Warfare & Tactics

As I get largely ignored, it seems I have said some really stupid things.

Your first wall of text, requires a wall of text to answer it.

Your Raven:
Remember how fast they tracked you down , and how big, slow it was. Did you kill one enemy?
Well, imagine a carrier is bigger, and slower. You'll like it a lot more than that Raven, and it will die a slower, more painful death.

Kill Fleets:
It's not like a corp would *limit* the fleet to kill a carrier.
If someone comes back on comms, and says "I have a carrier in Y9 !"
Everybody in the chat room is going to undock.

Questions about undocking and re-fitting, travel and so on:
The old adage is, " if you have to ask these questions, you're too new to buy a carrier."
Nobody is trying to be mean, by telling you this.


Your roles in life:
There are roles in life, because it's pretty hard to 'solo life'. Roles are an indicator that you are part of something bigger.
Eve and its ships is very similar. A carrier can have many roles, but "solo PvP" is most definitely not one of them.

Since I have had my morning coffee, I will take a crack at this and give illumination to the OP.


Kudos on being braver than most and being "bitten by the PvP bug."

You won't regret it.


By themselves, Fighters are "OK" against anything cruiser-sized and up.

If you want to apply damage well, then you will have to see your Fighters the same way you would view "Heavy Drones" and "Large Weapons" (see: they will deal poor damage against anything fast and small).

For PvP in general... Warp Disruptors are pretty much mandatory unless you have a person running as a dedicated "tackler."
For larger ships, Webs are also mandatory (unless you are in a fleet that can cover you).

For longer range engagements (outside of web range) , consider Target Painters. They will increase the "sensor footprint" of the target ship making it easier to hit.


Carriers are basically bigger ships. They can dock and undock just like everything else.

The only "special rules" that apply are that they cannot enter High-sec, they cannot dock at the smaller citadels, and utilizing their jump drive requires a second person (note: carriers are not limited to using their jump drives for moving, they CAN use stargates).

Now if you are talking about SUPERCARRIERS... that is a whole other thing. They have special construction requirements (can only be built in 0.0 space)... and they cannot dock at any station other than the largest citadel (making them difficult to sell and buy).


Assume that any low-sec (or null-sec) station with a well-stocked market is going to have hostiles buzzing about.

But that does not mean you cannot grab what you need in a Blockade Runner and haul it back to where you have your carrier.
Just remember to set up an "insta-undock" bookmark before docking at the station.


Regarding Fighters... you can load them up in the Fighter Bay just like drones.
Unlike drones, you will take the additional step of loading the Fighters into "launching tubes." Carriers have 3 tubes and each tube can hold 9 fighters (see: a "squadron").

Please note that you cannot mix and match different fighter types in the same tube / squadron.

In combat, you will command your Fighters squadrons similar to the way you would command normal drones... but you will only have 3 of them, use a fancier interface, and have access to a few other special command functions (that even I have not fully mastered).


There are a few reasons:

- you never know. That one ship could be the harbinger for a larger force.
- pickings are slim and people are bored (see: "why does Billeh Bob git tah 'ave all de fun? Ah wanna 'ave sum fun too!")
- it is a bonding experience for everyone (except for you of course).
- Just cause (there is no rule that says you can't).
- that ship can't be taken down through conventional means (see: properly fit and flown Marauders can tank a metric fuckton of DPS).
- Some combination of the above.



(hit the quote limit for the post so I am going to format the text differently here)

I want to fly a ship I can take on smaller gangs with. But the training takes time and I would really like to know if I get to have the chance for some good fights or if it is always going to be "Hoho a carrier, just drop a small fleet and a few dreads on him".

Bear in mind that this is a multiplayer game first and foremost.
If you have access to ships and equipment that allow you to take on multiple people at the same time... your opponents will also have access to the same things.

That said... it is possible to have a "gud fite" against superior numbers... but you are going to have to plan ahead and be SUPER selective over who you engage, where you engage, and how you engage.

The ship you choose, in additoonal to its fitting, matters as well.
Some ships are better operating as part of a larger group while other ships can be used to great effect in small gangs to solo skirmishes.
Some fits are better at swatting away smaller ships... but are weaker against larger ships.
Some fits are good against larger ships... but weaker against smaller ships.

Here is a video that I like to reference with regards to soloing.
It is a little dated, but it can give you the gist on how to solo.

[EVE Online] One Man Crew

Solo PVP career? HELL YES!
Solo PVP carrier? ehm...perhaps later?

Here is what I do: Watch dank Youtube videos on trains/planes, look up fits on zKill, try it myself next time I am online.
But I stick to the small and medium stuff until I am sure that I am ready for the next step.

Thank you WOlf. With being a software developer, I`m a little bit embarrassed I didn`t get that idea myself.




Not even scratched it huh...well I`ve had enough of the theory anyway and will go out and get some experience now. Again, thank you for your help. Also, I`m a little bit of a stubborn type, so I will try my drake out first. If the losses become too much, I will switch to a caracal.

I know little about carriers, its way out my league still. However, I do have quite a few corpmates who fly them really well, also in PVP, although they dont take it lightly to put their carrier at risk in pvp situations. When I read your thread here I could only think about inviting you to join us in null sec, where we rent a system but can use all alliance space.

I suggest joining us cause, as you will also read in our corp description, we are all about freedom to play eve the way you want. So you'll see us roam solo when we feel like it. But we also have a superb FC who doesn't want to take up roles forcefully like you point out as well, so instead of with a big alliance or corp, he flies with us and organises pvp roams almost weekly. There he defines a role for everyone, but all are free to join or not, never any obligations.

So yeah, I believe we fit your play style and we have several experienced carrier pilots you can learn from.

i have solo'd in a carrier.....i died, the carrier was litterally a sitting duck because of 2 griffins sitting 80km away jamming my fighters, it was pointless undocking it tbh