Warfare & Tactics

Suppose my carrier is sitting in the safety of my POS, while the other members of my team are in the system somewhere, say preparing an ambush in a belt.

If I assign fighter drones to a fleet-mate that is off-grid, do the fighters have to warp to that fleet-mate before he can control them, or can he immediately direct them to attack a target on-grid with him before they have even arrived on-grid themselves?

(Bait Maller/Drake in a belt, engaged by hostiles, scram hostiles, assign fighters to Maller, Maller orders fighters to attack hostiles)

What is the warp speed of fighter drones (ie: can our targets outrun the drones)?

Can you assign drones and when they zoom away then go afk?

You can just poke your nose out of the shield and assign fighters. BM spots on either edge of the pos shields just inside the shield. you can approach one and since only the midpoint of any ship is taken into account (i don't know the technical details to explain it better) your cap will approach the spot until the midpoint is on it. So if you stop it a bit earlier, you'll have 1/4th of the ship out of shields. Assign fighters then.

Your fighters need to be on grid for them to obey the bait ship.

Your carrier pilot won't be able to see the damage to them. Only the bait ship or whomever they are assigned to can see the damage.

You can assign only 5 per pilot.

Cloaking will abandon your fighters.

Pos's can be d-scanned easily. You can assign fighters from safespot and keep d-scanning for probes. Much safer since if the gang is engaging your bait they might not be concentrating on probing you down.

In general, when you are baiting and if someone takes the bait, they are going to be ganked or they might be looking for fight at the spot. They won't engage you at bait spot and then try to leave that area to bump your carrier. This applies only if you are sure about the enemy size and their nature.

For ex, if you are a null sec carrier ratter baiting a roaming gang in your space, you can do it if they are a small regular gang who don't have any support. They might get wise to it and try to catch you too. It depends on the support from your alliance. If you are pvp fit and your alliance is good then you can just drop the carrier on them. You are screwed if you keep doing it regularly and they are prepared for it. I can't advise about low sec though.

All this is assuming you'll be fighting the average pvp gang not someone who is pro :)

One thing to remember is, until the last of your fighters get into your drone bay, you'll be aggressed. So if you are playing station games, your aggro timer will start after the fighters have returned. And then you'll have to wait out the timer before you dock up.

Awesome responses, thanks everyone!