Guide to wild by charles
Ships of the trade
If you are planning to do wild PvE, especially solo, I would recommend at least a frigate. It is possible with a corvette, but in order to not die and actually fight things without taking an hour in a corvette, you would need to be really good at PvE. If you are good at PVE you would already have frigate or destroyer. However, if you are new to PvE and are planning to do it with at least one friend who knows PVE and can instruct you like telling you when to warp out then feel free to use corvetta. Unlike with PvP, the risk of losing your ship is low if you are carefull hence you shouldn't fear bringing biggerships to wild. Some ships naturally are better than others but as long as it has turrets it will be able to blow up those pesky pirates and drones. NPCs aren't smart so as long as you retreat when low and remember to heal, you can take on most npc fleets.
These info boxes are summaries of the section above. It's not a replacement for reading the whole guide unless you want to blow up in wild.
For PVE use at least a Frigate unless you are good at PvE. In which case you should have no reason to use corvette in the first place.
Looking for a friends to do PVE with? Join oofers from link below and enjoy near daily organised PVE events and community filled with PVE enjoyers.
The most important thing you will have on your ship are the modules. Arguably even more crucial than the turrets themselves. If you bring a stock ship to PvE, you are not going to have a fun time.
One thing you absolutely need in wild PvE is some form of hull regen. This can be patcher nanobots, hull booster or hull repairer, without these you will have no way to heal your hull in wild. The only exception to this rule is if you are in a heavily shield based ship like the Justice and are confident enough to not get hulled. Another important module you will need is a lightburner. It makes it really convenient to reposition yourself and to get out of a bad situation such as being disrupted and pirated by another player. This is a situation you want to avoid and if a player warps in you want get out of the system right away. here's a short guide in case the worst happens.
Saving your ship with lightburner from pirates
ALIGN to the system you want to go to LIGHTBURN as far as possible (an ancient lightburner gives you far better odds of survival at higher upfront cost) WARP to the system and then WARPLOG (alt F4 the game whilst on the black screen with the system name)
When you lightburn, pay really close attention to the pirate. If they are going to lightburn as well then cancel your lightburn, because you are very much screwed if they catch you before you can escape. This is called tackling in pirating world. Also make sure you are SYSTEM warping and NOT PLANET WARPING as you cannot warp log in a planet warp. Most pirates use fast warping ships and they will arrive at the planet faster than you will.
Make sure you are not being tackled (when they lightburn to you after you lightburn). Also don’t be an idiot and always system warp to escape pirates.
If you don’t want to use a lightburner, you can use other subsystems. For example, energy booster is a solid option because it means you can use healing based subsystems for longer if neccessary and when stuff goes south gain enough energy back to always be able to warp.
Hull regen is required unless using a shield based ship like Justice. If possible have light burner. It may save your life. If you don't want lightburner, energy booster or hull/shield repairers are a good alternative.
Ship modules
As mentioned earlier modules can make a ship good or bad. As there are a lot of modules lets go over some of your options.
Engine module(s)
Engine module slot depends heavily on the ship you have. If your is fast at warping and fast at charging warps like most corvettes and frigates are then you can afford to put something else in the engine slot but I still recommend putting a warp charger or warp amplifier in engine slot. Warp amplifier is the more convenient option. it speeds up your warp time between planets. However, if you want to be safer against player pirates, then a warp charger is your best friend. Personally, I think it’s worth the slower planet warp time to ensure you are less likely to be pirates. Warp charger reduces the time it takes for your ship to charge the warp. This gives you better oppurtunity at escaping. If you have two engine slots, then your best option is to double whatever you are already using. NEVER mix opposite modules like parallel circuits and batteries, or warp amps and warp chargers. you will end up making both modules worse. Pick the buff you want and stick to it.
Warp charger is good for escaping pirates, meanwhile warp amplifier makes warp times less annoying. Use other modules only if know know what you are doing.
Reactor slot
For reactor slots parallel circuits is the best option. In any activity which lasts longer than one engament energy regen is superior to higher energt. In some builds you can even achieve medium shield repairer to last forever. Additionally, warping takes a percentage of your energy and not a fixed amount. This in practice means parallel circuits due to reduced total energy increases how fast you can recover the 40% energy needed for system warp.
Don’t use batteries. Paraelle circuits are superior.
Defense slot
For your defence slot, if you are in a destroyer, use Ultralight Chassis. Yes, I know, it sounds stupid, that's the module you use in a polaris. To that I say, just try it. ULC on a destroyer makes you almost unpirateable to ship classes below you. Fighters? The back of your ship spins so fast they actually struggle to keep up by chasing your tail. Corvettes? If they get close enough to do any real damage to you, you can do realer damage to them. If they are running railguns then just warp out, they can’t lightburn to you because you will shred them. Frigates? Basically the same story. Other destroyers? Well, then you wanna think about escaping. Of course unless you are really confident in your PvP ability or are with other players, it’s always better just to run away from the person. You have no idea how good they may be at PvP and although I said unpirateable there are some really cracked people who will still find a way to turn you into scrap. A wild kill is never worth a wild loss (remember insurance doesn’t apply in wilds). ULC is also really good in PvE - it makes killing fighters really easy and you can do some funny strategies with a ULC and shield regen conc, like baiting the battleship whilst taking very little damage. Use ULC for defence slots. Yes, it’s good. It will save your ass against pirates if you are forced to fight them and it’s also amazing in PvE.
If you have two defence slots then you are flying a brick ship (bad agility) and therefore should double the ULCs (although ULC and reinforced hull is also a good build) Only exception is justice because each ULC makes you lose a lot of shield. In that case you could use one ULC and one hard light shields to balance it out (whatever tier of ULC you are using needs to be matched by the same tier of hardlight shields because increasing tiers of ULC take away more shield - dread ULC takes away 24%, hybrid hardlight shields adds 25%). Additionally if you are in a Justice you could just accept your position as a tank and chuck two hardlight shields on it. If you aren’t going to use ULC then use something like reinforced hull or hardlight shields (depending on how the hp of your ship is balanced, if you have more shield then use hardlight, if you have more hull use reinforced. If you don’t plan on bringing a hull regen subsystem. And again if you have a Justice you don’t need hull regen.
Echelon or bulwark = two ULCs or ULC + reinforced. Justice = ULC + hardlight or two hardlights. Anything that isn’t a destroyer will probably benefit more from using hp boost modules like reinforced and hardlight, or by using patcher nanobots.
Weapon slot
For weapons slots, there are only really 3 rigs that are actually useful in PvE. Rapid bolt, heavy bolt, and coresec targeter. Rapid bolt and heavy bolt actually give the same increase in DPS so the one you use is entirely up to preference, but I would say if you are using turrets with high firerate (e.g. blasters or coils) use heavy bolts, and if you are using turrets with low firerate (e.g. cannons) then use rapid bolt. For slow firerate turrets the addition slowdown to bullets heavy bolt gives makes aiming them considerably harder.
However, coresec targeter actually gives a better increase in DPS against drones and pirates than either of those modules, so if you only care about PvE and aren’t planning to lay any bullets on other players then coresec targeter is your best option. As with any other rigs, if you have two weapons slots then double whatever you are already using. If you are using coresec targeter using either rapid or heavy bolt as second slot isn't as detrimental.
Low firerate turret = rapid bolt, high firerate turret = heavy bolt, purely PvE focussed ship = coresec targetter.
Subsystems
Subsystems are mostly up to preference. The Conciliator shines here as it’s the only ship in the game to have 3 subsystems (and yes, this makes a huge difference). Otherwise, I believe most destroyers have 2 subsystems, and anything below that will have 1 or 2 subsystems. Conci best ship.
If you aren’t going to use patcher nanobots and aren’t in a shielf bnased ship, then 1 of your subsystems slots, as mentioned earlier, must be a hull repairer suitable to the size of your ship. Don't use hull boosters, they suck.
Don't forget hull regen unless you want to be a wreck :)
Other than that, subsystems are largely up to you. Some people like to have an overclocker, which can increase your dps quite bit. If you are in a shield tank like the Justice you want to have something like a heavy shield repairer opposite applies for hull tanks. As was mentioned earlier lightburners are good if you want a chance to escape from pirates. If you have poor energy management or just enjoy the added safety of it, use an energy booster.
Every other subsystem doesn’t have a use in PvE. There are some really interesting builds you can experiment with. For example ULCs, double parallel circuits, and medium shield repairer on a Conciliator makes it so that you have 70 passive shield regen as the medium shield repairer can be on forever, which is really awesome for fighting huge amounts NPCs. ULCs make it easy to kill fighters, and all 3 of them combined make it so you can dodge a battleship whilst taking its full firepower for around 2 minutes without being hulled, meaning your friend can go in and destroy part of the battleship. Once you have a good feel for PvE, experiment with your builds.
Heavy shield repair is nice for shield tanks, heavy hull repair is nice for hull tanks, overclocker is something you might want, lightburners are really useful for repositioning and not being pirated, energy boosters are the perfect counter to your energy management skill issue. Starscape module synergies exist and you can find them by experimenting.
Turrets
Finally, turrets. This ones really simple. If you want high structure damage, use full cannons and preferably a tankier ship because the more structures you kill the more hostile NPCs warp in. Cannons are good but can be hard to hit with otherwise, use blasters or coilguns. Personally I mix my blasters and coils, by using normal coilguns and medium blasters. They actually work really well together due to similar bullet speed, and firerate. Medium blasters have almost the same turning rate as normal coilguns which makes them even better. But a full blaster build is also pretty good. Don’t use any other turrets as they don't work for PVE aswell. You can put a mining turret on the ship as well if you want to be prepared for VX anomalies but it is not required and on smaller ships this can reduce your dps significant amount.
Coilguns, cannons, blasters, mining turrets maybe, nothing else.
PDTs
PDTs don’t really matter much or make a huge difference, but I personally recommend bringing pulse PDTs as they allow you to bait ships out of a fleet because of their range. If you are bringing a mining turret then a tractor beam is also advisable.
Travelling in wild & encountering players
Travelling in wild is easy. Remember, when warping into any NPCs, you have around 10 seconds before they start attacking you unless you attack them first. This is more than enough time for any ship in the game to planet warp or system warp. A lot of newer players panic when warping into something like a drone armada but as long as you do not shoot AT ALL, the NPCs will not target you. Use this to your advantage. If you need to probe a system, you can just spam planet warps and basically be invulnerable. If it’s a rare one planet system then you will have a harder time but you should be able to get decently far away in ten seconds, if neccessary use light burner. Avoid using it as it leaves you more vulnerable to pirates.
There is 10 seconds amnesty period when warping in on hostile NPCs as long as you don’t aggravate them.
Warping into players
If you warp in on a player, lightburners again should be able to save you. The only time they won’t is if they have like 5 bubbles on warp point, you just cannot survive that. This is why lightburners are such an important module to have. However if you are planning to go with other people then you may not need a lightburner. This means if you run into pirates you will fight them. If you want to be safe you can bring a lot of interstellar probes which is pretty expensive or have an alt on a warpagon and paragon with warp charges and blink drive. Use the alt to scout the systems ahead of you. This is the safest option, but keep in mind that the chances of pirates camping a random system is low. As long as you know your hotspots you should be safe. Since the alt is in a paragon with a blink drive its nearly unkillable if you blink drive away and outrun them.
Bubble camping = certain death. Interstellar probes / scouting alts can keep you safe.
Know your piracy hotspots
Piracy hot spots are systems where pirates usually camp. You do not need to memorise a list of all hotspots but knowing the commons ones is helpful. You can tell what systems are hotspots purely from their location. For example, an unsecure near to wild is decently likely to be a hotspot even more so if it's a route to wild trough warp relay. A secure to wild is even more so. Wild systems that are really easy to get to are commonly pirated (e.g. Cid Tapa because it’s very few warps away from Citadel). If a system appears like it would have high traffic, it’s probably going to be camped more often. Interstellar probes can keep you safe. The systems immediately after the hotspot are much safer. pirates only really camp the first system, so you do not need to be as careful once you have gotten safely into wild unless the wild system has only one connection to single wild system in which case pirates maybe camping one system out in wild to ensure scouts and interstellar probes don't catch them. Systems that are one planet, on the way to an important system when coming from Citadel, and are difficult to avoid and don’t really exist. The only system that does this is Eod Taost on the way to the Syndicate. Keep it in mind if you spend time in syndicate
Before warping to unsecure or wild think if system is hotspot or could be hotspot
Alternative way to wild
The best way to get into wild in a safe way is by finding a wormhole in an unsecure. The only things you need to be careful of is the position and the lifetime of the wormhole. If it is close to a core system or a relay system, chances are someone may have already found it (remember, interstellar probes tell you when people were last in a system). If it is a two week wormhole and you have no idea how long it’s been around for, you probably weren’t the first to find it. If the wormhole leads close to unsecure you may run into other people as those wilds are more populated. But if you find a relatively new wormhole in an unsecure system far away from other players, and it goes into deep wild, you are going to have a very successful and uninterrupted PvE experience.
Wormholes are your friend - if you find a really good one you will get really good stuff.
Strategies
There are two attack strategies in PvE - kiting and brawling. 99% of the time, you will be brawling the hostile NPCs. This is where you chase them, try to get as close as possible, and have as many of your turrets as possible on them. This maximises your DPS and it’s the fastest way to kill most enemies. It works because pretty much anything below an elite or dread frigate doesn’t have enough DPS to seriously damage you (unless you aren’t in a frigate or dessie). ULC helps with this because you can turn faster and get yourself into a good angle to focus all turrets. Brawling: get close to the enemy, fire all turrets at them.
Kiting is a little more difficult. You need to stay in between around 3.5 to 4 KM away from enemies - the turrets you will be using have a maximum range of 4 KM so this makes sure you can stay as far away as possible from the enemy. You mainly use kiting on enemies that deal a lot of damage because they deal a lot less damage when you are further away from them. You need to put a lot of lead on your shots meaning shooting ahead of where the NPC actually is to account for bullet travel time. With good aim you can deal a lot of damage to the enemy from afar whilst not taking too much damage yourself. If you are in a destroyer you can probably brawl an elite frigate, but if you are in a frigate you will be better off kiting it. You should always kite elite drone destroyers / drone captains because they have more than enough DPS to kill you especially the captain up close.
You need to actually read this one, kiting is a very important skill.
If you are in a destroyer you can brawl all NPC pirates however make sure you are fighting them one by one and targeting the most damaging ships first dread destroyers, steeled destroyers, dread frigates in that order. If you try to fight a lot of pirates at once they will damage you a lot and potentially kill you. Again if you aren’t in a destroyer you should be kiting all of those enemies.
Probing systems
Believe it or not there is a strategy for probing systems. You should do it as a spiral starting from the outside of the system that spirals into the star at the centre of the system. It should start as a square because you need to get the edges of the system (anomalies like to hide here) but once you have probed the outside of the system you can make it more of a circle. Make sure you scan any planets that are near the path your probe is taking. If you do this properly you should be able to get all anomalies and planets with one system probe. Start from the outside and work your way in. Scan planets on the way.
Energy management
Finally, always remember to keep an eye on your energy. It is THE most important thing to keep an eye on because if you suddenly start getting shredded by NPCs and you can’t lightburn or warp out you will get one ticket to Citadel. If you fall below 50% of your total HP you should start thinking about retreating. Don’t only keep an eye on how much HP you have but also how fast it’s being depleted. If you are at 90% but are losing 10% every 2 seconds, warp out. If you are at 30% but not losing HP, you’ll probably be fine. If you are with someone and they tell you to warp out get out of there to another planet
Enemy types
Drone foundries (Easy):
If you are in a destroyer, you can kill a drone foundry in around 3 minutes. Ignore the drones (unless there are elite frigates or advanced+ destroyers) and only focus the structures. If you aren’t in a destroyer it usually isn’t worth fighting these.
Drone factories (Easy - Intermediate):
These are always worth fighting. Again, target any elite frigates or advanced+ destroyers. If you are in a destroyer you can survive just by targeting structures and ignoring drones until it blows up. If you are in a frigate you may need to kill some drones before advancing to the next structure as too many drones can start seriously damage you.
Drone megacomplexes (Intermediate):
Absolutely worth it, they can drop up to 3 hybrids sometimes. They are difficult to fight without a destroyer, but not too difficult either. You will need to kill some drones as you can’t ignore all of them no matter what ship you are in. Target the elite frigates and advanced+ destroyers first.
Drone fleet (Easy):
Ignore these.
Drone Armada (Intermediate - Hard):
Don’t ignore these as they have a 10% battleship chance and battleships have the best drops in the game. You can do the first 4 waves quite easily in any ship. On the 4th wave, leave one ship alive and start moving away from the warp point, as the 5th wave of the fleet is way more powerful than the other waves and you don’t want it warping in on you. Once you are far enough away from warp point, kill that last drone. When the 5th wave spawns in, you need to try aggro the command ship (the drone in white) without being chased by any other drones. This is where pulse PDTs are quite useful. Once you’ve separated it from the main fleet you can fight it. If it’s a frigate (drone ‘commander’) you can brawl it if you are in a destroyer. If you aren’t in a destroyer or the command ship is a destroyer (drone ‘captain’) then you must kite it. Be very, very careful when kiting a drone captain. Even from far away, they still deal a lot of damage. You may not be able to kill the drone captain in one round of kiting without having to go heal first. That's fine, go heal and then kite it again, and repeat until it’s dead. Once the command ship is dead, all the ships will warp out if there is a drone battleship (this is how you know there will be one). Otherwise, the drones will stay there. If you want, you can fight them (there are a lot of elite frigates so pick them off one by one), but if you don’t care about the very small chance for hybrids they have, you can ignore the rest of the drones - you only fight armadas for the chance of getting a battleship.
Drone Hideout (From Easy to Intermediate - Hard):
Drone hideouts don’t really have amazing loot so you can ignore them if you want to. But they are also fast kills. You just need to focus the structures and can mostly ignore the drones. The only time DHs can be difficult is if they spawn higher tier drones - apparently, they are still able to spawn elite cruisers which are really annoying to kill.
Drone Battleship (Hard):
If you are soloing the drone battleship, wait until it’s travelled decently far away from the escort ships. From there, you can just kite each part of it until it dies. For each part of the battleship, you can kill it usually in one round of kiting (maybe two if you are in a frigate) before retreating to heal. Get it in this order: Front battlement, reactor shield generator (the one that is exposed behind the front battlement), The other front battlement, the other shield generator, either central battlement (you don’t need to do both), and the reactor. Once the reactor is dead, the battleship blows up. Once the drone travels far enough away from warp point it actually stops shooting you due to a bug (you will know when it won’t shoot you anymore because the ‘drone battleship’ at the top of your screen will disappear. If it isn’t on your screen, the battleship won’t shoot you). Don’t rely on this bug as it will be patched soon, but know it exists.
If you have multiple people, do the same thing. If one of them is using the conciliator build I mentioned earlier (ULC + parallel circuits + medium shield repairer), they can use the dodging strat I mentioned. They need to face the side of the battleship (the nose of their ship looking towards the battlements), and hold down every movement key. (Obviously, the battleship needs to be targeting them first). They can do this for about 2 minutes (depending on how far away they are) before being hulled. Everyone else can target the drone battleship without being shot whilst it’s targeting the person who is dodging.
Medium Pirate den (Intermediate):
Treat it the same as a drone factory.
Large Pirate Den (Hard):
You have to kill all the pirates before advancing to the next structure. If you try to destroy all the structures at once like you would with a drone factory, there will be way too many strong pirate ships for you to fight. Destroy 1 - 2 structures on the den, kill the reinforcements, rinse and repeat until it’s dead. It can take a while, especially solo, but it drops good loot.
Pirate Fleet (Intermediate - Hard):
You can treat these the same as a drone armada, but they are super rare and there is no point in doing them so they can be ignored. The only time you may wish to fight one is if you need standing items for Syndicate, Trade Union, and / or Mining Guild.