User:Darius Kavanagh: Difference between revisions

Firstly, please note that I'm not an experienced scout - this post contains the things I've learnt to date, and more experienced scouts may want to correct anything I've gotten wrong. But I have learnt this stuff in dribs and drabs so far and thought others might appreciate having some of it written down. This document also concentrates on covops scouting - that is, covops ships (tech 2 frigates) with proper tech 2 covops cloaks (or those crazy cloaked weapons platforms, the stealth bombers, if you must). You can start out with smaller frigates with prototype cloaks, but as they can't warp while cloaked a lot of this won't really apply.  

Note also, this document is aimed at high-sec scouting, as I have no real experience in low-sec or 0.0 yet. Particularly in 0.0, bubbles and gate camps will change the way you operate - but by that stage you should know more about what you're doing anyway   

I can't say much about fittings - I know one cloaker ship only, the cheetah. Generally, I try to fit for speed of movement and distance of warp. The crucial items are a covops cloak and a microwarp drive. Don't bother fitting guns, you should never be using them (and trust me, covops ships fall over fast when targetted). Yes, I know some people will disagree - I view weapons on a covops ship as an advanced practice, at best.  

First rule of cloaker operation: If you're not cloaked, you're doing it wrong  Any time you feel a need to decloak, think carefully about what you're doing and whether there's a better way.  

Congratulations  First thing to note - undocking is dangerous to everyone, and especially dangerous when there's war targets in local. So the easy answer is never undock. If you're in a covops ship and intend to fly it repeatedly, consider logging out in space while cloaked.  

One other point on this - when you logout, close anything non-essential. In particular do not leave a market window open, or any other window that takes a while to refresh. This is because you'll have a moment of frozen client while these refresh as you login and that's frankly terrifying   

There are a number of ways you can be forcefully decloaked. First of all, if you get within 2Km of anything you'll lose your cloak. This means don't get too close to other ships and don't hang around at a warp-in point (one of my most terrifying moments was sitting on a 100Km warp-in on a gate and having a larger ship warp in exactly 3Km ahead of me).  

Your own probes - if you're launching probes, keep a close eye on your cloak, as your probes can decloak you while you're moving them around - very easy mistake to make, and very easy to be looking at the map view reorganising your probes and not realise it.  

Bookmarks are, I suspect, something like 95% of what scouting and covops is about - at least in areas where you can bookmark. You'll slowly collect a large number of bookmarks around any system you frequent and they are your lifeblood - the difference between scouting a system with no bookmarks and scouting one you know your way around is immense, and will change how you operate.  

There's an excellent article on bookmarking on the Agony site (assuming it stays accessible) http://www.agony-unleashed.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.17  

There's a lot of different ways to do this, I suspect. I initially started out with a folder per system but that doesn't scale nicely. My current best option is a folder each for stargates, stations, safe spots, other celestial objects. Note, the trick here is to use the right-click drop-down menu to move around the system, not the list of bookmarks in people & places - the list gets cluttered, the right-click drop-down will only present you the relevant options.  

Come up with a naming convention that suits you - something that makes it clear where the bookmark is and what it's for. My current setup is station or gate name and distance, and maybe a note on whether it's off-grid or something special.  

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.  

Moving through gates rates a mention - if you are fitted with MWD's, there's a sequence of "double click a direction, hit the MWD, hit the cloak" that gives you a short burst of speed while still cloaking. This can be useful for putting some space between you and the gate or any watchful eyes.  

You'll sometimes be asked by your FC to try and get a warp-in point on a target. This basically means staying cloaked, and maneuvering into a position that's a warp-in distance away from the target (ie. a number that appears on the "warp to at..." drop-down) and also in-line with somewhere the fleet can be. In other words, you ideally want something like this:  

One other small note on this: If you're scouting for a sniper-heavy fleet, you may actually sit between the target and the fleet - the idea is if you're 30Km from the target toward the fleet, the fleet can then warp to you at 50Km and they're perfect sniping distance away. Depends a lot on the situation though, and not likely to be done in a Uni fleet.  

The overview requirements for a scout are different than for normal fliers. Your job is to see as much as possible, rather than only the enemies. First of all, switch brackets on - that gives you a clearer view of things like gate guns that are otherwise tricky to see. Include neutrals and war targets. Beyond that, I'm not 100% sure what works best - I have major celestials (planets and gates and stations) in my overview, because they're useful for distances, but that may not be the most efficient. I'd appreciate feedback here from other scouts.  

Uni policy is that scouts do not X up with the rest of the fleet. If you see a fleet forming, directly convo the FC and ask if they want a scout, Nine times out of ten, they will, and they'll drop you into a separate wing so you don't get ninja warped around with everyone else . Likewise, scouts don't get listed on AAR's. Secrecy is important to being a good scout - if people know your name, they'll notice you in local easily.  

If you're out in a covops ship, and a fleet is around, or you've logged in after fleet has formed, don't be afraid to convo the FC and ask if they'd like another scout - scouts are about the only type of pilots that can usefully join a fleet mid-op, depending on where the fleet is and where you are. I figure it's better to offer and be turned down, than not.  

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.  

Reporting war target sightings - do this as calmly as possible, and as clearly as possible. Good reporting would be "command, darius, I have one cerberus on the korsiki gate in osmon, jumping through to you now". Bad reporting would be "hey guys, there's a war target coming at you!". TS discipline in the uni at least is always lead with the channel name (that's "command" in the above example) and your name so the FC knows who's talking where, then provide the ship type and location, optionally war target name and any other details you might have.  

If you can fit an extended probe launcher, then it's well worth getting some practice at using probes. The Apocrypha scanning system makes one particular type of probing well worthwhile. It goes something like this:  

Probing like this may also be a distraction - I've had fleet commanders that specifically ask for the scout to probe down targets for them, and I've had fleet commanders that would rather keep you on the move, so it will depend on the type of fleet, purpose of fleet, and whim of the FC as to whether this is a serious part of your duties. It's worth getting some practice in on, imnsho, as it does get asked for, and some FC's will assume you are capable of doing this.  

There is some personal style that comes in here, as scouting can be a freer role than some others in fleet - personal judgements need to be made about what you're watching when. However, two things are important: If the FC tells you to be somewhere, get there, and if you see something that needs investigating and move off your last instruction, clearly inform the FC you're about to do that. The FC cannot make good decisions on faulty intel, make sure they understand the environment around them as best you can - that includes making sure they're not assuming you're somewhere you're not.