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This article is still being worked on. New info will be gradually added.
Eve is a dangerous game and there are more ways to die in it than moons, planets and suns in any given region.
The following guidelines are meant to teach old and new players how to be more successful at stayin' alive in Eve and specifically Nullsec.
Despite the title, this guide will not help you stay alive indefinitely. It rather helps to increase the time between each death.
The most important tool at your disposal is the Local Chat. While the chat can be ignored most of the time, the Member List is priceless.
Four reasons making it so damn awesome:
Like almost everything in Eve there is one exception though, which is Wormhole Space. One of the reasons why Wormhole Space is considered dangerous, is because people will only show up in local when they used the chat. Considering how vital local is for survival, this is a major disadvantage.
Local is great, but to really make use of it, you have to set it up correctly first.
The first thing you want to do is set up your local window:
Secondly, you need to change your Overview Settings to show the correct icon colours. This is part of Unfucking your Overview. If set up correctly it shows friendlies with blue and green, neutrals in grey and enemies in red or orange. This allows you to quickly gain knowledge how dangerous a system is by checking your Local Chat.
Probably the second most important tool is the Directional Scan you have. It allows you to scan for objects in a 360° angle and a maximum range of 14.3 AU, which translates to 2,139,249,551km (so a whole f*cking lot). It is advised to keep it open all the time, so you don't have to take the extra step of opening it when you need it.
You may want to use an Overview Preset (marked green in the image to the right) to filter for certain types (marked blue) of objects.
In everyday space travel you want to have it set to maximum range and maximum angle. You have to click the scan button every few seconds to update your scan.
You want to do this when you there are neuts/enemies in system or in any situation where you might be in danger. It is also very useful when you want to report Intel to your FC or the Intel Channel. Read “Scouting” in Useful Websites for info on how to do properly post DScan reports.
If a new neutral jumps into your system update your DScan and look for new ship entries. You may be able to find out what ship they are in through this method.
Sometimes players forget to rename their ship as well. They will show up as <Player Name>'s <Ship Name> (marked orange on the image to the right) which makes identification even easier. Be aware that players may use this and rename their ship to confuse you though. If “RandomDude's Avatar” just showed up on DScan it's probably not a Titan that just entered the dead-end system you are in.
The most important thing to look for are Combat Scanner Probes. These are used to pinpoint the location of a player to get a warp in. If you are not in a ship that has immunity to Combat Scanner Probes, you are in danger.
Assume that every Combat Scanner Probe is looking specifically for you!
Usually you will keep the range at maximum. You want to decrease it to estimate your distance to objects.
Let's say an enemy is 6.8 AU away from you, he will show up on your DScan at range 14.3 AU and 10.0 AU, but will disappear from it at 5.0 AU. This means you can successfully determine that the enemy is between 5.0 and 10.0 AU away by decreasing your range between scans.
This is also a good method in combination with the Solar System Map to find the position of one or multiple enemies.
Decreasing the angle is usually done to single out specific areas of space. The minimum angle will only scan for objects directly in front of your ship, so whenever you want to use it, be sure to align to your target.
Say your are in a system and want to jump a gate that is within your maximum range. There are hostiles in system and they show up on your DScan as well. To determine if they are sitting on the gate, ready to intercept you, you want to align to the gate and decrease your angle. If they are still on your DScan when your angle is fairly low they are probably at the gate, meaning it is not safe to jump through.