A journey through New Eden without a third-party tool is like an Atlantic voyage without a compass. We reached out to Just About EVE Online to discover which tools players can’t live without, and we present the results below: the best third-party tools for EVE Online, as agreed en masse by the game’s community of expert players. From cookbooks of chaos to market intelligence, the tools below are bound to save you time, ISK, and probably a frigate or two.
Pathfinder - “EVE's primary open source mapping tool”
I know it was listed as an example in the bounty post, but I don’t log in to EVE Online without having a Pathfinder tab open for each of my active characters.
In simple terms, Pathfinder is a wormhole mapping tool. It tracks your characters jumps through J-space and automatically populates a customisable map with all the systems you’ve been through. Not only this, but the maps are shareable amongst Corporations and Alliances or other groups depending on the access level you dictate. On the shared map, you can see the location of the other pilots and watch the map populate with the information they uncover in real time.
Any vital information you can think of, to do with wormhole space, is easily findable and shareable with your community. It also has seamless integration with a variety of other third-party tools, such as zkill and Dotlan.
There are, of course, a few other wormhole mapping tools out there that are very good, and I have spent a while working with most of them, but Pathfinder kept pulling me back. Once I made it to a decision-making position in my corporation, there was no other choice of tool for me.
Without going into a detailed guide, here is a screenshot and a list of some of my top features. Excuse the relatively bare map, for opsec reasons I had to quickly create a new one!
- Systems and pilots location at a glance
- Vital WH system information, such as the static wormholes and the wormhole effect. For example, the pink square in J212028 tells me it’s a Magnetar or the red square on J145246 indicates it’s a Red Giant
- Wormhole connection information, such as the size, the mass status or whether or not the connection is End of Life
- You can populate a list of all the anomalies and signatures in the system and update them as you scan more down. As soon as you do, they are visible to the rest of the community.
- All the kills recorded by zkill in that system in the last 24 hours
- You can record the structures and their owners in the system.
- There’s a leaderboard based around map contribution
- It auto-updates the connections to Thera, pulling information provided by Signal Cartel
- And so much more
I can go on and on about the features of Pathfinder. It is the single most valuable tool our alliance uses and without it, we would not be able to function in the way that we do in J-space.
HighSec Buyback - “The easiest way to sell in EVE”
One of the barriers for new players in EVE Online is getting liquid ISK to buy the next Skill Book, equipment, or even their next ship. They need to sell to lowball local buy orders or invest time in hauling their goods to a major market hub (assuming they even know about them) list items for sale, wait for them to sell, relist items that don’t, you get the idea (assuming ofc they don’t sell to the higher buy orders here to save time).
HighSec Buyback from Rihan and company brings all the convenience of a proper player organization buyback service, and makes it publicly available to anyone in High Sec space.
Their tool even tells the user when an item is over-saturated on the market and the % of value they can pay, highlighting to the user when it may be better to hold or sell that item to another order/service. They also pay OVER 90% on items with higher sale velocity, and also display this information to users!
There is even a simple tutorial video (made by myself) featured on their page, quickly showing how to use the tool.
Contracts are often cleared and paid within the hour. Fast, liquid, accessible ISK for all, especially helpful to new players!
They also have a service called NERDS (New Eden Retail Delivery Service) but we can cover that in a future post ;)
SMT: Slavenger’s EVE Map Tool - “Your personal red alert”
For null sec, when you are PvP or PvE, SMT will put a red circle on the system intel showing a hostile you can visually see and how close the enemy is to you. You can then set an alarm if an enemy comes within 5 jumps.
For anyone who rats (kills NPCs) or mines to make ISK in EVE, it’s the most advanced tool to make sure you keep your ship safe. The best part of this tool is that it will show you what systems your character is currently in (if you have multiple Omegas it also shows them).
zKillboard - “Discover who killed everybody and how”
Often referred to as zKill, the site pulls through kill / loss details from authenticated EVE Online accounts in pretty much real-time.
Each kill has its own page. Within this page, you see the ship that’s been destroyed, what was fit on the ship, and what it had in the cargo. As well as seeing the victim, you also get details about the killers too - what they were flying, what type of aggression they used, etc. All of the items destroyed display their value.
On its own, the info above would make zKill a great resource. It doesn’t stop there though.
As well as displaying battle reports, zKill is great for intel too. You can get inspiration for your own fits by seeing what else people are flying. You can see whether or not there’s a gate camp around by looking for recent kills. Even spy on your enemies to get intel on their fits.
I use zKill every time I’m on EVE. The sheer scale and ease of use is incredible. Every day that you use it, it tells a different story. And it’s free. I couldn’t imagine Eve without it.
EVEWho - “The Who’s Who of New Eden”
EVEWho is a general intel tool, you can get tons of great information about any person or entity in New Eden. My focus right here will be on my favourite thing on EVEWho, the DELTAS.
The Deltas have a wider range here, but they tell an interesting story for Coalition and Alliance leaders looking to size up the organizational growth of friends and foes. Enjoy. :D
EVE2TWITCH - “A bot to streamline streaming”
Space Markets - “Market intelligence made easy”
Space Markets is a market intel app for EVE Online that allows users to identify lucrative opportunities by finding items worth buying now to sell later. It calculates historical median prices and current values for items in your chosen station, presenting you with the top picks sorted by potential profit. It can also generate charts with historical item prices and export them.
Tripwire - “The greatest wormhole mapper ever”
As a deputy of The Wormhole Police, conducting our duty to bring justice to sacred wormhole space one wormhole at a time, I would be remiss to not choose the best tool in New Eden - Tripwire.
Accessible for all deputies, provided by the chief, Vinnegar Douche, Tripwire is a tool that allows us to map our patrol zones, leave observation reports for our fellow deputies, maintain a list of current residents, and much more.
Tripwire also comes with a handy auto-mapper tool that allows you to automatically map connections between wormholes when you are in a rush and can’t be bothered to individually map where every signature connects.
While it does have its concerns, sometimes acting weird with the auto-mapper, it is an indispensable tool in the WHPD arsenal.
EVE Cookbook - “Recipes of chaos and destruction”
In the EVE universe, it is common to narrate the great battles and their colossal cost in ISK. However, a fundamental part for these events to take place is industry. I could write a complete thesis on why this game mechanic is a vital part of the development of other roles, but in this case, we are going to analyse the best tool (in my opinion) to streamline the manufacturing process in EVE.
EVE Cookbook contains all the recipes to cook chaos and destruction in the galaxy. Do you want to build a fleet to annihilate your enemies? Well, with this tool, you can calculate all the materials you will need, in what quantity, and their cost, all by simply selecting your blueprint, assigning the enhancement values, specifying the system and station where it will be manufactured, the tax (if you pay taxes in EVE too), if there is any additional value in ISK, and of course, the quantity of items you want to manufacture.
Once we have all the parameters, a list will be generated with all the items we will need, the quantities, the cost in Jita, the manufacturing time, etc. And if all this were not enough, it gives us an estimate of what we are going to earn (or lose) based on Jita prices.
But wait, there’s more! If our dish involves reactions, we can also calculate it. This is very useful if you want to manufacture absolutely everything. Additionally, we can see detailed steps so as not to forget anything. And as if all this were not enough, you can invite its efficient bot to your Discord server, with which you can make your queries without using your browser.
Easy, fast, and very intuitive, the perfect cookbook to keep your companions and allies well supplied at the lowest possible cost and earning ISK in the process.
Pyfa: Python Fitting Assistant - “The better ship simulator”
(at least better than the in-game one)
Ever wondered how you can defeat that one big bully ship that has been killing you every single time you fought against it? Ever asked yourself the question: “Man, that ship looks great, but how will it do once I CAN sit in it?” Ever wondered how a ship would look once you skilled into it properly, not just the base requirements to sit in it? Or wondered if that extra Powergrid skill will really make your fit work or if it is just entirely impossible?
Well, you can, actually.
Pyfa is a third-party ship simulator that allows you to fit together different fits - like the one in-game - but apply skills to it. Those could be maximum skills, the ones of your character, or any skills you throw together as you want!
Pyfa allows you to simulate just about anything:
How much damage will my ship do to an interceptor that is orbiting me perfectly? (spoilers: you won’t)
Want to know what happens if you apply a Webifier to that Interceptor? You can simulate that.
Incoming remote repairs and Fleet Command Boosts? Yes.
Being webified yourself? Yes.
Energy Neutralised? Yes.
Damage fall off? Yes, yes, yes.
It has a long feature list, and if there is a tool that makes or breaks a fleet, this one is it.
How else would you know that Rapid Light Missiles work really well against any frigate?
Upsides:
- It allows for anyone to build a Fleet Composition without needing to have the skills, ships and fits ready to try it out to see how they synergize with each other.
- You can see how a Ship will turn out before even investing your skill points into it.
- It allows you to analyse why you lost a fight after it is done by comparing how your fleet did compared to the enemy fleet if you simulate it properly.
- Saying “I go pyfa this fit” makes you sound like a professional (instant promotion to Supreme Skymarshal)
N.B. Some text has been slightly amended for grammar and brevity.
