Sniping is the act of slapping the biggest, nastiest longest range set of guns on your ship and unloading them upon some poor bastard at ranges up to 200km away. A recent development that made this doctrine popular again was the introduction of the Tier 3 Battlecruisers added in the Crucible expansion, and as such they are often called T3 Sniper fleets.

This is one of the few fleets where Logistics is not required and normally not even requested. The point is to use positioning and range to make sure you never get shot in the first place, and no actual tank is fitted. Instead the fleet stays aligned, and warps out at the first hint of possible danger.

Tier 3 Battlecruiser hulls are your platform of choice for this, as they are cheap, very mobile and can fit the long-range Battleship class guns that are needed for sniping. Their main disadvantage of their insultingly small tank is not such a big deal in a fleet where the idea is that you're so far away you can't be hit anyway.

Tornado > Oracle »> Naga »> Talos

Some of the key skills you will need to snipe effectively:

• Battlecruiser skill is required to fly the Tier3s and training to V can provide some nice bonuses to increase your damage and range.
• Large Racial Turret is required to fit the guns. Do not try to snipe with Medium Turrets, that would be stupid.
• Large Artillery/Beam/Railgun Specialization is required for T2 guns, and while T1 guns actually work surprisingly well for sniping, T2 should be your goal.
• Long Range Targeting at IV lets you fit T2 Sensor Boosters, and also lets you lock further out. You can't shoot a target you can't lock.
• Sharpshooter increases optimal range and is required for the T2 large weapons, extremely important for all snipers.
• Trajectory Analysis increases falloff, especially important for Artillery, and training to IV allows use of T2 Tracking Computers.
• Surgical Strike for straight up more damage, who doesn't want more damage?
• Motion Prediction, your large turrets have utterly abysmal tracking and every bit helps
• Rapid Firing allows you to cycle quicker, which lets you whore on more killmails, which is obviously vitally important to any TEST sniper.
• Signature Analysis also greatly helps you with the vitally important task of whoring on killmails.
• Controlled Bursts reduces capacitor use, if you're using Beams or Railguns this helps a bit but it's not exactly wildly important in most cases. Still, a few ranks never hurt and it's a quick train.
• Capital Racial Turret helps if you want to come on a sniper fleet with your Titan, because that's how the pros do it.

Most of your work will be performed by the FC who handles overall direction, the scouts who will be getting warpins for the fleet, tacklers and interdictors who pin down targets, and a target caller who tells you what to shoot at. Sounds simple right? All you have to worry about is warping who you're told to, shooting who you're told to, and warping the hell out when the enemy takes a shot at you or tries to warp in on you.

Pre-Flight Checklist

• Do I have a selection of short, medium and long range ammunition for my guns?
• Do I have a full set of scripts for my sensor boosters and tracking computers?
• Is my Combat Overview set up with the proper filters?
• Is my ship insured?
• Is my clone up to date?
• Is my Eve subscription paid up for at least the next 3-4 hours? (Sorry Bar I couldn't resist - Lin)

Targets will be called by the pilot's name. Sometimes the target caller will tell you ahead of time the order in which he will be calling targets or the order by which you short sort your overview. Example: “Sort overview by type, triangle up.” This means that you should click the column header for Type in the Overview until the arrow points upward which will sort by type A-Z. Sometimes the FC will ask you to remove all but one specific ship type from your overview so you can only see that one type of ship. Learn how do to this in your overview settings so you can do it quickly and efficiently.

You are not special, you are not smarter than the FC or target caller. Do what he tells you to do and things will die (preferably sooner rather than later).

The target caller should be specifying a secondary target in addition to the primary. When the primary dies don't waste time waiting for orders just shoot the secondary. Keep listening for a new secondary target and lock him up too.

The FC will be busy looking for targets, warping the fleet to appropriate ranges, avoiding bubbles and making sure the fleet can warp out again if needed so you don't die in a fire. This means you will need to take a little bit of initiative and look after your own situation. Don't expect the FC to babysit you and always tell you when you need to change ammo or scripts.

• Listen for commands from the FC such as where to align to. If your FC is good with broadcasts, keep your broadcast history open. If the alignment changes and you miss it, you're dead.
• Watch your ammunition levels. Reload if there is a lull in the action. Cycle your guns after they've reloaded, this is not a POS shoot and the FC will not remind you.
• Keep an eye on the range to target. Swap ammo and sensor boosters/tracking computer scripts as needed to maintain the ranges you need to.
• Know your ship and your skills. Everyone will have different optimal ranges, learn what yours are so you can know when to change ammo and know what ammo you should change to. Don't expect the FC to know or care what ammo you should change to.

That's pretty self-explanatory. You will typically try to be permanently aligned to a specific place at all times, depending on your FC's instructions. Do it or you'll be the meat in a rape sandwich because the enemy is about to warp a whole pile of tacklers on top you.

Don't worry about keeping formation with the fleet or staying in optimal range while you're aligned. You have tracking enhancer scripts and ammo that can help with that, but your alignment is your tank. If you align to anything else, or drop your speed, you are probably going to die. If you get really far out of range because you were an idjit and left your MWD on DON'T TURN AROUND! Always stay aligned. If the whole fleet been aligned for a long time and everyone is getting out of range, you may want to quickly let the FC know that. Preferably without whining or histrionics. If the FC doesn't immediately warp out to regroup or choose a different alignment point, just be patient, and above all, stay aligned.

Sniping is often characterized by long periods of boredom punctuated with short bursts of excitement and killmails. There are a lot of warp in, warp out games and a lot of waiting while the two fleets try to probe each other down or wait for the other fleet to undock. Regardless, you will almost certainly be bored at some point, and you will be tempted to start chatting on comms, and people will be laughing and entertaining themselves. That's fine, but always be ready to shut the fuck up if someone tries to say something important. Don't get too loud or too chatty, remember you're on a fleet. Sometimes the situation can develop rapidly and it's not always the FC who will be the first to know, so if someone has something important to say, shut the fuck up and let them say it. You can finish your story later when things are boring again.

Bombs are exceptionally deadly to T3 groups, especially if the fleet is bunched together after a warp. T3s have no tank. This is why you always stay aligned, so you can warp out if you get targeted by a bomb run.

Your main defense is staying aligned and warping out, which means bubbles will fuck up your whole plan. If you get bubbled, fire up the MWD and burn out of it. Usually you will stay aligned and MWD in that direction, unless the FC tells you to burn out in a different direction. Listen for instructions and follow them, but stragglers are going to die. Don't be a straggler.

If the enemy can burn a frigate out to your group, the enemy fleet can then warp to that ship, land on top of you, and kick the shit out of you. Even killing the ship means they can still warp to the wreck, so again, your best defense is still to just warp off and regroup.

It's usually easy to see where the fleet is aligned to, and a common tactic is to find out where you're landing and set up an ambush especially if you're landing at somewhere fairly obvious like a planet or the sun. A good FC will take care of this for you, but it's not always possible to have an infinite library of safe bookmarks, so always be aware of this possiblity, and if you land in an ambush, GTFO (but you're probably going to die)