Some tips

A noob character just got his frigate fried at one of my alliance's POSes. The fit was just maximum fail. So, in order to further the use of good scouting practices amongst the player base (or at least avoid the impression that you need to go back to kindergarden and start your education over again), I bring you the following tips:

1) Yes the imicus is the correct ship to make a wormhole scouting ship out of (this is about all the noob/alt got right)

2) Why only the core probe launcher? The ship was designed to use the extended launcher and it takes, what? level 2 instead of level 1 to use? Take the extra half hour. Do it right.

3) Just what did you think you were going to accomplish with a single rail gun? Tickle someone?

4) Ok for some strange reason you want to be able to defend yourself. Um you realize of course that the Imicus is the gallente T1 drone carrier of the T1 frigate class... Drones are your little friends, bring them with you. They can probably hit harder than you can with your single pop gun so they would literally quadruple your damage output (feeble tho it is).

5) Two shield boosters... In a gallente frigate... No, just no, go stand in the corner with the dunce hat.

6) A plate and small armor repairer. Well at least you got an idea for the lows. Not a great one but it was at least within the realm of reasonable. For a 1.0 sec system in high sec.... ratting.

We killed your ship in a wormhole (well our passive defenses did anyways). Just about every ship in our inventory could have done the same except for the haulers. The sleepers would have had less problems than our POS did. This bring us to the point that we're not sure you had a clue about what your were doing mr. MECTb Pa. When you fit a ship, you need to understand the role you want it to play in your plans. I don't care what you though your plans for this ship were (beyond learning how core probes work), but if you're going to use T1 astrometrics frigates for wormhole exploration you need to understand certain parameters they will be operating under.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a very big proponent for the use of T1 astrometrics frigates for wormhole work. BUT I understand their limitations and the role they need to play VERY WELL.

The first consideration is what you are going up against. Wormhole space. Assume anyone who is not blue to you will shoot you on sight. You are in a noob corp (University of Caille). You are blue to no one. Draw your own conclusions.

Next. Sleepers hit harder than your ship can conceivably be setup to handle. You will not be using an astrometrics frigate to run sites. Any fittings that promote this are useless and a waste of a slot that could be better utilized for the role an astrometrics frigate is designed to fill.

Next. Most ships that you will run into in wormhole space will be bigger than you are. Use this to your advantage and fit for evasion. Did you know it takes a certain amount of time for a larger ship to lock you down so it can fire on you? Did you know that you could setup your ship so it can get from 0m/s to warp well within the amount of time it takes for a larger ship to lock you down unless it has been specifically fit to lock down frigates? I draw your attention to the Inertia Stabilizer module. My own experience leads me to belive that this module is actually twice as valuable for a frigate trying to evade things than a warp core stabilizer.

Next. Once you get by the "I can only fit a core probe launcher" stage always fit an extended probe launcher. You never know when you'll find an abandoned ship and it would be a shame that you were unable to get to it because you could not throw out combat probes... Yes getting your electronics skill up to the point where you are able to fit this is painful in the begining but see the next paragraph.

Next. Have you noticed that you spend quite a bit of time paying attention to your probes and not to your surrounding space while you are scanning? Doesn't this make you the least bit nervous? You do know your ship can be scanned down if it's not cloaked right? Remember if you can do it to them, they can and will do it to you. FIT A CLOAK! THAT is what will save your ass. Sure you can't warp cloaked. Who cares, that's only useful if you're going to check a POS out. Why were you checking a POS out in an uncloaked ship. Could you not see on your d-scan that we had POS defenses up and an active force field? Sure signs that there's a good chance for active guns.

What? you say your overview does not show force fields? FIX THAT NOW!!!! *grumble* *grumble* *grumble* ... noobs...

This is not to say that T1 astrometrics frigates do not make great scouts - they do. But some caveats about using them.

1) they are not combat boats. Don't ask them to go into a combat situation (except as a cloaked observation platform em-placed ahead of the action).

2) Use other ships to do something with what you find (that's what the bookmark feature is for)

3) Do not check out active POS'es with them - that's the job of the cov-ops or something similar.

4) Learn to use the D-scan - very useful on a normal ship - indispensable for scouting.

5) Prioritize evasion and avoidance in your fit. Getting blown out of space 5 min after you start scanning is embarrassing. Fix that.

This has been an AMC public service message for the promotion of good scouting practices (or at least non-fail ones).