The Way of the Tackler

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Article Information

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. The warp disruptor has more than twice the range of a warp scrambler and allows you to keep some distance to your target so you can for example stay out of range of your enemy's smartbombs and stasis webifiers as well as other modules and weapons. So the range advantage can increase your survivability against many targets. You can also tackle your target faster because you don't need to get within 9 km or even less first. However, bear in mind that warp disruptors use a lot of capacitor to run - they are excellent for getting the initial tackle, but can quickly drain your frigate's small capacitor if you keep them turned on. For this reason, advanced tacklers will often turn off their warp disruptor once another pilot has a warp scrambler on the target.
The warp scrambler has a much shorter range than the warp disruptor (between 7.5 and 9km), however it does not only prevent the enemy from warping off but will also shut down the enemy's Microwarpdrive (MWD). This is essential when fighting a fast MWDing ship which will otherwise simply burn out of range from your fleet's guns. Warp scramblers also use significantly less capacitor than warp disruptors, making them well suited to longer fights. Using a warp scram will put you withing range of stasis webifiers and other short ranged modules and weapons which can be a threat to your frigate, however guns will also struggle to track you at this range, which means it can actually increase your survivability in some cases. Since MWDs are very popular in PvP there should be at least some tacklers fitted with warp scramblers in every fleet.
Note: Using a warp scrambler puts you quite close to smartbomb range. Be careful when you're engaging a target that is likely to be equipped with smartbombs (i.e. battleships in lowsec). Unless your target is using very expensive faction or officer smartbombs (which are rare) you can tackle your target while staying out of smartbomb range by setting your orbit distance to between 6 and 7.5km - obviously this is easier if you're using a named or T2 warp scram which has a bit more range.

Afterburner or MWD?

At first glance you might think that a tackler needs to be as fast as possible and thus should fit a MWD. While this is true for some tacklers, it's not true for all of them. A MWD is useful if you need to approach a target as fast as possible or if your target is running away from you/your fleet at high speed and you need to catch up in order to tackle it.
However 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% and thus it will make you very easy to be hit and you would 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 most likely you would not be able to run it for an extended period of time. So the MWD is used only to approach 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.
With an AB on the other hand you wont be quite as fast, but the AB will not increase your signature radius at all and it needs far less capacitor, so you can keep it activated even while you're orbiting your target. This will increase your angular velocity and decrease chances for your enemy's turrets to hit you as well as reducing the amount of damage you receive from missiles. The drawback of an AB is that it takes longer to approach a target.
So the MWD is used for fast approaches and the AB is used to increase your survivability. In theory you could fit both an AB and a MWD to your ship, if you got enough midslots as well as CPU and PG - this is popular on some T2 and faction ships, but on a T1 frigate this is very difficult to fit and not recommended for new players. New players should start with AB fitted ships and maybe move on to MWDs once they gained some experience, but both modules are absolutely viable and ideally you want some tacklers with a MWD and some with an AB in a fleet.

To web or not to web?

Stasis webifiers are great modules as they significantly decrease the speed of a target ship. However they are fairly short ranged, basically they got the same range as a warp scrambler. So if you are fitting a warp scrambler you might want to consider fitting a stasis webifier too. The combination of stasis webifier and warp disruptor also makes sense though because you would slow your target down quite a lot without deactivating the MWD and thus the signature radius would still be increased by up to 500% which in combination with the reduced speed means that it is very easy to hit and will possibly take more damage from big weapons. However, remember that many MWDing ships can still go very quickly even when webbed - when engaging a very fast ship a scrambler and/or multiple stasis webifiers will be required to slow them down.
Obviously, fitting a stasis webifier along with a warp disruptor will require you to be within web (and potentially scrambler) range yourself. If you are planning to stay at range (maybe 15-20 km from your enemy) you wont need the webifier unless something goes wrong so that case you would be better off using that midslot for a different module.

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.

Speed or tank?

Some people advocate an 'all speed' approach when it comes to T1 tackling frigates and don't fit any tank modules at all. While it is indeed great to be able to tackle a target as fast as possible you wont be useful if you're dead before the fleet has caught up/warped to you and the target got away. You really should fit at least a damage control to any and all tackling frigates, no exception. A damage control is fairly easy to fit, it needs some CPU but only 1 point of PG and practically no capacitor while it increases all resistances on your ship (shield, armor and especially structure) and thus will increase your effective hitpoints rather massively. It has very little downside, other than using up a single low slot.
After that you could use the remaining slots for either more tank or speed, depending on the exact purpose of the ship. If you are setting your ship up to be a high speed chaser you will probably use overdrive injectors and/or maybe nanofiber internal structures. If you want to put some tank on your ship (because you either want to get in close range and thus need to be able to take a beating or simply because you want the best chances of staying alive) you should go for a buffer tank, so increasing your hitpoints with an armor plate or shield extender and possibly some resistance modules. Keep in mind that as a tackler you really need either an AB or MWD as well as a warp disruptor or warp scrambler which all use midslots. So you need at least 3 midslots if you want to use a shield tank.
An active tank (shield booster or armor repairer) might be great for some situations (such as very small fights between just a few ships) and you can use them if you want, however an active tank will not be able to tank a lot of incoming damage and will use a lot of capacitor. New players should just fit a passive tank since that kind of tank usually works fairly well and doesn't require as much attention.

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. However as an Eve University member you are allowed to fit T2 modules to your frigates as you see fit.
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), however 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.

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. Increased locking range is usually not necessary, most T1 frigates can lock targets beyond 24 km which is the range of a T2 warp disruptor. Though you could possibly prevent a ship from using a cloak by locking it from a distance. However a sensor booster on a tackling frigate is usually used to increase scan resolution allowing you to lock and tackle your target faster, hopefully before it warps off. A sensor booster is a viable option if you got a spare midslot.

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 doesn't make much of a difference. But if some of those tacklers got an e-war module fitted you can significantly disrupt your enemies' ability to fight back, even though the individual tacklers might not be too effective at that. Also an e-war module increases the survivability of a tackler when trying to keep a target tackled for a while until fleet members caught up/warped in. 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, since the dedicated e-war frigates are usually used purely as e-war platforms. 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 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 got empty highslots to meet the minimum fitting requirements) or upgrade to T2.
Also 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.

Amarr frigates

Due to the lack of midslots all amarr frigates are armor tankers. Only the crucifier has 3 midslots and you could use it to set up a tackler fit with additional e-war, however that ship is supposed to be a dedicated e-war ship, so you might want to use it as a pure e-war ship without any tackling modules.
Below are two different examples of viable amarr tackler setups.

Punisher fitted for short range

[Punisher, fleet tackler - short range] Damage Control I Overdrive Injector System I Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I 400mm Reinforced Steel Plates I 1MN Afterburner I Warp Scrambler I 125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, Phased Plasma S 125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, Phased Plasma S 125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, Phased Plasma S [empty high slot] [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot] This setup is designed for getting close to the enemy and shut down both warp drive and MWD with the scram and possibly shoot the target ship with the autocannons while you orbit with an active AB. This fit provides a decent buffer tank so you might have a chance to get away from the fight before you get killed if you get attacked directly. You should make sure to stay out of smartbomb range when you engage a target that is likely to have smartbombs fitted (i.e. battleships in lowsec). Alternatively you could fit a MWD to be able to approach your target much faster, but then you wont be able to orbit your target at AB speed and while the MWD is still running your signature radius would be increased by up to 500%. Both decreases your chances of survival. Fitting a warp disruptor instead of the warp scrambler would allow you to stay at range, though your short range guns wont be able to hit your primary target anymore (you should then use your guns only to kill drones or fast enemies that got too close to you). This would however improve your chances of survival. Depending on your skills you might run out of CPU and/or PG when you try to change the fit, so make sure to check any changes in EFT first. The posted fit can be flown with minimum skills and is fairly easy to use.

Executioner fitted for high speed

[Executioner, fleet tackler - speed] Damage Control I Overdrive Injector System I 1MN MicroWarpdrive I Warp Scrambler I Gatling Pulse Laser I, Multifrequency S Gatling Pulse Laser I, Multifrequency S [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot] This setup is designed to chase fast enemy ships like cruisers with MWDs that are trying to get out of tackling range. The idea is to approach the target as fast as possible and shut down the MWD to allow your slower fleet members to catch up. Compared to the punisher setup above this has a far weaker tank and no AB to maintain a high speed while orbiting the target. But this ship is a lot faster and can lock ships a bit faster too. The chances to survive a fight are relatively low and it is easy to make mistakes, so this setup is not recommened for unexperienced pilots. You could replace the guns with projectiles to safe capacitor, but once you're in range of your target and shut down your MWD you will have enough capacitor to spare and this ship does grant a small damage bonus, so lasers make sense.

Caldari frigates

Caldari ships are usually shield tankers due to the lack of lowslots while having plenty of midslots which also allows the use of webifiers and/or e-war modules in addition to the warp disruptor/scrambler.
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.

Merlin fitted for survivability

[Merlin, fleet tackler - survivor] Damage Control I Micro Auxiliary Power Core I 1MN Afterburner I Warp Disruptor I Tracking Disruptor I Medium Shield Extender I Light Electron Blaster I, Antimatter Charge S Light Electron Blaster I, Antimatter Charge S Rocket Launcher I, Gremlin Rocket [empty high slot] [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot] The idea is to stay at range (15-20 km) while orbiting the target with an AB and using the tracking disruptor to make it harder for turret based ships to hit you. The short range weapons cannot be used against your primary target at that range and should be used only to kill drones or enemy ships that got too close. You could try to fit long range weapons if you want to be able to apply damage to your primary target directly. If you got the skills you should fit an additional rocket launcher, the posted fit is missing one to allow the ship to be used with minimum skills. Also you could replace the e-war module with any other e-war module of your choice, since the Merlin hull provides no bonus to any specific type of e-war. If you want to convert the fit for short range you should replace the warp disruptor with a warp scram and maybe replace the e-war module with a stasis webifier.

Merlin fitted for speed

[Merlin, fleet tackler - speed] Damage Control I Micro Auxiliary Power Core I 1MN MicroWarpdrive I Warp Scrambler I Stasis Webifier I Medium Shield Extender I 125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, Phased Plasma S 125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, Phased Plasma S [empty high slot] [empty high slot] [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot] This setup is supposed to chase high speed ships like cruisers with MWD and slow them down as much as possible to allow your slower fleet members to catch up. The Merlin is not the fastest frigate, however unlike some of the high speed frigates this setup still provides a good tank and thus will allow you to keep your target tackled for a while even if you are being attacked directly. To allow the setup to be used with minimum skills it uses only two autocannons. If you got the skills you could fit blasters to get a bit more range, however adding some missile launchers should be more important.

Gallente frigates

Gallente frigates got a balanced slot layout, so you have enough midslots for various module combinations while you use the lowslots for tank and maybe speed.
Also don't forget to make use of the drone bay each gallente frigate has.

Tristan fitted for survivability

[Tristan, fleet tackler - survivor] Damage Control I Adaptive Nano Plating I 200mm Reinforced Steel Plates I 1MN Afterburner I Warp Disruptor I Remote Sensor Dampener I 75mm Gatling Rail I, Antimatter Charge S 75mm Gatling Rail I, Antimatter Charge S [empty high slot] [empty high slot] [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot] Hobgoblin I x1 This setup is designed to be used at range (15-20 km) while orbiting the target with an AB to make it harder to be hit. It's got a decent buffer tank and uses an e-war module to increase the fleet value of the ship. The posted setup is very tight on CPU when used with just the minimum skills, with better skills you should add some missile launchers or maybe replace the long range railguns with short range blasters so you're able to fight off drones and fast ships that got too close to you. Though if you stick with long range weapons you might be able to hit your primary target from distance, especially if you can upgrade to bigger railguns. In theory you could also use short range autocannons with just the minimum skills, but the ship grants both a damage and a tracking bonus to hybrid weapons, so you should use those. The Tristan hull does not provide a bonus to any specific e-war so feel free to replace the sensor dampener with any e-war module of your choice.

Incursus fitted for speed

[Incursus, fleet tackler - speed] Damage Control I Overdrive Injector System I 1MN MicroWarpdrive I Warp Scrambler I Sensor Booster I, Scan Resolution Light Electron Blaster I, Antimatter Charge S Light Electron Blaster I, Antimatter Charge S Light Electron Blaster I, Antimatter Charge S [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot] Hobgoblin I x1 This setup is designed to chase fast enemy ships like cruisers with MWD and keep them tackled to allow your slower fleet members to catch up. Ideally you'd want to use a stasis webifier in the third midslot to slow your target down even more, however with minimum skills you would have to drop one of the guns to be able to fit it. The sensor booster is easy to fit and useful to lock a target fast. However, replacing the sensor booster with a stasis webifier or maybe an e-war module is a viable option. This setup provides only a light tank and no AB to orbit at high speed, so chances to survive a fight are relatively low and because of that this setup is not recommended for unexperienced pilots. To increase survivability you could use a warp disruptor instead of the scrambler, in that case you might want to keep the sensor booster and use the ship to get the initial point on a target (i.e. if the enemy jumped through a gate into your fleet or undocked from a station).

Minmatar frigates

Minmatar frigates tend to be pretty fast and they have a balanced slot layout allowing you to combine several midslot modules like AB/MWD, warp disruptor/scrambler, sensor boosters and e-war modules while the lowslots can be used to fit a tank or increase speed. Also most minmatar ships get a bonus for projectile weapons, which tend to be the favorite weapon even on some ships without any bonus for them.

Rifter fitted for survivability

[Rifter, fleet tackler - survivor] Damage Control I Adaptive Nano Plating I 200mm Reinforced Steel Plates I 1MN Afterburner I Warp Disruptor I Target Painter I 125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, Phased Plasma S 125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, Phased Plasma S 125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, Phased Plasma S Rocket Launcher I, Gremlin Rocket [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot] Hobgoblin I x1 This setup is designed to be used at range (15-20 km) while orbiting the target with an AB to make it harder to be hit. It's got a decent buffer tank and uses an e-war module to increase the fleet value of the ship. The weapons are all short ranged and should be used to fight off drones and fast ships that got too close to you. The Rifter hull does not provide a bonus to any specific e-war so feel free to replace the sensor dampener with any e-war module of your choice. If you want to use this ship as a short range tackler you should use a warp scrambler and maybe a stasis webifier instead or the warp disruptor and the e-war module.

Vigil fitted for high speed

[Vigil, fleet tackler - speed] Damage Control I Nanofiber Internal Structure I Overdrive Injector System I 1MN MicroWarpdrive I Warp Scrambler I Stasis Webifier I 150mm Light AutoCannon I, Phased Plasma S 150mm Light AutoCannon I, Phased Plasma S Rocket Launcher I, Gremlin Rocket [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot] This setup is designed to chase fast enemy ships like cruisers with MWD, slow them down as much as possible and keep them tackled to allow your slower fleet members to catch up. The Vigil is one of the fastest frigates and most likely wont have any trouble to keep up with any ship you encounter, though it doesn't provide a big tank so chances to survive a fight are relatively low and because of that this setup is not recommended for unexperienced pilots. By fitting a long range warp disruptor you could covert this setup to be used at a distance (15-20 km) and increase survivability, though you wont be able to slow down a fast enemy. If you want to use this ship at those ranges you should replace the stasis webifier with an e-war module (the Vigil provides a bonus to target painter so you should use that if you want to use an e-war module) or maybe a sensor booster so you can lock a target faster.

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.