Wormholes

I am a bit lost as to how you don't find w-space "pew pewy" enough. Don't think that I am judging you or your alliance, but you might want to look for a more active home, here is a comparison of your alliance to some other notable w-space groups: http://whkills.info/stats/?all_id=519

Having said that, SBs are pretty good for w-space but you will always be hunting for fairly small prey and you will spend a lot of time hunting. Any decent size group will be able to assemble a quick response to a lone SB, so that leaves a lot of solo or small groups as your prey. Then you will need to pick the perfect timing, ganking Noctii is pretty easy but will still require that you wait out till the prey finishes their sites. I'd have to say you just need to train into cov ops T3s instead and try to find a decently active group.

It's a lot of fun against haulers and salvagers and weak targets in general, but a lone stealth bomber is quite limited in how much pain it can cause to a proper corporation. Perfect for flying when you are bored but not of much use in actual warfare, unless you fit it with 600M worth of modules and have a skirmish link alt, but that is a bit of a stretch.

The debate between bombs, probes and smartbombs so far has no winner, but everyone agrees on how awesome torpedoes are.

^^ Yeah this summer wormhole space has been almost as quiet as its been since ~2009. Back in the winter/spring I couldn't even open our static without finding stuff to shoot at, last 2-3 months theres been days when you could crash your static 10-20 times without finding anything noteworthy.


In the right hands the stealthbomber is quite capable, not great against T3s due to the damage application on small sigs but I know a couple of people who tear up wormhole space in them soloing BCs and BS on a regular basis.

Wall of text warning. If you're TL-DR person then skip to the next posting.

Stealth bombers, gang or solo, are a lot of fun. A well flown stealth bomber can obtain a lot of solo kills and a well-run bomber fleet can vapourise formidable targets before they even obtain a lock on their attackers.

A hound is a good bomber, in fact they’re all good. The hound (and purifier) has one less midslots and one more lowslot than the manitcore (nemesis). The hound is smaller and faster and can deliver some pretty prodigious levels of damage … especially when you remind yourself that it’s a frigate. The downside is, as with all stealth bombers, that it is kinda ‘paper thin’ when it comes to tank.

Solo w-space bomber PvP is, in my experience, a chess game … and I enjoy chess. Lots of thinking, planning, and preparing for every move you make [1]. If you’re an instant-gratification kind of dood then you may not find it appealing. If you’re not, then it can be a lot of fun.
If you’re solo another critical element, along with infinite patience, is target choice. There are so many things you will not be able to kill solo, a few that you will, and an in-between group where you may be able to (depending on their fit, pilot skill, and luck).

Haulers. W-space PI haulers have been my PvP-noob bread-and-butter. They’re not sexy kills but they are also not without small challenges. I used to bomb-torp, but now I only torp them. Usually you’re hunting one hauler at a time, so your point and torps are a good way to go.
A T2 deep space transport has +2 warp core so for the run-of-the-mill solo bomber they are virtually uncatchable. I was stalking one, having fit a -3 faction scram especially, only to have him warp-away laughing about the stab he had also fitted. When I go back (I have a scanner alt camped in the system) I’ll try for a manti with two scrams.
T2 blockade runners don’t often get used for PI but when they do they are fairly easy catches when they land on the POCO / CO and are uncloaked.
A sensible hauler pilot will warp to somewhere-else before heading to any of the planet POCOs [2] ... but most warp directly from the POS to the POCO, so you can watch them go, and many methodically visit planet I, then II, then III etc. I usually go for tackle on the second or third planet, warping to the first POCO at 100km. This is because they have quite a headstart on the first as it is usually towards the system centre and not so easy for me to be sure which they're heading to. When they're warping from one POCO to the next it is very easy to see which, well before they're in warp, and be there to greet them.

Miners. One bomb is able to put a mining fleet into their pods. Often you’re hunting fleets of miners, plus their hauler or, if you’re lucky, an orca. A well-placed bomb is great here, perhaps while you work to get your point on the orca for later attention (even better if he has drones deployed and they die in the bomb blast).

Gas harvesters. If they’re BCs you’re not likely to kill them with a single bomb … you may tho. If they’re myrms, much more so than the other BC gas harvesters, they probably also have the potential to grief you bigtime (combat drones as well as the ubiquitous ECs).

Salvagers. Again not super-sexy, but killing w-space salvagers as they near the end of their salvaging run, can be pretty lucrative. Even if he has an escort, especially a battleship, you may be able to decloak and kill the noctis before the BS has even got you locked. Not recommended if he has fast frig or cruiser support.

PvE ships. A solo bomber *can* kill a w-space drake, but do not rely on being able to do so. Warrior IIs can ruin your day, and hornet ECs can let him warp away laughing at you. You’re unlikely to have a PvE drake point you … but when one does you can be in a world of hurt very quickly. You can also solo kill battleships … depending on their fit and the skill of their pilot. Sleepers can often help you here … as you watch their drones get killed by the sleepers, do the math, and realise he has no drones left and his cruise missiles (visual recce of the ship) aren’t gonna hurt you much at all. Do wait until they kill all the sleepers though, because a single sleeper frigate can ruin your day when he swaps from the ratter ship to you. A decent w-space ratter will be aligned for much of the site, and especially as he nears site completion, but the vast majority of people you see will be either stationary (Do'oh!) or orbiting something.
If you’re lucky you may be able to solo kill a w-space T3 but it’d have to be poorly fit, half maimed already, and poorly flown. Any decent T3, even PvE fit, should be able to tank your bomber until you run out of bombs and torps. You'd increase your chances by killing his cap, but it's not likely (even using a void bomb) that you'd survive long enough to achieve this.

PvP ships. In theory yes but there are not a lot of PvP ships you’re likely to meet in w-space that you’ll be well able to kill. Of course a highly expert bomber pilot (e.g. Ivaas Pirolat - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLtHzH3uWis) will be able to take on, and succeed against, PvP fleets that I wouldn’t yet dream of uncloaking near.

continued ....

There is a technique for killing drakes with a stealth bomber - the critical thing being with a reasonably skilled drake pilot using both light drones and precisions your pretty much not going to get that kill, but if they use t1/furys and/or you get the bomb in at the right time to nuke their drones its possible for a practised stealth bomber pilot to take down a PVE drake solo.

yeah, i guess i should at least find a corp in my timezone....

anyways, is the hound the best tool for this job? i know that the purifier has more cargospace to fit an extra bomb, and that damage types change between each bomber. Seeing as my targets will be mainly indy's and salvagers, should i even worry about damage type seeing as how paper thin they are?

Can a single SB do decent enough dmg to kill a tanked BC or BS before being popped him self?

Ive never used one so im wondering about the dmg output of bombs and i know you can only fit 1 bomb launcher...
also SBs are easy to kill once their targeted... so im assuming you would uncloak launch a bomb & cloak up again asap?

lol like i said ive never used them.. :)