Breakdown for Newbros: Bait Trap

Improving your pvp skills in EVE is difficult for numerous reasons: The game is complex, but worse, it is trial by fire. There are few “safe” ways to learn (test server is one), and when you make a mistake in EVE you pay for it. In fleet ops, where people are depending on you for their own survival, the price is even higher.

This article is meant to be a safe way for eager younglings to learn something new about pvp in EVE. Like any sports team, let’s review a video and break it down to explain what is happening play by play. Bittervets can stop reading at this point. Here’s a breakdown of a recent video featuring NCdot (Trapper) baiting and attacking Lowsechnaya Sholupen (Mark) in low-sec. For more background on what lead to this engagement, see the Battle Report by Mail Lite.

First, please understand that the attackers usually do a lot of preparation and lay a lot of groundwork before they can savor these 5-10 minutes of action. At this level of pvp, the tricks used to get the mark to engage have been perfected over many years. One slip up, like a tackling cruiser spotted a few days before the engagement, can spook the intended target, ruining the whole operation. The stakes are high even before the ships land on grid, which is the visual limit of the combat field; the ships, drones, gates etc. Even if everything on the attackers’ side is executed to perfection, the mark may still not take the bait, leaving the attackers that much more cold and even thirstier for the pod goo of their victims, so patience is a key component.

The attackers have to fit their ships according to their estimations of the operation’s duration and how likely they are to be counter-dropped (attackers become the baited and die in a fire to a superior force). Do they fit their ships for massive DPS to kill the targets quickly at the expense of their own survivability? Do they slow their ships down with massive (literally) armor tanks for better staying-power but to the detriment of their damage output? Perhaps they fit them for cap so they can drop in, kill the mark and extract their force as fast as possible? There’s more to the pre-fight: low-sec limitations on tackling, jump range limits, etc.

The video, from the attacker’s, NCdot’s in this case, point of view, starts with intel coming in from sources in the target area. They are reporting which pilots are logging on from the LS (the marks’) side. Most titan and super pilots are added as contacts with the ‘watch list’ box ticked so players can keep tabs on their enemies’ comings and goings. The watch list is nonconsesual, so the only defense is to keep your super/titan pilot’s name a secret.

LS subcapitals are in the process of tackling an NCdot bait titan and will proceed to open a cyno bridge to bring in their DPS to kill the titan. This is where the video starts.

Scout 1 is referring to the LS cyno. NCdot waits to see what actually jumps in. Moving in too early could tip off LS, so they wait offline. Staying completely offline allows NCdot to avoid suspicion until LS commits their supercapitals to the fight.

A couple of subcap tacklers are called out by the scout: to be expected. Then the prize hits:

NCdot had a few heavy interdictors (Hics) pre-positioned in the system. These ships, with their ability to fit Warp Disruption Field Generators with the Focused Point script, are the only ships capable of reliably tackling a super or titan in low sec space. Supers and titans have a trait called “immune to all forms of electronic warfare” which means they can’t be ECM jammed, sensor dampened or painted, but it also means they are immune to stasis webs, warp disruptors and scramblers. You can’t even activate these modules against a super or titan. Without hictors on the battlefield NCdot would not have been able to keep the target supercapitals engaged long enough to destroy them. These hics were flown to the exact location where they would be needed and then logged off. This means when they log back in, they immediately warp back to that spot and are ready to tackle seconds after getting into the game.

In a different system less than five light years away (5LY is titan bridging distance limit as well as the maximum distance most capital ships can jump), NCdot logs in their supers and titans. They arrive inside the safe POS (Player Owned Starbase) in which they had logged off earlier. Priority one is to form a fleet. Being in the same fleet is critical for bridging and warping to each other – the cyno module can’t even activate if the pilot of the ship it is fitted to is not in a fleet and capitals can’t bridge or jump to a cyno that isn’t in their fleet. Note the pilot in video drags the fleet into corp channel, which leaves a link with the fleet name in that channel, allowing anyone that can see it to click the link and join that fleet. This is a big time saver, especially when you are trying to multitask.

As the NCdot deathsquad assembles, call-outs continue regarding which ships LS is deploying on-grid. The scout for NCdot has something tackled and but is not yet in danger himself.

Typically, capital ships jump into a situation and immediately align to some distant place. Because they are so massive they take a long time to align and get up to warp-engagement speed. As long as they do it together they can stay close to each other, within rep and refit range. The LS ships are not moving to align which means they are flat footed and will be easier to catch. This triggers the NCdot fleet to act.

First the tacklers, heavy interdictors like the ones that had been logged off in the system, jump in. NCdot’s supercarriers are still standing by at this point. They won’t jump onto the grid until the LS supers are tackled and a kill is all but assured. No pursuit is possible if NCdot miss tackling LS. Showing your hand is something you save until the last second. Jump fatigue is a factor here; every jump counts.

Tackling works on a point system. A warp disruptor (disruptor) has 1 point strength. A
typical ship has zero. The higher point value wins, so the disruptor tackles the targeted ship (1 to 0). A ship can add a warp core stabilizer (stab) module to gain 1 point. Tie goes to the defender, so a disruptor cannot tackle a ship with 1 warp core stabilizer fitted (1-1). Warp scrambler (scram) has 2 points of tackling power. A scram can tackle a ship with 1 stab on it. But a ship can fit multiple stabs. IT gets more complex when you use ships with natural point bonuses and range consideration, etc. Spherical disruption (mobile warp disruptors, unfocused hic and interdictor bubbles) does not work on a point system; it has its own rules.

“Calling points” means call out when you have something tackled so the other tacklers don’t aim at the same guy. “Spreading points” means the same thing, spread out tackling disruptors among all the enemy ships. Verbal communication is essential.

In some ways the tackling is the battle. Once the tackler pins the target ship and gets into a safe (tight) orbit around his victim, the tackler can hold on to that ship for as long as it takes. T2 tacklers have strong resistances to damage and are very mobile so they can survive, but only if they keep moving.
Once points are called:

In comes the DPS. The titan pilot double checks the meaning of “supers”; technically, a titan is a super capital, but it is not a ‘supercarrier’, so it depends on precisely what the FC means, whether or not he intends for the titans to commit to the fray. Accidentally jumping a titan is a critical mistake.

This is a warning that LS has activated defensive Remote Electronic Counter Measures. This powerful lock-breaking module can only be used by supercarriers. All enemy ships within a 20km radius of the super’s target lose their locks, depending on the ‘electronic warfare’ points system. This means all tackling is disconnected unless the tackler’s ship can resist the burst or reengage their tackling equipment quickly after losing their lock. Titans land on grid and immediately apply their gargantuan damage:

The titan pilot fires his behemoth’s Doomsday Device (DD) at an Archon. He calls it out so the titans don’t waste their DD on the same ship since it is powerful enough to destroy a carrier by itself in one shot. The NCdot titan pilots DD the triage carriers (fleet healers) first. The “doomsday out” is an alert to his teammates that the cool down cycle has begun. This cycle lasts 10 minutes after firing, the first 30 seconds of which the titan cannot move at all and for the entire duration the titan cannot activate his jump drive or cloak. In titan-on-titan fights synching DDs is critical.

The LS supercapitals started evasive maneuvers as soon as they saw the “red cyno” (red means enemy, “blue cyno” is friendly). They began ECM bursting hoping to break tackle (locks) and warp away. LS’s sub capital support is also shooting the NCdot tacklers, which is why the FC assigned drones fighters to attack the Talos gunship.

LS frees one the two Hels and it warps off, escaping. It is too late to do anything about it, and the fleet will not divide and pursue, so this information is ignored. The LS Hel pilot warped to a random safe spot created before the engagement. If he didn’t have that bookmark, he would have used a celestial, like the sun, or a planet. Tacklers can predict or observe where you warp very easily, so safe spots are necessary to avoid recapture.

NCdot’s next move is to start applying damage from their supercarriers with fighter bombers, which can reliably apply their massive damage only very large targets, to the still-trapped Hel while simultaneously removing any threat to their own tacklers. The biggest threat to the entire trap is any sub capital ships the LS may have on the field that could possibly break their tacklers’ ships or locks.

The NCdot tackler has an additional problem now. He’s having his capacitor neutralized (energy drained) by the tackled Nyx. If the tackler runs out of energy, his modules shut down, allowing the Nyx to warp away. ‘Neuting out’ the Nyx is a counter attack. By neutralizing the energy of the tackled Nyx, it will shut down his ability to drain energy from the tacklers that are holding him. Most capital fights come down to capacitor draining fights. “Cap is life” is a motto for capital pilots.

At this point NCdot’s pilots have 3 tasks: keep the tacklers alive, kill enemy triage support, and apply DPS to the main target. They have already let one of the supers get away. They sense no progress in damaging the Hel, a shield tanked vessel. Frustration is building for NCdot.

The Chimera is healing the Hel making it harder to bring down. Carriers and dreadnaughts will often sacrifice themselves for their bigger brothers. A carrier is one-tenth the cost of a supercarrier, so losing a Chimera or 5 is still better than losing the supercarrier.

This command is for heavy interdictors (tacklers) to ram the LS ship they have tackled. This is a safety measure in case the target locks are broken. By ramming the target they slow it down and change its alignment, keeping it from getting to full warp speed in the direction of its destination.

Not everything is verbal. Only the critical information should be conveyed this way. Calling out for repairs does not help and this NCdot tackler has been calling for reps for a while now. It forces a logistics pilots to figure out who you are, look you up and then target you before any repairs (reps) can be applied. It is far better in this situation, and pretty much every other situation in which you have logi, to use the fleet window to broadcast (hit a button that sends the request to all fleet members that are configured to receive that type of request). A logistics pilot can target you off the list and reps come sooner. In this case the reps are coming from pilots that are also fighting, instead of a dedicated logistics unit.

When your cool down timer on the DD weapon is over, put an x in fleet chat so that the fleet commander (FC) knows who can shoot again. At a certain point all pilots are extensions of fleet commanders. A pilot’s job is to understand what the FC wants, and to give back information without overtaxing him with unnecessary feedback. This is where experience makes a difference. The more experienced the PVPers, the less talking is needed.

The NCdot supers also need to be aligned in case the LS counter drops them with more ships or an ally. In this case, NCdot is not worried on either point so they align to the target. The chances of the LS having a counter fleet ready is slim.

NCdot has killed a heavily tanked Hel and has a Nyx trapped. The battle is over. LS managed to free and extract a Hel and possibly a Nyx too. It is a mixed victory for NCdot, and a good result for LS using ECM bursts and Neuting. The “locker-room” battle review battle review starts so early that it prompts on pilots to ask “are we killing this Nyx?”

‘gf’ to all involved!