These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

EVE New Citizens Q&A

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

Newb questions about Low / Null
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Boudacca Sangrere
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#1 - 2012-08-23 20:55:49 UTC
Originally posted in Missions & Complexes, but I think it fit better here.

I have gone to low and null a couple times with t1 frig / dessi roams and noticed two things. 1.) null is EMPTY (of players) and 2.) there is an abundance of tasty rats. (not to speak of possible jucy exploration targets). My skills are mainly Caldari ships and missile / shield (just about 6,5 mil sp overall, i know a newb). I am also getting a tad bored in High Sec and have no qualms to venture into the "dark side". So my questions are as follow:

(I know, I know do not fly anything you can not afford to lose)

a) based on my skills (shield / missile), what ship would you recommend for these roles? (drake, tengu, T2 heavy assault, or ??) (tengu i still need 25+ days for all skills, so that is a long term goal if any)

b) how important is it to fit a cloak? The inherent risk of low / null is clear, but i tend to be risk averse (i.e. avoid stupid risk, heck, avoid stupid period).

c) For either (low or null), is it really necessary to belong to a corp (see question above), or is there really no difference if one flew independent / care bear corp?

As I said, i am pretty new to the game, but am looking forward to see the other corners of this "sandbox".

Disclaimer: I will be in a dedicated jump clone, I will want to fly the least expensive ship, with the least expensive fit (as long as it get's the job done). No loot pinata here. If i go pop, i will dust off and go again. No one learned how to run without falling on their nose a couple times.

Boudacca

The art of flying is not so much an art, as the trick to throw yourself at the ground - and miss.
ShahFluffers
Ice Fire Warriors
#2 - 2012-08-23 21:28:36 UTC
Boudacca Sangrere wrote:
a) based on my skills (shield / missile), what ship would you recommend for these roles? (drake, tengu, T2 heavy assault, or ??) (tengu i still need 25+ days for all skills, so that is a long term goal if any)

Assault Frigate.

You'll have enough firepower to take out BS rats... but be small enough to avoid most hostile situations and fast enough to have a chance of escaping bubbles you might encounter. Plus it's cheap even with a full T2 fit.

If you REALLY want to spend the ISK though... cloaking-interdiction nullified T3s just simply can't be beat. You never have to worry about bubbles... just interceptors trying to decloak you on gate.

Boudacca Sangrere wrote:
b) how important is it to fit a cloak? The inherent risk of low / null is clear, but i tend to be risk averse (i.e. avoid stupid risk, heck, avoid stupid period).

On small fast ships... you can generally get away with no cloak fitted. If you find yourself locked down in a system make a safe spot, warp to it, and MWD off in one direction (hopefully your frigate is cap stable running just the MWD).

If you are in a larger ship..... euhhhhhhh... this goes against everything I believe in... but yeah. Cloaks can come in handy.

But really... you ship should be fit for PvP and you should be ready to fight in a pinch. Sometimes things will get the drop on you and there is little you can do at that point except go out with guns blazing.

Boudacca Sangrere wrote:
c) For either (low or null), is it really necessary to belong to a corp (see question above), or is there really no difference if one flew independent / care bear corp?

For low-sec, definitely not. If you have the know-how and survival skills you can roam around low-sec with near impunity.

Null-sec is a different matter as the very nature of the area requires people to work together... especially in PvP... as almost nothing can be really accomplished without numbers.

So general rule of thumb; if you see a single person just enter local in null-sec... and he/she is looking for you... chances are he/she is not alone and "back-up" is just one system over.

How did you Veterans start?
J'Poll
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#3 - 2012-08-23 22:18:53 UTC
ShahFluffers wrote:
Boudacca Sangrere wrote:
a) based on my skills (shield / missile), what ship would you recommend for these roles? (drake, tengu, T2 heavy assault, or ??) (tengu i still need 25+ days for all skills, so that is a long term goal if any)

Assault Frigate.

You'll have enough firepower to take out BS rats... but be small enough to avoid most hostile situations and fast enough to have a chance of escaping bubbles you might encounter. Plus it's cheap even with a full T2 fit.

If you REALLY want to spend the ISK though... cloaking-interdiction nullified T3s just simply can't be beat. You never have to worry about bubbles... just interceptors trying to decloak you on gate.

Boudacca Sangrere wrote:
b) how important is it to fit a cloak? The inherent risk of low / null is clear, but i tend to be risk averse (i.e. avoid stupid risk, heck, avoid stupid period).

On small fast ships... you can generally get away with no cloak fitted. If you find yourself locked down in a system make a safe spot, warp to it, and MWD off in one direction (hopefully your frigate is cap stable running just the MWD).

If you are in a larger ship..... euhhhhhhh... this goes against everything I believe in... but yeah. Cloaks can come in handy.

But really... you ship should be fit for PvP and you should be ready to fight in a pinch. Sometimes things will get the drop on you and there is little you can do at that point except go out with guns blazing.

Boudacca Sangrere wrote:
c) For either (low or null), is it really necessary to belong to a corp (see question above), or is there really no difference if one flew independent / care bear corp?

For low-sec, definitely not. If you have the know-how and survival skills you can roam around low-sec with near impunity.

Null-sec is a different matter as the very nature of the area requires people to work together... especially in PvP... as almost nothing can be really accomplished without numbers.

So general rule of thumb; if you see a single person just enter local in null-sec... and he/she is looking for you... chances are he/she is not alone and "back-up" is just one system over.


On the answer to B.

I would not use the MWD off part of the safespot. Rather use an Afterburner.

Why?

Cause MWD blow your sig radius up, this means you are quicker to be targeted but also quicker to be probed down. Decent probers are fast and they are even faster when you light yourself up like a x-mas tree.

AB doesn't give you the speed boost like a MWD but it also doesn't make you easier to probe out.

Personal channel: Crazy Dutch Guy

Help channel: Help chat - Reloaded

Public roams channels: RvB Ganked / Redemption Road / Spectre Fleet / Bombers bar / The Content Club
Kimimaro Yoga
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#4 - 2012-08-23 23:02:26 UTC
Don't really see drakes for solo-ish work in low/null. They have great tank against rats, but lack the maneuverability that roaming ships generally have.

The tengu is basically drake on steroids, however it's fairly expensive and has that little problem of you losing SP when it gets blown out from underneath you. The ability to nullify bubbles is awesome in nullsec, but still you're flying a shiny. I'd say for solo work that's something you'd want to put off until you have more SP/experience/money.

So for lowsec, I agree with the assault frigates. Nimble and relatively easy on the wallet. For null though... I think you'd be best served by joining a corp that lives out there. Then instead of being fodder for every roaming gang that passes through, you'll have a local full of blues. And that tengu you're soon able to fly will be an isk-making machine. For PvP, instead of being the one always fleeing from the roams, you'll be in the roams. Unless your ambition in Eve is petty piracy, null is better than lowsec in pretty much every way.

Now recruiting: http://dogfacedesign.com/index.php/Recruiting-Posters/recruiting-poster-patr3
Kuehnelt
Devoid Privateering
#5 - 2012-08-23 23:56:13 UTC
Boudacca Sangrere wrote:
1.) null is EMPTY (of players) and 2.) there is an abundance of tasty rats.


You can also do missions in NPC nullsec, for example for Angel Cartel in Curse, Guristas in Venal, Sansha in Stain. The problem here is that you probably need a lot of work with your standings (although, there should be an enemy-of-your-enemy pirate corp that doesn't hate you too much), and also that you need some place far away to rat and run exploration sites in, when you don't want to mission. There are L1 missions that you can do easily in a T1 frigate to get your standing up.

You can also do the Pirate Epic Arcs, which are very rewarding and relatively easy (recommended ship classes: interceptor, AF, the rebalanced T1 frigs), but which take place in Curse (relatively dangerous NPC nullsec) and Venal (harder to get to, few stations, the two epic arc stations seemed to be often camped).

Boudacca Sangrere wrote:
b) how important is it to fit a cloak? The inherent risk of low / null is clear, but i tend to be risk averse (i.e. avoid stupid risk, heck, avoid stupid period).


If you're settled in and know the area then you know if you need a cloak or not. When ratting, a cloak lets you encourage a hunter to move on (I see a lot of battleships that strangely disappear while I'm moving through the system). When traveling, sometimes the only way forward is through a camp that will certainly kill you, and the only way back is through 20 jumps to a dockable station - so cloak up and wait for the situation to change. For this reason even my interceptors have cloaks when I just want to move them a long distance through null. On larger ships a cloak can be part of a travel fit, to let you try and cloak+MWD past someone, but that's safer to try in lowsec.
ShahFluffers
Ice Fire Warriors
#6 - 2012-08-24 01:02:00 UTC  |  Edited by: ShahFluffers
J'Poll wrote:
I would not use the MWD off part of the safespot. Rather use an Afterburner.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that point. With decent skills a T2 Afterburner will only give you ~126% speed boost. A MWD (meta 3, 4, or T2) will give ~600% speed boost. When you are in a safespot and want to avoid getting probed down the best way is to speed off-grid (or close to) before any potential hostiles land.

J'Poll wrote:
Cause MWD blow your sig radius up, this means you are quicker to be targeted but also quicker to be probed down. Decent probers are fast and they are even faster when you light yourself up like a x-mas tree.

The sig radius bloom is overstated at the frig level (only increases a frigate's 40 to 60-ish sig radius ~433%)... especially when the massive speed boost is factored in.
Plus assault frigates have an edge with MWDs due to their innate 50% sig bloom reduction.

PLUS... the prober has to get his/her probes into position... which is hard when you are a fast warping and fast flying frigate (bounce between safes on opposite sides of the system).
One of the few places where probes have a very high advantage (read: where the insta-probing trick works) is when the prober is expecting the target to come to a specific location... such as on a gate or a specific planet and/or structure.

Crashing gates is a similar story. That AB may not decrease the lock times of whatever is trying to kill you... but it won't really help against other frigates with their very fast lock times and it usually won't get you back to gate by a comfortable enough margin.

J'Poll wrote:
AB doesn't give you the speed boost like a MWD but it also doesn't make you easier to probe out.

True... but with a MWD you'll be too far away by the time someone does probe you out... which gives you time to warp away and bounce somewhere else.


This is all not to say that ABs are useless. Far from it. They are immensely helpful when a smaller ship is trying to take on a larger one... and very useful in mitigating damage against rats. But when you want to GTFO then raw speed is king. That's why MWDs are so often used.

How did you Veterans start?
Laashanna
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#7 - 2012-08-24 01:40:34 UTC
My advice is join a corp running sites in wormholes.
Lost Greybeard
Drunken Yordles
#8 - 2012-08-24 05:53:09 UTC
Alternately, cross-train another race and put a pirate ship together. Caldari + Amarr has some shield/laser ships.

Or take some time to get a T2 cruiser, maybe. Bit more mobile than your BC there.
Malcanis
Vanishing Point.
The Initiative.
#9 - 2012-08-24 10:55:34 UTC
Stealth Bombers are great for Ninja ratting. The Manticore is fairly easy to skill for, much cheaper than a Tengu, and will make ISK much quicker than an Assault Frigate.

Make sure to pick the kind of rat that your bomber is effective against; each racial bomber has a HUGE damage bonus when using torpedoes of it's own racial type. manticore= kinetic bonus = Scourge Torps. The best rats to shoot with Kinetic damage are Guristas, followed by Serpentis, followed by Angels, with Bloods/Sanshas having the highest resists vs Kinetic.

An afterburner on a ratting bomber is an excellent idea, as it will significantly improve your tank.

"Just remember later that I warned against any change to jump ranges or fatigue. You earned whats coming."

Grath Telkin, 11.10.2016
Boudacca Sangrere
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#10 - 2012-08-24 12:37:27 UTC
Many thanks to all who have taken the time and effort to answer all my questions (I know it was a LONG list)!

Looks like Stealth Bombers will be my first (baby step).

Thanks again!
Schmata Bastanold
In Boobiez We Trust
#11 - 2012-08-24 12:55:24 UTC
Regarding ninja ratting in stealth bomber.

While AB is good for ratting (enough speed to avoid hits, no sig bloom, less stress on cap usage, fitting room for some shield/armor buffer tank) you NEED mwd for getting through camps on gates. Keep in mind that AB gives you boost like 126% while mwd kicks you forward with 500% boost. It does matter when you burn out of bubble because even with covert cloak you can still be decloaked so you want be out and gone ASAP. That one cycle of mwd may be a difference between pod express to home and continuation into null areas.

If you have access to station in null NPC or whatever you can bring AB in cargo and refit while getting through gates with possible camps. If you can't refit to "ratting" mods better fit mwd from start of your journey to null and learn how to minimize sig bloom effects while ratting (keep range, pulse mwd to gain speed and range, usual things).

Invalid signature format
voetius
Grundrisse
#12 - 2012-08-24 16:27:58 UTC

here's a slightly different post on ninja ratting in null sec that is more about exploration, but alot is relevant to your subject, well worth reading (or skimming) through all of it:

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=30338&find=unread

Lost Greybeard
Drunken Yordles
#13 - 2012-08-24 23:45:35 UTC
Schmata Bastanold wrote:
Regarding ninja ratting in stealth bomber.

While AB is good for ratting (enough speed to avoid hits, no sig bloom, less stress on cap usage, fitting room for some shield/armor buffer tank) you NEED mwd for getting through camps on gates.


Um, no.

The major advantage of the stealth bomber, in fact, is that you don't ever have to resort to silly cloak-exploit tricks. You go full speed cloaked and can warp without uncloaking once you're out of the bubbles. At worst, you'll get some choice profanity tossed at you by the people running the camp when they see the flash and you come up in local, but then they can't find you.
Schmata Bastanold
In Boobiez We Trust
#14 - 2012-08-25 07:07:09 UTC
Lost Greybeard wrote:
Schmata Bastanold wrote:
Regarding ninja ratting in stealth bomber.

While AB is good for ratting (enough speed to avoid hits, no sig bloom, less stress on cap usage, fitting room for some shield/armor buffer tank) you NEED mwd for getting through camps on gates.


Um, no.

The major advantage of the stealth bomber, in fact, is that you don't ever have to resort to silly cloak-exploit tricks. You go full speed cloaked and can warp without uncloaking once you're out of the bubbles. At worst, you'll get some choice profanity tossed at you by the people running the camp when they see the flash and you come up in local, but then they can't find you.


ORLY?

So approx 380 m/s or approx 900m/s on first Ab cycle is enough to get out of bubble in your opinion? Maybe if nobody watches that bubble but I wouldn't take my chances anyway if there is anybody in system. Even cloaked you still can be decloaked so good luck slow boating when reds are buzzing around looking for you.

But on the other hand I'm all for doing things as you see them fit so if your way is working for you I wish you all the best. I'm last person to tell anybody how they should play their Eve.

Invalid signature format