Trail Of Tears

Trail Of Tears

Travel From A Scout's Perspective

Believe it or not I rarely use the common trick of a microwarpdrive and cloak so often implemented to instantly warp off a gate safely as possible while traveling in low or null security.  For all the hundreds of times years ago that I flew a Bestower up and down the Yong--}Mamet pipe, I never lost a ship.  I will use a cloaky ship more often than not sure, but if I am using a conventional ship, I can name on my hands and feet the times I actually got caught with my pants down and could have used the warp trick, and even those times, I got away without it.

Why?

Patience, no seriously.  I am obsessively patient.

That's not say I do not take risks, it is to say that wait until those risks hit a low point before moving down a pipe or attempting to travel in all manner of ship.

So how does a typical night go for me if I say, want to move a battlecruiser from high security to null security?  I will walk you through step by step what I do, and maybe you will pick up a few tricks, or be reminded of a few things you often forget to do yourself, or are shown how risky I actually am, even though I bet against odds, not numbers, i.e. if there are reds along the way, I will rarely travel through them, but if they are in the system over, I will chance slipping by them when I get intel with good indication that they will not be back soon enough to find me.  The key to travel is to not be seen, period.  If no one knows you are there, you do not have buddies you are traveling with that draw attention, and you wait until the area is quiet, it is likely no one even knows you passed through.  That is the key, it is as simple as that.

Still docked...

 
A few things, first open up DOTLAN, look at the route, ask yourself:

• Are there often small entrapment gangs along this route?
• Is this the only route into the constellation I am attempting to get to?
• Are there side pockets of space where reds frequently loiter for a time?
• Is channel intel frequently proper for the first jump into low or null security?
• Is my ship larger than a cruiser?
• Is it fit for PvP?
• If I undock it now, there is no question I am willing to lose it?
• Are there stations in most systems along the way that I have docking rights in?

A few things about ships themselves:

• Warpstabs, useless...fit buffer and pray the batphone works, or burn back to the gate; solo reds are rare, if they are present, it is usually bombers or battlecruisers, and those are either ineffectual against cruisers or larger, or get mopped up by friendlies frequently.
• Shuttles; nearly invulnerable in low security and a safe bet in friendly null security as hostile bubbles or bubble pilots are loudly announced on intel channels.
• Pods; never fly around in a pod, shuttles are available almost everywhere, even in null security.
• Haulers; T1 haulers are some shit...a poorly fit Brutix can literally one shot a Bestower, so ask a corpsmate about cloaky transports or capital services and only use a T1 hauler if there is no one else to do your hauling.
• Speaking of cloaky transports...I highly suggest training a cloaky transport.  Being able to move your own stuff on your own terms any time day or night sets you a world apart from your rookie counterparts who lose T1 haulers weekly.
• Buffer or align time, ?  A healthy mix is best, if you are in something smaller than a cruiser, align time is pretty good already, and sticking inertia stabs on something bigger is silly, however... if it is a cloaky, align time and base velocity are always more important than anything else.  If it is a BC or larger, do not bother with mitigation like inertia stabs, warp stabs, etc.  rig for PvE, fit for PvP, carry your PvE fittings in your hold, and make down the pipe.

A few things about accounts and eyes:

• Do you dual box with more than one monitor? Then you need a character that can fly Covert Ops or Stealth Bombers.  Why?  Because you are most likely to get caught by a camp, than by roamers, roamers light up intel channels, campers simply get reported now and then, since everyone who has been online for awhile already knows they are there, and if no one has taken them out, intel reports can be somewhat infrequent.  Sit your Covert Ops character at 250km from the gate, behind or above it, and relax, kick your feet back, and smoke a cigar, knowing that there are literally no hostiles on the gate you are about to jump through.  And for the enthusiastic, you can even scout yourself!
• I don't dual box, do I suck?  No, create a dummy character on your account, hop in a shuttle and dock in the first low or null sec system if able to, if not, simply log out in a safe spot.  When you wanna see the status of the system and cannot get proper intel, log the alt, look for yourself, log off, log your main, fly through.

A few things about intel channels:

• Intel channels can be good some nights, bad others, slow, fast, frustrating, lifesaving... intel is provided by people and people are not perfect.  Log your character on and keep a good 5-10 minutes of intel reports to browse over before moving any major assets or ships that are vulnerable to gangs.  Give yourself plenty of time to finally see that report of OMG a thousand reds camping the first gate in the pipe!  Trust me, it happens.
• Don't fuss with [Solar System] status?  If you have to ask, the intel is probably not going to come, or the fact that it is not being reported means the forces in system have been active long enough that intel has slowed down to more of a casual status update of caution that the system is unsafe, as noted above.  If you wait those 5-10 minutes, and see no casual updates, chances are good, there's not actually anything there to be reported.

A few things about the starmap:

• Pop open your starmap and put it on... well the star map view. Set a destination, and start poking around in the menu system, there are filters for ship losses in the past hour, gate jumps, people docked, people in space, cynosural fields, the whole shebang.  The starmap is a good indicator if things are going on in unknown space.

Guess it's go time...

First off, if you are going to travel, you need three things while in open space:

• Local window open, viewable and expanded to include at least 10x pilots at once.
• Intel channel open and viewable
• Directional scanner open, set to 10,000,000km, 360 degrees, using combat overview settings.

When you land on the first low or null gate, pop a directional, is there anything offgrid waiting?  Maybe you should be cautious if there is.

When you jump into the first low or null gate, DO NOT break your gate cloak, DO pop a directional, is there anything waiting there for you as well?  If there is, consider your chances and either attempt to continue or burn back to the gate after waiting out your session timer until it is almost up.

As you travel, do pilots enter local while you are in warp, moments before you jump, or shortly after you jump?  Watch for gate flashes, that means the pilot either left or entered from the gate you are at.

Are there any intel updates along the pipe while you travel, hostiles that have suddenly appeared for whatever reason?  Remember when you checked DOTLAN in station, now you easily recall that the system they are reported in is not along the pipe, so you can make a more informed decision on whether to proceed.

FML I landed on a gate with a hostile gang, guess I should just look away from my monitor as they turn me into a pin cushion.  Stop, do not give up, but do not overreact and do NOT return fire of any kind and for the love of all that is holy do not jump through that gate right away unless you literally have a death wish, you are one ship, if there are more than two or three of them, your chances are vastly smaller if you fight or panic and jump right away, and if you already know what your chances are enough to know whether to return fire, you are a veteran and this guide is more of a refresher for what you already know.  Wait for them to fire on you for Christ's sake, (you get the idea yet that panicking and immediately jumping through is a death warrant yet?), you are in control here, they must decide who fights, and who follows, a divided force is less effectual.  What are your actual chances of getting away after they attack you?  How many ships aggressed, what ones did not?  If you jump through and for the ones that were able to follow, will they easily be able to target lock you before you warp off?  If only one tackle is able to jump through, how fast are they?  Maybe they will not even be in disruptor range by pure chance alone, i.e. it is very possible you land +30km away from one another when you both jump through.  Rookie gangs will often open fire all at once when you are nearly dead, because they want to whore killmails for bragging rights, so never give up, ever.  If they all open fire, jump through the gate, and laugh all the way home.

FML I jumped through a gate and a hostile gang that was not in intel is here, guess I am going to lose my ship.  First off, do they have bubbles setup, or are there bubble ships present?  Second off, what size is your ship, and what is the smaller tackle they have?  Do you see any sensor booster animations or remote animations from one ship to another?  If they are not setup for tackle of any kind, or have very few tackle, and you are in a smaller ship, your chances improve a lot.  If you are in a larger ship, your best chance is to take note of the tackle they do have, and attempt to pop them before the others reach you.  Slim, but possible.

FML I jumped through a gate into a system with no station and a hostile gang is somewhere in system or I am about to try warping away from them and escaping.  STOP.  Do not warp to the next gate at 0m, do NOT.  You should have come down this pipe previously (will be explained in some tips and tricks at the bottom of this guide) and setup safe spots or tacticals such as a bookmark offgrid and above or behind the gate so you can use your dscan to check for hostile camps, or avoid bubbles.  If you did not, simply warp to a random celestial at 20-70km and take your chances, once you land safely you should have already made a bookmark while in warp, that you can then warp to.  Once you begin warping to that bookmark, make another, warp to that bookmark, warp to a random celestial again, warp to another bookmark you made while en route, etc. etc. you capice?  Bore them to death, unless you're in something larger than a battleship, they will be unable to probe you before you warp off to a new bookmark in the middle of nowhere.  And most red gangs do not bother probing for travelers, they probe for mission runners.

Good lord does this guide ever end?

Technically I am only getting started... but I will be adding to this guide periodically until it covers the full gambit of travel through low and null security space.  For now this is a good start, it gets you into the pipe and gives you a few tools to keep yourself secure and solid.

A few pro tips:

Grab a T1 frigate, pop a microwarpdrive and some overdrives on it, and head down the pipe in an empty clone.  Make a bunch of bookmarks in every system you plan on passing through or sticking around in:

• Tacticals above the gate or behind it opposite all other celestial bodies in system, at distances of 250km (on grid usually), 500km (offgrid usually), and 750km (guaranteed offgrid).
• At least two safe points in the middle of nowhere, not in line with any stargates or stations, i.e. first warp to a random celestial as far away from your present position as possible, then warp again to another random celestial in a different direction as far away as you can, make a bookmark on the second warp, i.e. you do not want to actually sit between the warp line of a stargate and any other body in space.  You CAN be uncloaked by passing ships in warp, and if you go AFK thinking all is hunky dory, you may come back to a station screen and a new clone.  This goes for sitting ANYWHERE near a gate under a few thousand kilometers as well, as people warping TO the gate, or traveling anywhere around it during combat, may very well uncloak you.  If you think I am pulling your leg, it has happened to me more than once, even in safe spots a few times as well, hence the warning about safes aligned with stargates and celestials.
• Bookmark the station you use frequently if it is low security.
• Create a slingshot out of stations you use frequently, --to be explained at a later date.

Trust yourself, if you are flying it in space, you are pledging yourself to EVE's cardinal rule, you have agreed to the possibility of non-consensual PvP at any moment no matter how rare or unlikely in your present location in space.  So do not be overly cautious; if it seems quiet down the pipe, it probably is, if it isn't, well you cannot predict the future so do not wait around hoping it changes on your account.  You may lose a ship, or you may not, time to find out.

It's a game, you can always make more money, and I can tell you as a scout, I fly the most paper thin ships, with the least fittings, first into the fray, alone and to fend for myself.  From a fatalistic point of view, if I can fly around crashing hostile gate camps for years and lose only a  handful of ships, you should be able to take a battleship down the pipe on a quiet night with no incident.