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EVE Online Ship Piloting

Your ship is your method of transportation in EVE Online. It is a good idea to learn how to make the best use of it. This guide will help you pilot your ship and improve its attributes.

Ship Movement in EVE Online

There are two main types of ship movement in EVE Online: sub-warp movement and warp speed movement. At sub-warp speed, you can double-click on space to start moving in that direction, and you can use things like afterburners and microwarpdrives to go faster. At warp speed, you pretty much just have to sit there and wait until your ship has finished warping. In order to engage your warp engine, a few conditions must be met.

How to do manual piloting of your ship at sub-warp speed

To manually pilot your ship, you can double-click on a spot in space that you want to move toward, and your ship will automatically align to that spot, moving toward it at top speed. You can also choose a specific object in space to align to.

What is agility?

The agility of your ship is a measure of how quickly it can turn, and possibly a measure of how quickly it accelerates. Being able to turn quickly is important because in order to engage your warp drive, you need to be aligned to the object you are going to warp to. In other words, you must be pointing directly at it. If it takes a while for your ship to turn and face what you want to warp to, you might be in danger if you are trying to escape from ships that are attacking you.

You can increase your ship's agility with various navigation skills (like Spaceship Command and Navigation), and also with inertia stabilizers that you can fit to your ship.

Orbiting and Keeping at Range

If you want your ship to stay at a specific distance away from a nearby object, you can either orbit the object or keep it at range. To orbit an object, simply right click, go to Orbit, and choose the distance at which you want to orbit the object. You can choose from some pre-defined options, and you can also choose to orbit an object at the current distance. When you orbit an object, your ship will automatically circle that object, TRYING to keep it at the distance that you specified. Be aware, though, that your ship might not be fast enough if you are trying to orbit a moving object.

In addition, you can keep an object at range by right-clicking it and choosing keep at range, then choosing the distance at which you want to keep the object at range. You can also choose to keep the object at the current distance. This is different from orbiting because your ship will attempt to follow the object (if moving) in a straight line, unlike with orbiting which would make you circle the object. If you do keep at range on a stationary object, your ship will stop moving at the specified distance, whereas if you had chosen orbit instead, your ship would circle the stationary object. Note that your ship will TRY to keep at range of moving objects, but if your ship is not fast enough, keep at range might not work.

How fast will my ship go at sub-warp? Can it go faster?

Your fitting window will tell you, on the right side, how fast your maximum sub-warp speed is. Here is a list of things that you can do to make your ship faster at sub-warp speed:

• Train the Navigation skill
• Fit an Afterburner to your ship
• Fit a MicroWarpDrive to your ship
• Use rigs like Polycarbon Engine Housing
• Use hardwiring implants like Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue', for example
• Use overdrives like the Alpha Hull Mod Overdrive Injector, for example

Can my ship go backwards/in reverse?

No. Ships in EVE Online are not designed to move in reverse.

How to go into warp speed

To warp to something, you have to be far away from it. Just right-click on the object that you want to warp to, and choose Warp.

To warp to something, your ship must first align itself with the destination that you want to warp to (which, as mentioned earlier, means that your ship must move in the direction of that object and be pointing directly at it). If you attempt to warp to something without first aligning to it, your ship will automatically align itself. Press Ctrl+Space to stop trying to warp. Once you have gone into warp, you cannot stop until your warp drive disengages.

If an enemy has successfully warp scrambled you, then you will not be able to go into warp. If this happens, try to get out of the targeting range of that enemy, or use modules to break the enemy's lock on you or disrupt the effects of the enemy's warp scramble module.

Your maxiumum warp speed is determined by the type of ship that you have, and also by skills, modules, rigs and implants.

If your ship does not have enough capacitor power to warp all the way to the destination, it will warp as far as it can, and then it will stop.

During warp, your ship will accelerate until it reaches the half-way point on its path, or until it reaches your maximum warp speed. After reaching the half-way point, your ship will decelerate.