Surviving Nullsec

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Surviving in 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

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 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.

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.

Travelling 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.

Mobile Warp Disruptors

Commonly referred to as "bubbles", these devices prevent ships from entering warp within their area of effect. They come in a variety of sizes, and are usually anchored in line between two gates, or other celestials which somebody might want to warp to directly. They can be used defensively, to slow down hostile ships warping to where you might be doing PvE activities, in order to allow you an extra moment to escape. More often, however, they are used offensively, to pull ships out of warp and ambush them. Quite often you will find one or more bubbles near stargates while you are travelling. Should you get caught in a bubble, the best thing to do is to move your ship out of it as quickly as possible. To do this, double click in space and turn on your microwarpdrive. Once you exit the bubble, you can either burn to the gate or warp away to safety if you choose.

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.

Bombs

Lots of people cruise around in nullsec in stealth bombers, either alone or in groups. These nifty little ships can equip bomb launchers. Bombs are quite deadly, especially in groups. The nice thing about them, from a defensive standpoint, is that they are slow and appear on your overview. The wrong thing to do, if you see a bomb on your overview, would be to turn on your microwarpdrive and try to burn out of the area of effect. The damage from the bomb scales up with the increased signature radius you get from using your MWD. Usually, when travelling, the right course of action is to pick a celestial and spam the warp button. Most tanked frigates will survive a single bomb, provided they don't use their MWD, but in a travel situation the safest course of action is to warp away.

Interdictors

Interdictors are Tech2 destroyers capable of fitting an Interdiction Sphere Launcher. This allows it to rapidly deploy a warp disruption bubble with a 20km radius. Often these are used in gatecamps. When a ship jumps into the gatecamp, the interdictor pilot throws up a bubble, which will probably trap you and prevent you from warping away. This can be an unnerving experience. The important thing is to not panic. The dictor bubble will not decloak you. Quickly make a plan to escape. Usually the best way is to align to a celestial, hit your MWD, and spam the warp button, so you enter warp as soon as possible after exiting the bubble.

Learn to recognize these names: Sabre, Heretic, Eris, and Flycatcher, and to be aware of what they do.

Similar to an inderdictor but rather than deploying a bubble with an Interdiction Sphere Launcher, a Heavy Interdictor can generate a warp disruption field with a 20km radius around itself. Tactics for escaping HICs while travelling are the same as for light interdictors.

HICs : Devoter, Onyx, Phobos, Broadsword

Moar Bookmarks

When you are traveling, especially in a fast frigate, and you find yourself alone in a system, take the time to make bookmarks. At the minimum, you should make an unaligned safe spot, one on-grid tactical and one off-grid tactical for the gates you plan to use. These can make your next trip much safer. 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/PVE

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 is 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, and 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

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