Missions & Complexes

This is a brief ninja plexing guide. I would like to share my experiences and tips with newer players, and perhaps with those veterans who always thought about doing it. Im not claiming that im the best ninja plexer out there, but the knowledge presented below has helped me get rich while having fun. I have lost many ships to learn the information below on my own.

What Is Ninja Plexing?

Ninja plexing is something you do when you wanna make the big bucks, but dont necessarily wanna bother with alliance politics, or a corp. It involves "stealing" cosmic signatures from nullsec alliances.

Why Do It?

It's thrilling. Ninja plexing combines the profits of L4's/WH's with the adrenaline of potential PVP. It's some of the best isk you can make solo, without multiple accounts or multiple characters.

It's profitable. When I was grinding L4's to replace my ships lost in pvp, I was counting my profit in tens of millions: "Oh great this mission will give me about 30 mill. Aw shiet, I'll only pocket about 15mill after this mission". Now, I'm counting my profit in hundreds of millions. If I'm not making at least 100-200mill in 1-2 hours of gaming, I'm wasting my time.

It's casual. I'm doing this because RL does not allow for grinding to replace the expensive ships I lose in pvp. You can explore and plex for an hour, sometimes earning half a bill, other times 50mill. But it's all on your own time.

When Am I Ready?

You are ready when you have a good understanding of nullsec dynamics and EVE players' psychology, and when you can outfit a HAC with a sustainable active tank while doing 550 dps.

Next Level Master Ninja Level 90 Ship Outfit

My experience is only with the Ishtar, so I will speak only to that. Can you do a better job with a Tengu? Hell yes. But you will be limited by ammo, and ultimately by its cost. You will lose it sooner or later, no matter how ninja you are. Getting caught in a GOOD bubble inevitably leads to an expensive death. The benefits of the Ishtar are:

- not limited by ammo
- agile
- cheap (150mill for ship and full t2 fit)
- resists ideal for Serpentis and Gurista space
- excellent dps and range

[Ishtar, pve]
Shadow Serp Kinetic Hardener
Shadow Serp Thermic Hardener
Shadow Serp Thermic Hardener
Drone Damage Augmentor II

Experimental 10MN MWD
10MN Afterburner II
Codebreaker I
Analyzer I
Cap Recharger II

Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S
Core Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I
Prototype Cloaking Device I

Medium Sentry Damage Augmentor I
Medium Sentry Damage Augmentor I


Garde II x5
Warden II x5
Hammerhead II x5
Hobgoblin II x5
Vespa EC-600 x5


- dual prop: AB for speed tanking plexes, also useful for when you get scrammed at the gate; MWD essential for cloak-warp trick and getting around large plexes; 1629m/s with MWD, 614m/s with AB with new changes
- can now fit drone augmentor; Warden DPS 461, Garde DPS 615
- Wardens will be used mostly for Gurista plexes, Gardes for Serp.


Next Level Ninja Sneaking

MWD-cloak trick is used to escape any lowsec gatecamp, or any small nullsec gatecamp without bubbles. Don't think you know how to do it. I thought I could figure it out on my own and I ended up losing 2 Ishtars. This guys tells you how http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uBcK_c8Gy4&feature=related. This trick is done perfectly by the Ishtar using the T1 module. You don't need the Improved Cloaking Device because unplated HAC's are agile enough. Practice, practice, practice the following sequence; you must have the muscle memory to execute this under lots of pressure:

1. jump in
2. select your destination, hit align
3. wait a split second
4. hit cloak before decloaking animation completes; your bracket will flicker on overview; they now know where you are
5. immediately after hitting cloak, hit the mwd
6. right before the first cycle of the mwd finishes, hit decloak while spamming the warp-to button
7. you will know if you are successful when your ship begins warping off well before the decloaking animation completes

Angry Bees Con't

Gate aggression: don't fuckin do it. The only time YOU should be aggressing is when youre about to die and have no other choice! This pretty much only includes getting scrammed in a bubble while uncloaked. If you aggress someone on a gate, you have to wait 60 seconds before you can jump through again. 60 seconds is a long time in pvp. Occasionally, you will miss your cloak-mwd-warp sequence and some lucky bastard will get a lock/web/scram on you. Overheat afterburner to burn back to the gate, and use ninja mind tricks to survive. Whoever locked you wants you to aggress because his two buddies are one jump back in their canes. Remember: hug the gate, it is your lifeline. As long as you don't see a dictor/hictor on scan, you can mess around for a while; but don't stay too long because more bees are on their way. Your goal is to get everyone to aggress on their respective side of the gate so they can't follow you anywhere. Your ultimate goal is to jump back in either direction to reset your gate cloak so you can try the mwd-cloak-warp sequence again. Hopefully, you won't miss the second time. Do not fall into the trap of burning away from the gate to outrun the tacklers...this is what they want.


Using Ninja Statistics to Generally Stay Alive

1. Study the star map stats: ships destroyed in last hour, in last 24 hours; pods destroyed in last hour, in last 24 hours; pilots active in last 30 minutes. Pods destroyed stat may give you some insight into where there might be bubble camps. It is rare for a pod to get popped, so noticing trends here should set off some alarms. Stats displaying active pilots are fickle and unpredictable. If youre seeing lots of glowing highlights in one pipe in a row, this may indicate a roaming gang passing through. Hold off all traveling and suspect bubbles in distal choke points.

2. Insertion/Extraction: wait until the off-hours to enter and exit someone's nullsec. Choke points are systems through which players have to jump in order to branch off into other nullsec regions, empire regions, or pipes. These often have bubbles setup. Use an alt to scout in front of your main.

If you wanna be a true ninja, you can exit nullsec via a wormhole. WH's are rare in nullsec, and youre lucky to find one that leads to empire. If you find one, use it as your entry and exit until it collapses. More likely, you will have to wander through WH space for a while before you find one that leads to empire. But if you have 1bill in your cargo, this is your best way out.

3. Study your pipes: obviously, you should frequent pipes with least activity in them, as represented by statistics. Getting to these pipes is the tricky part. Use an alt to scout in front of your main. As you pass through, spam your directional scanner and note where you see bubbles. Avoid these systems in peak hours.


Staying Ninja

1. While ninja plexing, remember to stay humble, and cautious. Earning 500mill/day can be intoxicating. Try to remember that even if you lose all that isk, you got plenty in the bank from your previous activity. As long as youre breaking even, you're good....don't think about the isk you "could have made". This isk is in your mind, and does not exist. Ninja plexing is a high risk - high reward business, and you will lose many ships until you get to know your regions. Your kb's may look like ****. But if youre doing this solo and profiting, you're doing great.

2. Ninja plex sustainably. I'm talking about the person in front of the monitor: if you get too emotional, too often, you will burn out mentally. If you lose your ship and your loot, walk away from the PC and take a long break. Try not to biomass your main . When you settle down, analyze what you did wrong and make sure you dont do it again. So far, I have lost 90% of my plexing ships due to stupidity or inexperience. Rarely was the situation out of my control. Bubble camps are the only things that can make you spirit deflate, so learn to avoid them!

3. Remember to vary your behaviour. Be unpredictable: often change your routes and entry points, use different alts, and never fall into a routine. Locals will get to know you eventually. Try exploring in a different region until they forget you.

4. Live in the shadows. Don't smacktalk! Ok, do it sometimes, but not too often. People tend to remember those who **** them off. When they see you in local, they need to think "damn, it's that ninja again...better just let him go about his business," and not "hey, it's that smacktalking scrub again, setup the usual bubble camps so we can steal his overseer lewtz. Again."


More Ways to Make ISK (Crucible)

Anomalies are now quite profitable. In addition to Havens and Sanctums, I recommend Forsaken/Forlorn/Hidden Hubs. Lots of battleships, just make sure to speed tank and take down the cruisers quickly.

Lowsec: lately I've been confined to empire due to FW obligations. No sweat. Get out to lowsec and you'll frequently find 6/10 plexes and decent Radar drops. The other day I found a 4/10 plex and made 150mill in about 10 minutes. Do not dock up in pirate-frequented low sec systems. You will get one-shot by arty Machariels and such upon undocking. Log off in space, never at a station.

I'm curious about this part. I've read the rumors that if you logoff/quit/kill the client in space your ship can remain in space. Ive yet to find a recent confirmation as to how long it stays active (if it is true). Is that what you are refering too with this comment?

Would you recommend storing your loot (at least the valuable bits) in an anchored container, and coming back for it in a cloaky hauler or a covops?

thanks guys, glad you enjoyed it. added more tips, and info about logoffski in angry bees section.

Hungry Eyes thats a great post i look forward to using it on you and gaining a shot at the title. Only a newbie but heh got my sights aimed high.

Great post, I might have to fit out an ishtar or two for this and try it out.

Nice post OP, some good information in there. I would like to know how people have fared with T3's with the anti-bubble subsystem? Using the covops subsystem gimps your DPS massively so dont use that, but you should be able to use the cloak+MWD trick to have a good chance of warping off from within a bubble.

One thing I would like to add, is that if you have a well setup gang on your ass, it might be possible to scan down a wormhole and exit that way. Sure, you might end up anywhere when you find an exit from within the WH, but that 'anywhere' is a place where they are not. If you are lucky, you can find yourself a highsec exit.

I'll be in my Ishtar in 18 days. Good timing!

Although I will probably run some LVL4 missions, and then some lowsec to get used to it before I make the trip to null.

And if you dont mind the potential risk and anoyance of ending up in strange places, the WH transit system can work quite well.

yep, you can outfit a Vexor in a similar fashion and do lowsec exploration successfully. lowsec can be just as profitable, but the sites are much sparser. considering that exploration profit is based on probability, it goes to reason that finding less sites wont be as profitable. but it's great experience.

finding desirable nullsec areas is the fun part! cant give too much info for obvious reasons, but it has to do with ease of entry/exit, and amount of traffic in the pipes. ive been all over, and there are certain regions in which you can get trapped easily due to short pipe length, numerous choke points, and high traffic. you want long pipes leading to nowhere, and few choke points.