EVE:Fleet Commanding

FC Training Document

This is a template for the AIEU Commander (FC) training document. You should be reading this if you are a FC Instructor or on a FC Training Op as a member; every aspect of this curriculum is critical to master.

For FC Instructors: Simply start at the beginning and go over these points with your trainees in order. Answer questions as they come up.

For Trainees: You can follow along this as a quick reference guide or as a refresher course.

Training Protocol

• Post Training Announcement Thread
• Form up in whatever system is convenient in cheap ships
• Go over Forming Up, Leadership Basics, Movement and Scouting while in a safe location where combat is not expected
• Take gang into whatever nearby 0.0 space is convenient and run around blowing shit up while going through the rest
• Feel free to skip the advanced courses on Capitals and POS Mechanics
• Allow pilots to ask questions at each section of the lecture
• When the lecture is over, pick a few pilots and let them take over as primary/secondary FC's

Forming a Fleet

Voice Communication Basics

• All FC's and Scouts need to have a functioning mic.
• Briefly touch on the concept of Serious Business and its implications on Voice Communication - when shitting up comms is accceptable and when to be quiet.
• Go over proper ways to "shush" people in your fleet - encourage using "Break" and "Comms" to silence the channel. Emphasize that shouting "OMG YOU n00bs all need to shut the fuck up" in the middle of trying to call primaries is not acceptable FC behaviour.

Mumble Basics

• needs to be written by a actual FC who uses Mumble.

Chain of Command and Backup FCs

• Decide at the beginning of the op who is the Primary FC - generally this is the FC that posted the Op or has the most experience.
• Secondary FCs are there as backup should the Primary lose connection or not be able to see the action (gets killed/podded) and to manage other aspects of the gang such as managing scouts, agents, or whatever else needs doing to make the Primary FC's life easier.
• Never 'backseat FC' if you are a secondary -do not talk over the Primary FC or try to seize gang control in front of the fleet. Undermining the authority of the Primary FC hurts morale. Interrupting in an emergency is fine, but calling targets over the Primary FC's own target calling is unacceptable. Make suggestions over fleet chat or via private convo to avoid confusion if you need to pipe up.

Fleet Window/Gang Boss/Bonuses

This section goes over the actual in-game mechanics of setting up and running a Fleet.

• The person who starts the fleet is the Fleet Boss, and starts out as Squad Commander of Squad 1.
• The Fleet Boss has the same fleet powers (moving people around, setting freemove and so forth) as the person in the Fleet Commander position.
• Have the gang boss take over organization of the fleet (or you can do it yourself, delegate if you're busy)
• Have wing commanders x up with their level.
• Each level of wing command allows for passing bonuses to a squad, so a TESTies with WC 3 can have 3 squads.
• Turn Free Move on. With free move on, TESTers with leadership 5 can take command of squads themselves, and bonuses will pass down. Encourage Leadership V characters to take squad-leader positions via voice comms.
• Free Move does not allow people to move to wing command positions, the gangboss/FC will need to do this manually.
• Tell Wing Commanders to name their Wings after their bonus type and capacity (example - "4/4/4/4 W3" or "35% Speed Tacklers W4")
• As people join gang, they'll ask for comms/gang formup location. To avoid having to answer these questions endlessly, set up a fleet MOTD by clicking the gear icon in the fleet chat window and selecting the "Open Channel Settings Window" option (it's the second one). Good things to put in the MOTD are: Fleet formup, comms location, deignated FC and fleet anchor, fleet comp and the time at which the fleet leaves the formup point.

Broadcasting

• By default (as of Tyrannis) all broadcast windows are set to "everyone." In the event that the fleet is not receiving them correctly, remind fleet members to ensure their window is set correctly.
• Always remind your gang that if there are remote reps or logistics ships in gang, the broadcast system should be used when you're taking heavy damage. Players should begin to broadcast for reps as they're called primary by the enemy fleet - broadcasting when they're 1/2 dead in a large engagement does not give Logistics ships enough time to lock them up and apply reps.
• Always remind your gang that they need to broadcast once and once only.
• Don't rely on broadcasting going through in time in heavy lag.
• Barring a remote rep situation, Broadcasting is mostly useful for system destinations, alignment points, and primary/secondary targets.
• Please do use the broadcast system for alignment points.
• To broadcast a jump beacon, click the fleet button, and select the broadcast jump beacon option. This is the same menu as setting free move.

Leadership Basics

General Behavior

• This is a game, try to keep things fun.
• Be calm and confident. Do not show weakness or indecision in front of the troops.
• Never be openly despondent or Emo - stay positive in attitude and bearing.
• Do not be condescending or mean to the group, only to individuals who fuck up, and only for a short time (don't beat on one person who fucked up for the duration of the entire Op).

Keep Mumble active with updates

• Silent Voice Communication is death. FC's should always be making some sort of noise on mumble, even if it's just telling the boys to hold tight while you sort something out in command chat.
• This is ESPECIALLY true in the middle of a fight. Silence kills gangs dead. Call primaries. Repeat primaries. Repeat alignment commands. Keep some kind of chatter going. Be reassuring.

Don't be afraid to point out what didn't work

• When people screw up, call them out on it but make it constructive so they can learn from the mistakes of others.
• You are not god, we all make mistakes. Don't dwell on mistakes your gang members have made, after riding them for a few minutes they should be forgiven. Especially don't blame any one fleet member for the loss of a battle or an unfortunate event - you are the FC, if anyone is responsible, it's you.
• Saying 'I'm going to pod you' or making other empty threats is a terrible method of leadership.

Learn how to teach and quickly

• BRAVE is founded on newbies. Learn how to convey the basics of certain aspects of combat to your gang members in a concise, efficient way.
• Do not become openly frustrated with needing to teach BRAVE what to do.

Don't be condescending

• You are not merely a military officer but a political one. Your job as FC is not only to get an objective accomplished, but to do so in such a fashion that BRAVE pilots are entertained and participation remains high.
• Leadership and morale are psychological matters. You must understand that and learn what you can about human nature and how you can use it to your advantage.

Fleet Movement

The Gate is Green/Red

• When referring to gates and if they are clear to jump into or not, ALWAYS refer to the gate as 'Green' for clear to jump and 'Red' for not clear. Due to the nature of TS, "Jump" and "Don't Jump" are often confused, as someone only paying half attention will only hear the 'Jump' and miss the 'Don't'.
• Like every order you give as a FC, make sure to repeat the command several times. "Gate is Green, Gate is Green, Gate is Green" or "Gate is Green, Green Green", for example.
• When Traffic Control is Likely have the more important part of your gang jump in first. If you need tacklers in first because you have friendly DPS on the other side, have tacklers and anti-support jump in, wait 10 seconds, then jump in the battleships. If you need Battleships in first, then do the opposite.

Geography

• Always have a map open in a browser or printed out if you have a target area. This will help immensely in letting you know the territory where you're fighting without having to clumsily check it in-game.
• If you are leading a roaming gang, pause every now and then to use the in-game map, using the 'pilots active in space' filter. You can see any hotspots and head to those.

Broadcasting a Destination

• When you choose to announce the fleet's destination or regroup point, open your in-game map and set your personal destination the normal way (Right click, set destination). You can then right-click on the desination in the map and choose 'Broadcast' and this will display the destination to the entire fleet in the broadcast window, making life easier for all.

Alignment

• How to Align currently: right click on the object (in space or overview) and select Align to
• How to Align the old way (or to other ships, on grid): select the object in space you want the fleet to align on, and double click right nearby that object. Your ship will point towards it and begin moving at full speed. Do not double-click directly on the object or you will warp towards it. This will allow your fleet to enter warp instantly rather than having to align and get up to speed.
• Learn how to explain alignment to newbies in a quick and efficient manner, as it's one of the more confusing things to someone new to EVE for some reason.
• This isn't nearly so necessary as in the days before Warp to 0 for general travel, but it remains a critical part of drive bys, POS attacks and fleet battle setups, as well as arranging for quick exits.

Gangwarping

• Gangwarping is very useful in situations where everyone warping at once makes a tangible difference: eg, timing everyone's warp to come out at the same time, instead of frigates arriving first. Also, in severe lag during a large fleet battle, and it is clear that your gang is going to lose, it can be advantageous to gang warp everyone out together. This is because much of your gang may not be able to control their client to issue the warp themselves. It also helps reduce the attrition to your fleet as anyone not currently tackled gets out - the slower-aligning ships aren't left behind to be picked off.
• Never gangwarp your fleet out of a POS, if your fleet has AFK members gangwarping them will pull them out into the open, vulnerable. This is especially bad if they happen to be a capital ship of some kind.
• If you do find yourself in a situation where it will be necessary to gangwarp your gang from a [POS] that may have AFK or capitals at it, have your gang members first individually warp to another [POS] or a celestial object/safespot, and gangwarp from there. When you have multiple POSes in system, it's useful to dictate a "caps" POS and an "AFK" POS separate from the primary POS to avoid these issues.

Regroup Points

• When you know the way is roughly clear to your target system, set a 'regroup point' two jumps out from your destination and have the fleet burn there on their own speed.
• Make sure you have scouts burning ahead of the vulnerable fleet in this case to report any hostile camps.
• This is also an excellent way of moving around without revealing the target destination to hostile agents on your Voice Communication.

Forward Scouting

• Never, ever go from point A to B without having a scout of some kind ahead of your group (unless you're on a suicide Op anyway).

Scouting Basics

How Probes Work

• As a FC, periodically you'll find yourself saddled with an untrained [Covops] pilot who generally doesn't know what the fuck. This is very irksome, but you can swiftly explain to him how to do his job if you've done your homework.
• See Probing for information about probes.
• See Directional scanner on the Dscan.

Scouts Communication

• Scouts take precedence over everything but the primary FC on Voice Comms - anytime they say "Break" or "Comms" it's automatically Serious Business.
• In some cases, you might want to make an in-game conversation and invite all the scouts in your fleet there, in case they find this easier, or you have too many scouts to put on channel command.

Non-cloaking scouts (movement scouts)

• When moving a fleet, make sure to have Interceptors/Tacklers burn one or two jumps ahead of the main fleet movement if you don't have a Covops handy. This will help you avoid an ambush.

Getting warpins on stationary targets + sniper fleets

• Your Covops should know how to do this already; you should be able to say 'get me a warpin on X', where X is a hostile fleet, a hostile tower, or a safespotted lone ship.
• The general procedure though amounts to: use scanprobe, warp to target in covops, maneuver covops as close to intended distance as possible, have fleet warp to covops at 10km or other specified distance. Alternatively, put the Covops into the "Fleet Commander" spot in your fleet and have them initiate a Fleetwarp.
• Tell the fleet to not warp to a covops at 0. This will decloak them and probably get them killed.

How to place scouts in outlying systems to warn a stationary fleet

• If you're in system XXX with gates to three systems, you need covops watching the XXX gate in those three systems. Simple.
• Rotate your scouts - This is one of the most boring tasks in the game and it requires vigilance.

How to get hostile composition

• Your covops/scout should be able to use the scanner to tell you how many battleships and support ships your hostile group has. You should know how to use the scanner as well, in a pinch. The composition is key, as it's your guideline for how well you'll do against the hostile gang.
• Make sure to get the composition regularly updated, as new hostiles come and old ones log off.

The Fight

Sizing up your fleet vs their fleet intelligently

• This is probably the most important pre-fight check you can make, and the nuances are difficult to teach. Compare hostile gang size to your gang size, compare how many t2 ships are in each gang and the circumstances of the fight (who is jumping into who, will you catch them by surprise, etc)
• As a general rule of thumb count bs, bc, hacs all as BS.

Overview Settings: Shiptype and Fighter overviews

• For a general guide for the clueless, see Overview
• It is critical to make sure your fleet has at least Battleship Only and Fighters Only overviews handy.
• Specialized shipclasses such as antisupport should have overviews which suit their role.
• As a FC it's important to go over these things with your gang to remind them and/or teach the newbies how and why this matters. Send them to the Wiki.

Lag Minimization Techniques

• Lag-fighting techniques are often part hoodoo magic and hope, but some have been verified to help. As a FC, you should be able to reel off these techniques to your fleet with authority.
• Turrets and Effects should be off
• Disable Audio
• Hostiles-Only overviews: no friendlies
• Turn off colortags on your overviews (this is huge)
• Turn off damage messages
• Turn off brackets

Using Warpins before/during the fight

• When faced with hostile snipers, have your interceptors burn towards them to get a warpin for the rest of the fleet; if they are more than 150km away from a ship, that ship can 'warp to member'. Have the inty put a 'wwwww' in fleet chat and command tacklers/shortrange ships to warp to him.
• Covops are ideal for setting up warpins on unsuspecting enemies; use them wherever possible.
• Daring covops can use quick probing to get a warpin on hostile snipers midfight, a move the Russians are famous for.
• You can warp to wrecks! Don't forget this. If you pop an enemy sniper, everyone who is more than 150km away can simply warp directly to the wreck.

Positioning Your Fleet

• Typically, you want to setup a gatecamp. You need to position tacklers, support, and snipers.
• Place frigates, interceptors, and shortrange cruisers on the gate at 0 or orbiting it. They can burn to tackle anything that jumps through.
• Put a heavy dictor or normal dictor on the center of the gate (the icon itself) to bubble it when hostiles jump through. A secondary dictor can then be assigned to MWD towards any covops or recon that jumps in, and bubble where it cloaks.
• Place sniping battleships 140km off the gate in a random direction, out of line with any celestial objects. This keeps hostiles from warping to the gate at 0 from a celestial object and landing on your BS. Being 140km off keeps the hostile fleet from warping directly on top of you if they have a covops.
• Position support in between BS and the gate, or further past the BS if need be.

Aggression Mechanics

• There are two types of being aggressed-being shot at, and shooting.
• If you shoot anything but NPCs, your ship will be aggressed and unable to dock or use jumpgates for 1 minute. Thus, if a ship warps to a gate you are sitting on, you can wait for them to shoot you, jump through, and warp away while they are unable to follow.
• If you are shot by (or shoot) any non-NPC ship, you are aggressed and will be unable to disappear in space for 15 minutes. Thus, if you log out or crash, enemies can probe your ship easily and kill you.
• This 15 minute timer applies is system-specific. If you are shot in system A, jump to B and log, you will disappear in the normal time, instead of 15 minutes. However, if you are shot in system A, jump to B, jump back to A and log, you will be in space for the duration of the 15 minute timer.

Basic Primary Calling/Backup callers/Target Priority

• Generally speaking, you have your tacklers call out points on hostile battleships and blow those ones up.
• Try to have a primary, secondary and tertiary being called at any time, in order to give people a chance to lock the secondary and tertiary through the lag.
• Designate redundant target callers before a fight begins, they are to take over target calling in the order they're given.
• Hostiles typically know via spies who the target caller is and will primary them, be sure to call targets in a ship that's hard to kill (tanked, fast, cloaked).
• Repetition, repetition, repetition. Keep calling. Repeat yourself every 10 seconds. Go down the list.
• Dirty Secret: Who and what you call primary isn't as important as the fact that a single target is being designated and calmly identified. Don't worry about "Oh, I called a typhoon primary when I should have primaried a Tempest"
• Good Primaries: Tempests, Scorpions and Armageddons tend to have very weak or nonexistent tanks
• Bad Primaries: Command ships.
• Anti-Support Primary Caller Protip - Add Velocity to your overview and sort by velocity on a Battleship-less overview. Call things with weak tanks that are slow and within 60km or so primary.

Calling by Overviews and Alphabet

• At times you may wish to call primaries based on who is tackled; at other times with extremely high lag, it might be best to have your fleet load a 'Battleship Only' overview and go down the list in alphabetical or reverse alphabetical order
• Even when doing this, make sure to call the primaries on TS, because a silent TS is deadly.
• This method is much less vulnerable to having breakdowns in target calling, and there is no risk to the fleet if the FC gets primaried.

When to bug out/risks of retreat

• Fighting in EVE is a relatively slow process in an even slugfest, especially if the fleet is large. Don't choke and panic within the first five minutes; odds are neither side has even fully loaded the grid at that point.
• Retreat is risky as it is inherently partial. You will leave people behind and they will be picked off. If part of your fleet is bubbled, you may leave a very substantial section of your fleet behind.
• Sometimes you've just got to cut your losses, that said. It's a judgment call, and we can't give you that through a fc training course.

Dictors, HICs and Bubbles

Instructions

• Specify constantly if you want people to bubble and when - an overzealous friendly interdictor will shit in your mouth faster than you can say 'please dont shit in my mouth TESTie sir.'
• At your discretion risk a bubble in order to pod a command ship pilot or a speed-demon™.
• Generally do not ask for a bubble if you are going to snag more of your fleet than theirs.
• Don't mock interdictor pilots too much if they fuck up. We are generally interdictor light so take their fuckups as an opportunity to teach them how to do it better. If you are a dick people will not fly interdictors.
• Think outside the box on interdictor use. (Suicide dictors to immobilize their bs fleet at a pos, etc...)

Basic Interdictor Mechanics

• Paper-thin Bubbleshitters. Every FC needs to know how they work because they are they key to raping the other guy, or getting raped yourself. See Interdictors for an exhaustive guide.
• Interdictors are expensive and their pilots are a precious resource. You must try to exercise restraint when they fuck up and not make their pilots give up and quit flying them
• There is no such thing as having too many interdictors in a fleet.
• One good use of interdictors is when you are running away from a larger gang. As you jump into a system and have everyone initiate warp, have an interdictor warp to the next gate at 100 and bubble there. Your ships will pass through the bubble, but hostile ones should be caught and then need to burn 100km to the gate.

Basic HIC Mechanics

• Supercapital killers. HICs have two mode of bubbling: one creates an ~18.7km field of warp disruption centered on the HIC; the other is a single point which will hold down even a mothership or titan.
• HICs have incredible tanks. You can use them much like an interdictor, but they are slower and much less likely to die.
• Generally one tackles a fleet with regular interdictors and sends the HICs in to solidify the bubbling, since the normal dictors aren't likely to survive past their first bubble.
• Do not fucking use HICs at the start of the fight, their huge tank won't prevent them from dying like anything else. Keep them off grid somewhere if you can, and warp them in as the hostile gang starts trying to get the fuck out so that you can hold down as many as possible. This is especially true if the enemy FC got out but his battleships did not.

Basic Warp Bubble Mechanics

• This is a guide every FC should read and memorize: Mobile_Warp_Disruptor
• To keep someone from warping, they must be in the bubble. Webs are important to ensure that fast targets can't burn out of the bubble and warp off.
• To pull ships out of warp, the bubble must be activated prior to the ship entering warp, on the same grid as their destination, on grid with their destination, and inline with the positions they are warping from and to. You can place the bubble anywhere on grid before or after the position they are warping to, and the bubble will suck them out of warp to the edge of it.

How to use dictors best to get hostile bs covered

• Have them warp in with the rest of the tacklers and plop a bubble on the battleships being called primary. Hopefully the bubble is put past the BS in the direction that they are aligning out, so the BS have to burn through the entire bubble, not just half of it.
• Get them to fit a fucking cloak, and learn how to Slingshot. Slingshots can be especially useful for catching faggots who're trying to run battleship drive-bys.

How to use HICs best vs caps

• Use the bubble mode on a clump of capitals, use the script on supercapitals that are trying to get away from you.

Espionage

How to handle friendly spies/intel

• Agents can be tasked to FCs in any number of ways. They might be directly convoing you, or going through their HBC character; they could be using AIM or MSN or whatever.
• If you have a spy reporting to you, don't tell anyone the agents name, ever. Ideally you shouldn't ever find out who it is.
• If you are unsure about the agent's credentials, contact a TIA director and they can confirm whether he is legitimate or not.
• Never tell your gang that you have a spy reporting to you.
• Never mention details about it in command chat. Remember, you can probably trust your fellow FCs, but oftentime scouts are random volunteers, and scouts make the best spies.

Common mistakes to avoid burning agents

• Keep important information to yourself, the more people it gets out to the greater the chance of the spy getting caught.
• Use out of game communication to pass spy intel.
• Don't mention to your gang that you have a spy.
• 'Timestamping' is the act of using intel in a fashion which marks a specific time and place to the enemy which intel was used in. This gives them a clue with which they can go back and try to ferret out the spy. Don't do anything that could timestamp an agent.
• Generally, ask an agent if he feels it is ok for you to act on it.

How to determine if you have a spy in fleet

• Bait out the spy using false information. For example tell your gang not to align but that you're going to warp to a certain spot (gate, station) soon and use your own covops to see if there's a reaction. The reason not to align is that if there is a reaction then it could either be a spy or just a hostile covops watching you.
• Generally assume that there is a hostile spy on ts reporting everything you say and FC with that in mind.

How to screw with hostiles spies effectively

• Give out false intel, you'll be misleading your entire gang at the same time but if you can accomplish something because of it your gang will forgive you for that.
• Say one thing do another. This is one of the few situations where using a gang warp is useful, say nothing/say to align to something but then gangwarp the gang to a different location.

Common Situations

Locking down a system

• Dictors on each gate into the system
• Scout with eyes on the gates into the target system in each connecting system (ie, 1 jump out of target)
• For extended camps you may wish to deploy warp disruption bubbles on the gates and on the station to enforce the camp
• Oftentimes you will have a small group of tacklers/dictors on each gate with a 'heavy' group at a POS or station; the scouts warn you where the enemy force is coming in and you warp the heavy group to the gate under assault. This minimizes exposure to hostile titans.

Jumping into a gatecamp

• This is generally inadvisable in situations of massive system lag.
• Get eyes on the target first: jump a cloaking ship or a suicide frigate in and have them make certain of composition.
• Tell your gang to jump in all at the same time and hold their cloak
• Hold cloak for 25-30 seconds.
• Tell your gang primary while holding cloak and waiting.
• Hit the 'Regroup' button. This will uncloak all of your ships at once, intimidating and possibly lagging out the enemy.
• Fight as normal.

Being jumped into by hostiles

• This is an optimal situation as you have already loaded the grid, while your opponents haven't. If you can provoke them into jumping into you, do so.
• You should have a scout watching them jumping into you.
• While they are hesitating before jumping, get composition and choose primaries or the overview method of your choice.
• If you have enough warning, set your longrange ships up at their optimal sniping ranges.
• Commence turkeyshoot.

Baiting

• Baiting is best done with a tanked BC or BS with a warp disruptor and a web. Usually you want your fleet one jump out unscouted, and have the bait ship go in and try to get hostiles to attack it. Hopefully the bait ship will survive long enough for you to jump in and kill any hostiles before they can warp out.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Leadership failures

• Not stopping to think. Don't take the bait when a hostile gang does something, act on your own initiative instead.
• Being openly emo, depressed or whiney
• Abandoning your fleet without informing anyone of the fact.
• Not being willing to admit when you've made a mistake/
• Not being yourself. Don't try and imitate a popular FC, it comes off as fake and no one will respect you. Get your own gimmick, not some other guy's.

Comms Silence

• So awful it gets its own section.
• Seriously, never let comms fall silent. In fights, when sitting around. Keep up some patter.

Tactical screwups

• Not having scouts out
• Jumping into bubbled gatecamps with a titan on the other side tends to go here
• That lone fleet command ship that aggressed? Probably not going to be alone.

Fleet Boss

• Giving Fleet Boss to someone who's gone AFK: This will ruin a fleet for half an hour or more. Don't be that guy.

Capital Ships (Advanced)

Note: Always consult a capital FC if you are deploying capitals.

How to Fighterbomb

• Carriers should be just outside the shields of a friendly POS
• Carrier pilots will 'assign' 5 fighters to your pilots. Have them given to interceptors first.
• Use a covops to get warpins, use the interceptors to run in, sic their fighters on the target, and bug out.
• In fleet fights, heavy tacklers are best assigned fighters, as they are durable. When a ship is killed its assigned fighters will idle, which makes tackling BCs and cruisers very good for this.

How to keep carriers/dreads safe

• Upon hopping into a capital ship, the average TESTer's IQ drops to negative figures.
• As soon as capitals hit the field, your entire fleet exists solely to keep them safe. It is to be sacrificed without a second's hesitation to preserve the capital swarm.
• Never leave the field or the system until all capital ships are safe; confirm this with your capital FC to make certain.
• The best way to keep capitals safe is to run an effective system lock-down. Make sure that the gates are bubbled and that you have scouts deployed. Ideally you also want to have a covops in the hostile system where caps are formed up, scouting their capital POS or station to get eyes on their cap movements. This way you can tell if the hostiles are attempting to make a capital counter-move.
• Keep a group of smart bombing tanked battleships handy if you know you're going to face a hostile fighter blob.

Attacking Hostile Caps

• Primary Order, Carriers: Nidhoggur, Chimera, Thanatos, Archon
• Primary Order, Dreadnaughts: Phoenix, Naglfar, Moros, Revelation
• You will be mimicking the primary the capital FC is calling out if this is a capital on capital battle.
• It is CRITICAL to know if a hostile Dreadnaught is in siege or not. Sieged dreads do much more damage and repair themselves faster, but can't be remotely repaired. Unsieged dreads can move on their own, which is the easiest way to tell if a dread is in siege or not (remember that sieged dreads can still be bumped around). To tell whether or not a stationary dread is in siege, you have to look at it and check for siege animations. Refer here for some images of the various dreads in and out of siege. If your fleet is on grid and the lag situation allows, you can also have someone in your fleet attempt to use an EW module (warp disruptor, ECM, etc.) on the target dread; if it is in siege, they will get a message indicating that it is immune and the module won't activate.

How to counter a fighter blob

• BoB loves using huge fighter blobs. Fighters are easy to kill if you have the right overview settings, but when used in massive numbers they can lag the system to the point of unplayability. You have several options in fighting them.
• Smartbombing BS: A rack of heavy smartbombs and a group of 5+ smartbombing battleships with heavy tanks can nuke a group of fighters in seconds. If they are bombing your capitals with fighters, warp the BS blob onto the cap and start up the bugzapper.
• Frigates/Small ships: These can dogfight with fighters with little risk of being damaged by them, as fighters have trouble with anything smaller than a cruiser.

POS Mechanics (Advanced)

Tower Guns and how they work

• Tower guns come in several sizes and types. Typically you will need to worry about ECM mods such as jammers and energy neutralizers, large/medium/small guns, and warp scramblers/disruptors and webs. Jammers and neuts are not very common, but are often on cyno jammer poses.
• The hitpoints of POS modules scale by size.
• Cyno jammers and jumpbridges have 15m armor hp and 1m shield hp. ECM jammers, neuts, warp scrams/disruptors, webs, and large guns all have 1.5m armor HP and 100k shield HP. Medium guns have 750k armor HP and 50k shield HP, and small guns have 375k armor HP and 25k shield HP. Faction modules have double these hitpoints.
• Note that these modules also have signature radiuses, so torpedoes can only hit large guns easily, and cruise missiles have trouble against small guns. For some gay reason it is not possible to target paint POS modules.
• Each type of gun also has its own lock time. Generally, the smaller the gun, the faster it locks. A battleship can be locked by a warp disruptor in roughly 20 seconds, but will be locked much quicker by a small gun. Small ships like frigates will not be locked quickly by a disruptor, which is what makes hit & runs possible at these towers.
• POS guns each have their own range and a fixed angular velocity that they can track at. Large artillery/rails/beams can hit extremely far, but have exceptionally poor tracking. Small autocannons/pulses/blasters have short range but can track extremely well.
• Warp disruptors have a range of 150km and 3 points of warp scrambling, and warp scramblers have a 70km range and 6 points. Stasis web batteries have 150km range and web 70%. ECM jammers will permajam any subcapital ship.
• The guns will automatically cycle through targets every 30 seconds if no gunner is present. The guns also have an activation proximity range, with medium artillery activating to about 300km. Thus, with a long range gridload, you can warp your fleet on grid with the POS but you will not be shot at until you get closer.
• Guns can be incapacitated by shooting at them. Once all the shield and armor HP are gone, the gun will enter structure, and the status of it will change from online or anchored to incapacitated. The structure and all armor damage must be repped to online the gun.
• It is possible for more guns to be anchored at the POS than can be onlined. This is done so that as each gun is incapacitated, a new one can be turned on.
• Any CPU-using mod, which are the ECM jammers, neuts, webs, and scramblers/disruptors, will be offlined when the POS is reinforced. Guns will continue to function while the POS is reinforced.

How to size up a tower

• Have a covops go in and report back on how many guns are online and of what type, as well as how many anchored.
• Warp disruptors are usually the most important thing to be aware of.
• If you have a large number of battleships you can attempt an assault on a tower, but it is very dangerous, especially if hostiles are sitting inside the tower. If hostiles are there, they can select the guns and focus fire on specific ships, keeping maximum DPS on it while it is scrambled.

How to fight at a tower

• There are two major ways to fight at a tower: Drivebys and Gun Takedowns
• Drivebys: Try to gank something outside the shields, which may or may not have online guns. To do this, you need a good warpin and fast ships. Preferably setup the warpin so that battleships can warp in at sniping range but be more than 150km away from any warp disruptors. Do any ganks as quickly as possible, and try to keep ships webbed so they cannot return inside the tower.
• Gun Takedowns: Typically you will do this with Remote Repping Battleships, but it can be done without.

How to take down a cynojammer

• Never take down a cynojammer without a capital fleet ready to jump in and someone ready to provide a cyno. This should be self-explanatory.
• In order to take down a jammer, you need to size up what other modules are on the tower. In some situations you may want to knock down the warp disruptors first, then work on the jammer, while in others going straight for the guns is the best bet.
• If the jammer POS is very well defended, it may be best to simply shoot just the jammer and get capital support in as quickly as possible. Each jammer POS is unique but for the most part it is best to take down guns until their DPS is easy to handle, then the jammer.
• Do not engage a jammer when a hostile fleet is nearby. You will lose your whole fleet.