EVE ONLINE TRAINING ACADEMY’s

Complete Security Guide

Part 1 – Miner Safety
Part 2 – Travelling Safely
Part 3 – How To Avoid Pirates

Written by – Feral Karkassia

Published in PDF format by [aaeo].net

www.allabouteveonline.net
Security Information: Part 1 of 3
Check the basic Eve guide first for explanations on kill
rights and aggression timers/rights, security status, and
using the Map.

Now, some of this stuff is going to seem pretty basic.

It's mostly for newer players, though maybe anyone can
learn something. All of it is gleaned from various forum
posts, including Eve-online forums themselves. Basically,
it is a general guide to security for all members of any
corp. It includes tactics on fighting ore thieves and
pirates, and safe travelling techniques, as well as using
the scanner. Right off the bat I want to thank the
Internet, and more importantly the Eve-Online character
General Problem, for giving this knowledge so readily.
The info is not new, but the words -are- original--
nothing is plagiarized. Now on to the fun stuff.

Security is a concern of every member of Eve. It doesn't

really mean PvP, it means keeping safe and secure--and
keeping your cargo, ship and ore the same way. In the
end, the security of a player is the security of the
corporation--one player losing ore on a regular basis
loses morale and loses assets that could help the corp.
Put it this way--the corporation is made up of
individuals, and when corp. members lose, it loses too.
The security division of a corporation is usually tasked
with helping prevent losses of any kind to the corp., and
isn't just concerned with PvP. The following guide will
help you understand security, keeping safe and keeping
your ship and valuables safe. A knowledgeable, cautious
and aware Eve player is a great asset to any good corp.,
and an asset to themselves, so read on!

Part 1
Ore Thieves

For production and mining corps, the group of players is

mainly concerned with two things: mining and travelling.
Miners have to worry about one major thing: Ore thieves
(piracy will be covered later). Ore thieves generally do
not stay in one place for long. Professional ones will
steal from one can, leave the system, steal from another
can there, etcetera, and go twenty jumps away that night.
However, any opportunist in any ship who spies ore lying
in a field and decides to swipe it then also becomes an
ore thief. There are a few things that can deter them,
and a few things we can do to make ourselves safer.
Remember, none of these are original ideas; this is
common knowledge for the more experienced Eve-Online
players, and it's all just packaged up neatly for new
players here. Note: If you haven't yet, a good idea
before reading this section would be to read the Mining
Guide, so that you understand the terminology and basic
procedures described here.
Tips:
1. If you encounter an ore thief, lower his security
rating with you. Everyone should have a Notepad file
called Ore Thieves, and should add any name they hear
about or see stealing to that list. You may choose,
within your corp., to corp mail (send a message to the
Corp through your Eve mail system) the names of any new
thieves, so that everyone is up to date. If you see an
ore thief come into the system, haul your ore back to the
dock ASAP. You *may* want to consider announcing the
thief in local chat, so that perhaps he'll choose a
different system to pirate (on the other hand it may
"incur his wrath" so to speak, though you'll be doing
other local miners a world of good). Bad ore thieves can
be added to your address book so they'll be highlighted
in your Local. It's also always a good idea to not leave
too much ore out in the asteroid field to begin with;
more ore will attract thieves, and less ore means you
lose less if it does get stolen.

2. Mine in groups whenever possible. Large groups are

more of a deterrent than one lone miner. Having at least
one person on hand either hauling the ore in (so none is
left in the asteroid belt) or guarding the miners with
guns is a good idea--or both, if you have enough people.

3. Do not shoot at an ore thief. If you do, he will then

be allowed to fire upon you. Even if he's blinking red,
just don't do it, unless you feel hugely confident that
you can kill him. His corp. mates will not get rights on
you unless you shoot at them too.

4. Do not steal your ore back if the thief steals it and

dumps it into his own can. He will then get the right to
fire on you--read tip 3. On the other hand, if you have a
hauler available, a corp. mate in a cheaper ship (and/or
faster one) can try to switch the ore quickly from the
thieves' can (can A) into your corp.’s can (can B). The
thieves will be allowed to shoot at the small ship, but
not the hauler (since the hauler did not "steal" from the
thief). Then the hauler can then quickly take the ore
from your can (can B) and haul it away, and the thieves
will not get rights on him. Nicely enough, your hauler
can then fly off into the sunset with your corp.’s ore,
and is perfectly safe--even if your corp.’s "switcher"
does get blown up (which is why a shuttle is a good idea
for this!). Remember: if you're the switcher, jettison a
bullet/1 unit of ore ahead of time and right beside your
ore, so that you have a can to switch the ore in the
thief's can to. Move the precious stuff first in case you
die ASAP. Then run.

5. If a thief enters the system and approaches your can,

you can do one simple thing to keep him away from it (it
can be tricky, and a big and/or fast ship is much better
at it). Just fly into the thief's ship as hard and fast
as you can! Often (especially if you are using a micro-
warpdrive or afterburner) you can shove him many
kilometres away--certainly not close enough to open the
can. In this case, unless you have backup (hauling or
security) on the way, you may have to continue this until
the patience of one of you runs out. 6. If mining alone,
do NOT mine at the warp-in point. In other words, if you
warp into the system, fly to the other side of the belt.
This way if someone flies in, you'll have ample time to
gage their actions--if they begin to fly toward you,
you'll know they're up to no good! Someone flying a
hauler toward you should arouse your suspicion at once (a
hauler coming for your ore where they haven't mined
themselves should be a red flag) and you can either run
off to get your own hauler or call for help from corp.
mates, etc. This goes for protecting yourself from piracy
too--don't sit at the warp-in point if you are mining in
low-security space, or pirates warping into the belt will
drop right on top of you. Instead, fly to the other side
of the belt, and if anyone flies into the belt you should
have time to fly away. Read more on low-security mining
in the Piracy section that follows.
Part 2:
Travelling Safely
I mention this next, rather than safety from pirates, for
one reason: travelling safely is the main thing you can
do to be safe from pirates in the first place. With that
in mind, remember that one thing is good advice for both
situations--use warp core stabilizers whenever you can,
to avoid being warp scrambled. A gate camp group will
probably still overpower your stabilizer strength, but a
single pirate or two you may be able to outrun. Nanofiber
Internal Structures can also allow you to align for warp
more quickly to avoid getting caught in a gate-camp, as
they help boost a ship's agility (note that a -25%, for
example, on the Agility effects of one Nanofiber means
that the ship is more agile, not less). A note on Warp
Core Stabilizers as well (or WCS): a warp scrambler will
have strength of +1 or +2 depending on the type. A single
WCS will have strength of -1. As long as the total
reaches zero--i.e. if the pirate has a +1 scrambler and
you have a -1 WCS--he won't be able to scramble your
escape warp. Anyway--on to travelling safely!

First off, use instas wherever possible. Instas are

instant-bookmarks which will bring you directly to your
interactible object (gate, dock, etc) or random spot in
space, and will keep you pretty safe from things like
gate campers and dock snipers. This is only applicable
for wartime and low sec systems, as for the most part
you're safe from being shot at in high sec if you're not
war-declared! Instas can also aid miners in hauling their
ore faster (and as we've learned in part 1, the less time
ore spends in a belt the safer it is from thieves). To
make an Insta, warp toward the place you want to go to.
When you come out of warp, fly toward the object--and
past it--in as straight a line as possible. So let's say
your home dock is Hroduko V, Moon 4. You'd want to warp
there from, say, the nearby Frulegur stargate, or an
asteroid belt. Then fly in a straight line past the dock.
Once you are 14 or 15km past the dock (the timing can be
tricky, so try to slow down in advance) select Add
Bookmark from your Places tab, under the People and
Places icon (on the far upper left of your screen, below
your Character Sheet). Name it, for example, Headquarters
Insta, and pick Ok. Then test it: warp back to the
Frulegur gate (or asteroid belt or whatever) and then
right-click in space. You'll find you can choose your
bookmarks that exist in the local system by right-
clicking in space, and then when you place your cursor
over the bookmark, you get some options. Choose Warp To:
15km. Since your bookmark was placed 15km PAST your
target, you will warp 15km before the bookmark--which
means right on top of that target. Therefore when you use
the HQ Insta, you will drop out of warp right on top of
the dock! This should keep you fairly safe in wartime,
and is especially helpful when you need to dock often in
a low-security area.

SafeSpots: A safespot is a bookmark somewhere deep in

space, away from any warpable objects. The easiest way to
make one is to make a bookmark quickly while warping
between two warpable objects (like from a gate to a
dock). The safespot is the hiding-place of people being
attacked in wartime or of people hiding from pirates in a
low-security system. Know that safespots are not
foolproof: someone good at using the scanner (see below)
may be able to roughly reproduce your actions (placing a
bookmark while warping) if they can find where you are
according to the scanner; also, Covert Ops ships (or
anyone using scan probes, for that matter) can drop Scan
Probes into space, which will scan the system more
accurately, allowing ships to jump straight to you.
Therefore it's a good idea to have a few more advanced
bookmarks, and if you're in hiding, move between them
every minute or so. Advanced bookmarks are easy; just
make two basic safespot bookmarks--say, one between the
sun and a dock, and another between another dock and a
stargate. Then drop a new safespot bookmark while warping
between one basic safespot and the other basic safespot.
This way (unless you're not paying attention to exactly
where you're bookmarking) the advanced safespot will be
out of any direct warp pattern. In other words, by
bookmarking safespots between other safespots, you can
create safespots that are not located between any two
warpable objects--so those using a scanner to find you
will have a very, very hard time locating you.

On to operating the scanner! First off, make sure your

Overview is set exactly how you want it. If you don't
want half a million Deadspace and Police npc's showing
up, take them off. You can save those settings as Scanner
Settings or whatnot. It may take some twiddling to get
right, once the scanner is open.

Open the scanner; it's one of the small round buttons to

the left of your capacitor info while you're in flight.
Check the box marked Use Overview Settings. Note that you
can swivel your ship around in real space, which will
change the angle of the scan beam on the Scanner.

You can see this yourself: in the radar picture on the

left, the white area of the scanner is your camera view;
the green is what you're scanning. Let's try to search
for a cargo can--perhaps marked My Can. Maybe it's a low-
security system, and you have forgotten which asteroid
belt you left your can in. Since you don't want to fly
into any pirates, you'll want to sit somewhere safe (at a
safespot or planet, away from the warp-in point) and use
the scanner. Note that you may have to move around a bit
if it doesn't show up at all, as the scanner's range does
not cover entire systems.
So: fill the Distance with 9's, and hit Scan (it will
revert to the maximum scannable default distance). Start
with 360 degrees. Let's say "My Can" shows up at once. So
narrow your beam to 180 degrees (this is an option just
below the Use Overview Settings tab). If "My Can" is not
there scan the other 180. When you find it, narrow it
down farther until you've got it to about 30 degrees (or
whatever narrows it down to WHERE the can is--if there's
only one asteroid belt in that half of the system, you've
found the can, but if there's six, you'll have to keep
narrowing it down).

Let's say there's three belts all lined up here--one

1,100,345 km out (one AU is approximately 1,500,000,000),
one 999,999,999 km out, and one 20,345 km out. You'd now
narrow the Distance to 899,999,999 km (so that two belts
are in range). If the can is still in range, you can rule
out the 999,999,999km belt out, obviously. Then you
narrow the scan to 100,000km out. If the can is now gone
from the scanner, you know it's not in range--thus
farther out than the 20,345 km belt. Then you just run
out to the 1,100,345 km belt and pick up your can.

Why is this important? Well, usually it's not, to a

miner. But if you DO lose a can in low sec space, you can
hop to a planet and scan for it. More importantly, it's
desperately important to travelling through safe systems.
Which brings me to: The Reason for Scanning. For safe
travel, the scanner is an unbeatable ally. It is the
pirate's best friend, finding victims; it is the belt-
scouting miner's guardian, telling him there is someone
flying a Vagabond from belt to belt in the local .3
space. If you want to know if a gate is camped, dodge to
a moon or planet that's in its scan-range and scan the
gate you're moving to. Just aim your scanner at it,
narrowed to 60 degrees or so, make sure you're in range
(if it doesn't list the gate in the scanner but it does
on overview, then you're out of range), and check. If you
see a bunch of bad asses sitting beside it, and you scan
a few moments later and they still haven't moved, then
pick another path!
Part 3:
Piracy
Pirates are always a problem with mining/production or
trade corporations and players, especially those who
regularly travel through a low-security space while
moving to greener monetary pastures.

Basically, it's a common-sense issue. Check the Map for

Ships Destroyed, in advance, for the system you'll be
entering to get an idea ahead of time how dangerous it is
at the moment.
First, don't travel around asteroid belts in low sec
space when there's others in local, and if you do ALWAYS
keep your Local chat open, and a close eye on it; by
examining the security ratings of those coming in and out
of a system you'll be able to get an idea of how
dangerous they are--in 0.0, though, security ratings are
no indication, as your security rating does not go down
for attacking someone in 0.0. If for some very odd reason
you decide to go mining alone in a low sec system, do not
mine at the warp-in point of the belt--stay as far off as
possible (read the last of the ore-thief tips). Next,
don't travel through low sec without caution; scanning a
gate ahead and staying cloaked after every jump on a 48-
jump-journey is a killer, and perhaps not worth the time-
-BUT it's a good idea to do it if your map says there's
been fifty kills there today.

Most other pirate-avoidance techniques have already been

covered. But...

If you do get caught by a pirate, you may not be able to

call your corp. mates for much help. Unless there's more
than a couple members on, and those members are nearby
and happen to be in PvP ships ready--and if you're SURE
the pirate doesn't have friends waiting, and that your
corp. can take him--unless you have all this, you'll be
on your own. Even then, you'd have to stall him long
enough for the corp. mates to get to you.

You have a few choices with a pirate. You can try to run,
try to fight, or you can give him a ransom (assuming he
asks). Usually pirates will honour a ransom, but it will
be costly (though the ransom is priced to be less than
the cost of your ship or, in bad situations, your
pod/implants). Perhaps your pride won't allow it--then
you can fight him/her, and maybe even win, but probably
not; pirates are opportunists and -usually- attack those
whom they know they can beat; in addition they will be
much more experienced in general. A pirate will usually
show up on your screen and immediately begin blinking red
(either he's low sec or trying to scramble you). If
you're in an asteroid belt in low-sec (remember: don’t
sit at the warp-in point) and a ship flies in and flies
toward you, run away.
Once you're locked it's time to think fast. Try to run if
you can; if the scrambler stops you, he'll either destroy
your ship or take you into hull, if you don't fight, and
try to ransom you. If you fight he'll probably kill you
(or if you're not making a dent on him, he'll convo you
for the ransom and say 'stop shooting, silly'). Check
ahead of time on any corp. policy on whether to pay
ransom when carrying expensive corporation assets.

If the pirate ransoms you and you pay, and then he kills
you anyway, usually a good thing to do is contact his ceo
or alliance and tell them this. Whatever you do, don't
yell at the pirate, or be rude or nasty; they get this
all the time and it won't help you one bit.
If the pirate has your ship locked down and scrambled and
is obviously going to kill you, there's something you can
do to help your life pod escape. Just hold down Ctrl-Alt-
Shift-E and Ctrl-Alt-Shift-T to turn off all Effects (e)
and Turret effects (t). Sometimes if all effects and
turret effects are still On, your screen will lag badly
(poor frames-per-second) and will pretty much freeze up
for a few seconds--and by then your pod might be locked.
So use those keyboard shortcuts above to prevent this,
and then run! You can turn your effects back on with the
same keys.

Obviously take note of a pirate's name, lower his

standings with us so you see him coming next time, and be
more careful in the future--learn from every mistake.

Stay Aligned for Warp: Being aligned for warp means that
your ship is already facing the direction in which it
will warp out. You'll notice that when you right-click a
dock or other place in space and choose Warp To, there's
a delay while your ship turns itself in that direction.
The larger the ship the longer the delay; smaller ships
tend to be more agile. You can increase your ship's
agility, as already noted, with Nanofiber Internal
Structures to turn faster--but its better if you don't
have to turn at all. If you are in low-sec space, and
might have to warp out at any time (for example mining,
or sitting at a safespot) then point your ship to just
above or below the place in space you'll warp to and
double-click. This way your ship will turn that way and
begin to fly toward it (without going into warp). You can
leave it running or stop it, leaving it aligned, to
prevent getting ganked (killed) while aligning should a
pirate warp in. This is also why it's a good idea to; if
you jump into a system with a gate camp, warp to the
object best aligned with your ship, rather than to the
gate (assuming the gate would take a few seconds to align
to).

One last note: When doing missions, remember to always

check View Mission Details before accepting. Check the
info on the system it's in, and don't accept a mission in
space of .4 or below. It's all too easy to accidentally
accept a mission in .1 or even 0.0 space! Pirates will
often camp Dead space Complexes, remaining hidden or
cloaked until you're fighting the npc's, then jumping
from out of nowhere while you're preoccupied and killing
you.