On Using Battleships In Wormhole Operations

Full disclosure: I don’t typically fly a battleship. I am predisposed to a battlecruiser or cruiser sized hull. Having said that, we use a lot of battleships in our wormhole operations and they are essential to have if you are going to try and harvest or live in a class 4 or higher wormhole system. They can serve nearly every possible function from combat to mining to logistics with the right fitting and pilot. Having said that, some battleships tend to perform better in wormholes than others.

Amarr

Armageddon: Generally not as much damage as it’s brethren, but a very tankable, fairly easy to fly battleships for wormhole operations.

Apocalypse: Middle of the road – without a damage bonus pilots would likely be better served in either the ‘baddon or the ‘geddon.

Abaddon: The king of the DPS. Paired with a remote battery like the Guardian, it can seriously bring the hurt. It tends to be something of a lame duck with regard to capacitor.

Caldari

Scorpion: THE electronic warfare boat for running w’hole sites in a remote repair gang. It can run in either an armor or shield gang and still keep the Sleepers tied up in knots.

Raven: With a fair bit of rigging and some plate, it can make an ok torpedo boat for killing things, but would benefit from a shield gang to really dish out DPS.

Rokh: Not particularly good at Sleeper PVE combat. Could be useful for some PVP given the right skill set. Typical w’hole pvp doesn’t involve a lot of sniping.

Gallente

Dominix: The workhorse/mule/ox of w’holes, the Dominix brings its intrinsic flexibility to the wormhole in spades. The ship can be used for RR, neut/nos’ing, DPS, gas mining, just about everything in a pinch.

Hyperion: Bringing the largest base armor amount for Gallente and a 5% bonus to damage per level, the Hype should be able to really dish out some DPS by bringing 8 turrets to bear. If you are running a RR gang, the ‘thron might be a slightly better bet.

Megathron: For killing Sleepers it works well and doubles as a very good PVP boat.

Minmatar

Typhoon: After years of training, the Typhoon brings some of the best combination of tank, DPS and alpha strikes known to New Eden. Serious. Train. More.

Tempest: A great ship to bring to bear against the Sleepers. It only requires the large projectiles for decent damage and can fit into either a shield or armor gang with relative ease.

Maelstrom: Ever so slightly favouring shields, the Maelstrom is another effective way to throw hurt at the sleepers.

Again, I stress that my own lack of experience in flying battleships may let some of the finer nuances of using them against sleepers in wormholes escape me. If you use one currently in a wormhole and care to comment, please let me know. I’m more than happy to redact posts to reflect the changing reality of EVE.

On Flying Battlecruisers In Wormholes

The battlecruisers mark the real level of entry into effectively working in a wormhole. They are extremely versatile, usually sport a decent tank and quite capable of handling the first two classes of wormholes alone and the middle two in groups. They can fill nearly any role and provide a decent amount of bang for your buck. They will usually fit cruiser sized weapons and couple that with nearly the tank of a battleship. The Tech 2 variants called Command Ships have even more tank and greater fire-power potential, but a much higher cost.

Amarr

Prophecy: The Golden Eagle. The Space Brick. Very, very hard tank. Limited damage. A remote-repair fleet of Prophecies can be a nightmare to face down.

Harbinger: Often the better choice for Amarr battlecruisers due in large part to the damage bonus. It’s much easier to tank enemies when they are dead.

Caldari

Ferox: Suffering from the same issues as the rest of the Caldari gun platforms, it can be difficult to fit everything you need on the Ferox to be effective. The tank is substantial but the DPS will be lacking. When utilized correctly in a PVP encounter, it is a phenomenal sniper dealing up to 180 DPS at 150 km.

Drake: The mission runners’ friend makes a fairly easy transition into wormhole space. It also tends to lag behind the other battlecruisers in damage dealt over time [DPS] though if fit with Heavy Assault Missiles it can wreak havoc at about 20 km.

Gallente

Myrmidon: The battlecruiser drone boat suffers a little bit in PVE from the Sleepers predilection for moving their aggro toward drones. It can fit a wicked tough buffer tank and throw a lot of drones at the problem. It makes for a great all around utility ship due to it’s inherent flexibility.

Brutix: Designed to bring pain. Often to both parties in any given conflict. Some of the most face-melting DPS comes from this ship fit to gank.

Minmatar

Cyclone: Can be an effective ship, but as with any Mimatar ship, it will be the pilot who determines how good it can be. This ship rewards the well skilled pilot with a frightening ability to kill things.

Hurricane: The Cyclone’s big bad brother likes to get in and mix it up. He throws projectile slugs around with a careless abandon that can make short work of enemies.

I apologise to all the Minmatar pilots out there because I don’t have experience flying and fitting their BC’s. I am relying on the words of one of my corp-mates as well as the general consensus of those that I’ve talked to before. To make up for some of this seeming anti-Minmatar sentiment, I dedicated the post title to their most common fittings. As always, I will probably miss something so feel free to offer other opinions.

On Being A Cruiser Pilot And Surviving In Wormholes

The best thing going for cruiser sized boats, is their natural low cost and ability to be easily replaced. Cruisers begin to really develop as utility ships in wormholes. While generally not robust enough for Sleeper combat, they can shine in several other venues. This is also where people begin to have very strong opinions about what is good and not good, which seems odd because the number of possible ships decreases from frigates to cruisers. Finally, I’ve excluded the Tech 2 cruisers from this list for a couple of reasons: 1) I’m just tired; B) They cover such specific roles already; III) I haven’t flown or closely associated with people who fly enough of them regularly.

Amarr

Omen: When you want to bring some damage, an Omen isn’t a bad choice.

Maller: The tankiest of the cruisers, it makes the best cruiser platform for mining gases. It’s not bad for bait either.

Arbitrator: A great anti-frigate/anti-interceptor ship. A very poor wormhole survival rate.

Augoror: A great portable battery but another dismal failure in wormhole operations.

Caldari

Moa: At least you could mine gas with it.

Caracal: To flimsy to really be much use for anything beyond a Class 1 fleet. Uniform resists on Sleepers negate it’s largest advantage of multiple damage types.

Osprey: If you have young miners that want to get involved in the effort of clearing out a large gravimetric site, they could use an Osprey, but you are likely better off having them haul ore.

Blackbird: Generally it isn’t strong enough to survive in a wormhole. It’s not bad for PVP-ewar on the cheap.

Gallente

Thorax: Another good gas miner. Also good for throwing some gank DPS at an intruder.

Vexor: The penchant for Sleepers to take a dislike to drones reduces a lot of the functionality of this ship.

Exequror: Another good gas miner for pilots who don’t have Gas Mining V.

Celestis: Not that useful

Mimatar

Bellicose: You generally don’t see this ship in wormholes.

Rupture: Good gas miner and great to have as an inexpensive damage dealer.

Scythe: Not used as much as other ships. Could be due to a lack of Minnie Miners.

Stabber: Kill People. Kill Them Now!

Summary

Cruisers allow for a slightly higher level of participation in wormhole activities, up-to and including PVP. The basic resource collection done in a wormhole can be accomplished in a cruiser and still be able to get away if need be. They have been deployed en masse as cheap fleet attack forces as well.

On Flying Frigates In Wormholes

There is very little I want to say about the backgrounds of any particular race flying around in New Eden. They all have issues and a primary reason for being out here in a wormhole is putting all of that background in the background. We have all agreed to check our baggage at the last station we undocked from and acknowledge that out here, we can’t afford to be bickering about belief, conflicting over capitalism, seethe over servitude or advertise autonomy. Out in the wormhole, every pilot from every race is closer to their clone and a long way from any government or authority.

I preface the post with all of that to say that no single race’s ships are inherently better, just different. Out here in the wormhole it comes down to answering the question, “Does it get the job done?” With regard to frigate-sized ships, I am going to take a quick run through some of them and point out some of their strengths as they pertain to living out in a wormhole.

Amarr:

Magnate: As the basic astrometrics frig, this is a great backup for scanning, or running around helping to clean up after a radar or magnetometric sight. With the addition of sized rigs, it can easily be rigged with gravity capacitors to boost scan strength allowing even fairly low level pilots the ability to scan down wormholes and most signatures.

Crucifier: Makes a good disposable tackler for PVP. Emphasis on disposable as they will melt quickly.

Executioner: Well, it’s faster than a shuttle, slightly sturdier. Very good for running away.

Inquisitor: Just don’t fly this in a wormhole. Please.

Tormentor: Cheap. Leave it at home. Better, refine it an build something else.

Punisher: Good PVP frigate to throw on the bulwark of invading gankers. Not good for much else.

Anathema: Great Tech 2 scanning ship.

Caldari

Heron: Good backup scanning machine. Rigged, it can make short work of finding sites if and when you can’t be in a Buzzard.

Condor: At least it can fly away from trouble quickly.

Bantam: Good intro miner, lousy wormhole ship. Reprocess or blow up and salvage it.

Merlin: Can be an evil, nasty tackler for PVP.

Griffin: Why are you undocking in this?

Kestrel: Makes a good hacking/analysing/salvage frigate.

Buzzard: Caldari covops scanning for the win. [Ninja Edit]

Gallente

Atron: See Condor above. Run away.

Imicus: Like the Caldari Heron and the Amarr Magnate and the Minmatar Probe, this is your backup for scanning when things go south. Or when you don’t have covops skills on an alt you left parked in the system before you all got run out by Evil Overkill Corp.

Tristan: Not bad for some PVP damage, but likely need bigger ships.

Incursus: Itty-bitty blaster boat beats boys! Thanks for the heads up Owen.

Maulus: Insure, blow-up, salvage.

Navitas: See Above.

Helios: When you absolutely must scan. Scan in this. It is a sweet covops ride.

Minmatar

Probe: Scan. Scan. Scan. Scan. Somewhere is some action.

Breacher: Seriously?

Burst: At least the killmails will be funny.

Rifter: PVP the living daylights out of things with this. Rinse and repeat. Rather like scanning only you use more ammo.

Slasher: Fly. And Fly. And Fly. Right on back to the station for something else to fly.

Vigil: At least you can fly quickly to get something else to fly.

Cheetah: Our serious scanning swag swears by this animal. His scanning prowess definitely doesn’t hurt either. Seriously, Minnie Pilots Rejoice – This ship scans very well.

Summary

Frigates are fairly limited in their usage. They will pretty much insta-pop to everything that they run into in a wormhole with the exception of other players in PVP encounters. Assault frigates can last longer, but I ran out of space to cover all of those. Perhaps we’ll get back to that another day.