I like the way you move (part 1)

Learning how to move around in EVE can save your ship and pod. Even after 2 years of playing there can still be lessons to learn, most of them the hard way. So here is a brief guide on how to move, comments welcome!

Step one, don’t panic. Where ever you go, whenever you do it you have 30 seconds where you can orientate yourself. You can even force this 30 second window which comes in very handy for station games.

Empire:

You’re a target. Don’t think you are not, that those ships on the gate are just AFK. You’ve just been passive locked and scanned, and that Gurista’s module in the hold of your frigate is worth taking a risk to pop you. Ganking is a profession, people are good at it, don’t doubt they know what they are doing. Sure you will meet some noob’s starting out who are trying it on, but professional gankers make a living off this.

So only auto-pilot (AP) if you have nothing to lose. I use a fast frigate with a warp core stabiliser II (WCS) to auto-pilot around. It’s quick, hard to hit and a few fittings can be the difference between life and death. I have only had my AP Condor shot at once (I also fit an AB as a MWD can be disrupted), and CONCORD killed the Brutix for me. You are never safe, ever. So fly like you have a purpose. You are not on a Sunday stroll; you are going from A to B. So fly to the gate, jump, hit the next one, don’t tool about. If you need a biological break then dock up, or warp somewhere.

Where to warp to?

• Never ever warp to an asteroid belt
• Never warp to zero

Rats hang out at belts, so do greifers and gankers, ninja salvagers and others. Of course there will be harmless miners, who in their hulks have PVP’d and killed the odd wolf, yeah, don’t laugh, I’ve seen it. Rare rats can web and scram you, not so good if you are in a hurry to run away.

Asteroid belts are also where people tend to warp to, so don’t, for that simple fact that others do. People hunting for you will use the directional scanner to check the belts first.

Planets and moons are a good choice to warp to, as long as you don’t run into an unfriendly POS, which is unlikely in Empire. The local star is also not a bad choice.

The advantage moons give is that when you warp off a quick scroll around will show which way you went. This makes warping to a singular object like the sun obvious, now you are left relying on that you didn’t warp to zero so hopefully they hunter won’t drop right on top of you. So a moon, which can be one of many around a planet is a very good choice.

Book marks

While sailing along in warp bang in a book mark (open up people and places, then add a book mark as you fly along). When you hit your warp in point warp off to the next point. Then warp to your book mark and add another when you are on the way. Why? This way the second book mark won’t be on a ‘path’ between objects making it much harder to find and next to impossible to scan down without probes.

Station games

When you undock hit CTRL+SPACE and you will have 30 seconds to do nothing. Look around and you can see who is outside and what is going on. Now you can click dock and insta-dock. This works on most BUT NOT ALL stations. Some stations spit you out outside of the docking range, learn which stations undock you close by. (If you hit CTRL+F you can see the timer counting on the upper left hand side of your EVE window so you know exactly how long you have). If you do anything other than sit still after stopping outside of station you are fair game.

Once undocked you can warp to some insta-warp points. Fly anywhere from 100km or more from the station (the more the better) in a straight line form the station undock point. Then add a book mark. Then when you undock, you can stop, look around, choose to insta-dock or insta-warp to a point aligned directly ahead from the station.

Low Sec

Auto pilot is death; expect to die if you use it. There is one minor window where you can use AP, that’s when leaving low sec turn AP on so you insta-jump on reaching the gate.

Don’t panic if someone targets you, or starts, warp off while you can. When you jump in and see a nasty hostile waiting for you, DONT PANIC. You have 30 seconds to work out where you are in relation to the hostile, the gate, and an escape route. Take the shortest if you are fast or the most direct with the alignment of your ship for the fastest warp off.

A cunning hostile will scram you before webbing you, as webbing you will improve your align time and let you escape faster! How? by lowering the speed you need to achieve to hit warp, which is 75% of your top speed without modules activated. Pulsing (activating and deactivating a module) will help your speed reach the 75% threshold faster. In this situation if you get warp disrupted a MWD won’t work so an AB is a good module for evading trouble in low sec.

Null Sec

Ah, now you are the pro, in null sec, now you know how to move you’ll be right. LOL, welcome to a quick podding. Bubbles of various types, such as anchored or put up by HIC’s and DIC’s will soon stop the quick get away. As always, don’t panic. Orientate yourself, who is where, where are you, what are you aligned to? What’s the shortest path out of the bubbles? Will you make it or should you dash to the gate? Only experience will really teach you that, but a cool head will prevail most of the time.

So if you are moving in null sec fit the ship for the purpose. WCS and cloaks are a must. Anything less is death, even in blue space in null sec, when you hit a roving red gang. So watch the intel channels closely and book marks are a must.

Even ratting is not very safe. You are in a belt, so a definite site to be checked by roving reds. So as soon as you warp into a belt or plex ALIGN TO STATION (or POS). This way you uncloak from warp and can engage the rats and insta-warp as soon as a red enters system. A ratting ship is not a PVP ship. If you are slow on doing this then 5 light ECM drones can be a life saver (and if you have a spare slot a large nuet is good for scaring off vaga’s)

More on null sec movement another post.