Lasse's Scanning Megaguide

An imperative clarification first off. Much as the "clickbait" way to title documentation like this is to call it "the best" or whatever, There is no best way to scan in EVE. These are my personal preferences and the goal of this Megaguide is for you to possibly find something to augment or refine your own methods.

This will additionally contain T3C's bookmarking method, which is based heavily on Wolves Among Strangers' system.

Terminology / FAQ

If you or your group finds anything they consistently have to ask about, EVE Mail Lasse Ker'Khan and I'll add it here.

Static: A persistent Connection, if it collapses a new one to the same destination class respawns within a minute.
Chainscan: To do nothing but scan for wormhole chains, ignoring ISK making opportunities on the way.

Guide

I will generally outline our bookmarking system first, as that's what most people are asking for, but if you want an agonizing level of detail I'll have a section talking through my exact steps and thought process as I scan a chain with my Tengu below.

T3C Bookmarking Process

We've modified our system a few times over the years but stuck with this one for years now, because it's very simple. The reason why it is how it is is to make it as easy as possible to instantly identify where in the chain someone is. If someone tackles an Orca and they say on comms "I've tackled an orca in J151548", then the next 20 seconds are people furiously looking through the 30+ systems on the map for J151548. The method we call "ChainID" solves this by giving each system a unique identifier based on the Chain it's in. if J151548 is D112, then everyone can immediately move to DELTA chain, as they get more info.

To get the "really simple" bit out of the way:

Wormholes back toward Root Wormhole start with an asterisk to sort it to the top of the list and then what that Root Wormhole is, e.g "*Home" for wormholes that lead back home, or "*Farm" for a Farm Chain, or "*Op" for somewhere you're doing an Operation. An added bonus, but not strictly necessary is to include the first three letters of the Signature: "*Home IGE", "*Farm IFI", or "*Op TEH" for examples. This is all that return wormholes need.
If you are in Root, iterate through the Phonetic Alphabet, or frankly any words that iterate through the alphabet. These should have the first three letters of Signature in them always, and the destination class of system. Examples:
- ALPHA RZH C4
- BRAVO OIU C3
- DELTA HJI NS (NS is short for Nullsec as a destination Class, same as LS for Lowsec, and HS for Highsec)
- ECHO NME Poch (Pochven Wormhole)
As you may notice, I have skipped CHARLIE, There is very good reason for this. We will go through this next, but using CHARLIE would result in some ChainIDs being C1, C3, C6, etc. This is very confusing as that could mean Wormhole Class 1, or ChainID CHARLIE 1. So to keep things simple, always Skip the letter C.
Finally if you are not in Root, and have already bookmarked your return wormhole, the system you are in has a ChainID as defined by the bookmark that led into it. All you need to do is take that ChainID from the System, and append an iterated number to the end You should also always include the first three letters of the signature and the Destination Class. Examples:
- You are in System ALPHA, your Bookmarks would look like "A1 FGR C2", "A2 JKR C4", and "A3 UIR LS".
- You are in System A231, your Bookmarks would look like "A2311 FGR C2", "A2312 JKR C4", and "A2313 UIR LS".
- You are in System D34, your Bookmarks would look like "D341 FGR C2", "D342 JKR C4", and "D343 UIR LS".
Note that if in any case you don't know the Destination Class, you can simply use what the Wormhole Information in game tells you. "C1-C3" is fine for example. "D341 FGR C1-C3"
If this is all a foreign language to you, then I recommend reading on to the section where I will outline exactly what I personally do as I Chainscan.

Lasse's Scanning Process

Now we get to the super subjective bit, in general everyone's own way of scanning is their fastest way. I take a relatively lazy approach preferring consistency and easy piloting over saving a scan pass here and there. This assumes you use Wanderer 1. Having undocked, before doing anything else, with "Lazy Delete ticked in your Signatures Window in Wanderer, copy paste all the Signatures and Anomalies in your Root System from in game into the Signatures Window. This will not overwrite scanned signatures with your unscanned ones, but will remove any old Signatures or Anomalies that aren't there anymore, and show you exactly which few you need to Scan.