"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.

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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.

Hyenas work best when paired with interdictors, who can make absolutely sure that targets are unable to warp out (non tech III ships, anyway), while you make darn sure they can't speed away. If you are paired with an interdictor, you should probably swap out your warp disruptor for an additional sensor booster, an additional web, a shield extender, or even (god forbid) a target painter.

Low Slots

• x1 Nanofiber Internal Structure II
• x1 Overdrive Injector System II
• x1 Signal Amplifier II

A smidgen of speed and maneuverability so that you can closely orbit a gate without being too clumsy, then a boost to your lock speed so that you can pursue your function.

Rigs

• x2 Targeting System Subcontroller I

Lock speed is your virtue, and these rigs will compensate for not fitting a sensor booster. If you are being remote sensor boosted and would rather concentrate on your survival, you may want to look at shield rigs.

Some Numbers

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With the fitting above and no remote sensor boosting, your scan resolution with decent skills is nearly 1200mm. This means it takes about 1.7 seconds to lock most frigates, which is enough to lock a hyena fit like this twice over. Not too shabby, huh?

Practical Advice

When a ship jumps through a gate, lock it instantly. If you succeed, orbit the target carefully while your friends pour on the pain. If the target cloaks, it is safe to travel in a straight line toward where it was, then orbit away.

When working tandem with area of effect warp disruption it is a good idea to position yourself as close to the gate as possible with a really close orbit. If things start get hinky, remember to not fly straight toward or away from targets since that is when they will get wrecking hits and one-shot your ship into bits.

If another fleet jumps into yours, your priority should be escape. If you do not have aggression (have not engaged in offensive action within the past minute) then you should probably jump through whatever gate you are camping rather than attempt to speed out of any area of effect warp disruption that is going on. If that seems unwise or there is no area disruption, warp away as fast as possible. Leave the fighting to the ships made for it, yours is a more elegant role.