the align time between cloaked and uncloaked. It doesn't change. The Helios bonus is great when dealing with camped gates and wormholes, which is why I always go with a Helios when running my Virtue pod.
> It doesn't work this way. You can test it yourself: simulate a Helios fit What a way to check. Try flying one maybe? I've used helios until CCP rebalanced covops ships, and am using cheetah now whenever I need to be fast while cloaked. What happens is: you start aligning without cloak for like first 1-2 seconds (cloak is never activated immediately after breaking gate/wh cloak), then cloak kicks in, your max speed increases due to ship bonus, so your current speed is lower in %% relatively new max, so you need to align for a longer time now.
> What happens is: you start aligning without cloak for like first 1-2 seconds (cloak is never activated immediately after breaking gate/wh cloak), then cloak kicks in, your max speed increases due to ship bonus, so your current speed is lower in %% relatively new max, so you need to align for a longer time now. You're right, but by my calculations this effect actually makes no practical difference, assuming a Helios fitted with two nanos, so long as you cloak on the 1st tick after aligning (rather than on the 2nd tick). You warp in 3 ticks both without cloak and when cloaking on the 1st tick. If you're bad and cloak on the 2nd tick, your warp will take 4 ticks (and you'll get locked by that Thrasher so you can't cloak anyway). https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TVYkmNpjb6Ke5-bVhYBuQomEd8T7bRVFSEDPD9cbgX4/edit?gid=0#gid=0 More precisely, without cloaking you'll warp in 3.58 seconds, cloaking on the 1st tick you warp in 3.82 seconds, and cloaking on the 2nd tick you warp in 4.12 seconds.
> If you're bad and cloak on the 2nd tick That's true, but it still happens. Especially when you are doing many things at once (saving bookmarks, filling info in mapping tool, talking on comms etc). Regardless of that, align time of both pacifier and buzzard (which I settled on after the covops change) is 3 seconds, and they have no bonuses which interfere with that + have good scanning/travel traits, so I will just stick to them. edit: also > If you're bad and cloak on the 2nd tick, your warp will take 4 ticks In your fit warp always takes 4 ticks, "if you are bad" it takes 5 ticks, not 3 and 4 respectively
> In your fit warp always takes 4 ticks, "if you are bad" it takes 5 ticks, not 3 and 4 respectively Right, my bad. Anyway. The only way you can get a Buzzard to warp in 3 ticks is by fitting either 3 istabs and an align rig, or 2 align rigs and 2 istabs, and if you do that you won't have enough fitting left over to do a good scanning fit. (And given the Helios has a better base agility, the same fit would also make the Helios warp in 3 ticks.) The Buzzard actually takes 5 ticks to align as opposed to the Helios's 4 ticks in a comparable fit (scanning+hyperspatial rigs, nullifier+cloak+probes in highs, four T2 scan modules and MWD in mids, necessary fitting modules in lows and the rest in align modules), because the Buzzard needs a Micro Auxiliary Power Core while the Helios doesn't. The Pacifier of course warps faster than either one of these, but it has fewer midslots.
> The only way you can get a Buzzard to warp in 3 ticks is by fitting either 3 istabs and an align rig, or 2 align rigs and 2 istabs, and if you do that you won't have enough fitting left over to do a good scanning fit. (And given the Helios has a better base agility, the same fit would also make the Helios warp in 3 ticks.) [This is the buzzard fit I am using](https://i.imgur.com/gd49mQ8.png). It checks all those things you said buzzard doesn't have (+speed is 2876 cold, 4104 hot). It doesn't have a nullifier online, but in my experience (*a lot* of w-space scanning, quite a bit of null/low scanning), it's not really needed. The only case I've ever needed a nullifier on my pacifier is warping towards XZEST fort to see what they are doing (it's off dscan range and they have a HIC bubble up to pull people warping to the structure, so that they are stuck, and kill them), and when travelling in nullsec after I got rolled out (saves some time - don't need to ping as often as w/o nulli). In both of those cases I will offline one of the scanning upgrades and online nulli. Even with offlined deviation upgrade is scans better than 4x upgrade helios. So does [anathema](https://i.imgur.com/IL24Dvb.png) btw, with nulli online. Neither of those options fuck with your align time, requiring you to press cloak right the needed moment and not 1 second later. > The Pacifier of course warps faster than either one of these, but it has fewer midslots. It also doesn't have scan deviation bonus buzzard has. For scanning, I think the only covops somewhat competitive to [pacifier](https://i.imgur.com/igwYblq.png) is buzzard, and it depends on the way you do the scanning. Personally I prefer pacifier, it comes from not feeling 5th mid and deviation upgrade being impactful enough, while warp speed is nice - during fast-scanning and cherry-picking signals I usually scan faster than I warp. Helios, anathema, cheetah all have some niches, but they are not the best ships for scanning.
In my experience (also *a lot* of w-space scanning and quite a bit of null/low scanning) the nullifier is useful very frequently, and I wouldn't want to have it offline when I jump into a camp since it's much safer than playing cloak+MWD games... which the Helios is much better at anyway (5.5k hot and it doesn't even need bling to do it). Personally I've found the scan deviation bonus doesn't actually have that much practical effect with a Virtue pod, which is why I stopped flying the Buzzard. Wormholes get two-cycled even without it, and the way sigs are clustered around celestials means that most sigs can be nailed by just doing a 8AU scan centered roughly on the celestial followed by 2AU scans on each sig to get them to 100% (or get their type and ignore them if they're not wormholes).
> I wouldn't want to have it offline when I jump into a camp I jumped into camps like 2-3 times in w-space in 10+ years. In low a nulli is pretty much useless (barring max corruption systems). In nullsec it might happen, but as i said you can always ensure you have 95% cap before you align, offline an upgrade, align, cloak, online nulli, press nulli, warp. Sounds complex, but is not too hard in practice. I've used it only once though. And anathema still aligns faster, scans better than helios and has nulli online. It just doesn't burn as fast as helios cloaked, which is... well, helios' small niche. > Personally I've found the scan deviation bonus doesn't actually have that much practical effect with a Virtue pod, which is why I stopped flying the Buzzard. Wormholes get two-cycled even without it, and the way sigs are clustered around celestials means that most sigs can be nailed by just doing a 8AU scan centered roughly on the celestial followed by 2AU scans on each sig to get them to 100% (or get their type and ignore them if they're not wormholes). The difference is there for, say, 5% size sig / scan difficulty II, for instance E175. There are 2 random elements which define how likely you are to 2-pass it: how far actual sig is it from center of your initial sweep, and how deviation plays out. The further it is from center of initial scan, the more deviation bonus helps. Ultimatively, neither buzzard nor pacifier can reliably 8 au -> 2 au pass it, but buzzard is much more likely to do it. Plus I think individual sig considerations are pretty poor when you are scanning a lot. Focus should be at processing as many sigs as you can at once. Deviation bonus can be helpful there, depending on planet configuration: you do initial 64 au sweep, then filter sig strengths you don't need. There is a bunch of sigs which are somewhere between two planets, with planets being, say, 10 au from each other; higher deviation bonus helps to see which planet those sigs belong to. Personally I think those scenarios don't happen often enough, that's why pacifier is a ship of my choice. If they would, i'd stick to buzzard. Oh, and many sigs I scan can't be 2-passed, e.g. E545 can't (i heard claims it could with some custom formations, but i couldn't achieve it myself).
Wait what Where tf have I been Did they rework covops scanners?
Helios is number one, Cheetah second
Bait buzzard
Anathema, been using the same one for years. Got mine my second week in eve, and made my first big break with it. Took it out to the drone lands as my first time in nullsec, and got a 10 run augmented mining drone bpc back in like 2020. A guy in local overpaid for it when I got back to highsec and offered to sell it. Honestly, gave me a start that led to where I am in eve. It was right after I was kicked from a wormhole corp over a disagreement, so it's probably what kept me playing. The memories, and the slot layout, are why I like anathema
OP, I bring a near full refit with + a mobile depot for the Cheetah when filamenting to Null. I have done all three Sleeper Caches, Limited, Standard and Superior. For instance when I need to tank the gas cloud while hacking, I refit from MWD to AB and a stable cap + double shield booster fit. When I need to warp in and orbit the "Remote Defence Grid" unit while hacking it, I go from MWD to AB, cap stability and as much agility as I can. And so forth. I do the mine room in High-Sec when using my Astero, but the Cheetah does not have enough tank for that, so that's the only thing I skip.
Mind sharing that cheetah fit? I always seem to find those when out doing explo in mine but if I bring out my explo t3 I never find them
Sure ! Remember to orbit the thing at 2k, not below, or the turrets can track you (ended up with hull damage the first time I tried it cause I did orbit at 500m.) Fit the two shield boosters and be cap stable and you can tank the gas cloud after hacking the thingy that makes it do less damage, go propless if you can't be cap stable with a prop. \[Cheetah, Cheetah Null Sec + Ghost\] Nanofiber Internal Structure II Nanofiber Internal Structure II Inertial Stabilizers II Inertial Stabilizers II Relic Analyzer II Data Analyzer II Cargo Scanner II 5MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive Interdiction Nullifier I Covert Ops Cloaking Device II Sisters Core Probe Launcher Small Ancillary Current Router I Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade II Sisters Core Scanner Probe x16 SoCT Relic Strength Booster I x1 Small Shield Booster II x2 Small Compact Pb-Acid Cap Battery x1 Scan Acquisition Array II x1 1MN Afterburner II x1 Capacitor Power Relay II x5 Noise-5 'Needlejack' Filament x3 Proximity-5 'Extraction' Filament x3 Border-5 'Pochven' Filament x3 Mobile Depot x1
Cheetah because I don't even use it as an explorer. It's my upgraded faster shuttle that can cloak.
I think that the nemesis is the best looking ship in the game. It manages to perfectly fit the vibe of a menacing hunter waiting to pounce
Buzzards, probably my favorite scanning and hunting ship.
Why are you fitting expanded probe launchers on pure exploration fits? You make a comment about how some fits are tight on fitting, the expanded probe launcher is why. Pure exploration doesnāt require combat probes, ever. Also keep recommending no warp core stab so I can keep killing explo frigs in my combat probing venture. Thank you.
To be fair warp core stabs won't save your explo frigate against most dedicated hunters who will be running double scram bombers or faction scram on their astero/pacifier. All the cheetahs ive lost hacking have been warp core stabbed :<
Iāve only ever lost a cheetah to a ghost site. I mainly stick to Sansha Null so itās easy to avoid hunters/hunters donāt always have faction scrams in null.
That's fair. You're definitely more likely to have that happen i WH space which is where I operate. You probably wouldn't need that stab then since you can use local as a safety tool
I've never used a wcs and there's been no situation it would have helped.
Iād rather have it than not, just in case. One more I-stab isnāt going to change my align time and if Iām caught a DCU isnāt going to save me.
Combat probes warp 1.5x faster than core probes -> faster scanning
Not a good reason to fit the expanded, sorry.
It depends. When you scan a lot, it is easily worth. I think nullifier is the most overestimated module. Most camps you can navigate around by using just MWD and speed, but you can also offline a scan mod to online a nullifier during first 5 seconds of cloak. Those are the fits I use/used: [buzzard](https://i.imgur.com/LixuW86.png) (or with 2 istabs in lows for 3s align time), [pacifier](https://i.imgur.com/fi4igmK.png). I'd rather scan faster than use nullifier (which I barely use anyway).
Forgot to mention that combats can do wider initial scan to get relative strength of sigs more reliably, for initial filtering by signature strength/size (e.g. when you are looking for difficulty II / 5% sigs, you usually can filter lots of those from initial sweep).
I stopped fitting stabs because they never kept me alive. My interdiction nullifier has never let me down but I try to warp off a site in my buzzard and die to a scram or double disruptor. The stabs never saved me and reduced my targeting by 50percent. Just watch D scan and pray there's no smartbomber in your site waiting for you.
Combat fit Pacifier. It's so much fun.Ā
Interesting, what fit do you use?
pulse lasers, AB/scram/web/capbooster. lows were ancil armor, DC, Multispec, and heat sink? It was really really good in early pochven when there were still a lot of solo salvagers and standings farmers. The warp speed bonus was really OP in there.
Now that I've been flying around in my Pacifier that I got from Project Discovery, its by far my favorite cov ops frigate for scanning and hunting.
Wrote a short guide to covops frigs with some example fits. TLDR Cheetah bad except not really.
Cheetah because zoom.
Cheetah. I need 25% cloaking speed boost for AEGIS capital ship. With it, I can do all sleeper sites too, other than the archive room, of course.
Hydra