Missions & Complexes

Go to channel. Ingame, BTL Pub. Then check the channel's motd. All the details and ship fits is there. BTL is mostly shields ships channel. There is armor channel, but not into it. Really depends on demand, but generally logistics are needed, followed by webbibg ships.

And it is true, better the fittings and ship you're in, faster and more likely to be invited. People love my 100% max leadership skirmish webbing range bonus for dps sleipnir :-) or a loki.

Thanks for the information. Next time I log in I will join the channels you described.

Simply, yes. The more complicated answer, it depends. Lowsec and nullsec incursions are almost exclusively alliance controlled atm, the only true public incursions are those in highsec. Now, forming up from the local incursion channel is like playing with a hand grenade - best not to. Not many experienced incursion fleets recruit from the local incursion channel due to its nature - high newbie population (reflected in bad to worse ship fits) and high character turnover (making it harder to identify dubious characters).

For highsec incursion, the are currently 2 major moderated channels - split into shields ("BTL Pub") and armor ("The Ditanian Fleet"). There are a few splinter channels here and there, but to start with, those are the main ones you should have open at all times, depending on what you're flying. The moderation's major aim is to eliminate ship losses due to griefer acts, clueless pilots or bad fits (that deserves to be spanked), though of course keep in mind, like the rest of EVE, nothing's an absolute guarantee.



Most in demand are logistics, both shields and armor. Naturally, there are more folks running shields than armor due to the extension from missioning. That has its pros and cons; more shield fleets to get into but at the same time the sheer numbers leads to a dilution skills/ship fits and character anonymity. Armor fleets are usually well skilled (in terms of fit) and pilot experience, however, they have roughly half the numbers for fleets. The smaller armor community makes it a little easier to gauge character reliability and skills.



- Depends on your skill and inclination.
- Incursion Vanguard (0-50km, typical engagement range 10-20km), Incursion Assault/HQ (0-150km sniper fit, 0-60km midrange fit), Incursion Kundalini Manifest (mainly 0-60km midrange fit, light need for 0-150km sniper).
- Depends on a lot of things, I don't think there is any real answer.
- Important but not critical, except in a few scenarios. Shield boats typically run with 2-3 hardeners. Armor boats maxes around 2 hardeners, sometimes none at all.



Basilisk (shield) and Guardians (armor) require cap chain partners (with each other, repsectively). In SHTF situations, several battleships (with 2 free high utility) can provide the replacement cap chain. However, it is not fleet best practices to rely on them as a regular partner, due to the limited cap range and susceptibility to NPC ECM. Scimitars (shield) and Oneiros (armor) do not usually require cap chain partners as they can be fitted to be 100% cap stable. In cases where they are fitted with a full complement of tracking links, requiring a cap feed, the fleet is taking a calculated risk of an almost complete rep failure when SHTF.

Most desired are usually the Scimitars/Oneiros for their tracking links. However, imo, they're less desireable for Assaults sites and higher due to their inherent squishyness. They mostly get away with it atm because the NPC incursion AI don't rate them as high priority targets, but when they do get targeted sometimes, they can go poof in the blink on an eye.



Not necessarily true. Pimped guns usually try to compensate for low gunnery skills (not strictly the case for missiles though).
Dps ships that get picked are :

1) Right ships for incursion use (faction BS, Sleipneir, Abso, Loki, Legion, good T1 BS like Maelstrom, Abaddon etc etc)
2) Fitted with a MINIMUM number of damage mods (heatsink, BCU, mag/gyrostab, TE). 2 for armor boats and 3 for shield boats.
3) Tanked efficiently (all resists > 70%), typically 6-8 slots total including rigs.
4) Skilled T2 guns/missiles
5) Fitted proper e-war and utility mods (webs/painters/sebo)

As the highsec incursion scene gets crowded with people, competition is unfortunately unavoidable. You get zero isk for not winning. Hence, the ship/skill bar rises creating what some people tend to call as "elitism". It's a natural byproduct of all the intense competition. When it gets crowded, your best chances are joining Assaults fleets or higher as these fleets won't be too critical on your ship fit as long as you meet the minimum requirement/best practices.

Who gets to decide? Well the organizer of course ... aka your fleet commander.
They mostly go by reputation, so no shortcuts

P.S Jester/Ripard Teg recently wrote a nice fairly detailed blog on incursions at - http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2011/08/guide-introduction-to-incursions-part-1.html
Except a few minor niggles, it's mostly spot on.

P.S Incursion shield fits - http://incursions.nexsoft.de/
Incursion armor fits - http://eve-survival.org/wikka.php?wakka=IncursionArmorWorkshop

Hi Ebonheart,

should you have any further questions after the above brilliant and detailed answers then feel free to convo me later today when you should have time, (post or mail me a time when you're on) and you can ask your remaining questions that I will try to answer to the best of my ability as a BTL moderator and full range incursion FC.

best regards
Ammzi

well, it usually takes somewhere from 5-10 minutes complete most vanguard sites (which is where you will probably want to start)

however for time allocation, I would usually set aside at least 1 hour because most fleets don't like that guy that only comes in for the quick hit and run. (it tends to slow the entire fleet down finding replacements)

personally I would recommend Basi. Not that the Scimi is a bad logi, it's just that more people fly basi, and since they are needed in pairs, it just tends to be more preferable to FC's to grab two basi's and go.

Now since there are a lot of battleships that fly with energy transfers in their utility high slots, you could theoretically run a single basi in fleet and have it cap chain off the dps ship. But that tends to open the door to friendly fire incidents involving concord.

Yes Mr LaForge, flying within a corp only fleet will shield you from concord in case any "mistakes" happen.

You will notice however, that I was responding to the poster above me, and with a simple mouse click (thanks to the new eve-gate functionality) I was able to deduce that this particular poster was in a corp consisting of a total of 3 members. So the likelihood of him flying within a corp only fleet is non existent.

But it was very nice of you to offer your wisdom to the masses regardless.

/cheers

Jester's awesome blogs about Incursions and his 4-part Incursion Guide can be found here: http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/search/label/Incursions

Someone above had mentioned that VG sites normally take 5-10 minutes? In armor, it takes 2-3 minutes.


In other words, go Armor because we're generally more experienced (blitzing), we usually win sites over shield, and we know how to use modules that matter (TCs, webs, TPs) because our mids aren't filled with tank, unlike shield boats.


Just my 2 cents.. the only time armor fleets be shield fleets is in NCO's with tons of frigs. Have yet to lose to one in an OTA or NMC. but then again I am usually in a shiney fleet.

He is right though if you are trained for armor go that route. While smaller community it does wtf pawn nco's

As a guy that has been in the game for some time, but just did incursions for the first time yesterday i can give some feedback.
As has been mentioned you use those two channels, one for shield and one for armor fleets.

Make your battleship either close range 10-50km or long range sniper 150km.
Overall DPS is the focus, doing vanguard sites you will mostly shoot frigates and some cruisers.
You put in just enough tank to survive, and then focus on maximum DPS and how to apply this DPS (Webs, tracking computers, sensor boosters (lots of frigates))
Regarding webs: Most web-ships have bonuses for it, and they use faction webs with a longer optimal.

I flew a guardian, so i never noticed getting neuted in the vanguardsites, but i know they do it in the higher-up sites i ran.

Oneiros'es can be cap stable without capchain, guardians cannot. Scimitars dont. The other shield logi, obelisk i believe uses cap chains afaik.
Its normal to be 3 logis in a site, but its possible with only 2.
I put faction on my Guardian for better resists, your lows should be dedicated to tank, and your mids should be either an afterburner and tracking link, or 2 tracking links. (i prefer ab + TL)

You will get picked for a fleet if they are waiting for get more people to get started or need a replacement and there is noone better than you.
You can use as much faction as you can afford, but i wouldnt recommend faction guns :p
The most pimp ships for shieldfleets i would say is machariels and nightmares. For armorfleets its probably vindicators, but blasterboats are useless in sites where they keep long range.

Edit: I just wanted to add that even tho we in armor won 1 more site than the shieldfleet we were competing with, their fleet was very shiny. Lots of macheriels put out the hurt like nobodys buisness!