Covert Operations
Contents
Background
The EVE cluster is a dangerous place. It is also very big. Because of this, any well planned military operation needs to be able to answer some fundamental questions;
1. Who is my enemy? 2. Where is my enemy? 3. What is my enemy capable of? 4. How can I kill my enemy?
Agony Unleashed operate primarily in well organised Wolfpacks which can deliver tremendous firepower and travel extremely quickly. In order to best deliver this firepower, the Fleet Commander (FC) needs to have intelligence of the enemy immediately to hand. Having a specialised group of pilots able to deliver this information gives an enormous tactical advantage.
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 summarised 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
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 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 it’s 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 whilst 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 for Covert Operations
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
Covert Ops 4+ (preferably 5) Cloaking 4 Electronics 5 Electronics Upgrades 5 Evasive Manoeuvring 4 Navigation 4 Warp Drive Operation 4 Racial Frigate 5
Acceleration Control 4 Fuel Conservation 4 Electronic Warfare 3 Energy Management 4 Weapon Upgrades 3+ Engineering 4 Spaceship Command 4+ Astrometrics 3+ Science 3 Signal Aquisition 2+
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, a Covert Operations frigates using a CovOps cloak is a must.
All students must attend the PVP-COVOPS course with a CovertOps frigate equipped with a CovOps Cloak II and a Recon Probe Launcher. Additional fittings are described below and will be discussed during the course.
One thing to bear in mind with ships setup for 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, manoeuvrability and stealth, NOT around a tank or gank.
Another consideration with these ships is that they have a very large total cost. A CovOps frigate costs in the region of 10 million ISK whilst the CovOps Cloak is around 60+ million not to mention top named mods and rigs. As such, we must be very careful when flying these ships as their loss could well wipe out the effects of a Wolfpack PvPing for an entire session. One of Agony Unleashed's primary objectives in the field is to cause significantly more damage than it takes. Losing an entire fleet of Frigates and Destroyers would not come close to the loss of a single Covert Ops II cloak and ship. As such, to win the ISK war, we must take every care with our ships and only put it into a situation of danger when the gains outweigh the losses. The course will cover how to keep your ship in one piece.
Basic Fitting Principles
Basic CovOps ship fitting revolves around the fitting of a recon probe launcher and cloak in the high slots, afterburner in the mid slots and overdrives / nanofibers in the low slots.
Once these have been fitted, other mid slots should be used for defensive EWAR modules with the aim of helping the frigate escape if cornered. ECM Bursts are most suitable for this whilst other modules such as regular ECM and Sensor Damps offer useful defensive options although given the recent ECM nerf, Damps are possibly a better option. These mid-slots are very cap intensive and so the ship setup should also include a cap battery or recharger which will also help in making long warps.
Covert Ops Frigates - suggested fittings
Buzzard The Buzzard is the second slowest CovOps frigate. However, this is offset by its high grid and CPU making it the easiest ship to fit. It is also able to pack a very hard EWAR punch with it’s large number of medium slots. It also has 3 high slots which makes it the most versatile of all the CovOps frigates.
High: Covert Ops Cloak II, Recon Probe Launcher Mid: 1 MN Afterburner II, Hypnos Multispectral ECM, Cetus ECM Shockwave, Rmote Sensor Damp, Cap Recharger I Low: 2 x Nanofiber,
The high slots enable the Buzzard to sniff out the enemy whilst remaining hidden at all times. The mid and low slots enable a top cloaked speed of over 320m/s with a wide range of defensive EWAR to get the ship away from combat. Cheetah The Minmatar Cheetah is an excellent CovOps frigate due to its very high base speed. As such, it is very useful when the ships needs to be moved without warping, for example when getting into position on a sniper.
High: Covert Ops Cloak II, Recon Probe Launcher Mid: 1 MN Afterburner II, Cetus ECM Shockwave, 2 x Cap Recharger I Low: 2 x Nanofiber I, 1 Overdrive Injector I
This setup has a base speed of over 550 m/s which is significantly faster that the Buzzard and has some EWAR to give it a reasonable chance of breaking locks if it is un-cloaked.
The Helios treads a path between the Buzzard and Cheetah. It is slightly easier to fit that a Cheetah and is slightly faster that a Buzzard.
Due its very low speed the Anathema generally comes in 4th with regards to the CovOps frigates. However, simply by being able to fit a CovOps cloak it is able to be a very effective reconnaissance ship although not quite as versatile as the others.
Cloaking and Covert Operations
The CovOps 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 (Kali 2 or 3 may change things) but if in a safe spot with the cloak operational, you are almost completely safe.
A CovOps cloak II fitted on a CovOps frigate has no base speed penalty when cloaked and a maximum 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 meters of anything then the cloak will deactivate and you will not be able to activate it until you are at least 2000m away from anything. 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 Covert Ops cloak also lets you warp with the cloak active. This means you can jump away from where you have been watching and arrive with no-one knowing which can be very useful. One other useful point to note is that if 2 cloaked ships get within 2000m of each other, they will not cause each other to de-cloak.
Overview Settings
In order to effectively use a CovOps ship for reconnaissance the pilot needs to use a number of different overview settings. There are 3 main types of activity undertaken by CovOps pilots and these require a slightly different overview setup. Students should ensure that they have these 3 overview settings saved prior to the start of the course.
Standard
Obviously, when you are in a position to observe you need to make sure you can see everything on your overview. It is also imperative that the CovOps pilot is fully aware of every single item around him. This is so that the pilot does not come within 2000m of another object and de-cloak. As such, 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 engage the CovOps-Standard settings. However, the major disadvantage of the Covops-Standard is that it can cause significant lag during session changes.
Therefore, when jumping through gates where what is on the other side is not known, the pilot should use a different overview setting which covers the most important objects but keeps lag significantly lower than with CovOps-Standard; 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 an overview setting used for Scanning. This setting changes a lot depending on what is being looked 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
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. Once a scan can be narrowed down, then overview settings can be removed so that everything in the narrow search can be seen.
All of these settings should also include showing the ship type and Corporation ticker as these give vital information on the enemy.
Recon Bookmarks
CovOps pilots make extensive use of tactical bookmarks. However, given their purpose of observing whilst not being discovered and tracking down snipers they require a further type of bookmark. We will be covering these BM’s 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 jump in to. They require a hostile to have created a bookmark at the same place or to move into that position on normal power. In the first instance, a CovOps pilot is incredibly unlucky and in the second he can see the enemy pilot coming and move out of the way whilst cloaked. Unaligned safespots can also help against certain types of bubble equiped gate camps.
Target gates generally have a number of Recon BM pairs (one at 90km, the other at 300km from the gate) at different places and angles. However, as the BMs are not aligned, a new naming convention is required so that the pilot can look in 'People & Places' and work out which recon BMs to use.
The convention is this;
|R> AA ## @ BBkm CC-DD-ALIGNMENT
where; AA = the name of the gate
- = The id of the bookmark at this gate (allows up to 100 BMs per gate)
BB = the distance to the gate CC = the o'clock position around the gate in the horizontal plane DD = the o'clock position around the gate in the vertical plane ALIGNMENT = Quick reference - high or low from the gate
The horizontal o'clock is based on centering the view on the gate with it pointing up the screen at 12 o'clock (for Gallente gates I assume the direction of the gate is from the large circles to the small - all gates have a fairly obvious 'direction').
The vertical o'clock is based on looking at the gate side on pointing left to right.
Example;
|R> Harroule 00 @ 90km-02-10-High
This BM is 80km from the Harroule gate at 2 o'clock horizontal, 10 o'clock vertical and is above the gate. It will have a paired BM;
|R> Harroule 01 @ 300km-02-10-High
This BM is in the same orientation as the previous 90km bookmark except it is further away from the gate at 300km.
Using these BM's pairs we can warp into the 300km BM safe in the knowledge that we are highly unlikely to be sucked into a bubble as these are normally situated either on the gate or aligned with a station or other gate. From 300km away we can see if there are any bubbles in place and also the general level of activity in the area. We can also look at the 90km BM (which will be on a direct line from our current position to the gate) and ensure it is free from any objects.
We can then take up a more active recon position by either mini-warping directly to the 90km BM. However, if there is a bubble on the gate, we would be sucked into it so we may have to warp to an off-grid tactical and then back into the 90km BM.
