f13.net

As a wardec corp we will (hopefully) have plenty of targets doing stuff like mission-running, mining hidden belts and hiding from us in safespots.  If you cannot probe such people down, then you can't touch them*.  Once you have the right skills and techniques, however, you can terrify them into docking up for a week, quitting their corp, or even into simply not playing.

With pretty minimal skills, however, you can track them down.  You don't need a covops, although that sure as hell helps: you can do it with a T1 frigate, some basic science skills and a bit of patience, and if the target is a non-paranoid carebear in a busy mission-running system like Motsu he'll probably never spot you in local.

I'll cover finding a target, probing him down, and providing a warp-in.  I'll also cover how to use cloaked ships to run gatecamps (the covops shuffle), how to scout for a fleet, and some fitting advice.

Anyway, to give anyone interested a few days to get the right skills, I'll run this next Saturday (23rd February) at 20:00 Eve time starting at Sankassen.  You will need these skills and objects:

Basic Requirements

These take no time at all to get.  If you start tonight from no science and no suitable frigate skills at all you could be ready by the end of the weekend.

Skills
Racial frigate II (the higher it is the faster you can scan)
Astrometrics III (requires Science III)

Stuff
A Heron, Imicus or Probe (no Amarr option vOv)
10 or so each of fathom and snoop scan probes.
A recon probe launcher (not a scan probe launcher)


Gold Standard

This is the long term ideal for probing, but is only needed if you really specialise.

Skills
Racial Frigate V
Covert Ops III
Astrometrics IV
Astrometric Pinpointing III
Astrometric Triangulation III
Signal Acquisition III
Cloaking IV

Stuff
Buzzard, Helios, Anathema or Cheetah
Fathom, spook, snoop, ferret probes
Recon probe launcher
Covops Cloaking Device II

I'll provide an alt in various ships to provide targets for scanning down.

Covops are really worth getting into: in the short term, they are great for finding targets, and they are the main step on the road to recon cruisers, which are really, really awesome ships, especially in a wolfpack, since they can find a target, warp to him while remaining cloaked, glide up to him unseen, uncloak, jam, dampen, web or scramble him from outside his engagement range, then do sufficient damage to kill him. 

Recons would be a superb medium-term aim for us as a corp, as you can roam freely even in hostile 0.0, and pick your targets at will.  They are what Goon blackops teams successfully use to shut down entire alliances with a dozen or so players at a time, denying them the use of their own space since no-one dares rat or mine with them in their local view.

I expect this will be a smallish group, so I'll be able to give everyone plenty of practice: as little sitting around as possible.  It should only take a couple of hours tops, if everyone is there on time.  I'll start prompt and won't go back to start again if people are turning up 25 minutes late  :uhrr:

--------------------------

*Except old-skool piraticals with mission bookmarks, ok.

--------------------------

Participants:

ajax34i
bhodi
dbltnk
Ravandor
Zetleft
Darkin Ranova
Hoax
lac
Quinton
Der Helm
Merusk
Mook
Llyse

Does one have to be in F13/BC to participate?

Nah, I posted it outside the private forums for that reason.

Interested, will be there.

Endie, since I will be finally getting into my ceptor next week I was curious about becoming a better scanner...  Is it possible to scan someone out in missions just using a directional scanner?  If so is it possible to warp to them?  Or will I need to train scanning skills ot find them... 

My current plan is to just jump into my beam-Crusader and start hitting belts, using speed and suprise to gank folks, but it would be nicer if I could cut down on the time finding them!

Nope. Scanners will tell you what direction he is in from you (with a bit of work) but it won't give you a warpin. You look at the direction you've pinned him down to, and figure out what is along that line (usually a belt) and then warp to that belt hoping you were right. Pinning someone down with the directional scanner takes patience and some skill. It's nothing like probing.


I'm in.

My alt's got 8d11h on Electronics Uprgades V, then 4 days for cloaking IV, so I'll be able to covops in about 2 weeks.

I'll bump that stuff and train up astrometrics III and the other probing skills so I can attend on saturday.

While this is indeed true it is not technically accurate.

_If_ you were able to locate the target on a 5 degree scan you could fly towards him and, once you'd covered the distance, arrive on the same grid. Unless however the target is only a few thousand KM away (and youre in a really fast ship) you're never going to get to him before he leave or you go insane.

I have actually done this once (and the target wasn't in deadspace, although it might have been a bookmark from a previous deadspace mission). I got the target on 5 degree scan and was waiting for a prober to arrive, in the meantime I just kept reducing the range on the scan and once I realised how close they actually were I just MWD to them (took a couple of mins)

I would have loved to see the look on their face when I turned up on overview - fortunately for me there were 2 of them (Rifter and Thorax) and they obviously thought they could take me because both of them engaged and died (yes I called in backup to break the Thorax tank)

I'll be there.

The other chance with the directional scanner - and not as tiny a chance as you might think - is that the target is safespotted inline between where you are (station, gate etc) and a planet, belt or other such body.  When you find them on the 5 degree scanner but they are closer than any of the nearby bodies it is *very* worthwhile warping to one of those bodies and keeping your "add bookmark" button ready.  You may very well see them as you pass them in warp: you can bookmark them on the way past (Eve is not quite as realistic about these distances and deviations as you might think) and warp back to the bookmark.

Remember, this is nine, not two days away: February 23rd.

I'm in, and I can be on time for this one.  I promise. 

If there's one thing RvB this week taught me, it's that I need to learn how to find people a bit more easily.

This thread makes me completely afraid of undocking my Mackinaw ever again.

I'm probing down mission runners in game right now. It's loads of fun. Definitely worth the training time

Why are both the Amarr recon ships drone boats while the Gallente recons are either a missle boat (???) or a blaster boat?  This makes no sense to me.

I guess if I want to do recon cruisers and be effective I'm going to need to train Amarr racials.

Probing down random mission runners is easy enough once you got the scanning skills.
I was wondering if there is anything you can do to help scan down a specific mission runner?
Say A is in motsu and we have a wardec up on him. There are 50 (lets assume he is in a mission hub) people doing missions there. Is there is a way I can up my chance of finding the correct one?

I was wondering about that too, looking at the Arazu with it's dinky 5m3 drone bay. Still aiming to fly that bad boy.

I'm a week away from recons but I'm training t2 guns first. Good idea or not?

Recons are on my "to do" list, but I won't have Cruisers V until March, thanks to a painful 19-day training time for that last point.  I'm working towards it, though.

Lucky -- mine's 26, but I've got a shitty perception. That's why I went covops first (already had Frigates 5, just needed EU's 5) and will do recons next.

Not if they change the name of their ship regularly. You should have heard Endie complain when he was trying to pin down one of the aceo guys running missions - "There's a million ravens here!"

Arazu should have a 40m3 drone bay, if yours doesn't then ask your nearest Duvolle rep for a full refund.

On the whole "what recon" topic I'd honestly say don't cross-train for just one ship until you're absolutely sure you want to go down that route, it's a long and somewhat unrewarding skill train if it's just for one ship, and until you're truely proficient your extra firepower from your gang should more than make up for the lack of a drone bonus.

It sure does -- I was thinking Helios. I probably shouldn't get Recon and Cov-ops confused. Hmm. I'll have to research ECM drones now. :)

I will definitely be on for this.  Gonna need to train up Astrometrics but at least I have plenty of time. 

I'll agree with the concentrating on one ship type = mistake, unless you know that is the only type you will ever fly.

If you have access to the War forum I've posted about this very topic in there.

On the subject of 'what recon' IIRC none of them get the scan time bonus of the covert ops frigate so are going to need much higher skills (or rigs) to get similar scan times.

As a general rule of thumb the 'warp while cloaked' recons are alot less offensive than the 'steal bomber' recons that cant warp while cloaked (although some are nastier than others).

The Falcon for example gets no damage bonus (unlike the Rook) has 4 high slots with a 2/2 turret/bay split & no drones and if you fit a probe launcher and a cloak you have less damage output than a Blackbird (5 highs, 3/3 split) or an Osprey (which could have 2 launchers and 2 guns plus 4 drones - if its not fitting mining lasers) the only thing in your favour is the ECM (which wont help you once drones are on you)

The Rook however has the potential to have the same missile DPS as the Caracal (with Recon 5) with 5 highs and 5 launchers until you stick a cloak and/or probe launcher on it - bear in mind however that the Caracal also gets a drone bay (albeit small) and a missile range bonus that the Rook doesn't.

I only fly the Rook/Falcon currently but if youre looking for a solo/DPS recon the Gallente ones are the best ones to go with due to drone bays and the ability to [hopefully] damp the target down below your engagement distance.

You're using exploration or normal probes?

I have one newbie question here:
Can you do a squad warp to scan result?
and the other one:
How close to destination your target has to be to probe down his landing spot?

Yes (if you are gang leader obviously)

The distance you land from the target is reflected by the accuracy (might be called something else) shown in the probe result window and can be improved with 1 of the skills. If you arent happy with the accuracy you could scan again and hop for a better result (if it was a deadspace target I would just be happy I got a hit and hope to be close enough to land at the gate - see below)

If the target is in deadspace you will always land at the gate unless your accuracy was so bad you werent even going to land in the deadspace grid (not actually experienced that myself just what I'd expect to happen)

Further to what 5150 says, the key to reliably nailing mission runners in deadspace is to have someone really fast with an afterburner in your gang.  When you jump through you are often decloaked by "gas clouds", and the target may be 30 or 40 km away.  That is do-able in an inty with an AB and speed mods, since your target is *never* aligned and by definition isn't keeping a pvp overview set up (there will be npcs and often large collidable structures on there for starters).  But unless he is scrambled by rats you can't expect to warp in in a battleship and reach him in time.

Sometimes the rats get the killmail, though  :heartbreak:

And yep, as I mention in the OP, you need specialised probes like fathoms, snoops, spooks and the like.  On the upside, they are waaaay faster than exploration probes.  I think the base is ten minutes, but with ship and skill bonuses you can get that down to sub-30 seconds (the AAA probers who got MC's titan were about 28 seconds I think, with implants and maxed skills.

When one of the 2 "Ace's and 8's" pilots scarpered from our warp-in, I was able to scan down his safespot within 36 seconds, which isn't world-class, but should be enough to show why, when I was trapped in a Rokh in ED- following our disastrous fleet action a few weeks ago, I set up about 15 safespots and never stopped warping for almost an hour (and even then only missed being caught by about ten seconds, once).

Letsee if this works:

Skill plan for Irek Dabry

1. Astrometrics IV (2 days, 9 hours, 14 minutes, 10 seconds)
2. Astrometric Triangulation I (38 minutes, 31 seconds)
3. Astrometric Triangulation II (2 hours, 59 minutes, 24 seconds)
4. Astrometric Triangulation III (16 hours, 54 minutes, 43 seconds)
5. Astrometric Pinpointing I (38 minutes, 31 seconds)
6. Astrometric Pinpointing II (2 hours, 59 minutes, 24 seconds)
7. Astrometric Pinpointing III (16 hours, 54 minutes, 43 seconds)
8. Signal Acquisition I (57 minutes, 24 seconds)
9. Signal Acquisition II (4 hours, 47 minutes, 1 second)
10. Signal Acquisition III (1 day, 3 hours, 3 minutes, 36 seconds)
11. Covert Ops II (2 hours, 42 minutes, 49 seconds)
12. Covert Ops III (15 hours, 21 minutes, 5 seconds)

Cool!

Thanks for laying out the skills needed Endie, might as well work on this! :) (too bad I don't have an alt that can learn these soonish)

I forgot: the absolute best way is what I do with BC: an alt with a clean history, an anti-pirate corp and a nice, positive concord rating in a covops who scans down the target at his leisure, blending into local, then moves 10km beyond the target from a gate and just provides a warp at ten.

The great thing about doing this with non-goons is that nobody in either of the 30-man ops, nor in our smaller hunting expeditions when griefing war targets ever wrped at zero and decloaked me...  When providing warpins with goons the key thing is to give the wwwww line in local for a warpin then immediately run away like fuck at your maximum cloaked speed to avoid the retards.

QFT

Its not just goons that have this 'issue' :-)

Viin, don't forget that you need the Cloaking skill at 4 in order to use the cov-ops cloaking device.

"F13:  Providing non-retarded gameplay for over 50 years..."

Oh...I'd have totally been a retard there. :)

The problem is that in pvp environment anyone smart will be constantly changing bookmarks.

When I asked about distance, well, sometimes you seem to arrive at destination before your target.

I'll be sure to make it.  Aside from cloaking requirements for the covert cloak I should be up to par with the gold stand. by then. I was gona hold off on the covert-ops training but looks like a good reason not to.

I'll try to be there to help out and learn some stuff...

Participants:

ajax34i
bhodi
dbltnk
Ravandor
Zetleft
Darkin Ranova
Hoax
lac
Quinton
Der Helm

This is a fine number, since everyone will be able to ask questions/get me to go over stuff I didn't explain well enough etc. Do try to be there on time (or at least to be in vent on time) though.

I'm not planning on going cov-ops, but if I'm able to I'd be happy to play target.

I should be able to make it too, I'll bring my cheetah.

Where do we start?

Let's start at the corp HQ in Sankassen, unless we're at war in which case I'll post an alternative on Thursday.

I'm in if you've got room.

Me too.

(Did I post that already ?)

I've got a probe and a few drones & launcher I picked-up for this, but I'm still not sure of my Saturday schedule. I may or may not show up.

I'll be joining in the sneakiness in a gallente frigate. (Stupid Amarr and their lack of E-frigs *grumble* *grumble* *grumble*)

I'll be participating as well in a Heron

Amarr suxxxxxxxxx
Reroll Caldari for E-war! :pedobear:

There's a chance I might not be able to make it, despite wanting to.  It all depends on whether the fridge we ordered that the store has on back order arrives there on Saturday, and we have to go pick it up.  Hopefully it won't.

Edit:  Llyse, heh, don't reroll!  Just train Caldari Frigates, which is very fast, and then Caldari Cruisers for the Blackbird, and you should be set.

Indeed.  Unless you have managed to create some truely horribly high-charisma character with a 3 base perception then it is never worth re-rolling in Eve.

Also, new guys, if you are digging this game and can afford it...get another account rolling sooner rather than later. You will thank me for this advice. :)

This is an especially good investment when you move to 0.0: having a cloaking covops character one jump ahead of your cargo full of 200 million ISK worth of ratting loot makes for a more relaxing journey by far.

Can you run 2 Eve clients on the same computer and alt-tab between them? Or do you need to 2 box?

The only time you have to dual box is if one of the two is a trial account.

Otherwise, you are fine (though dial the graphics down a bit).

Well crap my schedule changed and I'm gonna be working tomorrow so I can't make it.  That really blows, guess I'll have to pickup the sneakiness as I go.

Update: Can't make it to the operation. A game that I can't name has recently opened a open pvp server and I'm too busy ganking whole groups of carebears. =D

ah crap, didn't they also say the were going to do another round of beta invites before the open pvp server? Guess I missed this round too then :cry2:

Thanks again Endie for providing us another skill for our toolbox. Greatly educational, and hey, after we finished, I probed out some abandoned t2 drones and blam! 700k richer.

That was informative and fun, thank you.

I've got to put together a Helios and practice scanning. Working on Covert Ops 3 right now.

Sounds like it went perfectly.

I regret on missing out so much now :heartbreak:

Especially after this happened to http://f13.7mph.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=167 (http://f13.7mph.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=167) me at a dodgy safespot

Questions.

What qualifies as a decent safespot? The further from celestial bodies the better? 4.5au from everything?

One that you dont stay at very long :-)

Seriously unless you are deadspace distance only increases the time it will take for someone to find you (the same could be said of deadspace but by a larger margin)

You can also fit a cloak and cloak as soon as you hit your SS (and if you use it alot I'd fly in a random direction once cloaked in case its already busted

There is no decent safe-spot, really.  The farther you are from everything, the longer it takes, but it's still a matter of minutes.

You must either cloak at the safe-spot, or have multiples and move between them constantly.

Can't you alternatively turn your MWD on a fast moving interceptor and be reasonably safe?  somethign like 4-5km pres econd at least?

Almost completely.  This is a frustrating thing for a covops pilot: your target is moving at high speed, so by the time you get there they are a long way away. 

If you are really good you can find something they are burning towards - a Celestial body usually so they can instawarp out to it at 100 or something if busted) - warp to that, find them on scan again at their new position (assuming you're getting tiny deviation - while getting your gang to go to that location too.  Then you warp to your target at 100 - to try and get there before them, then get your gang to warp to you at 100, so they get there ahead of the target.  You probably want to leave a handful at the standard warpins at the celestial body if it is the only one nearby.

I did this for a Sylph gang recently, got a perfect warpin on a Stain ishtar, gave them the word, and discovered that the impatient fucks had left the system a couple of minutes before...  :ye_gods:

Another way to use this when safespotting (as the potential target) is in a gang, when you have one very fast ship: they burn ahead at uncatchable speeds, and everyone else warps to them at zero when they reach 150km.  The average velocity of the gang then becomes that of the inty.

If you do this (and go AFK) you need make sure you are very fast (or dont go AFK), I know of one case where the cov ops pilot called in a faster ship which (eventually) caught the MWD'ing ship up and then killed it

I also read a thread from someone saying "how did I die?!?" after doing this.  I think you'd only be safe if you were fast enough to get off the grid before a good covops could get and provide a warpin plus the time needed for the inty to warp in and start chasing.  Since that would probably be at least 15 m/s on most normal-sized grids I reckon that such a pilot wouldn't risk his Gistii MWD and snakes by going afk like that anyway...

Anyone have any proposed fittings for a Helios? I was wanting to fit one out to hunt and scan down prey. My general support skills are good, and I'll have something akin to the "gold standard" for scanning listed in the first post. I've been playing with EFT, but I must be making some wrong assumptions about the differences between cloaking devices. You can add rigs if you want to be extra-nice. :)

I was hoping to outfit a Helios in the next few weeks and practice scanning in my missioning area, then fly it out to Sank and store it until it's needed.

Edited to add: My primary problem seeps to be CPU-based. Pushing Cov-ops to Level 4 helps a lot there. Between the Cov-ops cloak and the scan probe launcher, I have virtually no CPU left at Cov-Ops 3/5. (I am right in assuming you probe something out, cloak yourself with the Cov-ops cloak, warp there, and then invite the gang in if it's worth killing?).

You can't probe while cloaked, right?

I have fitting problems on my Buzzard and I have Cov Ops 4 - I don't think you can get any half decent setups on once you fit the probe launcher (are the sisters faction probe launchers easier to fit?)

You cant launch probes while cloaked but you can perform scans on existing probes while cloaked

I have plenty of empty slots on my buzzard: I care deeply about having three modules: the covops cloak, the recon probe launcher and the MWD for getting out of gatecamps.  I also fit an MAPC for grid and a cap module in the mids for recharge rate, since buzzard + MWD equals tiny cap.  And a warp core stabiliser, also for gatecamps.  Some people fit an offline weapon in a high slot, or a cyno generator, or a salvage mod etc.  I don't need those.

Well, I can get the launcher, the covops cloak, and still mount a few other things (MWD, ship scanners, etc) but I have to fit a coproccessor. Mostly I'm wondering what else I'd need as a Helios pilot besides the cov-ops cloak and the probe launcher.

I'm working under the assumption that if I'm being shot at, I'm fucked anyways.

that's easy, fit overdrive injectors :)

I wish someone had told me about the cheetah, it seems to be clearly better than the buzzard and I wish I had trained for it, instead.

Extra capacitor recharge plus faster base speed plus 3 low slots for overdrive injectors = the win. The only downside is you really need covops 4 instead of covops 3.

My buzzard setup, this works with covops 3, engineering 4, energy upgrades 3 hull upgrades 2
1 covops cloak
1 recon probe launcher
1mn digital booster rockets (MWD)
1 cap recharger II
2 overdrive injector system II

I'll probably start with a stab and a micro aux power core, like endie, until I get a feel for how easy/hard it is to run camps. In general I like the one above.

I don't think those digital booster rockets are easy to get (if at all).
But if you put a mapc in the low slot you left out you will be able to fit another mwd.

Unfortunately, the buzzard only has 2 low slots. I was really wanting 2 overdrive injectors, but it doesn't look to be possible if I can't find one of those MWDs. I may just go swiss army knife instead:

1 MAPC
1 Best or Second best named WCS
1 MWD II
2 named cap rechargers (Barton, Fixed parallel, whatever)
PL-0 Shipment Probe (best named cargo scanner, identical to scanner II)
Practical Type-E Ship Probe (best named ship scanner)
Covops Cloak
Recon Probe Launcher

Hmm. I worked out the following for the Helios:

Lows:
3xOverdrive Injector I.

Med:
3xFixed Parallel Link-Cap I
MWD II
Named Ship Scanner

Highs:
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Recon Prove launcher.

Rigs:
Engine Thermal Shielding I or Low Friction Nozzle Joints I
Polycarbon Engine Housing

I can run the MWD indefintely, align in 6.2 seconds max, and can cruise at 3k/s.  OR I can swap the Overdrive Injector Is for II's and drop the rigs for 2.8 k/s, or add back the Polycarbon rigs (1 moves me to 3.2k/s, two to 3.6k/s. I don't know if the expense of the rigs is worth it. I'd rather have the thermal shielding to further lower cap use). That's with the ship scanner off, of course. That sucker eats cap.

Ah yes, I saw cheetah in that post and got confused

Why do you want those cap rechargers anyway? when you are cloacked you can't use the mwd and nothing else takes cap in your setup. You only cycle the mwd once before you cloak again.The time it takes for you to warp is usually enough to recover most of the cap you lost to activate warp. OD's will maximise you stealthed speed. You can't scan ships or cargo when cloaked either.

You'll want gravity cap upgrade rigs, they reduce the scan time and don't cost too much.

Good point. I forgot you can't use squat while cloaked. Well, with the Auxillary thrusters rig and 3xOverdrive II's my Helios can run 575 m/s cloaked, and 3k/s with the MWD on. I'd use a  Gravity Cap for the other rig.

That leaves me with two empty slots -- that's why I had 3xCap Rechartgers. Nothing else to put there -- says my scan resolution is about 470mm, whatever the hell that means.

Ah, I heard warping ate cap like crazy. I may replace it with a battery then, just so I can do long jumps. I don't have any experience using covops, I'll be hopping into my first ship this week. It will, however, be a utility ship, in lowsec and highsec, and so I figured hey why not, those have got to be useful someday.

Taking the Warp Drive Operation skill from 1 to 4 does something like double or triple the range you can warp to, or something like that. 

For some reason warping requires exponential energy, or something...  warping to 25 au takes one tenth of your capacitor, and going to 30 au uses up 70% of it.  It's a weird formula (I don't know it, but that's what I seem to notice when I warp), and training WDO extends your range immensely because of that.

I'm not sure it's quite as simple as that: ship size and cap matter too, since my raven can jump 100AU and use only a small chunk of cap, whereas my buzzard would be close to triple-jumping.  My bustard has a cap several times that of the buzzard but would still double-jump, presumably because of the size difference.

I do know it's not capacitor size percentage based, and I suspect that it's a straight capacitor point per AU and that is why smaller ships have trouble bridging the gap. I've never done any testing, however.