Combat Probing

General Guide to Combat Probing

Ok, so first of all, combat probing comes down to practice first and foremost.
It's not a skill you can become great at just by reading a guide but since you need to start somewhere, this guide is designed to cover the general principles involved.


Objectives of Combat Probing

Obviously, the basic objective of combat probing is to scan down a ship so that you can warp to it.
Other objectives should be doing so in the least amount of scan cycles as possible, ideally in 1 scan, and to do it without the target ship noticing.


Situational Setup

So when do you actually want to drop combat probes?  This is actually not that simple a question and lots of people have different thoughts on it.
Personally I feel that people either use combat probes too often, or not often enough.

Some large WH groups, AHARM for example, only ever use combat probes, even for normal signature scanning.  They do it because it makes no difference strength wise for sig scanning and means they never need to reload probes if they need to combat scan.  (In AHARM's case, their scanning tool also works off signature strengths derived from 64au combat scans.)
Personally I find this is an excellent way of scaring off anyone you might meet while scanning since people see combat probes as far more intimidating on dscan than cores.
(As a note, you should take ALL probes, core or combat, as the same threat level on dscan, but people don't.)

The other end of the spectrum are people so reluctant to drop combats that they almost never do it and when they do it's often too late.

My rule is simple:  If you see ships on dscan that are not at a planet, anom or a WH/sig you already have bookmarked, drop combats immediately.  The sooner you scan them, the more likely you are to catch them.

This means that you need to check all anoms and planets for ships on dscan first, then if they’re not there, drop combats and find them.

If at all possible, drop combats off dscan from your targets.  This isn’t always possible so if it isn’t, find a safe spot (a planet will do in a pinch, don’t do it on a WH), drop combats and immediately move them off dscan range of any celestial and hit scan.

Remember, when in doubt, it's better to drop combats and scan blindly for ships than to not even try.


Finding Where to Scan

Once you have your probes out, off dscan and have re cloaked, the first thing to do is check that your targets are still there.  Honestly, a lot of the time the gig is up already at this point as most people pay good attention to their dscans these days and will have POSed up if they saw your probes or ship and you may as well just scan the system for sigs.

Assuming they did not rabbit, you now need to narrow down their location using dscan so that you can get them in the least amount of scans as possible.

This is the most important part and is also the part that just takes practice to perfect.

You need to use 3 tools for this:
1. Dscan range
2. Dscan angle
3. Tactical overlay

You should get used to adjusting your dscan range on the fly.  1 AU is 149597871km, or 150m km since you're on the clock.
Do your dscanning from whatever celestial the targets are closest to and get their distance to within 1au. To do this, set your dscan range to 150m at 360deg and increase it in steps of 150m km until you find them.
Eg: Targets not on scan at 300m but are at 450m? They’re at 2-3au.
There isn't much need to narrow the range down past this but you can if you want, just play with the ranges. If you have low actual scanning skills, you may wish to get it to within 0.5au.

Next, get their direction by narrowing down your dscan angle at whatever range you determined previously.
Note:  Do this from the solar system map window, NOT from in space!
Narrowing the angle down to 15deg is enough.


Running the Scan

Once you have both the range and direction, time to position your probes.
To do this, drag them back to where your targets are from off dscan but do NOT hit scan.  Once you have done this, hit your tactical overlay on the system map window and use it to position your probes on top of your targets at the correct range.

Before you hit scan, make sure your probes are setup so that they actually can lock down your targets.  Basically, they need to be small enough to lock the ship you are scanning, BUT you also don't want them too small as this will reduce your coverage area and increase the chance you will miss entirely.
As a general rule, I use 4au probes for capitals, 2au for BSs and BCs, 1au for anything smaller.  This varies on your skills a bit but is a good general guide.

Regarding the probe formation to use, use the one you are most comfortable with and one where you know what secondary hits (rings and double dots) mean and where to move your probes if you happen to be off and get those.
I use my normal formation of 8 probes (4 small inner, 4 large outer), generally stepped down to 4au/1au for sub BS targets and 4au/2au for BSs (if I'm off by more than 4au I've done something very wrong).
I use this formation even though I know it is not the strongest result producing formation because I use it a lot for general scanning and know exactly where to move the probes if I miss on the first scan.

Once you move your probes into the correct position and double checked your range and angle, you are ready to run your scan.
Hit scan.  You will either get a 100% result on the first scan, or you won't.  If you do not (it happens to the best of us), work as fast as you can to lock down the target.
Once you do get the lock, after 1 or multiple scans, bookmark your result and move your probes off dscan range again immediately and hit scan to hide them again.
(You can just recall them too but it can be useful to already have them out later.)

This is obviously the second point where your targets can spot your probes and run away which is why it is important to do it in the least possible scans to reduce that danger window.

Assuming your target did not notice anything was up, you can now warp to them to scout and/or blow them up.  Very nice :)
I recommend NOT warping to zero.