After you jump into a new system is it safer to:
I’ve tried both, and with the ships I’m in and the skills I have, the difference must be subtle. But surely there is a best practice, and I don’t know it!
Confusing isn’t it?
I don’t think it matters much when you jump into a system cloaked and have 20 people around you all orange and red. You are about to die, make peace with the fact you will lose your ship once you uncloak.
I use alignment only when mining low sec. I start my venture to mining the ore and use alignment to point my nose at the escape vector ( a dock, gate, or saved location ) then I stop the ship and wait. If something suspicious happens or another player warps into my grid, I hit the jump and away I go. Having the ship aligned ready for escape seems to give you some time to react.
Some of my friends disagree and say you should orbit the object you are mining then you have your ship up to 100% speed ready to jump. But when I tried this, more than 50% of the time your ship is not pointed at the escape vector, and the engines with back off and turn the ship around.
When I am traveling vast distance, I will set way points to stop at, hit autopilot and go do something productive. For example; Jita to Dodixie ( the safest route ) will still send you through 0.5 Uedama which is sometimes flooded with gankers. Set the ship to stop at a dock one or two systems before you reach it. When you return, you can probe Uedama with your capsule. Return to the hauler in dock and run through to Dodixie. Otherwise there is nothing safe about entering a system.
Omega players on Youtube have shown the MWD “trick”. This is where you need a ship with cloaking and a module device ( I forget the name ) allowing you to activate the micro warp drive while cloaked. The steps to this method are;
The gankers have no chance of locking you before you go into warp. I hope I explained it correctly. I am an alpha and have no experience with the MWD “trick” but you can see it on Youtube.
Have fun!
I’m a noob and have yet to figure this out too. I see several different methods described.
One thing I think is true, you have to get up to speed first before the ship will warp. If already at speed, it can warp quicker, but does need to be aligned.
I want to do my own experiments on this, but I suspect if you are at a dead stop, aligning makes no difference because by the time you hit the speed you need to warp, you will be aligned anyway.
I think some like the orbit method, as it has a chance to improve warp speed. It makes your ship a bit harder to hit. There is some detection factor where you are easier to scan based on if stopped, moving, or at max velocity with drive. Heck if I can remember which is best.
It would be nice if you could chose which orbit to use when orbiting a body. You could choose an orbit whose plane is perpendicular to your escape trajectory, so you’re never facing away from (or toward for that matter) your escape. Minimize the downside of orbiting at the expense of never being optimized.
Gankers hate this one simple trick.
Its not a trick, its two different mechanics that increase and decrease velocity.
No special device is needed, its purely the fact that the game lets one activate a cloak and a MWD in the same ‘tick’ for some reason. Try the same thing with a MJD/MJF and cloak does nothing which many see as the ‘correct’ mechanic for both situations, but CCP consistency…
the second step is to turn on the MWD, it is probably the most important as the idea is that the extra MWD boost gets the ship velocity up towards its warp threshold speed, the second last step ( for a non covert ops ship, which willl just be DILLIGAF warping away ) will be to drop the cloak so the warp will actually initiate.
Well, yes they do, if you are in null and they user interdiction or heavy interdiction and you don’t have a nulli fit they have a pretty good chance of grabbing you.
There are exceptions where people have webbed freighters down enough that they hit warp while pointing sideways, as the ‘warp’ threshold seems to be calculated based on direction towards the destination in a straight line, as opposed to forward velocity.
Think about it. An orbiting ship is pointing the wrong way %50 of the time, but has almost %100 of the necessary warp velocity in the wrong direction also. A stationary, but correctly pointed ship is pointing the correct way %100 time but will have %0 of the warp velocity.
Absolutely, the current orbit options are garbage.
One problem: You cannot activate cloak while you are in gatecloak. So you have to wait or move before you can activate any cloaking device. And as already stated the MWD/AB part is very helpful, because the ship is very slow in cloak and can’t jump cloaked (beside Covert Ops ships).
@Zena_Xena I always align before warping, even if it’s for a second.
Exception to that is in a pod or a shuttle.
Your ship needs to go 70% of its full speed before warp drive engages and you are vulnerable during that time.
Use your keyboard ‘q’ to align and click on Overview item or Locations window where your bookmarks are located.
Always use a scout clone if you’re not in Hisec.
And don’t forget to have fun 
Guys I told you I don’t do this trick. I watched it on YouTube;
I am alpha, not omega.
Have fun!