The following is the last draft submitted to EON for my Insider's guide to Gangs. This is the complete draft including instructions on layout and other details, as well the body text. It is quite interesting to compare how the published article differs from the draft and how the editor's hand has been applied!
Like my other Insiders Guides, this article is quite old now and some of the details are out of date now, especially around the gang bonuses following the nano nerf. I may get round to updating this and create a new guide, but for the timebeing I thought I'd share here.
//article - x-pages, eon#11
//head
INSIDER'S GUIDE TO GANGS
//intro
"An army is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, fights as a team. This individuality stuff is a bunch of bullshit."
-General George S. Patton
//note: If you need something different, please let me know.
//credit
TEXT: Arrs Grazznic
Making good use of his foolishly high Chraisma attribute
//main body copy
//Note: Feel free to change any of the subheadings if you have a better idea
As we all know, EVE is an MMOG where that second 'M' stands for multiplayer. While some players prefer the lone wolf approach, no other game environment reinforces the old adage of safety in numbers as much as EVE's cold, unforgiving universe. To encourage players to fly together, EVE provides the fleet system as a mechanism to organise and communicate with pilots as well as to provide bonuses which improve pilot effectiveness and survivability. A well structured gang with the rights skills and equipment can significantly enhance the offensive and defensive capabilities of your group.
This guide provides information on how to create and structure your gangs, the bonuses available to gang members, the skills needed to efficiently run a gang and the equipment available to enhance the gang's capabilities. It will also touch on a couple of other subjects, such as Fleet "dos and don'ts" and the built in fleet orders.
Forming a Fleet
It is very easy to form a fleet in EVE - simply right-click against another pilot's name in the overview, from your address book, in space, corp chat, local, etc. and select "Form Fleet With". That is all there is to it - you don't even need any skills to be able to do this.
Once the fleet has been formed, other pilots can be invited by right-clicking on them and selecting one of the fleet invite options. These options allow additional pilots to join squads or wings as either regular squad members or in commander positions. You can also right-click on a pilot's name to move them around the fleet or assign them roles, but more on this later.
Fleet Structure
Each Fleet, no matter how many players are ganged up, share the same structure of a four tiered hierarchy. First of all you have the Fleet Commander. Under the Fleet Commander you have up to five Wing Commanders, then under each Wing Commander you can have up to five Squad Commanders each leading up to 9 additional Squad Members.
Based on this hierarchy, there are a maximum of 25 squads, each with no more than 10 members (one Squad Commander and 9 Squad Members). On top of this you have a maximum of five Wing Commanders and an Fleet Commander meaning that the maximum fleet size is 256 pilots.
Filling the Fleet
When you first create a Fleet, it will be created with a single squad and place holders for an Fleet Commander and a single Wing Commander. As this basic structure stands it would limit you to a maximum of 12 pilots in the Fleet (a Fleet Commander, Wing Commander, Squad Commander and 9 Squad Members). To allow for more pilots to join the fleet, you need to create additional squads and wings. To do this, pilots with the appropriate fleet roles can right-click on an existing wing or fleet and select "Create Squad" or "Create Wing" respectively. At any time you can also rename wings and squads to allow for easy identification of their role or location.
There are a number of fleet roles able to invite other pilots into the fleet, with each of these roles having various limits on what they are allowed to do. At the lowest level, Squad Commanders are able to invite pilots into their own squad. Wing Commanders can invite pilots to join and of the squads under their control, as well as move pilots between those squads and promote any pilots to the Squad Commander position. Finally, Fleet Commanders have the ability to invite pilots into any squad in any wing, as well as move pilots into any position, including promoting pilots to either Squad Commander or Wing Commander positions. It should be noted that those pilots that have the ability to invite pilots also have the ability to kick them out of the fleet.
Fleet Roles
As mentioned above, the Fleet Commander, Wing Commanders and Squad Commanders positions have the ability to move pilots around, so it is worth speaking a little more about Fleet roles and the abilities that they have. There are a number of roles within a fleet. First off you have the Boss. Initially the Boss is the player who created the fleet formation but this role, like all the roles, can be allocated to any other pilot in the fleet. The Boss has the ability to create new squads and wings as well as being able to move any player between existing squads and wings as well as being able to invite pilots into any fleet position.
There is only one other fleet role that grants this much control over the fleet structure and managing invites and that is the Fleet Commander. When a fleet is first created, the Fleet Commander role is filled by the fleet creator, i.e. the Boss.
Next down we have the Wing Commander role. The Wing Commander can do what the Boss and Fleet Commander can, but only for their own wing. That is to say they can create and delete squads, invite players to any of their squads, move pilots within the wing to any other position in the wing and assign Squad Commanders. Finally there is the Squad Commander who can only invite pilots to their own Squad.
Aside from these basic roles, there are a couple of others that are worth mentioning. The first is the Booster role. We'll describe bonuses in more detail later, but this role allows a Fleet, Wing or Squad Commander to nominate another pilot to provide gang bonuses instead of the commander themselves. This is usually done as some pilots may have better bonus skills than fleet management skills.
The final role available is that of Scout. This role is only a marker and a way for the fleet Commanders to visually designate scouts. This role can be applied to any member of the fleet without affecting their other options.
Fleet Benefits
As mentioned above, one of the reasons for forming a Fleet is to share gang bonuses to fleet members. So what is a gang bonus? Well, depending upon the skills of you Fleet, Wing and Squad Commanders, you may receive bonus to a number of your ship's attributes including, but not limited to, shield hit points, maximum velocity and armour hit points. At extremes these can prove to be incredibly valuable and provide significant enhancements to your ships capabilities. For example, a fully skilled and equipped skirmish warfare pilot could increase his gang members' maximum speed by more than 50%, their webbifier and warp scramble range by almost 39% and decrease their signature radius by around 26%.
Required Skills
There are no skills required to form a gang, nor to fill any of the Fleet, Wing or Squad Command positions. However, if you want to spread the gang bonus love there are certain skills you will need. Leadership skills fall into two groups - those that provide gang bonuses and those which facilitate bonuses to be passed on to fleet members.
The first set of skills to look at are those around fleet structure and the passing of bonuses. As discussed above, we can have up to 256 pilots in a fleet, comprising 5 wings of 51 pilots and a Fleet Commander. While this is true, all the pilots will only receive gang bonuses if their Commanders have the correct skills.
To be able to pass on bonuses, each of the Fleet, Wing and Squad Commanders must have different skills. First, each Squad Commander needs to have Leadership trained. For each level trained, the Squad Commander can manage 2 pilots. For example, if the Squad Commander has Leadership trained to Level 3, they can successfully run a squad of six pilots, including themselves. At Level 5, the Squad Commander can pass on bonuses to a full squad of 10 pilots. Next up the chain is the Wing Commander. To fill this role from a bonus passing perspective, each Wing Commander should have the Wing Command skill trained. For each level trained, the Wing Commander can control 1 squad, up to a maximum of five squads. Finally there is the Fleet Commander. The required skill here is Fleet Command, and for each level trained the Fleet Commander can control 1 wing, up to a maximum of five wings.
If any Commander does not have the sufficient skills to manage the number of Wings, Squads or pilots allocated to them, any bonuses are not passed down or granted. So for example, if a Wing Commander with the Wing Command skill at Level 2 was put in charge of three squads, none of those squads would receive bonuses from the Fleet or Wing Commander.
Right, now we have those skills out of the way, there are several skills which actually provide the bonuses themselves. These skills generally fall into one of five categories, namely Armour, Siege (shield), Information (EW), Skirmish and Mining. For each of these groups, there is a base skill and a specialist skill. The base skill provides a 2% bonus per level for the relevant discipline, while the specialist skill allows for the use of Gang Modules. So for example, if all the bases skills were trained to Level 4, a Commander would be able to pass down an 8% bonus for armour hit points, shield hit points, base speed, targeting range and mining yield.
While not providing any direct bonuses themselves, the specialist skills allow the pilot to fit Gang Link modules to certain ships. The Gang Link modules can provide significant benefits to pilots, such as improving shield and armour resistances, reducing signature radius, increasing EW potency and decreasing mining cycle times.
There are also two additional skills which can provide improved bonuses to fleet pilots. The first of these is the Leadership skill. As well as controlling the number of pilots a Squad Commander can pass benefits to, each level of Leadership trained passes a 2% bonus in target locking time. The other skill is the Warfare Link Specialist skill which improves the effectiveness of all warfare link modules by 10% per level.
Fleet Bonuses
Squad Members can receive gang bonuses from their Squad, Wing and Fleet Commanders, as long as those pilots have sufficient Leadership skills to support the players in the fleet. Gang bonuses are not stacked with other gang bonuses, rather the best bonus from any of your Fleet, Wing or Squad Commander is applied. For example, if your Wing Commander provides a 8% boost to armour hot points and a 6% boost to base speed, while your Squad Commander provides an 8% boost to base speed and a 4% boost to shield hit points, the Squad Members would receive an 8% bonus to base speed and armour hit points, as well as the 4% bonus to shield hit points.
As mentioned earlier, for a player to receive the full bonus benefits from their commanders, each of the players in those positions must have the appropriate level Leadership, Wing Command and Fleet Command skills trained for the number of pilots in the fleet, but there are also two other criteria that must be fulfilled. First of all, there must be an unbroken chain of command - a Squad Member would not receive a Fleet Commander's bonuses if there was no appropriately skilled Wing Commander in place. That said, as long as the Squad Commander was providing bonuses, the Squad members would still receive the benefits from the Squad Commander.
The second is that all pilots must be in space, in a ship and in the same system. If a particular pilot is in a different system to their commander they will not receive the bonuses. Likewise, if a commander leaves the system, docks or leaves their ship (i.e. it is destroyed) they will drop out of the chain of command and will not pass on their or the commanding officer's bonuses.
It should also be worth noting that while Squad Members can receive benefits from all their direct commanders in the fleet hierarchy, the commanders themselves only receive their own benefits. Wing Commanders don't receive any Fleet Commander bonuses and Squad Commanders don't get the Fleet or Wing Commander benefits passed down.
Gang Link Modules
As well as the bonuses offered by the leadership skills, further gang bonuses can be provided through Gang Link modules. Gang Link modules are specialised equipment which can only be fitted to a small number of ships. They provide significant additional bonuses to a variety of ship attributes from EW effectiveness to armour and shield resistances. There are a total of 15 different Gang Link modules, three for each of the Armoured Warfare, Information Warfare, Siege Warfare, Skirmish Warfare and Mining specialisations. Full details of these modules and the bonuses they provide are described in boxout xx.
As well as the bonus giving Gang Link modules, there is also a special gang module called the Command Processor. This module allows those ships that can fit gang modules to activate more than the ship normally allows. Any ship that can fit gang modules can fit as many as they want (subject to power grid and CPU availability) however they can only activate a certain number of the modules concurrently. The Command Processor allows this to be increased on a one-for one basis - for every Command Processor you fit you can activate another Gang Link module.
This module can be quite powerful as it allows fleet command ships to fit and run six or more Gang Link modules, though at the expense of any offensive or defensive capability. Such setups are, however, ideal for sitting within POS shields and providing all in-system pilots with significant bonuses.
Implants
The pinnacle of leadership modules are the Warfare Mindlinks. These are powerful implants providing significant improvements to the base leadership discipline skill bonus as well as enhancing the effectiveness of the associated Gang Link modules. By plugging in one of the mindlinks, you improve the base bonus by 50%, or in other words your 10% bonus becomes 15%. On top of that, the mindlinks also provide a 50% bonus to the effectiveness of their related Gang Link modules. For example, if you were running a Rapid Deployment Gang Link module providing a 15% bonus to MWD speed, using the Skirmish Warfare Mindlink would increase this to 22.5%.
This can be further improved by training the Warfare Link Specialist skill. At level 5 this gives a further 50% bonus to a gang module's performance, thus increasing the MWD bonus to 33.75%. As we will see shortly, there are ways to increase bonuses even further.
Racial Divisions
There are five leadership 'disciplines' with each of the combat oriented divisions related to one of the primary factions. The Armoured Warfare discipline is Amarr in flavour, with the Information Warfare domain being the Gallente specialisation. Caldari, naturally, are associated with the Siege Warfare links while Minmatar have the Skirmish Warfare variety. While not related to a specific race, the Mining discipline is associated with the ORE faction.
So why is this important? Well, when a faction's gang modules are running on a Fleet Command ship of the same race, their effectiveness is boosted by the pilot Command Ship skill level, to a maximum of 15% at level 5 (25% for Mining gang modules on the Rorqual with Capital Industrial Ships at Level 5). If our previous example of the MWD bonus, this would equate to a maximum 38.8125% bonus.
Ships
A pilot in a Fleet, Wing or Squad Commander roles does not need to fly any specific ship to be able to share his leadership bonuses such as increased armour hit points, however Gang Link modules can only be fitted on a number of ships, specifically Battle Cruisers, Command Ships, Carriers, Motherships, Capital Industrial Ships and Titans. Some of these ships allow the use of more than one gang link modules, while others provide other gang related bonuses. See Boxout xx for details of the ships that can fit Gang Links and the bonuses they provide.
Gang Dos and Don'ts
All corporations and alliances have their own fleet etiquette and basic standing orders for gang structures. While some of these will be very specific to the way those entities fight (or mine!), some basic principles apply across all organisations.
One of the main bugbears of anyone pulling a gang together is CSPA charges. No one really wants to pay CCP isk for the privilege of inviting you into the fleet, so please turn off CSPA charges or set it to 0. Another common complaint is the use of Gang Warps, especially if some pilots are afk. The Gang Warp facility should only be used when pilots are expecting it, otherwise you could accidentally warp an unprepared Battleship wing to a fully manned death star POS resulting in some significant losses.
As a gang Boss or a Commander, be aware that when you invite someone into a fleet or move a pilot between wings and squads, your initiate a session change timer for that pilot. This may not be an issue if all of you are sitting at a POS waiting for action, but if the pilot is running from the enemy the session change will mean that they will not be able to jump or dock for 30 seconds. As we all know in EVE, this can be the difference between survival and waking up in a new clone.
Finally, if you find yourself in a squad without a squad commander please let the Wing and Fleet Commanders know. Many corporations have pilots with the right skills to pass on gang bonuses, so make use of them!
In Summary
In a recent live Dev Blog, CCP stated that they were going to have a long hard look at fleet formats and bonuses. Whatever they have in mind is likely to significantly alter the mechanisms behind gangs and fleets, however it is also probable that they will introduce new and useful features, such as formation flying. As things stand at the moment, the current Fleet system provides a good degree of organisational control as well as facilitating significant bonuses to be passed between fleet members. The recent integration EVE Voice into fleet mechanics allows for even greater control of fleet actions.
So what's stopping you? Get your friends together, form a fleet and then do it to them before they do it to you.
//boxout#1
//note - goes on spread x
Gang Link Modules
There are a total of 15 different Gang Link modules, three for each of the Armoured Warfare, Information Warfare, Siege Warfare, Skirmish Warfare and Mining specialisations. Each of these modules is listed below with a brief description of what attribute the module enhances, what the theoretical maximum benefit could be and if the bonuses suffer stacking penalties.
The maximum benefit is calculated assuming the bonus providing pilot has the specific warfare skill (Armoured Warfare, Information Warfare, etc.), the Command Ships skill and the Warfare Link Specialist skill all at Level 5, as well as flying the appropriate Fleet Command ship, and have the appropriate Mindlink implant plugged into Slot 10.
The actual bonuses are calculated as follows:
If the related Warfare Mindlink is plugged in, the resulting bonus is further multiplied by 1.5.
Armored Warfare Links
Damage Control: Reduces the capacitor need of the gang's personal and targeted armour repair systems by up to 25.875%.
Passive Defense: Grants a bonus to the gang's armour resistances of up to 25.875%. Note, that this bonus suffers a stacking penalty with other armour resistance improving modules fitted to the pilot's ship.
Rapid Repair: Increases the speed of the fleet's personal and targeted armour repair systems by up to 25.875%.
Information Warfare Links
Electronic Superiority: Boosts the strength of the gang's electronic warfare modules by up to 25.875%.
Recon Operation: Increases optimal range of electronic warfare modules of all ships in the gang by up to 25.875%.
Sensor Integrity: Boosts sensor strengths for all of the gang's ships by up to 38.8125%.
Mining Foreman Links
Siege Warfare Links
Skirmish Warfare Links
//boxout#2
Only certain ships are able to fit Gang Link modules. Normally the modules have a very high CPU requirement (5,000 tf), but a handful of ships have special attributes that reduce the module's CPU requirements by 99% to only 50 tf, thus allowing them to be fitted. It should be noted that these ships can fit any number of Gang Link modules (subject to available CPU and grid)
The following ship classes can fit Gang Link modules. Where the ship has other fleet related bonuses, this is also noted.
Battle Cruisers: Can have 1 Gang Link module active as standard.
The Amarr Avatar provides a 7.5% bonus to gang member's capacitor recharge rate per Titan skill level. The Caldari Leviathan provides a 7.5% bonus to gang member's maximum shield hit points per Titan skill level. The Gallente Erebus provides a 7.5% bonus to gang member's maximum armour hit points per Titan skill level. The Minmatar Ragnarok provides a 7.5% reduction in gang member's signature radius per Titan skill level.
//boxout#3
With the latest incarnation of the fleet system, CCP have introduced several broadcast and related commands that gang Commanders and Members can issue. While some of these tasks cause updates to the Overview, several also display messages on the Broadcast window. As fleet pilots you should look out for these messages and act on them, especially if you are not on the same voice communication system as your commanders.
The following options are available when right clicking on certain objects in the overview
Broadcast Target: Issues a message for fleet members to target an object. Pilots can right-click on the target name in the broadcast window to acquire the target.
Each of the above actions caused an icon to be displayed over the target object on both on the overview and in space.
There are also three further actions that can be initiated by right-clicking on objects in the overview:
Tag Item: Allows the pilot to tag an object with a letter or number. The tag will only be displayed if the 'Tag' column is selected in the Overview settings.
On the Fleet Window, right click on the 'Fleet Actions' icon for the following options:
Regroup: Causes all fleet members on grid and under the pilots command to converge on the pilot's location at top speed. This command can be overridden by individual pilots.
On the Broadcasts Window, you can click the broadcast icons at the bottom of the window for the following broadcast commands.
Broadcast Enemy Spotted: Issue a message that an enemy craft is at your location
By right clicking on the 'Open Broadcast Settings' at the top of the Broadcast Window, you have access to two more commands:
Broadcast Location: This is the same as issuing the Broadcast Location command from the Fleet Window.
It should be noted that not all of these options are available to all pilots at all times. Some of them are restricted to Fleet, Wing and Squad Commanders, while certain messages will only be displayed to pilots in the same system.
// Boxout #4
Depending upon the nature of the engagement and the time available to organise a fleet, there may be the chance to fully optimise the fleet, with all armour tankers in one wing with a Armour Warfare Specialist wing command leading, and the same for shield tankers, or light support. This will allow bonuses and gang links to be used most effectively. To facilitate this, some corps and alliances ask for quite a bit of information in the regular 'x up' request. An extreme example of this is the following gang request:
There is a lot of information included in the above line. First and foremost it tells the Fleet Commander what ships his has available to him and where his fleet is located. An experienced Fleet Commander will be able to gage his fleet's capabilities based on the provided information and access effectiveness of the pilots in a number of scenarios.
More importantly from a gang bonus perspective, the leadership information allows the people pulling the gang together to identify the best pilots for Wing and Squad Command roles and the best players to provide gang bonuses. Further, it then allows the fleet organisers to place the remaining pilots into appropriate squads and wings to maximise their ship's capabilities.
A good example of this would be to group all interceptors or fast nanoships into a wing where the Wing Commander had a Skirmish Warfare Mindlink and was flying a Claymore with the three Skirmish Warfare Gang Links fitted. As long as the Squad Commanders had the appropriate Leadership skill levels, each pilot in the wing could receive up to a 15% bonus to base speed, a 38.8125% improvement to MWD speed and stasis webbifier / warp scrambler range and a 25.875 % signature radius reduction. All in all, a significant set of bonuses which could make the difference in combat.
Laser Optimization: Decreases mining lasers/ gas harvester and ice harvester duration by up to 28.125%.
Mining Laser Field Enhancement: Increases the range of the gang's mining lasers, gas harvesters and ice harvesters by up to 63.28125%
Active Shielding: Increases the speed of the fleet's shield boosters and decreases the speed of shield transporters by up to 25.875%.
Shield Efficiency: Reduces the capacitor need of the gang's shield boosters and shield transporters by up to 25.875%.
Shield Harmonizing: Boosts all shield resistances for the gang's ships by up to 25.875%. Note, that this bonus suffers a stacking penalty with other shield resistance improving modules fitted to the pilot's ship.
Evasive Maneuvers: Lowers the signature radius of ships in the fleet by up to 25.875%.
Interdiction Maneuvers: Boosts the range of the fleet's propulsion jamming modules by up to 38.8125%.
Rapid Deployment: Increases the speed of the fleet's afterburner and microwarpdrive modules by up to 38.8125%.
//note - goes on spread x
Fleet Booster Ships
Field Command Ships: Can have 1 Gang Link module active as standard.
Fleet Command Ships: Can have 3 Gang Link modules active as standard. These ships also provide a 3% bonus per Command Ship skill level to the effectiveness of certain Gang Links.
Carriers: Can have 1 Gang Link module active as standard.
Mother Ships: Can have 1 Gang Link module active as standard, plus an additional Gang Link per Carrier skill level.
Capital Industrial Ships: Can have 1 Gang Link module active as standard. These ships also provide a 5% bonus per Command Ship skill level to the effectiveness of Mining Foreman Gang Links.
Titans: Can have 1 Gang Link module active as standard, plus an additional Gang Link per Titan skill level. Titans also provide an inherent gang bonus based of their faction as detailed below.
//note - goes on spread x
Fleet Orders
Broadcast Warp To: Displays a message in the Broadcast window instructing pilots to warp to a particular location. Pilots can right-click on the location to initiate warp.
Broadcast Align To: Displays a message in the Broadcast window instructing pilots to align with a particular object.
Broadcast Jump To: Displays a message in the Broadcast window instructing pilots to jump to a particular object. Pilots can right-click on the location to initiate warp.
Warp Squad: Warps all fleet members who are on grid and under the pilots command to the specified location at 0 km. Warp can be cancelled by individual pilots.
Warp Squad To Within: Warps all fleet members who are on grid and under the pilots command to the specified location at the requested distance. Warp can be cancelled by individual pilots.
Broadcast Location: Displays a message in the Broadcast window informing fleet pilots of your location. The location can be right-clicked and either warped to if in system or set as a destination or waypoint.
Broadcast Need Armour: Request that a fleet pilot will remote armour repair you. Other pilots will be able to right-click on the message to target you.
Broadcast Need Shield: Request that a fleet pilot will remote shield boost you. Other pilots will be able to right-click on the message to target you.
Broadcast Need Capacitor: Request a fleet pilot to provide you with a cap transfer. Other pilots will be able to right-click on the message to target you.
Broadcast In Position: Issues a message that the pilot is in position. The pilot's location is right-clickable in the message window allowing other pilots to warp to them.
Broadcast Need Backup: Makes a request to the fleet for backup. Again, the pilot's location is right-clickable in the message window.
Broadcast Hold Position: Informs the fleet to hold position.
Open Broadcast Settings: This allows you to filter the broadcast messages displayed in the Broadcast Window.
// Note - Goes on spread x
"X up!"
