Inevitably, for a fight to occur between two entities (gangs, solo pilots), they must both be present at the same gridspace as it were. Depending where this is, one side or the other will have an advantage. So, let's look at them:
#1 - Stargates
Probably the most common location for a fight due to stargates being chokepoints of travel, we'll be looking at these first. They have two special features about them compared to "plain" space.
Number 1, if you're in low sec, the sentry guns will open fire on anyone foolish enough to shoot someone they shouldn't within 150km of the stargate, dealing roughly 350 (omni) DPS, swapping targets at least every 30 seconds. Due to frigates generally having little tank, this means that the fleet with frigate elements in it which is hunting neutrals is at a disadvantage - their frigates are of limited use. It is for this reason one doesn't see frigates in pirate gangs often, but occasionally in FW or just neutral gangs. These sentry guns can whittle away at larger ships, forcing them off the field.
Number 2, this one applies to all security space - stargates allow a relatively "safe" avenue of retreat. If your gang is getting beaten badly, you can immediately start deaggressing (often called deaggroing) by turning off all offensive modules, calling in drones and waiting 60 seconds for your session change to run out. At the end of this time, if you are within range of the stargate (2500m), you can jump through. Thus, fights on stargates often result in significantly less casualties for the losing side.
Moving onto stations..
#2 - Stations
Simply put, from my point of view as a PvPer, stations are an absolutely horrible place to fight on. One can deaggro on them much like on stargates, except there is no possibility of hounding them on the other side since (as of yet) people are invulnerable once docked. Adding to the problem, many stations have absolutely huge docking radiuses of up to 40km, making it almost impossible to bump vulnerable ships out of docking radius before they can dock. Due to this, stationgames are common and are made worse with such lame tactics as using Orcas to scoop up ships which would otherwise be lost, using Carriers to do the same as well as provide remote reps. Whilst such despicable tactics are used on stargates as well (Heretics used to do this ridiculously often in Amamake before PL moved in), this is much less common than the amount that goes on with stations.
Oh yeah, there are station guns as well in low sec which follow the same rules as stargates - enjoy!
Next, asteroid belts...
#3 - Asteroid Belts
Ah, Asteroid Belts. Many a fight I've had in them, with them providing some fairly unique challenges. Kiting ships should be very wary here as one can easily get stuck in asteroids if using approach/orbit instead of manual flying (another reason not to use them), leaving them easy prey for cunning close range brawlers. In some very close fights, the presence of belt rats can make all the difference - some of my corpmates have won fights with only minuscule amounts of structure intact due to the fact that the resident belt rats chose to go for their targets rather than them.
And finally, deadspace..
#4 - Exploration/Faction Warfare Plexes/Mission Sites
One might think that these are mostly useless for PvPing, but in reality they can make a huge, huge difference to the outcome of any fight. All three of these types of "sites" share common features, such as the fact that they generally have acceleration gates. For those of you not in the know, these are perhaps the most amazing structures for solo vs gang situations. By warping to one of these sites at range, you can land up to 100km from the acceleration gate. Hardly amazing by itself but if someone tackles you at this range and their gang warps to them, they will always land at the acceleration gate and not next to their tackler who you can now destroy whilst their gang watches from 100km or more away, unable to provide immediate backup. Same deal if they probe you down - they will always land at the acceleration gate. Whilst this is not completely foolproof (if they figure out where you warped to 100km from, they can land ontop of you so you must burn away from where you land, preferably to somewhere not between the acceleration gate and a celestial), it is a godsend.
Oh yeah and if you use the acceleration gate, Faction Warfare (and some exploration sites) will limit the hull size of what ships are allowed in, as well as telling you exactly where they'll land, allowing you to setup at your optimal (either 0 in a brawler or at range in a kiter), ready to engage. You can also get the FW rats to help you if your standings are high enough and some of them can be truly devastating (corpmate lost a Stabber Fleet Issue to a Hookbill because the Caldari FW rats inside the plex kept him perma-jammed)
Those are the 4 main types of space which are interesting. "Normal" space - safe spots, planets etc. offer no inherent strategic example and thus won't be covered here.
Next post will be discussing Alts - Boosting Alts, Falcon Alts and simple Scouting Alts with my opinions, facts etc.
Friday, 18 November 2011
Wednesday, 26 October 2011
New Ships \o/
So, new ships coming out, blasters being rebalanced (in theory at least) as well as frigates - looks like a good time for Eve!
Azual over at The Altruist has written a blogpost about the alpha changes leaked from SiSi here. Expect another blogpost from me with my thoughts on these ships in the next few days. Until then, stay classy Eve Online.
Azual over at The Altruist has written a blogpost about the alpha changes leaked from SiSi here. Expect another blogpost from me with my thoughts on these ships in the next few days. Until then, stay classy Eve Online.
Saturday, 15 October 2011
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.
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.
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.
Friday, 30 September 2011
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.
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.
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