The Safe Spot — Episode 3: "More Questions"

Episode 3 of The Safe Spot is here! This one was all about me bringing my "dumb newbro questions" to Rixx and getting real, practical answers from a veteran pirate who's been living the lowsec life for almost two decades now. 

I spent the weekend of February 14-15th not actually playing EVE but doing the metagame — researching skills, reorganizing assets, and realizing my stuff is scattered across New Eden like a space hoarder. 

So naturally, I came to the show with a list of things I needed to figure out, from picking a home system to knowing when I'm actually ready for PvP.

Here's what we got into.

Show Notes / Table of Contents

1. Weekend in the Metagame — I talk about how I spent the weekend not running missions but instead researching exploration skills, cleaning up my skill queue, and realizing I've got ships and modules scattered across a dozen-plus systems — which led me to buy a Badger and start thinking about consolidation. — The Space Hoarder Problem — Rixx shares his own system for managing assets spread across 100+ systems, including using an alt hauler on a monthly contract cycle to collect loot and sell it at Jita, Dodixie, or Amarr — and admits that after 15 years he'd never trained a hauler skill on his main (Rixx) because his alt handled everything.
   
   
2. Choosing a Home System — Rixx walks through how Stay Frosty chose Ouelletta as their home — scouting systems for traffic, residents, and activity over weekdays and weekends — and why a lowsec pipe system next to highsec turned out to be the perfect pirate base for the last decade. — Home Base Advice for New Players — For someone like me who's still mostly in highsec doing PvE, Rixx's advice boils down to matching your home system to your activity: proximity to trade hubs, agent levels, mission availability, and minimizing travel time. — Lucifer's Hammer and the Alliance — Rixx corrects an omission from last episode, noting that Stay Frosty's alliance includes Lucifer's Hammer with about 250 members doing industry and mining out of the adjacent highsec system, plus wormhole structures.
   
   
3. The New Map and Strategic Mapbooks — I mention that I posted the old spiral-bound strategic mapbooks by Serenity Steel from 2008, and Rixx confirms they're still about 98% accurate — plus the in-game map now has a 2D view and is infinitely customizable with overlays for kills, traffic, factions, and more.
   
   
4. The Overview: Most Important Thing You'll Set Up — Rixx calls the overview quite possibly the most important tool in EVE and explains that you can now share overview settings by dragging them into chat — plus there are community packs available for download, so you don't have to build one from scratch.
   
   
5. The Most Common Returning Vet Mistake — Rixx says it's the overview, hands down — sharing stories of a friend who got killed by a ship that wasn't on his overview because it didn't exist when he left, and another returning player who got booshed off a station and had no idea what happened because the mechanic was added after he quit.
   
   
6. When Are You Ready for PvP? — Rixx's answer: you're ready right now — PvP isn't about skill points, it's about understanding your "window of engagement," meaning knowing what your ship can realistically fight and what you should avoid. — Skill Points Don't All Come With You — A 350-million-SP pilot in a Rifter only brings the skills relevant to that Rifter, which means a newer player with the same ship skills maxed out is on roughly equal footing in that hull. — The Comet vs. Vexor Navy Issue Story — Rixx shares a recent fight where he took a 25-million-ISK Comet against a half-billion-ISK VNI piloted by a relatively young character, got slaughtered, but considered it a risk worth taking because the potential payoff was enormous. — Every Fleet Needs You — No matter how young your character is, fleets always need tackle, scouts, and support — Rixx recalls his early days in nullsec becoming useful in Crows and Manticores long before he could fly battleships.
   
   
7. First Steps Into PvP — Rixx recommends joining a faction warfare group in lowsec (like Black Rabbits) for structured PvP with built-in fleet content, or joining a nullsec training corp — or just flying into lowsec in an Astero to observe, make bookmarks, and get comfortable before committing. — The Cloaked Drake Story — Rixx tells a hilarious early-career story about fitting a cloak on a Drake and sitting cloaked in a belt watching people fight for half an hour, not realizing you can't warp cloaked in a Drake — a perfect example of learning by doing dumb things. — Don't Fly What You Can't Afford (or Aren't Skilled For) — The episode wraps with a reminder not to rush into ships you're not ready for: if your cruiser has all Tech II modules except Tech I guns, experienced players will notice and you're going to have a bad time.

[Written on March 14th, 2026]