tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24533745284080531262024-03-13T21:42:47.483-07:00The ExcessionPoking my head through a singularity to see what's on the other sideFellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-40195111848687151182015-05-19T11:52:00.002-07:002015-05-19T11:52:20.632-07:00Your First Wormhole: Ship Types<br />
Before moving into a wormhole system you need to make sure that you can cover all the ship type requirements to operate effectively in wormhole space. It is not necessarily the case that every pilot should be able to cover every ship type, but you should aim for at least some pilots who are able to cover most of the bases.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Scanning Scout</h4>
The scanning scout role is the most important in wormhole space, for obvious reasons. Without scouts to scan signatures, you won't be able to move around in wormhole space at all. If you end up without a scout in your home system and the current links close, you will be unable to get back, and all of your assets will be lost. It is generally a good idea to have a couple of back-up characters that are rarely used positioned in your home system in case such an eventuality should occur.<br />
<br />
Scanning scout is a key role that <i>every</i> pilot should be able to cover. The skills to get into a tech 1 scanning boat, some rudimentary scanning skills and the ability to fit a cloak take just a few days to train and provide more redundancy. I ensure that <i>any </i>character I intend to use in wormhole space has the ability to scan themselves out - or more importantly, to provide a route for other characters back in.<br />
<br />
While a tech 1 scanning boat is the absolute minimum, ideally you should aim for a tech 2 covert ops scanning frigate for any character that is going to be consistently used for non-support purposes in the wormhole. While tech 1 scan frigates allow you to find your way around, tech 2 covert ops ships with the covert ops cloaking devices mean that you can do so with much less risk to yourself, and without opponents gaining valuable intelligence about your character. Any link that you scan down and warp to in a tech 1 frigate will result in any watchers present seeing your character and corporation; doing the same in a covert ops frigate will mean they are none the wiser - they only know that <i>someone</i> has had probes out.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h4>
Site Running</h4>
Ships for running sites in wormhole space are only required if you intend to 'live off the land' - that is that the wormhole system (or those connected to it) will be providing your income and you won't be obtaining it from external sources. <br />
<br />
The ships that you require for running sites will be dictated by the class of the wormhole system that you are in. It is a good idea to get some fits together prior to moving into wormhole space and test them by day tripping into wormhole systems, instead of moving in and finding yourself without an income source.<br />
<br />
In general terms the ships required to run wormhole system combat sites are as follows;<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Class 1:</b> a well-skilled cruiser pilot can use a well-fit tech 1 cruiser to run sites, although not necessarily quickly. More likely for new entrants to wormhole space to use is a pair of tech 1 cruisers so that sleeper NPCs split their fire between the ships and they can provide mutual support through remote repair systems. A single Battlecruiser can run all of the sites in a Class 1 system by itself, even with relatively poor skills.</li>
<li><b>Class 2: </b>outside of a few niche fits, basic cruisers are not really viable for running sites in Class 2 wormhole systems. Single Battlecruisers can run all of the sites but may require more skills and better fits for the tougher ones, including some of the relic and data sites. You will begin to see some Tech 3 strategic cruisers running sites in Class 2 space; this isn't something I advocate as the amount of site running required to pay for them vastly outweighs the gain in speed when gunning down NPCs.</li>
<li><b>Class 3: </b>some of the sites in Class 3 space can be run with single Battlecruisers, but the fits need to be thought through carefully and the pilots will need to be well skilled. It is much more frequent to see small groups of Battlecruisers running sites, single Tech 3 cruisers, or pilots using command ships or Heavy Assault Cruisers</li>
<li><b>Class 4: </b>multiple ships are all but required for running combat sites in Class 4 wormhole systems. While the sites can be run solo using a well fit Marauder, the skills and cost required mean I wouldn't recommend it for people moving into a wormhole system for the first time. Battlecruisers don't tend to have the damage projection or tank required to handle C4 sites easily; the damage applied and neuting mean that<i> any</i> ship relying on a local tank is going to be <i>sorely</i> tested. Spider tanks (where many combat ships all have remote repair systems in addition to weapons) or dedicated logistics are the safer approach to take to site-running.</li>
</ul>
There are a number of sample fits for running wormhole system wombat sites in the Know Your Wormhole Enemy series on this blog; these are probably a good starting point.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Mining</h4>
Mining can provide an alternate income source for people living off the land in wormhole space; whether through harvesting gas or going for asteroids in the ore sites. It should be noted that Sleeper NPCs <i>will</i> spawn at these sites after some time and so if you want to harvest all of their resources you will need a combat capable pilot to clear the hostile NPCs out.<br />
<br />
When selecting ships for mining in wormhole space I would always err on the <i>disposable</i> side of the fence. Pilots with no implants should be used, and ships fitted as cheaply and lightly as possible. They <i>will</i> be lost, so you should seek to reduce your exposure to risk. It is possible to reduce the risk itself, through vigilance in watching the directional scanner and the system scanner, but mining and gas harvesting are not the most thrilling of pass-times and at some point attention will inevitably wander. And that is the point at which an interdictor will land in the middle of your mining operation.<br />
<br />
Ventures are a really good choice for disposable ships, and the corp can bring in a fixed number of them with a standard fit to avoid a ton of them cluttering up the hangar. <br />
<br />
<h4>
Combat</h4>
Whether or not you want to go looking for fights in wormhole space, eventually you will find one - or one will find you. Larger groups will often leave you alone at a strategic level - or even offer you assistance - if you give them good fights, so it's a good idea for your long term safety to have some combat ships available, even if you don't feel you are particularly competent in them.<br />
<br />
Firstly, the type of ships that you bring into the wormhole for PvP should be dictated by your wallet and your experience level. If you're new, don't put all your ISK into a blinged-out Tech 3 Strategic Cruiser; you <i>are</i> going to lose your first few engagements when you attack a bait ship or jump through a wormhole into a camp, so it's better to get the lie of the land in something more disposable. Battlecruisers are still a reasonable choice for wormhole PvP, and on the cheaper end Vexors can do nicely. As covered by other posts on this blog, lighter, kiting ships don't generally fare as well in wormhole space - although if you are looking to fly purely defensively in your own wormhole system a lot of their shortcomings are mitigated.<br />
<br />
For newer pilots HAM Drakes, Myrmidons, Brutixes and Cyclones are great ships to bring in for PvP. They are all simple to fly, tanky, and do reasonable damage.<br />
<br />
For more experienced pilots, Heavy Assault Cruisers can work wonders, but Tech 3 cruisers are the go-to ship class for most low end wormhole combat. Just make sure you can afford the ship, and the skill loss. I'd also recommend against blinging almost anything on the first few you <strike>lose</strike> buy.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Tackle</h4>
If you're looking to go on the offensive and hunt for targets, things can get a bit messier. Because of the high damage output and stern tank on most Sleeper NPCs, any ships that you're looking to gank running wormhole system sites can actually kick out quite a bit of hurt. This means that there are a few main routes available to you in order to tackle targets;<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Hope they're really dumb. This isn't a great idea, but it's surprising how many people just forget about d-scan after a while and act all surprised when a ship lands out of warp next to them. You'll need another ship to scan them down and get you a good warp in, or they'll just skedaddle. You can use any combat ship if you want to try this 'plan'.</li>
<li>Disposable frigates. You can use alternate accounts to warp in fast and hold people down for long enough for some heavy hitters to arrive and lock them down properly. There are two main downsides to this; the first is that you really do need spare accounts to do this in, as being "the guy who always explodes" isn't awesome fun for people and siterunning fits need to be able to deal with Sleeper NPC frigates. The second is that people can actually get away quite a bit of the time, because they can nuke the frigate and warp off before heavier tackle appears on the scene. Interdictors can last a little longer and do a better job of holding them down, but they're a <i>lot</i> more expensive to lose. You're not going to tackle more than a single siterunner in one.</li>
<li>Heavy Interdictors. Expensive, and they can be seen in warp if people are fast on d-scan. On the plus side, they don't need a lock in order to stop a target from warping off and then can hold down multiple targets.</li>
<li>Tackle T3s. <i>Very</i> expensive but their tanks mean that they can withstand a lot of firepower before backup arrives. Covert ops cloaks mean that they can get into an ideal tackling position before springing the trap, and if you are that way inclined an interdiction nullifier can allow them to scarper from quite a variety of counter-ambushes.</li>
<li>Arazu / Lachesis. The long tackle range is great, and damping can allow you to avoid fire, but more than one siterunner can cause severe headaches, and Sleeper NPCs can force you off of the field surprisingly quickly.</li>
</ul>
There's a great deal more to be said about tackling siterunners in wormhole space, and I'll try and get another post out with some details at some point. My personal choice is to use tackle T3s, but an Arazu or Lachesis is probably a good starting point for a new corp to get used to tackling people on sites. Just don't forget that Sleeper damage <br />
<br />
<h4>
Hauling</h4>
You're going to need ships to bring in fuel and ammo, and you're <i>probably</i> going to want ships to cart Planetary Interaction materials around. Dirt cheap ships with warp core stabilizers and nanofiber internal structures are the way to go; scouting is your real safety, don't try to tank them.<br />
<br />
Slightly more complicated is how you're going to get Sleeper loot out. It's not massively high volume, so I'd actually suggest using a T3 or other heavily tanked ship - if you're scouted out of wormhole space then your main threat is actually hi-sec gankers. Just don't use a T1 hauler.Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-8075917347685267362015-02-22T10:47:00.000-08:002015-02-22T10:47:20.412-08:00Your First Wormhole: Finding ItFinding the right wormhole system for you and your group comes down to a simple choice; spend time hunting for an acceptable system, or pay someone to get the location of one.<br />
<br />
Firstly, it's a good idea to work out what an acceptable system <i>is</i> for you, and if it's going to be viable to find one. The class of the system you want to move into, the type of statics you would like, the PI requirements and wormhole system effects will narrow the number of systems that are suitable for you to move into, and there's also a good chance that any system is already occupied.<br />
<br />
If you're intending to be particularly fussy about the exact combos that you'll settle for, it's probably a good idea to check out the list of all wormhole systems that can be found <a href="https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/List_of_All_W-Space_Systems" target="_blank">here.</a> You can check their details out and cross reference their J-numbers on <a href="http://wh.pasta.gg/">wh.pasta.gg</a> to check for potential existing occupants. If you're after a particular system type that is scarce or already taken it might be time to re-think how cast in iron your requirements are. Either that or hire mercenaries.<br />
<br />
Regardless of whether you've got a list of systems as long as your arm or one perfect system that you're going to need to hire mercenaries to take from the occupants, the next step will be trying to find a way in.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Finding a way in</h4>
<br />
Finding a particular system as a small corporation is, frankly, next to impossible. If you're not looking at a good list of potential systems that you'd be happy with, just scanning in from k-space is almost certainly not going to work - the odds are just too stacked against it. A good alternative can be to find a system which has a static link that is of the wormhole system type you want to find, for example, if I want to find a particular C2 with C3 and High-sec static then I could make a temporary base in a Class 2 system with Class 2 and low-sec static links. You can then roll the link until you find a suitable system.<br />
<br />
You can work out what the chance is of rolling your link into a system that you're interested in by dividing the number of potential systems you have identified by the total number of systems of that class. For example, if I've identified 11 class-2 systems that would make an acceptable home for my corporation:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(11 / 525) = 0.020952380952381</blockquote>
<br />
Which means there is around a 2.1% chance of rolling into one of my target systems every time I roll the wormhole link. As of current writing it is believed that the link spawning is entirely random (I have been present when our corporation has rolled directly into the same system that the old static link went to), and so you can work out the chance of having found it after <b>X</b> rolls by:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
1 - ( (1 - (number of acceptable systems / number of systems of class) ) ^ X )</blockquote>
<br />
So, to use my class-2 system example, and estimating that I would be able or willing to roll 10 times a night, the likelihood of finding a good system on a given night is:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
1 - ( ( 1 - ( 11 / 525 ) ) ^ 10 ) = 0.19083301280602388597587512465145</blockquote>
Or round about a 19% chance per evening. There is a good chance that it will take quite a few evenings of rolling to find a potential new home, and while there might be considered to be a certain pride to having found your system yourself, the costs add up. There is the fuel for the tower you are basing out of, and the cost of the ships that you will almost inevitably lose while rolling the wormhole. But there is also the opportunity cost; the gain you have missed out on while spending time waiting for polarization timers to tick down.<br />
<br />
Level 4 missioning in high security space will get you around 70M isk an hour, and you're likely to have at least four or five people required to quickly and safely roll your wormhole link. The opportunity cost of running a wormhole-rolling crew will easily be 4-500M per evening.<br />
<br />
Which leads conveniently to the other option that is available to you; buying a system.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Buying your way in</h4>
Let's be clear; what you're <i>actually</i> buying is a bookmark (or a series of bookmarks) to a target system, and potentially some assets within that system (such as customs offices or capital ships). The price can vary wildly, dependent on the system, but one thing is constant - you'll want to use a broker.<br />
<br />
Because there is no single item you can trade or contract that represents the system and the set of guarantees about the system that the seller has made, any transfer of the bookmarks into the system is a ripe opportunity for villainy. The money is handed over first, the seller can refuse to provide the bookmarks, the system could be occupied, or the entire thing could be a trap. The bookmarks are handed over first and the buyer can refuse to hand over the money.<br />
<br />
To get around this a trusted third party is used as a broker; they typically charge 10% of the cost of the system, half of which is paid by the buyer and half by the seller, unless otherwise arranged. The money is provided by both parties, and the exact terms of the sale are explained to the broker - such as capital ship handover, the expectation of existing active occupants, etc. The seller then provides an entry location and bookmarks required to get into the system. The buyer moves in and verifies that the system is in the state that was claimed, POCOs are handed over, etc. The buyer then confirms that everything is fine and the broker releases the money to the seller.<br />
<br />
If anything is found to be amiss, the broker can withhold the money from the seller until the situation is resolved. In general sales organized through brokers go off without a hitch; I would never risk a wormhole sale without one.<br />
<br />
Yes, I will happily act as a broker - but the major players are Taggart Transdimensional and Virtue of Selfishness and if you're active in the US time zone they are definitely your best bet. They do (as of writing) have a lack of brokers in the EU time zone, so you may need to look for smaller, independent brokers - although it's a good idea to try and check whether they have any links to the entity you are dealing with or check for feedback on the eve online forums.<br />
<br />Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-87820625378448893152015-02-09T10:32:00.001-08:002015-02-09T10:32:49.409-08:002015-02 SitrepI thought it was worth posting an update as there hasn't been a content post on the blog for a while.<br />
<br />
There are a few pieces currently undergoing work, but my game play in EVE has changed significantly since I started on this blogging project. With the changes to random or 'wandering' wormholes in Hyperion, the number of links that we were seeing in our new C4 home system with a static C2 and C3 link was just too large for our corporation to handle. We were frequently seeing five or more inbound links a night, and were frequently getting linked into by larger wormhole corporations that we did not have the manpower or ISK to take on directly.<br />
<br />
As a result we decided to move out of our C4 and try life in a C3 with a static low-sec link. The good news was that with our reduced numbers this let us run sites without putting too much on the line, and the presence of null-sec quality data and relic sites allowed our newer pilots to still have a reasonable income. All credit to where it is due to Corbexx for helping get the blue loot income increase and null-sec sites into lower class systems!<br />
<br />
However, even inside our Class 3 system we had a number of evenings where we had ten (or greater!) links into and out of the system, and the low-sec static link failed to provide consistent roaming opportunities. Aridia was not a good hunting ground for us. Faction warfare space, however, seemed to be providing consistent and interesting PvP opportunities.<br />
<br />
As a result, we have decided to move out of our wormhole and give Faction Warfare a try. I'll probably start a series of posts on the blog charting our movement into Faction Warfare, but will continue adding wormhole-related posts as I finish them.Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-64553462683795751882014-12-19T12:30:00.001-08:002014-12-29T01:12:49.759-08:00Your First Wormhole: Player Owned StarbasesOnce the decision to move into a wormhole has been made, one of the most intimidating changes is that everything you do will likely be based out of one - or more - Player Owned Starbases, POS for short. And because everything is based out of that POS the selection of its type, set-up of its defences and configuration of its security become of paramount importance. If you have used POS before, the difference may be a little less scary, but if they are an unknown quantity what you don't know can kill you. And your stuff. And your corpmates' stuff.<br />
<br />
<h4>
POS Security</h4>
As your entire corporation's assets in the wormhole are inside the Player Owned Starbase, security is of the utmost importance. Underestimating it's importance is a fantastic way for your corporation to lose everything it has. Also, what's your corporation name and can I join?<br />
<br />
The POS interface allows you to set which corporation roles are allowed to access and / or use the different POS modules that you have deployed. The roles are a linear progression from lowest security to highest security;<br />
<ol>
<li>Alliance</li>
<li>Corporation</li>
<li>Starbase Fuel Technician</li>
<li>Config Starbase Equipment</li>
</ol>
As these roles can be set on a per-module basis, you can provide different services or even the same service from different modules for different pilots according to their roles. The problem is that you cannot separate out the access of different pilots from each other within a given role, and that a given role will allow access to all tiers below it.<br />
<br />
This means that if you follow a simple tiered approach to security a new recruit will be able to get access to all of the ships that other pilots at the same security level have brought into the wormhole - which can be of significant value. The problem is then exacerbated at higher security tiers as they get access to all the ships of the tiers below them.<br />
<br />
This used to be the case with modules and loot as well as ships, but the relatively-recently released Personal Hangar Array allows pilots individual storage with no such security issues. It should be noted that the capacity of the personal hangar array means that ships cannot be stored in it - it can only contain 50,000m^3 per pilot.<br />
<br />
So, what's the solution? If you have an entirely trustworthy corporation you could base out of a single POS, but if you ever hope to recruit that is simply not a viable option. The tiered model described above can work in a limited arrangement, but as numbers scale you will likely want more fine-grained control over who has access to various modules. The only <i>current</i> solution is multiple POSes.<br />
<br />
<b>How do multiple POSes help?</b><br />
POSes can be set up so that access is governed by corporation membership, but the other option that is available is to <i>disallow </i>corporation access and work entirely with POS passwords. This means that you can build up small groups of pilots who reside in each POS and they can only get access to each others ships and modules. The security is obviously not fool-proof; passwords can be guessed, passwords can be shared, and unless a one-pilot per POS regime is instigated anyone intent on stealing will still manage to get away with <i>some</i> of the property of other members of the corporation. It's not perfect, but it is the best that is currently available.<br />
<br />
The downsides are manifold. It's much more expensive to set up, it takes longer to set up and longer to take down in the event of evacuation. The fuel costs are astronomically higher, and it sets up a feeling of segregation - which is understandable given that everyone is segregated. The multitude of (usually) smaller towers can be a tempting target for other groups as the towers have significantly lower hitpoints and fewer defences.<br />
<br />
At the end of the day, the security of you POS is up to you, but it's best to give it a great deal of thought; make sure you can justify your choice.<br />
<br />
<h4>
What POS Modules do I need?</h4>
The POS modules that you need will be dictated by what you want to use your POS for, and the defensive strategy that you are intending to use. <br />
<br />
Many industrial uses require a significant amount of powergrid and CPU from the POS tower for various silos and assembly arrays, and their requirements are exacerbated if it is desirable to leave them online at all times. Their fitting requirements mean that there will be significantly less available for defences, and so I would always recommend that a separate POS is used for industrial endeavours, not the main POS that you have in the system.<br />
<br />
An additional consideration with industrial POSes is that in order to re-configure silos and get the most out of them for industry pilots require the 'Config Starbase Equipment' role, allowing them to on and offline POS modules - a clear security risk.<br />
<br />
Your main POS will need:<br />
<ul>
<li>Corporate Hangar Array: to allow your corporation's members to store non-ship items in the POS. This has different hangar divisions that you can control access to in the same way that you would at a corporation office in a k-space station. The role that will give access to CHA divisions is "Station (Other)"</li>
<li>Ship Maintenance Array: in order to store and outfit ships at the POS you will need an SMA. There are no divisions available within SMAs, so anyone who has access to the SMA will have access to all the ships within it.</li>
<li>Defences: a bit of a catch all, but there are lots of different ways to outfit your tower defensively. The next section will look at some of the general concepts, but you will usually have at least one POS that has spent the vast majority of its fitting on defences to provide a bastion if attacked.</li>
</ul>
A Personal Hangar Array is an option, but - in my opinion - its usefulness is very limited. As you cannot store ships in it due to capacity, it is limited to modules and loot - and the vast majority of the value in a POS will be the ships in its SMA. If you put a PHA in place you are therefore using a lot of fitting that could be used for defences on something with relatively little utility.<br />
<br />
<h4>
What POS defences should I use?</h4>
There are a few standard configurations for POS tower defences, all with their own pros and cons.<br />
<br />
"Deathstars" are set up so that a significant force is needed to take the tower down, or the attacking force will be destroyed by the tower. They include webifiers and points to help with damage application and hold targets down, but the main part of the defence is as many turrets as possible. It's worth noting that you should <i>not</i> rely on missile launchers on your POS, as they require CPU to operate and any modules that require CPU shut down when the POS goes into reinforced mode.<br />
<br />
"Dickstars", as they are known, just try to make the process of taking the POS down as painful and frustrating for the attackers as possible. They frequently rely heavily on ECM, damping and energy neutralization modules to make it hard for attackers to apply damage to the POS or logistics to apply repairs to their friendly ships. They don't normally have many, if any, turrets on them; those that are there are to pick off stray ships that were daft enough to warp to the POS uncloaked, or were uncloaked by the defences.<br />
<br />
Most POSes are somewhere between the two extremes, with a variety of defensive modules that aim to disrupt the attackers and kill them when possible.<br />
<br />
The vast majority of POSes have a huge number of defences that aren't onlined most of the time. If an attack is on-going other tower modules can be offlined and more defences can be brought online - or if you are particularly hard nosed about getting the most out of your tower you can always offline non-defence modules whenever you log off in order to bring more defences online.<br />
<br />
It can be worth looking at investing in faction defensive modules as they both require less fitting - allowing you to put more of them online, and they also are more effective than their non-faction counterparts. This double-whammy allows you to pack significantly more punch into your tower defences, if you are happy with paying the sometimes substantial price.<br />
<br />
<h4>
</h4>
<h4>
What type of POS tower should I use?</h4>
The main choices you will have are the size of the tower, whether to go for a faction tower or not, and which specific race's tower to go for.<br />
<br />
For a single tower, the only real choice is to go for a large one, as all of your eggs are in one basket and you want the maximum defences that can be fielded. Just the base hitpoints on the shield of a large tower is generally enough to put off groups from attempting a siege in lower-class wormhole systems. Hardeners and other defensive modules increase the defences still further.<br />
<br />
If you are using a multiple POS configuration, a variety of small and medium towers may well serve your needs. You can operate with the intent to move assets around the POSes in case of attack, so opponents need to siege several towers to cause any significant loss.<br />
<br />
Faction towers use less fuel up than normal towers, and have better base defensive stats. This is balanced with a vastly increased cost. For a long time the blueprints required to create these towers were not spawning in EVE; although this has now supposedly been fixed I have not seen any drop personally and the price of a good large faction tower continues to hover north of the 2 billion ISK mark.<br />
<br />
There are two tiers of faction towers. The first offers a 10% improvement on fuel usage, such as the Angel towers, while the second provides a 20% improvement, such as the Domination towers. They will be a significant risk to move around due to suicide gankers, and it will take significant time for the initial investment to pay off in reduced fuel costs, if that is the primary motivator for the purchase. A less immediately tangible benefit is that the reduced fuel usage also results in a reduced logistics burden.<br />
<br />
When it comes to selecting exactly which racial tower to use, you should be guided by the fitting requirements of the modules and defences that you are planning to use, although it's also worth looking at the historical cost of fuel blocks for that particular racial tower. Different racial towers also give bonuses to different aspects of the POS such as silo capacities, or defensive capabilities in a similar way to ships. It's not worth copying and pasting all the details into a blog post, but time should be taken to go through the different towers and think about the consequences of each.Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-91042447415116796342014-10-27T12:33:00.000-07:002014-10-27T12:33:05.712-07:00Post Hyperion AnalysisA couple of months ago I posted a <a href="http://theexcession.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/hyperion-w-space-changes-predictions.html" target="_blank">set of predictions</a> about how Wormhole space would change after the Hyperion update. The predictions were not massively far reaching, but I feel it's worth looking back at them and trying to see how accurate they were, followed by a look at how things have shaken out - at least from my perspective.<br />
<br />
The predictions I made were:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>W-space combat meta could shift somewhat</li>
<li>There would be fewer capital engagements in w-space</li>
<li>There would be less rage-rolling</li>
<li>Wormhole chains would be longer</li>
<li>There would be an increase in the risk of running PvE sites</li>
<li>C4 residents would move out and new ones move in as the C4 landscape changed</li>
</ul>
<div>
<br />
Unfortunately CCP have not yet provided any statistics about what the consequences of the wormhole changes have been - despite the wormhole CSM representative bugging CCP Fozzie about it;</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/OV_Fellblade">@OV_Fellblade</a> on it i do keep asking he is busy (especially with vegas coming up)<br />
— Corbexx (@Corbexx_NOHO) <a href="https://twitter.com/Corbexx_NOHO/status/521685572918976512">October 13, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<br />
<br />
So we have to make do with the information we can glean from our observations and the limited data available to us. By their nature the observations of players are biased towards what they expect, and are limited in scope to what is in their surroundings. Many of the overarching statistics that have been available in the past on wormhole space systems were removed from the API a many updates ago, and so getting an overall picture of the activity in wormhole space is more difficult than it would have been with jump statistics and NPC kills statistics.<br />
<br />
My original intent was to go through each of my prediction points and comment on their accuracy individually, but the changes have impacted many of them in the same ways. Nevertheless, I will attempt to group them up and address them on group at a time, where applicable.<br />
<br />
<h4>
C4 Resident Roundabout</h4>
I would categorise this prediction as spot on; although it is not particularly surprising that that is the case. Immediately prior to the <i>Hyperion </i>release I saw a large number of class 4 system residents moving out of their home residents as the test server allowed them to identify what their static was and whether I was to their liking - my own wormhole group was one of these corporations, looking to move somewhere to get a better income stream.<br />
<br />
Another data point, though not highly scientific, is that after the <i>Hyperion</i> release I have yet to find any Class 4 systems where <a href="http://wh.pasta.gg/">wh.pasta.gg</a> is correct on the current residents!<br />
<br />
<h4>
Less Rage Rolling</h4>
Since the update there have been noticeably fewer people rolling wormhole links than there previously were. While the removal of the jumps data from the API means that hard data about the number of jumps in wormhole systems is no longer available, it was normal to encounter a few links over the course of the evening that had been rolled or where people were observed in thru act of rolling. Since the Hyperion release our scouts have only encountered a handful of links that we know have been rolled, and only seen two groups actually roll a wormhole link.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Fewer Capital Engagements</h4>
This data can still be obtained from killboards but takes some effort to pull together. A tweet from a community members who has crunched the data suggests that month on month the number of capital ships lost has fallen dramatically. <br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
Was asked for more graph porn, so Exhibit A, updated. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/eveonline?src=hash">#eveonline</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/tweetfleet?src=hash">#tweetfleet</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Corbexx_NOHO">@Corbexx_NOHO</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/CCP_Fozzie">@CCP_Fozzie</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/bronyaboga">@bronyaboga</a> <a href="http://t.co/Ks4JZUxP9q">pic.twitter.com/Ks4JZUxP9q</a><br />
— Rhavas (@EVE_Rhavas) <a href="https://twitter.com/EVE_Rhavas/status/507778625974710272">September 5, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
This is not, however, comparing the same month from one year to another, and there are other pressures within Eve that cause fluctuations in activity from month to month.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Longer Wormhole Chains</h4>
I expected the new frigate wormhole links, additional statics for Class 4 systems and an increased incidence of wandering wormhole links to result in longer wormhole chains, but it is safe to say I didn't expect chains to grow to their current extent. It is quite normal to find five or more inbound links to a wormhole system; recently our home system had <i>nine</i> inbound links. Wormhole space is now <i>massively</i> connected, more so than any other space in Eve, if bridging and jumping abilities are not taken into account. I would now go so far as to characterize wormhole space as having webs, rather than chains.<br />
<br />
<h4>
W-space combat meta and PvE site running risks</h4>
Since the Hyperion release the number of ships that our scouts have seen active in wormhole space have dropped off massively. Since the patch has hit we have only seen five groups of pilots running sites in wormhole space. The number of groups we have seen who are trying to get into combat situations are so low that we cannot draw any conclusions about significant changes to the w-space combat meta. The killboards of other wormhole space corporations suggest that the Hyperion changes to mass based spawn distances have not shaken out in the way I expected; there has not been a significant shift towards 100MN kiting cruisers. So I'll call that one hit and one miss.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Summary</h3>
While some of my predictions were broadly correct and others clearly wrong, I am more concerned at the moment with the overall health of wormhole space. The amount of activity that my corporation has seen is massively reduced compared to the pre-Hyperion levels that we observed. Our own methods of moving and hunting through wormhole space have changed significantly with the patch, and my suspicion is that other corporations are finding the same problems that we have encountered.<br />
<br />
Our normal methods of operation, as can be gathered from other posts in this blog, are to scout our targets carefully and field an appropriate force to engage them. Our disadvantage in numbers is made up for by an advantage in intel on our opponents; we seek to win the fight and then have it.<br />
<br />
Since the Hyperion release almost every evening has started with our scouts logging in to find inbound links to home system. This indicates that hostile forces have opened the link, and there is a good chance that we have unfriendly eyes watching our starbase, watching our system, looking for our pilots as they log on. Prior to Hyperion this happened as well, of course, but there were some key differences.<br />
<br />
Before Hyperion, if we had an inbound link we would send a scout to investigate it and the onward links to see if there were any particularly menacing entities in the wormhole chain. We would look at any likely aggressors, and try and identify if they were present. We would add their pilots to watch lists to see how many were online, and look at their killboards to identify which ships they were likely to attack and see if we could bait them out. If we determined that they weren't around any longer and our baiting attempts were unsuccessful, we would use an Orca and battleships to roll the link as quickly as possible to reduce exposure to potential risk.<br />
<br />
In a post-Hyperion Eve, our home system does not have a single inbound link, it has two. Or sometimes four. Or on one recent occasion, as I have mentioned, <i>nine</i>. And each of those inbound link has a multitude of links into it, and they have a multitude of links into them. We simply don't have the manpower to scan down the number of links that are present, and so can't obtain a picture of how much risk we exposed to at any given time.<br />
<br />
Without that intel, we are paralyzed. Unknown space is truly unknown, and that means we have nothing to base our decisions on. It may be different for other groups, but we came to w-space for methodical, careful combat, where intelligence gathering and outwitting your opponent were key. Now, it's a roll of the dice, and you don't even know how many sides it's got, or who you are playing against, or what you need to roll to win.Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-40582592031607478652014-10-08T11:13:00.000-07:002014-10-08T11:13:30.004-07:00Your First Wormhole: System SelectionThis is the second post in the <i>Your First Wormhole</i> series; it will be examining the different choices available to you when you are trying to work out what your ideal wormhole system will be.<br />
<br />
The selections available are combinations of five variables;<br />
<ul>
<li>System class</li>
<li>Static class</li>
<li>Wormhole effects present</li>
<li>Planets present</li>
<li>System topology </li>
</ul>
There are different combinations that are particularly effective for certain styles of play - I'm going to take a look through the system effects, planet configurations and system topology considerations first before moving onto different system classes and their statics.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Wormhole System Effects</h4>
Wormhole system effects can have significant impact on the choice of fleet doctrines for both PvP and PvE. A fleet tailored for the system effect in a given home system will generally provide the defenders with a significant home field advantage, and so might be considered a good thing to recommend for newer corporations as they can focus on a particular set of skills that complement their home system.<br />
<br />
Although that is the case, you can end up in a situation where newer players who have specialized in the 'wrong' type of ship get penalized; a character with only turret skills in a Black Hole, for instance. It is worth noting that wormhole system effects <i>do not affect</i> <i>Sleeper NPCs</i> and so they can give an advantage to site running. The effectiveness of wormhole system effects scales up with wormhole class; a good reference point for the exact effect values is the <a href="http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/into-the-known-unknowns/" target="_blank">Hyperion wormhole update blog</a>.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Magnetars</b> give a straight bonus to damage, albeit with penalties to tracking speed, range, explosion velocity and the effectiveness of target painters. In simple terms, you'll have more problems tracking and hitting smaller classes ships - whether they be Sleeper NPCs or players - but there will be more damage damage applied to targets you can hit.</li>
<li><b>Red Giants</b> provide a bonus to the effects of overheating, smartbomb damage and range, and the damage of bombs fired from bomb launchers. The only penalty they provide is to the amount of heat damage that modules take when being overloaded, so this is actually a fairly 'vanilla' wormhole type for most intents.</li>
<li><b>Pulsars</b> provide an increase in raw shield hitpoints (and therefore the passive recharge rate of shields), the rate at which capacitors recharge, and the drain amount of energy nosferatus and neutralizers. Their penalties affect armour resistances and the signature radius of ships. Given that the majority of wormhole groups use armour tanking fleet doctrines, having a system that applies penalties to the 'standard' setup while taking that into account with your home defense fleet can give a massive home defense advantage.</li>
<li><b>Wolf Rayets</b> boost armour hitpoints and small weapon damage, while reducing the signature radius of ships and shield resistances. Obviously using shield ships in here is a Bad Idea™. The bonus to small weapon damage is massive, ranging from +60% to +200% (or triple base damage), and while that makes setting up a frigate-based defence fleet very tempting and effective, it does mean that any site running is at significant risk from any frigate-size wormholes that link into the system.</li>
<li><b>Cataclysmic Variables </b>reduce the effectiveness of local armour and shield repairs, remote capacitor transfers and capacitor recharge time. They have bonuses to the capacity of ships' capacitors and to the effectiveness of remote shield and armour repairers. This can make it more difficult to run sites solo if fits are relying on active local tanks, but can give a bit of a boost if you are intending to use spider tanking.</li>
<li><b>Black Holes</b> have been significantly changed in the Hyperion release; they have bonuses to ship speed, targetting range, the velocity of missiles and the velocity of missile explosions - increasing missile range and the effectiveness of missiles against fast targets. Meanwhile they have negative effects on the strength of stasis webifiers and on the manoeuvrability of ships. This combination has made Black Hole systems into a missile kiters dream, while severely impacting the effectiveness of turret based ships.</li>
</ul>
<br />
In general, for a first wormhole system I would suggest shying away from a wormhole system with an effect in it. If you feel compelled to do so, Pulsars, Red Giants or Magnetars are probably the more accommodating system effects.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Planets Present</h4>
In general, wormhole systems that have all of the planets required for producing prerequisites for POS fuel are more desirable than those without. They command a higher price when being sold, and are generally in higher demand. Also a concern is the number of planets present - the more planets available in a system the better a base it will make for planetary interaction as there will be a greater total amount of resources available for harvest.<br />
<br />
Although raw materials for POS fuel are a concern, it doesn't mean that wormholes without the perfect mix of POS fuel planets are useless - far from it. If a system is primarily being used as a base for planetary interaction and goods manufacture, there will likely be a large number of industrial ships heading out with the finished products for sale. If they fly back with fuel instead of empty no additional hauling is required - although there is an increase in the overall risk as a returning hauler will (on average) be worth a great deal more.<br />
<br />
<h4>
System Topology </h4>
Something that first-time inhabitants of wormhole space often overlook is the topology of the system and whether it serves their needs. Systems where everything is within range of the directional scanner are great if you are playing "defensively" - that is, if you are looking to be alerted to people entering the system so that you can get the hell out of the way. Systems that are more spread out are better suited to groups that are more predatory; they provide inhabitants with the opportunity to bring more forces online and move people into or out of the system when they are out of directional scan range of opposing players.<br />
<br />
<h4>
System Class & Static</h4>
<b>Class 1</b> wormhole systems have a single static known-space wormhole link. All links into or out of a Class 1 system have a maximum mass of 20,000,000kg which limits ships that can enter them to Battlecruiser hulls or below, with the exception of the Nestor Battleship. This has the side effect of making the wormhole links extremely time consuming and haphazard to roll, so typically Class 1 system inhabitants are stuck with whatever links they have when they log in - they are unable to control the links into their system effectively. They have a reasonably high incidence of wandering links connecting them to high-sec space.<br />
<ul>
<li><i>High-sec static </i>Class 1 systems are often used by small industrial groups, both for planetary interaction and for POS manufacture and research.</li>
<li><i>Low-sec static </i>Class 1 systems are primarily used by groups that intend to make money from planetary interaction and find their PVP by roaming in low-sec. These systems are no-where near as isolated as Class 1 systems with null-sec statics as they don't have to deal with warp disruption bubbles when dealing with logistics, and will end up with their static one or two jumps out of high-sec space reasonably frequently.</li>
<li><i>Null-sec static </i>Class 1 systems are rarely occupied. In my experience any inhabitants are usually extremely small corps that don't want to be disturbed, occasionally run their sites and do planetary interaction. They will then run out their ill-gotten gains via wandering high-sec links whenever they appear, and normally operate out of small towers to reduce the logistics burden.</li>
</ul>
<b>Class 2</b> wormhole systems have two static wormhole links - one to known space and one to another wormhole space system. Links into Class 2 systems can take ships up to and including the Orca, so Battleships can be brought into the system and the links can be rolled much more easily.<br />
<br />
Sites in Class 2 systems pay out both inconsistently and relatively poorly, as the majority of the isk from them comes in the form of Melted Nanoribbons. Melted Nanoribbons are a random salvage drop that has fallen from a high water mark of around 8 million isk to a current level of 4 million, severely impacting the profitability of lower-end wormhole space.<br />
<ul>
<li><i>Class 1 and High-sec static</i> Class 2 systems are typically used by industrial groups or very small corporations who want to test the water in wormhole space and see what it entails. It allows them to get used to scanning, setting up player owned starbases, and generally living where everything and everyone is trying to kill them.</li>
<li><i>Class 2 and Low-sec static </i>Class 2 systems are frequently used by small corporations who are in wormhole space to live off the land and PvP, or larger PvP groups that have alternative income streams. Although there is not a huge amount of money to be made from farming the static link, the combination of low-security space and highly connected wormhole space systems means that that Class 2 systems with C2/LS static links used to be one of the favoured retreats for players who wanted as much sub-capital small-gang combat as they could get. Since the <i>Hyperion</i> release and dual-static class four systems this has changed to an extent, but if you have the money from other sources and want to shoot people, this type of system is still a great place to be based.</li>
<li><i>Class 3 and High-sec static</i> Class 2 systems are one of the most desirable wormhole systems for small corporations who want to make money from wormhole sites without giving up the convenience of access to high-security space. The static C3 link can be rolled using Orcas or Battleships to get access to new Class 3 sites to run, and the difficulty of the sites in the static means they can be run relatively easily with small groups or by individuals.</li>
<li><i>Class 4 and High-sec static </i>Class 2 systems used to mainly be populated by groups who wanted to use their Class 4 static link for site-running, as with the C3/HS static systems, but Hyperion has changed their utility significantly. Post-Hyperion Class 2 systems with a Class 4 static provide a great PvP opportunity, as the Class 4 system will have two w-space links that can be used to look for targets. Simultaneously the static hi-sec link means that a lot of the logistics issues in wormhole space are significantly eased, and any pilots that lose their pods in PvP somewhere down the wormhole chain can usually get back into the home system without having to traverse hostile systems. The static Class 4 can still be used for site-running, but the high cost of the ships required to run C4 sites in small numbers can make this a relatively risky proposition.</li>
<li><i>Class 5 and Null-sec static </i>Class 2 systems are rarely occupied; the Null-sec static can be good for organizing roams, but the Class 5 static link doesn't provide a huge advantage compared to a Class 4 for making isk given capital escalations are not available. Class 5 resident corporations will generally have a much larger income and a higher number of active pilots than those resident in a C2; something to take into account if you are looking to move into one.</li>
<li><i>Class 6 and Null-sec static </i>Class 2 systems are rarely occupied, and are the same as static C5/NS Class two systems in most particulars.</li>
</ul>
<b>Class 3</b> wormhole systems have a single known-space static link. Links into Class 3 wormhole systems can take ships up to and including the Orca. As there are no Class 3 systems with w-space static links, they are similar to C1 systems in that they are usually less-connected to wormhole space than other classes of wormhole system. Unlike Class 1 systems, Class 3 systems can support larger ships through their links and so are more likely to be used as a transit route to known space for other wormhole inhabitants that link into them.<br />
<ul>
<li><i>High-sec static</i> Class 3 systems are generally inhabited by small corporations with a handful of active members on at any given time. Home system sites will be run to make isk, often alongside industry and planetary interaction.</li>
<li><i>Low-sec</i> <i>static </i>Class 3 systems are often found unoccupied. Most occupants are similar to those found in C3/HS systems but with either a desire for PvP availability through a low-security space link or because either they are less concerned about the risks of low sec than most industrialists, or their industrial work benefits directly from low-sec markets.</li>
<li><i>Null-sec static </i>Class 3 systems are usually unoccupied. They provide few advantages for industrialists compared to having a low-sec or high-sec static link</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<b>Class 4</b> wormhole systems have two wormhole-space static links. Links into Class 4 wormhole systems can take ships up to and including the Orca. There are a huge number of combinations of the two static wormhole link types, so for any given combination, combine the comments below.<br />
<ul>
<li><i>Class 1 static</i> links provide a Class 4 system with sites for newer pilots to run solo or in very small groups. The income is not amazing, but some measurements put it as better isk per hour than running Class 2 system sites. One issue with a Class 1 link is the aforementioned difficulty of rolling it; this can leave the inhabitants of the C4 in a situation where their back door is ajar, can't be easily shut, and any activity they take part in is at risk. This necessitates leaving a pilot by the link in case a hostile fleet comes knocking.</li>
<li><i>Class 2 static </i>links provide a Class 4 system with a great opportunity for PVP hunting in wormhole space; C2 chains can run for many, many systems and Class 2 systems are reasonably heavily occupied. The sites in the C2 can be run by newer pilots solo for some income if they want to supplement what they make from home system sites with the rest of the group.</li>
<li><i>Class 3 </i><i> static </i>links provide a Class 4 system with an excellent potential income stream for solo pilots and a chance to get a direct link to a useful known-space system (whatever your definition of 'useful' might be). From personal experience there is less chance of combat happening in Class 3 systems unless you manage to luck into someone running some sites in the system.</li>
<li><i>Class 4 </i><i>static </i>links provide a Class 4 system with another two w-space links to branch out of - Class 4 systems with a Class 4 static provide one a real hub for scouting out w-space and looking for targets of opportunity. Given the number of links in Class 4 as of writing, running sites may not be the safest of passtimes.</li>
<li><i>Class 5</i><i> static </i>links provide a Class 4 system with sites that are more lucrative than those in the home system, although not by a great deal. As most Class 5 and 6 residents will have capital ships available to them, engaging the residents in PvP on their home turf will rarely be a good idea unless you are well prepared.</li>
<li><i>Class 6</i><i> static </i>links provide a Class 4 system with the same 'benefits' that are provided by a static Class 5 link, but with the dials turned up a little. The residents are likely better funded and equipped, are more likely to have and use capital support, and the sites make a little more isk.</li>
</ul>
A notable combination of statics for Class 4 systems is a static C2 and C4 link; it provides the best possible combination for hunting in the sub-capital areas of wormhole space with a minimum of five w-space systems available for exploration.<br />
<br />
<b>Class 5</b> wormhole systems have a single wormhole-space static link. Links into Class 5 wormhole systems from Class 5-6 systems or from Low-sec and Null-sec known space can take ships up to and including capital ships (carriers and dreadnoughts). Links into Class 5 wormhole systems from lower-class systems are limited to the mass supported by the lower-class side of the link. Most of my experience is in lower-class wormhole systems, and so the information on these systems below is based on the words of others, not personal experience. For a group that is newly formed and has no experience of wormhole space I would recommend they not move into a Class 5 system until they have acclimatised themselves to wormhole space mechanics in general.<br />
<br />
As links from low or null sec space or from Class 5 or 6 wormholes can carry capital ships into Class 5 systems, the inhabitants need to be prepared for capital warfare, usually by ensuring they have sufficient capital ships and pilots themselves.<br />
<ul>
<li><i>Class 1 static </i>Class 5 systems are typically used by corporations who wish to run sites in their home
system unhindered. Even if the static link is open most corporations who
are resident in Class 1 wormhole systems will see a Class 5 link and
stay the hell away from it. Those that don't avoid the wormhole link
like the plague are unlikely to be able to field the firepower to take
down a Class 5 capital escalation group.</li>
<li><i>Class 2 static </i>Class 5 systems are frequently used by PvP groups who want to be able to obtain isk by running their home system sites in relative safety. They can then use their Class 2 static to look for PvP targets or to gain access to known space for roaming or logistics purposes.</li>
<li><i>Class 3 static </i>Class 5 systems are great for small groups of relatively well skilled pilots who are looking to make a large amount of isk. Home system sites can be run and escalated for cash and when the available pilot numbers are too small to run Class 5 sites, the static link can be used to run sites instead.</li>
<li><i>Class 4 static </i>Class 5 systems now provide residents with a great way to get k-space systems to hunt through while providing great income from escalating home system sites.</li>
<li><i>Class 5-6 static </i>Class 5 systems are used by two general types of corporations. The first are people who want to have access to more C5/6 systems to farm, although you can only get limited capital escalations in a static link and doing that is fraught with danger. The second group are those who want to find more large wormhole corporations to fight, often with expensive fits and capital ships on field.</li>
</ul>
<b>Class 6</b> wormhole systems have a single wormhole-space static link. Most of my experience is in lower-class wormhole systems, and so the information on these systems below is based on the words of others, not personal experience.<br />
<br />
That said, I can think of relatively few situations where the first wormhole system an otherwise w-space inexperienced corporation would move into is a Class 6 system. There are relatively few Class 6 wormhole systems and so getting access to a given one via rolling wormholes is significantly more viable than with other classes of space - this can make it more risky for a corporation as if they manage to irritate someone enough to come hunting for them, they will be found more easily. Corporations in a Class 6 wormhole system need to expect to engage in capital ship combat; sooner or later their opponents will be.<br />
<ul>
<li><i>Class 1-5 static </i>Class 6 systems are functionally similar to C5/C1-5 systems, save for the increased risk of the system being hunted down.</li>
<li><i>Class 6 static </i>Class 6 systems are typically used by those who are hunting other Class 6 occupants; most of them are now unoccupied as the number of inhabitants in Class 6 space has dropped off sharply.</li>
</ul>
<br />Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-54411144208137551332014-09-14T07:21:00.002-07:002014-09-14T07:21:48.884-07:00Your First Wormhole: W-Space Gameplay TypesIf you are completely unaware of what wormhole space is like in EVE Online, a good starting place is my <a href="http://theexcession.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/introduction-to-wormholes.html" target="_blank">Introduction to Wormholes post</a>. The goal of this entry is to give an overview of the different types of game play that you can find in wormhole life, and some of the aspects of said game play that might not be immediately apparent to the casual observer.<br />
<br />
First of all, wormhole space is <em>not </em>for everyone. There a great many different avenues to explore in wormhole space but the constant that links them is the mind set that is required to succeed. Whether the goal is to make money or find targets to engage in PVP, wormhole space rewards careful scouting, consideration of risks and a methodical, thoughtful style of play. <br />
<br />
You don't <em>need </em>to play as described, but wormhole space systems are littered with the ship wrecks of those who have tried to run PI without checking to see if their system is secure, and the abandoned POSes of industrialists who could not turn a profit due to continual losses. If your objective is PVP, most prefer to do so without a killboard deep in the red - even if those losses can be sustained due to high income sites in the upper tiers of wormhole space.<br />
<br />
<h4>
PVP</h4>
From a PVP perspective there are a great many excellent videos of wormhole space hunting and combat that can be found online, but by their nature they cover the interesting parts of PVP engagements. They can make wormhole space PVP seem significantly busier and more consistently tense and exciting than it is.<br />
<br />
Finding PVP targets is often a lengthy, laborious process. Multiple evenings can go by without even seeing another manned ship in space. Those ships that are found are often sat inside a POS and only leave to do a PI run or warp to a link to high security space and jump out. If you play at a non standard time zone this can be an even more significant problem.<br />
<br />
If you enjoy the hunting and intelligence gathering style of game play, and can put up with potentially lengthy dry periods, then wormhole space in the lower class systems may be exactly what you are looking for. <br />
<br />
Higher class wormhole systems have traditionally provided slightly more consistent PVP opportunities; a well-known subset of wormhole corporations are present and repeatedly rolling your static connection (known as 'chain collapsing' or 'rage rolling') used to be a consistent way of finding and fighting one of these groups. Whether this will continue after the well publicised issues with rolling wormholes after the Hyperion release is yet to be seen. The increased income in higher class systems tends to bestow a slightly more laissez-faire attitude towards ship losses than you find in corporations in the relatively income-starved lower class wormhole systems. It is for this reason that I tend to avoid combat with class 5 and 6 wormhole residents; their isk has a different value to yours if you live in a class 1 to 4 system and this can make it harder to predict their behaviour.<br />
<br />
Higher class wormhole systems also provide the potential for capital ships to be used in wormhole engagements; this can provide fights that are very different to the almost exclusively sub-capital fights in class 1 to 4 systems.<br />
<br />
<h4>
PVE Content</h4>
Running sites in wormhole systems used to provide a significantly better income than it now does as the price of one of the key salvage components (melted nanoribbons) used to be around twice the value at time of writing. This is especially true for lower class wormhole systems as a greater proportion of the income that they generate comes from the salvage. Incursions now generate the same or better income but with much less risk than sites in wormhole space, and so many pilots have moved on to running them instead. <br />
<br />
The main reasons for running sites in lower class wormhole systems are convenience and, perhaps counter-intuitively, risk. If you are already living in a wormhole system, getting to known space to run sites or missions is inconvenient to say the least, and unless you have multiple accounts available the wormhole will have to be your primary source of income. The risk in running wormhole sites <em>can</em> be a draw for people; it definitely makes the site running more exciting, if only sporadically. And sometimes expensively.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Industry</h4>
The cost of anchoring a POS in known space can add a significant amount to the bottom line for industrialists. Moving into a wormhole can avoid some of these costs, although there is the opportunity cost of moving things into and out of the wormhole system. Anchoring a POS in a wormhole also allows you access to the otherwise low or null-sec only industry types such as booster manufacture.<br />
<br />
Although a wormhole is technically more dangerous than high security space for doing industry, in practice there is relatively little difference. Movement of items in and out of the wormhole will only be occurring very sporadically and will most likely be jumpy straight out of the wormhole system and into high security space. The only way to do damage to a pure industrialist outside of sieging their POS is to set up an interception using a warp disruption bubble at their starbase or the wormhole link out of their system. Even the most basic scouting will avoid the interception risk, and few PVP groups will wish to spend time grinding down a starbase in an undesirable (to them) system with no real chance of a fight.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Planetary Interaction</h4>
Planetary Interaction is a great way of making isk in wormhole space, especially if you use low cycle times and manage to get into a routine of running it consistently every day. Wormhole planets are technically in null-security space and have the best possible amount of resources present on them. Although the income is reasonable for the amount of effort invested, the risk is significantly higher than pure industry and the amount of interaction that PI takes is minimal and dull - this is something that players do to fund their other activities, it is not in and of an activity itself.<br />
<br />
The increased risk comes from the need to travel to customs offices at planets in the wormhole system, sometimes multiple times per evening on each of several accounts. This gives any hunters who are online and in the system at the time multiple windows to spot what is going on and potentially spring a trap.<br />
<br />
Mitigating this is obviously the option to avoid doing runs to customs offices if there are likely hostiles in the system, but more often than not players doing PI opt to not even check, and simply carry out their housekeeping tasks in cheap, unfit ships with throw-away characters in throw-away clones.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h4>
Gas Mining</h4>
Gas mining in wormholes can be a reasonably lucrative profession; characters don't need a significant number of skill points to be highly effective. Although inconsistently available, gas sites provide a consistent rate of return when present and can be run in ships that, while not resilient, are effective gas harvesters and incredibly difficult to catch - Ventures.<br />
<br />
Gas sites, unlike ore sites, need to be scanned down using probes, so any hostiles who are new to a system have to scan down the site or the ships that are running it before they can disrupt them. Importantly the sites themselves are fairly effective defensively; cloaked ships tend to get decloaked by the large gas clouds providing even more warning for any pilots harvesting the gas.<br />
<br />
One of the more significant downsides of gas mining in wormholes is the large volume of the raw materials produced and therefore the number of trips required to haul them out of the wormhole. For this reason pilots who regularly do gas mining in wormholes will often have a reactions array set up at their POS to manufacture finished products from the gas instead.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h4>
Summary</h4>
Most groups that inhabit wormhole systems fall into one of three broad categories; those that exist in wormholes purely for PVP, industrial groups that attempt to avoid all contact with other players, and those that "live off of the land"; fighting in wormhole space or the known space connections and making their income within wormhole space.<br />
<br />
It's generally a good idea to work out what you intend to be doing in w-space and read up on some of the details before committing billions of isk to stake your claim outside of known space. And have a serious think about whether yourself and your corps mates have the mind set to cope with the ever present paranoia!<br />
<br />
<br />Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-11551792677973449522014-09-02T01:11:00.000-07:002014-09-02T01:28:51.742-07:00Your First Wormhole: OverviewAs mentioned in a previous post, I'm kicking off a new series of entries that look at what wormhole might be a good fit for your corporation and what your goals within EVE are. This is a quick overview of the posts that are going to make up the series.<br />
<br />
<b>Wormhole Space Gameplay;</b> a look at the various types of gameplay that the idiosyncrasies of wormhole space help enable, and those that are significantly more difficult than in k-space. If you're not in wormhole space at the moment, or you're looking for a bit of a shake up from what you're currently doing, this should give you an overview of what's possible. It should also give you an idea of whether wormhole space is 'for you' or if an alternative area of the game might suit your playstyle more closely.<br />
<br />
<b>System Selection;</b> an investigation of the different classes of wormhole system and the different effects that they can have. This will include looking at the different statics that wormholes provide and which selections of system, effect and static links are best for which types of gameplay.<br />
<br />
<b>Ship Types;</b> an overview of the ship types that are most useful in wormhole space, some skill plans to get into them, and where short cuts with skill training can and can't safely be taken.<br />
<br />
<b>Player Owned Stations;</b> the central part of living in wormhole space is the POS for the vast majority of inhabitants. This will look at fuel production, POS placement, permissions and security, defending your POS and a few gotchas that can catch out people who haven't experimented with player owned stations before.<br />
<br />
<b>Doctrines; </b>a look at some of the more typical fleet doctrines you are likely to run into in wormhole space, and how you should look at putting your own together.<br />
<br />
<strong>Finding or Buying Your Wormhole; </strong>determining whether buying or searching for your wormhole is for you, the best way of conducting a search, and how wormhole purchases and brokering work.<br />
<br />
<strong>Move Day; </strong>how to go about getting your pilots and ships into your wormhole system and deploying your POS(es).<br />
<br />
Any suggestions for post topics will be gratefully taken on boardFellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-35323109993286109382014-08-30T10:19:00.002-07:002014-08-31T06:44:44.247-07:00Know Your Wormhole Enemy: Hurricane Fleet Issue and Brutix Navy IssueThis post will cover two of the four of the (relatively) new Navy Battlecruisers. As they are variations of the Battlecruiser hulls that they are based on, I will be providing a relatively short summary for each with an example PvP fit alongside a comparison to it's non-Navy alternative.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h4>
Overview</h4>
The Navy Battlecruisers were introduced in the <i>Odyssey</i> expansion and are created using loyalty points with the various empire factions to obtain blueprints. The hulls that emerge on the open market end up costing between 70 and 150 million isk more than the base hulls; approximately 2.5 to 4 times the original. The advantages that they provide over the base hulls are not massive - in line with the general EVE balancing trend of exponential cost increase providing a linear power increase - but they have opened up a new avenue for lower skilled pilots with flush wallets to get an increase in effectiveness over the base hulls without any additional skill requirements.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Hurricane Fleet Issue</h4>
Immediately after a significant nerf to the base Hurricane hull, the Hurricane Fleet Issue was released with the following tongue-in-cheek description;<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In YC 115, after much heated discussion, CONCORD issued a decree stating the Hurricane-Class Battlecruiser was far too effective to stay under its current technological label, and demanded the Minmatar Republic to either cease production or sort it as a more technologically advanced craft. The Tribal Council grudgingly complied by releasing a simplified version of the Hurricane, then quickly exploited a loophole in the legislation and began using the original overpowered hull as part of its active fleet force. And that is how, after a new paint coat and renaming fees that the Hurricane Fleet Issue came to be.</blockquote>
<br />
Hmmm. Yes. The end result is that most historical Hurricane fits will work pretty well on the new Hurricane Fleet Issue. The HFI has exactly the same hull bonuses, speed, lock range, and capacitor as the base hull. The advantages are slightly more sensor strength, higher values for raw hull, armour and structure hitpoints, and an additional high-slot - though no extra turret slots. This means that the extra high slot is almost inevitably used for a Medium Energy Neutralizer - like it typically was on the base hull before it was rebalanced.<br />
<br />
Using the Armour PvP fit in the <a href="http://theexcession.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/know-your-wormhole-enemy-hurricane.html" target="_blank">KYWE: Hurricane post</a> as a base gives us;<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Hurricane Fleet Issue, WH PvP]<br />
1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates II<br />
Gyrostabilizer II<br />
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II<br />
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II<br />
Gyrostabilizer II<br />
Damage Control II<br />
<br />
10MN Microwarpdrive II<br />
ECCM - Ladar II<br />
Stasis Webifier II<br />
Warp Scrambler II<br />
<br />
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M<br />
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M<br />
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M<br />
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M<br />
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M<br />
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M<br />
Medium Unstable Power Fluctuator I<br />
Medium Unstable Power Fluctuator I<br />
<br />
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I<br />
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I<br />
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I</blockquote>
Of course, what is important is what this additional cost gives us over the base hull, and the answer in real terms is 'not an awful lot'. The two most significant changes are the 68k effective hit points tank of the original gets upped to a more formidable 94k, and two Medium Energy Neutralizers are now available for putting capacitor pressure on more cap-dependent ships. As there is no extra capacitor recharge on the Fleet Issue hull, sustained use of the two Medium Neuts will need a capacitor booster in the mids. The extra power grid that it provides allows upgrading either both of the 180mm autocannon on the original fit to 220mm, or just upgrading one of them and switching the 1600mm plate to a Tech II variant, which buys you more hitpoints. Given the tiny damage advantage that the 220mm autocannon provide, I'd almost always go for upgrading the plate.<br />
<br />
The Hurricane Fleet Issue occupies exactly the same niche as it's older brother with a few small tweaks - tweaks that I have problems recommending given the massive price differential. Just buy and fit two vanilla Hurricanes for the price of the HFI hull.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Brutix Navy Issue</h4>
It's a goddamn monster. The base hull is pretty ferocious, but the Navy Issue swaps the often-unused local armour repairer bonus for a tracking bonus on Medium Hybrid Turrets, allowing the 10% damage bonus that it carriers over to apply much more effectively. As with the Hurricane, there are more raw shield, armour and hull hitpoints, and increased sensor strength. The extra slot however is a low slot instead of a high, allowing either more tank or even more damage output.<br />
<br />
Using the armour PvP fit from <a href="http://theexcession.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/know-your-wormhole-enemy-brutix.html" target="_blank">KYWE: Brutix</a> as a base and giggling as we add yet more damage gives us:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Brutix Navy Issue, PvP WH]<br />
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I<br />
Damage Control II<br />
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II<br />
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II<br />
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II<br />
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II<br />
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II<br />
<br />
ECCM - Magnetometric II<br />
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I<br />
Stasis Webifier II<br />
Warp Scrambler II<br />
<br />
Drone Link Augmentor I<br />
Heavy Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M<br />
Heavy Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M<br />
Heavy Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M<br />
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M<br />
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M<br />
Heavy Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M<br />
<br />
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I<br />
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I<br />
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I<br />
<br />
Hammerhead II x5</blockquote>
The price of Brutix Navy Issues have been varying quite wildly, but even at the upper end of the price bracket, I'm quite the fan. Sacrificing the plugging of the explosive damage hole and replacing it with a Magnetic Field Stabilizer, then using the extra low for <i>another</i> Magnetic Field Stabilizer, plus taking advantage of the increased fitting to upgrade the guns to an Ion/Neutron mix means that it's kicking out 878dps with Caldari Navy Antimatter. It's 'civilian' cousin can only manage 668dps, and that's with significantly worse tracking. If you want to look at shiney numbers, slap Void M into the blasters, overheat them, and watch the total hit 1082dps - though in practice you're unlikely to see this outside of hitting Battleships. The total EHP goes up by 12k, from 82k to 94k, equalling the Hurricane Fleet Issue fit described above. The ECCM stacked on top of the increased base sensor strength means it ends up with a formidable 51.7 points <i>before</i> overheating.<br />
<br />
The Brutix Navy Issue occupies the same niche as the hull it is based on - but unlike the Hurricane Fleet Issue, the upgrade over it's older relative is significant and allows the weapons system the ship is designed around to absolutely shine.Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-67928437081624876952014-08-30T06:05:00.002-07:002014-08-30T06:05:18.866-07:00Dialling Wand?I'm going to be starting a new series of posts that will be interleaved with the Know Your Wormhole Enemy series, titled Your First Wormhole, looking at how to identify a wormhole system class that will best suit your needs, what you need, and what you can expect from wormhole life.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately the bare bones draft managed to get uploaded when I managed to mash the 'publish' button instead of the 'save' button when using my tablet - so apologies for the seemingly nonsensical post yesterday that has now been reverted back to draft status!Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-48587591033343919382014-08-18T23:51:00.004-07:002014-08-30T06:05:41.041-07:00Hyperion W-Space Changes: PredictionsIf you haven't already, it's probably a good idea to read <a href="http://theexcession.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/hyperion-w-space-changes-analysis.html" target="_blank">my analysis post</a> to see the basis for the predictions that I am making in this piece.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h4>
W-space Combat Meta</h4>
I am expecting the wormhole changes, specifically those relating to mass-based spawn distance from wormholes, to have an effect on the wormhole space combat meta - assuming that the changes are not massively toned down given the community uproar.<br />
<br />
With the current magnitude of the changes cruiser class and above ships are spawning significantly further away from the wormhole link than they were doing in the past - and doing so consistently. And this is still the case even with the <a href="https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4919818#post4919818" target="_blank">most recent update</a> to the mass-based spawn distance feature.<br />
<br />
<br />
Although the distances involved are not <i>massive</i>, they are <i>significant</i>; <br />
<ul>
<li>Currently you are almost guaranteed to leave a wormhole within warp scrambler and web range of a lone hostile pilot on a wormhole; after the changes the likelihood of this will be reduced - although not by as much as in the first draft of the numbers.</li>
<li>As the distance is based on mass, modulating your mass
using warp disruption bubbles, plates, and propulsion modules will
affect the distance that you spawn from the wormhole. </li>
<li>The increased volume of space that ships can spawn into will make de-cloaking Strategic Cruisers who are using the Covert Operations subsystem harder.</li>
</ul>
The first point means that kiting fleets will be marginally more likely to work in wormholes; when jumping through into a hostile fleet, more of a given group of ships will be out of range of scram or web range.<br />
<br />
Combined with the first point, the second means that a fleet equipped with oversize afterburners, such as 100MN AB Tengus, will be in an even better position for starbursting away from a wormhole link and kiting their opponents than 'normal' kiting ships. I'm expecting to see many more such fleets in use in wormhole space after Hyperion.<br />
<br />
The increase in average engagement range may well tip the balance slightly against the current Proteus-dominated heavy-blaster meta.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h4>
Fewer Capital Engagements</h4>
Due to the mass-based spawn distance when transiting a wormhole, capital ships will now spawn a significant and randomized distance away from wormhole links. This means that if a capital ship is jumped through a wormhole link into a fight, it will not be able to jump back out to safety if there is too much hostile pressure on the field. While this may sound like there will be more capital losses, the reality is that the increase in risk is so massive that most wormhole entities will simply not commit capital forces through a link.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Less Rage-Rolling</h4>
Not a surprising prediction, perhaps, but an important one. Given the massive increase in time it will take for high-class wormhole links to have their statics rolled it will be significantly harder for groups to chain-collapse their static links to find a given system. This will make backing up invasion fleets or trying to defend against wormholes significantly more difficult. Hole control will become even more important.<br />
<br />
Scouting wormhole chains will become more important than it currently is, and rolling will be used less often when looking for PvP targets. For a given encounter, especially in higher-class wormhole systems, it will be less likely that an encounter with a hostile force will be in their static, and so in the general case it will be less likely that reinforcements will be one jump away.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Longer Wormhole Chains</h4>
Due to an increased number of random links, and the additional static on Class 4 wormhole systems, wormhole space will be generally more connected. Originally it sounded like the change to only spawn the K162 end of wormhole links when someone jumped through them meant that this would be balanced out, at least to an extent. Subsequent communications from CCP suggest that there will be a fail-safe method of some kind whereby the K162 side of the link will open after an amount of time, even if someone has not jumped through.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Slight PvE Site Running Risk Increase</h4>
There are multiple changes affecting this particular aspect of wormhole life. There will be fewer people rage-rolling wormholes looking for targets, particularly in the higher class wormholes - and those that are chain collapsing their static link will be doing it more slowly due to the changes.<br />
<br />
Offsetting this, when a link <i>does</i> open into a system, there will be significantly less warning to any residents before a hostile fleet drops on them. For lower-class wormhole residents the new frigate-class wormhole links may also provide a significant threat; a few Assault Frigates can handily deal with a Drake running sites in a Class 1 or 2 wormhole system and won't immediately die to the Sleepers that are present.<br />
<br />
The general increase in the interconnectedness of wormhole space will also result in more links threatening site runners, even if initially several jumps removed. I am expecting a <i>slight</i> increase in the price of Melted Nanoribbons as a result<br />
<br />
<h4>
C4 Inhabitant Roundabout</h4>
With the addition of an additional static to Class 4 wormhole systems I expect a significant number of existing inhabitants to move out. Prior to this change Class 4 systems were known for being relatively uninhabited and isolated and most inhabitants will have moved in with full knowledge of this. After the addition of a new static (that will be harder to roll) they will be be significantly more connected, and securing them by rolling the static links prior to running any sites will take significantly longer and be riskier.<br />
<br />
After the change dual wormhole-space static links will make Class 4 systems prime real estate for PvP corporations who make their money outside of w-space.<br />
<br />Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-44312734953125741942014-08-17T00:03:00.000-07:002014-08-17T00:03:28.569-07:00More Hyperion W-Space ChangesOn Friday CCP Masterplan <a href="https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4915698#post4915698" target="_blank">posted on the EVE Online forums</a> with news that as of the latest update on Singularity, wormhole signature IDs would no-longer reset at downtime.<br />
<br />
To those who aren't denizens of wormhole space, this might sound like an insignificant change, but it will have a massive impact on Australian time-zone pilots and will be a significant quality of life improvement for all wormhole inhabitants.<br />
<br />
For pilots in the Australian time-zone, the EVE server's downtime is right in the middle of their prime playtime (this can be dependent on daylight savings time). This currently means that in wormhole space, any signatures that have been scanned at the start of prime time will have their signatures invalidated half way through many player's gaming sessions. Although there are some discernible patterns for the signature ID changes, it is not always obvious, and so the change in signatures at downtime means having to update bookmarks and chain mapping tools or risk pilots getting confused.<br />
<br />
For the wider wormhole community, this change won't be <i>quite </i>as significant, but will still be very welcome. At the moment the first thing that anyone does when logging on is to verify the signatures in their home system; updating the old bookmarks with new signature IDs and bookmaking any new signatures that have spawned. With signature IDs persisting over downtime this housekeeping task will no longer need to be carried out, saving time for hundreds of players and making it that little bit less onerous to be the first pilot online.Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-49963282552059400362014-08-12T15:00:00.002-07:002014-08-17T00:04:16.305-07:00Hyperion W-space Changes: An AnalysisCCP Fozzie has recently posted a dev blog about some changes to wormhole space and wormhole links that are coming up in the Hyperion expansion. As they are likely to have a significant impact on the larger picture of wormhole space I thought I would take a post to carry out a bit of an analysis, and try and put out another post in a few days with some predictions that can be disproved in the fullness of time.<br />
<br />
CCP Fozzie's dev blog post can be found <a href="http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/into-the-known-unknowns/" target="_blank">here</a> and should be read in its entirety before proceeding any further with this post.<br />
<br />
The changes form a package, and they really need to be analysed as a package as they all affect wormhole space in different but connected ways. Because they are affecting the same game play system it is difficult if not impossible to assess the changes in isolation, so I will be assuming that all of the changes are going to be made, and that they are going to be made together. I'm going to look at each set of changes in turn, but will incorporate relevant information from the other changes in each section. I will also be (trying) to analyse the changes from a neutral point of view, simply providing an estimation of what the results of the changes are and not judge whether those changes are desirable or not.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Bookmark Copy Restriction Changes</h4>
A minor change in the scheme of things, and the least interlinked with other changes; this is allowing players to copy larger groups of bookmarks, more quickly. This won't be at all significant for the majority of smaller wormhole groups, but alliances and less formally tied groups of corporations will find it a tremendous boon; their only method of sharing bookmarks is to manually copy them into cargo containers to move them from the 'Corporation Locations' of one corporation to another. Though this is a far cry from true alliance bookmarks in line with corporation bookmarks functionality, it will be a welcome stop-gap measure.<br />
<br />
<h4>
<b>Wormhole System Effect Changes</b></h4>
<br />
<i>Black Holes</i> are having additional bonuses to missile velocity and missile explosion, alongside a bonus to targetting range and a reduction in the effectiveness of stasis webifiers. This will give a very significant bonus to people using kiting missile setups, especially 100MN afterburner cruiser variants as stasis webifiers will be significantly less effective against them. A typical method of engaging cruisers in Class 5 and 6 wormhole systems is to use heavy webbing support to bring ships to a near-standstill and then use the capital class guns found on dreadnoughts to obliterate (or 'blap') them - the tracking on capital class weapons normally being far too poor to cope with the movement of cruiser size targets. This change to stasis webifier effectiveness caused by Black Holes has a reasonable chance of completely invalidating this engagement method in those systems.<br />
<br />
<i>Magnetar</i> wormholes are having a penalty applied to the effectiveness of target painters, which will make it slightly harder to run with the "blap dread and web" set-up described above, as target painters are often used to supplement stasis webifiers in making targets easier to hit. The missile explosion radius change will bring missile penalties in line with the tracking penalties applied in Magnetar systems.<br />
<br />
<i>Red Giant</i> systems are having a bonus applied to the damage of bombs - but not to bomb hitpoints. This means that fewer bombers can be used to do the same damage in Red Giant systems. I'm not expecting this to be a major game changer.<br />
<br />
<i>Pulsar </i>systems are having a bonus to Nosferatu and Energy Neutralizer drain amounts added to help counter the existing large bonus to capacitor recharge. Prior to this change capital ships were extremely hard to take down with neut boats.<br />
<br />
<i>Wolf Rayet</i> systems currently have a bonus to armour resistances; this is being altered to be a bonus to raw armour hitpoints instead which will significantly lessen ship tanks when under logistics support. More significantly - given other changes that are lined up and that will be discussed later - the bonus to small weapon damage that already exists is being doubled, so the total damage bonus when in a Class 6 wormhole will be +200% of base, or, to put it another way, <i>triple </i>the dps.<br />
<br />
<i>Cataclysmic Variable</i> systems will have their remote capacitor transmission amount reduced, and the penalty to their local capacitor level reduced from it's current level, giving them more local capacitor recharge. The intent of this change is to reduce the effectiveness of spider tanking carriers in systems with Cataclysmic Variables; as the efficacy of the change, I cannot comment due to lack of experience in that area.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h4>
More and New Randomly Spawning (or 'Wandering') Wormholes</h4>
This
item is actually a pair of changes, the first of which is very simple -
there is going to be an increased incidence of randomly spawning
wormhole links. This should, on the surface, result in an increased
interconnectedness in wormhole space, but due to other changes that
consequence may not necessarily be as clear cut as it might appear...<br />
<br />
The second change is a new <i>type</i> of random wormhole link - one that only allows enough mass per jump to get frigate or destroyer-class ships through it - or Heavy Interdictors using mass-reducing warp disruption bubbles.<br />
<br />
This may provide a few new frigate-roam opportunities for wormhole residents, but as many wormhole pilots tend to use extremely expensive implant sets it might be fewer than would otherwise be the case. Where this addition will be most interesting is when there is a new-type wormhole link into a <i>Wolf Rayet</i> system where frigates will be doing three times normal damage - plenty enough to be seriously dangerous to Strategic Cruisers or possibly even players running capital escalations, given a significantly sized Assault Frigate gang.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Second Static for Class 4 Wormholes</h4>
With the Hyperion release Class 4 wormhole systems will have an additional wormhole-space static wormhole link. In the past Class 4 wormhole systems were well known for often leading into a seemingly never-ending chain of yet more Class 4 systems, frequently uninhabited. Introducing a second static link to all Class 4 systems will make them much more connected and very very appealing as a base of operations for PvP based groups that typically use their static wormhole link to look for targets to engage.<br />
<br />
As this is a retroactive change being made to systems regardless of whether they are inhabited or not, a significant number of wormhole residents currently in Class 4 wormhole systems may find themselves with an undesirable secondary static link. CCP Fozzie has stated that the type of the new static in systems will not be announced and that players will need to identify what the new static link type is by <a href="https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Singularity" target="_blank">using the test server</a> ('Sisi') if they want to find out ahead of the Hyperion release.<br />
<br />
<h4>
K162 appearance only on first jump</h4>
A 'K162' is the 'out' end of a wormhole link, and historically has spawned when someone has initiated warp to the 'in' end of a wormhole link. Wormholes that have not been warped to only exist <i>in potentia</i>; warping to one end of the link is what actually <i>creates</i> the link between the two systems.<br />
<br />
This is an extremely significant change with two obvious ramifications.<br />
<br />
The first is that people inside the system that is being connected to will have significantly less warning that there is an inbound wormhole. Beforehand they had the length of a ship warp to the 'in' side of a wormhole during which the 'out' signature was visible but before anyone had jumped through. Post-Hyperion, the link will only appear after a ship jumps. This tips the scale significantly towards the hunters in wormhole space, particularly in higher-class wormholes where capital ships in siege or triage mode are frequently used in site-running.<br />
<br />
The second is that pilots will be able to find out what an outbound link is <i>before</i> opening it. Currently you need to be on grid with a wormhole to verify where it leads - but being on grid with it means that you have warped to it, which means it is activated. After the Hyperion release, if you find that it is not a link you want to have active, for instance a wandering wormhole to higher-class space, you can just not jump through it, and the far end of the link will never spawn. This has the ability to significantly reduce the interconnectedness of wormhole space and counterbalance the increased number of wandering / random wormhole links.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Mass-Based Spawn Distance after Wormhole Jumps</h4>
This change will almost certainly have the most far-reaching consequences for the way that corporations that live in wormhole space operate. At the moment most PvP entities roll their wormhole relatively often when looking for new targets to fight and wormhole chains to explore.<br />
<br />
Orcas and Battleships are the ships that are generally used to roll wormholes in lower class systems - and they have sufficient mass (and thus spawn far enough away) that they no longer spawn within range to jump back through the wormhole link. For higher-class wormhole links, capitals are often used to roll the wormhole links and they now spawn so far away from the link that the fastest way of getting them back to the wormhole link to jump back is to warp away to a safe nearby, and then warp back to the wormhole at point blank range.<br />
<br />
This change will have two key effects on wormhole rolling; it will take longer, and it will be riskier.<br />
<br />
It will now take <i>significantly</i> longer to roll wormholes; on the order of several minutes longer for rolling a hole using capital ships. A well drilled group in a high-class wormhole system can currently roll a wormhole every 2-3 minutes; most conservative estimates are suggesting that this will at least double. In lower-class wormhole systems the speed is generally dependent on how many Orcas you are happy to have floating around in space, but it will take at least a couple of minutes for an Orca to make it back from it's spawn distance to jump range on the wormhole link.<br />
<br />
When trying to roll the wormhole with larger ships, especially capital ships, the risk will also be significantly higher. A capital ship will now be <i>extremely </i>vulnerable when jumping through a wormhole and there will be plenty of time for a hostile ship to get point on it and hold it in position until reinforcements arrive. At the moment when a less-powerful wormhole entity ends up with a link into a system controlled by a more-powerful group, they can take a risk and attempt to crash the wormhole link before the more-powerful group can marshal a response. Although the change to K162 spawning time will give a small initial time advantage to the group that is trying to roll the link, the time taken for even a single Orca or Capital ship to get back to the wormhole link completely eclipses that.<br />
<br />
There is however a more concerning effect that this change may have on combat in higher-class wormhole systems. At the moment when ships jump through a wormhole link into a hostile force that is waiting for them, they are already at a significant disadvantage; in higher class wormholes in order to stand a chance the attacking force often has to throw through enough capital ships to collapse the hole. This results in a situation where the defenders are at their preferred range to targets, can re-ship if they take losses, can log on more reinforcements, and where the attackers have no-where to run.<br />
<br />
Obviously the <i>current</i> situation is far from idea for attackers, and the home field advantage means that many groups will have to stand down instead of attacking and getting completely slaughtered. The new changes will result in a situation that is significantly worse for the attackers;<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Ships jumping through will no longer appear in a coherent group that can support each other; they will be spread out according to their mass.</li>
<li>Capital ships will no longer end up in close proximity to one another. As refitting capital ships using a carrier is a well established part of upper-echelon capital combat, attackers will be at a significant disadvantage compared to defenders</li>
<li>Although larger ships will appear at random locations further from the wormhole, the lock times and maneuverability on those ships mean that they don't pose a significant risk to defenders who are caught by surprise if they appear closer than expected.</li>
</ul>
<br />
In the next post I'm going to take a look at what I expect the fallout from these changes to be.Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-11572544994351806662014-07-30T07:55:00.000-07:002014-07-30T07:55:43.491-07:00Know Your Wormhole Enemy: MyrmidonIn the Know Your Wormhole Enemy series (name shamelessly stolen from the <a href="http://www.evealtruist.com/" target="_blank">Eve Altruist</a> series of posts and then mutilated) I'm going to look at a variety of different ships, how they are often fit and flown in wormhole space, and what they mean to you. This may include, but will not necessarily be limited to; example fits, engagement scenarios, how you should react to their presence on directional scan, at a POS or on grid, what good counters to them are, and how you can potentially use them.<br />
<br />
This post will cover the Myrmidon.<br />
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<h4>
Overview</h4>
<div>
The Myrmidon is a Gallente Battlecruiser that has bonuses to Drone damage and hit points, and a bonus to the effectiveness of local armour repairers. The lack of a bonus to weapons of a given type means that Myrmidons can be seen with a wide variety of weapons fit to their high slots and they have a good spread of available mid and low slots. This flexibility in fitting means that the Myrmidons is one of the more dangerous Battlecruisers to engage, as you will rarely know exactly what you are getting into when you engage one.<br />
<br />
Despite the Myrmidon's bonus to active armour tanking it can frequently been seen in either active or passive configurations of armour or shield tanks.<br />
<br />
The Eve Altruist post covering the Myrmidon and the other Battlecruisers can be found <a href="http://www.evealtruist.com/2011/09/know-your-enemy-battlecruisers.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br /></div>
<h4>
What is it used for in wormhole space?</h4>
<div>
Due to its flexibility the Myrmidon can be used for almost any role in wormhole space with varying degrees of effectiveness. Although sleepers NPCs have a nasty habit of targetting drones when there are lower numbers of ships in a site, the Myrmidon can still be used to run sites in Class 1 or 2 wormhole sites when correctly fit, and in a group is actually very effective in Class 3 wormhole space sites. With a large bonus to armour repairers, bait Myrmidons are relatively common in K-space, but creating a fit that can satisfy the requirements of both running W-space sites and baiting simultaneously is nigh-impossible. Myrmidons are seen relatively frequently running gas sites, where their armour repair bonus and drones allow them to mount gas harvesters and handle the sleeper NPCs that spawn at the sites while they are being run simultaneously.<br />
<br />
PvP fit Myrmidons are highly effective using a passive shield tank or an armour tank - either active or passive. Shield Myrmidons are typically fit to push out a monstrous amount of damage and have relatively little tank, whereas armour fit Myrmidons can be almost anywhere along the scale of damage and resilience. A drugged, linked, active tanked Myrmidon can tank in excess of 1000dps which can allow it to handle a small sized gang solo... until its cap charges run out.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h4>
How is it typically fit?</h4>
<div>
Although Myrmidons can run sites in lower-class wormhole systems, they are far from a typical sight. As a result, similar to the Cyclone, there is no real standardized fit for running them. The fit below is a variant on one I have successfully used to run combat sites in a class 2 wormhole, though there may be some room for improvement.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Myrmidon, PvE Myrm]<br />Drone Damage Amplifier II<br />Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II<br />Medium Armor Repairer II<br />Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II<br />Drone Damage Amplifier II<br />Damage Control II<br /><br />Stasis Webifier II<br />Cap Recharger II<br />Cap Recharger II<br />Omnidirectional Tracking Link II<br />Experimental 10MN Afterburner I<br /><br />220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, EMP M<br />220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, EMP M<br />220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, EMP M<br />220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, EMP M<br />Coreli A-Type Small Remote Armor Repairer<br /><br />Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I<br />Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I<br />Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I<br /><br />Vespa EC-600 x5<br />Berserker II x4<br />Valkyrie II x5<br /></blockquote>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
The small remote armour repairer may look slightly out of place - the Myrmidon is sacrificing a potential turret to fit it - but Sleepers consistently target drones and some form of remote repair is essentially unless you're planning to only run a single site at a time. The fit is cap stable with either the afterburner or the remote armour repairer running, but not with both. It kicks out 577dps with max skills using the Berserkers, or an identical 577dps when using a Berserker / Valkyrie mix. While Ogres and Hammerheads may give the best theoretical damage, I find faster drones more useful. If your skills are a little lighter you may need to swap out one of the Drone Damage Amplifiers for another tanking module, which will drop your dps to a hair over five hundred.<br />
<br />
I have experimented swapping the autocannons for railguns, which gave better range but with appalling tracking plus additional capacitor pressure, and for artillery, which was more cost effective with ammunition but had similar issues with tracking. Both alternatives give slightly reduced overall damage figures (ignoring their tracking issues), but in the end the drone damage is what the Myrmidon is about. It should be noted that the flight of EC-600s give you significantly more GTFO ability than many other site-running battlecruiser fits.</div>
<div>
<br />
In a break from tradition to demonstrate the flexibility of the Myrmidon I'm going to look at two example PvP fits, one active armour, and one full shield gank. The active armour fit is first:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Myrmidon, Active Myrm]<br />
Medium Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste<br />
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II<br />
Medium Armor Repairer II<br />
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II<br />
Medium Armor Repairer II<br />
Damage Control II<br />
<br />
Stasis Webifier II<br />
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I, Navy Cap Booster 800<br />
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I, Navy Cap Booster 800<br />
Warp Disruptor II<br />
Experimental 10MN Afterburner I<br />
<br />
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M<br />
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M<br />
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M<br />
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M<br />
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M<br />
<br />
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I<br />
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I<br />
Medium Nanobot Accelerator I<br />
<br />
Vespa EC-600 x5<br />
Berserker II x4<br />
Valkyrie II x5</blockquote>
With max skills this is kicking out 483dps; nothing to write home about, but the tank is more significant. Without overheating or links it is repairing 941dps while there is nanite paste left in the Ancillary Armour Repairer, which drops to 654dps when it runs out. But if you apply heat, you're looking at 1171dps. Standard Exile boosters push it up to 1403dps on heat, and if you have a Damnation or other command ship running tech II Rapid Repair and Passive Defense links you will be repairing <b>2009dps</b> while your capacitor, nanite paste and heat management hold out.<br />
<br />
It should be noted that juggling an overheated triple-rep dual-injected setup while targetting ships and maneuvering to apply damage and keep drones alive requires a huge amount of micromanagement. Without practice you will lose drones, run out of capacitor, burn out your modules, drop point on targets and end up stranded and butchered. With practice you'll feel like the king of the world. Have a shot - it's great fun.<br />
<br />
And now, some more fun at the absolute opposite end of the spectrum. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Myrmidon, Max Gank]<br />Drone Damage Amplifier II<br />Drone Damage Amplifier II<br />Drone Damage Amplifier II<br />Gyrostabilizer II<br />Gyrostabilizer II<br />Co-Processor II<br /><br />Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I<br />Adaptive Invulnerability Field II<br />X-Large Ancillary Shield Booster, Cap Booster 400<br />X5 Prototype Engine Enervator<br />Initiated Harmonic Warp Scrambler I<br /><br />Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Hail M<br />Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Hail M<br />Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Hail M<br />Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Hail M<br />Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Hail M<br /><br />Medium Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I<br />Medium Core Defense Field Extender I<br />Medium Anti-Kinetic Screen Reinforcer I<br /><br />Ogre II x3<br />Hammerhead II x2<br />Ogre II x1<br />Warrior II x5<br />Hornet EC-300 x5<br />Hobgoblin II x6</blockquote>
This is the type of fit that a Myrmidon will almost inevitably have if you <i>don't</i> primary it. It requires a 3% CPU implant to fit properly, but there are a few areas where some compromises could be made to give some back. It does just over 900dps, or about 950 with autocannons overheated, and can tank about 600dps using the ancillary booster - which isn't too shabby, although the total EHP is very much on the low side - 25k not including the effect of the ASB. If you use a passive fit and 425mm Autocannons you can reach 970dps before overheating and 1020dps with heat applied - although you are sacrificing some tracking and the resulting 34k EHP doesn't really make up for the loss of the Ancillary Shield Booster. If you use blasters instead of the autocannons you can actually get slightly more dps - seven, actually, if you're using Caldari Navy Antimatter - but you lose a little damage projection and you end up being vulnerable to capacitor pressure from energy neutralizers, which I don't feel is worth the tradeoff.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h4>
How much of a threat is it?</h4>
<div>
<i>Running a site: </i>A Myrmidon is one of the few battlecruisers that can run a reasonable armour tank in a site running configuration. It can also run a configuration that provides a reasonable bait tank while site-running - and tackle to boot - so a reasonable degree of caution should be exercised when approaching.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>As backup in a POS:</i></div>
<div>
Myrmidons that are intended to be second responders are more likely to be set up at the gank end of the gank/tank spectrum. What makes them a hard target to call as a priority is that there is a reasonable chance that they <i>haven't</i> been set up as second responders and are some horrible triple-rep fit that will take your fleet an age of mankind to burn down. That said, if you're fighting a shield fleet and a Myrmidons lands, it's probably a good call to primary if you're targetting the dps boats.<br />
<br />
<i>On the field in a fight:</i><br />
As alluded to above, the Myrmidon can be a hard target to prioritize correctly. It could be a shield gank fit and be doing some of the highest dps on the field, or it could be an active armour set up whose pilot is praying for you to target it so he can show off his ridiculous tank to his gang mates. It may be a quantum Myrmidon that collapses into an armour or shield fit dependent on whether you call it as primary or not. Yes, I hate the target calling conundrum when one of these appears on field.</div>
<h4>
How do I counter it?</h4>
<div>
The Myrmidon is one of worst targets for electronic warfare that you are likely to run into in wormhole combat. Its damage is primarily applied through it's drones that are not affected by the host ship being jammed or dampened, and as little of its damage comes from turrets, it makes a poor choice for tracking disruption. An active tanked Myrmidon will have capacitor boosters mounted, and so energy neutralization will have little if any effect on it even if the fit is passive the weapons systems have a reasonable chance of being non-cap-dependent autocannons. My advice would be to attempt to burn it down with pure damage, and if it starts repairing itself, switch targets to something else unless you have <i>overwhelming </i>firepower.<br />
<br />
<i>Final note: If you encounter any inaccuracies on this page, please contact me ingame with an EVEMail to "Fellblade" or on twitter @OV_Fellblade and I'll try and get them sorted.</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-72714854804565765752014-06-19T01:08:00.000-07:002014-06-20T15:14:00.456-07:00Know Your Wormhole Enemy: CycloneIn the Know Your Wormhole Enemy series (name shamelessly stolen from the <a href="http://www.evealtruist.com/" target="_blank">Eve Altruist</a> series of posts and then mutilated) I'm going to look at a variety of different ships, how they are often fit and flown in wormhole space, and what they mean to you. This may include, but will not necessarily be limited to; example fits, engagement scenarios, how you should react to their presence on directional scan, at a POS or on grid, what good counters to them are, and how you can potentially use them.<br />
<br />
This post will cover the Cyclone.<br />
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<br />
<h4>
Overview</h4>
<div>
The Cyclone is a Minmatar Battlecruiser that has a bonus to Rate of Fire for Heavy Missile Launchers and Heavy Assault Missile Launchers - it should be noted that the bonus does not cover Rapid Light Missile Launchers - and a significant bonus to the effectiveness of shield boosters. It can field a single flight of medium drones or a flight of lights with another flight in reserve. <br />
<br />
Cyclones are always seen fielding a shield tank both in k-space and wormhole space - although they have sufficient low slots to mount a semblance of an armour tank, doing so ignores their shield boost bonus and sacrifices one of their other advantages - their speed. The Cyclone is the fastest Battlecruiser in the game and they will generally be fit to take advantage of that - they are faster vanilla than a Hurricane is with two Nanofibers!<br />
<br />
The Eve Altruist post covering the Cyclone and the other Battlecruisers can be found <a href="http://www.evealtruist.com/2011/09/know-your-enemy-battlecruisers.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br /></div>
<h4>
What is it used for in wormhole space?</h4>
<div>
Cyclones are rarely seen in wormhole space; for a PvP ship something with a better tank or better damage output is preferable, and for PvE usage the mighty Drake still remains the favourite as it's resistance bonus works very well with a passive recharge tank. As with the other Battlecruisers, the main time they are used in wormhole space is by pilots without the wallet or skill points required to fly Tech 3 ships for PvP, and will only be seen in shield or 'kitchen sink' fleets - but this is far from abnormal in lower class wormhole systems.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h4>
How is it typically fit?</h4>
<div>
For a Cyclone PvE it in wormhole space pilots need to decide between trying to use the active tanking bonus that the Cyclone provides and the tank stability under neut pressure that a passive recharge fit gives you. As there are no other Battlecruisers that are likely to be active shield tanked running sleeper sites, I'm going to use an active tanked example, although you are more likely to see a passive tanked one running sites in practice.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Cyclone, WH PvE]<br />
Ballistic Control System II<br />
Ballistic Control System II<br />
Damage Control II<br />
Ballistic Control System II<br />
Power Diagnostic System II<br />
<br />
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I<br />
Large Shield Booster II<br />
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II<br />
Cap Recharger II<br />
Cap Recharger II<br />
<br />
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Scourge Fury Heavy Missile<br />
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Scourge Fury Heavy Missile<br />
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Scourge Fury Heavy Missile<br />
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Scourge Fury Heavy Missile<br />
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Scourge Fury Heavy Missile<br />
Salvager II<br />
Core Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I<br />
<br />
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I<br />
Medium Core Defense Capacitor Safeguard I<br />
Medium Core Defense Capacitor Safeguard I</blockquote>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
There is almost certainly some room for improvement available in this fit, but it gets you 317dps at a range of around 47km using Scourge Fury Heavy Missiles and an active tank of 277dps... while the capacitor holds out. That capacitor will last for three minutes of constant boosting as long as you're not running the Microwarpdrive at the same time - but the reality of running sleeper sites is that you only need the maximum boost amount for a relatively short time during the site - the rest of the time the incoming DPS is reduced through sleepers being destroyed and passive recharge helps with shield levels to a degree.</div>
<div>
<br />
A passive fit with the rigs switched to Core Defense Field Extenders will give a 208dps omni tank with 61k EHP - not as strong as the Drake, and the damage isn't as high, but you can at least close range with the further off sleepers that spawn in some Class 1 and 2 sleeper sites.<br />
<br />
There is the possibility of fitting twin 425mm Autocannon IIs instead of the probe launcher and salvager, but with short range tech 1 ammunition they will only provide a rather paltry 64 dps on top of the launchers, increasing it to 381. I'd go for the utility instead.<br />
<br />
On with a sample PvP fit that is also active tanked:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Cyclone, WH PvP]<br />
Ballistic Control System II<br />
Ballistic Control System II<br />
Pseudoelectron Containment Field I<br />
Ballistic Control System II<br />
Co-Processor II<br />
<br />
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I<br />
X-Large Ancillary Shield Booster, Cap Booster 400<br />
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II<br />
Faint Warp Disruptor I<br />
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II<br />
<br />
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Nova Rage Heavy Assault Missile<br />
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Nova Rage Heavy Assault Missile<br />
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Nova Rage Heavy Assault Missile<br />
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Nova Rage Heavy Assault Missile<br />
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Nova Rage Heavy Assault Missile<br />
Medium Unstable Power Fluctuator I<br />
Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I<br />
<br />
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I<br />
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I<br />
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I</blockquote>
With a more limited engagement range and the use of Heavy Assault Missile Launchers the Cyclone can kick out 438dps to 17km with Rage missiles. Perhaps more significantly the lack of sleepers obsessively targetting drones means that a full flight of mediums can be fielded, jumping the damage to 567dps with Valkyrie IIs, or 596dps with Hammerhead IIs. If Rage missiles are substituted for Javelin missiles it can push out to 30km range but at the cost of the damage dropping to 292dps not inclusive of drones. With a pair of Adaptive Invulnerability Fields it ends up with 45k effective hit points with an extra 42k added by the Ancillary Shield Booster - assuming it manages to get all of it's charges off overheated. For smaller groups it's probably a good idea to switch an invulnerability field for a stasis webifier to help with damage application using the Heavy Assault Missiles, but for larger ones the extra tank is probably of more value.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h4>
How much of a threat is it?</h4>
<div>
<i>Running a site: </i>A Cyclone on a site is very unlikely to be bait - all of the mid slots are required to fit enough tank to survive sleeper sites in a class 2 system and don't leave any room free for a point... nor does it have enough spare tanking capacity to survive any form of attack on top of the sleeper NPCs for any length of time. The amount of damage it can kick out is also on the lower end of the scale, so virtually any Tech 3 ship - even those with the least tank and gank - should be able to take one on solo.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>As backup in a POS:</i></div>
<div>
If a Cyclone is sat idling, expect it to be an active shield Heavy Assault Missile fit as that is the most dangerous. Realistically, relatively few are seen in wormhole space although use as a second responder where it can loiter out of point range and pour in firepower is one of the more likely applications.<br />
<br />
<i>On the field in a fight:</i><br />
Any Cyclone in a fight is going to be able to apply its damage from outside of point range, and is likely to be relatively fast. Without long range web or fast tackle, running after a Cyclone is a good way to split up your fleet and other targets that you will be able to hold point on and apply damage against more effectively are likely to be better targets. Even if it looks like it is dying relatively fast, remember that it is likely to have an Ancillary Shield Booster fitted and at least half of it's tank is likely to come from boosting once it is near the end of its shield buffer - possible significantly more if it has links online, or the pilots has drugs or crystal implants available.<br />
<br />
Remember that against the low signature radius of armour ships that make up the majority of wormhole brawling fleets the on-paper damage output of the Cyclone may well be significantly reduced, pushing it further down the target priority list. On the other side of the coin, most PVP Cyclone fits will be using at least one medium and one small energy neutralize, and the high speed and good damage projection means that it can be a considerable risk to logistics ships if left unchecked.</div>
<h4>
How do I counter it?</h4>
<div>
The Cyclone will not be vulnerable to tracking disruption due to its weapon system of choice and has no real reliance on its capacitor... so it's probably not the best idea to be fielding Curses or Pilgrims against them. Like the other Battlecruisers, the Cyclone is a reasonable target for jams if there is nothing higher priority such as e-war or logistics ships on the field, but unlike the others it is actually a reasonable target for sensor dampener as they can force it to close in to point range. The best counter, similar to the Drake, is pure damage, particularly in a larger battle where it may be possible to overwhelm the tank provided by the Ancillary Shield Booster. <br />
<br />
<i>Final note: If you encounter any inaccuracies on this page, please contact me ingame with an EVEMail to "Fellblade" or on twitter @OV_Fellblade and I'll try and get them sorted.</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-54138385958196377432014-05-21T11:36:00.002-07:002014-05-21T11:36:48.819-07:00Finding Fights in Wormhole Space<h4>
Wormhole Space Population</h4>
Although the vast majority of class 1 and 2 wormhole systems and many class 3 wormhole systems are occupied, it can often be difficult to find potential targets in wormhole space. The relative scarcity of active pilots is due to a number of factors, from the way wormhole links work to the normal forms of combat in wormhole space.<br />
<br />
In wormhole space there is a very significant driver towards having corporations that are only active in a single time zone - trust. Because of the issues with security in player owned stations, it is typical for only pilots that have been thoroughly background checked to be let in and even after the background checking their movements and actions will be scrutinized by other corporation members for anything that is suspicious. This oversight is clearly not as easily applied when a new pilot is online at different times to those that are already present, so expanding a corporation into a new timezone can be a very risky proposition.<br />
<br />
Another limit on the number of pilots that are encountered is the nature of wormhole links and the space itself. Compare the speed of moving from one system to another between wormhole space and known space. In known space, you select a gate from the overview and you press 'jump'. You will warp to the gate and jump through it. In wormhole space, you need to launch probes and scan down a significant number of signatures to identify where the links are. Then you need to warp to the link and make a precise bookmark and (if you are being cautious) wait for the bookmark to show up for the rest of your corporation before jumping through the link, in case backup is needed.<br />
<br />
Not only is the time to move from system to system significantly higher, but the risk of doing so is higher as well - polarization timers and short kick-out ranges when jumping mean that a practiced group has a much better chance of managing to decloak covert ships than they would in known space.<br />
<br />
Yet another driver that encourages pilots to stay in the vicinity of their home system is the volatility of wormhole links; time limits are imprecise and encourage pilots not to jump through wormholes with less than 25% of their life left. Mass limits open up the very real possibility of a third party closing off the route home without any knowledge of a group that is out roaming - less of a problem for larger groups but a real risk for smaller wormhole corporations.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Getting Fights</h4>
It may sound obvious but in order to get fights in wormhole space you need potential targets to leave the relative safety of their POS forcefields (clearly this is ignoring sieging the POS as a way to generate a fight - generally beyond the capability of most small wormhole groups). The reason for leaving the POS can be generated by the players themselves due to their needs, or it can be generated by an external presence that they feel they have to respond to.<br />
<br />
Internal drivers for pilots to put themselves at risk are quite self explanatory;<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Doing planetary interaction for profit or POS fuel components</li>
<li>Hauling POS fuel / ice products in from known space</li>
<li>Hauling loot out to known space for sale</li>
<li>Scouting the wormhole chain</li>
<li>Running sites either in the home system or other systems in the chain</li>
</ul>
The challenge then becomes getting into position and intercepting the pilots without them realizing they are being hunted until it is to late.<br />
<br />
External drivers for pilots putting themselves at risk are simple in concept, but in practice is significantly more complex. You need to provide a compelling reason for them to abandon the safety of their POS force field and put their ship(s) into a combat situation; fundamentally you are trying to bait them into a fight.<br />
<br />
The correct bait for a group can be very hard to determine; what will cause one corporation to rally everyone into combat ships and engage will cause another to flee the system entirely. Killboard records can be very useful for building up a picture of what a corporation is likely to engage or not. Some key points to look for are:<br />
<ul>
<li>Look at their kills; do they try and pick off haulers and miners, or do they take engagements against combat ships?</li>
<li>If they lose scouts semi-regularly, they are probably fairly active in scouting their surrounding systems. Less obvious bait in an adjacent wormhole system may be more likely to attract their attention</li>
<li>Do they attack site running ships? Look for example kills on their killboard and look at what their favoured targets are, or what ships they've been burned by in the past that other groups have used as bait against them.</li>
<li>Do they avoid more robust targets like Tech 3 ships? </li>
</ul>
There's a significant degree of gut instinct on what should be used to tempt potential targets into the open. The only way to cultivate that instinct is to try it again and again, and try and work out <i>why</i> it works when it does, and <i>why</i> it doesn't when it doesn't. Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-72848681278697919542014-04-29T02:34:00.000-07:002014-04-29T03:05:00.318-07:00Strategic Scouting minor updateThe post on <a href="http://theexcession.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/strategic-scouting-in-wormhole-space.html" target="_blank">Strategic Scouting in Wormhole Space</a> has been updated to reflect the demise of http://wormhol.es and that http://wh.pasta.gg has taken up the mantle. A small section highlighting the alternatives to the all-in-one intel sites has also been added.<br />
<br />
If there are any additional aspects you'd like covered or have questions about, drop a comment on ones of the postsFellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-2412802255349243222014-04-24T14:47:00.000-07:002014-04-24T14:47:20.994-07:00Know Your Wormhole Enemy: HurricaneIn the Know Your Wormhole Enemy series (name shamelessly stolen from the <a href="http://www.evealtruist.com/" target="_blank">Eve Altruist</a> series of posts and then mutilated) I'm going to look at a variety of different ships, how they are often fit and flown in wormhole space, and what they mean to you. This may include, but will not necessarily be limited to; example fits, engagement scenarios, how you should react to their presence on directional scan, at a POS or on grid, what good counters to them are, and how you can potentially use them.<br />
<br />
This post will cover the Hurricane.<br />
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<br />
<h4>
Overview</h4>
<div>
The Hurricane is a Minmatar Battlecruiser that has bonuses to both Damage and Rate of Fire for Medium Projectile Turrets. This double damage bonus can result in some dangerously high dps figures with - thanks to the projectile turrets - selectable damage types. It can field a single flight of light drones. <br />
<br />
Hurricanes are seen often with both shield and armour tanks in known and wormhole-space thanks to both the slot layout and base hitpoint values being well balanced. They are one of the faster Battlecruisers around, although that takes a hit with the armour variants. Hurricanes will almost always be passively tanked, and their effective hit point totals will generally be around that of the Harbinger, and lower than that of the Brutix or Drake.<br />
<br />
The Eve Altruist post covering the Hurricane and the other Battlecruisers can be found <a href="http://www.evealtruist.com/2011/09/know-your-enemy-battlecruisers.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br /></div>
<h4>
What is it used for in wormhole space?</h4>
<div>
The Hurricane is used for both PvE and PvP in lower class wormhole systems. While they are far from the ideal PvE boat even for lower class wormholes, they can hold their own in class 1-2 systems and can run as part of a fleet in class 3 wormhole systems. As with the other Battlecruisers, they are often used by pilots without the wallet or skill points required to fly Tech 3 ships for PvP, and are seen in both shield and armour PvP fleets.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h4>
How is it typically fit?</h4>
<div>
There is no standard PvE fit for Hurricanes; they are significantly worse for running sites than Harbingers or Drakes and I would put them on par with the Brutix. As with the Brutix there is a damage application issue with the weapons systems that the Hurricane can use; Autocannons have excellent tracking but a relatively short range, and Artillery has excellent range but relatively poor tracking. A sample passive shield recharge Autocannon fit is below;<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Hurricane, PvE Passive Shield]<br />
Shield Power Relay II<br />
Shield Power Relay II<br />
Gyrostabilizer II<br />
Gyrostabilizer II<br />
Gyrostabilizer II<br />
Damage Control II<br />
<br />
Large Shield Extender II<br />
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I<br />
Large Shield Extender II<br />
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II<br />
<br />
425mm AutoCannon II, EMP M<br />
425mm AutoCannon II, EMP M<br />
425mm AutoCannon II, EMP M<br />
425mm AutoCannon II, EMP M<br />
425mm AutoCannon II, EMP M<br />
425mm AutoCannon II, EMP M<br />
Core Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I<br />
<br />
Medium Core Defense Field Purger I<br />
Medium Core Defense Field Purger I<br />
Medium Core Defense Field Purger I</blockquote>
The fit above can kick out ~520dps using vanilla EMP ammunition, excluding drones, but only out to a range of 1.5km. At 13.5km it will be much closer to 270dps - but it can close range at a reasonable 1.3km/s. The tank of 215dps omni is enough for Class 1 and 2 wormhole sites, but will struggle in Class 3's - even when running in a fleet the damage kicked out can mean that a shield Hurricane has to warp away repeatedly. The energy neutralizers fielded by the Sleeper NPCs can rapidly turn the shield hardeners off, as the Hurricane's capacitor recharge is crippled by the Shield Power Relays. Artillery fits are also viable, but suffer somewhat due to the lack of a tracking bonus on the Hurricane hull. Active armour tanks are also possible, but tend to kick out less damage, <i>and</i> tank less damage, <i>and</i> do it with an increased reliance on capacitor. So I wouldn't use them unless you don't have any other option. Expect site running Hurricanes to have a flight of ECM drones for a getaway.<br />
<br />
The PvP fit I'm going to show below is an armour example, for variety. If you convert the PvE fit above to a PvP fit you will need to:<br />
<ol>
<li>Swap out the Core Defense Field Purgers for Core Defense Field Extenders</li>
<li>Swap the Core Probe Launcher for a Medium Neut</li>
<li>Switch out two 425mm Autocannons for 220mm Autocannons</li>
<li>Swap the two Shield Power Relays for two Tracking Enhancers, or one and a Nanofiber</li>
</ol>
That will give you 587dps using Republic Fleet EMP M with really nice tracking and 1.4km/s when running MWD if you chose the Nanofiber option. With the maximum drone damage loadout the damage will peak at a shade off of 700dps - but the majority of the time the Hurricane will be in falloff and not living up to it's full potential. Note that my preferred fit for a PvP shield Hurricane in wormhole space does <i>not</i> include a point. This gives it an omni tank of about 60k EHP - the Hurricane is likely to be primaried fairly early on and it will find it hard to make use of the speed advantage over other Battlecruisers in wormhole systems. Rely on some friends bringing tackle with them, and ensure the Fleet Commander knows that you don't have any!<br />
<br />
On with a sample PvP armour fit:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Hurricane, PvP Armour]<br />1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I<br />Gyrostabilizer II<br />Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II<br />Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II<br />Gyrostabilizer II<br />Damage Control II<br /><br />10MN Microwarpdrive II<br />ECCM - Magnetometric II<br />Stasis Webifier II<br />Warp Scrambler II<br /><br />220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M<br />220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M<br />220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M<br />220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M<br />Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M<br />Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M<br />Medium Unstable Power Fluctuator I<br /><br />Medium Trimark Armor Pump I<br />Medium Trimark Armor Pump I<br />Medium Trimark Armor Pump I<br /><br />Hammerhead II x1<br />Hobgoblin II x4<br /></blockquote>
The fit above has a tonne of different options available to tweak it, but the headline figures are 609dps including a full flight of damage drones, a 68k EHP tank, and a top speed of just over 1km/s. You can easily drop one or both Gyrostabilizers for more tank, possibly going for hardeners instead of energized plating, but that does take away one rather significant advantage that this ship has going for it - it has an entirely passive tank and weapons that use no capacitor either. The only modules that use any capacitor are the midslots and if you are worried about being under heavy energy neutralizer pressure, you can always switch the Medium Neutralizer for a Medium Nosferatu. If it's being used for bait in a PvP engagement the size of the guns can be dropped a size, the medium Neut dropped a size, and double plating put on for a surprisingly large EHP total.<br />
<br />
The ECCM in the mid-slots can be switched for any other electronic warfare module that you might find useful, giving the 'cane quite a bit of flexibility. If you're going heavy on tank and using active hardeners it may well be worth switching the ECCM for a capacitor booster.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h4>
How much of a threat is it?</h4>
<div>
<i>Running a site: </i>Site running Hurricanes should not be regarded as a significant threat, and are almost certainly not bait. The number of slots they have to dedicate to get a reasonable shield tank precludes having any tackle, and unlike a Drake they cannot make do with Core Defense Field Extenders in their rig slots - they need to use Core Defense Field Purgers to increase the passive recharge and so have significantly lower total EHP. If the Hurricane is using an active armour fit for site running it similarly won't have the total EHP to be bait, and will easily be neuted out and killed.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>As backup in a POS:</i></div>
<div>
The Hurricane is a good backup ship for PvP in wormhole space. Inexpensive enough to be thrown away if needed, and the pilot can make a good guess as to damage type while in warp to the location of the combat - so there's a decent chance it will be your resistance hole that will be being hit when it arrives. If there's a manned Hurricane sat at a player owned station in a lower-class wormhole system, it's even odds as to whether it's PvP fit or not - and that won't necessarily govern whether it comes to assist with any fight or not.<br />
<br />
<i>On the field in a fight:</i><br />
The Hurricane with Autocannons has a deficit in pure DPS compared to a Brutix with Blasters, but that is offset by better tracking, better damage projection and selectable damage types. In my experience the Brutix is probably a more important target than an armour Hurricane if logistics are on the field and targets are taking a while to die, as it can travel to closer range and then apply it's damage. In a fight where logistics is not present and targets are dying quickly, or where the action is spread over a slightly larger range, the Hurricane will generally be the better target.</div>
<h4>
How do I counter it?</h4>
<div>
In it's PvP armour fit the Hurricane is less susceptible to both capacitor warfare and tracking disruption than the Brutix or Harbinger, so the Gallente and Amarr Battlecruisers are better targets for those particular e-war types. Shield fits can have their hardeners shut off with energy neutralizer pressure, so a may still be a viable target for neuts if you suspect it is shield fit. Pure damage is the most effective way of dealing with the Hurricane; it's often a good idea to put a bit of fire onto a Hurricane to see how it's shield holds up; if any shield tank is present, it's a good primary target as it will be kicking out significantly more damage than the armour variant, with a significantly weaker tank. Drawing it into the fight by switching sides of a wormhole link is also a good way to get it into a position where it's Autocannons will have their range advantage over Blasters reduced.<br />
<br />
<i>Final note: If you encounter any inaccuracies on this page, please contact me ingame with an EVEMail to "Fellblade" or on twitter @OV_Fellblade and I'll try and get them sorted.</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
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Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-57506686436338626272014-04-13T09:10:00.000-07:002014-04-13T09:10:28.898-07:00Tactical Scouting in Wormhole SpaceThis post will be looking at scouting for targets in wormhole space; it will<i> not</i> be looking at whether engaging those targets is a good idea or not, but at the mechanics of how to find them and get into a position to attack them.<br />
<br />
<h4>
On entering a new system</h4>
<div>
After entering a new system and bookmarking the way out, a scout should hold their jump cloak and do a directional scan. The d-scan results need to be assessed quickly and some key pieces of information gathered from them:<br />
<ul>
<li>Are there any player owned stations? If so, are they active</li>
<li>Are there wrecks present? If so, someone is either currently running or has just finished running sites in the wormhole</li>
<li>Are there ships present?</li>
</ul>
<div>
If there are no ships visible, the scout should immediately break their jump cloak and turn on their normal cloak; this ensures that if any ships get into range afterwards they won't have a chance of catching the scout on their directional scanner. Prior to launching any probes, the scout should check if the system has celestial bodies or sites outside of directional scan range, and if so warp around them system and verify that there are no ships present there.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If there are no ships active in the system, then it's on with the task of scanning out any further links or sites of interest. If there <i>are</i> ships active, then it's time to work out where they are in the system. There are a loose set of rules for quickly identifying where ships are likely to be given their type and other:<br />
<ul>
<li>If wrecks are on scan, someone has been running a site. Use directional scan on the solar system map or in the world using the system sensor overlay to determine which site the wrecks are at. If the wrecks are at a position that is <i>not</i> co-incident with a cosmic anomaly, scan probes will be needed to find it - if the site still exists. This will be covered in more detail in the 'Finding targets at a cosmic signature' section.</li>
<li>If a mobile tractor unit is on d-scan someone will have been, and may still be, running a site - even if there aren't wrecks visible. Many people will use a mobile tractor unit to collate wrecks to salvage while they orbit it and kill sleepers with longer ranged weapons.</li>
<li>If there are any Mining Barges or Ventures on directional scan, use a narrow-band scan to verify whether they are at any ore sites.</li>
<li>Use directional scan towards planets and moons to pin point the position of hostile player owned stations, and verify if there are any ships at them.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
With some practice (and assuming a reasonable number of signatures) it is perfectly feasible to do this all within the 60-second limit imposed by the jump cloak timer. Bear in mind that the spawning of the inbound wormhole into the system may well have alerted the people inside the system.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h4>
Finding targets at a cosmic signature</h4>
<div>
The harder part of finding targets is when they are at a de-spawned site, or at a cosmic anomaly. If the site that the targets are at has de-spawned, combat probes will be needed to scan down their location by getting a hit on the ships in question. If the targets are at a cosmic signature, core probes can be used to identify their location. In either case, the key is to have your probes visible on directional scan for as short a period as possible.<br />
<br />
The best way of having your probes on directional scan for as short a time as possible is to identify the position of the targets without having your probes out at all. Use the directional scanner to identify their position in space, progressively narrowing the angle and altering the range to get a solid fix on their position. It can help to warp to multiple places in the system to help triangulate the target's location. When you think you have a reasonable fix, hit the 'scan' button, and hopefully you'll have a solid hit on the target's location in the first pass. Time taken to verify the target's position before hitting the scan button is well invested; if two (or three) scans with probes are needed to narrow down the target's position, they will most likely be long gone. As soon as you have a fix on the signature the targets are at or one of their ships, either warp the probes out of directional scan range in the system, recall them, or self destruct them.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h4>
Getting eyes on the targets</h4>
Once targets have been found the safest way to get into a position to attack them is to warp the signature of the site or ship at 100km. This will not be in warp range, as it will be too close, but you can bookmark the position 100km off, then warp back to your original position and warp to you 100km bookmark at 100km. This should easily put you beyond the minimum warpable distance - 150km - and allow you to select a location to warp to in order to end up in point range of the target. Wrecks make excellent warp destinations, especially if the target in question is salvaging as they go - although it should be noted that you cannot warp to a wreck that currently has a tractor beam active on it.<br />
<div>
<br />
And now you get to find out whether that target is a trap or not!</div>
Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-46757093116995820612014-04-03T13:27:00.000-07:002014-04-03T13:30:11.445-07:00Know Your Wormhole Enemy: BrutixIn the Know Your Wormhole Enemy series (name shamelessly stolen from the <a href="http://www.evealtruist.com/" target="_blank">Eve Altruist</a> series of posts and then mutilated) I'm going to look at a variety of different ships, how they are often fit and flown in wormhole space, and what they mean to you. This may include, but will not necessarily be limited to; example fits, engagement scenarios, how you should react to their presence on directional scan, at a POS or on grid, what good counters to them are, and how you can potentially use them.<br />
<br />
This post will cover the Brutix.<br />
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<br />
<h4>
Overview</h4>
<div>
The Brutix is a Gallante Battlecruiser that has bonuses to Medium Hybrid Turret damage and the amount replenished by Armour Repairers. The bonus to active armour tanking means that despite the disadvantages that armour tanked ships have in lower-class wormhole combat sites, the Brutix can manage them reasonably well. Although its tanking bonus only applies to active tanking, the Brutix is often used with a buffer tank for PvP. The majority of the Brutix's damage is applied at point blank range with Blasters, but it is capable of fielding a full flight of medium drones, which improves damage application a little and adds significantly to the headline DPS figures.<br />
<br />
Shield tanked Brutixes are occasionally seen in wormhole space (as in known space) and although their tank is lackluster to say the most, the damage they can kick out ranges from "very very high" to "terrifying".<br />
<br />
The Eve Altruist post covering the Brutix and the other Battlecruisers can be found <a href="http://www.evealtruist.com/2011/09/know-your-enemy-battlecruisers.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br /></div>
<h4>
What is it used for in wormhole space?</h4>
<div>
The Brutix is a mainstay of PvP armour fleets in lower-class wormholes, used for brawling at point blank ranges. It doesn't have the staying power of a Tech III Strategic Cruiser, but can match the firepower of a Proteus and will cost around a fifth of the price. For newer pilots with lower skill point totals or limited wallets the Brutix is a fantastic stepping stone towards the Proteus. It handles in a similar fashion to its more capable brethren and allows a pilot to get used to the limitations of hybrid weaponry and managing their position in a fight without putting as much on the line.</div>
<div>
<br />
Similar to the Harbinger and most of the other Battlecruisers, the Brutix is capable of running combat sites in class 1 and 2 wormholes and can run sites in class 3 wormholes alongside a fleet. The issues with active armour tanking for site running in wormhole space hold true for the Brutix as they <a href="http://theexcession.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/know-your-wormhole-enemy-harbinger.html" target="_blank">did for the Harbinger</a>. Also similar to the Harbinger, the Brutix can be used for harvesting gas sites after clearing them of Sleepers.<br />
<br /></div>
<h4>
How is it typically fit?</h4>
<div>
There is no real 'standard' PvE fit for Brutixes; I have come across both Blaster and Railgun fit site runners. Both have significant downsides - an example Railgun fit is provided below:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Brutix, PvE]<br />
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II<br />
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II<br />
Damage Control II<br />
Medium Armor Repairer II<br />
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II<br />
Tracking Enhancer II<br />
<br />
Experimental 10MN Afterburner I<br />
Cap Recharger II<br />
Cap Recharger II<br />
Stasis Webifier II<br />
<br />
Coreli A-Type Small Remote Armor Repairer<br />
250mm Railgun II, Antimatter Charge M<br />
250mm Railgun II, Antimatter Charge M<br />
250mm Railgun II, Antimatter Charge M<br />
250mm Railgun II, Antimatter Charge M<br />
250mm Railgun II, Antimatter Charge M<br />
250mm Railgun II, Antimatter Charge M<br />
<br />
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I<br />
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I<br />
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I<br />
<br />
Warrior II x5<br />
Hornet EC-300 x5</blockquote>
The problem with site running Brutixes is that neither Railguns or Blasters are a very good match for the varied target profiles that Sleepers provide compared to the Pulse Lasers that Harbingers can field. Railguns have the range necessary to engage the sleepers without too much time spent burning around the site and alongside the warriors kick out around 500dps, but the tracking on them is sub-par and thus the sleeper frigates can be problematic to engage. To clear the frigates out in any reasonable time frame, drones are required - but sleeper AI has a tendency to prioritize drones, especially when only a single ship is running the site. That's why the fit packs a remote armour repairer - because otherwise you're going to be going through a <i>lot</i> of Warrior IIs. An additional problem with the Railgun fit Brutix is that if you are engaged while you are running a site, there is a very good chance you won't be able to land <i>any </i>fire on your attackers as long as they orbit you at reasonably close range. Just as well you have some EC-300s to try and land a jam...<br />
<br />
Blaster fit Brutixes have a different problem; the tracking is good enough that the extra 50 or so dps that they buy you will actually be applied... but only when you're within range. and the effective range is about 2-8km. That means a <i>lot</i> of burning around, and that means getting a Micro Warp Drive fit and accepting the capacitor penalty associated with it. In contrast to the Railgun fit, an unwary attacker that drops on a Blaster-fit Brutix could end up with a fairly bloodied nose. One caveat is that if you decide to forgo the two sets of light drones and go for either medium ECM or damage drones, you will be vulnerable to being pinned down by Stealth Bombers at long point range. Even with the sets of light drones, it's advisable to pack some Null M to allow you to <i>try </i>and get <i>some </i>damage out to around 20km.<br />
<br />
A typical Brutix set up for PvP will be buffer fit;<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Brutix, Armour Brawler]<br />
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II<br />
1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates II<br />
Damage Control II<br />
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II<br />
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II<br />
Energized Explosive Membrane II<br />
<br />
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I<br />
Warp Scrambler II<br />
Stasis Webifier II<br />
ECCM - Magnetometric II<br />
<br />
Small Nosferatu II<br />
Heavy Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M<br />
Heavy Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M<br />
Heavy Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M<br />
Heavy Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M<br />
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M<br />
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M<br />
<br />
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I<br />
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I<br />
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I<br />
<br />
Hammerhead II x5</blockquote>
The above fit needs a +1% power grid implant to fit; alternatively one of the Ion Blasters can be demoted to an Electron Blaster, or the Tech II 1600mm plating can be exchanged for a 1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I. Including drones it kicks out a respectable 680dps with Caldari Navy Antimatter; if you care about the numbers rather than the actual applied damage you can sacrifice the tracking and put Void in for just under 730dps. The tank is a respectable 82k omni with a flat resist profile of 67-72%.<br />
<br />
The ECCM in the midslot can be switched for alternative electronic warfare modules as desired, and the tackle can be changed up as the situation calls for. Dropping a Cap Booster into the midslots is also a completely reasonable option as it will lessen the vulnerability to capacitor warfare.<br />
<br />
When flying it significant care needs to be taken to ensure that you are inside the narrow band of effective ranges for its blasters</div>
<div>
<br />
<br /></div>
<h4>
How much of a threat is it?</h4>
<div>
<i>Running a site: </i>A Brutix running a site is not a massive threat; it should be easy to identify whether it is Blaster or Railgun fit and then the suitable range to engage it at can be selected. The tank is borderline for class 2 system combat sites and 400dps or so should be enough to push it over the edge. Expect ECM drones to be present.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>As backup in a POS:</i></div>
<div>
The Brutix is one of the more dangerous Battlecruisers as a second responder; it can be warped into the fight at a position to do the most damage and with enough forewarning can have ewar suited to the fight it is ploughing into. A bubble being present around the fight can draw it out of warp into a less favorable position and force it to take some time to manoeuvre so it can apply its damage.<br />
<br />
<i>On the field in a fight:</i><br />
The damage that a Brutix kicks out is significant - particularly if it is a shield Brutix - but short ranged. Although the damage is high and there is the potential for electronic warfare to be fielded by them, the substantial tank on armour variants means that they will rarely be the primary target if there are other Battlecruisers on the field. If there are targets with a higher firepower to tank ratio than the Brutix, they will clearly be a better target and if the Brutix's firepower can be mitigated by a faster fleet keeping out of range they can be knocked further down the target priority list.</div>
<div>
<br />
<br /></div>
<h4>
How do I counter it?</h4>
<div>
The Brutix has short range weapons, and so simply staying away from it as much as possible goes a long way to mitigating it's damage. If you have any long range webs on the field these can be used to hold a Brutix at arm's reach and prevent it from applying its formidable dps effectively. Blasters don't have the best tracking so if there are relatively few hostile webs on the field applying a Tracking Disruptor with a Tracking Script can mitigate some of the damage. Failing that Tracking Disruptors with Range Scripts can reduce the already poor damage projection of Blasters to 'terrible'.<br />
<br />
Energy Neutralizers and ECM will have varying effectiveness according to what the Brutix has fit in its mid slots. Pay attention to the visual effects and any applied electronic warfare coming from the Brutix during the fight and apply your own ewar to taste.<br />
<br />
Although the Brutix's total EHP is good and the resistance profile is flat the resistances aren't ridiculously high, so it won't hold up under logistics repairs as well as Tech II or Tech III hulls.<br />
<br />
<i>Final note: If you encounter any inaccuracies on this page, please contact me ingame with an EVEMail to "Fellblade" or on twitter @OV_Fellblade and I'll try and get them sorted.</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-73847692096419838492014-04-01T04:13:00.000-07:002014-04-01T04:13:13.247-07:00Skilling Up for Wormhole LifeOur corporation is not adverse to recruiting players with what most people would consider a low number of skill points - although our recruitment is very selective. As a result we're often in a position where a relatively new player is asking what they should be training next - or first - for wormhole life. And so we've come up with a fairly standard process to identify what new pilots should train for in order to be able to take part in corporation activities - both PvE and PvP.<br />
<br />
<h4>
The Basics</h4>
<div>
There's a core set of skills that anyone living in a wormhole needs - scanning skills that give you the fundamental ability to find your way around. For a very new player a covert ops scanning frigate is probably not the best thing to immediately train for. The ability to do some basic scouting but take part in other corporate operations or otherwise experience the variety of activities in wormhole space will do more to engage a new player than allowing them to simply find their way around a bit better.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Astrometrics IV</li>
<li>Astrometric Rangefinding III</li>
<li>Astrometric Pinpointing III</li>
<li>Astrometric Acquisition III</li>
<li>Racial Frigate IV</li>
<li>Cloaking I</li>
</ul>
<div>
This set of skills will allow a Tech I probing frigate to be used, cloaked, and scan quickly enough that it isn't an overly painful chore.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h4>
The Rest</h4>
<div>
The next set of skills is determined by what the corporation tends to fly - or is intending to fly, if they are newly moving into wormholes. Corporations that are aiming to be half way competent in PvP should generally have a mainstay fleet that is either armour or shield based. In lower class wormholes a shield-based fleet is often used as that is what is used for site running. Because newer pilots in lower class wormholes and the skill points per pilot is generally lower. In higher-class wormholes this will tend to be armour based as armour tanking tends to lend itself to the close range brawling engagements that characterize wormhole space fights, as noted in my posts <a href="http://theexcession.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-effect-of-wormhole-environment-on.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://theexcession.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-effects-of-w-space-system.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Wherever possible players should look to train skills that give the biggest "bang for buck" - enabling more ships and playstyles or improving their abilities in multiple ships and playstyles. To give some concrete examples:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>If the corporation is based in a Class 2 wormhole system and uses shield fleets for PvP, training towards a Drake is probably a good choice. It will allow the pilot to run the combat sites in the home system, and will give them a <a href="http://theexcession.blogspot.com/2014/03/know-your-wormhole-enemy-drake.html" target="_blank">platform with a solid tank and good damage projection</a> to use in PvP.</li>
<ul>
<li>Once missile and shield tank skills are trained to a reasonable degree of competence, training into Hybrid Turrets allows the pilot to leverage the existing skills to usefully fly a Ferox.</li>
<li>The addition of Gallente Battlecruiser skills will then allow the pilot to fly a reasonable shield Brutix as they already have the weapons systems and tanking skills trained.</li>
<li>The addition of Minmatar Battlecruiser allows the pilot to fly the Cyclone, leveraging the existing shield and missile skills</li>
</ul>
<li>If the corporation is based in a Class 2 wormhole system and uses armour fleets for PvP, training towards a Brutix or Harbinger is probably a good choice. Although they cannot run combat sites in a class 2 system as easily or cost effectively as a Drake, they can do so - and skills that improve their effectiveness will help both PvE site running and PvP</li>
<ul>
<li>Training gunnery support skills allows fairly rapid cross training into other race's Battlecruisers as the support skills are (for the most part) shared between all three weapons systems</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<div>
Another potential option that should probably be looked at is the Gnosis Battlecruiser. Although this limited edition ship is significantly more expensive than other Battlecruisers, it provides a flat bonus to all weapons systems that is equivalent to level V skills for any other race-specific Battlecruiser. It also provides significant bonuses to scanning.<br />
<br />
When the pilot wants to start instigating fights in wormholes instead of providing second responder ships, stealth bombers are a good first step - and skills that go towards stealth bombers open up tech II scouting ships, meaning probing is faster and safer.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Getting something a little more durable for instigating fights and providing tackle means looking either at Tech III strategic cruisers or a Stratios. Both are expensive, and the Stratios requires Amarr and Gallente Battlecruiser skills, which may be a significant cross-train if the pilot is currently skilled for flying the Drake. </div>
Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-21175447552054846052014-03-26T13:42:00.001-07:002014-03-26T14:00:29.639-07:00The Discovery Scanner, Probing and K162sThis is the first post on <i>The Excession</i> that is going to cover current news; some potential changes to wormhole that are currently being discussed by CCP Fozzie <a href="https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=331782" target="_blank">here</a>. Firstly, however, a brief history of recent probing changes is probably in order.<br />
<br />
<h4>
In The Beginning - The Past</h4>
Prior to <i>Odyssey</i> expansion, all ships were equipped with a system scanner. This displayed all cosmic anomalies in a system to all ships that entered it - within wormholes this meant that only combat sites were immediately visible when a ship entered a new system. In order to determine if any cosmic signatures were present, probes needed to be launched and a scan started. At this point all ore, gas, relic, data sites and wormholes were all cosmic signatures and needed to be scanned before their presence was known and pin pointed before they could be warped to.<br />
<br />
Because signatures weren't known about without probes out, if groups were running any non-combat operations in their system, such as running sleeper sites or mining ore or gas, they would often station a scout with probes out. The scout's job was to scan, repeatedly, looking for a new signature that indicated a hostile force rolling their static wormhole and opening a connection into the system. It was a dull job, and took a pilot and attention away from shooting sleepers, or harvesting ore. So a significant percentage of people decided to be a little riskier and forgo a scout, trying to maximize their profits or avoid the menial task.<br />
<br />
Although playing as a scout providing overwatch for your teammates was not the most thrilling gameplay, it was a choice that you could make. You could avoid doing it at all, or you could put a probe launcher on a site-running ship and scan occasionally, or you could have a pilot dedicated to it.<br />
<br />
Even if you didn't have someone providing overwatch, if you were mining or gas harvesting you could use your directional scanner to keep tabs on the system; if you suddenly saw probes launched, you had some idea that people could be looking for you. Catching a miner in an ore site meant they had to miss your probes being launched and zeroing in on their position, but the relative safety of being in a site that needed to scan down meant that miners were relatively plentiful.<br />
<br />
<h4>
The Discovery Scanner - The Current</h4>
The system scanner was replaced with the discovery scanner in the <i>Odyssey </i>expansion and with it a significant change to probing. All anomalies and signatures now appear on the system scanner, although probes are required to lock down the precise position of cosmic signatures. Ore sites have become cosmic anomalies, so they are immediately visible on the discovery scanner and can be warped to with no further interaction.<br />
<br />
The key effect for PvP in wormhole space was that new wormhole links opening into a wormhole system appeared immediately on the discovery scanner panel, with no probes needed. Once the signatures in a system have been scanned down, probes are no longer required to monitor for inbound connections spawning. Any PvP groups "rolling" their static link and having it open into a wormhole system with active players now has its presence instantly broadcast to everyone.<br />
<br />
From my personal experience this has had a significant impact on how hunting in wormhole chains happens; it is now much more focused on exploring already-available links, even if the chain of wormhole systems gets very long. The days of repeatedly rolling your static wormhole link looking for a group that is running sites are over - the appearance of the new signature in a system causes anyone running sites or otherwise out and about in the system to scarper and cloak up.<br />
<br />
The number of pilots mining in ore sites in wormhole systems has plummeted, however; although it's easier to see a new inbound, anyone already in the system or anyone entering via an existing link no longer needs to launch probes in order to scan down ore sites. Mining barges with their relatively high align time and low tank are easy prey - a great deal of mining now occurs in Ventures.<br />
<br />
<h4>
The Proposal - The Future?</h4>
CCP Fozzie's proposal that he is sourcing comment on is to change inbound wormholes so that they do not appear on the discovery scanner <i>or</i> scan probe results for some amount of time after spawning. And I think this is a Bad Idea™.<br />
<ul>
<li>Site running in wormholes will become massively unsafe, and with no reliable way to mitigate that lack of safety. The only way to identify a new signature appearing would be when ships transit through it, and hoping that you manage to catch them on a combat probe or directional scan when they not cloaked <i>and</i> in range. In large systems this would make it virtually impossible to run any sites without hostiles being able to enter the system entirely unknown to you. While this might be viable for larger wormhole groups occupying class 5-6 wormhole systems and making a huge amount of money from escalations, smaller groups occupying lower tiers of wormhole systems would struggle to break even, let alone make enough ISK to justify the massive risk they would be putting themselves into. This will result in a lot of the more casual groups leaving wormhole space and a lot of newer groups being knocked out with horrible losses within a short time of moving in. </li>
<li>Although I cannot take credit for realizing this (that goes to Sith1s Spectre of Sky Fighters in his post <a href="https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4391247#post4391247" target="_blank">here</a>) putting capital ships into another corporations wormhole in class 5-6 wormhole space will become significantly easier. Three capital ships will crash a wormhole immediately due to mass limitations, and so there is a good chance that the inhabitants of a wormhole system won't know a link into their system ever spawned - it will simply vanish before it ever showed up on scan results, but they will now have hostile capital ships within their system.</li>
<li>Groups cycling a wormhole link by putting mass through it (rolling the hole) can carry it out in almost complete safety. I have had significant success in disrupting groups that are trying to roll wormholes that have linked into our home system, and some good fights have come of it.</li>
</ul>
The key concern is that removing inbound links from the discovery scanner or probe results means there is no defensive mechanism that can be employed against hole rolling or links randomly opening into a system. And that simply isn't good gameplay.<br />
<br />
<br />Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-62595090072123028692014-03-22T13:37:00.000-07:002014-04-29T02:29:44.071-07:00Strategic Scouting in Wormhole SpaceThis post will be looking at gathering
intelligence on possible targets in wormhole space, which is complicated by cloaked ships and a
lack of the 'local' channel. This post will <i>not</i> cover the ins and
outs of probing mechanics and hunting target ships in wormhole space
systems; that will be left for another, later post <br />
<br />
<h3>
Why is gathering intelligence important?</h3>
Gathering intelligence
about potential hostile forces lets you know what you are likely
committing to when you are starting an engagement. It can guide your
force composition and how you go about engaging the enemy to draw more
enemy forces in or avoid taking losses.<br />
<br />
It's
particularly important in wormhole space because who your opponents are
is non-obvious. Because of the lack of pilots in the local channel there may be precious few clues as to who inhabits a system. A large
percentage of the pilots that are in wormhole space will be cloaked, so
direct observation of (at least parts of) hostile forces is impossible
and you instead need to infer the likely presence of hostiles in the
system.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Does everyone in wormhole space do this?</h3>
No. There are many
groups, especially in higher-class wormholes, that will engage almost
regardless of odds and often with minimal or no scouting. The massive
jump in income between C1-4 and C5-6 wormholes is certainly a factor in
this; although people living in lower-class wormhole systems are rarely
too low on ISK they are no-where near as free to throw expensive ships
away at a whim. Even in lower-class wormhole systems there are some
groups that will be much more aggressive about engaging with little
intelligence on their potential targets; there is nothing wrong with
doing so - it is just not my style of play or the style of play that
this blog is about.<br />
<br />
<h2>
How do you gather intel in wormhole space?</h2>
<br />
<h3>
Gather what intelligence you can from d-scan</h3>
<div>
Data from the
directional scanner is the first thing you are likely to get from a
scout when they enter a target system, and although it seems elementary,
there are many important pieces of information that you can get from
it. Tactical information such as wrecks showing that potential targets
that are running sites and the like will be covered in a later post on
tactical scouting.</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><b>The nomenclature and consistency of nomenclature of any ships.</b> Many
well known wormhole corporations use consistent sets of symbols in
front of their ship names so they can readily identify themselves on
directional-scanner, and hostile ships in the system stand out more. You
can use this to your advantage if you keep track of which groups use
which symbols. Multiple different sets of symbols in front of ship names
means that there may be multiple different groups in the system.</li>
<li><b>The number of active and inactive player owned stations. </b>If a
corporation has a large number of active stations in the system, they
are likely well funded with a large number of active pilots, and have a
reasonable internal security system to prevent corporation thefts. Some
groups will put an active or inactive tower on every moon in a system,
preventing any potential invading forces from anchoring their own tower
for invasion without taking down one of the inhabitants' towers. This
tends to suggest careful planning and a paranoid outlook.</li>
<li><b>The names of capsules or ships</b>. Often pilots leave their capsules (and sometimes ships) with default names - if anyone has been sufficiently careless, this can get you a pilot name and associated corporation</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<h3>
Look at Player Owned Customs Offices (POCOs)</h3>
You can right click on a POCO and select 'Show Info' regardless of range. This <i>reasonably </i>often will provide you with information about the inhabitants of a system. Be aware that some wormhole groups will use an unaffiliated holding corp to own the POCOs.</div>
<br />
<h3>
Use out of game tools</h3>
The tool at <b>http://wh.pasta.gg/</b> that was formerly hosted at <b>http://wormhol.es </b>is the single most useful site for providing information on the likely inhabitants of a system by analyzing killboard information. It also provides information about recent NPC, pilot and pod kills in the system and data about whether capital ships have been deployed in combat there or not. Known inaccuracies include an issue where systems that are unpopulated or populated with relatively inactive pilots may show up as being occupied by another group if that second group has had a number of kills in the system over a couple of months.<br />
<br />
<b>http://staticmapper.com</b> is a alternative source of information about the system itself, and <b>http://zkillboard.com</b> can be used to try and manually identify the system's inhabitants if you suspect that the data on <b>http://wh.pasta.gg </b>is incorrect<br />
<br />
<h3>
Identifying if you want a fight and how to get one</h3>
<div>
The main tool from here on out will be <b>http://zkillboard.com</b> to look at the kills and deaths of the group in question. Killboard data and some intuition can allow you to identify whether they are a force you are likely to be able to engage, what the best way of getting that engagement is likely to be and what good force compositions may be to win the fight.</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Look for kills that the corporation(s) have taken part in; do they typically field a composition that you are capable of countering, or at least matching? If they prey on lone Drakes and field a triplet of Falcons as backup when they do so, trying to provoke an engagement when you only have two pilots available may not be a good plan.</li>
<li>When working out whether you have enough forces available to take a fight against a group, pay attention to the <i>times</i> that their kills and losses occur. Try and draw correlations between the time and the number of pilots that are on kill mails - can you identify their peak playing times, and if so, use that information when assessing how many pilots they are likely to field.</li>
<li>If they tend to use non-cloaked ships when fighting, and you cannot see any idling at their POS, there is a reasonable chance that they don't have too many ships available as backup.</li>
<li>On the other hand, if they regularly field cloaked ships, bank on there being more hostile ships present than you can see on your directional scanner.</li>
<li>If they field a relatively small number of pilots it may be viable to add them to your contacts watch list to identify how many of them are online. Of course, more pilots can always log on later.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Once you've worked out whether you think you can take an engagement with a particular group (and assuming that you can), you need to work out how to trigger the engagement. Killboard information as well as general corp information can provide you with some pointers in this respect.</div>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>If the corporation's kills are low or made up of primarily engagements against ships that are running sites in their home system, running sites with a bait ship may well draw them out.</li>
<li>If the corporation looks a little more circumspect about engaging bait ships but aren't a full blown PvP corporation, you may need to try more subtle baiting behaviours. A later post on The Excession will cover baiting and taking bait in detail.</li>
<li>If the corporation is a PvP focused group then much less overtly bait-orientated movements will likely draw their attention - they are looking for a fight.</li>
</ul>
<div>
The last part is the simplest; look at what they generally use on their killboard and ensure that you have counters to the ships they usually field. If they use Curses, make sure you have some missile based ships with passive tanks to avoid the effects of tracking disruptors and energy neutralization. If they like their Falcons then slap ECCM on a couple of your longer ranged ships.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It is generally not a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket and go all out on hard counters to the ships that a group normally brings, simply because if they <i>don't</i> bring those ships, you have a reasonable chance of looking like an idiot and then dying in a fire.</div>
<h3>
</h3>
Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-55335733152675599352014-03-19T11:01:00.001-07:002014-03-19T11:01:18.003-07:00Know Your Wormhole Enemy: HarbingerIn the Know Your Wormhole Enemy series (name shamelessly stolen from the <a href="http://www.evealtruist.com/" target="_blank">Eve Altruist</a> series
of posts and then mutilated) I'm going to look at a variety of
different ships, how they are often fit and flown in wormhole space, and
what they mean to you. This may include, but will not necessarily be
limited to; example fits, engagement scenarios, how you should react to
their presence on directional scan, at a POS or on grid, what good
counters to them are, and how you can potentially use them.<br />
<br />
This post will cover the Harbinger.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<h4>
Overview</h4>
<div>
The Harbinger is an Amarr battlecruiser that is based around using medium energy turrets to apply damage; it has bonuses to the amount of damage that medium energy turrets produce and the capacitor taken to power them. The Harbinger can field a flight of medium drones to complement its turrets and energy weapons allowing it to project damage reasonably well out to long point range (24km or thereabouts). Shield tanked Harbingers are sometimes used in k-space where they can take advantage of higher speed and mitigate the penalty of lower effective hitpoints but the close range engagements in w-space mean that they are almost always fit with an armour tank.<br />
<br />
The Eve Altruist post covering the Harbinger and the other battlecruisers can be found <a href="http://www.evealtruist.com/2011/09/know-your-enemy-battlecruisers.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
<h4>
What is it used for in wormhole space?</h4>
<div>
The Harbinger is seen relatively rarely in wormhole space; it is most typically used in PvP armour fleets. The ability of energy turrets to instantly project damage to significantly longer ranges than blaster weapons can be extremely useful to gangs, allowing targets to be hit at around 30km - ideal for picking off Stealth Bombers that might otherwise be hard to quickly force off the field. Although a Legion or Zealot may outperform the Harbinger in this role, the Harbinger is significantly cheaper and has significantly lower skill requirements.<br />
<br />
Harbingers can be used for running combat sites in Class 1-3 wormholes, though they need a fleet with them in Class 3 systems as they don't have the tank for sustained engagements. In general armour tanks perform more poorly than shield tanks for running combat sites in wormhole systems; the larger a shield tank is made, the more significant the passive recharge becomes. This means that increasing the buffer on a shield tank makes it not only take longer to work through due to the raw hit-point advantage, but a significant portion of the incoming fire is mitigated (or negated completely) by the passive recharge. As passive armour tanks do not have this recharge component an active armour tank is needed, which in turn requires valuable slots to be assigned to improving capacitor performance in order to run the active tank and creates a vulnerability on capacitor power that shield tanks do not have.<br />
<br />
Harbingers are sometimes dual-purposed for clearing and then running gas sites in Class 1-3 wormholes; unlike a Drake they have turrets available in the high slots that allow them to mount Gas Cloud Harvesters.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h4>
How is it typically fit?</h4>
<div>
PvE fits for Harbingers come in a host of small variations on a theme, normally along the following lines:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
[Harbinger, WH PvE]<br />
Medium Armor Repairer II<br />
Damage Control II<br />
Heat Sink II<br />
Heat Sink II<br />
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II<br />
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II<br />
<br />
Cap Recharger II<br />
Cap Recharger II<br />
Experimental 10MN Afterburner I<br />
Stasis Webifier II<br />
<br />
Heavy Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency M<br />
Heavy Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency M<br />
Heavy Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency M<br />
Heavy Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency M<br />
Heavy Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency M<br />
Heavy Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency M<br />
Core Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I<br />
<br />
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I<br />
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I<br />
Medium Nanobot Accelerator I<br />
<br />
Vespa EC-600 x5<br />
Warrior II x5</blockquote>
<br />
The tank is below 200dps, but nothing higher is required for combat sites in Class 1 and 2 wormholes. Some fits will switch down one gun size from Heavy Pulse Laser IIs to Focused Medium Pulse Laser IIs if the pilot has sub-optimal fitting skills or problems with tracking . Personal preference can see people switch one of the Heat Sink II's to a Tracking Enhancer to improve range and tracking somewhat. One of the only advantages of the Harbinger over the Drake for combat site running in lower-class wormhole systems is the ability to field a flight of medium drones; EC-600s provide a reasonable chance of managing to jam any potential ambusher allowing you to flee the scene.<br />
<br />
PvP fits are a little different;<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Harbinger, WH PvP]<br />
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I<br />
Damage Control II<br />
Heat Sink II<br />
Heat Sink II<br />
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II<br />
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II<br />
<br />
Small Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 200<br />
Faint Warp Disruptor I<br />
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I<br />
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator<br />
<br />
Heavy Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency M<br />
Heavy Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency M<br />
Heavy Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency M<br />
Heavy Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency M<br />
Heavy Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency M<br />
Heavy Pulse Laser II, Multifrequency M<br />
[empty high slot]<br />
<br />
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I<br />
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I<br />
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I<br />
Hornet EC-300 x5<br />
Valkyrie II x5</blockquote>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The above fit needs a +1% powergrid implant to fit (the <i>Inherent Implants 'Squire' Engineering EG-601</i>); not using one or using lower fitting skills will mean potentially dropping one of the Heavy Pulse Laser II's to a Focused Medium Pulse Laser II or switching the 1600mm plate to an 800mm one and fitting a nosferatu, neut or smartbomb into the spare high slot. This 1600mm fit has 71k EHP and Scorch lets it put ~440 dps to a 23km optimal with a 5km falloff - close range Imperial Navy Multifrequency allows it to kick out 550dps before drones.</div>
<br />
A note about the drones on this fit - they add an extra ~130dps and I would definitely go for medium damage drones with light ECM drones - the reverse of the site running set up above. This is because you're going out looking for trouble in this ship - not looking to run - and light combat drones aren't as useful in wormhole systems as they are in known space as there are significantly fewer frigates.<br />
<br />
Occasionally you will run into beam-fit Harbingers used for both PvE combat site running and PvP. These are significantly rarer than the pulse-fit variants and less dangerous - although a beam-fit Harbinger can ruin the day of any stealth bombers in a fight.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<h4>
How much of a threat is it?</h4>
<div>
<i>Running a site: </i>Harbingers are generally a substandard way to run sites in a Class 1 or 2 wormhole system, and aren't really viable in Class 3 or above. They will generally have a borderline tank in C2 systems, and are vulnerable to capacitor pressure from energy neutralizers; they will generally be able to be killed by most battlecruisers or strategic cruisers that are fit for PvP one on one. They are not a very good bait ship as both the raw hitpoint total and the active component of the armour tank are so low. Expect those medium ECM drones to be deployed!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>As backup in a POS:</i></div>
<div>
The Harbinger is pretty capable second responder; it's clearly not going to have the same capabilities as a strategic cruiser, but it has a reasonable tank and can project damage well.<br />
<br />
<i>On the field in a fight:</i><br />
The Harbinger is a good call for a primary target if there aren't any recons on the field; although the tank is reasonable it is no-where near as robust as strategic cruisers and the lack of a resistance bonus on the ship means that a more significant fraction of the EHP is made up of raw armour hitpoints, and less resistances. This means that logistics reps will not be as effective when applied to it compared to other ships that have better resist profiles such as Tech 2/3 ships or ships with resistance bonuses such as the Prophecy. It will also be able to apply its damage across the field relatively easily; the longer range on pulse lasers don't force it to be within a handful of kilometers of its targets, unlike hybrid turrets. Given it has a fixed damage type, it may be worth considering how that EM/Thermal damage will stack up against the ships that you have on field - if you are heavy on Minmatar Tech 2/3 ships then it is probably lower down the threat list, whereas if you have a number of Drakes in the fight, it is a more significant threat.<br />
<br />
Harbingers are generally unlikely to bring any electronic warfare to bear, although if they do it will almost certainly be fit in place of a capacitor booster, making the Harbinger vulnerable to capacitor pressure. While they have good damage projection, Harbingers don't have quite the range required to threaten logistics ships without pushing out of the main fight.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h4>
How do I counter it?</h4>
<div>
The simplest way to deal with a Harbinger is damage; they have a relatively flat resistance profile and any damage type will do just fine against them. Most fleet compositions in wormhole space will have equal or less range than a pulse fit Harbinger so holding them in place and keeping range is unlikely to work in your favour - dependent on the ship types you are fielding. If a Harbingers is engaging at the outer edge of it's range, sensor dampeners may prove effective, and tracking disruptors will be useful. Energy neutralizers will probably lessen the amount of firepower that the Harbinger is kicking out but not mitigate it completely - most PvP fits will be cap boosted and will always be able to fire right after injecting cap.<br />
<br />
<i>Final
note: If you encounter any inaccuracies on this page, please contact me
ingame with an EVEMail or on twitter @OV_Fellblade and I'll try and get
them sorted.</i><br />
<br /></div>
Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2453374528408053126.post-73571038054680492562014-03-15T12:46:00.000-07:002014-03-15T12:46:20.979-07:00The effects of W-space system characteristics on PvP MetaIn the previous post I spent some time addressing how the PvP Meta is affected by the difference between known space (K-space) gates and wormhole space (W-space) wormhole links. In this post I'll be looking at how fleet compositions and ship selections are also guided by the differences between K and W-space systems.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Local Chat</h4>
<div>
The Local chat channel allows pilots in the same system to talk to one another without having any prior knowledge of each other. In known space, any pilot who enters a system instantly joins the local chat channel and has their name and portrait displayed, making the local chat channel one of the most effective intelligence gathering mechanisms available.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In wormhole space, however, pilots do not have their name and portrait displayed when they enter the local chat channel - the information only becomes visible if they send any text via the local channel. The knock on effect of this is that in wormhole space there is no way of knowing for certain how many pilots, if any, are in the system with you, or if any pilots have just entered the system.<br />
<br />
The removal of intelligence that is freely available in k-space has are a number of knock on effects that changes combat in w-space significantly; and those knock on effects have knock on effects themselves.<br />
<br />
The first effect is that <i>cloaking is significantly more effective</i>. In k-space a cloaking device hides the type of the ship that you are flying and your precise location within a system. In w-space, as there is no local, the cloaking device completely <i>hides your presence </i>in addition to hiding your ship type and precise location. This means that a cloaked fleet wields a massive information advantage over an uncloaked fleet - not only is the exact disposition and composition of the enemy force unknown but so is even more general intelligence about how many of them there are or which pilots are in the force. As cloaking is such a powerful strategic ability in wormhole space, cloaks are fit to ships with much greater frequency. Significant numbers of ordinary ships have non-covert cloaks fit, despite their drawbacks of not allowing you to warp while cloaked or move at any significant speed. Because of this there is an additional driver for pilots to fit ships that are prepared for close range combat; if you are not, there is a very good chance that someone who <i>is</i> will decloak within a handful of kilometers of your ship and ruin your day.<br />
<br />
The second effect is the <i>acceptance of risk </i>- pilots living in wormhole space simply never know if a person, or ten people, or thirty people are all sat in the system they have just entered, or even the system they call their home. That is part and parcel of living in w-space, and if pilots fail to adjust to it, they inevitably end up leaving for the perceived relative safety of k-space.<br />
<br />
The third effect is tied in closely to the second - <i>paranoia</i>. Paranoia is a mark of the EVE pilot in general; every deal is a scam, every target is bait, every conversation is someone trying to wheedle them out of their hard earned ISK. Acceptance of increased risk in wormhole space does not mean that pilots don't do anything about it. If a pilot is playing 'to win', risk can be mitigated by gathering intelligence about what to expect in a given system. Although a great deal of information is not as easily accessible in wormhole space, that does not mean that it isn't possible to find out quite a lot about the inhabitants of a system if some time is spent on it. It <i>can </i>be non-trivial to identify what corporation calls a given wormhole home, but if time is taken to look through all the information sources available, a picture of what you are likely to run into can be formed. A later post on <i>The Excession</i> will be dedicated to scouting and intelligence gathering in wormhole systems. <i></i><br />
<br />
<h4>
No Dockable Stations</h4>
<div>
The lack of any NPC stations in w-space is similar to the situation when in hostile sovereign null-security space. The only "safety" that is available in w-space is when inside your own POS force-field - this is an additional driver to fly ships with cloaking devices fitted - as you can safely go AFK should you need to. The lack of NPC stations also means that restocking ammunition and repairing ships when away from your home base is not as viable.<br />
<h4>
Scanning Requirements</h4>
</div>
<div>
Every place of note in wormhole space needs to be found via the discovery scanner or launching probes. Probes are needed to find Gas, Relic and Data sites, and other wormhole links, and so any ship that is solo in a wormhole will need to have a probe launcher fit in it's high slots.</div>
</div>
<h4>
</h4>
<div>
<h4>
</h4>
</div>
Fellbladehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12468042935924317838noreply@blogger.com0