Lasker Emanuel is primarily known for his solo PVP videos on YouTube, where he pilots anything from Magnates to Dreadnoughts. He is a member of The Initiative. Lasker brings us his new interview series “Content Creators”, talking to PVP-oriented individuals from across the game. Stay tuned to New Eden Report for more of these in the future.

In EVE Online, it’s fairly easy to undock and have nothing happen, or undock and have a complete disaster happen, but if you want anything in between these two extremes, someone will have to put in a lot of work. Someone will need to figure out what ships you are flying, against who, arrange logistics, come up with plans, gather intel, and then ultimately respond as reality comes into contact with the plan. That someone is a content creator, and I find their role in New Eden fascinating.

My guest this evening is Bjorn Bee, one of the most active solo PVPers and NPSI FCs in EVE, documenting his exploits on his Twitch stream and Youtube channel.

Lasker Emanuel

Hello and welcome!

Bjorn Bee

Hey! Thanks for having me.

Lasker Emanuel

I think a lot of folks reading have probably seen one of your videos or watched your stream, can you tell us a little about how you got started with PVP in EVE?

Bjorn Bee

Sure! First of all, I’m Icelandic and knew about Eve Online for a long time before playing it properly. I’d always hear about it in the Icelandic news around the time that Fanfest would be happening. I’d usually play it for a few weeks here and there after seeing some cool stuff about it, but could never really get into it back then.

Lasker Emanuel

It can be hard to get into the famous learning curve.

Bjorn Bee

Yeah haha, I remember way back going into some lowsec system with some of my Icelandic friends and just getting wrecked by a solo PVPer and we didn’t have a clue what happened.

So, I basically gave up a bunch of times, just to return a year later and be a lil’ more determined to understand Eve. Something “clicked” in 2013/14, and I’ve been hooked since then. Back then, I joined a group called Pizza and lived in NPC Null in Delve. I really didn’t know what I was doing, but the FCs (especially a guy called Wheniaminspace) knew how to PVP and I started to get comfortable being in fleets flying against much bigger fleets, by just anchoring up on these experienced players and hitting F1 on targets. I had also been binge watching a bunch of youtube stuff from 2012 onward and felt a burning desire to understand the mechanics like those guys. They made it look so easy. So I’d regularly take out my trusty Vexor and try my best to get fights in Delve and around that area.

Lasker Emanuel

Vexor was your first hull of choice?

Bjorn Bee

Yes, well, no, I was super scared of being on grid with people so I actually skilled quickly into a stealth bomber back in 2012 and flew nothing but a Nemesis lol. I remember being very scared of things like sabres and cynabals back then xD but after getting hooked on these youtube vids of people going to town on small groups whilst solo (for example the kil2 roams), I just HAD to learn how they did it. So I grew some balls and started solo roaming, mostly in the Vexor.

Lasker Emanuel

What happened from there?

Bjorn Bee

I won my first fight. I remember reading that there were 3 destroyers roaming around the area from an intel channel, and said to myself “fuck it” – undocked and headed their way in the Vexor. Killed 2 of them and the third one ran away, and honestly, I had NEVER felt anything like that in a video game before.

You know the drill, PVP shakes, euphoria, felt like a boss.

Lasker Emanuel

It’s an indescribable feeling

I used to get it from Jiu Jitsu, Judo, and boxing

When I got too old and hung it up, I figured I was done with that

And then got in a good fight in EVE…

It’s a hell of a thing.

Bjorn Bee

Yeah

Lasker Emanuel

So you have the bug and you want to do more, get better…

Bjorn Bee

Yes. I eventually upgraded to a Dominix and was solo roaming the Western areas of Eve, getting fights here and there. I kind of skipped frigates/destroyers and went straight to Vexors, then skipped Battlecruisers and went straight to Battleships. Since I was focusing on drones (remember, no skill injectors back then), I’d usually fly drone ships.

Lasker Emanuel

How did you like to fit the Dominix, neuts in the highs?

Bjorn Bee

Lol, I’m sure they were absolute shitfits, but they worked sometimes :smile:. It’s a long time ago, but I remember experimenting a lot back then too. Solo battleship roams are very common today, but they were kind of a meme back then, so was hull tanking but I remember “man tanking” a lot of those fits back then too and just trying to kill as much as possible until I’d get taken out. However, I’d have to go back to ratting or spend time doing exploration (relic sites) to pay for those ships/losses/lessons. But that made the fights that I won feel even better, because I knew the other guy had to do the same when he lost his ship.

Lasker Emanuel

Meaningful loss Is a surprisingly big game changer.

Bjorn Bee

Yes. Without it, Eve wouldn’t be the same.

But I quickly developed the attitude that my ship was already dead when I undocked it.

It was just a matter of whether it killed something before it exploded or not.

Lasker Emanuel

And then at some point, you turned your attention to FCing, how did you get started with that?

Bjorn Bee

Well, we’re fast forwarding quite a bit in time there, since I’ve only been FC’ing for about 2ish years now.

Lasker Emanuel

Want to go back to the part I skipped?

Bjorn Bee

Sure. There were some extended breaks that I took from Eve, but I always came back. Then I started streaming on Twitch, but I never streamed Eve during the first year of getting used to being on camera :smile:. I’d always stream some other games and then go play Eve in the evening and did small gang stuff (still living in NPC Delve) and got into BLOPSing a bit, however my main interest was still Solo PVP. Then one day I decided to try and stream Eve and for some weird reason, 100+ nerds wanted to watch me go gate to gate in a battleship and whelp again and again lol.

Lasker Emanuel

Was that a big uptick for you at the time?

Bjorn Bee

Oh hell yes. I had a very small core group of viewers for that first year, like 10-20 nerds watching.

Lasker Emanuel

And then 100…

Bjorn Bee

Yes, and then 200..300..400, it just kept growing. So did my knowledge about the game, as I’d have people comment on what I could have done better.

Lasker Emanuel

It’s amazing how much that helps.

Bjorn Bee

Yes! But you have to have a positive mentality towards it, and be willing to learn. If you blame your losses on “there were 5 of them and I was alone” then you’re not doing what’s important. Ask yourself after every fight “What could I have done better. What did I do right, and what could I improve next time” I started asking those questions to the viewers and automatically started growing much faster when it came to PVPing.

Lasker Emanuel

Even if I die, how can I squeeze a bit more out of this setup, what lessons did that loss have?

Bjorn Bee

Not just that, but it became an internal dialect DURING fights, not just after the fight was over. Like, “am I doing this right, am I repping, have other things landed on grid, what’s my priority here”.

Lasker Emanuel

Ah, interesting.

Bjorn Bee

“this guy is about to die, is that target moving, can I catch it in a bit” and then I’d start actually saying these things out-loud for the stream whilst the fight was going on which is why I’ll usually be talking the entire time whilst fighting. Now I feel like most of the fights I win/lose is because one person makes a mistake and the other one capitalizes on it. Realizing when someone’s made a mistake is huge.

Lasker Emanuel

There’s SO much room in EVE for making mistakes.

Bjorn Bee

Yes, whether it’s solo or in fleet we’re human, and we make tons of mistakes it’s not me being “elitepvp” when I beat a 5 man group. It’s me seeing which ones are making mistakes and not hesitating to punish them for it. So back to what we were talking about before – I streamed random stuff for a year, then started streaming Eve and did nothing but solo PVP for about a year+ before ever trying to FC on stream. It was more peer pressure from the stream rather than anything else that made me wanna fleet up.

Lasker Emanuel

People wanted to join you.

Bjorn Bee

And oh boy, I had to learn a completely new set of skills, which I got just as addicted to as I was to soloing.

Lasker Emanuel

Be a part of the adventure.

Bjorn Bee

Yes

Lasker Emanuel

What new skills specifically?

Bjorn Bee

Well, today I see things differently. Today I realize that the fleet is really just an extension of the FC. It’s the FC’s 1v1’ing each other, but they’re not clicking all the buttons. There’s so much tactic happening during a fleet fight. Mistakes are plenty because suddenly you have lots of differently skilled nerds clicking the buttons, but it’s ultimately the FC’s job to herd these nerds into a cohesive group. I tried a bunch of kitchen sink roams, and quickly learned the strength of knowing what range you could get everyone to engage at instead of 30 dudes all having completely different engagement profiles.

I was getting around 20-30 nerds into fleet with me, to begin with, and we tried lots of different fleets. One of the most fun things we did was take out Remote Repair Exequrors and PVP with them (each doing around 200 with drones). We spidertanked our way through so many fun fights, and it gave me much more time with each fight – meaning more air time of fighting on stream Over time, the number in fleet grew steadily and we’ve done all sorts of tactics, and tried all sorts of meme fits which are fucking amazing when they work.

Lasker Emanuel

Do you have a favorite type of fleet to take out today?

Bjorn Bee

No. Just like I don’t have a favorite ship to fly in Eve anymore. It’s like asking what I want for dinner tomorrow. It depends on the mood I’m in. I’m very lucky to be in this position though, and I’m insanely thankful to my community. I get to live this extravagant lifestyle in Eve where whatever I wanna fly; I can just hop into it. The support is unreal. On top of that, whatever crazy idea I get for a fleet, people are like “sure, fuck it, sounds fun” and we regularly get over 100 nerds in fleet and have for a long time. Sometimes we fleet up in very normal fleet comps, but usually, I seem to go against the meta and try something weird and new it also helps me to keep it fresh for myself and the viewers whether it’s solo or with the fleet.

Lasker Emanuel

So let’s say you are going out for a solo roam, walk us through your process, how do you decide where to go?

Bjorn Bee

Haha, I just gravitate toward the bright spots on the map. After a while, you start to get a feel for different areas and what the people in those areas usually respond with.

It’s funny. Sometimes I’ll see a few familiar names in local and go “ok cool, so I’ll be fighting x ship with y support” and then 10 seconds later those exact ships are on d-scan.

But when you roam almost every day, you start exploring new areas to keep it fresh too and then there’s the various political groups shaking up the areas. One area might be content heaven for a few weeks, and then dead a month later. Although I try to stay out of the political scene, it doesn’t hurt to know what’s brewing here and there.

Lasker Emanuel

A number of people have declared that “roaming is dead” do you find that to be largely true, a little true, or totally untrue?

Bjorn Bee

hahahha, solo is as dead as the EVE IS DEAD meme. There is SO MUCH CONTENT EVERYWHERE.



Lasker Emanuel

Can you walk us through a sample fight or two you had this week where you went out in space and found some good content?

Bjorn Bee

Sorry, “EVE IS DYING” I should say. I mean, I was live today and got a bunch of good fights. Started off in a Drake (lol) and got 3 kills in it (Orthrus/Garmur/Ashimmu took gate guns and I quickly punished them for it), later dying to one of them reshipping to a Hyperion. Then I took out a “newb friendly” 1600 plated rupture and sniped two kills before dying to a viewer in a Moa later. Then I had a half an hour fight against two Praxis’ in null sec in a cap stable Tengu, killing their neuting Prophecy & arty Svipul. Then ended the stream with a kiting Vedmak, snagging a ratting VNI kill, kiting and killing an Ares & Jackdaw until finally getting wrecked by the same group bringing a Hel & better tackle.

Every day is different. Every fight is different. Even if you fight the same person, in the same ship twice, the fight will still be different and I love that about Eve.

There’s definitely tons of content out there. You just have to go grab it.

Lasker Emanuel

If you were talking to someone that wanted to get started with solo PVP in EVE what would you tell them?

Bjorn Bee

I get asked this often, and it’s always the same answer: Fly what you can afford to lose. I recommend t1 cruisers with 1600 plates, so you have enough time to learn something from the experience. You can record your fights and try to analyze them afterward and I’m sure I learned things whilst making Youtube vids from my streams, re-watching fights going “wtf Bjorn, why did you not just do this instead of that” but also just stay positive about every fight, even if you get wrecked

some fights, you literally can’t win. You just have to accept it.

other fights, you might be able to outplay your opponents

and sometimes you lose fights even if you were certain you had them in the bag.

Lasker Emanuel

Recording fights and watching them again after was probably the single biggest thing that helped me learn.

Bjorn Bee

Yeah, because the next time you’re in that scenario, something subconsciously kicks in and goes “stop overheating that module” or “don’t forget to rep.”

“are your drones out?”

Lasker Emanuel

Especially when I first started, I often would not understand why I lost until I watched the tape.

Bjorn Bee

Yeah

Lasker Emanuel

I would think I had pressed keys that I had not.

Bjorn Bee

Yup, same here If you want to grow you have to leave your ego at the door you WILL make mistakes you WILL fuck up in hilarious ways if you can look those mistakes in the eye, you’ll grow instead of hiding those. I usually just upload them to Youtube because I know they’re funny and at the end of the day, I’m here to both have fun myself and to entertain the nerds who enjoy tuning in I’ve become very good at noticing when I make mistakes, so I’ll start saying them out-loud during the fight itself, which ends up explaining what’s happening during the fight for those who might not know exactly what’s going on.

Lasker Emanuel

Which I suspect is part of what brings people to your stream.

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today.

Bjorn Bee

No worries man, thanks a lot of having me.

Featured image credit: keacte