Grismar's EVE Wiki : PlayerDeath

Player Death

Dying in EVE has high penalties, compared to most other MMORPGs. This article explains what happens when you die in EVE, what it will cost you and what you can do to prevent this from happening.

Death, a two-act drama, with a high cost

Getting killed in EVE happens in 2 stages: your ship getting blown up and your escape pod getting blown up. Most pilots will refer to your ship getting destroyed as 'being killed' and to your pod being blown up as 'getting podded'.

If your ship is destroyed, you will auto-eject in your pod. You will receive an evemail detailing who participated in the destruction and what equipment was destroyed. The rest of the equipment (if any) will also auto-eject in a jettisoned container, for anyone to pick up.

The pod essentially is a very slow ship, but it has very high agility and can go to warp almost instantly. A pod is also hard to target fast, due to its small size. But once targeted, it can be blown up like any ship. If this happens, its pilot will die, leaving a frozen corpse in its place. The pilot will wake up in a cloning facility.

If the pilot had any implants, these will die along with his previous body and are destroyed. A pilot will also lose skillpoints, if his clone isn't of sufficient quality to retain them all. You can upgrade your clone at a station that has a medical facility. You also select where the clone should be stored from there. You will be revived in the selected station when killed.

Preventing death

To prevent getting killed, you can kill your enemies before they kill you. But there's a number of things you can do, if you're unable to win such fights:

• Stay in safe space
  When attacked by another player in systems with a SecurityStatus of 0.5 or higher, you will receive Concord assistance. This does not guarantee you're not killed before your attacker is, but it acts as a strong deterrant to potential attackers, since they're sure to get killed themselves.
• Prevent getting scrambled
  Most fights take more than just a few seconds. You can use this time to try and warp out of the fight. But if your enemy is WarpScrambling you, you will need to have sufficient warp core strength to be able to warp away.

And if things do go wrong, make sure you:

• Insure your ships
  Getting killed will probably cause you to lose all your equipment, but you can cover the financial loss of losing most ships by insuring them.
• Keep your clone up to date
  If you get podded as well as destroyed, you had better have a clone that covers all your skillpoints. On the other hand, don't waste isk on a clone that covers more than is needed, since you will need a brand new clone once you die.