User:Frandetta

[CLASS] Recognizing, Avoiding, and Countering: Kites, disegages, bait.

Contents

First I'll just mention the rules of the class. Unless otherwise specified TS is to be kept clear of chat. Second, we'll be taking a fleet to practice some of these tactics, so I'll ask you guys to pick a tackler of choice to fly. We'll be staying within the Aldrat pocket, so rest assured the rules are being followed.

Welcome to Advanced PVP Tactics, where we'll be discussing how to recognize, avoid, and counter kites, disengages, and bait.

These are three of the most common tactics that you'll see used, and so it's vital to be able to discern when they're being used, and know how to counter them.

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So first up I'll talk about kiting. Kiting is the practice of drawing an enemy ship along as you dictate range and the terms of engagement. In short: you make someone chase you. The inherent danger of being kited is two-fold: first is having 0 angular velocity so that you're easy to hit even in a frigate, and the second is being separated from the main force of a fleet. The danger is compounded since ships that will kite will also typically have a greater range.

So how do you recognize when you're being kited? If a ship is running from you in a straight line and his speed is either greater than yours or only slightly below yours: you're being kited. This is especially true when you're chasing a larger ship, for example chasing a BS with a cruiser. A key number to look for is your angular velocity on the overview. If you're chasing in a straight line, your angular velocity will drop to near 0 and you will be a huge target for even the slowest tracking guns. Always fly at angles to close distance.

How do you avoid being kited? As I mentioned you should always fly at an angle to close distance in order to keep angular velocity high. But if the difference in speed between your ship and the target's is not great enough, your angular will remain low even if you fly at an angle. In these cases, your best course of action is to simply disengage. It's the hardest thing to do for even experienced pilots, but in this case and several more that you'll see: discretion is truly the better part of valor.

So let's say you know you're up against a kiting ship. What are the tools you can use against it? Well the first: if you know you can close the distance, is to have the enemy ship ECMed. He will pose no risk to you if he can't lock you and fire on you. So if you ECM him, you'll be able to tackle him and bring in the cavalry. A note though, that if all you have is a web, and he's using a MWD, main forces will often not be able to catch up. (Imagine an interceptor at 4km/s, and now that speed is only 20%, that's still 800m/s, much faster than many ships). Sometimes a scramble is worth fitting if you know you might need to counter very fast ships.

The second method of countering a kite is to simply snipe. In the uni, there are few pilots with the skills to snipe effectively, but this is a strong counter to the kite. Often if nobody is chasing, a kiting ship will fly in straight lines towards or away from fleets to taunt them. At this point the angular velocity is low and a few well placed volleys will kill the ships.

Are there any questions about kiting?

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Alright, the next topic we'll be touching on is non-engagements or disengagements. I would define it as an enemy ship ceasing hostile actions in an attempt to either dock up, or jump through a gate. So to understand that, ships cannot use gates or dock for 60 seconds after using a module against another ship. That includes ECM, tackling, DD, and a variety of other modules. This tactic is extremely common and is the #1 reason that I've seen for fleets missing kills.

Recognizing a non-engage is simple, as a target that isn't flashy will not become flashy, or because no fleet member will have been aggressed (communication within a fleet is vital to find out if someone has been engaged). Recognizing disengages can be much more difficult. It too requires communication. The person who had been under attack from the target must recognize that the target is no longer attacking, and must try to relay that information.

Countering both non-engages and disengages is nearly the same. A tackler guarding the other side of a gate will be able to tackle a lone ship trying to align and warp off on the other side. For non-engages an FC may elect to simply split the fleet in half. With one half engaging on the current side of the gate, and the other half jumping through in anticipation. The most difficult part of this, is convincing fleet members to not engage, as everyone wants to be on the killmail. But as I'll demonstrate in the practical, when everyone engages, nobody gets on the killmail.

A subset of disengages and non-engages that I'm not as knowledgeable about, but will discuss briefly, is station games. This is when a target choses to undock and allow themselves to be aggressed with the purpose of determining an enemy fleet's disposition. If you do not know a system, do not play docking games there. There are multiple kinds of stations. Some will undock you within the docking range and some outside of it. What this means in practice is that you may end up having to travel back towards a station before being able to dock again (very risky proposition unless you're in a heavily tanked ship). So this is a case where information is power, and if you don't know the station, don't play the game there.

Are there any questions about disengages and non-engages?

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The last topic we'll be covering is bait.

Briefly, bait is a heavily tanked ship acting as a lure for others to attack while a main force lies in wait to counter.

There are several ships that are common bait. Essentially any ship with bonuses to resists are often used as bait. Uncommon bait can come in many forms, so there's not usually a surefire way to know if someone is looking for a fight alone, or is acting as bait.

Avoiding and countering bait is all about intelligence. Not yours, the military kind. You need to know how many players in the surrounding systems are in the same corp or alliance as the person you're thinking about jumping. To avoid being baited the simplest thing to do is simply not attack. But without ever attacking a ship, you'll never really get fights. So the best option is to assume a ship is bait at first, and prepare a counter. Countering can involve bringing in a very large amount of DPS in order to kill the bait and warp out as quickly as possible, or to keep part of a fleet in reserve in order to jump in when the bait's main force arrives.

Are there any questions about baiting?

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Alright, so to those who are here strictly for the theory, thank you for coming, and you're free to remain in the chat channel and continue to ask questions as they arise. I'll now be stopping the recording as the practical aspect of the class doesn't lend itself well to recording.

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Alright, so in the next 10 minutes I'm going to get my next set of notes prepared, and we'll form the fleet, and take a little break. So before you guys go, I'll ask you to x up in class, and as soon as you get your invites, you're free to AFK.

Alright, so now we begin the practical aspect of the class. Kiting with stabber or Jag or Tempest.

Non-engage with Tempest.

No bait test.

Scams

Introduction

Scams come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. This class will give you an overview of the most common types but is in no way a comprehensive guide on every scam you may see in EVE.

This class will begin with the commonalities of all scams. To understand a scam you have to understand the target. Scammers aim for those who are greedy, hasty, and/or ignorant. 90% of scams can be avoided by double checking a contract inventory, or carefully thinking a situation through. Quite simply: if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Forbidden/Banable Schemes

Char selling fraud
If fraud is committed in the selling of a character through the character bazaar (http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=channel&channelID=734105) you can petition and have everything reversed.

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Impersonation
Impersonating another character or corporation is a bannable offense. Point finale.

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Loan contract schemes
Because of the complexity of loan contracts, they're not open to scams. (http://www.eveonline.com/news.asp?a=single&nid=1519&tid=1)

Simple Schemes

Begging
This is the simplest scam around where one simply asks for isk in popular channels (trade hub local, rookie help, NPC corp chat, etc.) They'll always have a story about how they lost their ship or they got scammed themselves or any of 1000 reasons why they want something for nothing.

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ISK doubling
This shares similarities to begging in the sense that both take place in highly dense channels. With ISK doubling a player is offering to send back twice the ISK that you send them. This is *always* a scam in the long run. The scammer will pay back small amounts in order to 'drum up sales' and get people talking, but as soon as they gain a large amount, they'll simply stop sending money back.

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Can flipping
Also called ninja'ing, this is where someone enters your mission space or ratting belt and outright steals your loot. This can get complicated, because sometimes people will be prepared for exactly this and have a point on their mission running ship in anticipation of a ninja looter. On the reverse of that is sometimes someone will steal your loot in the hopes that you do in fact shoot them while they have allies waiting to come in and destroy your ship.
The best approach to take is to simply allow your goods to be stolen. Better to lose a bit of loot than a mission ship.

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Sale of intangibles
This is the epic tale of selling someone the Golden Gate bridge. Quite simply it's selling something that either has no worth, is not verifiable, or simply does not belong to them. For example selling a bookmark to a wormhole with any kind of assurance of what is or is not in there (in terms of sites to run as well as presence of a hostile corporation inside).

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Trade Window
This scam is purely a timing thing. This typically happens when you're selling something. Someone offers you a great price and asks you to trade it via the trade window instead of using a private contract. The scammer will enter the amount of isk in the window, and as soon as you drop the item, they'll 0-out the amount of money and quickly accept the trade. (They have to pull this scam in between the time you drop your item in the trade window and when you hit accept.
To avoid this scam: never use the trade window when dealing with someone you don't completely trust. (Contract fees are nothing compared to losing an expensive item).

Contract

Ambush sale (great sell price but in low/null sec)
In this scam an item is available in the market or contract for a great deal cheaper than the average. The catch is that you'll either have to lowsec or null sec in order to collect the item.
To avoid this scam, always check the route that will get you to an item. (Checking the sec status of the system is not fool-proof as some highsec systems require traversal of low or null sec)

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Courier contracts
Related to the ambush sale (in that a scam victim is lured to low or null sec). Instead of offering a good price on an item, this scam involves a courier contract routing you to or through low or null sec.
Avoiding this scam is the same as the ambush sale: always check the route before accepting.

Sell contracts for 2x item
In this scam, a contract appears to be a typical WTB contract (possibly offering a slightly above average price) but in fact the contract is asking for 2 of the item and not 1. It can be an easy scam to fall for in cases where you have the 2 items and are not carefully reading the contract.
Always take time to verify what a contract is asking for, and if you want a failsafe: only ever keep a single copy of an expensive mod on hand when accepting WTB contracts.

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Fittings without ship
This is a very common scam. Usually a scammer will link a contract selling a ship (seems to be hulks a lot) for a seemingly very low price. They'll say that they're offering the ship and all the fittings, while in fact the contract will only have the fittings. This relies on people not properly checking the items in the contract.

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Multiples of 1000
This scam can involve market buy orders as well as contracts. Simply, the scammer sets up a buy order at 1000th the average price. It relies on people not noticing the difference between 121 thousand and 121 million.
This scam can also be run with markets, especially in less populace regions by offering ships or modules at 10x their price. For example if you're not careful and need a rifter, you might accept the only sell order in the region as the average, while they're selling at 100m instead of 100k.

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Similar names
This is yet another contract scam where a scammer will advertise a ship or module as its faction varient and rely on people not checking the actual item being offered. This can also work with modules of similar names such as Pith C-Type in a contract advertised as an A or X type.

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Big Schemes

Banks
At it's heart it's a simple idea: get people to give you their money. The inner working are similar to a ponzi scheme. To my knowledge, no bank has ever been legitimate in the long term. Every one has either been robbed or been unmasked as a scam.

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Ponzi scheme
The ponzi scheme works in the same way as a bank. You invest money, and the money you pay back returns dividends.

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Corp theft and roles

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Corp initiation fee
Reputable corporations usually don't ask for any kind of initiation fees. One can imagine though how a fake corp can create a fake killboard and website, and using alts in the recruitment channel establish a kind of fake reputation and build a sense that it can be worth a few million isk to join a top notch corp.

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Lotteries
As a rule of thumb, I avoid all lotteries outside of my own corp or alliance. It's *very* easy to fake a reputation and establish a lottery, so quite simply: I don't know which I can trust so I trust none. If I want to gamble, I'll get into a frigate and play around in lowsec.

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Recourse

With the exception of those scams specifically forbidden by CCP: scams are fully allowed in EVE. You have no recourse other than to set sec standing and hope you one day catch them in low/null sec.