A Guide to Good Safe Spots

When you are out and about in the more dangerous parts of New Eden you may need to run and hide when the bigger fish show up. Having a good safe spot ready can be very handy in those moments. And this is a short guide to explain how that can work.

⚠ DISCLAIMER: Sitting at a safe spot that was created with the methods explained in this post is no replacement for constant monitoring of d-scan and, if applicable, local chat. The author does not take any responsibility for unplanned explosions or other misfortune that may a reader find themself in.

Triple-Warp-Method

1. Warp to a cluster, make bookmark 1 mid warp
2. Warp to another cluster, sun, gate, or whatever
3. Warp back to bookmark 1, make a second bookmark half the way there
4. Delete bookmark 1. Why? Explanation below ⤵

Example way to make a safe spot that is not in line with anything.

The second bookmark is safer than the first one, as another very dedicated player can still scan your location down via the Directional Scanner (d-scan). If you make bookmarks between celestial objects only, one could even find you without combat probes by mimicking your warping pattern and dropping bookmarks along the path. Given enough time and attempts, they can get a bookmark that is on the same grid as your “safe” spot.

An alternative way that does not require three warps is to use cosmic anomalies from your Probe Scanner window. The green sites will despawn eventually, but in most cases, they only spawn in a radius of 4 AU around a planet. And having a safe spot within proximity of a celestial makes it easier to combat probe, as players can determine your location easier with the d-scanner before they start probing.

The “safest” safe spots are those, that are not within 14.3 AU (the maximum radius of the d-scan) of warp-able objects, and not on a path between warp-able objects. That’s where incursions come in very handy.

Incursions & Deep Safes

A so-called deep safe is a bookmark that is located further than 14.3 AU away from any warpable object inside a system. That means ships moving in the system around celestial objects, where most of the daily business is, won’t see it on their scanners. At least not if they don’t start combat probing outside of their scanner ranges for some reason.

How to find Incursion-Systems on the in-game map. Keep in mind the NPCs may camp the gates!

But how can you create such a deep safe? One answer is Incursions. This PvE event spawns beacons on the far edges of a system, usually quite far out of d-scan range. One could simply bookmark these beacons and hope nobody will ever be using that same bookmark when you will, but you can go even safer by warping to the beacons and making your very own safe-spot mid-warp. If you even start warping between the beacons of the Incursion, you can create some really deep deep safes.

For another, rarely known way to make such bookmarks, even in wormholes where Incursions never happen, you can send me an Eve-Mail with your favorite joke. I might let you know how to do these special safes.

Creating Pings/Tacticals/Perches with Scanner Probes

If you have any type of core probe launcher, this is the most elegant way to create pings at gates, structures, wormholes, or any other important places. Just keep in mind, that others could do the same. And since this is easier shown than done, I made a little video.

If you can’t/won’t watch a video, here is the step-by-step explanation as text:

1. Have a ship with a Core Probe Launcher
2. Have at least 1x Core Scanner Probe
3. Be on grid with the object you want the bookmark on.
4. Launch Probe(s)
5. Center Formation on current location
6. Hold CTRL to drag probes closer
7. Zoom in, drag probes even closer
8. Click “Analyze”-Button
9. If probes do not show up on the overview yet, try to drag probes more while holding CTRL-key
10. right-click – safe location of the Probe(s)

Naming Pings

This is a side note. And different people have different ways to name their bookmarks. For pings at gates, I use the following scheme:

[GATE-ID/NAME] @[DISTANCE in km] [DIRECTION]

For example this would look like this:

M-MD31 @400 top,
FDZ-54 @300 side, or
Jita @200 below

This allows to have multiple bookmarks at the same gate or structure and still be able to tell what direction from it they are located. It’s also easy to relay this info to an FC who needs a ping at such a gate: “I have a ping on the M-MD31-gate at 400km above”.

Docking and Undocking Bookmarks

Docking

If you want to dock at a station, you need to be within 500m of it to do so. But there is a little issue which is caused by warps. Your ship will always land within a sphere of a 2500m diameter towards wherever you warped to. You can test that yourself warping to bookmarks. The range you land on it should vary each time within 0-2500m.

A docking bookmark far within the stations-sphere.

At gates, that’s no issue, as the range to jump a gate within that 2500 meters. Note that the distance of which a ship gets decloaked by another object is 2000 meters. This 500m difference may require your cloaked ship to spend a few more seconds to approach the gate after exiting warp, to get decloaked, and then jump the gate. So if time is of the essence, deactivate your cloak shortly before you exit warp on a gate so your ship can jump immediately.

On a station however, landing 2500m away and having to slow-burn in for 2km can be a significant risk. This is often long enough for a ganker to get a lock on. To avoid this , one can create a bookmark to warp to instead. This bookmark just have to be 2500m closer to the station model than the default “warp to 0” would let you land. On busy stations, it may be worth to have one above or below to avoid bumping into other large ships.

Undocking

Undocking poses a similar risk. The time the ship needs to align and accelerate to warp-speed can be used by gankers to get a lock. Also bumping can be an issue. Again a bookmark can be used to avoid it: The station undock will always be facing towards the same general direction. If a bookmark is created in this direction that is at a warpable distance from the station, then an undocking ship will be able to warp to this bookmark instantly, as it is already at full speed and aligned towards it.

And Undocking-Bookmark well within warp-range.

I hope this guide was somewhat helpful to you and I’d love to hear your tips & tricks in the comments. o7