Warfare & Tactics

If you're going to scout in a blockade runner, your chances of survival are not as good as they would be if you were in a covert ops frigate. I think this has been established.

However, you also have the capacity to carry a bubble of your own ;) It's not hard to see how you could use this to your advantage.

PERCEPTION PERCEPTION PERCEPTION PERCEPTION PERCEPTION PERCEPTION PERCEPTION PERCEPTION PERCEPTION PERCEPTION PERCEPTION PERCEPTION PERCEPTION PERCEPTION PERCEPTION PERCEPTION

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It's all perception. During the 60 seconds that you are holding your gate cloak (if you remain still) you need to take a few things into account:

When I jump through a gate into a camp, and a dictor bubbles up, I like to turn my camera to find the celestial that has the shortest path through the bubble.

1) Let me explain... Lets say that you jump into a system and a dictor and his gang bubbles up. Your destination is the outgate; however, you popped up on the other side of the bubble from the outgate, meaning you must mwd through the whole bubble while cloaked to get out and warp to your destination... DO NOT DO THIS!!!!

You need to find a celestial that is on your side of the bubble. Example, you jump through a gate and your outgate is 12km through the bubble on the other side to warp, BUT asteroid belt VII - 2 is only 3km through the bubble to warp. You need to mwd/cloak align to that belt and warp out when you breach the bubble... Even better you warp to belt VII - 2 then ping to the closest celestial to your outgate and max range 5 degree D scan your outgate to make sure its clear. <14.3AU

The MWD/CLOAK/ALIGN trick is great, but if your align point is on the other side of the bubble you will die every time.

2) There is no celestial that is on your side of the bubble, meaning in order to warp to any celestial you must travel through the bubble... DO NOT DO THIS. MWD out of the bubble on the side with no celestials... hold your composure its ok. When you are a good distance outside the bubble, then you can align warp to you closest celestial it takes you to align to. OR you can gate crash jump back and try to get a better roll of the dice on your gate cloak position when you jump back in the 2nd time.. Its completely OK to reapproach jump back and try another time.

3) THIS IS THE MOST DANGEROUS SITUATION YOU WILL ENCOUNTER!!! When you jump into a system bubble goes up and they are actively dragging drones around the gate. Sometimes they will even drop 100 cans for declaoks in a 12km radius around the bubble. This is a situation where depending on your judement and their distance from you, that they may actually get a decloak before your gate cloak runs out. I prefer to always MWD/CLOAK reapproach gate and jump for these situations. Or you could jus leeroy it and try to MWD/ALIGN warp off but i wouldnt suggest it.

I hope this helps you.... This suggestions only apply to dictor/hictor bubbles not mobiles/
FLY SAFE

Practice.


Get a few buddies together in fast frigates with points in a quiet system. One guy jumps in while the other guys pretend to camp the gate. Use your gate cloak to give yourself time to figure out the best path from the gate to a celestial or safe spot. Decloak and make a run for it, while your buddies try to get a point on you. (It is possible to escape after being tackled, but for the purpose of this game the tacklers win if they get a point). Everyone should take a couple turns playing the scout, because everyone occasionally jumps into a camp.


Once you get good at that, and the tacklers get good at tackling, kick it up a notch by having the "scouts" use a cloaky ship, and having the campers use a dictor or a few static bubbles. The campers practice uncloaking, while the scouts practice the MWD trick and getting away. If the scout successfully warps off he wins, if he gets tackled the tacklers win the round.


It is all a bit silly, but it is not a terrible way to spend an hour now and then.

Lol.

If the gate camps don't get you, the lag monster will.

The Cheetah makes a good forward scout, the Viator makes a good rear scout.

It is surprising how many single jumpers land within 5km when jumping through a gate if you watch all day.

And that sphere ends up looking more like a ring after a while.

There is usually a good spread with a group jump.

Dunno, I could just be staring too long, but I have sat watching gates for whole weekends, I think this is the experience the OP lacks mostly.

You're doing it wrong?

You should only ever have even the slightest chance of dying if you jump thru a gate and end up in someones bubble, if they have 2-4 interceptors sitting on the gate waiting for you with another group.


What to do when you jump thru a gate into a bubble:

Zoom out - look at where you are in relation to the bubble. Assess if bubble is a moving bubble (Heavy Interdictor) Or stationary (Dictor, mobile bubbles) - then look for the shortest distance out of the bubble that isnt heading straight towards you're enemy, or a can, wreck, etc.


Here's the "hard" part - hard being you're either dosed up with too much PVP shakes or you have realy fat fingers. Double click somewhere to head in that direction, turn on you're microwarp drive, then hit cloak straight after., quick one two three movement, with a second preferably less from when youv'e started moving/uncloaked to when you're MWD is on and you're getting cloaked again.

This should send you off in said direction at 1-2kms - cloaked - for 1 "pulse" of you're microwarp drive.

The only thing that has any chance of catching you are interceptors, that start burning for where you were the second they saw you and you cant get out of there before they get in range to uncloak you - or theres a 50 man fleet on the gate evenly dispursed makign it so you have to manover like a calculus machine to dodge them and their drones.

Tip: Ensure Wrecks, Biomass, Cans, Drones are all saved to an overview tab. Switch to this tab when you need to stealth out of a bubble to ensure you dont get decloaked by a corpse or the such, and allows you to better judge distances, esp with people whom have drones out and cans dropped on a gate.


If you're running into 50man fleets often and you've only got you're group of 10 i think you're problem lies in the area that you're trying to venture into with such little support?

Covops scouting has very little to do with luck. There are some hot tip in here and some not so hot. For the most part Nawt says it as well as any with maybe a few tweaks.
(quote)Tip: Ensure Wrecks, Biomass, Cans, Drones are all saved to an overview tab. Switch to this tab when you need to stealth out of a bubble to ensure you dont get decloaked by a corpse or the such, and allows you to better judge distances, esp with people whom have drones out and cans dropped on a gate.
I hide drones on my overview, but keep them in brackets. There could be a sh*t-ton of drones out, plugging up the overview.

As a covops scout, your job is not to warp off to begin with, its to give intel on what your fleet is jumping into potentially. If the decision is made to bail, you also need to be in a position to exit safely and get off to the next scouting system. Warping off like a screaming girl does neither.

OSHITBUBBLECAMP!!
The best rule said repeatedly: Breathe, keep your cool and get your bearings. You have 60 seconds to do something. Use the first 30 to relay intel on shiptypes, ranges, drones in/out/assigned, etc. Talking on the mic (and trying not to sound like a screaming girl to your fleetmates) will calm you down naturally. You should be zoomed out and scrolling the screen around in every direction looking at the general travel patterns of the folks trying to kill you in a 3D kind of way.
-Pick your path. The two worst directions to go are the shortest path out of the bubble (if your close to the edge), and back to the gate. The best directions to go would be as close to perpindicular to the approach paths of the decloakers. Even if it puts you deeper into a pile of bubbles.
*your first order of business is to dodge decloakers, not warp* If you do manage to warp off you'll have to warp back semi-blind into those same baddies if the FC decides to go somewhere else.
-Pick your moment. Look for a tiny pice of time where decloakers aren't next to you, preferrably in a direction that they'll have to turn around to get to you (prioritize by range). With intel provided and blood now back in your cheeks you should still have about 30 seconds to wait for a good moment.
-Do it. The move/MWD/cloak-in-one-swift-motion trick should be second nature to you. Remember, they don't get you when you cloak, they get you on the decloak. Make minor course changes if needed to get perpindicular and slightly behind them if you can. They can't see you so you have the advantage.
-After coming up empty at your last known location, expect them to fan out inline with celestials and the gate you came in from. Don't be there. You should be slowboating towards the biggest slice of empty space you can find, laughing nervously, and scanning for other inbound baddies.

From here your FC has decided to engage or bail, and if he's bailing, just slowboat back to the gate, roughly on the opposite side from where they saw you last and move along. Wash, rinse, repeat.

LOL, ya... This just made my day.


What were we talking about again? Oh ya, the op dying a lot. Well, op, if ya cant fly the damn ship right, go back to using t1 ships... I never lost a t2 frig scouting, fighting, ganking, hot dropping, or anything of the sort, and Im practically a ******* ******. Are you sure you are using a cloak? and Keeping more than 25km away from objects in space?

Just one more thing...
Use keybord shortcuts for align, cloak and MWD activation.

Easier to hit, than the HUD icons, especially with shaky hands

edit .. oh - and shortcut warp, use it too

Oh wow. Thanks for that, now i know what got me the other day. I was wondering how i could've missed the bubble on gate... It's really good to know that Sabres are fast enough to pull something like that off.

12k is a very long way