Surviving Nullsec

University Policies

Under current EVE-University rules all 0.0 space is free to PvP and PvE in for Uni members, with the exception that University members must not get involved in sovereignty-related battles.

Sovereignty

There are two kinds of 0.0, NPC space and player controlled space. Some NPC-controlled space has system names similar to those in the Empire, while the majority of 0.0 has number/letter designations. The sovereignty information under the system name will tell you whether you're in NPC space or not.

Sovereignty can be established by alliances by setting up Territorial Claim Units, Infrastructure Hubs, and Outposts (player-built stations). See our page on sovereignty mechanics for more details.

Alliances will typically have one of the following policies regarding outsiders:

NBSI

Not blue, shoot it! This is the usual alliance policy. If your corporation or alliance is not set to positive standing (blue) to alliance controlling the space, you will be shot at.

NRDS

Not red, don't shoot! There are some regions of 0.0 where alliances shoot only those people that have negative standing. Curatores Veritatis Alliance (CVA) in Providence is probably the most famous example of such alliance.

There are stations in 0.0, though they are few and far between. There are also player-owned stations in 0.0 (outposts), but it is likely that you will not be allowed to dock in these. Don't buy something in the market without making sure you can go get it.

Hazards and Combat in 0.0

Combat in 0.0 differs from low-sec or high-sec combat. There are no restrictions on ships or equipment. CONCORD also doesn't interfere with fights in any way, and there are no gate guns.

Capital Ships

You can be attacked by carriers, supercarriers, dreadnoughts, and Titans -- ships that are much more common in 0.0 space. They have long lock times, but you're probably not prepared to take them on. You can encounter capital ships in low-sec as well, but 0.0 is where they live. Capital ships can use gates but most often they jump to another ship which is generating a cynosural field several systems away.

Make sure your overview shows cynosural fields. If you see a cyno flare in-system, it's time to leave.

Bombs

Bombs can be deployed in 0.0 space by stealth bombers. Bombs are expensive and hard to use correctly, but they do area of effect damage, and lots of it. Be sure your overview is configured to show bombs (there's a delay before they explode), and get away immediately when you see one. DO NOT turn on your microwarpdrive. The damage from the bomb scales up with the increased signature radius you get from using your MWD. Usually, when traveling, the right course of action is to pick a celestial and spam the warp button. A frigate can get out of the explosion radius if the pilot is quick off the mark, but one bomb can kill an untanked frigate that doesn't get out of range. Three or four can do serious damage even to a battleship.

Bubbles

One of the biggest differences from Empire combat is the use of warp disruption fields or warp bubbles. Warp disruption fields are bubbles in space which prevent warp drives from operating. The only ships immune to this effect are Interceptors, Victorieux Luxury Yacht and Strategic Cruisers with the Interdiction Nullifier propulsion subsystem. Gate camps and station camps usually have bubbles of some kind. Therefore, warping to zero and being in a fast ship aren't sufficient protections - you'll likely get grabbed by a bubble and drop warp before you are in jump/dock range.

Warp disruption bubbles are placed at some point in space. If your warp vector crosses the warp bubble too close to either end of your warp, you can be pulled out of warp. So warping to zero isn't as safe as in high-or low-sec as you can get dragged out of warp at the edge of the bubble, up to 100K from the gate. They do not deactivate your MWD.

The best way to deal with bubbles is to avoid getting caught in them in the first place. If you have already made bookmarks in the system you are entering, the best way to pass through without getting caught is to first warp to an unaligned safe spot immediately after jumping into the system, then from there warp to an observation bookmark off the gate you wish to use. After checking what is there, you can then warp to the gate at zero and jump. Using this method in a frigate you will avoid all but the most clever bubble camps.

If you are in a new system where you do not have bookmarks, the best way to get around the bubbles is to warp first to a celestial, preferably one which is far from being inline with the gates you are moving between. A quick check of the solar system map, by hitting the F10 key, can give you a view of the alignments of different celestials. Then warp from there to your gate at zero. It is worth mentioning that when warping to celestials to evade hostile ships, you should avoid warping to zero or to 100km, as these are the most commonly used ranges, and therefore the easiest places for them to catch you.

If your overview is set up correctly to E-Uni standards, mobile warp disruptors will appear on it, and therefore can also be detected using d-scan.

Kinds of bubbles

1. Warp interdiction bubbles:
   • Can only be deployed by Interdictors (Sabre, Heretic, Eris, Flycatcher).
   • The probes which create them cannot be shot, though they can be destroyed by AoE damage from Bombs and Smartbombs.
   • Last a limited time or until the ship which deployed them docks or leaves the system.
   • Can't be turned off once launched.
   • Have a radius of 20km

1. Heavy interdictor bubbles:
   • Can only be deployed by Heavy Interdiction Cruisers (Devoter, Onyx, Phobos, Broadsword).
   • Are centered on the Heavy Interdictor with a radius of 20km.
   • Are destroyed when the heavy interdictor is destroyed.
   • Can be turned off by the HIC pilot.

1. Mobile warp disruptors:
   • Must be anchored/unanchored, which takes about 5 minutes each way.
   • Can be shot and destroyed.
   • Do not time out.
   • Are available in a variety of bubble sizes, in T1 and T2 versions.

Avoiding Bubbles

Other people may warn you of gate camps, either in local, or by anchoring a can. By checking the maps for ship kills, you can often get a warning of trouble in an upcoming system.

Interceptors as well as "nullified" Strategic Cruisers are immune to bubbles.

If you have a CovOps scout, they can check things out ahead of you. Often, bubbles are placed away from the gate on common warp vectors (so people can't just burn towards the gate and jump out). That means you may be able to warp to a planet or other celestial and then to the gate, dodging around the bubble. Your scout may also be able to get to a point which will provide a clear warp-in to the gate in which case you can warp to your scout and then to the gate.

Preparing for Entering Nullsec

Your Overview

If you haven't set up your overview to Uni standards, now is a good time! If your overview is not properly set up, you might find yourself engaging inappropriate targets, taking fire from ships that don't even show up, or other equally disastrous outcomes. Pay special attention to the Pod Saver tab and learn how to use it, it may just save your clone. See the Overview Guide for information about how to configure your overview.

Local Chat

Between 12 July and 16 September 2019 Nullsec zones were under blackout, so pilots in will not automatically appear in the local member list like they would in a Highsec or Lowsec system. This means that there is no indication of who or how many other pilots are in the same w-space system you are in.

Local chat shows you all the pilots in your current system. It's a good idea to separate this window from your other chat windows and make it as tall as possible, so that you can see as many other pilots in local as possible. When you enter a system, you should check the names you see for anyone who you know causes trouble. You should also double-click their names and view their corp/alliance. Do several of them share a corp or alliance? If so, engaging them could mean an incoming gank for you. As you spend more time in the campus, you'll begin to recognize the names of players, corporations, and alliances and can roughly estimate how much trouble you might find in a given system.

Your Directional Scanner

Next to local chat and Mumble, D-Scan is your best source of information about who can blow you up. It's a complicated tool that has its own guide and classes. D-Scan is basically used to identify ships around yours. It can be used to roughly pinpoint where other ships are, as well, by narrowing down the angle at which you scan. While local tells you what players are nearby, D-Scan as telling you what ships are nearby. You should leave the D-Scan window open at all times and scan often to not be taken by surprise. Some notes about D-Scan:

• Not all ships on D-Scan are being piloted. If an empty ship is located inside a POS shield, it will show up on D-Scan.
• Cloaked ships and Combat Recon Ships do not appear on D-Scan.
• If you notice "Sisters Combat Scanner Probes" or "Combat Scanner Probes" on D-Scan, someone is probably trying to scan down ships, maybe even you. Be very cautious if you notice these probes on D-Scan. If the player using them finds your ship, he can warp an entire fleet on top of you. At the very least, if you plan to stick around that system, align to a safe warp, preferably a bookmark in unaligned space, and be ready to warp out at a moment's notice and pay close attention to your overview.

Traveling Safely

There are many hazards to navigation in Nullsec that you will not encounter in high or low security space. Most of the time you can still move about in relative safety, but you will need to learn to travel according to a new set of rules if you want to lose less ships. These are a few things that you need to be aware of, and strategies for surviving them.

Holding Cloak

As you jump into system, "HOLD YOUR CLOAK." (i.e. don't touch anything). Check your D-Scan, and see who is around, and then if everything looks ok, you can warp to your next location.

If there is anyone on grid:

1. HOLD YOUR CLOAK. You have 60 seconds of cloak, which is an eternity in this situation.
2. BREATHE
3. Decide whether you are going to fight or flee. If you want to run, do the following:
   1. Quickly check D-Scan for any signs of an obvious trap, such as a bubble or camp at a nearby gate or station.
   2. Pick a safe spot or planet to warp to.
   3. While you are still cloaked, wait until any moving ships are heading away from you before engaging warp.
   4. If you are heading to a planet, drop a bookmark enroute to immediately bounce to once you land.
   5. If you are camped in the system and have created a safe spot, you can then decide to try to break their camp, dock in a station, or use a safe logout. If you choose to dock or break their camp, make sure you are within d-scan range of the station or gate and check for bubbles before warping or you may get caught. If you are going to use the the safe logout, check d-scan for combat scanner probes and be prepared to warp to a secondary safe if they show up on your scanner.

Bookmarks

Your first few hours in nullsec should be spent making as many bookmarks as you can stand. See the bookmarks page for information about bookmarks. The following is a rough checklist for bookmarks you want to make:

• Two or more unaligned safe spots
• An instant undock from each station (at least the ones you use often)
• Tacticals off of stations and gates Warp Tactical Around A Station
• Tacticals off of asteroid belts if you plan on ratting

Making bookmarks for each system you're in often is a good idea. When you are traveling, especially in a fast frigate, and you find yourself alone in a system, take the time to make bookmarks. Once you have your favorite systems and region(s) bookmarked, you will find traveling in NullSec much safer. You might actually enjoy it compared to the cramped and busy traffic of HighSec, where a ganker always gets the first shot.

Ratting

Rats are worth more in lower-sec systems, and they grow bigger in lower-sec systems. In 0.0, you get very big rats worth top dollar -- battleships with million-ISK bounties and a chance of faction/officer loot drops. Note that even 0.0 has different security levels. Lower true security level means better rats. The security levels range from 0.0 to -1.0 and can be seen on the star map.

Rat/Belt Chaining

If you manage your rats, you can farm more money -- leave a few, and they'll respawn with larger ones. Done properly, you can get reasonably-frequent elite-level battleships, which can occasionally drop officer loot. If you work multiple asteroid belts into the equation, it can be very lucrative. Conversely, if you mess up the chain, it can go back to frigates for a good while.

If you mess up someone's rat chaining in 0.0, you will not make friends.

Safety Tips While Ratting

Ratting can be one of the most lucrative activities in nullsec for a newer character. Many of the common belt rats are worth over a million ISK in bounties alone, and routinely drop another million in loot. It can also be dangerous, if you aren't careful. Again, a few basic strategies can reduce the odds that this will happen to you.

If you are ratting:

• Watch local and d-scan. Remember, everybody here can kill you without consequences.
• If a neutral is in local, but not on d-scan, assume they are in a cloaked ship which will probably de-cloak right next to you if you are in a belt or an anomaly, then proceed to tackle you, jam you with ECM, and kill you. He probably has friends in the next system, too, ready to jump in and blob you.
• Rat while aligned to a safe spot, so you can immediately warp away when somebody arrives to spoil your fun.
• Never warp into a belt at zero! Burn away while killing your rats, so that somebody warping into the belt in a non-cloaked ship will need to burn to you to get point, giving you more time to escape.
• Equip a prototype cloak to your ratting ship. When hostiles are hunting you, warp to a safe spot, cloak up, and go get yourself a drink while you wait for them to get bored and leave, then resume your business.
• When possible, rat in exploration sites, rather than belts. There is more ISK to be made, and anybody looking for you would need to use probes, which you can see on d-scan, giving you some warning when it is time to bug out.
• When all else fails, don't forget the pod saver tab on your overview.

Interesting Links

• Interdiction 101 syllabus contains detailed information on the use of Mobile Warp Disruptors, Interdictors, and HICs.
• The Altruist's Syndicate Article A regional travel guide from gentleman pirate Azual Skoll.