PVP Guides by Members

[Warcold]

- ALWAYS MOVE: being at 0 m/s makes you an easy target for any sniper happening to be in the vicinity. So always move: when not aligned to something (and thus moving) pick something in your surroundings and orbit around it; a station or stargate when they are near (so you can jump or dock when need be) or one of your gangmates when in a safespot for instance.

- ALIGNING TO: Often, your FC will ask of you to align to something. This is so noone has to align when the FC jumps the whole fleet and everybody will arrive at the same time at the spot being jumped to. Even in agile frigs, aligntime is still substantial.
Everyone arriving at the same time will ofc introduce the element of surprise^TM, resulting in more dead enemies and less dead gangmates.

- MAKING SAFESPOTS: Safespots are made by bookmarks when in warp. - Open your people and places tab -> places tab -> Add bookmark. Now jump from one point to the other and somewhere in the middle of your jump press the ok-button. The bookmark is made at the moment you press the ok-button.
There are the quick and dirty safespots, made between 2 'endpoints' (gates, planets, stations, etc.). These are easily compromised though, because you will show up on the overviews of ppl who happen to travel between these points (esp at gate-gate safepoints on busy routes for example).
This is why more complex safespots are usually being made. These safespots are made by going to the safespot I just described and making a safespot between that spot and another point. Now you will have a spot between a random spot on the M1 and Inverness, i.e. backwater. Noone comes where you are now, but you will be findable by scanprobes, so either keep moving or keep track of the 360 degrees directional scan and move as soon as a scan probe appears on the list.

- MODULE CYCLING: When you expect an enemy to pop up any moment, you can choose to start cycling your weapons/ECM/scram/etc. This will make sure you will start firing as soon as you have a lock and will make things a bit more hectic for you. Just start up all your weapons and then target a planet or moon. You will get some message you failed to target nothing, but your weapons will be cycling and you have less risk to accidentally shooting stuff you dont want to shoot (cursor changes back to normal).
There are some dangers to this tactic though: 1: only use planets or moons as target. When targeting a station or stargate for example, you will start shooting at it and will probably die. 2: When a friendly (repairboat f.e.) locks you, the default is you target him/her back. This will trigger your guns. This can be countered by changing your settings (general settings -> bottom middle column: set 'auto target back' to '0 targets').
Cycling your MWD or AB is usually not advised, as it will eat up cap you will need later.

- ORBITTING: Orbitting makes you harder to hit, due to tracking-issues of the enemy, esp when they have big, slow guns. Smartbombs can be a problem though, so it is advised to orbit at > 6km, which is the largest range a smartbomb can have. You will hit less maybe, but you will live longer.
When two ships are orbiting each other it would seem they wont have tracking difficulties (imagine two ppl holding each other's hands and swirling around, they will keep facing each other and wont have to turn their eyes (guns) to keep looking at each other). This is not how the game dynamics work though. From what I have heard, both angular velocities are added to each other to calculate tracking in this situation.

- SPIRALING APPROACH: See picture below. When approaching a big ship in a small fast ship it is usually advised not to approach it in a straight line (red line), because this will usually result is esthetically attractive, but unpractical explosions. It is usually better to take the longer, but healthier approach (green line), because using this method, you will probably avoid the guns, due to it's tracking issues. Although I drew the picture in 2D, a 3D approach (the so called 'spiralling approach') is more effective, because your turns will be less sharp and thus will loose less angular velocity in your turns.
Not really trusting my drawing skills, I will explain it a bit. Tracking is measured in rads/second. 360 degrees equals 2*pi~6.28 rad, thus 1 rad equals a bit under 60 degrees. My Tempest's 1200mm artillery (the second largest Large Minmatar artillery) has a tracking of somewhere around 0.015 rad/second. This is with suboptimal skills though and with no/minimal tracking enhancing modules. But expect normal battleships to have somewhere between 0.02 and 0.03 rad/s tracking (ruling out the freaks). In the picture I chose 0.02, because it gave me figures that were easier on the eye. What you need to do to avoid the fire of the tempest's guns is going faster than these 0.02 rad per second around the Tempest. In this example that means you would have <50 seconds to transverse the 60 degrees between the black lines. The black lines are about 60 degrees apart, but that is arbitrary, there is no need to take your turns at 60 degrees, but it is just for the example and it gives you a visual idea of what 1 rad is.
These calculations are for a 2D approach, but you catch my drift.

The exact mathematics are at this moment beyond me, but I have the idea that it doesnt matter how get from the top line to the bottom line (or vice versa), as long as it is in under 50 seconds. A route being square to the second line would be shortest. This means when being far away from the target, you should aim at a 60 degree approach. In the agony course we were advised to fly at a 45 degree angle, but that was at 50 km. When you get closer to the target, the distance between the black lines becomes smaller, and thus you can fly in at a more direct angle, as long as you fly at < 50 secs/rad.
When getting near the target, you can start orbiting at > 6 km.

The approaching ship is most vulnerable at the turning points and at the point where the spiraling approach changes into orbit@. In the latter case you will travel at a straight line to or from the target to reach the desired range. 'Orbit at Current range' thus might be best, but this will take good timing.
Thinking of it again, you might choose for orbit@current and adjust your range when you notice you are not being shot at at that moment. Someone being shot at should IMO avoid adjusting orbit range. This all applies to a single target.
Above can ofc also be used when you are the one being approached. Dont keep your turrets cycling, but fire them now and then; when you see the approaching ship is turning. And ofcourse fly away from the approaching ship, to keep him from entering his range for as long as possible, and forcing him to delay his approach, because he needs to make a more inefficient approach to maintain the high angular velocity.

AGGRESSION TIMER: When in losec, you can't just be firing away at everyone you come across. Although there is no CONCORD to make your life miserable, there are still mechanics that discourage shooting ppl. When shooting someone that isnt flashy red (i.e. very low sec status or has aggressed you first), neutral sentry guns will shoot you and you won't be able to dock or jump through gates, till the aggression timer has counted down (15 minutes). And even when you obey these 'rules', you will have to wait out a 30 second aggression timer to dock or jump through gates. It is advised to take a bit longer in mind (like 60 secs), to rule out effects of lag and such. Don't hang around in this time, but move to safespots or jump from planet to planet, to reduce the chance of being jumped by someone else looking for a fight.

[Rubino]

Did you cover anything regarding aggression timers and gates?
Would be handy for the guys to know about things that will stop them from jumping through gates.

[Mangala]

Some people noticed on Monday during our first engagement in Genesis low sec that we gained a yellow 15minute Global Criminal Cooldown.  This doesnt stop us doing anything except docking/jumping for 60 seconds after the last shot has been fired.  If we had aggressed and killed the Dominix as our first target, then we'd have gained a red 15minute GCC. Which would have got us fired on by Sentries and left us unable to dock or jump out of system for 15minutes. The latter is why I specificed that for low-sec our targets should be flashy people or people who aggress us first

[Mangala]

And even if you do obey these rules and only fire when fired upon, you still have a 30 sec cooldown right?

Yes iirc, although I tend to work on a 60 seconds trip - allows for potential lag, and session changes after a jump etc.

[Mangala]

PS - great guide, explains alot for people and as others have said, its better to have something they can read and digest over time in addition to endless reminders when ganged

[Caradir]

As Requested here ive put together an overview of the directional scanner.

Directional scanner


The directional scanner is one of the most powerful tools available to the pod pilot. But its freeform operation and somewhat technical nature can be confusing.

With the directional scanner, you can locate most of the same things as with the system scanner, with the exception of cosmic signatures. However, with directional scanning, you can also locate the following:

    * Asteroid belts
    * Planets
    * Moons
    * Stargates
    * Force fields

You can adjust the scanning range up to a maximum of 2.147.483.647 km and the angle can be from 5 to 360 degrees.

In the directional scan window, there is a checkbox that allows you to make the scanner show the same things as your overview is set to show. This allows you to create and save customized scanning types within the overview settings, depending on what you are scanning for.


Scanner vs. overview

The overview is a fixed part of the interface when you're out in space, always in the top right corner, though it can be collapsed (hotkey Tab by default). You can change what it shows by modifying the settings for it and you can sort its contents by clicking on the headings of the columns. Modify the settings by clicking the arrow icon above the list.

The scanner is closed by default and can be opened with the 'scanner' button on the HUD, left of the round center display (hotkey Ctrl+F11 by default). The scanner window combines the system scanner, directional scanner and moon analysis. This article covers the directional scanner.

To cut it short: the scanner is what you use if the overview can't tell you what is around you. You can configure the overview to show everything in your immediate vicinity (also called your grid) and all globally available distant objects that you can warp to, like belts, planets, stations, gates and more. The directional scanner can show almost anything the overview can, but up to its maximum range (about 14.35 AU). However, the directional scanner won't show you npc's, whereas the overview will.

The overview is like a 360° scan of your surroundings. It shows you live, up to date information about objects, like their distance, speed, etc. The directional scanner gives you a directed view instead of just 'all around you' and the information in it is merely a snapshot, with no data like speed and data like distance only for stationary objects.

The map browser and the scanner

In the bottom part of the map browser (hotkey F11 by default), the solar system view, you can see your current position as a red circle. It also shows you your field of view (FoV, grey area) and the current scanning field (green area). Your FoV is the part of space you can see on the screen, as you turn the camera around your ship and it's always the same angle, about 100°.

The scanning field display changes as you move the 'angle' slider on the scanner window. The range isn't displayed. Also, remember that the solar system view is a 2D representation of a 3D world. It doesn't show whether your scanner is pointing up or down.


The directional scanner tab

If you check the use overview settings box, the scanner will only display items that would show on your overview if you were near them. Leaving it unchecked will make the scanner display anything it can see, but might make it really slow, if there is a lot to be scanned.

The controls allow you to set a range, between 1km and 2,147,483,647km. If you enter a larger number, it will default to the maximum. The maximum comes down to 14.35 AU. You can use Google to convert between km and AUleaving this site. For quick reference, 5 AU is roughly 750,000,000 km (750M km).

You can also set an angle using the slider. See below for a detailed explanation of range and angle. Setting a new angle causes the scanner to scan automatically. To rescan after setting a range, you have to click the 'scan' button, it is not automatic.

The bottom area of the window will display the scan results. Remember that you are always looking at a snapshot, not live data. You can scan as often as you like, but it is not a continuous view, nothing will show up if you don't tell it to scan again.

Range and angle

The directional scanner will only detect objects that fall within the set range. Only objects within the scanning field are detected. Note that the angle applies in all directions, you will be scanning a cone-shaped area, with your ship at its tip.

A 360° scan means you are scanning everything around you. 180° covers everything 'in front of you', but remember that the camera controls the direction of the scanning field. It does not matter what direction your ship is facing or flying into, only what direction you point the camera at. You will notice that the scanning field in the map browser display will follow your camera movements to reflect this.


Uses of the directional scanner

The scanner has many uses. Here's a few ideas:

    * check if there is a POS at a moon before warping over;
    * detect enemies warping to you before you get a visual on them;
    * check for a gatecamp from a safe distance;
    * find objects left at safespots.


Examples of use


Checking for POS

If you're looking to scan some moons, but want to avoid warping to moons that already have (armed) towers, you want to check for POS first. Warp to a planet that has the moons your are interested in. Set your scanner to use overview settings. Make sure your overview is set to show moons (Celestial) and Control Towers (Structures).

Make a 360° scan at a range that includes all the moons. You can see all the moons on your overview, so you can also tell what range you should be scanning. All the moons should show up in the results, as well as any Control Towers. If there's no Control Towers, all of the moons are free.

If there are, you can either keep reducing the range of the scanner to exclude one moon at the time, waiting for a Control Tower to disappear from the results along with its moon, or you can point your scanner at individual moons and scan them. Hold down the Alt key to show the icons of all the moons in space and turn your camera to overlap your ship's square icon with a moon icon, to make a very narrow (5°) scan of just that moon.

Finding a safespot

Let's say you know your enemy has a safespot, somewhere in the system but you have no clue where it is. To save on probes, use the scanner. Use the map browser (F11) solar system view (at the bottom) to select a number of locations to scan from, trying to cover the entire system. Remember, the scanner only has 14.35 AU max range. In some of the smaller systems that may actually be enough to cover all of the system from the sun. But in other systems, you will need to scan from several locations, just to cover the planets there.

In very large systems, your enemy may have warped from one planet to another, creating a safespot inbetween. If the planets are more than 28.7 (2 * 14.35) AU apart, there will be spots that can't be scanned from either planet. You will need to make your own halfway bookmark to scan those areas, or scan during warp.

Set your scanner to use overview settings and make sure your overview would show whatever you are trying to find, for instance the type of ship you think the enemy has at his safespot, or containers. Turn off most of the other objects at first, to prevent clutter and speed up scanning. Set the scanner to 360° and max range and scan until you pick up a signal.

From the same location, repeat the scan at 180°. If the object no longer shows, it's apparently behind you, so turn the camera completely around and scan again, you should pick up its signal again. Now set the scanner to 90° and if you don't see the object on the scan, try scanning somewhat to the left, right, top or bottom of your previous scanning direction. Once you pick it up, repeat this procedure at 60°, then 30°, etc.

Now you know exactly in what direction the object is. But you won't know the range. You can find that by decreasing the scanning range until the item no longer shows. A quick way to do this is to keep halving the distance until it no longer shows. If it doesn't show, add half of your last step to the range and keep doing that until the item shows up again. For instance: it shows at 8000km and 4000km, but it won't show at 2000km. You try 3000km, but it still doesn't show. Same at 3500km but at 3750, it shows up again. You now know it must be somewhere between 3500 and 3750 km from you.

Now that you've established where the item is, you can use combat probes to warp to it, or you can even try your luck and bookmark close to it. If the object is very far, say several AU, it is actually a good strategy to try to warp past it in a slow warping ship, like an industrial and create a bookmark midwarp when you are close. You can scan while you are warping, 360° at a close range and create the bookmark as soon as the target shows up. Then warp to the bookmark and continue from there.

[Rubino]

Cool - thanks Const.

Once you get used to the directional scanner - it's fairly fast and a good way to get some intel.

You can use a variation of finding a safespot to determine what ships somebody is flying or to check a gate for the presence of them.
Click the gate and ensure your camera is centered on it (clicking the object is a quick way of seeing where it is on the screen) - then adust the FOV to something small; something like 15-45 degrees and ensure the range exceeds that of the distance to the gate.  Then scan

[Mangala]

Ripped from elsewhere.

Timers

Aggression timer

This is an invisible timer that you get any time you do anything aggressive. Aggressive actions are things like shooting at somebody, scrambling, webifying, dampening, target painting, or using any other type of electronic warfare on target, aggressing target with drones, etc. even if that other person is your corpmate. Doing aggressive things to other people's cans and wrecks will also trigger this.

What this time does is makes you unable to jump through a gate or dock to a station for 1 minute.

Things like targeting or scanning somebody's cargo or fittings and picking up items from a can or wreck that does not belong to you will not trigger this timer. If you are being shot at but do nothing in retaliation you will not get this timer either.

Warning: If you have your drones released and somebody is shooting at you, your drones may auto-aggro. This will give you the 1 minute timer making you unable to dock or jump gate. Shooting a corp member will also give you timer hence why it is important to not play around when on pvp op and shoot at each other. It may end up costing you your ship as you won't be able to dock or jump gate when gang leader gives the order.


Aggression Counter

This is a yellow counter that is visible only in empire space and is not visible in 0.0. This yellow aggression counter simply means that you are flagged to somebody to shoot at you freely. Most often you get it after shooting some NPC rats. You will also get this counter when you steal items from somebody's can. When you steal from a can, you will be flagged red to entire corporation of the owner of that can (exception are NPC corps). They will see you as red on their overview and you will see the yellow Aggro counter on the upper left hand side of your screen.

To see who you are flagged to via this counter drag your mouse over the yellow counter. It will state: "Your crimes" and then list the parties you are flagged to. It is says something like Serpentis, Guristas, Sanshas, Blood Raiders, or Angels all it means is that you are flagged to rats and you can disregard it. If you are flagged to a player or player corporation, it will show you name of that individual player or corporation. What this means is that for as long as this timer is ticking, this player or corp can freely open fire on you in empire space without Concord involvement. So once again, don't worry if you got the yellow counter due to NPCs shooting at you, but do take note if you got a counter against players.

This counter is not triggerd by salvaging somebody's wreck because salvage material does not belong to anyone. This counter will also have no effect on your docking permissions or your permissions to jump gate unlike the 1 minute Aggresson Timer.



You will also get this timer ticking if you engage in illegal aggression in vicinity of sentry guns (i.e. you pirated it up on gate or station in lowsec). In this case you will get flagged to the NPC corporation to which the sentry guns belong. This timer will reset every time the sentries "see" you, but the reset won't show on your screen. This is why it is important to not warp to stations or gates while you have GCC going as it will only reset your yellow timer against the sentry guns and thus prolonging it, but sit it out in safespots or docked.


Global Criminal Counter (GCC)

This is a red counter that will appear on upper left hand side corner each time you commit a "crime". A crime is considered to be initiation of aggression in on anyone who is not an outlaw or is otherwise flagged to you.

While you have this counter in lowsec space, sentry guns will fire on you. If you jump into high sec by accident with this timer, Concord will kill your ship. In highsec, if you have suicide-killed somebody or attempted to do this and have gotten this timer, do not undock with a new ship until you have it ticking otherwise you will promptly be killed by sentries and Concord at the undock.

GCC can be seen from local chat. By default people who have it will be marked with a red or orange skull icon in local chat window. This way you can see from local who is has been engaging others in system, for example. If you pull up information on player with red skull, then you know he/she has been engaging in unlawful activities.






Log-Off Timer

When you log out of the game in space, your ship will warp off 1 million km, then sit there for 30 seconds and disappear. This makes it nearly impossible for other people to scan probe it down and destroy it. However, any time you engage in aggression or get engaged yourself, you get a log-off timer of 15 minutes. This applies to empire and 0.0 pvp alike. It means that if you have shot anyone, if your drones have aggressed, or if you have applied any e-war of any kind, if you yourself have been locked and pointed or shot at, after you log off your ship will remain in space for whatever time is left since the 15 minute timer started at the last aggressive act of the engagement. So for example: you engage a Drake on the gate and kill it in, then in the next 5 minutes you friend calls you and you log off to go join him, you ship will then warp off 1 mil km and sit in space for 10 minutes before it disappears. This is quite enough time for an experienced scan prober pilot to scan you down.

This is why if you are stuck with aggression timer, do not log off in space. Warp around different safe-spots and wait out 15 minutes or dock up. Otherwise you may log back in only to find yourself in a clone vat bay.


Session Change Timer

The session change timer is very important in pvp. You can enable it showing on your screen by pressing ESC button and going to general settings tab. It is not enabled by default, but it is a very useful timer to be able to see for pvp.



This timer was introduced by CCP as a way of making sure that your client and server are in-sync as to where your character is located. Events that trigger session change timer:
- docking and undocking from a station
- jumping through a gate
- boarding or leaving ship in station, or ejecting from ship in space
- losing ship in combat (i.e. you get ejected from a ship as it turns into a wreck)
- joining a gang
- changing roles in gang or getting new roles
- getting podded
- jump cloning

Examples of session change timer messages:
- "Just a moment while I finish gathering my senses. I'm pretty sure I can do it within 16 seconds."
- "You're halfway onboard already. Please wait. Estimated time left for getting the other half aboard is 28 seconds."
- "Can't do that while undocking. You should be squeezed out in 20 seconds."
- "Please wait while ship is entering hangar. Scotty, the docking manager estimates 23 seconds left."

Once you enable the session change timer, you will see it as a small rolling ball located on the upper left hand side corner. If you drag your mouse over it, it will tell you how many seconds it has left.



Being unaware of the session change timer often gets ships killed.

Example #1: You have warped to a gate on which a hostiles have been spotted. While in warp, you accept an invite to join a gang. This will start a session change timer and you will not be able to jump through the gate when you land until it counts down.

Example #2: You have just jumped into a system and see a big gate camp on the gate. If you start flying back towards the gate right away, it will deny you jumping back if your session change has not expired from entering the system. However, if you wait out our gate cloak and session change timer of 30 seconds, you can then race back and immediately jump through.

Example #3: You have been engaged on a station and your ship blows up. You end up in a pod and try docking to station to get your pod to safety only to find that station denies you docking. In those few seconds that you kept trying the enemy locks you and kills your pod. The station denied you docking because once you left you ship, albeit involuntarily, a session change timer was triggered. This is why if you have lost a ship on a gate or a station do not attempt to jump out or dock but immediately try to warp out to a planet or a belt.

After jumping through a gate, your ship will get a "gate cloak" that will last for the duration of your session change timer. So every time you jump into a new system, you end up being cloaked on the other side for 30 seconds. During this cloaking effect, other parties on gate will not be able to see or target you. As you session change timer expires, your gate-cloak will drop and you will become targetable. While you are cloaked you may observe the situation around the gate and report it to your fleet commander. Once the cloak drops you have to decide what to do next: return to previous system, warp off, or go sit on the gate if it is clear.

The session change timer is also very important upon undocking. Just like with gates, undocking you are granted certain period of invulnerability. If you break that period of invulnerability too early, the people sitting around station camping you will be able to target you and kill you. However if you can keep this invulnerability entire 30 seconds you will be able to successfully redock.



Session Change and Docking Games

Session Change Timer and Undock Invulnerability

When you undock you are granted a period of invulnerability of 30 seconds. This invulnerability last as long as your session change timer goes on and it gets broken if during these 30 seconds you:
1) Activate any modules on you ship, even just like hardeners or damage control.
2) Initiate warp anywhere.
3) Double click anywhere in space to move to that direction.
4) Spam re-dock to the station.

Broken invulnerability means that other ships camping the station will be able to lock and fire on you. Meanwhile you won't be able to dock back up to station because your session change timer for 30 seconds still did not expire. This will lead to destruction of your ship at undock point of station. To avoid this do not break your invulnerability prematurely. Enablethe  session change timer on your screen, see when 30 seconds expire and the timer disappears, and only request to re-dock.

Warning: Attempting to redock to station prematurely will break your invulnerability and enable them to target you while you still won't be able to dock back up!

Step-by-step instructions:
1) Undock and hit Ctrl+Space together to see "Your ship is stopping" message. Do not activate any modules, attempt to redock to station, initiate warp anywhere, or double click anywhere in space.
2) There is a period of time when you are black-screened after undocking. After black-screen is over, make sure your ship is decelerating. If not, press Ctrt+Space simultaneously again.
2) Wait our the 30 seconds of your session change timer.
3) Once it is over, either immediately request to re-dock to station or attempt to warp away. For example if you are in a Punisher frigate and there are two battlecruisers sitting outside you will very likely get away from them before they can establish a lock on your ship.

Using the session change timer and 30 second of invulnerability that it grants you to your advantage, you can thus undock and gather intel for your gang on what ships are camping outside while still keeping alive yourself.

Big ships take a long time to lock smaller ships. This means that if you undock in a small ship and see big ships sitting outside without any smaller tacklers nearby, you can easily warp away from them. However, just to make certain that you can redock to the station in case things go wrong, always wait out your session timer before initiating warp. If you see some interceptors, assault frigates, or frigates outside your station it might get a bit tricky as those ships lock very fast. This is why it is a good idea to always wait out yout session change timer before warping off anywhere.

Always have at least one fitted pvp ship sitting at another location. This way if hostiles are camping the station where you base, you can warp away in a pod, board your pvp ship at the other station and join your gang rather than be trapped inside the station and useless to your gang.


Undock Bookmarks

Undock bookmarks will let you escape a station camp even if they have fast tacklers outside. Here is how undock bookmarks are created:
1) Undock from a station in which you expect to be camped and continue flying in a straight line
2) Fly out about 1000-5000 meters from that station
3) Open up people and places, create a bookmark
4) Dock to station, undock, engage warp to bookmark you have made to test it
5) If it takes more than just 2-3 seconds for you to warp to it, it means that his bookmarks is a bit mis-aligned and you need to dock and repeat steps 1,2,3 again making a new bm and testing it again.

You may have noticed that after you undock, your ship gets ejected from station at maximum velocity at a certain vector pointing away from the station. A ship can enter warp when it reaches 75% of its maximum velocity and is aligned to 5 degrees of its destination. So when you are undocking you already satisfy the velocity requirement. The undock bookmark will allow you ship to satisfy the second requirement as well as you will simply be warping forward. What this means is that you will be able to instantly warp away from station even if piloting a heavy ship. This way you can get around station camps.

If you get camped and cannot create an undock bookmark, then ask somebody in corp to help you out with it or simply use an alt to get yourself out. It is a good idea to create these bookmarks from stations you plan on basing at or fighting at before the hostilities start.

If you plan on redocking, hit Ctrl+Space to decelerate and not be carried outside of docking perimeter, wait out your 30 second session change timer, then dock back up to station again. However if you plan on warping to an undock bookmark, do not hit Ctrl+Space. If you hit Ctrl+Space your ship will decelerate then spend extra time accelerating again to initiate warp to your undock bookmark. This can give plenty of time to whoever is sitting at undock to warp scramble you.


Tricky Eject Stations

Stations all differ in amount of undocking perimeter they have. Undocking perimeter is that area of space where you read to be 0 meters from station on overview while moving. Once you pass about 300 meters from station you will not be able to dock immediately. Instead your ship will have to fly back to station before it can dock. However if it is being webified, scrambled, and bumped away by other ships it will not be able to get within docking perimeter to redock. This is why "eject" stations present problems redocking.

There are a few stations that will catapult you 1000-2000 meter away from docking perimeter right unpon undocking. These stations typically belong to various Minmatar factions and look like this:



My ship is a white square and it ended up being 1000+ meters away from this station right after black screen was down. The characteristic marks of an eject station is the long undocking tunnel visible on the picture.

So if you see a station that looks like this, it is not a very good station to base at. Every time you undock from this station, you will have to scramble back to the docking perimeter to dock back to it. It is good to base at a station with a large undocking perimeter so that you have no lethal surprises upon undocking.