Abyssal game play is some of the hardest content in eve, and I include that alongside doing solo pvp. It's seriously hard on the upper end. However, starting abyssals at Tier 0 only requires a properly fitted T1 frigate and that you be generally familiar with PvE mechanics, just doesn't make a ton of isk.

Abyssal tiers scale extremely fast in difficulty and investment levels, unlike almost every other form of tiered PvE activity. It is suggested that you be very familiar with your current tier of abyssal before moving up a tier.

Difficulty

T0 - aka tranquil, easy, like stepping out your door. Like a Level 1 mission. Punisher, condor, nearly any t1 frigate, in any space.

T1 - aka calm, Like walking down the street. Level 3 mission difficulty. Many navy or t2 frigates have options here! Need to be in 0.8 or below security space.

T2 - aka agitated, Like doing a good jog down the street. Level 4 mission difficulty. Need good skills and can solo in a very few frigates. Or start triple boxing frigates. Need to be in 0.8 or below security.

T3 - aka fierce, You're running a marathon now somehow! And I have 20 minutes to finish. Several decent navy, pirate, or t2 cruiser can speed run these all day. Need to be in 0.8 or below security.

T4 - aka raging, There are other professional runners in this marathon! STILL 20 minutes?!? Several T2 cruisers with good skills and a touch of bling do these. Need to be in 0.7 or below security to not pull suspect.

T5 - aka Chaotic, Is this Olympics suddenly? T4 was so easy! Starting down to a few groups of frigates and even fewer cruiser options doing these. Need to be in 0.6 or below security to not pull suspect.

T6 - aka Cataclysmic, WHO THE FUCK IS SHOOTING WHILE I'M TRYING TO RUN HERE?!?! Need a ton of isk, max SP, with very very few, very blingy ships generally. Need to be in 0.5 or below security to not pull suspect.

It escalates that fast. In T6, you EXPECT to die every so often. That's how hard it is.

Weather

Weather is the term for the plus and negative of each of the sites. They apply to all ships in the site, so the enemies as well as you, so can be a positive to you! These range from -30% to -70% negatives, and 50% in the positives.

Dark - Turret range penalty, but 50% more velocity, which cuts both ways, easy to run out of bounds, easy to run condor t0.
Electrical - EM resist penalty, bonus to cap regen, easy to run with punishers t0, most popular ones to run so most expensive to run.
Exotic - Kinetic resist penalty, bonus to scan resolution. Lots can run parts of these, the bonuses don't help a ton though.
Firestorm - Thermal resist penalty, but 50% more armor hp that also helps the enemy. The hardest to run, but are also the cheapest.
Gamma - Explosive resist penalty, but 50% more shield hp that also helps the enemy. Great for passive fits.

To read these, if you get a "Raging Exotic Filament", that is a T4 Exotic aka kinetic resist penalty, so need REALLY strong kinetic resists and do kinetic damage in these. The enemies are unique to that type as well.

https://caldarijoans.streamlit.app/Abyssal_FAQ has more precise details. https://janice.e-351.com/a/eimgYh has a break down of the cost of the different filaments, live.

Starting out

The usual recommendation for new players is to start at t0, see how they like it, then start fitting for the tier above and run the ones below it. So fit for T2, run T1. On the high end, fit for T5, run T4. From t0-t3, flying to the exit can is usually fine, you'll survive. At t4+ and above, you have to pay attention to clouds and pylons.

The key is to go 'fast'. You want to kill everything in a hurry. People die in abyssals not because of tank, but always because they didn't kill enough fast enough. You think it's about tanking the site, nope, it's always the DPS race versus the SHORT 20 minute clock. So work on Murder Faster.

The key when you get in is to just start heading to the can, kill light tackle, orbit the can till you can survive the room, kill the can quickly, then scoop, head to gate, killing along the way. DO NOT go for the cans on the edges as it wastes time. If you burn too far off the grid, there's a cloud that can kill you as well, so don't go far away from the beacon.

You need replacement ships reserved. If you are short on money, this is NOT the activity for you.

You used to be able to run things on a test site, but that is now gone: Singularity is down for good

Note: If you're looking for pricing on abyssal modules, https://mutamarket.com/ makes that easy, you sell these on contracts. But for better guide, look at the contract pricing.

Thanks to Fim Astatru, Hokaba Michael, and Qazska for the help on the text, but the real expert is Caldari Jones and the Abyssal lurkers discord, along with Hyperion aka Atlas Kitsun, talk to them! #new-player-questions regularly confuses min-max PVPers that don't understand that button pushing matters more than just skill points, ships, fits, and isk.

What you have to know beforehand

Before you start doing abyssals, you need to have really good button pushing skills and some isk as a buffer. You will lose ships in abyssal space. IF you don't have money, this is NOT the content for you!

You also need good PVP knowledge. This could be ratting knowledge but you have to hold 10 things in your head at once:

Your position and speed
What is your range to your tar get
Who is the biggest threat
Where are the pylons/clouds and what types are they. https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Abyssal_Deadspace has some details on these.
What your ammo and heat levels are at
What your shields/armor are at
Are your drones okay
Are your weapons being effective
Are you able to get to the bio cache in time (And only going for the biocache on the gate!)
Can you finish this in 20 minutes
Don't compare yourself to others. It's in the Golden Rules

If you can do this, and press buttons on your ship, then maybe you have a shot?

You have three types of ships - Cruisers, Destroyers, Frigates

Frigates, you need 3 filaments to enter, designed to be three players, get 3x the loot.
- You can solo these, but requires a pretty good ship, it's much much easier with three ships.
- You can do t0 as a single player easily, t1 with some struggle, and there are VERY few fits that can do t2 solo. If you can triple box (must be 3 omega or three different players), t2 gets very easy (see below for a hookbill that can do this) or t3 and above doing hawks.
- Lots of combos can do t5s if you are multiboxing. 2 Retris and a deacon is one, hawks is common, worms can do SOME. Some even do t6!
Destroyers, you need 2 filaments to enter, designed for two players, get 2x the loot.
- The rooms are a LOT more varied, and honestly it can be really tough. We don't really suggest the destroyer ones anymore because they are just so uncertain. The kiki used to be strong, but the recent nerf hurt these a lot.
Cruisers, you only need 1 filament to enter.
- These ships require precise ships that match the weather and difficulty.
- You need to know the clouds and the pylons beforehand. But once you get the hang of it, it's host most people do abyssals.
- These can be T3/T4 easily, some t5 with some bling, and a lot of bling and skill for t6.
- And again, there are kill rooms that can murderzone you regardless, so have to absorb a loss.
You make more money doing frigate runs than you do cruisers run.
- Cruisers use 1 filament, but only make one share.
- Frigates use 3 filaments (for three ships)
You get a 'suspect' flag if you run an abyssal in a high sec system that doesn't match the tier amount. By suspect, anyone can shoot you. But the lower the security sec of the system, the more likely you are to be ganked by players when you come out as concord takes longer to respond. https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/changes-to-security-status-and-abyssal-filaments more details.
- Tier 0-3 - Can be in any high sec 0.8 or lower.
- Tier 4 - Have to be in Security sec 0.7 or lower.
- Tier 5 - Have to be in Security sec 0.6 or lower.
- Tier 6 - Have to be in Security sec 0.5 or lower.
- Using a deep safe helps somewhat but is not perfect, and is usually easier in null sec where nobody is watching you.

Based on Caldari Joans data: https://discord.com/channels/529373803214667776/1174363894953807932/1336131757262508082 and https://discord.com/channels/529373803214667776/1174363826796384276/1336135793462480926 on the abyssal lurkers discord.

Time matters most in how fast you run.

Assume Blitz Frig in Tier 1 means 5 minute average run time. Frigate Tier 2 runs beat Blitz Frig T1 if the Frig in T2 averages faster than 12 minutes 30 seconds. Destroyer in T2 needs to average 8 minutes per run to beat that same Blitz Frig.

Frigate averaging 7 minutes 30 seconds per Tier 1 run: roughly 42m isk/h

Cruiser averaging 7 minutes 30 seconds per Tier 1 run: roughly 20m isk/h

Cruiser averaging 12 minutes per Tier 2 run: roughly 27m isk/h

Kaleesh's Abyssal Deadspace cheatsheet v3

Pandemic Horde Specific tutorial

This is a tutorial from Fim Asatru on general abyssal for newish players. It's easy to get into, the fit is below. You do need 2 other people to do these with you, though. You can try to recruit people in game or friends. Something you can consider.

With my good skills and 2 other newbies, we were able to complete one in about 10 minutes. costs around 84k for the filaments, make around 12 mil a run, so maybe 72 mil total, so 24 mil an hour per player due to good skills? Can be lower around 5-7 mil an hour. But can go up as your skills get better.

To enter, you need 3 pilots in their own fleet/squad. Everyone needs to set their safety yellow in the top left corner of their capacitor.

These are doing darks because they are cheap, the bonuses match up to the ship, and a lot of enemies use turrets, so helps you.

If you are going to run in null sec, make sure to make a 'deep safe' before starting. And you never warp there directly, you always warp to another safe first that leads to a gate. A deep safe is one that is more 19 au (celestial + sites 4 au from celestials) from any other object in system. Incursions make these easy, you just bookmark different sites in the incursion. Or you can run an abyssal at downtime.

You also disconnect your API from zkill if you can, if you run these professionally, because otherwise people might target you.

Thanks to Fim Asatru for this tutorial!

Suggested guides

Anyway, I'm just going to do a couple links here, will try to expand while I go.

https://discord.com/invite/ppk7B7Y - The Abyssal Lurkers Discord.

https://forums.eveonline.com/t/abyssal-resources-webapp-from-caldari-joans/383504 Abyssal Lurkers webpage

https://caldarijoans.streamlit.app/Tier_1_Solo_Frigates - to do tier 1s, you need 3 filaments to do frigate ones.

https://caldarijoans.streamlit.app/Starter_Abyssal_Fits

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Alpha_to_Omega_abyssal_track - Dead page, why eve uni :/ wayback version https://web.archive.org/web/20240227104708/https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Alpha_to_Omega_abyssal_track

DO NOT PAY ATTENTION TO ACEFACE. He will get you killed. Read the comments first.

Mostly, check youtube with the tier (and ship) you want to run: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=eve+online+abyssal+t3

Note, Warn Michael from Eveo discord said:

Torvald and Caldari Joansmake good trustworthy vids

There is an abyssal discord with WAY more information as well.

Running Abyssals

The key is to get a deep safe. If you don't do this, people can probe you down and overwhelm you with catalysts, even in high sec. Null is almost safer for this because it's easy to blend in with a deep safe. :)

This is 19 au from any gate for large systems. Or more than 19 au from ANYTHING for small systems. This doesn't stop them from probing you down, just makes it less likely to happen.

To get these is very doable with certain conditions:

Find a system with an incursions, and make bookmarks at different of the sites in the system. These are not restricted to the 4 au from a celestial
Run an abyssal at downtime. This might get patched out at some point.
Ask a friend. Don't ever mention what system you're going to run in.

Make sure to remove your ESI from zkill and do NOT add your losses. Or people will locator agent you.

Also, make sure to always warp to a DIFFERENT safe spot than your deep safe, I like warping to a safe near a gate, so it looks like you jumped out a gate. Doesn't have to be far.

T0 Amarr

This is a fit to run a t0 elec filament. Note, you need 3 of the correct difficulty and weather. any variation and you generally die, usually because of lack of DPS.

T0 Caldari

The NBI Condor we used to give out to Newbeans:

T1 Kestrel Caldari

Use Melamori's in game fit, start that one. But just start out with T0 (Tranquil) versus T1 (Dark)

T2 Dark Meta times three

You need three players to do this one, but this can do T2 Dark. If you cannot do three accounts, you need two friends to run them. See Fim Asatru's video above.

Need the anchor to have 3 Agitated Dark Filaments.

Beyond T2 -- The Gila

If you start to go up in tiers, it gets more expensive and i do NOT recommend these for new players.

https://abysstracker.com/fit/6580 has the povertila, to quote:

Takeda Sanjo — 2023/05/2023 on eveo discord

Always get them started with the Povertila, you can make decent bank with low SP in T4 exotics with that tbh

If they are doing exotics, just swap the EM rig for a Therm. The EM rig is only included as the fit is suppose to also do T3 Electricals.
Tbh the other tiers people will just figure out as they gain experience

I'm sure @Somtaaw probably has good experiance with a passive Gila, and i'm just being a bit... Zealous.

Tbh when I first started I did use a passive gila setup in t4 gammas, I just cringe from the memory :KEK:

Alpha Lower Gila

The following is advice from Atlas Kitsun (aka @Hyperion) (2024/01/13) from the The Abyssal Lurkers Discord - https://discord.com/invite/ppk7B7Y

It's designed around a little more skill points and knowing what you're doing, though; I usually recommend a couple alteration for newer players with lower sp.

That's designed around alpha skills. I have ~40 runs recorded on YT of me running it on an alpha toon in T4 without the drugs, but for new guys it's a big enough investment that pre-rolling a 2mil standard blue pill for extra tank makes a lot of sense IMO.

Povertilla

Again, thanks to Atlas Kitsun for the detail:

The original povertila fit that Scott Dominus designed looks like this, and flies T4 exotic/electric without drugs or T5 exotic with drugs: (to do the Exotic, swap to scourge and Raging Exotic Filament, to do the t5 with the implants, swap to a chaotic)

As far as the T5 exotic passive fit, it's a pretty niche fit that also relies on knowing what you're doing; it's something abyss vets fly for the novelty aspect, but it doesn't align well with the theorycrafting principle of a passive fit that just flies however you like and soaks up the damage.

Random gila fits!

This fit was shared with me as well, but is 'slow'. Cap usage is minimal, but can be vulnerable to neut pressure.

And if you are impatient, don't have a wallet ready to spend, and are short on money, this is the wrong activity for you. Why not check out the Beginner Activities.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse

Abyssals

If you are a three day old new player, don't read this. Yet! :D