EVE New Citizens Q&A

People have already responded with what a booster alt is. I'll explain what i can on the rest.


- Nullsec corporations generall do have some kind of stash (be it economic or military) in high-sec.
However, because of the distance between null-sec and high-sec any stash will not available on-demand unless everyone moves back to high-sec... which may not be an option due to the next point.

- "hellcamping" is basically station/gatecamping on methamphetamine.
You know what "bubbles" are? The Area of Effect warp disruptors? Imagine dozens of those things on a gate or station for DAYS on end... with hostiles outside in high-volley-strike ships. The purpose is to essentially "blockade you" while they take your SOV... so they can claim the station you are in and "lock you out" from any and all station services... and ultimately your ability to be docked at all.
Yeah... internet spaceships is REALLY serious business for some people.

- EVE is centered around player interaction (be it consentual or otherwise). To have fleets of NPCs doing and fighting what players should be doing and fighting is a distraction that actually discourages PvP (because then everyone will wait for their NPC reinforcements before attacking rather than mustering up other players).

- Those neutral players that attack you often have an alt character with less than 5 days of training runnig those FW complexes for profit. Because honestly... you are dumb if you don't try to rake in money that easy.
And no, neutrals mechanically gain nothing for attacking or "winning" in an FW complex... except for another tally under their belt and your loot.
Like I said before... they are there for the fights and kill. They need no other justification.

Crazy.... I mean, literally. I knew nulsec was a real pain, but I never imagined people would take it that level.





I wasn't questioning their right to be there, only the logic. I thought there might be a better way for them to go about finding combat more to their liking, but I suppose it's a bit like exploration: It's something of a slot machine. You know sometimes you're going to go through a dry spell, but eventually you'll get something good.

EDIT: I've started congratulating people who manage to catch me. So far everyone has responded pretty well by being a good sport about it. I also have been asking that they not get angry at the next person who gets away from them. :)




Well at least they know about and are working on it. That's better than some games.

It's part logic and part skill. If I jump into a FW system looking for a fight, the first thing I do is a max range 360 degree dscan. If I see a destroyer on scan, the next thing I do is narrow my scan and try each small complex (because destroyers can't fit inside novice so they are unlikely to be there).

With some practice you can get quite quick at locating targets with dscan. For a small system, where everything is within 14.3 AU, I can generally scan all the plexes within about 30 seconds. If the system is larger it will take a little longer because you'll need to warp around.

If you are having trouble getting the hang of pinpointing targets, I discuss my own dscan method here. Keep in mind that this is using the old solar system map (not the new beta version). To use the old map, you can go to your general settings in the escape menu and uncheck "try the new map". I highly recommend you do this. While the new map is prettier it has significantly less functionality (for instance, the ability to dscan). I firmly believe that the solar system map view is the most efficient way to scout a system with dscan.

Get combat scanner probes.

Some new lessons I learned...and these are a little more philosophical rather than concrete mechanics.

1) There are people playing EVE who are bored, malicious, and petty. They get their kicks out of crapping on other people and making them angry. I don't mean to confuse this simply with people who are doing something that happens to be at odds with what I want to to, bringing us into conflict. I mean outright trolls who literally are willing to spend hours or days of their life just to get under your skin.

This is a difficult one for me, because I generally play videogames to relax. I do enjoy the competitive nature of many games, but there's a ratio of annoyance to success that EVE really pushes with me. The adage of HTFU only goes so far for me. I can't live inside the game like many people appear to be able to do.

What I've learned is that it's sometimes necessary to just step away from the game for awhile. Sometimes for days, if necessary, or you might make stupid decisions out of anger, like...say....thinking that you're going to quit the game forever, and giving away all your ISK. I literally got so angry with the game that I did that a few days ago. But now that I'm calmed down and had time to think about it, I realized the reason why I got angry in the first place was because of how I screwed up. And now I have some serious ground to recover.

2) Sometimes it's necessary to shift gears and do something completely different in the game, especially when you're getting frustrated at a certain task. This is what I should have done instead of throwing in the towel. I wanted so badly to beat the people in FW that were causing me problems that I made a series of extremely poor decisions. I should have cut my losses and moved to something different, like mission running or mining.

This is ESPECIALLY true on the weekends, when everyone and their three-legged dog is playing EVE and trying to stir things up in FW.

3) I REALLY need to get over my dogged determination to be a solo pilot, and join a corp that's going to have similar playstyles as mine. EVE makes me have serious trust issues, and I'm very much attached to playing on and off whenever I want. I don't like having responsibilities to a corp, but the benefit of safety in numbers just seems too strong to ignore.

Well.....kind of a ramble. I hope some newer players than myself might read this and get some insight. I don't know what it is about this game that can cause me to get so frustrated and angry with it, but still make me want to get back in and play more. If I was being completely objective about it, I'd say it's some kind of unhealthy addiction. xD

Becoming competitive and getting a reasonable amount of winnable fights in solo PvP is a rough and long route ... don't focus too much on it now, try other things (exploration, missions, the pirate epic arcs, ...) and find a group to play with. If you don't want to get into a corp's obligations join the channels of Spectre Fleet, Bombers Bar etc. and 'x'-up for NPSI fleets if you like. I also think there are public militia fleets iirc. As a casual you need to create many options for yourself, so you can hop into action and some fun stuff right away when login. This will also determine your long term training then, so there are some key ships you want to be able to fly and operate reasonable: interceptor, bomber, cov ops, T3D, interdictor, T1 logi/ewar. Don't undervalue the logistics path, it's challenging, satisfying and actual fun to keep your fleet mates alive. Being able to switch from DPS to logi if required is a big plus ... and you know, options.

That's the beauty of this game, even the skill system encourages you to take breaks. it's not a mongoloid grind fest that rewards those who spend more time in the game disproportionately (ofc you will still benefit the longer you spend playing)

EVE is about conflict and player-driven content. If there were not pirates or trolls then we would all be nice people not shooting each other and it might as well be a PvE only game. When someone does something to annoy you, it's just all the more sweeter when they eventually blow up at your hands.

trying something new is also never a bad thing. You might even enjoy it more than FW and also gain some new techniques that you can bring back to your main game to give you that edge.

Solo play in this game is almost never "solo". As mentioned before many "solo" pilots will have some kind of hidden advantage either in the form of a boosting alt or possibly cloaked logi/neuts/jams/etc waiting in the site with them.

Flying is more fun with friends and the most powerful ship in the game is friendship. Sure it might be awesome if you killed 10 people on your own, but it would be much more fun if you killed 50 people and had someone else to share the experience with.

To second that, because it's very important ... stopping your ship with CTRL+SPACE will NOT break your invulnerability timer! This feature is your life insurance on a kick-out station. Also if you intend to warp somewhere else than your insta warp out you may stop your ship first to minimize the align time.

So I discovered today - when trying my hand at defending complexes instead of running - that if you preemptively attack first, you'll suffer a hit to your security standing if the pilot coming to your complex is neutral.

This is bothering me a lot. No neutral pilot that shows up in a FW complex is interested in anything other than fighting, as this thread explains. They already do not have to suffer the added restrictions of FW, but they also get the benefit of this as well?

Sigh....I really see now why people avoid flagging for FW if they want fights. FW is completely at odds and disadvantage when it comes to that. But on the other hand, I now have even LESS respect for the anger of people who only want to fight, but go skulking about FW sites looking for it while not flagged.

I suppose they also take hits to their standing for attacking first. It seems this is one more cost of doing business in lowsec, and I shouldn't get worked up about it. So, a couple questions regarding this:

How low does a pilot's security status have to be before I can strike first and NOT take a hit to my own?

How does one go about repairing a negative security status?


On a completely unrelated note, now that I resolved to fit a ship without warp stabs, and defend complexes that I'm running, suddenly everyone seems to leave me alone. I've run over an hour out here in FW lowsec and not had a single person attack me. :/ It's a little bit anti-climactic. It feels like that scene from the first Highlander movie where Connor is in his first fight, but everyone avoids him. My first real fight will probably be against some uber-ship and I'll get smashed. LOL!

Good job. You finally found out who are the carebears just daytripping into lowsec and who is a real fighter who will cave your face the moment you actually fight them.

Also read this regarding the current issues of FW: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=441765&p=1