The most important part of any battle is surviving it. Everything after that is a plus, so lets teach you the basics.

Above all else in any sort of combat, local chat is the one thing that can save your life. It shows you how many people are in your system, who they are, how long they have been playing, and basically everything short of what ship they are flying. Always watch local. Always have it open, and be aware of when it changes. If you are flying alone and several people warp into the system, be on your toes. They might be coming for you. After all, local works both ways. If you can see them, they can see you. Don't forget to set the standing of enemies as well. War targets will have the red star next to their names.You should set people who have given you trouble before with a low standing. This will give them a red minus next to their name and you will know if they are trouble immediately. That can be a dead giveaway for when you need to run or prepare for battle. The only time local chat can NOT be used is in wormhole space.

Okay. You see a target in the system that you know will take you out. It is time to hide. Where do you go? The safest place to go is to a friendly station or POS. Generally as long as you are docked or behind a force field your enemies wont be able to get to you. What if that is out of the question? Use a safe spot. Safe spots are random spots in space made by adding a bookmark that you can warp to later. Why is this good? If you are hiding at a belt or planet they can use their on ship scanners to find you, and warp to you. That can end badly, and essentially ruins the purpose of your hiding place. A player can NOT warp to a random spot in space unless they have a probe launcher equipped. Sometimes their not having a probe launcher can mean the difference between life and death. How do I make a bookmark for a safespot? First off go to your people and places tab, then places, and add bookmark. How you find the location for your bookmark is up to you. The methods are as limitless as your imagination. Mission locations are generally good for bookmarks. You can place a bookmark mid warp between two locations. You could even put a fast ship on autopilot and let that be your safespot. Bottom line is get to a safe spot in the middle of space, and place your bookmark. Logging out may also be a good idea if you think they might have a probe launcher.

Cloaking devices can save your life, but cost you a high slot. If you are cloaked there is no way for anyone to find you. You will show up in local, but you will be invisible to sight and scans of all kind. The only way for them to find you is by getting close enough to you to knock you out of warp. If you have a covert ops ship you can even warp while cloaked, making you a ghost.

There are many ways to warp jam your target. Warp bubbles, warp jammers, drones, ect.  The most simple method of survival is to put a warp stabilizer on your ship that is stronger than their warp jammers. If you are more stable than their jams, they will have no effect. Only problem is this uses valuable slots that can be used for other more useful things. If you forgot yours or did not want to put one on, your options become much more limited. Once you are jammed your only options are to break your enemies lock, or run their capacitor dry so they can no longer use it against you. If you want to break the lock, your first option would be getting out of range. Getting out of range is simple. You just need to go faster than the guy jamming you until you are out of range, and safely warp away. If your enemy is faster than you are, the only other ways to break their lock it to kill them, or jam them. Since killing them is self explanatory, lets talk about jamming them. Jamming their sensors is much more complex than the previous methods. You need to use an Electronic Counter Measure, or ECM for short. Some are generic, and others work against specific targeting systems. The type you chose is up to you. Refer to races to see the type of targetting system each race uses. Once they lose their lock and are no longer jamming you, warp out while you can. Lastly, you can drain their cap with an energy neutralizer. No capacitor means no working parts, so the warp jam shuts down. Warp bubbles, on the other hand are a different story. They are basically just a big bubble of death. As long as you are inside the bubble escape will be very difficult. Fortunately, other than using warp stabilizers, escape is relatively simple. Get out of the bubble and you can warp for your life. Unfortunately when people use Warp Bubbles they generally have the gate locked down pretty well. Normally the only way to get out (especially one on a gate) is to turn on your cloaking device and try to sneak out of the bubble unseen. If you can not escape the jam, your only chance is to fight and hope for the best.

The best way to survive 0.0 is to have someone go before you. It kind of reminds me of penguins. You send a small fast ship that can escape a bad fight through gates first, and he tells the rest of the fleet whats up. Generally this ship is a recon ship, or some other sort of small fast frigate. For more on that the best way to learn is just to join a fleet (preferably with the millitia or your corp) and learn from experience.

When all else fails you will get shot. You need to tank the damage they throw at you. Knowing how your race and ship is supposed to tank is key. I already covered what your method of tanking should be, but if you missed it refer back to races. The smaller your ship the faster you need to move and orbit. Frigates need to orbit their targets as fast as they can, and not worry so much about armor plates and resistances. The golden speed to break in a frigate class is 4,000 m/s. At that speed you can outrun every missile in game. If you can orbit at that speed nothing will be able hit you. A frigate going straight towards a target, or standing still may as well just self destruct because of their reliance on that speed. Remember to orbit and fast. Bigger ships such as Battleships need to be fit to take a lot of damage, and not worry about moving much. The bigger the ship the more damage they take from all guns, and the slower you move. To sum it all up, the bigger you are, the more you have to take. Smaller you are, the more you need to dodge.