‘HOW A META IS MADE’
INTRODUCTION
Cmdr Oogie Boogie, PvP League Creator, said on March 17th:
‘You saw in the PvP league where it goes. Stealth FdL with Rails and Synthesis is currently the king of the hill. And there you need the most skills to fly and hit your as well silent opponent.’
…in this thread, post 78:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=238500&page=6
and later in the same thread:
‘Adle's Armada proofed, that this is currently the strongest setup with devastating alpha damage!’
That was a reference to the build that Adle’s Armada brought to the first season of the PvP League and then prevailed with undefeated. Since around the second week of the Galaxy’s first PvP League, there has been an increasing amount of discussion concerning what is now considered by many to be the new PvP meta: a hull-tanking silent runner equipped with all or almost-all rail guns.
At AA, we thought it might be of interest to the wider Galaxy to see how this meta developed over time and many versions of ED, in a way that is perhaps only possible within the collective thinking of a large PvP player group. What follows is a history – and a lengthy one – so read on only if PvP history interests you.
CREDIT
Before going forwards, we should confront, immediately, the possibility of self-servingly ‘taking the credit’ for something wider. Of course people have experimented with the five-rail FdL since the day that the FdL was launched. But all we can say is that amongst every PvP group we have encountered in the main game and the recent PvP league – experienced friends and rivals such as Ronin of Amarak, Balkan Intergalactic Guerrilla, Triadius, Contrail, Blood Brothers from Alrai, The Code, Time of Chaos, Smiling Dog Crew, GDA and more – we have yet to see any group employ this build tactic as we do save for two: Triadius, against us, in the PvP League, and SDC, against us, in Eravate – both, we respectfully presume, by way of adoption. So, we do consider this meta to have been made by Adle’s Armada and hope that why, how and when will become clear in what follows.
THE 'EARLY ADOPTERS': OPEN PRE-1.5
By Open 1.3, the PvP-meta firmly favoured SCB-racked Clippers and Pythons. Adle’s Armada pilots generally preferred the Fer-de-Lance for its combination of speed, manoeuvrability and hard point placement but there could be no denying that defeating opponents with five times as many effective hit points, while all the time at risk of devastating ram damage, made for an exciting - yet challenging - struggle.
One high-risk solution was the ‘rail-de-lance’, a Ferdie equipped with 2 to 5 rails and intended to burst through a Duracell enemy’s shield before an SCB could complete delivery of its charge. AA early adopters included Dr Uzi and our founder, Cmdr S!lk. However, the FdL’s then power issues coming from its 5A plant meant that only a ‘glass cannon’ shield build with weak defence seemed possible. High risk, indeed.
However, within 1.3, Cmdr PoaArctica [who would go on to be our PvP League captain] had already started flying a shieldless FdL with 5 rails, bulkheads, hull reinforcement and many heat sinks. This being before SCB’s were nerfed and HRP’s buffed, the build was not copied by team mates, even though Poa persisted with it with many successes. An idea ‘ahead of its time.’
In 1.4, AA was joined by a reformed pirate and 1v1 duellist by the name of BreakfastMelon. This was a significant development because Melon was also running a 5 rail - though shielded - FdL and would go on to become vice-captain of our PvP League team.
Separately, at around this time Cmdr Elethiomel Zakalwe started to use a dual-plasma Vulture, a build already promoted by our Cmdr Starlear. Elethiomel proposed that a counter to our enemies’ Clippers might be to run all-Vulture all-PA wings, so as to break the SCB-meta via extreme alpha damage. This idea was discussed but never pursued – although it became relevant again later.
BETA 1.5
When Beta 1.5 launched, SCB’s went through a rapid series of changes while HRP’s and heatsinks were progressively buffed. Our then only EU-time Admin, Cmdr Truesilver, spent every day of Beta 1.5 testing ships and weapons [despite having Horizons access, he says he never once landed on a planet!] Truesilver’s recommendation to AA was that when 1.5 / 2.0 Open launched, outside of Eravate, only shieldless small ships, or SCB-racked Corvettes should be fielded.
A significant motivation behind the ‘small ship’ idea was that at this time AA was receiving growing interest from Cmdrs without PvP experience, as part of the transition from being a small, covert, PvP-only group to a large, open, PvP & PvE group. Unfortunately, experienced PvP-ers have a predator’s instinct for scenting weakness, meaning that in winged combat our newer members and allies were at constant risk of being focused and destroyed – which in a medium combat ship could be costly and demoralising. Hence, it was thought, Viper IV’s, Cobra III’s and DBS with respectively around 1800, 1700 and 1200 hit points would be both difficult to lose – and cheap to lose.
HEL
The idea proved popular and at the Hel Community Goal that launched just after Horizons, Adle’s Armada fielded multiple wings made up almost exclusively of silent running small ships. These proved highly effective and immediately gave rise to the ‘Cancer Builds’ threads on reddit, in which a number of opposing Cmdrs expressed their dissatisfaction with this tactic. Indeed, on the last day of the Hel CG, AA fielded only hull-tanking Sidewinders!
Concerning weapons, though, matters initially moved in the wrong direction. One other development in Beta 1.5 had been FDev correcting an error concerning the damage output of the c2 Plasma Accelerator. Now brought up to 57 Mj/shot, this was considered a promising weapon and although some AA Cmdrs used rails, the preferred small ship build at Hel began as 2 x c2 PA’s plus either c1 pulse lasers or multi-cannons. However, because most of the Hel engagements were extremely long, and the heat generated by PA’s rapidly exhausted heat sinks, most of our Cmdrs started to move towards an all-kinetic loadout so as to maximise time in silent running.
‘ULTRA-ALPHA WINGS'
Adle’s Armada use a secure sub-reddit, which is very much the hub of our team. [The two posts that follow have been shared with the consent of the Cmdrs concerned and AA leadership.] After a period of reflection, in early January 2016, Truesilver – who would go on to be the third Cmdr to feature in every one of our PvP League matches - began a thread as follows:
================================================================
Truesilver:-
ULTRA-ALPHA WINGS
TL;DR: I think we should start fielding all-rail stealth wings.
OK, there is nothing original in this post. But I think this is the way forwards in building on the success of our risk-free small ship offensive whilst upping the kills - perhaps even making it probable that each engagement will yield a kill.
Using the example of a DBS / V4 wing of four, each with 2 x c2 and 2 x c1 rails, some numbers and random thoughts:
• Each rail volley does 136 Mj. A wing (x4) volley does 544 Mj. Four wing volleys does 2,176 Mj.
• Of course in real combat not all of the potential damage would be achieved. But I think it's obvious that this tactic could alpha down anything except an A-ranked Anaconda-class ship with four pips to shields, before the fight has even really begun.
• Rails are the true hard counter to SR. In tests with Mr Melon the damage to subsystems, when they start swiss-cheesing, simply wrecks a shieldless ship even without module targeting.
• Heat is relevant to duration of SR only if the fight is long. A DBS in 'multi-rail' all out attack mode will fire all 31 volleys before it runs out of sinks. This tactic is all about securing that one super-quick kill and then high jumping while the enemy are still commiserating with their dead wingman.
• In the past where like one guy was using rails or plasma and running out of ammo or sinks I think it was because everyone else was using kinetic - basically we lacked 'critical mass' - we need the whole wing to rail up and go for it!
• Na'Qan's original stealth squadron made their name using full-rail DBS wings to alpha down pythons back in 1.3, before armour and heatsinks were buffed and SCB's nerfed.
• This is actually a variation on a tactic Elethiomel proposed in 1.3 concerning an all-plasma vulture wing.
• An all-rail DBS wing has slightly more alpha than two Corvettes both running nothing but rails. Try tanking that. OK, smaller distributors but rails have the best DPE in the game.
• Plasma could be tried but the size 3 power distributor would be more of a DPS limiting factor.
• With the manoeuvrability and speed of the DBS focusing and landing hits is not difficult.
OK many of us, me included, will benefit from practice but the practice will be fun!
What could be more rewarding than seeing daylight through our much-beloved natural prey: the shielded FdL?’
================================================================
This was well received. BreakfastMelon [as noted, already an all-rail user] replied:-
================================================================BreakfastMelon:-
‘If it's all about 'get in, get out' as you said then this would work perfectly. This is exactly what I was saying when we spoke about the five-rail lances. They work amazingly well and will escape from anything no problem while easily dishing out insane amounts of damage. If we were to know we'd be leaving quickly, we wouldn't have to worry so much about face-tanking enemies as we could get all of the damage out before being near death. We definitely do need to ensure that everybody's using them though. This can't be a 'glass half full' situation - we do or we don't.
We had a wing of three Asps in Eravate today - two with all rails and one, all frags. They were actually extremely tough despite not seeming to be the best pilots and managed to disable one of our FAS in what felt like seconds after the fight began. Imagine what we could do with a wing or two of rail-lances!’
================================================================
EVOLUTION
Note the evolution in the group’s ideas above, from small hull tanking ships, to small all-rail ships, to all-rail FdL’s – in effect coming full-circle to making a ‘niche’ build in 1.3 into the ‘preferred’ build in 1.5.
In succeeding weeks, rail FdL / FAS wings saw more and more action in and around Eravate and at CG’s with overwhelming success and a ‘within group’ meta appeared to have been reached. It should be understood that this does not mean that AA necessarily consider a shieldless rail ship to be always superior to every other type of ship. Shields can be great, 1v1. It is that we consider a shieldless rail wing to be superior to every other type of wing. Nothing else provides the same opportunity to do damage to a designated target, be they shielded or unshielded, while simultaneously hampering the enemy’s ability to focus one of us.
THE PvP LEAGUE
By the start of the PvP League it was thus normal for Adle’s Armada to run all shieldless wings of FdL’s and FAS’s in and around Eravate in regular PvP. Weeks of experience had been gained of destroying ships of every size – literally from Viper to Cutter – with these builds.
Not only had these ships started to become the preferred build for our experienced PvP pilots, we were becoming increasingly experienced in introducing PvP newcomers to them – effectively, in overcoming the high skill-floor of rail guns.
By the time of our first match in the PvP League, nothing seemed more natural than to put forwards a stealth rail wing. We fielded all or almost all rails during every one of five rounds. For the first three rounds, 2xFdL and 2xFAS and thereafter, all FdL [‘moar rails!’]
By the second week of the five-week tournament this tactic was already generating much discussion. It is noteworthy, though, that it was absolutely not the ‘meta’ across all participants in the League, either at the start, or even by the end.
During the first few rounds of the PvP League it was still quite normal for teams to field some shielded ships. Rail guns were not generally adopted by other teams as their primary weapon, save in the case of Triadius, who fielded three rail-FdL’s against AA in Round 3, resulting in fierce fighting. In the 8v8 finale against BBfA, AA fielded a total of 40 rail guns to BBfA’s 16. Of course this is not to say that the success of our pilots should be put down to ‘who has the most of a certain gun’ – anyone who has watched the videos and listened to the commentary will see the quality of marksmanship, trigger discipline, evasion and formation flying our pilots displayed – and hear it commented on, o7. But it is indicative of how this meta [if it is now considered to be one] was even by the end of the League still being established.
In any event, AA's approach resulted in a 5-0 League victory, including a final won 8-3, then 8-1 (in terms of ship losses in each round).
CONCLUSION
Interestingly, back in Open, only recently have we started to see our own builds being used against us in Eravate, and then only inconsistently – one thing to note is that this ‘meta’ requires work – whilst not inaccessible, it rewards practice above all.
Anyway, if you have read this far, you must be very interested in PvP builds and tactics, heh! o7, Cmdr. We hope that you have found this interesting. All thoughts and comments welcome, as ever.
As to what meta might emerge when 1.6 goes live … we look forward to finding out. Although we may not announce our thinking for a few months until, then as now, there cannot possibly be any doubt left about what Adle’s Armada think …
Adle’s Armada
www.inara.cz/wing/336
INTRODUCTION
Cmdr Oogie Boogie, PvP League Creator, said on March 17th:
‘You saw in the PvP league where it goes. Stealth FdL with Rails and Synthesis is currently the king of the hill. And there you need the most skills to fly and hit your as well silent opponent.’
…in this thread, post 78:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=238500&page=6
and later in the same thread:
‘Adle's Armada proofed, that this is currently the strongest setup with devastating alpha damage!’
That was a reference to the build that Adle’s Armada brought to the first season of the PvP League and then prevailed with undefeated. Since around the second week of the Galaxy’s first PvP League, there has been an increasing amount of discussion concerning what is now considered by many to be the new PvP meta: a hull-tanking silent runner equipped with all or almost-all rail guns.
At AA, we thought it might be of interest to the wider Galaxy to see how this meta developed over time and many versions of ED, in a way that is perhaps only possible within the collective thinking of a large PvP player group. What follows is a history – and a lengthy one – so read on only if PvP history interests you.
CREDIT
Before going forwards, we should confront, immediately, the possibility of self-servingly ‘taking the credit’ for something wider. Of course people have experimented with the five-rail FdL since the day that the FdL was launched. But all we can say is that amongst every PvP group we have encountered in the main game and the recent PvP league – experienced friends and rivals such as Ronin of Amarak, Balkan Intergalactic Guerrilla, Triadius, Contrail, Blood Brothers from Alrai, The Code, Time of Chaos, Smiling Dog Crew, GDA and more – we have yet to see any group employ this build tactic as we do save for two: Triadius, against us, in the PvP League, and SDC, against us, in Eravate – both, we respectfully presume, by way of adoption. So, we do consider this meta to have been made by Adle’s Armada and hope that why, how and when will become clear in what follows.
THE 'EARLY ADOPTERS': OPEN PRE-1.5
By Open 1.3, the PvP-meta firmly favoured SCB-racked Clippers and Pythons. Adle’s Armada pilots generally preferred the Fer-de-Lance for its combination of speed, manoeuvrability and hard point placement but there could be no denying that defeating opponents with five times as many effective hit points, while all the time at risk of devastating ram damage, made for an exciting - yet challenging - struggle.
One high-risk solution was the ‘rail-de-lance’, a Ferdie equipped with 2 to 5 rails and intended to burst through a Duracell enemy’s shield before an SCB could complete delivery of its charge. AA early adopters included Dr Uzi and our founder, Cmdr S!lk. However, the FdL’s then power issues coming from its 5A plant meant that only a ‘glass cannon’ shield build with weak defence seemed possible. High risk, indeed.
However, within 1.3, Cmdr PoaArctica [who would go on to be our PvP League captain] had already started flying a shieldless FdL with 5 rails, bulkheads, hull reinforcement and many heat sinks. This being before SCB’s were nerfed and HRP’s buffed, the build was not copied by team mates, even though Poa persisted with it with many successes. An idea ‘ahead of its time.’
In 1.4, AA was joined by a reformed pirate and 1v1 duellist by the name of BreakfastMelon. This was a significant development because Melon was also running a 5 rail - though shielded - FdL and would go on to become vice-captain of our PvP League team.
Separately, at around this time Cmdr Elethiomel Zakalwe started to use a dual-plasma Vulture, a build already promoted by our Cmdr Starlear. Elethiomel proposed that a counter to our enemies’ Clippers might be to run all-Vulture all-PA wings, so as to break the SCB-meta via extreme alpha damage. This idea was discussed but never pursued – although it became relevant again later.
BETA 1.5
When Beta 1.5 launched, SCB’s went through a rapid series of changes while HRP’s and heatsinks were progressively buffed. Our then only EU-time Admin, Cmdr Truesilver, spent every day of Beta 1.5 testing ships and weapons [despite having Horizons access, he says he never once landed on a planet!] Truesilver’s recommendation to AA was that when 1.5 / 2.0 Open launched, outside of Eravate, only shieldless small ships, or SCB-racked Corvettes should be fielded.
A significant motivation behind the ‘small ship’ idea was that at this time AA was receiving growing interest from Cmdrs without PvP experience, as part of the transition from being a small, covert, PvP-only group to a large, open, PvP & PvE group. Unfortunately, experienced PvP-ers have a predator’s instinct for scenting weakness, meaning that in winged combat our newer members and allies were at constant risk of being focused and destroyed – which in a medium combat ship could be costly and demoralising. Hence, it was thought, Viper IV’s, Cobra III’s and DBS with respectively around 1800, 1700 and 1200 hit points would be both difficult to lose – and cheap to lose.
HEL
The idea proved popular and at the Hel Community Goal that launched just after Horizons, Adle’s Armada fielded multiple wings made up almost exclusively of silent running small ships. These proved highly effective and immediately gave rise to the ‘Cancer Builds’ threads on reddit, in which a number of opposing Cmdrs expressed their dissatisfaction with this tactic. Indeed, on the last day of the Hel CG, AA fielded only hull-tanking Sidewinders!
Concerning weapons, though, matters initially moved in the wrong direction. One other development in Beta 1.5 had been FDev correcting an error concerning the damage output of the c2 Plasma Accelerator. Now brought up to 57 Mj/shot, this was considered a promising weapon and although some AA Cmdrs used rails, the preferred small ship build at Hel began as 2 x c2 PA’s plus either c1 pulse lasers or multi-cannons. However, because most of the Hel engagements were extremely long, and the heat generated by PA’s rapidly exhausted heat sinks, most of our Cmdrs started to move towards an all-kinetic loadout so as to maximise time in silent running.
‘ULTRA-ALPHA WINGS'
Adle’s Armada use a secure sub-reddit, which is very much the hub of our team. [The two posts that follow have been shared with the consent of the Cmdrs concerned and AA leadership.] After a period of reflection, in early January 2016, Truesilver – who would go on to be the third Cmdr to feature in every one of our PvP League matches - began a thread as follows:
================================================================
Truesilver:-
ULTRA-ALPHA WINGS
TL;DR: I think we should start fielding all-rail stealth wings.
OK, there is nothing original in this post. But I think this is the way forwards in building on the success of our risk-free small ship offensive whilst upping the kills - perhaps even making it probable that each engagement will yield a kill.
Using the example of a DBS / V4 wing of four, each with 2 x c2 and 2 x c1 rails, some numbers and random thoughts:
• Each rail volley does 136 Mj. A wing (x4) volley does 544 Mj. Four wing volleys does 2,176 Mj.
• Of course in real combat not all of the potential damage would be achieved. But I think it's obvious that this tactic could alpha down anything except an A-ranked Anaconda-class ship with four pips to shields, before the fight has even really begun.
• Rails are the true hard counter to SR. In tests with Mr Melon the damage to subsystems, when they start swiss-cheesing, simply wrecks a shieldless ship even without module targeting.
• Heat is relevant to duration of SR only if the fight is long. A DBS in 'multi-rail' all out attack mode will fire all 31 volleys before it runs out of sinks. This tactic is all about securing that one super-quick kill and then high jumping while the enemy are still commiserating with their dead wingman.
• In the past where like one guy was using rails or plasma and running out of ammo or sinks I think it was because everyone else was using kinetic - basically we lacked 'critical mass' - we need the whole wing to rail up and go for it!
• Na'Qan's original stealth squadron made their name using full-rail DBS wings to alpha down pythons back in 1.3, before armour and heatsinks were buffed and SCB's nerfed.
• This is actually a variation on a tactic Elethiomel proposed in 1.3 concerning an all-plasma vulture wing.
• An all-rail DBS wing has slightly more alpha than two Corvettes both running nothing but rails. Try tanking that. OK, smaller distributors but rails have the best DPE in the game.
• Plasma could be tried but the size 3 power distributor would be more of a DPS limiting factor.
• With the manoeuvrability and speed of the DBS focusing and landing hits is not difficult.
OK many of us, me included, will benefit from practice but the practice will be fun!
What could be more rewarding than seeing daylight through our much-beloved natural prey: the shielded FdL?’
================================================================
This was well received. BreakfastMelon [as noted, already an all-rail user] replied:-
================================================================BreakfastMelon:-
‘If it's all about 'get in, get out' as you said then this would work perfectly. This is exactly what I was saying when we spoke about the five-rail lances. They work amazingly well and will escape from anything no problem while easily dishing out insane amounts of damage. If we were to know we'd be leaving quickly, we wouldn't have to worry so much about face-tanking enemies as we could get all of the damage out before being near death. We definitely do need to ensure that everybody's using them though. This can't be a 'glass half full' situation - we do or we don't.
We had a wing of three Asps in Eravate today - two with all rails and one, all frags. They were actually extremely tough despite not seeming to be the best pilots and managed to disable one of our FAS in what felt like seconds after the fight began. Imagine what we could do with a wing or two of rail-lances!’
================================================================
EVOLUTION
Note the evolution in the group’s ideas above, from small hull tanking ships, to small all-rail ships, to all-rail FdL’s – in effect coming full-circle to making a ‘niche’ build in 1.3 into the ‘preferred’ build in 1.5.
In succeeding weeks, rail FdL / FAS wings saw more and more action in and around Eravate and at CG’s with overwhelming success and a ‘within group’ meta appeared to have been reached. It should be understood that this does not mean that AA necessarily consider a shieldless rail ship to be always superior to every other type of ship. Shields can be great, 1v1. It is that we consider a shieldless rail wing to be superior to every other type of wing. Nothing else provides the same opportunity to do damage to a designated target, be they shielded or unshielded, while simultaneously hampering the enemy’s ability to focus one of us.
THE PvP LEAGUE
By the start of the PvP League it was thus normal for Adle’s Armada to run all shieldless wings of FdL’s and FAS’s in and around Eravate in regular PvP. Weeks of experience had been gained of destroying ships of every size – literally from Viper to Cutter – with these builds.
Not only had these ships started to become the preferred build for our experienced PvP pilots, we were becoming increasingly experienced in introducing PvP newcomers to them – effectively, in overcoming the high skill-floor of rail guns.
By the time of our first match in the PvP League, nothing seemed more natural than to put forwards a stealth rail wing. We fielded all or almost all rails during every one of five rounds. For the first three rounds, 2xFdL and 2xFAS and thereafter, all FdL [‘moar rails!’]
By the second week of the five-week tournament this tactic was already generating much discussion. It is noteworthy, though, that it was absolutely not the ‘meta’ across all participants in the League, either at the start, or even by the end.
During the first few rounds of the PvP League it was still quite normal for teams to field some shielded ships. Rail guns were not generally adopted by other teams as their primary weapon, save in the case of Triadius, who fielded three rail-FdL’s against AA in Round 3, resulting in fierce fighting. In the 8v8 finale against BBfA, AA fielded a total of 40 rail guns to BBfA’s 16. Of course this is not to say that the success of our pilots should be put down to ‘who has the most of a certain gun’ – anyone who has watched the videos and listened to the commentary will see the quality of marksmanship, trigger discipline, evasion and formation flying our pilots displayed – and hear it commented on, o7. But it is indicative of how this meta [if it is now considered to be one] was even by the end of the League still being established.
In any event, AA's approach resulted in a 5-0 League victory, including a final won 8-3, then 8-1 (in terms of ship losses in each round).
CONCLUSION
Interestingly, back in Open, only recently have we started to see our own builds being used against us in Eravate, and then only inconsistently – one thing to note is that this ‘meta’ requires work – whilst not inaccessible, it rewards practice above all.
Anyway, if you have read this far, you must be very interested in PvP builds and tactics, heh! o7, Cmdr. We hope that you have found this interesting. All thoughts and comments welcome, as ever.
As to what meta might emerge when 1.6 goes live … we look forward to finding out. Although we may not announce our thinking for a few months until, then as now, there cannot possibly be any doubt left about what Adle’s Armada think …
Adle’s Armada
www.inara.cz/wing/336
Last edited:
