Requiel
PVC Love God
I thought I'd make this thread to try and answer the large number of 'how safe am I in....' questions that pop up.
Firstly you need to understand that you are never 100% safe unless you are docked. Even in a 1.0 system you can be ganked.
Let's start with a quick overview of how security rating works in Eve. System security goes from 0.0 to 1.0 with a higher number being more secure. These security ratings are split into three groups: nullsec (0.0), lowsec (0.1-0.4) and highsec (0.5+).
In nullsec there is no security at all. Players are responsible for guarding this space and dealing with undesirables.
Lowsec has sentry guns to enforce the law. These are only at gates and stations, and lower the security rating the less of them there are. If you're attacked then the sentry guns will open fire. It's possible to tank them though with a reasonably well fit ship so they are in no way a proper deterrent.
Highsec has sentry guns and Concord to keep order. Again the higher the sec rating the more there will be, also Concord will respond faster to incidents in higher security space.
If you perform an aggressive act then you will be criminally flagged and shot at by Concord and/or sentry guns. Criminal acts are most offensive actions including all Ewar, damage dealing with guns, smartbombs, drones etc, warp disruption, webbing and so on. Remote repping someone with a criminal flag will also give you a criminal flag. Targeting, scanning, sensor boosting and so on will not flag you.
You can legitimately shoot at certain people without being criminally flagged. You can shoot people in your own corp (NPC corps don't count), you can shoot people who are at war with your corp, people who have stolen from you in the last 15 minutes and people you have kill-rights on. Also you can shoot anyone with a security status of less than -5.
So, all that being said how do you avoid being a target?
Firstly never autopilot anywhere, especially if your route takes you through lowsec. Always warp to zero and jump manually.
Don't carry valuable things in ships that can be easily killed. if your cargo is worth more than a suicide ganker's ship (~200m) then you are a legitimate target even in high-sec. Transport valuable stuff either in properly tanked ships that can stand a high alpha strike, in a covops or blockade runner or break it up into several loads to reduce the risk.
If you're missioning or mining and you think you're a target (because your ship is especially valuable, you're in lowsec or there are wartargets in system) then stay alert. Make sure you have your overview set up to show player ships as well as NPCs. Stay aligned to a celestial so that you can warp out instantly if you need to.
Don't AFK in space. If you need to leave the keyboard in a hurry then either dock or warp to a safespot and turn your cloak on if you have one. Docking is best. Make sure that you actually dock though before you leave, sometimes the game will leave you hanging about outside the station
Be insured. Every ship you own will die at some point. Make sure you get something back for it when it does. Don't fly anything you can't afford to lose.
If you do get blown up by a player, your first priority is to get your pod out. As soon as you get the 'Your ship is out of control' message, click on a celestial and spam the warp button. This should ensure that your pod and all of your implants stay safe. NPCs don't shoot at pods so if you die in PvE or to Concord you can hang around and bookmark your wreck at your leisure.
If you do lose your pod then the very first thing you should do when you load back in your medical station is to update your clone. Do this before you start crying in the CUK channel, before you start fitting a new ship and before you ctrl-q in a rage. If you get podded and your clone does not have enough skillpoints for all your skills, you will lose a random one - starting at the highest level you have. it sucks to lose battleship V just because you forgot to keep your clone updated.
Sometimes people will try and trick you into being flagged, be aware of this. They may offer you 'free stuff' in a can, if you take it you will be flagged as a thief and they can blow you up. If you're mining they might switch your ore can for their own so that they can shoot you if you take it. Another common one is to ask you for help with a mission, the person asking will invite you to their fleet then invite a friend who's at war with them to join after gang-warping you somewhere quiet. The guy who's at war can then shoot you without getting Concorded.
Finally, a note about Concord. They will kill you. If you're flagged they will warpscram you, jam your sensors, disable your drones and then blow you up. You cannot escape them. Depending on the sec status of the system and where you are,they may take a few seconds to turn up - on gates it's pretty much instant, in mission spots it may take a bit longer.
Firstly you need to understand that you are never 100% safe unless you are docked. Even in a 1.0 system you can be ganked.
Let's start with a quick overview of how security rating works in Eve. System security goes from 0.0 to 1.0 with a higher number being more secure. These security ratings are split into three groups: nullsec (0.0), lowsec (0.1-0.4) and highsec (0.5+).
In nullsec there is no security at all. Players are responsible for guarding this space and dealing with undesirables.
Lowsec has sentry guns to enforce the law. These are only at gates and stations, and lower the security rating the less of them there are. If you're attacked then the sentry guns will open fire. It's possible to tank them though with a reasonably well fit ship so they are in no way a proper deterrent.
Highsec has sentry guns and Concord to keep order. Again the higher the sec rating the more there will be, also Concord will respond faster to incidents in higher security space.
If you perform an aggressive act then you will be criminally flagged and shot at by Concord and/or sentry guns. Criminal acts are most offensive actions including all Ewar, damage dealing with guns, smartbombs, drones etc, warp disruption, webbing and so on. Remote repping someone with a criminal flag will also give you a criminal flag. Targeting, scanning, sensor boosting and so on will not flag you.
You can legitimately shoot at certain people without being criminally flagged. You can shoot people in your own corp (NPC corps don't count), you can shoot people who are at war with your corp, people who have stolen from you in the last 15 minutes and people you have kill-rights on. Also you can shoot anyone with a security status of less than -5.
So, all that being said how do you avoid being a target?
Firstly never autopilot anywhere, especially if your route takes you through lowsec. Always warp to zero and jump manually.
Don't carry valuable things in ships that can be easily killed. if your cargo is worth more than a suicide ganker's ship (~200m) then you are a legitimate target even in high-sec. Transport valuable stuff either in properly tanked ships that can stand a high alpha strike, in a covops or blockade runner or break it up into several loads to reduce the risk.
If you're missioning or mining and you think you're a target (because your ship is especially valuable, you're in lowsec or there are wartargets in system) then stay alert. Make sure you have your overview set up to show player ships as well as NPCs. Stay aligned to a celestial so that you can warp out instantly if you need to.
Don't AFK in space. If you need to leave the keyboard in a hurry then either dock or warp to a safespot and turn your cloak on if you have one. Docking is best. Make sure that you actually dock though before you leave, sometimes the game will leave you hanging about outside the station
Be insured. Every ship you own will die at some point. Make sure you get something back for it when it does. Don't fly anything you can't afford to lose.
If you do get blown up by a player, your first priority is to get your pod out. As soon as you get the 'Your ship is out of control' message, click on a celestial and spam the warp button. This should ensure that your pod and all of your implants stay safe. NPCs don't shoot at pods so if you die in PvE or to Concord you can hang around and bookmark your wreck at your leisure.
If you do lose your pod then the very first thing you should do when you load back in your medical station is to update your clone. Do this before you start crying in the CUK channel, before you start fitting a new ship and before you ctrl-q in a rage. If you get podded and your clone does not have enough skillpoints for all your skills, you will lose a random one - starting at the highest level you have. it sucks to lose battleship V just because you forgot to keep your clone updated.
Sometimes people will try and trick you into being flagged, be aware of this. They may offer you 'free stuff' in a can, if you take it you will be flagged as a thief and they can blow you up. If you're mining they might switch your ore can for their own so that they can shoot you if you take it. Another common one is to ask you for help with a mission, the person asking will invite you to their fleet then invite a friend who's at war with them to join after gang-warping you somewhere quiet. The guy who's at war can then shoot you without getting Concorded.
Finally, a note about Concord. They will kill you. If you're flagged they will warpscram you, jam your sensors, disable your drones and then blow you up. You cannot escape them. Depending on the sec status of the system and where you are,they may take a few seconds to turn up - on gates it's pretty much instant, in mission spots it may take a bit longer.