Ships & Modules

Interceptors are awesome, I'm scared to death of them when I'm in my battleship, keep them that way it keeps me alert.

Why exactly, is using smartbombs to catch them, "silly"?

they did, really. Using an interceptor scout for tackling people was one of normal things I learned as I started with eve in 2008 and I'm sure it wasnt much of difference before that time.
What you didnt have were hordes of marauding uncatchable interceptor gangs, which isnt their purpose at all.

I'm not sure where you got your info, but interceptors did not get that. Here are the patch notes for the Stiletto:


What changed was:

• Defenses tweaking
• Mass reduction (resulting in faster alignment by 0.35 seconds, and faster MWD speed by 200 m/s)
• Targeting/sensor buff
• Cargo nerf

Arty could never and has never been great at hitting an interceptor going at full MWD speed, unless it was heading right for you.


Depleted Uranium ammo gives you some extra tracking, but you lose 33% damage compared to short range ammo. In practical terms, your tracking will only give you marginally better tracking against that orbiting Stiletto, but will wreck your damage against anything that you would otherwise be able to track.



I took the liberty of installing Odyssey and Rubicon Pyfa to reproduce the effect of the changes to the Stiletto, and got this: http://i.imgur.com/xfaoVqN.png

Just making sure everyone is operating off hard info. Namely, the only time a Stiletto with that fit would have 190 sig is if it were using Interceptors I -- regardless of the version of Eve it was operating in.

I think those fits can definitely work, but if you're running solo, what else are you going to fight in them except interceptors? I have been out with solo cruiser a lot since Rubicon, and i find that classic nano fits actually do well against ceptors. Things with a tracking bonus and a medium neut can do awesome against ceptors.

If they get within scram range, they get neuted and generally just die to warriors anyway, and if they stay at range, you can still use your speed to pull range on whatever is coming through the gate/warping in on you. This gives you time to either ignore the ceptors, who usually have **** dps, and drag the rest of the gang out, or kill/force the ceptors off you. By firing manually at the moments of lowest traversal (such as when they are burning laterally to your OH'd MWD in order to hold orbit) you can score good hits and keep them off, especially if you're using warriors to add extra pressure. You can also use selective overheating to break ceptor points, as they tend to operate very close to the edge of their point range anyway. Time overload for when they are orbiting in the opposite direction, or as near as possible, and you can often break point.

Another thing to consider is mobile depots. They are a great thing for the soloist, and having some extra tracking stuff, maybe a cheap faction web, and a blue pill booster makes a huge difference. If you see a ceptor blob coming, refit to anti-ceptor stuff and give it a try.

Also consider using damps in such a situation. Ceptor lock range is ****, and a well skilled damp or two can effectively shut them down, or force them to tackle at suicide range. Obviously you'd have to cargo that up in most fits till needed, as damps are not part of most solo pvp loadouts.

This all isn't 100%, sometimes you get pointed, they warp in nados, and it's good bye Mr. Dimitryy. As a whole though, i think ceptors have made solo pvp better. They get a lot of people out of big blobby ships that would otherwise never die to a soloist, and put them in smaller ships that very much can die. They also give you the 'i have him pointed' factor without putting you under any dps pressure. Let one dude in a stiletto hold point on you and watch as they through wave after wave of pots and pans at you.

TL:DR: Ceptors can be tough to kill, but there are lots of ways to counter them solo. Make sure you use those mobile depots and start thinking of your ship's potential as 'everything in it' not 'everything fitted'.

-Dimi

OP updated.

Thought the mwd sig reduction was new, think i got it from interdictors by bad.

Anyway the discussion is interesting (for the most part).

I still think interceptors fall into the category of what the Dramiel was, nearly impossible to catch. The combination of warping fast, getting into warp fast, being fast, having a tiny sig, having a great scan res, some having point range bonuses and being bubble immune is a pretty nice combination. Then add skirmish links to the equation.

For a low skill point and isk price interceptors have a lot of advantages.

Would love to see the stats on how their use has changed...... ?

The combination of interdiction nullification and insta-warping is broken. If ccp wants to make a class of ship exclusive for scouting without risk it should be an interdiction nullified shuttle. Do that then hardcap the align time to something thats not game breaking, job done.

It is barely acceptable that tech 3s have the ability to be interdiction nullified and cloaky but the cost of the ship is preventative and it is possible although highly unlikely to catch them on a gate, just have to have something next to them when they decloak so they cannot immediately recloak then tag them with an instalocker also they are extremely expensive and people loose skillpoints when it happens, thus its not a popular option for solo harassing.

this ^^

not at all, I always complained about nullified T3, there should be nothing nullified at all.


what?
Dictor camp is not always 90% win, interceptor pilots who are not noobs will always escape a dictor camp, so do coverts too. Only noob died to ca dictor flying one of these 2 ship types. Now its always 100% win for interceptor, since you cant even lock it because they instawarp out of your bubble nor land in it.


until your bomb explodes, the interceptor swarm probably warped off and moved on to next system. Bombing interceptors lmao.

yes I'm argueing that I cant fish out noobs in 0.0 and they got another idiot proof travel ship at laughable prerequisites and ISK cost. Idiots getting killed and smart ones getting away is an old and proven concept and fundament of eve - unless they fly interceptors now.
And yes, they do instawarp. Remote sebo is useless since locking bar doesnt even start on an invulnerable ship.