Safety Tips for Operating in Low Sec
Most players start their EVE careers in high security space (high-sec). They learn the basics of flying and fitting ships as well as how to fight NPCs effectively.
However, at some point every capsuleer will venture into low security space (low-sec). Maybe they are going because an agent has given them a mission. Maybe they have been seduced by the short cuts offered between areas of high-sec. Maybe they have read about the vast amounts of isk that can be made by doing Planetary Industry in low-sec. Whatever the reason, most first timers in low-sec are quickly spotted by player pirates and blown up. This leaves many players with the impression that low-sec is very dangerous and that a visit to low-sec is highly risky.
To a certain extent, they are right. Low-sec is dangerous and players do lose ships there. However, low-sec is not nearly as dangerous as most initial experience sometimes leads players to believe. In high-sec, CONCORD protects players from each other. Therefore, players whose experience is limited to high-sec have developed a mindset that allows them to ignore other players. Further, many of the features of the game that are popular in high-sec will lead to a quick and fiery death in low-sec. A change of mindset is required to operate in low-sec safely. This guide attempts to explain that mindset. It is primarily addressed to players who go to low-sec for purposes other than PvP.
Plan Ahead
Leave your shiny ships in high-sec—for now
In many ways, operating in low-sec is like going hiking in a remote wilderness full of predators. Flying billion-ISK faction battleships in low-sec is like hanging a huge piece of raw meat around your neck. Start with small, cheap ships and work your way up. The predators will still attack you from time to time, but there is no reason to attract every pirate within 10 jumps.
Basically, the familiar principle: never fly anything you cannot afford to lose.
Replace routine with seeking opportunities
In high-sec, players tend to decide on some activity to pursue such as mining and then conduct it in the relative comfort and safety of CONCORD protection. In low-sec, it is more fruitful to assess your circumstances before taking action, adopting a risk-management and weighing potential gain against the loss of time/ship/implants.
Plan and fit for attacks
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Players will understandably attempt a wide variety of tasks in low-sec space, using a wide variety of ships, and it's not possible to give one-size-fits-all advice on fitting for attacks. But here are some basic suggestions:
- Small, light ships such as exploration frigates and small mining ships such as the Prospect might have few or no slots to spare for defensive modules. These ships can use fast align times and (in some cases) cloaks to avoid attacks. The Venture mining ship has a built in resistance to warp disruption which lets it escape from basic tackling.
- Consider fitting a meaningful tank appropriate to your ship's size and module layouts, even if you don't plan on entering combat by choice. Being able to survive damage for a minute or two can be especially useful if you're working in a system or region with friendly pilots near.
- ECM can disrupt an attacker and let you escape their tackle. Bear in mind that ECM counts as an offensive action, and will give you a one-minute timer which prevents you from docking up, tethering on a player structure, or jumping through a gate.
- Ships with a meaningfully-large drone bay can consider packing a flight of ECM drones. ECM drones use a chance-based mechanic, and won't always save the day, but they can briefly break an attacker's target-lock, allowing you to warp out. When you deploy them against an assailant, be aligned and ready to warp out, in case they work.
- Large ships can fit ECM burst jammers, which offer a chance to break the target-lock of every ship close to you.
Bring friends
There is safety in numbers. Remember, pirates will generally only attack when they think they can win. A bunch of friends will tend to scare away most of the small pirate gangs. Just be careful though, as if your fleet is too large or too shiny, larger fleets will become interested in you.
Also, you can save yourself (and your fleet) from a huge amount of trouble by having a ship scouting ahead of you, or sitting as a picket near a chokepoint through which attackers would have to pass to get to you. Cheap T1 fast frigates can do this fairly well: the Atron, Slasher, Condor and Executioner are all highly expendable and extremely fast T1 options. T2 Covert Ops ships work even better.
Have good bookmarks in any low sec system you frequent
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Whenever you enter a new low sec system and are planning to stay longer than it takes to get to the next gate, or you are planning travel through the system frequently, create at least a minimal set of bookmarks. You should always have the following bookmarked in any system you frequent:
- Tactical bookmarks and off-grid d-scan bookmarks for every gate and station.
- A minimum of three (five is better) safe spots that are near nothing and are not in a direct line between any two other things in the system.
- An instant undock bookmark for each station you use.
- If you are planning on doing Planetary Industry in the system, you will need tactical bookmarks for the customs offices that you use.
- If you are planning to mine or kill belt rats, you should have tactical bookmarks on all the asteroid belts.
Turn off the Auto Target Back feature
The auto target back feature is one that seems like a good idea but, in practice, is a very bad one. You should always manually lock your targets, so you always know exactly what you have targeted. Pirates can target you to try and get you to fire on them first. If you have auto target back turned on, you are much more likely to do this accidently. Furthermore, the auto target back will work on any ship that targets you, including friends. In the middle of a battle, you don’t want to kill a friendly support ship that locks you in order to (for example) repair your armour.
To turn this off:
- Press the Escape key to bring up the Options window
- Select the "General Settings" tab
- In the middle column near the bottom, set the "Auto Target Back" entry to "0 targets"
Stay Alert
Once in low-sec, you need to monitor the space around you carefully.
Have an escape plan
This one is pretty self-explanatory. You should always have an “out” planned in your head before you need it. What this plan will be is determined by what you are doing and where you are doing it (i.e. mining vs. hauling vs. mission running vs. pirate hunting). Taking 5 seconds to pre-plan your escape route will get you out of more trouble than anything else in this guide.
Never go AFK in space
This should be obvious. Never leave your computer while you are in space, always dock up. The only possible exception to this is if you are using a cloaking device, in a safe spot.
Never use your Autopilot to fly anywhere for any reason
Your autopilot will warp you to a point 15km away from your target station or gate, then slow-boat you to the target. During that time, any hostlie player will probably kill you. Even if you were at your computer, the time it takes to align to a new destination and accelerate to warp could prove fatal.
Think out your warp-in distances
If you are going to rescue a friend, you want to warp to your weapons' optimal range. If you are going to an asteroid belt or similar location, you might want to warp in a long way off (60km+ at least) so you can see what is waiting there for you before you are close enough to engage. If you are losing a fight and warp away, any half skilled pirate will be able to figure out where you have gone and warp after you. They will warp to 0 hoping to catch you.
The only time you might want to warp to 0 is when you are warping to a gate or docking at a station so you can jump/dock right away. Be careful, though, when warping to a gate: a properly positioned and fit battleship can use smart bombs to kill small ships (like frigates) as they warp in. This can happen often in the areas of low sec that act as short cuts from from one part of high sec to another. If you are not sure that the gate you are jumping to is safe, warp to it at a far distance (or warp to a tactical bookmark: see next tip) and check it out first. If it is clear, then "bounce": warp to somewhere else, then back to the gate at 0 and jump.
Watch Local Chat's member list closely
Always, always, always have your Local chat channel window open and tall enough to see all players in the local system. You don't need to read the actual chat—indeed it is often better not to read the actual chat—but arrange your windows so you can see who is in Local.
Whenever someone enters the system, they will appear in the list. Double-click their name to open the "Show Info" window on them. You are looking for two pieces of information: their security status and corporation/alliance. If their security status is -5.0 or less, you should assume they are going to attack you (if they find you and think they can win the fight). If their security status is higher than -5.0, they might attack you so it is safest to assume they will until you know the area better.
If you're going to be in a system for a while, try clicking in the Local member list, and then pressing CTRL + A to select all members. Anyone else who enters after you do this will come in un-highlighted, making them more visible to you.
If you spend enough time in same area of low sec, you will soon learn the local players and corporations and how they will react to your being in the system. From that, you will have better idea of who to watch out for and when someone new is in the area.
Pre-align when suspicious
When you are doing anything that requires you to stay in one place for more than a few seconds (e.g. ratting or mining), there is always the chance that a player pirate will find you and warp in on you. Remember, the bigger your ship the longer it takes to align and warp out. You should always be ready to warp out at the first hint of danger. It is not always necessary to run away, but you should always be ready to flee.
Remember that "aligning while static" is impossible. EVE's graphics show your ship facing in one direction, but this is merely a graphical effect: as far as the game is concerned, you are only aligned and permitted to ender warp when you are moving at at least 75% of your maximum speed on a vector within 5 degrees of your alignment target. If it's possible to carry out whatever you're doing while also being aligned, make sure you are.
Use your Directional Scanner
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The directional scanner—"d-scan"—is an essential tool for both hunters and targets in all systems outside of high security space. Using it to hunt people is demanding, and takes practice, but it takes very little practice or knowledge to use it to check your immediate astronomical environment for threats.
Set the angle to 360 and distance to maximum. Click the scan button every few seconds. (If you are going to spend any time in low- or null-sec space, consider binding it to a convenient button, such as a mouse button or the spacebar.) If you see a ship appear in the d-scan that you don’t certainly know is friendly, be ready to have a visitor. If you see Combat Scanner Probes on d-scan, then someone is looking for you, be ready to have a visitor. If you are in an exploration site and you see Core Scanner Probes, someone is looking for exploration sites, and you should be ready to have a visitor. Know the limitations of different kinds of search:
- A player hunting using d-scan alone can only warp in on you if you're at a publicly-warpable celestial (a belt, a gate, a station, &c), or at a publicly-warpable combat site.
- A player using d-scan and core probes can warp in on you at the above locations and at any location which can be scanned down using core probes, e.g. a wormhole or an exploration site.
- A player using d-scan and combat probes can warp in on you at any of the above locations, and also at any other location in space, provided you're not cloaked.
Never go GCC by a gate or station while in a small ship
If you attack a neutral player (anyone with a security status higher than -5 and that your corporation is not at war with) you will be tagged as a suspect for 15 minutes. Everyone will be able to attack you without repercussions. If you are within 150k of a gate or station, the sentry guns will open fire on you. Small ships (frigates, destroyers, most cruisers) will evaporate under these guns in seconds.
What to do when caught
If you get caught and tackled, all is not (necessarily) lost. Stay calm, as there might still be things you can do.
Call for help
If you're operating with friends, report what is attacking you, where.
Ideally, you will be on voice comms together. If this is the case, speak about your character in the third person (a spoken "I" is not an identifiable figure) or name yourself at the start of your message. Then calmly state what is attacking you, where, and what you're flying, and ask for help. Ideally (again) you will be in a fleet with your friends. This will let them warp directly to you.
Manoeuvre
If you have a microwarpdrive fitted and are not warp scrambled, only warp disrupted, you might be able to break out of a single tackler's orbit by executing a slingshot manoeuvre.
If you are warp scrambled, or you only have an afterburner fitted, at least make sure you're moving. A consistent feature of EVE's combat system is that moving targets tend to take less damage. Ideally, move laterally to any turret-using ships on grid, to impede their tracking; you might find that in the heat of the moment you can't identify what you're being attacked by, in which case just be moving.
Fight back
If your ship has any damage-dealing weapons and/or drones, focus them on your attacker, or on one of your attackers if there are several. Damaging an attacker imposes more combat stress on them, and increases the chance that they'll make a critical error.
If there are several attackers but only one is tackling you (look for the warp disruption/scrambling icon next to their name in the overview), try hurting the one that is tackling you: if you can drive them off or blow them up, you will be able to warp out.
Overheat
Overheating your modules wrings more performance out of them; if you survive, you can worry about repairing them later.
Many modules overheating at once might risk burning out something important... but if in doubt and working in your own combat stress, just overheat everything! Worrying about repairs can come after you survive. If you get blown up anyway, you'll have left your attackers with a repair bill for all your burned-out modules.
If, though, things happen slowly enough for you to think about it, your order of priority for overheating is:
- Your propulsion module, if it's not scrammed: this will increase your chance of shaking the enemy's tackle off.
- Your defensive modules: overheating these will help you tank more damage, increasing the time for help to arrive. Remember that active hardeners can be overheated, as well as armour repairers and shield boosters. Even a passive or buffer tank therefore often has components which can be heated!
- Your offensive modules: putting more DPS on the enemy will heighten their combat stress.
Save your pod
If things go badly and your ship is clearly not long for this world, be ready to get your pod out as soon as your hull explodes. There are no warp disruption bubbles in low-sec space, so you stand a good chance of saving your pod if you are trying to warp immediately on the loss of your ship.
Learn
Ultimately, all ships in EVE are temporary possessions, put at risk whenever you undock, even in high-sec space. It helps to think of them as expendable in much the same way that ammo is. With luck, you won't lose many ships in low-sec space.
When it happens, though, try to accept it as part of the cost of doing business. Assess what went wrong, and what in your planning and execution you could have done differently.
It may be worth talking (politely—and perhaps via a calm in-game email after at least a few hours' break) to your attackers. Low-sec PvP players vary wildly, and you should not let them talk you into giving them money or going to a particular location. In some ways, though, piracy is a more honest profession than scamming or suicide ganking, and some players are very happy to offer advice. (Some pirates have even been known to reimburse new players after blowing them up, knowing that a cheap kill for a skilled PvP pilot can be an expensive loss for a newbie; it's probably best not to outright ask for this, but it goes to show that many players are capable of remembering that EVE is just a game.)
