Cosmic anomaly

Cosmic Anomalies are part of the Exploration feature. They take place as the first part of this feature as they do not need special skills trained to complete or find find them.

What is a Cosmic Anomaly?

A cosmic anomaly is a hidden site with NPC Pirates or Drones in it. Unlike Cosmic Signatures, Anomalies do not appear in a Deadspace zone. Anomalies do not need special skills or equipment to be completed and can be found without any extra equipment by using the On-Board Scanner located in every ship other than capsules. Cosmic Anomaly encounters are not as difficult as their Cosmic Signature counterparts but still can give substantial rewards. There is a low possibility of NPC faction commanders appearing providing special loot, as well as a small chance to start an Escalation which then would appear in the expeditions tab of your Mission Journal.

Anomalies are ranked in difficulty by 10 levels, these are:

• (Faction) Burrow / Drone Collection (lowest)
• (Faction) Hideaway / Drone Cluster
• (Faction) Refuge / Drone Gathering
• (Faction) Den / Drone Gathering
• (Faction) Yard / Drone Surveillance
• (Faction) Rally Point / Drone Menagerie
• (Faction) Port / Drone Herd
• (Faction) Hub / Drone Squad
• (Faction) Haven / Drone Patrol
• (Faction) Sanctum / Drone Horde (hardest)

A particular anomaly may be further sub-divided into 3 more categories:

• Blood Raider Hidden Hub (easiest)
• Blood Raider Forsaken Hub
• Blood Raider Forlorn Hub (hardest)

The rank of the Anomaly you could find depends on the security status of the system you are searching in. Within HighSec (Security Status 1.0 to 0.5) the lower third will be found, LowSec (Security Status of 0.4 to 0.1) contains the mid third of them and the higher third will be found within NullSec. In NullSec systems with active infrastructure upgrades also anomalies of the mid third may be present.

How to find a Cosmic Anomaly?

Cosmic Anomalies could be found by using the On-Board Scanner at any planet in any solar system. By scanning with the On-Board Scanner your ship will tell you if there is an Anomaly near that planet and you will be able to warp there or creating a bookmark of its position. Once an Anomaly is been completed it will disappear after some time.

Please note: Cosmic Anomalies are designed to appear within 4 AU range around planets.

The alternative method is to use a ship equipped for scanning tasks, for information on how scanning works you may have a look on the Scanning Guide. Because any probe will find any Anomaly within its scan range producing a result which could be bookmarked this would make it easier to scan a system than searching planet after planet with the Onboard-Scanner.