Fleet and Gang Types

Different corporations and alliances have various gang and fleet types in EVE. Generally these sub-capital gang and fleet consist of different hull types and fitting scheme, which are usually collected under few names to identify their general objectives properties and composition.

When you joined an organization, you should know the basics and familiarize with these terms to know how to prepare yourself for such gangs and fleets. Although each corporation or organizations have their differences in fitting and execution, the common properties are usually same with each other.

This information is also useful for scouts, skirmishers and commanders to identify opposing force and decide the best course of action.

Here are the list of some of most common gang and fleet types with their basic properties such as; composition, fitting scheme and basic tactics.

Reminder; this is a general information on different gang and fleet type. For detail of these fleet types, get in touch with your corporation or alliance to properly fit and use your ships.

How to Identify a Gang or a Fleet in Space

There are some basic information could lead to identify a gang type. This information can be observed through your overview, scanner or space view;

• Hull type, numbers and composition,
• Velocity observed through overview,
• Ships agility and alignment time,
• Hostiles engagement range,
• Support ships composition,
• Visually observed effects and gun types.

These are key indicators to define the opposing gang or fleet type. If you can properly observe these details, you can clearly identify the fleet type and decide the best course of action according to your composition in your gang or fleet

Frigate size

Frigates are fast, agile, fast locking ships with different properties. Also almost all of them are effective e-war platform when used properly.

• Tech 1: Frigate
• Tech 2: Assault frigates (AF), Interceptors (INT), Electronic Attack Frigates (EAF), Covert Operations Frigates (COVOP for Scanning ships and BOMBER for torpedo ships)
• Faction Frigates: Navy, Federation and Pirate Frigates.

Reminder: All of these are tech 2 ship types defined as frigate type hulls in EVE.

While tech 1 versions are cheap and effective within large numbers (+20), tech 2 and faction versions are also as deadly and effective as bigger hull type.

An uneducated and inexperienced eye could easily under estimate their effectiveness and could be slain by these ships

Frigate Supports for Larger Gangs and Fleets

Especially tech 2 Frigates could specialize on various roles and provide support to different gang and fleet type.

Although they can be part of bigger hull size gangs, they play crucial roles in their gangs. Some of the Roles are;

• Skirmishers – Any Interceptor; fitted with long range point, shield tank, speed modules and sometimes cloak
• Scouts – COVOP; fitted with cov-op cloaks and combat scanner or core scanner probes.
• Tacklers – Tech 1 Frigate or Assault Frigates; fitted for speed with light tank and warp disruptors.
• Heavy Tacklers – Assault Frigates; fitted with heavy tank, web and warp scrambler.
• E-War Support – Electronic Attack Frigates; fast locking and moving, highly maneuverable e-war platform.

These ships could be part of any gang or fleet for supporting roles and could give clue regarding to gang or fleet type.

Hydra Frigate Gangs

Hydra gangs usually consist of tech 1 Frigates with sheers numbers. Tech 1 frigates are fast, mobile and cheap ships with E-War support hidden within their numbers. They are highly effective gangs against small sized gangs consist of BCs and BSs.

Hydra gang could be prepared from tech 2 and faction frigates. These elite Hydra gangs are exponentially stronger and dangerous then tech 1 versions and could engage any type of gangs and fleets they can bite.

Composition:

• Main Group; tech 1 frigates, assaults ships, interceptors.
• Support Group; Scouts, Skirmishers, tackle and heavy tackle, interdictors.

Fitting Scheme:

• Afterburners, tracking disruptor, sensor dampeners, ECM, Damage control Units, overdrives, internal nano-structure and +10 to 12 km weapon range.
• Strictly no microwarp drives, sensor boosters, any kind of tanks (buffer, active) or hardeners used in main group but support group could have no limitation.

Basic Tactics: Fast and mobile swarm of Frigates will tackle and engage their targets above +10 to 12 km range while applying heavy e-war from each and every member to mitigate damage income from hostiles. Five to six hydra frigates could almost block total damage from a battle ship to zero.

Hydra Principle Wiki For more details

SWOT Analyze:

• They are very effective against low velocity; high DPS gangs consist of Battle cruisers and Battle ships. * The number difference should be at least 1 to 5 or 6 to mitigate damage and 1 to 10 to break tanks.
• Smart bombing battle ships are extremely dangerous for these gangs.
• Advance frigate hulls such as interceptors and assault frigates are extremely dangerous target with faction frigates and cruiser such as Dramiels, Cynabals, Vagabonds. These T2/Faction small size ships should be avoided if you are flying in tech 1 frigate but if you gang consist of tech 2 ship composition, you can engage almost any gang type.
• Hydra tech 1 Frigate gangs are very cost efficient gangs with low skill point requirements but request pilots personal experience with situational awareness to hold the line and keep the roam going.

Bomber Gangs

Stealth bomber have perfect alpha strikes against big hull types starting from cruisers and above. They can be both fitted with bomb and/or torpedo launchers. Bombs are good against frigate size ships while torpedoes are more deadly against cruisers and bigger hulls.

Composition:

Main Group; bomber type covert operation frigates.

Support Group; scouts, black operation battle ship, cyno ships.

Fitting Scheme:

• Covert operation cloak, torpedo or bomb launchers, remote sensor dampeners, sensor boosters, target painters, speed and agility modules.

Basic Tactics:

• Scouts identify or scan a target for the gang, either warp gang to location or provide warp-in points for gang to rapid deploy and initiate an alpha strike to targets.
• Before a bomber gang de-cloaks, all of the gang align to out-bound destination for immediate warp off after the attack. While sensor boosters reduce the locking time, sensor dampeners cripple the enemy and provide additional time to gang for launching multiple salvos.
• These gangs mostly focus on hit and run tactics to thin the enemy lines or take out the support ships including logistics with surprise alpha strikes.
• An average bomber could make 2500 to 3000 alpha strikes. A gang of 10 bombers could easily take down any battle cruiser with a single salvo of 50000 to 60000 damage or any battle ship with 2 or 3 salvos. Alpha strikes are very effective to overcome logistic support and break tanks of the bigger ships.
• In some cases, a bomber gang could be hot dropped to an engagement area by a black-operations battle ship with a cyno bridge. A cyno skirmisher or a recon or another covert operation ship could identify a target in jump range and light a cyno. Black operations battle ship could open a bridge to this destination and all ships with covert operation cloak capable and fitted could jump through to designated destination and engage hostiles.

Sample Video

SWOT Analyze:

• Scouts and proper Intel is very important.
• Gang will be traveling in cloaked ship, which requires some more concentration to avoid de-cloaking other fleet members.
• When a valid target is identified, proper deployment and proper retreat is the key elemental in this gang for proper execution and success.
• Extending the engagement duration on field will result your gangs destruction because bombers are lack of any defense then their mobility, cloak, e-war and tactics.
• If properly executed, they are extremely dangerous gangs.

Interceptor Gangs

They are the fastest and most agile gang type. Interceptors have bonus to their signature radius, tackling range and capacitor use of speed boosting modules. Their signature radius are very low. they are difficult to lock and inflict damage with large guns. They are effective patrol ships and quick response teams.

Composition: Main Group; Combat Interceptors and some faction frigates

Fitting Scheme: Microwarp drives (afterburner in dual propulsion fitting with microwarp drives ), long or short range weapon systems, medium buffer or active tank, sensor boosters, agility and speed modules, damage control and assorted tackle modules

Basic Tactics:

• They rush in to combat, tackle targets and orbit them at close range by getting transversal velocity to speed tank the damage and get their target.
• They may also stay out of web and scram range to ensure that they maintain their speed.

Sample Video

SWOT Analyze:

• They are fast and deadly but limited on DPS.
• They are weak against web bonuses ships and tacklers with warps scramblers.
• They can quickly deploy to engagements and can dis-engage as fast as they enter the field.
• Good for border patrols to catch solo PVPer and Ratter.
• If they are webbed and scrammed they are as good as dead.

Destroyer size Gangs

Interdictor Support

• Tech 2 destroyer hulls are called interdictor and they can deploy interdictor probes for infinite area effect tackles.
• They are backbone of tackle support in null-sec.
• They are extremely important and could easily trap any ship type including capitals by preventing them from warping out.
• They have higher speed, tank and damage properties from their tech 1 counterparts.
• An experienced interdictor pilot could help his gang to succeed in various engagements with different tactics.

Wolf Packs

Wolf Packs are small sized high alpha strike gangs consist of tech 1 destroyers and support. They are effective and deadly against almost all kind of gangs or fleet with sufficient numbers.

Composition: Main Group; Tech 1 Destroyers Support Group; Scouts, Skirmishers, interdictors

Fitting Scheme:

• Primary; long Range weapon platforms (+15 to 16 Km), after burner, sensor booster, sensor dampener, weapon upgrades,
• Secondary; power and cpu grid upgrades, speed and agility modules, damage control units.

Basic Tactics:

• Objective of the Wolf Pack is to identify a selected target and conduct destructive alpha strikes by surprise or traps.
• The pack should be mobile, easy to fly, fast locking, cheap, easy to fit focused for high alpha damage (vole damage).
• Destroyer Wolf Packs utilize their offensive strength as their defense. Engagement usually resolves under 2 or 3 minutes which prevents hostile target to engage whole pack and eliminate them before they do!

Destroyer Wolf-Pack Wiki

SWOT Analyze:

• T1 Destroyers have short locking time, strong alpha strike and high dps and very good tracking speed.
• They are very useful against almost all gang types.
• Proper execution of wolf pack tactic requires range and engagement ground control.
• Smart bombs, multiple bombs runs and snipers BS are considered as dangerous.
• They are weak against strong buffer tanked ships with logistic support though you use split tactics to separate forces to thin lines and take them our one by one.

Cruiser size Gangs

Nano-shag (Aka Winmatar)

These type of gangs are selected from high speed ship types. It is expected that you can make more than 2000 m per second with your fitting. It is perfect small gang format starting from just 3 to 4 ships to 20+.

Composition:

• Main Group; high speed ships like vagabond, stabber fleet issue, cynabal, sleipner and machariel are some of these ships preferred for these type of gangs.
• Support Group; scimitars, jaguars, interceptors, interdictors and recons support the gang.

Fitting Scheme:

• Shield buffer tank is used in these gangs to keep your agility and speed at top level.
• Choosing shield tanking also provides you sufficient low slots to increase your DPS for hit and run action.
• Support ships accompanying the main group will increase efficiency exponentially.

Basic Tactics:

• The idea is to make quick hit and run or gank ratters, solo or small ship gangs in Null-sec.
• Gang can also kite enemy with your speed and pick them one by one or take care of enemy support and light ships by hit and runs.
• Skirmisher or interdictor as the head of the spear move ahead of the fleet and make initial tackle while the rest of the fleet moved from behind.
• Heavy tackle make the secondary tackle and immobilize the whole hostile gang while the main group pick logistic support of the opposing force one by one.

SWOT Analyze:

• They are extremely fast and highly maneuverable ships though ship suited for these gangs are extremely expensive to counter parts.
• If the engagement took extended time of period and the gang start to have losses and it can quickly turn the table to the other side with expensive loses.
• Key to the success of these fleets is to know exact time to engage and dis-engage.

AHAC - Armor-Heavy Assault Cruisers

• This is one of the most effective cruiser sized gangs in EVE. Heavy assault cruisers with armor tank and afterburner are the core of these gangs supported by guardians up to ¼ ratios.
• This type of gangs requires at least +30 ships to work properly.
• Small signature radius and their extreme speed will keep these cruiser gangs alive with logistic support against almost anything.
• They can easily engage battleship and capital ship fleet while mitigating the DPS with their speed and low signature radius.

Composition: Main group; although all HAC are valid chooses except demios, zealot is far superior to any of them. Support Group; skirmishers, Interdictors, Guardians, T3 tackle, scouts and command ships as booster.

Fitting Scheme:

• HAC (mostly zealots) with armor buffer and afterburner are the damage dealer.
• Weapon upgrades
• Speed and agility modules.

Basic Tactics:

• If fitted and flied according to concept, AHAC gangs could fight any outnumbered hostiles by mitigating damage with high EHP, remote armor repair and low signature radius.
• The fleet members keep their speed and Transversal high while engaging the enemy. Guardian pilots are the key instruments in success though they response fast and keep HACs alive during engagements.
• These fleets are accompanied with T3 Tackle, interdictor and interceptor support with covert op. scouts.

Sample Video

SWOT Analyze:

• They have small signature radius, fast, agile and difficult to track.
• They have high amount of DPS recovery with remote repairs support for guardians
• They are weak against heavy missile fitted Drakes and short range battle ships with heavy painting/webbing.
• Tech 3 minmatar strategic cruiser Loki with skirmish bonus for sig radius reduction and Damnation for effective hit point will significantly increase AHAC fleet’s defense against hostile and could be key element to succeed in engagements.
• Another useful thing used with AHACs is booster reducing signature radius

Battle Cruiser Size Gangs

Battle Cruisers are the one of the most effective PvP hulls in EVE. There are two hull types of battle cruisers are available

• Tech 1 (Tier 1 and 2) - standard Battle Cruisers
• Tech 2 - Advance Battle Cruisers; Command Ships

While tech 1 battle cruisers are the most cost effective and multi-role ships, tech 2 advance battle cruisers are exponentially stronger but much more expensive counterparts.

All battle cruisers could fit command modules that with good leadership skills, they can actively increase your gangs various properties.

They are perfectly suitable for solo, gang and fleet operations.

HSLR - High Speed Long Range Gang

• These gangs consist of high speed long range battle cruisers. It’s expected that all ships can fly faster than 1.5 km per second (faster better).
• These Ships create the damage dealing part of the fleet with at least 40+ up to 120 km range.
• Proper execution of these gangs requires a specialized logistic support such as, force recon specialized tacklers & ECM, interceptor and interdictors to slow down and tackle opposing force while main group kite the enemy.

Composition: Main Group; Battle cruiser Tech 1 and Tech 2 Support Group; Shield Logistics, skirmishers, interdictors, covert op. scouts, specialized recon (rapier/huginn/lachesis/curse/rook/falcon), command ships.

Fitting Scheme:

• Long range at least 40+ up to 120 km range with weapon upgrades.
• Shield tanks, speed and agility modules

Basic Tactics:

• The number of the opposing force is irrelevant for HSLR gangs. Basically while main group kiting the enemy from range, support ships help the damage dealers by stopping fast tackles that can web and scram while stopping hostile e-war specialized ships.
• Recon tackler and ECM pilots have a great responsibility to keep damage groups alive by stopping fast tackle and preventing enemy e-war to affect your gang.
• Keeping your main fleet away from the hostile gives you the chance to leave battlefield at your convenience.

SWOT Analyze:

• These gangs are perfect against any size of high damage gangs.
• Main gang should control the range and duration of the engagement.
• Support ships should keep main group alive while keeping themselves out of trouble because losing a damage dealer will only affect gang’s DPS but losing an e-war could cripple execution of the tactic.
• These gangs requires mid to high skill point pilots with decent experience to keep the tempo while kiting the enemy. A single mistake or wrong turn could end your engagement in a disaster.
• HSLR gangs are extremely weak against short range brawls and gangs faster than their speed such as AHACs.

HSSR - High Speed Short Range

• They are very similar to Nano-shag. The main differences are; they are bit slower with more DPS and tank than cruiser gangs and flied with battle cruiser with a cheaper price.
• Their damage and tank is nicely equalized and very flexible for all kinds of engagements.
• They are designed to fight head to head with any gang they encounter.

Composition:

Main Group; battlecruiser tech 1 and tech 2. Hurricane/Drake/Arbitrator are the best ships for these gangs with their DPS/tank ratio. Support Group; shield logistics, skirmishers, interdictors, covert op. scouts, specialized recon (rapier/huginn/lachesis/curse/rook/falcon), command ships.

Fitting Scheme:

• Similar to nano-shag
• Shield tank and short range weapons are for the main group.

Basic Tactics:

• Skirmishers or Scouts identify valid targets and gang engages the hostile in close range combat while support group keep the gang alive from range.
• It’s a brawl and head to head fight. Gang’s high speed helps to follow kiting enemies from close range and keep the hostile in range.

SWOT Analyze:

• They are perfect gang types for a brawl or head to head fights.
• Could quickly enters an engagement and be decisive with high damage while keeping hostile in their range with high speed.
• Logistic support extends the survival ability till the end of the fight.
• They will have problems against gangs with heavy e-war support, specialized tackle and similar speeds.
• Loss of logistic support could cripple the survivability of the gang, so highly experienced logistic pilots are required to keep both the gang members and themselves alive.
• Anti-tackle support from fleet interceptors, recon and interdictors are required for the enemy tacklers.
• Fleet boosting command and tech 3 ships will increase your potential significantly. Claymore, vulture, tengu and loki could accompany these gang for fleet boosting.

Drake HML Gang

• These gangs consist of heavy missile drakes, logistics and support.
• While logistic ships like basilisk and scimitar kept the fleet alive, heavy tackles such as Proteus, Arazu, Lachesis, Huginn and Rapier specialized to hold fast tackle getting in to range of the fleet.
• Also fleet interceptor and interdictors used to tackle opposing forces.

Composition:

Main Group; Drake and Nighthawk Support Group; scimitar, basilisk, interdictor, skirmisher, scout and command ship.

Fitting Scheme:

• Heavy Missiles and weapon upgrades.
• Shield buffer tank, target painting, warp disruptor and microwarp drive.

Basic Tactics:

• Drakes have decent tank and nice DPS with range.
• While missiles always hit the target, target painters ensure that hostile signature radius in increased to get full damage from the fired missiles.
• This makes the drake fleets perfect against AHAC cruiser gangs.

SWOT Analyze:

• They have low skill point requirement and could be easily fitted.
• They work better with sheer numbers and scale up to large sized fleets.
• It’s a good start for a new player in a big low-sec alliance.

Battle ship Sized Gangs

Durka – Smart-Bombing Battleship Gangs

This is specifically prepared for blobs. This tactic is based on surprise and lots of fun. A group of Battleships with smart bombs are used to engage any/all close range ships

Composition:

Main group; battleships 20+ Support group; scouts, inderdictor Optional support; titan to bridge and drop on

Fitting Scheme:

Heavily buffer tanked battle ships with EMP hardeners and EMP smart bombs.

Basic Tactics:

• Any kind of gang type is valid target for such fleets.
• The main objective is to make hostile ground warp to your fleets at zero and trap them with cloaky bubblers and get the whole blob with smart bombs.
• First volley of smart bombs from a gang of 20+ BS will take down any cruiser sized gangs.
• Second volley will take most battle cruisers and lightly tanked battle ships and third volley will take care of the rest.
• After using smart bomb, gang could clear the rest of the survivals with their drones.

Sample Video

SWOT Analyze:

• Extremely strong against blobs though requires hostiles to warp at your location at zero as a blob or Durka gang should warp to zero of a hostile gang.
• They were difficult to separate from other gang but with the new Incarna expansion and turret models, a wise scout could identify that your fleet composition don’t have guns fitted.

Alpha - Maelstrom

Alpha maelstroms are designed to overcome logistic support and heavy buffer tanks with a single alpha strike. Maelstroms are the perfect tool for destruction with their decicive high slots fitted with long range artilleries and their strong shield tanks which allows weapon upgrades, speed and agility.

Composition: Main group; maelstroms 200+. Maelstrom is the only BS type used for these fleet types. Support group; scimitars, Scouts, skirmishers, interdictors, drakes (for small size ships)

Fitting Scheme:

• Long range, high alpha damage artilleries and shield tank are the main properties of the fitting scheme.
• Standard shield support and logistics ships are also used in composition.
• These gang usually preferred to have at least 200+ ships

Basic Tactics:

• These fleets depend on their extremely high alpha strike to overcome the logistic support of the opposing field.
• They tend to break tanks with single united volley of the fleet and don’t give time the logistics to rep the primary.

SWOT Analyze:

• They are deadly at long range and high alpha often negates logistic support but extremely weak at close range engagement.
• They require high skill point characters
• High per ship cost due to being tier 3 BSes.

Hell-Cats – Abaddon

Hell-Cats are advance battle ship fleet. While they focus on large amount of buffer tanks and resistance, they deploy high amount of DPS both at short and long range. Guardian support keeps the fleet members alive during extended engagement. They are the deadliest battleship fleet in EVE

Composition: Main group; abaddons 200 + Logistic group; guardians 30 +

Fitting Scheme:

• Multiple armor plates, armor resistance, microwarp drives
• Energy weapons with low alpha but extremely high DPS in almost all ranges

Basic Tactics:

• Destroy the opposing force with high DPS while tanking the damage coming in with extremely strong buffer tanks and logistic supports.

SWOT Analyze:

• This fleet requires pilot with perfect skill sets to fit such as adv. weapon upgrades V and perfect support skills to properly fit the Abaddon and logistic ships.
• Hulls and fittings are also expensive but very effective against all kinds of fleet compositions including capital warfare.
• Hell-cats has high survival rate against heavy damage dealing fleets such as Alpha Maelstroms.

RR-BS – Remote Repair Battleship Gang

Assorted type of battleship gang with remote repairing themselves with local remote rapping modules.

Composition: Main group; These gangs consist of mixed battle ships with one or two RR modules on their large slots. Support group; skirmishers, tacklers and scouts

Fitting Scheme:

• Battleships with same type of buffer tank with high resistance (shield or armor)

Basic Tactics:

• During the engagement, fleet members remote repair each other if they got primary by opposing force.
• The fleet should stay at close remote rapping range to each other and focus the RR of each ship to one who requires support.

SWOT Analyze:

• It’s one of the basic Battle ship tactics written in the book.
• You can fly one of these ships with limited amount of skill.
• Long range gangs with e-war support or alpha strike gangs could overcome your rapping capability.
• Durka fleet could be dangers for these gangs.

Mixed Hull type Gangs

Mono typed tanked gangs with logistic support

• Assorted ships hulls with different size could come together to form a joint task force. In such cases, larger ships prefer to use same type of buffer tank and fleet includes logistic support for that kind.

Composition: Main group; any kind of combat ships Support group; Logistics, skirmishers, tacklers, interdictors, scouts

Fitting Scheme:

• Monotype armor or shield buffer tanked ships

Basic Tactics:

• The fleet could be arranged for various objectives from PvP to Wormhole PvE or Missioning.
• A Similar type of tank is chosen for fleet scheme and supported by logistics.

They usually try to blob any gang or fleet, they can counter.

SWOT Analyze:

• You can tailor mixed fleet for specific objective or just group all available people and structure them to a proper tanking scheme and run various roams.
• They are assorted fleet type and may not counter some of the specialized fleet types using strategies such as speed, long range or high alpha.
• Each ship in the gang or fleet has different agility and speed which can make maneuvering much more difficult on field.

Black Op Battle ship Gangs

• Black Operation battleships are the most fierce full gang and fleet type with their most advanced battleships and recons.
• They are good at trapping and supposing all types of gangs and fleet.

Composition:

Main group; Black operation tech 2 Battleships. Support group; Recons, scouts, bombers, tech 2 transport ships.

Fitting Scheme:

• While all ships should have covert operation cloaking device, recons and scouts should have covert operation cyno field generator.
• Each ship’s combat fits are changed according to their type and bonuses.

Basic Tactics:

• A force/combat recon or scouts run reconnaissance in the systems within jump range of Black-op Jump Bridge until it finds valid target.
• As soon as scout identifies a valid target, places himself for the proper tactical position and light up a covert or normal cyno field.
• As soon as cyno is lighten up, Black op battle ship open a jump portal to cyno and all ships within jump range could jump through the bridge to the destination.
• Black operation battleships could directly jump to cyno fields.
• They gank the hostiles, cloak up and warp of the field.
• Fleet either travel back through gates as cloaked or bridge back through another black-op ship to their safe system/pos/location.

Sample Video

SWOT Analyze:

• Surprise element is the fun part of this ganks.
• You can deploy to 3-4 system ahead in few seconds with tremendous amount of DPS and heavy e-war support and deploy back as you came without hitting any gate at all.
• Black op gang ships are extremely expensive and require high skills in means of skill points and pilot experience.