Farreach
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Exploration Intermediate

Data and relic sites

What waits at derelict data caches and Choir relic sites, who guards them, and what the chips, relics and fragments inside are worth.

Scan a signature down to 100 % and it becomes a site you can slip to. Data sites are derelicts with drifting caches of Charter and Cartel data. Relic sites are ruined Choir shrines with reliquaries full of relics and pieces of the Span. Both pay well, and both get more dangerous and more valuable the deeper you go.

Steps

  1. Scan a data or relic signature to 100 %. Open the Probe ScannerPlay to try this
  2. Slip to the site from the scanner's list or the Scope.
  3. Deal with any guards, then hack each container. Show mePlay to try this
  4. Open a hacked container with D and loot it.

Data sites

Where: in every band. Core space has only a few data caches, with weak loot. The Frontier and the Void are where the money is.

What's there: 3 to 6 data caches around a derelict hulk. In the Void, Choir sentries guard about half of the caches.

What you need: an Ostrava Cipher-2 Data Analyzer.

What's inside:

  • Data chips, sold to NPC brokers at every station. They're the main income.
  • Prototype schematics: one-use recipes for named modules, built in the Industry window.
  • Lore fragments for the Span Archive.

Deeper bands roll more items, and rarer chips.

Relic sites

Where: mostly the Void, some in the Frontier.

What's there: a ruined Choir shrine with 3 to 5 Choir reliquaries. When you arrive, a wave of Choir guardians wakes: Acolytes and a Revenant. When you open the first reliquary, a second, heavier wave comes in, with a scrambling Acolyte and a Cantor battleship.

What you need: a Vorr Delve-2 Relic Analyzer, a ship that can survive the guardians, or friends.

What's inside:

  • Choir relics, which NPC brokers buy at every station.
  • Span Residue, a capital-building material. Span Residue
  • Rarely, a Span Core Fragment. Ten of them make a Span Core, the heart of a capital ship.
  • Sometimes a Choir faction module.
  • Lore fragments from deeper in the Span story.
Careful
The second wave includes a scrambler: once it locks you, you can't slip out. Plan your exit before you open the first reliquary.

Other signatures

  • Combat sites (Cartel Staging Point, Hidden Raider Camp) hold a Cartel group waiting for you. Bring guns, not analyzers.
  • Ore and Span signatures show on the scanner too. They are rare and the hardest to scan down.

Running sites well

  • A site is visible only to you, the pilot who scanned it. Nobody can slip to it unless they scan it themselves.
  • A finished site fades about 15 minutes after its last container is opened or its last guard dies. A new signature appears somewhere else.
  • Every container you hack takes a minute or two. Clear the guards first: every hit your ship takes during a hack hurts your virus.
  • Watch your hold. Data chips and relics are small, but Span Residue adds up.