The Spiral Method Retribution Style

The "Spiral Method" is a great method of navigation that has been used in EVE Online for some time now, but with the new Retribution Changes it's been made even easier. In this article we'll cover the use of this method, and how you can use the new changes in Retribution to make it easier to execute.


The "Spiral Method" is a manual navigation technique that allows you change your transversal velocity with another ship to reduce tracking while moving closer. Many might know that if you simply approach a long-range weapon fitted ship, they will not have to track you since you are moving into a straight line towards them. Basically you are sitting still for that enemy. So to avoid getting destroyed before even reaching the ship, you use the "Spiral Method".

To do this you align the camera to where your ship, and the enemy ship are on top of each other, and double-click the space halfway between your ship and either the left or right side of the screen to manually navigate to that point. In the screenshot below, you can see the spot to click on the left side.

By doing this, your ship will manually navigate towards that point you clicked. This angle is just enough to increase the tracking needed to hit you to make long-range gun shots miss you or at most acquire "grazing shots".

When your ship starts to stray a bit from the target as shown in the screenshot to the right, you then re-align your ship with the other, and click the spot again. Continue to do this until you are close enough to the ship to where you can orbit safely, and do whatever it is you planned to do.

With the Retribution Changes you can use the Tracking Camera to make this a lot easier. As long as you have setup your tracking alignment as mentioned in the PvP Directional Scanning, and Camera Tracking article, instead of aligning the camera with your ship and the other ship, hit "c" then click the manual navigation spot. You may want to turn off the tracking shortly after if you time your clicks visually, otherwise just click the manual navigation spot every 2 seconds.

So that's it! It's just that simple, and is a very helpful tool when it comes to PvP. I do advise people to watch their transversal velocity when doing this so that you may learn how it effects the other targets in terms of numbers. It's observations like this that allow you to solo a battleship with a cruiser. Enjoy and fly safe! o7