white noise
…And Execution (by missile fire)
The system of N6G-3C is an interesting one. It sits near one of the entrances to Venal and thus is a chokepoint for traffic, making it a logical enough gatecamp spot. But the particular brilliance of its choice lies not in its position but in the layout of the system itself. Most of the celestials in the system are clustered relatively close together, but the outbound gate on the pipe lies 20 AU away from the nearest object, well out of d-scan range.
This meant that when I jumped into the system and saw a lone member of White Noise in local, all of my warping around and d-scanning did me no good at all. I was fairly sure I had all the planets and asteroid belts covered in the course of my scans, and I had turned up nothing. At this point my best guess was that the WN pilot in local was a cloaked scout placed to monitor the movements of Northern Coalition fleets as they carried out operations against the WTF coalition’s assets in Venal, and that I would not get a fight out of him. With that in mind I shrugged and warped to the next gate in my route…
Right into the catch bubble of a Broadsword sitting some forty kilometers off-gate. I had forgotten that the next gate was not in d-scan range of a celestial, so I had no way to see if it was camped. A sensibly cautious pilot might have turned around rather than taking the risk of going through a gate he couldn’t check before proceeding. Caution is a difficult habit to acquire, especially in video gaming, when one is normally rewarded for having twitchy reflexes and diving into the thick of things.
Cursing, I aligned for the gate and turned on my microwarpdrive, knowing full well that it would be pointless to try to break a Broadsword’s tank and fully expecting that he would have backup coming in any second now. The best I could hope for was to burn for the gate and tank their DPS long enough to make my escape. The problem was that the Broadsword pilot, Econom, was even more clever than I realized: he had positioned his ship so that the shortest path through the gate would take me right past his ship. This allowed him to use a 9km-ranged warp scrambler to deactivate my microwarpdrive as I went by; a stasis webifier then stopped me dead in my tracks. At 75m/s, I would never make it the 35km remaining to the gate. There would be no escape, all I could do now is go down fighting and maybe take one or two ships with me.
Unfortunately for me, the White Noise pilots used a classic 3-ship gang setup: the gate flashed twice, and we were soon joined by fe25 in a Cerberus and Sascha Balkin in a Falcon. The Falcon ensured that it wasn’t even a fight, merely a textbook takedown after a perfect set-up. The Cerberus and the Broadsword laid on their DPS, and I was soon back in TVN station. The Broadsword’s bubble ensured that I couldn’t save my pod even if I wanted to.
I found myself longing for a Rook again, the higher sensor strength and ECM capability might have at least let me live long enough to kill the Falcon. My PVP losses were getting very expensive, but I found myself addicted to the thrill of solo roaming, and I knew that I would not give up. Plus, a reader of this blog had suggested a new Rook fitting that I wanted to try out, so it was not long before I undocked again…
The Minimal Roaming Gang, Concept…
People who are not extremely skilled soloists (or glory-mad bloggers looking for stories to tell) generally prefer to PVP in gangs if they do at all. More members in gang means more backup, greater DPS, and allowing the fleet to have a variety of specialized ships able to deal very well with specific situations. WIth the benefits and added security that travelling in large numbers provides, most fleet commanders are eager to get as many ships in gang as they possibly can. This tendency leads to the inevitable blob of thirty or more ships thundering across the sky, smashing anything unwary enough to get caught by dint of sheer numbers. While effective, it rarely results in what could be described as a fun fight unless the opposing force manages to muster similar numbers or uses a clever strategy to seize victory.
As a result, some fleet commanders prefer to limit the size of their gangs. Some even go so far as to pare down their fleet to the absolute bare minimum needed to succeed. I would argue that in order to consider a gang fully-featured, it needs to contain three ships, each dedicated to a specific role: DPS, tackle and ECM. You can get away with just DPS and tackle, but ECM is still such a powerful force multiplier that I feel it should not be ignored in any gang. A dedicated ECM ship will allow your gang to take on less well composed or well prepared fleets well out of proportion to its size, provided your ECM pilot is good enough to keep himself more or less out of harm’s way, as he will be called primary first thing.
Which three ships should be used? That depends on the sort of opposition you expect to encounter and whether you plan on roaming foreign space or camping in one spot. I would recommend the following:
- DPS: Drake, Hurricane, Harbinger, Zealot, Sacrilege, Ishtar, HAM Cerberus. Avoid battleships; they are too slow for a quick getaway, which you will need. I am leaving the Vagabond off this list because while it is very survivable, it is too DPS light for its assigned role.
- ECM: Falcon or Rook. The Kitsune is just too tiny and fragile, though in a pinch you could use it as a jammy tackler. Use the Falcon if you want a cloaky scout, a prober, or the ability to mount a cyno generator if you’re the sort of crazy person who likes to randomly hotdrop stuff. The Rook in its post-QR form can provide a nice bit of additional DPS in addition to performing its ECM duties, so some FCs might prefer it.
- Tackle: For roaming, take an interceptor or other light, fast frigate-sized ship with excellent speed and sig radius characteristics. For camping, a heavy interdictor will round out your fleet nicely. I have never flown a HIC, but I hear the Broadsword is the best all around for speed, tank and an extra bit of DPS.
Don’t worry, dear reader, I can hear what you are thinking: “But Kesper, this blog of yours bills itself as being dedicated to solo PVP! Why are you blathering on about small gangs now? You cheating bastard, I bet your next post will be all about some lame NC blobby napfest op.”
Well, you caught me. This whole post was a clever ruse to distract you from the fact that after all my bravado at the end of my last post about how I was going to go out to Venal in my Harbie and go pop some TRI, I ran right into a White Noise gatecamp. I have to credit WN with an excellent setup. They used the gatecamp variation of the three-ship gang I described above, but the spot they chose was absolutely stellar. You can read all about the ensuing battle in the next post.