Ninjering 102: Safespots and You

Ninjering 102 is not about how to probe mission runners, how to d-scan or how to fit a hilaricane. That would be 101. 102 is about some of the finer tricks of the trade. This one's about safespots. And you. Yes, you.

What is a safespot?

Contrary to what its endearingly straightforward name suggests, a safespot is not safe. It is a spot in space that is off-grid from any celestials. It is therefore mildly safer from the alternative, sitting outside a station or at a moon or some such place where any Tom, Dick and Harry can just warp to you and make your life miserable. In a safespot, you can only be found by combat scanner probes, or by someone stumbling into you on a long MWD-powered trip into nothing.

The “spot” safe

Yes, I made these names up. Deal. The “spot” safe is a bookmark you drop just outside the mission grid you're warping into. From your People & Places menu, you can hit “Save Location” and enter a name for your spot – it won't actually save it until you click the final button. Thus, when you warp into a mission, you can set up a location and only save it just as the distance counter ticks to around 1 million km. Any closer and the deadspace warp denial effect may screw with you (I believe it extends to around 300,000 km from the mission grid). Name it something clever like “KPT Dominix Spot” so you know which mission it is close to.

The safespot is not created until you push this button - even in warp.

The primary use of this spot is to bounce back there when a mission runner is red but no longer in his mission. You can sit at your spot, aligned, with your d-scan set to 360 degrees and about 10 million km range. This lets you see the bear coming back before he actually lands on grid. Is he in his shiny? Warp in and catch him. Is he in his PVP boat? Think before you warp. Is he in a shuttle or pod? Let him land on grid, see that you're gone, and come back in his shiny. Then kill him.

Other uses:

• Quick bounce-back when a mission runner leaves his mission to put rat aggro on you.
• Place for RR to sit on close stand-by.
• General sneaky spot to check up on a mission you've visited earlier without alarming the bear.

The “short” safe

Remember how when we scan with probes, we ignore hits near celestials? That's because there's no point going after people who are transiting jump gates or (un)docking from stations. You can make a safespot very close (inside 3,000 km) to a busy celestial and sit there, your signature cleverly lost in the mess of ships warping in and out nearby. So use a gate or a station for this. Make an off-alignment safespot in the system first, warp to your celestial of choice an drop the bookmark about 3,000 km out. This prevents people warping through your grid when they're in transit between celestials.

So close, you can see the station in the background.

I use a “short” safe in all of the systems I frequent to increase the pace at which I can probe down mission runners. How? Easy: I drop both my scan ship and my bait ship there and eject/board between them. This saves me from having to dock and undock every time I get a 100% hit.

Yes, it's a little risky and you might get your shit stolen while you're away. Never happened to me but it's possible. I've only ever had my short safe compromised twice. Once by a noob who was just probing around randomly. And once because I foolishly made the spot in alignment to another station and someone riding an Interceptor on MWD stumbled into me:

Royal NASA > hello

Yuri Wayfare > herro o/

Yuri Wayfare > so you found my fabled safe spot

Yuri Wayfare > what mysteries is it you seek, Royal NASA?

Royal NASA > was not looking

Royal NASA > just testing ship systems

Yuri Wayfare > says the man flying an interceptor, hmm?

Yuri Wayfare > long-time player I see

Yuri Wayfare > why does he come into our sanctuary I think?

Royal NASA > hi i wasent looking for you i was alliened to gate was semi AFK

Yuri Wayfare > ...

Yuri Wayfare > so this safe is just shit you say

When someone finds your short safe, it's time to make a new one. A better one.

You

Well I painted myself into a corner with that title so I'd better say something about you. You handsome devil, you. Use safespots smart and often. Oh and don't save them to corp bookmarks unless it's in an actual fleet op. And clean them up afterward. I get sick and tired of ancient corp bookmarks cluttering up my systems. Don't be that guy.