Warfare & Tactics

You can try to fight 1 vs 1 in 0.0.

Or you can bite gang.


But mostly solo is dead.

People who think solo is dead simply do not know how to get it.

Its right there if you have the balls to grasp it.

Honestly, it isn't rocket science.

1. Get in your favourite T1 frigate.
2. Warp to a safe in a FW region system.
3. Scan system and plexes with d-scan.
4. If there are suitable targets on scan, warp in and, um, fight.
5. If not, your choice whether to wait or move to another system.

I usually adjust d-scan to 1 AU 360 degrees when a fight is likely. Keep an eye on scan and if a blob is incoming you can try to disengage.

What are you flying? Which systems? I usually inhabit the Kamela region and rarely go ten minutes without finding a fight (literally). Are you in a faction or are you more 'liberal' in your attentions?

Check dotlan FW map for Amarr/Minmatar for the most active recent systems. Admittedly you can have the odd dull day. It has happened a few times for me so I log my market alts in and keep the iskies ticking over.

I do what Zappity does. Except I dont have any safe spots. I just scan the system when in the gate cloak. If the system is populated I will go in an empty plex and wait or open one myself.


I get allot of fights in lamma kourm huola and kamela. (3-4 fights per 2 hours) I used to get allot of fights up in metro as well but that seems to have dried up a bit.

For solo is the much quicker way to get fights. No waiting on others. Sure you will get more ganks in a gang after its going, But its rare that you will get as many good fights as you can when solo.

The other thing is you will obviously get more fights in fw plexes if you are not blue to a large number of pilots going in these plexes. So i highly recomend dropping militia. After I dropped militia I got a large increase in the number of fights.

Enlisted Minmatar. And I usually go at the wee early hours of the morning. Those are probably a factor.

To say that solo is dead would be an extreme exaggeration. I don't have too much experience with soloing in cruisers and above, but it is extremely active for frigates and destroyers.

I remember in 2011 I would grab a t1 frigate and set autopilot route through 30 lowsec systems. Sometimes I would go through all 30 and not find a single decent target (defined as another t1 or t2 frig willing to fight solo, or a small t1 frig gang). At that point you could make an argument that solo frig pvp is dead.

Now, with FW, there is an extremely large amount of targets available, as long as you stay in the right systems near the frontline (I also highly recommend avoiding the big FW hubs, where you are likely to get blobbed and people will have links).


As this might be useful to new pilots considering solo, I want to iterate some of the good points people have brought up and maybe raise some new ones:

- You will die, a lot. Try learning from every engagement. There will almost never be a fight where you did everything perfectly, including preparation and managing the engagement itself

- There is no need for links or 1bil implants. I am sure they help, but learning to pilot and not relying on crutches is more valuable. While I have flown a few times with lg crystals, they were not enough to take on significantly larger targets, so they weren't worth it for me, so I stick to cheap ones. I don't mind people with expensive implants: at least they put them to some risk when they bring them. If you think some pilot is using "cheap" tactics (by your definition), add them to watchlist and avoid giving them good fights.

- To counter large enemy numbers: mobility and dps. You can split them in space by mobility or split them in time by killing their friends before the rest of the enemy arrives, both on grid and to their optimals. Assault Frigates and Destroyers excel at that. In general dps > tank for solo, in my opinion.

- Most people will share advice, some will even share fits after a 1v1. Somewhat unsurprisingly, they are much more likely to do either of these if it was a close fight and they won or if you are a new player.

- Not being in FW gives you more targets. Being in FW attracts additional aggro from enemy militias, and allows you to open plexes, so you can bait in them. Baiting in plexes is typically extremely boring, but not so if you need to make a stretching break/make coffee (you still should check d-scan/local every 30-40s).

Solo isn't dead for me. Getting WTFBLOBBED is a part of it. So is having the (in)decency to flat-out murder someone that's AFK or very inexperienced. Your d-scanner is your most valued tool, learn it like the back of your hand and combine it with the Set Onscreen Tracking Position option, to get insta-5-degree scans of celestials in range. Solve the OGB problem by moving systems once you think another pvp-er is 'on your tail' and see who follows. Just accept it's a roll of the dice sometimes, good fights are as rare and epic as on any other scale. A BattleCruiser is a wise choice for solo PVP. Also: have 2 fits, one for PVP and one to move around (warpstabs, inertia stabs). Decide wheter to travel and escape, or to fight back, not both.

DOUBLE!

P-P-P-POST!

Obviously the fw players will be much more likely to run than neutrals in plexes. There is no reason for a neutral to be in a plex other than to pvp. Whereas the fw pilots are often there to carebear vp for thier miltiia.


Thats why I wonder what percent of kills in plexes are from faction war players as opposed to neutrals. FW plexes are a great pvp venue and have replaced the top belt. It seems to me, the number of actual fights I get with neutrals is climbing every month.