small gang PvP tactics

[dwindlehop]

ITT: arguing!

My preferred roaming gang:
1 inty with 24km scram who knows how to use the directional scanner as scout
1 dictor
1 recon with damps/ECM
dps to taste. alpha also appreciated.

The scout jumps through every gate first in case it is camped. If there's hostiles, the scout finds them on the scanner. He gives a ship count and the FC makes a decision to engage or not. Assuming we engage, the scout lays down the tackle while we all jump through the gate and warp to his location at our optimals. If there's no hostiles, scout travels to the next system and rest of the gang waits on the gate.

Nano gang:
Everyone does at least 3.5 km/s. You jump en masse because if you hit a camp you all should make it back to the gate. Everyone scans, and you split up the belts if you see targets in the belts to find them faster. You pretty much engage anything that won't web you (Minmatar recons plus support). A numerically superior force can still be engaged as long as they're primarily close range and you can separate some of them long enough to gank.

[Slayerik]

Turtle Gang (also known as Spider Tank):

Remote Armor Repping Battleships. Most fights take place at a gate, so you use this setup to repair the gangmate that is being primaried while he stops aggro and waits his 30 sec to jump out. These gangs can take on 2x their size with coordination. Biggest Cons are lack of speed (for escaping enemy territory) and lack of tackling/webbing.

They are fairly cost effective, as fully insured battleships pay out a lot. Much more painful to lose a T2 HAC or recon.

[dwindlehop]

I'd use spider tank only in my home constellation. Dragging a pile of trimarked, plated BS around is just painful. However, for home system defense it is top notch.

You can bring a high resist BC to a spider tank fight. Not as good as a BS because it lacks the buffer, but at least the reps are about as equally effective.

I usually bring a Sabre to a BS fight because my BS skills are nonexistent. I will probably eventually train up CovOps for that situation, too. However, Sleipnir > all other training possibilities.

[JoeTF]

Nanofag team?

[Slayerik]

Nanofag team?

Nanofag gang = win

[dwindlehop]

You can also do the frigate or inty gang, but I prefer the all-Thrasher op, either in lowsec or as a gatecamp. Probably not a good idea to go roaming 0.0 in. With 2x gyro, 7x 280mm, RF EMP, and Destroyer V my alpha is the same as a Rupture's. I wouldn't bring a point, just an itchy trigger finger and a willingness to lose ships.

[Vedi]

Do you ever use logistics cruisers in small-gang PvP or is it simply too easy to pop compared to the remote-repping battleships? and not fast enough for nanogangs?

[dwindlehop]

I never have much use for 'em. I want one of three things in a gangmate:
scan res <3
damage
EW

Speed is just nice for when you get outnumbered and need to gtfo. If you are willing to lose the ship, aren't going very far, or have pitiful resistance in your neighborhood speed isn't required.

[Slayerik]

Logistic ships are great to have around. However, you are basically perma primary so life can be rough. They are a nice addition to a non-remote repping gang as they can help keep up whatever else happens to be primaried (obviously). I never complain when someone wants to join my gang in a logistics ship.

[Endie]

There's a bloke in GF dual-boxes two logistics cruisers in our gangs, which are indeed usually primary, so they rep each other a lot of the time.  That's a nightmare for the opposition: do you hammer away them forever while getting eaten up by untouched enemies, or do you ignore them and face the fact that your primaries have two logistics ships healing them?

Presumably the reinvigorated ewar will be a partial answer to that.

[JoeTF]

You damp/jam one and kill other one in 0.2 second?
Or in this particular case, you calmly alpha everyone but those two logistics (he won't change targets in time if he is dualboxing).
Essentially he is 0.5 logistic cruiser that is very hard to kill (since he will be wasting half of his time switching to second toon and setting it to repair his main).
But then, he is a goon;-)

[Endie]

Joe please, could you keep the snide war comments to the war thread, and try to be something approaching civil elsewhere?

Edit: Corrected since apparently goons can't even spell civl civil.

[JoeTF]

Point is, it's not that smart strategy. Also, since when being a goon is an insult to a goon?:P


Another flavor of the month seems to be spider tanked ravens. With torps.
Seems to work perfectly, until your enemy decides to sit at the gate at 50km and just laugh at you.

[Endie]

Point is, it's not that smart strategy. Also, since when being a goon is an insult to a goon?:P


Another flavor of the month seems to be spider tanked ravens. With torps.
Seems to work perfectly, until your enemy decides to sit at the gate at 50km and just laugh at you.

He does well, so it's not a bad strategy.  Considering who he's been fighting (I think you'd agree that Bob are not that bad at PvP, after all!) it must have something going for it.

The spider-tanking raven thing can work: Burn Eden do it very well.  I doubt if they use torps though 

[Yoru]

Spider tank? Explain?

[Endie]

Spider tank? Explain?

A bunch of ships sit within remote repper range of each other and when one is primaried all the rest of them target and repair it.  This can go disastrously wrong, as when RISE believed that putting a bunch of carriers on a bubbled gate doing this was INVINCIBLE!  It wasn't.

[Slayerik]

ECM and damps really facefuck the spider tank. It break their locks and cause relocking to be horribly slow.

[dwindlehop]

This is all very interesting theorycrafting, but it ignores the fundamental PUG nature of a small gang. One has to work with whatever ships show up. It's not easy to get everyone to bring a spider tanked plated gank BS to a medium sized fight. I submit that the number entities capable of fielding a squad of damp Ravens or 100km HAC/recons or cloaked recons plus BOBS is really very small. SP helps as does isk, but the main advantage the organized have over a PUG is logistics and coordination.

In a small gang with fewer than ten members, I really don't want a logistics cruiser to join. You're better than nothing, but a new tackler inty at 28km is a better tackler, a gank Drake is just as good at absorbing damage plus it can spit out a fair amount in return, and a Blackbird can mitigate DPS even better.

[dwindlehop]

Just to be perfectly clear, you'll make this great plan that cannot be executed. Vedi will fly a tackler Scimitar and Viin and Yoru will fly damp torp Ravens and we'll WTFpwn everyone! But then Vedi can't make it and neither Yoru nor Viin have a point or a tank or another ship and you're screwed. Or Viin has to log early and suddenly our spider tank is looking pretty crappy.

Whereas, with my system, almost everyone can fly two of the three roles. I personally do dps or tackling. I know any of my corpmates can do the same. No matter who is online when I log in, we can cobble together a fun gang.

For the same reason, I am very reluctant to make setups that depend upon not carrying a point. Mo' points means mo' options.

[Endie]

You're probably right.  In GF there are enough people that when someone posts saying "Op at 0300 Eve Time bring RSD rifters with MWD and a point only" or something like that then they will get 25 people showing up with the right ship fit.  Plus, the fact that the wiki offers pretty reliably good fittings helps insure that certan things can be expected.

[Slayerik]

So are you talking about small gang PVP tactics for use with this new influx of players to f13? I personally was just throwing out shit I've seen before.

If I were to run an f13 gang, I'd run cheap, insurable ships. Frigs, cruisers... everyone has a point (web disruptor), and hopefully a few webs.  So yeah, I agree.

[dwindlehop]

Guess I did have F13 in mind specifically, but in general casual 0.0 PvP is how I play the game.

If I were to run an f13 gang, I'd run cheap, insurable ships. Frigs, cruisers... everyone has a point (web disruptor), and hopefully a few webs.  So yeah, I agree.

This is fine. I would say that an inty is significantly better than a t1 frig and a BC is significantly better than a cruiser and that the extra money is worth it for both. We could go back and forth on EW platforms: recons are expensive, but they have the range to survive most engagements the way a Blackbird does not. And a dictor is the difference between one or no kills and a pile.

[JoeTF]

Also, Heavy Interdictor. This ship is so Godlike for small gangs/gatecamps it's not even funny.

It can also bubble in empire, though you will be concordgankeen if someone without war flies into bubble (so I heard)

[dwindlehop]

I heard you can't bubble in empire, just the focused script.

[Slayerik]

Guess I did have F13 in mind specifically, but in general casual 0.0 PvP is how I play the game.

If I were to run an f13 gang, I'd run cheap, insurable ships. Frigs, cruisers... everyone has a point (web disruptor), and hopefully a few webs.  So yeah, I agree.

This is fine. I would say that an inty is significantly better than a t1 frig and a BC is significantly better than a cruiser and that the extra money is worth it for both. We could go back and forth on EW platforms: recons are expensive, but they have the range to survive most engagements the way a Blackbird does not. And a dictor is the difference between one or no kills and a pile.

Well, in a month or two if people stick with the game they might be in ceptors, but for now there are quite a few 1 mil skillpoint kinda guys. The best way for this gang to roll would be looking for unfair fights...single battlecruisers, ratters, etc until people get more experience.

[Thrawn]

Well, in a month or two if people stick with the game they might be in ceptors, but for now there are quite a few 1 mil skillpoint kinda guys. The best way for this gang to roll would be looking for unfair fights...single battlecruisers, ratters, etc until people get more experience.

Feel free to post what us new guys should be working to then if we want to run tackling until we are more combat viable.

I'm mostly just working on learning and industry skills right now (refining, salvaging etc..) until I get some more isk saved up.

[bhodi]

Agreed. After talking with a few folks, I'm probably going to be flying a blackbird. I'll be the EW guy, I guess.

I'm actually just training up learning skills (I've just finished getting memory perception intelligence and learning to level 3). I'm training for a MWD right now, and have caldari cruiser at level 2. I've trained EW and tackling already, so I'm pretty much ready to go -- In the next week, I'll be training cruiser to 3, engineering and electronics to 4, heavy missiles, and then I'll working on my shield skills.

I want to pew pew soon, or the goons might get me. Mission running really isn't my thing.

[Endie]

Feel free to post what us new guys should be working to then if we want to run tackling until we are more combat viable.

My experience in small gang stuff is more limited than Dwindle's or Slayerik's, but awesome T1 ships in a small gang include thoraxes, vexors, ruptures, and well-flown blackbirds; and among the frigates rifters, punishers, griffins, incursuses, merlins and kestrels can be fun.  If you want to tackle, though, it is hard to go past rifters.  You can make them go hella fast, they have a tracking bonus to their guns, and ith a cap recharger in a low you can run the necessary mods for long enough to keep a target locked down (ok, not supertanked drakes or killdozer domis).

I don't know about Amarr cruisers, nor do I know if Celestises are still useful in small gangs post-RSD-nerf (I suspect they might still be vOv).  I generally shoot railguns from further away than the rifterswarm so, like I say, ask them not me.

Btw Dwindle, Slayerik and I were discussing the time you took a bunch of us into 0.0, which was my very first time there.  First gate: bubble camp.  You died that we might live.

[Viin]

Doing a caracal EW/missile boat always seems to mess people up. :) If you have someone to tackle you can lock them down and just keep lobbing missiles.

Of course, that only works on cruiser-sized ships and below.

[Slayerik]

Endie, you are like 100% correct about the ships named. I find the Thorax to be a beast ship, throw a plate on her...5 medium drones, 5 blasters and go rape....basically. The Vexor was better pre-NOS nerf, but is still an effective ship with decent drone skills.

Basically, get your skills up to the point where you can fly a cruiser, with medium guns/missiles, with an 10mn MWD, and a warp disruptor and you will be contributing. Or frigate version of that (1mn Microwarpdrive). If anyone is looking for fitting help, http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=548883 or hit me up on AIM.

The eve fitting tool is awesome, import your skills and you will save huge cashflow.

[Thrawn]

get your skills up to the point where you can fly a cruiser, with medium guns/missiles, with an 10mn MWD, and a warp disruptor and you will be contributing

Done, done and done I believe.  So...yay!  I can fly a Caldari battlecruiser but don't have the isk to upgrade to a Ferox currently.  Been a bit swamped lately with holiday crap and a final to take tonight so I haven't been doing much but swapping skill training.  I probably have like a week off work and school for Christmas though so I'm hoping to dive more into the game then.

[Endie]

Doing a caracal EW/missile boat always seems to mess people up. :) If you have someone to tackle you can lock them down and just keep lobbing missiles.

Of course, that only works on cruiser-sized ships and below.

A caracal pilot with EW skills at 5 and using a spatial destabilizer II (but no signal distortion amps in either low) will jam another caracal 30% of the time, or a merlin 40% of the time.  On the upside, it will do it all the way out to (and well beyond, if you boosted for some reason) the caracal's practical targetting range.  I also expected it to hurt the capacitor more than it did, even post-trinity, but it really doesn't.  It would mess up inty locks quite well, since they have very low sensor strength.

[Viin]

I'll usually do 2 destabilizers with a battery to boost overall cap .. I can lock down a Raven 1/5 of the time, even with regular ones. If I really get crazy, I can do 3 destabilizers and lock them down half 1/3rd of the time - but I can't break the shield of a raven with my missiles.