Fun in the Unorthodox: Help Getting to My Weird Idea of a Good Time

New Citizens Q&A
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I come looking for advice, some of which has probably been asked a million times, and some which might be pretty weird/unique. To give a little background (press start to skip this cutscene):

I have played Eve off and on for the past 15 years or so, and have probably somewhere around 200-300 hours in it (so, practically brand new). In my time playing it, I’ve played solo, with friends, and a little in a smallish corp doing simple mining and transport. And to clarify, I remember so little about how to actually play the game, I might as well be brand new. (It’s a safe assumption that I do not know what any shorthand in Eve means or stands for, the extent of my knowledge in that regard being things like RATTING and isk.)

Most of my time in it was stumbling around trying to figure stuff out, getting overwhelmed, and then finding something cool that reeled me back in and kept me interested. One of the things I remember seeing and hearing about back then was wormholes, and the idea of how they worked in-game always fascinated me. I think I did some dabbling in them, but remember practically nothing of it.

Fast forwarding to now, I am much quicker to learn, less easily overwhelmed, and even more into deep and complex games with lots of moving parts. Also space. I love space. I am the kind of person that preferred to play Eve, when I did, in a close up view of my ship.

I recently was re-exposed to Eve, seeing its new visual updates, and watched some videos of various people playing. One of the things I saw was someone that almost exclusively does solo wormhole content. I was enthralled, and entertained, but ultimately didn’t quite understand it all, as it wasn’t exactly a tutorial. So I did a little research, and honestly, wormhole stuff sounds awesome. The idea of the unknown, the risk, the reward, the exploration. I really, really want to try it out.

End cutscene.

Now, cutting to the chase. I love space games. I play/have played SO many: Elite Dangerous, Star Citizen, Freelancer, Stellaris, the X series, Endless Space, Avorion, Everspace, and tons more I’m probably just not remembering. I just love space in general, and have since I was a kid.

My personal dream scenario for Eve is this: delving into wormholes for fun and profit, possibly dual boxing with one ship as a (scout/probe ship from what I understand?), and a more well armed ship as a sort of escort or bouncer. As I understand it there’s salvaging, hacking, NPC ships to fight, risk from other players, exploration, and so on. That all sounds amazing! I’m strictly a solo player, so joining a corp or getting heavy into pvp doesn’t really interest me, which has been what’s kept me away from Eve for the last several years. But lately, the idea of playing a game “wrong” has started to bug me. I just want to have fun, in whatever form that comes in for me personally.

I’m aware that the play-style I am suggesting is not the norm. Some would even say it’s the “wrong” way to play. I’m not here to make the best isk per hour, grow an empire, become the meta, I just want to have fun in my own little weird way: exploring unexplored wormhole space, darting around avoiding danger, making some profit (enough to cover what I lose, plus a little extra mayhaps), and enjoying space.

Any and all advice, tips, links to helpful material, or just a friendly nudge in the right direction would be amazing, and incredibly appreciated. I know I’m weird for wanting to play it this way, but there’s something about Eve that’s nostalgic, and scratches an itch in these ways that I feel I can’t get from any other space games that I play all the time.

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This is the way to play EVE.

Alot of C1-3s aren’t even really populated anymore so you can make good money day tripping honestly.

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In a sandbox, there isn’t a wrong way to play. There are playstyles that get you blown up at worse, chased otherwise, and have you tensely wondering “am I alone”, and wormholes are a great and fun way to do all that. Don’t be hard on yourself.

A Nomad’s Tale?

Disclaimer: I don’t live in WH space.

Since you don’t want to join a corp, I recommend just trying to strike up a conversation with WHers that wind up hunting you. Who knows, maybe they’ll give great advice. Don’t talk in local in WH space - private convo.

Generic advice:

  • start off with cheap ships
  • d-scan hotkeys, your goal is to grind the V key to a fine powder
  • be comfortable with bookmarks and understand how you can use them, when they are safe, when they are burned, how hunters use them (ex: perches), how you can counter-use them
  • be comfortable building situational awareness. Who is with you in sys and what are they doing. You can practice this in high sec where there is Local, and WH Space is next-level as it’s without local.
  • be comfortable being slippery prey. You say you don’t enjoy PvP, but WH space is full of people who want your butt, so your PvP is going to be running from it.
  • Learning how to visually “read” a wormhole. Also understanding statics and wandering holes.

Some concrete resources:

The pieces are there, have fun putting them together!

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Thank you so much for the detailed advice! I’m going to do a deep delve on that info first thing tomorrow. Cheers!

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You are not weird and it is in no way “wrong” to play EVE mostly solo. You pay for the server access and what you do with that is entirely up to you. If you have fun spinning a shiny ship all day long docked at a station or just collecting skins or rare items or whatever, just go for it. However remember that once you undock into space, other players have options to interfere with your idea of gameplay to some degree and you either have to endure, avoid or counter it in some way. There is no “right to be left alone” anywhere. Its important to realize that, before you invest lots of time only to get frustrated if someone else makes it his goal to ruin your day, It’s part of the game and everything you bring into space can be destroyed by someone somehow.

That can be amazing, I have lived in my own C4 wormhole for like two years and used it as homebase for basically every content the game has to offer. However to travel in WH space and successfully (solo) running the content there requires a lot of knowledge and some ingame skills (scanning, hacking, ships/weapons etc…). I’d suggest you take your first steps in a scan frig and learn how to quickly find wormholes around your home system, how to identify their class/difficulty and what content is in there, how to use bookmarks to find your way back with whatever you have aquired in there.

Then go find out which content do you find interesting in there (hacking sites? gas harvesting and doing the reactions to make profit out of it? doing the combat sites and securing the loot?) and then skill the ships/modules you need to do it. The better you get at it the more profit you will make and the higher class difficulty wormholes you can explore. Living in your “own” little wormhole and using this as your “home” for most activities is like the “endgame” of this path. You might have your own station (most likely a POS as solo player) in there and multiple specialized ships for all the activies you do in there, from using PI-installations on the planets, farming gas, sleeper loot, ore, data and relic sites.

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It took me some time to trust wormhole entries, I had in mind to be crushed if the hole is too small or to be totally lost if a wh is closing down.
As soon as you understand the mechanics, you see wormholes are a very reliable, the laws of physics don’t matter here either.
So if you want to read: Wormholes - EVE University Wiki
List of all WH-Types: Wormhole attributes - EVE University Wiki

Solo playing in wormholes is a common play style: There’s the predator way and there’s the explorer way in wormholes: Some solo players like sitting in a cloaked Loki or Tengu waiting for prey. Others get into Covert Ops frigates harvesting Data and Relic Sites. And some take strong ships farming combat sites, there’s also ninja miners and gas hoovers.
A scout alt (cloaked) is helpful in either case.

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This dude mafe a youtube series about solo (many alt) wormhole living

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Just don’t become obsessed with hole control.

It ends badly :smiley:

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Your idea is not weird at all, many people play like this or started out as a solo explorer. This is my preferred playstyle as well, and I also love the aspect of mystery and exploration to space travel. Some people even permanently live in wormholes solo, but that’s harder to pull off.

If you want to get into exploration in wormholes, I’d suggest starting with practicing exploration in lowsec with a T1 explo frigate, where you can focus on avoiding pirates, using d-scan, creating safe bookmarks etc. It’ll be a bit less overwhelming and the skills you get there will translate well to wormholes. But if you’d rather jump into the deep end immediately, don’t let me stop you!

Wormholes are a fascinating environment although I’d say better for PvP and combat PvE than hacking sites - the reason is there is always an overabundance of wormhole and drone site (hacking sites with lots of enemy NPCs) signatures compared to pirate data/relic sites, so often you’ll spend a lot of time scanning 20 signatures in a system only to find 1 or even no hacking sites. But if you’re not concerned about isk, it won’t be a huge issue and you can still make a profit.

I found nullsec much more profitable in terms of isk/h and less tedious, but it also has the added danger of locals having more intel on your presence and forming gatecamp hunting parties, so it’s a tradeoff. Wormholes used to be a great way to sneak into the far reaches of nullsec, but with Needlejack filaments that method became kind of obsolete, which makes me sad.

I’m not sure which solo wormhole videos you’re referring to, but if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend WINGSPAN TT’s “Exploration Adventures” series.

Some random tips:

  • Familiarize yourself with wormhole mapping tools like Pathfinder or Tripwire. They’re an invaluable tool for finding your way around j-space.
  • Train into covert ops ships and look into training for the Astero after you gain some experience.
  • Learn to visually identify wormhole properties: Visual wormhole identification - EVE University Wiki
  • A lot of people are suggesting Nomad’s Tale but what he’s doing is way advanced, requires a larger budget and several alt accounts. As a beginner, you won’t really learn that much from it.
  • Always bookmark the wormhole you just entered through.
  • Always assume there is someone in system, cloaked up and hunting you.

Good luck!

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