Warfare & Tactics

lol......lololololololololololollololol

fyi, your life as a solo pilot just got extremely difficult (last patch). you have 2 legitimate options for t1 frigs now (solo).

1) looking for ratters and/or forcing pve ships to pvp.
2) as for a t1 frig fight. This can be done a few ways. Name your ship suggestively. Ask in local. Convo people you want to fight.

IMO, T1 frig roaming doesn't work so well anymore... there's too few of us out there. I've found it's better to take position in a travel system and wait within scan range. This is why I tended to loiter around the stations in Siseide; there's a great deal of traffic moving through the system, but not too many living there. I can sit within dock range of the station, so if ugly stuff pours in I can dock. But, most importantly, any T1 frigs moving through the system can see my Rifter on scan. You'll have noticed, when a Rifter enters local, I warp off to a belt to show I'm 'in play'.

It's a bit sad that it's come to this actually. It feels like one small step away from asking for duels outside a hub.


I have to disagree. The combined dessie and AF boosts have placed T1 frigates into this weird group of old die-hards flying around in outdated ships, apparently trying to relive their Eve youth. We're like a club oriented around classic car designs. The sad thing is that T1 frigs remain cost effective for new players, but have been outclassed nearly to the point of uselessness. Supposedly, they'll be getting a boost soon... but I wonder when. IMO, it can not be too soon.

This is true; the only functional reason to fly T1 frigates is to keep the cost down.

I believe that the original vision of T1 vs. T2 is that T1 would do a decent job at everything, while T2 would be REALLY GREAT at one or two things, and terrible at the rest. But, Assault Frigates are Just Better than T1 frigates (with a few exceptions for some faction/pirate frigates). It's very much like what battlecruisers did to regular cruisers - total obsolescence. Why fly a Rupture or Stabber when, after insurance, a Hurricane is not much more expensive and offers so much more?

No.

Once upon a time it was very different. Frigates filled the skies, in lowsec and nullsec. And only someone with more money than brains would ever fit T2 on a frigate, because it was so expensive. Cruisers were to be feared, and a battleship was an unholy terror.

I am well aware how dangerous you are in an Incursus.

failquote lol

I do quite a lot of solo roaming in low/null sec with one of my characters but I dual box with one in a cov-ops prober and the other in a PVP ship. Bubbles are not usually a problem because most gate camps involving drag/push bubbles are set up from obvious celestials.

What I do to get around that if I suspect a camp is to warp to some spot in the system that isn't obvious so I can approach a gate from a direction the camp isn't expecting. Often times if you zoom in close on the map you can see that a certain moon or asteroid belt is close to the gate you want but at an odd angle. Warping there first allows you to use D-scan to check for bubbles and allows you to warp down to the gate to check it out and/or make a ping without being noticed.

It becomes a bit of an issue if your out-gate is off alone and far away so that you only have one possible angle from which it can be approached but this is really the exception.

As for finding the good fights, this is a matter of
1) knowing what your ship can and cannot kill. Use SISI to experiment if necessary.
2) be patient..... very VERY patient.
3) if you see people carebearing in a system then try to figure out what they were doing and probe for their anomolies and make good bookmarks so you can try to surprise them. Doing this yesterday I killed a 350mil isk Hulk and got two expensive deadspace shield hardeners from the drop. (and that guy was HACKED LOL... turns out he only had it for 2 days)
4) having a good nose for traps. Sometimes it's fun to spring the trap and see what they have but you need a very quick ship to do this so you don't go balls-deep into a trap from which there is no escape.
5) be aware that solo PVP means that many fights will end in stalemates and that you will often go home after hours of roaming with a few engagements but no kills to show for it.

T-

I would second this advice.

One nice thing about starting out with a ship with a decent tank is the fight will last longer. You will have more time to see what is happening. Merlin is a good choice.

Just a simple medium shield extender web ab and scram with and t2 rails with javelin and rockets would work well. Try to orbit just outside your optimal with you ab overheated the whole time. You should be able to kill allot other t1 frigates that way. DCU but the other lows and rigs to taste.

That is a basic fit with a basic plan but having some sort of strategy and executing it right away will put you in the above average catagory. From there you will find there are lots of great ways to fit merlins and other ships.

If you lose try to figure out why you lost. Look that that persons loss mails and see if you can find the fit he likely used.

Ok so I haven't played in roughly year and a half. Had some new game mechanics to wrap my brain around and then off I went - into that lovely cloudy abyss we all love to stare at.

I was thinking "this break's been great... got time to put some gunnery skills on the backburner and just wait out for T2 guns... then I can finally fly the Incursus fit I've been waiting for". Or so I thought.

Can't find anything in nullsec. If I do, it's either a either a cruiser or a BC or something else I'm sure my Incursus couldn't handle.

I don't know the potential my tiny little hunk of metal has out there... I'm **** scared to tip my toes back into the water and test the temperature. To be honest I couldn't be bothered flying anything bigger than a cruiser hull. It's too slow, expensive, cumbersome. Long story short I'm at a loss.

I can't find targets, don't know what I should be flying for solo PvPing in null, and I've just lost touch. What should I DO if a cruiser warps in on me? Or a BC? MWD back to gate? Warp out?

yeah, it's all situational. You learn what to do in any given moment by living a bunch of those moments.

The mindset of having already lost that ship (and likely pod) before hitting TARGET is imperative. Because you simply WILL lose a whole bunch. NOT winning can't be a reason to not go do it.
If fearing loss is a financial concern, then it's not skills or fittings you're having a problem with- it's funding (and it's a universal issue for new PvP'ers). Especially solo, you will go thru ships fast- no mob of other ships that get primaried before you....and if you blew your wad fitting up or two T1 frigs, you won't be in the PvP game long before having to grind up some more cash. Frig fights can least seconds.

Finding fights is always the hardest part of any roam. Fights that YOU WANT, I mean...lots of people are willing to 20v1 a frigate. You can try hanging around suns, planets, or just asking in local for a fight. However that's not really 'hunting' for targets so much as making yourself one. Also, the people that tend to answer the call for a duel do it because they are good and have confidence in what they're doing- so you'll often be going against the A-squad of soloists that way.

The 2/10 DED complex is a standard hang out for any pirate. Find one of those in low sec and I promise you'll get fights- mostly from the gaggle of pirates sure to be scanning it constantly, who will happily fry you to pass the time. If you survive that, juicy plex-runner boats make for great targets for solo activities.