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guides:travelling_between_focuses
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Travelling Between Focuses
The Bowhead Ship Maintenance Array (SMA) Capacity at each level of ORE Freighter needs updating due to the November 15 patch which increased its base capacity.
We have to move constellation at least once per week, we probably average about 1.5 moves per week. Travelling is therefore an integral part of running incursions long term, and you should try and make your moving as efficient as possible. There are many, many different ways to move yourself and your ship(s) between so called “focuses” (constellations where we run). This guide will detail the different types of pilots, and the most appropriate methods for them to move.
Implants
If you're flying a Battleship, we highly recommend High-Grade Ascendancy implants, not only will these improve your efficiency and speed when running with us, they will also make moving a lot less painful since you can warp so much faster! Take a look at the Implants page for more information on implants.
Some Options for Different Types of Pilots
Single Ship, Single Trip
The cheapest and simplest method of moving is to simply refit your ship for travel, set destination and then travel there. Provided you don't move when gank fleets are active and use MWD+Cloak trick on potentially dangerous gates you will generally be safe. That said, this is still a high risk method of travel, if you do run into some gankers who want to kill you, they will kill you. They will attempt to instalock you to prevent cloak, bump you out of alignment, and form a fleet to come gank you. Tank is irrelevant on ganks, if gankers want to, they will kill you.
Single Ship, Two Trips (Usually one character for each)
By far the safest and most effective method of travel for someone with one ship and expensive fitting modules is to move the main ship fitted with all T2 mods attached to it, and then separately move the expensive deadspace/faction mods in a ship specifically chosen and fit for safely moving low volume goods. By far the best choice is a Blockade Runner, correctly flown they are pretty much uncatchable, unscannable and have a reasonably large amount of cargo for all the mods and ammo you could possibly need to bring. Other good options for the module moving ship include cloaky, low align time T3 Cruisers, specifically fit “Insta-Warp Hecates” which have a less than one second align time. Interceptors are also usable but are not completely uncatchable for someone with a fast ping who really wants to catch you.
Multiple Logi Ships
For multiple Logi ships (e.g. if you fly a Basi and Scimi), an Orca is an excellent choice for moving both hulls at once. It can reach a reasonably large EHP pool with a decent fit and can to the MWD+Cloak trick which can make it reasonably safe to fly unless there are bumping ships ready to decloak you. Expensive modules should be carried separately as explained above.
- An assembled and rigged Scimitar is 89,000m^3.
- An assembled and rigged Basilisk is 107,000m^3.
The Orca has a 400,000m^3 Ship Maintenance Bay. That means you can carry both of your Logi cruisers and a utility ship or two if you would like. Some useful utility ships include fast moving frigates for making instaundock bookmarks, covert ops for scouting, etc.
Multiple Battleships+Logi
Battleships are very large in terms of assembled volume:
- Vindicator/Nightmare - 486,000m^3
- Machariel - 595,000m^3
To move them at once we need to use a specialised ship: the Bowhead. The Bowhead is a freighter specifically designed for moving assembled ships. Thankfully, it can be tanked better than a regular freighter due to some nice mid slots, but it's still a danger to fly one. It's pretty much mandatory that you fly your expensive mods separately when using a Bowhead, and simply carry the ships with only rigs fitted in the Bowhead, both so that it is a less attractive target and so that in the event you are ganked that the loss is not catastrophic.
The Bowhead's Ship Maintenance Bay has an increasing capacity depending on your level of ORE Freighter:
- ORE Freighter III - 1,495,000m^3 - 2 Battleships and 2 Logi
- ORE Freighter IV - 1,560,000m^3 - 2 Battleships and 2 Logi
- ORE Freighter V - 1,625,000m^3 - 3 Battleships and 0 Logi OR 2 Battleships and 2 Logi
Note that regardless of your skills you will be unable to carry all 5 ships we fly. If you want the absolute fastest invite into fleet I would recommend carrying everything except a Machariel.
How to Correctly Travel
Checking for Gankers
You should always take a look at Dotlan prior to travelling.
Start by using Dotlan's route planner. Put in your starting system and your destination, choose “Prefer HighSec” and then press Go.
Take a look at the route, check if Uedama/Niarja are on your travel path (these are ganking hotspots due to the fact that they have 0.5 security and are difficult to avoid for travelling. Look for any systems with high numbers in the Kills column (kills in the last hour). If you think something looks suspicious, look at it closer. Click on the system name in Dotlan and go to the “Kills” tab which is powered by zKillboard. Look for freighters or other expensive ships dying, if even one has died recently it may indicate an active gank fleet.
If we have just changed focus there will be a lot of people moving and you may get some good intel if you ask in our in-game channel whether there are gankers active/is it safe to travel. Trust FC intel over others. Always do your own checks regardless of what anyone says.
Battleships
For Battleships, you want to fit for fastest align time and you may as well also fit for maximum warp speed with your remaining lows so that the trip is faster. Your tank is fairly irrelevant, if a group want to gank you they'll bring enough DPS, only way to stay safe is not be caught in the first place. The basics of a battleship travel fit are:
- Highs: Improved Cloaking Device II (very important)
- Mids: MWD, 2x Adaptive Invulnerability Fields, then fill the remaining slots with Large Shield Extender IIs
- Lows: Damage Control Unit, 3x Inertial Stabilisers, then fill the remaining slots with Experimental Hyperspatial Accelerators
If you are carrying your mods in the Battleship, use the expensive invuls, MWD, etc. since you may as well gain the extra tank. If you are carrying your expensive mods separately, just fit all T2 mods to the travel fit. Here are some travel fits for each of our mainline Battleships:
Travel Vindicator
Travel Nightmare
Travel Machariel
Orca
Two sample fits for an Orca are provided below. The Orca has a long standard align time (>40 sec), as a result you can either fly the speedy/reasonably safe way by doing the MWD+Cloak trick on each gate or you can fly the significantly slower but far safer way by using a webbing alt to make the Orca instawarp on each gate (due to weapons timer it will take a minimum of 60 sec to traverse each system you use the web on).
Orca 5.49AU/s with Ascendancies
Orca Max Tank 424k EHP
Bowhead
Welcome to the world of freighter travel. It's a dangerous world. You don't have a cloak and if anyone decides they really want to gank you, they probably can!
You should be carrying the assembled rigged hulls and nothing else in your Bowhead, all the mods should be going separately via BR/Cloaky T3/etc.
Like with an Orca, you have two choices, either one cycle of MWD on each gate to get you into warp in 10 seconds, or a webbing alt. For safety reasons it is recommended you have at minimum a webbing alt on standby taking each gate with you, to get you through Uedema/Niarja/other hot systems if there turns out to be a bump capable ship on the gate potentially scanning people.
You can either fit for warp speed so you can move reasonably fast, or for maximum tank to make yourself a less desirable target to gankers:
Bowhead Max Tank 446k EHP
Bowhead 4.63AU/s with Ascendancies
Blockade Runner
A correctly flown Blockade Runner is pretty much uncatchable, the important things you need to do to fly it correctly:
- When warping gate-to-gate:
- Click the jump button on the next gate to initiate warp
- As soon as you see your capacitor level drop indicating initiation of the warp, click your cloak
- When undocking from a busy, camped system (e.g. any trade hub), you should have an insta-undock bookmark which you use immediately and cloak as soon as it catapults you forward. Otherwise you will be vulnerable and unable to cloak for several seconds in which a gambler playing the “Blockade Runner Lottery” can gank you under the assumption that most Blockade Runner pilots are carrying something expensive.
You should, if possible, fit a Large Shield Extender (Compact Meta4 usually) to your BR along with some passive shield amplifiers. These will help prevent you getting instablapped by a Tornado/Talos on an undock.
For your lows, simply fit sufficient Nanos to reduce your align time to a reasonable level. For rigs, Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizers are excellent for those super fast warps.
Cloaky T3
If you can fly a T3, you should know how to fit it.
You want maximum tank, covert reconfiguration for your covert ops cloak and minimum align time, plus sufficient cargo for everything you want to carry. Play around in Pyfa with your favourite T3.
guides/travelling_between_focuses.txt · Last modified: 2017/01/04 14:52 by Aygo Swagtomo
