Welcome to the sixteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

The third Blog Banter of 2010 comes to us from ChainTrap of the Into the unknown with gun and camera EVE Blog. He asks us: “Eve University turns six years old on March 15th; six years spent helping the new pilots of New Eden gain experience and understanding in a supportive environment. Eve is clearly a complicated game, with a ton to learn, so much that you never stop learning. So, the question is; What do you wish that someone had taken the time to tell you when you were first starting out? Or what have you learned in the interim that you’d like to share with the wider Eve community?”

Yes indeed the new Blog Banter is upon us, and an interesting question indeed, so let’s get started. When I started as a new pilot in New Eden not too long ago (the 31st of July 2009) everything was of course new and unknown, and after learning a lot of the basics of the game I still discovered a few things I would like to have known earlier, so here they are:

• Ctrl-Clicking something in the overview will make you lock it (If it’s in range).
• You can group guns of the same type by shift-click dragging them in the fitting window (Or by using grouping mode when undocked (HUD-Arrow -> Enter Grouping Mode)
• Make sure you know whether a module is passive or active, else you might end up with an active module you think is passive (Yes it happens a lot)

Other than that I also have some resources for the new players (And the players that are new to certain parts of the game) the list follows:

• Drone & Rat Damage Types
  A list of the damage types your drones and the average rats/mission NPCs do
• Null-Sec Guide for Null-Sec Newbs
  A work-in-progress guide to explain the wonders and horrors of null-sec to the average new guy that’s planning to move to null-sec.
• Simple Chain Ratting Guide
  A simple to follow chain ratting guide. It’s the null/low-sec people so most of the time that’s not the new people, but for some of ‘em it might be useful.

And finally, congratulations to EVE Uni and huge props for getting us more stuff to shoot at since 2004. Now I’m sure the other blog banter participants also have lots of useful tips so check ‘em out below.

Participants

• CrazyKinux: The Three Pillars of Wisdom
• The Elitist: Helping the new guy/gal
• Hands Off, My Loots: Nothing Needed
• Rantuket: Blog Banter 16
• EVE Opportunist: Nooby Cluey
• Into the Unknown With Gun and Camera: EVE University
• Zero Kelvin: We’re the young ones!
• I am Keith Neilson: Set Your Destination
• Prano’s Journey: Just Like the Very First Time
• A Merry Life and a Short One: No Seriously
• Yarrbear Tales: Nublet 101
• A Mule In EVE: If I only knew
• The Planet Risk Show: Dared to be Bold
• Diary of a Space Jockey: WTH did I get myself into?!
• EVOGANDA: Why?
• A Memoir From Space: 16th Blog Banter
• Death’s Sweetest Kiss: Who What When Where Why How??
• Freebooted: Beyond the Shortcuts
• Learning to Fly: Noobing
• Caldari Outcast: My First Blog Banter Post!
• Roc’s Ramblings: Financial Survival
• Diary of a Pod Pilot: Free Knowledge Inside
• Nullsec Carebear: I could’ve been less of an idiot
• Facepalm’s Ramblings: Something Smells Fishy
• Kirith Darkblade: Do you wish to know more?
• Autopilot Disabled: I’m still starting…
• Finders & Keepers: Relax
• Confounded Capsuleer: What have you got to loose?
• Clan Oriana: Sixteen
• Flashfresh: EVE Blog Banter #16
• Rettic’s The Chronofile: You Make EVE
• Diary of a Bored Spaceman: Past Imperfect
• Chocolate Heaven: Known Unknowns
• Victoria Aut Mors: Blog Banter #16
• Where the frack is my ship: If I knew then what I know now…

As I myself have recently moved into null-sec I encountered a lot of new things and made some (big) mistakes, so I thought why not create a guide about this to prevent people from making the same mistakes, and giving them some useful info at the same time.

What is Null-Sec ?

Null-sec (Also referred to as 0.0) is lawless space where there is no CONCORD presence, so any and all activities can happen here without CONCORD intervening. This means you won’t be protected by NPC “Police” when doing anything inside these regions.

The space in null-sec can be owned by alliances after which the system is theirs and they can deploy Stations, POSes and other structures inside these systems. Usually you are safe within the space your alliance owns but enemies can always enter so be on your guard and keep an eye on local.

Dangers in Null-Sec & Low-Sec

Of course null-sec isn’t without any dangers as stated above here are some things that you need to watch out for in null-sec.

Avoiding dangers

To avoid being caught inside warp bubbles or getting gate camped also keep an eye on your alliances intel channel (If they have one) usually they will notify this channel of any and every enemy they spot in their space.

Warp Bubbles (Null-Sec Only)

These are bubbles (Well they look like bubbles) usually with some electric current running along their edges, these prevent you from warping,  they’ll also stop your warp if you happen to fly through ‘em in the last half a second of your warp.

To get out of these you have two choices, if you’re near a jump gate you can approach the jump gate , however if there’s anyone in your overview try moving towards a celestial that’s nearest to the bubble wall, and warping as soon as you get out of it (Double clicking somewhere will make your ship move in that direction).

You can also attempt to avoid these by warping to a celestial object near the gate (Though chances are there are bubbles there too), after that you can use your directional scanner to check the gate.

Gate Camps (Null-Sec & Low-Sec)

The name says it, these are people camping at a gate, usually with 5 or more people, they will warp scramble, web and kill you whenever they get the chance, most of the time they’ll utilize warp bubbles.

To avoid these you can make use of  of your directional scanner to scan gates (as told above), or you can warp to the gate at 100km/150km to check if it’s clear.

For more info check the EVE Online wiki page about null-sec

Getting into Null-Sec

Ok so you’ve joined an alliance that has space in null-sec and you want to get into their space, or you just want to head into null-sec without your alliance having space there, but how do you get there in one piece ?

The first thing you need to know when getting into null-sec is where you will be heading of course, you can ask your alliance for directions they usually have a route that has proven safest, or if you aren’t in a null-sec alliance you just have to plot your own course.

While you’re travelling into null-sec you should try setting up tactical bookmarks at 150+ km from the stargates this will not only give you a good lookout point but at this range you can still warp to the stargate instead of slowboating to it.

Of course you have to remember about the dangers I’ve warned you for previously, especially in the systems that connect low security space with 0.0 space you’ll find a lot of these.

Don’t forget to change your Autopilot from “Prefer safer” to “Prefer shorter”.

Watch your mouth

This is a very important one, if you fail to remember this you will be tagged as a spy and kicked out in no time. Always think carefully when you talk about possibly sensitive information, if you’re not sure if you’re allowed to speak about something check with someone that’s high up inside your corp or alliance (Depending on whether it’s alliance wide or corp wide info).

Aid your allies

Help your allies whenever you can, if there’s a Call-To-Arms switch to a ship that fits as best to the preferred shiptypes as you can,  if there’s the need for a cyno see if you can be of help, helping your allies is a must if you want to stay in the alliance.

Note: I highly suggest you train Cynosural Field Theory to level 2 so you can light a Cyno when it’s needed.

Jump Bridges

As the amount of space your alliance owns (And the amount of space owned by friendly entities) can be quite vast there’s an in-game mechanic to get around in that space quickly, this mechanic is known as the Jump Bridge (Or JB for short).

Jump Bridges are structures that can be anchored next to a POS and 2 jump bridges can be linked together so you can jump between them.

Your alliance will probably have a map of their JB network that you can use, just ask for it in the alliance or corp chat.

Using Jump Bridges

To use a Jump Bridge you will first need to approach it until you’re 2000m or less away, you also need to enter a password for it, this can be done by right-clicking the capacitor in your HUD (The thing with the health bars) and then clicking “Enter Starbase Forcefield Password”, enter the password and hit ok. After this you can right click the Jump Bridge and click on the “Jump to…” option. You should see a jump animation and find yourself in the other system shortly after.

Making Money

If you plan on making money in null-sec (Why else would you come here anyway)  ratting is a great way of starting to make some of it. There’s a trick that makes the chance of quality rats higher (Meaning more/better loot) which can be found in an easy to learn format here.

However next to ratting there’s also Cosmic Anomalies and Cosmic Signatures this will raise the systems military index, the anomalies can be found by probes and the on-board scanner but the signatures (Which are the more profitable ones) can only be found using probes.

Next to these there’s also mining, however I highly suggest you mine with some protection and preferably in a group with someone that has high cargo capacity (As null-sec ore is quite spacious), manufacturing and exploration but I won’t go any further into those.

…

Well that wraps it up for my null-sec guide, have suggestions, additions, corrections or questions? don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

~Xeross

Changes

25/Feb/2010 – Added info on warp bubbles and gate camps.
26/Feb/2010 – Fixed some errors.
26/Feb/2010 – Revised some information.
27/Feb/2010 – Added some additional information about military anomalies.
27/Feb/2010 – Added some information about alliance intel channels.
07/Mar/2010 – Changed bubbles to null-sec only
21/Mar/2011 – Some rewording, added section about jump bridges
07/Aug/2011 – Fixed link to chain ratting guide

I’ve got a link to this guide from one of my corp mates, and it might proof useful to anyone that’s rattting. I don’t know who made it but all credits go to him/her.

Lately I’ve started focusing more on post quality, so I’ve started looking for interesting and useful resources to aid me in the process, and as I’m currently doing Day 2 of ProBlogger’s “31 Days to Building a Better Blog (The E-Book)” (Which is writing a list post) I decided to share the things I’ve found.

ProBlogger

ProBlogger has a lot of information on how to improve your blog, even though it’s mostly focused on making money with your blog the information is valuable for any type of blog. I can highly recommend following “31 Days to Building a Better Blog” which is a free 31 day program. And I also recommend scrolling down on that page because there’s a few hundred links listed for every part of the program of which most also contain interesting and useful information.

I’m currently following the improved E-Book version of the program which can be found here.

Copyblogger

This website has been recommended to me by Mynxee it also contains a huge amount of information from writing to SEO to blog themes.

Guide to Love for the Lonely Blog

A post written by Mynxee containing some tips specifically for EVE blogs, however you can apply the tips on any other kind of blog too.

BlackHatWorld

BlackHatWorld is a forum that primarily focuses on making money on the internet, however the Blogging and Whitehat SEO sections contain a lot of useful information for almost any blogger, and the forum also has lots of other information that might be useful to you.

Using the forum is completely free, however they have some things you can pay for but they don’t really have a benefit for us bloggers.

How to Be Your Own Best Editor

How to be Your Own Best Editor is a book written by Barry Tarshis, Mynxee has recommended it to me and so has Venom Orchid. According to them and to reviews he writes in an engaging manner and also adds in some humor.

Even though this book is about editing and not about blogging, I’ve put it in here too because it’s an important part of it. I don’t have a copy yet so I can’t tell you if it’s good myself, but I’ll have one soon and I’ll probably review it once I finished reading it.

Wrapping up

Well that wraps it up for my list of useful blogging resources, I hope you will find this post useful and that it will help your blog a lot.

If you have any more valuable resources please leave a comment and I’ll add them to the post.

I’d like to thank Mynxee for providing me with a link to Copyblogger, writing the “Guide to Love for the Lonely Blog” and both Mynxee and Venom Orchid for recommending me “How to Be Your Own Best Editor”.

I thought I’d just whip up a post for this to use as a reference myself, all credits for the data go to whatever source they came from, of course you should always check EVE Survival for mission specific directions but this might be useful in other situations.

Drone Damage Types

Rat/NPC Damage Types

Sources

• OGRank
• EVElopedia

Note: if you think any data on this page is incorrect then please post a comment with the correct data and a data source.