Introduction to Cruisers: Amarr, Caldari

T1 cruisers narrowly won a strawpoll for the next topic, so thats what this, and the next post will be.  Also, I have gone back and added tags to fitting posts, so if you want to find all merlin fits, you can just search the merlin tag, or atron tag for atron fits, etc.  As usual, example fits are shown with minimal drones and ammo.  Always fill your dronebay and bring proper ammo.

Compared to frigates, cruisers have longer range, a little more damage and more tank.  They however take more damage, and have terrible capacitors.  Cruisers that expect to be running mwd often (like kiters) usually need a cap booster.  Mwd cruisers are very vulnerable to large guns.  Afterburning cruisers, particularly armor ab cruisers have small enough signatures and high enough speeds that they can mitigate a lot of damage from large guns.  T2 armor ab cruisers form a doctrine called ahacs (armor Heavy assault cruisers).
 

Amarr:

Omen: 

The omen is the amarr "attack" cruiser.  It is fairly fast.  Lasers are the best weapon for turning range control into tracking, so the omen is a good kiting cruiser.  As a brawler, its tank is lacking, and it is extremely vulnerable to neuts, but you will often find it fit with a 1600 plate and scram.  The fit below is a 26km optimal scorch-kiter.  This ship cannot be flown without t2 lasers.  Don't forget about your drones.  With no web and no neut, shaking a frigate that has you hard tackled becomes very difficult, and light drones are the only thing you have to save you. 

[Omen, kite1]
Pseudoelectron Containment Field I
800mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Medium Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I, Navy Cap Booster 800
Warp Disruptor II

Focused Medium Pulse Laser II, Scorch M
Focused Medium Pulse Laser II, Scorch M
Focused Medium Pulse Laser II, Scorch M
Focused Medium Pulse Laser II, Scorch M
Focused Medium Pulse Laser II, Scorch M

Medium Energy Locus Coordinator I
Medium Energy Locus Coordinator I
Medium Ancillary Current Router I

Rest of the fits after the break

Blog Banter: Understanding how to fit

http://www.ninveah.com/2014/06/blog-banter-57-understanding.html

Kirith Kodachi asks the following question:  What can be done to help players with bad fits?

This entire blog is an attempt to help people have good fits, and good tactics.  The main problem is that as a sandbox game, eve has no way to tell people they are doing it wrong.  There is nowhere in game where players are told "50mm plates are garbage, never fit them."  Deciding they are wrong to fit requires thought and experience.  Tiericide has done a lot for thoughtless fitting of hulls - it has removed a lot of the noob traps, like the atron (pre-tiericide its entire pg was taken up by a shield extender) or the slasher (which was a rifter with only 2 mids, 2 lows, 2 guns and less fitting), but that doesn't remove the requirement to design a fit with good fundamentals.

The most important part of fitting a ship is the goal.  Every fit needs a purpose - if you want your sacrilege to be the best it can be for pvp, then you need to have proper fitting for it, including proper ammo.  If you want it to make people smile, then maybe you can go ahead with festival launchers and small ancillary shield boosters.  Fitting a hauler for afk hauling is different from fitting it for active hauling, which is different from fitting it as bait.  Ships are tools, and tools need a purpose.  Don't try to cut with a hammer.

Sorry for the extended absence, I have been busy moving and getting ready for a new job.  Posts may be a bit more scarce as I work my legal limit of 80 hours/week + study and prep time, but I will do my best.

Musings on consensual pvp, scouting, Rock Paper Scissors and the hidden advantage

Foreword: The magnanimous Michael Harari let me post some disorganised thoughts on EvE while he was away. This is submitted without his usual editing and style. It is my personal opinion and should be viewed as such. KwarK

Whatever the propaganda you may have heard, or maybe even buy into, PvP in Eve Online is a fundamentally consensual affair. Strictly speaking you consent to PvP whenever you undock but that's not what I'm referring to here. I'm referring to how the game, its mechanics, third party tools and player experience provide a smart player with a wide variety of tools to assess the enemy before a fight can take place.

Firstly, let us consider if there is actually any need to take a fight in Eve. The answer, in all cases outside of some niche sov warfare defence fleets (and even those generally aren't necessary) is no. There is no reason to PvP beyond the satisfaction of having beaten the other guy and associated flag planting and ego jerking benefits to a potential victory. There are situations in which winning can be beneficial or profitable but very few in which one side declining to fight is actually punishable and none of them outside of sov null. Highsec PvP is predominantly consensual, made up of duels, war decs and people who are baited into volunteering killrights onto themselves by griefers. Mechanics such as dropping corps in and out of alliances and rolling between disposable corps make war decs essentially optional, suffered out of pride or for roleplay reasons, or simply because they generate content while duels are entirely optional. Lowsec PvP is the epitome of pointless PvP, fought between groups for entertainment rather than isk with nothing of value at stake and literally no way of influencing the terrain around them, nor the way their opponents interact with it.
It is reasonable to conclude that the overwhelming majority of PvP in Eve takes place because both sides think it is a good idea to have a fight. Maybe they do not think the fight they end up getting is a good idea but they certainly thought it was a good idea to form up, to undock and to go to the battlefield. There would almost never be any negative consequences for them if they simply chose to station spin instead, it is the desire for content that makes them volunteer themselves for PvP.

Guest Authors

I will be out of the country for a while on my honeymoon, so I have arranged for a few guest posts.  Hopefully all the authors will follow through and post.  The topics are pretty much up to them, although I made a few suggestions.  I hope you enjoy their content!

Its all in your head

A break from ships!  This post will be going over capsule fittings, i.e. implants

You should almost always have implants.  Even in nullsec or wh space, put things in your head.  https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/implants/ is a good website for looking up implant set prices.

A good trick for finding implants for a certain slot is  to open up eft, and type "-X0Y"  Replace X with the slot you are looking for, and Y with the strength of the implant, e.g. -705 would come up with all 5% implants for slot 7.  Note that this does not come up with named implants, such as Zor's Hyper Link or Shaquil's Speed Enhancer.

For slots 1-5, you have 3 choices - Learning implants, genolution implants, or pirate implants.  Learning implants get you more skillpoints.  You only need the implants corresponding to the skill you are training.  Genolution and pirate implants function as learning implants with extra abilities.  For implant sets, each implant in the set increases the effect of each other implant in the set.

Genolutions are awesome implants, and come in 2 sets.  CA-1 and CA-2 are cheap, 3 and 4 are very expensive.  You do not need 3 and 4.  1 and 2 give you extra fitting room and extra capacitor.  Adding in 3 and 4 gets you extra shield, armor, speed and agility.  Like pirate implants, each genolution implant boosts the power of the others.

Pirate implants come in lots of different sets, with prices ranging from under 100M, to several billion.  Pirate implants use slot 6 in addition to slots 1-5.  Pirate sets come in 3 levels - High Grade, Mid Grade and Low Grade.  You can mix between different levels.  For a ghetto HG set, you can combine HG 1-5 with a MG omega.  This gives a bonus between HG and MG.

Crystal/Slave/Snake: These are the big name, expensive implants.  Crystals increase the amount of shield you get from shield boosters. Slaves increase armor hp.  Snakes increase your speed.   There is not a lot of subtlety in using them, apart from the fact that the speed boost from snakes is in effect a tank bonus, via mitigation and range control.  Slaves can make it a bit easier to manage an active armor tank, by increasing your buffer. 

Jackal, Spur, Grail, Talon: There are 4 kinds of implants, corresponding to the 4 races. The LG implants give a flat bonus to sensor strength, the HG give a % bonus.  Unlike all other sets, partial LG and partial HG sets do not stack with each other.  The LG sets are particularly cheap, and great to use on frigates.  Since the LG set is additive, not multiplicative, you do not lose a whole lot by having no omega implant.

Introducton to destroyers - the ones that arent covered in rust

This is a continuation of the previous post.  The rest of the t1 destroyers are below.

Gallente:

Catalyst - This is well known for suicide ganking, but it can also be used in pvp. Because of its lack of mids, it has terrible range control for brawling.  However, the catalyst can put out enough dps to deal with that handicap.    If you get to close range in a blaster catalyst for even a few seconds, you can blast an enemy to pieces, even if they have superior range control .  You can even fight in a catalyst with no point on it, and just depend on overwhelming dps to kill people before they realize they can warp out. One fun thing to do with blaster catalysts is to get 2-3 other people, and find an isolated ship with a mediocre tank off a gatecamp, like a rapier sitting outside some bubbles.  If you land on it at 0, the 3 of you can put 1800 dps into the target and kill it before the enemy fleet can react..  Its basically suicide ganking in low/null.  A rail fit catalyst is a more balanced pvp ship (in the sense of a balanced engagement profile, not game balance), and flies very similarly to an artywolf.  I have linked a rail cata below. No, it is not a tanky ship.  The fit requires a 1% cpu implant.  If you dont have one, you can use a meta warp disruptor.  Uranium or plutonium ammo is what you will normally use.

[Catalyst, rails]
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Warp Disruptor II

125mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Uranium Charge S
125mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Uranium Charge S
125mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Uranium Charge S
125mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Uranium Charge S
125mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Uranium Charge S
125mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Uranium Charge S
125mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Uranium Charge S
125mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Uranium Charge S

Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Small Hybrid Metastasis Adjuster I


Algos - The algos is one of those ships where you cant be sure of the fit before you engage.  The highs can be guns or neuts.  It can be shield fit, armor fit, brawling fit, kiting fit.  You can even do a oversized afterburner fit.  The fit below is a PODLA algos, designed for use in RR gangs with 2-3 algoses and a navitas.  It requires a 3% pg implant.

[Algos, Podla]
400mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Damage Control II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

1MN Afterburner II
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400

Coreli C-Type Small Remote Armor Repairer
Coreli C-Type Small Remote Armor Repairer
Coreli C-Type Small Remote Armor Repairer
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S

Small Anti-Explosive Pump I
Small Remote Repair Augmentor I
Small Ancillary Current Router I

Warrior II x5



Rest of the races after the break

Introduction to Destroyers - Minmatar

I am breaking destroyers up a bit more than frigates, since I am quite busy IRL.  I plan to do the destroyers, and then take a break from just going through all the ships for some other topics.

Anyway, destroyers are sort of like frigates in that they have small weapons.  However, they are cruiser speed (or even slower, with the corax going the speed of a battlecruiser!) and have significantly increased signatures without increased tank.  They are slow and fat compared to frigates, and will take much more damage from larger weapons.  They can have trouble catching other ships, even larger ones.  Their main advantage over frigates is increased damage and damage application.

A word on heating destroyer weapons - destroyers have tons of highslots.  You can burn out your entire highslot rack in seconds.  Be very careful when heating, especially on long cycle time weapons like artillery and light missiles.

Thrasher - For a long time, the thrasher, like the rifter, was the best destroyer by far.  Unlike the rifter, it is still very strong.  It comes in a few variations, including shield autocannon, armor autocannon, 10mn ab with arty, kitingish with arty, and a FW version called a cockbag, where you basically just try to suicide gank in lowsec.  With the short range of autocannons, and the high tracking bonus, you generally just want to ram things with the following fit.  Against things that are higher dps and higher tracking, such as catalysts, staying at barrage range is going to be a wise choice.  One of my favorite ways to modify the fit below is dropping a gun for a 2nd neut.  Dropping the DCU for a 2nd gyro or the neut for a rocket launcher is also possible, and gives you close to 400 dps. Due to the lack of a web or afterburner, its still possible (albeit difficult) for ships to get under your guns.  In those situations, heat the neut and hope they cap out soon.

 [Thrasher, Shield gank]
Damage Control II
Gyrostabilizer II

Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Medium Shield Extender II
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I

200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Small Projectile Ambit Extension I
Small Projectile Ambit Extension I
Small Projectile Collision Accelerator I






Talwar - Despite being slightly slower than the thrasher, the talwar makes for a much better kiter.  The mwd sig reduction bonus is one of the most powerful bonuses in the game.  It makes for a decent  LML kiting ship, and is often found in large, low skill point blobs.  The talwar bonused to explosive damage, which is somewhat rare for a missile ship.  Because of this, you can have problems engaging t1 shield tankers and t2 amarr armor tankers.  Carry EM or thermal rockets for these situations. Below I have given a fits for both close range, and kiting talwars.  The kiting fit needs a t1 power core and a 3% electronics (ee-603) implant to fit.

[Talwar, Brawler AAR]
Ballistic Control System II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste
Damage Control II

Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I

Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Nova Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Nova Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Nova Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Nova Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Nova Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Nova Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Nova Rocket

Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Small Warhead Calefaction Catalyst I


[Talwar, LML]
Internal Force Field Array I
Micro Auxiliary Power Core I
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Medium F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Warp Disruptor II

Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Nova Light Missile
Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Nova Light Missile
Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Nova Light Missile
Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Nova Light Missile
Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Nova Light Missile
Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Nova Light Missile
Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Nova Light Missile

Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Small Bay Loading Accelerator I