Ok nublets, I've made a few threads recently on making EvE easier to get into and a thread on how to get started in the complex EvE economy, but this one is going to be a bit different.
Pretty much everyone in FREEE knows I have a knack for spectacular ship losses (and some unspectacular ones too) so I'm going to offer up some suggestions to make your lowsec/0.0 adventures safer and your losses less painfull.
1. WHEN TO INSURE YOUR SHIP
Insurance on frigates and cruisers is usually ignored by etablished players, viewed as a waste of ISK, and it usually is a waste. Typically, a well fitted cruiser (Tech 2 AND tech 1) will have more money invested in modules then the chassis itself. Max insurance on most cruisers comes in at around 3 mil for a contract costing almost 1 mil, which means when your ship gets poped you get a return of just over 2 mil (after you deduct the cost of buying the insurance policy). If your ship is reasonably well fitted, 2 mil probably didn’t cover your high slots, let alone the rest of your ship.
The reason Insurance works this way is, the insurable value of the ship is not based on its market price, but the total cost of the minerals required to build the ship. You’ll often hear myself and others bitching about this because it really does gimp the insurance system, whose purpose is to make ship losses more bearable and to promote people getting in on PvP, but in reality no one has offered a valid alternative. If you tie the insurable price to the ships true market value, you create a market for ship builders to basically mine materials, set ½ of their ships on market for outrageous prices, then get a corp. mate to pop the other half of the ships and make a huge profit.
Personally I don’t see any value to insuring frigs or cruisers, unless you just plain fit it with nothing but raw tech 1 (non-named) equipment. Tech 1 fitting is an economically viable option, but results in a terribly gimped ship compared to what you’ll be facing in PvP. Tech 2 frigs and cruisers cost so much more than the insurance allows for that you’re frankly losing money to buy the insurance.
What you ABSOLUTELY SHOULD buy insurance on are Battleships, and Tech 1 Battlecruisers. The market price one these is actually FAR BELOW the market cost of the minerals used to make them, because they are built by mostly Industry oriented corps who mine their own minerals and build the ships for pure profit. The benefit to you is you can buy a Drake for 28mil ISK and insure it for 35mil ISK, not quite the total cost if you include ISK spent on Modules, but definitely enough to replace the ship without it hurting too much. Another example would be the Raven Battleship. Raven is 90mil ISK, 30 mil for insurance contract insures the ship for 110 mil ISK. Fit the ship smartly and that 110mil will take some of the sting out of loosing the ship.
To make a long explanation short (too late
), insure battlecruisers and battleships ALWAYS before you take them out of high security space.
But if you travel smart you shouldn’t need to worry about losing your ship.
2. TRAVEL IN GANGS
Unless you have a crapload of skillpoints in cloakers and one of the very expensive CovOps ships (frigate and cruiser variants), wandering around outside of high security space by yourself is nothing short of suicidal. Interceptors and CovOps ships have special abilities that allow them to escape danger, most other ships get shredded quickly without good support/intel, and even in an interceptor, an untrained pilot is dead meat by himself.
The good news is, as a FREEE/ATF pilot you have a number of safeguards and tools at your disposal.
The most important safeguard you have is your corpmates. Always travel in a sizable gang, because there is safety in numbers. Being in a gang means you have people scouting ahead and sometimes behind as well. Being a gang scout means you have backup if you jump into something dangerous. This is not Tribes, you will not be rewarded with a sense of accomplishment by going cowboy and leroy’ing the flag, you’ll just end up dide. If you want to pew pew and there’s no gangs full of big kids, there’s a lot of you nublets now, start forming your own gangs of inexpensive ships, get out there and most importantly learn from every engagement.
Gang Travel Tips:
• ALIGN, ALIGN, ALIGN!!! If you don’t know how to align, ask and someone will explain in-game.
• Stay with your gang. If you are left behind during a warp, SAY SO quickly.
• Cluster tightly, don’t be more than 5km from the nearest ship in your gang while out of warp. Remember, the lone fish gets eaten by the sharks first.
• If your gang stops for a while on a gate, STAY RIGHT ON THE GATE. If you’re out of jump range of the gate and the gang has to jump out fast to avoid a larger enemy, you will be left behind and will be dide.
The most important tool you have is the intel channel. For more into on the intel channel and how to get on it, SEE YOUR CORP/ALLIANCE MAIL IN-GAME.
When on the intel channel, DO NOT:
• CHAT.
• DISCUSS TACTICS.
• CONFIRM YOUR POSITION UNLESS YOU ARE SCOUTING FOR THE CHANNEL.
• CONFIRM THE LOCATION OF YOUR GANG.
Occasionally there are SPIES in the channel looking for easy targets. We're pretty good about rooting them out, but when the channel gets up to 200+ members a spy can easily go unnoticed for hours.
What you CAN do is:
• Request intel on a particular route or system. “Any intel on Rior to Torr?” “Any intel on the Torr gate in EC-?” “Has anyone been through the EC- to L-C pipe recently?”
• If you’re in a system and a gang of hostiles jumps in, report it. “7 hostiles just entered 01Y!, 3 Raven, 1 Appoc, 1 Crow, 1 dictor 1 Osprey” “2 new hostiles in L-C, ship types unknown”
Keep it simple and quick on the intel channel, keep your nub chat on corp/alliance.
3. VOICE COMMS
The rules are pretty straightforward. If you’re in a system full of friendlies, chat it up.
The second a hostile or neutral enters your system, follow these 5 simple rules.
Rule # 1.
SHUT UP.
Rule # 2.
INTEL.
If you have intel (if you see the invaders on scanner or in front of you) report it concisely without any unnecessary detail. “I have 2 Ravens on the 01Y gate, they’re 20km off the gate and are aggressing me”.
Rule #3
SHUT UP.
Rule #4.
LISTEN AND BE READY TO REACT.
When invaders enter your system, DON’T BE FUCKING AROUND. When someone says “clear channel!” they’re not bitching about bad airplay and shitty ticket prices, they want you to SHUT UP so they can relay info that is probably critical to your survival at that very moment.
Rule #5
SHUT, THE FUCK, UP.
If you’re in a roaming gang, THERE IS NO CHATTING. Voice in a roaming gang is ONLY for the FC (Fleet Commander) and his scouts. If you have something funny to say, type it in gang. IF YOU DON’T HAVE SOMETHING MISSION CRITICAL TO SAY, SHUT THE FUCK UP ON VOICE CHAT IN ROAMING GANGS.
Just in case you missed it, SHUT THE FUCK UP ON VOICE CHAT WHEN YOU ARE IN A COMBAT SITUATION. If you’re not sure whether or not you’re in a combat situation, refer to Rules 1 and 3 for more clarification on how to proceed.
4. TO RAT, OR NOT TO RAT, THAT IS THE QUESTION
Now that we have some really nice 0.0 space, many of you who are training or have trained Battlecruisers/Battleships probably want to start making that crazy 0.0 ratting monies. In one 20 minute pass through the belts in L-C you can make 5-10 million ISK in bounties alone. This makes it really tempting to run those belts killing the super easy NPCs and collecting the prices on their heads.
WATCH LOCAL CHAT. Always have local chat visible so you can see how many people are there, and who they are. The local chat channel is your lifeline, and will tell you when hostiles enter the system. It’s not unusual for a single roaming hostile to be warping around in L-C, and if you’re in a BS or BC you’re probably safe from them when the friendly population is high. If the L-C population rises quickly and dramatically, WARP TO A SAFE SPOT AND ASK QUESTIONS LATER. Never hesitate to abandon a fight with an NPC, the rats will still be in the belts long after the invaders are gone.
Now here’s some tips on what NOT to do when in PvP land if you don't want to die a really stupid death.
• Don’t warp to 0 while cloaked in a CovOps
• Don’t blind jump from .5 to 0.0 space with no intel and no scout.
• If you by some stroke of luck, escape a gatecamp, don’t warp back to see who it was.
• If you escape a gatecamp, don’t predictably warp to the next jumpgate.
• If your roaming gang kills gate rats, don’t leave the gate to loot them.
• Don’t warp to a tech 1 frigate gatecamp when in a Raven, because they probably have bigger backup on the other side.
• If you attack something at a gate from a distance, realize you can’t defeat it and need to get away, find a random planet in space, warp to 100 and then cloak. If you don’t have the option to cloak, KEEP MOVING, and if you’re lucky, they will get bored and move on. DON’T be like me and try to jump through the gate, because your aggression will have locked you out of the gate for 30 seconds, meaning you will get warp scrammed and killed.
• If you’re late warping behind your gang to a gate, and you hear someone say “Holy shit look at the size of this gatecamp!” from the other side, don’t be TOO eager to jump through.
• Don’t use a battleship to scout a gatecamp.
Yes, I have lost ships in these and many other very retarded situations. Just remember before you laugh too hard, it happens fast out there and until you’ve been in the situation you honestly don’t know how to recognize it and react accordingly.
Don’t kick yourself too hard and just make sure to recognize what went wrong, then learn from it, even if the mistake is as simple as “I shouldn’t have been there alone.”.
In the end, you are going to lose ships, lots of them, but if you pay attention to what’s going on around you and learn from each ship loss, over time you’ll lose less and less and suddenly realize you’re still in a ship you bought months ago and has seen numerous engagements and survived, and that’s a fucking cool feeling.
( I encourage other vets to please add your thoughts, advice and stupid ship losses to the thread, thx )
Pretty much everyone in FREEE knows I have a knack for spectacular ship losses (and some unspectacular ones too) so I'm going to offer up some suggestions to make your lowsec/0.0 adventures safer and your losses less painfull.
1. WHEN TO INSURE YOUR SHIP
Insurance on frigates and cruisers is usually ignored by etablished players, viewed as a waste of ISK, and it usually is a waste. Typically, a well fitted cruiser (Tech 2 AND tech 1) will have more money invested in modules then the chassis itself. Max insurance on most cruisers comes in at around 3 mil for a contract costing almost 1 mil, which means when your ship gets poped you get a return of just over 2 mil (after you deduct the cost of buying the insurance policy). If your ship is reasonably well fitted, 2 mil probably didn’t cover your high slots, let alone the rest of your ship.
The reason Insurance works this way is, the insurable value of the ship is not based on its market price, but the total cost of the minerals required to build the ship. You’ll often hear myself and others bitching about this because it really does gimp the insurance system, whose purpose is to make ship losses more bearable and to promote people getting in on PvP, but in reality no one has offered a valid alternative. If you tie the insurable price to the ships true market value, you create a market for ship builders to basically mine materials, set ½ of their ships on market for outrageous prices, then get a corp. mate to pop the other half of the ships and make a huge profit.
Personally I don’t see any value to insuring frigs or cruisers, unless you just plain fit it with nothing but raw tech 1 (non-named) equipment. Tech 1 fitting is an economically viable option, but results in a terribly gimped ship compared to what you’ll be facing in PvP. Tech 2 frigs and cruisers cost so much more than the insurance allows for that you’re frankly losing money to buy the insurance.
What you ABSOLUTELY SHOULD buy insurance on are Battleships, and Tech 1 Battlecruisers. The market price one these is actually FAR BELOW the market cost of the minerals used to make them, because they are built by mostly Industry oriented corps who mine their own minerals and build the ships for pure profit. The benefit to you is you can buy a Drake for 28mil ISK and insure it for 35mil ISK, not quite the total cost if you include ISK spent on Modules, but definitely enough to replace the ship without it hurting too much. Another example would be the Raven Battleship. Raven is 90mil ISK, 30 mil for insurance contract insures the ship for 110 mil ISK. Fit the ship smartly and that 110mil will take some of the sting out of loosing the ship.
To make a long explanation short (too late
), insure battlecruisers and battleships ALWAYS before you take them out of high security space.But if you travel smart you shouldn’t need to worry about losing your ship.
2. TRAVEL IN GANGS
Unless you have a crapload of skillpoints in cloakers and one of the very expensive CovOps ships (frigate and cruiser variants), wandering around outside of high security space by yourself is nothing short of suicidal. Interceptors and CovOps ships have special abilities that allow them to escape danger, most other ships get shredded quickly without good support/intel, and even in an interceptor, an untrained pilot is dead meat by himself.
The good news is, as a FREEE/ATF pilot you have a number of safeguards and tools at your disposal.
The most important safeguard you have is your corpmates. Always travel in a sizable gang, because there is safety in numbers. Being in a gang means you have people scouting ahead and sometimes behind as well. Being a gang scout means you have backup if you jump into something dangerous. This is not Tribes, you will not be rewarded with a sense of accomplishment by going cowboy and leroy’ing the flag, you’ll just end up dide. If you want to pew pew and there’s no gangs full of big kids, there’s a lot of you nublets now, start forming your own gangs of inexpensive ships, get out there and most importantly learn from every engagement.
Gang Travel Tips:
• ALIGN, ALIGN, ALIGN!!! If you don’t know how to align, ask and someone will explain in-game.
• Stay with your gang. If you are left behind during a warp, SAY SO quickly.
• Cluster tightly, don’t be more than 5km from the nearest ship in your gang while out of warp. Remember, the lone fish gets eaten by the sharks first.
• If your gang stops for a while on a gate, STAY RIGHT ON THE GATE. If you’re out of jump range of the gate and the gang has to jump out fast to avoid a larger enemy, you will be left behind and will be dide.
The most important tool you have is the intel channel. For more into on the intel channel and how to get on it, SEE YOUR CORP/ALLIANCE MAIL IN-GAME.
When on the intel channel, DO NOT:
• CHAT.
• DISCUSS TACTICS.
• CONFIRM YOUR POSITION UNLESS YOU ARE SCOUTING FOR THE CHANNEL.
• CONFIRM THE LOCATION OF YOUR GANG.
Occasionally there are SPIES in the channel looking for easy targets. We're pretty good about rooting them out, but when the channel gets up to 200+ members a spy can easily go unnoticed for hours.
What you CAN do is:
• Request intel on a particular route or system. “Any intel on Rior to Torr?” “Any intel on the Torr gate in EC-?” “Has anyone been through the EC- to L-C pipe recently?”
• If you’re in a system and a gang of hostiles jumps in, report it. “7 hostiles just entered 01Y!, 3 Raven, 1 Appoc, 1 Crow, 1 dictor 1 Osprey” “2 new hostiles in L-C, ship types unknown”
Keep it simple and quick on the intel channel, keep your nub chat on corp/alliance.
3. VOICE COMMS
The rules are pretty straightforward. If you’re in a system full of friendlies, chat it up.
The second a hostile or neutral enters your system, follow these 5 simple rules.
Rule # 1.
SHUT UP.
Rule # 2.
INTEL.
If you have intel (if you see the invaders on scanner or in front of you) report it concisely without any unnecessary detail. “I have 2 Ravens on the 01Y gate, they’re 20km off the gate and are aggressing me”.
Rule #3
SHUT UP.
Rule #4.
LISTEN AND BE READY TO REACT.
When invaders enter your system, DON’T BE FUCKING AROUND. When someone says “clear channel!” they’re not bitching about bad airplay and shitty ticket prices, they want you to SHUT UP so they can relay info that is probably critical to your survival at that very moment.
Rule #5
SHUT, THE FUCK, UP.
If you’re in a roaming gang, THERE IS NO CHATTING. Voice in a roaming gang is ONLY for the FC (Fleet Commander) and his scouts. If you have something funny to say, type it in gang. IF YOU DON’T HAVE SOMETHING MISSION CRITICAL TO SAY, SHUT THE FUCK UP ON VOICE CHAT IN ROAMING GANGS.
Just in case you missed it, SHUT THE FUCK UP ON VOICE CHAT WHEN YOU ARE IN A COMBAT SITUATION. If you’re not sure whether or not you’re in a combat situation, refer to Rules 1 and 3 for more clarification on how to proceed.
4. TO RAT, OR NOT TO RAT, THAT IS THE QUESTION
Now that we have some really nice 0.0 space, many of you who are training or have trained Battlecruisers/Battleships probably want to start making that crazy 0.0 ratting monies. In one 20 minute pass through the belts in L-C you can make 5-10 million ISK in bounties alone. This makes it really tempting to run those belts killing the super easy NPCs and collecting the prices on their heads.
WATCH LOCAL CHAT. Always have local chat visible so you can see how many people are there, and who they are. The local chat channel is your lifeline, and will tell you when hostiles enter the system. It’s not unusual for a single roaming hostile to be warping around in L-C, and if you’re in a BS or BC you’re probably safe from them when the friendly population is high. If the L-C population rises quickly and dramatically, WARP TO A SAFE SPOT AND ASK QUESTIONS LATER. Never hesitate to abandon a fight with an NPC, the rats will still be in the belts long after the invaders are gone.
Now here’s some tips on what NOT to do when in PvP land if you don't want to die a really stupid death.
• Don’t warp to 0 while cloaked in a CovOps
• Don’t blind jump from .5 to 0.0 space with no intel and no scout.
• If you by some stroke of luck, escape a gatecamp, don’t warp back to see who it was.
• If you escape a gatecamp, don’t predictably warp to the next jumpgate.
• If your roaming gang kills gate rats, don’t leave the gate to loot them.
• Don’t warp to a tech 1 frigate gatecamp when in a Raven, because they probably have bigger backup on the other side.
• If you attack something at a gate from a distance, realize you can’t defeat it and need to get away, find a random planet in space, warp to 100 and then cloak. If you don’t have the option to cloak, KEEP MOVING, and if you’re lucky, they will get bored and move on. DON’T be like me and try to jump through the gate, because your aggression will have locked you out of the gate for 30 seconds, meaning you will get warp scrammed and killed.
• If you’re late warping behind your gang to a gate, and you hear someone say “Holy shit look at the size of this gatecamp!” from the other side, don’t be TOO eager to jump through.
• Don’t use a battleship to scout a gatecamp.
Yes, I have lost ships in these and many other very retarded situations. Just remember before you laugh too hard, it happens fast out there and until you’ve been in the situation you honestly don’t know how to recognize it and react accordingly.
Don’t kick yourself too hard and just make sure to recognize what went wrong, then learn from it, even if the mistake is as simple as “I shouldn’t have been there alone.”.
In the end, you are going to lose ships, lots of them, but if you pay attention to what’s going on around you and learn from each ship loss, over time you’ll lose less and less and suddenly realize you’re still in a ship you bought months ago and has seen numerous engagements and survived, and that’s a fucking cool feeling.
( I encourage other vets to please add your thoughts, advice and stupid ship losses to the thread, thx
)
Last edited:
, I was pretty pissed last night