f13.net

I think I get the concept of tackling... In your opinion, what are the best tackling ships out there? What are the key features, capabilities and criteria for your opinion?

For instance -- must be cheap, fast and have more than 3 mid and 3 high slots.


Zipper Zee, the incessant questioner

Key capability is speed. Scram and web are relatively short range mods, and they have no falloff. You need to be able to close before you get popped.

I have a theory that as a newb tackler it is best to practice your fleeing skills and not fit any defenses. When you get targeted, hang around as long as you can and warp out before you lose the ship. Then come back in for more tackling fun. Someone with antifrig capabilities will pop you pretty fast no matter what kind of n00b tank you have. Someone without antifrig capability won't hit you, so it doesn't matter that you don't have a tank.

It's just a theory, though.

Define "Cheap"?  Stilletto's make *the* best tackler, faster than hell with 4 mid slots and 3 turret mounts, and Interceptors lock eyeblink-fast so they're hard to get away from.  But they go for 10-20M a pop, easy enough to come by in 0.0 (it's less than one hour mining or ratting) but a bit pricy for a disposable ship by Empire standards.  Most of the Covert Ops have 4-5 mid-slots, but again they are in the same price range as the Stilletto (they also don't lock very fast even without the cloak fitted).  The *only* T1 frigs that meet your criteria (more than 3 mid slots and cheap).  The only T1 frigs that meet your criteria are the Griffin and the Merlin (both Caldari), and the Merlin is the only one with 4 high slots as well.   Many Assault Frigates have the slots, but they start at 20M.

--Dave

You don't really need 4 med slots to tackle. I mostly do it in a Taranis (gallente interceptor), but there's two guys without much money in the corp and they tackle just fine in Rifters (minnie frig). As long as you remember that you're disposable, you're going to do fine. If you're willing to lose the ship and remember to turn off the mwd once you're in range, you'll do great.

And don't bother with tanks-shmanks. Go nanofiber crazy on the sucker :)

Yeah, if you're fitting a tank on a tackler, you don't get the concept.  You're a speedbump, the only thing your guns are good for is enemy tacklers.  Fit nano or overdrives, and forget surviving if you come under fire.

--Dave

Definitions please... Nano? Overdrives?

Also, my 3 mid, 3 high was just a prompt to get you all to be a bit more elementary with your suggestions. I have no idea, really, just figured you would need some mids for scrambling, webbing etc and some highs for NOS, etc. I looked at the rifter and that looked interesting, but frankly I was looking to learn a bit from your collective greater wisdom.

Do AB's speed increases stack?

And I can see how an interceptor or t2 frigate might be better, but the next time I get 20million will be my first time. Currently treading water at 10ish and looking for ways to make more. I think my fetish is ships.. I collect them like Jay Leno does cars/motorcycles.

You can only run one AB at a time. It'll let you fit 'em but not run 'em.

Nanofibre structure is a passive hull upgrade that increases speed. Those stack. I don't know why they're not located under prop upgrades. Confused the hell out of me initially.

Overdrive is a prop upgrade for speed. I think they stack.

Highs are probably not as important for your newb self. Mount some guns so you can take down drones or enemy tacklers, but don't worry overmuch about NOS or whatnot. If you can run NOS and it keeps you tackling longer, good, but the drain on a big ship's cap from your small nos 1 is not significant.

Edit: realized I knew what overdrive was.

NoS seemed to become relevant in cruisers/level 2 missions for me. That's the first time i fitted one, and it was definitely needed.

I ran nos on a Punisher for PvE so I could keep my tank up versus cruiser rats.

C'mon, the Rifter is better than both of those you listed.

Only one little correction - Overdrives are like Nanos, only in Propulsion Upgrades. The difference is Nanos give you agility (turn faster) and speed and the penalty is -hull and Overdrives give you Inertia (accelerate faster) and speed and the penalty is cargo hold.

I go with Nanos, because fast ships have trouble staying in close orbit and agility really helps. Plus you don't really need to accelerate any faster than you already do.

The basic setup I'd go for a rifter is:
Nos/Nos/Gun/Gun
MWD/Warp Scrambler (That's the short range one, with 2 point strength)/Web
Repper/Nano/Nano

(No idea if you could fit all of that, you prolly can't and will have to use a Miicro Auxiliary Power Core, so just drop the guns)

MWDs really do make a difference. Work for one, it'll pay off if you want to tackle. Noses make sure you can keep your scram/web running even if you're getting your cap sucked dry by a bigger nos (small noses drain energy every 3 seconds, so chances are if you start them with about 1.5 sec difference, you'll always have cap when the Scrambler or Webber requires it).

Some tips:
NEVER go straight ahead for a bigger ship that's locking you. Show transversal on your overview and always try to get some 500m when going in for a tackle on a shp that's locking you. Chances are he'll still be there trying (and not succeding) to hit you when you get in range.

Try to orbit in less than 7km, more than 5km when tackling someone. If he's a cruiser with small blasters, he won't instagib you. If he's a battleship with smart bombs you'll be out of their range. Train doing that on cans (most ships are still when they're webbed anyway).

Always turn off your mwd when you get there. It makes you nearly unkillable unless the target has a zillion skillpoints.

Disangage your scramble and get ready for the pod when your target is about to die. Remember that getting the pod is almost as important as getting the ship and you'll get mad props in your corp if you learn to do that. Some people like to eject from a dying ship to save the pod, so be ready to lock a pod even if the ship is still alive. If he's expirenced he'll be alligned when he ejects. Nothing to do about that.

I'll add some more if I think of them.

People really seem to like WMDs, I've trained afterburners and I'm angling for the MAPC since I can't even turn on all my weapons... maybe i'll train it just to see what it's like eventually.

Of course we do. They destroy stuff.  :rimshot:



Sorry had to be done.

If you read once more what you typed, you'll understand why they're not in propulsion upgrades.

 I'm a fan of ABs, myself, but I primarily do missions (where you end up in deadspace and the MWD is useless) and ratting.  Were I to PvP I'd need a faster ship, and therefore I'd be picking-up more MWDs.  Having good cap-boosting skills helps to negate the cap penalty they force on you.

Ack, what the hell does that mean?

Everything you wanted to know about blowing things up (including transversal) but were afraid to ask. (Gun edition) (http://www.eve-online.com/guide/en/g26.asp)

More definitions:

MAPC?
Repper?
Instagib?

And one clarification -- nanofiber structures do give you more speed at the expense of structural hit points, yes? I think that is true. Not that big of a deal if you are tackling -- the difference is nigh-well negligible, but worth noting.

One last thing -- bohdi, if you do find the WMD's, don't forget to tell Rumsfeld and GWB... They been looking for them for years.  :-o

Micro Auxilary Power Core
Armor Repairer
Getting blown into tiny bits in a big hurry.

I like how the game teaches by experience. I started doing level 2 missions in my new cruiser. There are still a lot of frigates in these missions. I learned very quickly that transversal velocity is a huge deal in trying to hit the little buggers. Having transversal on the overview is a must.

I started trying to manually pilot my ship to negate some of their transversal speed. Stasis web fields help alot as well ( I looted one that sells for 5M isk recently..haven't equipped yet)

Speed AND Agility.
Equaly important imo. If you're down to structure you're dead anyway so don't worry :)

Just to complete the picture, the Amarr ghettoceptor (T1 frig pretending to be an interceptor) is the Executioner which not only does the job (with a 2/2/2 slot layout) but also looks stylish while you're at it. Plus it's got the second-highest speed and second-smallest signature radius (slightly behind the Slasher on both). The final selling point is that they are dirt cheap ('book' price of 30K isk)

My usual setup is
H: Nos
H: Nos or Gatling laser w. multifreq crystal (to try and pop small drones)
M: MWD
M: Short-range scrambler
L: Nano structure
L: Nano structure...or maybe an armour repairer, if there's the slightest chance of living long enough to use it.

I don't think the Slasher has the cap to be effective tackling, but godDAMN are they fast when you slap a MWD on them! Makes those long trips much easier to take.

I've mucked around with a Condor and I'm finding I think it's suitable for disposable tackling.

It's 3, 2 ,1

So your meds are MWD and a 2 point and your low is a nanofiber.

2 points is the 2 points of warp scrambling strength. warp scramblers have 2 points. warp disruptor's 1 point

Do you think there a role for larger EW ships, such as the Caldari Scorpion battleship or are they simply too ineffective because of the speed?

Scorpions and Blackbirds have a huge place on the field.

EW is different from suicide tacklers.

Tacklers are there to stop them from running

Scorpions and Blackbirds stop enemy ships from targeting or doing any damage.

Eve come back online damn you!  :-D

There's an Electronic Warfare topic here in F13 somewhere...

Let me put it this way: Scorpions get called "primary" (everyone shoots at them first) in every fleet battle I've ever been in, if there are no BS's then it's Blackbirds that die first.  EW is extremely pivotal in fleet actions.

--Dave

Thanks.

I haven't gotten a clear grasp on all the terms yet, so I somehow had the impression tackling was a name for all things EW/anti-speed/anti-warp. Nice to know that EW is important in fleet action though. Makes me think I'd bring a Blackbird though - those I can afford to get blown up :-P.

Something I learned while helping people test builds against my Ferox - Try to orbit your target on a perpendicular axis. If you're orbiting parallel to a ship, your transverse velocity drops to crap for half of each revolution.

It gets you killed.

EDIT: Also, getting that MWD OFF at the right time is KEY. In practice, I nearly popped an inty with a Single volley when the pilot put the MWD on for a moment.

Vigil 4 lyfe.  It's the poor man's 'ceptor.

Same here (different fitting though since I still cant use MWD yet), its a little fragile on the approach (so you need to tack in to the target) but with a 1mn ab on it you can get about 800m/s out of the thing which I think it pretty good for a T1 frigate that costs peanuts

I've actually used a Kestrel for tackling, not particularly fast (my fit is so tight I can only get a civ ab on it) but with a 400mm plate in one of the lows (yes you did read that correctly) its got the armour of a cruiser (you can almost see the 'wtf!' expression on your targets face when they get through your shields :-D)

hahha funny thing is I can't use MWDs yet either so yeah 1MN AB for me as well...

What is nice is the native boosts Navigation gives and since you need Nav IV for MWDs you get quite a bit of speed.

Plus Navigation doesn't have many helper skills but you should get Acceleration Control and Fuel Conservation.

They definitely add mileage to your cap usage as well as extra speed.

I can leave my AB on for my Condor and not drop below 85% Cap. Decently nice.  :-D

The shitty thing about Fuel Conservation is it doesn't work with MWDs :(

That's why High Speed Maneuvering 4 is kind of a must, if you don't want your cap disappearing by the time you go through the 50km to your target :)

Sooo... the EVE site is down and I am busy procrastinating at work. Was revisiting this tackling thread and wondering how this fitting might work with a Rifter:

HIGH-SLOTS :
- [   8 |   15] Small 'Knave' I Energy Drain
- [   8 |   15] Small 'Knave' I Energy Drain
- [   4 |   10] 'Malkuth' Rocket Launcher I
- [   4 |   10] 'Malkuth' Rocket Launcher I

MED-SLOTS :
- [  15 |   25] 1MN MicroWarpdrive I
- [   1 |   25] J5b Phased Prototype Warp Inhibitor I
- [   1 |   21] X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator

LOW-SLOTS :
- [   0 |    0] Nanofiber Internal Structure I
- [   0 |    0] Nanofiber Internal Structure I
- [   5 |    4] Small I-a Polarized Armor Regenerator

This fitting might be a little tight, but opinions? Rockets vs missles? (since I am a missle guy, guns are not the best for me).

Procastinating at uni and I'm thinking it'd be good but maybe too many named modules to be a disposable tackler otherwise it seems great.

My merlin is only 1.6km/s even with a MWD >.<

So, I could perhaps drop one of the launchers and fit some non-named modules. Who expects me to do damage anyway? Is there anything I could fit in the hi slots which would increase my durability or my peskiness?

maybe do another energy drain instead of rocket launcher?

A rocket or two isn't going to make much of a difference against anything bigger than a frigate. Maybe do a smart bomb? That'd help on the target and if they launched any drones.

You might also see if that setup will hold two scramblers instead of a scrambler and a webber. With targets like we had last night (Raven) we don't need to web them - they are slow enough. But we need to make damn sure we have enough scramblers on them.

I like the smart bomb idea. Another option might be a remote armor repairer or the like- help keep the primary target alive while you tackle. Those have very limited ranges though, so that might not work.

 I like that smart bomb idea too... What can you tell me about those? Are they passive or active? What skills do you need? I am stuck at work so I can't look it up...

Can you really fit all of that on a rifter without a mapc? Impressive o_o

Anyway, drop all the named stuff. I guess you've heard the manta "Don't fly, what you can't afford to lose". When tackling this evolves into "You're dead. Fly cheap shit". The only thing I'd really recommend getting a named/tech 2 version of would be the MWD. The other stuff really depends on the current gang you're with - would they need any sort of damage from you (go 1 nos 3 guns, 2 nos 2 guns, or 4 nos), how many points are there in the gang and what are you hunting (should you go 2/1, 2/2, 1/web, 2/web), is there a "tanked" tackler (something that would survive tackling a missile boat. They fucking hurt :P).

Just want to stress - when you're flying a tackler, you're already dead. So better cut your loses and don't fly too expensive fittings if you can't afford losing them.

Yes you can, and Rifters are fast little shits, which is why I love minne frigs so much. (And may trade-in my Wolf for a Jag now that it's got even more med slots... love those e-toys.)

What's been said about non-named modules, and another scram instead of the web are about all I was going to add.  Except: if you're fitting webbers, use the Langour ones.. they drop plenty regularly off of the Angels, so even though it's a named module, you're not going to be SOL when you get asploded.

You have to active them and they do take a bit of cap - but if you have 1 or 2 nos' on, it should take care of that. Not sure what skills you need, I'd have to check in-game.

Here you go:

1: Science I (41 minutes, 40 seconds)
2: Science II (3 hours, 14 minutes, 10 seconds)
3: Engineering I (41 minutes, 40 seconds)
4: Engineering II (3 hours, 14 minutes, 10 seconds)
5: Energy Pulse Weapons I (1 hour, 23 minutes, 20 seconds)

5 skills

So, I can have Dwindlehop study and take my tests for me? Cool!!

Seriously, thanks. I will check that out when I get a chance to hop out this 34th floor window.

I'm a bit lost here. Why would you want to fit a Smart Bomb on a tackler?

For fun? I donno, because you have high slots that you need to put something in?  :-P

Are there any compelling reasons not to?

Why fit any kind of weapon on a tackler when you could fit another nos or something useful to its role? A properly fitted tackler won't, and shouldn't, be doing damage.

What about if I wanna bullseye womp rats like in my T-16 back home? They're not much bigger than two meters.

Good for flushing out drones.

I'd seriously reconsider being a tackler if I were you. Do it EARLY!

Fucking hell lost two taranises tonight. One was a one shot kill. Here I am, fleet pimped. Sitting at 300 Shields, 1000 Armor and 700 Hull, tackling a tempest in the middle of the enemy fleet, mwd turned off, got 4 points on him, orbiting. Life is good. Hard part is over. I lived. And a fucking raven had to spoil it with the fucking imba javelin torpedos. One volley. One second I'm sitting at full health, the next I'm in a pod going "WTF WAS THAT SHIT?".

Man this game is bad for me. I should go play WoW on a PVE server or something.

Pretty fucking stupid that Torps can hit a frigate for mroe than, I dunno, 50.

Yeah, that's stupid. His torps did an avarage of 340 dmg each. Not considering any resists on my part (like 60 Expl for the shields).

I'd like to think that I learn something new with every tackler I lose. The thing is this time the ship was perfectly fit for this situation and the execution was as close to perfect as one can manage. What did I learn? That there's fuck all I can do against this particular raven (and I don't even want to THINK about the time I'm gonna go up against a Precision Cruise'd command ship). You just die. I've never been so close to posting a whine thread on an official msg board.

Well off to bed with me I have to re-think this whole tackling thing.

Yipes, and that was your pep talk?!!

Give me a break, if you are tackling you expect to die - period. Remember, the goal of tackling is to live long enough so *someone else* can take out your target ship. If your goal was to live through the engagement then you should probably be flying a BC or bigger.

This is why you fly with cheap frigates with cheap modules.

Let me quote myself from above:


I don't whine that I died. I whine that I didn't live for... I don't know... more than 1 second? When I'm fit specifically to counter what killed me? If I lived through that one volley, the tempest would've been dead and I would've warped away to live and tackle another day. That's all I'm asking for - to not be one shot killed.

So Precision Cruise and Heavy were nerfed, but Precision Torp is still pwnage?

I'm tackling currently in a merlin, what it lacks in speed it makes up in actually having slots and powergrid to fit enough to double as a pve rat ship.  but yeh it seems like if you are worrying too much about speccing for tackling you aren't getting it.  Fit a scrambler and/or web, plenty of speed boosts and an AB/MWD.  thats about it, or gonna get mooked, so instead of buying pro modules, buy spare ships and make sure you have the insta's to get back to the fleet quickly for the next engagement.

One thing I'm still not gettting: Why do you have to turn off your mwd right away when you come into the battle area? Is it because you have a bigger signature that way? Or is it your ability to turn that's compromised? The transilvanian vector? what?

It's the Sig modifier. I sparred with someone before, and they came up to me with their MWD on for a split-second.

My heavy volley did full damage, on a frigate.

gocha, thanks

Two kinds of tacklers really, the lighter 1st wave tackler, and the heavier 2nd wave tackler.

The 1st wave tackler typically consists of frigates that fly REALLY fast with MWD. 'ceptors, rifters, merlin etc. These ones blow up just as fast as they move so takes a lot of practice to fly one for any amount of time without blowing into little pieces. The whole aim for these 1st wave tacklers is to hold down your target long enough for the 2nd wave tackler to come and take over. Since the tackling interceptors and rifters dont usually have a tank (some do) speed keeps you alive, but because you need speed I would personally suggest using a 20km scram, scramming from 19km (so you got 1km to move out of if you get heavy nossed and scrammed by a BS) since at 7.5km you risk of being given the typical love interceptors get : drones, web, scram and nos. Lost too many crows to that. Some T1 frigs dont have the cap to sustain a 20km, but those are cheap and affordable so 7.5km works. Doubtful that a BS would be able to pod you so the only cost would be under 500k in a cheap rifter.

2nd wave tacklers are usually the heavier stuff that can take the beating a 1st wave cant. Vengeance AF, Stabber, Rupture, Vagabond, etc. A BS *can* be a 2nd wave tackler, but thats hoping the interceptor is still alive long enough for the BS to lock. In some engagements (if target has drones and large nos), the inty wouldve already ran off by the time the BS gets a lock. The Vengeance AF is an underated AF, because it 'hits like a wet noodle and sucks', except you can put a pretty strong tank and tackle decently, AB, web, scram, but people that complain the Vengeance is totally crap are typically the kind of people that put heatsink II's on their Crusader and complain about cap problems. Stabber's a good one, since its fairly cheap, easier to fly and still fast. Minmatar tend to get fast(er) locking speed so rupture and/or stabber with MWD do the job well too. By the time the 2nd wave tackler gets the lock and adds points, the inty (if he has drones on him) would either warp off or get out of enemy lock range to take the heat off him before returning and adding more points. By then, the main gank force should've arrived and the target is wtfBBQ'ed.

In theory anyways. In practice the 1st wave guys either get popped fairly quickly if they arent careful, or the target has stabs and runs off. 7.5km scram might solve that, but I tend to prefer the 20km disruptor.

MWD adds a larger sig radii. T1 adds 500% to your sig radii, T2 adds 550%, and gistii adds 661%.

A Crow (25m) with a T2 (+550%) moving at 0 m/s is essentially an immobile Thorax, so if you shoot it with anything big, it gets insta-popped. The only thing that saves a frigate in that case, would be its speed, so the inty with MWD, would be something like a Thorax moving at 4,000 m/s (or faster). If you are under the enemy guns, then you are unhittable.... if the has web... well, you blow up :S

Against missiles, so long as your velocity is higher than the missile's explosion velocity, you wont be getting hit by any amount of significant damage.

While MWD is useful, its a double-edged sword, and to really benefit from it, you really have to use manual flight. Auto-orbit is useful, but it can get you killed when you're on your attack run to tackle. Say the target is 30-40km away, you'd hit your MWD to fly at 4,000m/s to get there quick, and you click "orbit at 15km", problem with that is that because of your high-speed, you're going to overshoot by at least 3-5km and your interceptor will auto-correct... but that means doing a full 180 degrees turn to back into the orbit. Doing a full 180 degrees in an interceptor makes you like an immobile thorax : get hit by heavy missiles, and you get insta-popped, its also one of those "dont do" things in an inty when you got something big shooting at you - you really dont want to take full damage if you can help it. Turning MWD off just before you enter orbit should help, but you need to time it right or you're going to overshoot and not be able to get within scrambling range (this is especially important if you're trying to orbit at 19km, you'll overshoot over to 21-24km). Manual flight should stop you from over shooting till you turn off your MWD then go on auto-orbit without problems, but it takes practce.


Sorry for long winded post :S

Not at all, that was very informative. Thanks!

"Adds points"?

Adds points of warp scrambling. A 20km scrammer will give 1 point of scram, which can be defeated with 1 WCS. a 7.5km can give 2 points, which necessitates 2 WCS. Adding more than that makes it more and more likely that the target won't be able to counter and will stay scrammed.

Leon- nice to see you back. How's things in Kor-Azor?  :-D

And do you want to join a 0.0 corp that needs training in PvP?  :-D

ehehe, I'd be more than happy to help out with 'ceptors (I still dont fly anything else), but I'll have to pass on that offer for 0.0 PvPing. Been in 0.0 for a bit since BL-IN used to be set +ve to BoB until they reset all standings, but I never liked 0.0 warfare really.... just isnt fun like hi-sec piracy. And logistics in 0.0 is le sux.

What are you training now then Leon?

I'd imagine that most if not all of your Inty skills are trained

Actually how does one get pvp experience for intys without using one?

I'll be going for a crow soonish but I don't want to jump in without almost no combat experience beside warping out docking and safespotting.

Is there any point mucking around with a condor in cheap T1 setups to get a feel for combat with a Crow?

Should I wait for T2 missiles and rockets before I use my Crow?

How do I get pvp experience? Low-sec? 0.0? leave F13 for a pvp corp for a while?

Thanks for the links to your guides btw Leon  :-D

As an inty, to mitigate missile damage all you need to do is go really fucking fast.  I was shooting an inty today with much faster cruise missiles for 0.0 damage a volley 'cos the bugger was going so fast.  Your sig radius here isn't as important as going super fast - I think if you kept the MWD on you'd have lived (assuming you had the cap to run it w/ the tackling mods).

I particpaited in my first -V- fleet op today. I was the stabber who the fleet commander ordered to check the gates first (gee thanks).

Anyways, we were trying to camp the Nrael gate as you do, and then later one of the stations in empire 1 jump in, and I had a problem. By the time the red showed up, he'd left before I could target him to web and scrabel him.

How can I improve my targeting time on a stabber that only has 3 mid slots?

Currently training Small projectile 4. I finally got Interceptors V about a few weeks back so I've been training for a Vagabond... I hear its an interceptor on crack :D Other then that, I have rocket spec 4, std missile 3 (need that to 4), bombardment 4, projection 4, rapid launch 4, navigation 5, accel control 4 etc. There are still some skills to get to make them even better, but at the moment, I decided to train a little in minmatar ships - always wanted to fly a Cyclone. So once im done with a few more skills, going to go back to working on those 8-21day missile skills to V.



Hmm, without using one, it'd be near impossible. I started playing EVE seriously in early september and I was in an interceptor by October since I rushed to get it. I used to fly it solo for pirating and losing a LOT of crows in the process, then switched to Harpy for a while. I think it was only when BL-IN blew up several of my harpies during the ITEMP/BI war (where I was on the ITEMP side) that I switched to interceptors because they were more verstile. I guess it isnt answering your question too well, but I'm not sure you could really get PvP experience for inties without flying one.... although I think flying a rifter, condor or an executioner to tackle would make a good learning experience, but of course, nothing like the real thing.



Short answer, would be 'no'. I've seen a lot of people that went "whine whine whine, I dont want to PvP because I dont have t2 guns on my crusader". Its an unfortunate thing that people are obsessed with t2 gear on their ships -just- so they can use it to PvP. T2 gear is awesome and excellent equipment, sure, but it should not be an inhibitor to PvP. If you want to PvP and use a crow at the same time, then it shouldnt really matter. OE-5200 rocket launchers and TE-2100 light missile launchers are fairly cheap and are a good value for the money. So in the end, if you're willing to invest money and are seriously wanting to learn on inty flying, then I'd say use named T1 gear and use that to practice. No point spending money like crazy just so you can lose it if you've never had previous training. Rather lose 15mil then 25mil eh?



Well, low pirating kinda works. But that really a "kinda sorta not really" affaire. I mean, it works if you are serious about low sec piracy and are willing to invest time to pirate in low sec. In my case, ironically, I stopped pirating then I joined BL-IN, but thats a whole different thing altogether. I used to be in ITEMP, an anti-pirate / mission running-manufacturing corp that war decced BL-IN when they came over to Khanid. After a full month and a bit of war, I got sick of my corp constantly docking or trying to use blob tactics then bitching that I was losing ships to BL-IN because I would undock and go fight solo, so I defected after the war ended so I could learn more PvP from being in BL-IN. That was only a week or so before the F13/BI war I believe.

In any case, low sec PvP works, but it tends to be "gank the NPCer". I'm primarily a dogfighter/recon pilot, and chances of me seeing another inty or frig to engage in low sec is closer to null. 0.0 is nice if you got access, but I like I said in the previous post, I never really enjoyed it. It was kinda fun while it lasted, but it lost flavor when I helped BoB bust an IMP camp in 1-SMEB and lost my Harpy to 3 HACs, 1 inty and 2 BSes when I went first to do some recon. Sure, I was in the wrong ship, but ever since it kinda lost its flavor because 0.0 just felt like gank, counter-gank, counter-counter blob-gank. I prefer small skirmish tactics so I prefer high sec warfare. You *could* leave F13 for a PvP corp for a while if you are really really serious about PvPing.... but thats a double edged sword. That kind of what I did, but I was on not too hot terms with ITEMP, mostly because it couldnt offer me the PvP I wanted and I was getting frustrated and felt like I was getting held back. I knew some of the guys from 2 years ago since WoW and other games, but out of the 4 officers (who all knew each other, including me) 3 left. I left for BL-IN, the other 2 left for an 0.0 corp Adeptus Gattacus in Kaos (till it collapsed, then they applied to BI). I personally think it was the best decision I made in EVE, I really love being in BI, but if you are on really good terms with your friends in the same corp, dunno. Thats not something I could really help you out with. But be warned though, although you might say "temporarily leave corp X for PvP corp Y", if you start having a lot of fun, then you wont turn back. So that's going to be a long term thing to consider, as while you will learn a lot within a few months, its really addictive at the same time.



Well, thats the thankless task of forward recon. I personally love that job because you realize, that the ENTIRE fleet will either function and go to battle, or go somewhere depending on whether you say "clear" or "contact, hostiles X, Y, Z". The entire fleet depends on you to act as its eyes and ears for it to function. Without a forward recon, the fleet will just be an unorganized shamble :)

Several ways to increase targetting speed. In-game, targetting speed = scan resolution. High the better, of course. Interceptors are naturally the highest. To increase it though, you can train the Signal Analysis skill. Each level will add 5% to your scan resolution for faster lock time. And of course, you could also use a sensor booster to increase scan resolution by 60% or so.

Problem with gate camping, is that most cruisers (especially frigates) are able to warp off before you lock them. My interceptor uses a 20km scram with a sensor boost (long range setup) so i can catch just about anything, but for a cruiser with sensor boost.... tricky tricky. You could catch cruisers, but definately not frigates.


Hope that answered some of your questions :)

That answers a crap load of questions Leon thanks muchly for all your advice from your experiences.

Really clears up what I want and some paths to get PVP.

Zero sec really does seem like blob and counter blob.

How do empire piracy war decs work?

How often do corps just hide in stations like F13?  :-D

but yeah thanks a lot Leon!

I'll stick to ratting in 0.0 to feed my inty habit, so many damn skills though >.<

The way it works is basically, we look for a place to settle or clean out. In the case of Khanid, we 'owned' the area - meaning corps paid us protection money. Those that didnt got a wardec. Be it miners that believe they are exempt from this, or anti-pirate PvP corps that want us removed, we fight wars and offer peace terms through X million isk per week or other favorable deals (like battleships at cost from Xentech). Some corps dont fight back and just dock and smack from the stations, but when they do try and mount a resistance, those corps tend to get crushed badly and lose a lot more morale, typically losing members or the corp falling apart. Think an example would be our war against Appaloin Vanguard. APPAL had interfered with one of our previous wars against IEEX by interfering and costing us 2 cruisers vs 6 battleships and a carrier, so we decided to war dec them. After some fighting and much smacking from them (and refusal to pay compensation for cruisers lost) i think we did about 1.6 billion in damages and they lost about 13 or so members.

Its not 'nice', sure, but its one of those things that happens everywhere, and probably one of the more efficient ways to make money by PvPing. No sec loss by engaging war targets, and a surrender payment of 500mil beats the measily few mil you might get by ganking an NPCing cruiser. Sometimes these wars can be REALLY boring if people just stay endless docked and smack from inside the station, then come and try to gank your lone interceptor with x4 battleships, but meh, it happens. The fun wars are when people fight back and show spirit in wanting to learn. I think thats why I found the F13/BGO war enjoyable - its become even though sometimes we (BL-IN) got horribly outnumbered during our graveyard shift, people fought back and made for some fun battles. Hehe, that 4 hour long 1 vs 10 is still one of my most memorable fights, and one I enjoyed a lot as well as learnt a lot from.

When people undock to fight, even if they are new to the game in effort to learn the ropes of PvP, its always a good step in the right direction instead of being told by their director to stay docked and never engage the ebil pirates and hope they get bored and leave (which is one of the worse advices to give at all, because if you stay perpetually docked, you arent going to learn how to defend yourself). Or even worse, is when I see people fight back, but the moment the odds arent in their favor (ie I call for BS fire-support) their more experienced members warp off and leave the poor young pilots to fight to the death while they run away to save their expensive T2 ships - its kinda depressing to see that, only thing it does is make the younger members bitter.

Well I was in a failry big fleet op last night, in which I fired a total of 6 missles that got hits, and had my armour down to zero as I warped out at one stage.

The problem was this: The enemy had a cloaked ship 200km out. They would warp 5-10 battleships out there, fire a few torpedos, and once anyone got within 50km, warp out.  Repeat about 10 times.  I can't really blame there because the one time they did come in close, they lost a few battleships.

The time I lose all armour is when I *did* manage to get witin 100km, I became the primary target and ouch that hurt. Glad I was in a cruiser. Quote of the battle: Fleet Commander "Frigates, get to the enemy, get there now". 10 minutes later..."Frigates get to the enemy...wait, where are all our frigates?" (They'd been blown up 10 minutes eialer!).


How to tackle that? Get an Inty I supose? (And thanks for the good advice too!).

I think you would want to try to get a bm at their spot, if possible. I've played around a lot in a light frigate to see if I can get bookmarks near ships I know are far away from a gate or planet or whatever. It takes time, but in 10 minutes you might have a good spot for your BSs and Cruisers and tacklers to warp to.

Read it again.  They had a covert-ops ship who was setting their warp-in points.   Soon as they started warping-in he was - in all likelihood- moving towards the next warp-in area.  I was part of the same camp for about an hour and a half (before I realized that a Cyc is useless vs a sniper group like this if it's not running leadership mods) and they never came in the same position twice. 

They didn't even do something predictable like High, Low, Right, Left, High.. It was high Low low right, high left, left, behind, low right, high and behind.   Honestly, the most frustrating part was they all had Jammers and lots of WCS.  The few times we /did/ get intys & cruisers into taclking range, the BSs and even the cruisers were able to warp despite having 2-4 scrams on them.

Question:

Do scanners still pick up cloaked ships?

Ah ok I thought they had a cov ops to get them into place, but I didn't realize he had hung around the whole time. Hard to combat something like that without your own fleet of snipers.

No. I've used this fact to wait out bored pirates in a safespot before while in my indy. Slap on a cheap 10m cloaking device I, warp to a moderately decent safespot, cloak and go read F13.

Call it patience or lameness, it's saved me a dozen mil or more so far.

If you want that ultimate tackler, train for Interdictors.  If you get through, you can pin down not just a ship or two, but an entire fleet blob.  Your odds of survival or very poor, and in a real fleet op you'll need a cloak just to live long enough to get a run at your banzai charge, but there have been many battles where an interdictor pinned down fleets long enough for dozens of kills (something that normally just doesn't happen).  And every time more than 1 capital ship has been taken down in the same engagement, it's been because of an interdictor.

--Dave (2 days, 17 hours, 43 minutes, 21 seconds to Destroyers 5)

Please 'splain what Interdictors do. By reading the ship description they simply say they "breach warp tunnels"... does this mean pull ships out of warp? What does that mean and how do they do that?

Ever hear about a bubble gate camp? If not you will when you begin hanging in 0.0.

There are things referred to as "Warp Bubbles", they are "Mobile Warp Disruptors" that come in 3 sizes.  Anyone warping towards one of these with a destination within 100km of the bubble and a course that intersects it will get stopped at the edge of the bubble, and you can't warp while inside one (you can use MWD's).  Small bubbles (5km radius) are generally anchored directly on a major warp path like between stargates or a stargate and a station (near one end or the other).  Mediums (15km radius) are used similarly, or in groups of 4 or more to completely "bubble up" the vicinity of a gate or the undocking lane of a station.  Large bubbles (45 km radius) can completely enclose a typical 0.0 station or a stargate (but are too big to carry in the cargo hold of a combat ship without expanders and require Anchoring 4 to activate, so are rarely used).  Small bubbles cost 5-8M, medium and large roughly 15M, and you frequently wind up abandoning them.  They can only be deployed in 0.3 or lower systems.

Interdictors can fit a "Interdiction Sphere Launcher" in their high slots that launches a "Warp Disruption Probe", which creates a 20km warp bubble.  This has a couple of unique properties: No anchoring time (the regular bubbles have anchoring times ranging from 1 to 4 minutes), and the bubble not only prevents warping, but you cannot get a target lock while you're inside one (but someone outside can lock you).  Having one of these appear around your fleet (or gating into one) is pretty much a recipe for total pwnage.

As a result, in fleet actions Interdictors tend to be *the* highest priority target when they are present.

--Dave

Thanks, that explains a great deal.

They actually changed that ; interdictor bubbles now only work in 0.0, which is why you hardly ever ever see one in empire space. I fought one with a interceptor wingman in empire (without the bubble) and they make nasty frig killers. In 0.0 they are definately the ultimate tackler, but in empire/low-sec, you'll still need to rely on interceptors and fast T1 frigs.