Sunday 22 May 2011

The Hydra Principle - Frigate Fleet Tactics

Frigate fleets are an excellent way to get started as an FC, as well as a great low-stress environment for newer pvpers to join in on the fun. Not only are they incredibly cheap, but even those players with no pvp experience whatsoever are likely to already have the skills necessary to take part. The downside of course is effectiveness - t1 frigates are notoriously fragile, and while against one or two opponents it's fairly easy to simple get under your target's guns, this is not so simple when facing a group of opponents. Getting the most from your frigate fleet then, requires some thought.

Anyone who has taken an Agony BASIC class will already be familiar with what we call the Hydra Principle. Despite the fancy name, this is actually a fairly simple way of setting up your fleet which is specifically designed to work with fleets of small, fragile ships. It's designed mainly around frigate-centric gangs, and aims to counter some of their main weaknesses while taking advantage of their strengths. I doubt it's something that's unique to Agony, nor is it something that's particularly groundbreaking once you've been playing the game for a while. However, it's simple and it's easy, and I hope it inspires some newer players to take up the FC reins!


Managing Losses

The biggest weakness of a frigate fleet is fragility; if someone is able to hit a given ship, they can usually kill it pretty quickly. Imagine you have a small frigate gang - one tackler, one damage dealer and one electronic warfare frigate. All your opponent needs to do is kill one ship and your gang becomes ineffective. For the purposes of our analogy (coming up soon, can you guess what it is?!) this is like cutting the head from your fleet. However, as with the mythical creature from which it draws its name, the Hydra fleet has no one head to cut off - attempt to do so, and there are always two more to take it's place. The is achieved through Distribution.

A Distributed fleet spreads each of its essential aspects - tackle, damage, and electronic warfare, across the entire group - it's the eve equivalent of not putting all your eggs in one basket. Rather than the three specialised ships above, each ship in our small frigate gang would have a balance of tackle, ewar and dps. The result is that no matter which ships are killed, our fleet remains balanced and effective right down to the last ship - this is what we call Graceful Degradation.

This mitigates the effect of our ships dying, but it doesn't help keep them alive. For that, we need to take advantage of the frigate's natural strengths.

Staying Alive

The biggest thing your frigates have going for them is that they're pretty hard to hit. A combination of low signature radius and high base speed mean that large and medium guns will often have significantly reduced hit quality, if they hit at all. Because of this, I'd strongly advise against fitting microwarpdrives - they make sense in a dedicated tackling role, but they also counteract your naturally low signature radius and for our purposes are best avoided. You'll want a few people in fleet with them, but we'll talk about that later; the majority of your frigate fleet should fit afterburners - these will maximise your speed without making you easier to hit.

We can further increase our survivability by carrying a healthy dose of ewar. Most fleets will have one or two ewar ships and everyone else is likely to be carrying tackle; for our Hydra fleet, we want to carry about as many tracking disruptors and sensor dampeners as we do scramblers, points and webs. Remember to keep things distributed amongst your fleet - avoid having ships carrying only tackle or only ewar, try to have everyone with a bit of each (assuming of course they have the mid slots).

Unlike ECM, tracks and damps are incredibly effective even on ships which don't get a bonus to them, so there's no excuse not to bring plenty of each! Tracking disruptors are especially useful since they make the already poor tracking of your larger targets a whole lot worse. Even if your opponent is able to do damage to you, they can only kill ships as fast as they can lock them - a few sensor damps ensures this is not very fast at all. ECM is something of an oddity since it's only really effective on ships which get bonuses to it. For that reason, it's not really used any differently in a Hydra fleet to the way it would be used in a normal fleet - just bring some griffins and lay on the jam!

Laying on the Hurt

With all the above taken into account, we're pretty hard to hit. Still, we need to be able to kill things if we're going to win fights. The base damage output of frigates is fairly low, and there's not really a magic button to improve that. On the other hand, don't discount it. I hear a lot of people say something to the effect of 'frigates do almost no damage anyway, so there's no point fitting decent guns/damage mods etc' and while this may be a valid point when you're flying as dedicated tackle, but in a frigate fleet it's simply not true - even if you're just adding 20 dps by fitting that gyrostabiliser, 20 dps for every frigate in your fleet can quickly become a significant amount.

In our Hydra fleets we usually ask people to aim for mid-range, i.e. 6-10km. The main reason for this is that our BASIC roams often encounter smartbombing

Taking it Further

So far we've really just covered the Hydra Principle as taught in an Agony BASIC class. This is designed to be simple, accessible, and broad enough that it can be used to teach new players about a whole range of topics, but I think there's more we can say about it.

If you take out a pure t1 Hydra fleet following the guidelines above, you'll probably find you lose a lot of targets that you simply can't catch. While afterburners keep your gang alive, they're not ideal for catching targets - it really helps to have a few guys with mwds. Obviously relying on specialised ships for a role isn't completely the in keeping with Hydra Principle's distributed nature, but in this case it's worth doing - the key thing is not to rely on these ships in a way that would leave you stranded without them (for example, by not fitting scrams on any of your afterburning ships). In Agony roams, we tend to use interceptors and assault frigates for this role, but let's assume we want to run an entirely t1 frigate gang.

The role of our mwd-fit ships will be to chase down fast or distant targets, so naturally fast ships are ideal for the job. Without the ship bonus of an interceptor, running a microwarpdrive really balloons your signature radius, so any kind of avoidance tanking becomes much more difficult. This means our mwd frigates will need to rely on other means for tanking. A shield extender or armour plate will significantly increase your effective HP, and is a must for any mwd-fit ship. Finally, complete your fit with a warp scrambler. The reasoning for this is that if you need a mwd to catch a target that usually means they are going pretty quickly, and in these instances disabling their mwd is your priority. A web could be nice too, but if it comes down to that or a shield extender I'd go for the tank every time.

What about tank on your other ships? In BASIC we advise students to fit a damage control, but to otherwise rely on their speed and electronic warfare to keep them alive. Our logic is that armour plates reduce their speed and shield extenders increase their signature radius, both of which detract from avoidance tanking. However, I'm not entirely convinced by this - the negative side-effect from these modules is really not significant enough to dismiss them off-hand. Shield extenders I would recommend avoiding outside of dedicated mwd tacklers, mainly because they use up a mid slot that could otherwise be used for ewar (assuming each frigate has roughly two spare mid slots, everyone shield tanking would halve the ewar slots available to your fleet!). Armour plates on the other hand, I think there is a good argument for; the speed loss is fairly minimal, and many frigates lack the cpu to fit damage mods in all their low slots. A 200mm or 400mm plate can significantly increase your survivability, with only a relatively small loss in speed and agility (100mm plates aren't really effective enough to be worth it). The main barrier to fitting one is powergrid, and especially when a frigate fleet is intended for newer players I think this is quite a significant roadblock. However if you have the room, I think a plate could be a good choice.

In conclusion, if you're looking to pvp on a budget or try out FCing in a relatively relaxed environment, a frigate fleet can be both great fun and with a little thought, surprisingly effective. The only thing you stand to lose is your inexperience, so go forth and give it a shot!

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Update: A few people have asked for some example fits. Below are some of the example fits we recommend to new players on our BASIC classes. Let's be clear though: What works well for our classes will not necessarily work well for you - our classes tend to be large (50-80) and operate in nullsec. Don't just copy the fits below and wonder why they don't work! Even for the same purpose, I highly recommend you just use these as a guide, and try to come up with your own.

To counter smartbombers, we ask our students to fit for engagement ranges of 6km or more. In smaller gangs or in hi-sec, this is probably not necessary, and fitting for closer range may be more effective. These fits are also designed for players with starting skill levels, hence the need for cpu and powergrid upgrades. They are also designed to be very very cheap - upgrade, rig, and swap mods as you see fit.

Since these are fits from BASIC, they don't take into account the points I mention in the last section on tanking, although I have included a MWD/scram fit for reference.

[Rifter, HYDRA Arty t1b]
Damage Control I
F-aQ Phase Code Tracking Subroutines
Type-D Altered SS Nanofiber Structure

Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
F-392 Baker Nunn Tracking Disruptor I
Initiated Harmonic Warp Scrambler I

250mm Light Carbine Howitzer I, Phased Plasma S
250mm Light Carbine Howitzer I, Phased Plasma S
250mm Light Carbine Howitzer I, Phased Plasma S
[empty high slot]

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

The rifter is arguably the best ship for this kind of gang - it's naturally fast and tough, with both decent damage output and a good balance of grid and cpu.

[Merlin, HYDRA t1]
Damage Control I
Linear Flux Stabilizer I
F-aQ Phase Code Tracking Subroutines

Experimental 1MN Afterburner I
Initiated Harmonic Warp Scrambler I
'Langour' Drive Disruptor I
F-392 Baker Nunn Tracking Disruptor I, Tracking Speed Disruption Script

125mm Carbide Railgun I, Antimatter Charge S
125mm Carbide Railgun I, Antimatter Charge S
125mm Carbide Railgun I, Antimatter Charge S

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

Merlins are another excellent choice. Due to its four mid slots and ample cpu the merlin is able to field a large number of EWAR modules and is very easy to fit.

[Tristan, HYDRA t1]
Damage Control I
Mark I Modified SS Overdrive Injector
Quantum Co-Processor I

Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
F-392 Baker Nunn Tracking Disruptor I
'Langour' Drive Disruptor I

125mm Carbide Railgun I, Antimatter Charge S
125mm Carbide Railgun I, Antimatter Charge S
'Malkuth' Standard Missile Launcher I, Flameburst Light Missile
'Malkuth' Standard Missile Launcher I, Flameburst Light Missile

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]


Light Armor Maintenance Bot I x1

The Gallente frigates suffer from anaemic cpu, although again this can be eased a little by swapping to rockets or switching your ewar for other mods. The Incursus is in a similar position. The Maulus is also a viable alternative.

[Punisher, HYDRA t1]
Damage Control I
C4S Coiled Circuit Thermal Radiator
F-aQ Phase Code Tracking Subroutines
Quantum Co-Processor I

Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I

Dual Afocal Light Maser I, Multifrequency S
Dual Afocal Light Maser I, Multifrequency S
Dual Afocal Light Maser I, Multifrequency S
[empty high slot]

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

The Punisher's 2 mid slots make it a poor choice for this gang, although its damage output is among the best. Amarr pilots may want to consider the Crucifier as an alternative.

[Rifter, MSE + MWD t1]
Damage Control I
F-M3 Munition Inertial Suspensor
Type-D Altered SS Overdrive Injector

Initiated Harmonic Warp Scrambler I
Monopropellant I Hydrazine Boosters
Medium Supplemental Barrier Emitter I

150mm Light Carbine Repeating Cannon I, EMP S
150mm Light Carbine Repeating Cannon I, EMP S
150mm Light Carbine Repeating Cannon I, EMP S
[empty high slot]

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

I mentioned having some relatively tough MWD/scram frigates - this is the kind of fit you may want to consider. A few cheap shield rigs are probably also a good investment here!

7 comments:

  1. This post is now a year old, but I can't tell you how many times I've come back to look at it since it was put up.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This whole blog is worth coming back to read articles again !

    ReplyDelete
  3. could use a update to the ship fits as CCP just revamped ALL T1 frigs

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not all the frigs have been done yet. I've updated the merlin since that's changed substantially, the rest are still fairly similar. I'll wait until the rest of the frigs are balanced later this year, then do a more detailed update to the fits.

      Delete
    2. the "inty" hulls and the starters all got reworked and are way nicer than before

      Delete
    3. What about now? :P

      FYI I am recommending this article to some new Rifterlings pilots who would maybe like go try out FCing. Rock on!

      Delete

The Altruist is the Eve Online blog of Azual Skoll, PVP instructor and small gang PVPer.

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