Content. The cure of boredom, provider of stuff to do, the thing that makes Eve interesting. Some players view the finding and creation of content as an esoteric and mystical thing, something reserved for FCs and alliance leaders. Unfortunately, the movers and shakers of Eve can’t always be online to create things to do. It is on these occasions that line members need to take the initiative and create their own content. While this is second nature for some, the actual process of doing so can be a mystery to newer players. That is where this guide comes in. We will go through the basics of creating one of the more accessible types of PVP content, roaming. For the uninitiated, roaming is when you take out a fleet simply looking for kills, as opposed to fleets that have a specific objective. Roaming boils down to knowing where to go, having a good ship, and maybe a few buddies to come along.
Destination
The first choice when roaming is deciding where to go. Unless you plan to gank or are at war, you’re looking at going into either null or lowsec. The two areas are fairly different and require slightly different approaches when looking for a destination. In lowsec, the most accessible pvp centers around Faction Warfare. As such, you generally want to focus on these regions, namely Metropolis, Heimatar, The Bleak Lands, Devoid, Black Rise, The Citadel, Essence, Verge Vendor, and Placid. Once you choose a region,you need to find the hotspots within it. While this can be done using the in game map, it is much easier to use the maps on Dotlan. To demonstrate how to use Dotlan for lowsec roaming, lets take a look at the region of Devoid. From the main page you want to find the region map (shown below).
Now at the region map, you want to see the PvP activity going on in the region. To do this, go to the top right corner of the map and find the map info dropdown menu. Now choose either “Ship/Pod Kills” or “Jumps” from the menu. The map will then give you an idea of the more active systems within the region. The systems will also be colored according to how many kills/jumps have occurred there. The colors will be green or uncolored if there have been a fewer jumps or kills within a system and yellow or orange if the system is more active. A good roaming destination will be on the more active end of the color spectrum, i.e. yellow or orange. All that is left is to set your autopilot destination to that system, make sure your route prefers less safe systems, and off you go.
Once roaming, you will want to have a scout jump into system first so you don’t scare off potential targets. The scout will first check local chat to see if anyone else is in the system and then use directional scan (d-scan) to see if anyone is within scanning range. Since you are in faction warfare space, much of the fighting occurs within the various faction warfare complexes that are in the system. If the scout sees an acceptable target on d-scan he will then try to find the target by narrowing the scanning angle of his d-scan and scanning nearby planets and complexes. Keep in mind that some complexes have ship restrictions. The two to look out for are Novice complexes, which only allow T1 and faction frigates inside, and Small complexes, which will only allow all destroyers sized ships and below inside. Once a target found and tackled, the rest of the fleet will jump into system to destroy the target. And just like that, you’ve created content.
The approach for finding targets in nullsec follows similar logic as in lowsec, but instead of focusing on faction warfare pilots you will try for unsuspecting ratters. Ratters make good targets given how boring ratting is. Many are watching Netflix in another window to pass the time and don’t always notice you coming into the system quickly enough.The process is much the same as find a destination in lowsec, except instead of choosing “Ship/Pod Kills”, you want “NPC Kills”. The higher the number shown, the more likely there are active ratters within a system.
Once on the roam, the scouting process is much the same as lowsec, but instead of focusing faction warfare complexes you are focusing on cosmic anomalies. These “sites” don’t show up on the overview, but rather appear on the probe scanner and in space as green symbols. Narrowing down which site the target is in requires more experience using d-scan, since there can be many sites within a system. The most profitable and therefore most ran sites have “Haven” and “Sanctum” in the name, so those will be the ones you want to check first. Once a ratter is found and tackled, rest of the fleet can jump in and assist with the kill.
Fittings
We’ve covered where to go on your roam, now lets focus on what ships you will bring. Since there are a million and one different fleet concepts you can choose from, we’ll limit ourselves to two, one for nullsec and another for lowsec. For nullsec, the go-to fleet concept for small gangs is what I call “fast shield”. As the name implies, you are looking for shield focused ships that can also do at least 2km per second with a microwarpdrive active. You don’t want to go larger than cruiser size for this fleet, as anything larger isn’t nimble or fast enough (generally speaking). To illustrate the overall fitting concept for the fleet here is an example Moa:
This Moa fit illustrates one of the two schools of thought when it comes to fast shield, namely dive the target and scram/web them so they can’t escape. The major downside of this approach is that it can be difficult for you to escape yourself, since you will also be in your target’s scram/web range. One work around is to have multiple fleetmates having point on the target, allowing damaged fleetmates to warp off while still maintaining point. The other method is to change the fit so that you are able to kite the target, where you attack just inside point range while keeping them at range so they can’t attack you. An example Caracal fit is shown below to illustrate this.
For lowsec, the biggest consideration when roaming is that you will sometimes fight on gates. If you are the aggressor and not attacking a suspect or criminal, you will be taking fire from gate guns. As such, your fleet must either have high enough HP to tank both the gate guns and the target, or have some way to repair the damage your fleet takes. The fleet featured here is the later. This fleet is primarily composed of armor assault frigates, along with a few electronic attack frigates and logi frigates as support. The staple ship of this fleet is the Retribution, a hearty assault frigate that can take on much larger targets if you have enough of them. Because we’re talking about a frigate, a local rep isn’t going to cut it in lowsec; you’re going to need a dedicated logi ship. For this role you will either use a single Exequror or a pair of armor Logistics frigates. While neither option is the best in class for logistics ships, they are much faster than most other logi. You’re going to need this speed since most of the fleet will composed of frigates.
The fit of your assault frigates should focus on maximizing resistances and armor hit points, as well as the standard assortment of points, scams and webs. To illustrate, take a look at this Retribution fit:
The goal with this fit is to ensure that the Retribution will survive under fire long enough for the logi to land reps. If it still looks like you’re going down even with reps, it may be a good idea to warp off field to a nearby celestial. This way, the gate guns and your quarry will lose their lock and you can warp back once you are ready.
Now that you have read this guide, have no fear on creating a little bit of content for yourself. The first step to being known as a source of content is to consistently create it. Make roaming a regular thing and go blow up some ships.
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by Lioso.
