Warfare & Tactics

Broadly, yes.

To learn? No.

RvB is certainly an environment where you can learn PVP, but it will not teach you anything. You need to do that yourself.

My experience of RvB consisted of 3 groups of players:

- Meta 0 fit Rifters used in fleets to grind killmails. Failed to see the appeal of orbit @500 + F1 over and over again all day. Fleets are nothing but blob vs blob with someone inevitably whining that Red had a one more destroyer than blue, or blue had a cruiser, that's "worth" 4 Rifters, etc.

- Soloists who used out of corp booster alts and usually flew with slaves. 400mm AB Rifter tanking 10k damage and going 1500m/s? Yup.

- Small groups (3 to 4) guys looking for similar groups to shoot. This was where I had most fun. I'm told this has been lost in favour of fleets which, if true, would be sad.

This is good to hear. After looking over the killboards it appears frigs are the primary ship choice. Last time I was in Red Fed there weren't nearly as many participants and a lot of Wolfs, Jags, and other t2 ships were being flown around making it frustrating to fly cheaper stuff (to the point were I sold off all my t1 frigs except for a hand full of merlins . Looks like Red HQ is no longer in Halle so I'll be moving some stuff

I have an alt in RvB, it owns and I'd highly suggest it.

It's really up to you if you learn from it, while RvB doesn't teach pvp if your the sort of person who likes to dive in and learn things the hard way then it will suit you.

What RvB is about is cheap quick access to pvp, it isn't perfect by any means but it's fun.

If you do join be sure to get all your stuff moved beforehand make some bookmarks/instawarps and put in your application and join the forums.


o7
Drac

I joined rvb after applying to Agony and being told that I needed more pvp experiance guess 30 kills was to low but in the month or so I been in rvb my kill stats jumped up to 190 kills and 45 losses so while you won't learn any specialized fleet tactics since the typical rvb tactic is find enemy fleet jump into enemy fleet and blow stuff up while hoping your lucky enough to survive then after fights over its gf's in local with both sides going to their respective hq's reshipping and doing it all over again but it is a great place to up your kb stats so if you decide to one day head off to null sec what ever corp or alliance you decide to join can look at your kb and say wow this person isn't afraid of pvp and possibly getting blown up.

This.

RvB, FW, lowsec, 0.0 etc. will all provide you with the opportunity to learn - but YOU make it happen by going out and finding the kind of fights that you are looking for.

You said you want to learn small gang and solo - so, which of these arenas is best for that? None of them. All of them.

It depends on you. You can spend your days as a lemming following the herd of 25/50/100/200 as they roam around ganking everything in sight or you can grab a few buddies and head out into the wide blue yonder to see what you can kill before you all die :)



So true! This applies to EVE not just RvB.
Sadly too many people prefer to play like sheep rather than wolves - the choice is yours.

Current RvB member adding my bit.

It's definitely worth it, although I'll agree with what others have said that it can be a somewhat artificial PvP environment. That said, I also agree that it is entirely what you make of it. Frigate blobs, excessive up-shipping and people with tricked out clones/off-grid boosters do happen, but if you view it more as a challenge rather than sitting in station and complaining about it, you can take away a lot of good experience. Fleet work and gangs are great to get a taste of PvP experience and get used to the jitters, but you'll learn the most in my opinion if you do some solo flying and deliberately treat RvB more like a real PvP environment.

Don't be afraid to attack things bigger than you or engage around higher numbers

Even though most action is easy to find, practice your d-scan and hunting down targets

If you want to learn, don't fly expensive/overpowered ships. You're only cheating yourself, and there's a chance you'll end up as just another mediocre, risk-averse pilot with a crippling reliance on an Isk/up-ship advantage.

Go on solo roams in lowsec once you feel a little more confident so you don't lose your edge. If you're in a t1 frigate it'll be a challenge, but great fun too.

Figure out who the most dangerous pilots are on both sides. Take notes.

Always fight as if you're going to be podded.


To give you an idea of where I'm coming from - I have little patience for blobbing so I fly almost exclusively solo , generally in a rifter. I'm based in Blue's headquarters so I'm almost always outnumbered. If you lean towards fleet action, go for it - we have a number of great FCs who try to even fleets as best they can, and there are a lot of awesome, friendly people in RvB. If you lean solo, there are many of us out there too - just know it'll often be an uphill battle, and you'll blow up a lot.

Hope this added something, maybe we'll see you out there man.

Edit:
Meant to say this as well. You will pop and get popped a lot. Look at those KMs, study fittings, experiment with your own. Familiarize yourself with typical fittings for ships - it's a huge part of a fight, in my experience, to be able to gauge quickly how the other guy is likely fitted and react accordingly.

It really depends on what you're looking for. On the plus side there's frequent combat, and both sides tend to have a static fleet up for you to join. On the down side, there aren't too many opportunities for solo or small skirmish (2-6 players) warfare. For instance I frequently have fights that start off as a solo vs a small group only to have 20+ warp in on my location once the engagement starts. So if you're looking to hone your combat skills it's probably not the best place, but it is a good entry point to learn the basics.

Personally, I prefer the solo/skirmish warfare FW since it tends to offer a wider variety of encounters (solo - caps) and doesn't have the empty systems or politics found in 0.0.

One important thing to remember when doing PvP in a Rifter is that you are learning to fight in a less than 1 million ISK, all modules included, frigate. Oh sure, it's a very lethal 1 million ISK. Very, very lethal for the price.

But, a newbie player jet-can "mining" in a mining Frigate with a 500,000 ISK industrial "hauler" can easily make 1 million ISK AN HOUR mining. Mining veldspar.

So when somebody butchers you with a ship that costs 20 times as much as yours.... well yeah, they should win. They really should win even if they were complete morons. Though the Rifter is deadly enough that you can actually win if they are.

And it took them less than two hours to get the ISK for that ship, so they aren't flying some sort of "elite" ship either.

The Rifter is very, very deadly for it's price, but it is also very, very cheap. If you have learned how to make ISK at all, you should be able to lose 10 in a weekend and come out with a positive ISK balance.

Causally playing.

To expand on my previous answer, I recently rejoined RvB as something to do whilst my playtime is limited.

I recommend ignoring the greens completely and fly around as a soloist looking for fights (not necessarily 1v1 ..) - this will teach you how to pick fights if you ever want to roam solo outside of RvB.

Most people tend to be fleeted so backup arrives very quickly, so try to have an exit strategy in your fights, or all solo engagements will turn into a loss with 10 people on your mail. You can, of course, ask for a 1 v 1 .... but I feel this is artificial ;)