Warfare & Tactics

(A repost from FHC)

So... Say you have a carrier or two, and you really enjoy the DPS offered by fighters but you REALLY don't want to place the carrier on the field to be stomped on by some cheeky unexpected foe.
What shall you do, what shall you do ... Well I'll tell you what you should do.

I personally 'validated' the method using a specific lvl4 mission given by a regular security division agent, but as far as i can reason by similarity, it should also work on any DEDspace pocket mission, null/lowsec PLEXes, FW PLEX (lowsec) and possibly some other instances of gate protected pockets of space I forgot.

Step 1: Take a mission from an agent. The mission has to have a gate leading to a DEDSpace pocket. The other cases of gate protected pockets should also work, but i didn't test it so ... The more the gate restricts entry by ship type - the better. So an ideal case would be something like Novice FW Plex (but it has a huge disadvantage on which I'll comment later).

Motivation: Whilst a ship is in a DEDSpace pocket, and is scanned with probes - it can't be warped to. Whoever warps to the scanned ship, will land on the gate, will have to go through and will have a hell of a time trying to pinpoint the ship with D-Scan (if it's not visible, of course) and try to reach it ... All that has to happen VERY fast, if the ship is not to be allowed to escape.

Step 2: Take the fastest ship you can muster. Something like an interceptor under links + Quafe + determination, maybe even snake set if you fly with one in lowsec.

Step 3: Warp to the mission, go through the gate. You'll land on the entry beacon. Drop a container (AFAIK they can be renamed, but i didn't bother). Bookmark the container/beacon and name it - "Beacon" (Original, I know).

Step 4: Select an arbitrary direction ( I used ... drum rolls... THE SUN because it's easy to spot) and burn. Burn like the wind.
On the distance to be burned, there's still some uncertainty. The criteria is whether you can or cannot be warped at zero to, so using an alt I had to probe along the course. While you're still in the mission pocket, the alt will land on the gate. Once you exit it to normal space, the alt will land in your grid.
When I started burning, i had a preliminary educated guess of 10,000 km (Ten Thousand clicks, that is) but it didn't work with the alt still landing on the gate, so I almost gave up and just by chance (not stopping the ship) discovered that at 17,000 km - my alt landed on my burning interceptor. So I worked my way back, and "discovered" that the distance from the beacon that changes where someone lands after warping at you was - 15,300 km. But there were reports of distances over 20,000 km as well so it might be dependent on the type of mission/plex.

Step 5: Once you understand the radius of the DEDSpace pocket sphere (I assume it's a sphere) the rest is fairly easy.
Make a bookmark on the vector at +1to2km OUTSIDE the above mentioned spehere (mine was at ~15302km) name it "UNSAFE"
Make a bookmark on the vector at -1to2km INSIDE the sphere, towards the "BEACON" (mine was at ~15298km) name it "SAFE"

Step 6: Warp your carrier(s) to the "UNSAFE" bookamark and assign the fighters to your alt/mates.
Fighters can be also assigned (and recalled to) from within the sphere, but there were some spots where the fighters wouldn't warp, some sort of a "border phenomena" so it's best done from outside for certainty.

Step 7: With your carriers, approach the "SAFE" bookmark. MAKE SURE THAT THEY ARE SAFE BY TRYING TO WARP another ship AT THEM. If that ship lands on the gate leading to the mission - you're pretty much covered.

Step 8: You now have the DPS assigned from a carrier(s) to a smaller ship to do what you will with it, be it gatecamping, scanning out missioning carebears in the system or just as a preparation to a brawl that might occur in the system. The carriers can't be landed on, and you'll have more than 20 minutes to move them away before anyone can burn to you from inside the pocket.

Step 9: These bookmarks will remain true for the week that the mission stays active, with the slight effect of shifting (might have been my imagination) but i had to correct a couple of km on the next day for it to work. Test it by warping to the carrier to make sure. FW Plexes, Plexes might have a disadvantage of de-spawning and exposing your carrier to a scan and warp at zero - something i didn't test.

TL;DR (a wall of text that is, after all)
By using a mission (Plex/FW Plex?) in a given system, you can assign fighters from a carrier to any other ship while the carrier remain practically unreachable by being protected by a mission gate and the vast distance beyond it. The effort required is ~25 minutes per such "safe-spot" per week.
You can use the ship+fighters to whatever malice you can think of, with impunity. Fit a cloak or re-warp the carriers and unless you fall asleep for over half an hour they're safe. You can also hide your off-grid bonus ship in this fashion, and probably do much more if you put your mind to it.

You should not ask this on forums. it is against the rules to even post about in forusm if you SUSPECT it is an exploit. You shoudl use in game petition system to ask a GM.

IF this is OK nothing shall happen, if it is not you might be PUNISHED for explaining it here.

Always amazes me how peopel fail to read the rules.

Since this isn't regarded as a bug or exploit, this thread has been re-opened.

Interesting tactic.

Use that tactic 2/3 times in my system n well see how safe it is.

Because CCP has no way to counter this without removing fighter assist mechanics.

Its not a new thing, people have been getting around DED grids and acceleration gates in this fashion for a good long time.

Dont forget to add D-scan inhibitor, people wont even know your carrier is there.

Well, for instance, the radius of the DEDSpace sphere could be increased by a considerable factor.
This would turn it from a mere nuisance of 20-30 minutes to a matter of hours, which, i hope you'll agree - would at least bring the effort of the setup to be more worthy of the outcome.
Or they could disable fighter assistance from (and recalling to) DEDSpace.


o/ glad we could talk mate.

DED space is extended in grids btw, the first time you did it, it could be a nuisance. Thinking this tactic makes a carrier invulnerable forever lacks imagination.

Try it. Once i am familiar with you toons, you might be surprised how little time you get.

complex grids have been used for different purposes for a long time so basically nothing new here.