This guide is intended for pilots flying short range DPS Battleships, for TVP that means either a Vindicator, or if you are new to incursions, a Hyperion whilst you save up ISK for a better ship.

For information on the minimum required skills to fly in TVP fleets please go to the Minimum Skill Requirements page. On top of those skills you must be able to online all the equipped modules on one of our doctrine fits. The only exception to this is that you may swap T2 Guns for Meta4 (T1) guns if your skills are not sufficient for T2. Likewise if you cannot use T2 Drones, you may swap them for Faction drones.

You should work on all of the following types of skills to improve your effectiveness in fleet:

• Gunnery Skills, to improve your applied damage (Surgical Strike, Rapid Firing, etc.)
• Drone Skills, to improve your applied drone damage (Drone Navigation, Drone Interfacing, Drone Sharpshooting, etc.)
• Tank Skills, to improve your effective number of hitpoints so that you are safer in fleet (Shield Management, Mechanics, Hull Upgrades, etc.)
• Capacitor Skills, Vindis are quite cap hungry, so improving your cap skills will allow you to work for longer before broadcasting for a topup from our Basilisks (Capacitor Management, Capacitor Systems Operation, Controlled Bursts, High Speed Manoeuvring, etc.)
• Battleship Skills, these improve the effectiveness of your hull bonuses, for a Vindicator this means improved tracking and web effectiveness (Gallente Battleship, Minmatar Battleship
• Navigation Skills, these will allow you to get into position faster and beat other fleets to positions in contest situations (Navigation, Acceleration Control, etc.)

There are technically a total of five Vindicator fits:

• Basic Fit
• Advanced Fit
• Drone Bunny Fit
• Basic Influence Fit (Only used during high influence)
• Advanced Influence Fit (Only used during high influence)

The basic fit is designed to be used with low cost “invuls” (Adaptive Invulnerability Fields). The low cost versions of the invuls we use give a good resistance bonus, however it leaves a fairly large Thermal and EM resistance hole, and doesn't give sufficient buffer to survive an alpha strike from a heavy DPS wave. Hence we have to add additional tank modules. As a result, all of the following tank modules are required on the Basic fit:

• 2x Adaptive Invulnerability Fields (Mid Slots)
• 1x Pithum C-Type EM Ward Amplifier (Mid Slot) (Covers the EM resist hole)
• 1x Damage Control (Low Slot)
• 1x Large Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer II (Rig) (Covers the thermal resist hole)
• 1x Large Core Defense Field Extender II (Rig) (Adds additional buffer)

That's a lot of tank modules, and they waste a load of slots that we'd like to use to improve DPS, therefore we created the advanced fit. You should upgrade to this as soon as possible. It has vastly improved safety due to higher resists and buffer which give logi more time to get you stable, and also allows a smaller number of logi to keep you stable indefinitely. The advanced fit's tank consists of the following:

• 2x Adaptive Invulnerability Fields (Pithum B Type/Pithum A Type) (Mid Slots) (B Types work for the advanced fit, but we recommend A Types as soon as you can afford them as they give you a ridiculously large HP pool that makes you very safe)
• 1x Damage Control (Low Slot)
• 1x Large Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I (Rig) (Covers the EM resist hole)

As you can see we gain an extra mid slot and an extra rig by upgrading to the advanced fit, and the resists and buffer also go up. There are no disadvantages to the advanced fit (well other than cost!). We use these extra slots for a Tracking Computer and a rate of fire rig. This in turn allows us to remove the Tracking Enhancers from the lows and add Drone Damage Amplifiers, which improves your drone DPS.

The DDD (drone bunny) fit is designed to be used only by the DDD, if you are not the active DDD, please do not fit it. Only advanced Vindicators can fit the DDD fit, if you are doing DDD as a basic Vindicator do not make any changes to your fit, you will have to survive using one web.

1. Remove 1x Tracking Computer (Mid Slot)
2. Add 1x Stasis Webifier (Mid Slot)
3. Remove 2x Drone Damage Amplifier (Low Slot)
4. Add 2x Tracking Enhancer (Low Slot)

You should use a faction web as a Vindicator for increased range and effectiveness. Please use True Sansha or equivalent web (longer range).

True Sansha Stasis Webifier

• Activation Cost: 5 GJ
• Range: 15km
• Maximum Velocity Reduction (Before Skills): -55%

The velocity reduction is improved by your Minmatar Battleship skill, you should train it to Level IV as soon as possible, and if you fly Vindi a lot then you should consider training it to Level V.

The vindicator is a close range brawling ship. You aim to dish out as much damage as possible on targets that you will either burn to, or will spawn within your optimal when a new wave starts.

Launch and assign your drones to the HHH as soon as you land in a site. The one exception to this is in a TCRC, in a TCRC please only launch and assign drones once you get within range of the tower. This is both to prevent your drones taking agro and also because they will generally travel slower than you.

As close range DPS you will be carrying 2-3 types of Ammo depending on whether you are using T1/T2 guns. Please upgrade to T2 guns as soon as possible. They do vastly improved amounts of DPS and their ammo is also cheaper.

It is important to use the right ammo for the right situations, generally if you can web your target use short range ammo, if you cannot, then use long range. If you don't know what ammo you should be using ask in fleet chat.

Generally you will web full fleet targets and your targets as a DPS player (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,X,Y,Z)

You need to make sure to have Velocity on your overview. You should prioritise webbing targets with high velocity (>100m/s), that is not rapidly dropping (if it is rapidly dropping someone else has likely already applied a web). You should call out the target's tag that you are webbing over comms, e.g. (“Three!”) so that people know it has been webbed. If you spot something that badly needs a web but yours is already occupied, call over comms, e.g. (“We need a web on four!”)

There's a few important rules regarding different ship types:

1. Arnons/Outunis should be webbed if they are in range.
2. Vylade should never be webbed, it does not have an MWD, so it is a waste of a web.
3. The first target (#1) generally will not need a web as it will die extremely fast.
4. Drone Bunnies (DDD/HHH/SSS) should use their webs on targets they are actively trying to kill.
5. Romis are priority web targets in many cases due to their extremely quick burn speed.

You should kill your targets in the following order:

• Full Fleet Targets (As called by the FC)
• 1-9, X, Y, Z - Normal DPS (Shoot if no full fleet targets)
• X - Full Fleet Targets
• J - DO NOT SHOOT

Our Vindicators have four specific support roles, Vindi Anchor (VVV), Light Drone Bunny (DDD), and the Heavy/Sniper Drone Bunnies (HHH/SSS). Learning roles and volunteering on a regular basis will allow FCs to begin to recognise you, which may improve the speed at which you get into fleet.

While we want all of our vindicators to be able to fly themselves to targets that need webs, and then get to the anchor positions before the next spawn, and to be able to do this by themselfs it is not a realistic expectation as we will often have new bros in fleet, and people who are just not fantastic at spacial awareness. For this reason at any given time we will have one designated vindi anchor in fleet. For information on how to do this check out Anchoring and Fleet Positioning (AAA/VVV Roles).

The Light Drone Bunny, is responsible for killing those small pesky frigates that most Vindicators can't kill. They do this by loading ammo with a higher tracking, switching to a fit with higher tracking and directing the fleet's light drones to targets. The DDD is very important and is one of the few roles used in every single site. For more information visit the Light Drone Bunny Guide (DDD).

The Heavy Drone Bunnies are responsible for directing our heavy drones towards targets, for more information visit the Heavy Drone Bunny Guide (HHH/SSS).