EVE Search - Great post on reddit "What EVE PVP is like"

Quote:

Eve PVP goes like this.

You're trolling through low security space, jumping through interconnected systems that have been dead for hours when suddenly you see 3 new faces in Local that weren't there before. You instantly warp to a safe spot to make yourself harder to probe down while you do fast intel gathering, determining the three are part of the same, eight man mining corporation. By using the series of off grid bookmarks you've made in your territory, you use the directional scanner to identify three mining barges at a particular asteroid belt. You have no distant warp-ins and only the haziest idea where off the warp in point they will be, so you quickly leave the system to alleviate their suspicion and get into a cloaking ship. You hop back in, cloak and warp to their belt, creating bookmarks on roids that will land you near to them. Perhaps you have a buddy or two that you call up and let them know action is near. One might camp the nearest gate to hisec while another wait on your call to jump in. Your leave again, get into your combat ship, and warp to your fresh bookmark. Instantly, one of the barges that was properly aligned leaves, but the other two begin to ponderously turn towards a stargate. You turn on your afterburner as you wait for the lock-on-cycle to finish and manage to bump one off course just as your target locks and you cycle a warp scrambler on him. He's yours now. You call in your mate just as the other barge warps off to the stargate, and he's waiting on the other side to get a tackle on the second barge. Your target is frantically trying to get away from you, but he might as well be a hamstrung gazelle running from a lion. Your weapons are tearing into his armor, he's desperately offering ransom in local chat, and suddenly local spikes with four new people. You barely have time, but you make enough to check their info and find them to be a lowsec antipiracy corporation. You have your target in structure now, but suddenly new contacts appear on your overview -- combat ships, and expensive ones. You call both of your friends and tell them you need help as you align to a safespot, but just as your last missile volley tears the mining barge apart into a glorious explosion and you try to warp, the enemy scrams land on you. You see your friend hit the system, but your other friend is still 2 jumps out, and there are four of them and three of you. What happens? That's up to you.

No, wait... Eve PVP is like this...

You're zoomed so far out on the screen that all you see are purple and red squares. A large spreadsheet covers the right side of your view, while a target broadcasting window covers the left. You can see this ball of death only in a tiny area in the center of your screen. As targets are broadcast in the left window you attempt to click to lock on and fire at least one weapon cycle on them to get on the killmail before they pop. Often this is possible because half your fleet is shooting the wrong things. Eventually you find yourself in a pod and, depending on whether HICs are allowed in your part of space or not, may or may not escape with your life.

No, wait, Eve PVP is more like this...

You float in the emptiness of space, just outside the shimmering sphere of a POS shield. Your own Thanatos should be rights be awe-inspiring in size, but beside the three Avatars and the other capital class ships, you feel almost... average. You've been waiting, patiently, listening to voice comms becoming increasingly more frantic as the enemy encroaches on key systems that your entire alliance depends on for income. But you are the hammer, the quiet hand of god waiting to descend. The scouts are going down in a blaze of glory while fleets of your corporation's T3 strategic cruisers are trying to stem the tide when suddenly you get the call, "cyno lit". Nervous hands on the edge of shaking, you engage your ship's jump drive, one of several dozen that vanish and bridge the vast distances of space to appear in a scene of madness. Enemy capital ships target your largest threats, but you target them faster and begin remote repairs. Titans and Dreadnoughts are exchanging massive fire, so much that the server itself has to slow time to make the necessary calculations. Your target is going down faster than you can keep him up. You look at your overview, a sea of red and purple so long it's impossible to say who has more numbers. Remembering how long it took you to save up for your Thanatos, and all the dreams you had of this very moment, and the years of skill training, you launch and assign your drones, and enter Triage mode. The Avatar you're healing stabilizes, and your celebration lasts just as long as it takes your FC to say, "hostile cyno," and suddenly your fleet is no longer the biggest, baddest thing in the volume. Knowing that you're a sitting duck and an easy target, you cross your fingers and hope your fleetmates come through.

Or actually, EVE PVP is more like this...

God damnit, for the third time in as many hours, this bastard has undercut your price by a fraction of an ISK. Looking at sales volume and doing some quick mental math, you realize this has cost you over a hundred million ISK. This guy that you've never met and probably never will is ******* your bottom line, and that's just not acceptable. You hover over your contacts, considering taking out a contract on the guy, but realize that like you he probably never leaves the station. Using outside tools you check pricing in other regions, and then wonder, do I run away like a scared housecat, or do I take it to this guy? Check my margin spreadsheet again, how low can I go? How low dare I go? How do I get this guy out of my market, permanently?

Or maybe it's more like...

Well you get the idea.