EVE New Citizens Q&A

Star date : 01.28.14 or... " If at first you don't Succeed.. .. . runcausetheybringbackfriends!!!! "

Last night I was feeling all comfortable in my surroundings, after a vigorous warm up & being greeted by weapons' fire .
my opposition the RED-Fed knows how i like it.. 2 volleys of Null S ...with just a dab of Javelin missiles for the spice !
I must say I'm feeling like i understand my current skills better as far as potential / limitations ! and from watching how others beat my ship.. depending on how fast or how long it took for my ship to go down in a burning ring of fire.
I get to see what they employed tactically to get the upper hand !
( at first I was always too excited to pay attention o what module is on my screen causing effects.. like tracking disruptors, warp SCRAM .. vs. WARP Disrupt.

anyhow, for the Juicy part !

I spent my first hour just collecting a few more modules.. being I was not rich.. i wanted to buy the most cost effective brands .. at no more than 3 jumps away hopefully. I know I wasn't supposed to go to JITA without first knowing safe spots or undock/insta's.. etc. but I really really wanted to go pick up a good deal on some stuff. and felt i had a 60/40 % chance of maing it out of station alive and onto a safer area with my cargo in tact.. heh !

I made it ! i even heard weapon's fire and a very brief target blink on me.

after getting about 3/4 frigates fitted ( 3 catalysts.. one more Tristan ) i proceed to try to look for a target on my own without asking in channel for a 1v1. after all my whole experience can NOT be just arranged gentleman skirmishes.. I want to be surprised.. I want to be able to surprise others. etc.etc.

The War gods of old Minmatar must heard me just then , 'cause as soon as i said that I exited warp onto the New Caldari gate and I see a Slasher !
I launch drones and open fire with all 8 of my shiny new T2 railguns loaded with Spike ammo. ( did I mention i opted to bring out a Catalyst ? )
I think my opponent was as surprised as I was to find him and it took him a minute to gauge the battle..
I then realized...... MAYBE he was laughing so hard he forgot to warp away !!!!!!

I didn't turn on my WARP disruptor!!!! aaaagghh ! he flew /warped out before i could land the killing blow ! lesson learned !

the NEXT lesson came promptly after... fast forward abit.. i went and fought at another location until the catalyst blew up in my face.. hehehe !!!

a very dim light bulb lit p In my head.. hey.. still got that RUPTURE lyin' around in Blue HQ.. might as well give it a go and end the night with a bang !
So, I went out to the same caldari gate.. saw my opponent again and I figured.. i would at least get ONE of them down before I blew up if he called his friends! He did .. ! there was a small swarm of frigates on top of me .. i was doing good.. ! or so i thought.. then i realized.. OMG.. i'm about to blow up !!!!

as the dinner bel of the victor rings.. that HULL armor breached alarm going off is almost second nature to me now, and explosions unavoidably happens..
I lost to my first GANG.. or Wolf Pack ? in spectacular fashion.

i lasted maybe 90 seconds ? even tho i did some embarrassingly stupid things which the Reds at least helped me to realize i did wrong in the fight..

- I didn't turn on my armor repair soon enough..
- I did NOT use my tracking enhancer ! frigs were flying under my artillery guns
- I forgot i had DRONES they never even got to launch
- i really gotta stick to just Frigates for now as my skills on medium weapons is PITIFUL compared to my small weapons skills.

so.. while I think I KNOW what to do.. being calm and collected enough to actually DO what I need to do is another thing.. LOL !


QUESTIONS

1) whats the difference between Gang and Wolf Pack ? is this a specific reason for the names ? roles ?
2) is it always preferable to use short range weapons when fighting frigates in a cruiser ?
3 ) i know i will learn my own set up one day.. but is there a rule .. cookie cutter set up for what rigs to put on a frigate when you want to play more defensively ?
( it was suggested to play a tankier fit for now.. so i last longer and have time to learn in a fight )

- do you rig ships for tank ? ( shield or armor depending on ship )
- do you rig it for resists instead ?
- is there an Average number for DPS that works ? i find my ships are at the moment with my skills only able to hit just above 100 dps for rails. and up to 158 dps on blasters ( this probably explains why dual rep incursus ships are hard to take down.. lol )

Edit : I have found which frigs I like most !

Caldari MERLIN.. great shield tanker.. and really newbie friendly fittings for weapons and mods.
GallenteTRISTAN .. I get the most mileage out of these.. i totally see the potential of this ship once my skills catch up and make it effective ( it IS ALOT of skills tho.. )
so far those are the two i will keep using for now.

thanks so much ALL for your feedback. and fly dangerously ! o7

"Gang" is just another name for a fleet, any fleet. Although usually it's used for smaller fleets, unless "large gang" is specified.

Wolf Pack is a specific type of fleet - it usually refers to a fleet of destroyers that hunt much bigger targets. (The name refers to wolves that hunt prey bigger than they are, by working as a team.)

In this case, there is a reason for the name, but in general there might not be any, except for "it sounds cool". People have been naming their fleets however they like, for whatever reasons they like. Names are important, because it's faster to type in corp chat "Wolf pack tonight", then to type out exactly what kind of ships you want to have in your fleet and what you intend to do. Sometimes the name catches on and becomes used by a large part of the EVE community. Sometimes it doesn't and is only used in one corp.

They both refer to a "small group" of about 20 or so (often less). Though... "wolfpack" is a bit more specific as it often refers to mobile, hard hitting gangs of frigates (usually Assault Frigates).


Depends on what tactic you want to use.

If you want to engage at range, then use long range weapons combined with speed.
However, if your are unsure of your range then it would be best to use short range weapons and carry a little ammo of a different type... just in case.


It could be argued that rigging your ship to put out more damage will be best tank you can have (because you won't take any damage if the hostile is dead).

To be honest though... there is no clear answer at the frigate and destroyer level. Some ships will be greatly improved by rigging a bit more tank... others will excel by having a bit more damage output.
When you get to the cruiser level and higher then tanking rigs begin to be preferred.




- My Tristan does. It has a fair bit of native armor which can take advantage of the Trimarks extra 15% armor bonus. After fitting a 200mm plate it can have ~1200 armor hp... which means that each Trimark will give it ~200 more hp a pop. For a frigate that can equate to an extra second or more being on the field.

- My Breecher does. It's an active tanker and doesn't have enough medium slots to take advantage of shield resistance mods.

- for a relatively newish player with some character skills under your belt... your numbers sound about right. With a bit more training you should be able to push those numbers up another 10 to 35 dps higher.

Typically kite fits aren't so much about being tanky as they are keeping distance from a target. Controlling range is a huge lesson to learn and will help you out quite a bit when you want to fit weapons like rails.

Additionally, you may want to take a look at using Caldari Navy Tungsten instead of Spike ammo. I'll do a quick breakdown below, but keep in mind this all depends on your fit, weapons, etc.

Spike
Kinetic Damage: 4HP
Thermal Damage: 4HP
80% increased optimal range
75% reduced tracking speed

CN Tungsten
Kinetic Damage: 4.6
Thermal Damage: 2.3
40% increase optimal range
27% reduced capacitor useage

As you can see, Spike ammo does a big drop on tracking for your weapons, with a minor bump in damage over CNT. However, Spike has a ludicrous optimal bonus, where a 150mm Railgun II will have an optimal of 72km. Well out of your long point range. CNT will have an optimal of around 20km, within your long point range, and it won't hurt your tracking as much if you're trying to go after a small fast ship. Not all pilots prefer it, but some do. Just one more thing to take into consideration :-)