Icarus' Wings

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2007.04.01 21:23 Privateer Alliance has declared war on Brethren Of Amarr. After 24 hours fighting can legally occur between those involved. No, not an April Fools joke.

A collection of tips gained during the War Dec by Privateers. Evemail Osric if you have anything else to add.

GENERAL.

• DO NOT travel alone.
• If you really must, make sure you are stabbed up! - i.e fit Warp Core Stabilizers. You can run away then.
  DO NOT ENGAGE - unless you have backup and an escape plan or know WTF your doing: that's 95% of our corp excluded...
• If you have a head full of expensive implants - jump clone to one without. See FAQ for details.
• Make full use of ventrilo - people died because they didn't hear the warning. Headset with microphone, £10 - PC World.
• Making full use of voice comms does not mean talking when some PvP is about to go off. If it is about to hit the fan, stay quiet unless you are commanding or have something useful to say.
• Don't bother screaming about being dead or targeted, there is too much going on already without your whines stopping useful information being passed.
• Spending time typing and looking at a text box also gets you killed.
• DO NOT undock in any ship you are not prepared to lose.
• Corp will be providing ships and equipment, Frigates and Cruisers. We have some war stocks. Please ask - better to lose a throw away frigate than a BC or BS you cannot afford to replace.
• THEY ARE NOT NPCS! - you may be able to take on 10 Battleships on your own, but they shoot only one gun or shoot one missile type which you are fitted to tank, therefore one player BS is worth 7 or 8 NPC ones.
• Monitor local chat channel. Maximise it and make it transparent. Separate it from the other channels so you don't use it by mistake. Simply click & hold the tab and drag it off.
• It's an early warning alarm with red flashing lights!

OVERVIEW.

• How to get red flashing lights in Local Chat:
  • Right click on overview where it says "> Overview"
  • Select Open Overview Setting
  • Appearance tab > Colortag
  • Tick "Pilot is at war" to red
  • Right click it and and toggle blink to ON.
  • Background tab
  • Tick "Pilot is at war" set to red
  • Right click it and and toggle blink to ON.
• Sort the Overview by range, nearest at the top, then sort alphabetically. When Capt Terror's name is called out, you are not trying to spot one of several random targets in the overview.
• How to identify ships easily:
  • OVERVIEW SETTINGS - Ships tab, tick SHIP TYPE. When you hover mouse over a target in space you see that it is a Thorax or whatever.
  • Better still - enable the ship type column in overview.
  • If you have a big enough monitor, add the ship type colum.
• It is also worth TURNING OFF friendlies and so on to reduce the clutter.

SMACK TALK.

• DO NOT SMACK TALK
  • Do not mouth off, swear, be rude or sarcastic - well, maybe a little of the last if the enemy is called Hasselhof >:}
  • The last person who did it was hunted down by the enemy for it. No names, no pack drill.
  • If you really MUST talk to them, it should be polite replies, such as "Good fight mate", or "Well done for the battle" etc.
  • All smack talk does is get your name noticed and the Corps, for the WRONG reason, making you and us a more attractive target.

FITTINGS.

• PvE fittings are not that useful in PvP, there are a number of reasons, but the primary requiresments are:
  • Hold the enemy so you can kill him - webbing and warp scrambling.
  • Gank - maximise damage in shortest time period.
  • Inteligence - gather and act upon wisely.
• The follow are pretty much mandatory fittings for PvP:
  • Tacklers (Frigates & Interceptors) MUST have Webbers and Warp Scramblers aboard. You job is to HOLD target long enough for the big guns to turn up.
  • If you have no Electronic Warfare Skills you need to train them NOW! the level 1 skills take about 20 minutes to train
    • Electronics/Electronic Warfare - ECM & jamming
    • Electronics/Propulsion Jamming - Web/Scram
    • Electronics/Weapon Disruption - Tracking Disrupters & Dampeners
  • Nos = Nosferateu - steal enegy from enemy for yourself - Requires Science II, Engineering III, Energy Emission Systems II for a Medium one.
  • Gank - Fit whatever makes you weapon hit harder:
    • Artillery - Gyrostabilser
    • Hybrids - Magnetic Stabilisers
    • Lasers - Heat Sinks
    • Missles etc - Ballistic Controls

TACTICS.

• Escaping in a Pod. Once you are getting to the point where it looks like you will be going down, ZOOM RIGHT OUT, click on ANY object (star gate or asteroid belt etc) so that you see the box around the object. Just before you blow up, start to spam the "warp to" button at the top of your overview and keep hitting as fast as you can. The reason for this is that there is a lot of lag when you "change session" while your pod is ejecting. You need to get that pod into warp as fast as you can because the opponent won't have that kind of lag and will be able to lock your pod fast.
  Once you warp out, immediately start selecting another object in a different location. Another asteroid belt would be a good choice. Be ready to warp to the other object as soon as you have control of your pod again. Since even an interceptor would take time to get into warp, it is unlikely that they could beat you to the celestial object before you get out.
• Cheese Spotting. If you can't lock a target down using Warp Core scrambling - he has Warp Core Stabilizers fitted and will run away before you can pop him unless more fire power can be brought to bear quickly. So, if you webbed him but can't Warp Scramble him, he is about to run or has a pile of mates coming. So either have a lot of help or align fast.
• Fleet Ops. In a large battle you may find that you never get targeted and we win. However, what does happen is a target is nominated, and everyman and his dog gets to shoot them up. Therefore, should you suddenly find yourself with a lot of flashing yellow boxes in the overview, warp out, then jump back at your optimal if possible, or bail out totally if it appears to be going wrong in a big way.
• Gate Camps. If you jump through and there is a camp engaging you,
  • DO NOT ENGAGE
  • Turn on your hardeners/repper/boosters etc.
  • Head straight back to gate.
  • Jump through ASAP, they cannot follow you if they agressed (shot/webbed/scrammed you) for 30 seconds.