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.
Table of Contents
- High-sec Crime & Aggression
- Fitting & Tank
- Fleet Comms & Roles
- Travel & Survival
- Wormholes & Scanning
- Industry & Markets
- Null Politics & War
- Faction Warfare & Low-sec
- Culture & Memes
- Sources
- Fitting & Tank
- Fleet Comms & Roles
- Travel & Survival
- Wormholes & Scanning
- Industry & Markets
- Null Politics & War
- Faction Warfare & Low-sec
- Culture & Memes
- Sources
How to Use This Glossary
- Skim the section that matches what you're doing (hauling, fleets, wormholes, etc.)
- Treat each entry as "what it means in practice," not a textbook definition
- Assume most slang is a warning label. EVE doesn't invent words for no reason
- If a term is missing, let me know. I'm building this as I build the guides
High-sec Crime & Aggression
- Gank – killing someone where you know you'll get punished (high-sec suicide gank is the classic)
- Suicide gank – you kill the target before CONCORD kills you
- Gank contract – paying someone to suicide-gank a specific target (usually high-sec), killmail as "receipt"
- CONCORD – the high-sec police that will absolutely delete you for criminal acts
- Criminal timer – you did an illegal attack; CONCORD will kill you in high-sec and you're restricted from certain actions
- Suspect timer – you're legal to shoot by everyone (often used for bait)
- Limited engagement – a private "you and me" PvP window created by specific actions
- Kill right – a shoot permission someone earns on you (and can sometimes activate/sell)
- Suspect baiting – getting you to shoot first so they can kill you "legally"
- Bump / bumping – ramming a ship to keep it from warping (freighters get this treatment a lot)
- Cargo scan – scanning a ship's hold to see if it's worth ganking
- AWOX – "friendly" fire inside a corp (not friendly)
- Loot fairy – RNG that decides what drops from wrecks (also blamed for all heartbreak)
- Gank alt / scout alt – dedicated characters used for crime or eyes-on-grid work
- Tornado / Catalyst (as a verb) – "that ship is here to gank you" shorthand (e.g., "we got Catalysts on the gate")
Fitting & Tank
- Active tank – you survive by repairing (until you’re capped out or neuted)
- Angular velocity – the tracking-relevant “spin rate” a turret has to match to hit you
- Application – how well your damage actually lands (tracking/range for turrets, explosion stats for missiles)
- Bling / blingy – expensive modules (faction/deadspace/officer), usually to push performance
- Brick tanked – fit for maximum survivability/EHP at the cost of speed, damage, or utility
- Brawler – close-range archetype; the natural enemy of kiting (if it gets on top of you)
- Buffer tank – you survive by having a huge HP pool + resists (not repping)
- Cap stable – you can run your key modules indefinitely without draining capacitor
- Dual-prop – both MWD and AB on the same ship
- EHP – effective hit points after resists; the real “how long until you explode”
- Fit – your ship’s full module/rig/ammo setup
- Glass cannon – extreme damage, minimal tank
- Hard tackle – tackle meant to hold (often scram+web and tanky)
- Keep at range – the UI command; useful, but often inferior to manual piloting
- Kite fit / kitey – fit built to fight at range while staying fast
- Long point – warp disruptor (longer range tackle)
- Manual piloting – steering for angles/positioning instead of relying on orbit/keep-at-range
- Neuts – energy neutralizers that drain cap (active tanks hate them)
- Optimal / falloff – turret range bands; damage drops off deeper into falloff
- Overheat / OH – push modules past safe limits for better performance (and pray they don’t burn out)
- Polarized – more damage, less tank; committing to the “we’re both dying” lifestyle
- Range control – controlling distance so you fight on your terms
- Safety tank – tanking purely to make gank math painful (you’re not trying to fight, just not be worth it)
- Scan-tanked – your “tank” is that your cargo/value density is too low to be worth ganking
- Scram – warp scrambler (short range; often shuts off MWD)
- Scram kite – fighting inside scram range (to kill MWD) while still managing range/application
- Sig tanking – surviving by being hard to apply damage to (small sig + speed + angles)
- Signature radius / sig – how “big” you look to weapons; MWD makes it bigger
- Soft tackle – fast/fragile tackle that’s easier to shake (often long point)
- Tracking – turret ability to hit fast/high-angular targets
- Transversal – sideways speed relative to a target; huge for dodging turret shots
Fleet Comms & Roles
- +1 / -1 – scouts one jump ahead/behind
- Anchor up – stay glued to the anchor so the fleet moves as a unit
- Broadcast for reps – “I’m dying, logi please notice me”
- Broadcasts – fleet broadcast UI calls (targets, reps, align, etc.)
- Bubbles – warp disruption fields (null/WH) that change how “just warp” works
- Check-check – shut up, important comms
- Commit – “we’re going in”; expect reduced ability to disengage safely
- Disengage / break contact – leaving the fight intentionally while you still can
- FC – fleet commander (the voice that decides who lives)
- Logi – logistics pilots/ships that repair the fleet
- NPSI – “Not Purple Shoot It”: public fleets where anyone not in fleet is a target
- Point – warp disruptor tackle (“I have point” = they can’t warp)
- Primary / secondary / tertiary – kill order
- Scram – warp scrambler (shorter range, stronger; often shuts off MWD)
- Slingshot – counter-kite move: bait their approach/turn, then snag tackle when they overshoot
- SRP – ship replacement program (doctrine losses get reimbursed)
- Tackle – the people keeping targets from escaping
- TiDi – time dilation in huge fights; everything slows down
- Volley – coordinated burst damage to delete something before reps land
- Web – stasis webifier to slow a target
Travel & Survival
- Gatecamp – a welcoming committee on a gate with guns and poor manners
- Pipe – a linear route of systems people hunt along
- Choke point – a system you have to pass through (hunters love it)
- Red-flag system – "known hotspot" shorthand: gank pipes, camp systems, sketchy routes
- Perch / ping – tactical bookmark near a gate/station to scout or reset safely
- Instadock – bookmark that lands you in docking range safely
- Insta-undock – bookmark aligned from a station undock so you can warp instantly
- Crash gate – burn back to the gate and jump to escape
- Burn back – the "oh no" sprint back to the gate under fire
- Scout – eyes ahead (or on-grid) to see camps, scanners, smartbombers, etc.
- Webbing alt – friendly webs your freighter/slow hauler so it hits warp faster (counterintuitive but real)
Wormholes & Scanning
- WH / wormhole space – no local intel, more surprise guests
- D-scan – directional scan spam; your substitute for local
- Cloaky – "there's a cloaked ship around" (meaning: assume danger)
- Cloak timer – practical timing around decloak/recloak and post-jump safety windows
- Combat probes – probes that can scan down ships (usually a bad sign)
- Static – your system's guaranteed outgoing connection type
- Rolling a hole – collapsing a wormhole on purpose by pushing mass through it
- Crit hole – wormhole near collapse (one wrong push and you're stranded)
- Polarization – you jumped the hole; now you can't jump back for a bit
- Hole control – controlling connections and intel so you decide who gets in/out
- Seeding – leaving ships/alts staged inside for later content
Industry & Markets
- Jita alt – dedicated market character parked in Jita
- 0.01 ISK war – constantly undercutting by tiny amounts to stay on top of orders
- Station trading – market play without moving goods (buy low/sell high in one station)
- Hauling collateral – the ISK deposit that makes courier contracts trustworthy
- Industry chain – multi-step production pipeline across materials, jobs, and locations
- Reaction chain – reactions pipeline (often tied to T2 and beyond)
Null Politics & War
- Blue / blues – friendlies by standings
- Red – hostile
- Neutral / gray – unknown/unauthorized (often treated as threat depending on space)
- Blue donut – the "everyone is blue" megacoalition vibe (often used as criticism)
- Blob – overwhelming numbers (usually said by the side that lost)
- Third-party – showing up to someone else's fight to profit or swing it
- Batphone – calling allies to pile into a fight
- CTA – call-to-arms, "show up, it matters"
- Cyno / cyno chain – beacon + sequence of beacons enabling capital jumps/escalation
- ACL – access control list: who can dock/use structures/services (important in null/low)
Faction Warfare & Low-sec
- FW – faction warfare
- Plex (FW) – capturing FW complexes (not PLEX the item; yes, it's confusing forever)
- LP – loyalty points (spent on faction rewards)
- Frontline – where fights are expected to happen
- Backline – quieter supporting area (staging, logistics, industry)
- Deplex – defensive plexing; taking complexes back for your side
- Gate guns – sentry guns on low-sec gates/stations that punish certain aggression
Culture & Memes
- "Content" – euphemism for "someone is about to have a bad day"
- Bait – something that looks juicy and is secretly a trap
- GF in local – "good fight" (can be sincere or salt in a tuxedo)
- ISK tanking – "I'm safe because you can't afford to kill me"
- Don't fly what you can't afford to lose – not slang, but it's basically scripture
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