Warfare & Tactics

They are just scanning you down. Watch dscan for probes.

http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Combat_Probing_101

14.3 AU range + 5 degree dscan settings is a powerful thing. Helps you pinpoint what is in a celestial.

Yep, its on dotlan.

This is probably one of those cases where another new player is cursed by the default UI settings. The one thing CCP could easily fix that would have more impact on new player experience than anything else.

First, your overview probably filled up with their drones and your d-scan littered with objects that are of no interest, there were only actually 2 players that engaged you. Im sure someone can link you to the best advice on how to un**** your overview and best settings for your activities.

Second, spacial awareness. If im hunting for targets, i enter a system and do a full d-scan. This is the window that CCP saw fit to hide away to the left of your hit point gauge in one of the fancy 'more mouse clicks than ever' menus. Once the d-scanner is open (it should never be closed, btw) and a full 14.3 AU 360° scan is done you will see anyone in space within that range. Be aware that planets, gates and players further than 14.3 AU will not appear on this scan. In larger systems its often good to open the map and see which celestial are most likely to be central and yield a more comprehensive scan.

Once a ship has been found, its a trivial matter of using the range and angle slider to narrow down which planet the target is at. Its important to note that a 5° scan will show you a result relative to your ship from the perspective of your pc monitors view point. It makes no difference what direction your ship is pointed. Once arriving at the planet its once again trivial to narrow down the d-scan to a particular moon, belt or station. Though with experience you tend to know beforehand which of those your target is likely to be at.

Your d-scan will show any ship that can see you. UNLESS, they did all the d-scanning with a cloaky ship, and got the cloaky ship close to yo for a warp in. This way, if the hostiles start out of d-scan range they will arrive on your scan only moments before they arrive next to you and say hi.

D-scan is pretty much the be all and end all of both finding and evading other players. Once you have organized your overview, i would recommend getting your head around that. The rest of eve becomes a lot easier at that point.

It's easy to find a belt ratter even without d-scan just by warping to a belt, checking wrecks for the corp ticker, checking local to see if anyone matching the ticker is still in system, then going belt to belt. Even a target who runs dscan constantly, stays aligned out and pops wrecks to stay stealthy can still be trapped by a cloaked tackle ship waiting at the next belt in the sequence.

First, thanks for all the come-backs, it was all helpful. But the big take-away, for me, is the big eye opener call the dscan. I never did look at it, except for the rookie tuts when we were doing the scan down missions, and really, I thought it was just for probe scanning. But then I spent more than just a few minutes working with it and it's like a whole new world.

Again, thanks for the help and the eye-opener.

I'm slowly coming to the opinion that if I ever make a PvP kill it'll probably be an accident, on both our parts.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/21jpd6/sarashawa_overview_pack/

I find that pack to be a good way to quickly get your overview setup in a useful manner.

As for people hunting you, there is the possibility that they are hunting you specifically by using location agents.. If you keep being jumped by the same people, this is what's happening as they know you are a reliable victim. I don't know how often this happens without a grudge though.

Did not know that, although, if I make the kill with one of my ships with a salvage fit I like to "clean up my mess"; loot and salvage as it's just a cool thing to do.

Interesting. I should point out that when I hunt ratters, I do not care who they are; if I see a ship in a belt which I think I can kill, I dive in for the attack.

Actually catching ratters and miners generally requires one to move very quickly. I don't worry about whether or not there are wrecks.

I do count on the ratter not being pvp fit, and am surprised when they are. But I'm not sure that shooting wrecks makes one any more safe. I've never stopped to check a wreck, and I don't jump to a belt unless I am engaging a target therein. But maybe I am particularly aggressive.

By the way, it takes me about 15 seconds to figure out which belt you are in, given that the system isn't particularly huge. Add 10 seconds for each cluster of belts out of dscan range from the gate. Therefore, running to your safespot immediately when a stranger enters system is the best thing you can do, survival-wise.

You're assuming your aggressor cares that you're fighting rats.

They don't. They're just trying to find you. They don't care if you're fighting rats or doing cartwheels through the belt with your underpants on backwards.