Capital Fleets

Capital Fleets
Scout's Perspective





The Client
Can't See Can't Fight

It is absolutely imperative you setup your client properly before a capital battle. You may be using a NASA supercomputer in some basement in a government complex in Florida, but that still does not mean you are going to have the bandwidth to function in a capital engagement with hundreds and hundreds of ships on the grid at one time.

• Turn off ALL effects.
• Turn down ALL graphics.
• Zoom out!
• Close unnecessary channels.
• Do NOT play in windowed mode.

The Overview
Holy Brackets Batman

You can easily find yourself lagged out for thirty seconds if you so much as flip over to a new tab in your overview that has all brackets showing in space. In addition to that, without a proper overview setup, you'll play hell even finding the primary target regardless of whether it has been broadcast or not.

• Turn off ALL brackets on ALL tabs.
• ONLY reds and neutrals on your primary tab.
• Create the following overview settings*:
  
  
  
  • Planets, Stations, Sun, Control Towers, No Ships
  • Only carriers
  • Only dreadnoughts
  • Only battleships
  • Only interdictors and heavy interdictors
  • Only super capitals

*Note: It is assumed that you will have stargates, cynosural beacons, mobile disruptors, etc. on all overview settings listed above.

The Mechanics
Here's Your Memo

CVA and holders use a spider chain setup for their carrier fleets that is and should be required of all capital pilots in the future. I will post that setup here later tonight.

That being said, one of the most important things to know as a new capital pilot are the following:

• Flying a capital in a large fleet engagement is a lot like being a forward scout, you are going to be alive one minute and dead the next, so get used to it, and do NOT panic.
• As per the note above, pay attention to who the FCs are, and do exactly what they say, and nothing else. If they tell you to eject from your ship, you do it, no matter how crazy it sounds. Anything short of this can wipe an entire fleet. Never panic.
• Know your POS mechanics:
  
  
  
  • You must change your shield harmonic BEFORE initiating a warp sequence to a foreign POS bubble. Not during warp, not while aligning for warp, but BEFORE you click Warp To...
  • You must set your capital ship to KEEP AT RANGE of the control tower to stay within the bubble and avoid drifting or being bumped out.
  
  
• Do NOT activate needless modules before a cynosural jump as it takes a majority of your capacitor to initiate your jump drives.
• People are going to die, you may be next in line, so shake the nerves, and make sure you align, warp, fire, disengage, retarget, cycle your modules, move, stop, or whatever else the FC says the moment they say it lest you get trapped in a sling bubble and are relieved of your ship. Do not think, do. The FC does the thinking.
• Know your fleet window and how it works:
  
  
  
  • To change squads in a free move fleet right click your character portrait and navigate to the fleet drop down menu.
  • To jump to a cynosural field easily, watch the broadcast history for a new cynosural beacon, right click it in the broadcast window, and jump. You may also find all active cynosural beacons available to you through right clicking your character in any channel and using the menu.
  • Carry extra topes in your corporate hangar, you will not be able to jump to a cynosural field farther than your range, and may be forced to take more than one jump to reconnoiter with the fleet. This may or may not cost you extra fuel.
  
  
• Know your game mechanics. There are too many things to emphasize here, understanding that your ship will warp even at 0 cap, or that you cannot jump to a cynosural beacon while scrambled are some but certainly not all of the most important things to know. Without this basic knowledge, you are more liable to go down in a fiery ball of flames undocking from station or getting separated from the fleet, than going down in pitched battle in some epic engagement. We all wanna have fun together, not die alone and miserably.

The Lag
Syrup With Your Pancakes

Lag is the most important part of a capital engagement. Knowing how to operate your ship under these adverse conditions is the difference between idly sitting by as the rest of the fleet pelts hostiles, and watching your own guns light them up at the same time. The fleet commander of the engagement in D-GTMI could not stress this enough. If you know anything, know how to cycle your modules properly.

• Turn off Auto Repeat on ALL modules.
• Remove all weapon groups.
• Engage targeted weaponry and logistics in the following fashion:
  
  
  
  • Target ship; once a lock is acquired, a target box appears on your display.
  • Activate weapons or support modules
  • Double click all module icons next to the target box to deactivate the cycle.
  • Verify you did not double click space and have begun to drift.
  • Rinse and repeat.
  
  
• Engage self modules at will, bearing in mind that they will deactivate after one cycle and you will have to continually repeat each cycle manually.
• Be patient. Just because you cannot see anything happening, does not mean it is, or that it will not start shortly.
• Add your squadmates to your watch list.
• Watch your broadcast window for who needs what. It will be too confusing to watch some channel for squadmate X to announce he needs shields, a message which he may or may not be able to even send with lag.

Wrapping Up
Yes, You Have A Dirty Mind

I had never flown a capital into an engagement prior to D-GTMI nor would I say I jumped into the system knowing what the french toast I was supposed to even be doing half the time. However, knowing basic game mechanics, listening attentively, not talking out of line or spamming fleet chat with frivolous questions, and being patient, calm, and collected, pretty much allowed me to catch up with the veterans the entire time and run with the best of them. Do not be nervous or apprehensive, your fleet commanders are seasoned veterans who will and can explain all the subtle nuances of the engagement to you before you actually cyno into the fight.

It is not the most complicated thing in the world, nor is it really much different in some sense than any other encounter. Just remain calm, listen carefully, and do not over analyze things during battle, just do what you're told and do it right. Most of what you will be asked to do is no different than piloting a rookie ship. It is just on a grand scale. If you ignore the price tag on your ship, and resign yourself to losing it, as it is just pixels on a screen after all, you will be a boon to the fleet, not a burden. I cannot say the same for the few dozen pilots who cyno'd out on our fleet without orders when things got sketchy at the POS in D-GTMI. If I were their FC I would woop some serious ... for how selfish they were. The capitals were being reimbursed by CVA, and those pilots needed to grow some.