Jump On Contact

“Space,” it says, “is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space”

In no virtual world is this quote more true than in EVE. EVE is big. Really big.

Unlike real space, EVE-space is organized into discrete systems. Each system contains planets, moons, asteroid belts, stations, and gates. You move between systems using these gates. Each gate connects to exactly one other system, and if you nestle up close to it you can select the gate and press “jump”. A few seconds later and you’ll pop out on the other side. Then you “warp” to the next gate in your path, hit “jump” when you get there, and you’re on your way.

Clusters of systems are known as constellations (~5-10ish systems) and sets of 5 or so constellations make up a region. New Eden, the galaxy of EVE, has 67 regions.

All of these systems are laid out in 3d, making EVE’s map a sort of terrifying beast. And that’s before you start visualizing live data on it, a topic we’ll talk about later.

The other way to think about the galaxy’s scale is by how long it would take you to move across it. Its max diameter is maybe 100 jumps, i.e. if you charted a path from one corner to the other, you would have to jump 100 times, passing through 100 different systems along the way. Depending on how fast your ship is, this would easily take a few hours. In reality, you’d almost certainly never make it all the way, because most of the galaxy is a very unfriendly place.

Each system in EVE has a “security status” ranging from 0.0 to 1.0. There are 3 distinct ranges on this scale: 1.0-0.5, 0.4-0.1, and 0.0.

• 1.0-0.5 (AKA “high sec”, “empire”, yellow-green on the map) is the safest part of the galaxy. There are police ships guarding jump gates between systems, and if anyone attacks you the police will show up promptly to blow them up. Of course, you might be dead by the time they arrive, but at least your attackers paid for their aggression, right? Most EVE players spent most of their time here, running missions, mining asteroids, producing items, etc. There is some player on player combat, but it’s relatively prescribed.
• 0.4-0.1 (AKA “low sec”, red-yellow on the map) is the seedy underbelly of EVE. Pirates are king in low sec. Systems are usually pretty empty of people, and you can make good money living in low sec because there are more valuable asteroids here, and missions pay out more. The trade off is that there’s no police, so pirates make a good business of jumping unsuspecting ships and demanding money not to blow you up. There are also, of course, people hunting the pirates. This is where you go to fight other (potentially unsuspecting) players without the police getting involved. If you kill enough other players, you might not be allowed back into high sec, but otherwise there are few consequences to bad behavior here.
• 0.0 (AKA “null sec”, “zero zero”, red on the map) is where the big alliances play. Unlike the rest of EVE, corporations and alliances can claim “sovereignty” over systems in 0.0. Practically speaking, this lets corporations build a variety of kinds of in-system infrastructure that boost their income, let them build capital ships, etc. Alliances usually have relatively strict rules about who is and isn’t allowed in their space, and there are usually roaming gangs of ships that enforce those rules. Wars between alliances are usually over territory, and battles are fought one system at a time, with alliances expanding and contracting their borders over the span of months and years. More territory means more money, and more money means more ships and equipment for your internet navy. There are no formal consequences to killing anyone in 0.0, although you might cause a diplomatic incident if you kill someone your alliance is friendly with. Huge areas in 0.0 are essentially uninhabited, but running into the wrong people can mean instant death.

These three kinds of space are arranged like a donut. High sec is the squishy center, surrounded by pirate infested low sec, surrounded by the Wild West of 0.0. In the image, the red systems are 0.0, and systems get more green as they become higher security. The player experience in each of these three regions is dramatically different. I’ve spent almost all my time in High Sec so far (check out the figure on the left for a map of where I’ve been), but I’m moving to 0.0 in the next few days, so I’m excited to explore a whole new world, and whole new style of play.