Caps and Cynos 101

[Davd]

I bought my first cap a few days ago and I haven't used it yet. It's main purpose is to haul my crap around from one lowsec region to another (flashy red ftw). Can someone give me a few pointers on my first cap?

- The Do's and Don'ts of owning a carrier
- Cyno Alts
- Fuel Consumption
- How to not get bumped off a station when cynoing in
- Keeping a carrier safe while waiting for cap to recharge

[Idara]

Since you'll be going around lowsec, you can just cyno in near stations and dock to cap up, 0.0, fit a cloak.

Look for stations that have a biiiiiiig model/hit-box or whatever its called. The big, flat, horizontal Caldari stations are very good for creating cynos above or below as the hitbox is so large you'll be able to cyno in and not bump off them.

Avoid the very vertical stations, certain Amarr ones and Caldari ones are the opposite in 'goodness' for cynoing to.

For the first bit, don't cyno into a place without having it secured by other means (corp etc) or it's relatively empty without anyone on scan. Once you get good and know which stations you can use, this becomes a non-issue, as long as you get in before your cyno alt may get shot.

Always carry Liquid Ozone around with your carrier to contract/trade to cyno alts, and always take a GSC filled with racial isotopes in the corp hangar as well.

<ninjaedit> For the first few times you may want to fit a cloak just in case you position your alt wrong and get thrown off the station, you can just cloak up if that happens. But if you pick the right stations to cyno to, I doubt you'll have any bump issues.
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[Clinic]

Cyno Alts

You'll need some.

Fuel Consumption

Every cap pilot's very best friend: http://www.eve-icsc.com/jumptools/. Calculates fuel consumption and helps in planning your route.

Recommend you put Jump Fuel Conservation and more importantly Jump Drive Calibration to IV top of your skill plan.

How to not get bumped off a station when cynoing in

There's a fair bit of trial and error getting your cyno postioned "just right" off the station. For most tall and thin stations where you undock downwards, angling 45 degress out and moving away is usually sufficient.

Take note of undocking radius when you bring out your cyno alt and try to stay away from cynoing into stations with tight ranges.

Check out the system and local before you light that cyno too, if it's busy, perhaps you need a different midpoint or need to wait until it quietens down before you come rolling in with a cap ship.

Keeping a carrier safe while waiting for cap to recharge

If in a station system, that's easy, dock. For a POS, make a beeline straight into the shields.

If jumping into a random system with no stations or friendly POSs (try to avoid doing this if at all possible, station systems are preferable and faster) you will want to get away from the cyno beacon as quickly as possible as it's broadcasting your position to everyone in local. Jump in ---> cloak ---> align to safe ---> uncloak and warp to safe ---> cloak.
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ANZAC Alliance
Clinically : Zarena Mortiferia

[Fud]

[Ancorehraq sis]

[shoki]

why don't you log on to test and jump a bit around lowsec, just to get the feel fro cynos and stations?
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ingame: AntonioBanderas

[Celada1]

Always check the station if its a kickout or not.

Use the tactical overlay , capital will always land on the 5km ring from the cyno ALWAYS so be sure you are at least 7km away from the station (you check that via tactical overlay not with the overview)

Cyno alts are your new best friends so take care of them.
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[Tjoff]

If it's a non station system.

- Have your cyno make a safe in the system.
- Make it possible for your cyno to fleet warp.
- Light cyno. Cap jumps in.
- initiate fleet warp to safe.
- cyno webs cap.
- cap warps & cloak at safe

[James Lyrus]

Station positioning: Use the tactical overlay.
Your arrival zone is ~3km around the Cyno, so ... well, use the tactical overlay to ensure there's no bits of station withing 3km of you (ideally 5) but you're still within 0km.

Drop a can if you want, and fly directly away for a few km, and see if you leave '0 from station'. If you don't, bookmark the can, and use that as your cyno spot, and your carrier will always arrive in dock range, and not bump.

And yeah, if you use it often, pay attention to how quickly you leave redock range. As mentioned there's quite a few stations that punt you out such that you cannot redock if you get tackled. (Up and down Amarr one, and ... one of the minmatar ones does this)

A jump is a session change, so you cannot undock, then jump immediately. Similarly you cannot jump, then dock immediately.

Also: Spare cynos and LO are always good to carry with you. A spare cyno-frigate e.g. kestrel + cyno + fuel, or maybe hauler is also handy.

Cyno alts are vulnerable, and valuable - a 4mil cyno is worth taking a potshot at, so you can expect to lose a few.

[gluecksbaerchi]

heavy shield/amor bots, 0-1 x large shield transporter, 3-4 x large remote rep (and cycle them right) and stick that on the cynofrig. Then the only way to pop them is via alpha. Granted it will still happen, but it'll happen less.
Also, never ever use a cynochar who's blinky. It's gay in so many ways it's unbelieveable. Approach the cynofrig so you can loot him in case it pops, cynofrigs don't die for lulz but for a "free" 2-3 mio device

edit2: if you see pirates showing up, log the cynofrig-char out. The pod will then warpout as soon as the cynofrig pops, so you can concentrate on looting the ship/lock-web-scram-kill aggressors/etc.

Bumping caps which dock out and get rid of their invuln timer too early on is higher science, but it happened to us before so think twice before moving etc. It happens when another capital undocks right behind you or gets a very good warpin right next to you.



Caldari stations (except of the vertical one). Really.

Edit: Also bookmark this http://www.eve-icsc.com/jumptools/jumpplanner.php tool. It can filter to just jump into systems with stations too. It's awesome and about 4230% better than any ingame tool ccp may (have) invent(ed). lol3d-sphere-in-map-showing-jumprange.
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[whydirt]

This is probably a dumb question, but can your cyno alt be on the same account as your cap pilot? I assume there's fleet coordination that needs to happen requiring both characters to be online simultaneously (which means you need 2 accounts minimum), but maybe there's some way to do it that I don't know about.

[Celada1]

both have to be online at the same time so you need 2 accounts.
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[Darkopteron]

[gluecksbaerchi]

they need to be in the same fleet, too (which basicly breaks single-account-usage completely, because you don't load the broadcast-history when you join). I never tried what happens when you broadcast the beacon then log the cynochar out but click on the broadcast to jump to the cyno (which is, technically, still open for the full cycle)
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[Davd]

You guys mentioned alot of stuff I didn't know or consider. Thanks, hopefully I wont' loose the carrier anytime soon.