Well, I’m looking for some advices about avoiding being ganked, mainly because I lost Billions now in ships, every space buck I manage to get is to have fun (buy ships, explore new ways of playing this game, etc…), I know that “This is EVE” and its a very harsh environment, but that’s the main reason that this game is awesome!
I’m not complaining, being ganked is a consequence of playing EVE
Now, my main purpose ATM is exploring WH, and I never lost a ship in a WH to a player… just nips (still learning!), but with the Crimson Harvest I start exploring the PVE, and the ships to do it, I’m always being ganked in Stargates, I don’t know how they do it, as soon as I land on a system I instantly click to warp to another Stargate but I lost a Stratios (1,5b f***, I almost cried), yesterday I lost a Nereus with my week savings (400M) and today a lost a Omen Navy Issue in the same way. Like i said, as soon as i land i click to the other stargate…but pof
What am I doing wrong!?
You’re not doing anything particularly wrong; however there are some things that could help you avoid situations that you have been in, these are as follows:
One of EVE’s main “rules”: “Don’t fly ships you can’t afford to lose”
Maybe you shouldn’t invest all your isk in a single ship, like your 1.5bn Stratios, that is just inviting everyone to gank you.
Don’t use a cheap industrial ship to transport your most valuable items (if you have other options). I’d recommend using Blockade Runner or Deep Space Transport.
More often than not, especially in trade hubs, you will encounter 1-shot Tornados which will attempt to alpha any of their victims. To counter this; fit for tank and aim for around 20k EHP.
unfortunately there are not any real way to avoid getting ganked, if they want you dead they’ll bring enough to make sure that it does happen.
Check your Corp/Alliance to see if you’re currently in war with another group. if in a NPC Corp, then there is nothing you can do about it (suicide ganks, in HS)
Gate camps will generally have scouts a few jumps out looking for high value targets - when you jump in, they are ready and waiting. It should take a very well prepared gate camp to catch a Stratios or Blockade Runner but, if you’re still posting in New Citizens forum you may not have the skills to fly it properly - and I’m not talking about the kind of skills you can inject - player skill still needs to be learned the old fashioned way - by experience playing the game! The Astero aligns much faster than the Stratios - really hard to catch in lowsec and a lot less painful when you lose one (notice I didn’t say if) Ships are consumables in Eve. Industrialists like me depend on that!
Because one main reason; stupidity!
I landed on the system and i saw i frigate standing near the stargate. And while i was thinking “Should i gank it or should i not?”( it should be my first solo kill ) and then, poff,warp bubble while i was cloacked and 10 ships warping to me. This was the first time i waited in a stargate. From that day i never again waited near a stargate, but hell! I’m still loosing ships in stargates.
player skill still needs to be learned the old fashioned way - by experience playing the game!
Indeed! I dont mind loosing ships/ISK… well, a little bit, almost rage broken my keyboard because of that Stratios. I bought the same Stratios with the same fit and now its in the hangar, waiting for my learning curve to start my revenge
And by the way, is there any tactic to see if that system is being scouted? Like, those things that caught your atention, as a experienced player?
EDIT: Dont get me wrong, i’m not looking to play a game where no one can gank me, if i wanted that game i whould buy some other single player games for my PS4. I want to learn more to play better.
It’s worth having a look in Dotlan maps before you start your journey to see if there are recent kills in the systems on your route. You’ll also find that some times of day are worse than others for ganking, you can see kill histories on Dotlan to get some idea of the pattern over the past couple of days.
Not sure if trolling or not, but regardless, a serious answer:
You’ve lost all of your ships in lowsec and nullsec. You had to accept a warning when jumping into unsecured space, so the game literally told you that your ship may be at risk. You were not getting ganked, you engaged in pvp all by yourself by flying there. That was your main mistake above all others.
You lost your Nereus not only in lowsec, but also completely unfitted. For any future trips into lowsec with a hauling ship (any ship): Put a fitting on that thing! And one that is appropriate for what you want to achieve there. In this case, cloak + mwd + inertial stabilizers + maybe warp core stabilizers, so you can move around more safely. Google how the MWD+cloak trick works.
Your ships were way too expensive far whatever you were doing there. All that loot that died in your Nereus could’ve been split into multiple deliveries - it takes longer to haul, but if something goes wrong along the way, you won’t lose everything at once. I’d even say “never put anything above 50 million ISK into a T1 hauling ship”.
For your other losses - well, those were clearly pvp ships lost in “pvp zones”. If that bothers you (and it did, as you said), don’t fly expensive pvp ships. Start small, get yourself a few T1 frigates, try them in factional warfare for example and get comfortable with the pvp mechanics. A bigger ship will not win you anything here, nor will expensive modules.
Also joining a nullsec corporation/alliance will get you quick-started in all things pvp.
So tldr: Don’t fly expensive stuff into lowsec or nullsec, especially when you clearly have no idea what to do there. Not a single one of your losses had to do with ganking.
Ofc I’m not trolling, what makes you think that!? My stupidity in new eden? Well, I’m learning and I counting with the EVE community to learn more.
Yep, I had the Nereus parked there and it was a 30jumps journey, so I decided to risk it…
You had to accept a warning when jumping into unsecured space, so the game literally told you that your ship may be at risk. You were not getting ganked, you engaged in pvp all by yourself by flying there. That was your main mistake above all others.
That’s not a mistake mate, that’s a risk that I was willing to take, my questions are all about my way to play. I wanted to know if I could improve anything to avoid some situations and you are helping me with that. Like I said before, if I was looking for a game where I don’t get killed I had to find another game to play.
Ok, stop flying expensive ships. Never go to any system that is below .5 ever. Always tank fit your ships because you now gankers are a thing. Don’t ever spend more then 20% of your wealth on a ship. Add all known ganking corps to contact and red them. Don’t fly tech II or faction ships in High Sec, why? Because gankers like shiny things. Never transport more then 20% of the value of your ship in cargo, why? Because gankers like expensive things. If you don’t like the ganking mechanic, cancel your sub and tell CCP or quit and tell CCP it is because of gankers.
If you lose enough ships quickly enough your feelings might change, that is why I put that at the end of my reply. I have seen 50+ players leave this game because of continually being ganked. So fly safe, have fun and above all fly smart.
Beware of interdictors (Flycatcher, Eris, Sabre, Heretic), they can drop warp disruption bubbles.
Then their big brothers, Heavy Interdiction Cruisers (Phobos, Devoter, Onyx, Broadsword) can generate their own mobile warp disruption field.
Note that warp disruption fields only work in nullsec and wormholes.
Not quite following what is happening and what the complaint is. So you blinged a Stratios and attempted to fly through LS or NS to get to where some decent WHs are at and died to a gate camp en route ? Is this correct ?
For bypassing gatecamps:
On your common routes or commonly visited systems do the following:
Hop into an interceptor, like an Ares or alike. Fit it with all Tech 2 Inertia Stabilizers in low slots, hyperspatial velocity rigs in the rig slots, a proto cloaking device in 1 high slot, 1 AB, 1 MWD, 1 cap battery just in case.
Take that interceptor and fly into a system that you visit. If there is a gate camp try to warp off immediately, you have a very good chance of succeeding since you’ll have something like 1.53 or 1.57 alignment time (around there), so even if there is a gate camp you’ll most likely be able to make it through unless they have extreme insta lock, or smartbombs on you.
When you come out of the gate warp to within 100km of a random belt or random anomaly. Make a bookmark. Warp to with 100km of a random moon or anomaly, make a bookmark. See if there are any anomalies or moons or planets or belts behind or at angle, as close to 90-120 degrees as possible, in relation to the next gate you want to jump to. Warp to 100km with to it bookmark it, then warp to within 100km of the gate but then turn at a random outwards angle. You are goingto be i na really fast ship, so fire up the MWD or AB and jsut go straight out for a while in a direction where you see no anoms or anything. When you’re about 350-400km out from the gate, make a bookmark.
Now warp within 100km of one of your previous bookmarks on anom but this time make a bookmark when you are in warp around 3/4 of the ways. You can do that, make bookmarks while in warp, in case you didn’t know. Repeat the same for one of your previous anom bookmarks. Dump the old bookmarks except the one 400km off the gate.
You want to make a bookmark for every gate in the system.
Then you repeat this however many systems you need to do it for. if some baddie tries to follow you during this process, warp off to a previous bookmark face away from it and anom, and turn on the proto cloak. Go make yourself a drink, take a leak, alt-tab to watch youtube or whatever. Wait him out.
Now when you travel ,you use those bookmarks, never, ever, warp to a gate from one gate in a straight line into another unless you have local chat and you are the only person in the system. Then, and only then, it may be OK.
As for the ship and fit, it is largely up to you, but you can fit for travel, bring down your aligment time a lot, carry a mobile depot, refit once at your destination. You can choose one of 2 ways, eitehr use 4 warp core stabilizers or inertia stabilizers. Warp core stabilizers will be useless if you are tackled by multiple ships and their combined scram strength will exceed 4, Inertia Stabilizers bring down your alignment time, thus lowering the chance of getting target locked, but an interceptor with a sebo and/or remote boost will still lock you. Also, on a rare occasion you will run into a smartbombing gate camp, not much you can do about it when you come out of a gate. If you are going into a smartbombed gate, then approach at opposite angle of where the smartbombing ship is located in relation to the gate. They have short range and if you have some tank you can make it, you will only take 1-2 cycles before you jump.
Personally I have multiple angle bookmarks on most gates I commonly travel, even some in high sec.
If you do not have bookmarks, at bare minimum use travel fit of one sort or another and zig zag, never approach a gate straight on, always warp from and to a gate at weird angle.
As for the Nereus, I take it your skills are not at level 5s yet ? Its a superb little transport, best T1 in the game because with level 5 skills and 4 T2 Inertia Stabs you get alignment times around just 3 seconds. Sometimes under depending on implants, rest of fit etc. You should be able to almost insta warp in it. Badger is the 2nd best and the otehr 2 kinda suck. I used to jump gatecamps in Nereus and in Iteron Mark V all the time. And I used to gatecamp a lot.
So take it from someone that has quite a bit of experience with gatecamping, do these things, they will make your game a lot easier.
Fluffy, thank you for a most informative and interesting post. I didn’t ask the original question here, but it’s one that’s been on my mind for some time. To see it all laid out so clearly and sensibly is a real boon. (I’ve never been gatecamped yet, but I’ve decided it’s time to ‘spread my wings’ and start taking a few more chances…)
eta: You mention taking skills to level 5 for the Nereus - which skills in particular would provide the most benefit ?
eta2: (sorry for all the afterthoughts…) Can you publish a sample fit for this Nereus please ? In particular, what should Capicitor Depletion time not fall below ?
For the Nereus, the hull itself has a 5% ship agility and cargo space per level, so take that to 5, or at minimum a 4. At 4 you won’t get those super fast align times but will get well under 4 seconds. the otehr skills are general and applicable to all ships. They are good to have no matter what ships you fly.
Basically go to the Navigation skills, put some trainign into warp and anything and everything that gives ship agility and velocity. Make sure your ship agility general skills are at 5. There is also a slot 7 ship agility implant but slot 7 has a lot of good implants for it so not sure if you want to use it.
Also, when setting up your bookmarks, if you do not have T2 interceptors yet, use an Atron, go in empty (no implants) clone and use 3x T1 hyperspacial velocity rigs and 3x (or 4 if it can fit, I forgot how many lows it has) T2 inertia stabilizers. T1 proto cloak, T1 AB and MWD and a T1 cap battery (biggest it will let you fit). You will most likely get blown up sooner or later jumping all those gates and doing all that bookmark stuff but you will lose nothing.
Thanks a lot for your answer, it helped me a lot!!!
I’m not complaining, I’m trying to fly smarter
Yep, I blinged a straitios an I went to null / low sec systems, like I was the boss!
Imagine me with my arm rested in the car window and my doors open driving a Porsche in the worst neighbourhood you can imagine. Yep, that was me in my Stratios lol (still learning) as if that were not enough, instead of warp out I waited at the stargate to see if I could gank the little frigate that was standing there. The result was expected. I know for sure that if I had the intelligence to warp out that never happen there, they could catch me in other Stargate or manage a way to do it, but not on that one. I waited for 30s / 1min …Never thought about that shitty bubble.
But in your publication you mention tricks that make perfect sense.
I’ll try to start doing this.
Some time ago I read somewhere that the Paranoia skill should be 5, do you believe that I went to the skill list to look for Paranoia? Only then I realize what they meant by that.
Thank you very much for your words, sure that will help me a lot in the future!
Didn’t know that, thanks!!
That one I know, zKillboard and Anoik, they are my WH companions!
Thanks!!
ED: Just a reminder, I know how and why I lost my Strations. I was getting upset that I did not understand why I lost 3 more ships in the same way, not the same way, in the case of Stratios it was the bubble, in the other 3 I did not understand why.
I always thought I had a “timer” that would allow me to escape in time, either as an x time invulnerability.
Now I realize that’s not quite the way, which is great, it’s more proof that this game is a set of little details that make all the difference. And it’s another way I can improve my gaming experience!
Just to be sure (it’s a long thread and haven’t read it all).
In EVE the therm “gank” ONLY applies to being attacked in High sec space resulting in the attackers being destroyed by Concord. Any other sort of loss (low sec, null, wardec, duel, suspect killing or whatever else) is thus NOT a gank.
Using the wrong nomenclature results in you getting mixed answers because when people see the word “gank” they expect (and with good reason) it’s actually a gank in EVE terms.
So if you get killed in other ways than what a gank is then don’t call it gank, it’ll just make communication much more difficult and confusing.
) and then, poff,warp bubble while i was cloacked and 10 ships warping to me. This was the first time i waited in a stargate. From that day i never again waited near a stargate, but hell! I’m still loosing ships in stargates.
