Combat pilots, both in the real world and the virtual space can often find themselves in what’s cutely termed a ‘furball’, or sometimes a ‘bait ball’. It is, in effect, a big ball of combat craft all circling one another in a massive mess of aggression. It’s easy in this situation for strategies to be forgotten, tactics to be fat-fingered and common sense to fall asleep on the job.
Fortunately, ‘Rot’, one of the more colorful characters in the EVE: Valkyrie community has the answer. He’s recently penned a magnificant guide to avoiding the pitfalls of Team Deathmatch encounters, drawing from his comprehensive experience as an EVE Online and Valkyrie player and it’s not to be missed.
According to Rot there are three stages to survival when you find yourself in a particularly brutal Team Deathmatch and it’s all about taking out the enemy one by one. The basics of Rot’s approach is as follows:
Step one involves being prepared. Know the maps and be aware of features and debris that you can use to your advantage. Make intelligent use of your launch tubes and the ships you can deploy for team-based combat.
Step two suggests that you should be aware that charging into battle straight after launch isn’t necessarily the right thing to do. Sit back and analyse the situation… watch what is unfolding and only then act accordingly.
And in step three Rot suggests that you get stuck in. Dive into the fray and focus on a target and relentlessly pursue it until it is destroyed. If you need to switch your focus to another target make sure it’s one you are confident of taking out.
We’ve highlighted only the high-level points here. We strongly recommend you head over to Rot’s full comprehensive guide to survival in the event of a furball for the complete, uncut and highly entertaining tutorial.