PREAMBLE:#1 in raids, #5 in kills, #13 in hacks. i obviously love PvP in this game, so figured i would share some of my PvP tips.
(stat update 01sep2016 .. #1 in raids, #2 in kills, #4 in hacks)WHY PVP:for most players, PvP is about getting
combat badges to use in purchasing
Battle Market Artifacts, rank up allies, or to scan for bases. others seek to get the stats to move up the PvP leaderboards to earn PvP medals and get
PvP Elite status. some players only PvP to retaliate for planet thefts, complete mission tasks, or to return PvP badge actions. a few just plain enjoy the competitive aspect of PvP that is missing from NPCs.
BADGING VS STATS:PvP combat badges (other than planet thefts) are only awarded every 12 hours. any successful disable/raid/hack done less than 12 hours from the previous disable/raid/hack will still add to the successful raid/hack stats, but will not reward badges. if the target has no resources, a raid/hack will still reward a badge after 12 hours, but will not increase the successful raid/hack stats. players can ensure that sufficient resources are available for a successful raid/hack by using a
Spy Probe - Resources before attempting their raid/hack.
BADGING EFFICIENCY:there are 3 different ways to evaluate efficiency in collecting combat badges: time, energy, and xp. if you use de-buff artifacts, there are trade-offs between these efficiencies. using more de-buff artis will save you on the energy and xp costs of disables and failed hack attempts, but will result in fewer badges per day if you run into the offensive action count limit (
100 per rolling 24 hour period or 125 if you have a maxed out
Temporal Containment Shell). you can avoid the use of TMs by waiting the 15 minute increment between each hack or raid, but that would limit you to a maximum of 96 hacks/raids per 24 hours.
1. time efficiency - to collect combat badges in the shortest amount of play time
> leave badge comms to track previous badges to be able to collect new ones after 12 hours
> use
Time Manipulators (TM) to decrease the time between raid and hack attempts from the 15 minute standard.
> use de-buff artifacts to weaken an enemy ship before disabling / raiding / hacking - however, most of these will add to your offensive action count, and a TM can not be used if the offensive action counter has reached your maximum (100 or 125) ... each individual offensive action expires 24 hours after the action is taken
2. energy efficiency - to collect combat badges with the least amount of energy expended
> use containment missiles, emp spheres, and disarming bombs to weaken an enemy ship before disabling (have to balance energy cost of using the emps and d.bombs versus the energy saved on disables)
> use quantum flares and positron clouders to weaken an enemy ship before hacking (trade-off between increased chance of success and the energy expended in failed attempts)
> avoid the energy cost of leaving badge comms by only scheduling a PvP run at least 12 hours after your previous PvP run
3. xp efficiency - to collect combat badges with the least amount of xp gained
> focus on hack and raid attempts which give zero xp, but require 5 energy per attempt
> match scans with a friendly ship of similar rank and simultaneously target the same ship
> target weaker ships to minimize the number of hits required and xp gained when attempting to collect red badges
TARGET SELECTION:below rank 1000 or so, the biggest issue in target selection is maximizing efficiency. after rank 1000, the greater focus of target selection is maximizing the size of your target pool. your default
badging range goes down to (your rank * 0.6) with no upper rank restriction. from the ships that fall into that rank range, your battle tab will be populated with ships that have less cloak than your ship has scan.
> tap EVERYONE on your battle tab. focus your attention on those to whom you are doing the most damage, relative to their rank and ship size (decks). focusing only on those with a laughable combat rep may cause you to miss out on some easy PvP targets. also, be sure NOT to click on the red x to exit from the ship targeting sub.window ... just click on the battle tab in the background and the sub.window will fade out. this prevents a forced refresh of your bt until you are ready to do it yourself.
> any ship attacked at least once will disappear from your battle tab (if you are in a legion) for a period of time, meaning that your bt will be filled up with 10 new ships that you have not recently attacked. however, eventually ships will start to re.appear on your battle tab. when that happens, you might want to stop tapping for a bit WITHOUT REFRESHING your battle tab. the battle tab only tends to require a hard refresh after 2 hours of inactivity, so you should have time to target a previously tapped ship once the halc expires, or successfully ice.fish a raid from a ship on your bt that has been dropped by another ship in the interim.
> if you start to see some ships re.appear during a PvP run, you can change up your bt pool by boosting your scan using
Tachyon Cylinders,
Subspace Seekers, and
Contnuum Beacons and shuffling in other
scan mods - your battle tab pool will now include some ships with higher cloak.
> ships that do a PvP action on your ship or your planets can be targeted for the next 48 hours from your news feed. click on the 'Battle Logs' tab to target these ships. if they have since been disabled by another ship, you can get "free" yellows and raids at the cost of 0 xp. also, for the first 24 hours, those ships are guaranteed not to have a halcyon trap.
> if you are running low on
Null Fuses, you can use a
Stryll Trap Probe to determine how many traps a target has in effect. 4 traps generally indicates the standard trap outlay of a KVT, omicron, halcyon trap, and QFT, meaning that you might burn off a null on a KVT and still not get the disable due to a follow.up halcyon trap. as well, you can burn another null off on the QFT and may be limited to only a single blue badge if the target does not have any research points on hand, so using a spy probe - resources avoids wasting the action count if you want the successful hacks stat incremented as well.
> the ships of those players appearing on the top10 kills leaderboard can be targeted by ANYONE in the game, from rank 1 trainees all the way to Shockwave13 at rank 6180. but remember that none of them got onto the kills leaderboard by playing pacifist ...
TIPS FOR PvP KILLS:> any target with any stat higher than the standard 3/5/5 action count for disables, raids, and hacks can not apply a halcyon trap, so is a guaranteed disable if the target is offline, you have a null fuse to remove any krionite virus trap effect, and you have sufficient energy. you can check the target's effects tab and comm log to gauge recent activity.
> dropping a ship that is online and paying attention is often challenging, and sometimes your energy could be spent on easier targets, especially if the opponent decides to treadmill you (letting their shield run down and then firing off the occasional repair nanodrones to replenish their hull) instead of replacing KVTs. if you have been attacking a target for more than a couple minutes, check the effects tab on the ship for any very recent ship effect boosts (nanite swarm capsules, shield amplifier) to minimize the chance of being treadmilled. that said, you may be able to drop a weaker ship before they get the pop up notification of their trap being set off. scan blitz effects may also mean the target is busy on a scan run, so might not notice their hull going down in the background.
> at higher ranks, energy becomes a critical factor for PvP as ships gradually improve and require more effort to disable.
> if you are running *extremely* low on PvP targets, you can consider trying to get yourself alerted. some players randomly CM targets on their bt, multi.raid / multi.hack 'sensitive' players, throw artis at enemy planets to get on their logs, or start trash.talking on ship comms. of course, this only works if your ship is capable of handling the grief that will ensue
TIPS FOR RAIDING:>
raiding tips on the wiki
> lower.ranked targets will likely increase your chance of raiding success due to crew differential (look for low.ranked Taltherians), but higher.ranked targets will tend to give greater raid rewards (based on rank)
TIPS FOR HACKING:> boost your scan using
Tachyon Cylinders,
Subspace Seekers, and
Contnuum Beacons and shuffling in scan mods to change which ships will appear in your pool of battle tab targets (will get ones with higher cloak).
> keep your cloak a bit higher than your scan to minimize failed crit.hacks
> look for an action count of 3/5/4 or a very recent badge comm which might indicate that the target has been recently hacked and may not have reset their QFT yet
> hack any halc'd targets that you can since you can 'bump' them from your battle tab for zero energy or xp (if you are in a legion)
> hacking higher.ranked ships will steal more research (based on rank)
> for balanced PvP, try to focus on disables when you have plenty of xp left before you rank up, and focus on hacking when you are getting close to ranking up
> if you are running low on null fuses, ease up on hacking, since you can get 2 badges (red and yellow) for each null fuse burnt on a KVT versus only the 1 blue badge for each null fuse spent clearing a QFT.
TIPS FOR DEFENDING vs PvP:> if you are not going to PvP for a period, you can use
Calming Amplifiers and
Halcyon Traps to avoid being disabled and raided.
> running with 4 active traps will discourage some pilots who use a stryll trap probe, who will move on to another target with more likely prospects to collect a badge.
> emptying your research hourly when you are online will discourage some pilots who use a spy probe - resources to check before attempting a successful hack.
> boosting your cloak will make you harder to find on the battle tab, and boosting cloak and scan will require the potential hacker to have higher cloak before successfully hacking, and increases the chance that you will get a reverse hack if they fail in their attempt.
> you can burn off your attacker's null fuses by using
Krionus Virus Traps and
Quantum Firewall Traps.
> install 3
Gemini Cannons to force your attackers to repair more often, giving you a bit more time to notice that you are being attacked. having a full roster of traps on your ship also can help as it will give you more opportunities to notice the pop up messages if you are online. in that vein, to maximize the chance of spotting the notifications when you are online, have your shield and energy at maximum recharge, and place bids on the Galactic Trade Center as soon as previous ones expire.
> you can make your ship tougher to disable by aiming for a
100% damage cap rating build (a.k.a. SSB for ships at ranks below 750) and boosting your defense to minimize the damage taken according to the
PvP Damage Cap Formula. aiming for a 100% damage cap rating at a lower rank will result in
trade-offs in cloak and scan mods, so your choice will depend on which PvP attacks you wish to avoid the most. ideally, you want to plan to hit 100% damage cap rating when your ship is ready to PvP consistently.
> maximizing your hull to force your opponent to use more hits (at 5 energy per attack) to disable your ship.
OTHER PvP GUIDES:19oct2014 - looking for PvP advice
ShadowsPoison (15aug2014) - PvP for dummies - with lots more analysis of how to interpret the data from stryll trap probes
best race/prof for PvPXzien (28mar2013) - PvP tips
24aug2012 - anti-PvP ship build
SpoonyJank (24sep2010) - outdated but a nice history lesson in how PvP was in the early days of GL