Here’s my situation: I’m still fairly new to EVE, started as a miner and ended up in one of those massive corps. The combination of those two almost made me quit. Now a few months down the line I do combat exploration for income, I am skilling up a PVP character for solo zero sec PVP and I have two alpha accounts with different FW characters on it.
I’m not really enjoy FW, it’s not the dying (which I do a lot but that is fine), it’s the endless 5v1 or 10+v1 that gets tedious after a while: “Do you REALLY need 7 T3 destroyers to kill this single alpha Thrasher?”. I understand EVE is not fair and that they did it because they could and wanted to, and that I should join a group myself but that’s not a solution for me. I like things to be more… personal.
I’ve also tried ganking, just super easy stuff and only a few, while it’s hilarious to see it happen it’s not really the type of “fulfilment” I’m looking for. Then I had a discussion with someone on the forums, I checked him out on the killboard and found that he solo kills orca’s and other big stuff in high security space. Clearly NOT doing suicide ganks, he’s NOT at war but somehow making it happen anyway.
So as I’m willing to try out any sort of PVP I sent him a mail asking if he could explain how he does it but after a week or so he still hasn’t responded so here’s my question: How can you do PVP in high security space without ganking or doing a war dec? The mechanics, the details, what is needed. Perhaps some (video) guides.
Make yourself familiar with crimewatch mechanics, and key word “suspect bait”. In highsec outside of wardecs you want to either your victim get suspect (e.g. loot thiefs), or shoot you first while you are suspect (e.g you shot their MTU, stole their stuff).
I am -10 so freely engageable and fly around in my thrasher, often folk shoot me expecting a quick killmail, something which they often receive :). As Tipa said become familiar with crimewatch mechanics.
If you want fun pvp, maybe look for one of the many ROAM PVP fleet groups.
These tend to be a mix of players that join up to fly lowsec or gank CODE gankers.
This might be what you’re looking for and could lead to some good contacts in multiple corps. And as most ROAM groups aren’t corp based you don’t need to join a corp just to fly them.
Actually, while you are at it OP, join the Minerbumping channel in game as well. It is a great resource of experienced players to help you get the nuances of highsec PvP.
Unfortunately wardecs are pretty useless this days and only for structure stuff. It used to be a good tool for actual hunting, but those days are over.
Are you the same person who wrote an email to me how I kill those Orcas?
I reckon Tipa’s post is best. You can have some great fun with mission runners by getting them to aggress you by stealing loot from their wrecks or attacking their MTUs. The only challenge is getting to their mission site which generally requires a scanning ship. Ideally you would run a frigate or destroyer (you don’t want to be scary) with a covops alt.
My income comes from exploration so I do that all the time. I don’t know how different or more difficult it is to scan for players compared to cosmic sigs but the basic understanding is there.
There are various things you can do. But almost all of them require the other party to shoot first, and it is pretty tricky to get that done.
You will need to make people angry otherwise they have no reason to attack you.
You will need to make yourself vulnerable to attack by being suspect or having a kill right etc. to present an opportunity to get back at you, otherwise they will not attach you.
You will need to appear vulnerable and make the other party think they are in a better position and can crush you easily, otherwise they will not attack you.
You obviously need a plan to get the upper hand and kill them while simultaneously be aware that at any time random neutrals can show up and help the target kill you instead.
Anyway. Carebears and Nullbears always say highsec PvP is super easy, so maybe ask some of those people how to pull that off
While I’ve never done this myself, I’ve often dealt with or just observed those that do, and the short answer is that it boils down to a combination of social engineering and a good understanding of game mechanics in general, and Crimewatch in particular, which are quite complex.
An example of the use of the game mechanics for this would be suspect baiting in some ship to get a limited engagement, then bringing an alt in an Orca or a Bowhead to switch to another ship in space.
The social engineering part is the most interesting, though. A simple example would be having a friend or an alt engage you while you’re suspect to make your target believe he has a good chance to kill you together, but it can be much more complex than that. There are players that go as far as managing to trick their victims to suicide gank them in their expensive ships, which causes the victim not only to lose that ship, but then also yet another one sometime later because of the KR.
While we are at the social engineering part, the forum is part of it, and people like me read carefully. I remember all the Abyss runners talking about 4/5s with their mains while you still got a suspect flag, or this one guy with the Abyssal fit Nereus posting a video with his fit.
