fly T1s instead of T2 hulls. Crappier ships = more engagements.
being a pirate or neutral will probably get you more engagements than joining a militia, since you can fight everyone
don’t be too concerned about your killboard. Smarter pilots will look your name up, and if they see that you’re very good, they won’t engage. In fact, having a shitty-looking killboard will help you get fights.
try to build a reputation as a pilot who won’t flee. PVPers will recognise your name and engage you if they see the chance. If you routinely flee, they won’t bother wasting time chasing you (although some will).
there are different styles to solo pvp instead of just waiting in a plex. You can fly a stealth bomber, buzz large plexes or gate camps, shoot a torpedo at someone, warp out and killmail whore when they die to someone else.
if you like laying traps, consider training for combat recon ships like the Curse, which can’t be detected on d-scan. I haven’t done this myself, but I know other players who pilot a combat recon ship, sit on a warp-in pointt at a belt, anomaly etc and blap whoever warps in. It may or may not bring you more fights per se, but it’ll mix up your style and catch other PVPers unaware.
if you want to PVP but got something else to do that’ll require you to go semi-AFK, consider piloting a cloaky ship like the Astero or Stratios. Cloak up in a plex, zoom in on the NPC defender, and turn up your speakers to maximum. Go about your business (washing dishes, laundry, or whatever). When you hear lasers firing, that means someone’s warped in and is fighting the NPC. Now you got potential bait that you can ambush with your cloaky ship. This is best done in a system where defensive plexing isn’t worthwhile (i.e. % contest is below 20%). You can even take a nap and wake up only if you hear something.
Someone here said, you’re probably getting the wrong expectations, this guy gets it. Those that advised you to look for friends to play with… good and bad idea…
Flying with friends (lowsec)
Pros:
You can take more fights
More people looking for fights
Someone to chat with while looking for fights
Cons:
Fastest way to land on many peoples “red”-list. If they expect to consistently get blobbed when fighting you, they just stop fighting you completely
Unless you learn how to effectively conceal your numbers, you’ll find it even harder to find fights, or mainly get fights against even bigger blobs (+1 problem persists)
At the beginning you’ll find it easier to get into PvP, but because you’re mainly going to win your fights due to numbers advantage, you’ll never learn the high-end subtleties of PvP and rarely ever use the full potential of your ship
Best way IMO is following the principles of engagability, this will net you your first solo kills. Once you’re more familiar with the combat mechanics you can then start engaging gangs, the obvious solution being mobility (kiting). However, kiting comes with a big problem: It is incredibly boring to lose to a kiter! Again people will stop fighting you if you consistently kite or bring hardcounters. An alternative is bait-tanking. By learning how to effectively bait tank, you can make a fight look as though it was incredibly close and only by sheer luck you managed to win (when in reality the fight was heavily in your favor all along), these dudes WILL come back again and again and give it another try. As losses are inevitable you’ll want to try and go for a healthy mix of bait-tanking and kiting in order to avoid becoming predictable.
I had the same issue when I first got into PvP in 2011-2013 (Golden Age of Faction Warfare, Gallente FTW). I found the following helpful:
DGAF about killboard stats. At all. If a corp says that is important, find another corp. Got invited to my first FW corp exactly because I didn’t care about my KB.
Don’t be afraid to YOLO things, especially if solo. The thing with Eve PvP, especially when solo, is that while you may only win 1 out of every 20 fights, when you do win, it totally makes up for the other 19 times you blew up. Also, Eve is filled with stories where a ship punched above it’s weight and won. (Example: the time I YOLO tackled a Megathron in an Atron. Megathron was a streamer who just neuted me for SNG…just in time for the backup fleet to arrive…)
Pick not one, but 3 ships:
Brawl frig
Scram kite frig
Kite frig
Get about 15 of each, and attack everything dessies/t2 frigs and down. This will help determine your preferred playstyle, and better understand the Rock, Paper, Scissors nature of Eve ships. The ship that you run out of first is most commonly the playstyle you prefer. You can build on that.
Lean about plex mechanics and how to use them to your advantage. Example: if you are brawling fit, you need to be close. That is tricky when engaging kiting ships. However, since all ships have to stop for a second on warp-in to the plex, then you can take your brawling ship and stay right next to the plex warp-in. That way if a kiting ship does come in on you, you have a chance to grab them and smash face. Additionally, if you are kite fit, you can orbit the warp-in at your preferred range so when a ship warps in, they are already too far away from you and you can begin to kite them out, or bail if things get hairy. There are more examples, but those are a start.
Find a newby friendly PvP corp. While this may sound easier than it is, there are FW corps that are always craving new bros looking for PvP. I am just getting back into FW, so I’m no longer familiar with the players like I used to be, but Aideron Robotics in GalMil is still a thing, and I can highly recommend them for newbros looking for a corp to teach all aspects of PvP (DPS, Tackle, Logi, even Solo). I’m sure there are some in Caldari, Minmatar, and Amarr as well, the recruitment forums should have that information. In my experince, while being neutral pirate in LowSec does give access to more targets, they used to be pretty hard on newbros, so I could never recommend them in good conscience. This may have changed, YMMV.
Check out PvP vids on YouTube and Twitch. You may not know what is going on when watching, but the more you get out there, the more you will understand what they are doing and why. Here are some examples to get you started:
Fintarue (One of, if not the definitive, master of LowSec solo PvP frigate combat)
Zarvox (Flies all types of ships, great energy and entertaining, lots of content)
MyHyde113 (One of, if not the definitive, Twitch master of solo PvP large ship combat)
BjornBee (interesting fits of all ship classes…his thanny roams are fun to watch)
Suitonia (Great newbro friendly and skilled frigate and dessie PvPer, I’d start here)
YouTube (keep to vids within the last 2-3 years):
ChessurSB (not a lot of videos, but discusses interesting intermediate piloting technique)
MyHyde113 (bigger ships)
CosmoBlink
eveiseasy
Eve Pro Guides
Aznwithbeard
Killtec
Zarvox Toral
Lastly, if you can, record your sessions where you go out roaming looking for fights. Review them later as an after-action review. You will notice things that you didn’t notice when you were flying, as you aren’t in the moment and can take a more in-depth critical look. This may be the single best thing I did when I first started, as I would always see things and think “Okay, there is where I went wrong”, “Oh that was silly of me”, “I should have done X here”, or the occasional “I did X really well, I’m gonna try that again”
I know that you asked more for how to get fights, but I find that fights are pretty easy to get. They won’t be fair, and you may not win, but you can get them. The trick is to make the most out of every fight so that you can achieve the goal of learning how PvP works in Eve in order to do it better and be more successful and have more fun with it. I’m assuming that is your end goal, but if I am wrong, just ignore this post and maybe it will help someone else.
Best of luck to you, and welcome to the crazy world of Eve PvP!
P.S.: I can be found around the Citadel/Placid/Black Rise area (Gal/Cal FW space). If I’m on, I’m happy to go a round or two with you for fun and learning.
I recommend you join one of the NPSI groups. There you will find public fleets for all skill levels. You are almost guaranteed to find content. It’s what taught me the most about the game.
Give these channels a try. “Spectre Fleet” or “Bombers Bar”.
Get T1 frigs hauled into Kamela station… beam tormentor, rail atron, comet, firetail will all get fights and be competitive. Go to plexes in Kamela, Kourmonen, Houla, Auga. you will get solo fights but you will get ganked as well. I just spent 2 weeks in black rise and then 2 ish in Kamela area. Kamela is just miles better. there are people there looking to have quick easy fights a lot of the time. try it.
