Oh my GOD, it’s annoying. You know how you have different tracking speeds for bigger turrets? Yeah, so I implemented a 150mm hybrid gun onto my Merlin, but the aim is so horrible that the shots never hit the Guristas frigates.
I have 3 guns:
Civilian Gatling Railgun: Aim doesn’t miss at 2km
75mm: misses sometimes
150mm: Doesn’t hit at all unless I use a tracking computer
How do I land shots on ships I am orbiting, and they are orbiting me?
Just as a suggestion. Choose one of the guns to use in all three slots and unfit the other two. Mechanically you are asking the game to keep track the rate of fire/speed/tracking of three very different guns. It’s a wonder if you could hit the broadside of a barn.
I’m new to the game, I never thought of it that way. But large guns have low tracking anyway right?
Fight at your optimal range with one type of gun.
If you are missing shots, try tracking modules, webifiers or target painters.
I have made and still make a lot of mistakes. Have been playing for a year now. I take each mistake as a learning experience. And Gerard suggested. A webifier, a tracking module or even a good target painter can do wonder to increase your hits. This is a good starting place to get an idea of how to fit your ship. https://eveworkbench.com/
And if you have joined a Corp. You can ask there and/or check their doctrines. As to what is expected of you to be able have skills and fly ships.
Railguns have poor tracking, especially at close range where angular velocity tends to be higher. If you’re orbiting an enemy at 500 at high speeds, you’ll probably miss a lot.
Train into Missiles and Missile ships (i.e. Caldari) and forget about rails for now.
Missiles are just easier for new players to pick up and use, but tbh after my 12 years I still use them.
Don’t orbit all the time.
You chose to orbit only if you need to evade incoming damage.
Try to keep the target at your optimal range, if it comes too close, ensure your range control wlth a stasis webifier. Use tracking computers only to increase range and tracking if fighting on long range.
So you are suggesting a “keep at range” manoeuvre?
You could try manually piloting your ship by doubleclicking in space in the direction you want to fly.
If you turn on Tactical Overlay you can easily tell where other ships are moving. Try moving in the same direction as those ships you shoot, which minimizes transversal velocity.
You will have a much easier time hitting those ships then!
A lazier approach would be to ‘keep at range’ which if you’re faster than the other ship also can make them fly in a line directly towards or away from you for easier hitting.
I always use Keep@Range in Combination with a webber and it solves like 95.43% of all my application problems. Because if the target is so much faster and more agile than you that even this won’t help, manual piloting won’t help either because your ship simply doesn’t turn fast enough. Unless ou want to become an elite PvPer, it will be enough for most cases.
So, as long as you can tank the damage: Keep@range at about 90% of your optimal range or 80% of your webbers range, whatever is lower. For exactly that I use a Federation Navy Webifier (14km range) on all ships that need one. The extra range is worth it, since I usually fly Amarr laserboats, and conveniently the Optimal Range for Pulse Lasers with Conflag or Multifrequency happens to be pretty often around 12km. A perfect match.
If you have trouble tanking, go into orbit and pick a balanced distance so you still reduce the hostile ships tracking but not too close else you will slow down a lot and ruin your own application. 10km works best for my puposes (again, Heavy Pulse Lasers… most of the time).
I just use approach to zero.
I always get killed