Warfare & Tactics

I was just wondering what might be some "best practices" when you're trying to create a set of bookmarks for a new solar system. Do any of you have a special series of steps you go through? i.e. creating X number of safespots, etc? I'm pretty new to this aspect of the game, so I'm trying to get a sense of what a thorough bookmarking process would look like.

Thanks for the advice.

^^ This is an excellent set of bookmarks to have for your home area.

If its a system I live in/play in regularly, I also make a few deep safes too. Deep safes are safes completely out of d-scan range from all celestials in system. They make great places for your forces to hide when setting up traps, and if you warp there people typically assume you've cloaked up. You can make them in any system, but it truly requires effort (now). There are three luck-based methods to create them:

1.) Get a lucky with a mission. Mission sites are occassionally in good deep-safe spots.
2.) Cloak with a fighter out and in warp. It emergancy warps, often to a good deep safe spot. Scan it down to get the spot.
3.) Jump Portal to a collapsing cyno. (best to use BO's for this). If the cyno collapses when your traveling through a jump portal, you end up in system, usually in a VERY random location.

(Now Defunct 4.)) Log off while warp velocity is decelerating. Then log back in 20-40s later and BM right away. When you logged off under these conditions, your ship would overshoot the destination and sometimes travel 50+ au's. Some people created 1000+ au deepsafes with this method. CCP fixed the warp mechanic in Tyrannis, making this tactic unviable.

I get the best results with #3 now that #4 is defunct. I haven't tested method #2 in a long while, and it might not work anymore.

When exploring in a new area of space, I scan down all sigs and anomolies and keep BMs for the ones that are well off the ecliptic or outside the orbit of any nearby celestials. Then I use those to create mid warp BMs that can't be replicated with celestial to celestial warping. They may not be deep safes (esp in small systems), but they're the best thing you can get easily.

If I decide to live in the area for a while, I pick up a few low level security agents. As mentioned above, they can give missions that'll give you solid deep safes but it is hit & miss. Being a low level agent, you can either run the mission in a crap ship you don't care about (and use the time to learn what locals are actually a threat), or you can dump the mission without pissing off an agent you actually care about.

its a bit out of date now but Agony had a good guide on bookmarks and how to operate with them.

They can mean the difference between life and death and its well worth a read.

http://go-dl.eve-files.com/media/1003/An20Introduction20to20Bookmarks20in20Eve.pdf

Tacs around the sun are useful for avoiding the hictor/dictor bubble at the sun which is pretty common. Even more useful if you have artillery-fit BCs

IDK about 'best' practice but there's certainly a bundle of very good ideas here. As an inveterate bookmarker, who has a small business depending largely on bookmarks (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=12973&find=unread), here's what I have been doing pretty well since my first foray into lowsec / nullsec.
This takes time and effort the first times you're in a system but it's rare now for me to jump into a lowsec / nullsec system and not have a set of pre-prepared bookmarks waiting, green, at the top of the P&P folder.

- Jump into system, clear gate / wormhole, smell the roses and enjoy the view.
- Power to a location almost 300km above / below / beside gate at make an 'approach' bookmark for that spot. Direction choice depends on system configuration and, for my purposes, is chosen mainly to be off-axis with the most likely bubble lines in nullsec. I have found that close-to-200km distances too often result in my being unable to warp to the gate during later visits (not sure if gridfu or bug, but close-to-300km and this doesn't happen). Over 300km and subsequent visits often have me offgrid with the gate (not a huge problem tho).
- Make similar 'approach' bookmarks for any other gates in system.
- While warping between the gates build a decent safespot or two.
- If system has stations then I choose one or more and build an 'approach' BM, similar to the gates, and an exit instawarp BM for each. I used to make the exit BMs at 500km or so but have been gridfu caught by a few bubbles so now make them at 1000km or more. Still possible to gridfu out that far but way less likely. You can make exit BMs without actually docking ... just work from the station configuration and visuals. Amarr are easiest for this of course.
- If it's a w-system I bookmark my entry wormhole, usually an approach point to it, and sometimes any POSes or other features of interest. If it's a w-system I've not previously visited I also bookmark the sun and add a few comments for future reference - e.g. "J123456 - C5, no effects, C6 static, dismal PI, unoccupied".

I also build approach bookmarks near hisec gates into lowsec / nullsec, and a range of 'tactical' special-purpose bookmarks when I am regularly operating in a system.

The various approach bookmarks let me:
1. Visually check a location before I warp to it (looking for gate camps or station camps etc);
2. Warp to my destination from a direction that is less likely to have me caught by a bubble.

The exit bookmarks let me:
1. Warp safely thru a bubble placed in a station's outflow chute (unless it actually covers the start of the outflow);
2. Warp quickly away when the station exit is camped by wannabe evildoers.

The safespots:
1. Give me some breathing time when things turn to custard.