Faction Warfare Targets

Starwalker had been grounded or at least that was what he felt like as he had spent almost no time in space in the last month. He still had his penchant for the Tristan as an alternative to his Merlin and he had now had a few more fights.

Most of those fights were with faction warfare pilots that were either really doing the complex or simply waiting for a hunter to become the hunted. Crimson StrongBlood had been looking for a fight in his Rifter but when it came down to it - he exploded quickly. The same could be said for groapadegunoi and his Slasher. Alexanderdit was in the complex but whether he wanted to fight was not really clear but whether he wanted to or not his Tristan was forfeit.

However, Starwalker hadn't had it all his own way. The first night back from his long spell away he lost this Tristan. The problem was simple enough:

• Warping in from the acceleration gate he was immediately targeted by JESSKABAL in his Caldari Navy Hookbill, who was waiting for his next target
• Rather than target the Hookbill Starwalker had managed to target the inoffensive beacon as he clicked on the target in the overview as it switched position with the ship
• Launching drones, getting up to speed, scrambling and firing his blasters took some precious seconds. Precioius seconds where he didn't notice that he had the wrong target selected
• Realising he had the wrong target selected Starwalker switched but he had now lost nearly a third of his shield
• He saw the tracking disruptor and web applied to his Tristan and also noticed that he was doing no damage - his guns could not hit the Hookbill at 7.5km with Null while disrupted. But where was the drone damage - that made up two thirds of  the Tristan's firepower?
• His drones were out but simply idle. Having drones set to aggressive and on focus fire had not resulted in them attacking the Hookbill that had now taken half the shield from the Tristan
• Belatedly Starwalker engaged the Hookbill with his drones but he knew that it was too little too late
• He aligned out and tried to escape but with a web applied by the Hookbill he had no chance of getting the Tristan out - only his pod

The fight had not gone well, Starwalker felt rusty and that he had made a lot of silly mistakes. He had been in a later fight where he had engaged a Tormentor and somehow had made the same mistake with his drones. The damage came in but very little was going out, he felt sure he had pressed "F" to engage but his drones (again) were idle. It appeared that this command to engage had been lost at the start of the battle.

These faction warfare pilots seemed to run the full range of behaviours, from those that were in the complex for itself and did not want to engage, those that were there but would engage, those that were there as bait and those that were there to kill the hunters. That classification did not include those that were AFK, warp stabilised or those that lurked 100km - 200km away just watching but would disappear if you approached. Starwalker wondered if he should sit in a complex and see what came, perhaps an interesting new tactic to try.

Whilst Starwalker had gained a little more experience with the Tristan he also realised that he liked the holy trinity of propulsion, scram and web and the shield fit that he was using did not have the web. That web gave some degree of range control and would increase the damage from his drones, which was important now that he had Drone Interfacing V. The trouble was that the small armour repairer did not seem especially effective but perhaps that was Starwalker's imagination.

Drake Shake

Starwalker was wandering around Placid in his Drake with a heavy assault missile fit. He had recently flown a couple of heavy missile fits, primarily for ratting and whilst the range was good in that context the DPS was a little on the low side for his taste. The HAM Drake had much better DPS - around 500 dependent on fit and level 5 skills.

Starwalker entered Eugales and found Jameson2011 hanging around in system and so Starwalker joined fleet and they both headed out looking for trouble. It was not long before two Hookbills - Sun and Moon were spotted. There was a short debate as to whether it was a trap as there were quite a few in local but before that conversation was finished Jameson2011 said warp to me! Clearly he had already decided whether to engage or not.

Starwalker arrived at the scene with Jameson2011's Comet chasing the two Hookbills - they were all around 90km away and moving far faster than a Drake. Fortunately the speed meant that it was not long before they were at 150km away and Starwalker warped again to Jameson2011. He landed a few kilometres from the nearest Hookbill but before he was properly out of warp they were moving away and by the time he had locked and tried to establish point they were out of web and scramble range.

From there the fight shifted as the Hookbills had now killed the Comet and were orbiting Starwalker's Drake at around 24 km. Starwalker was on the defensive and he had to shake off the Hookbills. He shifted to Javelin missiles with a theoretical range of around 28km (at level 5) but they seemed to be largely ineffectual. Originally Starwalker had thought that the Javelin reached out to around 22km but after checking it was clear that they were within range of the Hookbills but that the damage level was so low that it was simply not effective.

In theory the Javelins were doing around 300 DPS so Starwalker was a little surprised that the Hookbill could shrug off the damage as easily as it was. Small signature radius would be an important factor but perhaps its speed was also reducing the effective damage significantly. Checking the logs later showed that only around 10 DPS was actually being applied, an important point about damage projection - what was real versus the theoretical.

In any case, there was a real danger of being kited to death unless Starwalker could shake these Hookbills and so he tried to time an overheated run of his MWD to escape. It failed and he had to turn overheat off again or risk becoming more or less stationary. He then remembered that he had not let loose his Warrior IIs and so he launched them. At first they also appeared ineffective, until he realised that he had not actually set them yet to engage the target.

Starwalker knew he had forgotten to launch drones before but he also wondered how often he had done that in the past - launched the drones and then left them there idling in space. However, this time it seemed that the distraction with the drones worked and the Hookbill's point dropped and Starwalker did not hesitate to warp away, leaving the drones behind. He then warped to random locations to seal his escape and finally he set off back to base.

Starwalker discussed the fight with Jameson2011 afterwards and it appeared that his assumption about the effectiveness of the damage projection of the HAM Drake was mistaken. He had clearly been kited around 24km by a frigate and whilst he was able to land some hits they were clearly not enough to drive the kiter away. In the absence of chasing the kiter away with firepower he had not been able to get away through manual piloting and it was only the drones that had helped him to escape.

It looked like the metagame, at least in this case, was driving Starwalker to favour speed over damage projection and he would have to consider that when selecting and fitting ships. He was also aware that a number of his Navigation skills were still at level 4 - in particular Acceleration Control (5% speed boost). He would need to correct that soon if he wanted to place more emphasis on speed.

Wolf Engages Hookbill in Plex

Starwalker was returning to Eugales in his Wolf after his null-sec roam with Kaeda Maxwell and Vincent R'lyeh. Passing through Ashitsu, he saw a Caldari Navy Hookbill on dscan. It was too good an opportunity to miss so he looked for it and scanned it down to a plex.

Warping in to the plex Starwalker saw the Hookill more than 70km away and started to burn towards it with his afterburner fit. It seemed unlikely that the Hookbill would stay for the fight as surely the Hookbill would have a hard time against a Wolf. As the distance closed the Hookbill remained in the plex.

Starwalker watched the distance close to less than 30km and couldn't decide whether the pilot, di14juni1983, was stupid, brave or oblivious. He waited to less than 20km and then started the lock, which surely would alert di14juni1983 to the imminent danger. The Hookbill engaged first! Starwalker was surprised but pleased and tried to close into point blank with the auto-cannons spitting out their venom.

The distance did not close to less than 8km and Starwalker wondered whether he should switch to barrage or simply keep firing as the Hookbill was going down nicely. The incoming damage seemed anemic and was also being supplemented by some of the rat's fire but Starwalker's shields were holding very nicely and he hadn't even started the armour repairer yet.

The Hookbill started to gain some distance and the Wolf point dropped but strangely the pilot did not automatically warp away and maybe he hadn't realised the point was gone. Or possibly the Hookbill was aligning out, however, the Wolf did its thing and the final volley blew through the remaining armour and structure to destroy the Hookbill. Starwalker was pleased with the kill but forgot to collect the loot, even though he had to wait out the GCC.

Starwalker noted afterwards that he should have tried to observe the fight directly rather than watch the overview for maintaining situational awareness, in partcular to pinpoint when the Hookbill was moving out of scramble range. Similarly, Starwalker messed up getting the pod and so he should emphasise that final approach when the enemy target was about to explode to increase his chance of getting the pod too.

Pilot Error and Evolution of Ship Selection and Fitting

Starwalker’s ship fitting philosophy had evolved over time:

1. Initial focus was on kill or be killed – a simple damage race, who will be the first to get the kill. Emphasis on using simple cookie cutter builds but not really appreciating the reasons behind the fit 
2. Next evolution was that survival is needed to apply damage, so tank is fitted first and damage second. In short, no damage if dead, so fit tank before guns 
3. Current focus was on relative superiority – define a ship fit to counter most likely ships encountered and their methods of attack. Maximize intelligence to gain relative superiority in selection of tactics, ammunition and range  

Starwalker was still trying to fit for relative superiority but had recently added a tweak – also select ships and fit to compensate for pilot weaknesses. Selecting ships and fittings based on exploiting strengths would be better but Starwalker was not good enough yet to have pilot strengths.

Pilot weaknesses were easy to identify:

• Being distracted by trivia such as looking at the chat channel whilst losing this Hawk in an asteroid belt
• Not selecting the right ammunition to maximize damage as demonstrated when losing this Rifter
• Not using the right range and ammunition that works at that range, which was one of many factors that led to this Hookbill exploding
• Poor manual piloting skills (could not effectively do a slingshot) against a kiting ship like this Slicer
• Not knowing, understanding or remembering New Eden mechanics such as warp-in in a deadspace complex
• Lack of knowledge or common sense when fighting or in this case not engaging when needed and appropriate
• Being impatient (and not cautious) led to this Rifter loss

These traits were starting to lead towards preferring Caldari ships, like the Hawk using the kinetic damage type, and rockets (or missiles) to avoid considering optimal, falloff and tracking. To prefer selecting and fitting a ship for brawling in scramble range because the greater tank, compared to a kiting ship, gave more time to react to the situation.

This preference had its own problems such as restricting the choice of ships but Starwalker was happy at this time to focus on the Rifter and Hawk and perhaps later add the Drake. He also knew that his losses were more a result of his pilot errors than any limitations of the ship he flew or the trained skills he had.

Hookbill Lost by All Kinds of Fail

Starwalker was in Heild looking for trouble and a couple of other Rebels were doing the same. So, they joined forces and scanned down a Jaguar to the Angel deadspace complex. Starwalker warped in at 50km and saw that the Jaguar was around 300km away. He started his Hookbill towards the Jaguar, piloted by Nergalion, but assumed that Nergalion would not stay and fight as one of the other Rebels had also warped in and disappeared again.

However, Starwalker continued towards the Jaguar and was sending messages to the other Rebels. Unfortunately, he was not paying attention to their messages and missed the caution that they could not warp to Starwalker in the complex, instead, they would end up warping to the acceleration gate. This was vital information that Starwalker had simply not read and if he had, it would have changed what happened next.

Indeed, it was the first fail of the upcoming fight. Starwalker was closing in to establish point and expected the Rebels to warp in to the fight; he was about to find out that this would not happen but one mistake was not enough to call it a fail cascade. The fail cascade really started when Starwalker made his second error and set the Hookbill to orbit at 15km from the previous 9km. It was a good distance to stay out of danger and establish a point but overlooked the fact that the short range rockets had a maximum range of 12km and probably an effective range of about 10.5km. He should have either switched to long range rockets or stay at 9km.

The Hookbill and Jaguar engaged and very quickly the Hookbill established point with an orbit of 15km, however, the Jaguar decided to reduce that to around 2km. Starwalker realised the danger and made his next mistake - overheating the mid-rack rather than just the afterburner. No fail casade would be complete without some completely random or stupid act that takes attention away from the main action.

For Starwalker, that was being distracted by checking whether the overheat could be set by using shift-click (it could) but worse than that, he then inadvertently left the afterburner and everything else on overheat. The only good news was that the Hookbill had re-established a range of around 11km and the damage had slowed. It was past the time to bring in the Rebels. 

Starwalker was not a fast typist and simply used "xx" to call in the Rebels and after that distraction he returned to the fight to be greeted with the result that the point had burnt out and the webs were close to burning out. Things were rapidly going downhill.

Starwalker decided to leave the webs on even though the point was now burnt to a crisp and the Jaguar could escape. The idea was to distract Nergalion with the applied modules and to hope that he had not noticed the point drop. Relying on hope is not a great idea. Starwalker wondered where his fleet mates were but decided to type again to let them know that his point had burnt out. The intent was that the Rebels would hurry up and arrive. One did - 432km away.

Starwalker did a double-take on the distance and thought that he had mis-read it, no, it really was that far away. Starwalker was then brought sharply back to reality by the Hookbill sirens warning that the ship was close to destruction. It was going to be all over very soon and the Jaguar was still only in shields, there was no way the Hookbill would survive unless it could warp away. The Jaguar sensing the kill was close - moved in and re-established the scramble just in time to prevent the warp. The Hookbill died - the victim of a series of horrific pilot errors.

The fail cascade was nearly complete with the Hookbill lost but Starwalker had one more loss to come - his ignorance. Starwalker warped his pod to safety and asked why the Rebels hadn't warped in to the fight. The answer - Starwalker was in deadspace and any warp in would go the acceleration gate. They also noted that they had warned Starwalker of this, and checking the log that was true.

This was the first time Starwalker had been in a fleet at a complex and in his ignorance had thought that the warp to the gate mechanic applied only after entering the first acceleration gate. Clearly he was wrong but worse than that, he had also missed the warning that he was wrong and now the fail cascade was complete.

Hookbill Dies to Thrasher in Angel Complex

Starwalker had scanned a Tristan and Thrasher to a (2/10) complex in Heild and wondered if they were missioning together or fighting. There was only one way to find out and Starwalker warped in at 70km.

There was no target ship after coming out of warp and so Starwalker burnt towards the acceleration gate and activated it. The rockets were pre-heated and as Starwalker landed there were many mobs waiting around 14km away and a Thrasher at 4km. Starwalker hit the approach and realized a few seconds later that he really needed to get some distance and so hit orbit at 9km.

The Thrasher did not wait and started hitting the Hookbill hard. Starwalker returned fire with the rockets but in the first few seconds the shields were already disappearing fast as hits of between 370 and 470 came in. Starwalker was hitting back for 225 to 280 but it was not enough and he tried to gain distance but it was simply not happening and overheating the afterburner was nowhere near effective.

Starwalker realized that he was going down and desperately tried to avoid destruction by doing more damage. He belatedly applied the webs but it was all looking like too little too late. The Thrasher shields were nearly gone but Starwalker’s Hookbill was now on fire with structure simply vanishing and Starwalker was too slow to get the pod away and that too was cremated. 

The pod loss included some +4 implants but Starwalker knew that was simply the price that he had paid for being too slow to get his pod away. The destruction of the Hookbill had happened in less than thirty seconds and the fight had started badly by landing too close to the Thrasher. It had got worse by not being able to gain distance fast enough. Of course, it appeared that the Thrasher pilot (Jaxartes) had planned that and Starwalker had fallen victim to the trap.


One question on Starwalker’s mind was why the mobs that were so close had not engaged, in asteroid belts, mobs could be 100km and still engage? Starwalker’s losing streak was continuing but at least he had gotten into a fight and that was pleasing.

Roaming and Thinking about Ships

Starwalker had been roaming around Molden Heath and had found no one of frigate or even T1 cruiser size to engage. The Hookbill had enjoyed the delights of the circuit from Heild to Ennur, around to Klingt and back to Heild via Egbinger on numerous occasions but with no joy.

There had been plenty of gangs and battlecruisers or similar out and about but very few frigates or at least none that Starwalker had found when he was flying. Incidents like hunting a Rifter, who did not wish to engage and being chased by a Cynabal did really not count. The hunt was interesting but not that interesting.

Starwalker’s training plan was going well but the focus was on frigates and support skills. The question that Starwalker was now toying with was whether to start getting more and higher levels of skills for battlecruisers.

It was an interesting question as Starwalker had recently heard an opinion - that they would rather fly and lose a battlecruiser or battleship than fly a frigate and return in it. It was something to think about.

Roaming, Roaming, Roaming

The Hookbill looked sleek and deadly but it had still not seen combat yet despite going out multiple times. Starwalker was roaming and roaming but for whatever reason was not getting into many fights.

This was not a new problem. It was disappointing that the fight time to flight time ratio was so low and Starwalker was considering how that could be improved. In general, any frigate (T1, T2 or Faction), industrial or transport was fair game.  Similarly, destroyers and T1 cruisers would be attempted but T2 cruisers, battlecruisers or above would likely be passed by, unless it was a very new or combat inexperienced pilot.

Generally, Starwalker roamed from system to system and then returned to base. In each system, if there were locals he would go to a random location and scan for targets. If no targets of opportunity were present on d-scan then he would either go to another random location or move on to the next system.

Starwalker saw some possibilities for improving the chances of a fight:

• Talk to other pilots and find out how they search for and find targets
• Check the map more regularly for “busy” (number of kills or jumps) systems and go there
• Stay more regularly in systems that are low-sec entry points from high-sec such as Bosena, Egghelende or Adirain
• Roam less and wait in locations (belt, gate or sun…), be the hunted rather than the hunter
• Be more thorough in scanning systems and setup bookmarks to allow a complete scan of the area
• Target mission runners (systems with high NPC kills) and either probe them down or go to complexes

First Null-Sec Roam Ends Badly

Kaeda Maxwell (Jaguar) and Starwalker (Hookbill) set off to roam around and see what trouble they could get into. They started in Pure Blind but were soon into Cloud Ring and then the Outer Ring.

A Rifter appeared briefly on gate and Kaeda instructed Starwalker to jump through the gate and potentially catch the Rifter on the other side. The Rifter duly came through but Starwalker had not de-cloaked yet and the targeting failed. Starwalker tried to de-cloak but it was too late, the Rifter was gone.

The roam continued and Kaeda decided that they would head to the End of the Universe – A2V6-6. It seemed like the entire pipe, that was apparently popular with ratters and those improving their security status, was largely empty. Although, strangely, there was an abandoned Velator near the YVA-F0 gate – so they ended its existence with a couple of bursts of rocket fire. Starwalker went to jump through the gate but the aggression timer was active and so they waited for the timer to expire.

Heading back down the pipe, they went into Fountain and flirted with the odd potential target like a Tengu but it amounted to nothing. It looked like they would get no action and so they headed back to Pure Blind. Then a few jumps from the end a Cynabal landed with Starwalker on the gate. The targeting failed as it simply jumped through but Kaeda was on the other side.

Starwalker jumped through and Kaeda commanded: “Burn back to the gate and hold”. The Cynabal decided it was going to fight as it targeted Starwalker’s Hookbill and opened fire. Kaeda engaged it with the Jaguar and a Hurricane and Tornado jumped through. The situation had just changed and Starwalker asked: “Shall we jump?” Kaeda understood it as warp away and noted “…I am pointed” but Starwalker had meant jump through the gate. First mistake, he had forgotten gate mechanics.

In the confusion, Starwalker thought he had heard “yes… I am pointed” or effectively get away, I will follow you or try to warp away. So Starwalker jumped. Second mistake, he did not independently assess the situation, just waited for a command.

As soon as Starwalker jumped he realized that Kaeda could not jump through the gate because of the aggression timer. And almost simultaneously, that the three ships on the other side meant that Kaeda’s Jaguar would not escape. Starwalker was on the wrong side of the gate - “Shall I jump back?” But Kaeda was too busy trying to burn down the Cynabal to respond and so Starwalker burnt back to the gate and jumped. Third mistake, it was too late to fight now.

No Jaguar, no fight, just the Cynabal, Hurricane and Tornado. It was over. Starwalker warped to the next gate. He was disappointed in himself for having left a Rebel to fight alone and that he had jumped. It didn’t matter whether he thought Kaeda was telling him to escape - he should have stayed. Fortunately, Kaeda was disappointed but philosophical about the Jaguar loss.

The reason Starwalker should have stayed was because he agreed with Kaeda’s assessment. There was a chance to take down the Cynabal, even with the two battlecruisers present. The Jaguar alone could not take down the Cynabal but the Jaguar and Hookbill had a real chance. Of course, they would die in the process but it would be a good exchange and worth trying to kill the Cynabal.

If the fight was simply lost and there was no chance that the Cynabal would go down THEN it would have been reasonable to escape. Instead, it was an opportunity missed because Starwalker also thought they could kill the Cynabal.

It was for that reason that Starwalker was disappointed and why for him the first Null-Sec roam had ended badly. However, every cloud has a silver lining and a couple of good lessons were learnt:

• Assess the situation and decide whether to fight or not yourself, especially if the situation calls for potentially sacrificing your ship
• Fighting on gates requires knowing gate mechanics, whether you will be fired on or not and when you can use them or not