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Learning Solo PvP: HALP!
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JAF Anders
Adenosine Inhibition
#21 - 2013-09-15 03:10:35 UTC
Garviel Tarrant wrote:
JAF Anders wrote:
Garviel Tarrant wrote:
But this also depends on what kind of ship you are flying. If you are using a scram kiter you want 10 but a close up brawler you probably want 0.



Unless you know that everyone else warps at 10 -- then, of course, these numbers are reversed.

Nope, then someone warping at 10 from the other side twice as far away.

Its all very arbitrary. Warping at 10 is safer, i do it a lot of the time.

Its just not required.


Odds of hitting the gate at the same time from opposite directions is kind of slim, don't you think?

The pursuit of excellence and stabbed plexing alts.
Garviel Tarrant
Beyond Divinity Inc
Shadow Cartel
#22 - 2013-09-15 04:10:54 UTC
What? You don't have to do that.. They would just have to have warped to the gate and then not... you know.. moved..

BYDI recruitment closed-ish

Ariel Dawn
State War Academy
Caldari State
#23 - 2013-09-17 17:23:43 UTC
Fit 10-20 frigates and fight everything. You'll learn a lot, as well as get a few uprising killmails. Condors are fantastic and can engage a huge # of different targets and force you to learn how to kite properly, or go with brawling frigates with which you'll have to learn how to properly slingshot kiters.
Shinjo Bajahnhosuu
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#24 - 2013-09-17 22:15:57 UTC  |  Edited by: Shinjo Bajahnhosuu
A bit of a twist on the above advice, but as someone who's trying to relearn solo combat in and around FW systems I've moved up to T1 cruisers as I found that frig fights seemed to end too quickly.

Not arguing against the "fit 20 frigates approach", just offering an alternative "fit 20 cruisers". Sure it means you can't go into the small and novice plexes but I'm having no problem getting fights and I find I have more time to calm down, assess and react to what's happening.
Zappity
New Eden Tank Testing Services
#25 - 2013-09-17 22:18:54 UTC
Shinjo Bajahnhosuu wrote:
A bit of a twist on the above advice, but as someone who's trying to relearn solo combat in and around FW systems I've moved up to T1 cruisers as I found that frig fights seemed to end too quickly.

Not arguing against the "fit 20 frigates approach", just offering an alternative "fit 20 cruisers". Sure it means you can't go into the small and novice plexes but I'm having no problem getting fights and I find I have more time to calm down, assess and react to what's happening.


Get FRAPS.

Zappity's Adventures for a taste of lowsec and nullsec.
Baron' Soontir Fel
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#26 - 2013-09-18 15:36:53 UTC
Shinjo Bajahnhosuu wrote:
A bit of a twist on the above advice, but as someone who's trying to relearn solo combat in and around FW systems I've moved up to T1 cruisers as I found that frig fights seemed to end too quickly.

Not arguing against the "fit 20 frigates approach", just offering an alternative "fit 20 cruisers". Sure it means you can't go into the small and novice plexes but I'm having no problem getting fights and I find I have more time to calm down, assess and react to what's happening.


The difference is 20 frigates is about 200mil total. 20 Cruisers is 600mil. Also, Cruisers require more support skills to function as well as frigates. Cap skills play a much larger role, drone skills affect every cruiser out there, navigation skills are more important, etc.

I was getting kills in my handy-dandy Kestrel with only T2 guns. No T2 Shield Extenders, DCUs, cap boosters, Invul Fields, Adaptive Platings, etc. Cruisers need those T2 variants because they make a much much larger difference when numbers are bigger. 5% extra shields on a 1500 shield ship is hardly anything. 5% extra shields on a 5000 shield ship is a lot more.
Skelee VI
Swamp Panthers
Bog Brotherhood
#27 - 2013-09-18 20:04:23 UTC
join us we learn you good!
Shinjo Bajahnhosuu
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#28 - 2013-09-19 00:00:04 UTC
Baron' Soontir Fel wrote:
Shinjo Bajahnhosuu wrote:
A bit of a twist on the above advice, but as someone who's trying to relearn solo combat in and around FW systems I've moved up to T1 cruisers as I found that frig fights seemed to end too quickly.

Not arguing against the "fit 20 frigates approach", just offering an alternative "fit 20 cruisers". Sure it means you can't go into the small and novice plexes but I'm having no problem getting fights and I find I have more time to calm down, assess and react to what's happening.


The difference is 20 frigates is about 200mil total. 20 Cruisers is 600mil. Also, Cruisers require more support skills to function as well as frigates. Cap skills play a much larger role, drone skills affect every cruiser out there, navigation skills are more important, etc.

I was getting kills in my handy-dandy Kestrel with only T2 guns. No T2 Shield Extenders, DCUs, cap boosters, Invul Fields, Adaptive Platings, etc. Cruisers need those T2 variants because they make a much much larger difference when numbers are bigger. 5% extra shields on a 1500 shield ship is hardly anything. 5% extra shields on a 5000 shield ship is a lot more.


Fair points. As a returning player trying to relearn I had the skills and the isk to make that leap up.
Major Killz
inglorious bastards.
#29 - 2013-09-20 15:12:29 UTC
Out of boredom and to those who say I don't give helpful advice. I will TRY to be helpful here...

(1) Learn how to use the directional scanner. It's a extension of the visual you see on grid (what's on your overview or what you can immediately see). Similar to being able to hear or smell what you cannot see. So, it's a sense. Also the ingame map is VERY useful. It's a GREAT tool for find or avoiding engagements. You're able to refine your search by kills/losses, number of pilots within system, pilots currently docked, traffic and this is all within time frames of 30 min, 1 hour and 24 hours. The information is not perfect but once you have a better understanding of the mechanic it's an AWESOME TOOL. I was taught how to pvp in 2007 - 2008 so this was something on the out by then. After that point almost NO new (after 2009) solo pvpers use the ingame map. Maybe that's why the quality of solo pvp'ers are garbage without using alts v0v

For those who have flown with me know I generally have no problems finding engagements and the ingame MAP is why v0v

(2) Then you go out and do. This may lead to ALOT of losses to begin with so people suggest you use hulls that are cost effective or easily replaced. This is the time you should get to know the OUTMOST LIMIT of that ship and particular setup. For example: when I theory craft a new setup I put it in a VERY DISADVANTAGEOUS situation so I can better understand ITS (the ship, setup and inherit tactics) limits. So I engage 2 thrashers in a Rifter to understand how long I COULD last in that situation or a Hawk and how much damage I could apply before I'm destroyed for example.

So when lets say there's a situation I see 2 Thrashers on directional scanner but they're not on the same grid with one another but there in the same corp/fleet. I decide to engage and warp to one of those and before I land I dscan and have an idea of how far away (in AU's) the other thrasher is. I can now formulate the time it would take the other Thrasher to reach the one I'm engaging and how much time I have before the other Thrasher is applying damage to me. Lets the other one is 13 AU away and may take. When you include reaction to my agression, time to get into warp, time while in warp and time to lock. It may take 15 seconds bla bla bla (dont know if that's a good example v0v)

Sh!t like that... Either way. Knowing the operational limitations of your ship/setup/tactic-employed IS HELLA Important to success. At Least in an environment where anything can happen and you're generally going to engage 2 - 3 pilots at least when solo.

(3) The other thing you should learn how to do well is avoidance. It's important you're able to use all available mechanics that will effectively enable you to avoid combat. Why? Well, in time you can learn this threw mistakes. So, losing ships until you understand what you can effectively engage with your current ship, setup and inherit tactics and limitations of said ship and setup. Being able to effectively remove yourself from situations where the outcome will be fatal is important.

Insitionally i'm suggesting you learn how to be a coward or know when to run away when you're at disadvantage. To be honest this is often the difference between REALLY GOOD, good and bad pilots. There awareness and knowledge of advantages and disadvantage. Which becomes unconscious or SIXTH SENSE after a while is superior to lesser pilots. Also improves your kill to death ratio.

(4) The second to last thing I suggest is TRY NEW THINGS and COME UP WITH NEW CONCEPTS. This will keep you ahead or in the forefront of gameplay. Innovative setups take time to disseminate and its safe to say until it does YOU WILL HAVE AN ADVANTAGE over other pilots. THEORY CRAFTING or EFT WARRIORING is an important exercise for a solo pvper but it should always be towards DOING instead of just TALKING about it.

1 year into my time in this game I came to the conclusion that this game would end for me if I just focused on winning instead of trying new and interesting things. After all, destroying fools paper planes gets boring and adding more green to my WIN column gets OLD QUICK. So I spent less time improving my piloting ability and more time THEORYCRAFTING and doing new things. IT was fun and well worth it and extended my interest and fun in this game.

(5) The last thing is except that you will be ganked, blobed, nuked, alphaded and lamed. Life and even more so this game IS NOT FAIR. DEAL WITH IT NOW. Don't cry when it happens or be surprised. A good fight is a fight were you win. A FUN fight is a fight you lose or win and had fun doing it. Don't waste your breathe crying about fair or being blobbed. You'll just drive yourself mad and you'll look stupid. You lost they won. DEAL WITH IT. Also honor can limit you as a pilot don't waste your time with lofty principles. Mind you the most important thing in this game other than fun is the friends you make. depending on how important they are to you. The only lofty principle you should prolly keep to is "Friendship is the best spaceship". Also, be open to flying with ANYONE. Don't limit yourself to just flying with your corp or alliance. Fly with ANYONE willing to even if you just engaged or are at war with. You can learn alot from flying with other pilots AS a SOLO pilot. It can in fact improve your gameplay and increase your number of friends.


Oh! My grammar and spelling is always bad because I am maverick...

[u]Ich bin ein Pirat ！[/u]
KatanTharkay
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#30 - 2013-09-21 23:23:03 UTC
Join RVB. There you can always ask for a 1 vs 1 and it's always honored.
Baron' Soontir Fel
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#31 - 2013-09-24 00:28:39 UTC
KatanTharkay wrote:
Join RVB. There you can always ask for a 1 vs 1 and it's always honored.


No offense. But I would not recommend RvB to people trying to solo.

RvB is good for:
Getting people used to losing ships.
Learning how to PvP from scratch. (Aligning with a fleet, jumping around, using Dscan, basic fits, etc)

If you want to learn how to solo, put on your big boy shoes and get into low sec. Join a pirate group or an established FW corp (if you don't want to lose standings as fast).

You NEED to get used to the D-scan. And you need to learn how to FIND and PICK your fights. If you practice on the set-up 1v1's in RvB you will be woefully under-prepared for when you try to start solo'ing in low/null.

I really can't emphasize this enough. Solo PvP is more picking your fights than anything else.
Christine Peeveepeeski
Low Sec Concepts
#32 - 2013-09-24 08:48:19 UTC
At the risk of repeating posts above me without reading them....

No particular order!

1) Learn to use DSCAN. Do not rely on the snap camera as it's significantly slower than your own camera controls.
2) Learn the ships you face (example, you see a ishkur on scan and head to engage it.. what ammo do you use if you have a ship with choice? What's it likely to be set up as, kite or brawl? If you don't know then how would you go about making sure you can control the fight either way?).
3) Learn how to spot weapons by sight, I have won many fights simply because I zoomed camera on their ship and checked what weapon it was before I engaged.
4) You have more time than you think, even in frig combat. the issue is instinctively doing things rather than thinking about it. If you 'think' about which range to hold orbit at against your target or where to fly to disengage then you'll get really stressed very quick. This is why people say 'fit 20 frigs'. It's not just to be ok losing it, it's to get the instinct of the basics in).
5) DON'T CARE FOR KILLBOARDS. Seriously worrying about win/lose will mean you will get a run of losses and it'll actually bring you down. You're solo, sometimes the chips just won't stack in your favour however good you are.
6) If you're in a brawler YOU ARE DEAD... or at least this can be assumed because if you spring a TARP (and we all know everything's a tarp right?) then the chance of getting away is low. That said brawling is bossmode and the most fun way to solo. I often take brawlers out for a spin into hopeless situations just because it's fun.
7) Everyone has their own perception of solo, just remember there is no space honour and EVE is a sandbox.
8) Because of Falcon (you'll get this pretty soon lol).
9) Bookmarks, learn to drop them in space. when I started solo I thought I had to BM all the things but in all honesty now I just make them on the fly and rarely so. They are however handy as tools and if you find yourself in certain systems as hunting grounds often then set up bookmarks to dscan from, short warp from and some nice on grid warp gate BM's (so you can scout camps and watch the locals). Again, do this often and you'll soon work out when and where it's actually worth doing.
10) When you die (and you will, often) make sure as you are about to pop you align to a celestial and spam warp to get your pod out. 99% of the time this will mean you do not lose your pod.

If you see a battleship at a gate as your pod warps to it pray now because if it's uncloaked and has smart bombs you're about to get a faster journey home....
The Lobsters
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#33 - 2013-09-24 09:38:10 UTC  |  Edited by: The Lobsters
Baron' Soontir Fel wrote:
KatanTharkay wrote:
Join RVB. There you can always ask for a 1 vs 1 and it's always honored.


No offense. But I would not recommend RvB to people trying to solo.

RvB is good for:
Getting people used to losing ships.
Learning how to PvP from scratch. (Aligning with a fleet, jumping around, using Dscan, basic fits, etc)

If you want to learn how to solo, put on your big boy shoes and get into low sec. Join a pirate group or an established FW corp (if you don't want to lose standings as fast).

You NEED to get used to the D-scan. And you need to learn how to FIND and PICK your fights. If you practice on the set-up 1v1's in RvB you will be woefully under-prepared for when you try to start solo'ing in low/null.

I really can't emphasize this enough. Solo PvP is more picking your fights than anything else.



I have to disagree with you there.

Many people join RvB, fly in the big grinder fleets and then complain that it didn't teach them anything. Which it wouldn't. But that's not RvB's fault. Those fleets are 'drunken brawl' pvp. It is what you make of it and you can always find players with similar SP levels and game goals to play and learn with. Those 1v1's can teach a lot.

If you have been PvPing for a while it is easy to forget how much of the very basic skills you had to learn. Like handling a ship in a fight, where you need to invest SP's, how to fit a ship to fight a certain way, what is ýour; ship/fit. There can be a lot to learn before you get to the finer, more 'meta' points of solo pvp. Now you won't learn D-scan skills, you'll need to go to low/null for that. Nor will you learn the meta game aspects of low/null either. But at least when you do come to learn those skills you will know what to do with your ship once you've found the fight and stand a chance of getting a good fight, rather than getting stomped and not knowing why you even lost.

Also, a very big also. RvB space is 2 jumps from jita. Early on it's good to have access to cheap ships and fits, and lots of them. Basing in bad boy space requires some boring logistic knowledge and a good idea of what ship/fits you prefer to fly. It's a real hassle when you don't. Hell, it's a hassle even when you do!


1. Join RvB
2. Find friends like you
3. 1v1 your arse off
4. Find your ship/fit
5. Go to low and milk it for all its worth



PS. I left rvb and went to lowsec as solo pvp is easier in low than rvb, not harder.



Ed. Take a look at this guy's stream and past videos. An ex-rvb-er, he does a great job of talking about his fights, how he gets them and is definitely not risk-averse.

http://www.twitch.tv/lokoforloki

That man is the noblest creature may be inferred from the fact that no other creature has contested his claim.
March rabbit
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#34 - 2013-09-24 10:24:20 UTC
Christine Peeveepeeski wrote:
It's seasaw, an FW plex farmer. My bio tells you how stupid this man can be.

I pointed his pod for 45 minutes after I blew his ecm merlin up with a dual scram rifter. he didn't know to SD his pod. I called in approximately 10-15 friends and we all had a merry-go-round his pod. I get a 500mill bounty and the only reason we bailed was a fleet turned up to scare us terrible pvpers off.

you mean all your 10-15 man fleet failed against 1(!!!!) his POD and he is still looser? Shocked
you haven't managed to kill him in 45 minutes and needed to flee? Shocked

tell me more

The Mittani: "the inappropriate drunked joke"
Christine Peeveepeeski
Low Sec Concepts
#35 - 2013-09-24 11:22:52 UTC
March rabbit wrote:
Christine Peeveepeeski wrote:
It's seasaw, an FW plex farmer. My bio tells you how stupid this man can be.

I pointed his pod for 45 minutes after I blew his ecm merlin up with a dual scram rifter. he didn't know to SD his pod. I called in approximately 10-15 friends and we all had a merry-go-round his pod. I get a 500mill bounty and the only reason we bailed was a fleet turned up to scare us terrible pvpers off.

you mean all your 10-15 man fleet failed against 1(!!!!) his POD and he is still looser? Shocked
you haven't managed to kill him in 45 minutes and needed to flee? Shocked

tell me more


That's what you got from my post?

I'm definitely a looser though... every time I walk somewhere I'm like '**** my leg needs tightening up again'. I think it comes with age tbh.
Baron' Soontir Fel
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#36 - 2013-09-24 17:21:21 UTC
1. Any low sec corp worth its salt will have logistics support for pilots to get their stuff into low sec for a decent price.
2. You will be surrounded by PvP'ers who will be able to answer all of your questions
3. RvB gives you arena-style 1v1s (kite fits are looked down upon!!!!, links are frowned at, you cannot even get podded). And PvP drastically changes when people renege on their word quite often. (Falcon alts, friends just off long scan, cloaky t3, etc)

If you actually think about why you lost a fight, instead of just saying you didn't have the SP required, you learn a LOT from each fight.
Fayral
Nano Currency
Yeet. Pray. Love.
#37 - 2013-09-26 03:06:06 UTC
I'm going to stress how important it is to be comfortable with the Dscan. Like others have said, Learn it.

Enter, system. Hit a max range 360 scan. If you see potential targets start looking for them on narrow scans to pinpoint where they are. If there are alot of complex's out of scan range warp a celestial at a random range that will be within scan range.

After you learn the tool, do a bit of research on your overview settings and setup one for dscans. Dependent on what type of space your in the amount of information you can get in a short time is huge.

Jump bridges in null, If a ship is likely in a pos, If someone is killing NPC's, the list goes on.
Tandros Kreel
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#38 - 2013-09-26 05:54:10 UTC
Honestly, best way to learn pvp is to just fit out a bunch of ships and keep getting into fights. Look at WHY you died and learn from it, eventually you'll start surviving longer that you expect.

And thats when the fun begins.
Shinjo Bajahnhosuu
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#39 - 2013-09-26 19:55:42 UTC
Zappity wrote:
Shinjo Bajahnhosuu wrote:
A bit of a twist on the above advice, but as someone who's trying to relearn solo combat in and around FW systems I've moved up to T1 cruisers as I found that frig fights seemed to end too quickly.

Not arguing against the "fit 20 frigates approach", just offering an alternative "fit 20 cruisers". Sure it means you can't go into the small and novice plexes but I'm having no problem getting fights and I find I have more time to calm down, assess and react to what's happening.


Get FRAPS.


Getting it's the easy part.

Remembering to turn it on. Dammit.
Sushi Nardieu
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#40 - 2013-10-01 10:36:45 UTC  |  Edited by: Sushi Nardieu
You will die. That is the fact of solo PVP. Unless you take very few risks.

Secondly, I recommend DUO pvp! You can share experience and thoughts while still remaining somewhat 'solo.'

The ability to find your targets is also an invaluable skill. D-scan and knowledge of mechanics.

The Guns of Knowledge