Difference between revisions of "Spider Tanking"

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(Fittings)
(Fittings)
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The starting point for any fitting should be the tank, as a minimum we advise you use 2 1600mm armor plates, 3 energized adaptive nano mebranes/Adaptive Nano Plating, a damage control and 1 or more large remote armor repairers. Some ships like the Dominix have more low slots free as they do not need to use damage modules and can change to a 7 slot tank using hardners.   
 
The starting point for any fitting should be the tank, as a minimum we advise you use 2 1600mm armor plates, 3 energized adaptive nano mebranes/Adaptive Nano Plating, a damage control and 1 or more large remote armor repairers. Some ships like the Dominix have more low slots free as they do not need to use damage modules and can change to a 7 slot tank using hardners.   
  
Additional tanking modules and rigs are very beneficial as well, we recommened all BS should fit atleast 1 Trimark armor pump rig, the remaining 2 rig slots can be used for armor resistance rigs, increased fitting (CPU/PG) and in the case of using more than one Remote Repair module, Remote Repair Augmentor rigs.   
+
Additional tanking modules and rigs are very beneficial as well, we recommened all BS should fit atleast 1 Trimark armor pump rig, the remaining 2 rig slots can be used for armor resistance rigs, increased fitting (CPU/PG) and in the case of using more than one remote repair module Remote Repair Augmentor rigs.   
  
 
After this a sensor booster with a scan resolution script will bring down your lock time to a sufficient level, allowing you to quickly start remote repairing gangmates.   
 
After this a sensor booster with a scan resolution script will bring down your lock time to a sufficient level, allowing you to quickly start remote repairing gangmates.   

Revision as of 12:45, 10 January 2010

Tactic Overview

Relying on a large personal tank in typical pvp engagements is often a losing proposition. Using speed, range, or electronic warfare scales better against larger forces.

Giving up on tanking completely though is a mistake. While a personal tank works well in small gangs and fails in large ones, remote repairing is actually the opposite.

The more ships you have the more effective remote repairing becomes.

The target gang size for a remote repairing is typically about 10-30. Once fleet size gets above a certain point ships being killed before they can be repaired becomes more and more of a problem.

Battleship Spider Tanking

Basics

Battleship spider tanking gangs can be some of the most effective fleets in EVE.

With a decently sized group you can take on large amounts of firepower while losing few if any ships.

Even if a battleship spider fleet gets wiped out, it is fairly cheap to replace due to the insurance payouts.

Especially when compared to other advanced tactics such as HSLR which rely on T2 ships, battleship spider fleets are light on the wallet for how effective they can be.

Skills

Outlined below are the recommended skills for remote repping battleships for anyone wishing to train for or improve skills in this area.

  • Racial Battleship lvl4+ (Amarr, Gallente or Minmatar)
  • Hull Upgrades lvl5
  • Armor Compensation skills lvl4+ (EM, Thermal, Kinetic and Explosive)
  • Targeting lvl5 & Multitasking lvl1 (allows locking 7 targets which is a battleships maximum)
  • Large Weapon skill lvl5 & Large Weapon Specialisation lvl 3+ (skill dependant on which race of battleship, not needed for Dominix pilots)
  • Remote Armor Repair Systems lvl4+
  • Signature Analysis lvl4+
  • Heavy & Sentry drone skill lvl1 (Prefered lvl5 and Minmatar Drone Specialisation lvl4 for Tech II drones)

Fittings

When fitting a battleship for a spider gang the key attributes are armor amount, armor resistances, lock time, sensor strength, and capacitor.

The starting point for any fitting should be the tank, as a minimum we advise you use 2 1600mm armor plates, 3 energized adaptive nano mebranes/Adaptive Nano Plating, a damage control and 1 or more large remote armor repairers. Some ships like the Dominix have more low slots free as they do not need to use damage modules and can change to a 7 slot tank using hardners.

Additional tanking modules and rigs are very beneficial as well, we recommened all BS should fit atleast 1 Trimark armor pump rig, the remaining 2 rig slots can be used for armor resistance rigs, increased fitting (CPU/PG) and in the case of using more than one remote repair module Remote Repair Augmentor rigs.

After this a sensor booster with a scan resolution script will bring down your lock time to a sufficient level, allowing you to quickly start remote repairing gangmates.

Once you have your lock it's important to keep it, so at least 1 ECCM is recommended but in some cases not essential. Keeping someone locked is worthless if you run out of capacitor, so a heavy capacitor booster is required as well.

Notable modules that are not needed on a spider tanking battleship are non-remote repairers (you rely on your gangmates to tank you, slots should be used for hp and resistances instead) and any shield tanking modules (it's key for everyone to have the same tank).

We recommend all Spider BS to have the following:

  • 20,000+ armor HP
  • Resists close to or above 70%
  • EHP 100,000+
  • Optimal weapon range of 20km+

Caldari

Unfortunatly Caldari Battleships do not have enough low slots to fit the minimum tank required for a strong remote repair tank. In addition fitting an armor tank to for example a Raven would not leave enough grid to use Siege Launchers and it would be forced to using Cruise Missiles giving it the same dps as an Assualt frigate.

Caldari pilots wishing to fly there battleships should look for ((Dual Basilisk)) gangs, should you wish to fly a Spider tanked BS tho it is recommended to cross train for another race.

Flying Caldari only will not exclude you from the Spider gang, the Battleships will require support in the form of Ewar (Caldari ECM boats especially), tacklers and Interdictors.

Flying a Spider Battleship

When in combat your number one concern should always be the group tank.

Of course you should be putting ewar on opponents, utilizing your drones, doing damage, and everything else, but these should all come after the tank. If someone else is taking damage then they will be sending out a "need armor" fleet broadcast.

Simply right click on this broadcast and select "lock target." As soon as the gangmate is locked then you should put your remote repariers on them.

For example if the gangmate is still in shields and not taking much damage then you can hold off on repairs a bit, but be sure to keep a close eye on them and not to forget.

Similarly if they're doing fine with incoming damage then you can stick with only one repairer, keeping the second for if they start taking more damage or if someone else starts taking damage. Of course be careful, you will be locking both friendlies and hostiles, so don't accidentally start shooting a gangmate or start repairing a hostile.

If you start taking damage yourself then be sure to broadcast "need armor" quickly.

You should broadcast when you start taking damage, not when you enter armor.

This will give everyone plenty of time to get you locked and get repairers on you before you really need them.

If you're being primaried there's not a whole lot for you to do, just focus on offensive actions, be sure any hardeners are on, and rely on your gangmates to keep you alive.

Once you have repairing down then the next step is being able to stick together as a gang so that everyone will be inside of remote repair range.

This is most commonly done by having a common point that everyone stays close to. This can be something like a bubble, a cargo container, or most often a gangmember.

Commonly a gang leader will just have everyone stay close to him, so it's a very good idea to have the gang leader on your watch list, making it easy to quickly pick them out.

When staying close to something your best bet is to rely on the "keep at range" option, usually at 500m. Approach or orbit can work, but keep at range will work better in the vast majority of cases.

Flying support for Spider Battleships

Although Battleships alone are very strong they can become even more powerfull by using proper support. Most or all of the Battleships mid slots are used up for various other modules giving them a shortage of Ewar, Support is required to fill this hole in the form of Damps, Tracks, Paints and ECM.

Battleships are also very slow to lock and are unable to chase enemy ships around to keep them tackled as they need to stay close together for remote repairing, so Interdictors, Interceptors and Heavy tacklers are required to Keep the enemy in place for the Battleships to fire upon.

Fly support in a Spider fleet has it down sides tho, the BS will be unable to provide remote repair to support ships because lock times and limited range make it impracticle. Tacklers are required to speed tank against enemy ships and Ewar should use range, all support pilots will be required to operate independant of the FC and not be afraid to warp away should they risk destruction.

Standard Setups

With MWD

Without MWD