Interceptors

Interceptors (often called "inties" or "'ceptors") are a class of Tech 2 frigate. They are Eve's fastest ships, and they have attributes and bonuses which make them supremely effective tacklers, or dangerous high-speed damage-dealers. Inties are often one of the first classes of T2 ships that pilots train, and they're often helpful in Eve University's fleets where they are normally used to do basic tackle well.

This page won't make you a good interceptor pilot -- only practice can do that -- but it does cover a lot of information that's useful for new interceptor pilots.

Terminology note: "Point" and "Long Point" usually mean a Warp Disruptor, while "Scram" (and sometimes "Short Point") refers to a Warp Scrambler.

Overview

There are two types of interceptor: interceptors designed purely for tackling ("tackle" or "fleet" inties), and interceptors designed for combat ("gank", "damage", "damage-dealing" or "combat" inties). Each of the four races has one interceptor of each type. For simplicity's sake this guide will refer to the two types as fleet and combat interceptors, but different players will use different terminology. Due to Eve University's general "Combined Arms" large fleet style, fleet inties are more useful in a normal E-Uni fleet.

All interceptors, of both kinds, share certain characteristics:

• They all have an "80% reduction in Propulsion Jamming systems activation cost" role bonus, letting inty pilots permanently run warp disruptors/scramblers and webifires much more easily.
• They all have a "15% reduction in MicroWarpdrive signature radius penalty" for each level their pilot has in the Spaceship Command Interceptors skill, dramatically reducing the signature bloom effect caused by having a MWD on.
  • Most ships have to use MWDs in short bursts only, because the bloom makes them much more vulnerable to large guns and missiles. This crucial bonus lets interceptors run their MWDs permanently but still keep (relatively) small sig radii.
• They all have very high base velocities.
• They all have very high base scan resolution, letting them lock on to targets rapidly.

Fleet Inties

Fleet inties are so called because they are a great help to a fleet (especially in high- and lowsec where bubbles can't be used to pin the enemy down) but, being more or less pure tacklers, they aren't so good solo.

• Fleet inties are tied with the covops frigates for Eve's fastest base warp speed in Eve, 13.5 AU/s
• Their defining feature is a 5% bonus to warp scrambler and warp disruptor range per level in the Interceptor skill

Fleet inties move fast, catch people quickly and can hold a point on someone while orbiting them at high speed and beyond 20km range -- for example, with Interceptor trained to level IV the range of a T2 disruptor on a fleet inty will be over 28km (and over 34km if you overheat). The rest of the fleet inty's bonuses, tied to the racial frigate skill (which will have been trained to 5), are weapon- or tank-related.

The four races' fleet inties, together with their racial frigate skill bonuses, are:

• The Amarr Malediction: 5% bonuses to rocket damage and armor resistances per level
• The Caldari Raptor: 5% bonus to hybrid damage and 10% bonus to hybrid range per level
• The Gallente Ares: 5% bonus to hybrid damage and 7.5% bonus to hybrid tracking per level
• The Minmatar Stiletto: 5% bonus to projectile damage and 7.5% bonus to projectile tracking per level; notable for being the only inty with 4 midslots

All four of these are useful, though the Stiletto's fourth midslot gives it a bit of an edge.

Combat Inties

The combat interceptors are better suited to actual fighting. They are popular solo ships, usually going toe-to-toe with other frigates, and are occasionally used in all-interceptor gangs. They are often the best counter to fleet inties.

• Combat inties have more combat-orientated slot layouts, usually more lowslots at the expense of midslots
• Combat inties have more powergrid than the fleet inties, making it easier to fit weapons
• Combat inties have an extra combat-related bonus tied to the Interceptors skill, instead of the fleet inties' tackling range bonus

The four combat inties, together with their racial frigate skill bonuses, are:

• The Amarr Crusader: 10% less laser cap use, 5% bonus to laser damage, 7.5% bonus to laser tracking per level
• The Caldari Crow: 10% bonus to kinetic missile damage, 10% bonus to missile speed per level
• The Gallente Taranis: 10% bonus to hybrid damage, 7.5% bonus to hybrid tracking per level
• The Minmatar Claw: 10% bonus to projectile damage, 7.5% bonus to projectile tracking per level

The Taranis's hefty damage bonus -- applied to the already face-meltingly high DPS potential of blasters -- has made it a very popular dogfighter. The other three all have their proponents, however, and they're all deadly in the right hands.

Skills

Necessary Skills

Training to fly the Interceptor hull will probably take the most amount of time, particularly Evasive Maneuvering 5 and Racial Frigate 5.

• Spaceship Command Interceptors Level 1 is required to fly interceptors, although having at least level 4 is strongly recommended for the interceptor skill bonuses.

Most of these modules are relatively quick to train for. T2 modules give a significant advantage over T1 and so are recommended in most cases.

• [[Skills:Electronics Propulsion Jamming]] Level 2 is necessary for Tech 2 points, and level 4 allows T2 webs.
• [[Skills:Electronics High Speed Maneuvering]] Level 3 for T2 MWDs. Level 4 is recommended.
• [[Skills:Mechanic Hull Upgrades]] Level 2 is required for T2 Nanofibre Internal Structures and Overdrive Injectors.
• Science Thermodynamics Allows overheating of modules: vital in tight situations to give an extra boost of speed or point range. [[Skills:Mechanic Nanite Operation]] is required for Nanite Paste, used to repair heat damage.

Support Skills

• Basic fitting skills like [[Skills:Mechanic Hull Upgrades]], [[Skills:Electronics Electronics]] and [[Skills:Engineering Engineering]] should be at level 5.

• Navigation Navigation 5% bonus to sub-warp speed per level. Level 5 is recommended.
• Navigation Acceleration Control 5% bonus to afterburner and MWD speed per level. Level 4 is recommended.
• Spaceship Command Spaceship Command 2% to ship agility per level. Level 5 is recommended.

• [[Skills:Electronics Signature Analysis]] 5% scan resolution per level; getting this to level 5 will greatly boost your target locking speed.
• [[Skills:Electronics Long Range Targeting]] Level 5 will help make sure you can actually target out to the same range that you can point. A signal amplifier module or ionic field projector rig can compensate for lower targeting skills.

• [[Skills:Engineering Energy Management]] and [[Skills:Engineering Energy Systems Operation]] Level 4/5 in these skills will help cap stability greatly, although you can fit a capacitor power relay module or capacitor control rig to cope with low cap skills.

• [[Skills:Mechanic Astronautics Rigging]] for navigation rigs.
• [[Skills:Mechanic Electronic Superiority Rigging]] for rigs that improve targeting speed and range.

• [[Skills:Engineering Shield Upgrades]] Level 4+ - will allow Medium Shield Extender IIs to be fitted, a common midslot module.

T2 small weapon skills will be useful for combat inties, as Tech 2 ammo generally allows much more range control and damage.

Fitting

As for most support ships, the basic rule for fitting interceptors is: fit for your role, then for tank, and then use what's left for damage. For a fleet interceptor, that means that a T2 point and MWD (essential), enough targeting range to support the point, a speed tank (possibly with a DCU2 for buffer) and some short-range weapons to take care of drones. Combat inties should focus more on their weapons and tank first, maybe fitting a small repper or plate depending on the enemy, and often swap the point for a scram.

When deciding on midslots and rigs, thought should be given to the inty's purpose. For example, you might want to fit sensor boosters and targeting speed rigs in order to catch fast ships and pods; speed and webifier(s) to lock down fast enemy ships over a longer fight; or damage and tank in order to fight toe-to-toe with other fast frigates. Much of this decision will depend on personal preference and playstyle, so experimentation is generally encouraged: although there are plenty of fellow corpmates and alumni who have been there, tried that, and are more than willing to give an opinion on your latest idea.

High slots

Weapons are generally small turrets with high tracking or rocket launchers. Fleet interceptors will mainly want to be shooting drones, and possibly use defenders to mitigate incoming missile damage. Combat inties will focus more on their weapons, ideally firing Scorch/Barrage/Null etc in order to dictate range better.

Mid slots

Almost all inties will fit an MWD first. Fleet inties will generally fit disruptors in order to get tackle earlier and make most of their bonus range, while combat inties fit scrams in order to counter other ships' MWDs better. Fleet inties should not fit scrams unless they really know what they are doing: unless the inty pilot is very good at controlling range, using a scram means getting too close to enemy scram range. If a fleet inty gets scrammed, it will most likely explode a few seconds later. When fitting a disruptor, make sure you have the targeting range to use all of your overheated point range. A signal amplifier or Small Ionic Field Projector rig will help here.

After prop and point has been fitted, the rest of the midslots are generally dependent on the number of midslots available, the friendly and enemy fleet composition, and the pilot's personal preference. Common choices include stasis webifiers, sensor boosters, medium shield extenders, afterburners, or even some form of EWAR.

Low slots

Most inties will fit at least a couple of Overdrive Injector System IIs or Nanofibre Internal Structure IIs for speed. Generally, a mix of raw speed and agility is recommended since orbit velocity is more useful than total speed. Agility is useful to be able to warp faster, orbit more accurately and change direction more quickly (to minimise the time when angular velocity is low). Fleet interceptors will generally fit at least two low slots for speed, with a third used for a DCU2, but if a fourth lowslot is available then a Signal Amplifier II or a fitting module like an MAPC might be used. Even in a fleet interceptor, speed is not everything: inties generally have plenty of speed already and speed mods quickly suffer heavy stacking penalties. Fitting more than three speed mods or rigs is a waste: it will not noticeably increase speed and will reduce tank.

Combat inties will use more of their lowslots for damage and tank. Tank can include DCU2, adaptive nano plating, an armor repper, or a small armor plate. If possible, tank should be matched to the expected enemy fleet composition, including engagement duration and estimated incoming damage. Low DPS spread over a few small encounters (say frigate fights) is ideal for a repper, but a plate is more suited to larger fleets over a longer period.

Rigs

Rig to taste. Rigs can be used to boost targeting, damage, speed, and tank (particularly in filling explosive holes against Warrior drones). Pilots should be careful fitting speed rigs, though, as they are roughly half as effective as lowslot modules and will be subject to hefty stacking penalties if more than one lowslot has been used for speed. See Morty's in-depth comparison for more details; in summary, fitting more than three speed mods or rigs is a waste.

Flying Interceptors

Generally, inty pilots want to keep speed and angular velocity high as these are the main form of tank.

Fleet Interceptors

Fleet interceptors are generally flown as a special tackler, often staying a couple of jumps ahead or behind the main fleet to hold enemies in place until the fleet arrives, or providing mini-warpin* points and mobile safespots during a battle. Depending on the fleet style, they can 'scout and skirmish', roaming around to find targets, often holding them in place for 10 or 15 minutes while the rest of the fleet arrives; sit at gatecamps and a put a fast point on anything flashy coming through; or get initial tackle and then hold valuable non-primary targets during a longer engagement until the fleet is ready to DD them.

Inties should approach targets at an angle to maximize traversal while spiraling in. Once in place, the inty should orbit at around 15-25km in order to stay out of web/scram/neut range while keeping angular velocity up. Battleships can fit large neuts that can reach out to 25.2km, so these should be kept at a distance, while faster cruisers should be orbited at a smaller range so they don't escape. Orbit speed should be around 4-5km/s, so if the target launches drones, they will generally end up getting kited by the inty and be fairly easy to track and pick off. Note that, depending on skills and ships, the range at which the inty orbits will not necessarily be what the pilot has set in the UI. Pilots should check their actual orbit distances so they know what to choose in order to orbit at the correct range.

Fleet interceptors should generally avoid faster targets like frigates and speedfit cruisers: these have a good chance of breaking the inty's orbit and applying a scram or web. Some enemies, like the Privateers, specialize in kiting and picking off smaller tacklers and running before the fleet arrives: these should just be avoided unless a warpin for the whole fleet can be generated.

In some circumstances, such as a planned long gatecamp, ships will be asked to fit remote sensor boosters to assist inties in grabbing targets quickly. This will generally be up to the fleet commander to organize, although you should know how many boosters can be assigned to you and still be useful (ie, before lag and reaction time become the dominant factor in how fast you can lock a target). An interceptor should also be the first to de-agress and jump back through a gate if the targets seem to be trying to jump back, chase after targets that break through the camp, or picket the other side of a gate during a fight- giving intel on what is coming through.

* Providing mini-warp points ("tactical miniwarps"): An inty may be sent 150km+ from the rest of the fleet so that other ships can warp out to it if necessary -- to reduce incoming damage or break target locks without having to bounce all the way to a planet or station.

Combat Interceptors

A combat interceptor's job is to establish dominance of the frigates on the battlefield, including the enemy's tackle/interceptors, by counter-tackling and killing them. Combat interceptors are also better at tackling MWD-fit cruisers and battlecruisers than fleet interceptors - they have a scram to shut off the MWD so the fleet can catch up; and a bit more tank so that they can survive while the fleet finishes it off. Combat interceptors fly like assault frigates in many ways. They will often have their own important targets independent of the fleet's primary.

Ships and Fitting

This section will list some generic fits for different interceptors. As above, these can be modified depending on personal preference. Some discussion of these fits, and variations, is available at glepp's class thread.

Countering Interceptors

Various modules and tactics can be used to kill interceptors or drive them away. When in a ship with speeds similar to the inty then some piloting techniques or maneuvers can be used to break the inty's orbit and bring them into web or scram range. Cruisers and destroyers fit for tracking and killing frigates can also be effective. While most guns will have tracking problems against inties, missile systems can still be effective even though the inty's speed and small sig radius will mitigate much of the damage. Missiles can slowly eat through an inty's buffer if they don't have any repair or recharge ability on their armor or shields.

Some ships, like combat interceptors and Dramiels have the speed and tracking to keep up with an interceptor, and should be avoided. Other frigate hulls and destroyers should be avoided by fleet interceptors as they are generally cheap, so not worthwhile to tackle, and have a decent chance of killing the interceptor. Afterburner-fit assault frigates may be worth chasing. Vagabonds and Cynabals are very dangerous to interceptors since they have heavy weaponry with good tracking but can move at around 4km/s, which severly cuts down on the amount of transversal that an interceptor can create.

Drones

Drones are a common defence against all small ships, interceptors included. The Minmatar Warrior II light drones are the nimblest and fastest drones, often matching interceptor speeds, and so are the most common choice.

However, interceptors go so very fast that even Warriors are likely to still spend time fruitlessly chasing them around. Furthermore, it is sometimes possible to tank an interceptor against drones: a Stiletto with a medium shield extender and one or two explosive shield resist rigs can soak up a lot of fire from Warriors (which do explosive damage), for example.

Fleet inty pilots can also fit weapons specifically to shoot drones. The smallest, fastest-tracking turrets, combined with the tracking bonuses that several fleet inties get, perform quite well against drones.

Ships with large dronebays and bonuses to drone hitpoints and damage, like the Arbitrator and Vexor have much more problematic drones (and if you do manage to kill them, they probably have more).

Counter-Tackle

Webs (especially two at once) to directly cut an inty's speed or a warp scrambler to shut down its MWD are both excellent ways to slow down an inty and make it vulnerable. The problem is of course that webs and scrams have short ranges, and good inty pilots stay beyond web/scram range at all times.

Apart from other inties, there are a few ships that are particularly effective at webbing. The Minmatar Huginn and Rapier recon ships both have bonuses to web range. They can push a normal T2 web out to 40km range before heat (overheating the web and/or fitting a faction web can produce considerably longer ranges). Both ships are consequently very dangerous to interceptors, and a good countermeasure.

A few other, rarer ships also have web bonuses but these are mostly to strength rather than range, so an inty that stays away from the range of normal webs shouldn't be troubled by them. Note, however, that the Blood Raider Bhaalgorn battleship has a web range bonus which can push the optimal of a T2 web out to 20km before heat.

The Gallente recons, the Lachesis and Arazu have bonuses to warp scrambler and warp disruptor range. They are most commonly fitted with disruptors, to point the enemy from a long way away, but they can be fitted with warp scramblers. This is less of a threat than the Minmatar recons' webs, but their bonuses can still put a T2 scram's range out to 18km before heat, so they should be treated with a bit of care.

The Caldari and Amarr recon also have range bonuses to ECM and neuts respectively, both of which can also heavily counter an interceptor, and should be avoided.

Energy Neutralizers

A few cycles from a medium energy neutralizer or just one cycle from a large neut can remove all of an interceptor's capacitor, shutting down its MWD and point and leaving it dead in the water.

Medium neuts have similar ranges to scrams and webs, and so are not dangerous to a competent inty pilot unless they're mounted on a ship which has range bonuses for them. The Amarr combat recon, the Curse, does have such a range bonus, and it can neut at nearly 40km if the pilot has good skills. (Being based on the Arbitrator hull, it also has drone bonuses, making it a nightmare target for an interceptor to tackle!)

T2 large neuts have 25km range. Fleet inties must therefore maintain a very careful orbit, further than 25km but near enough to be within warp disruptor range, when pointing a battleship which they know or suspect has one or more energy neutralisers fitted. Neuts are particularly common on the Dominix, the Scorpion, in solo/small gang fits for the Typhoon and Tempest, and on the previously mentioned Bhaalgorn (which has bonuses to neut strength, though not to their range).

Further Reading

Tackling 201: Fleet Interceptors by glepp.