Warfare & Tactics

Watch local, situational awareness extends beyond the gate. If local jumps 3, but you only see 1 at the gate... there's a strong chance that its a dedicated scout/tackle there to bait you into a fight while his buddies are doing the same at the other plexes.

A few ways to win this situation are: 1) have a recon in there with you that isn't on their dscan. Surprise! 2) have enough dps to pop that kestrel before the comet can enter and engage. 3) realize its bait and gtfo before you get pointed.

Max d-scan range just outside the next station/gate/plex, so whatever appears is likely after you. Also I don't like to sit on the beacon if solo, because it gives you a limited reaction time to a threat outside the gate. If you keep sitting you are committed to the fight and usually people who enter an occupied plex are confident to win the fight.

When I fly solo I usually run oversized ABs. Even more so with the new t3d. It gives you the option to fight bigger groups, dictate range, and gtfo if needed.

The other tactic is when someone shows up on your short scan but doesn't enter is because he is waiting on his buddies, the above tactics are very good, and I would like to add a less conventional one.

Every time you get ready to farm a button make yourself a very close safe to the button. When you see someone on your short scan waiting for his fleet to come, you already know a few things about the pilot, he needs help is usually the case here, or, he wants to get his buddies in on the kill. Generally if they don't just come in and fight, it is because they aren't good enough to fight 1v1, so take advantage of his or her lack of skills and risk aversion. Fleet pilots are fleeted up because they aren't any good, a fleet trying to attack 1 person is definitely a fail group, and looking for an easy kill, so:

Make yourself a very close safe spot close enough to appear as if you are still inside, warp out and back into this safe, and wait for his buddies. when they show up on Short scan, warp into the gate at 10km (always warp at 10km to all acceleration gates so you don't get hung up, yet can still activate the gate.) When you land on the gate, target one or two of them and try to get them to engage, but do NOT engage yourself, take advantage of their aggressiveness, and if they do engage, take the gate, they can't follow if they engaged for the duration of the aggression timer. If you can get one that didn't attack to follow you, then you can start doing what Plato (who is a very good solo pilot btw, o/ Plato) suggests to do but instead of having to fight them all at once, you now have them split up, kite the enemy away from the beacon, and kill him. Then simply pick off his buddies as they enter.

The other component of this is smack talk. They are fleeted and looking to fight one pilot, so they are not any good, they lack confidence, usually don't have the right combat skills trained (if a skill isn't trained to V then you have the advantage, that last 2% or 5% bonus you get from being disciplined with your skill que makes all the difference in this game) and will usually respond to a taunt or two. Overconfidence, bad skill ques, and just being in a fleet hunting one guy are all signs you can solo this fleet of baddies. So take advantage. If you manage to drop one or two using this technique, continue smack talking, and let them see you warp to another plex or gate. If you have properly angered them with good smack talk, and can get them to follow you, you now own the engagement and can pick and choose where to fight, and when to engage them and take advantage of their eagerness to kill you.

So when they follow simply rinse and repeat with the ideas from here. same things with gates, make them angry, get them to agres on the gate and get a timer, then hop through. You can use these timers to truly split up a fleet. I also have had a lot of luck with landing at zero and kiting away past 100 from a button. Wait for the tackle to get away from his group and pop him, his buddies can't land on top of because of how the fleeted FW warp-ins work, and because they need to be more than 150 to war to each other, so you can always make faster choices and move quicker because they have to communicate, and position themselves, which gives you the advantage, and lets you choose when to fight.

The danger here is that they are competent pilots and will know to not chase you, but again, that is pretty rare, they are fleeted and trying to kill one guy because they aren't competent. If they were any good they would be looking for another gang to fight, not trying to catch one lone pilot.

I hope that helps
o/ Fly dangerous

If you are soloing in an MMO you're doing it wrong.

I'm usually the guy entering the plex.

To the poster above, are you sure you can't take an acceleration gate under agression? I'm pretty sure only a point can stop you from doing so ...

Pretty much this. Things like this can help you avoid solo engagements turning into blobs. Also be aware if your plex is close to a traffic'd gate as well. They could be on the other side just waiting on scouts to get tackle.

You'll never be truly able to avoid this situation altogether but if something doesn't feel right, bounce off a celestial and back to the plex. Should help you feel out the situation and determine if its worth engaging.

Aggression in fact has no influence on accel gates, just on stargates < this is incorrect, weapons timers do restrict you from accel gates.

Yeah go try it, you get a short weapons timer if you aggress on a FW gate and you cannot warp in. I don't believe that war targets get this timer, but im not 100% on that

https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Criminal_Flagging_System

LOL

Why are you shooting the gate? We are talking about engaging other players, and the weapons timer that restricts you from using the accel gate. Try to keep up. As for how you get a criminal timer in low sec, I already linked the crimewatch section but I will quote it for you since you can't be bothered to read up on what you are talking about before you post stupidity:

Weapons Timer

Also known as Weapons Flag, this flag becomes active when you activate any offensive module (weapons, stasis webifier etc) upon another player or NPC entity, including non-targeted modules such as Smartbombs. Regardless of the Security status of the solar system, having an active Weapons flag will prevent you from docking in any station, jumping through a stargate, ejecting from or boarding another ship while in space, and storing a ship in a corporation or fleet hangar. This flag lasts for 60 seconds, starting from the moment you open fire, and will renew each time you take further offensive action – meaning that you will have to wait a full 60 seconds after the last offensive action before being able to dock, jump etc (even if you lose your ship).

See the part that says "Regardless of the security status of the solar system." That explains your number one concern, your second and third concern about shooting gates comes down to the fact that you are having an ID10T error. We aren't talking about shooting gates ffs, we are talking about shooting other players.

The guys in FW don't take the weapons timer when they agress war targets, but in any other situation, like engaging neutrals, you do.

"I went and shot a gate" hilarious man, did your mom have any kids that didn't have cognitive developmental disabilities due to birth injuries?

If all you do is get in fleet and wait for someone else to fly your ship you're doing it wrong.

Good for you, OP, embracing solo!

Generally kite ships are your friend if you're going to fly solo. Brawling blaster boats certainly have their uses, but they make life difficult on the solo pilot. If you have to be at 0 to hit your target that means you have to go all-in to fight. If you learn to fly kitey ships, you can always disengage.

As you get more practice and feel for your kite ships, you can even take on those blobs and pick off pilots that get separated from the main group.

Good luck!