A what drop? Hot drop is a term used for lighting a cyno (a ship launched beacon that jump drive equipped ships can jump to) near an enemy and jumping reinforcements almost on top of them.
There are only two types of ships equipped with jump drives (and are therefore able to “jump”): most capital, and all black ops ships.
Normal cynos show up on the overview of everyone in the system, and function as a massive “capital ships here” sign. Covert cynos do not, and are only usable by black ops or indirectly by covert ops.
You might be wondering, how does a covert ops ship use a cyno? That’s where black ops comes in. These pricey ships (almost as costly as a carrier), usually left to gather dust in the hanger, have the ability to create a jump bridge to a covert cyno, allowing covert ops ships to jump through.
This type of jump bridge is the basis for the stealth bomber hot drop. We turned a HAC into a wreck 25 seconds after jumping, and thanks to the tiny sig radius of SBs, and our sensor dampeners, we didn’t take a single hit (although our tackle may have).
Simply because cruisers use the same sized rigs as battlecruisers. For the x million ISK, I’d rather rig something more powerful. If you rig most cruisers, the rigs end up costing more than the hull.
There are special cases where you may need a cruiser sized ship, with the advantages of rigs. In those cases, you should really use a T2 variant.
Later today, I’ll be setting up a bubble camp. Please stop by 
After a few PHP access violations, I’m pretty sure EAccelerator does not work properly with multiple IIS worker processes.
I should really move to lighttpd or nginx one of these days…
Combat, like most things in EVE, is a numbers game. While picking the right ship and fittings for the job will help, it’s certainly not everything. You can’t for every possible occurrence, but the more experience you have, the better you can guess.
Picking the wrong hull can mark the end of a battle before it even begins. A few notes on hull classes:
| Battleships |
Cannot effectively engage small or fast targets. Both turrets (tracking speed), and missiles (signature radius, target speed, etc) have a hard time delivering adequate damage against targets that are much smaller than the weapon was intended to engage.
Yes, battleships can be fitted to specifically devastate small targets. However, this makes them less effective against other battleships. |
| Battlecruisers |
Can engage any size target, with other battlecruisers and cruisers being the best targets. They can be effective against frigates if properly fitted, and can still effectively engage vessels of similar size. They are one of the most versatile types of ships, and are extremely common in every area of EVE. |
| Cruisers |
Most do one thing really well, and offer faction specific specializations. Since most pilots will step into a battlecruiser in a few months, cruisers are usually left to PvP, in which their bonuses can be exploited.
Cruisers are designed to engage other cruisers, and are devastating against frigates.
In PvP, cruisers have very specialized uses. Some function well as cheap solo ships, some can protect large fleets from small targets, and others can tackle and / or run logistics. |
| Destroyers |
Designed to be anti frigate, but are generally used as salvage vessels because of their large number of high slots. Personally, I prefer the Cormorant, since it’s large number of med slots allow me to fit plenty of Cap Recharger IIs, which allow me to salvage continuously without ever running out of cap. |
| Frigates |
Rarely used as a pilot’s main ship, and are usually designed to be disposable. If a pilot can’t fly a T2 cov ops cloaking ship, they can provide a fast way to travel through dangerous space. |
Ships below BC class are usually not seen in PvP, although they can be quite effective. Why? T2 frigates and cruisers usually provide the same services as their T1 counterparts, and are usually much better at their specialization.
Next time, how does this work in a fleet? (hint: most likely, you don’t get to choose the hull)
For security reasons, I can’t detail what our fleet did, but thanks to excellent FCing, scouts, and pilots, I have my first two killmails. Both Hurricanes.
Unfortunately, that’s all I can say 
In other news, I’ll be flying a Hurricane of my own in a few days, and I’ll be able to test out the Stabber I have sitting in my hanger (fast transport perhaps?). My long term goals are to fly an interceptor (Caldari), up to and including Amarr battleships, and perhaps Amarr HACs.
In this case, it was way too many people in an anom. Sanctums are usually worth around 35 – 40 mil, and can be done by 5 – 8 Battleships. We had at least 14 people in the anom, leading to a payout of about 3 mil for each pilot. I suppose it was partially my fault for not requiring everyone to x up in fleet before they could join the anom, or telling people to leave when we had too many.
One could argue that since it now took about 10 minutes to run one instead of 30, we could run more and make a similar amount of ISK. While that’s true, I have a feeling we passed the maximum number of pilots for that to work.
I’ve been seeing far too much smack in local for my liking… Besides disliking it on principal, there’s another problem with it. If you make someone’s visit in your space fun by talking smack, they’ll stick around. If you give them the silent treatment, they’ll leave.
In other news, I’ll be able to use sentry drones tomorrow (finally), and be able to use the Stabber and Hurricane I picked up in a few days.
A scanning frig warps into someone’s mission, starts stealing from their wrecks, they shoot it, and a few minutes later a Battleship shows up and ganks them. That is, in a nutshell, what high sec pirates aim to do.
The really stupid part is, that requires the person running the mission to shoot. It’s a choice THEY make. One of the best, Paul Clavet, has a blog in which he details his gang’s exploits. It’s a fun read, and a good reminder to everyone not to shoot at pirates unless you are really prepared for their gank fleet to show up.
Even more amusing are the so called “tears” that they collect. People shouldn’t be whining if they lost their ship because they shot at someone. They chose to shoot first.
The difference between an excellent FC (fleet commander) and a bad FC can be the success of the operation, survivability of the fleet, and / or whether you rip your hair out after 20 minutes.
What makes a good FC?
- At the beginning of the op, they know exactly what the goal of the op is, and how they plan to accomplish it
- They give concise and clearly audible orders (no mumbling) and repeat them twice (the fleet might miss the order first time)
- They are clearly in control of the fleet (no backseat FCing allowed)
- Fleet members should NEVER have to ask what they should be doing (if they do, there was a breakdown in communication), seeing as the FC should’ve given them specific orders
- All voice/text comms are kept in battle/combat mode (no chit chat; only orders, responses and intel)
- If the FC will be silent for a long period of time (4+ minutes), there should be a valid reason that the entire fleet is aware of
Most people will listen to their FC, since that’s the whole point of fleet operations. If people aren’t listening, clear direction to listen or leave must be given. It only takes one mistake to screw up an op.
Every fleet will have at least one “scout” or forward pilot. Their job is to provide intel to the fleet. The FC should NOT be the scout, since they will be separated from the main group, and will be unable to give targets or see what’s happening near the majority of the fleet.
In a PvP roam fleet, there should be exactly one scout, flying something that can fit a covert ops cloak (covert ops or stealth bomber frigs are probably best). The scout is always moving ahead of the fleet, and should NEVER be encroached by other members of the fleet. When the fleet moves between systems, the scout goes first, reports, and the FC decides what to do next.
Anyone who has gotten attacked while flying an SB knows that they are flying a 50 mil ISK cloaking glass cannon (very low EHP). SBs can put out a devastating amount of DPS, but if someone can hit you, that’s probably the end of the hull.
Yesterday, I lost my first ship in null sec, the Manticore. As with every loss, it was completely my fault. As it was getting late, I started heading back to alliance space. On my way, I saw a Vegabond we were trying to setup on earlier, and didn’t realize I forgot to pop the gate cloak and put mine on. The gate cloak popped, along with the Manticore about 2 seconds later (I’m guessing the Vegabond was setup to kill small targets).
In addition to the cloaking mishap, I made a couple of other mistakes. First, I flew out on four hours sleep on a PvP run. Second, I was trying to navigate relatively new space without my AP set. And thirdly, I was distracted talking on voice comms.
I’ve already arranged for a replacement Manticore, but I don’t think I’ll be flying it for awhile.
Today was certainly interesting. Our corp ran a gate camp, which netted us one BS, one logistics, an SB, and a rookie ship. My Manticore caught part of a bomb (down to 70% armor), and we lost one ship to a bomb (unknown class).
After the gate camp, we moved on to bashing a WT POS in one of our systems, which popped after an hour or two. The bash itself was pretty uneventful. We did chase a little fleet out of our system (our 30 or so BSes and BCs were pretty imposing), but we weren’t able to catch any of them
I found about 16 anoms with a single scan, and a nice grav site to mine. I can use T2 weapon upgrades now, and bombs in two days. After that, I’ll finally get sentry drones, and then Caldari Battleship skills.