srehn's blog

What I did
I’ve been speed-running high-sec anomalies.  This is possible with the "new" (almost a year old) scanning mechanic because, in most systems,  you only need to use the on-board scanner once to find all anomalies.  (If you see any planets more than 64 AU from your location you may need to warp closer to those planets and scan again.  Anomalies can spawn within 4 AU from any planet.)  By “speed-running” I mean that I just warp in, shoot the rats and warp out.  I do not loot/salvage any wrecks except for faction wrecks.  This is why I can run 13+ sites/hour, including the time to jump around from system to system finding the sites.  In an effort to get an idea of just how good this is, ISK-wise, I’ve been keeping track and doing this for a lot of hours.

I’ve been doing this mostly in low-end highsec (0.5-0.8) in Sansha-rat regions (Domain, Tash-Murkon, etc.).  I also spent a little time hunting Blood Raiders' anomalies.

Fitting
I decided that a cruiser would be best for this since it can tank more than enough and the guns can still hit frigates pretty well.  90% of the rats in these anomalies are frigates and destroyers.

Omen Navy Issue

Low
2x Centii C-Type Small Armor Repairer (Yes, really.  They’re cheap enough and light on the power grid.  This also gives a better tank than a medium repper would even if I did have the PG to spare.)
2x Energized Adaptive Nano Plating II
1x Damage Control II
1x Heat Sink II
1x Tracking Enhancer II

Mid
1x 10MN Afterburner II
2x Capacitor Control Circuit II

High
5x Heavy Modal Pulse Laser I (Imperial Navy Multifrequency M)
1x Salvager I (only for faction spawns)

3x Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

5x Hobgoblin II

Tank: 131dps (omni)
Gank: 341 dps (plus drones, if I launch them)
Speed: 605m/s

Results
So far I’ve run 301 sites, made 53 million from bounties, 50 million from T2 salvage from the faction spawns, 24 million from the high-meta items that faction rats sometimes carry, and 221 million from the faction modules they carried.  This works out to 15.7 ISK/hour at my pace of 13.5 sites/hour or 1.16 million ISK/site if you run them faster or slower.  Most of the money is in the faction loot and that is a very hit-or-miss thing so if you try this be patient.  It takes a lot of repetition before it’s worth it.

Good Parts
ISK!  This works out to be somewhat less than I can earn doing level 4 missions (I’ll post my numbers on that later).  It also has a bit of a “treasure hunt” feel to it since sometimes you make very little and then every once in a while you hit a jackpot.  Example: one day I killed a True Sansha Misshape which dropped a True Sansha Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane, a True Sansha Small EMP Smartbomb, and a True Sansha Warp Scrambler.  In total, this drop was worth about 180 million ISK.  All of this came from running a Sansha Refuge site in a 0.8 system.  Of course, I did 61 other Sansha Refuge sites before that and only one other of those sites gave me loot worth mentioning (a True Sansha Medium Pulse Laser ~30M ISK).
Also, it’s in high-sec so being attacked is less of a worry (suicide gankers are always relevant though).  Scanning for anomalies is quick, compared to scanning for deadspace plexes which takes a long time.
For bounties, the Dens as well as Hidden/Forsaken/Forlorn hideaways give much better bounties than the other anomalies.  This is mostly because you fight more cruisers in these sites.

It’s also easy.  You could run these sites in a T1 cruiser with only meta modules.  I wish I’d thought of this back when 15 million ISK/hour sounded like a lot.

Bad Parts
It’s a tedious way to spend your time and you’re not guaranteed to make more than the very small amount of ISK from bounties.  You won’t make nearly as much as you could running anomalies in low-sec or null-sec either.

It’s also quite frustrating to finally get a faction spawn, open the wreck, and see a tag and a faction laser crystal.  ISK value: diddly squat. There are also lots of faction modules that really aren't worth much, such as the "True Sansha Reflective Plating".

Strategies
Many systems will have zero or only a few anomalies.  This is because anomalies mostly respawn when someone runs them, and they could respawn anywhere that gets the same kind of anomaly.  The result is that the most trafficked systems stay close to zero anomalies and the dead-end boring systems often have over a dozen.  It’s worth your time to go places where nobody else goes.  Remember that system with one gate and no stations?  Go there.

Run the sites quickly.  Most of the ISK comes from the rare faction spawns, so your goal is to finish the site and “roll the dice” to see if you get that spawn.  If you don’t (and you usually won’t) then you move on and do it all again.  Work out what the ideal warp-to distance is for each type of site you run.  Some of them are better to snipe and for some you want to be right in the middle of things.  You’ll run the same few sites (Hideaway and Refuge mostly) over and over so you’ll have no shortage of practice.

You might want to skip drone sites.  Their “faction spawns” are sentient drones which drop drone parts, most of which aren’t worth much.  Also, since the drones don’t give bounties and you aren’t picking up loot there’s no equivalent of a bounty payoff.  I’m not sure yet whether the faction rats from the higher-level sites (Refuge and Den) give better loot than the low-level ones (Hideaway and Burrow) but the data imply that that’s possible.  I’ll need a bigger sample size to be sure, so stay tuned.

Data Porn
Here's the spreadsheet.  It also contains my data on deadspace sites and mag/radar sites, which I might eventually write about if I feel like it.
I ran 301 sites and got 17 faction spawns (5.65%).  260 were Sansha sites with 13 True Sansha spawns (5.0%), 31 were drone sites with 3 Sentient dronw spawns, and 10 were Blood Raider sites with 1 Dark Blood spawn.
Of those 14 faction spawns (I don’t count the sentient drones; their drops are droppings), I got 6 faction modules.  This works out to 0.428 modules per faction spawn but they don’t drop that way.  Instead you’ll get 5 “empty” faction spawns (just tags and ammo) in a row and then one with 3 modules.  It’s very hit-or-miss.  This is part of the reason I want to run more of these to shore up the numbers.  I don’t think my sample size is big enough yet.

Etc.
Are the Faction tags (True Sansha Brass Tag, Dark Blood Copper Tag, etc.) good for anything?  I can’t find a use for them beyond selling them on the market.  Do the people who buy them have a use I don't know about?

Update 1:

I ran sites for a few more hours.  I got a quite nice drop (see the pretty picture) and this increased the average to 24 million isk/hour.  That's still less than I can make running level 4 missions, but it's competitive.  This just emphasizes that payoff for highsec anomalies is VERY hit-or miss.  About 2/3 of my income for this so far is from the best two faction rat drops.