Warfare & Tactics

I read that article too and found it interesting and I would agree, it's a way to summarise a concept, but doesn't provide detail of how to determine the engagement profile.

In my experience so far, the only way to know the engagement profile, or what ships I can reasonably expect to be able to engage successfully, is to fight as many different ships as possible.

Experience is the way to develop an understanding of the range of ships you can fight in your current ship and fit.

That involves quite a few losses along the way, but the losses provide valuable lessons.

One thing I will add to the concept of engagement profile is that it also applies to pilots, not only to ships. It's also variable, and broadens with experience and practice.

I know what type of pilot I can take on as well, almost independent of the ship/fit they fly.

So I think the concept is broad and deep and as you develop experience, the profile changes.

I know I apply the basic idea, but I don't think in terms of 'engagement profile', I think more in terms of who is the pilot and what is the ship and likely fit compared to who am I as a pilot and what is my ship and fit (and then I just hope for the best).

What I often do is also push the boundaries of my own expectations as much as possible too so that my understanding of what I can engage continues to expand through more experience. However, I've only been playing the game for 3 months now, so I'm still very much a noob, though I try to pvp every day if I can.

This topic and what chessur has mentioned makes a good read ill agree.
out of Frigs/Dessies/Cruisers/Battlecruisers/Battleship/Command ships etc etc....
what makes the the largest engagement profile out of these types of hulls?

Cruisers have the largest engagement profile in my oppinion. They are fast, agile, can put out great dps, and project very well. They also have the most variances of hulls.

It seems that my blog has started some interesting discussion regarding the violencing of other ships.

Suffice it to say, engagement profile is simply nanoing, and learning to do it effectively. There is a reason why I will always scorn brawling, slow, or non flexible ships. I do so simply because, they lack the ability to quickly adapt to a quickly changing battlefield.

The idea of nano is quite simple: Kill everything that is either slower / weaker than you, run from anything that can catch + Kill you

Nanoing in eve, especially solo / small gang is something that is very, very niche. Few ships are capable of perfoming the feat regularly, and with the advent of the RLM changes- that number has been slashed to extremely small numbres.

First lets talk weapon systems.

ACs- complete crap, on any hull. They were iffy before the TE nerf, however after it- there is just no way to get the projection + DPS you need you of an AC boat, to have the DPS you want, at the range you need. The only exception to this rule, is the Mach / nado.

Arty- Tracking and DPS are horrible, across all fields. Never use.

Blasters- Never going to work. Before the ABC + TE nerf- talos was a ******* beast of a ship, however now- its really worthless. No blaster platform, has anything to offer a ship that has a high engagement profile.

Rails- Great weapon currently, as far as turrets go it is one of the two best.

Beams- Horrible tracking, horrible fitting- not usable.

Pulse- Best weapon system in game currently. Omen, Nomen, Oracle are all simply amazing ships. Pulse lasers + Scorch + t2 locus rigs are amazing

Missiles- With out question, missiles are the best weapon system in the game, in regards for finding a ship that has a very large engagement profile. Sadly, after the RLM nerf- their use will be changed. So you may ask- chessur, why are missiles the best? The answer to this is quite simple. First and foremost, they provide consistent DPS. You are removing luck factors / tracking problems. Secondly they have 100% selectable damage type- in order to quickly change to the best ammo depending on what ship you are fighting. Lastly, they are immune to all forms of ECM. TD's do not effect you. Dams and ECM can be counter acted with FoF missiles. FoF missiles are simply amazing, and pairing them with a ship that has a high mobility- means that you can use FoF's to great effectiveness.

Drones- Currently Sentry drones are OP as all hell. Any ship that has an innate drone tracking bonus, is really, really good. IE. Ishtars

So that about covers the weapons. Now, the question was asked- which ships provide the largest engagement profile?

This is quite simple.

Can the ship use rails, pulse lasers, or guided missiles well?

can the ship project its damage to aorund 30K or so?

Is the ship faster than 2.5K/s or so?

If your ship can do those three things- then you have in the making, a ships that has a very large engament profile. However those three things, would simplify matters, unless you imagine a nanoship on the field.

On the grid, the nanoship fears few ships. Here is the list.

Long range Neuts
Long range Web
Fast Tackle
Heavy ECM / Damps

Now lets start with the first problem- long range neuts. In essence, this problem is basically compromised of the Curse, Bhaalhorn, Amageddon, and of course heavy neuts in general. You can counteract this with a cap booster (provided you can spare the midslots). However if you may have noticed, all of these ships (barring the curse) are slow as ****- which means your ship should easily be able to outrun / nano out of these problems.

Secondly, Webs. Rapiers / Huginns (soon to be hyenas with the new EAF's) and Lokis. Now the Rapier / Huginns have for the most part a fairly weak tank. So you do have the possibility of flat out killing them. The other option of course is simply to nano out of their range. Recons have not received any buffs, and are very slow in the current meta. Provided you ship can cruise faster than 2.5K/s again you should have no problem. I don't list the loki as a true problem, because not only is it slow- it also has shorter webs than rapier / huginn- making it less of a threat.

Now the hyena. This thing, post rubicon is gonig to be a ******* nightmare. With 40K webs, and 5K+ Speed Trying to out run, or even kill this thing will turrets (hell even LML missiles) Is going to be a ******* chore. These ships are going to be very, very scary if they have a gang with them. Currently no ship with out damps is going to have any viable way to deal with these monsters.

Fast Tackle: here is really the crutch of the argument. This will be your most common foe. Because of this- creating a fleet / flying a ship that can deal with fast tackle effectively and quickly is always a HUGE key to nanoing success. Frigs, but more importantly- it has been the recent T1 cruiser buff that has really thrown a wrench in the meta. T1 cruisr speeds, unlinked, unheated are hitting 2.5K/S in speed. that is INSANELY fast. It is because of this- that BC's, Slower Cruisers, BS have fallen completely out of flavor. They simply cant keep up. That fast thorax screaming at you with a scram, is going to get on you- and hold you down while his gang piles on and kills you. Since killing a cruiser quickly while in small gang / solo is really not possible- your only other option is to outrun the things. I don't care how you do it- but you need a ship that can run from a T1 cruiser blob.

With cruisers out of the way, we are on to frigs. The ability to shed light tackle is huge. That is why RLM's saw so much proliferation. HMLs / HAMs are complete **** at the job- bur RLM's performed very well. However other ships, like the Omen navy issue also can destroy frigs. The Nomen, with a speed close to 3.4K/s Unheated, Unliked, and Shooting 400+ DPS out to 53K Is a frig killing nightmare.

Continued~~~

As a pick and long finish to my TLDR

Frigs and Dessies are complete trash. Post rubicon however, dictors are going to be godly. Both frigs and dessies cannot deal with gangs, they have a difficult time projecting damage, or having the DPS to really engage a gang. lastly they lack the needed EHP. There are some exceptions to this rule, but at the end of the day- a properly flown cruiser will **** all over any frig. And yes, that means AF's.

Cruisers- They are the current Meta based on speed, projection, DPS, and DPS application.

T1: Omen, Thorax, Possibly LML caracal...... but i have no idea, have not tested it.
Faction: Omen navy, Aug Navy, Exeq Navy, Vigilant, Arty Cynabal (to Some degree)
HAC: Rail Diemos, Sentry Ishtar

BCs- None

ABCs- Pulse Shield Oracles, Web Nano Nados

BS- Mach (Provided you are flying with suport), Cruise Phoons (provided you are flying with support), Tempest Fleet Issue (provided you are flying with support)

Chessur has presented an excellent article of the use of 'the nano'.

In the name of balance (see my sig below ) I would also say do not rule out the brawl.

Remember that each ship has an engagement profile. However this engagement profile is heavily modified by the players ability to understand the battlespace and the potential opponents knowledge/ability/experiance.

Now this is something that Chessur actually explains quite well if you at the concepts he presents and not just the tactical application to the 'art of nano'.

I fly both nano kitey stuff and brawlers. More brawlers than kitey because I lead with my face for the fun of it. And I often argue against what Chessur advocates as the 'best' way to do things because quite simply there is NO best way. Also Chessur flys linked, boosted and implanted to get the max performance out of his ships. To the new player this can often give the wrong impression that they are invincible in their kitey stuff and wonder what the hell happened when a little frig brawler blows them up is no time at all.

The essence of 'engagement profile' is control. Control of the battlespace to ensure that you engage on your terms not your opponents. if you land on top of a kitey in a brawler and grab him he WILL die in 99% of cases. If you grab a brawler from long point range in a kitey ship then you will probably win.

This is just a word of warning. Take Chessurs advice with regards on how to do the max potential (i.e linked, boosted, implanted) nano combat but if you aren't following the exact same setup don't expect the same results. I've forgotten how many times myself or friends have talked with a target and had to explain how we beat them when they were flying the 'better' ship.

And yeah brawling is great fun but if you are a commitment phobe like these nano kitey advocates you won't like it. Oh and frigs by the way are anything but trash thats why there are **** loads of them flying around and loads of corps specialising in killing all sorts of **** in them. A frig gang well flown can take on an equal size gang of most other ship classes tbh.

And Chessur I'm actually keen to see if my executioner can get your slicer as I've never been killed by one in a 1v1 by much better pilots than me.

Fly dangerous o7

Chessur mate if you are in the same area of space as me and online at the same time, around DT, hit me up for a 1v1 no probs.

I am actually very keen to see how the executioner performs against the slicer. I may have just been lucky with it so far. As for the crow fight.....hmmm that would be a vary hard fight for an executioner. The best outcome for that would be if i could catch you in a brawling setup and you were kitey. Not likely given how you control your battlespace in kitey stuff, I would have to seduce the Lady to help with that one

Having said that I'm always up to try new stuff thats how you learn best IMO.

See you in space mate o7

I hang around Black Rise and Placid a fair bit. Currently trying to find a low sec home in my TZ that is fairly active that preferavly isn't FW space but most of LS is just dead at this time of day

Might have to move to High sec and become a griefer...after all there are expontentially more players, ahem targets, in high sec.

My opinion is basically that the more versitile a ship is the more it scales with player skill.

The bigger the engagement profile the better. Its why i loved the rail comet so much. There were so few opponents i would go up against that i would be absolutely boned against.

Also, ugh... blogs.. <-- Proper elitist **** view point.

A ship with a large engagement profile is generally one that can either outkite and/or outdamage most opponents in its environment (nomen for instance is one of the fastest cruisers and will otkite most Frigs/Assault Frigs/Destroyers/Cruisers/HACs/Battlecruisers), or one that can outtank most opponents in its environment and catch kiters (most unplated/active tanked brawling HACs will have easy work with kiters). As an example of outdamaging its foe you can take the Tier 3/Attack Battlecruisers: they are definatly not fast enough to kite on the long term, but until youve catched them/established a stable orbit youre going to be already dead.

As an example of limiting your own engagement profile you can take AB frigs: you gain the advantage of range control inside of scramrange, but no longer can engage kiters inside of plexes. A further limit would be flying a kinetik damage bonused ship as youre going to do very bad damage against t2 caldari, gallente and amarr ships. This doesnt make those ships completely unengageable, but gives you a considerable disadvantage. Same goes with blasters and lasers.
So generally MWD fitted projectile/missile ships without specific damage type bonuses will have the largest engagement profile.


EDIT
About topic title:


A large engagement profile doesnt translate to more win, rather even less. It just increases the amount of fights you get.