Warfare & Tactics

Greetings Capsuleers,

I must admit, I am very unfamiliar with PVP. With that being said, what are some basic tips for properly defending a retriever and reducing the chances of being destroyed in low sec space?

I have been a high sec miner for a long time now and I recently took the jump to 0.4 space for some increased profits. I found a quiet little system and I was doing fine for a few days. I fit a warp stabilizer in my low slot, hoping that would counter a pirate's warp scrambler. But a pirate finally came along, scrambled me, and proceeded to destroy my ship.

The loss was more than affordable, but I hope to learn how to minimize the chances of it happening again.

Thanks in advance,
-Zin

I do expect it to happen from time to time, but are there no skills or modules that I should look into that may help decrease the chances?

Good that you found some nice quiet low sec to mine in.

I am looking for the same for my mining operations.

Please let me know where I should move to as I am also finding it hard to mine in low sec.
Would help you too by having some help nearby if trouble comes up.

You can also look into a procurer. It has a massive tank, so much tank that help can easily come to your defense. Why I recall a friend telling me about how his corpmate had time to scratch his balls, use the toilet, make a sandwhich (all in this order, must have made quite the tasty sammich...) and then come rescue him.

It may be a long way from you, being that you are Caldari and I am Gallente. Just look on your map browser for a low sec system that is a dead end with minimal stations. I found those systems to be lowest populated.

It's very simple, fit your retriever with two small energy neutralisers, a warp scrambler then a plate and armour repper in your lows. Use your drones to deal damage.

Then bring it to Arzad so I can *cough* admire it :)

First of all lets give you some credit for giving this a go! Ignore people saying don't do it, because you can, there are a number of ways you can cut down risk, you picked an out of the way system, also make sure that the system you have selected you mine in belts away from a D-scan from the gate, gives you more time. If you have another account have him sat cloaked by the gate, even better if in a Falcon, so you can see what comes in and take the required action. Stick to this "If in doubt warp out!"

There are so many tactics and strategies to apply, the first thing is do not become predictable, change the belts, be prepared to be afk in system and not in the stations, get them to waste time looking for you so they get dispirited, I used to waste hours of peoples time, there are some fun ways to do this with no risk, up until they get a prober at which point get safe or stay cloaked, though if you have disposable safes and a fast warping ship you can really waste their time. Set up multiple safes, one trick I used to do was create safes in directly opposite the belts so I would warp in align to the other safe hit the mining lasar and warp out as soon as I was out of range or anything came in, as there are no bubbles in low sec if you are focussed you will warp out before someone can lock you, even if a BLOPS gets dropped on you. Once they start using cloaked ships to wait for you in belts you are vulnerable, because they will watch you and they will try to grab you as you have just warped in, remember that and plan you entry to the belt carefully, random is best when cloakies are around, sometimes however its best to just cloak up and let them get bored.

The only time a tank will save you is if you have a Falcon alt, you defence is your wits, keeping an eye on local and d-scan and getting out fast, so something that aligns and warps fast is what you need, a Venture works well and is cheap, a Skiff is also fast and can tank well, a Venture is better because you can cloak.

And once again lots of credit to you for doing this!

I tried to give you some ideas with my post, I did not want to get too detailed as I would give too much away if you get someone who decides to hunt you personally, but your welcome to contact me in game and ask me for strategies and tactics. Of course mass mining in High Sec with full yield fitted ships is more efficient (though if you ever see me in HS mining I will be the one in a fully tanked skiff), but this is for fun and you can make it profitable.

The most important strategy is to have multiple locations where you can operate, also assess just what is in the area. The advice about finding a system off a pipe with a single entrance is sound but have you thought about a pipe system with gates close to each other and no station with belts away from the gates, however this ups the game a bit you need to jump to another system to drop off the ore, but then again a scout in local can tell you if its clear of give you eyes on the gate, use multipe toons, log off and on as needed, get all of them able to use a cloak. You just time the jump between the gates in various ships so you know how long someone passing though in local is going to be in local, if they go over that you get safe, and because your mining ore, you get what you have extracted, its not like ice. The Venture is a great ship for this and I am just so happy to see people doing this.

When CCP came out with the Venture I suggested that they do a covert ops version of the Venture, I am still hoping that they will.

Get that second toon into a covert ops fast, use him to create your warp ins and book marks and locate systems that enable you to operate in effectively. One thing you must always do, check carefully the people who enter local, check their KB and their history, understanding the mentality of potential hunters is often key to your success. Oh and one other thing, if you have someone who has decided to go after you in that area, move area. When I started Eve I went into low sec to mine in a mining frigate just to see if I could, I used those strategies to enable me to operate in NPC 0.0 in a contested system, its fun to just do what so many think is not worth it!

don't do this if you don't have a scouting alt - being able to scan ships before they cloak is way more important than denying the enemy the opportunity to use dscan under gate cloak.

also look for grav sites to mine in.

My assumption was that he would cloak up or get safe as soon as anyone entered local, some of the pirates in low sec are exceptionally fast with D-Scan, so if his intention was to get safe if there is anyone in local then do as I suggested, but if the intent is to mine with people in local then knowing what they are in becomes critically important, its situational basically.

And yes the grav sites are what I would check for, but with those you need to understand that people pre-scan them, so the more canny pirate will be able to warp in on you, so do not feel that your safe in them, there are ways to make yourself safer in them however like any site, the worst thing is warp in and stay at zero or point range of zero