I'm becoming disheartened

New Citizens Q&A
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I became excited at the prospect of beginning a journey in EVE Online. I made a character, completed the tutorials and subsequent learner missions (Industry, Adv Military, Exploring, etc), then put together a cheap Heron explorer/scanner and went for a “test-run”.

My first two attempts involved me finding a middle-of-nowhere, and empty location (no ships or destroyed ships within 2 star systems).

I entered, scanned, found some relic site/s and entered. Each time I was demolished by someone who warped in on top of me and blasted me away unexpectedly.

Something needed to change…

I then learned of the D-scanner. Did my research, learned all I could, and used the EVE university overview to improve my situational awareness.
Also, I adjusted my keybindings for a more streamlined approach, and linked my D-scanner to overview tab.

Put together another Heron, and some scanning stuff …went to null-sec. Empty (or so it seemed).

While probing, I would use my D-scanner every 3 or so seconds. Eventually I noticed a ship pop up on the reader. Seemed like it was getting closer, so I booked out of there to a moon on the opposite side of the system. All the while, maintaining my probing.

I then noticed scanner probes on my D-scanner, so I would relocate myself. All the while, continuing my probing of anomalies.

I continued this dance of probing and relocating as it seemed every 10 seconds, this ship would locate me and zero in.

“How in the hell is he doing this?!” I began to ask (I am new to the game after all, and could easily be missing something, but it seemed highly unlikely that he would be able to chase me down every 10 seconds as I relocated to new points on the solar system map (always to within 100km).

I decided to send my probes around to the other anomalies just to ‘confuse’ the enemy so that they might not know specifically “which” one I was aiming for.

At the the end of the day it really didn’t seem to matter. This guy found me, warp scrambled me and proceeded to pod-kill me.

All my preparation seemed to make no difference. And the fact I kept moving/warping to new locations within the system every 10 seconds seemed to make zero difference. This ship found me.

It’s becoming quite hard to actually see any future prospects within EVE at the moment.

And I suspect a large majority would suggest “Join a corp”, though, I don’t see how that would still help me avoid the situations previously mentioned.

Really need some advice/a morale boost at this point.

Thanking you.

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If someone were actively hunting me down I think I would leave the system and try my luck elsewhere rather than cat-and-mouse with them.

But quick question: are you playing as an Alpha, and therefore have no access to a cloak?

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I am playing as an Omega, but I am 4 or 5(?) days into playing EVE. (not full-time playing either). So no cloaking. Doubt I could afford anything/anything decent. “Don’t fly what you can’t afford to lose” …and all that jazz.

As for the ‘cat and mouse’ bit. I assumed the system was large enough that if I kept moving around, they couldn’t possibly pin down my location.

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Are you using ‘local’ to tell if the system is empty?
Do you have a cloak? If you cloak and start moving in a random direction he won’t find you even if he knows where you are.
He’s probably using combat probes to find your uncloaked ship.
Once you have a ‘cov-ops’ cloak no one will be able to find you after you warp off.
Astero is the quickest ship to train into that can use a cov-ops cloak.

You’re off to a good start – Just be a little patient while you develop skill points and some experience.

You could consider joining Signal Cartel corp if you’re really lost on your own and are not interested in PvP yet.

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I’d suggest starting with HS sites in that case till you get more skills including cloak. Without cloak you’re an easy prey and a prober will pin you down very fast and wherever you are.

With a cloak you can just warp to a bookmarked safe spot, cloak and wait till he gets bored. You don’t need fancy ship or covops cloak, for a start any will do. It will still give a chance to probe you down mid warp but you’re fairly safe cloaked at the safe spot.

Welcome to EvE :wink:

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With proper D-scanning it should be neigh impossible to get caught unless hes using a Force Recon. You can combat cloakers by jettisoning a can of junk at the warp in to your site to hopefully decloak them as you land to have plenty of time to git out.

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Eve is a really tough game. Please do stick with it. Wait till you see what a win feels like :relaxed:

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I think the problem is that you used moons and targets that are in his overview as well. Every time you moved, all he had to do was to set his D-scan to 15° and target all moons etc. one by one until he found you.

Look into how to set up safe spots that are away from anything that can be targeted, then it will be a lot more difficult to find you (but not impossible).

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Sent you a mail ingame

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I actually just made a new thread enquiring about this exact concept. I couldn’t find the answer on my own. 5am here and my eyes are blurry.

I will have to check it when I wake up. But thank you in advance.

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if you write “eve online safe spots youtube” in a search engine you will find tons of howtos.

Here is one:

It is short, sweet, and to the point :wink:

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If a scanner knows what he is doing, he will first locate you using d-scan, and then scan you down using a single cycle of (combat) probes. If he’s a bit unlucky, he gets a 90-99.9% hit on his probes, and needs a second scan.

Note that if you’re in a hacking site, on grid with a wormhole, or in a scannable combat site, the above holds for both combat and regular scanning probes.

So…

If you see probes, assume you have already been located. Whomever is hunting you is cloaked, and sitting right next to you (possibly waiting for his buddies to arrive) and if you warp, he will note the direction you warp to and scan you down even quicker (assuming you didn’t warp to a signature he scanned down before, in which case no scanning is needed at all.)

If you see combat probes for a period longer than 5 seconds, then:
a) You are being scanned down by a newbie, give the guy a break, sit still and let him get a kill for once! (killing him is also an option…)
b) You’re being scanned down, but you’re clearly not worth the time/effort of doing it properly. People are just launching probes and hoping to get lucky. If you warp off and leave system, they might leave you alone.
c) Similar to point b. You’ve been scanned down, but whoever scanned you down is giving you a break and leaving his probes out. If you notice the probes and warp off, you’re fine. If you don’t, you’re clearly a newbie who needs a harsh lesson in using d-scan.
d) You’re not being scanned down… someone is either just not interested in your cheap-ass T1 exploration frigate, or he’s scanning something juicier. Of course, if the juicier target leaves system and you’re still in the same spot, prepare for a drive by shooting.

Never assume people will leave you alone just because you are new. They don’t know that! You might just as well be a new alt of an experienced player, looking for intel on how to shoot their ratting ships. So they will shoot first, pod first, and figure out if you were friendly or not later (if at all…)

The solution of course is: whenever you see probes of any kind, warp to a safe (you did make safe spots, right? if not… there are plenty of guides around on how to do that…). Whomever was tracking you saw your direction of warp, so this safe is now compromised. Delete the bookmark to this safe and immediately warp to another safe and cloak up. If you don’t have a cloak, immediately warp to a gate/WH and leave system. Then repeat the above procedure and get at least another system between you and whomever is hunting you as quickly as possible.

In the long run, if you know a system is being hunted, you may want to get out of the WH-chain or move away several jumps in k-space. When I hunt, I’ll typically have anything within 5 WH/gates that my targets are interested in (relic sites, for example) scanned out and bookmarked. If I lose you, but you stay within the same area, it’s only a matter of time before I find you again.

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One of the best ways to learn exploration in dangerous space is join a corporation that specializes in that activity. Have a chat with the folks at https://www.eve-scout.com/signal-cartel/

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Thank you all for the great responses/time and effort. It is honestly appreciated.

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A lot of low/null can look pretty empty but some locals are far more dangerous than others. Just something you kinda have to feel out, Many people just hang out in their structures and are there for industry, and a lot of people enter system and quickly leave it as they are just passing through. Ship destruction is often an unreliable stat as most out of the way systems won’t see much passing through, and some one might be there just waiting for someone to show up.

if you are warping to planets or moons ( or really anything easily findable in space) they can find you with the directional scanner and warp in near you, for this reason most people will warp from point to point and make bookmarks while in warp as no one can easily warp to those spots. Of course that leaves probes that can find you, and you need to watch d-scan for those. You say you are omega so I suggest going for a cloak, even the cheapest cloak is great defense against hunters, looks like they are about 1.7mil in jita. They can’t d-scan or probe you when cloaked.

you also need to watch out, it is possible someone else scanned the site down before you did and are hiding nearby waiting for someone to come into it to jump them. that will probably be more likely in WH space, as you can see people in local in nullsec.

stick with it, a few good sites and you have the isk to buy 100 more cheap herons. Might make sense to practice the hacking game and watching local and dscan in highsec. the rewards will be smaller, but you will get some practice with the hacking minigame and have some time to train some skills.

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Some nice advice there. Thank you.

Re: The hacking game; it isn’t my biggest issue. I haven’t failed a hacking game yet, even hacked some relic sites in lowsec. Plus, I am nearly lvl 4 in the hacking skills. The game seems simple enough (or I may have simply been lucky with the “rolls”)

It really is just the surviving out there in low/nullsec/WH that I need.

Overall, I think my best bet is, Dscan, bookmark ‘safe havens’ (which I have now learned), and buying a cloaking device. Although, on the latter point, they are expensive enough that I do fear losing one.
…guess I have to bite the bullet sometime.

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Hmmm,

Don’t forget the metagame!

‘Call him out’ in Local chat. Wave to him, ask him if he enjoys hunting newbees like yourself. Tell him (briefly) you are new at this and keep dying while trying to figure out the game.

BE POLITE, but also play a little sympathy card on him.

You might find someone who leaves you be or even gives you some tips. Also be aware that if you are neutral that the residents nearby feel your mere presence as a threat to their security. And it is then the hunter’s job to remove you.

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18

Advice: Look into local chat. If there’s more than ten in highsec, don’t go exploring. In nullsec: If there’s more than none :slight_smile:
Moral boost: My first time being killed was within seconds. He appeared only 4 km away, yellow box, red rainbow. boom. He was in a Stratios, great ship! And I thought my cruiser was well tanked… I think every Newbie feels completely helpless in the first fights.
It took months to get my killboard balance green, by being part of successful fleets with experienced vets. You might don’t want to hear that, but asking and fleeting up helps a lot.

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Also, don’t ever underestimate what you see on d-scan.

In one of my earliest attempts at exploration in lowsec, I had been hacking a relic site and looking at my d-scan. I had seen scan probes on scan and cloaked up. After a while, they disappeared, and I waited a little bit longer to see if any hunters would show up. After a while, the only thing I’d seen on d-scan was a little Impairor corvette. Thinking it was just some player shuttling through lowsec in a free ship on their way home, I ignored it and continued hacking.

The next thing I know, the Impairor had warped in on top of my completely defenseless scanning frigate. They scrammed and webbed me and burned me down. I died to a corvette fitted with a probe launcher. It was a slow death, too, because Impairors only have two high-slots.

It is, to this day, one of my favorite ship loss experiences. It was a harsh lesson, but an important one.

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This right here tells me you have potential.

You tried to find a solution to your problem in the moment, thinking on your feet. It may or may not work, but that’s not the point. As you learn to play, you will make spectacularly silly mistakes that make you go boom.

Constantly.

That’s part of the fun. When I was learning I did really dumb stuff all the time, and it was frustrating. 3 years later, including a longish hiatus, I look back and smile. Some of the best times in EVE are those early, horribly frustrating days.

Part of why people urge you to join a corp is because sharing those moments with others makes it even better. You make friends, and you learn. This isn’t an FPS you can jump in and get the hang of in a few minutes.

Stick with it for a while, if it’s just too frustrating to play. No worries, it’s not for everyone. But give it a chance, EVE is the game that I have the fondest memories of bar none.

Welcome.

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