Here is an older post I found laying around that is good source material for newer pilots who still feel very uncomfortable in low or null security when the veterans leave them to their own devices, so to speak.
Heh. Before I go posting a huge How To Be Self-Sufficient In Low And Null in the next few days I thought I'd do a little... tooting of my horn, all in good fun though, with a real purpose in mind, as I do not really care about my records except for hauling. Take a look at this page and tell me if you notice something. Hell, tournament and PvE related losses aside, I have quite a nice record, no? What's that, 4.67:1 kill/loss ratio? So ok, how do I do it, huddle in stations half the time?
Well, low and null are not as burninatingly dangerous as you might first believe, or have a mindset revolving around such a concept. You just have to feel the air so to speak, and know when your environment is giving you a green light for certain activities and when there is a sometimes obvious sometimes not so obvious red light going off. Yes, I am a scout on Mendolus, and yes I spend a lot of my time in a covert hauler, but TBH I spend quite a bit of time in my blockade runner as well, or ratting in various BCs and BSs, or traveling up and down the pipe or area with Mithos in a Geddon, but I have few losses. And I have been out in the Domain/Providence area for eight months now. Careful planning, frequent experience with Citadel and the way it operates, astute use of the starmap statistics options, or a forward scout, or a covert ship, and a good understanding of low sec game mechanics, will pretty much guarantee that you squeeze through a low sec pipe. Only once in a blue moon will you be caught in a situation where you have even a greater than minimal chance of getting snagged not to mention where it concerns moving ships of cruiser or greater size. It all sounds easy on paper though, you're thinking right?
Ok, well look at how many times I have lost a ship coming through the Yong or Kheram pipes. Ah, zero. Interesting eh? Hell I used to take Maduin down the Yong pipe in a Bestower to supply the troops when we had a no-fly in Empire during the merc wars last December while he was not in the corporation, and still did not lose a haul. K, enough with the tootin', let's get down to the real math and aesthetics of it.
I know quite a few of you have lost ships heading down the pipes, while ratting, while doing just a normal routine in low and null security, nothing to do with PvP, so what's the trick? This is not gonna make sense at first, but after having spent eight months in Providence now, I can feel the temperature on any given night, and give you a good prediction of what's a good idea or not. For instance, let's say Lachrymal is floating in Providence, I can tell you that you are not going to want to rat while he's within twelve jumps of you, seriously, don't bother. Let's say, there's a bunch of neuts that I have never seen before coming in and out of the area in H9-->7Y and they show fine on the checker but they are flying ships that don't rat easy, again, might as well dock up and see what shakes loose while you wait.
Little things, too numerous to count, such as the examples I listed, let me live a relatively comfortable life in low and null. Hell some nights I float around in my Occator through systems that have either ongoing or impending engagements between reds and blues, because I know when my chances are better than my risks. I even got caught in my Occator heading down the pipe with the Misaba tower, and other misc. items totaling +400mil when three neuts tried to bump me off a gate so they could pop me, but I planned ahead, I had a gang of scouts in combat ships, and I took action based on their advice and my experience (sic), and was never safer, even when engaged by hostile neuts.
It is all about numbers and aesthetics in some sense, and having a good feel for what wager or bet you are making on one calculated risk or not, will mean that when you do get caught with your pants down it would have to be one hell of a random occurrence (such as three seemingly nonchalant neuts in cruisers passing up the Kheram pipe looking for haulers just within the two or three minutes I decided to go down the pipe myself). I planned for that possibility, and it actually occurred, and I made it out Scot free. As a starting pilot, an older pilot who is just now feeling the pull towards low and null living after having gone on a couple of gangs and struck it rich with the veteran ratters, or just anyone who has recently become interested in the real game of EVE where stuff actually happens, I implore you to take note of the subtle nuances out in space.
The only people who police low and null security are its residents, so learn to read their temperature, know when response times are good, know when systems that may even have reds are locked down and safe as if they were not even there, know when certain reds have been AFK for hours, know when certain neutrals are questionable, etc. I can tell you that the main reason I see for people losing ships has to do with locale and inexperience. And a lot of these people losing ships would survive better and get their bearings faster if they were in a different location. Lots of people feel more comfortable in low security space, as you think to yourselves, well there are sentry guns on stargates and towers, that will ward off the smaller ships, and as long as I am careful mining and ratting, I will be able to make it out.
The problem is frequency, misconception, and a reluctance towards the unknown. Low security is a comfort zone, only a few jumps from the safety of Empire, it does not feel quite like the cold depths of 0.0 space yet, where bubbles, capital ships, huge alliances, and engagements occur, and there are usually tons of people actually friendly to you floating around at all times within a handful of jumps. However, let's be honest, low security is the trash heap of the game where every cutthroat with a few ISK to spare hops in a ship and sees if he can snag some poor ratter or miner sitting at a belt fit with nothing but PvE gear and pretty much helpless to defend themselves.
For the same exact reason a lot of people seem to prefer low security space, those same reasons are why you find more pirates, more danger, and more frequent PvP encounters. Half the pirates that come into the low sec area bordering Providence will not jump past Misaba. That should tell you something right away.
Low security is great for a few things, it is great for its ready access to Empire space, it is great for its missions of which L4s have incredible payouts and quality, it is absolutely amazing for a starting corporation to place research, production, or starter POSs, and you can rent corporate offices there to facilitate operations. Plus it is a lot easier to get a rookie or carebear to come down to low security where they do not feel like they are miles away from safety and can run for the hills at a moment's notice if trouble arrives, so to speak.
What is the problem with this? The problem is that null security is actually a better training ground for newer pilots than low security. I implore anyone who presently thinks low security in Domain is safer than Providence to come out and live for a week or two even in a cruiser, in Providence. I guarantee you that as long as you remain on your toes, that you will have FAR less potential encounters with reds, depending on your location of course, but also depending on the comfort factor. How long do you think it takes a pirate gang of a handful of ships to zip down a low sec pipe, pick off a couple juicy ratters or miners, and safe up before anyone realizes what happened? Not very long. How much warning do you think you will have when this occurs on a slow night when there are few blues or neutrals to report this hostile gang coming down from Empire which is only two or three jumps from you? Very little. On the other hand how long do you think it would take a gang of a few reds to travel from Empire to H9-J8N which is a total of some 12 jumps? How long do you think your warning would be that they were coming in your direction as they move from one system to the next every minute or two and Citadel dings off updates on their locations as they proceed? It takes them a long while, and you almost always have more than plenty warning.
So I implore, anyone who feels like low security is the best place to get their feet wet to turn that sentiment on its head, and do what probably sounds like the most counter intuitive thing they could do, treat null security as if it were the safer place to get your feet wet, because it is. I skipped low security when I first dinged Cov Ops frigate, and went straight to Syndicate 0.0 to see what it was all about and learn how to survive in a harsh but relatively barren environment. This probably all sounds like cloak and daggers, smoke and mirrors, or a dog and pony show at the moment, but trust me, in time you too will know what it is like to zip through low and null and have a high comfort level, and also totally accept and acknowledge the risks and rewards you encounter on a daily basis. After all, that ship is only a pixel on the screen, and as long as you are having fun, and you can replace that ship if it is lost, do not be afraid to take calculated risks! You cannot take it with you when you log off the game, after all.
*Addendum: After further inspection, I have remembered that I in fact DID lose a ship traveling through the pipes, loooooong ago, on Mithos when I first started training him for battleships. I made a rookie mistake, by assuming that since Citadel seemed relatively quiet, that I could just shoot down the pipe without checking the starmap or scouting ahead and instead took a slow, cumbersome, hulking battleship with no warpstabs fit. I got poned. I will edit this post later with the link to the loss on the KBs as I do not think the KBs actually auto-loaded it because it so old. Citadel is a tool like any other, and it is not always right for every job, though you may be able to use it to knock some stuff loose, for some jobs you need that box wrench laying in the bottom of your toolbox as well, so to speak.
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