Master Level Advice
Advice for players starting out in PvP - first of all understand that everything in Eve Online is PvP. PvP stands for Player Versus Player and Eve Online is a Player Versus Player sandbox. Mining, Industry, Exploring, Factional Warfare, Fleet Combat - everything in this game, even trading, is PvP. So there is no "avoiding" PvP in Eve Online. The worst thing you can do is pretend otherwise.
Undocking is consent. Once you are out in space you are being hunted by someone. So it is important that you master a few fundamentals that will help you survive. Especially if you want to participate in the more direct forms of PvP and express yourself with missiles, guns, and actual combat strategies and tactics.
OVERVIEW
Take the time to set-up your overview properly. What the heck does that mean actually? Ok, first of all, trying to jam everything you need into ONE overview is just plain silly. You are going to need a few Overview tabs to properly organize everything. Once you start thinking about your overview as a category function, it starts to get much easier to deal with.
My overview is set-up with FOUR tabs: PvP, Fleet, Drones & Loots. Your needs may vary. But why clutter my PvP overview with Blue Ships? Or swarms of drones? That stuff gets confusing! Spread those things out over multiple tabs and life gets much, much easier. Some people have a tab set-up for running away, but that seems negative to me. So I can't recommend it. (But you may want one anyway, hint hint.)
The PvP Tab is going to be the one you use the most, the rest are support tabs. You can practice adding and subtracting things from the main tab on the fly, but you want to avoid over-complicating your overview. Which is why it is good to have support tabs ready to give you a clear picture at a moment's notice. It also helps with the d-scanner as we'll see below.
BOOKMARKS
Get in the habit of making Bookmarks (BMs) everywhere you go. You will never, ever regret it and they will save your life over and over again. I'm not kidding. I'm not joking.
I also organize my Bookmarks into folders. Not only does this make it easy to find them, manage them, and eventually delete them - but it also helps when you are in space and need them in a hurry. My folders are Tactical, Gate, INSTA, Safe, and a few others I'm not going to share with you. Tactical BMs are station insta docks, Jump Bridges, POSes, and positions off of enemy things. Gate BMs are pounces, warp-to spots, scan spots, etc. INSTA are insta undocks, and the only all CAPS folder for ease of finding it.
Organize, make, and use Bookmarks!
STANDINGS
You can set personal standings in Eve with any other player or player group, like corps and alliances. Then that entity will be color-coded forever!! While your own Corp/Alliance will also be setting standings for you, that is no reason why you can't do it yourself. Set up your own standards and stick to them. It is amazing what those little color bars can tell you about local when you glance at who is around.
In Stay Frosty we use orange to mark known Link alts and other persons of notorious bent, such as pilots that use ECM. We use red to draw attention to certain people, or groups that like to blob. And light blue to mark friendlies. We don't have any dark blue.
You can do that too!
SHIP BONUSES
Especially when you are starting out, always fit your ship to the bonuses it gets. You can see every ship bonus in the Show Info Window! Learn them, know them, use them! Later on when you get more experience you can start trying out different fits, but resist the urge to do so when you are young. Resist the urge! You need all the help you can get and counter-fitting is something to do when you have more skill points to compensate.
Plus it teaches you what those bonuses are so you can exploit the ones your enemy is bringing in his ship. See how that works?
D-SCAN
Take your D-Scanner home with you and sleep with it, put it under your pillow, and make sure to feed and care for it. That is how freakishly important it is! Know the d-scan, love the d-scan and use the d-scan at ALL times. Also, if you've set up your Overview the way I told you, you can use Active Overview Settings to only see what you want to see! See how that works? Think you are being probed? Tab the Drones overview and hit the D-Scan and ta-da you can see the probes in space now. Without all the other clutter.
Amazing things. Intelligence is so sexy.
