Cyno Lighting 101

Lighting a cyno isn't difficult, but get it wrong and you can incur the wrath of your cap ship pilots.

 

Following an incident last week, it was suggested to a fellow corporation mate that he should "go forth and multiply" and that bio-massing their character might be an excellent career move. This was from a guy who found his carrier 17km off station after an epic bump due to a poorly positioned cyno. I'm no expert, but here is Drack's very simple cyno guide for people who don't know how to light a cyno and do not want to get raged at as you watch a corpies carrier being propelled at high speed away from the station whilst wondering "Why is he doing that?" whilst you can hear in your headset "What was that cyno! You are a F........".

 

Lighting a WHAT?

A cyno. Otherwise known as a cynosural field. This is an energy field that is projected from a cynosural field generator mounted in a high-slot of a ship. When the module is activated, providing there is sufficient liquid ozone in your cargo bay to act as fuel, a cyno field is generated which allows all capital ships in your fleet to jump to from other systems. It also makes you a target.

 

 

A target????

When you light the cyno, you cannot move for the duration of the cycle (10 minutes usually). You cannot dock, you cannot warp. You can use other modules and weapons, but your are basically a sitting duck. Also the cyno appears system wide on every ones overview. Any ebil piwats in the system, like me, might just warp to the cyno and pop you, just because they can! Therefore most "cyno lighters" tend to be alts created for that purpose.

 

Sounds easy?

Yes and no. Any numpty can light a cyno as long as he has the skill, the module and a ship with enough fuel. What you want is to light the cyno where the ship is not going to get bumped yet still is near enough to the POS or station to be safe.

 

Bumped?

When a capital ship jumps to a cyno it will appear somewhere within 5km of the cyno. If it appears touching part of a station or POS shield it will be "bumped" away.... at high speed. When cynoing onto a station your capital pilots want to land, wait their 10 second session change and dock. That doesn't work if you've been bumped 17km off the station. In fact it's rather dangerous if enemies are around! Carriers and dreadnoughts are not the fastest ships around and 17km is a long distance to travel at well under 100kph.

 

So How Do You Prevent Bumpage?

First look at the station as a 3D object. What you are looking for is an area "within" the station ideally. Look for things that jut out, towers, masts and aerials are all useful. What you want is a point that is surrounded by as much of the station as possible, but has enough room to prevent bumpage. Turn on your tactical overview and fly your ship to a location where, if you took the 5km radius as a globe, there is no part of the station within it. Even thin aerials will bump the carriers so you need to make sure the full 5km sphere is clear (and add some margin for error too) . Below is Nisuwa station, home for me and my corp.

 

 

As you can see it has this big jutty out thingy at the back (that's the technical description, similar to "top wingy bit"). Now if I fly a ship within that V and head down until I'm a good 5km clear of any part of the station in all directions...

 

 

.... I have a good cyno spot. It's 5km, plus a bit extra for safety, from any part of the station. But the whole 5km radius of the cyno sphere is within insta-dock range. That bottom aerial keeps any ship at 0km from the station.

Any capital landing here can simply insta-dock 10 seconds after jumping in.

 

Simples! And it'll stop you from being referred to as a "Fundamentally flawed individual!"