If you're using CovOps and d-scan (the mechanics of which I believe were "upgraded" since I retired in 2012) to hunt targets in WH space, then you must be playing EVE properly on some level.
That's always my challenge in this thread: I can't relate to carebears on any level, even after more than a decade away from the game. I mean, there are people who've been playing EVE for years who don't even know how to use the directional scanner. That's absolutely insane.
The best I can do is dispense outdated tips on how to stop being a carebear, which is actually quite easy to do with the correct mindset. When someone determinedly views EVE as being primarily a game about PvE, there's simply nothing to discuss. I mean that literally, because at this point I know virtually nothing about EVE PvE beyond the targets of opportunity it can serve up, especially when it comes to shit like the NPC factional warfare crap (that's been released long ago by now).
As a former carebear who often pootled about in low sec for a few years (back in the times when PvE still offered hauling jobs and that sort of thing), for the carebear the enjoyment is in eluding attack. Unlike a single-player space game, the ever-present danger adds spice to one's roleplaying, it makes the virtual world feel very much alive.
Which I think was the developers' intention, and it worked out pretty well.
I did start a few characters with the intention of hoisting the jolly rodger, but I'm just constitutionally incapable of playing a "bad guy," and I think you do have to do that for a period to learn how to PvP properly, even if you're intending to be a merc or whatever.
Playing PvE in EVE also got me over the hump of the adrenaline spike, so that I came to enjoy PvP in other types of games where it's more formalized.
I think the only "problem" with EVE (from my point of view) was really that it's too corporate-based, it is very much a co-operative/competitive game, and I just never had enough time to commit to that sort of thing. The game did introduce more solo-friendly gameplay styles as time went on, but I'd drifted away by then.
My impression though, was that most people who do PvP do
some carebearing now and then anyway. Sometimes people just run low on stocks and resources and have to carebear for a bit. Kind of a dirty secret of EVE