The Art of the Defeating the Slingshot (The Art of Part 4)

Your target, hapless at 21 KM's from you as your DPS of choice pounds him down.  There seems to be no escape for this poor, fat, slow ship.  It turns away, burning to escape, MWD active, pulling range quickly as his speed shoots up to MWD levels, passing 23KM you act quickly, turning towards your running target, thinking there's no way you'll let this kill get away!

5 minutes and a loss later you realize you have just been the victim of the slingshot, pulled into range and killed by your "easy" kill.  Shame burns your ears as your pod warps away.

How could this have been avoided?

Avoiding the Slingshot, while maintaining tackle and getting that kill, is more difficult than it sounds. For those who have read my previous post about the Slingshot, you might have already come up with a few good idea's.

Basically the idea is to stay outside of overheated web/Scram range, even at the cost of losing your point and the target getting away.  Of course that is less than ideal, so we'll try to avoid that.

The first of course is knowledge of what your opponents ship is capable of.  Know, roughly, what it's top speed should be, and plan accordingly.  For instance when he starts burning away, know how much speed you need to catch up to him and don't fly after him at full speed, instead match his speed to maintain your range, so when he tries to turn back into your path you can easily avoid it and just use that chance to pump more rounds into their ship as they pass 0 transversal.

One automated tactic is to use the "keep at range" button. When he starts burning fast away from you, use your MWD and keep at 18-26km.  This should automate keeping you at range outside his scram and web range.

Knowing overheated ranges of various scrams and webs is also a good idea.  Rapiers/Huginn and Arazu/Lach non-withstanding, here are some of those ranges broken down.

Type                              Range                  Overheated               With gang boost Loki(and overheated)
Warp Scrambler I          7.5km                   9km                          10.7km               (12.5km)
Faint Epsilon                 9km                      10.8km                     12.8km               (15km)
Warp Scrambler II         9km                      10.8km                     12.8km               (15km)
TS/Domination scram    11.5km                 13.5km                     16km                  (18.8km)
Stasis Web I-II               10km                    13km                         14.2km              (17.9km)
TS/Domination web      15km                    19.5km                      21.3km              (26.9km)

If you really want to be depressed, look at similar numbers for ships like the Bhaalgorn, with a Loki.  How about you just avoid those, without backup, okay?

Usually under a web, you can still get away or at least try to get into warp before the scramble lands, but to be safe, 18-26km distance is usually good, or close to your max point range while he tries to snag you with this move.  Though this is inside of heavy neut range, to be safe from neuts you should fit a faction point and stay outside of 28/29km of every battleship we suspect have faction neuts, or 24km for best named heavy neuts.  Anyways, fat chance of staying clear of those every time.

Always have range and speed on your overview, but keep your eye especially on range, both to stay inside point range, and outside their scram/web range.

Manual piloting really helps here, instead of using "keep at", instead point your ship at a point that will only pass at the nearest 18km from the ship you are closing on, and update your heading as they spin towards you, manually keeping your distance from them. Of course this takes just a little practice to be able to eyeball or use the tactical overlay a good approach angle, but it is much more reliable in keeping you out of trouble than any other method.

Previous Art of's

Art of the Slingshot

Art of the Vagabond

Art of the Rifter

Vaga's never last

As long as I have been able to fly Vagabond's they never seem to last very long in my hands. The following are the vaga losses I remember

Vaga number 1. This was quite some time ago, where WCS x 2 was a pretty standard fit, and would have saved me, had I fit them. or even the Dual LSE might have saved me, but nooooo.

Scene: random lowsec in Caldari space. I engaged a rupture and Caracal around a planet with a ranis running as my backup, I was barreling towards the Caracal with my faction AB at full blast. The rupture was coming alongside me at about 20km, and just as I got inside 25km from the Caracal my ranis friend was jammed... by the Caracal. Damn overpowered multispecs I thought, and closed the distance hoping to kill the caracal and exact some revenge (multispec chance of a jam on pretty much any ship was around 35%). However it was not to be, right as I closed in on engagement range I was jammed too, then webbed, and then systimatically beaten to death... I swore off vagas for a while realizing if i had just fit the WCS I would have warped off, but it seemed so lame to fit like that.

Vaga 2!

Scene: deep in 0.0 ->Much later on in the midst of the Nano stage of eve, I picked up another vaga and pimped it out with a domi mwd, and DB point, anyways after a really nice run with it, meaning I got into combat more than twice and escaped alive, I ran into an old friend from a former corp in 0.0, I jumped out and then jumped back into the system to keep talking to him, however I was instead engaged by a nanophoon of doom and summarily killed, both the Domi MWD and point dropped :(

Vaga 3!

Lost it on a lowsec gate to a big CoW gang that tackled me and then had inties catch up to me before I could warp out, was definately my mistake to jump through into that!

Vaga 4!

Scene: Yet more lowsec! This just happened, I bought it literally 4 days before it's untimely death! I was boredom-ratting in lowsec out in Molden Heath, and saw a rax, Jaguar and Rifter in space buzzing around, all of them -5.0 types, so I thought I had a decent chance of taking them and baited them into a belt with me, The Jag burned after me and I lured it out hoping for a quick kill but my guns were just not hitting him, I never let him get under 10km for fear of his web and scram, then in warps the Rifter and Thorax. I am well away from them now and should have more than considered just leaving, but instead I decided to stay for a fight, I put my warrior II's on the Rax, and burned towards it slightly, hoping to cut back away from them in time to miss the Jag, but in time to kill the rifter. It worked out more like this, Drones on Rax, Jag and Rifter heading towards me, I notice the rifter but not the jag to well. I tell my drones to return and orbit. They head back to me without MWD (since when do they do that, I need to pay attention more). The jag ducks under 10km while I am still trying to kill the Rifter, Jag scrams and webs me. I lock it up and realize it is under my guns and tell my drones to start engaging, turn on my medium neut. His point drops momentarily, as the rifter dies, I align to warp out but fail on that as well because I think I can get another kill! I should have warped! Scram back active and now the rax is closing on me. At this point I realize I am pretty much dead, I put my guns on the Rax and drones on the Jag to see who dies first, one of them or me. It was me. I later realize I never traded to Barrage M from Fusion M, no wonder I was having a hard time hitting at 24 KM! I would blame that, but instead I will just compliment my killers on their moves, the Rax was also TDing me for those of you saying "why weren't you shooting at the Jag?"

On the upside I just bought two more Vagabonds! Will post here when they die too!