Thursday 16 May 2013

Starting in Null Sec

For Eve players who haven't tried it, null sec seems like the Great Adventure, the Final Frontier, the harshest, most storied and most epic playground of this vast sandbox.

Once you've experienced nullsec you realise that all that is true while it is simultaneously true that it is a hotbed of angry egotists, with leaders making pointless decisions that make a ton of work for line members and falling out with people over the most ridiculous things.

Say one thing for nullsec, say that it's a rich experience.

As a nullsec veteran I'd say this as my most important single piece of advice: go there to make friends. Nullsec is social and everyone who lives there lives there by the consent of other people. A setup like Provibloc which is militarily weak has survived a decade because they're a class act and everyone likes them, and all their neighbours like going there and shooting them. In nullsec we roam the people we like and conquer the people we hate.

My next piece of advice is: Pack Light. I'm not necessarily saying you'll lose all your space but it's very important to be able to move quickly and not too onerously. Your own alliance or coalition is quite likely to ask people to redeploy then a month later change their mind and ask you to go back. To your leaders you are chess pieces to be deployed against opponents. One of my friends burned out over this, it was simply too much of a pain to move his billions of isks of ships to NOL when he joined us, to HED when we deployed there and back to NOL when we reset HBC.

Equally when you start pvping start light. Vigils, Mauluses, Celestises, Blackbirds, T1 Cruiser logis are very strong cheap ships useful on every fleet so start with them rather than immediately welping (losing) a Rokh.

The next thing which comes as a shock is that most people don't defend their territory. Roaming gangs and stealth bombers roam and hunt and your veteran pvpers are likely to be in enemy territory roaming or afk cloaking. The mechanics encourage people to seek pvp in hostile space.

Now I'm not saying don't hunt down intrusions, just explaining that most people won't do it. (I actually love home defence and it will be the topic of tomorrow's post).

Next you should start to learn the nullsec politics. Some of these sites make pretty horrible reading but the only way to draw a picture of what's going on is to read the spin from both sides.

Your corporation's and alliance's forum/jabber
If you don't know what's going on in your own community you deserve to be kicked back to high sec and probably will be.

http://themittani.com/
Well written articles but with a strong pro-CFC bias

http://evenews24.com/
Generally less well-written articles with a strong anti-CFC bias.

http://www.kugutsumen.com/forumdisplay.php?6-EVE-Online-Uncensored
A playground and boasting pits for most of the serious English-speaking nullsec players, particularly the FCs. It's pay-to-post now so if you don't already have an account just lurk. In fact even if you have an account best not to stick your head up over the trench-top as they're thin skinned here and itching for fights/victims.

http://shitonkugu.blogspot.co.uk/
The podcast of the Kugu crowd. Surprisingly engaging, they talk a lot better than they post. NSFW.


OK that's a lot to take in - is it worth all the effort? My answer - hell yeah!

Say one thing about nullsec, say it's an absolute blast!

8 comments:

  1. It doesn't sound like fun :)

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    1. I should have mentioned it was a response to Val's post: http://evenewbie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/eve-online-null-sec-advice-wanted.html

      So for bright-eyed excited new people it's not a bad thing to bring them down to earth, especially as his corp is renting from someone who is facing a real threat of eviction.

      The fun for me is the bigger social environment. I can choose to fly Cormorants and get 30 people I barely know to come out and fly them with me which is really exciting and fun for a junior FC.

      In low sec when I FCed a little there it just wasn't the same kind of FCing as you're playing with a small group of experts who already know what to do.

      I'm just going to bed now after a four-way between Test, NC., Goons and PL which was rather awesome.

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  2. Personally I'm looking forward to moving to Null Sec in 9 days. We're actually moving into Catch where you just moved out of, not any of the same systems that TEST owned, but same area.

    Any and all advice you've got I will happily absorb. Keep the Null Sec posts coming :)

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  3. Honestly, I find that most of null takes itself way too seriously, making it not fun. But, having said that, I'm back in null, this time renting. No CTAs, no deployments, no real politics, just doing things in null how we want to do them :)

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    1. Absolutely. I'm slightly trolling them at the moment by posting a story about taking a 7 caracal roam out which already has some important null sec people raging.

      https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=236549&find=unread

      It's hilarious how much the tryhards struggle for attention and acceptance in many nullsec fora.

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  4. I'm with Sugar... and I spent a few months in Null, and it sucked ballz.

    For me the thing about null was that, and this might seem strange as I live inna C6 wormhole but... the whole idea that hundreds or even thousands of people in adjacent systems WANTED to, and would without hesitation, kill me on sight for no other reason than I was not Blue on their overview was a bit off putting to say the least.

    You, well we at least, could not go anywhere in Null without extreme risk of surprise buttsecks, logistics is a gods forsaken nightmare AND you are beholden to 'others', many of whom are, as you said, "...angry egotists, with leaders making pointless decisions that make a ton of work for line members and falling out with people over the most ridiculous things."

    I so prefer small gang warfare, no local, the cloakylife, very little real 'politics' (as compared to the Big Blue) and no AFK Cloakies, not the Null version that 'uses' local to do the 'boogie man' routine threatening a Cyno Hot Drop if you do ANYTHING.

    In Anoikis we just accept that there may probably be a cloakie in your hole, just a fact of life, BUT with proper hole control (the ability to CLOSE your gates in their face!) and NO EFFIN CYNOS... AFK Cloakies in holes are actually exactly what all the guys who USE them in Null (rhetorically but falsely) claim they are... useless and basically harmless.

    In Null, AFK Cloakies, while they (as they say) cannot target, fire weapons etc. They CAN scout, make BMs and uncloak a light a Cyno in seconds... dropping a fleet on you with very little warning and without gates (or holes) needed... this we do not have to worry about or deal with and for that alone I am eternally grateful.

    I'm glad you like the null-life bro, but fun it aint for everyone... =]

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  5. Don't forget
    - calling each other "nigger faggots" is normal
    - yesterday's "bro" is today's "nigger faggot"
    - your leaders have borderline personality disorder. At best.
    - disagreeing with the herd (even in technical issues) gets you kicked
    - you'll be poor as the dirt
    - your epic adventure will be "click on broadcast, press F1"
    - your little income will be taxed to get those who yell at you get into titans or RMT-ed away

    Been there, done that, not really planning to ever return.

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    1. There's a lot of truth in what you say but it's still, for me, a fun experience.

      If it's any help we blew up your former ceo, Richter Enderas, last night :)

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