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.