EVE Online Glossary: Essential terms every capsuleer needs to know

As I've been putting together these EVE Online guides, I've been constantly stumbling over terms and abbreviations that left me completely lost.

Some terms I already knew from experience, playing back in 2004 through 2011. But for plenty of others? I've had to stop mid-draft, go digging, and find out what people actually mean when they say things like "brick tanked," "kite," or "burn back."

Sometimes the hardest part of EVE isn't fitting a ship or learning the UI—it's understanding what people are saying, or what the guides are telling you.

If you're new, returning after a decade or more, or just tired of feeling like everyone's speaking in encrypted abbreviations, this is your decoder ring.

This glossary gathers the terms you'll actually hear in corp chat, on comms, in local, and in the places where you'll find the info you need, but need a dictionary to make sense of it all. It's not a complete encyclopedia—it's meant to be useful: the words that pop up when you're hauling, exploring, joining fleets, or trying to figure out why everyone suddenly got quiet after someone said "combat probes."

Bookmark it. 

Keep it open on a second monitor. 

And when a guide starts sounding like a different language, come back here.

The Safe Spot is LIVE! (and I'm equal parts thrilled and mildly terrified)

Alright. We did the thing.

Rixx Javix and I have officially launched The Safe Spot "The Rixx & Kinux Show" — a bi-weekly EVE Online podcast — and I'm sitting here with that strange cocktail of feelings you get when you ship something you actually care about: excited, anxious, hopeful.

Excited because I'm back in New Eden after a long time away, and EVE still has that "you're never fully in control" living on the edge magic, and I get to talk about it with my good friend Rixx.

Anxious because launching anything public is basically inviting the universe to throw tomatoes while you're still adjusting the mic stand (speaking of which, I'm still waiting for my Blue Yeti mic ordered this past Saturday, but stuck in some warehouse somewhere this side of the Hudson). 

Hopeful because this isn't some one-off "hey we made a thing" moment. This is a long-term project — something Rixx and I have been talking about, poking at, shaping, and slowly building for months.

Hauling safely in EVE Online: Hard-won lessons from high-sec gankers

After a few months back in New Eden, one major shift stands out from my time away since 2011: ganking in high-sec has gone from occasional chaos to predictable business. It's not random violence anymore—it's optimized, profit-driven hunting. Which means you need to stop thinking of high-sec as "mostly safe" and start thinking of it as "safe only if you're not worth killing."

This guide distills practical hauling wisdom I've been collecting as I rebuild my instincts. Most of it comes from watching experienced players review catastrophic losses—particularly MarkeeDragon's "Ganked Awards" killboard reviews, which are equal parts hilarious and educational.

If you're new to EVE, returning after years away, or just tired of losing ships you didn't need to lose, these rules will help.

The Expanse: Osiris Reborn—Owlcat's RPG looks like it actually gets it

I was about to restart The Expanse TV series for a full rewatch when I made a crazy choice: I cracked open Leviathan Wakes instead. As if I had time to dive into a new book series!

I'm barely past the opening, but it's already doing what the show did best—and it had me thinking about what an Expanse game actually needs to get right.

So when I finally caught the announcement trailer for The Expanse: Osiris Reborn in late 2025 (it dropped back in early June of last year, and I'd also seen it pop up on Kickstarter at some point), I hit play with that exact mindset: hopeful, cautious, braced for impact.

Detour into the unknown: My first steps into Exploration flying a Heron

I'm hitting pause on my Enforcer grind—and my eventual dive into PvP—to try something completely different: Exploration.

After months of security missions and getting my Merlin into proper fighting shape, I figured it was time to learn scanning, cloaking, and the art of sneaking around New Eden. You know, useful skills for not getting podded too quickly when I finally do jump into PvP.

Right now I'm sitting at 665 out of 750 Enforcer points (still not entirely sure what that means, but it sounds impressive). I could push through those last 85 points running the same missions over and over, but that familiar itch kicked in—the one that whispers, what if you did something else?

So I took the detour.