¶ Getting to Nullsec Campus Safely & Shuttles
In order to get to our Nullsec Campus quickly and safely, always and only 1) Use shuttles, 2) Travel quickly, 3) Avoid smart bombs, and 4) Plant a Jump Clone so you don't have to make that trek more than once!
¶ Shuttles: What They Are and How to Use Them
There are multiple kinds of shuttles, including one for each of the four main NPC races ("Amarr Shuttle", "Gallente Shuttle", "Caldari Shuttle", and "Minmatar Shuttle"). Each are identical to the other, except for their name and shape of the ship. All shuttles have two unique abilities that help them survive: 1) Their quick align time and 2) Their “Trait” that grants you immunity from warp disruption bubbles.
¶ Quick Align Time
Bigger ships enter into warp slowly, smaller ships enter warp quickly. Shuttles enter warp the quickest!
Shuttles have, innately, a very quick “align time,” which is just a term that says how quickly it can enter warp. The faster your align time, the quicker you can escape from enemies who would attempt to target you and “tackle” you. Therefore, shuttles are nearly impossible to kill through traditional means, IF you move quickly and use them appropriately!
¶ Nullification
In addition to being very quick to enter warp, Shuttles also have a “Trait” called a “Role Bonus” (a trait that particular ship innately has irrespective of skills) that grant Shuttles “Nullification”.
In Nullsec, certain ships and deployable items can create “bubbles” that disallow anything inside of the bubble from warping out… except ships that are “Nullified"! Thus, if you fly in a shuttle, you are immune from bubbles and can safely leave the site. That is why Shuttles are great to use when trying to quickly travel through Nullsec.
¶ How to Purchase a Shuttle
Shuttles are easy and relatively cheap. There are usually a ton of Shuttles for sale at or around our Hisec Campus. To purchase one, simply pull up the Regional Market (by default, the hotkey is “Alt-R”) and type “Shuttle” in the Search Bar in the top-left. There, you can find shuttles for sale locally!
Note: If there are none for sale, go to Jita and purchase one there.
¶ Never Use Autopilot, Find Our Nullsec Campus, & Travel Quickly
Traveling in shuttles is easy and safe to do, when done correctly. But doing so requires that you never use Autopilot (not that you should EVER use it anyways), travel quickly, and using “Prefer Shorter” on your Route.
¶ Never Use Autopilot, Ever
When flying in shuttles (or flying at all in any ship at any time), NEVER use Autopilot. Not only is Autopilot exponentially slower than manual piloting, it is also super risky, because it warps your ship far away from the gate you are trying to jump through, leaving you extremely easy to kill as you slowly move towards the gate. It is also extremely apparent to other players that you are using autopilot, making you a very conspicuous target.
Not only that, but Autopilot also encourages you to not be at your keyboard. You should ALWAYS be at your keyboard whenever you are undocked. If you need to do something in real life, just dock up first!
¶ How to Find Our Nullsec Campus
In order to find our nullsec campus and travel to it quickly, assuming that you had connected to our Shared Locations folder called “Naval Locations”, you will need to pull up the Locations window (by default, the hotkey is “L” or you can find it in through: Neocom > Personal > Locations).
From there, go to the “Locations” tab, then “Shared Locations”, then “Naval Locations”, then “Nullsec Campus”.
Right click on the bookmark named “Nullsec Campus (Staging)” and “Set Destination”.
Then, set your Route to be “Prefer Shorter” by clicking on the “A” in the upper-left corner.
Then select “Prefer Shorter”.
This will make the route more direct and require less jumps.
¶ Travel Quickly!
The best way to manually pilot through the stars is to right-click on the system next in your Route (shown in the upper-left corner of your screen) and selecting “Jump through stargate”.
This strategy relies on you only using shuttles to transit and to “Jump through stargate” the moment you enter into a new system--don't click anywhere else in space, don't wait more than a few seconds--just “Jump through stargate” and nothing else! Technically you have a minute's worth of cloak when you enter a system, but don't wait if you are transiting.
¶ Avoid Smart Bombs!
Lastly, when you are using a shuttle, you are NOT invincible, even when you use the strategy above. Theoretically, you have two major threats that can kill you--a ship armed with Smart Bombs can kill you midwarp and an “instalocking” ship has a chance of targeting you before you enter warp. Both of these things are fairly rare, but the Smart Bombers are easily avoidable.
¶ What Are Smart Bombs?
Smart Bombs are modules that can be put on ships that cause small sets of explosions to happen around the ship. They can only be activated in Lowsec and Nullsec, where NPC police react differently or don't exist at all and where some modules not allowed in Hisec are allowed.
¶ How To Avoid Smart Bombs
If you are in Hisec, you can just warp from gate-to-gate as evidenced above. But if you 1) enter into a Lowsec or Nullsec system AND 2) there are “Neuts” (people who are not blue or green to you but are rather white (“neutral") orange, or red to you and therefore may want to kill you) in the same star system as you (which you can see in the “Local” chat, which shows who is in the same local star system as you), then you will want to warp to the Sun or another object in space first before warping to your outgoing gate.
Why? Because Smart Bombers want to blow you up mid-warp.
But they can only achieve this if you are in the direct path between the two gates. So instead, warping to literally anything else first ensures that you are not in the path of their Smart Bombs.
¶ Set A Jump Clone
Once you arrive in the nullsec campus, now you should train the skills for and plant a Jump Clone. A Jump Clone is a clone that you can plant at a certain station and, later, “jump” to it remotely.
This ability is limited in a few ways, most importantly, that 1) you can only jump to a place you have previously planted a clone at, 2) you can only plant the number of clones that you have the skills for, and 3) you can only active a jump clone roughly once per day.
Note: If you are an Alpha player, you will only be able to train this to Level 1.
¶ Setting the Clone
To set the clone, select your “Character Sheet", then “Character”, then “Jump Clones”, then “Install Clone”. IMPORTANT: Do this step AFTER you have ARRIVED at our Nullsec Campus.
¶ Self-Destruct!
Then, once you have successfully planted a Jump Clone at our Nullsec Campus, you can “self destruct” back to our hisec campus, assuming that you have your “Home Station” set to our Hisec Campus.
To self-destruct yourself in station, select “Character Sheet", then “Character”, then “Home Station”, then “Self-Destruct”. This will take you back to our Hisec Campus instantly.
Note: Make sure you do not have any implants in your head (check Augmentations) before you do this!
¶ Now You Can Show Up to Nullsec Fleets and Events!
Once you have completed this process, you can, once a day, “jump” to nullsec and attend a fleet or event! IMPORTANT: After you activate a Jump Clone, the FIRST thing you should do is replant a new one down, so that you can do it again later!
To activate a Jump Clone, select your “Character Sheet", then “Character”, then “Jump Clones”, then select “Jump” on the clone that is at our Nullsec Campus.
Note: If you are Alpha, you may have to delete a clone from the origination point after you activate your Nullsec Campus one in order to plant down a new Jump Clone at our Nullsec Campus. Don't forget!