EVE New Citizens Q&A

Newly into EVE and loving my initial experience the past couple of weeks. I've run through the all the training and career missions and am currently well into SoE Epic Storyline. I plan on pursuing exploration for a while after I've finished the SoE arc and am planning to use a Probe and train up into a Cheetah as soon as I can.

I just upgraded my Rifter for a Thrasher assuming that I will need attack/clearing support for my exploration (and mission running) plus the Destroyer skills overlap enough with CovOps that it seems a good cross-train.

I'm a casual player and don't have a huge amount of time to devote regularly (hence exploration, solo-type stuff), so CovOps seems a natural fit both for my current play style and what is interesting to me.

Even though I plan on doing exploration as a primary, I like the idea of specializing as CovOps for occasional PvP. Is there a roll for that in a fleet or corp? Could I employ my CovOps skills/ship and what would that look like? I can imagine scouting, espionage or similar actions, but don't know what that would look like in actual play. Can any CovOps players out there to tell me what they find fun with their sneaky ships?

In pvp, CovOps/Stealth bombers pretty much fill the obvious roles given what they're called:

1: Intelligence gathering: Probing people down, flying around them to see what ships they've got, setting strategic warp-in points to give your fleet a tactical advantage.

2: Ambush and psychological warfare: Just popping out of nowhere with a fleet of SBs when someone attacks your bait ship and wiping them out in a rain of torpedoes is pretty popular, as is following people invisibly and making snide comments about their fit, how they're flying, etc. Even just stealthing up in a system to keep people looking over their shoulders (basically the internet spaceship version of "Kilroy was here") is considered a strategic move, though it doesn't technically require a covops ship.

Additionally, as you mentioned the training for the prerequisites and the covops skill to 3 or 4 is pretty trivial, so you might as well. Most everybody that's been playing a few months _can_ fly a covops/SB, though the only ones that actually take it to V are the ones that are really into the stealth bomber specifically. If nothing else, it gives you a better probing ship.

Congrats and welcome to EVE.


Well... actually... destroyers such as the Thrasher have very little in common with Covert-ops ships beyond the fact that they both use frigate sized weapons. I would actually point you more in the direction of cruiser class ships... as one line of the "advanced" cruisers (T2 cruisers) are the actual "next step" from Covert-ops ships.


You may feel comfortable doing solo stuff for the time being... and that's not a bad thing (hell, I played "solo" my first two weeks of EVE). However, I still highly recommend that you look into joining a corp (preferably one that suits your playstyle)... or, at the very least, talk to more experienced people with similar interests.

I've found that social interaction (or lack of) in a game that is more or less "player driven" usually makes or breaks the entire experience for a player.
I've also found that you can learn MOUNTAINS more information regarding your interests from other players than from any wiki or guide.



Here are some "useful" things that a Covert-ops ship can do:

- Scout: the cloak on the Cover-ops ship combined with its frigate-class agility allows one to scout ahead of the fleet/gang and find any gatecamps, hostile fleets/gangs, and/or potential targets... with a relatively good chance of survival. You can even act as a warp-to point for your fleet/gang when they are in danger.

- Prober: PvPers love you and Wormhole corps NEED you. If you show yourself to be adept at using the probing system and finding PvE sites and/or potential targets sitting/hiding in the middle of the system... you will be welcomed with open arms.

- Intel: As you become wiser and more well versed with the mechanics and nuances of EVE, you will find that many people don't really like other people. However, in order to do anything tangible with this "dislike" they need information. Where the person is, does this person have any assets in space, what are this person's activities, who does he/she associate with, etc. You could be hired by said people or by your own corporation to keep a cloaked eye on the individual(s)/organization(s) in question. Remember, intelligence is half the battle.

- Black-ops: The pinnacle of covert warfare. You combine all of the above tactics to get in deep to enemy territory (usually 0.0 space), find a big juicy target, decloak, pin down, and light up a covert sub-space beacon (Covert-Cynosaural Field) to allow another ship (Black-Ops class ship), many jumps away, to "teleport" a bunch of other cloaking-capable ships on top of you... and make short work of the target you pinned.

keep that sht cloaked, bro, else it get ganked.. and ffs don't park 0m from suns despite what the scanning tutorials recommend.

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keep that sht cloaked, bro, else it get ganked.. and ffs don't park 0m from suns despite what the scanning tutorials recommend. [/quote]

i came back from a smoke to this character docked in station because of probing on top of a sun

edit: and in lowsec (i go there VERY rarely) twice i have seen unfriendlies sitting at the suns.

inspiration for a soon to be cov ops/SB - WH pvp is all about cov ops. i especially like WH because of the drastic changes in scenery (eyecandy) that is different from the known space scenery. i was once mining in a WH and NOT watching D-scan and a manticore stealth bomber got my hauler and a covetor without me even knowing he was there (smoking kills - again). in WH space there is no local so unless your target is a good d-scanner (i was being lazy) you can go completely unnoticed. so learn D-Scan as well as probing! your probes show up on d-scan.

#1 - Probe down players who have logged off while their ship is still on grid. Fleetmates will love you forever for handing them cheap kills.
#2 - Scout. Keep your cloak on and watch a gate or follow an enemy fleet and report what ships they're in and what they're doing.
#3 - Push through gatecamps. A good covops pilot can push through all but the best prepared 0.0 gatecamps Thankfully, the ship is cheap when it fails.
#4 - Probe down wormholes and find new places to PVP.
#5 - "Get a warp-to". The guys running the fleets often want to position their ships in optimal range and/or position from the enemy. A covops ship cloaked can get that perfect range on them.
#6 - Hotdrop. The covops' ability to push through most defenses whether it's by flying through gatecamps or wormhole infiltration, combined with its ability to quickly probe down anything on grid means its an ideal candidate for slapping a cyno module on, covert or otherwise, for when you find something really juicy.

That's with the 'true' covert ops ships. The stealth bombers aren't as tactical as a covert ops but trade that for the ability to deal out vicious damage between being able to fit battleship-sized missile launchers and launch AoE bombs. Small gangs of skilled stealth bombers, properly coordinated in bombing runs, have torn apart billions of ISK of ships in seconds.

Covert Ops is alot of fun, this is how I and my guys use them to spread hate across the galaxy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPY3SPFYu_w

As a soloist, I can tell you that my covops skills have been put to good use when I need to travel through space where the meanies hang out. I keep a Cheetah around just in case I need to travel for some reason.

Don't put too much emphasis in the career path stuff. You can mix and match skills to make your character fit whatever mold you want to cram them into.

My skill set would make most people pull their hair out, but it works for my play style. That style being the Eve equivalent of velcro tennis shoes in the fashion world.