EVE New Citizens Q&A

Even so PvP in EvE is per pure mechanic non-consensual, it can become "consensual" with knowledge. Means, if you know the mechanics well enough (it's not that hard, I fully got it after a couple of months), you can easily avoid being caught or killed. The next step is then to control encounters with other players on your terms. EvE is a game of calculated risks (don't put on the table more than you can easily replace), where you learn by trying and mistakes.

The permanent competition, the player driven economy, the accomplishment which only matter because of "real" loss, the PvP shakes, the one persistent universe, the communities, this is what all keeps us around, and set EvE apart from any other game.

EDIT:

In regards of insurance, ships can be insured, and you get a fair amount of money back on destruction for T1 ships. Just not 100% and not the hardware as this would destroy the economy.

Greetings OP. My character is around 47 days old, this character is not an alt, and this is my first time ever playing EVE. Feel free to take a glance at my killboard. There you will find that in that ~47 days I have incurred around 4.12 billion (With a b!) in ship and asset losses. And I've made a lot more isk than I've lost in that timeframe, without spending any real money to get more (Hell, I PLEXd the trial I had with isk I made in game, so really that entire 47 days was completely free to play) and without the help of any corporation or other players. I know that when you begin the loss of a few million isk can seem daunting to overcome, but if you just seek out knowledge or guidance, I think you'll find that isk is so easy to acquire that its loss should never be an obstacle difficult to overcome.

When I began, the loss of what I recall as a missioning cruiser almost drove me to quit, to lose a few dozen million isk seemed unthinkable to me. Well now in the past 2 days alone, I've lost 1.2 billion isk of implants and ships to gankers and pirates, and even about half a bil of that to incursion NPCs. Those were expensive lessons, incurred by my own stupidity, laziness, and attitude, but where I would have raged a month ago, I now laugh it off and continue on my merry way. Because I've come to realize "Hey! That's EVE for you!" and I know that with a bit of hard work I can easily make that money back. Don't give up because someone blew you up, it happens, but you can learn from your mistakes, and most losses, well they're easy to bounce back from. Hope you stick around, cheers! -Stryker Mayaki

Well, despite others saying this game is PvP and you'll lose ships, I beg to differ.

I'm mainly a PvE player and have been playing this game for 8 years. Over that time I've had 13 gank attempts on my ships. Only one of those attempts was successful which was done by half dozen Battleships with Drones.

I was sitting stationary with defenses off at the warp in point of a Radar site in +0.7 security system, fighting NPC's, hacking cans and salvaging wrecks while also scanning for other exploration sites, all at the same time. I should also mention all of my targeting spots were filled and I wasn't paying much attention to what was happening on-grid due to multi-tasking with the probing screen.

All of a sudden I noticed my shields going red and my Overview filling up with Drones. I quickly activated defenses and then started fumbling with the Overview, scrolling to find something for warp out. However I needed to see what was happening on grid so I then closed the scanning screen and started to return fire. I then realized I was shooting wrecks I already had locked. I started to free up targeting spots when I saw my shields failing so I then went back to the Overview to once again find something for warp out. All of a sudden my ship blew up and the next thing I knew I was in my Medical Clone half way across the Eve Universe. All this happened within a couple of minutes time.

Yeah I was surprised and basically caught with my pants down. I definitely wasn't prepared to lose my Faction / Deadspace fit T3 Cruiser ship and my pod fit with +5 Attribute Implants / top level Hardwirings. I was actually in shock and couldn't believe what happened and more importantly, why it happened. I found out later it was a paid assassination due to a forum war between me and another player.

Anyway, it took some extra effort and long hours of selling assets and ratting NPC's but I was able to collect up close to 3 bill ISK to replace the ship, it's modules and all of the implants within 4 days.

The point is I didn't quit and I learned some valuable lessons from that experience:

Always keep defenses activated asap after undocking whenever possible.
Always keep distance from the landing point after entering a mission or exploration site.
Always keep ship moving and be ready to warp out asap if someone lands on grid.
Always keep a few empty targeting spots open for self defense and never have all spots locked.
Always keep an Overview tab set up with just celestial points for emergency warp out.
Always keep attention on immediate area and don't get preoccupied multi-tasking other things.


DMC

Thanks for encouragement:)

Hi sec is safe enough to give you the time to learn the game and then choose your own path (which can very well be to stay in high sec, that's up to you). It's the baby area, like in any other game : i have not played elite dangerous, but i suppose that you don't dwelve in the most dangerous areas from the start of the game without being at great risks of dying. Same in WoW or any game you choose. The only difference is that here, a good amount of monsters are players

By the way, you said you were attracted by EVE beause of all what is to be studied in it. Well, learning to survive outside of high sec is extremly rich and interesting. There are so many things to discover, like learning to use your map to detect the risky zones, learning to make bookmarks, to use your dscan, learning null sec mechanisms, and wormspace, etc etc... there is always something to learn. There is as much satisfaction in avoiding and escaping the bad boys than in being a bad boy. PvP doesn't only mean fight, when you manage to avoid the bad ones, you are PvPing too. When you trade, you are PvPing too, it's not just about trapping poor newbies.

Find a good corporation where you can learn from nice people. There are many many ways to play EVE. Now is time to find your own.

Yeah, I agree and in fact I usually tell people I do 'Stealth PvP'. Meaning I hide while others seek.

After I got skilled to pilot a Force Recon Cruiser with Cloak, I spent 2 weeks straight in Null Sec Wildlands playing Cat & Mouse with the Russians. Course I was the Mouse and they were the Cat's. They tried everything to get me, from Gate Camping to Probing to dual Bubble set up. They almost caught me a couple of times and I learned a lot from them such as making Deep Safe Spots, avoiding Bubbles, Scouting, Route Planing, Directional Scanning.

However after 2 weeks of chasing me, they realized they were getting further and further away from their sector of space. Basically my training ended when they left the system after linking my name in local chat with some Russian words.

After that the 20+ jumps back to High Sec was lonely and void of people until I got to the last system, course jumping back into High Sec was easy since the gate campers there were set up for ships entering, not leaving. Ever since then I try to fly by these words 'Have Cloak, Will Travel'.





DMC

Sooner you get out of high sec the sooner you get to see the real good points about this game.

Playing in a small closed environment where you are "safe" means cutting out 80% of the game from yourself.

I'm glad you got blown up, now you know what the game is about. If it's not for you, well then that's too bad.

If your immediate response as soon as you die is to quit, I'm not sure how long you would have lasted anyway :)

I'm a new player myself and exploration is something I do for fun. You could always mine and make ships and equipment for isk so that when you loose something you can replace it. Loosing ships and all that you had in holds is part of the game. The only way to learn where to go and how to go about getting there is fly something you can afford to lose and get blown up. On my second day playing I went to null and got murdered. I took what I got handed and I've learned a lesson. There's always someone out there at all times looking to blow you up, either for ganking or just the fun of it. That's part of the fun. At any time something unexpected can happen. The best thing to do is to have a good attitude. A lot of the time believe it or not this is how people on this game make friends. If you take it well and they message you chances are pretty good that valuable advice will come your way. I've also heard of people getting invites to corps this way. If you return in the future join a Corp that fits your needs. There's strength in numbers. Also you can get more advice and even training in ship fitting and pvp. The only way to get better is to get blown up till you learn how to win pvp engagements. If I was you I'd give it another go but get with a like minded group. One last thing, there's 2 rules I fly by. One being never fly anything you can't loose and the other is learn from every mistake.

Well, the phrase you quoted is 100% true. There wouldn't be a #1 rule if it weren't.

But yea, thick skin.

Realistically almost nobody in EVE wants to fight anymore unless they can do something to skew the odds in their favour - and I tend to suspect that if PvP were 100% optional and could only occur in a consensual format (I presume you would block outside interference somehow for this - otherwise it really wouldn't be consensual)...very few people would actually be willing to participate.

Among the people willing to fight only in arranged fair tournaments or 1v1 duels...I suspect most of them would rapidly grow bored fighting the same few evenly matched opponents over and over again.

In the end, I think it would be one of the fastest way to kill EVE off entirely.


Non-consensual PvP, on the other hand - despite the admitted drawbacks for newer (and sometimes older) players at times, FORCES people to grow and learn, often outside of their comfort zone. Your only defense is to pick up enough PvP knowledge to defend yourself - even if you never choose to be the aggressor.