Warfare & Tactics

I see these running around nullsec. Are they hard to kill? What are the best strategies to bag one?

I was once caught in my blockade runner, my prorator, and I jumped into the middle of a gatecamp. They luckily only had a drag bubble and I was cloaked and I just warped towards the next gate. A cerberus warped with me and I was caught in another drag bubble on the other side! He targeted me and I just calmly aligned to a celestial, once aligned I pressed my ECM Burst and disappeared.

So what I am saying is, be quick and try to setup something like that setup that almost caught me.

Umm you have it backwards. That would be the deep space transports.

Well sure. They are not deigned to live if caught. They are designed to not get caught. My viator aligns as fast as a frigate.

Yes a DST can tank more, but it needs it since it takes like 30 seconds or more to align.

You need bubbles to kill a blockade runner.

A sabre with some ceptor backup will do.
Sit still at 0 on the gate with mwd running, as soon as you see him decloak on the gate drop the bubble and start burning for him. Adjust to full speed again when he cloaks and if you're double bubble drop another bubble. Having drones assigned to the fast ships also works wonders.

Ive caught a few with good scanning and catching them at COs. It's surprising they are willing to decloak with hostile ships on scan.

You pretty much have to bubble and decloak them. For an experienced BR pilot, it is not easy to do, but you can. There are also less experienced BR pilots who might panic and screw up. In any case, if you just randomly see one and decide you want to catch one, you are probably out of luck - it ain't likely to happen. OTOH, if you know where they are going to, set out a bubble and have a few friends with 5 drones out each (and maybe a few cans) you have a decent chance. Most BRs have MWD fitted and can haul some serious ass, so they won't stay in a bubble long. You have to decloak them before they can get out. The pissy part is you may never know if they have left your bubble or not. On one occasion I ended up staying in the bubble cloaked w/o using my MWD because they had bombers, an anchored bubble, and a HIC. I stayed in the bubble for quite a while slow-boating out, but you could tell they had assumed I had escaped long before I had.

Any half-way experienced pilot will most likely chose a DST for CO duties. The cloak on a BR won't work next to a CO anyway, but a DST with +2 stabs (or more) with a MWD can often tank a HIC bubble long enough to escape and also stave off a couple of points.

If they do this, you can just lock them with enough scan res (2500) as they are doing it wrong.

CLOAK FIRST - THEN MWD you have like 2 sec after you are cloaked where you can turn your MWD on for 1 cycle.

Anyway, if they do this, the rest of the suggestions might work.

I used to have an industrial setup that I did a ton of low sec transporting. You can catch a blockade runner in low sec, but it takes at least two fast tacklers at a gate and insta warp scram/disrupt.

I've only seen a few such camps in nearly a year, though. Pro camps usually attract company. I've lost two BR's in literally thousands of low sec jumps.

Have FUN trying to lock that BR with your 1400mm fitted BS/BC. In my expirience in LS BRs are almost uncatchable I personally played hide and seek with a four man gate camp more four times in an hour on the same gate as I was hauling cargo from low to high. You have literally less than a second to lock them before they transition from gate cloak to on board cloak and in that time they are nearly into warp. I can't speak to Null though, bubbles and gate garbage scare me...