Warfare & Tactics

Do you understand transversal / angular velocity? If not, that's the next thing to look up.

In general the proper way to move depends on what you are in and what the opposition is in, so this is not a trivial question to answer.

I'd recommend taking the Agony Unleashed BASIC class for starters, then move up thru the different classes. Great resource, there... http://www.agony-unleashed.com

The answers to your questions lie in tracking, angular velocity and range. Do some google research on those topics.

To start, watch this video: http://www.evealtruist.com/2011/12/video-tracking-and-spiralling.html - I also recommend taking the agony unleashed classes as they actually teach you what is demonstrated in the video. They are worth the isk and are also a heck of a lot of fun

Basically, the faster you are going and the closer you are to your oppenent the higher your angular velocity can potentially be... other than speed and distance, generating angular velocity relies on you moving at an angle to your opponent. Usually this is done by hitting orbit, but you can do so manually (for eg: see the above video)

Generally, as to what to do when you are fighting - if your ship is smaller than your opponents, you want to maintain high angular velocity. This is because your small guns will still track the opponent and his larger guns will be unable to track you. Try it out - get in a rifter and orbit a friend flying a bigger ship (say a hurricane) at 500m. When you have established your orbit ask your friend to try shoot you and see what happens.

Of course, this tactic becomes complicated by things like neuts and webs, but thats something you will find out on your own

If your ship is larger than your opponents you will usually want to minimise angular velocity so that you can wipe your opponent out with the high firepower of your larger guns. To do this, fly off in one direction directly away from your opponent. This can be achieved by aligning to a celestial, double clicking randomly in space or using the keep at range button. The further away the opponent is or the less his speed is, the less potential he has for generating angular velocity.

This can get a lot more complicated depending upon what you are flying and what your opponent is flying, what gun sizes you are using, what ammo you are using and a bunch of other factors. One thing to point out is that tracking has no effect upon missiles / rockets / thoseflyingthings - when you are fighting a missile boat, you want to minimise your signature radius (in advance) and keep your speed as high as possible,regardless of angular velocity.

Get out there and start shooting people and spend your spare time reading. You will soon find all the above out. Good luck!

Thanks guys you have been a big help.

A great first step is to understand how tracking works, which is what I think was linked in that article.

Basically PVP in EVE is balanced by ship size and weapon size. So big battleship guns are usually ineffective against fast frigates.

If bigger was always better, then no one would fly anything but Battleships and larger.

The game mechanics balance:

-Transversal Velocity
-Signature Radius
-Velocity

Lower sig radius (size) and higher Transversal Velocity = equal harder to hit with Turrets
Lower sig radius (size) and higher Velocity despite direction = equal less damage with missiles

If you imagine the actual guns trying to spin in circles fast enough to stay pointing at the target orbiting them, that helps.