Warfare & Tactics

I've tried searching, but I'm not finding "quite" what I am looking for (close though...)..

Many years ago a friend of mine told me about this great internet spaceships game, and so I started playing. We had a lot of fun, and we did most things EVE had to offer, including..

- high-sec PVE
- then on to low-sec "scared out of our wits"
- then on to "wait, we can just live here in low-sec, they're scared of us now because we have a lot of friends now"
- then on to nullsec "scared out of our wits all over again"
- then on to nullsec space holding
- then on to implosion of the alliance we formed
- then on to apathy/boredom/stop playing.

Standard timeline for a lot of veterans. :) Realistically though neither of us got a whole lot of experience with small gang PVP, whenever PVP came up in our old EVE lives, we were in a gang of at least 5-7 people, or it was 1v1.

Jump forward to present day -- I got a call from old friend, who started telling me all about this great internet spaceships game that he re-discovered, it sounded familiar so I investigated....

We know each other in real life. We want to remain just the two of us. We recognize the problem with 'trust' in an internet spaceships game, and as such we feel much more comfortable keeping it just the two of us. We are however excessively bored already only a few weeks back in game, and we got hungry for PVP. We ventured to low-sec.

Now because we didn't have a lot of money starting out again, we went in T1 cruisers. We honestly had a lot of opportunity for some good fights, however, we were always outgunned and had to leave the scene (or die, depending on the case). Fun and all, but our tactics are haphazard and, well, lacking experience since we've been out of game for almost 3 years.

So, I come to the forums of great wisdom to seek advice. I really am just looking for advice on proper ship load outs/ship choices for 2-gang PVP in low-sec.

We've considered a pair of HACs, sounds good in theory, and money isn't an issue anymore (we've been burning time by doing exploration to make cash), however in practice we've had zero success.

We've considered a HAC or BC for DPS, and an ewar ship for support (Arazu or Falcon), this has gone better, however DPS just isn't good enough for anything other than a 2-3 man gang as an opponent.

We've considered a BS for DPS and an ewar ship for support, this went very badly, primarily because nobody had tackle gear fitted, the BS guy is a raven pilot, and the ewar ship was a "stay out of range" kind of support ship (Falcon).

So, I ask for advice. If you were to start playing EVE from scratch with no ties to the past, and had a real-life buddy you could trust 100% (and who you have faith/trust in their skills), how would you go about a 2-man low-sec capable setup?

Other relevant points:

- Person #1 is Minmatar at the core, but can fly Caldari BS if push comes to shove, and can fly Caldari, and Minmatar recons and other tech2 Minmatar sub-BS ships. Can also field a carrier.

- Person #2 is Caldari at the core, but can fly Gallente and Caldari T2 ships of all kinds, and can also field a carrier.

Goal: PVP without overwhelming odds either way (I don't want an i-win button, I don't want two tech1 cruisers). :)

To be perfectly clear, the confusion here for us is specifically 2-man gangs. We see a lot of good 3-man gang setups that solve our problems, however we have no 3rd person. We're also not interested in metagaming with Alts, as we're old men not coordinated enough to use two clients at once. :)

Appreciate any and all input, and I humbly apologize for my habit of being wordy.

Regards,

rahhhhhhhhhhhhh

Thanks, appreciate the idea and response!

honestly speaking in the past we've both kind of written off destroyers due to their fragile tank considering their size. neither of us have much experience flying destroyers so we'll give it a go and see what happens.

Note that cost isnt really an issue at this point, so any other ideas for larger ships (bc, bs, t2 ships, etc) would be greatly appreciated as well.

..By the way, when we last played Heimatar seemed to have the most tarrget rich low sec around, what region has that distinction these days?

simples

Person one flys a Cyclone (AC Fit)
Person two flys a Ferox (Blaster Fit)

Use Local Reps and EC-Drones

Cheap, fast and both you have DPS and Tank to that one, 5/6 man gangs (sub BS)

System wise, well my knowlegde of eve mirrors Chatgris' and i would agree, you might want to take a look at the amarr/mini warzone. Scout Amamake

Edd

Hey Mate, let me clear up that question for you, both the ships i have suggest make good local rep tankers, using ASB set ups, making your DPS soak more effective, also they are cheap and therefore, less like to upset you when you get blobbed.. which of course will happen. If you want a buffer tank set up, i would suggest, MWD "nano" style BCs, indeed shield Buffer cane and drake would most likely be my choice.

Official tour guide of Amamake eh? :) I used to love coming into Amamake back when I was in a corp of 10-12 very active, tight-knit guys. We got a lot of good, fun fights, I really miss it.

In any case, for the record we are not opposed to T1 frigs (or cruisers), nor are we opposed to T1 frigs. Honestly the sky is the limit at this point (if it was actually intelligent for two guys to cruise around low-sec in a pair of carriers, we would, and could afford it), our wallets are fat again so cost isn't really an issue. I brought up "bigger" ships only because we've had a really hard time finding engagements with a pair of frigs or T1 cruisers.

From everything you've all said so far though, it really sounds like faction warfare hotspots are the key to our issues. We've been basically running around low-sec near where we setup shop, with a dual-purpose, one to "fix" the security status of one of us, and two, if we can find a fight while doing so (belt ratting), then all the better.

Now that security status is less of a concern we're finding ourselves bored as we can only seem to find an overwhelming situation (10 man gang with 3 faction BS's, 3 HACs, 3 recons, etc), or we find a drake by itself and our combined DPS can't take it down (hence the consideration of larger ships).

It really does sound like our real problem is location. I'll do some hunting on the maps and try and figure out this faction warfare stuff. I have to be honest, FW was introduced after we quit playing, and we don't know anything about it, so we'll have to do some reading (not a big deal).

As a side note, I suppose I didn't really clarify our intent -- we aren't looking to pirate/kill anything we can find. We really only want to get involved with fights where both parties are interested in PVP, not really interested in scanning down mission/plex runners, or ganking haulers and the like. So, with that in mind, it truly does sound like finding good faction warfare populations is a good first step.

Again, thanks to you all -- its nice and refreshing to be back in EVE, I forgot that its populated with intelligent people who are always willing to help/share info!

I'm not going to lie, we both have Tengus, but we're honestly not keen on taking them into low-sec. They're fine for farming some exploration sites and such to make money, but I'm a big fan of risk vs reward, and these t3 ships just don't seem worth the risk for the gain (unless you're stupid rich). I'd much rather spend ~50mil on a good AF setup and blow up 100 times (and learn a lot), rather than die in a Tengu once (and learn nothing). ;)

So forgive my ignorance, I haven't yet had time to read up in the faction warfare section (or in the wiki, or google, or anywhere).

All I really understand so far is that it takes place in low-sec, involves PVP between the pilots who are aligned with factions that are at war based on a story-line, etc etc.

So these warfare zones, if I'm not aligned with any of the factions involved, will I take a security hit for 'participating' in PVP in these plexes?

Its not that I have a real problem with security status, but I worked myself back up from -9 right before I quit playing (to about -2), and am just now pushing the rest of the way back to 0. I'm just not sure I want to commit to taking security hits regularly again (I am aware this is the 'best' way to get PVP in low-sec, and we are limiting ourselves by not wanting sec hits).

However, if these plexes are "fair game" for anyone, that sounds like a lot of fun, like a half-way house between low-sec and wormholes.

Which reminds me... perhaps wormholes are something we should look into and not low-sec since security status is somewhat of a concern?

Did you try it with an arazu/lachesis and a very brawly battleship like a dominix? The electronic attack ships also seem to have a lot of potential for a tackle wingman, particularly the hyena and keres

Shield Tempest could work very well. With a nano or two it can hit battlecruiser-like speeds, and (generally) has two heavy neuts for added utility. Decent DPS and a nice drone bay seem like they would work very well in conjunction with an Arazu. My only concern is that scouting with the cloaky Arazu would potentially (eventually) result in a more expensive lossmail than just blindly jumping the Tempest around.

The Maelstom doesn't have the luxury of neuts, but it gets a hell of a tank, especially with the new ASB modules. I have little experience with solo pvp BS fittings, so I'll leave the specifics to someone else.

Anyone can go into a FW plex. 1/4 to 1/2 of us gallente are pirates anyways. I know I am.....