Tips and Tricks

The point of this page is to list any misc tips and tricks that you've encountered/discovered that don't merit a more in-depth write up.

To see the origin of some of these contributions please visit Tips and Tricks - From Unistas and Guests or the original forum thread http://www.eve-ivy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22000

Traveling

• Don't autopilot -- nothing attracts pirates faster than a ship that shows up 15k from a gate and heads for the gate at normal speeds. They'll know you're not paying attention, and shortly, so will you.

• The autopilot isn't useless, though: with a route set for the autopilot, warping to zero and activating the autopilot while still in warp will make your ship instantly jump as soon as you arrive on the gate. Just deactivate the autopilot as soon as the jump is initiated to prevent it from warping to 15km on the next gate.

• If you set the route to a system, the next stargate on the route will show up in yellow, so you can find it easily. (If you take a different gate, the autopilot will re-route automatically.)

• When you come through a jump gate, you're cloaked for about 40 seconds, or until you move. If you jump into trouble, pause a few seconds to analyze your situation, let the panic subside, and decide what to do.

• If you have a cloaking device and in unfriendly territory you can minimize visibility by doing the following: 1. Jump through gate and pick destination to warp to. 2. Align to destination then immediately hit your cloak. Once aligned then warp off. (Some techniques use a burst of AB or MWD as well)

• Leave a cheap item at stations you visit frequently. This will turn your assets tab (available on the left of the screen) into a handy collection of bookmarks.

• Be wary of your security status. Below certain levels, means Faction Police may shoot you if you enter a high enough security system. E.g. Sec status -2.0 or below means you will be shot in systems with sec status 1.0-0.9. Sec status of -5 or lower means you are kill on sight to everyone. Train diplomacy to remedy this a little.

• Make safespots and bookmarks everywhere you regularly go, especially in low security space. Tired of the masses of bookmarks cluttering your peopleandplaces window? Make a separate folder for them. right click this folder heading to get a window just with your bookmarks for ultra quick navigation.

Salvaging

• If the wrecks are in large clumps many kilometers apart, clear one clump and bookmark the next set of wrecks, then warp away and warp back to the bookmark you just made -- saving you from having to slowboat to the next set of wrecks.

This works really well if the mission had multiple rooms since the warp point you can use is close by.

• Despite detailing in their description that they are for pulling in cargo containers, tractor beams CAN pull in wrecks also. Indeed, pulling in wrecks is the reason you'd want them. The description is left over from a previous release of EvE.

• While you are salvaging with some tractor beams, you can drag the wrecks behind you and salvage them at the same time while you travel towards another wreck that's outside tractor beam range. This speeds up salvage time somewhat.

Hauling

• You can fit an improved cloaking device to your hauler for some added security during wormhole ops. Ask the miners to drop the can some distance from the asteroid belt, and stay between 2000 and 2500 m from the can in the direction that you want to warp to. If trouble arises and you don't think you have time to align and warp out (or you're bubbled), you can instantly activate the cloak and head away from the belt in an open direction. The loot you save may even pay for all those dead retrievers :)

Market

• Use the scroll wheel on the mouse to adjust orders by 0.01 ISK.
• Try to avoid updating your buy/sell orders at the same time each day. This keeps your market competition guessing.
• If possible, leave your trade character logged on at all times. That way, if you were added to your competitor's address book, they'll never know when you log on and off.
• When buying from contracts READ IT what you are actually paying for. Don't become the fool that loses all his money because he didn't READ the contract and the number of ZEROS in it.
• When buying set market to Region (top left corner), and go to the settings tab and tick the box to avoid low-sec and/or 0.0 systems if this helps.
• Setting up buy-orders for items you don't need right away will save quite some ISK.

Mining

• When you first warp to an asteroid belt you may be up to 70-80 kilometers away from the rocks. Bookmark an asteroid, then warp out and back to the bookmark to save time getting to mining range.

• If you have a really long belt, you may save time by warping between two sets of asteroids >150km from each other when changing rocks, rather than slowboating to the next asteroid.

• Use MLU's - Mining Laser Upgrades instead of cargo expanders especially when group mining.

Missioning

• Fly a ship size appropriate for the mission. Lvl 1 - frigates, Lvl 2 - cruisers, lvl 3 - battlecruisers, lvl 4 - battleships.

• Buy a hull repairer when you move up from frigates. Keep it in your cargo bay and if you hit structure during a mission warp out, dock locally and use it to repair your ship saving you station repair bills. Remember to swap it back out before going back to the mission.

• Drone users: Make sure you have all the NPCs in a given group locking/attacking you before you launch your drones. Refer to EVE-Survival for info on spawn triggers and the possibility of drones attracting the attention of other NPC groups.

• After training Social to 3 and Connections to 3 you can almost instantly access L2 agents without the need to grind lots of L1 missions.

• If you mission in a fleet with somebody else, you'll get standings increases with that faction. This can save you some grinding, as a couple of shared L3 or L4 missions will give the same increase as many more L1 or L2 missions. Many Uni missioners will be happy to have you come in with a salvage destroyer and do the salvaging on a shared basis, if you're not up to taking on L4 combat yet.

• Similarly, the E-Uni missioning channel runs a spider fleet -- you join and run missions solo, but share the profits and standings with other Uni mission-runners. That can get you standings with companies you couldn't access otherwise.

• Train up salvaging as soon as possible -- salvage can double your mission profit, and a team running high-level missions with a dedicated salvager can be much more profitable and safe than a solo missioner.

• Check yourself before you wreck yourself. Look at the mission before accepting it: Note the RAT type (telling you what ammo to use and resist to fit).

• Check the location of the encounter and right click it and set destination. Bring up the map and you can see what kind of space you will be traveling through.

• Remember the courier missions, You can work up your standing just fine without shooting anything!

• Keep a short summary of the missions your agent regularly gives you in your notepad. Important info : Damage types/resists/webs/scrams/Difficulty etc. Once u have them all, will save a lot of time alt-tab'ing if a fullscreen user.

Combat Techniques

• During Encounter Missions - Take advantage of the fact you can centre your view over the enemy and look from behind them. double clicking in the direction they are travelling in is now easy as your view is locked on the enemy. Repeatedly clicking in the direction he is travelling will constantly change your direction to match his, minimising the angular velocity and increasing your chances of good hits at ranges closer than u previously thought were impossible. (Works best with large/medium guns against large/medium rats)
• If you are having problems with a large ship demolishing you or staying far away from you, let a light drone speed tank it and go to town.
• when buying ammo make sure you look the information(attributes) its possible that you can be buying the wrong ammo for your needs. look at the bonuses to range in particular.
• learn to use your size and speed to your advantage. Orbiting a target fast and close will mitigate a lot of damage and allow you to beat ships much larger than you
• Learn manual piloting. Double click in space to fly. The orbit AI is very easily exploitable and you can close on/get away from a faster ship using the AI. Not to mention, gun transversal tricks.

Interceptors -

• Fly t1 frigates for a few months before you step into an interceptor hull. Once you fly a t1 frigate well, you should be able to fly an interceptor well.
• There are two kinds of interceptor: tackling and dogfighting. Tackling ceptors should always be speed fit and should try to stay out of heavy neut range. They have bonuses to disrupt range. Dogfighting interceptors should focus on tank and damage output before tackle.
• don't be afraid of warping off and know what you can and can't handle. call out your points and make sure your fc knows if you need to get out.
• if you get warriors on your ass, don't freak out. you can handle those for a while before you need to get out. Neuts and scrams, however, can ruin your day.
• never EVER directly approach anything. Always approach at an angle, otherwise you will die. You should be manually piloting a lot of the time anyway.

PVP/Low/NullSec

• Choose your fights carefully. In pvp space you are a shark or a fish. If you can't avoid the sharks, then you are food. Learn safespots, gate scouting and safe undocks.
• Rat in lowsec or nullsec. Not for money, but to learn how to not be sharkfood while still being being able to do something undocked. You can't hunt down prey untli you aren't prey yourself.
• do not trust people if they say "come here u can shoot at my ship to test your damage"

Modules/Rigs

• Different versions of standard laser crystals (Multifrequency, Gamma, X-Ray, Ultra, STD, etcetera) all have different capacitor modifiers. If you're (barely) capstable with Standard crystals, you won't be stable with Multifrequency.

Overview

• Hold the CTRL key and left click on an entry in your overview to target it.
• Holding CTRL will also freeze the overview so things don't change position. This is useful for making sure you click the right thing in busy situations.
• Export ur overview! Just do it now! Save in safe spot. Overviews a notorious fustrating to reconfigure after you've got it exactly how u want it.
• You can zoom like a telescope to any location on your screen, just hold down right click and look at the area u want to zoom into, then hold down both mouse buttons and go up and down ==> it will zoom. (Start at bottom of screen for maximum control. With practice, u can see targets over 100km away giving a lovely movie-action shot of your guns pounding the enemy.)
• Moving stacks of things around your hanger/ship cargo etc : Shift + drag will bring up a box allowing you type a number to split out.

Drone Usage

• The commands "All Drones: Engage", "All Drones: Return & Orbit" and "All Drones: Return & Dock" can be assigned to hotkeys.
• In your drone window in the overview, don't forget to keep the tab under "Drones in Space" open, so you can moniter your drones health and call them in in case they are attacked. This is especially important if you are using Tech 2 drones, as they are expensive to lose.
• Gallente drones for sheer damage output. Minmatar drones for speed and reasonable damage. Amarr and caldari drones does not really got a role. They are overshadowed by gallente and minmatar
• Gallente drones will even outdamage other drones vs npcs with vulnerbilities against the other damage types. The gallente got that high a base damage that it hardly matters.
• Minmatar drones are a good option in pvp, since they are fast and can catch the enemy. Especially true for warriors vs interceptors and valkyries vs. frigates in general.

Naming Conventions

• Name ships so you know how they are fitted or what their role is. This can be handy if you have several of the same type sitting in a hanger. Use a convention that works for you but is not obvious to others, for example don't call your ship Low Armour Heavy Gank PvP ship.

Words of Wisdom

• Never trust a random player in local chat to help/salvage for you in a mission. Chances are he will try to get you killed. If you need help, ask in your corp.
• don't fly something that you cannot afford to lose.
• If you don't know what something does then you're probably not ready to use it. you'll learn what it all does with time and training. You don't want to spend money to fit a ship that you cant maximize.
• Never attempt to rush your skills to achieve the next rank of ships.
• Certificates allows players to work towards certain specified certificate levels found under each ships infomation window, in order to fly that ship it well. Newer players should get used to using this system as a guide at first.
• Insure your Ship at the Insurance tab whilst in Station. Level of insurance bought gives a higher payout if your ship happens to be destroyed. (New Pilots, insure ships the Uni provides you, as you will get positive isk if your ship is destroyed. (Be sensible please)
• Update your Clone in a medical facility in a station. Make sure the clone is set higher than your current SP. If not, and u get podded, you will lose valuble SP! Update your clones now!
• Whilst you are enrolled as a member of Eve University you must abide by our chat channel polices.
• Alliance Chat - For forming fleets only. Only type here if you mean to start a fleet, or join on once your role has been called.
• Corp Chat - For official corp buisness only, such as skillbooks, Teamspeak issues, questions on events/classes. please only speak here if you mean to. * For everything else, CHAT.E-Uni is your best friend! So keep all other chat in here.
• Read the corp mail. There is a lot, but it's very important stuff. Will answer a lot of your questions, and keep the directors from getting upset!
• Devote some time to learning skills when you start. They will help you train other skills faster in the long run.
• Eve Online is a game for readers as well as thrill seekers. Read as much as possible to get the most out of your careers!
• It may be very good for your E-Peen to fly with shiny fittings, but does the benefit outweigh the costs?
• If what you are doing is fun, then do it. If what you are doing isn't enjoyable then look around for something else to do.
• Use the test server, especially before major updates. You will be able to test new features, new opportunities, and make horrible mistakes without any penalty to your real Eve characters. You will find bugs, and you should report them so you will be a part of making Eve better for yourself and everyone else.
• Using selfdestruct (left click on your ship) on an insured ship will still get you the pay-out.
• Use Eve Fitting Tool and EveMon - 3rd party tools that require your limited API key. Very very useful. Ask if you need help on them.