I have been flying carriers for a couple of years, even had a Nyx before our corp moved. I had adjusted and learned how not to lose fighters (when the fighter change occurred) with my Thanny. Now I am flying a Nid and I am having a bad time with the Einherji fighters. I am losing about 1-2 per site.
Here is what I am doing: wrap in at 50, get things setup, launch. I select my target (frigates first), hit “W” so they orbit (set at 5000m), then F1 so they fight. When the target is destroyed, I select the next target, then “W” again, fire etc.
When I start taking damage, I return them to the launch bay. Sometimes I will lose them immediately, they go from brown to red to BOOM.
I have read the Carrier ratting guide(s) posted here, very informative, thought I was doing what was recommended.
Judging from your description I don’t see it either. I use the same procedure and keeping the fighters orbiting is usually enough even if 4 elite cruisers hammer them. I can even leave them motionless between targets for a few seconds until the standard weapons stopped cycling and they don’t go instantly from yellow/orange to red.
Me thinks its about watching your aggro and your choice of aggro. What I do is not target the frigs … but target the battleships and alpha them off the field… one volley of missiles and a turret volley or two and they are gone. then on to the cruisers or battlecruisers… then the frigs…
seems like I am as usual ass backwards, or retarded… yea? well then why do I do it?
I dont loose fighters, because the frigs dont do enough dps to kill them for one, not in the time I GIVE THEM by clearing the other rats AS FAST AS I CAN- meaning, my intention in every site is to warp to said range, usually 50km is fine depending on the site, deploy fighters AFTER ALL npc yellow box my carrier, THEN deploy fighters and mwd them to the battleships, thru the triggers… spawning all waves as fast as possible. I do not clear the waves like you run normal sites, as you need to watch for dps yea? you have a carrier… for crying out loud, spawn all that ■■■■ and blap the dps off the field, then clean up the scraps…
the thing is, the frigs do little damage when your frighters are moving quickly right? so keeping them mwd and volley missiles and turrets together in timing, then mwd again to the next target… so on and on. the battlescruisers and cruisers… now they are the ones killing the fighters in a shot or three… yes… watch the aggro changes very carefully. as soon as you are not being red boxed, your fighters are being red boxed… or assume that they are. Clearing out the BC’s and cruisers quickly helps a lot, I do them in between battleship spawns… leaving the frigs for last or when I basically run out of missiles, which by that time ALL battleships are dead. You get so many missile volleys then you have to reload by recalling them to your bay. I only have to do this once per site. relaod that is. RARELY are my fighters even taking damage. This strategy of mine I developed with one carrier. When I got my second carrier pilot up and running, I tried two carriers, and the difference is little… other than the time it takes to run the site. with one carrier, my fighters take little damage, hardly ever into armor. when I use two carriers, my fighters rarely take any damage at all because the npc are dying so quickly, its actually a challenge to keep up for me. 5 min a site… cheers.
Is there an order in which I should be selecting my target then hitting “W”, or should I press “W” and then select the target? I’ve tried both, same results, fighters getting their butts kicked, lol
I run 2 drone navigation computers. Works great. Also, Nidhoggur has a speed bonus for fighters per Minmatar carrier skill level for extra fighter-not-getting-popped-and-getting-to-targets fasterness.
I am clicking on the next target WHILE I am still engaged with the first one. I have the fighters orbiting the 2nd target.
Example: I start on target “A”, while they are engaged, I click on target “B” and have them orbit “B”. Then when “A” is toast, I start on “B” and have the fighters orbit “C”
I also just thought of this, at times my carrier will start moving, I have not clicked on it, but it will start orbiting on it’s own.
Here are a couple of things you should try. First, make sure your default orbit range is as close to the fighters range as possible. If they have to move out or in before going into orbit, you will notice they take more damage.
Next make sure your tactical camera is on, that way you can see the orbit of your fighters when you are giving them commands. This will let you see a few things. The first one is what the fighters orbit is when they are attacking vs what it is when you command them to orbit. This will help you set the range on the fighters. You should not see too much change between those orbits. It also gives you a visual that your command was isssued. If you are attacking battleship 1, Hold W, then click the next target you will see the orbit visual move to that target. The fighters won’t move to that orbit until after they have killed the current target.
The whole time you will be able to see if your fighters are moving or not… hope that helps…
Not going to say my way is “the” way but I’ve not lost fighters since I first learned how to carrier rats.
Focus frigates with all 3. Best to blap them quickly and reduce their damage output faster.
If you’re fighting guristas, focus fire their ECM boats
Don’t recall your fighters when they take damage… they move in straight lines. Just keep them out, worst case, just have them orbit the structure while they repair. Either way, keep transversal up.
Start orbiting the next target before the first dies - before the last volley. That way they are moving toward the next target (so that they can get back to having good transversal) sooner than later. If you don’t, there’s a period where they’ll just stop and wait for you.
It is kind of funny that fighters, which are supposed to be manned, require you to pick every target for them, whereas drones, which aren’t, can be set to aggressive and just pick another one for themselves.
AI > humans really is the future of humanity… good thing it looks like capsuleer > AI still!
I actually do put all 3 onto the same target, I agree, get rid of the small fry first.
Question about orbiting before the first dies (which I do). I read (somewhere while doing research on this) that if the fighters are actively engaged on another target, they will ignore the command to orbit until the gun cycle is complete. Yes/No???
I couldn’t definitively say… I do believe I’ve seen my fighters peel off when I tell them to orbit, but I’ve honestly never watched that close. I’m only ever glancing at the closest target for them to engage, the rest of my attention is on local channel and occasionally verifying that I’m aligned out.
My roomba bounces around the house… it gets the job done eventually. My manned broom, on the other hand, requires my attention but is finished in a lot less time because it’s not doing the roomba thing.
Or, fighters are manned, but they only follow orders?
