EVE General Discussion

I don't really know a damn thing about PVP in this game. So, I thought I'd ask some questions.

Don't you get blown up in seconds? I mean, i've been blown up. It tooks seconds. A tanked out T1 battleship wrecked in seconds, the kind of thing that could go all day against rooms full of rats... and a guy can just show up and wreck it in seconds. So, don't PVP pilots get all blown up in seconds after any engagement? No matter what you are flying and who you are with?

I mean, isn't it only a jump or two before, whoops! a gang twice your size. Everyone is always mounting scramblers, so few if any flee and whatever side started down is smoking space wrecks in under 2 minutes? Do you have time to even react? My experience with PVP is largely gate camps where it is 1 (me) versus 20 (them) - it doesn't take long.

Do people who engage in PVP use implants? Wouldn't you lose them on like a daily (hourly?) basis? How do you keep yourself in implants if you're getting podded constantly? Are you getting podded constantly? Why not? Isn't that what people automatically do and seek? How do you even keep yourself in space if you are constantly getting destroyed? Do you run hours and hours of missions on an alt to pay for all the ships you lose every other day?

I guess I could really use someone explaining a typical PVP encounter. Say, two guys looking for people to fight in lowsec run into one another? Is that typical? What is typical?

I'm very curious, but I don't have any information or experience... fill me in.

You're asking for the answer to a question that has countless variables involved. Logistics involved are research, trial and error, and experience. There is no substitute.

First, in a 20 to one engagement, yeah, you're going to melt in seconds, even if you're flying a bricked out tank of a ship. The amount of DPS is simply more than your ship can cope with.

People that go looking for PvP do not engage unless one of two criteria are met:

1. They're fairly certain they can win or
2. They have no other choice.

Also, large scale PvP tends to involve logistics, and the way of tanking a PvP ship is vastly different than how you tank for Pve (which is, imo, one of the issues with PvE that needs to be sorted). Some PvP fights are over in seconds - a frigate that strays to near a Huginn isn't going to survive much longer than it takes to lock, point, and web it. If it doesn't escape in those crucial seconds, it's not escaping.

Think of it like this: In PvE, your character's skills are often (but not always) much more important than your player knowledge. It's mostly target rat, press button, receive bacon. Repeat until finished. Once you learn the way to handle aggro for that particular site, you never need worry again.

In PvP, your player skill, knowledge of the game mecahnics, reactions, and ability to judge a situation in fractions of a second are what will win the day. Most PvP engagements are won or lost before the first target lock is obtained.

pretty much this.

to understand pvp, you really need to experience it from the bottom to the top. roaming gangs, cheap ganks, alliance-wide CTA's, structure bashing, fleet bashing... all these have their own set of variables.

also, the OP did experience ship-to-ship pvp, but there is more kinds of pvp in this game.

For one, you tank differently in PvP than you do against rats.
Rats deliver low damage over a long period of time; in PvP, you expect to meet high damage over a short period of time.

The kind of T1 battleship that stands up against rooms full of rats have very few hitpoints and instead rely on some form of HP regeneration (repping, shield boosting, passive regen), which means that if you can squeeze in a lot of damage between the repping cycles, it actually takes very little to kill it. The only buffer such a ship usually needs is enough to keep alive between the repping cycles and until you manage to whittle away on the incoming DPS until it's no longer a worry.

A PvP battleships simply adds tons of buffer. Any added repping usually comes in the form of logistics/remote-repair ships. In essence, it's the same, only done on a different scale and with more specialisation. You're still looking at a ship that sports enough buffer to survive between the repping cycles, it's just that “enough buffer” is almost an order of magnitude larger, that the repping cycles are only a fraction as long, and that the reppers don't sit on the ship that's being repaired. All of this means that, yes, you have time to react. More importantly, your logistics ships have time to react.

Depends on the fight. I've had frigate fights last a good minute or even two.


Don't break gate cloak until you're ready to move. I once jumped into a WT gate camp and managed to get back to the gate and jump out of it because they were stupid (not enough tackle/webs) and I had, minutes before, switched to an active tank (this was pure luck).


If you know what you're doing, are ready, and CCP's idiotic button placement doesn't hinder you, you will rarely lose a pod in high- or low-sec. Null-sec people have a different way of thinking; I'm not one of them.


Over time you learn to find people. One person is usually the aggressor and will initiate the combat. Whether they lock and shoot first is another matter, the point being they engaged in the fight.

also, one must remember when engaging on PVP:
- no fight is fair, fight dirty (within game rules) and employ all and anything you can do to bring your enemy down.
- never fight on their terms, make them fight in yours.
- never bring a knife into a knife fight, bring an ICBM. preferably several of them.
- outthink. outmaneuver. outgun. there is no overkill.
- when roaming, treat every local as your enemy and think of your gangmates as your bloodbrothers.
- keep yourself sharp and paranoid, remember they are out to get you.

In nullsec, sometimes you use implants, sometimes not. It depends on if the advantage of using the implants is going to outweigh the cost of losing them - IOW, if the pilot feels they give him enough of an advantage to win more fights than they lose. They tend to be more common in capital pilots and ships with specialized roles (command ships, interceptors, that sort of thing), than in the run of the mill drake/cane/tackle rifter.

All of that aside, unless the opposing group has bubbles, saving your pod in nullsec is really no harder than saving it anywhere else.If they do have bubbles, then yes, you'll lose your implants.

Add to this, nullsec pilots tend to use a lot of jump clones - I have four myself, one for roams with no implants, one for training which I am sitting in when I don't expect to die, a full set for capital operations, and a final set for my interceptor and dictor (mostly speed and maneuverability implants). You can also mitigate the cost by only putting implants in that you actually need for the task at hand. If you're going on a ten man roam, there's no need to bring along your +4s. Jump into an empty clone, and have fun, with not a **** to be given if your pod explodes/

Impants? Ha ha ha heck no, why would I waste so much ISK on expensive implants? +3's are my max for lowsec, in nullsec an empty clone is the norm. You get destroyed so easily because the DPS of 20 people is gonna eat anything subcap pretty fast. It's just numbers doing the work here. No surprise really. How fast does an egg break when you shoot it with an uzi?

In more optimal conditions a fight is still short and brutal compared to PVE, but takes long enough to be broken down into a few seperate phases. Yesterday I had a small frigate brawl with a friendly in hisec, just for lulz. It took almost a full minute, because we were both relatively well tanked. Even tho we were in such small ships, it took easily twice as long as the Tempest I once wrecked getting hotdropped by pirates. Why? Simply because the numbers and variables on my side of the equation were lacking in that situation, while the frig brawl was pretty tight.

The thing is... there is no 'typical' pvp scenario as each encounter can be wildly different. You could be in frigates chipping away at one anothers shields, or you find yourself against a massive force you can't counter or outrun. You can find youself in a BS unable to even hit the pesky frigate scramming you, while he slowly and painfully strips you of your defenses. Or you could be that frigate! In both cases combat will be taking a while.

I suggest you stop flying Battleships into lowsec for now, and use frigates / destroyers / cruisers / BC's instead. Fly with some friends, see the other side of the equation a couple of times. At some point eureka happens and you get a better grip on what each ship is actually capable of. When you look back then to the losses you incurred now, they will make so much sense!

I'm no stranger to doing my homework. I know all about PVP fits... it just doesn't mesh well with my solo PVE understanding of what works. I see fits all the time with a 1600mm on a cruiser with no armor repairer. And I think, okay, I get that you're planning to last longer than the enemy. So, let's assume you live through one fight... armor at half?! And no way to fix it for the next fight?

I see then that everyone who fits like this is assuming that they'll have a logistics partner to rep them. A solo guy probably hopes for getting the drop on the other guy, so no need to worry about "after fight" or "second fight"

What is the most desired role for PVP play then? Is there a universe hungry for logistics pilots to back up the fighters? Is it even possible to PVP and live without major logistics support?