Turn up the heat

"Turn on, turn on the ignition
Everybody
 Come on, come on and turn on the ignition" 

-- (Ignition, tobyMac) 

As many pilots will tell you, "unlocking" the ability to overheat your modules by training for Thermodynamics is probably the best bang for your buck you can get in terms of the training time. I agree - overheating often makes or breaks a fight.

Now, how to use it? Simple, one can either:

A) Right click on the module (or group of guns/launchers) you want to overheat and toggle heat on
B) Click the little green border on the top of the module (or group of guns/launchers) you want to overheat
C) Bind overheating to a hotkey and using that

Of course, one can simply overheat the entire rack, but often this is detrimental - you normally only want to overheat a few modules at a time as the fight progresses. By overheating more modules, you generate more heat which spills over to adjacent modules (found in the fitting window), eventually causing them to burn out - even passive modules.

Now, as for when to overheat and when not to overheat, I have a few rules:

#1 - Always, always overheat anything useful in a frigate fight straight off the bat.

Why? Frigate fights often last less than one minute which is generally when modules tend to burn out. 

#2 - When warping in to tackle something, have your Warp Scrambler/Disruptor pre-heated AS WELL AS your propulsion mod.

Why? Quite often, you land just outside your tackle range and you have to burn into tackle range.

#3 - When attempting to gank someone and get out before his gang lands, overheat offensive modules and get ready to run.

Pretty self explanatory, you need to do the maximum amount of damage in the least amount of time.

#4 - When attempting to break an active tank, overheat any energy neutralizers you have rather than the guns.

Why? Most of the time, an active tanked ship is capable of tanking another ship of the same ship class as long as it has capacitor. By overheating the neutralizers, you are able to disrupt their capacitor. Once you see their tank starting to drop, stop heating your neutralizers and start heating your guns.  

There are other things to consider with overheating. For example, the way you fit your modules makes a noticeable different to how long you can overheat your modules. Remember, heat from an overheated module spreads to adjacent modules and "wraps" around the rack, ie. an overheated weapon in high slot 1 damages whatever module is in high slot 8.

Complicating this matter however is module hp. Each module can absorb a different amount of heat damage. Typically in my experience, passive modules can absorb more heat damage than active modules.

So, as an example I played around with my standard AC Shield Hurricane fit in EFT to show the differences in heat management by playing around with module placement.

AC Hurricane with Optimal Module Placement:

AC Hurricane with Non-Optimal Module Placement:

So, what's the difference? Well, with the optimal module setup, you can overheat the MWD for an extra 5 seconds, whilst at the same time overheat the Warp Disruptor for an extra 10 seconds - that's two extra cycles. The guns can be overheated for another cycle as well.


Well, that might not seem like much to you, but there are fights where every advantage counts! For example, today my Hawk popped with the Dramiel in half structure - not bad when he had to call in his friend in an Ishkur to assist!

The results are even more dramatic with active armor tanks - you can overheat the Hardeners for ages, but the actual Armor Repairers burn out fast so optimal placement is a godsend.

Next time we visit the seedy underbelly of New Eden and delve into the world of narcotics.

P.S. I haven't forgotten about trying to show examples of manual piloting, however there are fairly few videos out there that really show it off. I suggest watching Drake 3.0 by Endless Subversion if you're interested in this, as it contains a large amount of manual kiting/piloting as he flies a 100MN AB Tengu against large gangs.

Moving the Right Way

"Move and show me what you can do
When you step into the circle and shake like we do
Move when you just can't take it
 And move if you just feel like breaking it"

-- (Move, Thousand Foot Klutch) 

Controlling the movement of your ship is critical in Eve for successful combat, from frigates to supercapitals. First of all however, I will state the most important lesson to be learnt:

If in combat, you rely on the orbit button, you are doing it WRONG!

Now that I've got that out of the way, here's the right way of doing it:

Manual piloting is the best way of flying your ship, ie. double clicking in space to where you want to go.

In addition, in most situations, orbiting is simply the wrong thing to do. I see this all the time - blaster boats that orbit @ 500m then complain about Blasters being "useless" since they can't track. If you want to maximize your outgoing DPS, use keep at range instead. If you want to minimise incoming DPS, use a tight orbit (against turrets, with missiles you want to have a wider orbit to achieve maximum speed or alternate between approaching and pulling away whilst staying in your optimal).

An excellent example of the wrong use of orbit is in an ex-Tusker's PvP video - Anxiir's Highly Addictive video. Fast forward to Anxiir's Cruor vs Hawk fight. Anxiir's Cruor has a 90% web fitted and dual neuts, meaning that the Hawk is moving very, very slowly (I seem to recall <50m/s). However, Anxiir is unable to track him and thus dies without actually landing a single shot, despite being in his optimal the entire fight! Why? Well, his Cruor has Conflagration loaded (close range T2 ammo so tracking penalty), which isn't helping, however he foolishly decides to orbit at 500m - this has the double effect of being hit harder with the Hawk's rockets than he should have (he wasn't able to get up to top speed) and of increasing the Hawk's transversal massively, even with him webbed down to a very low speed!

Now, let's look at some scenarios:

1) You're in a frigate who landed on top off an armor Battlecruiser and are then webbed. Using "Orbit @ 500m" will see you die - the medium guns on the enemy BC will be able to track you without a problem. However, by using manual piloting to maintain as tight an orbit as possible, the BC will still not be able to track you.

2) You're in an Interceptor and need to keep a Zealot (long) tackled until your Rapier can get webs on him. By using orbit, you leave yourself open to him "juking" you off his tail, or worse still - him coming to a complete stop and then blasting off in another direction with an overheated MWD which will result in him achieving fantastic shots against you. By manually piloting, you can stay on his tail whilst maximizing your transversal through keeping your course at least 15 degrees from his (with you being faster, this is possible). If he tries to pull away with a sudden manoveur, you're already ready to get back on his tail and should be able to survive.

3) You're in an Shield BC fighting 2 Armor BCs. Using orbit at 20km, they can easily spread out so that they are 15-20km apart and thus you will inevitably run into overheated web/scrambler range of the one you are not orbiting. This seems to happen frequently with people I fight and is so easy to work around.

These are just a few choice scenarios and I haven't even touched all the benefits of manual piloting rather than relying on orbiting, such as keeping point on an enemy whilst still staying aligned so you can warp off/burn off if another enemy lands.

Until next time, fly dangerous.

Location, Location, Location

There are many factors affecting the "quality" of your PvP. Some of them are pretty obvious, such as skillpoints, whilst others such as your choice of corporation are less so. Another fairly interesting point is where you are based at (currently).

For example, most PvPers advocate settling down in a region so that you learn the locals - who likes to play station games, who likes to whip out Carriers and Falcons when they are losing etc. so that you get used to their antics and can just adjust your playstyle accordingly, knowing who to engage and steer clear of.. However, they fail to realise that the reverse is true - the longer you stay in a region, the more the locals get to know about you and they will also adapt in return.

Case in point, the Tuskers are based in Hevrice, in Gallente low sec. We've been here for over 2 years and every local knows of us. Whilst in some ways this is helpful - most gangs will come to Hevrice for fights, knowing that we do not enjoy docking games, use ECM or Carrier support, in other ways this is unhelpful - our reputation as good PvPers means that some gangs turn and run when we approach. When asked why, we're often told that 1 Tusker = 2 "normal" PvPers. This makes us proud (understandably) but also sad at the same timesince we're all about the good fights and we just missed one. :(

At the same time however, they may reship specifically for us. It's no secret that most of our gangs are Shield BCs and thus Recons in particular are a serious threat. Saying that, even they do not guarantee success, even when they also have sentry guns as well as more numbers on their side, as shown here.

This extends even to individual players. I'm fairly well known in the Gallente low sec area and increasingly I've found it harder to get 1v1s or even 1v2s. Whilst I'm not complaining (more people coming to kill me means more potential kills for me!), this does mean I am increasingly having to withdraw from fights or call in corpmates to help me (1 Shield Hurricane vs Arazu/Hurricane/Hurricane/Hurricane/Hurricane/Falcon/Rapier is not something I can deal with unfortunately). Molden Heath was a perfect example of that - when I visited there the first time in February, I got into a ton of fights over a two week period. When I came back in May with the rest of the Tuskers, we didn't get nearly as many since people had learnt to recognise me, most of the local PvPers only coming out when they had a trap ready (which is fine for me). If not, they would stay docked or run away (not fine for me).

Of course, the actual selection of the Region, and indeed the system is crucial. Many PvP and pirate outfits live in PvP "hotspots". Whilst this makes sense at some level (PvP on "demand" when you undock), in reality it actually often leads to reduced kills since most members of the corporation will just stay in their home system and not roam, reasoning that "If I roam, I'll miss out on an epic kill in Amamake with the rest of the guys!".

In fact, there are some alliances out there that have almost perpetual gatecamps set up, who run at the first sign of an enemy gang - P I R A T E S I'm looking at you. Check out their killboard then compare it to The Tuskers. They have more members (174 vs 81), but we happen to have significantly more kills than them. Why? We roam since Hevrice itself is not that exciting - however we do have excellent PvP opportunities nearby - the German pirate blue train in Ouelletta, Old Man Star, Gallente militia in Old Man Star, Caldari militia in Enaluri etc.

As for the Region, it really varies region to region. As a rule of thumb, I find faction warfare space has more PvP, but the gangs are typically larger than the rest of low sec. Saying that, faction warfare space is choked full of T1 Battlecruisers and Frigates, whereas the rest of low sec tends to fly more "pimped" ships such as Faction Battleships since there are smaller gangs out and about. A system based in Faction Warfare space, but with easy access to non-FW space would be ideal personally, or the other way around.

Null sec has not been mentioned here since I have never lived in 0.0, although I have roamed into it a fair few times. I would suggest sticking to living in low sec with easy access to 0.0 if you do want to PvP in 0.0, the logistics in low sec is far easier and you can quickly pop into 0.0 if you wish to. NPC 0.0 tends to have smaller gangs than Sov 0.0, but again it really varies on a case by a case basis. I found Great Wildlands to be much better for solo PvPers than Syndicate, which has more lame Dramiel/Falcon/Sabre gatecamps in it.

Final word on location - don't live in the ass end of nowhere such as in Aridia - find a decent spot where you can hit 4-5 "hotspots" within 10j. This will allow for easy roaming and might encourage gangs to divert towards you. Before you know it, you could be forming your own "hotspot", as is the case with Hevrice now.

Fly dangerous.

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I'm going to be busy for the next few days, so here's something to tide you over until I get back - a Battle Report from a few days ago.