Scouting: Difference between revisions

Line 110:

== Moving around: ==

Obviously, your goal is always to stay cloaked, but to position yourself where you can see what's going on with your potential enemies or "neutrals". To that end, it's worth understanding how grids and on and off-grid positioning work - there's a nice write-up that goes through the more in-depth mechanics of "grid fu" at http://will.neoprimitive.net/grids/gridfumanual2.pdf - very useful to understand when you find yourself 100Km off a station but unable to see anyone.

Line 149:

Line 148:

== Scouting: ==

Most Uni fleets will look for a forward scout and a rear scout, and any number of floating scouts. Forward and floating should be covops ships, rear can be a prototype cloak ship in a pinch, but covops preferred. You may also see or hear reference to "+1" and "+2" scouts, and sometimes "-1" - these are just another way to refer to forward scouts (staying 1 or 2 jumps ahead of the fleet), or rear scouts (one jump behind).

Line 162:

Line 160:

A note on TeamSpeak operation - as scout, you are perfectly within your rights to overtalk someone if something urgent comes up - typically you do that by saying "check check" in the command channel, people should then stop and listen. Obviously you would only use this for really urgent information, like a war target incoming to a fleet position.

== Use of Local ==

While you're scouting, you're looking for certain things. First of all, valid targets or threats - during war that's any of our War Targets, outside of war it's anyone who's "red flashy" (sec status below -5). You're also looking for high concentrations of a single corp (particularly if you're hunting pirates and see a bunch of one pirate corp in channel), and/or anyone that appears to be an out-of-corp alt for a target or potential target (that's neutral pilots following you or hanging around on gates looking suspicious).

Your best tool is the local channel. Squash it width-wise, and extend it out length-wise on your screen - you usually don't care about what's said in local as much as you care about the list of people in there.

Be aware that the symbols (red minuses etc) will sometimes not show up in the local list. Ideally, you need to be checking info on pilots in local as you travel. A quick hint: Don't use the right-click drop-down for "show info", as the "start conversation" option is right next door. Instead, double-click people in local - it goes to info by default and is less risky.

Often you'll be asked to jump into a system and check what's there. Typically this will be jump in, move and cloak, and work your way through the people in local noting down any who are potential targets. Then report back the number of targets and whether you can actually see any or not (ie. are they all on the gate you just came through waiting ;) Typically, if there's anything of interest you'll then be asked to try and track them down - get eyes on them. That's a mix of jumping around the stations, and probing - covered elsewhere in this doc.

== Scanning down the opponent: ==

@@ Line 110: / Line 110: @@
 == Moving around: ==
 Obviously, your goal is always to stay cloaked, but to position yourself where you can see what's going on with your potential enemies or "neutrals". To that end, it's worth understanding how grids and on and off-grid positioning work - there's a nice write-up that goes through the more in-depth mechanics of "grid fu" at http://will.neoprimitive.net/grids/gridfumanual2.pdf - very useful to understand when you find yourself 100Km off a station but unable to see anyone.
@@ Line 149: / Line 148: @@
 == Scouting: ==
 Most Uni fleets will look for a forward scout and a rear scout, and any number of floating scouts. Forward and floating should be covops ships, rear can be a prototype cloak ship in a pinch, but covops preferred. You may also see or hear reference to "+1" and "+2" scouts, and sometimes "-1" - these are just another way to refer to forward scouts (staying 1 or 2 jumps ahead of the fleet), or rear scouts (one jump behind).
@@ Line 162: / Line 160: @@
 A note on TeamSpeak operation - as scout, you are perfectly within your rights to overtalk someone if something urgent comes up - typically you do that by saying "check check" in the command channel, people should then stop and listen. Obviously you would only use this for really urgent information, like a war target incoming to a fleet position.
+== Use of Local ==
+While you're scouting, you're looking for certain things.  First of all, valid targets or threats - during war that's any of our War Targets, outside of war it's anyone who's "red flashy" (sec status below -5).  You're also looking for high concentrations of a single corp (particularly if you're hunting pirates and see a bunch of one pirate corp in channel), and/or anyone that appears to be an out-of-corp alt for a target or potential target (that's neutral pilots following you or hanging around on gates looking suspicious).
+Your best tool is the local channel.  Squash it width-wise, and extend it out length-wise on your screen - you usually don't care about what's said in local as much as you care about the list of people in there.
+Be aware that the symbols (red minuses etc) will sometimes not show up in the local list.  Ideally, you need to be checking info on pilots in local as you travel.  A quick hint:  Don't use the right-click drop-down for "show info", as the "start conversation" option is right next door.  Instead, double-click people in local - it goes to info by default and is less risky.
+Often you'll be asked to jump into a system and check what's there.  Typically this will be jump in, move and cloak, and work your way through the people in local noting down any who are potential targets.  Then report back the number of targets and whether you can actually see any or not (ie. are they all on the gate you just came through waiting ;)  Typically, if there's anything of interest you'll then be asked to try and track them down - get eyes on them.  That's a mix of jumping around the stations, and probing - covered elsewhere in this doc.
 == Scanning down the opponent: ==