2019

An Introduction to Citadel Theft

Onzo Nabali

The Shadow of Intent

What is Citadel Theft?
In essence; Citadel Theft is the removal of a structure without the permission of the owner, the action of theft itself
resulting in the Thief receiving a suspect timer since summer 2018. There are several methods for achieving a theft
which I will discuss in this guide, these are ‘unanchored’, ‘unanchoring’ and ‘corporation theft’, the latter while
discussed in brief is outside the context of this guide.

Why Citadel Theft?

The answer to this question is subjective and each member of the Thieves Guild would provide you with a different
answer from Salt Harvesting to Income the answer varies, I personally consider Citadel Theft the most rewarding
activity in EVE for my limited playing time.
The more time you can invest into theft the rewards grow exponentially to a point where our most senior members
report gains of circa 200bn a month.
Furthermore, unlike many high earning careers in the EVE Meta, this activity is open to and can be achieved
successfully by a 3-day old ALPHA account who from my experience would be able to PLEX his account within approx.
14 days with a little time, patience and commitment. There are no other activities in EVE which pay as well and allow
you to focus on playing the game for FUN!

Understanding the Citadel Sizes

Its important to understand your own limitations as a thief and when to hand work on, a good example of this is the
various sizes of Citadel. As a new thief you may only have the means to steal the medium citadels which are 8000m3, I
have provided a reference list below and the required ship for them.

• Astrahus, Athanor, Raitaru – 8000 m3 Standard T1/T2 Hauler

• Fortizar, Azbel, Tatara – 80,000 m3 Max Cargo Orca
• Keepstar, Sotiyo – 800,000 m3 Max Cargo Freighter

It is recommended if you come across a large or extra-large citadel unanchoring you request help from a more
experienced thief in its acquisition. The Guild works an honour agreement where scouts get 50% of the profit of a
structure which they provide intel on so even if you do not get it, if the Guild does you share in the profit.

How do I get started?

You don’t need much to be honest, a fast scouting ship and a tech 1 hauler, which I will include fits for in the appendix
of this guide. The basic premise of scouting is to check all systems in a region for unanchored or unanchoring
structures. Unless you need to pass through Low Security (LS) to complete your route I would recommend only
checking the 1.0 – 0.5 systems which make up High Security (HS) space.

Scouting
You can scout in several different ways based on how much time you have free to play EVE and how much of that time
you want to spend on this activity. The most simplistic form of scouting involves selecting a region and checking every
system for structures within that region before moving to the next, if you choose to do this ensure that you work out
an optimal start point so you can finish the region next to or in an exit system to another region to chain them together,
with experience you can chain Caldari, Gallente and Minmatar pretty easily using a few Low Sec jumps.

What are you checking for? It depends again how much time you have, you could scout all systems in highsec in around
8hrs if you are just looking for unanchored, if you add to that warping to every structure it becomes very time consuming
and boring. I recommend looking for naming indicators ‘closing’ etc… or looking for big stuff like Azbels, Forts and larger
and just checking them.
Using the Overview
Its very easy to scan and get the location of a structure right from your overview, this gadget is often overlooked but
contains information of the sigs around you, their elevation and quantity in an easy to read interface.

Overview Configuration
The overview can become very crowded very quickly, to better optimize your time, switch off anom’s, sig’s, landmarks
and agent objectives on your scout, this will allow you to make light work of checking structure sigs in a system.

Overview Horizon How-To

The basic premise of this tool is covered below, you can use the horizon line to give you an idea of the elevation and
the radial dial acts as an informal compass. The greater volume of structures in a particular direction causes the
indicators to become brighter.

Dealing with Sun Glare

If your graphics settings are low it is likely you do not have this problem, for those that do it can be frustrating finding
the name of a structure as the text is in white. The solution is rather simplistic, align your camera angle so that your
ship is in front of the sun, the shadow caused by doing this will allow you to view the names which you couldn’t see.

Learning the Structure Icons

By far one of the most useful skills a Thief can have is knowing what they are looking at without being on grid

Citadel Engineering Complex Refinery

Astrahus Raitaru Athanor
Fortizar Azbel Tatara
Keepstar Sotiyo
Unanchored Structures
Unless you are focussing on an operational constellation it is not time efficient to check every structure in each
system, instead go from system to system checking the blue icons, all of these should reflect the name given by the
owners. An unanchored structure will not, it will instead show a distance and you will be unable to warp to it.

Un-Anchored Structure Anchored Structure

Right click on the blue marker and warp to the now unanchored structure, you should find the small deployable
structure on grid around 1800-2000m away from your warp in, scoop it and any station containers into your hold.

Unanchoring Structures
This method is arguably more difficult and potentially less rewarding for players with less EVE accounts as you need to
camp the structure for a period of time which can be up-to 7 days until the owner arrives on the day of unanchoring,
you are also potentially going to miss the timer going for a bio break, sleeping or at work, it happens to the best of us,
the successful unanchoring thefts are approximately 30% of those camped.
That said, with effective intel and alt accounts spare you unanchoring thefts are very rewarding often pitting you
against the structure owner in your bid to steal the Citadel before they reach it.

Number of Pilots in the Structure

In the example above, you can see the structure is in the unanchoring state. Bookmark both the structure and a
100km warp-in. Warp out ideally from the direction you came from and warp back to your warp-in at 100km, this
should place you at around 200km from the structure and allow you to warp directly to the structure when it
unanchors.
What Next?
Well, to be honest this is the boring bit. That alt needs to sit there cloaked for up to a week monitoring the comings
and goings of the owners. I recommend you set them Orange (-5) in your standings so they and all their local
structures are highlighted, be sure to scout any other structures while you wait.
When you see more activity such as the owner sat in a hauler on the structure or an indicator that a member of the
Corp is active in the structure (see above) align to the structure, stop your ship and wait (still cloaked).

When it drops
There will come a point when this thing drops, and you will not expect it and panic, that’s ok it happens. The panic of
getting there before the owner is something that still gives me a buzz in EVE, something which dissipates so quickly in
combat.

So… what do you do? Well… every pilot is different, but my method is below, in time you will optimise what I do into
your own method.

1. You should be aligned already, if not do it.

2. Bookmark the unanchored citadel
3. Decloak
4. Warp to the bookmark at 0
5. Cycle MWD On/Off (forces you to warp quicker)
6. Once in warp, right click the citadel and ‘scoop to hold’
7. Check your overview for containers
8. You land and steal the Citadel, you are now criminal
9. Scoop any containers
10. Warp to an NPC station where available
11. Cycle MWD On/Off (forces you to warp quicker)
12. Dock up

In total that will take around 30 seconds be sure to thank the owner for their donation. I’ve included an example in
the video below;

Video Example
Who should I sell it to?
You have couple of options, you can sell the structure to a Thieves Guild fence for a percentage of the Jita value or you
can self-transport the citadel back to Jita. The latter option is extremely risky, and I wouldn’t recommend it in a tech 1
hauler, at the very least if you insist on doing it personally would be to take it to one of the Trade Hubs in Perimeter
which will anchor you out of warp and make it safer.

What about Corporation Theft?

In short, corporation theft requires that you gain control of a corporation to steal their assets, it is time consuming in
that respect and it is possible that once you complete the theft you will burn the account and need to liquidate it. You
will also be susceptible to the unanchoring timers that owners are too, so it is possible for your stolen citadels to be
stolen from you upon their unanchoring. Details on how to achieve the theft of a corporation are outside the scope of
this guide.

Tools
http://evemaps.dotlan.net/map
https://evewho.com
https://zkillboard.com/

Suggested Fits
Scouts
[Pacifier]
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II

Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

1MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
5MN Y-T8 Compact
Microwarpdrive
Medium Shield Extender II

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II

Small Hyperspatial Velocity

Optimizer II
Small Hyperspatial Velocity
Optimizer II

[Victorieux Luxury Yacht]

Warp Core Stabilizer II
Warp Core Stabilizer II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II

50MN Y-T8 Compact

Microwarpdrive

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II

Medium Hyperspatial Velocity

Optimizer II
Medium Hyperspatial Velocity
Optimizer II
Medium Hyperspatial Velocity
Optimizer II
Theft Platforms
Tech I
[Tayra]
Expanded Cargohold II
Expanded Cargohold II
Expanded Cargohold II
IFFA Compact Damage Control

Upgraded Thermal Dissipation

Amplifier I
Medium F-S9 Regolith Compact
Shield Extender
Medium F-S9 Regolith Compact
Shield Extender
Upgraded EM Ward Amplifier I
5MN Y-T8 Compact
Microwarpdrive

Prototype Cloaking Device I

Medium Low Friction Nozzle Joints I

Medium Low Friction Nozzle Joints I
Medium Low Friction Nozzle Joints I

Tech II
[Prorator]
Expanded Cargohold II
Expanded Cargohold II
Expanded Cargohold II
Inertial Stabilizers II

50MN Y-T8 Compact

Microwarpdrive
Medium Shield Extender II

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II

Medium Cargohold Optimization II

Medium Cargohold Optimization II
[Crane]
Expanded Cargohold II
Expanded Cargohold II

50MN Y-T8 Compact

Microwarpdrive
Small Shield Extender II
Small Shield Extender II
EM Ward Amplifier II

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II

Medium Cargohold Optimization II

Medium Low Friction Nozzle Joints
II

[Viator]
Expanded Cargohold II
Expanded Cargohold II
Expanded Cargohold II

50MN Y-T8 Compact

Microwarpdrive
Medium Shield Extender II
EM Ward Amplifier II

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II

Medium Low Friction Nozzle Joints

II
Medium Cargohold Optimization II

[Orca]
Expanded Cargohold II
Expanded Cargohold II

Large Shield Extender II

Large Shield Extender II
Thermal Dissipation Amplifier II
EM Ward Amplifier II
500MN Y-T8 Compact
Microwarpdrive

Improved Cloaking Device II

Large Cargohold Optimization I

Large Cargohold Optimization II
Large Cargohold Optimization II