Covert Operations

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Original text by Stein Voorhees, February 2007
Updated and extended by Carenthor Loon,Ecatherina W, Baka Lakadaka, Aether.
Copyright Agony Unleashed


Background

CovOps: “Recon.”
FC: “Go recon.”
CovOps: “This is dzu in RMOC on the Hemin gate. Eight in local. Nothing on grid, 5-ship armor HAC gang on scan. They're not at a POS or a celestial, looks like they're at a safe. FC: shall I get you a drop on them?”
FC: “Yes. Get your probes out and get me that drop. Let me know when you've got it. Fleet: hold on RMOC gate.”
CovOps: “Anchor in place. Warp to dzu at 20.”
FC: “Fleet: jump jump. Cold warping fleet to CovOps.”


Agony Unleashed operate primarily in well organized wolfpack style fleets which tend to be smaller gangs which can deliver tremendous firepower and travel extremely quickly. In order to best deliver this firepower, the Fleet Commander (FC) needs to have knowledge of the enemy immediately to hand. A good CovOps pilot is a force multiplier to a fleet – greatly expanding the fleet's ability to kill opponents and reducing the chance of the fleet being trapped by overwhelming opposition. Despite rumors to the contrary, flying a CovOps ship for a fleet can be tremendously exciting. And (as an added bonus) your fleet mates will thank you for it.

A competent Covops pilot will be able to determine most, if not all, of the following questions, and relate the needed intelligence to the FC:

  1. Who is my enemy?
  2. Where is my enemy?
  3. What is my enemy capable of?
  4. How can I kill my enemy?


Capabilities of a CovOps pilot

A CovOps ship's specialty is fitting the Covert Ops Cloaking Device, which allows you to warp cloaked. Once your CovOps ship is in system and cloaked you can range around the system at will, invisible to the overview, scans, and probes (if flown correctly). You can maneuver in close proximity to other ships undetected for spying and for getting drops on potential victims for the rest of the fleet. In addition, your CovOps ship has a frigate's speed and agility for rapid exploration, can re-cloak very quickly, and, most importantly, gets a bonus for probes.

Given the abilities mentioned above, what are you expected to be able to do as the CovOps pilot in a fleet op, and how can you contribute to fleet kills? You will be expected to perform two primary tasks: Provide reconnaissance about ships/fleets while roaming or stationed ahead of the fleet, and pin down the specific location of targets within a system. And you'll be expected to be able to do these tasks while avoiding getting your fragile frigate hull blown up.


Who and where is my enemy? What's my enemy's capability?

Reconnaissance is the bulk of a CovOps pilot's work. Reconnaissance consists of providing intelligence about ships and fleets in systems removed from the main fleet's location, its purpose is to let the FC and fleet know of opportunities ahead and threats that may be coming down the pipe. In order to provide the best reconnaissance you should be familiar with the composition, strengths, and weaknesses of your own fleet, in order to identify which information is important to pass onto the FC.

Ideally, you'll talk with the FC about his/her expectations before the operation, in order to get an understanding of how far out the FC would like you to range, discuss if there are any systems in particular that the FC would like recon from, and find out if there are any types of targets that he/she is especially interested in. FC experience can help a CovOps pilot gain judgment about how and when to pass on information to the fleet.

A CovOps pilot generally provides fleet forward eyes by ranging through systems +2 to +6 from the fleet, poking a head into side systems to see if there are any good targets while moving ahead toward the FC's destination. In order to travel safely a CovOps pilot relies heavily on TAC bookmarks near gates and stations, and in order to observe hostile forces you'll need an additional set of Recon bookmarks. Also, in order to avoid decloaking and to find targets efficiently, you'll need a couple of overview tabs dedicated to CovOps tasks. Recon bookmarks and Overview tabs are covered in more depth below and in class.

As a CovOps pilot, you'll be relatively independent from the fleet and will make your own decisions – within the bounds of what you had discussed with the FC – about when and where to move while tirelessly hunting, hunting for information. Alternatively, a CovOps pilot can provide passive eyes – sitting invisible in a single system and tracking local and d-scan. Often times a lightly-tended alt running on a second client can provide passive eyes.

Once you find anything of interest, you'll provide a recon report to the FC and the fleet. Recon reports should be given as frequently as necessary to provide a flow of *relevant* information to the FC. The recon reports should be as concise and clear as possible – giving the FC information in a easily digestible and familiar format, so that he/she can put the information to immediate use and doesn't have to waste time figuring out what the CovOps pilot is seeing. The recon format is discussed below and in class.


How can I kill my enemy?

Beyond general recon, your second task is finding targets and getting the drop. In order to be the most effective force multiplier possible, you should be actively looking for opportunities for kills for your fleet and getting drops on those potential targets (in addition to providing information to keep your fleet safe). How to go about this? Your first tool for finding targets is out-of-game: Dotlan (http://evemaps.dotlan.net/). A skilled CovOps pilot will have Dotlan open for the entire op anyway for navigation purposes, but Dotlan also helps you look for opportunities. Dotlan provides statistics for individual systems regarding number of recent jumps (for general system activity), NPC ships killed (by ratters and mission runners, potential targets) and number of player ship/pod kills. While ranging as forward eyes, a skilled CovOps pilot will be checking Dotlan stats for surrounding systems to get an idea of which direction may be most fruitful.

After checking Dotlan, coming into a system you'll always want to immediately check the number of pilots in local and hit a 360-degree 14.4au directional scan. At times you'll need to do this while evading capture by gate campers. If your fleet is nearby (e.g., -1 or -2 from you) you'll want to provide a general situation recon report to let the FC know what he/she can expect if the fleet comes this way. Then, if the system looks promising you can start searching for targets.

The tools that you'll use to find and get a drop on targets will depend on their location relative to you: targets will be either 1) on-grid with you; 2) off grid, but on scan at a celestial; 3) off grid, on scan at a safespot; or 4) off scan, on probe. You can find and get drops on these targets using either laddering (for #1 above), dscan (for #2 above), or probes (for #1, #3, and #4 above). These techniques are covered in depth in class and in the other reading material.


In addition to performing these tasks adequately, you'll be expected – above all – to not get blown up. Fortunately, a well-piloted CovOps ship is difficult to destroy. Of course, the reason that it's hard to destroy is NOT because of its EHP! CovOps ships are flimsy – if you get any incoming DPS at all, you are most likely a dead CovOps pilot. CovOps ships rely on stealth tank: while flying your Cheetah, Anathema, Buzzard, or Helios you need to keep your cloak up (pretty much) at all times. An experienced CovOps pilot continually but unconsciously checks that green glow on the Covert Ops Cloaking device to make sure that it's running – the glow is your only safety. As long as your cloak is running you cannot be seen on the overview, scan, or probe, and you cannot be targeted. However, there are a few times when you will have to drop cloak – this is the CovOps ship's Achilles heel. You'll have brief moments of visibility while traveling through a gate, while dropping/reloading probes, and while leaving a station. Other sections of the reading will discuss techniques for evasion and stealth in more depth.

As a wrap-up to this introduction, what are you NOT expected to do as a CovOps pilot? A CovOps pilot should never show up on a killmail. Period. That means that you'll need to avoid getting killed, but also that you will not use any offensive weaponry, including guns, EWAR, and tackle. A CovOps ship is an expensive loss for the fleet, it's very fragile, and it has the highly-limited offensive capability of a T1 probing frigate. You and your ship are much more valuable to your fleet as a force multiplier than as DPS, EWAR, or tackle.

Objectives of Intelligence Gathering

Within EVE, there are a number of crucial pieces of information which a combat commander requires when setting out on an operation. These can be summarized as:

  1. Location of the enemy.
  2. Ship types of the enemy.
  3. Enemy fleet activities.
  4. Destination of the enemy.
  5. Position of Warp Bubbles and Interdiction Spheres
  6. The Inertia of the enemy fleet - is it a fast moving frigate gang, or a lumbering BS gang with incredible firepower

In order to effectively deliver decisive force, the FC needs to have this information prior to any engagement and work it into a cohesive plan. Indeed, without this information it may be impossible to engage at all. In order to supply the above information on mobile fleets, active scouting and reconnaissance is required. At times, a CovOps pilot may also be needed to provide a warp in point on a sniper or to track down and/or shadow an enemy fleet.

The PVP-COVOPS course will take you through how best to deliver this key information to the FC without being seen or engaged by the enemy. By its nature, CovOps Recon may not involve any direct offensive tactics. The ships are expensive and very fragile. A good CovOps pilot will most likely never engage a weapon while in his ship. However, there are a number of advanced CovOps tactics where a more offensive attitude may be warranted. This document covers the preliminary information you will require to attend the course.

Skills and Implants

The skills required by Covert Ops pilots are primarily those already needed to fly in Agony wolfpacks. However, there are a number of skills which need to be increased above this basic level to ensure that pilots have the speed and agility to avoid engagements. Also, in order to effectively use cloaking technology there are some significant skills that need investing in.

Covert Ops Recon Skills

Base skills

  • Covert Ops 4+ (preferably 5)
  • Cloaking 4+
  • Electronics 5
  • Electronics Upgrades 5
  • Evasive Maneuvering 4+
  • Navigation 4+
  • Warp Drive Operation 4+
  • Racial Frigate 5
  • Acceleration Control 4+
  • High Speed Maneuvering 4+
  • Fuel Conservation 4+
  • Electronic Warfare 3+
  • Energy Management 4+
  • Weapon Upgrades 3+
  • Engineering 4+
  • Spaceship Command 4+

Additional skills for probing

  • Science 3
  • Astrometrics 4+ (preferably 5)
  • Astrometric Acquisition 3+
  • Astrometric Pinpointing 3+
  • Astrometric Rangefinding 3+

Implants

The following implants are useful for Covert Ops pilots:

  • Poteque Pharmaceuticals 'Prospector' PPH-0, PPH-1, PPH-2 - these slot 8 implants grant a 2%, 6% or 10% increase in scan probe strength.
  • Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' AY-0, AY-1 or AY-2 - these slot 6 implants grant 1%, 3% or 5% bonus to ship agility.
  • Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' CY-0, CY-1 or CY-2 - these slot 7 implants grant 1%, 3% or 5% bonus to ship velocity.

Ships

In order to effectively perform reconnaissance in Eve, you must not only be able to observe without being seen, you must also be able to get into position without being seen. As such, for a Covert Operations frigate using a CovOps cloak is a must.

All students must attend the PVP-COVOPS course with a Covert Ops frigate equipped with a CovOps Cloak II and an Expanded Probe Launcher. Additional fittings are described below and will be discussed during the course.

One thing to bear in mind with CovOps frigates is that they will pop very easily. They generally do not travel in large Wolfpacks and can be very easily picked off if engaged by virtually any enemy. As such, their general fitting needs to be based around speed, maneuverability and stealth, NOT around a tank or gank.

Another consideration with these ships is that they have a relatively high total cost. A CovOps frigate costs approximately 10-15 million ISK while the CovOps Cloak adds another 8-10 million to the bill, not to mention rigs, implants, and fittings. As such, we must be careful when flying these ships, as their loss could have a large negative effect on the ISK efficiency of an entire session of an otherwise T1 wolfpack (since one of Agony Unleashed's primary objectives in the field is to cause significantly more damage than it takes). To win the ISK war, we must take care with our ship and only put it into a situation of danger when the gains outweigh the losses. This course will cover how to keep your ship in one piece.

Basic Fitting Principles

The basics of CovOps ship fitting include an Expanded Probe Launcher and a Covert ops cloak in the high slots, MWD in the mid slots, and overdrives or nanofibers in the low slots. The cloak and probe launcher enable you to warp around cloaked and perform scans of the area. Microwarpdrive will enable CovOps ship to quickly cover certain distance across the grid when there is no danger in decloaking (example: if you're creating bookmarks). Overdrives and nanofibers will boost its cloaked velocity allowing you quicker to move into warp-in positions for your gang; nanofibers will also increase CovOps ship's agility allowing it to enter warp and turn faster.

Once the above modules have been fitted, a CovOps ship will have several open high and mid slots. Open mid-slots should be fitted next. They are used for defensive EWAR modules with the aim of helping the frigate escape if cornered. Popular choices are Remote Sensor Dampeners that can cut locking range of an interceptor, freeing the CovOps frigate from its tackle, as well as ECM modules and ECM burst. Keep in mind that the strength of ECM modules is quite low on non-bonused ships so chances of a jam are relatively low. ECM burst modules have an area of effect of only 6,000m. They will also require approximately 250 units of capacitor to activate for one cycle, while unbonused capacitor sized of CovOps frigates range from 187 units for Cheetah up to 250 units for Anathema. This means that to activate an ECM burst CovOps frigate must have nearly full capacitor and it can only be activated for one cycle. ECM burst modules are very cap intensive, so the ship setup that includes this module should also include a cap battery or recharger which can also help in making long warps.

Covert Ops Frigates: Suggested Fittings

Buzzard

The Caldari Buzzard is the second slowest CovOps frigate, and therefore is not ideal for fleet work. For combat CovOps, not covered in this class, the Buzzard's high grid and CPU making it the easiest ship to fit for agression. It is also has 5 mid-slots which enable it to pack a very hard EWAR punch.

Example of a Buzzard setup:
[Buzzard, class]
Overdrive Injector System II
Overdrive Injector System II

Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I
Phased Monopropellant I Hydrazine Boosters

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Expanded Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I

Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I

Cheetah

The Minmatar Cheetah is the fastest CovOps frigate. It is extremely useful for situations when you need to move across the grid without warping, for example, when getting into position on a sniper. It is however the hardest CovOps to fit.

Example of a Cheetah setup:
[Cheetah, class]
Overdrive Injector System II
Overdrive Injector System II
Overdrive Injector System II

Phased Monopropellant I Hydrazine Boosters
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Expanded Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I

Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I


This setup has a base speed of over 611 m/s. It only has an remote sensor damp to defend itself, so will rely on stealth and speed to evade enemy ships.

Helios

The Gallente Helios treads a path between the Buzzard and Cheetah. It is easier to fit that a Cheetah and is somewhat faster than a Buzzard.

[Helios, class]
Overdrive Injector System II
Overdrive Injector System II
Overdrive Injector System II

Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I
1MN MicroWarpdrive I
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
[empty med slot]

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Expanded Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I

Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I


This gives the same defensive EWAR as the Buzzard, but has a higher speed under cloak.

Anathema

The Amarr Anathema is historically regarded to be the worst CovOps frigate due to it having the lowest base speed. However, it has the highest base capacitor of any of the CovOps frigs, and with its third low slot can now actually be fit to be faster than a Buzzard.

Example of an Anathema setup:
[Anathema, class]
Overdrive Injector System II
Overdrive Injector System II
Overdrive Injector System II

Cap Recharger II
1MN MicroWarpdrive II
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I
[empty med slot]

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Expanded Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I
[empty high slot]

Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I


Anathema also has the furthest warp duration and best capacitor regen of any of the suggested setups.

Rigs

The rigs most commonly fitted to CovOps frigates are two Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I, which increase scan probe strength by 10% each. Although the corresponding T2 rigs give 15% bonus, a CovOps ship can fit only one of these, so most pilots opt to fit two T1 rigs for a total 20% bonus to scan strength. These rigs cost approximately 3-5 million each, but they are well worth the investment.

Other rigs that may be somewhat beneficial to a CovOps frigate are the Auxiliary Thruster I, which increases the base speed by 7.25% each, and the Low Friction Nozzle Joint I, which boosts ship's agility by 11.7%.

Cloaking and Covert Operations

The Covert Ops Cloak II enables a ship to disappear from both the visual display and overview and also, for the time being, keep it hidden from scan probes. Unfortunately you are still listed in local at present, but if in a safe spot with the cloak operational, you are almost completely safe.

A Covert Ops cloak II fitted on a CovOps frigate has no base speed penalty when cloaked and a 5-10 second target delay with no resolution penalty.

When using the cloak you cannot use any other modules (including afterburners or MWDs), so you are very much in watching mode. If you come within 2000 metres of any objects then the cloak will deactivate and you will not be able to activate it until you are at least 2000m away from everything. This means that if you jump into a busy gate camp with plenty of debris around and get caught by a warp bubble, you will most likely not be able to activate your cloak and you will probably die.

The most important quality of the Covert Ops cloak is that it lets you warp with the cloak active. This means you can arrive on grid with nobody knowing about it, which can obviously be very useful.

Overview Settings

When doing CovOps work, it is helpful to use three different saved overview settings. Using tabs, it is easy to switch between the three settings.

Standard

When you are in position to observe, you need to ensure you see all. It is important that a Covert Ops pilot is fully aware of every single item around him, to avoid going withing 2000m of another object and getting de-cloaked.

To do this, in the Overview Settings - Filters - Types tab, make sure everything is selected. Also, on the Overview Settings - Filters - States tab, make sure everything is selected. This can then be saved as 'CovOps - Standard'

Moving

When moving by either warping, jumping or normal propulsion the pilot should be very aware of what is coming up in front of him. When moving normally around a gate or target the pilot should use the CovOps - Standard setting. However, the major disadvantage of the CovOps - Standard is that it can cause significant lag during session changes.

When jumping through gates, where the other side is unknown, the pilot should use a different overview setting which covers the most important objects, but reduces lag;

In the Overview Settings - Filters - Types tab select the following;

  • Station
    • All
  • Celestial
    • Agent in space
    • Audit Log Secure Container
    • Beacon
    • Biomass
    • Cargo Container
    • Freight Container
    • Global Warp Disruptor
    • Large Collidable Object
    • Mobile Sentry Gun
    • Secure Cargo Container
    • Star Gate
    • Warp Gate
    • Wreck
  • Drone
    • All
  • NPC
    • All
  • Entity
    • Billboard
    • Large Collidable Ship
    • Large Collidable Structure
    • Protective Sentry Gun
    • Sentry Gun
  • Asteroid
    • None
  • Ship
    • All
  • Deployable
    • All
  • Structure
    • None

Scanning

It is useful to have another overview setting used for Scanning. This setting changes a lot depending on what you are looking for. However, when trying to scan the immediate area, saving time and eliminating clutter is essential. As such, use the following when scanning using overview settings;

  • Station
    • All
  • Celestial
    • Asteroid Belt
    • Moon
    • Planet
    • Warp gate
    • Star Gate
  • Drone
    • Combat Drone
  • NPC
    • None
  • Entity
    • None
  • Asteroid
    • None
  • Ship
    • All
  • Deployable
    • All
  • Structure
    • Control Tower
    • Force Field (to show if a tower is active or not)

These settings allow for a quick scan, which reveals key points in the solar system plus any ships in the scan radius. All other clutter is kept out. Be sure to check that "Use Overview Settings" is enabled, then once a scan can be narrowed down you can disable it so that everything in the narrow search can be seen.

Bear in mind that it is not possible to include some types of object on your overview, the most important of which is the warp disrupt probe launched by an interdictor. It is therefore very important, particularly when scanning a gate or a station, to make sure that "Use Overview Settings" is NOT enabled before reporting the scan as clear or warping onto grid.

All of these settings should also include showing the ship type and Corporation ticker as these give vital information on the enemy. Remember to add the settings to different tabs so you just need to switch between tabs to get a different overview setting while on the go.

A useful tip is that you can reduce lag a lot by minimizing overview (by pressing TAB) when jumping into a system. This can be a lifesaver when entering a very busy system (you can use your map to determine if the system ahead is likely to be very busy). Once the system has loaded, you can maximize overview and get the intel you need.

Recon Bookmarks

CovOps pilots make extensive use of tactical bookmarks. However, given their purpose of safely observing while not being discovered they require a further type of bookmark. We will be covering these BMs in detail during the course.

The safest bookmark positions around an object in space are those which are not aligned to another celestial body. These positions have the main benefit of being unlikely to be used for a hostile to warp in to. They require a hostile to have created a bookmark at the same place previously or to move into that position under normal power. In the first instance, a CovOps pilot is incredibly unlucky and in the second can see the enemy pilot coming and move out of the way while cloaked. Unaligned on-grid tacticals can also help against certain types of bubble equipped gate camps.

Gates will generally have at least one pair of Recon bookmarks (one at 90km, the other at 300km from the gate) that are aligned with each other, but not with anything else. Since all kinds of warp disruption bubbles have a maximum range of ~150km, by warping to a bookmark 300km from the gate you have a very low chance of being caught in a bubble (you would have to be very unlucky for someone to have put a bubble over 150km from a gate in the same unaligned direction as your bookmark!). The majority of the time this bookmark will put you on grid with the gate, allowing you to safely observe the activity around the gate, check for bubbles, etc. If you need to get closer (for example, to use the "Look At" camera option on the gate), you can either warp directly down to the 90km bookmark, or if there is a bubble on the gate, warp off to a tactical and back to the 90km BM.

Recon Bookmark Naming Convention

The naming convention we use for these pairs of CovOps bookmarks is:

  • |R> AA NN @DDkm <R|
    • AA = the name of the gate
    • NN = The id of the bookmark at this gate (allows up to 100 BMs per gate)
    • DD = the distance to the gate

The even numbered bookmarks (and bookmark 00) will be the 90km of each pair, whilst the odd numbered ones will be the 300km.

Example:

|R> Harroule 00 @90km <R|

This BM is 90km from the Harroule gate. It will have a paired BM:

|R> Harroule 01 @300km <R|

This BM is in the same unaligned direction from the gate as the previous 90km bookmark, but is further away at 300km.

Further References