EVE New Citizens Q&A

So as a noob, I've heard people going on about stealth bombing, but what actually is it? Is it just a ship type or a ship fit? And if so can any ship be fitted for the task?

It's a particular class of ship, a Tech 2 frigate. It has the ability to cloak, and move and warp while cloaked. They use torpedoes (a battleship weapon) and bombs. Probably to get the best idea on these is to look up Bombers Bar on youtube. In the broadest sense, you have a group of stealth bombers, cloaked, wait for a target.. either in an asteroid belt or on a gate.. then you all decloak at one and attack using torpedoes.. or bomb depending on range, circumstance, and tactics.

Each race has a stealth bomber, which is bonused to their primary damage type:

Amarr: Purifier (EM)
Minmatar: Hound (Explosive)
Gallente: Nemesis (Thermal)
Caldari: Manticore (Kinetic)

Im also into that covert ops.

Besides Manticore is Falcon any good?

How are the other races Covert Ops ships?

What about Uni Bombers?

The covert ops line of ships (covert ops frigates, recon cruisers, black ops battleships) are a bit different in that each race specializes in its own types of electronic warfare / jamming, so the ships end up doing different things from race to race.

The covert ops frigates are typically used for cloaky exploration and probing and are somewhat equivalent.

The stealth bomber frigates are used for ambush attacks against tightly packed groups of large ships, and the bombs for each race do different damage (EM, thermal, kinetic, explosive), so the whole fleet of bombers has to pick one type of bomber and one damage type, to match the enemy's expected vulnerabilities.

Recon cruisers combine stealth with electronic jamming, and they are quite different.

The Falcon does ECM jamming; a Falcon can uncloak and then completely paralyze you from 40-60 km away by permanently taking away your ability to target anything.

Arazu (Gallente) can uncloak and warp disrupt you from 40-60km (normal distance for warp disruption is 20km), and also reduce your targeting range or targeting speed. This wreaks havoc on any logistics repair ships you may have in your fleet, because they can't target you fast enough to repair you.

Rapier (Minmatar) can uncloak and webify you to almost 0 speed, again from extremely long range. You're not going to be able to move. In addition, a Rapier can target-paint you, and then the rest of their support fleet will shoot you full of missiles that do extra damage because of the target painter.

Pilgrim (Amarr) can uncloak and drain your capacitor empty from very long range. Normally energy neutralizers are 10-20km, this ship can do it from 40-60km. Many ships can't function without capacitor energy, so it's pretty nasty.

And finally, black ops battleships have the capability to open a bridge and send a whole fleet of covert ops ships to a covert ops cyno in enemy territory, basically creating the possibility of nasty roaming fleets that just suddenly uncloak in your back yard and shoot up all your miners and ratters and station facilities, then disappear under cloak again and/or jump out.

Sounds good.

Doin sneaky, devastating stuff from a distance.

I specialise in "sneaky, devastating stuff from a distance" with ECM/EWAR ships for my corporation (alongside logistics/healing). It's deeply satisfying and a significant force multiplier in fleets.

However, you must get used to being blown to tiny pieces early on. You will be high up on the enemy's 'Terminate With Extreme Prejudice list' if you stray in range.

THey are just showing you what it's like to be sitting on the other end of the "Bat Phone". In all of those videos there was some pilot with a covert cyno field gen that found a victim and pointed them and then lit the cyno. He then yell out "cyno up" on teamspeak and the BlOPs BS bridges and then all of the black ops ships within range can jump through. Typically the BS will follow through when everyone else is done and they will take a cyno back home at the end.

What you are seeing on all of those clips is the view from the people sitting in the PoS waiting for the green light to jump.