My ongoing correspondence course in EVE Online pew pew continues, with a night spent mostly soloing out in the contested Myridian Strip and surrounds, the front lines of the recently erupted factional war between the godless rebel scum and the self-righteous fascists. Having pitched in with the aforementioned scum, it was out on patrol last night, pottering about largely on my own, partly to see if Factional Warfare can be done alone at all.
I think I'm regarding the entire project as something of a literal education actually; I've paid up my tuition fees in the form of a big stack of disposable low-end ships and gear, and seem to be looking on the entire thing in perhaps the spirit it's meant; one big introduction and tutorial to the harsher side of what EVE can be - a side I'd previously had very little truck with.
Here's the fitting, scrapped together from my own rudimentary ideas of what might work;
- Rifter:
- 200mm AutoCannon I (Nuclear S)
200mm AutoCannon I
200mm AutoCannon I
Rocket Launcher I (Phalanx)
- Warp Scrambler I
Stasis Webifier I
1MN Afterburner I
- Gyrostabilizer I
Small Armor Repairer I
50mm Reinforced Steel Plates I
No Tech II, No Named, No Rigs, making the primary advantage of all the above the price; about 500,000ISK for the lot, including the ship itself. I'm all very new to this, you see, so it wouldn't do to blow my entire war budget on one ship! With my newbie alt's skills, it all just about fits; 149.9/150 CPU, 35/42.55 Grid. It seems to have all the basic requirements of a small gang/solo PvP Tackler, but could probably do with all sorts of refinement - do chip in with advice below - I'm here to learn afterall!
Quite a lengthy session, at least three hours, in which I started in Minmatar defended space, and gradually worked my way across into Amaar territory. As a solo, and quite weak, ship, I seemed to find that the most productive use of my time was securing Minmatar beacons, of all sizes. These overview beacons lead to areas of space with the increasingly familiar Capture Points, but these are intended for the Amaar to assault and hold - grab enough of those and they'll win our systems, which is bad, so I've been making a point of flying to any that show up and capturing them myself.
This is easy enough in itself, as they're guarded by a large fleet of friendly Minmatar Navy NPC ships, making it a bit of an uphill struggle if any lone Amaarians come along and try to beat me out of there. This can be a bit dull; having to orbit the marker for upwards of 20mins at a time, but I like to think I'm helping, making it much more difficult for the enemy to make progress into our region. Not every site I secured was uncontested though, and some had an Amaar logo on, showing that the enemy had attempted, and made some headway toward capturing our sites. They can be a bit fierce though, and several contained Amaarian wrecks. A later solo go at an Amaarian Minor Complex in their space saw me have to bail before the capture could go through, so more skills, equipment and/or wingmen, than I have, is needed to solo these.
Not sure whether they'd just been ground down by the NPCS, or if a Minmatar Clean-Up Crew had blasted through the place, but then been in too much of a hurry to wait out the timer for the secure. It's entirely possible that most people aren't there for flags or capture points, but just want to shoot people in the face, in which case, the sites must be a bit on the tedious side.
I'm mostly there as practice and training, and learnt three important lessons over the session:
Lesson 1: If You Can't Win, Prevent The Fight Entirely
I'd arrived at a Minmatar Minor site (T1 Frigates and Destroyers Only), and the Local chat window showed only me and one War Target, making it a fair guess that he was in the Complex, and in something I might have a chance at killing. I warp in and see a single Inquisitor orbiting the CP, dallying with some of our own Frigate sized NPCs. Excellent, I think - the Inquisitor is a mid-range Frigate, specialising in Missiles, but not nearly as well as the Caldari's Kestrel. Weight for weight, this ought to go well for me; the Rifter is several notches up the pecking order. Afterburner on, Target, Orbit At 1500m (My optimal), and let 'im have it! I land a couple of shots, and suddenly, the target is unlocked. Without being locked, I can't actually shoot the guy.
I orbit a while and try to lock again, but he's using at least two mid-slot ECM modules on me, cycled in such a fashion that I'll never reacquire him as a target, and all the while he's hitting me with his mediocre missiles, and doing a fair bit of damage. I can out-repair this for a while, certainly, but to what purpose? Everything I have fitted needs an active target to use, and while I probably could have shredded him in short order in a straight fight, he'd decided, by his fitting, that he wasn't going to have any straight fights if he could help it. All quite cunning, and in the end, there was nothing for it, but to leave him to it. He probably captured the CP after I left, and fair play to him.
It seemed a intriguing plan, and a fit designed to focus on the objectives, not the fights. With two ECM modules occupying both the Inquisitor's mid slots, there's no room for tackling gear, so I could happily disengage any time I liked, but then again, that's what he wanted; to be left alone to capture territory, not to kill anyone. Two ECM would be a handy addition to a fleet too, I expect, and in the event of a larger gang than "Just Me" challenging him, simply vanish into hyperspace and try your luck some place else. Certainly one way to play it all. I could fit various Sensor enhancement modules to combat the ECM effect, but that means sacrifices on an already tight fit. F.O.F Missiles or Drones have independent targeting, and could have ruined his day, but I have access to neither of those in the above Rifter. Smartbombs are AoE (practically Melee at that!) and need no target, but in general, only crazypeople use those, as accidents are all too common - I'd have probably taken out useful NPCs on my own side long before I'd have bombed him to death.
Informative, and worth considering for a change of pace later perhaps; a Vigil maybe, geared up to confuse and annoy, rather than dominate and kill.
Lesson 2: Bigger Isn't Always Better
I'd fetched up at a Major Site in the Amaar held region, just as a handful of my own Militia, the Tribal Liberation Navy were also getting stuck into it. No enemy players in the system, just us, so a free run at a significant objective. Of course there's the NPCs to deal with too, and we were all in the smaller kinds of ship. Guarding the CP was a cluster of five Amaar Battleships. (I can never tell the difference between Armageddons and Apocalypses!) There was a bit of umming and ahhing, and then one of our loosely affiliated group just charged in there with a Thrasher (Min. Destroyer - only one step up from the Rifter really), and got all five aggroed. Then, over the course of the next twenty minutes or so, through a terribly impressive combination of skilful flying, high speed and gutsy daring, managed to kite the vastly more powerful ships, and take them out of the fight entirely. The long ranges, small signature radiuses, transversal velocities and powerful, but lumbering lasers being used meant that although catching the occasional fluke long hit, the Thrasher was more or less safe the entire time, although unable to actively capture themselves.
More clusters of NPCs showed up of course, and the rest of us still had to work for it, but with the enemy Battleships removed from the fight, the whole thing became a lot more manageable for our Frigates and Cruisers. I wonder how well it would have worked if any actual Amaar Navy Players had shown up, since people are typically more complex than game AI. Kiting players can be done, but is a much more subtle art if you want them to keep on after you, rather than just let you go, and turn on the people you're trying to distract away from.
Impressive stuff though, and I suspect with careful aggro manipulation, even the largest sites can probably be captured with only two or three small and very fast ships taking it in turns to kite, and orbit the CP. There is no requirement to actually kill anything - you just have to survive within 30k or so, for 15mins or so.
Lesson 3: You Can't Hurt Them If You Can't Catch Them
Toward the end of the night I actually ran out of ammo, which is always nice in an PVP game - to have survived that long at all is a result for me! I headed back through the front lines, into our own defensible space, en route for my local 'War Depot', near Rens, in High Sec Space, where most 24th Crusade would be crazy to follow; (Naval Patrols, etc). On the way, I saw a Minmatar Major beacon and figured I'd wrap up with a little light Orbiting a CP for 20mins - doing my part and all. I think the presence of 20+ Minmatar Navy ships, including Typhoons, lulled me into a false sense of security, which was a bit stupid, given Lesson 2. I may have also been surfing in another window, so probably deserve what followed.
Perhaps five minutes from capture, a Pirate entered Local. It's easy to forget that it's Low Sec, and that the 24th Crusade aren't the only things to worry about out there. Before the Empyrean Age, these systems were worked by a long tradition of cottage industry based psychopathic brigandry, and not all of them slunk away when the militias arrived - many see it as simply more targets to ply their trade on. I continued orbiting my CP, hoping he was just passing through, although my CP was the only beacon on the overview, and I was the only Militia on Local, so two and two can't have been hard to put together.
Moments later, a Crow shows up - an Interceptor variant of the Caldari's Condor. I guess if I'd have left immediately, I'd have got out intact, and it's this kind of dithering that is something I hope to improve through all of this stuff. Anyway, by the time I'd fumbled my way to a warp menu item, it was too late. With a Microwarp Drive fitted, Interceptors are capable of staggering speeds; several kilometres per second, compared to my own top speed of 700 metres per second.
Within moments, he was running rings around me, in the most literal sense imaginable; wide, super-fast orbits at 20km - well outside the range of anything I had on board, and even at full burn, I could do nothing to close the gap. Scrambled, of course; 20km being the maximum range for that to work, or he'd probably have been even further out. By then it was all over, but I managed to tank his missiles for a fair while. Mind you, I wasn't going anywhere, and he had all the time in the world. What was most surprising was that he was doing all this in the middle of a hostile fleet of NPCs of perhaps Agent 4 Mission grade, and by virtue of his superfast ship, was managing to speed-tank the incoming missiles and shots from over 20 Minmatar Naval ships of all sizes, largely without a scratch. Annoying, but impressive. I tried to fly myself into their ranks a bit more, in the hope of exposing him to closer ranged guns and such, but the entire spawn only managed to get him to half shields before I blew up.
I suspect even with the longer ranged, but more cumbersome Artillery turrets fitted instead, I still would have had trouble hitting him for more than glancing damage, given how fast he was going sideways. Standard Missiles, instead of Rockets would have hit him, possibly; it's what he was using on me, afterall, but again, the Rifter isn't really set up for that kind of thing; a Breacher would have been a better bet there. A Warp Core Stabilizer would have let me at least escape - the 20km scrambler only does one point of, er, scramble, but again, only so many slots. Of course the best tactic there would be to just pay attention more, and get the hell out as soon as he showed. I'm not sure there was any way I could have actually beaten him, except in an Interceptor of my own, or something much bigger, set up for sniping.
I got the pod out safely at least, and back to base. It was all a very silent and business-like ganking, but then again, I'm not worth the hassle of ransoming, which is the point of being an alt in the first place. He gets his +1 on a killboard somewhere, I get a useful lesson in how Interceptors should be flown, which may come in handy in the future, and we go our separate ways.
More lessons to come, I'm sure, but so far it seems soloing isn't quite a hopeless cause in FW, but it does bring all sorts of challenges of it's own. It's nice to have two different games there, the big fleet 'X to join!' blob-hunting thing, and also the objective-based smaller work. I also made it to Rank 2 for my work in the complexes too - Spike Lieutenant, so not an entirely wasted night!