Missions & Complexes

If this turns out to be a n00b question with an easy answer, I apologize for wasting your time. I freely admit to being a new pilot and only knowing that PvP and scanning require...stuff? With skills? I had a new experience last night and I just want to know if this is a common occurrence or something I don't need to worry that much about.

Here's what happened:

I was in Arnor running epic arc missions for the Sisters of EVE. My current mission was to go kill a guy (Kristin...something) and bring his body back to the Sisters. His bodyguard went down fairly quickly. He and I soon arrived at an impasse, though, my shield tank against his armor tank, so I warped back to the station to switch to different ammo. As I was docking, I get a "congrats on killing him" pop-up from an NPC agent, which I ignore. I don't have the body and the mission is not complete.

When I warp back to the deadspace location there is a yellow can with his name on it, and off in the distance is a player-Rifter that is flashing red. I figure I can make to the can, get my mission objective, and get out before the Rifter makes it back. Of course, I am horribly wrong and I am soon webbed, jammed, and my Stabber is converted from a solid to a gas. I don't begrudge this player anything; it was a clean kill. I had time to run and I didn't. I do miss the 20 million ISK or so I had invested in that ship, but at least I didn't get podded (although I was mashing the "dock" button so furiously towards the end I might have damaged my keyboard).

My question is this: how did that player find my mission's deadspace location? I understand that EVE is one big and connected Universe, but I thought it was SO big that stumbling across a deadspace location you don't have a bookmark for was highly improbable. I had a corp-mate on the same mission and his took him somewhere else, so it's not like there is a single deadspace location for this mission. Maybe there are only a handful and I just got unlucky? Is this a scanning thing? Can you find other player's deadspace locations that way?

I searched the forums and Googled "eve online finding deadspace" and couldn't find anything that indicated this was possible. Again, I'm not upset, I am just trying to learn, and this was something new for me.

You can probe out a ship that's in a deadspace pocket. So he probed you out and warped in while you were going back to dock.

He didn't find the site. He found you.

He used combat scanner probes to find your ship in space then warped to your location which was your mission. As for frequency, it happens fairly frequently where there are a lot of people doing missions. On the other hand when you are in an area where there are a lot of people doing missions you are also that much less likely to be the one they scan down. So it happens. Learning all about aggression mechanics would be a good idea for when I...errr... someone sneaks into your mission.

Nice attitude about your loss.

Thank you for all the quick replies. Looks like I have some reading to do on scanning, and I will know how to better deal with this type of thing in the future. And by "better" I mean 'not get the crap blown out of my ship'.

It actually sounds like I DID get lucky, by warping out as he/she warped in to kill me. That way I had a chance to run away (which I did not take). If they had warped in while I was still punching Kristin's armor I either A) would not have noticed them until I died or B) would have thought, "Oh, someone to help me, I wonder if they'll be my fri.....ODIN ASS! THE FIRE, IT BURNS!"



To quote a friend, I can't rage about pixels. "Don't fly what you can't afford to lose". And I was in another fitted Stabber before my aggression timer ran out. The corp this person belongs to encourages ninjaing and can-flipping for PvP and while I think that's bad behaviour, I'm glad they found a way to have fun within the rules of the game.

How so? Once you're ready to embark on the Epic Arc mission(s), you're no longer a rookie that needs to be protected from the things that aren't allowed in the rookie systems.

I would say the issue is more that all of those Sister Alitura missions are in Arnon. It never sends you out of system, which means getting scanned down is pretty much assured for any "newer" mission runner who can't fly a mostly unprobeable ship. If they were spread out over 2 to 4 systems like most missions are, it would be less of a gank fest and the ninjas would have to work a bit for their item ransoms.

Isn´t there some ruling that one has to give the missionrunner the chance to buy back a "liberated" but vital mission item?

I think you'll find most GMs will reset or deliver the item for this mission if its needed for the Sisters Arc if you were griefed. Just remember to post stuck in mission, and state that because this mission is in a fixed system its prone to griefing and there is zero way to counter it.

As far as normal missions go, they are spread out and can be anywhere. But these missions are always in the same locations. The fact that its mostly newer players who are running these just compounds the problem.

I would imagine as you are able to report can flippers in any of the rookie systems you would be able to report the player there in Arnon as well as its obvious he's only there to grief. Rookies have no isk or assets, he's just looking to pick on the weak and helpless because he's too scared to play with the big boys.

This same thing happened to me as well, way to go picking on the new kid!

That is indeed what happened. The ninja was quite a distance from the mission loot can and I thought I could make it there, grab the item, and run before I got caught. This, of course, didn't happen. I know the can was yellow, but it was MINE, dagnabit! Also, I was hoping with just a Rifter he/she didn't have high end gear. This was another incorrect assumption.

EDIT: I ended up quitting the mission, taking the faction hit, and accepting it again. No trouble this time (with ninjas or Kristin) but there were boat-load of scan probes outside the Sisters' station the last time I was there. I definitely learned several lessons this trip.


I think I get the gist of what you're saying. I didn't have any trouble docking immediately, though. Did the session timer expire while I was warping to the station?

And thanks for the links. The one for the Overview setup was especially helpful.