EVE New Citizens Q&A

OK so I got podded again in low sec, Clearly I'm am missing something because i have read time and time again that you should not be podded (or rarely be podded), while in low sec if you are aligned, spamming the warp key whatever.

I was delivering some goods to a station and some guy is circling around waiting for an easy mark (read ... me). I'm being pulled into the station when I notice him and I start spamming the dock key. I get wasted in no time, I continue to spam the dock key but I'm just sitting there, the station isn't pulling me in, I'm a sitting duck. Bam. I'm podded.

So what is going on here, it never takes that much time to get pulled into a station, I don't even think he had a warp disrupter on me and I started the docking process the moment I warp in at 0 meters the moment I saw him.

I'm not as worried about the ship or the cargo (it was my stuff and you take you chances) but what is the deal with the pod just sitting there not getting towed in to the station? Should I have warped somewhere else? How do you practice this stuff?

Also kill rights, am I right that while fending off an attack you have to have the wherewithal to click on the person and activate your kill rights before they blow you up? That sounds absurd, as if there aren't a billion things running though your mind at the time or have to think "by golly I'll just take time out from trying to dock and and save my ship \ pod and activate my kill rights.

Look I don't mind getting Killed, and I'm not whining, I just want to figure out how anyone gets around in low sec in one piece. My track record is three times I have ventured into low sec, got podded two times. I just want to get my average up :) .

Also what is cloaking good for? I mean you can warp with int unless you are in certain ships and there are so many restrictions on when you can cloak that other then warping some place, cloaking and then puttering around at 3/4 speed it's really pretty much worthless.

Any tips will be appreciated ...

Dose the session timer start before you get destroyed? Because he got in a volley and I just sat there (although in the heat of the moment I my not have noticed the warp disruptor icon on me).
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Killrights - if he podded you in low sec you will have a killright against him. Provided you didn't shoot back during the ship kill and grant him a limited engagement timer which would have persisted and allowed him to pod you.

Check your character sheet there is a tab on the left side one of the ones close to the bottom called "Kill rights".

Don't try to use them, you will be unlikely to be able to kill him as a noob and the moment you engage you will grant him a limited engagement timer and allow him to shoot back, so he will likely kill you again.

Instead consider selling them. First do a show info on him, if his security status is worse than -5.0 he is already flashy in highsec. Don't bother going any further, waste of time. If he isn't permanently flashy, view him on Eve-Kill, Z-Kill or Battleclinic to see if he operates in high sec much. If you don't see many recent kills/losses in high sec put the rights up for sale for 10M Isk, he will probably buy them himself to get rid of them. If you see a lot of high sec activity, put them up for sale at 50M Isk. That will make life difficult for him.

Sadly a lot of killrights are never collected. Don't hold your breath.

Also to take into consideration.

If you spam the warp button you risk causing client lag. This will keep you in place longer then you would like and then podded.

This.


EVE servers run on 1Hz ticks...so there is no need to spam the button 100 times in a second, as it will have to process 99 "useless" clicks.

Personally, I tend to just click about once or twice a second.

you dont want to be or need to be too close - every station has an invisible docking ring where you are considered to be at zero on the station even though you are actually away from the station. The size of this ring does vary. When you make a docking bm - you want to place it somewhere within the ring - preferably in a spot that is far away from the undock (because that is where folk are likely to camp) - without being so close that you risk bumping off the station. BTW a kick out station is a station that has a very small docking ring - essentially you undock and because of your undocking speed you are outside of docking range before you can stop your ship. Kick out stations are very dangerous in lowsec as they are frequently camped. Also that session timer you experienced also can screw you up on gates - if you get killed on a gate - dont try to jump your pod immediately - it wont work - warp away then back to the gate - if thats the direction you need to go.

The overview will say you are 0km from the station if you are within the ring. It is not something that shows in space, though you can imagine it as a bubble that encloses the entire station model including the sticky-out bits.

While we are on the subject, there are other things you should never do in a pod just after you lose your ship because they also require session changes - jumping through gates and wormholes. If you've lost your ship, always, always, always, warp out your pod before you do anything else (even if you are within the docking ring or jump radius of a gate).

I think this is the bingo information i have been lacking. I thought one was just as good as the other ... no wonder I keep getting podded ... Thanks ...

Do not set up the docking BM as close as possible to the actual station. You can land in any position within a 2.5 Km radius sphere of that bookmark. If you set it too close you will sometimes land inside the station and then be bounced out, potentially right out of the docking ring.

The docking ring often extends 10 Kms or more, plenty of room to set up your BM within it, in most cases.

You cannot see the docking ring anywhere, only the range to the station, while you are inside the docking ring the range to the station will stay at zero. But you can see when you have left it. It is a good idea to drive back and forth testing where the docking ring ends before positioning your BM.

Regarding kick out stations, a lot of Minmatar stations are kick out. These have a sort of launch ramp that pokes out to the edge of the docking ring. However, they still have a big docking ring above and below the station to set up your docking BM.

Yes there are a lot of station models and learning their docking rings is a PITA. But when you have you get to take advantage of them against the lazy who just trusted to chance.

Three points.

First, you need to be within 250 meters of a station in order to dock. You can still get a docking permission, but for it to be accepted, you need to basically be like within 300, 250 meters next to the station.

Second, when you warp to a station, you do not always warp to 0. There is always some error room, and you can be up to 2500 meters from it, which means that your ship could be slowboating the 2200 or so meters it needs to dock. You are completely vulnerable during this time.

The ways to mitigate this chance, is to create a safety point, about 200 or so kilometers away from the station. This puts you in range of sensors, and you will be able to see if anyone is waiting for you at the station. You can also warp directly from that 200km point, to the station again, so the time you waste is almost nilch.

You can also try fitting afterburners or microwarp drives, to speed up the slowboating of the 2200 meters or so you need to burn in order to dock. This, along with some tank, will help mitigate the chances of someone being able ot kill you before you dock.

Theres also the manual warp. Ive heard this works better than clicking "Dock", but ive yet to try it. Apparently, instead of pressing "Dock" to warp to the station and dock, if you press "Warp to 0" to the station, you get a better chance at landing right next to the station at 0, than 2500 or so meters away. You still have to manually dock after you land, but it helps, or so ive heard.

Thirdly, cloaking is useful if you know how to use it. There is a trick called the MWD cloak trick, which makes it extremely hard for gatecampers to catch an industrial ship. However, this is mainly used for people warping away, and not warping to an object.

http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Cloak_Trick

I suggest you read this site to learn more.

Other than that, non-covert ops cloaks are pretty useless for an industrial. They are only good if you plan to go afk while still in space, therefore preventing them from scanning you down and killing you, but this only works if you are at a random spot in space, and not 10-15km near a gate or any other object.

If you plan on doing some serious hauling to low/null, i suggest you skill for a Viator or Occator(or the equivalent from the other factions), though. Both ships are very useful in null/low, although you still need to learn some techniques, and it is, as always, not advisable to haul more than you can afford to lose.