Spider tanking

[Sharkith]

So do any of you have extensive experience of this kind of tank in Eve? We have been trying it but findng that it is not as effective as having two dedicated logistics boats in a fleet.

We have to test it a lot more but basically at this stage it seems to be very poor. Anyone know much about these kinds of gangs?

The gang size we were using was 8-9.

Nat

p.s. I will report more as we continue testing

[taB]

While I have limited experience of this, a couple of things.

Are you using BSs or smaller stuff?

I would imagine that with 9 ships you are probably into the realms of dedicated logistics, they fill the role so much better. That said in the tourney some teams had 2 logistics ships as part of a team and they created cap from each other (2 ships remote cap boosting each other creates cap from nowhere), repped each other and provided repping to the rest of the team too. The commentators still classed this as spidering.

I would consider using logistics ships when you are better off fitting your damage ships with pure gank and worrying less about their tanking.

Not sure if that makes much sense but hey-ho. Personally if I can fit a remote rep in a final high I will but more for gang convenience. Obviously unless I have been instructed to fit something different

[SilverHood]

Spider tanking is only really effective when you have 20-40 battleships.

Any less and you're better off with logistics. If you're facing more than 40 enemy bs, remote reps are unlikely to save you anyway.

[Manisch Depressiv]

Originally Posted by SilverHood

Spider tanking is only really effective when you have 20-40 battleships.

In which case 20-40 sniper fitted (max range, max damahge) Battleships will alpha strike the spider tanking fleet into oblivion.

People have different opinions on spider tanking and different alliance have different doctrines, my opinion is that anyone fighting in such big and bigger fleets is boring and small scale setups can be more versatile and they have to be changed often anyway :P.

[taB]

tbh once you're into the realm of a 40 BS fleet you're gonna need a triage carrier or 2

[SilverHood]

Well, I probably should have been more specific... plated close range BS.

The only defense a sniper bs has is to stay aligned and pray for the best.

[Ctuchik]

Originally Posted by SilverHood

Well, I probably should have been more specific... plated close range BS.

The only defense a sniper bs has is to stay aligned and pray for the best.

and with 220+ km from everything i think thats enough defenses

[Sharkith]

we tried this out on the test server - on both occassions spider tanking lost out to logistics in similar sized gangs of 9 versus 9. In both fights the spider tanking gang lost all 9 members whereas the logistics lost 1 each time.

This was with similar setups, using logistics right in the miiddle of the fight one with repair drones on it and the other just itting there freely. Not once did they die.

[old.Tohtori]

Well i did a "plan" of a logistics spider tank, expanding over 200km. Well, more like a ring tank....or a really long line tank...or a cubetank?

Anyway, those logistic ships can dish out enormous reps from over 50km, so it takes work to remove them from the equation.

[LordjOX]

Originally Posted by Sharkith

we tried this out on the test server - on both occassions spider tanking lost out to logistics in similar sized gangs of 9 versus 9. In both fights the spider tanking gang lost all 9 members whereas the logistics lost 1 each time.

This was with similar setups, using logistics right in the miiddle of the fight one with repair drones on it and the other just itting there freely. Not once did they die.

Did the non-logistics gank even try to primary the logistics ships?

[Sharkith]

of course they did - those ships have a decent tank but the logistics drones really worked a treat. Its the combination of two that makes life very difficult. Meanwhile all the spider tanking dudes are fumbling with their controls trying to decide to shoot or repair. That indecision is also a part of the equation.

[Athalas]

I wrote an article on this for our forums:- here it is. I hope you find it useful.

Remote Repping (AKA Spider Tanking)


This has been mentioned several itmes and I believe there was going to be an Alliance mail on it but since nothing ever came I'll suggest it here! I've seen this used in low sec opps for a good while now and we encourage all of our corpies to be skilled in their use.

Do not underestimate their use in fleet PVP.


Spider Tanking? wtf is that I hear you ask! Well it's essentially using repair drones or using remote repair modules. Now for those who don't know about such stuff it's essentially a module that fits in the High Slot and comes in Small, Medium, Large and Capital size. There are T1 and T2 counterparts aswell.

There are essentually three types of remote repping (excluding cap transfering) that can be done, Shield, Armor and Hull. Tradditionally Remote Repping lays within the realms of a Logistics ship of some sort but beleive it or not - a BC or a BS are also aweseome at remote repping - especially when you have several in a gang performing remote repping on a target - hense the "spider tanking" that remote repping has been dubbed.

Why bother? Picture this.... your in your gang and you jump through to a system which has a gate camp - oops now where was that scout dang it! Ahem.. anyways - as eggs are eggs one of your gang members will be called primary by the enemy - and it's likely to be a jammer or some other ship that provides you a tactical advantage - or just plainly to get an easy to kill. So what the rest of you do is target and remote rep the gang member who has been primaried - this will result in them likely calling another target so you need to switch. At the same time - you should have been conducting business as usual and unleashing hell on them.

See it's easy enough to follow

The great thing is that CCP in their wisdom hardly make it easy for ship fits and often you end up with a free high slot which you usually bung on a nos or drone augmentor etc... no longer!! Fit a remote repper.

So on to the reppers and the skills required - I'll just cover medium and large.

Medium Remote Armor Repair System I is your basic remote armor repairer - again this comes in named and T2 and requires the following skills to use:-

Remote Armor Repair Systems Level II
Mechanic Level III
Repair Systems Level II

Medium Shield Transporter I is your basic remote shield tranporter (repper) - this comes in named and T2 and requires the following skills to use:-

Shield Emission Systems Level I
Engineering Level III
Science Level II

Large Shield Transporter I is your basic remote shield tranporter (repper) - this comes in named and T2 and requires the following skills to use:-

Shield Emission Systems Level I
Engineering Level III
Science Level II

Large Remote Armor Repair System I is your basic remote armor repairer - again this comes in named and T2 and requires the following skills to use:-

Remote Armor Repair Systems Level III
Mechanic Level III
Repair Systems Level II


As you can see, you need some additional skills. To be fair, it's not much and will only take you a few hours to learn how to use them. So go on, give them a go - you never know, one might save someone elses ship and they yours one day