Capsule

Pod (pre-Apocrypha 1.5)

Pod (post-Apocrypha 1.5)

Pod or capsule is a type of a spaceship that makes players in EVE stand above the normal NPC characters (although it can be inferred from storyline that there are NPC pod-using characters). A pod is designed to 'go inside' a ship - in terms of storyline, it is "put" inside any spaceship you use, and your body is floating in a pod.

A pod is an even more basic spaceship than a rookie ship or a shuttle; it has no slots, no cargo space or drone space, very few hit points, but allows interstellar travel (it can access warp gates) in emergencies. It is slower than a shuttle but has an even smaller signature radius.

If your ship is destroyed, you always reappear in the (escape) pod; the same happens after you self-destruct your ship. You can self-destruct your pod; if your pod is destroyed (also known as being podded), all your current implants are lost and your medical clone is activated on the station registered as your cloning facility. NPCs will never target your pod, which can make it possible to scout some sites in relative safely. On the other hand, pods cannot access many acceleration gates.

In the past, when a character was deleted his pod used to be discarded to the hangar of the player corporation of which he was a member (if any). Those pods used to be available for trade on the escrow market as a form of curio (they are worthless in game as you always own one). However, with the replacement of escrow with the contract system, pods can no longer be contracted or sold via the traditional market.

Pods cannot be reprocessed.

Scientific Article: The Capsule and The Clone