How to Start Soloing

In solo PVP, you can have the setup, the right skills, and faction pimping, and still not be successful. How is this possible? You may have the tools, but not the knowledge or experience. It's a fact, you will fail many times before you begin succeeding. It's like having the latest LearJet and a small manual; you still probably won't be able to fly it the first time.

Once you've got the setup and all the technical tools, the first thing you need to do is find a place to fly. In my experience, some of the best places are the ones you'd least expect: gatecamps. Wait, you say, you mean fly right into someplace that's expecting PVP? Yes. Many gatecamps are formed by pilots who don't have much experience actually pvping, and depending on the size of the camp, they may not be ready for an opponent that is expecting them.

Even if they are competent, a common technique is to go straight for expensive, non-insurable T2 tackle ships in your insurable, T1 hunk of junk. Bag an interceptor or assault frig or two, and you've already covered the cost of your ship. And often, once you clear the tacklers, their heavier ships either lack tackle completely or are unable to move quickly enough to hold you in place.

Some of my favorite solo PVP spots are LXQ2-T(Etherium Reach, 1 jump from Paala in Caldari lowsec), N-RAEL(Great Wildlands, 1 jump from Konora, Caldari Lowsec), M-0EE8(Tribute, 1 jump from Caldari lowsec), and HED-GP(Catch, 1 jump from Keberz, Amarr Highsec). LXQ is particularly nice in the Pacific night time zone, with 2-3 campers, often in smaller ships. N-RAEL depending on the time of day either has a massive camp, or a few renters, often in suboptimal setups. The best possible scenario for any gatecamp is to jump into a renter camp. These are generally PVErs who have either adapted their Drakes and Ravens for PVP(often poorly) or just brought them along fitted to do anomalies.

Moving on, M-0EE8 is often camped heavily, but if you can escape the initial tackle, you can often return and harass tacklers. HED-GP can either be completely empty, heavily, or lightly camped, so really it's the luck of the draw. The main point is that you're looking for a small amount of campers who have the confidence to engage (due to their numbers), but hopefully not the ability to take you down too quickly. The moment you jump in, you must mentally accept the fact that your ship is probably already lost, and that you should focus instead on taking down the most expensive thing you can in reach. This mindset will land you a lot of expensive, very nice, and very fun kills, because lets face it, facing the blob and costing them is a lot of what makes solo PVP fun. Sometimes, you'll demolish the entire camp and keep all the loot, which makes you feel even better.

Of course, if you don't want to lose anything, this is not the best way to PVP, as you will lose ships almost every time you go out. But, if you fit your ships right, they are fairly cheap and disposable.

As another word of advice, PVP as often as you can. All PVE should be to the solo PVPer is a means of getting more (and bigger if you so desire) ships. Not only does this keep your skills sharp, but really the only way of learning is doing. Reading a blog may help you on how to begin, but the only teacher is your own experience. I lost many, many, many frigates, cruisers, and even battlecruisers, some horribly fit (without tackle even) early on before I finally started landing a nice kill now and again.

It also helps to give yourself a certain amount of time, say, 2 hours, in which you must be done PVPing. Promise yourself you WILL find a fight during that time no matter what, even if you have to engage against the odds by a huge margin. And when you do find a target, attack with unbridled ferocity. Unless you're flying something very expensive, do not take into account the loss of your own ship. The only thing running through your mind should be "Can I kill this before he kills me?" If the answer is yes, go for it.

Lastly, a word of advice should you get trapped by a blob. If you're tackled, webbed, and have NO chance of survival, stop whatever you are doing for just a moment and look at your overview. Is there any small, weak, expensive target within range that you can kill in the next 15 seconds? Oftentimes, when a ship is going down, even good interceptor pilots will forget that the victim is still capable of using his weapons(unless he's jammed,) and they'll go in to very close range to get more damage. A scrammed, webbed interceptor will die very, very quickly. So lock these up before you go into battle, and as you drop into half armor, take your fire off of the original bait drake and hit that Taranis hard.

Hope this helped!

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