Tactics - EVE Pro Guides

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Astro Zombies Solo EVE PVP Guide Video – Learn PVP Edition

After I released my new PVP Video called Astro Zombies, I got a lot of feedback from people who wanted a Narrated Version. In the past, I have always followed my “Old Fashioned” PVP Videos (fast music and explosions) with slower Learn PVP Editions. So while I hadn’t yet planned to do a Narrated Version, the demand for one convinced me I needed to.

Keep in mind this is not part of the New SFI PRO Guide, although the content here is much more similar than the previous version of Astro Zombies. The SFI PRO Guide will contain far more detail and teach you everything from fittings, to tactics, to escape maneuvers, and much more.

This video contains two of the Fights from Astro Zombies that I think are the best in terms of Teachable Tactics that will help you to get more kills no matter what ship you fly. The first is my fight with Goons in the Nano SFI (Stabber Fleet Issue) and the second is with the Cynabal.

Pay close attention to how I use my movements to in a small way, control the enemy’s movements. By knowing their most likely reactions, I can often times guide an enemy into a position where I can kill them. This video will give you a good idea of how I do that.

Make sure you watch in 1080p with full screen to get the best results…

If you want to learn how to fly like this, then you need to get my new SFI PRO Guide which contains the fittings, tactics, and PVP videos for the Stabber Fleet Issue, Cynabal, and Tech 1 Stabber. These are amazing solo ships that can be used in almost every area of PVP. Also, once you have great skills for one, you probably have great skills for the others, so you are getting much more “Bang for your Buck.”

The SFI PRO Guide will be released on Friday April 5th at 20:00 EVE Time (That’s 4pm US Eastern Standard Time)

If you would like to be notified about special first day bonuses, use the “Go PRO” form on the side of this page to submit your Email Address.

Posted in: EVE Online Guide, Featured, Free Stuff, PVP Guides, PVP Videos, Survival Skills, Tactics, Tips & Tricks, Video Guides

Novelty Leads To Frustration and Focus Leads To Greatness

focus The Human Mind craves novelty. It’s addictive and it’s insatiable. BUT it never leads to mastery.

Focus on a single thing for any substantial amount of time leads to a high level of a mastery and understanding. Spend 1 hour a day doing anything and you will become great at it very quickly. This is the key to greatness.

In EVE that means, you should NOT change ships or fits every day or even every week. You should pick one ship, one fitting, and one tactical plan. THEN you should stay with it, refine it, and develop it to a level of mastery.

Come closer. Listen: I’m going to tell you about a Pirate I met early in my EVE Online Career (I forgot his name unfortunately). When I first met him he killed one of my corp members in a static plex, then when we attempted revenge, he killed more of us. Months later I fit out a ship JUST for fighting him, to exploit his ship and…

He beat me with ease!

This Pirate was unique because he only flew one ship… The Rifter. Over the course of thousands of kills he never once flew any other ships. He was the only “purist” I have ever met in EVE. Needless to say this guy was a bad ass in a Rifter. His focus made him great.

For a more personal example, I can tell you from experience that I see this effect every time I create a new PVP Guide. As part of the creation of the PVP Guide I will fly only one type of ship for weeks or even months. This usually amounts to hundreds of fights and individual experiences.

Usually the first few fights go poorly and I make stupid mistakes, then as time goes on I slowly become very good at flying that ship. I get an instinctual “feel” for the way it accelerates, how fast it kills targets, the tank, when I need to run or turn in, etc. By the time I’m done I can almost fly the ship without thinking, because I have done it so many times.

This effect continues to build over time, the more you train in your ship, the better you will get.

So my advice to everyone new or old is to resist the Shiny New Toy Syndrome and dedicate a few weeks to each ship you fly to give your self a chance to see the effects this focus will have, then should you find a ship you love, consider making that your primary ship. Study it’s stats, how it performs against every target you can think of, what the best orbits are for different situations, what damage types to avoid, what implants compliment it the most, which boosters can improve your performance, and on and on.

This focus will lead you to a whole new level of PVP.

Posted in: EVE Online Guide, Featured, Free Stuff, PVP Guides, Tactics, Tips & Tricks

Crime Watch – Kill Rights Guide

In this guide I will explain the new kill rights system and how it has changed, there are many new exciting changes in the kill rights system. I will explain the new changes as in depth as I can, so keep reading and hopefully I can make it easy to understand. Kill rights over all have not really changed, the way you get kill rights and the time limits on kill rights are still the same.

The only way a player will now get kill rights on you is if you destroy their ship in high security space and they were not a legal target to you or you destroy a players pod in low security space. Basically it has to be a criminal act, not just a suspect type act. The old kill rights system would allow a player that you had destroyed a ship or pod to have a legal right to attack you in any level of security.

The new kill rights system still allows the player that has kill rights on another player to legally attack them in any security level space. But there are many new features to what you can do with these kill rights, now you can share the kill rights around with other people. I know you are interested now and I am sure most of you have heard or read something regarding these changes.

I hope to make it all clearer in this article, basically you can now control your kill rights much more to benefit or just punish the pilot that you have kill rights on. You can make the kill rights available to all Eve players; you can sell the kill rights for …Read More…

Posted in: EVE Online Guide, Featured, Free Stuff, Know Your Enemy, Mechanics, News, Pirating, PVP Guides, Survival Skills, Tactics, Tips & Tricks

Crime Watch – Timers Guide

In this article we will try to explain the new Eve timers as simply as possible and in as much detail as we can. This article will encompass all the new timers and their causes and consequences. Before we get into the nitty gritty let me just say I think the new timers and the way they work are some of the best changes CCP has made in sometime.

The old timer system often left you wondering if you could dock, log or jump through a stargate. There were often hidden timers that you were unaware of, which made it difficult to play safely. I am sure there are a lot of capsuleers that have lost an expensive ship or pod due to a hidden timer or to a timer that was misjudged. Well there is great news for all you capsuleers, because in the next major expansion due to be released on December 4^th 2012, as the whole criminal mechanic is being changed.

To Download This Guide as a PDF Click Here: Crime Watch Timers Guide

The new features are all being categorized under Crime Watch, in this article we will only be focusing on the new timers, but Crime Watch will cover many different mechanics. These include the new bounty system, the new kill rights system and the new timer system. We think it is better to focus on one mechanic at a time, so this article is all about the new timer system.

Before we get to the timers there is another important change that ALL players need to be aware of. There is a new button to the top left of the HUD this button is used to change your safety settings. The button location can be seen in the image below.

There are three settings in the safety section, once you click the button you will be presented with the 3 options. The first option is “Enable Safety”, when this is set as your safety setting you will be unable to do any action that will get you any type of criminal timer. Whilst set to Enable Safety you cannot do any act that will give you a suspect timer, but this does not mean you cannot engage other parties. If you came across someone with a Suspect Timer you could engage them with this safety setting set. Below is an image of …Read More…

Posted in: EVE Online Guide, Featured, Mechanics, News, PVP Guides, Survival Skills, Tactics, Tips & Tricks

Mechanics Monday: Why Looking Weak Gets You More Kills In EVE

One of my favorite parts of EVE is the ability to use Misdirection as a tactic in so many situations. One tactic I use all the time is to act as if I’m running from an enemy fleet to get away, when my real intention is to separate them so I can get kills.

But in this article we are going to talk about how you can use your ship choice as a way to get people to make mistakes, over extend themselves, and get you kills.

If you’ve purchased my very popular Frigate PRO Guide yet, you know what I’m talking about based on my Raptor Guide. In that guide you learn that because people see the Raptor as a “bad” ship (and even call it the Craptor), they are more likely to attack it alone and put them selves at risk. This makes getting kills very easy for a Raptor pilot.

Compare that to someone flying a Taranis and you see how much it contrasts. If you fly a Taranis, it is nearly impossible to get any other interceptor to fight you solo. You have to make them think they can blob you to get them to fight you (I teach you how to do that in the Frigate PRO Guide). This means you have to work harder to get fights in the Taranis than you do in the Raptor.

To illustrate my point we are going to design a a new setup for a ship right here to make use of this tactic…

The key here is to think about it from your opponents point of view and ask your self “What would I do if I saw this ship in a belt/at a gate/etc?”

First let’s pick a target for our ship based on known player behavior. One pretty common behavior is the use of Frigate/Interceptors as scouts and lead tacklers for fleets. Most fleets send 1 or 2 frigates ahead of them to look around and try to get tackles.

The time between when they get tackle and when their fleet arrives gives you an ideal isolation of at least 30 seconds. That means our ship needs to be something that a frigate tackler will feel comfortable tackling and can kill 1 or 2 tacklers and warp away in less than 30 seconds. We also need to keep in mind that fast tacklers can disengage very quickly, which means that killing them fast before they can run will get more kills here.

The need for high speed kills here points us toward Artillery as our weapon of choice and ideally a Thrasher as our ship. In the past an Arty Thrasher worked very well here, something like this:

Click To Enlarge

[Thrasher, Arty]
Gyrostabilizer II
Micro Auxiliary Power Core II

Limited 1MN MicroWarpdrive I
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator
J5 Prototype Warp Disruptor I

280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S
280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S
280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S
280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S
280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S
280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S
280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S
[empty high slot]

Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Projectile Collision Accelerator I
Small Projectile Metastasis Adjuster I

BUT the problem with the Thrasher is that interceptors are already scared of it for this very reason. So we need to find another less intimidating ship that a tackler will be less afraid to engage. The choices here are really limitless, but a Tech 1 Cruisers seems like a good choice.

In fact, I did this same thing with my “Tricky Caracal Video” a long time ago. But for this let’s try something else… A Rupture!

The Rupture is …Read More…