On-grid maneuvering
On-grid maneuvering
The grid
Each time a ship comes out of warp, a grid is loaded. It is typically a space 16,000 km across, centered on a celestial, structure, site, or bookmark. The grid size can vary, with locations such as Jita 4-4 having a larger grid than normal or others such as abyssal deadspace having a much smaller grid.
A player can fly their ship in any direction on the grid and can see and inspect visually objects such as their ship, other ships, celestials, structures, etc. that are physically located on the grid. The player's overview can also show all uncloaked objects that are on the grid.
Movement on the grid is not based on classical Newtonian mechanics in a vacuum, but instead behaves more like an object moving through a fluid. For example, throttling up afterburners does not result in steady acceleration to arbitrarily large speeds -- instead a given ship has a maximum velocity. Similarly, throttling down an afterburner results in a gradual loss of speed, more consistent with motion through some gaseous or liquid medium. Motion on grid in EVE Online has been likened to that of a submarine in water.
Propulsion modules and other relevant ship equipment
(See also the Explorer's Guide section on fitting for the general principles of fitting ships.)
A ship can move on grid much more quickly through the use of propulsion engines, jump drives or warp drives.
Maximum speed
Propulsion drives are available on all ships, but their maximum speed can be greatly enhanced by either of the following two active, mid-power ship modules, know colloquially as "prop mods": (a) Afterburners (ABs) and (b) Microwarpdrives (MWDs). See Table 1 below for a brief summary of their properties and those of passive, low-power modules that also enhance speed.
There are two other alternative mechanisms to travel even faster:
- Use the in-build warp drive between two points at least 150km apart. Note that the in-built warp drive can only be used on objects that can be warped to (see the section on in-system navigation).
- For battlecruisers, battleships and their size equivalents, use a Micro Jump Drive (MJDs) to jump forward 100km in the direction of travel after a short (~10s) spool-up. MJDs also have longer cool-down times (up to 3 minutes). Additionally, Micro Jump Field Generators are MJDs that also jump up to 25 ships within a radius of 6km. Used only on Command Destroyers, this is referred to as "booshing".
There are a few other modules that negatively impact a ship's navigation and maneuverability, with highly specialized uses - see Table 2 below.
Agility
Agility is a second critical parameter for a ship's maneuverability. It measured as the time it takes a ship to align to the desired direction with 75% of maximum speed from a standing start. It also is how long it takes a ship to get into warp after initiating warp. Modules that help to improve agility are the Inertial Stabilizer and Nanofiber Internal Structure. Two rig types also help: Low Friction Nozzle Joints and Polycarbon Engine Housings.
See Table 1 below for all the modules and rigs mentioned so far.
Table 1: Modules that impact maximum speed and agility, in order of decreasing speed improvement.
| Module type | Benefit(s) | Drawback(s) |
|---|---|---|
Micro Jump Drive (MJD) - battlecruisers, battleships, etc. only  |
|
|
| Micro Jump Field Generator - Command Destroyers only |
|
|
Microwarpdrive (MWD)  |
|
|
Afterburner (AB)  |
|
|
Overdrive Injector System  |
|
|
Nanofiber Internal Structure  |
|
|
Auxiliary Thrusters (rig)  |
|
|
| Polycarbon Engine Housing (rig) |
|
|
| Low Friction Nozzle Joint (rig) |
|
|
Inertial Stabilizer  |
|
|
Table 2: Modules that negatively impact maximum speed.
| Module type | Impact(s) | Use(s) |
|---|---|---|
Higg's Anchors  |
|
Enables miners and mission runners to remain aligned while mining or ratting. |
Zero-Point Mass Entanglers can only be used by heavy interdiction cruisers  |
|
Used for wormhole rolling |
Bastion Modules can only be used by marauders  |
|
Greatly increases combat abilities |
Cynosural Field Generators  |
|
Used to create a cyno for other, appropriate ships to jump to. |
Improving your character's abilities
Skills
Most of the relevant skills for directly improving maximum velocity and agility are under the "Navigation" tab in the skills catalogue. This tab also has a number of skills for improving the ability to use afterburners and MWDs. One often-overlooked skill that impacts agility is that of Spaceship Command under the "Spaceship Command" tab: it improves your agility by 2% for every level of skill trained.
See also the Explorer's Handbook section on Skills and Implants for further discussion.
Implants
Much of the information here is taken from the Eve University Wiki.
A number of implants improve agility and maximum speed:
- The Eifyr & Co. 'Rogue' skill hardwirings boost the same characteristics as given in the "Navigation" tab of the skills catalogue. So, for example, the "Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' Evasive Maneuvering EM-703" implant improves ship agility by 3%.
- The Genolution Core Augmentation CA-3 implant provides a 1.5% improvement in maximum speed with a further 0.45% improvement if a clone has a full set of Genolution implants.
- The Genolution Core Augmentation CA-4 implant provides a 1.5% improvement in agility with a further 0.3% improvement if a clone has a full set of Genolution implants.
- The Snake attribute enhancer implants have improved maximum speed as their secondary effect. For example, a complete set of 6 mid-grade Snake implants will give just over 16% improvement to maximum speed.
- The Nomad attribute enhancer implants have improved agility as their secondary effect. For example, a complete set of 6 mid-grade Nomad implants will give just over 27% improvement to agility.
Medical Boosters
The following boosters impact either maximum velocity or agility:
Table 3: Medical boosters that improve either maximum velocity or agility.
| Key loot item | Source | Attribute improved |
|---|---|---|
Agency 'Overclocker' (SB3 Dose I to SB9 Dose IV)  |
Events and DED LP store (SB2 only) | Velocity (1 to 9%) |
Halcyon G (Dose I to Dose V)  |
Login rewards | Agility (1 to 5%) |
Halcyon R (Dose I to Dose V)  |
Login rewards | Velocity (1 to 5%) |
Halcyon Y (Dose I to Dose V)  |
Login rewards | Agility (1 to 5%) |
Quafe Zero Classic  |
Events | Velocity (5%) |
Quafe Zero Green Apple  |
Events | Agility (5%) |
Note that Drop, Frentix, Sooth Sayer, and Crash boosters can have reductions in maximum speed as their possible negative side effect.
Automated movement
"You're not flying a fighter. You're commanding a vessel."
For much of the time, navigation on-grid involves using one of four commands that result in an automated response by your ship:
- Aligning leads to your ship flying in the direction of a selected object, often off-grid. This is often used to prepare a ship for warp, since the first step in any warp is to align and come to at least 75% of maximum speed.
- Approaching is the simplest of commands, directing your ship to head directly for the selected object and only stopping when reaching it. This often leads to your ship bouncing off the approached object.
- Orbiting is frequently used in PVE, setting the ship up in an orbit around the selected object at a distance either manually selected or (if pressing the orbit button) at the default distance. This maneuver is useful for ensuring that you control your range to the target, while maintaining a good transversal, mitigating damage from turret weapons, and velocity, mitigating damage from missiles. Some important subtleties:
- It should be noted that the command results in a orbit choice that is random in its inclination and orientation. The ship will first approach the point in the orbit closest to itself and if the player is unlucky, that approach angle may have poor transversal, leading to large damage application from the target object.
- If a prop mod is active then the orbit achieved will have greater radius than commanded. The extra distance from the selected object is relatively small for afterburners, but significant for MWDs.
- Keeping at range is where the ship is commanded to head directly towards the selected object, but advance no closer than the selected range. This command is often used in PVP, especially against ships of equal size or smaller, to control the range to the target ship. The control algorithm is underdamped, i.e. there is a strong tendency to overshoot the target range, particularly if an MWD is active.
Manual maneuvering and advanced techniques
There are times when the automated maneuvers simply do not achieve the result that you are looking for. There are two manual flying techniques that can be used for either more directed flying or more sophisticated maneuvers:
- "Clicking in space" is used to aim your ship in the direction of your choice. Rotate your view until you are very roughly behind your spacecraft relative to the desired direction. Then double-click in space for the direction you want to move in.
- Holding down the "Q" button is to set a point on the grid for the ship to move directly to. Holding down the Q button will position a small light blue circular marker in the horizontal plane around your ship. A line will join that marker to your ship to indicate the direction the ship will travel in. Control the position of the circular marker with your mouse until it is in the desired location. Having the tactical grid view switched on helps greatly with this. At this stage there are two options:
- Double-click the left mouse button to fix the position of the circle marker in the horizontal plan and the ship will commence movement towards that marker.
- Single left-click to fix the horizontal direction and the distance to be traveled out from the ship; move the mouse up or down to set the angle made in the vertical direction; and finally left click-again to set the circle marker in position. Again the ship will commence movement toward the marker.
Building on these manual controls, a good pilot can then execute the following two advanced maneuvers:
- "Spiraling in" refers to a maneuver to limit the damage received from turreted weapons as the player attempts to establish a close orbit around a (typically bigger) ship:
- The player selects a direction (using either of the two manual piloting techniques above) that is not directly towards the target spacecraft, but off to one side, at an angle.
- As the player's ship gets closer, the angle opens out again and the player reselects the direction to close the angle again. The resulting motion is a spiral in towards the target.
- When close to the desired final distance, the player will often select "orbit at" to move into the final, settled orbit around the target.
See this video for an example of the technique.
- A "sling-shot" refers to a maneuver to close range with a faster target that is kiting you, i.e. keeping a certain range, outside that of your weapon systems:
- Burn away from the target.
- As the target begins to move towards you and builds up some speed, head back towards the target. If the target was orbiting you, aim towards where you expect the target ship to be few seconds from now rather than approaching it directly.
- The target ship may take time to readjust and reverse course away from you. This gives you time to close the gap with the target and get within web, scram and weapons range.
See this video for a good tutorial on the technique.
Objects on-grid
Bounding boxes
Most objects on the grid will have defined bounding boxes that are close to the actual shape of the object. Until the object is destroyed, it is not possible to fly through them and your ship will bounce off them, killing your speed. This can be catastrophic for your ship if you are speed-tanking incoming damage or attempting to reach 75% of maximum speed to enter warp. Wreaks and small debris in asteroid fields don't have bounding boxes.
Force fields
Force fields in EVE Online are semi-translucent spheres in place around certain stationary objects. Two examples:
- A player owned structure (POS) can support a force field to prevent entry by outside ships and to protect assets inside from attack.
- Cans in Sleeper Caches can have force fields that can be deactivated by successfully hacking a Remote Defense Grid Unit. Alternatively, a fast exploration or covert ops frigate can reach the protected can before the force field goes up, after being triggered by the approaching frigate.
Gas clouds
Gas clouds don't impede motion, but can be either harvestable or cause periodic damage. To see the extent of gas clouds requires the EVE client to be running on reasonably capable graphics hardware -- the boundaries of gas clouds are not shown in "Performance Optimized" mode.
