These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

EVE New Citizens Q&A

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

Got tackled in 0.5 and my drones were no help, why?

Author
Spazzy McGee Thiesant
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2017-07-11 17:15:34 UTC
So I'm pretty new as you may guess. Even though my attackers were blinking yellow and locked on me, my drones just sat there and watched me die. Is it because I was set to green?
Keno Skir
#2 - 2017-07-11 17:49:23 UTC
Set them to AUTO AGGRO in the little square settings menu top left of the drones window. (also set to focus fire)
Do Little
Bluenose Trading
#3 - 2017-07-11 18:04:50 UTC
If your drones are in space and set to aggressive they should respond when you are attacked. Otherwise, you need to lock your opponent and manually command the drones to attack.
Scialt
Corporate Navy Police Force
Sleep Reapers
#4 - 2017-07-11 18:58:09 UTC  |  Edited by: Scialt
The key for drones is that they must be out at the time you are aggressed for them to automatically defend you (assuming you have them set to aggressive). If you are aggressed and then pop out your drones... they'll sit there until you lock and give them the command to attack.

So if you're sitting in a Tristan in a Novice complex and a griffin (or other ECM/sensor damping ship) warps in... get the drones out right away so not being able to lock on to your opponent isn't a problem.
Memphis Baas
#5 - 2017-07-11 20:15:25 UTC
As indicated above, your drones must be out and configured to auto-attack enemies (set to aggressive) BEFORE the enemies attack.

Blinking yellow means you're being targeted. Drones won't react to being targeted; anyone can target anyone, even in high-sec, it's not illegal.

When they start shooting, they'll switch from yellow to blinking red. That's when drones will react. If a ship is shooting you, you can shoot back, the "green" safety setting will allow that because self-defense is always allowed. BUT, they have to actually be blinky red (shooting you), not yellow (targeting).

Also, drones aren't some sort of superweapon; most ships can tank drones just fine and shoot you until your ship explodes. You can only rely on drones to function as supplemental damage.

And finally, attacks in EVE happen ONLY if the attacker figures he'll win. If you appear to be AFK, they can be pretty confident they'll win, but even then, they won't take a chance, and will actually bring a ship with enough firepower to win even if you shoot back.
Forest Archer
State War Academy
Caldari State
#6 - 2017-07-11 20:30:09 UTC
Also just looked at your loss you were suicide ganked the drones are not going to help against that. Also piece of advice don't dual tank.

Always willing to help all you have to do is ask, though if you're in the other fleet I may not help the way you want. Just a heads up. Pub Channel: Lost Souls Trading Post

Spazzy McGee Thiesant
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#7 - 2017-07-11 23:39:46 UTC
Lots of good info for me here.
I launched my drones after I tried to warp and couldn't, so I was targeted already.
It all happened so fast, and I haven't been in that situation enough to react properly.
I was copying a fit I found online, why don't dual tank?
Spazzy McGee Thiesant
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#8 - 2017-07-11 23:40:50 UTC
Oh, I know I wouldn't have won but I don't want to go down without a fight Big smile
Memphis Baas
#9 - 2017-07-12 00:10:56 UTC  |  Edited by: Memphis Baas
You don't dual tank because of this reason:

When an enemy sees you in-game, they will shoot you with everything they have. This game is brutal like war in real life, they shoot you with all the weapons from the start. It's not like other games where you dance around the dragon and shoot this spell then shoot this other spell, for a 1-hour choreographed fight scene. In this game, there's no wait, they shoot you with all the weapons to kill you super-dead asap.

So, to defend your ship, it's better to use ALL the resources in the ship, all the slots and all the power and CPU to have ONE big defense, rather than two smaller defenses. You put everything into the shields; if they have bigger guns than your shields, tough, you die. But hopefully you have bigger shields than their guns, and then you survive. If your ship is designed to use armor, then forget the shields, fill every slot with armor, armor resistances, armor repair, armor plates, armor armor.

It's like defending against a tsunami wave: it's better to have one tall wall, than to have two smaller walls one behind the other.



In this game, you prepare your ship for a specific scenario. For example, "land on top of the enemy at point blank, shoot it with everything, then get out." So you fill the ship with the best short range guns you can afford, with short range ammo (antimatter, for example, does the most damage). You put in 2 armor repairers - they will drain your capacitor in 10 seconds, but your plan is to "then get out" so you need super-strong armor for only 10 seconds, that's the plan. And you add a webifier to HOLD the target there if it tries to run away. Everything on the ship is tuned to maximize the scenario you planned.

And then, you look for fights that match that scenario. And you warp away from fights that DON'T.

You don't jack-of-all-trades. If half of your guns are long range and half are short range, if half your defense is shields and half is armor, then the enemy will have a very easy time chewing through your half-assed shields, then half-assed armor, while tanking your half-assed long range DPS and then half-assed short-range DPS.

Don't do that. You go in, you BLAP them with unfair overkill firepower, then you get out. That's how EVE fights are.

That's what they did to you.
Memphis Baas
#10 - 2017-07-12 00:29:54 UTC  |  Edited by: Memphis Baas
How to survive the situation is simple (well, concept is simple, actually doing it is hard):

First, their ships are tuned to kill weaker ships that pass by, in less than 29 seconds (Concord police comes and kills them in 25-29 seconds). They will ignore strong ships, and only attack the weak ships they know they can kill.

If you are in a strong ship (cruiser with oversized 1600mm battleship armor plates and armor damage resistances), then you don't have to do anything. They will ignore you. They can't kill you before Concord comes for them.

If you are in a weak ship, then you have to AVOID the situation:

1. Look at the map configuration settings. You can change the color of the stars to show you "ships killed in the last 24 hrs" or "ships killed in the last 30 min". Avoid that solar system. Use a scout alt or friend to fly ahead in an empty ship (free corvette, cheap shuttle) to see what's what, if there are pirates there, let you know where they are.

2. If you MUST go through that solar system, you need to minimize the time that you spend in the kill zone.

2a. If your ship is weak, fit agility and speed modules, then fit whatever tank you have spare room for. Zip through the zone fast, before they can react and kill you.

2b. Don't autopilot, don't AFK. Manually order your ship to warp (arrive) at 0 km from the gate. So you can jump immediately (spam click the jump button). And on the other side, you have 60 seconds of invisibility, use the time to calm down, look around, figure whether you can warp away (if you have a very agile ship), and act when the campers are farthest away from you.

3. You can also minimize reasons why they should kill you. Don't carry expensive cargo. Don't carry PLEX, blueprints, injectors, none of that billion ISK stuff. Gate camps are organized; they have a neutral spy sitting idle in an innocent ship like a transport or newbie frigate a couple solar systems away, operating silent ship scanners on everyone that passes by. The spy lets them know you're coming, and how your ship is fitted, and what you're carrying. They'll know ahead of time whether you're worth it, or not.

Unfortunately, some do it for "lolz" though, or just to teach you (the hard way) not to autopilot or mine while afk.

So, don't. For travel, you can set an autopilot route, it will put that zig-zag line in space and color each gate on the way yellow, but don't actually turn on the autopilot feature once you undock. Instead, click the yellow gate yourself, and click the "warp to 0" or "jump" button, so you arrive at 0 km and jump right away. The autopilot has a built-in feature where it lands you at 15 km from the gate, then spends 1 minute flying the ship to the gate slowly. 1 minute is a long time in a PVP situation.
Maxi dela Tierra
TxivYawg
#11 - 2017-07-12 08:37:37 UTC
Memphis Baas wrote:

So, to defend your ship, it's better to use ALL the resources in the ship, all the slots and all the power and CPU to have ONE big defense, rather than two smaller defenses. You put everything into the shields; if they have bigger guns than your shields, tough, you die. But hopefully you have bigger shields than their guns, and then you survive. If your ship is designed to use armor, then forget the shields, fill every slot with armor, armor resistances, armor repair, armor plates, armor armor.

It's like defending against a tsunami wave: it's better to have one tall wall, than to have two smaller walls one behind the other.


But adding the second tank does not reduce the first by any means right?

As far as i understood you normally don't go dual tank because you're way less effective (damage, propulsion, utility) sacrificing both mid and low slots for defense modules?!

Fitting a hisec hauler dual tank to survive ganking for 20 secs sounds legit to me..
Memphis Baas
#12 - 2017-07-12 12:34:06 UTC  |  Edited by: Memphis Baas
You can oversize the shield extenders on a hauler, using up almost all the power grid, then use whatever med slots are left for shield hardeners. For the low slots, you either need cargo extenders on a hauler, or, if you don't, put in agility modules to help you align faster and gtfo. Or, even better, if you don't need that much cargo space, use a cruiser instead of a hauler, as it has more defenses.

In any case, it's better to use the full available power grid to oversize the shield extenders (large on a medium ship), and warp out fast (agility modules), than it is to have half-shields, half-armor, and give them an extra 10 seconds on-grid as you align for warp.

If you don't believe me, use pyfa or the ghost fitting feature and try both scenarios, look at EHP and align time.
Do Little
Bluenose Trading
#13 - 2017-07-12 14:21:19 UTC
The Vexor has no tanking bonus so you can fit it for either shield or armor. Shield tank increases your signature - making you easier to hit, but it can be spread between medium, low and rig slots allowing you to fit an impressive tank with modest skills. Integrated Hammerheads hit almost as hard as the Fed Navy and are half the price. If you fit an Omni to improve tracking your drones will kill frigates a lot faster. Something like this should work with level 3 skills:

[Vexor, Vexor]
AE-K Compact Drone Damage Amplifier
AE-K Compact Drone Damage Amplifier
IFFA Compact Damage Control
Mark I Compact Power Diagnostic System
N-JM Compact Omnidirectional Tracking Enhancer

10MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner
Large F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
Large F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
Limited Adaptive Invulnerability Field I

Drone Link Augmentor I
Small Tractor Beam I
Salvager I
250mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Antimatter Charge M

Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I

'Integrated' Hammerhead x5

With 28K EHP and decent resists (as long as you remember to turn on the invulnerability field) it should be difficult for a couple of Catalysts to chew through your tank before Concord shows up.

Trevor Dalech
Nobody in Local
Deepwater Hooligans
#14 - 2017-07-13 14:56:47 UTC
Maxi dela Tierra wrote:
[quote=Memphis Baas]

But adding the second tank does not reduce the first by any means right?

As far as i understood you normally don't go dual tank because you're way less effective (damage, propulsion, utility) sacrificing both mid and low slots for defense modules?!

Fitting a hisec hauler dual tank to survive ganking for 20 secs sounds legit to me..



Two things:
1) Resistances are a major part of tanking. When you dual tank, any resist mods you fit only benefit half your tank, instead of the whole.
2) Tanking modules have a drawback, armour plates make you slower, shield extenders increase your signature size (they make you bigger.) A slower target might still be too small to hit well, or a smaller target might still be too fast to hit well, but a slower AND bigger target is a LOT easier to hit, negating the effects of the extra tank.
Tau Cabalander
Retirement Retreat
Working Stiffs
#15 - 2017-07-17 18:59:58 UTC
Maxi dela Tierra wrote:
But adding the second tank does not reduce the first by any means right?

As far as i understood you normally don't go dual tank because you're way less effective (damage, propulsion, utility) sacrificing both mid and low slots for defense modules?!

Fitting a hisec hauler dual tank to survive ganking for 20 secs sounds legit to me..

It is virtually impossible to fit a T1 Industrial that can survive the average solo Destroyer gank.

However, it is very easy to fit a T2 Deep Space Transport (DST) to resist the same attack. With some clever fitting, one can also fit a DST to resist a solo Battlecruiser (BC) gank. However, for a fleet of Destroyers or BC, you can still be alpha'd ... though that is unlikely to happen on a gate because of gate-guns. DST can be fitted to be bump resistant, with a MWD, MMJD, and a cloak. Unless you are incredibly unlucky, or extremely incompetent. it is very difficult to lose a DST in hisec.

Dual and even triple-tanking are legitimate niche fitting strategies, but should be avoided by those that honestly don't completely understand what they are doing when it comes to fitting.

Example: I have a double-tanked Maller that I use instead of an AFK shuttle in hisec, because shuttles are too easy to alpha, and I have implants worth over 1 billion ISK; I learned this lesson the hard way. My Maller is primarily very heavily armor tanked (2x 1600mm plates and 1x 800mm plate), as the Maller has a bonus to armor resistances, but I also have some shield tank added, because I frankly had no reason to fit anything else in the mid-slots.