Smartbomb Camps VS Interceptor

I have a travel fit Ares I use to move around low-sec and Null mainly when I’m trying to move small items or looking for deals out in the wilds. My Ares aligns well below 2 seconds and with bubble immunity, I’m basically untouchable. The only thing that is really a threat is smartbomb camps. I tend to fly directly from gate to gate which puts me at risk of getting hit by smartbomb camps.

To mitigate the risk, I fit a decent shield buffer of two MSE and an Invuln II.

My current fit:

Travel Ares

[Ares, Travel Ares]
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II

Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Caldari Navy Medium Shield Extender
Caldari Navy Medium Shield Extender

[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]

Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II
Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II

I’ve encountered a few smartbombing Machs in low-sec and have yet to see any smartbomb camps in Null. The Machs I’ve seen in low have always been solo and have hit me every time. They drop my shields down to 65-70% or take about a 1/3. That means I should be able to survive 3 SB battleships hitting me simultaneously or in rapid succession. A fourth SB battleship will probaly pop me or at the very least put me in deep structure. If I replace a stab with a DCII, I should be a able survive 4 SB battleships, possibly even 5.

I have two questions, first how often or likely am I to encounter a smartbomb camp with battleships set up where more than 3 will be able to hit my small interceptor? Second, when a ship is cloaked, either by gate jumping or otherwise, can it be damaged by AOE weapons like smartbombs?

can’t be SB after jump.

fit a DC instead of the stab. it seems the server makes you start align at the beginning of a tick, and makes warp at the end of a tick, ie going from 1.8 to 1.69 is useless.

with 2 rf extenders , a em rig and an extender rig, you can reach 13.4 k ehp.
remember to DSCAN on gate arrival, if you see a BS then OL you r invul and activate it, you will reach 14.4 k ehp.

also if you go often to null with expensive items, make yourself a set of tactical bookmarks, ie BMs 500 km off the gate, NOT ALIGNED. rgiht clic in space,my locations, tacticals, “next system tactical” warp to, and once warp started radial menu on the route next system-> jump (you will warp again as soon as you land)

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Imagine that, padders on gates looking for lazy kills.

if the out gate is within dscan simply narrow dscan it, if not use a bounce and dont go gate to gate. If you choose to go gate to gate you will get popped one day and it will probably be with something valuable in the hold.

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you can use an alt scout in another inty as well if you carry valuable goods. You’ll lose less time than with multiples BMs.

I’ve moved orcas from jita to deep nullsec that way lol

So basically there is absolutely no difference (from game mechanics perspective) between a ship that aligns in 2.0 sec and 2.99 ?

According to what I read, yes.

However this sounds weird to me. To my understanding, the server proceeds every incoming request ASAP, and if a point orders reaches the server 1.7 s after the server acknowledge your align, then it should check out whether or not you entered warp before.

ie, if you start aligning and the tick is at t0, then tackler received “your are on grid” and starts targeting you, then at t1 he receives “acquired lock” and sends back the “activate point”. If the server receives it at 1.75s, he must apply the action at this moment : are you in range ? did you enter warp ? so he will calculate your position and state at this time , including whether or not you did enter warp (and you should if you have 1.69 align). That means that THEORICALLY you should have a benefit from going to 1.69.

Yet this would in practical make no difference, because if the tackler has low enough ping to receive tick+ clic delay(we assume he spams ctrl click with point preloaded) + send order to target you +(lock time) in less than 1s, it very likely mean the point order will reach server between 1s and 1.1 s.
At max with 0s target delay it means he has less than 0.5 ping, which means you won’t have any effect unless you reach below 1.5s align. in reality unless you reach below 1.1 in both case the gain would have no effect.

Basically going down from 1.99 to 1.1 would have no effect. Going lower could have some effect , on the very rare occasion where the tackler has enough ping so that 1+ping>align time.

also there is the question, align time starting when ? when i click warp/dock/jump ? or from when my command reached the server ?

I tried timing a shuttle and it sure as hell my stopwatch showed more than 1.7s from when i click jump to when the speed bar jumped to max.

align time starts the tick after the server receives your align request.
if you have a shuttle that aligns in 1.7s , the minimum delay between click and “entered warp” is 2s+2 *ping ; the maximum delay is 3s+2 *ping, ie there is the 1s range corresponding to when the server receives the request at the end of the tick or at the beginning. The 2s are because the server will only tell you you entered warp at the end of a tick

And yet… every so often the loot fairy says Yes!

The list is nearly endless.

People try to use cepters to carry freight. That alone is good reason to use something that can kill them.

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