The thread title describes a consistent difficulty I’ve faced, and I’m not sure how to overcome it. There are times when I jump into systems and find the gate camped. As soon as I uncloak to do anything, they lock and kill me.
Is there a way to circumvent such attacks?
Depends on your ship and skills.
If your ship is fast and agile enough you might be able to align and warp away before they get a lock. Try a warp stabilizer to help not being scrammed (limited effectiveness however).
Otherwise, maybe you’re just going into the wrong systems…? 
I’m usually in a Velator when it happens. I might need to focus some attention on improving my agility skills so I can align and warp away faster. Less often, I get attacked like this in my mining ships (Venture, Covetor, Procurer).
Mining ships are by nature not agile and quick so they are good targets anywhere.
I often use an Astero to run through low or even null systems quickly. I have one tanked for speed and agility. Combined with my skill levels it will go from zero->align->warp in 1.7 seconds (according to the simulator). Add in the covert ops cloak and at least so far I haven’t been caught. 
In situations like what I described, in an Astero would you bother aligning to something first, or just warp to it and let the game align you?
Presuming the simulator is correct, at that quickness just hitting the warp button I think is fast enough. I’d hit the warp button then immediately cloak and let it go.
Some people say it’s faster to align first then warp, other say it makes no difference.
I don’t know either way. Seems about the same to me.
As far as I know initiating warp automatically aligns you faster than you can manually align to something.
Asteros are good for this, interceptors can be very good too, but anything under two seconds actually counts (to the server) as one second. Interceptors are about a third of the price of an Astero last time I looked, and have bonuses for using nullification modules which will get you out of bubbles. Personally I love interceptors even though they’ve been messed with by CCP.
Another way to travel and stay super cheap is a shuttle, they align really fast and have nullification by default now.
The last method I’m aware of (but have never used, so I’m not sure of this) is the use of burst jammers which break target locks and allow you to escape. As I said, I have no experience with them so I really don’t know much about how they work (or fail to work).
EDIT: Don’t quote me on the server tick thing, I think I have that right but now I’m second guessing my self. I do know that as long as you are aligning in under two seconds you will be seriously hard to catch.
To avoid such attack you need either agile ships that can warp away before the attackers get a lock/tackle or a scout in the other side.
Technically you cold tank enough to burn back to the gate and jump but good luck trying it on a mining barge.
BTW, never waste time with manually aligning when you are just trying to GTFO
Mostly true, with the caveat: If you are in a slow-to-align ship, as long as you hit the “warp” button before you hit 75% of top speed and aligned to the celestial plus accounting for network effects and server ticks, hitting “align” first is not guaranteed to always be slower. Hitting “warp” just means “server, as soon as you see I hit 75% of top speed and within X degrees of my alignment vector (X=5? 15? I forget), warp for me”.
Why this matters: If you are caught in a bubble (no nullification) and click a celestial and hit “warp”, CCP decided the best default is to have the ship completely stop. So when you jump through a gate and are in a bubble, the “warp” button is useless, while the “align” button will save both your cheeks by actually keeping your ship moving. Typically, after jumping through a gate and finding one’s self in a bubble:
EDIT: The above steps vary depending on your fit (warp core stabs) and whether they are pointing you, etc. It is just a rough outline.
The Velator, Covetor and Procurer are all slow aligning ships and easily caught.
Venture, as a frigate, aligns a little quicker and has a warp core bonus that ignores two warp disruptors or one scrambler. If you’re going to mine in dangerous space, the Venture is a good choice.
If the gatecamp is in low sec, you should be able to run through most of them if you are flying in a ship that can align in less than 2 seconds. A shuttle for example does that.
when you jump into a system your speed is zero . the server sees you as a point , not a vector . there is no align time to enter warp , only acceleration time to 3/4 max speed . your ship turning to align is only a graphic display …
FWIW - I was doing my weekly nullsec hacking roam last night and used the technique I described above to avoid a gang that was hunting me.
Then on the way back to empire space I decided to go gate-to-gate (I usually use filaments to jump out of null) and also used the technique to avoid several gate camps in lowsec.
I was in a Helios this time that had been tanked for speed and agility.
Not to go off topic, however, how do you determine where the edge of the bubble is and the distance to it (going forward or back to the gate)?
And how do you choose a point to align to outside the bubble that’s the shortest distance to the edge?
Distance to the Gate is displayed in your overview. Distance to the edge of the bubble can be determined in a few ways, judging your relative position to the bubble itself and knowing the radius of bubbles being one. However, your best bet is to be zoomed out with tactical overlay on (one of the little buttons to the left of your capacitor) - you’ll then see the edge of the bubble and the gate both on the tactical grid, with handy reference marks showing distance etc.
Edit here’s a link to 3Tears giving a guide on how to use the tactical overlay. Not watched it all, but 3Tears is a skilled pilot and pretty good at explaining stuff, so I’m confident it’ll cover what you need.
I’m dumb - “Tate”?
Eeep! Fat fingered that one buddy - amended to Gate as it should’ve been…
I also want to highlight: the “edge of bubble” can be of “bubbles-yet-to-be” depending on their fleet comp. If they have several bubble-capable interdictor ships on gate, then while you align they may try to spawn new bubbles in the hopes of catching you in the outer radius of the sphere, which may change the geometry of the “shortest path to edge of all bubbles”. Reacting and changing direction in this case isn’t a big deal for ships with great agility – like your Helios – but it is a big deal for ships like DSTs which then have to update their calculus on whether to try to “punch through” or not.
(Plus your Helios is equipped with nullification anyway, right? 
)
The method I do is visual. For this, fortune favors the prepared. For one, you need a good Overview tab that shows plenty of celestial brackets, which are those icons in space. If you have something like the Z-S Overview Pack, switching to the “Warpout!” tab will put a bunch of celestial & warpable brackets in space. I’ve been meaning to tweak it for my own preferences, but it is a good default.
Two, you need a little bit of luck on how you randomly spawned on the gate, where the bubble is positioned, where they are positioned, etc. You can then move your camera while orbiting your ship to look in the general direction that’s shortest out of the bubble. If there are some celestial (or cosmic anomaly!) brackets near the middle of your screen, you’re in luck. Most – but not all – gates in New Eden aren’t located way above or way underneath the solar system, so its pretty bad luck if the shortest path is “up” or “down”.
Third, it also depends where the gate campers are sitting in relation to you. If you have two “iffy” points, but they’re sitting closer towards one of the two paths, that can influence your choice of direction. If they are orbiting the gate, that can not only dictate which path you take but when you want to decloak: if their orbit is having them travel away from your chosen path, it will take them longer to turn around and then burn towards you, than if they had just been sitting still in the same location.
Note that these aren’t foolproof tips – knowledge is half the battle, execution (and luck) still matter. If the outcome is a negative one – never blame the luck bit, see if there’s something that could be learned & improved for next time. For knowledge’s sake or execution’s sake. Learning to be slippery is just one piloting skill of many.
The Helios doesn’t have nullification built in.
But I do have the T2 nullifer fitted (only gives 15 seconds of nullification and 2.5 minutes reset time).
Yep, that’s what I was alluding to. 
For a system seige – where all gates inside a system are bubbled – the 15 seconds isn’t a problem. When you begin your warp (at the head of the 15 seconds) is when the game checks for bubbles and nullification. This is why when you enter warp, and then a new bubble is created at your destination (or along any point of your warp travel), you land safely at your destination as if it wasn’t there – which is true, it just wasn’t there at the beginning of your warp.
Where the 15 seconds becomes limiting is whether a particular gate – not system – is bubbled on both sides, straddling 2 systems. The question is: do you use it on one side? Or the other? 
Exactly.
