EVE General Discussion

I had been doing some ninja operations in a small wormhole for a while (meaning, months). The hole is 'owned' by some small (2 man) corp, but I've largely avoided them through the usage of lots of different safe spots I've created and have bookmarked, plus I never stick around long enough in the same spot to be located.

Yesterday I had just logged-in to the hole, and was doing 'something' (clicking on in-game mail, adjusting my interface, etc) when I heard the familiar alarm sound of being attacked. Closed whatever I had up and sure enough some frigate had warp scrambled me and was killing me. I calmly hovered my mouse over some celestial in the overview so I could right click and insta-warp out and not lose my pod, which is what I did. The second I landed at the celestial I quickly right-clicked one of my bookmarked safe spots, jumped there, and then jumped to another one "just in case."

After landing on the final safe spot I tugged my beard for a few seconds. I had only been logged-in literally for one minute (if that) before I was attacked. I reasoned that the guy must have somehow just been in the area by sheer luck when I logged-in, and he attacked me. "No biggie" I figured - I'd just click self-destruct on my pod, log back into the hole with one of my alt-spies, scan my way out, then scan back in with my main from the other side once I knew the wormhole's location.

I had been at my new safe spot for less than a minute, and the whole time I was thinking all of this, I had d-scan open, I was staring at it, and I was clicking it once a second. I was making sure there were no probes that were scanning me down, although even if there were, I had already decided to self-destruct anyway. When all of a sudden the same frigate just appears out of nowhere, scrambles my pod, and saves me the effort of self-destructing.

My question is, how did he track me down 1) so fast, and 2) without my seeing any probes? Is there some mechanic I'm not understanding? My understanding is that there would need to be combat probes, and that I would see them on d-scan. Is this true?

The only thing I could come up with was that this guy had been watching me for a while (meaning weeks) and had been following me around secretly while cloaked (he WAS using a "warp while cloaked" hull + module), and he had already cataloged either all of my safe spots, or at least some of them.

1) Is this a "thing?" Forgoing an opportunity to kill someone right away, and instead follow them around for weeks or longer, cataloging safe spots, and THEN attacking later?

2) Is there some other explanation? Something I'm missing?

What your missing is these folks are just good, they have probably been tracking you, finding you doesn't always mean probes, some people do it by directional scanners alone, it may take time and some folks are patient enough to do the diligence.

Which is why I largely stay out of WH's, just not worth the trouble for me.

I would second that. This this a lot when I was in w-space and it has now become even easier since you can see the d-scan cone on the map now. You can still spot the probes but the time window is very small

I always bookmark wormholes for the express purpose of when they expire, I then have a pretty good safe spot not aligned between two celestials.

Except that locals usually bookmark them as well since it is the only way in and out of the system. So they probably had the bookmark some time ago and may have kept it if they suspected you to do that.

I went into a wormhole to mine, guy took two alts in asteros with dual scrams each. Okay he didn't catch me and after 5 more attempts I just left.


Next wormhole they warped in an interdictor, and even though I had hit warp seconds before he landed he still bubbled my venture. Even more infuriating when I brought an astero and he still caught me with webs. THen I brought a thorax and he just brought a curse, like usual they always bring a curse.


PVP is really irritating unless you find a hapless newbie you're going to get 2 asteros thrown at your venture, because i'm not so sure that everyone else is so sure that a venture couldn't kill their astero :/

57 losses aint bad mate, for reference ive 58, mostly from before i got good.

you don't seem like an edjit (Irish slang for idiot) either or a raging cearbear so that's like 80% of the work done already.

imo all you need is someone to derp about with and show you the ropes, chat with on comms and generally have a laugh with.
id reccomend you find people (importantly not edjits) to fly with , your likley to learn several orders of magnitude faster

You could be friendly, offer a 'gf' and just ask the fellow how he was so good at catching you. Who knows, he might offer to let you stay in the hole. .

If not, find another hole where the owners aren't so diligent or are not active in your time zone.

p.s. You might want to check your overview tabs to make sure they all show combat probes.

depending on the dedication of the individual, probes can take as little as a single cycle to hit a lot of ships.

assume that you left yourself uncloaked, for what ever reason. you pop up on his dscan, he gets a range within 1-15 seconds. he can either pop probes right then and there, or, stay cloaked and figure out your direction. assume he gets the direction 30 seconds later. Then he launches probes, sets them about where he wants. if you're within 4 AU, he doesnt need a direction.

this is where dedication comes in... assume he REALLY wants you. he could have max skills, and fit himself full of virtue implants...

in which case, even if you're in a frig, if he's figured out where you are within even 4 AU, and sets probes on you, he's going to get you in ONE hit... or about 10 seconds. if you pick your nose instead of dscan, you're doomed.

no joke, i have seen guys so dedicated to their probe craft, that they can get into a system and onto a person in less than 30 seconds.

you probably met some one like that.

I used to be good enough to pop probes and get pods scanned out and be in warp so fast, that by the time they started to THINK about where they were going to warp next, it was too late. then they changed the interface and now i suck. I still have my virtue clone as well.

EVE is not a twitch game, it's an RTS. It plays like an RTS and requires the strategical insight of an RTS.

If you want to get decent at PVP then the most important thing for anyone to understand is that the fight didn't start when you started to shoot each other, it started when one side noticed the other and decided to fight, run or change the scenario.

What you're stating is the equivalent of "well blasters have high dps so I removed 2 of my 5 blasters to make it a more fair fight", it makes no sense at all. All the actions that lead up to the fight itself are in fact part of the fight and probably the most important part as well.