The Night Crew (TNC) put out one of the best fights last night and very nearly sprayed our guts all over their killboard. I have to give them the credit they're due: don't underestimate these guys!
It all started while I was minding my own business in TNC's home system, a class 4 that I will refer to as c4a. By "minding my own business" I of course mean "watching their POS and plotting destruction," but let's not split hairs, shall we?
Another Cold Moon Destruction (CLMDN) pilot, Fischey, was sitting in our static, c4s, with his scout alt and a fail-cloak Legion (he's new; blame me instead). There were a few other pilots online, but they were semi-afk.
Just as I was about to give up on these two TNC pilots there was finally some activity. One of them arrived back at their POS and if memory serves he switched into a Legion. At this point I'd counted three online pilots, two of which had shown no signs of life whatsoever.
Soon after an Archon was logged in and the pilot switched to a covert scanning Proteus complete with the interdiction-nullifying spoiler. As far as we could make out the Legion and Prot both jumped into the c4s and proceeded to chill out.
At this point I'm assuming they're waiting for us to do something stupid, so we began to try to think up ways to accommodate their expectation. Fischey scanned down the Gas site in c4a and then warped in his Venture.
This was intended to give TNC the impression that we either didn't know of their presence or were too stupid to care and lure them into doing something stupid themselves. What actually happened was that Fischey's Venture got blown up by the five Sleeper turrets he didn't see when scanning down the site.
Naturally, being such professional mentors as one might expect to find in CLDMN, we laughed, pointed fingers and assaulted him with scathing mockery.
Still, all was not lost. In addition to appearing unaware I was hoping we also now appeared incompetent, so I jumped my Helios into c4s and warped to our home hole without bothering to cloak.
I was told a stealth bomber had jumped in behind me and really started to believe we were going to get a fight at this point. These guys were on the hunt and had no idea that their paltry gang was about to get monkey-stomped by our superior numbers (I'll come back to this later, so keep it in mind).
After waiting a few seconds uncloaked on the wormhole back to our home system, Swagshack, I jumped back in and switched out to a Proteus then warped back to the wormhole and waited for their move.
At this point our guys who were AFK had now joined the fleet. We had a Legion, Proteus (x2), a Typhoon, a covops scout and a Drake.
I didn't have to wait long before our scout in c4s sounded off that the Proteus and Legion were jumping into Swagshack. I acknowledged and engaged the Proteus first.
While our forces were en route the scout called a TNC Hound and two Drakes were jumping through from c4s to the shack.
Hmmm. That wasn't expected, but even so, I knew my tank wasn't going to suffer any catastrophic collapse under the added pressure. I was, however, a little more interested as to when back-up was going to land.
As soon as they did I jumped over to c4s in order to save my armor and be able to tackle these guys when they fled, as they most certainly would. We now had a fresh Proteus, a Sleipnir, Drake and Typhoon on the Shack side of the wormhole and a Legion and my Proteus on the c4s side.
The fight quickly migrated into c4s as the TNC guys jumped over, but someone on CLMDN comms called out that more TNC guys were coming in. My overview which shows only targets was nearly full and I knew I'd very severely underestimated these guys.
The ships they were bringing in weren't covert ships, but somehow they'd managed to hide them. So be warned: TNC will surprise buttsex you without a second thought.
There was a Curse (these things always make me nervous), Domi, Tengu and another Proteus and more landing on grid. If we didn't unscrew this situation CLDMN would soon be covered in TNC dps. We'd already lost a Legion.
Two of us jumped back into shack and picked up whatever logi was closest at hand. We came back with a Guardian and Oneiros and managed to stave off total disaster, but not before our Typhoon went down. That pilot jumped back to shack and brought back an Astarte.
At this point the CLDMN fleet consisted of Zealot, Oneiros, Proteus, Astarte, Sleipnir, Drake and Guardian. TNC's fleet was substantially larger: Falcon, Legion, Proteus (x2), Tengu, Curse, Drake (x2) and Dominix.
The Curse was still a pain and made sustained reps difficult, but dual cap boosters on my Oneiros let me stay just far enough ahead of the neuts to rep our Guardian which was doing a phenomenal job mitigating the TNC dps.
At this point the tables were turning dramatically in our favor. We couldn't match their dps, but without reps they had no way to mitigate ours and began losing ships in quick succession.
Wisely deciding to cut their losses, they burned off the hole and left the field. "GF's" were had in local and I think everyone had a good time. It was definitely a learning experience for me.
Battle Report
After the fight I spent a lot of time thinking about how we came out on top of this brawl. Ultimately it came down to positioning on the existing terrain. The fight largely took place just outside our front door and when it started to go bad that allowed us to change tactics.
With no form of tackle on the Swagshack side of the wormhole TNC had no way to prevent us from leaving the field and stopping us from reshipping, whereas we were able to prevent them from doing so and even if they could've reshipped it would've taken them twice as long to do so because the fight took place on our wormhole, not theirs.
Ultimately, I take two lessons from this fight: 1) TNC are very cool guys, but they will rape you and 2) the ability to rapidly shift tactics enables you to move from the narrowest ledge of certain destruction to solid victory!
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Monday, August 26, 2013
Scouting Like a Pro III
This is the third in a series of posts about scouting in wormhole space. The first covers the necessary preparation and infiltration while the second covers POS recon.
It's about time to drop those probes, but before you do take note. If at all possible drop them outside the dscan range of all enemy pilots and keep them outside the dscan range of all enemy pilots for as long as possible, but finish the scanning job quickly. The goal here is to resolve the system without spooking your target. You achieve this by minimizing the time your probes are visible to the enemy.
Using probes is covered in all sorts of other "Nub Scouting" videos and blogs so I'll skip all that crap. What you need to know is that All signatures will be within 8 AU of a planet. I don't know why that's the case, but it is. With that knowledge you can save yourself a lot of time by narrowing your probes down to a size of 8 AU and centering them on planets before you activate the scan sequence.
Because you have the proper ship and equipment that was prescribed in part 1 of this series you can go directly from 8 AU to 2 AU when you've re-centered on a signature. Sometimes you'll have to go down to .5 AU in order to pin down a sig, but most of time can get it at 1 AU. If you've got maxed out skills and are using the right implants you can get pretty much everything at 2 AU, but I don't use the implants. If I ever do I'll make a part 4 of the series and name it "Scouting Like a Fat Kid in a Candy Store."
Now that covers the tips for scanning down sigs, but what about ships?
For ships you need Combat Scanner probes. Yes, these probes can also find regular signatures. No, you should not just use Combat probes.
"Why's that, Malception?"I
Because Combat probes are only half as powerful as Core probes. In effect, if you use combats to scan normal signatures it's going to take you twice as long to do it. You will suck at scouting and die an inglorious, ignominious death. If you're in Cold Moon Destruction you'll likely be killed by your own people for such incompetence.
So... when you see a ship on dscan, but know it's not in a POS then you simply use the Dscan to get a general direction of the ship from your position. Once you've pinned down the direction to as narrow a degree as possible you want to play with the range on your dscanner to determine about how far away the ship is from you. Once you've got a direction and range you launch probes outside his dscan range and prepare to scan him down.
The diameter of the scan range for your probes is dictated by how closely you've pinned down his position and also the size of the ship. An Orca is a hell of a lot easier to scan down than a pod. When in doubt use 4 AU on your combats. You will get a hit and if you're lucky you'll get 100% on the first pass, but you will probably have to make a second pass in order to pin him down.
Scanning down ships is very tricky. For one thing, ships move so you'll have to move quickly and accurately on your dscan in order to get a good position to target your combat probes. Another thing that makes it difficult is the fact that ship sizes, their signature radii, are so different that it's hard to say what range you need on your probes.
In all probability you will fail the first few times you try this. Having a second set of eyes in the system to help with dscan while you do the combat probes is very helpful, but it can be done solo. Just keep at it. Remember, slow and smooth and smooth is fast.
Once you get the target ship pinned down pull those probes and warp to 0. If they're paying attention to dscan they'll have seen your probes and if it's a small ship they'll likely have escaped. If not then you've got a shot, but that's about it. Nothing is guaranteed.
Last, but not least: remember to tag your dscan even while you're probing. Most people don't do this and they get tunnel vision while using the probe interface, thereby denying themselves one of the most powerful scouting tools in the game.
That's it. Do these things consistently and you're scouting like a pro.
Final Thoughts (aka things momma said before dropping you off at school)
Use the right gear for the task at hand. Don't rush. Take your time. Watch dscan at all times. Provide accurate information. Ask questions if you don't know or are unsure about anything.
It's about time to drop those probes, but before you do take note. If at all possible drop them outside the dscan range of all enemy pilots and keep them outside the dscan range of all enemy pilots for as long as possible, but finish the scanning job quickly. The goal here is to resolve the system without spooking your target. You achieve this by minimizing the time your probes are visible to the enemy.
Using probes is covered in all sorts of other "Nub Scouting" videos and blogs so I'll skip all that crap. What you need to know is that All signatures will be within 8 AU of a planet. I don't know why that's the case, but it is. With that knowledge you can save yourself a lot of time by narrowing your probes down to a size of 8 AU and centering them on planets before you activate the scan sequence.
Because you have the proper ship and equipment that was prescribed in part 1 of this series you can go directly from 8 AU to 2 AU when you've re-centered on a signature. Sometimes you'll have to go down to .5 AU in order to pin down a sig, but most of time can get it at 1 AU. If you've got maxed out skills and are using the right implants you can get pretty much everything at 2 AU, but I don't use the implants. If I ever do I'll make a part 4 of the series and name it "Scouting Like a Fat Kid in a Candy Store."
Now that covers the tips for scanning down sigs, but what about ships?
For ships you need Combat Scanner probes. Yes, these probes can also find regular signatures. No, you should not just use Combat probes.
"Why's that, Malception?"I
Because Combat probes are only half as powerful as Core probes. In effect, if you use combats to scan normal signatures it's going to take you twice as long to do it. You will suck at scouting and die an inglorious, ignominious death. If you're in Cold Moon Destruction you'll likely be killed by your own people for such incompetence.
So... when you see a ship on dscan, but know it's not in a POS then you simply use the Dscan to get a general direction of the ship from your position. Once you've pinned down the direction to as narrow a degree as possible you want to play with the range on your dscanner to determine about how far away the ship is from you. Once you've got a direction and range you launch probes outside his dscan range and prepare to scan him down.
The diameter of the scan range for your probes is dictated by how closely you've pinned down his position and also the size of the ship. An Orca is a hell of a lot easier to scan down than a pod. When in doubt use 4 AU on your combats. You will get a hit and if you're lucky you'll get 100% on the first pass, but you will probably have to make a second pass in order to pin him down.
Scanning down ships is very tricky. For one thing, ships move so you'll have to move quickly and accurately on your dscan in order to get a good position to target your combat probes. Another thing that makes it difficult is the fact that ship sizes, their signature radii, are so different that it's hard to say what range you need on your probes.
In all probability you will fail the first few times you try this. Having a second set of eyes in the system to help with dscan while you do the combat probes is very helpful, but it can be done solo. Just keep at it. Remember, slow and smooth and smooth is fast.
Once you get the target ship pinned down pull those probes and warp to 0. If they're paying attention to dscan they'll have seen your probes and if it's a small ship they'll likely have escaped. If not then you've got a shot, but that's about it. Nothing is guaranteed.
Last, but not least: remember to tag your dscan even while you're probing. Most people don't do this and they get tunnel vision while using the probe interface, thereby denying themselves one of the most powerful scouting tools in the game.
That's it. Do these things consistently and you're scouting like a pro.
Final Thoughts (aka things momma said before dropping you off at school)
Use the right gear for the task at hand. Don't rush. Take your time. Watch dscan at all times. Provide accurate information. Ask questions if you don't know or are unsure about anything.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Scouting Like a Pro II
This is the second in a short series of instructional posts on how to "scout like a pro", as it were. Click here to read the first, which covers what you need in order to accomplish this worthy goal and how to achieve the initial infiltration of a possibly hostile system (i.e. all systems).
Been taking your time? Paying attention? Good. Now pay attention because this next part is critical. It determines whether or not you're a pro or a scrub. Speed is very important when you go about doing all this stuff, but don't screw up because you're trying to go too fast. That happened to a corp-mate of mine, recently and I had to walk him through some things. There's no telling how long he would've been failing if he hadn't learned this very important lesson.
The lesson, as handed down to me will now be handed down to you: slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
Getting all this stuff done quickly is important, but getting accurate intel is paramount! That means "most important" for you illiterate retards. So go slow and get it right. The speed will come on its own.
Now let's get down to business.
The next thing you want to do is find all the enemy strongholds - all their player-owned stations (POS's) - and get eyes on them. This requires a lot of dscan voodoo, so pay attention. I apologize ahead of time for the boring step by step, but I don't have any pictures at the moment. I might add them later.
"Uh, dscan? You mean drop probes, right?"
No, you little pustule! That doesn't mean drop probes. That comes later.
Idiot.
Dscan is the directional scanner. Open up your system map and activate your tactical overlay. Hit the scan button on your dscan. Anything you see on that dscan will be inside that 15AU radius on your system map. Those other planets outside the 15AU radius on your system map (if there are any) still need to be checked out though, so go ahead and warp to that planet's customs office at 100km and do another dscan. Repeat for every planet outside your dscan range on your first dscan (the scan you performed upon first entering the system).
What you're looking for are active POS's. You can determine whether or not they're active by looking for Force Fields. Now, just because a POS doesn't have a Force Field up doesn't mean it's inactive. It could be a good trap. It could be that the owner is just now setting the POS up. It would be an AWOX in progress. In all of those cases you will likely see ships on dscan so always be on the lookout and maintain your situational awareness.
For instructional purposes, let's say you've got an active POS around planet III. You warp to that planet's customs office at 100km. Keep your system map and tactical overlay up because you're going to need them.
Now that you're at the customs office you can see that your tactical overlay conveniently divides the planetary system up into quadrants (that would be four 90-degree sections for those of you who are mathematically challenged). Set your dscan for 180-degrees and align your field of view with along one of the axes of the dscan (look down a row of AU ranges).
Activate your dscan and rotate your field of view 90-degrees to the right until you find what quadrant the POS is in. Once you determine the quadrant you want to reduce the angle of your dscan until you single out the specific moon that the POS is at. If you are unable to determine a specific moon even at the narrowest dscan angle (5 degrees) then play with the dscan range until you figure out which moon the POS is at.
This is very easy when there are only a few moons and sometimes you can go really fast through the narrowing down process, but rest assured, this process will never fail you.
When you do get a bead on that POS you want to be aware of those pesky warp bubbles that can really screw up your day. If you've followed simple instructions from Scouting Like a Pro I, then you've got them on your overview tab and they already show up on your dscan. Now, if you see a warp bubble you also want to check for containers, which likely indicates the presence of a decloak trap when seen together.
For you baby wormholers, a decloak trap is a warp disruption bubble lined with containers. The bubble sucks people into it who are warping onto the grid and the containers decloak any and all ships that land within 2000m of them. The POS will then target and destroy your ship.
Luckily, there are ways to minimize the risk of certain death from decloak traps and since you're reading "Scouting Like a Pro" and not "Scouting Like a Bear" I will share with you my methods.
#1. If you've got great big balls like No'Wai you can scout in a strategic cruiser, which gives you the ability to fit the Warp Disruption Nullifier subsystem. This will make you invulnerable to the drag effect of the warp bubble and render most decloak traps ineffective.
#2. You can also simply stay in your Helios and warp to the moon at the standard 100km. You will get sucked into the warp bubble and will likely get decloaked, but because your ship is very small the POS will not be able to target you before you can put all cans at a distance and cloak up. If you opt for this method don't activate your MWD, because that greatly increases your signature radius, making it easier for the POS to target you.
#3. There is also dumb luck.
Keep in mind that these measures only reduce the risk. They do not eliminate it. Some traps are very clever. I recently encountered one that made use of freight containers, which don't show up on dscan, so I warped to the POS thinking I'd get sucked into a bubble and could slow boat out of it at my leisure. When I got onto the grid I was not happy to see a bubble full of containers waiting for my beloved Proteus.
"Wow, Malception! That loss must've really sucked."
Negro, please! I Scout Like a Pro. Utilizing method #3 I evaded that feeble trap and went on to gather valuable intelligence on my target.
Once you're on grid with the POS you need to figure out who owns it. Check out the owner's kill board. Get names of any pilots. Copy all the dscan information and paste it into Dingo's. That tool will organize all the information for you and provide you with a link in order to share the intel. Make sure you relay everything to the FC.
I think that's about all I'm going to put in this post. It may not look like a lot, but it's something that takes a lot of practice, so while you're out and about perfecting these skills I'll be writing up the next post.
Check in later to find out about dropping those probes.
The lesson, as handed down to me will now be handed down to you: slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
Getting all this stuff done quickly is important, but getting accurate intel is paramount! That means "most important" for you illiterate retards. So go slow and get it right. The speed will come on its own.
Now let's get down to business.
The next thing you want to do is find all the enemy strongholds - all their player-owned stations (POS's) - and get eyes on them. This requires a lot of dscan voodoo, so pay attention. I apologize ahead of time for the boring step by step, but I don't have any pictures at the moment. I might add them later.
"Uh, dscan? You mean drop probes, right?"
No, you little pustule! That doesn't mean drop probes. That comes later.
Idiot.
Dscan is the directional scanner. Open up your system map and activate your tactical overlay. Hit the scan button on your dscan. Anything you see on that dscan will be inside that 15AU radius on your system map. Those other planets outside the 15AU radius on your system map (if there are any) still need to be checked out though, so go ahead and warp to that planet's customs office at 100km and do another dscan. Repeat for every planet outside your dscan range on your first dscan (the scan you performed upon first entering the system).
What you're looking for are active POS's. You can determine whether or not they're active by looking for Force Fields. Now, just because a POS doesn't have a Force Field up doesn't mean it's inactive. It could be a good trap. It could be that the owner is just now setting the POS up. It would be an AWOX in progress. In all of those cases you will likely see ships on dscan so always be on the lookout and maintain your situational awareness.
For instructional purposes, let's say you've got an active POS around planet III. You warp to that planet's customs office at 100km. Keep your system map and tactical overlay up because you're going to need them.
Now that you're at the customs office you can see that your tactical overlay conveniently divides the planetary system up into quadrants (that would be four 90-degree sections for those of you who are mathematically challenged). Set your dscan for 180-degrees and align your field of view with along one of the axes of the dscan (look down a row of AU ranges).
Activate your dscan and rotate your field of view 90-degrees to the right until you find what quadrant the POS is in. Once you determine the quadrant you want to reduce the angle of your dscan until you single out the specific moon that the POS is at. If you are unable to determine a specific moon even at the narrowest dscan angle (5 degrees) then play with the dscan range until you figure out which moon the POS is at.
This is very easy when there are only a few moons and sometimes you can go really fast through the narrowing down process, but rest assured, this process will never fail you.
When you do get a bead on that POS you want to be aware of those pesky warp bubbles that can really screw up your day. If you've followed simple instructions from Scouting Like a Pro I, then you've got them on your overview tab and they already show up on your dscan. Now, if you see a warp bubble you also want to check for containers, which likely indicates the presence of a decloak trap when seen together.
For you baby wormholers, a decloak trap is a warp disruption bubble lined with containers. The bubble sucks people into it who are warping onto the grid and the containers decloak any and all ships that land within 2000m of them. The POS will then target and destroy your ship.
Luckily, there are ways to minimize the risk of certain death from decloak traps and since you're reading "Scouting Like a Pro" and not "Scouting Like a Bear" I will share with you my methods.
#1. If you've got great big balls like No'Wai you can scout in a strategic cruiser, which gives you the ability to fit the Warp Disruption Nullifier subsystem. This will make you invulnerable to the drag effect of the warp bubble and render most decloak traps ineffective.
#2. You can also simply stay in your Helios and warp to the moon at the standard 100km. You will get sucked into the warp bubble and will likely get decloaked, but because your ship is very small the POS will not be able to target you before you can put all cans at a distance and cloak up. If you opt for this method don't activate your MWD, because that greatly increases your signature radius, making it easier for the POS to target you.
#3. There is also dumb luck.
Keep in mind that these measures only reduce the risk. They do not eliminate it. Some traps are very clever. I recently encountered one that made use of freight containers, which don't show up on dscan, so I warped to the POS thinking I'd get sucked into a bubble and could slow boat out of it at my leisure. When I got onto the grid I was not happy to see a bubble full of containers waiting for my beloved Proteus.
"Wow, Malception! That loss must've really sucked."
Negro, please! I Scout Like a Pro. Utilizing method #3 I evaded that feeble trap and went on to gather valuable intelligence on my target.
Once you're on grid with the POS you need to figure out who owns it. Check out the owner's kill board. Get names of any pilots. Copy all the dscan information and paste it into Dingo's. That tool will organize all the information for you and provide you with a link in order to share the intel. Make sure you relay everything to the FC.
I think that's about all I'm going to put in this post. It may not look like a lot, but it's something that takes a lot of practice, so while you're out and about perfecting these skills I'll be writing up the next post.
Check in later to find out about dropping those probes.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Scouting Like a Pro I
Living in wormhole space is about 75% information gathering and 25% doing other stuff. The sheer number of tools that are available to provide and sort the large amounts of information required to be successful in w-space should give an idea as to how much it really is about what information you gather, what information you give away and how that information is used, either by you or by your enemy.
So read the rest of this post keeping in mind that out here, information and its utilization is the end-all, be-all of success.
In most cases your scouting is going to be informal and sort like shooting from the hip. Still, it's good to get into a few habits. Situational awareness (SA) is paramount in general, but especially so for scouts.
First off, you need to make sure that your overview settings are correctly setup for your specific mission. Make sure you have POS's, Force Fields, all ships and Mobile Warp Bubbles set to show up. I also have TCU's on mine as well as another tab that I can switch to in order to see cans that when seen in combination with warp bubbles on a POS likely indicates a de-cloak trap.
Speaking of cloaking, if you're not in a Helios you're doing it wrong. The Helios is the only scout ship with the ability to field a combat drone and all enemy scouts must die! Seriously, taking into consideration the critical nature of scouts if you can remove the enemy's ability to gather information you've all but won the engagement already. The Helios grants you a near guaranteed victory (unless you really suck) over other scouts because of its drone bay.
I'm sure some people will disagree, but they're F-tools so just ignore those plebeian masses and continue reading.
Now that you're in the right ship with the right overview settings it's almost time to get to work. But before heading out make sure you're aware of some of the basic information gathering and relaying tools.
I always have my corporation's chain-mapper, Dingo's, WormNav and Wormholes loaded on my IGB or very close at hand. Between these various tools I'm able to gather and relay a wealth of information.
The chain-mapper allows everyone to see where I am (and vice versa) as well as allowing me to see a visual representation of the wider terrain.
WormNav and Wormhol.es are very easy to use and give intel on trends of past activity in any system.
Dingo's is awesome. It allows the scout to create quick summaries of whatever the scout sees on his dscan. This site will then provide a short link that the scout can share with his fleet to relay that information very accurately and very quickly.
Scouts (or wouldbe scouts), if you relay bad intel you will either get your friends killed or prevent them from getting a kill. In either case, you will likely be killed.
"But, Malception, I don't want that to happen! Can you tell me how not to suck?"
Yes. If you would shut-up and listen I'm trying to get to that.
Take your time and do things by the numbers. It will be slow and tedious at first, but as you get used to doing it the pace will improve and you'll make less mistakes. In short, the way not to suck is to practice. Scan massive chains and take notes on every piece of information you can gather. Make bookmarks several hundred kilometers off of every wormhole you pass through (on both sides!), every active POS you find and create safe-spots in every system you discover.
You may not have to use these bookmarks often, but at some point you will need them and having them will give you an edge over your enemy.
Do you see a second principle emerging here? Preparation. Only through the gathering of information can you be properly prepared. If you are more prepared you will likely win. Unless you suck or unless Bob turns against you.
Anyway, just keep practicing.
Just as an example (this is certainly not the only way to do things) whenever I enter a new system in w-space I eyeball my overview to see whether or not there are any ships sitting on top of the wormhole which determines whether or not I have to deal with an immediate engagement.
Assuming for the sake of instruction that there are no ships I hold my cloak, hit my dscan, refresh the info pages on WormNav and Wormholes. I also check out the solar system map and see which planets, if any, are outside my dscan range. I grab all the signatures in system and put them in the chain-mapper's signature list. Finally, I burn off the wormhole and cloak up, changing direction as soon as I hit the cloak.
All of that should happen before your cloak timer deactivates. If for whatever reason I think I might run out of time, I go ahead and burn off/cloak/change direction, then go back to the information gathering.
After I burn off the wormhole and am safely cloaked up I'll usually make the bookmark then, but if you're micro skills are 31337 then go ahead and make the bookmark prior burning off the wormhole.
The point in all of this is to get as much information as you can in as short a time-frame as possible while minimizing your own exposure to death and dismemberment. This also minimizes the time in which your enemy has the opportunity to gather information about you.
Now, let me go back to the when I first jumped through the wormhole for a second. If there was a ship on the wormhole I have to make a split-second decision. If it's a scout ship (Anathema, Buzzard or Probe) I'm going to decloak and engage them with my long-point and Hobgoblin II. If it's anything other than that I'm going to perform the exact same steps I've already described.
The reason I wouldn't engage a Helios is because the fight is probably going to be evenly matched and 50-50 odds are little on the high-side for my liking. I'd likely see if he warps off or jumps through the wormhole before dropping cloak. If he does leave then I've learned quite a bit, but he's learned virtually nothing. If he does hang around and I have to drop cloak then I'll burn off and cloak.
At this point you've infiltrated the area and you're now behind enemy lines, so-to-speak. What next? In the interest of time you'll have to check back later. Until then, take your time and pay attention.
So read the rest of this post keeping in mind that out here, information and its utilization is the end-all, be-all of success.
In most cases your scouting is going to be informal and sort like shooting from the hip. Still, it's good to get into a few habits. Situational awareness (SA) is paramount in general, but especially so for scouts.
First off, you need to make sure that your overview settings are correctly setup for your specific mission. Make sure you have POS's, Force Fields, all ships and Mobile Warp Bubbles set to show up. I also have TCU's on mine as well as another tab that I can switch to in order to see cans that when seen in combination with warp bubbles on a POS likely indicates a de-cloak trap.
Speaking of cloaking, if you're not in a Helios you're doing it wrong. The Helios is the only scout ship with the ability to field a combat drone and all enemy scouts must die! Seriously, taking into consideration the critical nature of scouts if you can remove the enemy's ability to gather information you've all but won the engagement already. The Helios grants you a near guaranteed victory (unless you really suck) over other scouts because of its drone bay.
I'm sure some people will disagree, but they're F-tools so just ignore those plebeian masses and continue reading.
Now that you're in the right ship with the right overview settings it's almost time to get to work. But before heading out make sure you're aware of some of the basic information gathering and relaying tools.
I always have my corporation's chain-mapper, Dingo's, WormNav and Wormholes loaded on my IGB or very close at hand. Between these various tools I'm able to gather and relay a wealth of information.
The chain-mapper allows everyone to see where I am (and vice versa) as well as allowing me to see a visual representation of the wider terrain.
WormNav and Wormhol.es are very easy to use and give intel on trends of past activity in any system.
Dingo's is awesome. It allows the scout to create quick summaries of whatever the scout sees on his dscan. This site will then provide a short link that the scout can share with his fleet to relay that information very accurately and very quickly.
Scouts (or wouldbe scouts), if you relay bad intel you will either get your friends killed or prevent them from getting a kill. In either case, you will likely be killed.
"But, Malception, I don't want that to happen! Can you tell me how not to suck?"
Yes. If you would shut-up and listen I'm trying to get to that.
Take your time and do things by the numbers. It will be slow and tedious at first, but as you get used to doing it the pace will improve and you'll make less mistakes. In short, the way not to suck is to practice. Scan massive chains and take notes on every piece of information you can gather. Make bookmarks several hundred kilometers off of every wormhole you pass through (on both sides!), every active POS you find and create safe-spots in every system you discover.
You may not have to use these bookmarks often, but at some point you will need them and having them will give you an edge over your enemy.
Do you see a second principle emerging here? Preparation. Only through the gathering of information can you be properly prepared. If you are more prepared you will likely win. Unless you suck or unless Bob turns against you.
Anyway, just keep practicing.
Just as an example (this is certainly not the only way to do things) whenever I enter a new system in w-space I eyeball my overview to see whether or not there are any ships sitting on top of the wormhole which determines whether or not I have to deal with an immediate engagement.
Assuming for the sake of instruction that there are no ships I hold my cloak, hit my dscan, refresh the info pages on WormNav and Wormholes. I also check out the solar system map and see which planets, if any, are outside my dscan range. I grab all the signatures in system and put them in the chain-mapper's signature list. Finally, I burn off the wormhole and cloak up, changing direction as soon as I hit the cloak.
All of that should happen before your cloak timer deactivates. If for whatever reason I think I might run out of time, I go ahead and burn off/cloak/change direction, then go back to the information gathering.
After I burn off the wormhole and am safely cloaked up I'll usually make the bookmark then, but if you're micro skills are 31337 then go ahead and make the bookmark prior burning off the wormhole.
The point in all of this is to get as much information as you can in as short a time-frame as possible while minimizing your own exposure to death and dismemberment. This also minimizes the time in which your enemy has the opportunity to gather information about you.
Now, let me go back to the when I first jumped through the wormhole for a second. If there was a ship on the wormhole I have to make a split-second decision. If it's a scout ship (Anathema, Buzzard or Probe) I'm going to decloak and engage them with my long-point and Hobgoblin II. If it's anything other than that I'm going to perform the exact same steps I've already described.
The reason I wouldn't engage a Helios is because the fight is probably going to be evenly matched and 50-50 odds are little on the high-side for my liking. I'd likely see if he warps off or jumps through the wormhole before dropping cloak. If he does leave then I've learned quite a bit, but he's learned virtually nothing. If he does hang around and I have to drop cloak then I'll burn off and cloak.
At this point you've infiltrated the area and you're now behind enemy lines, so-to-speak. What next? In the interest of time you'll have to check back later. Until then, take your time and pay attention.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
After Action
I logged in alone last night. I was tempted to chill out in my emo scissor room, but decided I'd better head up to the common channel just in case anyone else logged in. I scanned down the new static and proceeded to scout the rest of the chain in my super-elite Helios.
Surely You're Joking (SYJ) was active and had likely come from an incoming C6 which was connected to our static C4. I jumped into a class 2 system, the static exit of our C4s. The C2 was a Black Hole system with static exits to hi-sec and class 3 systems.
In the C2a I saw a lot of SYJ activity and decided to let it die down before making my presence known. They are a large group and with only myself and now one other Cold Moon pilot on I didn't want to attract their attention.
Once all their ships had been off dscan for a while I dropped probes and scanned down the HS and C3a. After checking out the hi-sec for any massive SYJ gang I warped to the C3 and jumped through. Almost immediately I heard the wormhole activate behind me so I burned off and cloaked in time to see a blockade runner - a Viator to be exact - from Weyl Manufacturing warp off.
I followed the blockade runner to his POS and found several piloted ships: a Megathron, a few Ravens and Drakes and the Viator. There didn't seem to be much activity and I suspected that SYJ had been hunting these guys, but bungled the attack somehow, allowing them to escape back to the POS.
Soon enough, though, these guys would get back to business, but with their superior numbers and larger ships I was a bit worried about our ability to keep up with their tank. Fortunately we had some more pilots logging on and the opposing numbers were becoming less of a problem.
Eventually our targets warped off to one of their null-sec wormholes and we formed a fleet of covert strategic cruisers with a couple of HACs and Guardians piloted by Henry and Fischey as auxiliary deeps and logi support.
Because of the prior SYJ activity I was weary of putting our non-claoking ships in the open, but I did want them close by in order to actually fulfill their support role. I decided to err on the side of caution and put them in the hi-sec system off of C2a. It was a safe spot and they were one jump closer to the rest of us than if they had remained in our home system.
While the auxiliaries got into position I set the trap. One of our covert Proteuses, Teseer, remained in the C3 on the NS1 wormhole. I went into NS1 with my covert Proteus and cloaked up on the wormhole. We also had No'Wai in a covert Proteus sitting at the enemy POS watching a Drake that had been chilling out there.
The ratting Drake docked up in NS1 while the Raven mopped up. Once finished the Raven warped back to the wormhole. At the sametime the Drake in the POS in C3a warped to the other side of the wormhole and jumped through to NS1.
I decloaked and engaged the Raven. Thinking they only had to contend with a sole Proteus the Raven and Drake both engaged me. Teseer jumped from the C3a into NS1 and I called the Drake as primary. Meanwhile our support group of HACs and Logi was moving toward us in the event that our targets conjured up some reinforcements.
When the Raven and Drake jumped back into C3a they were engaged by No'Wai in our third covert Proteus and Henry in his Hound. Teseer and I followed the targets back into the C3 where they were finished off on the wormhole before our support gang arrived on grid. Even though they couldn't whore themselves out on the kill mails they did get to live vicariously through us.
ze pod
Navy Raven
Drake
So here's my thoughts on things that went well, what might be improved on and a few other deep thoughts.
Sustain
1. We had really good fleet comms. There wasn't any chatter or talking over people.
2. The fleet movements, separated into two groups as they were, was excellent.
3. The springing of the trap went well. No one got polarized or anything like that.
4. The scouting was solid.
Improve
1. Auxiliary fleet positioning. I didn't really like having them so far off, but I didn't want to leave them exposed while the forward group waited for that initial contact. I should have placed inside C2a on the wormhole to HS. That would've put them even closer to us, but still provided an easy route to safety if they were jumped.
2. After the fight was over we had some loitering going on. In the future we need to clear the field or cloak up to minimize our exposure to a possible counter-attack or third-party-ganking.
Deep Thoughts
I'm tempted to say I'd have liked to have had more versatility in the auxiliary fleet like EWAR or neuts, but from the very outset this engagement was geared toward burning down tech 1 battleships and battle cruisers, so I wanted to bring a lot of DPS in order to burn through their potentially large tanks. With that in mind I think the entire fleet comp was perfectly suited to burning down the scouted fleet.
Surely You're Joking (SYJ) was active and had likely come from an incoming C6 which was connected to our static C4. I jumped into a class 2 system, the static exit of our C4s. The C2 was a Black Hole system with static exits to hi-sec and class 3 systems.
In the C2a I saw a lot of SYJ activity and decided to let it die down before making my presence known. They are a large group and with only myself and now one other Cold Moon pilot on I didn't want to attract their attention.
Once all their ships had been off dscan for a while I dropped probes and scanned down the HS and C3a. After checking out the hi-sec for any massive SYJ gang I warped to the C3 and jumped through. Almost immediately I heard the wormhole activate behind me so I burned off and cloaked in time to see a blockade runner - a Viator to be exact - from Weyl Manufacturing warp off.
I followed the blockade runner to his POS and found several piloted ships: a Megathron, a few Ravens and Drakes and the Viator. There didn't seem to be much activity and I suspected that SYJ had been hunting these guys, but bungled the attack somehow, allowing them to escape back to the POS.
Soon enough, though, these guys would get back to business, but with their superior numbers and larger ships I was a bit worried about our ability to keep up with their tank. Fortunately we had some more pilots logging on and the opposing numbers were becoming less of a problem.
Eventually our targets warped off to one of their null-sec wormholes and we formed a fleet of covert strategic cruisers with a couple of HACs and Guardians piloted by Henry and Fischey as auxiliary deeps and logi support.
Because of the prior SYJ activity I was weary of putting our non-claoking ships in the open, but I did want them close by in order to actually fulfill their support role. I decided to err on the side of caution and put them in the hi-sec system off of C2a. It was a safe spot and they were one jump closer to the rest of us than if they had remained in our home system.
While the auxiliaries got into position I set the trap. One of our covert Proteuses, Teseer, remained in the C3 on the NS1 wormhole. I went into NS1 with my covert Proteus and cloaked up on the wormhole. We also had No'Wai in a covert Proteus sitting at the enemy POS watching a Drake that had been chilling out there.
The ratting Drake docked up in NS1 while the Raven mopped up. Once finished the Raven warped back to the wormhole. At the sametime the Drake in the POS in C3a warped to the other side of the wormhole and jumped through to NS1.
I decloaked and engaged the Raven. Thinking they only had to contend with a sole Proteus the Raven and Drake both engaged me. Teseer jumped from the C3a into NS1 and I called the Drake as primary. Meanwhile our support group of HACs and Logi was moving toward us in the event that our targets conjured up some reinforcements.
When the Raven and Drake jumped back into C3a they were engaged by No'Wai in our third covert Proteus and Henry in his Hound. Teseer and I followed the targets back into the C3 where they were finished off on the wormhole before our support gang arrived on grid. Even though they couldn't whore themselves out on the kill mails they did get to live vicariously through us.
ze pod
Navy Raven
Drake
So here's my thoughts on things that went well, what might be improved on and a few other deep thoughts.
Sustain
1. We had really good fleet comms. There wasn't any chatter or talking over people.
2. The fleet movements, separated into two groups as they were, was excellent.
3. The springing of the trap went well. No one got polarized or anything like that.
4. The scouting was solid.
Improve
1. Auxiliary fleet positioning. I didn't really like having them so far off, but I didn't want to leave them exposed while the forward group waited for that initial contact. I should have placed inside C2a on the wormhole to HS. That would've put them even closer to us, but still provided an easy route to safety if they were jumped.
2. After the fight was over we had some loitering going on. In the future we need to clear the field or cloak up to minimize our exposure to a possible counter-attack or third-party-ganking.
Deep Thoughts
I'm tempted to say I'd have liked to have had more versatility in the auxiliary fleet like EWAR or neuts, but from the very outset this engagement was geared toward burning down tech 1 battleships and battle cruisers, so I wanted to bring a lot of DPS in order to burn through their potentially large tanks. With that in mind I think the entire fleet comp was perfectly suited to burning down the scouted fleet.
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