Warfare & Tactics

This...

I look at them regularly... and if I can't get away from one quick enough I'm obviously doing something wrong.

All the talk about being "intelligent" boils down to the above, or having an alt scout. Unfortunately neither is a really good option.

The ingame map is buggy and causes eve to crash. Moreover the lack of detail and delay in both this and dotlan make them pretty useless. Camps often don't stay in one place for hours. Unless you just want to avoid all active systems then you can't really avoid gate camps with this system.

Short of having an alt for a scout, you will still lose ships to camps unless you are very risk adverse. The number of ships is somewhat managable right now. But its getting worse.

Gate camps and station camps are lame parts of eve. Solutions are probably worse than the problem though.


I'm sure allot of gate campers will take offense at their no risk pvp being attacked. But I really couldn't care less.

I travel a lot thoughout nullsec, lowsec, w-space, and even – shudder – the most dangerous of all, hisec. I use DOTLAN often to get an idea off the pros and cons of the route I am looking at, and to devise alternatives if it seems sensible. DOTLAN data *is* delayed, and no API-type data is perfect, but that does not stop it from being hugely useful. Being imperfect is not an excuse to not make use of it … every intelligence source is imperfect.

Similarly I use the ingame map functions extensively and have not found them to be at all ‘buggy’. They are especially useful when I am working in areas where I do not have realtime int-channel access … which is not a lot of empire space nowadays  Using the various different ingame-map parameters allows you to build a mental model of the activity in the systems along your route, do not limit yourself to just the one statistic.

I agree that using those tools takes time but, in the long run, it’s usually quicker overall to get there the first time round using the available intelligence than having to make several attempts because you do not use the resources out there and get yourself killed en route. Still, being able to plan for the future and to delay the receipt of gratification are fundamental elements of intelligence.

Good points. I guess there are quite large differences in how people approach risk and how willing / able they are to utilise the intel information that is available. As I said earlier intel is never perfect, it does not spawn a big idiot-proof flashy-red “gate camp” warning on your screen, but it is not terribly difficult to realise that there is a likely gate camp in a particular system … experience, intelligence, and imperfect information.

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree. IMHO the map tool, along with DOTLAN, tells you a helluva lot more than that there has simply “been PvP in the system”.

The number and nature of the kills, the number of people active, last hour v. 24-hours, the number of people docked, the long-term history of the system (e.g. ‘always’ camped), the presence of cynos, etc etc etc. All that info, when filtered through a little experience and some deductive reasoning, paints a very credible, detailed, and reliable picture of what is happening in the system.

Sure, the gate camping gang may have disbanded three minutes ago, but even that is often apparent when you watch … and even, god forbid, talk to … the other people who are also travelling.

There is a lot of information available but, as I said, it is not idiot-proof and it is not foolproof (interestingly a very different common meaning), and not everyone is inclined or able to make effective use of it.

A good thread.
I haven been absent for a long time and never had much experience in lowsec so I'm at a loss reading contradictory info.

What does instalock mean? How much time 'insta' takes?
How do people lose pods in lowsec? Seen a gatecamp the other day, watched them for a while waiting for them to go away and they had pod kills constantly for hours. I thought pods "insta"-warp? Maybe I don't know game mechanics anymore that's why I am extra careful but I was puzzled seeing regular pod kills. Is there really some way to target and shoot pods in lowsec (and I don't mean when they just stand there)?

Oh and one more thing - can gate cloak be removed if you jump and land on top of someone, or you're still safe until you move or the 30ish seconds pass?

While we're at it, I always had a problem trusting mwd/cloak - apparently after you move you need to wait a bit before succesfully activating modules... on the other side I been wondering, when you move others will see you immediately or appearing on overview has a similar small delay (in other words, how long should I wait for activating cloak after moving, and how much risk that poses in case I don't really lag)? I don't feel like taking blockade runners into camps to test it out. :)

From what I remember reading over a year ago:
The server works on 1 second tics. So anything under 1 second is pretty much counted as instalock. Now in the case of pods if the warp command and the warp scram command come in on the same tic then you warp. But see below on some reason pods are lost.


There are numerous reasons to lose pods in low sec beside smartbombs:

1) you are in a close fight and want to keep manual piloting or orbitting tight or keeping at range to try to get a kill instead of spaming warp out once you are in hull. As spamming warp out may ruin your transversal/range.

2) In a gate camp situation you may see the gate camp and try to burn back to the gate. Well the problem is, if you get blapped then you don't have a distant celestial highlighted on the overview. (and there is a session changer which won't allow you to jump in your pod even if you made it close) By the time you get a new distant celestial highlighted you pod is caught.

3)Lag. They may be pointing your pod before you realize your ship even blew up.

4) Game glitches. The command is simply not sent to the server. Ever sit click on orbit or approach and notice you are sitting still? Eve is pretty good but stuff like this happens. One time the client kept telling me it was unable to get a "lock" on the distant astroid belt I was trying to warp to. Sometimes - very rarely- the logs even show there was a problem. There used to actually be a problem where your pod warp command was delayed after your ship blew up - but they seemed to have fixed it.


Best solution is that if you are in a gate camp and have some implants worth more than your ship its probably just best to just keep spamming warp to a distant celestial. If you try to target anyone your overview will no longer be on the distant celestial and if you get blapped your will also lose your pod. Thats why instalock camps are pretty lame. If you try to do anything constructive to save your ship, you will likely just lose your pod as well.





I don't think the gate cloak goes away if you are close to someone else.



Yeah sometimes the cloak won't activate. I think it is because you clicked the cloak during the same 1 seond tic as your movement command. If you clicked move at the very end of the tic you should be able to hit cloak immediately if you hit move at the very beginning of the tic then you need to wait until that tic is over. With slight lag or slow response from a computer this can get a bit touchy and you may want to practice in high sec. You tend to get a white message box if your cloak doesn't turn on due to you being cloaked from your jump. But you don't want to have 2 clicks register on your cloak because then you won't be able to reactivate it.

Cloak mwd works very well. Make sure you have the better cloak that lets you go faster though. Practice in high sec. Unfortunately you often you don't want a cloak and mwd on a pvp ship.

This is correct, nothing can decloak you after a gate jump. Gate cloak lasts for 60 seconds.

If you think its easy now you should have seen how it was with orcas scooping up the insta lockers.

That being said it is way to easy to get any ship to instalock.

What you can do:

-scout yourself, or let somelse scout for you.
-Jump in with a bait and open cyno and see them die or fly away (cause a insta gatecamp is fully of cowards)

This is what you should do for the actual game mechanics. PL L33t tactics 101.


My opinions about insta locking gatecamps (with ecm too usually) is they re **** cause:

-take really no risk at all, just the effort to put out the thing (and this is against any work as intended thing)
-i agree this is sandbox and anyone can play it as he wish, the problem is many things force you to play in way you dont want to while others can keep play it lame and safe.
-create more alts for scouts/boost/support. CCP will be much more happy with you

P.S. true solo is dead, keep killing it