How to Start Soloing

In solo PVP, you can have the setup, the right skills, and faction pimping, and still not be successful. How is this possible? You may have the tools, but not the knowledge or experience. It's a fact, you will fail many times before you begin succeeding. It's like having the latest LearJet and a small manual; you still probably won't be able to fly it the first time.

Once you've got the setup and all the technical tools, the first thing you need to do is find a place to fly. In my experience, some of the best places are the ones you'd least expect: gatecamps. Wait, you say, you mean fly right into someplace that's expecting PVP? Yes. Many gatecamps are formed by pilots who don't have much experience actually pvping, and depending on the size of the camp, they may not be ready for an opponent that is expecting them.

Even if they are competent, a common technique is to go straight for expensive, non-insurable T2 tackle ships in your insurable, T1 hunk of junk. Bag an interceptor or assault frig or two, and you've already covered the cost of your ship. And often, once you clear the tacklers, their heavier ships either lack tackle completely or are unable to move quickly enough to hold you in place.

Some of my favorite solo PVP spots are LXQ2-T(Etherium Reach, 1 jump from Paala in Caldari lowsec), N-RAEL(Great Wildlands, 1 jump from Konora, Caldari Lowsec), M-0EE8(Tribute, 1 jump from Caldari lowsec), and HED-GP(Catch, 1 jump from Keberz, Amarr Highsec). LXQ is particularly nice in the Pacific night time zone, with 2-3 campers, often in smaller ships. N-RAEL depending on the time of day either has a massive camp, or a few renters, often in suboptimal setups. The best possible scenario for any gatecamp is to jump into a renter camp. These are generally PVErs who have either adapted their Drakes and Ravens for PVP(often poorly) or just brought them along fitted to do anomalies.

Moving on, M-0EE8 is often camped heavily, but if you can escape the initial tackle, you can often return and harass tacklers. HED-GP can either be completely empty, heavily, or lightly camped, so really it's the luck of the draw. The main point is that you're looking for a small amount of campers who have the confidence to engage (due to their numbers), but hopefully not the ability to take you down too quickly. The moment you jump in, you must mentally accept the fact that your ship is probably already lost, and that you should focus instead on taking down the most expensive thing you can in reach. This mindset will land you a lot of expensive, very nice, and very fun kills, because lets face it, facing the blob and costing them is a lot of what makes solo PVP fun. Sometimes, you'll demolish the entire camp and keep all the loot, which makes you feel even better.

Of course, if you don't want to lose anything, this is not the best way to PVP, as you will lose ships almost every time you go out. But, if you fit your ships right, they are fairly cheap and disposable.

As another word of advice, PVP as often as you can. All PVE should be to the solo PVPer is a means of getting more (and bigger if you so desire) ships. Not only does this keep your skills sharp, but really the only way of learning is doing. Reading a blog may help you on how to begin, but the only teacher is your own experience. I lost many, many, many frigates, cruisers, and even battlecruisers, some horribly fit (without tackle even) early on before I finally started landing a nice kill now and again.

It also helps to give yourself a certain amount of time, say, 2 hours, in which you must be done PVPing. Promise yourself you WILL find a fight during that time no matter what, even if you have to engage against the odds by a huge margin. And when you do find a target, attack with unbridled ferocity. Unless you're flying something very expensive, do not take into account the loss of your own ship. The only thing running through your mind should be "Can I kill this before he kills me?" If the answer is yes, go for it.

Lastly, a word of advice should you get trapped by a blob. If you're tackled, webbed, and have NO chance of survival, stop whatever you are doing for just a moment and look at your overview. Is there any small, weak, expensive target within range that you can kill in the next 15 seconds? Oftentimes, when a ship is going down, even good interceptor pilots will forget that the victim is still capable of using his weapons(unless he's jammed,) and they'll go in to very close range to get more damage. A scrammed, webbed interceptor will die very, very quickly. So lock these up before you go into battle, and as you drop into half armor, take your fire off of the original bait drake and hit that Taranis hard.

Hope this helped!

Securitas

Ship in Focus: The Myrmidon

Screenshot from an (almost) all-Myrmidon op I did, testing out a setup.

The Myrmidon is one of the most versatile ships in the solar artist's fleet. It can either deal a huge amount of damage, tank even more, or do a combination of both. It can go fast or it can go slow, it can use neuts or guns. Essentially, it is a swiss army knife, due to it's high amount of utility slots. 

One of the better solo fits is the Triple-Rep fit. While at first this sounds completely crazy, it fits quite nicely, deals a good amount of DPS, and has an ungodly tank. The main disadvantage is that it is rather slow and runs out of boosters quite quickly. Unlike in large fleet fights, local tanks are effective in solo PVP because of the reduced amount of damage you'll be taking(hopefully).

Note for all setups: It's quite possible (and even better if you have tech II heavy drone skills) to fit 2 heavies, 2 mediums, and 2 light drones. However, I only have Tech II skills for medium drones, so I did not include these setups. They give you less versatility and replacements in exchange for higher dps.

Here is a typical Triple-Rep fitting:


[Myrmidon, Triple Rep]
Medium Armor Repairer II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Damage Control II

10MN MicroWarpdrive I - (Price)
Warp Scrambler II
Stasis Webifier II
Medium F-RX Prototype I Capacitor Boost, Cap Booster 800 - (CPU Usage)
Medium F-RX Prototype I Capacitor Boost, Cap Booster 800

Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M - (Extra DPS)
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M

Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Nanobot Accelerator I


Hammerhead II x5
Valkyrie II x5
Warrior II x5

Synth/Standard Exile Booster

Numbers with Battlecruiser IV:

372 DPS, 629 DPS tanked, 782 DPS tanked overloaded, 870 m/s

Another effective fitting with higher resistances and lower capacitor needs is the Dual-Rep Myrmidon. This fit has higher cap stability and resistances, a slightly lower tank, and can fit higher-caliber guns than the triple-rep fit, plus a pair of neuts, giving it a powerful tool against other active-tankers and frigates. However, due to sacrificing a pair of guns for a pair of neuts, it actually has slightly lower DPS. You can switch these back if you prefer more dps.


[Myrmidon, Dual Rep]
Medium Armor Repairer II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Damage Control I
Armor Explosive Hardener II

10MN MicroWarpdrive I
Warp Scrambler II
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I, Cap Booster 800
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I, Cap Booster 800

220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Medium Energy Neutralizer II
Small Energy Neutralizer II

Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Nanobot Accelerator I


Hammerhead II x5
Valkyrie II x5
Warrior II x10

Synth/Standard Exile Booster

Numbers with Battlecruiser IV:

323 DPS, 476 DPS tanked, 592 DPS tanked overloaded, 870 m/s

There are also alternative fits that are a little outside the box, but in my experience very effective. An excellent example of this is the nano myrmidon. It actually works quite well given the amount of low slots and mid slots. It has a MASSIVE amount of effective hitpoints, and can be configured either for more tank or more gank.

Note: If you would prefer more capacitor stability and tank, switch the gyrostabilizers out for Power Diagnostic Systems

[Myrmidon, Nano]

Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Damage Control II

Gyrostabilizer II

Gyrostabilizer II

Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive

Warp Scrambler II

Large Shield Extender II

Large Shield Extender II

Invulnerability Field II

220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M

220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M

220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M

220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M

220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M

220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M

Medium Core Defence Field Extender I

Medium Core Defence Field Extender I

Medium Core Defence Field Extender I

Hammerhead II x5

Valkyrie II x5

Warrior II x10

Numbers with Battlecruiser IV:

469 DPS, 80 DPS tanked, 53k EHP, 1294 m/s, 6.3s align time w/o MWD.

And there you have it, 3 very versatile solo PVP Myrmidon fits, each with it's own strengths and weaknesses. 

See you on the battlefield,

Securitas Protector

Why Solo?

A first-time reader of this blog or someone who has never soloed before might ask this question: Why solo? Why put yourself at risk, lower your kill/death ratio, and lose more ships when you could just x up with 10 other corpmates and instapop those idiots who dare to solo?

To someone who asked me this, I would ask them: Why play the game at all? The obvious answer, of course, would be "To have fun." If anyone is playing EVE for any other reason, they shouldn't be playing it, because that is the only reward. And fun in EVE is a little different than in most games. In a game like Call of Duty, you start it up, have some heart-pounding action and show off your reflexes, and then log off. But you don't feel like you've truly accomplished anything.

EVE, however, has an entirely different way of making you have fun. It's the sort where you think "Oh my god this is so awesome" or "wow, look at what I just did." After all, that's why people play Spreadsheets Online with hundreds of POSes simultaneously; something which by itself more resembles a middle-management job than a video game. It's because when it's all said and done, they can look back and see their alliance name on the influence map with 5 stations and a military that can crush anyone nearby. It's the same sort of satisfaction you get after finishing a long task at work (that you enjoyed at least a little).

If this were real life, the optimal strategy would be to remove yourself as much as possible from danger, to set as many people to +10 as possible, and to move around in 2000 man fleets crushing anything to minimize losses. However, there's no challenge in that and that's not really fun after the first few times. Challenge and accomplishment is what's fun. That's why we solo. That's why we feel good when we trade our Myrmidon for a cruiser; because that cruiser was in a 10 man gang, and we had enough skill to take him down despite 10:1 odds.

And when we kill an entire 5 man gang by ourselves? We feel even better. That loot is all the sweeter, because all of our hard work in designing our setup, training the skills, and engaging the targets in just the right sequence paid off. And we just made 5 people feel like they completely suck at the game. It gives us a rush to feel like we're "better" than 5 people put together, that we're actually good at the game. Plus it was challenging and hard. In my opinion, that's why ganking industrials and t1 frigates solo isn't too much fun. Unless it's close and heart-pounding, it's not really an accomplishment.

And that's why we solo.

Until next time,

Securitas Protector

What is the "Solar Artist"

The Solar Artist is a new blog I've created about PVP in the game of Eve Online, and more specifically solo pvp. The title is a play on the space theme of eve and the word "solo," which I've put together to become The Solar Artist.

This stems from my belief that true solo PVP in Eve is an art form; the combinations of fitting decisions and emergent combat create an atmosphere that only an artist can survive in. Videos of PVP in Eve are transfixing and quite unlike any game out there. Any ship can be a weapon, and the most beautiful weapons are the unexpected ones.

In this blog I'll post videos(I hope), both of my work and that of other artists, screenshots, killmails, lossmails, fits, and battle reports.

Since I'm currently unsubscribed for finals my first posts will be about previous battles and other people's work.

I hope you all enjoy it!

-Securitas Protector

PS: Isk donations to keep the Solar Artist in his ships are appreciated. ;)