thanks for the input. How does this look for a fit? Still has 2 empty high slots, around 17 CPU and 20 PG left over. 2.08 second align time as below, 1.99 seconds if the DCII is replaced with a 4th Nano. I'm not tied to the Crusader if some other racial ship would be a better choice/

[Crusader - Scout]

Prototype Cloaking Device I
Sisters Core Probe Launcher (Sisters Core Scanner Probe)

1MN Afterburner II
1MN Microwarpdrive II

3x Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Damage Control II

2x Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II

Great stuff

If you know how the server handles stuff - in 1 second ticks -, a tad of signature is really not important, having an aligntime below an even amount of seconds is better.

so: 2.08 s of align, 30m sig = bad (not really bad though)
1.99 s of align, 40m of sig = good


The aligntime you see in your fitting tools is the time the ship takes from 0 m/s to 75% of maximum speed (warp treshold).
Every second the Server will check the commands and statuses of everything and handle them.

So, at some point you hit warp.
At the next server tick, the server proceeds your command, and your ship starts accelerating.
At the next server tick, your ship is below the warp treshold, and will thus not commence warp.
At the next server tick, and given an align time of 2.08 seconds, your ship is still below the warp treshold and will thus not commence warp.
At the next server tick, that is 3 seconds after your ship started accelerating, you are above your warp treshold and your ship will enter warp.

You can observe this behaviour if you watch closely on your speed bar, as it will often rise above 75% maxspeed before your ship enters warp.



So, for your enemy, it looks like this:

You decloak from gatejump, he sees you in his OV and starts mashing lock with pre-running point.
At the next servertick, the lock request gets actually handled.
If you have an aligntime below 2 seconds, that gives him 1 second he has for locking and pointing you. If he takes longer than 1 second to lock you up, you will warp.
If he manages to lock you, you're pointed and basically drop dead.

Now, there's some weird cases of people yellow-boxing you and point not immediately going off.
Not sure how this behaves.

Also, not 100% sure what happens if he reacts in a timeframe of 1 servertick from uncloak to lock theoretically achieved. Like, 0.2 seconds of reaction time, 0.5 seconds of locktime.
Can't tell you if it takes 1 second or 2 seconds to lock you.



But all in all,

when it comes to traveling nullsec, Ceptors > All.
Nano'd up, cloak, mwd, and everything that can go wrong is a ragecamp with a hell a lot of competent ceptor pilots, or a smartbomb ship fishing you off a gate.

Cov Ops tend to get caught by well performed gatecamps, log in traps and lack of perch spots.

Supplemental material here:

http://namamai.wordpress.com/2014/06/25/the-server-tick-or-wtf-why-didnt-my-point-turn-on/

That's probably the best description of server ticks in EVE I've ever read.