Burner Edumacation

The last post got me on a tangential line of thought that I figured I'd explore more fully.

Burners have educated me.  They've forced me to tackle some concepts that I knew were part of the game but were never part of /my/ game.

Now, I could have and maybe should have known all of this.  But EVE is so big that even after 12 years of this, I still only keep current with the content directly in front of me.

Here are some things I learned due to killing Burners:

• Differences between faction webs and meta webs includes web range.
• How to use a cap booster; had never used one in anger before
• Effects of signature radius and target speed on missiles
• Nuances of faction ammo vs t2, especially missiles but also hybrid and projectile. Larger dps on show info window doesn't always mean larger /actual/ dps.
• That there was a version of SAR that used nanite paste as fuel. Had no idea.
• Nuances of rigs, rigging, and impacts of rigs from the same family (especially the missile rigs)
• Differences between links and optimizing link set for a given fight
• That there were implants that directly affected missile dps. I don't use them, but now I know they're there.
• The "optimal range" field in target painters really means "max range for any effect"
• How to manage overheat
• The overheat skills matter
• If you logoffski during a fight, your link benefits go away immediately even though your ship is still on grid (matters sometimes)
• How a passive-shield Jaguar handles in a fight; I now understand why Sugar loves them.

(I'm sure I'll think of a few more once I post this, but I think that's it for now.)

Ships that I have fit to face burners that I probably would never have flown:

• Garmur
• Daredevil
• Jaguar
• Wolf
• Retribution

Pundits say that Burners really aren't like PVP at all.  And I guess that's true.  They're still predictable, dissectable encounters, and and ultimately you're still playing against a machine that won't ever hotdrop on you, and there won't ever be friends that arrive just in time to sway the fight.  Once you figure out the encounter, the opponent never improves his skills and the content quickly becomes an exercise of push-button, get loot.  I get that, of course.  

But some of these skills/knowledge are transferable, and that's not a bad thing at all.