Escaping Gatecamps

Gate camps happen, some can form up in minutes or can just be made up of a roaming fleet heading the opposite direction, even the best Intel channel watcher gets caught by surprise from time to time.

Take a Deep Breath
Zoom out and take in the situation. You have 60 seconds to make your decision, so don't panic and flail about for the warp button. You need to assess a few things first.


 * Are they small, fast ships or big, slow ships?
 * Does the hostile gang have an Interdictor or Heavy Interdictor?
 * Is my ship inside an anchored mobile warp disruptor or interdictor bubble?
 * How far away are they from you?
 * What are you flying?
 * How long will it take to align?
 * Do you have an afterburner or microwarpdrive?
 * Do you have a Cloaking Device fitted?
 * Is it a Covert Ops Cloaking Device?

Options for Escape

 * General Instructions
 * Check your overview for Interdictors or Heavy Interdictors. Smart HICtor and Interdictor pilots will not bubble immediately and will wait for you to decloak and warp away in the hopes of catching you with a delayed bubble. Don't be that guy. Assume that if there's a HICtor or Dictor on the gate that it is piloted by someone competent and adjust your tactics accordingly. Keep in mind that HICtor and Dictor bubbles are approximately 40km in diameter (20km radius). Sometimes HICtor or Interdictor pilots will prematurely bubble as soon as you jump into system. If this happens smile to yourself and thank them for being idiots because they made your job a little bit easier.
 * NEVER EVER EVER EVER burn directly away from a gate unless you are 100% certain that you cannot be caught or shot down while doing so. For one it simplifies the intercept course for tacklers and secondly it minimizes your angular velocity which makes you easy pickings for a gun armed ship such as a Zealot or Hurricane.

Your choices boil down to one of the following:


 * 1) Burn back to the gate
 * 2) Use the MWD / Cloak Trick
 * 3) Use the MWD / Covops Cloak Trick
 * 4) Burn away from the gate

The first option is generally better if the camp consists of very fast, light ships that won't be able to kill you right away but can prevent you from warping. They'll be able to keep up with you if you try to run away from the gatecamp, but will probably be either a couple seconds behind you if you jump back through the gate or or will be stopped by the aggression timer from following you for 60 seconds.

The second option is often the best option when it is possible, since it will only provide your enemy with a fourth of a second or so to lock onto you. However, it can be very risky to attempt in laggy situations, and is generally not guaranteed to work. Be sure to understand this technique completely and have practiced it before attempting it in a real situation.

The third option is for ships such as Covert Ops, Force Recons, Stealth Bombers and Strategic Cruisers1 equipped with a Covert Ops Cloaking Device only.

The fourth option is better if the enemy fleet is made up of a lot of heavy ships that may take a few seconds to lock onto you, giving you some time to escape any bubbles and warp away.

Burning Back to the Gate
Hold your cloak for approximately 20-25 seconds. This is done to make sure that your session change timer will expire by the time that you hit the gate. If you try to jump through the gate before your session timer expires you will just sit there like a retard as the Eve client yells at you and the hostiles relieve you of the burden of your ship and/or pod.

This section was stolen shamelessly from the Goons' Wiki.

While waiting for the session timer to expire, right-click the gate and select Add as First Waypoint from the pop-up menu. Approximately 20-25 seconds (just before the session timer and gate cloak expires) after you jumped through the gate enable your ship's autopilot. Immediately click the stargate, press the approach button and mash the hotkey to activate your ship's MWD module. If your ship is equipped with a covops cloak enable this as well. DO NOT activate a non-covops cloaking device as it will significantly reduce your ship's maximum velocity and likely result in you dying horribly just outside of jump range from the gate. As soon as your ship reaches jump range the Eve client should automatically initiate a jump through the stargate, but it never hurts to mash the Jump button when it becomes active. Once you have successfully jumped to the other side of the gate take a quick look around for hostiles and make good your escape.

Protip: Enable the Session Timer indicator in your Eve client settings. It's on the General Settings tab. This will place a tiny whirling clock icon in the upper left corner of the Eve client window which is displayed while a session timer is active. You can also see how much time is remaining on the session timer by mousing over the icon.

Use the MWD / Cloak Trick
This technique works best with ships that are agile and accelerate quickly such as frigates, destroyers and cruisers. Larger ships do not always accelerate to the velocity necessary to warp instantly upon decloaking so there is a chance of getting tackled while the ship accelerates those last few m/s before warping away. In lowsec it renders your ship nearly immune to all gatecamps. In nullsec it will allow you to escape camps which lack an anchored bubble or interdictor with ease and gives you a chance to escape an interdictor camp alive.


 * Requirements
 * Ship must have a microwarpdrive fitted
 * Ship must have either a Prototype or Improved (T2) cloaking device fitted; the Improved cloaking device is strongly preferred as the velocity penalty on the Prototype cloaking device makes this technique much more difficult to pull off successfully
 * Balls of steel optional but highly recommended


 * Procedure
 * 1) Determine what direction you would like to go to escape the gatecamp. Ideally this would be a celestial object, bookmark or perhaps the next stargate on your itinerary.
 * 2) Double-click on the object in space to start your ship moving towards it and immediately activate your ship's cloak and microwarpdrive module in that order.
 * 3) Deactivate your ship's microwarpdrive and watch the countdown timer on the module.
 * 4) As soon as it reaches the 6'o'clock position deactivate your ship's cloaking device and spam click Warp to whatever object or bookmark you selected. If your timing is good your ship will instantly enter warp before anyone can target and warp scramble it.

YouTube video demonstration

Use the MWD / Covops Cloak Trick

 * Requirements
 * Ship must have a microwarpdrive fitted
 * Ship must have a Covert Ops Cloaking Device fitted


 * Procedure
 * 1) Determine what direction you would like to go to escape the gatecamp. Ideally this would be a celestial object, bookmark or perhaps the next stargate on your itinerary.
 * 2) Double-click on the object in space to start your ship moving towards it and immediately activate your ship's cloak and microwarpdrive module in that order.
 * 3) It's often a good idea to change direction by 30 to 80 degrees a second or two after your cloak engages to avoid fast tackle frigates that see your initial flight direction and rush over to decloak you.
 * 4) Warp out when your ship is outside the boundaries of any anchored or interdictor bubble.

Burn Away from the Gate

 * Requirements
 * Ship is fitted with an afterburner or a microwarpdrive
 * Ship is faster than any tacklers which are at the gate and/or can quickly kill any tacklers which may give chase


 * Procedure
 * 1) Determine where you are in relation to the stargate and find a celestial object which is roughly aligned with your escape path. Ideally you want to move away from the gate and therefore out of the area of effect for a warp disrupt probe or Heavy Interdictor bubble.
 * 2) Activate your MWD and haul ass away from the gate. Warp out as soon as it is safe to do so.