i try multiple random wormholes and it’s maybe second site before i have scanner probes out near me, i warped off on a relic site before opening last container and as i was warping off 3 players/ships uncloaked (too slow/greedy)
another time i go to/try a low sec system next to high and again very second signature and there’s sister of eve combat probes and a T3 cruiser/battlecruiser near me, i escape to a safe spot and see the probes again in a minute or so, so then i grab my stuff and go to an adjacent low sec system and 15min later that same T3 legion with sisters of eve combat probes - hunting a base Omen in 0.3 low sec (LOL)
i get to safe and see probes again so get ready to leave, but then jumping through the gate am finally scrambled/ganked, by 2 other people/ships. they killed a base omen with 1 combat anomaly of loot, i said i hope it was worth in local.
so i used random safe points and regularly D-scanned (otherwise i’d have died much more than just the once in all that) yet getting heads up to escape danger - when it comes around every 15min or so and then being scrambled/hit on gates and generally trying PvE content altogther as a solo player - seems kind of pointless
so there isn’t even a “git gud” angle, is this game just not solo player friendly?
(why are random players even seemingly around the entire world looking to gank base PvE’rs even in low sec within 15min or so. please tell me they’re wanting to protect those sigs to farm themselves and aren’t just super bored.)
i’m guessing you mean the second you step outside of high sec no matter where it is, you’re supposed to pay someone for the privilege?
and you’re meant to know and find these with a random local chat box only?
or spend hours online researching who, where and how much?
either way then the answer to my question based off this is no, there is no point trying to play the game if wanting to do solo pve content outside of high sec
Depends why you play… and where. Lots of things can be done solo if you’re patient and informed. More reliance on scout alts and exploration for intel on each system past highsec. Use external tools. Don’t fly blind.
Maybe the hunt is the game for them and by the sounds of it you gave them a good chase. Can you do solo pve outside of hisec? Yes, but you have to either have the mindset of a rabbit in a forest full of wolves OR have good evasion skills (which it sounds like you are honing already).
This game has PvP and you are wondering why you cannot go into a specific pvp zone and just do your own thing. They wonder the same about why they cannot just kill with no consequences in hisec (probably).
It can be done but you may have to gain skills in choosing where to play in this place we call New Eden.
Find out what tz is “dead” for the area. Ninjya ratting on US time in a US TZ crew goes not as well as ninjya ratting US TZ…in a crew who is more OCE/Euro based.
Or vice versa.
Also look at their politics and wars. If they road tripping for the night, their space may be slower. I ninjya ratted in the days when blobs played more often.
90%+ of the alliance is bashing crap far away.
Those still in garrison/home space were usually the space poors down to last isk and ships. They weren’t in a rush to lose that last ship usually. They wanted to pve as much as you did.
While someone else mentioned external tools, the in game map also has information you can use to find areas that are slower. Will tell you how many ships died in the system, how many pods died, how many npcs were killed, how many gate jumps, ect. With those sorts of metrics, you can somewhat gauge how busy a system is.
Another option, is to use a filament that will take you to quiet nullsec. You can then filament back to pochven and then back to known space, or try to slow boat your way back to empire from nullsec.
If you’re omega, you can fit a cloak to your ship and just wait them out when they come searching for you.
pvp players mostly are just looking for the kill, they don’t care about the loot as that’s just a bonus.
Another factor you mentioned was your proximity to high sec when you were pveing. The deeper you are into areas the quieter it can become, usually the areas close to high sec are prime hunting grounds for people exactly like you and what youre doing. Also areas near trade hubs are more heavily populated.
But as Hyrja said finding off hours is very handy. Intel is life in this game. Who, what, where, why, how are all good questions to ask yourself. Often if I was going to go into an area Id scope it out for a few days to a week ahead of time to get an intel overview of who lives there and at what hours/timezones etc and what they do there.
Yes, PvPers are hanging around pretty bored and looking for something to kill. And they don’t get a lot of easy targets so yes, they stick to and follow the few they do find.
Part of the issue is likely based in your process: it sounds like you’re starting in high, then scanning for WHs or jumping to low sec from high. Basically what’s happening is you’re running in the “border patrol”. For hunters, the WHs and low sec systems that cross to high, and that are nearer hubs, travel routes, mission systems and other common destinations - those are the hunting grounds. Specifically because base PvE’rs are more likely to jump to those systems than to ones farther off the beaten path.
You did pretty well, kept your awareness up, watched your d-scan etc and then got caught by a gate camp because you were jumping blind. Again, near a border route. (Which are the primary locations to gate camp.)
You could perhaps use map tools like https://evemaps.dotlan.net and the in-game starmap to find systems of low activity, low kills, low jumps etc that are farther away from the easy borders. Hunters gather where the prey makes a trail - look for somewhere harder to reach.
Yes, there’s a point to doing solo PvE outside of high sec - you just have to be smarter than the average (care)bear.
All you have to do is open your map, filter systems by jumps traveled, and find a quiet area with little daily traffic in it. There are literally entire clusters of low-sec systems that get less than two dozen jumps a day.
Also, running into players in wormholes is astronomically rare these days, unless you’re finding your way in from a populated high-sec area that’s likely to be watched by other players. Even when wormhole dwelling was at its peak during the first few years, I could go days between seeing traffic in the wormholes I owned. Today, there’s maybe only 1% of the player population that steps foot in them at all.
In truth what you came up to was too intense and likely to result in a loss. You have to find out of the way lowsec systems with no one in it and setup safe’s dotted around to avoid being scanned. Look for places with a incursion, save the entrance to those sites, then come back afterwards. Adjust them with a random direction to be ultra sure. Pre-preparation is key.
Refine log off, keep D-scanning and try to count how long the probes were first on D-scan, if more than four seconds +/- 1 you might be compromised when logging in, so have a second character in a cheapo ship that can scout for you if you have only one account to check the system before you log in, but there are a whole lot of stealth games around that too, I speak as a hunter and as one who avoided people too, though my hunting was mainly on people in our space.
Logging off is perhaps the best way, but another option to escape is filaments, though they might have changed since I stopped playing.
Makes safe’s as you warp and be prepared to warp to them and discard as you use them, look for different things to warp to, be careful of anomalies because people make guesses in fast tackle., do not warp at 0 or 100 if they know the direction.
In truth it can be a lot of fun, but it also can be super annoying if you want to just chill, but this is in fact the game.
You sound like you are good at it, but gates are always a bummer, you need scouts and while another character on the same account is usable it has weaknesses, this is why I only play Eve with two accounts and why I am no longer playing.
@Whiskiz_IronScrotum
I’d say you did rather well on those sorties, so you seem to have your basics and even a little more.
As @Rail_J_kar said, take the less obvious roads into your target area, be it wh or low/null space. Either use filaments, drifter holes, or k-space/k-space connections when you find those. But never think that any gate or any wh connecting to highsec will not be monitored.
For nullsec specifically, like @Destiny_Corrupted and @Kezrai_Charzai mentioned, there’s plenty of info on sovereignity (“is the space owned and by whom”), movements and pvp activity, either on the in-game map and on external websites and tools. Those exist both for the hunter and the hunted.
For wh space, always go a few layers deeper into the chain, away from that hisec connection, before you even start to be active. Make plenty of bm’s on holes, safes etc.
In response to your question: sure, you can do solo pve outside of hisec. Quite a few love it and do it daily.
Well, indeed the answer might be: “You can do it, but it’s just not worth the trouble.” And that is the answer for a fair number of people, as can be seen by EVE’s player population over the last 10 years.
EVE is a niche game with various even smaller niches within it. PvP is actually one of the smaller niches in EVE. So do it if you find entertainment in “I’m going to go do my thing, and if I have to find ways and use methods to outwit/evade/deal with bored gankers, then so be it.”
It’s a level of challenge and risk you won’t find in many other games. And there are various ways to achieve those goals. You could potentially even consider joining a PvP corp and learning how they work, for instance.
On the other hand, it’s also perfectly valid to just say “Yeah sorry no, not my thing.” There’s little reason to play a game that’s more nuisance than entertainment for you.
Looks like you’ve had 10 years to find out…as your account goes way back to 2013.
And yes, there is a ‘git gud’ angle, which consists of scouting, travelling about to find less frequented lowsec systems, and things like docking up and pretending to have logged off ( which I also use in highsec to foil choke point scouts ). The pretend logoff is one of my favourite tactics.
i played briefly when made the account, got to level 4 security/pirate missions then tried some light scanning and got bored and that was it
only just come back a week or so ago to try again
research different system activity, research different players and corps, research their play timezones and eating habits, multiboxing/scouting, logging off and on, sitting afk in stations, multiple safe locations extensively considered for positioning, jump deep through multiple wormholes while hoping none of them close/get “rolled”, spam d-scan button, use filaments that take you god knows where, go yourself way out to random places that gl with getting your loot back from - etc
just to do some basic/low sec pve content, and not get ganked in 15min with T3 scanning and ships from multiple parties
