In the sprawling sandbox of EVE Online, killboards are the scoreboard. Or at least, that’s what a lot of players think. You destroy something, it shows up. You lose something, it shows up. The numbers go up or down, and your efficiency — that little green percentage next to your name — becomes the measure of your worth.
But here’s the truth that most experienced pirates, PvPers, and small-gang brawlers learn over time:
Killboard efficiency is a lie.
And if you’re chasing a green percentage instead of good fights, you’re missing the entire point of the game.
What Killboard Efficiency Actually Measures
Let’s define it, first.
Killboard efficiency is calculated by comparing the ISK value of what you’ve destroyed to what you’ve lost. So if you’ve destroyed 10 billion ISK worth of ships and only lost 1 billion ISK, you’re running a 90% efficiency. On the surface, that sounds impressive. You’re “winning” by the numbers.
But here’s the catch: killboard efficiency doesn’t account for context.
- It doesn’t tell you if the kills were PvE-fit ratters who couldn’t shoot back.
- It doesn’t tell you if you had 10 people ganking one guy at a gate.
- It doesn’t tell you if you ever took a real fight or just sat in a blingy ship cherry-picking targets.
It tells you nothing about bravery, fleet coordination, creativity, or actual PvP experience. And in many cases, chasing high efficiency actively discourages all of those things.
The Cult of Efficiency
At some point, players start tying their identity to their zKill stats. They start picking fights based not on what’s fun, risky, or interesting — but on what’s safe.
- They avoid even fights.
- They won’t engage unless they’re sure they’ll win.
- They blob and dunk to keep their numbers clean.
- They dock up if they think the enemy might shoot back.
This kind of playstyle doesn’t produce content. It avoids it. And while it might lead to a pristine green bar on zKill, it also leads to burnout, stagnation, and a PvP experience that feels more like ganking spreadsheets than space combat.
What Efficiency Doesn’t Show
In Echoes of the Hollow, we don’t judge people by their killboard efficiency. We look at something else entirely: how you show up when it counts.
Here’s what killboards don’t reflect:
- That time you engaged an enemy fleet despite being outnumbered.
- That fight you took at a gate to hold the line so your gang could escape.
- That night you lost three Hurricanes trying to hold grid against escalating reinforcements — and bought your fleet a few more kills in the process.
- The way you backed up your corp when a fight broke out, even knowing the odds.
Those moments — the real EVE moments — don’t always look good on the board.
But they mean everything to the people you fly with.
Why Pirates Don’t Worship the Green Line
We’re not afraid of losing ships. In fact, losing ships is how you learn. It’s how you test doctrines, adapt to new opponents, and get better as a pilot. In Echoes of the Hollow, we expect you to lose stuff. If you’re not dying every so often, you’re probably not doing anything interesting.
We’re pirates. We take the fights. We hold gates. We push into systems that aren’t friendly. Sometimes it goes our way. Sometimes we explode gloriously.
But either way, we were there. On grid. Guns hot. Making content happen.
The pilots who log the most fights aren’t always the most efficient — but they’re usually the ones making the biggest impact.
Real Metrics That Matter
So if efficiency is a distraction, what actually matters in low-sec PvP?
- Grid control: Did you hold the field, or did you run?
- Decision-making: Did you engage smartly, or panic and scatter?
- Consistency: Are you showing up for ops, helping with scouts, and forming with the fleet?
- Initiative: Are you the pilot suggesting roam routes and chasing targets, or just padding stats?
These are the things that make you a valuable member of a corp like Echoes of the Hollow. Not whether you lost a Gnosis last week or your efficiency dropped 5% because you fought a bait Vexor solo.
A New Perspective on Loss
Every loss tells a story. Some of our corp’s best laughs have come from post-fight AARs where we broke something, tried something weird, or just got plain outplayed. Those losses are memorable. They’re part of the pirate life — not something to hide from.
Besides, if you really want to clean up your killboard, just undock a couple Exequrors and get on a Machariel killmail. It’s not hard to look good if that’s all you care about. But looking good and being good are two very different things.
Final Thought: Your Killboard Doesn’t Define You
If you’re reading this and you’ve been worried that your efficiency isn’t “good enough,” let me free you of that weight:
Nobody worth flying with gives a damn.
The real pirates, the real PvPers — they care if you show up.
They care if you anchor up, call targets, scout, commit, fight.
They care if you undock when it matters.
The killboard will always be there. It will go up. It will go down. It will lie.
But you? You’re more than the green bar.
