I’ve been away for a long time, but still browse the forums and I see the same tired subjects popping up time after time. People still die the same stupid ways. And they still complain the same tired way, too. Some of those complaints have been around for so long that they now qualify as a vintage whine, and should be served with a decent cheese.
Here’s why that’s their own fault - and how not to be one of them; or at the very least, minimise the chances of it happening to you.
A conversation about EVE Online often takes on two distinctive tones: Love and hate. The idea of survival in a sandbox that has a very loose ruleset and is full of hyper-capitalistic schemers, outlaws, and opportunists is to not be World of Warcraft in space. For those among us that don’t make our living off of the misfortune of others, let’s talk about the art of not being prey.
If you’re someone who enjoys the quiet life of an industrialist, hauling goods across the void, or an NPC hunter running missions in the relative safety of highsec, you might not think about ganking that much. Well, you should.
Gankers aren’t out to get you just for the fun of it - they’re providing an intended and inevitable consequence for making poor choices and failing to understand the basic principles of the game. So let me drop a few pearls of internet spaceships “wisdom” to help you avoid becoming just another explosion in space.
Equity vs Equality
Firstly, let’s address the elephant in the room: many seem to believe that the PvE playstyle is inherently disadvantaged when compared to that of PvP; they’re wrong.
Equality means that everybody is treated the same, equity means that someone is given what they need to be successful; and in many ways is the antithesis of equality.
Equality is the default setting of the game, everyone starts with the same rules and opportunities. Equity, though? That’s something other players provide - and you earn.
On the larger scale, equity can be achieved through the application of social skills to gain access to more specialised knowledge.
That said, everything that you need to know in order to avoid the predators in highsec and play in a 99% risk free manner is public domain.
What an individual player does with what they have been given by the game and other players is where equality and equity get defenestrated.
Social Networking
In EVE, you need friends in low places - and high places. The more alliances and social connections you have, the better your odds.
In real life, and in EVE, your social network is your greatest asset. Whether it’s mentors, colleagues, or even enemies, everyone can teach you something.
Never underestimate the power of your social connections.
Local’s Packed, Your Overview’s Screwed, and You Went AFK
They say that EVE is a cold, dark place. That’s a lie - it’s a place where people go to learn about consequences, one autopiloted hauler at a time.
With that out of the way, here’s the doctrine to avoid the situation described in the heading of this subsection.
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Use the tools that are already available, especially the one between your ears. Never go AFK.
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Take advantage of the gate cloak mechanic. Never go AFK.
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Know who your enemy is. Set them to ‘scum’ using the standings mechanic. Never go AFK.
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Unfuck your overview. (see above) Never go AFK.
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Bookmarks are life. Learn them. Use them. Never go AFK.
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Autopilot is suicide. Never go AFK.
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Seriously. Just. Don’t. Go. AFK.
The Gank Doesn’t Start When the Shooting Does
It doesn’t even start when the scanning alt finds out you’re carrying eleventy billion isk in an untanked hauler, just begging for a little “accident”.
Nope, the gank starts the moment someone makes the choice to place an expensive cargo in a no-tank hauler, hits autopilot, and thinks nothing will happen.
The Loot Fairy frowns upon such stupidity and rewards those who take advantage of it.
Poor decisions get you killed in EVE. This is a game where mistakes come with consequences - and those consequences usually mean unscheduled disassembly.
Your ship turns into debris, your corpsicle becomes a trophy, and your wallet takes a kick to the balls.
Don’t expect sympathy. Blame yourself. In EVE, responsibility is yours alone.
Risk isn’t the enemy - ignorance is. The sandbox gives you the tools to survive, but you have to use them.
You can tank your hauler. You can scout. You can avoid Uedama at lunchtime. You can use the overview. You can hit d-scan. You can use your brain.
Telling people how to minimise risk isn’t “ruining the fun” or being a buzzkill. It’s intervention. It’s the quiet voice of experience trying to yell over the sound of the alarm as your hull fails.
The reality is simple: the gank that doesn’t happen is the most successful one for the defender - and it often starts with five little words:
Prior planning prevents piss-poor performance
The bitter truth: You can be nearly immune to ganking with just a little thought.
Far too many players would rather scream “unfair!” in local after they’ve exploded than listen to someone who’s been there and made the same mistakes ten years ago.
Education is prevention. Prevention is proactive. But prevention only works when people give a damn enough to listen.
If you want to survive in New Eden - or in life - you don’t avoid risk, you manage it and you plan for - and around it. Which segues nicely into the next section.
Risk Management Is Not the Same as Risk Aversion
Managing risk means understanding the environment and mitigating the potential for bad things to happen. Risk aversion, on the other hand, is simply avoiding risk altogether.
In a sandbox like EVE, avoiding risk is almost a death sentence. You want to make sure you’re well-protected against the inevitability of danger, but you don’t want to live in a constant state of paranoia or stagnation.
Risk management is planning. It’s unfucking your overview (see the how not to die doctrine above), tanking your ships, setting up scouts, limiting your cargo to a reasonable value, and making sure you - and your ship - have a fighting chance when the inevitable happens.
Risk aversion is saying, “Well, I guess I’ll just stop playing” when you realize that everything has a cost that you’re not willing to pay.
You can’t play EVE with a “just don’t shoot me” mentality. You need to actively make sure you’re not an easy target.
That’s the difference between a smart player and a carebear who complains when things go wrong. It’s all about personal responsibility.
In EVE, Death is always around the corner. If you’re going to survive, you need to learn how to thrive amidst that chaos - because, just as in real life, chaos never goes away. The difference between success and failure is calculated risk. You can’t avoid it. The trick is to mitigate it by knowing when to fight and when to adapt. It’s about recognising your battlefield and making strategic choices.
“Carebear” is an Attitude, Not a Playstyle
Contrary to the mainstream definition of the word, in EVE “Carebear” isn’t a term that describes or insults the PvE playstyle. It’s about attitude.
An EVE player adjusts how they play to suit the game, a carebear expects the game to adjust to suit them.
A successful EVE player understands that EVE is a sandbox full of chaos, and in chaos, opportunity exists. A carebear wants the rewards without the risks inherent in the chaos.
If you’re an industrialist, you have to adapt to the environment around you, both in terms of what you make, and how you ship it across the universe. When you’re moving goods, you can either sit back and hope you’re not the next victim, or you can become a wily prey.
By using your knowledge of game mechanics, you can make yourself harder to kill, reducing your chances of getting ganked. The trick is to be prepared, to be smart, and to not be an easy target.
Personal Responsibility: It’s Not Just a Buzzword, It’s Survival
Let’s be honest: In EVE, the consequences of your actions (or lack thereof) are immediate and unforgiving.
If you make bad choices, you’re likely to get shot in the face, and if you complain about it, you’ll get mocked.
That’s just the way the game works.
In EVE, personal responsibility means owning your choices—whether it’s tanking your ship, not going AFK, limiting your cargo, or planning for trouble.
When it goes wrong, you should be able to say, “I chose this. I’ll own it.”
If you put all your eggs in one basket, don’t act surprised when that basket gets alpha’d off the grid.
Don’t plan for losses? You’re doing it wrong. You should be factoring ship losses into your profit margins.
Ship losses will happen. Count on it.
Don’t Fight Back - Make Yourself an Unattractive Target
The best offence is a good defence. And that defence comes from your decisions. The more you make it clear that ganking you is going to be more trouble than it’s worth, the less likely people are to try. You don’t need to fight back - just don’t make yourself a worthwhile target.
Autopilot? Suicide.
AFK mining? You’re asking to be ganked.
Stuffed with cargo, flying a wet paper bag? Yeah - you’re chum in the water.
The point is this: Gankers, mercs, and pirates will always be part of the EVE universe. They’re like the wolves in the wild, and you’re the sheep if you don’t take precautions. You can choose to be a wolf, you can choose to be a Cape Buffalo or you can choose to be a sheep. And in this universe, sheep get eaten.
Gankers Are Part of the Ecosystem
In a twisted way, gankers are an essential part of the ecosystem of EVE. Not only do they provide a lesson in how to adapt, how to survive, and how to take personal responsibility for your mistakes, they provide a market demand for replacement ships and modules. If you blow up, don’t give them the satisfaction of crying “unfair” - you’re not a victim, you’re a player who made a mistake. Own it, learn from it, and move on.
It’s also worth noting that most gankers are more than happy to explain how you ended up as their target. Some will even be willing to teach you how not to make the same mistake again. Gankers aren’t all bad people - they’re just people who understand the relevant game mechanics better than you; the same is true of mercenaries.
Wardecs and Mercenaries: Opportunity, Not Oppression
Contrary to popular belief, wardecs aren’t always the nightmare that people make them out to be. They’re just another form of combat. As an industrialist, I see them as an opportunity to exploit in the pursuit of profit. I don’t get upset when mercenaries target me. Instead, I look at it as a chance to outsmart them. Use jump clones, set up alts, and find ways to make the war inconvenient for the aggressors.
That’s the nature of the game. You don’t always have to fight back; sometimes, outwitting your enemy is the better play; and it’s a perfectly valid subset of PvP.
The Reality of EVE’s Morality
EVE is a game without much in the way of traditional morality. The “right” and “wrong” of real life don’t apply here. In EVE, it’s about being a savvy player. You’re choosing to play a game that’s all about risk, PvP, and competition. When you get ganked, it’s not wrong - it’s just Eve.
If you judge players for their actions in EVE based on your own real-world morality, you’re missing the point. EVE isn’t a game about fairness; it’s a game about winning. If you want to survive in EVE, you need to leave your real-world moral compass at the door, if you don’t it will get exploited for shiggles and profit.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, it comes down to this: EVE is a game of risk, chaos, spreadsheets, social networking/engineering, and above all, personal responsibility. Gankers aren’t the problem; bad decisions are.
Highsec, lowsec, nullsec - doesn’t matter. Whether you’re a miner, ganker, grunt or merc, you own your choices.
Play smart, plan ahead, and accept that you can’t avoid all risk. But you can manage it - and that’s what separates easy prey from wily prey, and the predator.
If you lost your ship, ask yourself why. Then do something about it.
Every loss is a lesson. You can rage about unfair mechanics, or you can adapt. One of those things makes you better. The other just makes you loud and annoying.
EVE doesn’t punish effort. It punishes laziness.
EVE is hard. Good. That’s why it matters when you win.
It’s even harder if you’re stupid.
You don’t need to be rich, elite, or in nullsec to be safe. You just need to be aware of your surroundings, and who is in them.
So, when you get blown up by a ganker, don’t cry, and definitely don’t rage in local.
Just laugh it off and remember that in this world of internet spaceships, everything’s just a game of risk - and you’re the one who’s responsible for your own survival.
Discuss. Flame. Shitpost. I don’t care, I’m “retired”.
Just don’t forget to check D-Scan and local while you’re here.
