THE JUMPGATE DEFINITIVE GUIDE - Tripod

Eels
Eel: C-10
Bounty: 10,000
Experience: 2500
Speed: 500
Shield/Armor: 21500k/21500k
Gun #/dmg/rng:
2/2950k/4500
m
NovaMkI = 2800k/2555m; Alpaa = 20400k
General
Eels are very different from c1-c9 conflux, in many ways. Cruising at v500, they easily exhaust a fighter's afterburner fuel while
simply trying to maintain distance, and unlike other flux, they have very tough shields and armor. But the thing that truly separates
Eels from any lower flux is their massive firepower. With two or three shots they can strip a fighter’s shields, and a few more will
take out your hull. If you screw up with any other conflux, you can go “oh s***” and fire off a flashfire, and most of the time, you
are safe. Screw up fighting an eel, and sometime between the “oh” and “s***”, you are dead. Simply put, unless you have a very
twitchy FF finger, you are dead by the time you decide to use one. However, besides the eel’s ability to obliterate a ship in only a
few shots, it is not that dangerous if handled carefully due to its numerous weaknesses, notably its extremely poor gun accuracy.
Advantages
Excellent top speed
Excellent weapon range
Excellent shields and armor
Disadvantages
Moderate acceleration
Poor accuracy
Large profile
Tactics
When first dealing with an eel, think of it as a very large, fast, and somewhat more potent snail. The same basic techniques are used
for fighting eels. The only guns that can rival the range an eel’s dual plasma weapons are the hitman and barrak. So unless you have
a hitman/barrak and don't mind taking a shot or two on the chin, drift jousting or circle fighting an eel is the only option (i.e. don't
joust).
On your drift jousts, you need to score a hit on each pass, or the eel can close the distance on you and make things very
uncomfortable very quickly. One technique of extending your range is to roll your ship after you've just jousted past the eel. This
will put the eel in a "perpetual turn" behind you. While he's turning trying to "right" himself to your ship's orientation, you are
gaining precious kilometers on him.
When using lasers, circle fighting a lone eel is the best option. Make sure to give yourself a long, wide circle so you can bail out if
things go badly. If you let yourself drift in too close and screw up, you can be dead before your flashfire can save you. As long as
you get its shields below 70% and keep hitting it, it will turn and miss you consistently. However, just as when fighting a snail in a
shuttle, be very, very careful of getting slow with an eel. If you miss a few times you will be dead. A useful technique to killing an
eel quickly with lasers can be realized by using a very deep circle(ie, a large degree of pitch down away from the eel). If you let the
eel come into the circle and cancel its forward velocity before you shoot it, when it dodges away from youit will not get out of
range of your guns, and you can kill it very quickly without it escaping and recharging.
Scoring reliable hits on an eel with ammo in a circle fight is somewhat more difficult, however. Although it can be done, drift
jousting tends to be a more efficient and safer way to get the job done. Just be careful to never be caught at v0 while in an eel's gun
range. Both long drift joust runs and quick turning short joust runs with a lot of drift are effective.
Fighting multiple eel, or an eel with kraken escorts, was one of the harder combos until phocs came along. When dealing with
either multi eel or eel and friends, long, slightly drifting jousts are critical. If you do a wide drift joust or a circle, the kraken/other
eel will chew you up. Remember that when you can only shoot one flux, shoot the eel. Although an ignored kraken or manta can
do some damage to you, whatever it will do is much less than what an eel would. These a situations are where ammo or novas tend
to be very useful. With lasers it is hard to do sufficient damage to the eel in the required long joust, so these fights tend to take
quite a long as a result.
Missile Usage
4 Morning Stars per eel
F-13
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