EVE Evolved: Untangling the mystery of the Sleepers, part 3

Sleeper sites – Anomaly:
Anomalies are the bread and butter of most wormhole expeditions. These are sites full of sleeper AI to be destroyed, looted and salvaged for parts. Unlike normal NPCs, Sleepers don't directly give ISK bounties when destroyed. Instead, they drop data files and astrometric scans which can be sold for ISK to the various NPC research corporations of EVE. This is like the tags you get from killing Navy ships and is designed to give a stable income source from killing Sleepers which you have to bring back to empire to collect. The total value of tags dropped by Sleeper NPCs depends on their size and difficulty. The sleeper battleships in a class 2 perimeter site will only drop around 5-6 million's worth of tags while those in a class 6 core site will drop over 14 million's worth.

Anomalies in class 3 systems offer the best ISK to difficulty ratio, in my experience providing around 200k per frigate, 2 million per cruiser and 6-10 million per battleship. Some special anomalies don't follow the perimeter-frontier-core naming convention, instead having fancy names like "Solar Cell", "The Oruze Construct" and "The Mirror". These are typically similar in difficulty to the other anomalies in the system but engage them at your own risk. Warping a capital ship into an anomaly or assigning fighters to someone inside it will cause six additional advanced Sleeper battleships to spawn per capital ship involved. Combined with the existing spawn, this can be enough to kill a carrier or dreadnought so using capital ships is not advised.

Sleeper sites – Radar:
In addition to being protected by waves of tough Sleeper AI ships, radar sites contain hackable database containers that can be broken into using a "Codebreaker" module. The cans will contain hybrid datacores, hybrid RAM and hybrid decryptors. These are required for reverse engineering of ancient artifacts into hull or subsystem blueprint copies. Occasionally, Sleeper radar sites are seen to have abandoned Talocan ship wrecks in them. The Talocan are another of EVE's advanced races that existed at the same time as the Sleepers and salvaging the wrecks usually reveals hull fragments that can be reverse engineered into tech 3 ship hull blueprint copies. Using capital ships in these sites has the same additional spawn as in an anomaly and is not recommended.

Sleeper sites – Magnetometric:
Like radar sites, magnetometric sites are guarded by Sleeper AI and contain locked containers. An "Analyzer" module used for archeology searches these ancient ruins for pieces of working technology that can be reverse engineered. Wrecked, malfunctioning or intact components from these sites are reverse engineered into subsystem blueprints. We also found that the difficulty of the NPCs here should not be under-estimated. These are probably the toughest sites to complete and opening the containers can cause additional waves of Sleepers to spawn, turning a tough site into a death trap. Warping a capital ship into this site has the same additional spawn as radar and anomaly sites.

Sleeper sites – Ladar:
Ladar sites hold gas clouds that can be mined using specialised gas harvester modules. This can then be reacted using a polymer reactor at a POS into hybrid polymers for use in constructing Tech 3 components. The Sleepers that spawn in most Ladar sites are relatively tame. The only sites that provide significant resistance are the extremely valuable "Vital" and "Instrumental" core reservoirs. These two sites both spawn two advanced Sleeper battleships which web and scramble their opponents. Others are easily combated with a Drake or a well tanked battleship. Sleepers may not appear at first warp-in to the site, instead spawning around 20 minutes later. However, once destroyed there are no respawns and the site is safe. There is no extra spawn when a capital ship is warped in, but such a ship is overkill for the NPCs normally present.

Sleeper sites – Gravimetric:
Like ladar sites, the Sleepers that spawn in gravimetric sites are relatively tame and can be tackled solo in a battleship. These sites used to be the most numerous and worthless in Sleeper space but after some post-patch feedback and balancing, they have become incredibly valuable. Absolutely massive asteroids reside here of all types. Most even have Arkonor, Bistot and Crokite in varying quantities, making these sites perfect for a nomadic mining corporation with a refinery POS set up. Having access to the best ores in the game makes expeditions into Sleeper space all the more valuable. Like Ladar sites, there are no extra spawns when a capital ship is warped into a gravimetric site.

Summary:
For those of us currently running expeditions into Sleeper space, much of this information is now second nature. We ventured into the unknown and took massive risks to figure out information like this first. For those of us that succeeded, being part of this pioneering effort put us squarely on the front line of a gold rush that made us mountains of ISK. With the initial dangerous research period complete and websites starting to catalogue data on the Sleepers to help pilots reduce their risk, the real work of colonisation now begins. More and more corporations across EVE are beginning to take up residence in Sleeper systems and vie for control of their own little corner of the universe. Will you join them?