EVE New Citizens Q&A

depending on your weapon system.

For example if you're in a missile ship against a ship with turrets, you will want to set orbit to reduce incoming damage by using transversal velocity.

The other way around would be that you are in a turret ship against a small target and want to maximise your damage, you want to keep at range at the preferred amount.

Manual commands overrule any automated ones you have made previously.

Ok, in pvp if fighting a turret ship, never hit orbit outside the orbit radius. This flies your ship directly at the enemy with a 0 transversal, so you will take full damage. Always spiral in. Against missile ships you can get away with it.

Keep at distance is good if you know you will stay outside your enemies range. Say you're using a damp script or optimal range script ew.

If you're going to spiral, then don't even hit the approach button because for that short interval, you are flying straight at the enemy. Start the approach manually in a spiral. Whether to spiral or not is mostly a matter of your ability to quickly evaluate the encounter. When in doubt spiral.

Now whether to hit orbit when you get to range is a bit trickier. For really short fights it should be no problem. But the longer the fight the more chances it gives the enemy to use a slingshot maneuver or some other maneuver that takes advantage of the orbit mechanic. This can let them temporarily reduce the transversal and if they time it right, they can apply a lot of damage and win the encounter. So some people never orbit manually. I think being informed about counter orbit manuvers is part of recognizing them. So if you see the ship attempting to slingshot, then breaking orbit and piloting manual is probably a good idea.

Option 4.

Start by setting up the default distances for the buttons in your "Selected item" window. Specifically the buttons for "Orbit" and "Keep at distance". The beauty of these buttons is that you can hit them a lot faster than trying to select a right click menu option and you can set the perfect distance, not be stuffed with a few choices that don't quite fit what you want. I believe you can also assign hot keys to them.

When setting the "Orbit" default distance be aware that your ship won't actually orbit at that distance due to the centrafugal forces at play, it will always be a bit bigger. So if you want to orbit at 7.5K, you might need to set the orbit to 6400 Metres. You will need a bit of trial and error here and allow for whether your intended target is likely to web you.

Set your keep at distance to the maximum distance that you want to allow your target to reach which for example might be your overheated Scram range eg around 12 Km. I'll come back to this shortly.

When starting the engagement the first question is: "Is your opponant likely to fight or run?" If the latter you need to burn straight at them until you get tackle on, but obviously temper that with what type of ship you are charging at, compared to your tank. If you expect him to engage, you can afford to make a safer angled approach.

When making the approach start manually, imagine a ball around the target, keep double clicking on the edge of that ball to maintain your approach angle. Make the ball bigger if you are taking heavy damaging shots, make it smaller if he is missing or only scratching your paint. You don't actually spiral in, it's usually more of a curved approached. Hit the pre-set orbit button when you are a couple of kilometres outside your desired orbit and have tackle on.

Whether you can maintain that orbit, boils down to one thing, are you faster than him? If not you are going to be fighting at his optimal range not yours and your only hope is that your ship is just so much superior that it can power through the disadvantage. If you are faster, then you have to watch for him trying to slingshot his way out or into range.

Be aware that there are two types of slingshot, one to get in close and one to break off the engagement. Early on he will most likely be trying the former, later on he will be trying the latter. If he suddenly starts pulling range, hit the approach button, then hit the orbit button as soon as you start overhauling him again. If you start overhauling him faster, indicating that he is turning back toward you, hit the "Keep at Range" button first, then the orbit button as soon as you regain control. The reason why your "Keep at Range" distance is further than your ideal orbit, is because you are possibly going to be hitting it while still outside your ideal orbit, but it will take a few seconds for you to slow down and change course and your ship needs to immediately slam on the brakes and reverse course to counter a 'slingshot into range' action.

So in short you don't manually orbit the target but constant switch between "Approach", "Orbit" and "Keep at Range" to maintain the correct range when he is trying to slingshot you. Usually towards the end (mid-low structure) I burn right in, because that is when he will be trying his most desperate attempts to slingshot his way out and you can afford to fight at a less advantagous range and take some damage in the interests of ensuring the kill.

Yeah its a couple of things, mass, agility and black magic i.e. Some godforsaken equasion that determines your orbit speed.

a skilled player in a large ship will attempt to match transversal to an approaching tackler by looking at the ship and manual piloting the same direction.

A lot of people are talking about tracking here, and it's all true, but it's really not the point of scram kiting. The idea is you are able to keep scram while staying out of the optimal of your opponent, so it's ideal against frigates with short weapon systems like blasters/autocannons. Lasers may give you trouble, as will the longer range weapon types on frigs. Cruisers mostly can't scram kite very effectively because the medium weapons have longer ranges, though it does work in some cases (I once won a Thorax v. Thorax by loading Null and scram kiting a guy who only had Void).

As for your piloting question, while it's true that clicking orbit outside your orbit range will reduce your transversal, it's really not the problem! If you are planning to scram kite, it's not very likely your opponent is going to be hitting you at those ranges anyway.

What IS a concern is your inertia. Approaching a target can carry your right past the edge of scram range and into close quarters where you will have hard time pulling range again. This is particularly likely if your opponent is approaching you rather than flying away. Therefore, it's crucial to try to accurately predict what your enemy is going to do before you commit to a fight. Usually if they're brawl fit they'll be making a beeline for you.

If you're already inside the range you want to be at, it's probably safe to use "keep at range" or "orbit" because they'll both cause you to fly directly away from your target, which is generally your top priority in a scram kite ship. Hopefully you are faster than them (something to think about while fitting your ship!) and if you are significantly faster it's usually worth the low transversal to pull range faster. Trying to spiral outward inside web range is likely to take so long you get killed anyway and probably won't reduce transversal enough to mitigate very much damage.

If you're outside the range you want to be at, be very careful! Both "keep at range" and "orbit" are likely to throw you right into your enemy's arms. Often the best strategy is to burn away from them and reduce your speed to slightly less than theirs so they can catch up. Once you are at the right range you can adjust your speed and keep at range or orbit as you like. This will mean you lose some targets that decide not to fight, but that's generally preferable to flying right into blaster range in a (scram)kiting ship.

I HIGHLY recommend the breacher or another missile frigate for practice in scram kiting. They are highly flexible because you can scram kite short range ships and brawl against ships with tracking issues, without having to worry about tracking yourself. There's also a lot of flexibility in fitting - you can fit for speed, tank, dual web, tracking disruption, or some combination. Lots of ways to experiment.

Also keep in mind that the holy trinity of scram kiting - scram, web, afterburner. Count on your enemy having them. If you don't, you won't be able to maintain range.

I haven't seen a video on that exact subject per se, but there are others. Mr. Hyde does a Tengu vs. Small Gangs video at a gate where he showcases piloting the Tengu in a way to box a small target Comet in the gate so he can force it to not be able to orbit him and get transverse bonuses. He gets major damage on it then gets a couple volleys in after it escapes the gate 'trap' and it blows up. That same video also showcases the problem larger ships (Tengu is a T3 Cruiser) have against small, fast targets like Frigates. They never really challenge his tank but he has to let them get a fair amount into his structure to 'keep them interested' in keeping up the fight.

Manually piloting is best learned in an asteroid field. You start at slower speeds and maneuver horizontally through the field. As you get more proficient at moving your ship around, increase speed and start introducing moving in the Z (Vertical axis) as well. EVE does not have true 3D maneuvering like a Flight Sim does, or even true 3D space maneuvering like some space games do. You only have YAW and PITCH controls with a gimbal lock at 90° to the horizontal system plane, which means you can't do true loops. You have to Pitch up to lock, Roll 180°, Pitch down to complete a half loop. You'd have to repeat to do a full loop.

Consider yourself pretty good if you can navigate a dense asteroid field in any axis at 400+ M/S on manual.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT8VqVcLDqc

That is a video of the polar opposite of kitting. It's the spiraling and tracking video put out by agony unleashed a while back. It's a pretty good intro to the kinds of stuff you are asking about.

To add onto what Blade Darth linked here is a audio only youtube video or Chessur talking to Pandemic Horde on manually piloting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YATpECqVOQ