New Eden is a dangerous place at the best of times, but any expert will tell you that there are endless opportunities to make things even more hazardous through complacency, lack of preparation, or any number of other rookie errors. Trusting a stranger who stabs you in the back, losing all your wares to an ill-prepared defence - they’re the kind of mistakes you only make once.

We asked our veteran community for the stories that made them veterans, but nothing could’ve prepared us for the three winners of this bounty, each with their own unique lessons they have learned and tales to tell.

Lesson #1: Don't fly anything you can't afford to replace

Swagger Olacar has provided our first lesson, with a wonderfully written tale that has an unfortunate ending - as lessons you learn the hard way often do. It's a lengthy story that we won't copy verbatim here, but read the excerpt below about one man, his most beloved and expensive ship, and an ambush laid by a pesky Golem. Then head to the full comment to read exactly what went down, because it's one hell of a story:

"It was a relatively quiet evening, we had caught nothing until our hunter spotted a Golem, which took a bit of time to pinpoint. Our group consisted of only three Black Ops battleships, and at the time the Marauder buff was still fresh, so they had a 30-second bastion cycle and could output twice the DPS they were capable of before. We were unsure how he was fitted so we checked his Zkillboard, and found his most recent Golem loss had a poorly built ratting fit."

Game on, you might think. You’d be wrong. Swagger’s full story shows that no matter how confident you are in your risk assessment, EVE, and the other devious players that play it, can always, always surprise you. Many experienced players choose to factor this in by assuming their ship is lost every time they undock.

Lesson #2: Don't aggress jetcans from fleet members in Highsec

Next up is Wadd Enderas with a funny tale that - spoiler - also involves losing an expensive ship. In this case, an Orca worth around a billion ISK, which hopefully few of you have prior experience with. You can read Wadd's story in his comment, but unlike Swagger’s lesson resulting from a scheme laid by another player, Wadd’s was a self-inflicted mistake deriving from a prank on their own fleet members, even though it seemed harmless enough at first:

"So we’ve been in fleet for a couple of hours, it’s Highsec so there’s not much threat and we’re generally just mucking about. To wind me up a bit, some of the miners start dropping single random items and modules into their jetcans (and removing their ore) so that I’m wasting time tractoring in worthless empty cans instead of the good stuff. This is of course all very funny, so I think to myself I’ll drop my drones and start popping the cans, we’re in fleet so what’s the harm, and they’ll run out of stuff to put in the empty cans."

Lesson #3: Stay vigilant, use scouts, and accept losses

Finally, we have orik Kado, who has another tale about losing a valuable ship, but a slightly different lesson to take away from it. The full story is here, but the gist of it is that you should always use scouts when traveling through gates, and always stay vigilant, "even if the intel appears calm". Hostiles could come from anywhere, as he swiftly discovers:

"Crossing the first gate went smoothly, so I aligned my ship for the next system. Once at the right speed, I initiated the warp to the next gate. Midway through the journey, three neutrals appeared in local. As if by magic, a wormhole had just opened. On the other side, a fleet from WE FORM V0LTA was poised and ready for prey."

Do you have any lessons you've learned the hard way you'd like to share? Let us know and keep your submission in mind in case we run this bounty again!