Warfare & Tactics

During the long time I have played this game and after meeting quite a few very good pvp'ers. Most of them don't overly concern themselves too much with things like "engagement profile" "their numbers" etc etc. Most of them knew their stuff, what to do, what their opponent's ships theoratically can and can't do. In the end that really doesn't matter to most of them that much. Their mindset is more philosofical. It goes something like:

"Sod the consequences, I'll just engage and see what happens"

That is the best way to define your engagement profile. When you think you got a chance you go for it regardless of opponents. It's better to be confident in your abilities, know your ship and fit rather then overly concern yourself (too) much about your opponent(s). Everyone is a victim it's just that some might be a little harder to kill then others. Not every pilot has lvl 5 skills or knows how to fly let alone fit their ships.

lol

Good Sirs;

My experience is limited, I've never been in a fleet or flown with a friend. I just sit in novice FW plexes and wait to see who shows up. My engagement envelope is limited to t1 frigate pilots that will engage a Merlin.

So I don't need any speed, not even an AB.

I don't need lots of DPS since I just have to be able to kill one or two rats when I enter the plex.

For a long time I had to fit 2 WCS so I could get away, but I wanted my engagement profile to include people who fit 3 points.

It took me 6 months to figure out what I really needed was no speed, no dps, no stabs, lots and lots of shields and an ecm jammer.

If you last long enough sooner or later you get a jam and can warp away.

By engagement I mean I let myself get pointed and don't just warp off.


your humble servent
SeaSaw

Knowing your engagement profile comes from:

Knowing your opponent -- Very few pilots are "creative" with their fits. And additional details (like guns fit, prop mod type, etc) can be ascertained by player killboard history and/or closely watching their ship (you can visually ID weapon systems, and you can tell prop mod by ship speed).

You also need to know yourself, and what weaknesses your ships have. Are you susceptible to cap? To EWAR? Can you control range? etc,etc, etc.

With that in mind, you need to learn how to engage an opponent: Do you kite them? Do you need to start the engagement at zero? How much damage can you take while "baiting them"? If things go wrong, what is your disengagement plan?

As Chessur pointed out, kiting ships with ranged dps provide a lot of versatility in the ships they can engage, primarily because they can "run away" when things escalate. A brawling ship commits to the fight, and generally goes down if things escalate before the fight concludes.

Personally, I'm a big fan of the Taranis, Enyo, Thrasher, Vexor, and Vagabonds as my solo ships of choice. I'm much more of an in-your-face brawler than a kiter. It means I have to be careful about how I aggress and when I aggress, but these ships are no less capable than the kiting ships suggested above. Brawling setups generally have more tank, do more dps, and can control range once the latch on like a pitbull. For this fighting style, blasters & autocannons are great weapon systems.

With the upcoming changes tomorrow, we'll see the meta game shift some. Frigates will become much more agile, which will have a large impact on PvP'ing in & against them. The new EAF's will become far more capable of hindering kiting ships, although they are rarely seen currently.

Finally, I suspect Chessur often flies with Warfare Links to greatly improve his speed and tackle range. Calling this Solo PvP is akin to taking a "solo" test with a professor standing over your should giving you answers. If you are using links, you are NOT Solo PvPing, although it is a very fun & viable style of fighting if you have the Alts to make it happen. If you can use them, warfare links are some of the most overpowered mechanics in EvE, supercharging ships to be amazingly effective!

Oh wow...

So many words written here to talk about basic eft and the dps graph.

Most losses occur because bads gonna bad or always bet on stupid. Anything else is just self-illusion.

I just ask myself "Will it blend?"

Hey Chessur, that Omen fit you linked can actually get slightly better damage and range if you fit HPLs.

High:

5x HPL, Scorch

Mids:

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Warp Disruptor II
Small Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I, Navy Cap Booster 400

Lows:

Medium Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste
Internal Force Field Array I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
2x Heat Sink II
Reactor Control II

Rigs:
2x Medium Energy Locus Coordinator II
Medium Auxillary Nano Pump I

Basically upgrade the guns by replacing one heat sink with a reactor control and dropping the damage control to meta 4 and with max skills it fits with 0.5 CPU and 12.xx grid to spare. More importantly your damage goes up from (without implants) 396 @ 29 km to 405 @ 32 km with slightly better falloff to boot. The damage boost is really significant if you leave on a third heat sink and drop the EANM for the Reactor Control but the tanking implications are obvious and you'll need to pop a lot more boosters to keep your stuff online.