Can someone explain speed tanking to me....

[eldaec]

Specifically, I'm trying to work out all the love for MWDs amongst nanofags.

As far as I can tell, an MWD increases your sig radius by exactly the same proportion that it increases your speed, thereby making it no harder for you to get shot at, but five times harder for you to hit the other guy.

Whereas an AB should halve gunnery damage from a target you are orbiting, leave you way more power and cap to hit back with, and still leave you moving faster than missile explosion velocities.


What am I missing?

[Nerf]

With skills and implants your speed increases signifigantly more than your sig radius does, and projectiles don't use cap.

That and the key to HAC raping is being able to unass quickly when the shit hits the fan, turning and burning out of a bubble and into warp inside of 5 seconds is 

[MahrinSkel]

Two factors to speed tanking:

1) Outrun the enemy tracking.  Long guns track badly, and if you're fast enough you simply can't be hit if you're moving across their vector.

2) Outrun the enemy range.  If you're enough faster, you dictate whether there's a fight and when it is over.  You stay for fights you can win, run from those you can't.

Beyond that, if you've got to burn through bubbles, AB speed simply doesn't cut it.

--Dave

[Bungee]

Ahem, not to sound n00bish (what I am, kind of) but what is a "bubble"?

It's got some bad taste to it, having played WoW on Horde...

[Thrawn]

Ahem, not to sound n00bish (what I am, kind of) but what is a "bubble"?

It's got some bad taste to it, having played WoW on Horde...

I played Paly on Horde for a while, I love bubble!

A "bubble" in EvE is a large field, usually projected by a specific type of ship that prevents anyone inside of it from warping away.  They will usually be on warp gates so you just drop into them unsuspecting.  The bubble is a decent size so unless you are in a very fast ship you will usually be killed by the people using the bubble before you can get away.

[sanctuary]

Bubbles (all flavours) can't be used outside 0.0 is that right?

[bhodi]

Correct. However, heavy interdictors can still transform their mobile bubble into a focused disruption script that has infinite jam strength and can jam anything no matter how many warp core stabilizers they may have fitted. They're a favorite of empire.

[Phildo]

I was tackled by an interdictor in lowsec yesterday using the focus script.  I'll attest to their effectiveness.

[Predator Irl]

Can a HIC load a script into the disruptor ?

[lac]

devblog here

The Focused Warp Disruption ARM script can be installed only in Warp Disruption Field Generators (used by Heavy Interdictors). The ARM script focuses the Warp Disruption Field on a single ship which becomes unable to warp or jump regardless of its warp core strength. The ARM script removes the afterburner and micro warp drive speed penalty, the signature radius penalty as well as the effective agility bonus, but the module still prevents friendly remote effects. Unlike unscripted Warp Disruption Field Generators, the use of Warp Disruption Field Generators loaded with Focused Warp Disruption ARM scripts is permitted in empire space. This enables them to tackle super capitals in lowsec.

[Phildo]

Can we officially shorten speed tanking to spanking?

[ajax34i]

From my tiny experience, being attacked by one, a nano-HAC is about two things:

1.  Being able to fly (without MWD) fast enough that battleship guns can't track you if you orbit at 21 km.
2.  Being able to MWD to 140 km in 2 seconds flat, in order to break target lock and/or drive any drones out of control range (thus disabling them).

If you have a weapon system that can hit at 100+ km regardless of YOUR speed (drones with range augmentors, or missiles), that's a bonus.  Otherwise you just pick your fights, fly around at 25 km doing DPS, and disengage to 140 km if there's the slightest chance that you'll lose.  If you catch a (poorly tanked) ratting battleship with rails that can't track you and drones that you've pulled out of range, bonus.

[Gets]

Eve-o thread about Nano-HACs

[JoeTF]

Two factors to speed tanking:

1) Outrun the enemy tracking.  Long guns track badly, and if you're fast enough you simply can't be hit if you're moving across their vector.

2) Outrun the enemy range.  If you're enough faster, you dictate whether there's a fight and when it is over.  You stay for fights you can win, run from those you can't.

Beyond that, if you've got to burn through bubbles, AB speed simply doesn't cut it.

--Dave

Mostly the second one, which also explains why there are sub 6km/s nano-jokes (real nano starts from 10km/s, where you can fly blindly into 100 man gatecamp and burn out of lock range of anyone before you actually become lockable; aka. total invulnerability) are used.
When receiving damage, you simply mwd out of enemy bubble/warp disruptor range and warp out, while rest of your buddies kills the target. It's not that much about the ability to speed tank, as it is about ability to disengage at will.

[Slayerik]

Also, another reason us nano-fags love it is because at about 3.5-4km per second with MWD on, it doesn't matter how big your sig radius is....non-t2 missiles have a hard time touching you for any real damage.

Its great for raping those belt Ravens.

I had a nano deimos I loved because of what Joe is saying with the ability to disengage....its a great gang ship, I can do pretty heavy damage even with rails equipped...and be able to burn off at around 4km/s - along with Warrior IIs to take care of pesky tacklers, the only times I died were when I fucked up. My nano Deimos was top damage on my only rorqual kill (with 20 other HACs/dictors/etc) all starting damage at the same time. You are always in range while ships like ishtars are waiting for their drones to arrive, i've already salvoed a few times. Some people might hear Rail-Nano-Deimos and go huh? Noob. I freakin loved it. It just isn't a solopwnmobile like an Ish or Vaga.