Trying out an Active Tank Cyclone

The Cyclone is definitely the poorer cousin of the Hurricane. Whereas the 'Cane is a pretty standard ship seen all over New Eden for PvP and PvE, the Cyclone is a rare beast. It has only a fraction of the DPS, less fitting room, fewer turrets, and lacks the double damage bonus of the 'Cane.

There are a couple of things going for the Cyclone however. It is the most maneuverable battle-cruiser in New Eden. It also has a 37.5% (at BC V) bonus to shield repping. This means that a Cyclone should be a beast of an active tank ship.

Active tanking is using either an armour repper or a shield booster to repair damage being done by an enemy. In essence it is converting capacitor to EHP. In small engagements it can make a huge difference. Time is both a friend and an enemy to an active tank fit. The longer the engagement the more EHP can be repaired. OTOH, the longer the engagement the sooner the ship is likely to run out of what little buffer it has or run out of boosters.

Active tanking is like performing a direct minus on the enemy dps. If you can rep 300EHP per second, and the enemy is doing 400 DPS, the real DPS of the enemy is only 100 DPS. If the enemy is doing 300 DPS the enemy is effectively shooting blanks. If the enemy is doing 1200 DPS (concentrated fire from an enemy game for example), then your tank is pretty much useless. As a result active tanking really shines in the 1v1 or a 1v2 situation where it has the chance to completely negate the enemy DPS.

One thing to keep in mind is that there is a big difference between EFT DPS and real DPS. Although a 'Cane should be able to do 600 DPS, thanks to fighting in falloff, some tracking negatives, and less than perfect skills, it will more likely be doing about half of that, 400 DPS at the most. As a result the repping can in fact keep up, even though EFT would show otherwise.

The most popular active tank battle-cruiser is the Gallente Myrmaddon. The Myrm has a 37.5% bonus to armour repping. However there is a significant advantage to armour repping over shield boosting. A shield booster's shield modules have to share mid-slots with propulsion mods, e-war, and capacitor boosters. An armour repper can have pretty much the entire bottom rack dedicated to armour tanking (armour reppers, hardeners, damage control, EANM, etc). On the plus side there is something that a shield booster has that is not available to an armour repper. That is the X-Large module size.

I tried out two possible fits of Cyclones:
[Cyclone, single rep high DPS]
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Damage Control II
F-aQ Phase Code Tracking Subroutines

X-Large C5-L Emergency Shield Overload I
10MN Afterburner II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
Medium Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 800

Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion M
Compact 'Limos' Heavy Assault Missile Launcher I, Caldari Navy Hellfire Assault Missile
Compact 'Limos' Heavy Assault Missile Launcher I, Caldari Navy Hellfire Assault Missile
Compact 'Limos' Heavy Assault Missile Launcher I, Caldari Navy Hellfire Assault Missile

Medium Core Defence Capacitor Safeguard I
Medium Core Defence Operational Solidifier I
Medium Core Defence Operational Solidifier I


Warrior II x2
Valkyrie II x3


and

[Cyclone, Dual Boost]
Gyrostabilizer II
Damage Control II
Gyrostabilizer II
Tracking Enhancer II

X-Large C5-L Emergency Shield Overload I
10MN Afterburner II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Medium Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 800
Medium Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 800

Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
SV-2000 Assault Missile Bay, Caldari Navy Bloodclaw Light Missile
SV-2000 Assault Missile Bay, Caldari Navy Bloodclaw Light Missile
SV-2000 Assault Missile Bay, Caldari Navy Bloodclaw Light Missile

Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Core Defence Operational Solidifier I
Medium Core Defence Operational Solidifier I


Valkyrie II x3
Warrior II x2


Both of these fits do about 400 DPS, have about 28,000 buffer tank, and have a repping power of around 350 EHP/450 EHP overheated. The HAM fit has a bit more DPS and can web as well as scram a target. The dual boost fit does less DPS, and can only scram, however it can sustain it's repper for a lot longer. With an afterburner instead of a MWD niether of these ships is a speed demon, instead the goal is to engage the enemy on 0.

So one evening I took these ships out one at a time. In the end it was disappointing. In both cases I came across the nemesis of the active tank ship, the energy neutralizer. The single boost ship engaged an Arazu. While doing great damage against the Arazu a Hurricane showed up and placed it's dual neuts on me along with it's DPS. It also had a friend of a Rifter and a Sabre so the damage incoming was quite high. I continued to tank them for a surprisingly long time, however in the end I couldn't keep up and went down without landing a kill :(.

Since the nuets so messed me up I tried the dual boost next. This could have gone well. Again I engaged a hurricane, and tanked it just fine.... until his BS friends showed up and sucked my cap dry :(. Down I went.

I am definitely going to try the active tank Cyclone again. I think I need to choose better targets however. I was determined to get into a fight to try the ship out so I entered fights that I should have avoided. As a result I basically fell for bait twice and paid for it.

Incursion = CCP fail at game design

Despite weeks of posts on the forums warning them that the entire incursion mechanic was not compatible with EVE's aggression mechanics.... they still release this massive game-design failure.
 

Explanation: The white crosses are CONCORD ships that just one-shoted an entire fleet that was fighting the Sansha incursion.


Basically, unless you are an experienced player who understands the odd aggresion mechanics of hi-sec, Incursion = death.


EDIT: Oh look.... here is another similar picture of what looks to be a different site:

EDIT 2: Looks like they are fixing it with the current patch. Some are saying that this is dumbing down' the game. However there is really no reason for anyone to be RRing someone in hi-sec with a GCC. Concord arrives in seconds and no amount of logistics can save a ship. Instead the mechanics were making effective pick up groups absolutely impossible.

Don't just shoot the primary!

One of the things that I continuously try to do better in is maximize my effectiveness when participating in small gangs. When a pilot first starts running in gangs they typically follow the FC to the letter and concentrate on the Primary to the exclusion of all else. As an introduction this is a good thing. There is nothing worse for a fleet then to split fire across the enemy fleet. The FC is calling primary because he/she wants that target down since it represents a major threat to the gang. If everyone starts shooting at other targets then the whole concept of focused fire is lost and the gang is doomed.

Lets do a thought experiment to see why. Imagine two gangs engaging each other, each with 10 identical ships. Each ship has 100 DPS and a tank of 10,000 EHP. One gang focuses fire on primary after primary. The other gang has no focused fire at all.

For the gang with no focused fire it will take 10,000/100 = 100 seconds to destroy each of the enemy fleet. However this won't happen. In this imaginary battle the focused fire fleet will destroy an enemy ship every 10,000/(100*10) = 10 seconds. Every 10 seconds a ship on the non-focused fire fleet will be destroyed. At the 100th seconds the last remaining non-focused fire fleet will be destroyed just as it finally lands the killing blow on the focused fire fleet.

So far you probably thinking that the title of this blog is messed up. I just argued for focusing fire, not thinking about other targets. This is where reality comes in. In real battles we are not using the imaginary ships I described, rather we are using real ships (ok maybe not real in the physical sense but real in the sense that pixels and databases are involved).

Lets look at a common small gang ship that I fly. The nano-cane is an awesome ship whose speed, firepower and reasonable price make it a favorite for small gang PvP. However, if we look close we see that it actually has 4 distinct offensive weapon system.

6x425mm Autocannon: These provide the bulk of the offense delivering up to 600 DPS at short and medium ranges.
2xMedium Energy Neutralizers: These provide the ability to place massive cap pressure on an enemy ship, while the hurricane does not really need the capacitor thanks to the Autocannons.
1xWarp disruptor/scrambler: Prevents an enemy ship from being able to disengage when taking damage. If a scrambler shuts down the MWD as well.
5xWarrior II: Provides moderate amount of damage against ships of all sizes.

In general in battle the Autocannons are targeted at the primary. They are the main DPS and focused fire is what the FC is asking for. But what about the other three weapon systems? Should they be put onto the primary, or is there something better for them to do?

The energy neutralizers could have some effect. If the target has an active tank (a triple rep Myrmadon comes to mind) then they will be very effective, but in general the primary is a cornered beast and nueting it will not really make much of a difference. Even if the ship uses cap for it's weapons since it is soon to die, you neuting may not have any effect at all. Rather it is a better idea to put the nuets on a non-primary ship that is vulnerable to capacitor warfare. The perfect example of this would be an enemy logistics ship. By powering towards and then neuting an enemy logistics ship, you effectively take out one of their major force multipliers. If there is no enemy logistics, look for an laser or hybrid boat and put strain on it. Often this alone will neutralize the enemy ship and make it ineffective in the battle.

The warp disruptor/scram can also be put to better use then the primary. Unless there is a reason to suspect that they primary has not already had its warp drive shut down, or likely to in the future, put that point on someone else and call it. The FC will likely make that ship a future primary and without point it will be able to warp off. This is especially important during the mid-point in the battle when an enemy realizes that the battle is lost and people start running. Without spreading the points around, most of the enemy will be able to run.

The warriors could be placed on the primary. However they only represent about 10% of your total DPS, and they will take time to travel to the target (which may be dead by then). It is much better to place the warriors onto another target, especially a small ship that will be most impacted. Enemy interceptors, Light dictors and e-war ships are ideal targets. Interceptors will have to run from the fight to save themselves. This means that they will not be able to land points on your gang nor will they be able to apply e-war from extra mid-slots. Dictors are also lightly tanked and will not last long under attack from a flight or two of warriors. E-war ships (falcon, blackbird, rook) are also great targets for drones. Even if you are jammed the drones keep on fighting, forcing them to make choices about whether to flee (costing their fleet their e-war) or stay (and risk being destroyed). Even if there are no enemy ships on the field to engage, I would still recommend assigning them to a different ship then the primary. Any ship when it starts to take damage is likely to panic and either run away or request reps putting load on their logistics.

So next time you are in a small gang fight, make sure that you use all of your offensive weapons to their maximum potential. Pay attention to the FC, but also think about what else you can do. If you can remove one or two other enemy ships from the fight, in addition to laying down the DPS, do so. If the whole gang can do this it means that your small gang able to take on a larger gang, and still come out the victor.

Email Phishing.... don't be a victim

Now that Goonswarm has officially taken over control of security at CCP ;) there is a great article about e-mail phishing scams and account security by CCP Sreegs that every EVE player should read. E-mail phishing scams have become quite a problem with EVE players. I personally receive several e-mails per week from EVE Online.com. Lets have a look at one of them...

As you can see I need to fix something with my account. I thought I had setup a re-occurring payment system.... oh well let me just click on the nice link and fix it. Look the link says account management so that must be where I want to go.

WHOOOOO!! My virus scanning software had that link flagged in its database as unsafe! Rather then going to the actual account management website, the link goes to http://222.22.22.222/pnp/eve/https/secure.eveonline.com/login.aspxReturnUrl2fAccountManMenu.aspx3faid3d103543aid193543.htm (note I changed the ip address to prevent some fool from actually going there from this blog). This site is definitely not related to CCP or EVE online!


Now this page is from an e-mail about a month ago so the url clearly has been marked as a problem. However I bet if I had clicked on that link back on the 13th of December, it would have taken me to a site that looks EXACTLY like the actual Eve account management site. I would have entered in my username and password onto the site and the next day, everything my character has in EVE would have been sold by a real-money trader or something. With luck a petition would get some of it back in a few days, but I, and possibly my corp/alliance would have been screwed!

Moral of the story is NEVER EVER EVER trust any link on any email from EVE ONLINE. If you need to do something navigate yourself to eveonline.com and do it there. Even if you are pretty sure it is legitimate, don't take the risk.

Reading the Game Logs

When I got started PvPing I kept on dieing. One thing I noticed was that while the enemy was hurting me, I was barely scratching them. This made no sense to me until I discovered the game-logs. If you look under your EVE folder in 'My Documents' you will see a folder called 'Game Logs'. This folder contains log files from combat actions of your ship. A new file is started everytime you jump or warp.

At the top of the file is a header:

------------------------------------------------------------
Gamelog
Listener: Toterra
Session started: 2010.10.20 03:28:37
------------------------------------------------------------

This simply contains the date and character information. More interesting is information about warping like the following:

[ 2010.10.20 03:28:48 ] (notify) Warping to Stargate (9KOE-A)

In this case I have warped to a stargate and this is logged. Then we get to the real meat of the log. Each time you warp scramble (or disrupt) someone you get the following type of statement:

[ 2010.10.20 03:29:55 ] (notify) You have started trying to warp scramble Isaak Hamilton [101SM]<S2N>(Ishkur).

Then each time you fire a gun or a group of guns you get a message like the following if one of the weapons hits:

[ 2010.10.20 03:29:55 ] (combat) Your group of 150mm Light AutoCannon II hits Isaak Hamilton [101SM]<S2N>(Ishkur), doing 139.9 damage.

or the following if they all miss:

[ 2010.10.20 03:29:59 ] (combat) Your group of 150mm Light AutoCannon II misses Isaak Hamilton [101SM]<S2N>(Ishkur) completely.

Conversly you receive information about what the enemy is doing to you. Here I am being scrammed by the enemy:

[ 2010.10.20 03:29:57 ] (notify) Isaak Hamilton [101SM]<S2N>(Ishkur) has started trying to warp scramble you!

Here I am being hit:

[ 2010.10.20 03:30:33 ] (combat) Isaak Hamilton [101SM]<S2N>(Ishkur) aims well at you, inflicting 112.3 damage.

And here I am being shot at and missed:

[ 2010.10.20 03:30:00 ] (combat) Isaak Hamilton [101SM]<S2N>(Ishkur) misses you completely.

Drones work a little oddly. While you do receive notification of being hit by a drone like the following:

[ 2010.10.20 03:30:03 ] (combat) Hobgoblin II belonging to Isaak Hamilton lightly hits you, doing 34.0 damage.

Unfortunately the log will not contain notification of your own drones doing damage.

Another problem with the logs is weapon grouping. If even one weapon in a group hits a hit is logged even if all of the remaining weapons miss. Obviously the reduced damage is indicated in the 'inflicted damage' portion however. If you want to study the logs a lot I recommend un-grouping your guns so that you can see how many hit and how many miss.

When a ship gets blown up there is a message that either your weapons are deactivating due to the enemy being blow up, or in this case there is a notification that my ship was destroyed:

[ 2010.10.20 03:31:25 ] (notify) Ship is out of control

Some other useful information in the logs includes data about running out of capacitor and failed attempts to enter warp.

All of this information can be very useful after a battle. Especially in the beginning when trying to understand the tracking mechanics. It was only by checking the logs that I began to realize why I was not doing damage. Either I was out of range or failing to track the targets. After changes to my fittings and tactics I was able to remedy this and start doing some killing. Even now after most battles I look through the logs to try and replay what actually happened. Often I discover things like not realizing that I was being neuted (running out of cap) or that my guns were not doing the damage that they should have. By continuously examining my own performance I can avoid making mistakes in the future. In this case I confirmed that for the most part I succeeded in getting under the Ishkur's guns. However I was late in switching to the drones, not that it would have mattered since the drones managed to get under my tracking somehow. In the future I should web the drones I am shooting at so that I can hit them... then go after the Ishkur.

DURKA DURKA DURKA

So I had an interesting problem. Thanks to my limited play-time lately, I had an unrigged Typhoon whose insurance was close to running out. It seemed a shame to just let it expire so I fitted it up for what we in Agony call a 'DURKA'. Here is the fit...

[Typhoon, DURKA Typhoon]
'Halcyon' Core Equalizer I
'Halcyon' Core Equalizer I
'Stoic' Core Equalizer I
Warp Core Stabilizer I
Warp Core Stabilizer I
Warp Core Stabilizer I
Warp Core Stabilizer I

Large Azeotropic Ward Salubrity I
Large Azeotropic Ward Salubrity I
Large Azeotropic Ward Salubrity I

Large 'Notos' Explosive Charge I
Large 'Notos' Explosive Charge I
Large 'Notos' Explosive Charge I
Large 'Notos' Explosive Charge I
Large 'Notos' Explosive Charge I
Large 'Notos' Explosive Charge I
Large 'Notos' Explosive Charge I
Large 'Notos' Explosive Charge I

[empty rig slot]

The idea for this ship is pretty simple. Fly into the middle of an enemy fleet, let off the smart-bombs. Blow up any small ships within 5km, and warp off laughing at the ships pointing you.

So I took my ship on a little roam and managed to come across an OUCH gatecamp in Doril. It took two tries but eventually I managed to kill a Rifter and an Incursis. Much fun :). The next day a frigate gang came running through our home system of Hemin. They crashed into our camp on the RMOC gate and warped away to planet 4. I followed, landing just a couple of seconds too late. If I had arrived 5 seconds earlier I would have taken out their entire fleet :(. I started to chase after them but the server crashed and I couldn't find them when it came back up.

Going a little deeper into curse I came across a NI4NI gang and proceeded to smart-bomb their dramiels and sabre. Regretably nothing popped :(. I tried baiting them again and they managed to keep distance while dropping a bubble on me. No amount of warp-core stabilizers could save me then and I soon went down becoming 45 million isk richer.

A DURKA ship is something all tacklers should be wary of. Most Agony PVP-BASIC classes seems to come across one or two laying in wait hoping to pop 30 lightly tanked frigates in one shot. The trick to avoiding being wiped out is to keep out of 5km range. Also it can be a good idea to either fit a ship scanner or simply check for turrets on the model. If you come across a Geddon with no turrets you can be pretty certain that it is fitting smartbombs.

Admittedly one DURKA is pretty limited. At most I could take out a lightly tanked frigate. However in combination they can be rather devastating. There is a great video (I posted about a couple of months ago) where a handful of DURKA ships took out an Armour HAC gang.

So be careful out there of Battleships and for gods sake check for turrets before giving recon to your fleet to engage at 0. You just might find yourself in the middle of a fireworks display.

Agony PVP-Basic class being sponsored by Fly-Reckless

As many of you know I am a big fan of the Agony PvP-Basic class. So much so that I ended up joining Agony. Well Silicon Buddha (himself a former Agony member) of the Fly Reckless podcast fame is sponsoring a PvP-Basic class on Jan 22nd and 23rd. If you want to take the course but have had difficulty getting in before the sign-ups are filled, or can't afford the isk, then have a look.

He is taking signups on his website first before Agony opens it up to the general public.

Fear the Punisher!

Happy New Year!

I am back from vacation and hope to start posting again soon. I can't believe that I made 70 posts in 2010. Man do I need to get a life :)

Anyways I came across a great new blog with a lot of great information about the Punisher in PvP. Well worth reading. I may have to try it sometime soon.