Difference between revisions of "Remote repair time line and cycle management"

Revision as of 20:35, 21 April 2011

Remote repair time line

Understanding the time line for remote repairs deepens your understanding of the remote repair mechanic in all its aspects and allows you to separate the people who happen to fly a RR ship from those who master the mechanic.

There are really two phases to remote repair:

• First repair cycle
• Later repair cycles

Each phase has a number of specific characteristics and is important for a different reason.

First repair cycle time line

The first repair cycle is vital, because if a target is destroyed before a repair cycle is ever landed, remote repair will be completely defeated. The time line doe the first repair cycle should therefor starts much earlier then the actual remote repair module is started. The following image depicts this time line.

The image shows:

• the actions taken by the pilot of the ship requesting remote repair above the time line and with red triangles on the time line
• the actions taken by the pilot applying remote repair below the time line and with double blue triangles on the time line
• some important time spans

Let's go over the sequence of steps in the diagram.

1. (Victim) Getting targeted by hostile (also called 'yellow boxed')
2. (Victim) Receiving damage from hostile (also called 'red boxed'): Please note: this description is not 100% accurate. When being shot at by normal drones or missiles, you will get a 'red box' first and start receiving damage with a delay.
3. (Victim) Broadcasting for repairs: The timing of broadcasting depends both on the broadcast strategy and human delay.
4. (Repper) Frees up a lock slot (optional): During a prolonged battle or when flooded by broadcasts, a pilot might have to unlock a current target to be able to target, adding a human delay.
5. (Repper) Starts locking victim
6. (Repper) Has lock on victim: This is not an actual 'action', but more an event that a pilot has to wait for.
7. (Repper) Starts first repair module cycle
8. (Victim) ONLY SHIELD: first repair cycle lands
9. (Repper) First repair module cycle ends
10. (Victim) ONLY ARMOR: first repair cycle lands

Please notice that the times mentioned in the time line are fictional and depend on a number of things, like:

• human response time
• ships, fittings and bonuses involved
• broadcast strategy

Broadcast Strategy

Different types of fleets, ships, fits and tactics could require a different broadcast strategy. Often you see the decision to broadcast and when left up to the individual pilot, but in large fleet fights it is critical that a coherent broadcast strategy be determined and communicated if the fleet is going to be a success. This strategy needs to weigh two major factors:

Maximize Survival

Frequently broadcasting early (sometimes even when you are just yellow boxed) is necessary for survival. This happens frequently in high-dps fleets and less coordinated high-alpha fleets where multiple ships will be firing but my not be firing coherently.

By putting on repairs early, it maximizes the chance that those repairs will make a difference before you loose your target.

This element is particularly important when dealing with armor repair gangs due to armor remote repair applying at the end of the cycle.

Minimize Waste

When flying as a remote-repair pilot, (often in large fleets) you can get overwhelmed by the amount of information you have to process. This includes keeping position relative to fleet and enemy, keeping track of what is going on with the enemy so you survive. Keeping track of the tank levels of those you are repairing so you know when to unlock or when to apply or cycle a module, keeping track of broadcasts to see if someone else needs repairing, keeping track of your cap level and keeping track of your cap chain and who in that chain is jammed so you can switch cap transfers as needed.

Similarly in those larger fleets, more people are going to require (or think they will require) repairs, so the list of people you will be attempting to lock and manage will go significantly up.

If the entire fleet broadcasts when they are yellow boxed (or even red boxed) in this kind of environment there is no way to actually manage all of the potential repair targets (if for no other reason than at max you have 10 you can target at one time). To minimize that often guidelines need to be set on who broadcasts, when and for what.

For example, if you are in a small guardian supported gang sometimes broadcasting for capacitor can be useful if your remote repair pilots can handle it, that same guardian support is unlikely to be able to handle those kind of requests in a 100+ person fleet and they are likely to clog up their broadcast history (at least for a short period of time as all the guardians set their history to ignore cap requests).

Another example of this is in a large gang fighting a high-damage fleet, the only way to survive is to broadcast very early. This often leads to people broadcasting when yellow boxed who never actually take damage or people broadcasting when a tackler tackles them or one ship hits them and they take very little damage.

In the first example it can be useful if the FC or remote-repair squad leader specifies no capacitor broadcasts. In the second a simple clarification to not broadcast until you are yellow or red boxed by a significant force (not just one ship) can help. Ultimately though if you are a member of such a fleet you should be aware of these situations and modify your behavior accordingly.

Remote repair delay

The remote repair delay is the time between when a pilot requests remote repair and when the first rep actually lands. It is important to try to work towards minimizing it, because the effectiveness of remote repair is fully dependent on being able to land that first rep cycle before a ship dies and ideally before it gets damaged beyond the repair buffer.

Four main items factor into this delay.

Lock Time

This depends solely on the remote repair pilot's scan resolution and their targets' signature radii. Though there are some things that can be done to help this (sensor boosters and the like), these need to be weighed carefully against other modules that might help the survival of the remote repair ships (you can't repair someone if you are dead) or modules that can counteract ECM (it doesn't matter how fast you can lock if you can't lock at all).

By in large this one is difficult to affect without negatively impacting the survivability of the remote repair ships and by extension the fleet.

This time is generally shorter in shield remote repair fleets because many shield modules and rigs increase your signature radius, thus making you easier to lock.

Type of Repair/Cycle Time

As has been mentioned before, armor repairs apply at the end of the cycle so when dealing with armor repair, you need to factor in the immutable 4.5-5 second cycle time.

Since shield repairs feed at the start of the cycle, they benefit over armor repair fleet on this.

Time off Target

Frequently in large and long fights, remote-repair ships have their modules fully committed a majority of the time. When this is the case, there is a time delay while the pilot cycles a module and then re-assigns it.

This factor is generally equal between armor and shield gangs and is more difficult to avoid the less experience you have as a remote-repair pilot or the larger and longer the battle.

Reaction Time

Anyone who has said that EVE isn't a twich game obviously hasn't tried being a remote-repair pilot. This is one of the places in eve where having good hand-eye coordination, fast reflexes, the ability to process large amounts of information quickly and a lot of practice can really come into play.

Module cycle time

Later repair cycles and cycle management

Once the first repair module has been activated (so before it has landed a rep cycle in case of an armor module), the pilot doing remote repair must start managing his repair cycles. How he does this depends on quite a list of variables, which we will discuss in this section.