Fleet Maneuvering - 31st October

ISD Sessions

31/10/2011 Fleet Maneuvering

This is a copy of the log, from an ISD session on surviving in combat. The expert was ISD IonCharge

The Log

ISD IonCharge > o/
ISD IonCharge > This channel will remain in moderated mode, please join channel:Seminar Q&A(with an ampersand)If you wish to ask questions or discuss the seminar in progress.
ISD Athechu > Welcome to ISD Seminars. Thank you for joining us today.
ISD Athechu > Our topic today is Fleet Maneuvering and is hosted by our own ISD IonCharge. If you have questions you would like to ask please ask them in Seminar Q&A. With this I turn it over to ISD IonCharge.
ISD IonCharge > Greetings, pilots.
ISD IonCharge > Today's seminar will be aimed at slightly older players than some of the more basic ones we've had recently, however hopefully there will be something for everyone here ;)
ISD IonCharge > The topic of the seminar is Fleet Maneuvering - how to move fleets from place to place, and keep them safe, and deploy onto the battlefield in a sensible manner, etc.
ISD IonCharge > We'll start off with the basics - getting to your target system.
ISD IonCharge > For the majority of this seminar we will assume that "fleet" refers to a number of battleships, along with sub-battleship supports such as interceptors and recon ships, and commandships.
ISD IonCharge > Any special cases will be identified as such.
ISD IonCharge > When you wish to move a fleet from one place to another, there are 2 main considerations to take into account - finding a safe route from A to B, and ensuring that the fleet stays together, not leaving behind any stragglers.
ISD IonCharge > The former is achieved by sending out scouts ahead of the fleet - typically this will be done by interceptors or covert ops class frigates, but can also be done by recons in some cases.
ISD IonCharge > As a rough rule of thumb, your fleet will want to have 1 scout per 10-20 ships, up to a maximum of 6-7.
ISD IonCharge > You will send out the majority of scouts forward along your route - some will be 2-3 jumps ahead of the fleet, checking not only the systems you intend to travel through, but also adjacent ones, for signs of ambush.
ISD IonCharge > Others will be in the system immediately before the fleet, to make sure nothing has changed since the forward scouts(s) passed through.
ISD IonCharge > Finally you will want one or two scouts behind the fleet, to ensure they don't get overtaken by a more mobile force, or separated in larger systems, etc.
ISD IonCharge > For coherently moving the fleet, typically what will happen is that once you jump into a system, you will be ordered to align to the next destination stargate.
ISD IonCharge > Once a spotter has confirmed that all ships are aligned (someone is generally given the task of watching ship speeds to check that all are above the 75% threshold) the fleet commander will warp the fleet, resulting in all ships warping together.
ISD IonCharge > When fleet warp is engaged, the fleet warps at the speed of the slowest ship in the warp tunnel, so your supports won't land out of warp ahead of your battleships.
ISD IonCharge > This is however not always desirable, and in this case, the structure of the fleet can be very useful.
ISD IonCharge > Your support ships will generally be kept in a separate wing of the fleet, and the wing commander can warp them ahead of the main fleet as required, for example if they are warping ont a gate guarded by hostiles - the support can be warped at zero range
ISD IonCharge > while the battleships will warp in at snipe range and destroy any ships tackled by the support.
ISD IonCharge > Generally though you will want to simply warp everyone together as you have a specific destination to get to.
ISD Athechu > IonCharge - Corvidus Garrulus asks: Does fleet warp take into coonsideration those ships without capacitor to make a single warp ?
ISD IonCharge > Any ships which have insufficient capacitor will drop out of warp midway and have to catch up on their own - fleet warp only checks the maximal warp speeds.
ISD IonCharge > The above movement scenario was for the case where you want to keep all of your fleet together - such as when moving through non-friendly space.
ISD IonCharge > In some cases though, you know that the route is clear, beacuse of good intel or for other reasons; or you simply need to be somewhere 5 minutes ago; in this case the fleet commander will issue an order to 'make best speed' or 'burn to destination'
ISD IonCharge > This simply means that all ships warp themselves manually until the appointed system.
ISD IonCharge > Typically an FC (fleet commander) will give an order like "make best speed to 3 out unless scouts report anything" which means you are to proceed to the system which is 3 jumps along your route from the destination, unless intel reports the route unsafe
ISD IonCharge > Similar orders are also sometimes given when running from a fight, where there have been heavy losses - in that case it's more a case of "every man for himself" and you may want to take a quiet side path off the main route to throw off pursuit.
ISD IonCharge > Now we move onto the next section, of what to do once your fleet is in the system in which combat is to take place.
ISD IonCharge > Assuming you didn't jump directly into an engagement, you will want to get to the field of combat in an optimal configuration.
ISD IonCharge > For this, covert-type ships are invaluable - they can warp to the combat grid and set up a position such that the fleet can warp to them and be at an optimal range - typically 150-200km for sniping battleships.
ISD IonCharge > Before that happens you will want to send out a few other scouts onto the field of combat, to spread out around it - setting a seconadry location ~500km from the warp-in spot.
ISD IonCharge > Once you prepare to warp in your main combat fleet, your logistics ships will proceed to this spot; it should be aligned such that you don't need to change direction after warping into your combat spot to warp to the logistics spot.
ISD IonCharge > This is set up such that you can align to it immediately after warping in; if the enemy fleet targets you, you simply hit warp and you are at the logistics point; any damage taken while you were warping can then be promptly repaired, allowing you to
ISD IonCharge > return to the field of combat.
ISD IonCharge > Your support fleet will typically be supporting your logistics, or guarding stargates in the system, or other similar 'close-combat' roles as required.
ISD IonCharge > A word on support fleet compositions. Typically these will involve anything from T1 frigates (rifters etc) to battlecruisers; ships which are mobile and can put out high damage in close combat.
ISD IonCharge > Their primary tasking is to defend your battleships in any way possible. This means sometimes staying in with the battleships to take out any threats at close range, other times to warp in on the enemy sniper fleet (if possible), or guarding entry to
ISD IonCharge > the system, or anything else that clsoe support entails.
ISD IonCharge > Outside of direct combat though, your fleet also needs to take defensive maneuvers - this is where the frigates really come into play.
ISD IonCharge > Quickly to answer milan's question before moving on though: frigates in fleet fights have 2 main roles: 1, as an interceptor - catching up to and holding down big ships for higher-dps fleet ships to destroy them, and 2, as a target for motion -
ISD IonCharge > that is, they are very fast, and through fleet warp, other ships in the fleet can be just as fast as them.
ISD IonCharge > This brings me onto the next point - the rolling safespot.
ISD IonCharge > A traditional 'safespot' as explained in a previous seminar, is a bookmark in a blank part of the system, typically halfway between 2 planets, where you can sit and are safe unless someone with scan probes scans you out.
ISD IonCharge > This 'unless' clause however is guaranteed to happen in larger engagements so simply sitting still will get you killed.
ISD IonCharge > However, battleships aren't very fast, as everyone knows. This is where your interceptors really come into play.
ISD IonCharge > Take the fastest interceptor in your fleet. Set the moving in a straight line.
ISD IonCharge > Direction is entirely arbitrary.
ISD IonCharge > Now your fleet simply warps to the interceptor.
ISD IonCharge > ...and when it's far enough to warp again, you warp again.
ISD IonCharge > Suddenly your whole battleship fleet is moving at a nice 10km/s and even if they are probed out, by the time the prober warps in, they will have moved 300km away
ISD IonCharge > You'd think that simply having a faster interceptor to catch up to the fleet when you're that close would be all that's required - however, consider what you're trying to catch up to - a fleet of sniper ships. Approaching in a straight line doens't work
ISD Athechu > Ion - Chris asks: With an interceptor travelling in a straight line further and further away from the engagement, if the battleships move back in wouldnt they be draining more and more of their cap the further the intercepto
ISD IonCharge > You will be using around 1 unit of capacitor for a 150km warp. Your battleship will have around 5000 capacitor and regenerate dozens per second. It is not an issue.
ISD IonCharge > If your fleet is of a sufficeint size that you also have interdictors in the mix, you can use this to set up an impromptu ambush - leave the interdictor a couple hundred km behind the fleet, and if any enemies warp in, you can bubble them;
ISD IonCharge > the fleet can then simply warp back in at a suitable range and apply lots of damage.
ISD IonCharge > Next we will move on to all forms of jump travel.
ISD IonCharge > If anyone has any questions about what's been described so far, please ask them now.
ISD IonCharge > In that case we move onto the jump section.
ISD IonCharge > This involves basically travel using all things jump, starting with jump bridges.
ISD IonCharge > Jump bridges are a special starbase structure which act as stargates do, with a few differences.
ISD IonCharge > They allow ships to instantly travel from one system to another, sometimes quite far apart (in terms of conventional jumps - you can save a 20 jump trip with well-placed jump bridges).
ISD IonCharge > However, unlike stargates, ships going through a jump bridge do not receive any cloaking or invulnerability on the other side, which makes them frequent ambush points, and also jump bridge usage costs fuel, in the form of liquid ozone.
ISD IonCharge > To use a jumpbridge you need only a single thing - the starbase password (or standings, which ammounts to the same thing).
ISD IonCharge > This is a crucial point, as it means your enemies can also use your jump bridge network if your password becomes known, through spies or pilot carelessness - though the starbase will generally have defensive weaponry which will attack anyone not friendl
ISD Athechu > Ion - Lasta Ikara asks: Do you have to have something on the other side of the Jumpbridge, like a ship, or is the end point a stargate?
ISD IonCharge > A note on carelessness - the 'enter starbase password' window looks an awful lot like the 'rename ship' window and they are found near one another in the same menu - be sure you didn't just name your ship as the password, or anyone on d-scan will know
ISD IonCharge > A jumpbridge module is required on both sides, so they link 2 starbases in separate systems. Both systems must have sovereignty claimed by the same alliance.
ISD IonCharge > D-scan is short for directional scan, and can be found via a button left of your HUD.
ISD IonCharge > Next we move onto jump drives.
ISD IonCharge > These are the only method by which non-freighter capital ships can move systems; all capital ships except T1 freighters, and also black ops battleships, have a built in jump drive.
ISD IonCharge > Jump drives allow ships to instantly travel to a system within range - range will vary per ship, and is displayed in light years; as a very very rough guide you can see the whole New Eden star cluster to be around 100-150 LY across.
ISD IonCharge > However, you cannot simply pick an arbitrary system in range to jump to; you also require a special beacon at the destination, called a cynosural field.
ISD IonCharge > Cynosural fields, or cynos for short, may be generated either by a ship with the appropriate module, or by a starbase structure.
ISD IonCharge > Ships creating cynos have all movement disabled for the duration of the beacon (10 minutes, or less on specialised ships) which makes them extremely vulnerable - deploying a cyno in the middle of a fight is usually a suicide job, though it will
ISD IonCharge > allow your capital fleet to enter the field.
ISD IonCharge > Once a cyno is activated by a ship, a global beacon appears on the overview which anyone in system can warp to directly - this also increases the danger of using the module, of course.
ISD IonCharge > Cynos may be used in 0.4 or lower security space, and not in Unknown space.
ISD IonCharge > Covert cynos are a special type of cyno which only black ops battleships can lock onto; however, they have a much shorter cycle time and do not show up on the overview for anyone in system, except pilots of black ops battleships.
ISD IonCharge > Titans and black ops battleships can also be fitted with special modules called jump portal generators.
ISD IonCharge > These modules create what is essentially a 1-way wormhole, allowing ships in the fleet to jump to the cyno without having a jump drive themselves.
ISD IonCharge > Titan jump portals allow any ships to go through for 'free' (aside from initial activation cost of the portal).
ISD IonCharge > Covert jump portals only allow covert-type ships (any ship which can fit a covert ops cloaking device, and black ops battleships) to go through; they have no activation cost but do use fuel for every ship which jumps.
ISD IonCharge > This brings us to one very special tactic which some groups use when planning to assault a system.
ISD IonCharge > Though first, I forgot to mention one thing about jump drives and cynos.
ISD IonCharge > An alliance with sovereignty over a system can also set up a special starbase module called a cyno jammer. As you can guess, this prevents any cynosural activity in system - it blocks all jump drives. Or rather, almost all.
ISD IonCharge > Black ops battleships can still jump or bridge into a cynojammed system.
ISD IonCharge > Now, if you were planning to assault a heavily fortified system, with a cynojammer in place, it would be useful to give your fleet an assembly point in the system.
ISD IonCharge > This can be acheived by sending some blockade runners such as the crane through a black ops jump bridge - with proper fittings these ships can carry a starbase control tower, fuel and other fittings - allowing you to sneakily s...
ISD IonCharge > set up a POS right in your enemy's system.
ISD Athechu > Ion - Drakominer asks: Do you have a link on jump drives like the one on jump bridges?
ISD IonCharge > http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Jump_drive
ISD IonCharge > This can help serve as a staging point for your fleet to gather as they enter the system; once assembled, you can take out the cyno jammer quickly, allowing your capital ships to come in, as well as a titan bridge to bring in the rest of the fleet.
ISD IonCharge > Stealth bombers can be a great tool for such raids, as they have a very high damage output, are hard to hit with starbase guns, and can be sent through the same blackops jump bridge.
ISD IonCharge > Once the cynojammer is down, you can bring in carriers carrying extra ships to replace those lost by pilots on the assault, as carriers can carry assmebled, fully ready to fight ships in their maintenance bay.
ISD IonCharge > This concludes the section on jump bridges and drives. The final section of the seminar will be on covert operations and other smaller-scale tactics. Does anyone have any questions before we proceed?
ISD IonCharge > RIght then, onwards we go.
ISD IonCharge > This section will cover special tactics involving covert fleets - not necessarily ships which have cloaking bonuses, but just any ships in general that can fit a cloak - that is, just about everything besides shuttles and freighters.
ISD IonCharge > Sometimes it will be beneficial to a larger fight to set up a blockade behind enemy lines - sometimes deep in the heart of enemy space.
ISD IonCharge > In this case you will want to equip all of your ships with cloaking devices, as it gives them much greater freedom to pick their fights, take targets of opportunity, and disappear if the locals try to do something about them.
ISD IonCharge > However, if you have a whole fleet of cloaked ships, this can also be to your disadvantage - cloaked allies are just as undetectable as cloaked enemies, so you must take special efforts to maintain coordinated motion while cloaked - especially if
ISD IonCharge > your ships are moving around relatively close together, to ensure you don't uncloak each other (uncloaking range is 2km).
ISD IonCharge > Luckily, there are several tools and items which greatly help with this.
ISD IonCharge > The first is the corpse - an item created any time a capsule is destroyed.
ISD IonCharge > Corpses are invaluable to covert fleets. When jetisoned, they do not create a jetcan; rather, they stay in space as a corpse.
ISD IonCharge > This is important as corpses have no bracket icon (no little icon in space) and furthermore are generally not on combat overviews by default.
ISD IonCharge > This makes them almost entirely unnoticable, unless you mouse over them directly in space.
ISD IonCharge > What you can then do is, drop some corpses in a grid perhaps 50-100km across; this gives you a reference point by which to move so that you can tell exactly where you are and where you need to be, as can the rest of your cloaked ships.
ISD IonCharge > The second tool is the 'compass' which is built into all ships.
ISD IonCharge > If you are in space at the moment, go ahead and click the tactical overlay button on the left of your HUD. You may never have used this before, or thought it was just 'something that's there' but for cloaked ships this is truly invaluable.
ISD IonCharge > You will see that there are distance markers going off in 4 directions. Although these appear to have an arbitrary alignment, notice how they do not rotate if you turn your ship.
ISD IonCharge > This is because the distance markers are aligned along the same axes for everyone in system - basically they're like a compass.
ISD IonCharge > Now you have a grid and a compass, with a bit of competency (and practice - the test server awaits) you can very precisely position cloaked ships without anyone uncloaking anyone else.
ISD IonCharge > This brings us to what cloaked ships are very good at - ambushes.
ISD IonCharge > There are many ways to ambush a fleet, of which I have time to mention but a few.
ISD IonCharge > The first involves simply catching them as they jump into a gate - uncloak an interdictor and drop a bubble, then kill the ships before they can get away; stealth bombers excel here again due to their high damage output.
ISD IonCharge > The second takes a bit more finesse - if you see an enemy fleet warping to your gate that you're planning on ambushing, you can set up ~100km in front of the gate, along their line of warp.
ISD IonCharge > Once your scout has reported that most of the enemy fleet has warped, uncloak the interdictor and drop bubble.
ISD IonCharge > This will intercept the last stragglers in the fleet (and there are always a few) and give you a free kill on them, while their fleet helplessly watches from a distance. You can recloak before they can do anything about it.
ISD IonCharge > This generally only applies when ambushing sub-battleship or other closerange fleets - a sniper fleet at 100km will make short work of your little covert group.
ISD IonCharge > Now I will give a quick description of bubble mechanics (as I've mentioned bubbles several times) before ending this seminar.
ISD IonCharge > First off, bubbles, or interdiction spheres, or warp disruption spheres, prevent all warp or jump drive activations in their area of effect.
ISD IonCharge > This means any ship inside a bubble must move out of the bubble before they can warp or jump away.
ISD IonCharge > Bubbles come from 3 sources: an anchored item, a probe, and an active module.
ISD IonCharge > Anchorable bubbles come in many sizes, with varying costs; the largest ones have a ~50km area of effect, which is very substantial.
ISD IonCharge > The probes are launched from interdictors, which are tech 2 destroyers; these are very mobile ships, faster than some frigates, and can also put out a lot of damgae agaisnt small targets very quickly.
ISD IonCharge > The active module is the warp disruption field generator, which goes on a heavy interdictor; these are heavily-tanked crusiers, with effective hitpoints and tanks second only to battleships, which can maintain a bubble as long as they have the capacitor
ISD IonCharge > Bubbles launched from interdictors last only 2 minutes.
ISD IonCharge > Anchorable bubbles can be destroyed by targeting and firing on them; bubbles from interdictors can only be destroyed by area-of-effect weapons (smartbombs and bombs). Bubbles from heavy interdictors are only deactivated by disabling the ship.
ISD IonCharge > Aside from preventing warp, bubbles have a second property - they can affect your warp destination.
ISD IonCharge > If you are warping somewhere and a bubble is anchored there, you will land at the edge of the bubble rather than directly at your destination.
ISD IonCharge > This is also true if the bubble is slightly set aside from your destination, e.g. 50km behind the gate you were warping to - a common occurence in nullsec gatecamps.
ISD IonCharge > The rules for a bubble to 'pull' you out of warp are:1. the bubble must be on destination grid2. the bubble must be within 100km of warp target3. the bubble must be directly along the line of warp
ISD IonCharge > The 2nd point here is very important, as your 'warp target' does not change with 'warp at X' range.
ISD IonCharge > If a bubble is anchored 50km behind a stargate along your line of warp, it will pull you whether you chose to warp to the stargate at 0 or 100km.
ISD IonCharge > However, if you had a bookmark 100km in front of the stargate, you would not be affected.
ISD IonCharge > Typically gatecamps set in such a manner will have frigates or interceptors to immediately tackle ships landing on the bubble, preventing them from getting away once they move out of it.
ISD IonCharge > These can be avoided by warping in from a direction not along the gate - gate warp line, such as from a planet to the side.
ISD IonCharge > I think we'll stop there for today, if anyone has any questions about anything to do with fleet maneuvering, please ask now.
ISD IonCharge > For anyone who came late and missed it, to ask questions please join the Seminar Q&A channel.
ISD Athechu > I would like to thank ISD IonCharge for teaching us about Fleet Maneuvering. Both of us would like to thank everyone that came and listened and asked questions.
ISD Athechu > We are always looking for feedback. Please post it here: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=125826
ISD Athechu > A copy of the log will be located here: http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/ISD_Seminars
ISD Athechu > Don't forget to look at our thread in EVE New Citizens Q&A for upcomming Seminars as well as our twitter thread: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=17608&find=unread
ISD Athechu > http://twitter.com/#!/ISD_STAR
ISD Athechu > Have a great day and fly safe everyone. o/
ISD Athechu > We will keep Q&A channel in a few minutes for any final questions then we will close it till the next seminar.
ISD Athechu > Open for a few minutes*
ISD Athechu > Fly safe o/
ISD IonCharge > o/