Crime & Punishment

Thought of the day:

Tank selection- buffer or repair (active or passive)

The decision to be a buffer tank or repair tank is a simple decision of how long it will last in the situation you will put it in.

If you are trying to tank a Raven with T2 modules, for instance, you can either have 100k EHP with very little repair (buffer fit) or 30k EHP with 1000 hp/s repair (repair fit).

If you are taking low damage (less than 1000 dps), the repair tank lasts forever and the buffer tank lasts ~100 seconds or more. Therefore, the rep tank is better.

If you are taking high damage (2000 dps), the rep tank lasts 30 seconds and the buffer tank lasts 50 seconds. The case prefers the buffer tank.

If you are taking 10k dps, the rep tank lasts 3 seconds, the buffer tank lasts 10. (Fleet scenario). Buffer tanks are typically strongly preferred in fits that will take fleet damage.


As a generalization, rep tanks are best in scenarios where you can control inbound damage. This includes kite fits, pve, 1v1 fits sometimes, etc... Selecting this type of tank requires strong consideration of how you will pilot the craft to avoid high dps. Typically, this build for pvp requires high speeds and ranges to survive, as close range against a brawler opponent will rarely go well.

Buffer tanks are better for station games, fleets, and large scale activity where you are likely to encounter large quantities of DPS. They also require very little thought and cap management, which makes them easier to fly when you are new to pvp and your fingers get shaky.




Additional notes: I consider auxiliary boosters to be buffer components because they can't sustain rep. Think of them as a finite (but nice) addition to your EHP. They are useful, and good components, but they are effectively buffer components.


Shield vs armor:
Shield components increase sig radius. This is bad when you are fighting larger ships and is something you need to think about when flying something with a huge sig radius. However, they don't affect your speed and can be preferable in speed builds (which don't require as many mid slot components to control range.

I prefer shield for kites and it is relevant in mid-range builds.

Armor components decrease speed. This is bad when you are relying on speed to keep you alive. Brawlers usually expect to be heavily webbed and scrammed, so the speed drawback isn't as much of a concern. Also, brawlers typically need web, scram, AB, and as many additional mid slot components as possible. Armor mods allow for that because they fit low slots.

I prefer armor for close range brawlers and it is still very relevant in mid range builds.

Thought of the day:
The selection of guns vs missiles is an important decision when flying a speed build (interceptors, nano boats, etc..),

When making this decision, I would consider the following strengths of guns and missiles.

Missiles:
Long range missiles give you the ability to shoot far and project your damage reasonably well... but not against targets that are moving fast (due to the speed damage reduction of (explosion velocity)/(target velocity)).

If something tries to catch you at 2400m/s.... missiles will not be effective at projecting damage on that target because the speed factor damage reduction will be huge. If you don't believe me, try it with a friend.
This makes it hard for high speed missile boats to defend themselves against high speed gun boats. A very important realization if you want to fly a crow or nano-drake.

However, if you are relying on staying 15k away from your target to keep you alive, the effectiveness of missiles at long range make it easier to maneuver safely during an engagement. That long range is great for harassing heavy fleets that cannot catch you.

These ships are also a LOT of fun to fly.


Guns
Guns are MUCH more defensible at high speed because chasing you implies flying straight up your tail with no angular velocity (perfect gun tracking scenario). Whatever damage you have will be nearly perfectly applied on any fast ship you're
1) Chasing
2) Running from

I spent a lot of time in the nano-cane a few years ago. The beauty of the nano-cane was that nothing that could easily catch it could take more than a few shots from the autocannons... it was too much DPS for anything small to take. Now, it couldn't hold ground against a well tanked cruiser, but you could fly around a fleet and pop all the tackles with relative safety.

As per my previous discussion, I don't typically recommend short range guns with MWD, so you're not going to see a lot of short range speed builds from me.

I am a big fan of tracking enhanced autocannons (can get good range and tracking out of that) for this type of build, but range is critical because you need to be able to operate efficiently outside 15k and inside 24k.

Summary
At high speed, missile boats struggle to defend themselves against things that go similar speed. Gun boats don't have that problem, but lack the luxurious engagement profile of long range missiles.


Combined Effort

Some of the best fighting I ever did was when I combined a high-speed gun boat with a friend who was flying a high-speed missile boat. By keeping them close together, you can hold the field against a larger force and the missile boat can shoot from long range harassing a fleet. The gun boat can clean up any little tackles that try to chase you down.

Concerning the speed team like this, it's a lot of fun but just keep them close together. The missile boat is extremely vulnerable to fast tackles and the gun boat can't really harass a fleet effectively. Used together, it's a good mix.

Or with a tranny. That too will be dealt with

DON'T FUCK1NG TURN

I endorse this product and service. Mo is the legit dude, you'll learn a lot.

Thought of the day:
ECM drones require understanding. In my opinion, they are a hail-Mary at best.

You calculate the chance of successfully jamming a target by dividing the drones jam strength by the ships sensor strength.

Small ECM drones have a jam strength of 1 against every race. If you were trying to jam a frigate with a sensor strength of 10, you would have a 10% chance of success. (Jam strength (1)/sensor strength(10))= 10% or .1

Now, that means the chance of failure is 90%, or .9.

To figure out the chance of multiple drones together, you have to multiply the chances of failure together. Ex: 5 drones with a 90% chance of failure would have a (.9*.9*.9*.9*.9= .59) 59% chance of failure.

That means your 5 drones give you a 41% chance of successfully jamming a t1 frigate (assuming there is a t1 frigate with a jam strength that low, my punisher is 12.6 signal strength) in a given jam cycle.

These can make sense in some circumstances, but even with 5 of them your chances of actually jamming a ship on the first cycle are really bad. Larger ships have larger sensor strengths.

They can make sense as a hail-Mary if something catches your kite-boat, but I don't recommend betting on them as part of your strategy.

Great! Can't wait to see you. Be sure and join "numbnuts pub" in the meantime!

Start picking fights as soon as possible, we will review them when you are ready.

Thought of the day:
Ammo selection is simple in pvp. Choose the ammo you are most likely to have success with.

Shields naturally have 0 resist to EM damage. Armor naturally has 0 resist to explosive damage.

Most people use a single module to balance that lowest resist, and then use modules that affect all resists after that. Typically, that doesn't quite balance the lowest resist. As such, I recommend using ammo that does EM damage on shield tanks (Caldari and Minmatar) and explosive damage on armor tanks (Amarr and Galente).

Ammo like antimatter that do the two middle resists are well balanced against all opponents, but don't have the opportunity to exploit the natural weakness of the tank types when someone doesn't balance his resistances.


T2 and Faction Ammo:

Faction ammo performs like t1 ammo, but better. It is the same thing, just with more DPS. I always recommend.

T2 ammo (like modules) always has a drawback. There is always an attractive performance characteristic, but there is always an underperforming characteristic as well. As such, be careful. It can, and frequently does, result in a decrease of DPS for many users.

Example: T2 rage torps do fantastic damage. However the explosion radius is 650, which is HUGE. Only a shield tanked battleship with bad drawbacks would have any chance of filling that out. Against most targets, regular T1 torpedos will do substantially more damage.

The T2 equivalent of antimatter has a tracking drawback that will affect your DPS badly if you don't make up for it with maneuver.

T2 ammo is valuable and important, but be sure to take the time and read how it affects performance because some of them are downright hard to use well


Multiple ranges:
I think it is a good idea to try to think through possible engagement types your ship could experience and pick contingency ammos. That is to say, your brawler may be designed to shoot republic fleet Fusion(explosive for armor)/EMP (EM for shields)for close range DPS, but it can still be worth throwing a couple thousands rounds of barrage in the hull.. just in case.

You never know when you will lose control of maneuver and that little extra DPS at range can push someone off who would otherwise have killed you.

+1 - excellent addition.

Thought of the day:
T2 modules - I find a lot of young players don't understand T2 modules.

The performance of the primary characteristic of T2 modules typically reflect the performance of the best T1 module.

Example: T2 launchers typically shoot at the same rate as arbalest launchers. (They also allow T2 ammo...)

T2 components bring that performance at a much lower cost, but almost always have a "drawback".

The drawback is usually that they are more expensive to fit (more power grid or CPU).


In summary- T2 modules are better because they are cheaper and reflect a high average performance.