User:Al Pokriskin/Drafts/Advanced piloting techniques: Difference between revisions

So, in a one on one fight between two equal ships, how do you get the upper hand and come away with the win? A similar question would be: in a swarm of fifteen tacklers barrelling towards an enemy fleet, how do you keep yourself alive when frigates are popping all around you?

The tactical overlay button (to the left of your capacitor/health circle) puts range markers on your view of space (or, if you have it open, on your solar system map) so you can get a better sense of distance. If you mouse over one of your modules while in the tactical overlay, a circle will appear around your ship that shows the range of the module. (See the full [[tactical overlay]] article for more information.).

The [[directional scanner]] is a tool on every ship which can scan a sphere or a cone with an adjustable radius of 0.1-14 AU from you. You can manipulate the scanning range and the direction of the scan from 360º to 180º all the way down to 5º to figure out where something is.

The velocity control (where your velocity is displayed) lets you manually choose what velocity you want to travel at by clicking at speedometer gauge (a tip will appear when you hover your mouse). {{button|Shift}} - {{button|Space}} will stop your ship as long as you are not in warp. If your warp drive is active, but you are still aligning, {{button|Shift}} - {{button|Space}} will stop you and cancel the warp. If you use a custom throttle velocity, you'll have to set it again after you jump through a Stargate, since it resets to full speed again.

Pretty self-explanatory, you jump through the stargate if you are within 2,500 m. In order to automatically jump once you exit the warp you can press the button while in warp. Alternatively, instead of clicking Warp you click Jump in the first place; this will initiate warp automatically if the gate is in warp distance and jump on contact.

This changes your camera’s anchor point from your ship to the selected object. You can use this to see where, if anywhere, another ship is aligning, and what kind of weapons it has equipped. Unfortunately no all weapons show up, e.g. smartbombs (though the absence of turrets on a turret battleship is a good sign of smartbombs).

 

If you click and hold on an object in space or an element in a window, a [[Overview#Radial_Menu|Radial Menu]] will appear. Most of the actions discribed above will be available through the Radial Menu. This can be helpful in battle where you can, for example, orbit a ship by clicking on it in space.

=== Warping and alignment ===

Warping is critically important for moving around space, and manual piloting of your ship has a big impact on how well the warp drive will work, meaning how quickly you can enter warp.

When you press the warp button, several things happen. Your ship begins to align to the warp-to point. You lose a certain amount of energy from your capacitor based on skills and the distance of the jump (if you cancel the warp at this stage the energy is still lost). Once you are aligned, you warp to your destination, accelerating up to, and then decelerating down from, your ship’s warp speed.

Pods align instantly, and shuttles nearly so (2 seconds). So if you are paying attention, and have no lag, it is nearly impossible for you to be locked before you warp in these vessels (especially because their signature radius, a ship parameter affecting the attempted locking time, is of the smallest). Frigates have a typical align time of 3-5 s, cruisers might be more like 7-9 s, and battleships, industrials, and larger ships can take 20, 30, or more seconds to align for warp.

Your align time depends on your mass. Higher mass makes it harder to accelerate, decelerate, and turn the ship. Every ship has an agility modifier, which you multiply with the mass to get an “effective mass” that determines how agile your ship really is. Modules like nanofibers or inertial stabilizers reduce your agility modifier and therefore reduce your align time. In-game Fitting window or external tools such as [[PYFA]] can give you an approximate align time for your ship loadout.

So where does piloting come in? Well, for one thing you can pre-align your ship to a target so that you enter warp instantly, even in a massive ship. You need to move toward your warp destination and set your speed at or above 75% of your ship's max speed. Aligning and then stopping your ship does nothing. The direction your ship is facing does not matter. The game only cares about the direction your ship is '''moving'''.  From a stop, it will accelerate in any direction at the same speed whether that direction is in front or behind the ship.  Once aligned, if you need to warp out (run away), you will then warp instantly since the pre-reqs of 75% of your max speed and moving within 5° of the target direction will already be met. If you are in a frigate, you tend to orbit a lot and pre-aligning might not be practical. But in a larger ship in a dangerous situation, pre-aligning might save your hull. Some people will tell you to always be pre-aligned in combat.

==== Warp trick when undocking ====

 

 

# The second way is faster. Rather than letting friction slow you down, you can double click toward the station (which makes you targetable) to let the engines stop you, then warp out once you are near zero velocity. A slightly faster way is to double click toward the station but at an angle toward the align point then warping when the ship stops moving away from the station. This method of using your engines to slow down then turning can be used for turning quickly in combat as well.

==== Speed awareness in alignment ====

Another point to remember is that your required speed to align is always 75% of your ''ship's'' max velocity. Being webbed can sometimes help you get into warp faster, since it lowers your max velocity -- if you're piloting a freighter you can speed travel up by bringing a friend (within your corp, so they don't get CONCORDed) along to web you. This is also why tacklers are taught to 'point, then web'.

The second major topic has to do with tracking mechanics. Damage from both turrets and missiles is affected by how the ships are moving. You can read about the details of tracking [[Gunnery_Guide#Tracking|here]]; and you can read about the details of missile damage [[Missile_Launchers#Damage|here]].  

 

A tutorial with helpful animations can be found on the EVE Online official web site Combat Mechanics page <ref>https://www.eveonline.com/eve-academy/ships/combat-mechanics</ref>.

So, given these facts how can you sway a fight in your favor? Well first you have to assess the situation and decide what angle you want to take. Are you better at offence or defence? The relevant numbers are the time it will take you to beat your opponent’s tank versus the time it will take him to break your tank. Your only goal is to make that first time less than the second time, which you can do through increasing your applied DPS, or increasing your survivability.

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