User:Iavatus/Workbench 2

Incursions 102

A quick recap of Incursions 101 - what we do, what we fly, how we do what to who and why

• High end pve, make much ISK.
• Nomadic, in certain constellations and they change every few days.
• Some in low, high and null. We do high, cause we're not suicidal. Get yer pvp off mah pve. Requires battleship with t2 tank, or basi/scimi (caldari/minmatar cruiser V, logi IV, supports) min.

The more specialized roles in Incursions - VGs, Assaults and HQs

DD

First and most numerous role in incursions, is damage dealer. DD. Requires either T3 (loki or legion. Proteus a little trickier. Tengu makes for a bit of a sadface. Missiles aren't crash-hot, especially in VGs) or battleship. Main job is to enter the site with defensive mods on, lock and shoot. Often in a specific order (niarja romi deltole for some sites), as some ships are high priority. DD skills and mods, are dps skills, tank skills and cap skills, ewar mods (webs, painters). Pilot skills include ability to broadcast for shields and in position, to shoot in tagged order AND know what the next wave holds. Experienced dd will preload long or short range ammo, depending on the site.

It should go without saying, that what the FC says, goes. They've stepped up to a tricky role, which requires a lot of management and multitasking. Making life difficult for them makes nobody happy. Ask questions and the logic behind the orders, but be respectful.

A word about utility mods

Target painters bloom the sig of the ship, useful against frigs and cruisers to let the dd hit them harder. Webifiers slow them down, letting the dd hit them harder. So, once you're comfortable with the hull and incursion, strip tank and add more gank - and some utility mods. Can never have too many, except possibly an excess of webs, not enough painters.

Logi

Second role, and simply essential for any fleet, is logi. Scimi/basi (we fly shield fleets). Main role, is to provide reps. Logi does this, by having everyone locked up and using a combination of the broadcast window (remember broadcasting?), the lock list, incoming warp and web notifications and experience. Once it's apparent which lucky fellow is getting aggro, logi clicks his lock, drops two reps and monitors. On most sites, 2 reps each from 2 logi is sufficient. With a heavy wave, or light tank, we will put more reppers on, but logi getting aggro isn't a good thing. It introduces a degree of risk, but is easily manageable. Logi skills are t2 reppers, cap skills, tank skills and tracking links to increase fleetmates range or tracking. Pilot duties are to provide reps to prevent a pretty splosion, monitor fleet health ,sort out links with other logi and drop ore in the can (VG site, NMC). Experienced logi are in a good position to monitor fleet composition, health and anyone wandering away from the fleet. In HQs, this is far more useful.

So. Those are the two main roles. There's are subsets of these, and we'll talk about them at the end (sniper dps, ct basi.... gotta be more). But, now you've chosen the vanilla role, we'll talk about what new roles you can do once you've got a bit of experience.

Scout/hack and pickets

Now, these make the fleet go much, much smoother. A picket is useful in wartime, a scout at all times.

• Picket - This is an easy low skill role, but boring and requires a lot of focus. Simply, they sit in a cloaky frigate at one of the chokepoints to the running system and make sure to give the fleet notice of incoming war targets. That's .... pretty much it.

• Scout/hack - This requires a little more skill and practice, but a great one for a new pilot to earn ISK to get into an incursion boat. The job is to bounce between the various beacons in the running system, take note of what fleets are running and thus what site the fleet can warp to next, savign a great deal of time (especially with big, fat, slow, torpid battleships. I'm looking at you, vindicator). Also, on an Override Transfer Array (OTA), the hacker comes into the site after the eysturs have spawned, hacks a can (doesn't require the hacking minigame, simply the hacking modules and cycling). This deactivates the Sansha tower repping, which greatly speeds the site. Because of this, OTAs are a prized site as they can be run very quickly.

Now, the next few roles can be done by anyone, with a minimal input of skill points.

Tagger

This requires knowing what ships to be shot first, being able to press buttons like 1 2 3 4, and leadership V. But everyone has leadership V, right? Weeklong skill, but makes the FC's life so much easier, with a surplus of SC capable peeps. Anyone more then 3 months old has little excuse to not have it.

Waitlist manager

This requires being able to read, a degree of knowledge of ships and how much tank is necessary, and being able to communicate with an incoming pilot when and where to join the fleet.

Drone bunny

This requires a fast locking ship, preferrably with webs or target painter. The role is to lock the frigates, use either a gun or aggressive mods to get the drone ball to take them down. T3's are perfect for this.

FC

The Fried Chip. The Fail Concentrate. The Fat Controller! Or Fleet Commander. Now, this does require a degree more pilot skill, experience and knowledge.

You need to know the various ships quite well, as that can limit what sites you run (all blaster boats will not have a fun time in an NMC).

You need to know the sites quite well, to make sure that your fleet has enough people and enough firepower AND enough logi to deal with it. In a VG, this is fairly easy but a HQ fleet involves 40 people. Going into a NRF with 3 logi, one of whom is AFK, is gonna be messy.

You need to be able to coordinate several different tasks - dealing damage yourself, assigning roles to other pilots, coordinating with the scout for the next site, coordinating with fleet boss/waitlist manager on leaving pilots and getting replacements.

Finally, you need to delegate. There are some FCs who can and do run several roles themselves, and props to them. But, we are a learning institute, and it's to all our benefits to train up new pilots constantly. Incursions, especially VGs, are great places for a new pilot to get used to running in a pvp fleet, or in a rougher incursion community, or even in another corp!

Those are the roles we use in VGs. Assaults and HQs require some more, but a little more specialized.

AAA - Anchor

This role goes to a tough ship, with high EHP and good resists. He enters the site 2 -4 seconds before the main fleet, gets the aggro. This helps the logi out immensely, both by having one ship to rep for 2 minutes, and not getting aggro themselves and jammed. Needs high EHP and knowledge of the sites. If you get nominated as aggro, drop a gank mod add more tank. Preloaded full room aggro can be intense. The anchor moves to certain positions in site and the fleet follows (orbits in case of logi), this means everyone will be at a good shooting position in time for the next spawn.

VVV - The vindy anchor

As the vindy's are short range, high dps glass cannons, they move to their own position, following the VVV who sets them up at an optimal position. Again, this needs knowledge of the site. Having an overview tab set up just showing vindys is good too, lets you see if Captain HerfDerf is wandering off to the wild blue yonder.

MTAC

This is a very specialised role, only used in TCRC. The site spawns containers, the mtac-d drops the object into a can, the mtac-p tractors it towards them and places it in another container. This needs to be timed, as the tower will rep itself to full if the timer lapses. Think an OTA but with more coordination.

Sniper

A good fleet has a mix of ships, and specializes towards their own optimals. Snipers focus on the long range ships and shoot in their own tagged order. This keeps the rest of the fleet clear to focus on the close range stuff and moves the site along quicker. Good ships for this role include nightmares and machariels fit with artillery

A word about missiles

Missiles do see some use in HQs, where there are more battleships and cruisers, enough targets to allow them to focus on and mitigate their shortcomings (delayed damage, sig radius penalties, wasted cycles when the targets already dead). Microwarpdrive torp ravens (navy issue, natch) can do quite successfully, depending on fleet composition and pilot skill. In the uni, it's not frequent enough to merit skilling up and being part of your incursion kit, but if you fly in the other communities, you will be able to fly.

Ship progression

So, you've been flying your rokh for 2 months now. Fat ISK roll? Time to upgrade.

As in all things, in Eve and Real life, a little thought now can make things much smoother. Say you've just spent the last 2 months getting your missile supports up to V, and you want to hop into a Raven Navy Issue for vanguards. While feasible for hqs and assaults, missile ships have some downsides in vgs, not least the delayed damage, and poor damage of bs missiles to frigs and cruisers. So, plan your ship. Like flying Amarr? Keep getting the laser skills and supports up. Minmatar? Projectiles. Gallente? Hybrids. Caldari? Cry in the corner, and crosstrain into pirate. For logi, a t3 is your best bet. Loki for long range webs, legion for flexible ranged dps.

Pilot improvement

An important part of being in a fleet of 10, 12, 40 people, is clearly communicating. Less so if you're a grunt following the commands, but we want you to step up and take the tricky roles. Plus, it's good practice for running a pvp op, and communicating with the FC. As this is PvE, there shouldn't be too many suprises, but the routine comments (Anchor enter site, fleet release drones, assign to drone bunny, logis l up) etc, make life a bit smoother for the vets, and help the nubs become bittervets sooner.

Incursions are nomadic, and with some of the communities acting childish (popping moms early, popping all the high sec moms, contesting, losing, crying and popping the mom, etc) you'd best get used to it. An easy tactic to keep the flying to a minimum, is by stationing a hull or two in several stations. For example, a 400M bs in Jita, Dodixie, Amarr and rens cover a great deal of the map. See where the current constellation is, undock in a shuttle and autopilot to near the station, and it's now 8 jumps in the hull, with the benefit of being convenient to restock ammo, drones and lyavite.

Or, redfrog that bad boy. Quick, a little pricy when you're new, but damn convenient.

And get used to drama if you fly with the public. Incursions generate almost as much drama as LP.

Tips and tricks

There are some things in incursions you learn from practice, and some from being told big lies that are funny to the people in the know, and not you. Here are some of them.

DD

Ungrouping guns. There are times to split your guns into 2 or more groups. When you're a vindy, and webbing and shooting frigs it can speed up your response times. As a drone bunny, it's very useful to ungroup one gun, set autorepeat off and use it as a drone painter to get them on task soonest.

Knowing the sansha

With an experienced fleet the new pilots should barely get a chance to see a niarja - cause they're almost always primary. A jammer can be seriously bad news. So knowing what ships the fc is going to call is good to set up your target list. Also, knowing how squishy they are when warping straight at you lets you set up some good killshots, and moving your guns to the next target as they ding into structure.

Knowing your colleagues

Your fleetmates are more then the ship they fly ..... Honest! But having a good feel for what each ship is good at (nightmares can be long range, vindys get the short range. T3's are good drone bunnies, and the mach is middling for everything)

Stepping up for roles

Letting the same people do the same jobs over and over, is a good way for them to dissappear from the community. Step up, do your part. Hey, you might enjoy it. You'll definetely learn how to manage a fleet.

Logi

Anticipating

Be aware of who is likely to get aggro, and when to drop reppers and switch to the new target. This comes with experience and practice. But if you see some idiot wandering away from the fleet, good idea to blister his ears over comms and lock him up.

Communicating with your fellow logi

Scimi's don't require much communication, just who you're linking. Basi's, it's a politeness to say CTs up over comms to let them know you're giving them cap. Also, if you're being jammed, sing out "Logi (pilot name) jammed" This lets the FC and other logi know to step up to their A-game while you have a little stretch and nap.

Managing the lock/unlcok game

In busy sites, you'll have people broadcasting for repps, and 'forgetting' to in position. This is normal, but a good LC will be following the broadcasts, and ask for in positions at 7/8 locks (2 for links, anchor and 2 or 3 people actually taking damage). But if it doesn't happen, you have to make educated guesses who to unlock. Last broadcast was 5 mins ago? Unlock. The lasers aren't anywhere near them? Unlock.

The aggro tables

Incursion AI is fairly intelligent, compared to mission AI and especially old mission AI. It has some clever weightings and fuzzy logic to keep it from being predictable.

• 1 - Damage dealt

How much damage you deal over the period between checks. Vindys, blaster boats rank highly here.

• 2 - Tank

This is more of a second generation weighting. Once they've checked your tank and seen whow squishy it is, you're more likely to score higher. Vindy, T3s rank high here. You can see this from how an anchor will get first aggro (obviously), and rarely again in site due to their hefty tank.

• 3 - Offensive ewar.

TPs, webs and ECM here. The TPs and webs get a bit lost in the melange here. If everyone has 2 mods, then the effect is largely similar. ECMs, however do push the pilot up VERY high here. They really don't like being jammed. This can be used to calm the site, by forcing the ECM boat to get aggro.

• 4 - Speed and proximity

Largely related to logi, as the dd fellas don't move, or quickly. A ship that's very close to the spawn, or orbiting at a great distance from the anchor will move up the table. This is partly because they're an isolated target, and because they're probably in ideal shooting/webbing/scramming range

• 5 - Defensive/support ewar

If it wasn't for this, logi's would rarely get aggro. Repping someone who's getting damage, tracking links (minor, but there) and cap transfers involve this. This is part of the reason experienced logi will drop 2 reps on a target, more as needed. Drop all 4, and you move very high up the ranks.

• 6 - Fuzzy logic

Now, if the previous rulings were all there were, it'd be much easier to deduce and game the rules. Make two ships with priority of 15, all the rest 14.9 and under, and the logi would only need to bounce reps between 2, and the rest of the fleet could run on zero tank. But this is why a scout/hack can get aggro. This is why a ship with an afk pilot can get aggro. This is why the logi needs to be alert and the FC needs to monitor the health.

What to expect in the 3 encounter levels - aproppriate tank for vgs/Assaults/HQs

• VG tank - 60 - 70% resists on average, one LSE for buffer. Fairly overtanked, but good for starters and high influence

Great to practice your incursions in, and to get used to the way they roll. Once you've gotten a few hours of running in, think about checking out a public HQ fleet.

• Assaults - 70% resists average, Add an extra resist mod

More damage, and more variety then VGs. Remember to broadcast!

• HQ - 70% resists min. On busy sites and heavy waves the tank can disappear instantly.

HQs are where the damage gets seriously. 3rd wave on the TPPH contains several outunis, enough target painters and webs to make you very big and slow, and enough damage to instantly remove your shields. This is why we practice broadcasting.

• Mom - 70 - 75% resists min. Be on time with broadcasts, learn to overheat, and stay focused.

Tank? Check. Ammo? Check. Screaming lungs? Check. Time to do a mom. This is where it's been leading up.

Special circumstances

Incursioning in war time

War time incursions require a little more vigilance.. First up, you need a picket on connecting systems in case the gank fleet is coming via conventional routes. Second, you need someone/ a few people watching local in case they slip past the scouts, either due to not watching as diligently as needed, or by the war targets deliberately logging off in system to get the drop on us.

How to stay safe, how to move between sites

There's little that's mroe frustrating then piloting 20 jumps to a new focus and getting ganked on the last 4. Fortunately, there's ways and means to prevent this. In peace time, it's simply a matter of ripping off all the gank mods and fitting buffer and resists. Unless you're carrying several pithum-a types in the hold, even a pirate battleship has enough tank to deter a profit based gank. Lulz based is another matter entirely.

IN war time, it's also fairly simple - out of corp courier. Either train up an alt to sit in the ship and slowly move it over, or contract it with redfrog, or with a friendly unista.

Incursioning in solitude

Solitude incursions are a little out of the ordinary. Mostly, we follow the big groups. This has the advantage of not having to beat the focus down and letting the pilots fly with the other groups if Uni doesn't have a fleet up.

In solitude, we have to beat the ontrol penalties down ourselves. The market for mods and ammo is more limited, and it can be difficult to get hulls in an out. However, we have a service to haul a spare hull out there for you. Once you've done incursions for a while and have the fat ISK roll, it's easy enough to send a hull there for when a solitude incursion spawns, so that's the main disadvantage done.

The advantages? Plentiful. For starters, few contests. When we get numbers (and we will pull in the public members), we run assaults and hqs, even the mum when we can. So a great place to learn and make the ISK. Plus it gets you used to a more cramped lifestyle.

Discussion of ships, tank and fittings

Check the incursion hub for great fits and advice.

Q&A

An optional half hour prac will follow. A cruiser/bc/bs will be required, roles will be assigned. This will be a dry run of how to run an incursion, including broadcasting, shooting at tags and following FC commands.