EVE New Citizens Q&A

When you read about the different types and classes of ships in ISIS you get the impression that there are all kinds of synergies between the ships and that the navies and that large battles in EVE work much like how navies and fleet battles work now on Earth.
That is a fleet needs to have frigates and destroyers to screen the big guys, cruisers to combat enemy screening units, ECM/ECCM assess to hide your friends and spot the foes and finally some big guys to dish out the hurt on the enemy.
And that even the mightiest battleship is in a world of hurt if it gets ambushed by a squadron of torpedo-boats/bombers when alone and unsupported.

Is that true for the actually gameplay in EVE so that in fleet actions each fleet have to consist of a large number of different types and sizes of ships, working in synergy, to fight effectively?
Or is the navy vibe just part of the background fiction and the rule of "most and biggest wins" is the real truth?



What about tactics and maneuvering?
Are fleet organized in different elements that try to maneuver and attack an enemy fleet from different directions looking for the best moment to strike?
Or does it just come down to sticking together, charging forward and concentrating fire on one enemy at time?

My experience is from wormhole pvp mostly, I haven't done any real nullsec combat in a long while so I can't really tell you about nullsec fleets, but here is what goes for wormhole fleets.

In wormholes, the current meta is heavy armor tanked t3 strategic cruisers. These t3's need a lot of support though, most importantly, they need a couple logistics (healers) to support them and keep them alive, most common is the guardian.

The t3's, especially with armor tanks are really (like really) slow. This is fine if you are fighting, but just before engaging, or when chasing they will not be able to catch and hold targets. Therefor, you need specialized ships that can catch and hold targets for them. These include (heavy) interdictors, force recons, intercepters, etc.

If your opponent is also fielding a t3 cruiser fleet, then they will have logistics aswell. That means that you won't be able to break any of the opponents ships. One way to deal with this is try to remove or otherwise disable enemy logistics. Guardians require other guardians to keep them going, so you can try to disrupt them by either using ECM, or by energy neutralizers. Each require a specialized ship.

There are other roles aswell, but I think just these will picture it pretty good

Your question: Do you need synergy?

No, you don't. But it helps.

Also Synergy is more important as you scale up fights. A 3 man gang may as well self rep/buffer tank themselves in DPS ships (except where they may want a falcon), where as a 20 man group would benefit more from a pair of logistics, a booster, and some ewar.

In larger fleet fights the only real synergies are: Boosts, Logistics, buffer tank, and alpha. You can do some sexy things with stealth bombers, but once you hit TIDI (eve gets real slow) - it becomes real difficult to coordinate.

Edit: I forgot to mention that for small / medium size gangs 'tackle' is an important role that gets less important the larger the fight gets.

It depends on the battle.

Small frigate engagement (3-100s)
- Random frigates with occasional cruiser, and logistic support
- Often one or both sides are high disorganized, and often suicidal
- Organized use of remote repair (logi), ecm, and the like can allow smaller groups to win when out numbered
- Positioning your fleet, and fitting of your fleet can be critical

Wormhole small engagement (3-30)
- Mostly Tech3 ships with logistic ships due to mass limits and wealth of wspace dwellers
- Fights are won by the those with the best logi chains (remote repairs, and remote power transfer)
- Successful groups often use ecm, power drains, and the like for the win
- Tackle* is extremely important, and in some corps everyone fits a "point" (warp disruption) or scram (warp scrambler)

Wormhole cap engagement (10+)
- Mostly Tech3 cruisers with logistics ships, but carriers are often used for remote repairs
- Major tactic involves webbing targets so your dreadnoughts can hit small targets
- Draining capital ships of power is a major element
- Tackle* is often handled by heavy interdictors or with specialized heavy cruisers as Interdictors fare poorly against T3 cruisers

Note that small scale Null Sec, and Low Sec warfare resembles wormhole warfare with cheaper ships, more interdictors than heavy interdictors* and more battleships. (Admittedly I have limited experience in such battles outside faction warfare.)

* Warp bubbles don't work in Low Sec so either FCs have their fleet fit point/scam and spread out "point" or use specialized cruisers like heavy interdictors. Heavy interdictors are required to meaningfully engage capital ships in low sec.

Capital ships have jump drives which work unless in a warp bubble or targeted by a Heavy interdictor with a focusing script. In wormhole space jump drives don't work (caps must warp or use a wormhole with limited mass), and warp bubbles work so locking down a carrier is easier. In Low Sec it requires a heavy interdictor or pilot stupidity to kill a carrier.

Note that wormhole space has no Supercarriers or Titans and battles are limited by the mass of a connecting wormhole unless you seed a fleet ahead of time. It's rare in wspace to field more than a handful of carriers in a fight unless you are fighting in your home system. Many fights are won or lost by subtle (or blatant) passage of heavy ships through wormholes. In addition multiple trips through a wormhole will polarize your ship which leads to interesting fight on wormholes.

Established Null Sec systems can deploy system wide jammers to prevent Capital Ships from entering a system.

Large Null Sec (some low sec) engagements:
- Standard frigates, and cruisers play little role outside scouting and anti interdiction support (general)
- Bombers can be devastating to T3 cruiser fleets, and sometimes battleship fleets. (some groups use large bomber fleets against structures as they are hard to counter)
- T3 cruiser fleets are some what common and deadly (these ships speed tank)
- Battleship fleets are extremely common
- Carriers are very common often deployed in a tight ball for remote repairs, and rarely move due to use of sentry drones
- Dreadnoughts are generally deployed against carriers and supercarriers
- Supercarriers are generally your trump cards, and deployed against carrier fleets
- Titians are generally used from the safety of a POS force field to bridge non-capital
- Interdictors and heavy interdictors are critical to holding down (HIC are a must have in Low Sec, but less used in NS in favor of Interdictors)
- Remote repair is very common so most fleets depend on alpha strikes to destroy targets*
- Sentry drones are the current favorite as you can assign them to the target caller, and they attack his target.


*Basically your fleet commander calls a target and every in fleet locks it, and hits F1. Target goes boom, FC calls a new target... Given time dilation, and the use of drone assist large Null Sec battles can be for the rank and file extremely boring with the occasional random bouts of extreme panic....

See slowcat, wrecking ball fleet, etc...

In theory, a mix of ship classes can yield synergy and benefit, similar to historical practices of a real navy.

In the largest Eve battles, theoretically, a small pack of frigates can contend with other frigates and solo destroyers, some cruisers. Destroyers don't get used much, but could theoretically be used to neutralize frigates. Interdictors, a class of destroyer, are critical staples to keep your opponent from running - virtually no battle is 'equal,' so one group ought to be running away in almost all battles. Cruisers are the workhorse, able to apply decent damage to ships both larger and smaller than itself, while maintaining good maneuverability. Specialized cruisers, like logistics cruisers, are extremely important as a force multiplier. Battlecruisers are a cheaper in-between choice below battlehips, good at countering cruisers. And battleships are precisely what youd think they'd be.

However....
In practice, gamers are not as organized as a military. Eve organizations, although likely the most organized gamers in all of gaming, can only handle so much complexity, planning and delegation. It is, after all, a video game that people often times don't want to take so seriously, and have limited ability to commit to. As a result, plans can become too complex to manage rather easily, and anything that requires practice, memory, and inter-dependencies is a very tenuous situation.
Meanwhile, bringing larger numbers is always a reliable benefit.

This leads toward a tendency for one-size-fits-all doctrines and fighting styles. Some splitting of responsibilities are expected, like tackle, scouting, boosting, logistics, and a little bit of e-war. But a full spectrum of ship classes, with varied specialties and fighting styles represents a level of complexity that is too unreliable to be used on a large scale. More benefit is reliably yielded by having as many people in a Dominix(or whatever) as possible, with about 1/4 of the number flying logistics, and a handful of boosters and scouts.

In theory, your optimism toward varied, synergistic combat could show its superiority if executed properly.
In practice, we are lazy gamers.

As said above, there are certain roles for certain ships.

But the vast majority of the general population....just listens to the FC on who to target and then press F1. Listen again who to target...press F1 again.

Of course, the special duties (tackle, bubblers, logi) behave a little bit more independently.

Goonswarm have had quite a bit of recent success using massive amounts of EWAR in fleet operations, using cheap ~25 million ISK Celestis fits to reduce the targeting range of much more expensive enemy ships and strategic targets to nearly zero, then having their heavy hitters blow up the now sitting ducks.

This is how large fleet fights really work.

You fly the ship you're told to, you lock the target you are told to and you HTFU like you are told to when you lose your ship.



Mostly kidding. But the point is this. Unless you are an FC, you just need to be able to follow directions. You really need no understanding of strategy, synergy or logistics.

Mr Epeen

Well, the alliance tournament is not exactly a large battle.

But in general I agree with you. While most of the fleet (especially dps ships) only have to follow orders, a few trusted individuals will have a large amount of autonomy and can make a difference. Although the key word here is trusted. This should always be discussed with the FC before the battle to make sure that he's ok with you doing snap decisions. If you are new, the FC most likely wants to limit your decision range until he feels comfortable with letting you loose.

Seriously?

New player forum. New.... player.

The OP does not happen to be a 'dicter pilot, I can assure you. And they wouldn't be asking if they were the kind of person that could individually ignore their FC and single handedly win the large fleet battle battle for fame and glory.

While your encyclopedic knowledge of fleet tactics and pilot abilities is most impressive, it's not needed right now. Learn to give answers based on the level of the question asker and you'll look like less of a prat.

Mr Epeen