Warfare & Tactics

Welcome to the dark side muahaha.

You know me ill always jump in a cruiser when I can.

My biggest thing when flying cruisers solo (No booster to scout) is not so much roaming as is setting up in a pocket of a few systems. I find most of my deaths in slower cruisers are jumping through into a gatecamp.

Also one thing I miss from having a good sec status is fights on gates.

Hang about on a gate and look like you are hesitating. E.g dont lock up straight away and drop drones all confident. Because a lot of people in cruisers think they can dunk someone else while tanking gate guns. So even if they do jump a friend in on you gate guns are on your side.

Writing this almost makes me want to go pay for the concord tags.

The other bit of advice I will have is in the FW areas which I assume you will still be in is always fly a cruiser that can track frigs. There is nothing more frustrating than flying a cruiser with no web and having a crow orbit you for 10 mins killing you slowly haha. The only downside to the dual prop SFI with 220's. AB frigs can be a hassle.

I pretty much gave up on cruiser solo roaming ... i dunno maybe im just not good at it ( surely ! ) ..but , i found out that when im roaming solo , hunting , the frigates obviously run away and the only other cruisers i come againts are vexors , and i dunno about the rest of you but when i see a vexor i just freak out , to me that ship is simply to strong to engage in a 1v1 .


And if i try to sit in a plex and w8 out for a fight .. then sure as hell i get blobed cause who wouldnt want a cruiser to whore on ?


So ye .. maybe im doin it wrong , but one things for sure , you limit yourself from fights up to a point where your that good to take on 4-5 frigs at once and kill 3 of them before you die ... or don't die at all :)


I wish i could give you more information , but its been a good while since i last solo'd in cruisers , wish you good luck though

Cruisers are very fun to fly and are also a great choice for beginning solo pvp. Since you already got experiance with frigs, it should be rather easy for you, but there are a few things you have to bear in mind. First of all, you are alot move vulnerable to gatecamps and blobs. Your GTFO ability is alot smaller so there will be days where everything goes wrong and you die alot.

The fights will be different than frigfights. Unlike frigates where you rarely fight against more than 2 targets, then you can easily end up fighting many smaller targets while flying a cruiser. So good target calling is an important ability to have.

Also, since frigates are very common, you should have some sort of plan on how to deal with them, unless you know what you are doing and intend to avoid them. A flight of warriors is a great tool to deal with frigates, but against good frigate pilots you will lose them unless you manage them well. Neuts are also great to have, but sadly alot of t1 cruisers lost their utility high. If you don't already know how to use your piloting to lower transversal then it is a great idea to look it up and pratice. It can be a huge help to deal with frigs that got an orbit. And lastly, there is the webbing trick. If a frigate is orbiting you tight and you have problems tracking him, you can cycle your web on and off. Since the ingame flight computer is ****, it will cause the frig to change direction each time the speed changes which cause it to drop speed for a bit when turning. With abit of luck you can get some really good hits despite normally have problems tracking it. Just remember that this doesn't work against someone who is manually piloting.

Getting fights in FW space in a cruiser can sometimes be a PITA. Alot of the fighting will happen in small plexes where you obviously can't go. But sometimes it can be worth it to warp to the gate and see if there is targets outside. But yeah, you might not get as many fights as you would in a frigate (atleast I have not figured out to get alot of fights) but I do feel that the fights are alot better when you get some good ones.



A little trick is to carry a mobile depot in cargo + a few warp stabs. While I normally hate the use of lame tactics, I do feel that they do not deserve to kill my cruiser. So toss down the depot. Wait 1 minute then refit warpstabs, scoop depot and warp out.

Yeah all of the point above about the 'issues' soloing in cruiser are pretty much the reason I don't do it very often.

Well I decided to take a stabber out (the same fit as I mentioned in OP) for a wander around. Flew around most of the great wildlands, man that place is bloody empty apart from a small area near the couple of stations in the whole region, Needs more stations imo.

One thing of note for my roam around GW was a bubble camp I ran into near one of the exit systems. It was about 9 people but the ships that caught my eye were 2 vaga's and a cynabal. Not sure about inty's or other tackle (probably should have checked those first ). I held cloak and checked my location and possible warp out destinations. Luckily I was close to an edge that was off at an odd angle from the camp, problem was though it was also about 90 deg off from the nearest warp out so I had to make a much ground up as possible before trying to warp.

So the plan was simply to OH my MWD (this puts my speed at about 3.5km/s) and hope they were bored and not paying attention. I select and off angle and double click in space. I immediately OH the mwd and shoot off!. I was quickly pointed and I thought that was the end of it but the point dropped and I was gaining distance! after a few seconds I turned to a random warpout and spammed the warp button completely expecting to be pointed at any moment and popped! When I heard Aura's lovely voice announce warp I let out a big sigh and started to think about my exit.

So that was a bit of fun, not from a kill pov, but it definitely got the heart racing a little. After that I just went and roamed low sec hoping to find a decent fight as it turned out I found a procuror mining in an ice belt who wouldn't pay a ransom so I blew him up and a cormorant ratting who also got blown up.

All in all a success from the pov that I got some excitement, a couple of kills and I still have my ship. Does this make me a confirmed cruiser pilot........probably not but I'll be flying them a bit more from now on I think.

You should try the AAR stabber. It's awesome :D

The fit below takes a 3% implant (2% if you got perfect rigging skills):

[Stabber, Nano AAR 2Gyro]
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Damage Control II
Medium Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Small Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I, Navy Cap Booster 400
Warp Disruptor II
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator

220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Medium Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Medium Projectile Ambit Extension I
Medium Projectile Ambit Extension I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I

Warrior II x5

For nullsec there is:

[Stabber, Nano AAR Null]
Gyrostabilizer II
Tracking Enhancer II
Damage Control II
Medium Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Small Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I, Navy Cap Booster 400
Warp Disruptor II
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator

220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Medium Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Medium Projectile Ambit Extension I
Medium Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I

Warrior II x5

I always said the Stabber is a frigate version of the Attack BC : a frigate with oversized weapons ; the difference is that it also have an oversized tank. :D

Cheers Chessur mate, I was hoping you'd see this topic as you are one of the guy I know uses cruisers a lot.

What are your thoughts on stabber/Fleet stabber and fleet scythe ? They have the speed and arties can put out a decent punch. Are they too easily beaten by the frig hoards?

One thing I like is flying something a bit harder than normal e.g. I flew punishers when everyone flew rifters. I fly rifters now as the general populus think they are crap so I'm ok with flying cruisers in a frig dominated meta call me crazy or whatever

And any thoughts you have as I'll be doing this pretty much solo and definitely un-linked.

Yeah the Dual Web Gank Vexor is fun and also the Active rep vexor.

Dat damage taken....

And

They just keep coming....

I killed four of eight in the last fight. Not very practical but fun for the occasional wtf.

Humph. Battleclinic Version

The second one doesn't come up on battleclinic. You can find it in my February losses if you so desire.