The Way of the Tackler

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This article is intended to give an overview about ship setups for T1 tackling frigates. There are many ways to fit a tackler and ideally there should be a good mix of various setups within a fleet.
The first section will explain certain modules and how they are useful for tacklers.

In the second section you'll find some examples for specific setups and informations about how to use them.

The modules

Warp scrambler or warp disruptor?

The primary role of any tackler is to make sure a target ship doesn't run away. The most important part of this is to prevent the enemy from warping off, which can be accomplished by using a warp disruptor or a warp scrambler. Each of these modules has its advantages and disadvantages, and an effective fleet will have some of both.

The warp disruptor has more than twice the range of a warp scrambler (20km, or 24km with t2) which allows you to keep more distance from your target. This can increase your survivability against targets with stasis webifiers and energy neutralizers, although orbiting at warp disruptor range (rather than orbiting as close as possible) will make you easier to hit with turrets. You can also tackle your target faster because you don't need to get within 9 km or even less first. Warp disruptors take a lot of capacitor to run and can quickly drain your frigate's small capacitor if you keep them turned on. For this reason, warp disruptors are generally used to get the initial tackle and smart tacklers will turn them off once someone else has put a warp scrambler on the target. Warp disruptors are especially popular on specialised t2 interceptors, which receive bonuses to their range and a reduction to the amount of cap they use.

The warp scrambler has a much shorter range than the warp disruptor (between 7.5 and 9km), however it doesn't just prevent the enemy from warping off - it also shuts down their Microwarpdrive (MWD). Since almost all ships larger than frigates will be running a MWD, a warp scrambler will slow them down signficantly. This allows the rest of your fleet to get in range of the target more easily, and prevents them from running away or getting back in range of a stargate. For this reason, having at least some warp scramblers is is essential to any fleet. Warp scramblers use significantly less capacitor than warp disruptors, and you should be able to keep them running indefinitely. Using a warp scram will put you within range of stasis webifiers and energy neutralizers which can be a threat to your frigate, however guns will struggle to track you at this range meaning in most cases you will actually be safer in warp scrambler range than outside of it. In most situations, the safest place for a frigate to be is orbiting as close as possible - between 500m and 2500m.

Note: Using a warp scrambler puts you quite close to smartbomb range (which is 5km, or 6km if the target is using t2 smartbombs). Be careful when you're engaging a target that is likely to be equipped with smartbombs (i.e. battleships in lowsec). If you suspect that your target might be using smartbombs it's a good idea to set your orbit between 6 and 7.5km, which should put you safely outside of their range.

Afterburner (AB) or microwarpdrive (MWD)?

At first glance you might think that both of these modules perform the same function - both ABs and MWDs increase your speed, and since the MWD increases your speed more it must be the better choice. Like many things in Eve, it isn't quite that simple.

A MWD has a couple of serious drawbacks. The most important one is that while the MWD is activated it will increase your signature radius by up to 500%; this will make you much easier to hit and you will take a lot more damage from cruiser sized and bigger weapons. This will massively increase your chances of dying. Also, the MWD uses a lot of capacitor and you will most likely not be able to run it for an extended period of time. For these reasons, an MWD is used only to get into range of your target and should be turned off once you are in range to tackle your target. Once that has happened you will only be able to orbit your target at the regular speed of your ship. Also keep in mind that you will not be able to use the MWD at all when someone is using a warp scrambler (not a warp disruptor) against you, since these disable MWDs.

An AB on the other hand does not increase your signature radius at all and it needs far less capacitor, meaning you can keep it activated even while you're orbiting your target. Since you're able to travel more quickly without increasing your signature radius, an AB will decrease the chances for your enemy's turrets to hit you as well as reducing the amount of damage you receive from missiles. While an AB is not as useful for chasing targets or getting into range, it does help you survive once you get there.

To summarise, an MWD will let you get into range quickly, but you will be more at risk once you get there. With an AB you will take longer to get into range, but will take less damage once you do.

In most cases, it is recommended that tackler frigates fit an MWD in order to close range more quickly and to help them catch up with fast moving targets. However, flying with an MWD is less forgiving than using an AB since things will happen more quickly - you will need to be more aware of the range to your target and whether your MWD is currently turned on or off. If you're trying PVP for the first time, an AB might be an easier choice.

It is possible to fit both an AB and a MWD to your ship (known as 'dual propulsion' or 'dual prop') if you have enough midslots as well as the CPU and PG to do so - this is popular on some T2 and faction ships, but is difficult to do on most T1 frigates and is not recommended for new players.

Note: T2 interceptors (and to a lesser extent t2 assault frigates) receive bonuses to MWDs which reduce the signature radius penalty which they provide. As a result, they take much less damage then running MWDs during combat. Long-ranged 'fleet' interceptors in particular will often keep their MWDs on for the whole duration of a fight.

Tanking Your Tackler

After your tackle and propulsion module, the most important thing to fit on your tackler is tank - it's no use catching a target if they can simply kill you and escape.

You'll sometimes see people fitting their tackling frigates with all speed modules and no tank. The most common place that you'll see these is on killboards, killed in droves by whatever they were trying to tackle. While speed is important, your tackle frigate should already be fast enough to catch most ships in the game (especially if you're using a MWD) and enhancing that further is not your main priority.

No matter what else you do, you should almost always fit a damage control in one of your low slots. This module can massively increase your effective hitpoints and has almost no drawback (it uses quite a lot of CPU, but that's it) - there is very little excuse not to use one.

After that, you have two options - you can either fit a shield tank or an armour tank. A shield tank is usually the best choice for a tackler, providing you have enough mid slots to fit one (you will need at least three - one for your MWD or AB, one for your scrambler or disruptor, and one for your tank). This is because a shield tank does not slow you down, which lets you get in range of your target more quickly. An ideal shield tank for a tackler frigate is a single Medium Shield Extender (this gives much more HP than a small shield extender, and it is possible to fit one on most frigates - you will probably also need to fit a Micro Auxiliary Power Core to provide the necessary powergrid). You may also want to fit shield resistance rigs, such as a Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer - these are very cheap compared to other rigs, and will further increase the toughness of your ship. Fitting a shield tank will increase your signature radius slightly (making you a little easier to hit), however this is vastly outweighed by the increase to HP that it provides.

If you can't fit a shield tank, an armour tank is also a possibility. Fitting an armour plate will slow you down, however the extra HP it provides can make a big difference particularly if you're also fit armour resistance modules (such as an Adaptive Nano Plating). A 200mm Reinforced Steel Plate is usually the best choice - smaller plates do not provide enough HP to be worth it, while larger plates will slow you down too much. Armour rigs are generally not recommended on a tackler since they will slow you down too much - speed or agility rigs are usually a better choice. An armour tank is best used on close range tacklers with warp scramblers and/or stasis webifiers, since these are less reliant on speed for survival.

Most of the time, you will want a buffer tank (HP and resistance modules) rather than an active tank (armour repairers and shield boosters) for your tackler. This is because a small armour repairer or small shield booster generally does not repair quickly enough to counteract the amount of damage you're likely to take if you're getting shot at by another player - you will generally survive for longer with a buffer tank instead. That said, some armour tanking tacklers may choose to fit a small armour repairer instead of a plate since doing so does not slow you down, and can still be helpful if you're only taking a small amount of damage.

In addition to your actual hitpoints, the high speed of your tackler frigate should help reduce the amount of damage that you take. It generally does not reduce it enough to prevent damage entirely - even on a specialised t2 interceptor - however combined with a few tanking modules it should keep you alive for longer. If you have any low slots or rig slots left over after fitting your tank, it's a good idea to fill them with modules which enhance your speed (such as Overdrive Injectors or Small Auxiliary Thruster rigs).

Stasis webifier

Stasis webifiers are great modules as they significantly decrease the speed of a target ship. Stasis webifiers are fairly short ranged, with a range only slightly longer than a warp scrambler. This makes fitting a stasis webifier is a natural decision if you're already fitting a warp scrambler, since you will be operating well inside webifier range anyway.

If you're fitting a warp disruptor, the decision is slightly less clear cut. You first need to decide whether you plan to fly inside stasis webifier range; despite the fact that you have a long ranged warp disruptor, you will generally be harder to hit if you orbit as close as possible, and you may want to fly inside web range anyway. If you do, fitting a stasis web makes a lot of sense. On the other hand you may want to stay outside of stasis webifier range, either because you're flying a t2 interceptor which will be running its MWD all the time, or because you want to avoid your target's webs and energy neutralizers. If this is the case, there's not much point fitting a stasis webifier yourself since you're unlikely to be in range to use it and you're better off using that mid slot for a different module (for example a sensor booster to help you lock faster, or a tracking disruptor to protect your fleetmates from your opponent's turrets).

Sensor boosters

Sensor boosters increase the scan resolution of your ship and thus allow you to lock a target faster and/or the increase the locking range of your ship. A sensor booster makes sense if you're fitting a warp disruptor (aka a 'long point'), however it should not take precedence over tanking modules such as shield extenders.

Sensor boosters can increase either your targeting range or your locking speed (or both) depending on which script you load them with. While most frigates can already lock further than maximum warp disruptor range (20-24km), the additional targeting range from a sensor booster can come in useful by allowing you to start locking a target while you're still approaching them, and before you get into warp disruptor range. This means you can turn on your warp disruptor as soon as you get into range, instead of having to wait while you lock them first. The additional scan resolution will let you lock targets faster, although your frigate will already lock pretty quickly. This is mainly useful when trying to catch targets coming through a stargate.

Long range or short range weapons?

In most cases you should fit short range weapons to your tackler for a couple of reasons. Obviously if your ship is designed to be used at short range (warp scrambler/stasis webifier) fitting long range weapons makes very little sense. If your ship is designed to be used at long range you still should consider to use short range weapons to fight off drones that are attacking you as well as enemy ships that managed to get too close to you.

The problem with fitting short range weapons to a long range tackler is the temptation to get within weapon range on your primary target so you can apply some damage to it. Quite often you might get away with this, but eventually you'll end up getting yourself killed for doing that because you got within range of smartbombs, stasis webifieres and other modules that ruin your day. So make sure to use the modules and weapons as they are intended to be used.

Long range weapons really only make sense if for whatever reason you need to be able to hit your target from a distance. Maybe you're fitted for long range tackling while you're in a small gang and the fleet needs as much DPS as possible or maybe you're in a frigate only fleet. In a regular Eve University fleet the damage from a T1 tackling frigate is usually very small and should not be your priority; Your main concern should be to tackle the target and stay alive. Of course with a large number of tacklers all those small amounts do add up, so there's no reason to not use the highslots if you got some CPU and PG to spare.

Note: For a lot of frigates it makes sense to use projectile turrets (autocannons or maybe artilleries) even though the ship might not give any bonus for them. Projectile weapons do not use any capacitor and ACs also require very little CPU and PG. Hybrids and lasers only make sense if your ship grants a reasonable bonus to damage, range or maybe tracking.

T1 or T2?

Using T2 modules will improve your performance, however they require somewhat better skills and are a lot more expensive and for some modules it might not be worth it on a T1 frigate. As an Eve University member you are allowed to fit T2 modules to your frigates as you see fit, but should not fit anything that you're not willing to lose.

Keep in mind that there are so called named versions of all modules as well (meta 1 to meta 4) which offer more performance than vanilla T1 and are easier to fit as well. The higher meta versions can be very expensive (sometimes even more than the T2 versions), but meta 1 and meta 2 modules are usually very cheap.

Note: A T2 warp disruptor offers 4 km more range than any T1 version and requires only 1 additional level of propulsion jamming, so it's very useful and in fact recommended for long range tacklers if you can afford it. T2 damage controls are also significantly better than their t1 counterparts, particularly because meta 3 and 4 damage controls tend to be very expensive.

E-war

Using a spare midslot for a random e-war module will multiply the value of your ship for the fleet. Especially in a big fleet, there are usually a lot of tacklers and one more or less warp scrambler or webifier doesn't make much of a difference. A tracking disruptor or sensor dampener on the other hand can significantly disrupt your enemies' ability to fight back, even though the tackler frigate does not receive a bonus to those modules. An e-war module can also increase the survivability of a tackler when trying to keep a target tackled for a while until fleet members caught up/warped in, as well as helping out any other tacklers in your fleet. Tracking disruptors are great for this though they are effective only against turret based ships.

Most T1 frigates that are used for tackling do not provide any bonus to a specific type of e-war. However, e-war modules such as tracking disruptors and remote sensor dampeners are still incredibly effective on any ship, even one with no bonuses to them. ECM jammer modules are the only exception to this rule, and are not recommended on a ship which does not have ECM bonuses (such as the griffin or blackbird).

Drones

Some T1 frigates can use at least 1 small drone and you should utilize that, even if it wont make much difference individually. Not using the drone bay pretty much equals not using a slot on your ship. A simple combat drone like a hobgoblin or a warrior is fine, if you trained up your drone skills you could maybe use an e-war drone. Anything is fine really, as long as you use it.


The Setups

Below you will find several different tackler setups for all races. All these setups can be flown with nothing but the skills required to use all the individual modules and ships. By training up your skills you will not only improve the performance of your ship but also free up CPU and PG which might allow you to fit bigger and/or additional weapons (some fits have empty highslots to meet the minimum fitting requirements) or upgrade to T2.

All these fits use nothing but vanilla T1 (meta 0) items. If you are an Eve University member you can get all these modules and ships for free from the corporation hangar, though you might want to consider upgrading some modules to higher meta versions if you can afford it. Especially meta 1 and 2 items are usually fairly cheap and offer improved performance while requiring less CPU and/or PG to fit.

You should copy any fit you want to use to EFT (or similar) and see if your skills allow you to fit more/bigger weapons or make any other adjustments like upgrading to higher meta levels as you see fit.

The fits below are generally separated into close ranged fits with MWDs and warp scramblers, and long ranged fits with afteburners, warp disruptors an sensor boosters for fast locking. You don't have to fit in one of these ways - you could for example choose go for a close ranged fit with an afterburner or a long ranged fit with a MWD - the fits below are simply designed to give an indication of some of the possibilities.


Amarr frigates

The amarr frigates are usually very good armour tankers, however this is not ideal for a tackler - armour tanks tend to slow you down, and speed is important to a tackler. A good option as an amarr tackler pilot is to train some basic shield skills and fly the tormentor, which has three mid slots as well as being very easy to fit. If you want to stick with armour tanking on the other hand, a punisher can be a great little tough tackler.


Caldari frigates

Caldari ships are excellent tacklers thanks to their large number of mid slots letting you fit plenty of tackle modules as well as a solid shield tank.
The fits posted below are both based on the Merlin hull. It's a very good all-rounder, but of course you can use some of the other frigates to set up a tackler if you want.


Gallente frigates

Gallente frigates have balanced slot layouts and are relatively fast, making them good tacklers. The incursus is currently the best choice for a gallente tackler frig thanks to its high speed and good slot layout.
Don't forget to make use of the drone bay each gallente frigate has!


Minmatar frigates

Minmatar frigates tend to be very fast and they have a balanced slot layout allowing a large amount of versatility when it comes to fittings. Also most minmatar ships get a bonus to projectile weapons, which are an excellent weapon for tacklers due to their easy fitting and no capacitor use.


Final words

The setups posted above should be considered suggestions. Though they all work as intended, none of them is perfect, since there are no perfect setups for any ship. In order to find a good setup for you, you have to know what you want to achieve. Do you want to be a high speed chaser? Do you want to keep your target tackled as long as possible? Do you want to slow your target down as much as possible? Maybe somehing else or all of the above?

You can use any combination of tackling modules, speed modules, tank modules, and e-war modules you want, 3 things should be fitted to any tackler though: A speed module (AB or MWD), a tackling module (warp disruptor or scrambler) and a damage control. Anything beyond that is up to you.

Additional Information

See also Tackling 101 and Tackling 101 Guide

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