Skill Discussions

google the cloak/MWD trick. it can help you get away from gate camps.

Another thing that is a necessity in null sec is bookmarks. Warping directly gate to gate will get you caught in bubbles. But having a book mark 250km below or above the gate can get you on grid with the gate, but far enough away to not get caught in a bubble. When you warp to such a book mark you are to far from the gate for campers to tackle you, but close enough to see if there is a gate camp or bubble. If there is you can warp away before they catch you, if not, at 250km you can warp right to the gate and jump.

These book marks can also help when coming out of a gate into a gatecamp or bubble. it gives you a direction they can not predict making it harder to decloak you. if you are aligned to the next gate or another celestial they can predict where you are and get close enough to decloak you, but heading in a random direction to a bookmark this is much harder.

Flying a ship with a covert ops cloak, or using the cloak/MWD trick you can travel thru low sec very safely, with little chance of a gatecamp catching you. However bubbles are the biggest threat to travel in null sec. By warping to bookmarks rather than directly between gates, and know what gates are choke points along common travel routes you can drastically reduce your chances of getting caught.

I understand how the current state seems unbalanced to you. But you have to remember this game has been around for 10 years. many players have learned tricks and clever use of mechanics to avoid these situations. this required changes to the game to prevent these clever players from being able to travel in complete safety. When the cloak/MWD trick was first discovered it was near impossible to catch some one using it. Now, years later, gatecampers have gotten more efficient, expecting targets to be more evasive. This makes it every difficult for new players not familiar with these mechanics.. the Cloak MWD trick has become such a common mechanic that you need to learn to use it if you plan on traveling thru low and null sec. Even with it some gate camps will still catch you, but without it, you have very little chance.

Didn't read most of it as there seem to be lots of rants and insults thrown around...
But here goes.

Gate-camps are only one of the things you would have to watch out for...
Outside of wormholes you can see people in local channel at all times. Not so in wormholes. So if you are in low or null sec space - try and avoid populated systems.
I don't remember getting caught in bubbles at all... so it might be that your region is populated by players who tend to do that. I tend to have other problems. Sites can contain people camping them in stealth bombers. When an explorer shows up, they uncloak and blow you up. That, too, is avoidable.

- When you get blown up in a gate camp - see all the involved player names and add them as contacts with a red - sign (worst relations). So then next time you look at local and there is a guy with ''red'' standing, be careful.
- If you are afraid of a gate-camp - warp within 100km of it. If it seems clear - warp out and warp to 0 and jump. But even if you land in one, act quickly and manually speed out of it. Use afterburner or mwd.
- Make a handful of exploration ships so you have the next one ready to go if you loose your previous one. The cheap frigate ones.
- Adjust your interface and overview. You want to have an overview that displays pvp ships and combat scanner drones so those are the two things that appear on your directional scan. If you see combat scanner probes out - someone is scanning for ships. If you see 8 on your directional - someone is pinpointing you right then. Or even warping on you already.
- Slap on a '' Nanofiber Internal Structure I '' and two '' Overdrive Injector I ''. It will help you to warp out faster if you are jumped at a site.
- All areas are not the same. Try looking for other routes, they will contain less gate-campers. You can use the star map to help you around. There are some very nice filters - security filters, ship jumps in last hour/24hs, ships killed in last h/24. Try and avoid the busy ones. If a system has a lot of ship kills in the last hours or day - try and avoid it unless you are really confident...

- Use cargo scanner on the database / archeology wreck. It will show you it's contents and which mini-crates to go for. Here is a site of what mini-cointainers contain - http://neural-boost.com/minicontainer-loot-distribution . As you can see, going for parts / materials is usually the most profit unless a GOOD blueprint drops (very rare).

That's something I can think of from the top of my head... it's not the games fault. It's your fault. Experience and good reading up will help.

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Try other exploration methods... go for wormholes. If you find a wormhole, check it out here - http://www.staticmapper.com/ . You generally want to find a wormhole that leads to null sec or another wormhole with a null-sec static so you can use that static wormhole to get to the null security space. Wormholes themselves can contain data / relic sites but they will always contain very hard AI (sleepers). And if you warp out of that site the site disappears. It's usually a group content. Don't solo explore relic and data sites in wh's. You just want to move through them to find you way home (to high sec) or a lucrative high-end exploration place (null sec).

Hacking sites in null will be very hard. And you should obviously avoid other people and be extra careful. But null tends to be less populated. And there seem to often be a lot of signatures as there isn't as much exploration competition. But as I mentioned, it's hard to hack the sites, so train up the required skills and use RIGS. There are rigs that increase your scan probe strength and ones that increase analyzing or hacking. You can fit two. Choose them and fit them. They are very cheap.

Ships like helios receive extra hacking / analyzing strength. But you want to gain all your experience in an imicus or other T1 frigates so when it comes down to jumping in that helios you know what to look out for.
Dont use sisters scanning probes or launchers. They cost a lot when you start out and loosing them can be expensive. You can use them on your helios once you gain enough experience :).

If you manage to be semi-succesfull in null sec space - you can easily gain 100mil-300mil isk per day.

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If you find this useful, throw me some ISK, it took more time then I expected to write this and I might have created more competition. :)

Anything is possible. Fly safe.

Very important to research the region of null that you are exploring, the owner of most regions dont like strangers running around their territory and they will try to hunt you down. use dscan a lot and create combat bookmarks everywhere. (alliances have intel channel)

It is not too hard to avoid every camp but you have to learn how first. you can always use the star map to check if there is any camp in your route(ships killed in the last hour)

bubbles can always be scanned but interdictor bubbles, if you get a dictor ship in you scan its very likely to be a bubble too in there.

avoid systems with lots of pilots and always watch local, it may be easier if you join the local alliance.

I agree certain mechanics are frustrating and a bit dull.
Gate-camping in particular some tips for gate-camping have already been given.
Something you really want to be aware of is, mapping out "bookmarking" low and null systems and being aware of their traffic and inhabitants is vital hence why exploration is actually sort of an elite thing not something for newbies as advertised unless we talk about "going trashcan to trashcan in high sec".

First thing you do is take a super fast frigate, atron being the best for this I believe.
Fit it with mwd cloak, nanofiber in low slots, set a lot of bookmarks in the systems you take interest in.(as said before safe-spot, angled spots for warp bubbles).
Think about how to name your bookmarks because you will have so many you will need to alphabetize.
You will get D-scanned in a heartbeat by any pirate/pvp capable player doing a short warp to get out of a bubble, D-scan is your most used tool in unfriendly space.

That said gate-xcamps really are ridiculous, I think it is cute how people act like there are things you can do against it.
All you can really do is pray people just don't know what they're doing which happens A LOT.
There is such a thing as a "dirty gate-camp" or an effective one really where several players will hang out on top of a gate with drones out "orbitting at 5000 km ish they de-cloak anything within 7500 range and if they don't just giving them a temporary attack command on a friendly vessel de-cloaks anything in between.
With that and the insta-lock builds there is nothing you can do really aside from mwd/cloak with a low chance of success.

MWD/cloak is not an official part of the game, it started out as a bug which is now acknowledged to be a vital part of keeping EvE healthy.
It really should be a part of the tutorial as should many things, like gate-camps akin to "going through a tunnel with your eyes closed with a cliff on the end".
IT should not be acceptable to have that mechanic screw noobs over as hard as it does since they have not the slightest how a gate-camp is executed or countered.
Doing your research is important but a laughable excuse for game design when it is SUCH a common practice.

Most campers will set their bubble on the direct path to another gate. A trick I was taught early on, before I could even cloak, was to warp to 100km off a random planet, then warp to the gate I want to jump through. That usually means I come in from an angle not covered by the bubble.

OP: "why isnt this game easy?"

Everyone else: "because its more rewarding that way. it takes time, friends, and INDEPENDENT research to get good"

OP: "thanks for the advice, but where is my easy button?"

Everyone else: "your not listening, there is no easy button. Play an offline game if you want 0 human contact"

OP: "your an elitist jerk"

Everyone else: "we were just trying to help...."

OP: *rage quit*

I'll give you some Intel since you seem like a chill guy and would be disappointed to see you quite eve so early without giving it a chance.

I am a true elite solo pirate owning 5 alts.

I've made billions by killing cloaky ships that carry expensive items and expensive implants that I've podded.

I'll give you the Intel so u can be aware of the dangers that can happen.

first if you see a lot or even 1 character in a low sec solar system
Do not warp directly to the other gate. You will get smart bombed!.
Including cloaky ships I smart bomb which is all timing.

Even if you are stabbed I have a heavy interdictor to stop you from wrapping away.

Industrial cloaking ships are still not safe! I set up drone traps around the gate which enables
You from cloaking that means locked and boom.

The best way to avoid gate camps is to use a scout to jump thru the gate before you do.

Just remember a pirate has eyes in each directions you are coming from.
We see your moves!

I just gave out my Intel on how I pirate so hopefully you take this information, so if it
Happens you will not be surprised of the out come.

Fly safe

Yes, yes you are.

You are new to this game, which means there is a lot you have to learn. Every problem you have stated on this thread can be avoided quite a bit, but you have to know how to do it.

I'll tell you what man, since you're new to the game and you've got me at a time where I happen to be in kspace, shoot me an in game message. We can setup a time to meet up in-game and I'll teach you some great tricks to staying alive in null/w-space as an explorer.

Also, let me know if you prefer TS3 or Vent for voice communication. I'd prefer we talked with each other rather than typed, since there will be a lot of information and techniques we'll be going over. Also, make sure you set aside a couple hours, for that very reason.

There are four things we tell new people in EL GO about exploration:

1 - Use the heatmap and information filters on your star map to plan jumps. most of our techs can spot a gatecamp from the map alone. It isn't that hard. For gatecamp spotting +, get comfortable with using dotlan to get an even better view of activity in systems before you jump to them.

2 - Wormholes are your friend. I'm not going to give a complete WH lesson here, but if you're ignoring wormhole sigs you're not exploring effectively. Virtually all wormholes last for at least 16 hours, most last longer. You can check the info for wormholes to get a good idea of whether or not it is semi-safe to use.

3 - If your cloak is turned off, you had better be in a site, onlining a module, or launching probes. As soon as you gate in to a system, your first action should be to stop and view your situation. If you're in a bubble, do not panic, chances are you can cloaky slowboat your way out of it.

4 - If you are not good at weaseling out of gatecamps, equip warp stabs. All scanning frigs fits worth their salt have at least one flexible low. Never equip tanking gear on a scanning frig. It won't save you. Your only acceptable lows are nanos, cargo, stabs, or engineering modules (if your fitting skills aren't good yet) Any other low on a scanning frig is a big fat waste of time. Our corp standard scanners are all cheetahs simply because cheetahs are far better at giving the finger to gatecamps than any other scanning frig. If you have a need for speed, consider one.

Good luck!

Unfortunatelly in EVE exploration is nothing more than site scanning and picking up loot that you can sell, and loot is not some mysterious secret technology. All sites are quite similar with loot beacons for you to hack. Infact, not sure why it is called exploration since you do very little exploration and more scanning and hacking. Or if you are complex runner then you pew pew enemy ships. Hopefully CCP makes 3rd branch in exploration which is actually exploration to find something unique and not just ISK farm.

Fine gentelmen above me already pointed great things how to survive and all so I leave it at that but if you plan to stay for long and exploration still interests you then you might give a thought to try out T3 (Proteus, Loki, Legion or Tengu). Those ships can fit exploration modules and be immune to bubbles and fit covops cloack. But of course it costs a lot of time and ISK to fly one.