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LF Advice: Cheap fleet comps for fighting/learning
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Yokomaki
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#1 - 2013-04-12 19:11:56 UTC
I'll skip the intro as fast as possible and get to the good stuff.

Our background:
  • Myself and friends formed a corp awhile back and moved into C4-C4 WH. We love WH space.
  • Several of us, myself included have experience in nullsec alliances and some pvp experience in fleets.
  • We have been growing in confidence and experience to the point we don't hole up every time a K162 opens and now think of it as an opportunity.
  • We have 8 players, 4 of which are WoW transfers and 2m or less SP players but very competent and quick learners.
  • We dualbox

What we are doing:
  • To get our new players up to speed as quickly as possible we all focus on Amarr specific ships.
  • We get our newbros into Augorors and within 2 weeks of starting can be effective and useful in PvE and PvP.
  • Every day it seems we want to run sites less and find fights more, but we can't seem to find them.
  • We want to stay a small corp and learn from our own mistakes rather than join a large pvp corp/alliance where we just ride on the coattails of someone else's hard work.


We would like to keep individual ships to less than 100m each so that we can go out, blow stuff up and learn without having to run sites for a few days to replace an expensive fleet. Currently we are putting together a fleet comp of Augs, Prophecys, and Harbingers.

Our fleet comp would look something like this:
Augoror x3
Prophecy x3
Harbinger x2
Malediction x1
Prophecy (boosting) x1

So here is where I am seeking advice. We are focusing our fleet on defense and we are quite light on offense. The majority of our damage comes from drone damage at ~200-300 dps for each prophecy and ~150dps for each harbinger. We are training up for sentries but we are still talking less than 400 dps per prophecy.

Aside from getting rolled by 30 T3's with support, how would this hold up from say 5-10 T3's with no logi? Are there small gangs such as our own we could roll into or do we just need to scan down to lowsec to get small fleet engagements? I often try to contact locals in our chain to see if they are interested in small gang stuff but have never been taken up on the offer.

Is there something that is low skillpoint/low ISK for dps that we could swap out to?

Thanks much for any input.
Rroff
Antagonistic Tendencies
#2 - 2013-04-12 21:10:26 UTC  |  Edited by: Rroff
Augs and battlecruisers are a good way to do it but you'd be better off biasing for damage output than defence - especially as your most ready targets will likely be PVE ships and or possible escalations from that where you will encounter ships with large local tanks. (Sticking some neuts in somewhere will help a bit with that).

C4 space isn't a great place to find fights at the best of times from my experience, a large proportion of residents of C4 space are people who want to be left alone.

Not suprised you don't get much interest from people in the chain either as most will probably assume its a trap.

If your interested in doing that kind of PVP you probably want to base out of a C2 or another system with ready access to C2s so you have the option of low/null sec roaming as well as WH stuff.

EDIT: As far as how much of a chance you stand - depends a lot on the quality of your FC and players - I suspect that on a good day if you engaged a 5-10 man t3 gang lacking logistics of their own you'd probably end up losing the fleet but if you kept the logis at a good distance and they concentrated on the BCs first theres a good chance you'd kill more expensive stuff than you'd lose (come out on top on ISK efficency even if you lose the fight) and with more practise may even win some.
Jump The H
Doomheim
#3 - 2013-04-12 21:23:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Jump The H
Get them to grind the Frontier Barracks dungeons till the blue loot drops, that stuff can then be traded in at the local vendors in the cities for money that can then be used for the Faction cruisers at the speciality vendors, those really help grind your pvp rep too for fleets.

Edit: Or you can listen to the guy above and below
Gnaw LF
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#4 - 2013-04-12 21:25:23 UTC
The biggest problem I see with your fleet is that its slow and heavy, which means that once you are engaged chances are the opponent will be able to hold you on the field while they can call for backup. Your DPS is pretty weak and your range is not great so in some cases a couple of 100mn Tengus will be able to hold you down for a while, if they have a logisitc ship on grid then you can forgetaboutit. If you are not planning on expanding your corporation/group, then you should start thinking about guerrilla tactics. How is that type of warfare conducted? Mostly by hit and run tactics, you want speed and damage.

You want to be able to destroy a portion of your enemy and then retreat, you will save more ISK that way and learn quite more about PvP and game mechanics. So in eve terms that means NANO gangs, start looking into nano Drakes, nano Canes, nano Tier 3s. Then learn how to point while staying out of scram range, learn how to manage the heat from your modules, learn how to align and learn to pick your fights. You will still die, its inevitable but you will know more about the game then sticking with slow, heavy turds that will only feed your opponent's killboard.
Dato Koppla
Neuronix
#5 - 2013-04-12 21:37:15 UTC
C4-C4 is going to be very quiet unless your static C4 has a C1-3 static, or else it's going to be hard to find targets. Another thing is, drones can get really fiddly in fleets, you might want to consider sticking to Harbs.

3 Augs and 5 dps isn't really the best, I'd just have a pair of Augs cap chaining and the inty, everyone else in dps.
Kalel Nimrott
Caldari Provisions
#6 - 2013-04-13 11:03:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Kalel Nimrott
If you live in a c4-c4, throw a little more isk to the mix.

Bob Artis, you will be missed.

O7
Doctorkaba
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#7 - 2013-04-13 12:59:28 UTC
3 augs is the best amount you can have in your small gang, as this means you will have at least 2 augs repping a ship at one time. You might have a difficult time hitting smaller ships with medium lasers, and drones arent the best form of damage, but it all depends on what you fight.

I personally have seem more pvp in a c4/c3 than a c2/c2/low, and these have been actual fights instead of ganks. Sentries might not be the best idea, as stated about, you will be fighting mainly cruisrs and some armor BCs. The new navy Harbs will be great.

However if you are dead set on amarr, this sounds like a good set up. Make sure that every member watches their drones, you dont want to lose too many of them :).

Want some pvp help? Like to fly small and fast frigates? Then join the in game channel Tenori_Tigers!

stup idity
#8 - 2013-04-13 13:20:49 UTC
My suggestion:

If you can go Shield fleet.

It will be:
- tougher than a similar armor fleet (using mainly Drakes and Feroxes with their resists bonuses),
- a little bit faster - which doesn't really matter,
- having around the same amount of damage output, (ca 500 - 600 per ship without drones )
- and haveing a full flight of ec-300 drones for each Ferox or Drake
- Also consider bringing two blackbirds for addiotinal ecm support.
- Nagas can also reach sufficient ehp and resists to be viable.

The considerable downside towards armor fleets is the lack of free mid-slots for webs and scrams as you would need most slots for tank.

I am the Herald of all beings that are me.
Sebben
Tempered Aggression
Seker Matar
#9 - 2013-04-13 17:21:40 UTC  |  Edited by: Sebben
Yokomaki wrote:
I'll skip the intro as fast as possible and get to the good stuff.

Our background:
  • Myself and friends formed a corp awhile back and moved into C4-C4 WH. We love WH space.
  • Several of us, myself included have experience in nullsec alliances and some pvp experience in fleets.
  • We have been growing in confidence and experience to the point we don't hole up every time a K162 opens and now think of it as an opportunity.
  • We have 8 players, 4 of which are WoW transfers and 2m or less SP players but very competent and quick learners.
  • We dualbox

What we are doing:
  • To get our new players up to speed as quickly as possible we all focus on Amarr specific ships.
  • We get our newbros into Augorors and within 2 weeks of starting can be effective and useful in PvE and PvP.
  • Every day it seems we want to run sites less and find fights more, but we can't seem to find them.
  • We want to stay a small corp and learn from our own mistakes rather than join a large pvp corp/alliance where we just ride on the coattails of someone else's hard work.


We would like to keep individual ships to less than 100m each so that we can go out, blow stuff up and learn without having to run sites for a few days to replace an expensive fleet. Currently we are putting together a fleet comp of Augs, Prophecys, and Harbingers.

Our fleet comp would look something like this:
Augoror x3
Prophecy x3
Harbinger x2
Malediction x1
Prophecy (boosting) x1

So here is where I am seeking advice. We are focusing our fleet on defense and we are quite light on offense. The majority of our damage comes from drone damage at ~200-300 dps for each prophecy and ~150dps for each harbinger. We are training up for sentries but we are still talking less than 400 dps per prophecy.

Aside from getting rolled by 30 T3's with support, how would this hold up from say 5-10 T3's with no logi? Are there small gangs such as our own we could roll into or do we just need to scan down to lowsec to get small fleet engagements? I often try to contact locals in our chain to see if they are interested in small gang stuff but have never been taken up on the offer.

Is there something that is low skillpoint/low ISK for dps that we could swap out to?

Thanks much for any input.


I see your asking 2 questions.

1) What should your fleet be
2) How do you deal with roaving T3's.

Do NOT start rolling into T2's and T3's to try to counter T3 gangs.

If you can, focus on keeping your ships around 40 to 60 million isk (Yes you can fit out a Mega Tank Prophecy of 100,000 ehp for around that much.

Make sure you get your tank up to T2 standards (fit T2 Tank, try to fit T2 Guns).

The reason your probably doing low damage is 1) Tracking, Skills, and 2) Weapon type. T3's generally will have a speed advantage over you, so they will dictate range more often.

If you really want to deal with gangs larger than 2 or 3 people, you will need some-type of Ewar. Your tanks and repairers won't hold up once the gang starts targetting your Augoror's. Bring either Celestis or Blackbirds (T1 Sensor Dampeners, and T1 ECM). If you can drop their range advantage, you can dictate much more, if you can break their locks, you can also do the same. Once Tracking Disruption starts to apply to missiles, the Amarr ships will become MUCH more beneficial also.

Also, the Arbirator and the Prophecy are droneboats, treat them as such. The missiles/blasters on the prophecy will not do much damage, BUT if you want to deal with faster ships, don't fit Heavy Missiles, Fit Rockets and Light Missiles (Your fighting Cruisers, focus on what hurts them). The proph specifically can fit a RIDICULOUS tank, land them first, dictate from there.

Yes your Gang can hold off 10 T3's, if you specify targets and know who to go for, Especially if you can dictate the fight, and especially if you have sometype of Ewar.

Understand that once you get involved with a T3 bash, expect more T3's to show up :-). Enjoy.

Also, get used to moving the gang out of your c4, and get used to roaming 4, 5 or even 6 holes deep.
Lloyd Roses
Artificial Memories
#10 - 2013-04-13 17:59:57 UTC
I'd say a baitdrake, 2/3 scythes and shieldomens. You have to love those shieldomens for their scorchrange \o/

Personally I'd bring blackbirds over all other ewar, since small gangs are impacted most heavily by jams. Also, long-range webbing lokis have terrible sensor srength.
Rroff
Antagonistic Tendencies
#11 - 2013-04-13 18:02:53 UTC
Sebben wrote:


Yes your Gang can hold off 10 T3's, if you specify targets and know who to go for, Especially if you can dictate the fight, and especially if you have sometype of Ewar.


Depends on too many variables that many T3s assuming some half decent fit damage boats like gank prots and legion will tear through the repping of even 3 augorors, if its closer to 5 than 10 T3s and you can keep the augs out of range of their dps tho it could easily be another story.
Yokomaki
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#12 - 2013-04-13 18:43:35 UTC
Sebben wrote:

I see your asking 2 questions.

1) What should your fleet be
2) How do you deal with roaving T3's.

Do NOT start rolling into T2's and T3's to try to counter T3 gangs.

If you can, focus on keeping your ships around 40 to 60 million isk (Yes you can fit out a Mega Tank Prophecy of 100,000 ehp for around that much.

Make sure you get your tank up to T2 standards (fit T2 Tank, try to fit T2 Guns).

The reason your probably doing low damage is 1) Tracking, Skills, and 2) Weapon type. T3's generally will have a speed advantage over you, so they will dictate range more often.

If you really want to deal with gangs larger than 2 or 3 people, you will need some-type of Ewar. Your tanks and repairers won't hold up once the gang starts targetting your Augoror's. Bring either Celestis or Blackbirds (T1 Sensor Dampeners, and T1 ECM). If you can drop their range advantage, you can dictate much more, if you can break their locks, you can also do the same. Once Tracking Disruption starts to apply to missiles, the Amarr ships will become MUCH more beneficial also.

Also, the Arbirator and the Prophecy are droneboats, treat them as such. The missiles/blasters on the prophecy will not do much damage, BUT if you want to deal with faster ships, don't fit Heavy Missiles, Fit Rockets and Light Missiles (Your fighting Cruisers, focus on what hurts them). The proph specifically can fit a RIDICULOUS tank, land them first, dictate from there.

Yes your Gang can hold off 10 T3's, if you specify targets and know who to go for, Especially if you can dictate the fight, and especially if you have sometype of Ewar.

Understand that once you get involved with a T3 bash, expect more T3's to show up :-). Enjoy.

Also, get used to moving the gang out of your c4, and get used to roaming 4, 5 or even 6 holes deep.


You hit the nail on the head, thank you very much.

Arbitrators and Celestis are something I had thought about. I actually moved a few Arbistrators into system and fit them for the newbros since their plan consists of training Amarr cruiser V. The progression path would be Augoror -> Arbitrator (if needed) -> Prophecy -> Geddon (after Odyssey). The skills they need for each progression are quite complimentary especially with Energy Emission Systems for the Aug being useful in the new Geddon's neut bonus.

Based on your response here is my updated thinking:
With Arbitrators we can provide some defense versus turret ships (Legion, Loki, Proteus). If a turret based range opponent was out at longe range the Aug's should be ok with a 90 sig and traveling roughly 500m/s. The Prophecies would be the easiest target but like you said the prophecy can have a massive tank and high resist. I would also suspect if there is a web Loki (and there probably would be?) it could reduce the speed of an Aug to around 100. In the event that happens we would want to jam/damp the Loki and bring him in closer.

How often are 100mn Tengu's in use? I don't want to simply say "it's not used often" and leave us completely defenseless versus them. We could cross-train a Celestis or two and then swap them back when TD's work on missiles (that will be awesome). I will play around in EFT to see how many damps it would take to reduce the lock range to bring them in closer. I assume they would be quite far out or would they stay in point range and just be to fast for our drones?

When we can use Garde II's would they be able to track 100mm Tengus at 20km? What can we expect hostile fleets to do when we drop roughly 12 sentries? It will be a couple months before we can all use T2 Sentries but I have been in Gila fleets before and the alpha is awesome. Dropping drones/sentries and assigning them to designated person would also allow newbros to focus on their cap management and ewar.

Lastly, we do have options to bring more bling and 3 of our pilots have between 50k and 100k SPs. The problem with that is if we are losing 200-300m each every time we want to go engage a fight then that is more time running sites we have to do. With cheap ships we can run sites once or twice a night and fund PvP for the rest of the week. I think the cheapest long range webs we could get would be Huginn/Rapier but I assume they would be primaried first and would die quite quickly? I'm interested in your thoughts on this.

I'm really not that concerned about our killboard being red or green. With enough practice and FUN we'll learn and eventually reverse any red on the KB. As I've been told routinely the only way to learn is to go out and do it, make mistakes, and learn from it.
Yokomaki
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#13 - 2013-04-13 18:47:44 UTC
Rroff wrote:
Sebben wrote:


Yes your Gang can hold off 10 T3's, if you specify targets and know who to go for, Especially if you can dictate the fight, and especially if you have sometype of Ewar.


Depends on too many variables that many T3s assuming some half decent fit damage boats like gank prots and legion will tear through the repping of even 3 augorors, if its closer to 5 than 10 T3s and you can keep the augs out of range of their dps tho it could easily be another story.


What would be the best way to keep the Augs out of range? The Aug's do between 400-500 depending on the pilot skills. Even assuming Prophecies engage T3's at 0 and the Aug's at 40 what is stopping the T3's from heading straight for the Augs? The Prophecies/Arbitrators I suppose will still have drones doing dps up to 65km (drone link) but eventually the T3s are going to catch up. We have webs fit and can lock down 1 or 2 but eventually the fight is going to be where the Augs are yes?
Morgan Torry
Arma Purgatorium
#14 - 2013-04-14 00:24:06 UTC
Yokomaki wrote:

What would be the best way to keep the Augs out of range? The Aug's do between 400-500 depending on the pilot skills. Even assuming Prophecies engage T3's at 0 and the Aug's at 40 what is stopping the T3's from heading straight for the Augs? The Prophecies/Arbitrators I suppose will still have drones doing dps up to 65km (drone link) but eventually the T3s are going to catch up. We have webs fit and can lock down 1 or 2 but eventually the fight is going to be where the Augs are yes?



Yes. So webs are the typical response. Could always pull range (The Augs) and chase with your dps/ewar/tackle boats. Either way you're going armor cruiser. Accept the fact you will not be that mobile or fast.

Arma Purgatorium - What is Podded May Never Die
Rroff
Antagonistic Tendencies
#15 - 2013-04-14 00:36:33 UTC
Yokomaki wrote:

How often are 100mn Tengu's in use? I don't want to simply say "it's not used often" and leave us completely defenseless versus them. We could cross-train a Celestis or two and then swap them back when TD's work on missiles (that will be awesome). I will play around in EFT to see how many damps it would take to reduce the lock range to bring them in closer. I assume they would be quite far out or would they stay in point range and just be to fast for our drones?

When we can use Garde II's would they be able to track 100mm Tengus at 20km? What can we expect hostile fleets to do when we drop roughly 12 sentries? It will be a couple months before we can all use T2 Sentries but I have been in Gila fleets before and the alpha is awesome. Dropping drones/sentries and assigning them to designated person would also allow newbros to focus on their cap management and ewar.


TBH I've not seen 100mn tengus that much other than the odd site runner, sentry drones will struggle to track them applying probably 5-10% of their dps at optimal range and mostly missing much either side of that. Aslong as you don't get caught in the open outnumbered by oversized prop mod ships they are probably the least of your worries in wormhole space.
chris elliot
Treasury Department
Plug N Play
#16 - 2013-04-14 22:49:14 UTC
Gnaw LF wrote:
The biggest problem I see with your fleet is that its slow and heavy, which means that once you are engaged chances are the opponent will be able to hold you on the field while they can call for backup. Your DPS is pretty weak and your range is not great so in some cases a couple of 100mn Tengus will be able to hold you down for a while, if they have a logisitc ship on grid then you can forgetaboutit. If you are not planning on expanding your corporation/group, then you should start thinking about guerrilla tactics. How is that type of warfare conducted? Mostly by hit and run tactics, you want speed and damage.

You want to be able to destroy a portion of your enemy and then retreat, you will save more ISK that way and learn quite more about PvP and game mechanics. So in eve terms that means NANO gangs, start looking into nano Drakes, nano Canes, nano Tier 3s. Then learn how to point while staying out of scram range, learn how to manage the heat from your modules, learn how to align and learn to pick your fights. You will still die, its inevitable but you will know more about the game then sticking with slow, heavy turds that will only feed your opponent's killboard.



This guy knows his sht. You will probably have more fun doing that style of combat anyway imho.
chris elliot
Treasury Department
Plug N Play
#17 - 2013-04-14 22:51:25 UTC
Yokomaki wrote:
Rroff wrote:
Sebben wrote:


Yes your Gang can hold off 10 T3's, if you specify targets and know who to go for, Especially if you can dictate the fight, and especially if you have sometype of Ewar.


Depends on too many variables that many T3s assuming some half decent fit damage boats like gank prots and legion will tear through the repping of even 3 augorors, if its closer to 5 than 10 T3s and you can keep the augs out of range of their dps tho it could easily be another story.


What would be the best way to keep the Augs out of range? The Aug's do between 400-500 depending on the pilot skills. Even assuming Prophecies engage T3's at 0 and the Aug's at 40 what is stopping the T3's from heading straight for the Augs? The Prophecies/Arbitrators I suppose will still have drones doing dps up to 65km (drone link) but eventually the T3s are going to catch up. We have webs fit and can lock down 1 or 2 but eventually the fight is going to be where the Augs are yes?



A smart gang of t3's will all have damps in their utility slots. So do not count on the range bonus of the augs to be there for very long.
Yokomaki
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#18 - 2013-04-15 15:59:09 UTC
Oh the irony, we had a 1.8b faction fit 100mn Tengu land on us this weekend at 0. We can only assume it was a mistake. We double webbed and neuted him. It resulted in a cheer for the loot fairy when most of the faction mods dropped.

So we had German neighbors in our static this weekend and researching their killboard they ran with 4 no prop tengus with RR and a HIC. I plugged in their fits into EFT and attempted to see what sort of damage they could do to our various fleet members. The answer was pretty much jack even when an Aug was double webbed. It seems Tengus are indeed the least of our worries. When the Tengu we ran into primaried our Aug he barely made it through shields.

@chris elliot Thanks for the tip on damps and Aug range.
@Rroff Thanks for the info on 100mn sentry tracking.
Nash MacAllister
Air
The Initiative.
#19 - 2013-04-15 16:50:35 UTC
Yokomaki wrote:
Oh the irony, we had a 1.8b faction fit 100mn Tengu land on us this weekend at 0. We can only assume it was a mistake. We double webbed and neuted him. It resulted in a cheer for the loot fairy when most of the faction mods dropped.

So we had German neighbors in our static this weekend and researching their killboard they ran with 4 no prop tengus with RR and a HIC. I plugged in their fits into EFT and attempted to see what sort of damage they could do to our various fleet members. The answer was pretty much jack even when an Aug was double webbed. It seems Tengus are indeed the least of our worries. When the Tengu we ran into primaried our Aug he barely made it through shields.

@chris elliot Thanks for the tip on damps and Aug range.
@Rroff Thanks for the info on 100mn sentry tracking.


IMHO while the T2 Gardes/Bouncers won't track well if he is orbiting that close, therein lies the key. A great tactic is to drop sentries and get people to chase you thereby lowering the transversal to almost zero. Then, those sentries will really start to lay into them. Even better is if you have a couple groups of sentries dropped as odds are one of the groups will have a low transversal. But, you must be aware of the optimals and manage range/drones accordingly. Just a thought...

It may be a little pricier than you are looking for but a Gila fleet can be pretty fun to field since you have the sentries for range, heavies for up close, and lights/ecm for tackle or frigs. And while effective, I am really speaking from a fun factor standpoint. Certainly there are other/cheaper/more effective ships/comps out there.

Yes, if you have to ask yourself the question, just assume we are watching you...
Gal'o Sengen
Doomheim
#20 - 2013-04-17 08:29:05 UTC
If you need some more gank and projection, i'd suggest trading some Prophecies for Myrmidons. Less tank, but with 3 DDA's and Garde II's i can get ~600 DPS @40km Optimal out of my Myrm, and 400 DPS all the way out past 110km with The Caldari Sentries. With the Battlecruiser skill still covering all all racial BC's, it might be worth looking at.
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