Difference between revisions of "Destroyer Fleet Types"

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[[Category:PVP_University/WOLFPACKS]][[Category:Agony/LtCommander]]
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[[Category:Agony]]
Text by Rells
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[[Category:PVP_University/WOLFPACKS]]
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[[Category:PVP_University]]
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[[Category:Public]]
  
Copyright© 2006 by the Authors
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==Introduction==
  
All Rights Reserved
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In PVP-BASIC, we had everyone fit long range guns with close range ammo. We wanted the students to concentrate more on the concepts of distributed EWAR, speed tanking, and basic situational awareness within a fight than the ins and outs of various kinds of weapons.
  
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In particular, we taught you about the dangers stealth bombers and smartbombing battleships present to frigate fleets and how to avoid them. Although stealth bombers and smartbombing battleships remain dangerous to Destroyers, we are better able to survive those bombing runs due to our generally higher hitpoints in comparison to Frigates.
  
In the PvP Basic class we had everyone fit long rang guns with close range ammo. We wanted the students to concentrate more on the mid slots and other content than the ins and outs of various kinds of weapons and so on. Similarly we advised against the dangers of smartbombs to frigate fleets and how to defend against them. This was all good advice given the need to reduce the information to something manageable in a single seminar; however, at advanced levels there is more to it than we discussed in the initial course.
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As the Destroyer has a larger sig radius than that of a Frigate, larger opponent ships can target lock us somewhat faster, opponent turrets are better able to track our ships, and missiles are a bit more effective against us.
  
The reality is that very few combat ships fit smartbombs unless they either know for sure that they will be encountering a frigate/destroyer fleet or they set out to smartbomb on a gate. However, you are bound to encounter some of them if they know that a frigate fleet is coming for them. As AGONY often flies small ships in PvP, several people have tried to smartbomb us (incidentally almost everyone who has tried has lost their BS, and they only person who enjoyed some success against us is now an Agony member). However, most of the time you will be taking your opponent by surprise, catching them in their frigates or cruisers, which cant fit large smartbombs, or in their normally fitted battleship. The thing to remember here is that frigates and only have to fear a battleship smartbomb setup, anything battlecruiser or smaller is no threat when it comes to smartbombs. Furthermore, any battleship set to smartbomb is pretty much useless for anything else.  
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In most fights, our immense DPS will melt our targets faster than they can successfully threaten us, but our dependence upon DPS as a primary source of fight success means that attrition is the greatest danger to our fleet.  While losing a third of a Frigate fleet doesn't mean the fight is over as we are able to continue mitigating incoming damage through extensive distributed EWAR, sig and speed tanking; losing a third of a Destroyer fleet can change the balance of the fight significantly because we are not able to mitigate incoming damage quite as effectively as Frigates with their small size and speed.
  
Since most of the time we will not be encountering ships smartbombing, we can think a bit more about our setups and start considering using other weapons or ammo to increase our damage output. This means thinking abou using weapons with a range of 6km or less. What is important here is that you don't set up your entire fleet for short range, but remember th Hydra principal and try to have at least half your fleet with 'long range' setups (i.e. >6km). That way if a smartbomber warps in you will still have enough firepower to blow him out of the sky, especially considering he will have practically no tank thanks to the capacitor consumption of smartbombs.  
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For these reasons, range control is vitally important to the survival of a Destroyer fleet. Controlling the range of a fight is done in a variety of ways, ranging from how the fleet sets up a fight, warps into a fight, what side of a gate a fight is taken at, flybys, and, of course, how the fleet fits its ships.
  
Blasters and autocannons are devastating close range weapons, dishing out much more damage than their longer range cousins. At the same time these guns have a limited range, getting a 6km range is near impossible without precision tech 2 ammo and excellent skills. However, their hitting power can not be ignored by the competent light ship fleet commander, and once you see the ungodly damage that a close orbiting destroyer puts out with ion blasters, you will want to have one in your fleet all the time. Throughout the remainder of the article I will talk about the gun configurations in the context of hybrid blasters; however the same concepts apply equally to autocannons and pulse lasers.
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Below, we explore the general fleet doctrines commonly used in Destroyer gangs (and other hull size gangs for that matter).  Note that these are just general descriptions of these common fleet doctrines, the number of specific doctrines within these common groupings is practically countless and beyond the scope of this article and our PVP-WOLFPACKS class.
  
When setting up a blaster ship we first want to know what the optimal range of our guns can be at the outside. You should be using some variant of Ion blasters as they strike a good balance between all the requirements; the electron blaster damage is just too weak and uses too much ammunition, while the fitting requirements and low tracking of the neutron blaster make it difficult to justify. Load your blaster it with various types of ammo and see what kind of optimal ranges you can get; note that this phase is just to get an idea of what kinds of orbit ranges you need to get to use blasters. Now its time to undock and hit an asteroid, literally. Orbit that asteroid as close as you can while holding a circular orbit with your afterburner on. The closer you can orbit, the more powerful ammo you can use in your blasters. Set up your ship for high agility at full propulsion speed and determine your closest circular orbit; start at 500m and work your way out, adding nanofibers/inertial stabilizers and queuing up skills to train if necessary. Keep in mind that you will want to maintain a circular orbit and full speed in that orbit.  
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==Short Range: Brawlers, HSSR==
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Short range Destroyer gangs fight up-close-and-personal, warping in at zero on their targets and blapping fast and hard.
  
Now you should have a good idea of how to load your guns. Set your default orbit distance to your closest circular orbit. Now load your guns with the appropriate ammo that puts your optimal range right on the radius of your orbit. Keep in mind that you will need to have propulsion modifications to get to the target as quickly as you can. A catalyst with 3 overdrive modules, an ABII, some EWAR module and 8 blasters can put out ungodly amounts of damage and still get to the target incredibly fast. Remember that you should select your EWAR appropriately as well, going for a 2pt scrambler or a webifier to compliment your short range. When you get in close you can engage the webber and slow down the target or put on the 2 point scrambler and let your gang mates take off a couple of the cap intensive 1 point scramblers.
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These gangs are  typically set up with blasters, autocannons, and/or rockets.  For blasters, ions generally strike a good balance between all the requirements; the electron blaster damage is just too weak and uses too much ammunition, while the fitting requirements and low tracking of the neutron blaster make it difficult to justify.  
  
Of course, there is also another pair of options for short range ships; the small nosferatu and the small energy neutralizer. Individually, these modules can barely scratch the surface of even a cruiser, but when combined with the multitude of high slots a destroyer has, you are capable of some serious damage.
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Autocannons tend to have a bit more flexibility in this respect due to their generous falloff and low fitting requirements on all calibers.  
  
As a fleet commander, you can use some tactics to keep your close range pilots from getting ganked as much as possible.  
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Of course, another option for short range fleets is having several pilots fit some small nosferatus and/or energy neutralizers. Individually, these modules can barely scratch the surface of the cap of even a cruiser, but several pilots combined can cause serious damage to the opponent's capacitor.
  
First of all, you can pay attention to how close you orbit to a gate. Although orbiting within jump range has benefits in the sense that you can quickly jump the whole fleet out of danger, it also runs the danger of a battleship warping into the gate at 0km and firing up all his smartbombs, insta-popping the whole fleet. If you are to stay on a gate for any length of time more that a couple minutes then you will want to orbit out of smartbomb range.
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===Advantages===
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The primary advantage of short-range Destroyer gangs is their devastating DPS.
  
Another tactic to employ is to have your close range people stay outside smartbombing range until you are sure that the target doesn't posses smartbombs. If the target is a cruiser, tech 2 frigate, industrial or so on, you have little to fear and can scream in to blast them. However, it might pay to have one or two ship scanners in the fleet that can scan the battleship and make sure it is safe before the close range attackers go in. This only costs a few seconds when employed by a trained pilot. While they are waiting for the scan, the short range pilots can blast the nearest drone or fire their rocket launchers if they will hit from there.  
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Blasters and autocannons dish out much more damage than their longer range cousins. At the same time these guns have a limited range, getting a 6km range is near impossible without precision tech 2 ammo and excellent skills. However, their hitting power can not be ignored by the competent light ship fleet commander, and once you see the ungodly damage that a close orbiting Destroyer puts out with ion blasters, you will want to have one in your fleet all the time.
  
Once you have determined that a target does not have smartbombs you may want your entire gang to orbit very close to the target. This will render all turret based ships completely inert without having to worry about EWAR. In a multiple target environment this tactic lets you throw all your EWAR on the second target while the first target is being killed. Keep in mind that depending on your angular velocity as you orbit the target, your tracking may become an issue. The best way to manage this is to experiment with a friend in your corp in a heavy ship and see how yo maximize your impact.
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A secondary advantage of short-range Destroyer gangs is the fact that you are putting out your maximum damage at ranges that are often well inside the ability of your target's turrets tracking.
  
Close range tactics run a higher risk but can reap larger rewards for the intrepid pilot willing to take the chance of being podded by the smartbombing BS. However, even if a BS does warp in with smartbombs and kill a couple ships, you will still trade some small ships for a much more expensive battleship and win in the isk war.
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As these gangs fight well inside scram/web range, they usually have no difficulty holding down their targets.
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===Disadvantages===
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The primary disadvantage of short-range Destroyer gangs is the fact that virtually all fighting takes place in scram/web range of the target.  While this is good when you are the one holding down the target, it is not so good when you are trying to evade the target.
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A secondary disadvantage - one that many forget about in the heat of the battle - is travel time ''during'' a fight.  It is worth remembering that the larger your fleet, the more quickly targets will die. Eventually there comes a tipping point where the increased time spent travelling between targets during a fight outweighs the higher DPS of short range guns - remember, the time one of your pilots spends traveling from target to target in a fight is time that pilot is essentially out of the fight. 
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Also remember this when you are fighting a short-range destroyer gang - spread your gang out as much as you can while remaining in effective range, and you reduce that gang's effectiveness because so many of their pilots will have to chase you down to dish out damage, enabling your fleet to pick them off.
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Individual pilots should keep in mind that depending on their angular velocity as they orbit the target, their own tracking may become an issue.
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==Medium Range: "Wolfpack," HSMR==
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The mid-range Destroyer gang is a very different beast from the short range Destroyer gang. Typically we will fit long ranged guns with short or medium ranged ammo (as we did in BASIC) however the hull's bonuses make such a setup far more versatile than on a frigate. By carrying longer ranged ammunition we can further increase the versatility of this ship class, able to switch between engagement ranges of 10km to 30+km on the fly.  Railguns, Artillery, and Light Missiles are the weapons of choice. 
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===Advantages===
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The mid-range setup provides several distinct advantages over the short-ranged variant:
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Firstly, the longer range combined with the ability to switch between different ranges at will reduces travel time and allows the mid-range Destroyer to begin applying its DPS earlier, as well as allowing it to engage targets which might evade the guns of the closer-range setups.
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Secondly, mid-range Destroyers really take advantage of the Destroyer's massive alpha strike. This is especially true of the Minmatar Thrasher, which is able to put out up to 1600 damage in a single volley with artillery. As fleet size increases, alpha strike becomes increasingly valuable, with the fleet able to destroy lighter targets in a single volley.
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The ability to fight at ranges outside of our opponent's scram/web range reduces attrition in the fleet, allowing more of our pilots to survive longer during the fight, and increasing the ability of those taking damage to bounce out of the fight to break target lock.
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These advantages combine to make the mid-range Destroyer incredibly effective in medium to large gangs, where these advantages begin to outweigh the higher DPS of the short-range setups against all but the toughest targets. Due to the size of most PVP-WOLFPACKS fleets, mid-range setups are most commonly used. 
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===Disadvantages===
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The range advantage of this setup is also our primary disadvantage.  Our wider orbit gives us a lower angular velocity than a close-range setup.  We are typically fighting inside warp disruptor range, which means our opponents can trap some of us.  The odds are fairly high that we are also fighting within the optimal range of our opponent's turrets.
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We mitigate this disadvantage as much as we can through the use of our Hydra-style distributed EWAR and strategic fleet movement, which will be demonstrated during the practical portions of your class.
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==Long Range: HSLR, Sniping, Kiting==
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Long range Destroyers, especially the Cormorant, fit out to attack at ranges greater than 50km.  With some ingenuity, the Cormorant can be fit to hit at ranges in excess of 90km! 
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Fitting and flying a sniper Destroyer gang is a very specialized tactic that is outside the scope of the PVP-WOLFPACKS class and this article. For more information, see the FLYBYS class (note that the Flybys class is currently not in regular operation, however your instructors will be happy to discuss the tactic with you during class breaks if you're interested).

Latest revision as of 14:59, 19 January 2016


Introduction

In PVP-BASIC, we had everyone fit long range guns with close range ammo. We wanted the students to concentrate more on the concepts of distributed EWAR, speed tanking, and basic situational awareness within a fight than the ins and outs of various kinds of weapons.

In particular, we taught you about the dangers stealth bombers and smartbombing battleships present to frigate fleets and how to avoid them. Although stealth bombers and smartbombing battleships remain dangerous to Destroyers, we are better able to survive those bombing runs due to our generally higher hitpoints in comparison to Frigates.

As the Destroyer has a larger sig radius than that of a Frigate, larger opponent ships can target lock us somewhat faster, opponent turrets are better able to track our ships, and missiles are a bit more effective against us.

In most fights, our immense DPS will melt our targets faster than they can successfully threaten us, but our dependence upon DPS as a primary source of fight success means that attrition is the greatest danger to our fleet. While losing a third of a Frigate fleet doesn't mean the fight is over as we are able to continue mitigating incoming damage through extensive distributed EWAR, sig and speed tanking; losing a third of a Destroyer fleet can change the balance of the fight significantly because we are not able to mitigate incoming damage quite as effectively as Frigates with their small size and speed.

For these reasons, range control is vitally important to the survival of a Destroyer fleet. Controlling the range of a fight is done in a variety of ways, ranging from how the fleet sets up a fight, warps into a fight, what side of a gate a fight is taken at, flybys, and, of course, how the fleet fits its ships.

Below, we explore the general fleet doctrines commonly used in Destroyer gangs (and other hull size gangs for that matter). Note that these are just general descriptions of these common fleet doctrines, the number of specific doctrines within these common groupings is practically countless and beyond the scope of this article and our PVP-WOLFPACKS class.

Short Range: Brawlers, HSSR

Short range Destroyer gangs fight up-close-and-personal, warping in at zero on their targets and blapping fast and hard.

These gangs are typically set up with blasters, autocannons, and/or rockets. For blasters, ions generally strike a good balance between all the requirements; the electron blaster damage is just too weak and uses too much ammunition, while the fitting requirements and low tracking of the neutron blaster make it difficult to justify.

Autocannons tend to have a bit more flexibility in this respect due to their generous falloff and low fitting requirements on all calibers.

Of course, another option for short range fleets is having several pilots fit some small nosferatus and/or energy neutralizers. Individually, these modules can barely scratch the surface of the cap of even a cruiser, but several pilots combined can cause serious damage to the opponent's capacitor.

Advantages

The primary advantage of short-range Destroyer gangs is their devastating DPS.

Blasters and autocannons dish out much more damage than their longer range cousins. At the same time these guns have a limited range, getting a 6km range is near impossible without precision tech 2 ammo and excellent skills. However, their hitting power can not be ignored by the competent light ship fleet commander, and once you see the ungodly damage that a close orbiting Destroyer puts out with ion blasters, you will want to have one in your fleet all the time.

A secondary advantage of short-range Destroyer gangs is the fact that you are putting out your maximum damage at ranges that are often well inside the ability of your target's turrets tracking.

As these gangs fight well inside scram/web range, they usually have no difficulty holding down their targets.

Disadvantages

The primary disadvantage of short-range Destroyer gangs is the fact that virtually all fighting takes place in scram/web range of the target. While this is good when you are the one holding down the target, it is not so good when you are trying to evade the target.

A secondary disadvantage - one that many forget about in the heat of the battle - is travel time during a fight. It is worth remembering that the larger your fleet, the more quickly targets will die. Eventually there comes a tipping point where the increased time spent travelling between targets during a fight outweighs the higher DPS of short range guns - remember, the time one of your pilots spends traveling from target to target in a fight is time that pilot is essentially out of the fight.

Also remember this when you are fighting a short-range destroyer gang - spread your gang out as much as you can while remaining in effective range, and you reduce that gang's effectiveness because so many of their pilots will have to chase you down to dish out damage, enabling your fleet to pick them off.

Individual pilots should keep in mind that depending on their angular velocity as they orbit the target, their own tracking may become an issue.

Medium Range: "Wolfpack," HSMR

The mid-range Destroyer gang is a very different beast from the short range Destroyer gang. Typically we will fit long ranged guns with short or medium ranged ammo (as we did in BASIC) however the hull's bonuses make such a setup far more versatile than on a frigate. By carrying longer ranged ammunition we can further increase the versatility of this ship class, able to switch between engagement ranges of 10km to 30+km on the fly. Railguns, Artillery, and Light Missiles are the weapons of choice.

Advantages

The mid-range setup provides several distinct advantages over the short-ranged variant:

Firstly, the longer range combined with the ability to switch between different ranges at will reduces travel time and allows the mid-range Destroyer to begin applying its DPS earlier, as well as allowing it to engage targets which might evade the guns of the closer-range setups.

Secondly, mid-range Destroyers really take advantage of the Destroyer's massive alpha strike. This is especially true of the Minmatar Thrasher, which is able to put out up to 1600 damage in a single volley with artillery. As fleet size increases, alpha strike becomes increasingly valuable, with the fleet able to destroy lighter targets in a single volley.

The ability to fight at ranges outside of our opponent's scram/web range reduces attrition in the fleet, allowing more of our pilots to survive longer during the fight, and increasing the ability of those taking damage to bounce out of the fight to break target lock.

These advantages combine to make the mid-range Destroyer incredibly effective in medium to large gangs, where these advantages begin to outweigh the higher DPS of the short-range setups against all but the toughest targets. Due to the size of most PVP-WOLFPACKS fleets, mid-range setups are most commonly used.

Disadvantages

The range advantage of this setup is also our primary disadvantage. Our wider orbit gives us a lower angular velocity than a close-range setup. We are typically fighting inside warp disruptor range, which means our opponents can trap some of us. The odds are fairly high that we are also fighting within the optimal range of our opponent's turrets.

We mitigate this disadvantage as much as we can through the use of our Hydra-style distributed EWAR and strategic fleet movement, which will be demonstrated during the practical portions of your class.

Long Range: HSLR, Sniping, Kiting

Long range Destroyers, especially the Cormorant, fit out to attack at ranges greater than 50km. With some ingenuity, the Cormorant can be fit to hit at ranges in excess of 90km!

Fitting and flying a sniper Destroyer gang is a very specialized tactic that is outside the scope of the PVP-WOLFPACKS class and this article. For more information, see the FLYBYS class (note that the Flybys class is currently not in regular operation, however your instructors will be happy to discuss the tactic with you during class breaks if you're interested).