Skill Discussions

Low-sec and null-sec space are relatively lawless territories.

Entering into those spaces is agreeing to the risk of being blown up in the hopes of getting greater rewards.

I'm not sure what you're asking with regards to balance, though. Where is the balance issue, and what would be your thoughts toward improving that balance?

The exploration in Eve can be amazing. I don't even do proper exploration but still find the most incredible things floating out there in the depths of space.

I get blown up constantly, have lost countless thousands of isks to gate campers, station campers, warp bubbles, etc, but I don't get mad because I knew the risk when I entered low-sec.

The old adage is "Don't fly what you can't afford to lose" Not just isk-wise, but emotionally. If you simply can't handle losing ships, don't go into low-sec alone. Find a corp, find a buddy, find another route.

While youre skilling up for your Helios try this>>>
Hope this works\helps.

Hey thanks, I will give it a shot :)

If you're being caught in gate camps flying a helios you're doingitwrong.com

You should have a covert ops cloak fitted which means you can warp WHILE CLOAKED giving the gatecampers no chance at all to lock you unless you have the manual dexterity of a hippopotamus.

Thanks heaps everyone, I appreciate the tips. I will take it all on board and give it another shot. Managed to get clear of a few camps last night. I guess I'll just keep practicing :)

Ahh the inevitable elitist post, lets see, you have been playing a long time and a forum elder, so that gives you the rights to a smart Alec response.

A: This is very subjective and contrary to the theme of the game, read the history and it is supposed to be as much about exploration as it is combat, or have you forgotten?
B: Head in the clouds hey, heh yep I do that a lot, fly around with my eyes closed.
C: And this is relevant to game balance, combat vs exploration how?
D: See point A, and... more suited to me hey. OK so any opinion that differs from yours, meh, just go play elsewhere?

Mate, just so you know, I am 52 in a couple of months, have worked in the IT industry or in tech work all my life, Married, 4 grown kids and have been playing games since commander keen was the ducks guts, before actually. I have been an active participant in forums for decades. and can remember what a big deal it was when I installed winsock and netscape navigator on windows 3.1 to enable my first GUI browser for the net. Wow no more telneting into ftp.funet.fi, unless I was playing a MUD.
So while I am a newb to Eve and this forum, I am no idiot. Blind Freddy can see that there is a clear bias towards combat and large groups of players, as compared to folk like myself that prefer exploration and solo play. I was simply asking here if there was something I am missing, in the hope that I may be be able to enjoy the game mythology and the hints of hidden wonders such as ways in and out of Jove and so on. Have you forgotten.........., here is a reminder...

Unfortunately, the stabilizer was too little too late. In 8061, just 74 years after the wormhole’s discovery, it collapsed quite spectacularly, cutting the fledgling cluster entirely off from Earth and its desperately needed support. The effect near the site of the gate was absolutely devastating. Any ships nearby were completely destroyed, and even in the modern day, the site of the Gate remains a maelstrom of energy that only the most dedicated explorers even attempt to approach. Rumor has it that the remains of Terran ships can be found in and around the Gate, supposedly with technology far advanced from what we have available today. The Jove (discussed a little later in this section, but suffice it to say that they are the fifth major, but completely isolated, empire of New Eden), according to that same rumor, have cloaked the wreckage to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. The Jove deny it, of course, but that doesn’t stop people from looking and spreading the rumors.

http://freebooted.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/mark726s-eve-lore-survival-guide.html

There are plenty of other breadcrumbs when you do a little reading too.

Now as a newb I have no idea if this and other stuff I have read is just rubbish, or genuine hints for the explorer. But it looked like fun to go hunting for clues, particularly when I found the Jove empire seems cut off from the rest of Eve space. So forgive me for wanting to enjoy eve lore somewhat, in lieu of being just another knuckdragging gate camper that is too lazy to do any real game-play other than blowing up newbs and unarmed explorers for a quick lazy buck. Call me old fashioned but spending my Eve time camped with friends at a 0.4 gate zapping whoever comes through is not my idea of a good way to enjoy my game time.
And it seems to me, my $15/month is as good as anyone else s here.

And by the way, I just got killed yet again, I was cloaked and wandering round in a -0.3 as I have been all night, warped over to the next gate right into a warp bubble, bang dead by camper again. Ail i was asking for was a little game balance, what is a handful of explorers in the tens of thousands of players here. Very frustrating. and in my opinion very unbalanced game play.

Skip the gatecamps: use wormholes.

Yes I did think about that. Are some wormholes permanent, I know some seem to dissapear. I have sort of avoided them of late as each time I went in and found a relic site I got nailed by drones. If there are permanent ones I guess It would make sense to map some to get in and out of places..
I will give that a bit of a try tonight if I can work out if some are permanent.
Thanks for the tip.

Who exactly had the bright idea to make ships appear within 15KM of gates after jumping?
A single bubble will always cover the entire area you can appear in.

Was this actually intentional, and by that, I mean an actual CCP statement somewhere.

It would seem far more logical for that spawn area to be MUCH larger, so that more people and bubbles - ie more effort is needed with much larger holes in the net.

The big catch of EVE is that it's actually a challenging game once you start venturing outside hisec. You can read up on stuff and ask, but in the end you just have to get the first hand experience. Unfortunately this tends to involve a fair amount of the good old getting blown up, but luckily it's only pixels and pride that get hurt :) There's a lot of "first times" in EVE, so many ways to lose a ship!

All bubbles are visible on dscan, but dscan has a limited range, max 14.35 AU. Unless you have travel bookmarks, you need to open your map and locate a celestial that is safe to warp to and in dscan range of your outgate. Warping at 100km to the gate still lands you in the bubble, you'd need to have a bookmark further from the gate to avoid getting dragged into near certain death. In general warping straight from gate to gate in nullsec is a really bad idea, especially long warps tend to have the complementary bubble trap set up to catch lazy travelers.

You could equip the Imicus with ECM (jamming) drones, the ubiquitous Hornet ECM-300. Sicking them on the enemy might jam him, buying you enough time to get out of the bubble and warp off. Might, they operate according to Murphy's law and usually only work against you, not when you need them (ECM is binary, random mechanic).

Also note that frigates, due to their low mass, don't end up deep in the bubble. Actually they land barely inside it. Therefore the best choice is to align back to where you came from, the shortest way out. MWD+cloak trick might work, depending on what ship you are facing.

I split my game time between lowsec exploration and PVP, and personally find the general game mechanics hugely in favour of the explorer. Once you learn to handle yourself, you'll become nearly untouchable by the average hunter.

IMHO there's two reasons for getting killed in EVE- you do something really stupid, or the opponent simply outplays you. What I mean that the game itself is balanced, and the subjectively felt imbalances stem from different levels of player competence and experience.

Good luck!