Kessiaan
Minmatar
Army of One
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Posted - 2009.02.27 16:06:00 -
[1]
I do mostly solo in FW.
It's rough and I died a lot at first. And I mean lots and lots. But eventually I got somewhat decent at it and it's a lot more fun, IMO, to roam around, harass fleets, pick off stragglers, jump people at planets / belts, and in general just be a pain in the ass that's both everywhere and nowhere. 
Some things I learned...
- Focus your skillpoints. Being very highly proficient at a small number of ships is very important when solo since you don't have any (regular) friends to fall back on.
- Fly cheap 'till you get the hang of things.
- Agility is much more important than raw firepower. As a solo'er, angry people will come looking for you. Frigates of all stripes, and the more agile T1 cruisers are great for solo since they have the agility to evade even the most blobby foes with some preperation (more on that in a bit)
- Instas are your friends. There's two kinds of instas I use a lot - undock instas and gate instas.
For an undock insta, wait until it's slow, then take a fast T1 frigate, undock from your home station (or wherever you're doing this at), make sure you're close to the center of the 'cone' it will randomly shoot you out in, then go straight forward at least until you're off the grid (I generally go about 1000kms). Now, whenever you undock from said station, you warp to your BM, and you'll instawarp and be basically immune to station camps.
For a gate insta, this takes advantage of the fact that whenever you jump through a gate you'll always be aligned in the same direction. So jump through a gate, wait about 15-20 seconds until you're fully aligned, then, as above, go straight forward 500-1000kms, and make a bookmark. Now, if you jump through a gate while it's camped (or you're being pursued), you can lose 'em by just waiting until you self-align while cloaked, then warp to your BM. It's not quite as foolproof as the undock insta since you still have to get up to speed but if you're in anything bigger than an inty or T1 frig it will make your warp a LOT faster since you don't have to align. I've never been caught using these, though it is technically possibly with a fast-locking 'ceptor who's on the ball.
- Just because you're solo, doesn't mean they will be. You can still get kills and live to tell about it 1v2, or even 1v3 or 1v4 if the engagement strongly favors you. This really depends on the specifics of the battle and it's something you'll have to get a feel for, but some examples are unconventional fits that are very strong against a particular class of ships, foes that are spread out and you can kill one before the rest can come to his aid, ganking one ship out of a camp and then running away (requires you be able to tank the fire until the gate lets you jump or the station lets you dock :P), baiting a fast ship away from his slower friends then BBQ'ing him, etc.
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