Interceptor fitting and tactics guide for gangs
This guide focuses on interceptors in gangs / small fleets like we usually fly them in Sniggerdly. It also assumes you have setup your overview correctly as posted on the Demon Womb forums.
Solo interceptor combat will not be discussed.
1. The role of interceptors in gangs
1.1 Tackling
The primary role of interceptors in gangs is:
tackling.
Tackling involves jamming a ship's warp drive so it cannot warp away. This is done using
warp jammers.
1.2 Electronic warfare
The secondary role is
electronic warfare.
While warp jammers are part of electronic warfare as well, they've got their own place in the guide. This leaves
ECM,
remote sensor dampeners,
webbers,
target painters and
tracking disruptors. Most forms of electronic warfare inhibit your target's ability to do something. Target painters are the exception as they allow your gang to better lock and hit a target.
1.3 Don't die
Try not to die. You're more useful alive. It used to be very hard to get killed in an interceptor but
Huginns and Rapiers are getting more common.
Last and least: damage. Damage in a gang, especially smaller ones, is always important but should not be your focus.
Quote:
|
Оriginally Postеd by Shamis
For the damage section. Make sure you specify that FRIG DAMAGE OUTPUT DOESN'T MATTER IN A LARGE GANG.
|
2. Fittings
2.1 Tackling fittings
Tackling gear consists of: a fast ship‚ a
microwarpdrive (MWD) and a warp jammer.
The first two pieces of equipment do not need much of an explanation. You've got a fast ship and you make it go even faster by tacking on an MWD.
The warp jammer, however, needs one big warning:
Do Not Fucking Use A 7.5km Warp Jammer!
Fit
a 20km warp jammer.
2.2 Electronic warfare fittings
Target painters will not be discussed here. They are only used in specific circumstances in which case your gang leader will ask for them to be equipped.
Before the Revelations patch we usually tried to have a balance between tracking disruptors, racial ECM (usually Caldari since they've got mostly missile ships and tracking disruptors don't do much on those) and some webbers. Since the Revelations patch remote sensor dampeners have entered the picture because ECM has been made less effective.
Still you can't go wrong with fitting one or two of the above mentioned three: racial ECM, tracking disruptor or a webber.
2.3 The high slots
Fit whatever long range weapons you get a bonus for so you'll end up doing as much damage as you can. This means artillery, railguns, beam lasers and missiles. Use T2 guns and ammo if possible, it's usually not that expensive for small guns. Make sure your guns do not use so much cap that they start interfering with your primary and secondary roles. (I've never heard of this happening, but I fly Minmatar).
If you have a spare high slot fit an off-lined
small remote armour repairer.
2.4 The low slots
You should be able to run your MWD and warp jammer continuously. Preferably your electronic warfare as well. This means filling up your low slots with
capacitator power relays.
If you have any low slots left I'd suggest either
nanofibers or
inertia stabilizers to increase your agility and speed while MWD'ing.
3. Tactics
3.1 Tackling tactics
3.1.1 General tackling tactics
There are three things important for tackling: you need to be alive, speed and angular speed. (I'm not sure angular speed is covered in the overview setup guide, but since Revelations you can show the target's angular speed in your overview.)
So, how do you stay alive? You stay alive by going fast so missiles can't hit you and by keeping your angular speed high so turrets can't track you.
Missiles have a flight velocity and an explosion velocity. If you go faster than its flight velocity it will never catch up with you and if you go faster than its explosion velocity it will do very little damage to you even if it manages to catch you. There's a couple of other factors but these two are the mains ones.
Turrets have got tracking speed. If you go faster than the turret can track you it will not hit you. This is a little more complicated than just going fast and outrunning missiles though.
If you orbit a ship a turret will have to move all the time to track you, but if you fly straight away or towards a ship a turret does not need to move at all! So you can be going 6000km/s and no missle will ever hit you but if you fly straight at a Tempest's guns it will swat you like the little gnat that you are.
Pictures are worth more than a thousand words in this case, so check out these links:
-
EVE Tracking Guide
-
EVE Missile Guide
-
Spreadsheet - Damage Computations
So, how do you approach a sniping Tempest sitting 200km away from you?
Watch this video.
As you can see, it comes down to closing the distance between the target and keeping your angular speed up. Thus, a spiral approach towards the target is the best.
This means the snipers will get away a lot of the time. Then again, you're also not dead.
So how do you tackle that Vagabond running away from you at 5000km/s? You don't. You can try but his guns will not have to track to hit you so you will probably die. (This applies to any fast ship running away from you or just trying to get angular speed down.)
3.1.2 Tackling ranges
There's a reason we use warp jammers with a 20km range instead of a 7.5km range. Being less than 10km from a target is being within the zone of death. Within this range you can be hit by nosferatu, webbers and short range, better tracking gunnery.
Webbers have a 10km range. Faction webbers go even farther but are rarely encountered. Named medium nosferatu have a range up to 12.6km. Nosferatu (or even worse, destabilizers) steal your cap so you can't use your MWD to run away. Webbers slow you down. 1 + 1 = a destroyed interceptor.
Heavy nosferatu can have a range of up to 25.2km so unless you've got a faction warp jammer on your interceptor you're fucked. Get out of range if you're being nossed by a ship that can equip these and reapproach once you've got some cap again. If your gang has enough tacklers you should be able to switch places with gang members and be able to keep at least one warp jammer point on the target.
3.1.3 Drones
The only drones you need to worry about are light ones. Especially the T2 versions. You either need to be very fast or they have to be popped by the gang.
Quote:
|
Оriginally Postеd by Bombasy
Properly skilled warrior IIs can go more than 6km/s on approach‚ a good drone pilot will make them effective at killing an inty that moves at about that speed by using the engage/recall tactic.
Also beware of any drone boat pilot that drops garde sentry drones on you, they're either set up strictly to kill you (omni tracking links + gardes deployed correctly + orbiting interceptor + single volley = t2 wreck) or they're retards.
|
Оnе more type of drone worth mentioning is the heavy webber drone: the
Berserker SW-900. There are no medium and small versions of this type of drone which means you will generally be faster than it and have nothing to worry about. I have even been caught by these drones and managed to outrun them again after engaging my MWD.
3.1.4 Bumping tactics
This is only applicable against one big‚ solo target.
This was more important before the Revelations patch when warp core stabilizers were overpowered and very common on all kinds of ships. However, It is still useful to give a battlecruiser, battleship or a hauler a friendly bump when you warp in on them.
Every noticed when you're in a ship with little agility how long it takes to align for warp and finally enter it? Bumping causes a ship to change its orientation so it will have to start aligning all over again.
When you're the first of a gang to enter a system and warp in on a big target it might already be aligning for warp. If you just start orbitting him and put one point of warp jammer on him he might stil be able to warp out before the rest of your gang arrives if he has a warp core stabilizer equipped.
Your ship is usually fast enough to approach the target, bump him and get out of web range before they've got a lock on you. In my experience targets only started targetting me once I was already orbitting them at my preferred distance.
3.2 Electronic warfare tactics
This is pretty straight forward actually. Put tracking disruptors on ships with turrets and Caldari ECM on Caldari missile ships.
Why no multi-spectral ECM? They eat a lot of cap for an interceptor, you can't sustain them and they are less effective than a racial ECM against the right ship. A tracking disruptor and a Caldari ECM is both sustainable and more effective for the range of ships you will encounter.
(If we're in a big interceptor gang we usually equip some non-Caldari ECM as well.)
3.2.1 Sensor dampeners
Since Revelations and the ECM readjustment remote sensor dampeners have become a lot more interesting. While not as effective on battleships with sensor boosters they can put the maximum locking distance of a ship well below 20km, given that you've put enough dampeners on a target.
This means two things:
1) The ship cannot lock you at all when you're orbitting him at a certain range.
2) The ship can lock you but it takes him ages to do so. This is the second effect of a dampener: it makes a ship lock slower.
Suppose a ship managed to lock you but now has enough dampeners on him so his maximum locking range will be somewhere near 20km. If you run out of this maximum locking range quick he will lose his lock on you and it will take him quite some time to regain that lock if you come into range again.
Оnly do this if it is rеally necessary.
One more thing on dampeners: They are affected by stacking penalties. Putting more than 3 or 4 on a target isn't very useful‚ so don't equip a whole gang with them.
They also make ECM more effective. If a target with dampeners on it gets ECM'ed it take a lot of time for it to relock something.
3.4 Damage
If you're not in a Crow you've got a minor problem: the faster you go the less damage you do. While a Crow can permit to keep its MWD running continuously it's not so easy when using turrets.
I generally approach a target using the MWD so I can get into range as quick as possible and put a warp jammer on it. Then I orbit at 15km or more and turn my MWD off and only turn it back if the target is able to hit me or sends drones after me.
Make sure turning on your MWD will keep you within 20km of the target! Оthеrwise you will stop warp jamming your target.
4. Ships
So‚ what are the beѕt intеrceptors for gangs?
Basically the Stiletto since it is the only interceptor with four mid slots. This means it can mount two forms of electronic warfare‚ making it very flexible. If you fit a tracking diѕruptor and a Caldari ECM you'rе able to tackle and affect 95% of the ships you'll run into. It's a pretty cheap ship to buy as well.
The Crow is another strong contender since its main source of damage is missiles. This means it can keep running its MWD while shooting at a target‚ making it pretty much invulnerable.
All other interceptorѕ with thrеe mid slots come after that but are still very useful.
In gangs‚ try not to fly interceptorѕ with only two mid slots sincе they're only useful for putting a warp jammer on a target.
5. The End
Hope you enjoyed it and found it useful.
(View-All)
Members who have read this thread : 22
Linear Mode
