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.

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.

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.

Better Scouting

The other day I was scouting in my Helios. I don't remember if I was scanning down a chain or just patrolling an existing one, but I noticed a couple of industrial ships in the open on DSCAN. It was an Iteron V and some sort of rock-chewing ship.

As expected they were at an ore site doing their thing. The Iteron had a flight of T1 hobgoblins out. I don't know if it was out of boredom or if it was supposed to be some sort of deterrent, but either way it was pretty useless.

I wormed my way through the asteroid field toward the two ships to get into warp scrambler range and called for our fleet. While they formed up in another system I continued to relay intel, which was pretty boring: "No movement and they're still shooting rocks."

As the fleet traversed the wormhole I decloaked for a bump and point on the Iteron. The fleet landed and the carebears were issued tickets for the HS Express. I made sure to get on the kills with my point.

So, here's what I learned from that experience. I need to switch out my scrambler for a disruptor. The extra range on a disruptor would've been very useful here and I think is better suited for light/scout tackle.

The second issue I have with my performance during that engagement was sticking around to get on the kill mails like a whore. In most cases it doesn't matter and I don't think it really mattered in this instance, but we are creatures of habit and it's better to do the right thing all the time, not just only "when it matters."

I should've held my point and bumps only as long as it took for the Hictor to arrive and as soon as the bubble went up I should've disengaged and cloaked. The reason I say  this is because as a scout my role is to provide intelligence and support, not charge in with the heavy cavalry when it arrives.

That may be debate-worthy to some people, but if you think of it in terms of roles and then translate those roles to the real world you get something like a recon unit relaying SITREPS, calling fire missions and only when necessary do they engage targets themselves.

Frigid Satellite Disassembly Company

After about a month or so of being on my own, diving into wormholes from hi-sec I've returned to Cold Moon Destruction and found them in nearly the same condition I found them the first time: living in a class 5 system with a static to class 4 wormhole space. They've also rid themselves of a lot of dead weight by abandoning a necrotic alliance.

At any rate, I've been busy since returning to my true internet spaceship home and I look forward to the greatness I'm sure we'll be accomplishing on our own in the near future.

As for the rest of you hole-probing internet spaceship nerds, please fill your hulls with PLEX and exotic dancers before re-entering Bob's holy space.

Welcome to class!

So after creating this new corporation of my, Tenebrous Effect, for those of you that may be interested in joining in on the ground floor of a scrub corp like this (or not), I decided to do a bit of hi-sec diving. Odyssey has just recently been released after all and there would be plenty of poor nubs eager to learn their first lessons in w-space.

It didn't take long to find an incoming K162 from a class 2 wormhole. I jumped in and saw that someone was already scanning. In the process of creating a safespot I noticed a lone Caracal on dscan toward the outer planet. Naturally, I abandoned the prudent course of action in favor of a more aggressive tactic.

The Caracal was sitting about 100 kilometers off of the customs office and with his probes still out I figured there was little chance of him keeping an eye on the directional scanner so I decloaked and engaged.

First kill of the evening: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=18135021

Once dispatched I sent him the obligatory "gf" and went on about my business: setting up a safe and observation point near the local POS. It looked like they ran sites fairly regularly and I wouldn't turn down an easy kill.

It didn't take long for the next new explorer to roll in from hi-sec. He was sporting a brand new Caldari faction Heron and like his predecessor figured that no one would see him at the outer planet even if he was uncloaked.

I found this poor soul chilling out at a site near the outer planet. A bump gave me all the time I needed.

Second kill:

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=18136841

I was somewhat disappointed with the loot drops so far, but to be honest I wasn't expecting all that much. These were simple nubs after all. But still, how is it that everyone else always finds those morons who carry PLEX?

I had left both of these wrecks untouched. I'm still not sure if that's such a great move or not. It does act as a bit of bait, but I'm thinking it might give away more information than it's worth. In hindsight, now that I think about it, leaving the wrecks was probably a stupid move. People can look up the kill on killboards and figure out what I'm flying.

Yep. Definitely stupid.

After this I went back to observing the locals. There was one or two logged in, but as far as I could tell they were perma-afk. I kept an eagle on them though. You never know when someone's going to do something incredibly stupid.

After a few more minutes of watching the locals though there was another newcomer from hi-sec. A Moa this time. That was good. I was getting tired of blowing up pitiably defenseless frigates.

Amazingly I found the Moa at the outer planet. Whether he was attracted there by the wrecks or by ignorance of the threats lurking in Anoikis I can't say. Yet there he was at that same site I'd made my last kill.

I have to give him credit though. He was aligned, but nothing that a simple bump couldn't take care of. Once engaged this guy quickly turned to the offense and opened up, but he just didn't have the firepower to break through my Proteus's elite shield buffer? What?

Third and fourth kills from that chap:

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=18137855

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=18137854

New Digs

There've been a few changes since the last post: I left my homosexual brothers-in-arms, Cold Moon Destruction. Those guys are probably the closest thing I've encountered in EVE to what the personal relationships are like in the Marine Corps: total debauchery!

At any rate, I've struck out on my own for the time being. Without a home in w-space I've pretty much been stalking other people and preying on those who don't know any better. Just today I've killed three people who were out exploring from Amarr and though they thought enough to fit the probe launcher none of them bothered with cloaking devices.

A few old friends have invited me to join up with them so far. I'll probably play it stubborn for a few weeks and see what I can't make happen in this scrub corp I've got going right now.