EVE is the closest thing we got to that era. Its why I am so pro-ganking even if I don’t gank myself.
UO died in a series of slow nerfs that culminated in a PvE/PvP split.
Stuff only matters if you can lose it.
1 Like
Some employ an unrealistic tactic of surrounding themselves with ore deposits to A: do less. B: somehow create an area of cloaked vessel detection
A: lazy
B: a clocked spotter can easily bookmark from any distance on grid then return w fleet to pay a visit
Answer: people need to create strategies and fit ships to counter friendly visits ftom someone like me… at least give me a challenge.
Space is dangerous. And from day one, I understood that undocking was a risk to loosing a ship to another player. Regardless of the security status of the system.
I think a lot of players back in the day understood this simple concept.
But somewhere along the way, in a temporal sense, this has been lost. I blame the entitlement and instant gratification mentality that plagues today’s player base. I mean, look at the success of micro-transactions. That BS preys on that mentality. But I digress.
That’s a sad and slow death. It seems EvE has done a pretty good job stymieing this. It’s a constant push-me-pull-you game between the pve and pvp community that CCP walks, not to mention the monetary factor that will always win.
Who knows. All I know is, as things evolve, I evolve my gameplay to keep up.
Isn’t that the truth.
I’m one that thinks that new players should dip their toes into all sorts of different gameplay aspects of EvE, including high sec ganking. One never knows what they will enjoy unless they try it at least once.
That’s why I encourage new players to ninja salvage and/or ninja loot right out of the gate as another form of “mining.” If they don’t like it, they can move on. But at least give it a shot.
I miss stealing ore from jet cans hehe.
I reckon it’s sht that cov ops and blops having to decloak before targeting is the same as a rogue needing to unstealth to target.
That’s some carebear sht right there and my main pet peeve in this game.
Cloak gameplay is are already heavily in favour of the ships with cloaks. Cloaky bombers can target someone before most of them can react, other cloaky ships usually manage to catch players as well. Cloaked ships really don’t need to be able to target ships while cloaked.
And I say that as someone who spends a lot of time in all sorts of cloaky ships.
I disagree but then I’ve barely even used my blops or cov ops yet 
Give it a try! Cloaky gameplay is a lot of fun, especially if you have a group to regularly form fleets with.
So, here’s my question. It’s simple and probably stupid, but I too have quit because I can’t take the ganking. How does any of this matter when the very first indication that somebody is on you is their warp disrupter. I took a stabilizer with me the second time, which gave me something pretty to click while they burned my second barge in 24 hours to cinders. (warp core stabilizer appears to be useless)
Seriously, though, besides fleeing every time somebody enters local, how do you know somebody’s on you before they kill your warp drive?
You should probably learn how to use your d-scanner. That is your first line of defense. Look it up on eve university.
Also, a warp stabilizer gives a +2 to warp core strength, which nullifies one warp core scrambler (-2).
If there is more than 2 warp core scramblers pointed on you, it’s worthless.
They also don’t do anything against bumping.
Also note that warp scramblers will shut down microwarp drives where as warp disruptors will not.
I see you were mining in low sec. Risky, but valuable ores there and with the right precautions you might stay alive.
-
Have local chat open in a separate window at all times. Anyone in system with you while you are mining in low sec is a potential threat, so if a new name appears, be on guard and start aligning somewhere safe.
-
Do not mine at the warp-in point, that is where the baddies will likely land once they spot you on d-scan. Mining a few dozen KM away from this point means you will often see baddies on your overview before they can warp disrupt you.
-
D-scan, like Ax_l_Thorne said, is your first defence. D-scan is your eyes. You do not need to spam it all the time (like you would in wormhole space), but do use it when you do not trust the people in local with you. New name just joined? D-scan at max range. It’s a Stabber fleet issue, which might be dangerous for your mining ship, again, align out and repeatedly d-scan at short 1 AU range. Stabber fleet issue appears on 1 AU scan? You warp off before they can land.
Sadly d-scan will only help you in some cases, such as when you lost your Retriever to the Stabber fleet issue. D-scan will not warn you about people using covops cloaks, like the Pacifier that got your other Retriever.
Against covops ships like that you have much less chance to react - they do have a small 5s delay before they can start targeting you (unless it’s a bomber), so if you aligned when their name appeared in local and if you immediately warped off when you noticed them decloak, you might have saved your second Retriever as well.
What I cannot tell from that second killmail is whether the Osprey Navy Issue or the Pacifier tackled you first. It is possible that the Pacifier got within range of you cloaked and that the ONI warped to his buddy directly in your range, skipping both the ‘do not mine at warp-in point’ defence and the decloak targeting delay. But in that case you would have seen the ONI coming on your short D-scan as sign to warp off.
Also, consider using a Venture instead of Retriever, they are cheaper to lose and harder to catch.
2 Likes
You were in low sec. It isn’t ganking at that point, but just PvP.
If you’re not used to pre-aligning, bookmarks, D-scan, using warp core stabs, fitting for Higgs, mining in quiet systems with no through-traffic (Naguton and Sadha don’t meet this), and aggressively researching each person’s zKillboard, then use a venture instead and practice with that.
In a quiet system, yes you really do warp away when anyone besides you is in local.
1 Like
Thanks everyone for your prompt and helpful responses. A few followups if I may:
- DSCAN - just do 180@14? And what am I looking for? I’ve only ever used it to scan anomalies.
- What is bumping?
- How do I get ships to show up on my overview? I added all ships to the mining tab, but I have yet to see anything in overview – is there a way to make a player ship show up at the top?
- What is a Stabber fleet?
- How were you able to look up my kill report? Seems like a useful study guide to look up kill reports on other people.
- I did see him show up in local - just one guy. Security rating of 2.38. He started killing my warp drive before his buddy got in the system, so I know it was him. So how does this guy keep a high sec rating if he’s nuking barges? I’m very confused on that point.
One more - how do I find “quiet” systems? I check kill rates, but don’t know how to see who’s in there until I arrive. Is there a way to do that?
I’m gonna be lazy to avoid typing an essay. I recommend watching one of the many videos on the subject, example (NOTE: you may want to read up on my Overview answer below first and do that first, before following a D-Scan tutorial):
When one ship physically runs into another ship in game. They’re kind of like floaty submarines the way they bounce off each other. Notably, it alters your velocity vector, which is a fancy way of saying “if you were trying to align out to warp, you ain’t aligned anymore, so you ain’t close to warpin’ anymore”.
Most people use standardized overviews like Z-S Overview. See the Eve Uni page on it. For Z-S specifically, you’d join the Z-S Overview chat channel in-game and follow the MOTD (message of the day, or the text that shows when you join the channel) which has instructions how to install it.
You’ll wind up with multiple tabs in your overview. That lets you have clean tabs: one for travel, one for mining, one for ships, etc.
However, if you can see a ship on your overview while mining in low sec, it is probably already too late!
Slang for Stabber Fleet Issue aka SFI.
Go to https://zkillboard.com/
Search either:
- A System’s name like “Amarr” to see kills in the Amarr system; or
- A person’s name, like “Thorus Gallen” to see kills related to that pilot.
NOTE: zKillboard does NOT have every single kill/loss in the game. But it has enough to be very useful. See its FAQ for more info.
If you look up “Io Koval” you’ll see my security rating is also around 2. Yet my killboard shows a lot of piracy actions in lowsec. This is because security rating doesn’t tell you anything about a pilot’s intentions, at all.
It’s just a number that indicates:
- How many pirate NPCs they’ve killed; or
- How many special tag items they’ve bribed CONCORD with;
- The above minus
- Their previous actions that were “illegal” for the space they were in.
If you see someone with a 5.0 security rating, nothing prevents them from deciding to do an “illegal” maneuver in the game as if they were a -10 (the lowest rating). Again, it is not a number that reflects a pilot’s good/bad intentions, it is just a resource that pirates spend to avoid certain consequences if it gets too low – though many pirates opt not to care.
If you don’t know about Dotlan then you should bookmark it. Many people find it way more readable than the in-game map, and it reflects the same information. The link I provided shows the ship/pod kill count over a 24 hour period. Or you could look at “number of jumps per 24 hours” to see the traffic through a system. You can use it to get raw hard data, and cross-reference it with lowsec systems (or high-sec systems, some of which are dangerous).
But really, what it comes down to is just being in the space, scouting it out, seeing who passes through. After enough days you’ll get to know who is a regular, who is not, and deduce their intentions. Mark people or corporations that are hostile by “Add Contact” and “Bad Standing”, keep notes in the notes tab on a pilot on why they are bad standing.
There is no objective way to say “this is a quiet system” nor “this is not a quiet system”. It comes down to evaluating the risks you take and trying to minimize them.
That’s why I suggested starting with a venture first – it lets you bootstrap your local on-the-ground knowledge, risking very little, and seeing who the locals are.
Finally: I shouldn’t be the one telling you this. I heartily recommend you joining a corporation that strives to educate new players. If you take anything away from this long-ass post, this is the best advice I can offer.
For example, Eve Uni is a well-known and reputable place for this. There are others but I don’t know of them. A good corporation will help answer these more readily than I. You’ll be surrounded by people who can quickly dispense this knowledge, faster than the forums. They’ll also let you form player bonds and build trust with like-minded individuals. Because the universe is cutthroat and defaults to there being no trustworthiness, don’t take what I say for granted, find a different party you trust to affirm (or rebuke) the advice I’ve given. For perhaps I am misleading you, because you don’t know my intentions, mwahahaha.
Hope this helps.
3 Likes
You wrote an essay good sir.
As a low sec scum sucking pirate myself, I’ll add one more thing.
Set your d-scanner up to scan for combat probes. You see those suckers pop out on d-scan, you know someone is on the hunt. And if you see them close in on you (by systematically decreasing amu range) it’s time to boogie out.
1 Like
- Defensively I use D-scan in two modes.
By default I use it as my eyes to see who is around me and want to see everything there is: maximum range, max angle (360 degrees, 14 AU) ,
or if I want to know if someone is warping in to my area I’ll do a short range scan: maximum angle and 1 AU instead of 14.
What you are looking for is ships to appear, specifically dangerous ships. If I see an Epithal appear I will assume someone is doing their PI. If I see an Imicus appear I’ll assume someone nearby is doing exploration. If I see a Stabber Fleet Issue appear, I know it’s a combat ship. And if it also appears on my 1 AU scan, it’s time for me to warp somewhere safe.
One more defensive use of D-scan is to check a gate or station for camps. If the location is within 14 AU, you can set your angle to 5 degrees and range on maximum and hold the d-scan button while you click on the gate or station. You will now get a d-scan of the ships that are in line and most likely on that station/gate.
Bumping is when you move your ship into another ship. There will be no damage, but you can push other ships into a direction they might not want to go.
This way you can push them while they’re tring to align somewhere to warp off, which stops them from warping, or you can push them from the safety of tether from a player owned structure. Or if they’re trying to burn towards a gate you can push them away.
There are overview tutorials online, might be good to look one of those up.
Or ask ingame in one of the (rookie) help channels if they have a link to the ‘Z-S overview’ channel, which will explain you how to set up good filters for your overview. That’s the one I use myself.
Benefit: overview filter packs usually also have good filters for your d-scanner.
It’s a Stabber Fleet Issue, the ship that caught your Retriever in low sec earlier: Retriever | Thorus Gallen | Killmail | zKillboard
It’s Zkillboard, with kill reports like I linked just above, a very useful website that tracks all of the kills that people (automatically) upload. Most of the kills will show up there, even if you yourself didn’t give the website access to your kill reports yet your kills showed up because the other guys who killed you did, or maybe your corporation did.
It’s one of my most used EVE information sources, it helps to know what types of ships people fly, it helps to see if someone is dangerous, it helps to find the kind of fit they might fly on their ships, or just to find inspiration for a fit for a new ship.
You were mining in low sec, where players are allowed to fight other players. They only lose security rating if they kill your pod, but attacking your ship is without penalties.
If you stay in high sec (system security of 0.5 and above) people will lose security status if they attack your ship illegally. Additionally, they will lose their ship to CONCORD if they do so, which is the space police in high sec. Low sec is more dangerous and allows more PvP, but on a positive side the ores there are much more valuable, because not a lot of people want to mine dangerously.
No problem! I’ll gladly help if you want to know more, feel free to ask here or with a mail ingame if there is more you want to know.
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.