First let me preface this by stating that the 20 Frigate Plan is not something that I can take any credit for coming up with but I have not seen it mentioned on these Forums yet and I’d hate to see a good idea die out.
What is the 20 Frigate Plan you ask?
The basic premise of the 20 Frigate Plan is that you go buy 20 of your favorite Frigates fit them all out exactly the same and then head out and ‘lose’ them.
Go to Low-sec (or Null-Sec) and lose twenty of your favorite Frigates or lose Frigates until you can kill 4 pilots in a row with the same fit without dying.
After each engagement try to document it with an ‘After Action Report’ with some of the following information in it:
Overview, Goals and Objectives:
An overall summary of the fight. Was the range dictated? What was the fit you used? Was that fit effective against your opponent?
Analysis of outcomes:
What worked? What didn’t? Did your Pod escape?
Conclusion/Summary and Post Action Thoughts:
Did you forget to overheat? Did you miss noticing your opponents drones? What could help improve your survivability in the future? Do some research and see if you can find your opponents fit on zKillboard.
After every fight think about sending a message to your opponent and thank them for a good fight. Tell them you want to get better at PvP and ask what you could do to improve. Some will respond, some will not, some will send you ISK and the fit they used, some will send you some pointers, others will send salt and scams but just take it all in, send thanks when appropriate and move on to your next fight.
If you’re brand new to EVE the best part of this ‘After Action Report’ documention is that your pilot will end up having a good combat log that can be submitted with an API to a PvP Corp. Most will enjoy the read about your evolution into a combat pilot.
This doesn’t necessarily need to be done with 20 Frigates, you could do this with 20 Cruisers or 20 Battleships or 50 Frigates but for the newer pilots sticking with 20 Frigates will be fairly inexpensive while giving you an introduction to PvP in EVE, a solid lesson in loss and hopefully a number of ‘good fights’ that will get your heart pumping.
Can anyone advise on how a new (omega) player should go about managing their security rating and standings when doing this in low sec? How much does my security rating drop if I aggress unprovoked? How do I raise that rating back up so I can travel through high sec space without being attacked by concord or whatever?
To bring your status up you can hunt for clone soldiers/recruiters in asteroid belts. You’ll need high dps (destroyer like a arty thrasher) to kill them but they bring up your status by about .1. You can loot their tags and turn them in to a Concord station to increase your rating.
On the topic of security tags that can raise security status, is it just the tags from clone soldiers that can be used this way? Can tags dropped by pirate faction npc rats be used like this?
this is what I did as a newb, main difference is I did it with corp mates, we filled the corp hangers with t1 frigs and mods and just blasted each other over and over. What really made it work was being able to talk about what we did afterwards. Also jumping on the test server can be useful, I thought I had a foolproof ship that ended up getting destroyed almost instantly as I failed to think of something.
Just join faction warfare for a week. Or don’t pod and mix mission running in during your “off” time. I don’t know the exact ratio of mission hours to pvp kills, but in FW I had no problem offsetting losses. I’d shoot anything not in my faction, but having a free pass to shoot Amarr helped too.
I actually agree. This plan is probably the most effective way to start pvp for anyone. Learn your d-scans of course before you head out, but then go die a bunch.
This method has been used in one form or another, under different names, for at least a decade. At one time it was the Rifter method. After that the Merlin and Incursus were rated highly. Personally I find the Tristan underrated, though I’m still a Minmatar pilot at heart.
Great they are taking away the utility high on the rifter making it a pure gank/tank which will get its ass kicked by all the other now.
The utility high was the only thing that allowed you to have funky fits to kill the other races combat frigs as its damage output is bad compared to the rest…Ah well.
Where I do appreciate your positivity I find it hard to learn how to PvP when everyone seems to run around mob handed.
Every fight I have been in there is no question that the opposing force is going to win because they are only playing by outnumbering.
I cant afford to PvP at any level when I am always guaranteed to lose.
Thanks again for sounding like “learning to PvP” is possible. I’m sure more new players will be fooled into this belief and keep trying whilst feeding the pirates their regular income.
I went out and got 6 frigs to try this with, looks like a fun way to get over being nervous about engagement. I got blown up yesterday, looked up the guy on the killboards and saw he had blown up thousands of ships before me so I didn’t feel too bad :). TBH I would like to do this with a group of 2 or 3 others as well to learn about fleet commands and chat and stuff, but I am not really sure how to find small gangs. I tried asking in Militia chat and Local a few times but I got no responses lol
I -almost- won one of the battles, it was super close finally, had the enemy in half hull
I almost won another, but I had a late start since my dog was all over me wanting to go out
I had a crazy thing happen (I hope): in a small plex with a FW ally I had not met. He started demanding I leave, I guess for his points? I didn’t understand him targeting me, I thought he was a noob like me. He blew me up, my own militia ally . . . so I put a 20mil bounty on him, which I am considering renewing a few times in a row
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