Warfare & Tactics

Alright, so I'm getting back into PvP. I usually roamed in small gangs with my corp and fit gank fits where Im not needed to really think - just get up close and shoot. And now I'm slowly and painfully figuring out solo PvP

[b]The Battlecruiser - Cyclone[/b

I jumped into my full LG Crystal clone and got into my Cyclone. I fit an AB and Scrambler. My mindset was that there are many frigates going to solo PvP, I feel that I can tank the damage GANK fitted ships are going to hit me with, and I can safely go toe to toe with other battlecruisers

After roaming for about two hours in low-sec, I finally get a fight. It was another Cyclone. After slugging it out for a while, mMy X-L Shield booster and cap out tanked his - I won the fight by a relatively close margin. The same pilot later undocks in a Dual repped Myrmidon and caught me at 0. I scram him and deploy drones, and for a while it seemed his DPS was greater than mine. I moved out to my maximum Warp Scrambling range and orbited to mitigate the DPS from his 180 autocannons. His tank seemed rather strong. I begin to panic because I think he was Dual cap boosted with three repairers. I forget to stop overheating my guns and they burn out. But I did get through a good 60% of his armor. I begin to slow crawl away from his web in my AB and manage to warp off

I was rather scared of active tanks because I never knew when they would run out of cap. But the Myrmidon ran out of cap boosters and thats how I got into 60% with him. If I hadn't overheated my guns to the point they broke, I may have won this fight

So the next time I roam around, I find a Tornado. I have not played EVE for 8 months, so this ship was a mystery to me. I had no idea what it does. I warp to a belt and begin scanning him down when he jumps to me at 20. I panic for some reason and my instant response was to jump away to a planet I aligned to at 50, thinking he would jump again at 40 to try to outsmart me. But, he warped again into the planet at 20. Putting me a whole 30km away from him. He begins to disrupt me at max range and hammer me down. With my afterburner, I do not have the speed to get away from his disrupter or close the distance. Effectively - I was kited to death while tickling his shields

I began to realize that I would always, ALWAYS trade one advantage for another with whatever I fit. So do you guys think I reacted appropriately? Was there anything else I could have done?
[b
The Frigate - Firetail[/b

This time I'm in a Firetail, fit with ideas collected from Fail-heap challenge. 250 arties and an afterburner again. I warp ahead to my usual roaming area when I find a Harpy and a Malediction in a belt, they were both corpmates and chasing a target - and I had unluckily fallen into their laps. My ONLY frigate PvP solo experience was from watching videos, so I burn away to try to get them to chase me in a straight light so my artillery cannons can do work on them. But for some reason the Malediction kept hitting me for a decent amount of damage although I was 20km away from him. I panic. I overheat my afterburners in an attempt to escape - Although I knew that it probably had a MWD. The Harpy was much further behind, so that tells me he has an afterburner. The Malediction begins closing in and I can already hear the sound of my ship exploding - and then I look up to see that I have chopped off his shield and went into his armor with a single volley. The Malediction turns to gain transversial and thats when I took my chance to get out of there.

Perhaps if I turned around or flew in the same direction- I may have been able to kill the Malediction. How should I have manuevered my frigate? Ive seen that it is possible to kill multiple hostile frigates with a single one with kiting...but I just have difficulty assessing the situations. Especially when the adrenaline is in my veins [:oops

I docked, repped, and got out to roam again. This time I found a Rupture. It was pretty easy, my speed was unhindered so I just orbited him at my optimals and shot until he went boom

And then I find a Catalyst, he as soon as I arrive, a Vexor lands and the Catalyst warps off. The Vexor seemed to be giving chase to the Catalyst. I open fire and I engage, orbiting at my optimals. And then he turned on his web. It did not end well for me. I knew that I could not outlast his webbing and dps with my ship. So I turned and aligned and burned away as fast as I could - but I went down


So how do I kite and avoid being kited? What are your guidelines for solo PVP? Guidelines for flying frigates? Are these situations I told you about unavoidable or did I not play my hand correctly? What could I have done? What would you have done? Can you tell me a situation where you defeated an enemy player by outmanuevering them or beat a ship that was Anti-your-ship like droneboat vs frigate?

It seems like your problem is that you don't know what exactly your going up against, with regards to ships and common fittings for them. If you don't already have eve fitting tool you should definately get it. And the important thing about it is to make sure you make fittings for ALL the ships, not just the ones that you fly but all the ships your likely to come up against in a pvp situation. Make sure your fitting the ships correctly, or how most people fit them? and then do the math so to speak. This game is all calculations, like most everything in the world is. Once you know what numbers to add or subtract, so to speak, then you just have to do the math in your head(the faster you can do this the better a "PvP'r you are, at least i think ><) and right click accordingly.

TL:DR - figure out what your up against and what you yourself are in, know your enemy, know yourself. Then figure out how to deal with falcons! and booster alts!

I would say Wensley's guide is still one of best frigate pvp must read. You won't remember anything after first read but it has massive amount of guidelines regarding ammo, tracking, falloff, solo tactics, etc. Read it once, read it again, try suggested fits.

Our corp is basically frig and solo oriented so we do it a lot. I personally burn rifters like a mad man and my K/L ratio is somewhat like 1:4 but as previous poster said you can't care about ship too much, just keep it alive long enough to hurt other guy as much as possible. Sometimes everything will go as planned or even better, sometimes you will explode no matter what you do. That's beauty of small hulls solo.

Don't be afraid trying your own fits, most ppl will say you fail fitted and you should stick to cookie and reliable fits but I like trying my own things and build experience on it. Of course cookie is cookie because it works in most cases and you should know how to use its advantages but sometimes uncommon fit can be ace in your sleeve. For example I like fit TD on my rifters instead of web, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't but, well... How will you learn if you won't try?

If killboard is most important point of your Eve adventure fly with blobs and on paper you will be golden. In solo you have to consider yourself dead before fight will even start and if you are the one flying away it is only postponed not really avoided.

Since you are starting with pvp I would say you should go against anything you can. Ppl tend to fly ships they are not really ready for and in Eve player is really weakest point of a fit so don't be afraid to attack cruiser or assault frig in a t1 frig. In most cases you will explode, sometimes you will make him explode but you will definitely learn a lot even if you won't know it. More you practice better you get.

And regarding panic, well, only way of limiting it is to get used to seeing reds on overview. That's why you need to pick up a lot of fights and with each it will be less and less nervous experience. It will probably never go away but that's also a great thing in solo pvp, you never know what will happen, in 99% of cases you don't have time to check everything. So if you can find enjoyment in such thrills pvp is definitely for you.