Warfare & Tactics

My thoughts are that a combat fleet ( Warp Disruption, EW*, DPS ) centered fleet based purely on exsisting tech II and faction frigates would both combat and cost effective. *EW would be mostly sensor damping with scripts to change the emphasis between max targeting range and sensor resolution as required by the moment. Faction frigates would be obtained via LP Stores at a cost of 10 Million a pop. Assuming the members of a corporation can make about 20-30 million an hour soloing level 4 missions, then a tech II or faction frigate could be replaced within the hour. Even if the entire fleet was wiped out in one encounter the recovery time would basically be only 1-2 hours. Now obviously the specifics of the individual fits come into question, lets just say the fits are of better than average quality and synergize well with the others in fleet capitalizing on collective strengths.

What do you think, can a frigate fleet be "combat effective" against the type of pvp you'd expect in Nullsec / Wormholes?

in a niche, sure. For example, it might even be highly amusing to use AF fleets to attack Tier 3 BC sniper fleets (if you can manage to get a warp-in on them). If you use it too often though then the enemy will just start to fit smart bombs on their doctrine ships and your fleet will turn into popcorn.

Frigate fleets can be hysterical fun for roaming though. I've always enjoyed that.

T-

Frig fleets are fun. We did an AF fleet, dozen or so ships, into null recently. You'll be amazed what you can take on, just remember, don't approach directly and speed is your friend. It helps to have a good prober to get the warp ins right, otherwise sit on the gate.

don't get me wrong i love flying in a good old blob of frigs, its fun its cheap and its stress free. However It is rarely efficient, The best way to use frig fleets in my experience is in small groups or solo. I'm talking 1-4, big enough that you can take down a straggler bc/pop some light stuff and gtfo. But not large enough that you will motivate an organized response or be slowed down by the human factor. If your rolling with 200 frigs its only a matter of time before this happens...i know they are flying destroyers but the rule still applies, light ships are best when taken lightly.
As a defensive tool a solo frig can be great at killing the moral of the fleet. 0.0 is full of cheaply fit rifters (for good reason), because of this interceptors and other tacklers don't respect them as a solo threat especially when they have a fleet behind them. Just drop 5-6 mil to get a properly kitted out rifter, fit a scram. Then get out to about 90-110 kilometers and taunt them, most interceptors will fly right into scram range and practically ask to be killed. Watching a fleet mate loose his 20 mil cepter/navy faction frig to a lone rifter can be surprisingly disheartening. Just watch out for nados and other tier 3's because some of them can (hilariously) one shot you from that distance.

I think that this would be amazing for situational tactics where you're the aggressor. The affordability of the ships, mobility, speed and low sig makes for great striking ability using guerrilla methods - not to mention the versatility of the T2 Frigate platforms.

As a defensive fleet, I think you'd be better off going elsewhere. Whilst your fleet might be able to avoid most threats with proper scouting and a good FC, you can't really do anything if you have space and assets to protect.

A carpenter needs more than one tool.

Put it in your bag of tricks but when responding to a threat no *one* fleet doctrine can counter everything.

T-

You would spend most of your time running away from fights, and get stomped regularly but yes, you would get the occasional gank.

I WAS THERE! That was hilarious.

Also, I'll just leave this here.

Ok, I will clarify as best I can. We have a small corp of lets say under 50, primarily mission runners / miners / industrialists. We've have no delusions about Eve Online gameplay enviroment and know full well that if you want something in eve there will be a time where you are required to defend said asset. We understand the game is purely based on pvp interactions regardless of system security. We are attempting to be able to mount a 2-4 minute full corp response to 90% of threats to our members or assets ( mission crashers, can flippers, low-null-wh pirates/aggressors ). Or when the inevitable war dec comes in the ability to cheaply and effectively cause more loss of assets/isk then we receive.

Now to address the disco drop, the people setting that up more than likely had direct and specific intel to counter fit for the opposing fleet ( ie frigs / destroyers ). If you counter fit to fight a specific tactic in eve online of course your going to more than likely have the upper hand in the encounter. The objective for the frigate fleet I am proposing is not so much to gank everything in sight but to respond to call for arms by corpmates for various threats or to be used in defense of the corp during war.

We regularly explore WHs yet have not moved up to moving into one, nor have any desire atm. Our current concept employs damp/ecm + tanky/dps type fits with specific roles to each frigate and getting players to fly those roles propperly playing a large part in its effectiveness. We have no aspirations for living in 0.0 when we have steady access to WHs, and only really plan to venture into lowsec for level 5s. Eventually plans include WH living and capital ships construction to defend/claim a WH system.

So in short the corp while not focused on pvp, respects the fact that we will have to pvp and need to be good enough to fend for ourselves. I don't ever forsee us having to blob through low-sec/null-sec so I highly doubt we're going to star in a disco video anytime soon. Obviously I am aware every tactic in eve has a counter-tactic, however it seems that the tactic fits the need in this situation and the risk / reward ratio should be acceptable. However any additional input from the community is greatly welcome...

Blob of frigs taking down a couple big ships is easily doable. Blob of frigs vs. blob of larger ships - forget it. So for most of your defence scenarios you're in great shape with what you want to do.

Load up on an infinite number of griffins and rifters (maybe thrashers if you need massive dps), and have them ready - griffins should have all racial jammers in cargo, or corp hangar, so you can swap them out depending on the mission griefer/can flipper's shiptype.

If you fly only griffin/rifter combo your side will always win the isk war in any war dec if you fly them halfways ok. And bringing a bunch of cheap griffins will allow your tackled corp mate to warp off once their griefer loses lock.

(If you're looking for pure defense, juse use all griffins and jam the opponent to let your guy warp off.)