EVE Online at Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMOG Gamers to the Next Level!

"Gate camping" is the simplest form of piratical PvP, consisting in its simplest state of orbiting a star gate and waiting for something to emerge. The hyena is a specialized electronic attack frigate that can play an essential role in gate camping.

Most gate camps have a straightforward design: big ships wait at their optimal ranges for targets to shoot while little ships wait closer in, ready to tackle targets in order to prevent them from warping out or retreating back through the star gate. Most game camps rely on fast-locking frigates like interceptors. These ships excel at locking quickly and disrupting the target's ability to warp. What they cannot do, at least not very well, is use stasis webs on the target to also help prevent their escape.

Why Fly The Hyena

Hyenas combine the long-range stasis webs of Minmatar recon ships with the fast tackling of frigate hulls. It possesses 592mm scan resolution -- not as high as an interceptor, but much more than a drake's measly 195mm. With sensor booster (use resolution scripts) and sensor amplifier modules, you can kick that up a great deal. The end result is a specialized web tackler, capable of locking targets almost instantly and putting on the brakes. With maxed out skills you can cover an entire star gate (not counting the giant regional stargates, alas). With faction web modules you can dramatically increase that range in order to give yourself a larger margin of error.

On Added Capabilities

The hyena seems lackluster by itself because it is. In any kind of one versus one fight it is going to get creamed. But in a fleet (especially with the trick below) it adds a new capability to the aggregate total of that fleet's capabilities. Nothing escapes before you can lock it and, once you have a guy webbed and disrupted he is mincemeat for your damage-dealing friends.

Think of this fast webbing as a special added ability along the lines of probing or remote repairing. Any gate camp is better with a hyena --at least outside of low-sec, where the sentry guns will cream you. This is especially true in high-sec, where area of effect warp denial is impossible and targets need to be warp disrupted as quickly as possible in order to prevent their escape.

Remote Sensor Boosting Buddy: Remote sensor booster modules are incredible for hyenas. Get a buddy to fit one or, better yet, use a second account with a ship whose entire job is to remotely sensor boost you. Any ship with a lot of mid-slots will do. Two or three remote sensor boosters can completely obviate your need to fit a sensor booster. Of course, having both is also nice.

High Slots

• x2 200mm Autocannon II (Caldari Navy Depleted Uranium S)
  
• x1 Standard Missile Launcher I (Bloodclaw Light Missile)

Your strength is not in your weaponry. Your job is to tackle ships that have no hope of fighting back (the highest form of piracy!) rather than to participate in drawn-out slugfests. Still the weapons could be handy for fending off drones in some situations.

Crazy Survivability Option: Since your weapons are unlikely to be of much use to you, it is possible to skip high slots entirely. If you do this, it frees up enough power and CPU for you to fit a medium shield extender II in your middle slots, perhaps in lieu of your warp disruptor. Those extra hit points should not be necessary in a real gate camp, but if things go pear shaped it never hurts to have an extra buffer.

Middle Slots

• x1 1mn Microwarpdrive II
  
• x2 Stasis Webifier II
  
• x1 Warp Disruptor II

The big idea of fitting in EVE Online is that every choice is a trade-off. On most ships, the choice is usually between effectiveness and survivability. With the hyena, the choice is between scan resolution, survivability, and tackle. It's a difficult choice.

In this case, I eschew a sensor booster in favor of double-webbing, so that the target is dead in the water. You could easily choose otherwise, especially if you are worried about target cloaking before you can lock them. In that case, be sure to use a scan resolution script for maximum lock speed.